argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): I very much agree. We need to pay care staff the real living wage, provide them with training and end the use of zero-hours contracts I think it is clear enough that the Labour party believes that the current system is not working, and I am sure that the Secretary of State knows it too. Councils just do not have the funding required to deliver the care that people need, and they are faced with a stark choice—either they cut back on the quality of care, or even fewer people receive any help at all. Only a third of directors of adult social services think that their budget will be enough to meet their statutory duties this year, which means that thousands of people who approach their local authority for help with their care are turned down for support. Without investment and a plan, social care services will be pushed deeper and deeper into crisis. Expert report after expert report has pointed to social care being on the verge of collapse, and those reports make it clear that councils cannot deliver adequate adult social care provision without a sustainable, long-term funding strategy. Yet what we have seen from the Government, year after year, is short-term and piecemeal funding The Secretary of State may repeat, as his colleagues did yesterday, that the Government are allowing councils to raise council tax this year to fund social care services, but the Opposition know that council tax is a deeply unfair way to fund this vital public service. A 2% rise in council tax rates in Wokingham will raise twice as much money as it would in Knowsley. Even if we raised council tax by 2% every year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that by the end of the decade social care will make up over half of all local government spending. This means that other vital services will continue to be cut back. That is certainly the situation I see in my own local authority area.
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): The shortage of resource and people in the system means that more responsibility falls on families. I know that my hon. Friend recognises the unsung heroes who are young carers—children who miss out on education, a social life and so much more to care for a parent or sibling. Does she agree that the Government need to do more to help to support organisations like the Eastern Ravens Trust in Stockton, which does so much to help these young carers to have a life of their own?
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): The report says that it has almost ground to a halt since 2011. These are the facts, and there is an onus on the Minister to be absolutely clear about this. We cannot fudge this issue.
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): I just want to round this point off. What does the right hon. Gentleman think happens with life expectancy when 1.5 million older people are going without care? Does he not think that the impact of the lack of social care, especially on women in deprived areas, is a key factor?
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): Last year, the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) and I set up the all-party group on social care. We produced a report on the professionalisation of the workforce, which looked, in particular, at the undervaluing of the wider workforce in pay, training and qualifications. Will the Secretary of State commit to looking at that report, as the basis of his cross-party consensus?
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Labor
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): On the workforce issues, surely the answer to the dilemma the hon. Member is describing is to have a professional, well-paid, well-trained workforce that can deal with people with the most complex needs in their homes and allow them to remain there as long as possible.
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Elizabeth Louise Kendall (Labour, Centre-left): We need three things to make our social care system fit for the future: access to good quality care for every older and disabled person who needs it; more support for families to look after the people they love; and better care jobs so that paid careworkers can afford to stay in work and support their families as they care for ours. I will take each in turn First, it is a disgrace that in the 21st century, in one of the richest countries in the world, 1.5 million older people are not getting the basic help they need to get up, washed, dressed and fed—that is one in seven of the entire population aged over 65—and that figure will rise to 2 million in a decade’s time unless the Government change course. It goes without saying that this is not good for the people who need support to perform the functions of basic daily living, but it is not good either for the taxpayer, as more older people end up going into hospital and getting stuck there when they do not medically need to be there, with all the knock-on consequences that has for hospital waiting times and NHS budgets. We have got to stop treating the NHS and social care budgets separately, because they are inextricably linked, and we have got to stop fixating on hospitals, because the care system of the future lies in the community and closer to home Secondly, we need to give more help to families. Many of the UK’s 6.5 million unpaid family carers face a desperate daily struggle to look after their older or disabled relatives. They often feel pushed to breaking point financially, emotionally and physically. One in three carers have to give up work or reduce their hours because they cannot get the help they need to look after their loved ones, so they lose their income, the economy loses their talent and the Treasury loses their taxes. How does that make any sense? We no longer think parents should be forced to give up work to look after their children, so why do we accept it for those caring for elderly or disabled relatives Many of us on the Opposition Benches believe universal childcare to be as much a part of our economic infrastructure as the roads and railways. That we are living longer means we need to see social care, too, as an essential part of our economic infrastructure. With so many people now looking after their elderly mums and dads as well as their own children, we need to be thinking about universal family care and leave to meet the realities of modern life, because families should never have to choose between holding down a job and caring for their own.
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I ought to have declared that I am a co-chair of the all-party group on carers. I am pleased my hon. Friend has mentioned unpaid carers. The Secretary of State took 19 minutes to acknowledge the existence of the millions of unpaid carers in our society. I wonder if my hon. Friend has any tips for the Government for how they could address their needs.
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Mary Elizabeth Twist (Labour, Centre-left): As I was preparing for this debate, I looked at last year’s debate and, as other hon. Members have said, it was like we have not moved on at all. We are repeating the same arguments, and nothing has really changed. What has changed, however, is that we are seeing increased demand for social care, whether domiciliary or residential, but local authorities’ ability to deliver that support is decreasing because of financial pressures Demand is continuing to rise. Age UK says that 1.5 million people aged 65 or over have an unmet social care need and believes that that could rise to 2.1 million by 2030 if the current approach continues. Last year, over half of the 1.32 million new requests for social care resulted in no services being provided. In my constituency, Age UK tells me that 3,012 older people have unmet care needs, and that 2,517 older people are providing the care that family members require. Of course, we must also recognise that thousands of unpaid care workers are providing support to people in their homes, and we must never forget that. I salute them for carrying out that essential work I will reiterate some of the points covered in the previous debate, because they remain central to this debate on social care. We need more money. We do not need the drip feed of a 2% increase in council tax, which in constituencies with a low council tax base, such as mine, will not produce anything near the money we need, compounding inequality and injustice. We need a substantial increase, and Age UK estimates that an increase of £8 billion is required over the next two years to stabilise the current system while we look at what will be provided in the future We need to look at the market for social care providers. The market is fragmented at the moment in both residential and domiciliary care, and most authorities have seen providers fail in both areas, meaning that they need to step in as an emergency measure to ensure that people get the help they need. We cannot continue with a market based substantially on price competition, because local authorities are forced to look for the lowest bids. We need quality services that deliver the things that people require and deserve. I would like to see more directly provided social care services, because that gives us control We must now develop a workforce strategy for social care. We have talked about that a lot in relation to the NHS plan and the future workforce strategy, but we need to look at it here, too. The social care workforce is predominantly female. They provide the most personal and intimate care to the people we love, and we must recognise the value of their work. They need proper pay. They need professional registration, which people working in the sector are considering. They need improved training and development if we are to recruit and retain the staff we need. We must put an end to carers travelling in their own time, to zero-hours contracts, and to 15-minute visits, which all of us would agree are completely outrageous.
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend mentioned the very personal nature of the care provided by prepared carers, but young carers also do this. They allocate medicines, and they even take their parents to the toilet or wash them. Does she agree that so much more needs to be done to recognise the role of young carers and to give them even greater support?
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Mary Elizabeth Twist (Labour, Centre-left): I certainly agree that we must recognise the work of young carers, who do a tremendous job. We place huge pressure on them, and we thank them for their work. We must look after them, too We need a workforce strategy, and there is much more I could say. Others have already touched on the high cost of care for those with dementia, as opposed to a physical illness, and we need to do something in both the short term and the long term. We need a long-term, thought-through plan for providing social care to all those who need it We need a plan for social care that supports people when they need it and that cares for people when they need it. It should not just look after them mechanically; it should care for them. The Prime Minister said during the election that he has a plan. Well, let us see it and debate it, because we all know this action is long overdue.
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Labor
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has used the word "profession" several times, because this is not only about training and qualifications but about status; that is a very important factor. I bang on about money for low-paid workers all the time. Does he agree that professional work deserves professional pay, not minimum pay, which the majority of careworkers seem to be on?
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Helen Elizabeth Hayes (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I agree that in many parts of the country, including Scotland, there are examples of good practice from which the Government can learn We need a system that recognises the individuality and diversity of people who need care. We need one that recognises that mental health support needs are completely different from physical needs, and that everyone who needs support will have a different version of what a good day looks like for them. We cannot get to that conversation until the funding is there to deliver such a system and until the workers in the care sector are properly paid, with access to training and career progression. The Government are playing a completely cynical game with social care, offering council tax increases, which hit the poorest hardest and raise only a fraction of the funding needed, and offering in this Parliament less than a third of the funding required just to meet current needs—and just for one year only. In the meantime, delayed discharges from hospitals are going up, care homes are continuing to close and care companies are continuing to hand back contracts to councils. Millions of people are left with care that does not fully meet their needs or are having to fight to receive any care at all. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is taking the Government to court over the failure to properly house autistic people and people with learning disabilities. This is unprecedented and it is a disgrace. All of this places intolerable pressure on the relationships that keep the care sector going, the value of which is never captured on the public sector balance sheet. The Secretary of State spoke today with bravado about the current situation, but with no emotional intelligence about the day-to-day reality of the broken system that his Government are meting out or the urgency with which this crisis must be fixed. He will not give confidence to those who rely on the system every single day, and to those who work hard to deliver care, with the approach he is currently taking.
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Minister to her post, and I welcome what she says about carers. Would it not be wonderful if, rather than just giving them her warm words, support and admiration, she were able to join a cross-party campaign to see that carers get paid more than burger flippers in McDonald’s so that we actually start recognising them with the same prestige as nurses and the same earnings as people in our health service?
Social Care — House of Commons, 2020-02-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Elizabeth Louise Kendall (Labour, Centre-left): In the spirit of being constructive, let me mention, as I did during my speech, the huge and rising pressures on social care. There are 120,000 vacancies here and now. We need more than half a million care workers in a decade’s time just to keep up with rising demand—that is not to improve the system, but just to keep pace with demand. The proposed points-based system of immigration will be catastrophic for social care. Will the Minister meet me and others who work in this area to explore the potential for a separate route into social care, so that we can avoid further pressure and worse care for the people for whom we love and care?
Rail Fares — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Transportation
Michael Lee Amesbury (Labour, Centre-left): Given that rail fares have gone up by a massive 40% since 2010, we now have the second most expensive railway in Europe. However, I still have a situation where constituents in the Northwich part of my constituency cannot get a reliable train service—in fact, disabled passengers cannot get one on one side at all. What are the Minister and the Government going to do about that?
Rail Fares — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Transportation
Zarah Sultana (Labour, Centre-left): Under the Conservatives, rail fares have rocketed by 40%. An annual season ticket from Coventry to London is now £5,760, to Birmingham it is £1,400 and to Nuneaton it is £1,200. That unfairly puts rail travel beyond the reach of many of my constituents and it discourages green travel. Privatisation has failed, so will the Government bring our railways into public ownership to slash fares and combat the climate emergency?
Rail Fares — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Transportation
Katharine Helen Brooks-Osborne (Labour, Centre-left): Trade unions represent the hard-working staff on Northern who have had to take the brunt of passenger frustrations as the franchise has collapsed under Arriva Rail North. Will the Minister explain why, with Northern having been taken back into public ownership, the expert advisory panel established to guide the new service through its first 100 days excludes rail unions, the experience and expertise of which could ensure that passengers in the north finally get the rail service that they need and deserve?
Rail Fares — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Transportation
Stephen James Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): Many Portsmouth people rely heavily on South Western Railway for their daily commute. The service that they receive is substandard, with less than 50% of mainline services operating on time, while rail fares have soared by 2.7%. Put simply, Portsmouth people are paying more but getting less. Will the Minister confirm what steps his Department is taking to address this injustice for my community?
Rail Fares — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Transportation
Mathew Richard Allen Rodda (Labour, Centre-left): As we have heard, rail passengers throughout the country are struggling with the exorbitant cost of train travel, with fares having risen by a staggering 40% since the Conservatives took office. In stark contrast, Germany has recently cut rail fares, and in Luxembourg public transport has been made entirely free, thereby both supporting families and helping to tackle the climate crisis. The Government used yesterday’s Budget to prioritise once again unsustainable and expensive new roads ahead of support for public transport. When will the Government finally treat this issue seriously and take the urgent action that is needed?
Rail Fares — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Transportation
Lilian Rachel Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): People who live and work in Nottingham need Ministers to do something about fares, sooner rather than later. Highways England’s partial closure of the A52 Clifton bridge is making their car journeys unbearable, and we urgently need more people to use trains, trams and buses to get into the city. Will the Minister or one of his colleagues meet me and other hon. Members representing constituencies in and around Nottingham, to discuss how the Department and Highways England can support Nottingham City Council and its efforts to get our city moving during this serious disruption?
Bus Patronage — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Transportation
Mathew Richard Allen Rodda (Labour, Centre-left): As we have heard, the Government like to say that they support bus travel. However, they have cut bus funding for supported bus services by 45% since 2010. To make matters worse, the Chancellor has just announced 27 times more spending on new roads than on supporting buses and local transport. Will the Secretary of State tell the House when the Government will finally stop paying lip service to public transport, and actually provide the investment that bus passengers so urgently need?
Bus Patronage — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Transportation
Chinyelu Susan Onwurah (Labour, Centre-left): For £1.50 in London—which the Secretary of State mentioned—I can get two buses anywhere across the capital for up to 30 miles. In Newcastle, £1.50 will not even get me three stops up the West Road, while if I want to go to Ashington, which is 18 miles away, it will cost me £8. Can we have a comparative study of bus fares in London and the north-east so that we can understand what we need to do to make them fairer and improve bus patronage?
Airport Expansion: Paris Climate Change Agreement — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Transportation
Rupa Asha Huq (Labour, Centre-left): From "No ifs, no buts, no third runway", to engineering a trip to Afghanistan to skip the vote, the last three Prime Ministers have started off very clear on Heathrow expansion and then obfuscation and U-turns have set in. Why do not the Government take the opportunity of the Court of Appeal ruling that expansion is incompatible with our Paris climate accord obligations and make this dead and buried once and for all, and also review the other 21 planned airport expansions?
Airport Expansion: Paris Climate Change Agreement — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Environment
Andrew Joseph McDonald (Labour, Centre-left): In the light of the Court of Appeal’s decision, the Government were wrong to deny the relevance and application of the Paris agreement. Do the Government now accept that their overriding obligation is one of compliance with our Paris accord commitments in reducing emissions, meaning that their national policy statement on aviation has to be revisited and revised, and that they should be saying no to climate-busting expansion at Heathrow?
Airport Expansion: Paris Climate Change Agreement — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Joseph McDonald (Labour, Centre-left): The Court of Appeal said that it was illegal In the midst of a climate crisis, the Chancellor announced the biggest-ever programme of road building—a £27 billion splurge that will increase car use, worsen congestion, and increase climate emissions. In anticipation of legal challenges, as with airport expansion, and before the Government go any further, can they confirm that the roads programme has been subject to rigorous environment impact assessments and complies with our Paris agreement obligations?
Electric Vehicles: Charging Infrastructure — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Transportation
Daniel Stephen Zeichner (Labour, Centre-left): The extension of the plug-in taxi grant until 2022-23 is welcome. That works for bespoke vehicles, but what about cities such as Cambridge, where the city council rightly expects higher standards, but for hard-pressed drivers, the cost of the vehicles is prohibitive, as the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) said? What are the Government doing to help them?
Road Network National Policy Statements: Climate Change Commitments — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Environment
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): Does not the decision on Heathrow demonstrate that the Government need to upgrade their statements in the light of climate change, otherwise there is a danger that their massive expansion of road building will get bogged down in legal challenges?
Noise: Heathrow Airport Flight Paths — House of Commons, 2020-03-12
Topic: Transportation
Questions: What plans he has to reduce the number of people affected by aircraft noise living (a) near and (b) under Heathrow airport flight paths.
Matthew Thomas Pennycook (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that answer. She will know that 70% of the aircraft that arrive at Heathrow do so via what is known as westerly operations, involving a final approach over my constituency and others in south London. Given the concerns about noise on the part of those living under these flight paths, can the Minister tell the House whether the Bill on modernising our airspace that the Government have committed to will include provisions aimed at reducing the concentration of flight paths and mandating measures to reduce arrival noise?