argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Educational Opportunities: Working Classes — House of Lords, 2020-03-05
Topic: Education
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): Like others, I want to say how much I appreciate my noble and good friend having introduced this incredibly important debate I have certain contextual concerns about the whole education debate. We have to remember that education should be an emancipator and enabler, letting people discover who they are and what their potential and contribution can be. There is far too much talk about the earning capacity and measuring this from an early age. Children need to reach the point at which they know who they are and what they want to do, and then we can talk about earning capacity and where we are going with it I also believe that we talk an awful lot of nonsense. If we are going to tackle this issue seriously—and it is a grave issue—the resources have to be in place. We have to make sure that the resources are going to the places of deprivation and disadvantage, the places where the issue of social integration of different ethnic groups is a bigger challenge than in other places. It is no good not doing this and then trying to sort the thing out with first aid measures It is also important to look at our language around how we inspect schools these days. I used to hold up the inspectorate in my younger days as one of the great British institutions. I do not do that any longer. Just think what it does to teachers, children, their families and the whole community if a school is told it has failed or is failing. The language is preposterous. It should be saying: how do we help this school to increase its capacity and its ability to do the job it wants to do, and how do we make sure that the resources are there There is another thing that concerns me in the debate about education. We may inadvertently—I think it probably is inadvertent to a large extent—be slipping into a situation in which we institutionalise social disadvantage still further. Why? Why do we assume that music, the arts and literature should be the preserve of certain children, whereas other children are more practically orientated and therefore should not need these things so much? It is terribly important that a mechanic or a window cleaner is able to hum or sing the music of Mozart or Beethoven or his pop music that he likes, certainly by choice, but that he or she has every opportunity to do that. Instead of doing this, we are concentrating those qualitative dimensions of education with the already-privileged If I was asked what I was looking for from the outcome of education, it is that children should certainly be prepared for citizenship and the heavy responsibilities of citizenship but also that they have really had the opportunity to discover what it is to live and to realise that whoever they are, wherever they are, their contribution matters, and in that sense the comprehensive approach is indispensable, because either we are one community or we are not.
Educational Opportunities: Working Classes — House of Lords, 2020-03-05
Topic: Education
Genista Mary McIntosh (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister say how and with whom the money she has just outlined is going to be spent? It sounds like a lot of money and is very encouraging to hear about, but the real problem for schools is that their budgets are so tight that they cannot incorporate these things into the normal curriculum, which is where it has the most effect.
Educational Opportunities: Working Classes — House of Lords, 2020-03-05
Topic: Education
Diana Mary Warwick (Labour, Centre-left): I note that the Minister has indicated investment in teaching quality in schools and in the further education workforce. Does she mind responding to the point I made about investment in a workforce strategy for early years?
Educational Opportunities: Working Classes — House of Lords, 2020-03-05
Topic: Social Welfare
Estelle Morris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will respond briefly, primarily to thank everybody for their contributions. It has been an excellent debate. I do not think I have been in a debate in which as many Peers have spoken from personal experience as today. As I whispered to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, I suspect that if we looked at the backgrounds of the Peers who decided to speak in today’s debate, it would probably not be representative of Members of the House. That is a good thing, really, because it means we bring those experiences with us and remember to talk about them. It also allows me to say to the Minister that listening is extra important, because people have not spoken theoretically but from their own childhood or working experiences I will not go over the points, because it has been a long debate and, when people have had four minutes to speak, I do not want to take four minutes winding up. I will say just a few things. The message about early years could not be stronger, given the number of people who have spoken about it. I want to acknowledge the people who spoke about adult skills and universities, because I did not; I thank them for adding that to the debate I have confidence that the Minister will take this seriously. I have worked with her in this place long enough to know that she cares about this just as much as me or anybody else. I know she will find her way around all those sections of the department. It is not easy for politicians—I am not sure I would have done it myself—but what we need at this time is a great degree of honesty about what has and has not worked. I will not criticise the Minister if she says that something has not worked Of the 12 opportunity areas, seven have seen the gap between the poor and the rich in early years widen rather than narrow. That is a problem. It is public money and we might be wasting our time. For the north-east, £24 million is not a lot; it is our most underperforming region and it was not included in the opportunity areas. It pales into insignificance against the money put into London Challenge, which was successful As I say, I thank the Minister for listening and for her responsiveness, and have every confidence that she is the sort of Minister who will ask the right questions. Unless you ask the right questions, you will never get the right answers. In that frame of mind, I again thank everybody for contributing and wish the Minister well in her work trying to solve this problem.
Budget: Economic and Fiscal Outlook — House of Lords, 2020-05-05
Topic: Macroeconomics
Spencer Livermore (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Covid-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented shock to the economy. In response, the Government’s fiscal policy measures are unparalleled. At 20% of GDP, it is the largest peacetime fiscal expansion in British history. Against this backdrop, the March Budget, just eight weeks ago, already feels like a plan for a different age, yet it was clear even then that the Chancellor presided over an economy with serious underlying weaknesses, presenting the worst average growth forecast on record and rapidly deteriorating public finances, with debt having doubled to £2 trillion, reaching nearly 80% of GDP The impact of coronavirus on the economy will be vast. The OBR has published an initial scenario in which GDP falls by 35% in the second quarter, unemployment rises by more than 2 million to 10%, government borrowing increases to £273 billion—the largest single-year deficit since the Second World War—and debt exceeds 100% of GDP. As the IFS has observed: "These figures are predicated on … a swift recovery. Should the … economy fail to bounce back, the picture would worsen further." The Resolution Foundation has reflected this uncertainty with a range of forecasts depending on whether social distancing lasts for three, six, or 12 months. It estimates that GDP will fall this year by 10%, 20% or 24%, with unemployment rising to 2 million, 5 million or more than 7 million. In its three-month scenario, government borrowing reaches 11% of GDP, higher than during the financial crisis, 22% in its six-month scenario, higher than any point in peacetime, and 38% in its 12-month scenario—more than the UK has borrowed in any single year in history Faced even with economic consequences on this scale, the Government will apparently still end the Brexit transition period this year. There is a clear risk of no deal, which according to their own assessment would reduce GDP by 9% and, even if they achieve the free trade deal they are seeking, on their own figures this would reduce GDP by 6% compared to staying in the single market, putting additional strain on the economy, which is already under unparalleled pressure. However severe the coming recession, policymakers will need to manage a protracted period of disruption to livelihoods and finances. There will be an urgent need to rebuild the economy and we will need a radically different approach to the past decade, when we saw the worst period of pay growth for 200 years In time, the Government will also need to begin restoring fiscal sustainability; again, we will need a very different approach to what has gone before. In the previous decade, while money was found to cut the top rate of tax and some of the richest families gained £1,000 a year, the poorest lost £3,000—15% of their income. The financial resilience of many families was undermined and our economy and public services were weakened, ill-prepared and ill-equipped for the storms ahead. Subsequent Budgets must move away from the failed strategy of the past and build a new social contract that is fit for the future.
Budget: Economic and Fiscal Outlook — House of Lords, 2020-05-05
Topic: Macroeconomics
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I hope that government talk of getting the economy back to normal will cease, because that was not a good place to be—with business investment abysmal, retail sales the worst for 25 years, productivity falling and economic growth low and slowing every year since 2014 until it finally fell to zero. Record UK employment masked widespread job insecurity, with nearly 1 million people struggling to survive on zero-hours contracts, over 1 million in temporary work or doing second jobs, and the number feeling insecure at work doubling from 6.5 million in 2010 to 13 million in 2013. Ten years ago, the Government used the overhang from the global financial crisis, of increasing national debt and high government borrowing, as an excuse for austerity to remove £150 billion of spending power from the economy, 80% of it in public spending cuts and 20% in tax rises. But that austerity was never about balancing the budget and bringing down debt to be better prepared for a future crisis, as George Osborne and Philip Hammond have since claimed. It was ideologically driven to reduce the role of the state, leaving us grossly unprepared for precisely this kind of pandemic crisis The Government never spent enough on the NHS; the pandemic began with more patients than ever on waiting lists for treatment and A&E waiting times the worst on record. Britain has fewer than three doctors per thousand of our population, compared to more than four in Germany and nearly five in Norway. We have only 2.5 hospital beds per thousand people, against six in France and eight in Germany. It is as if the Government had chosen as the patron saint of the NHS Ethelred the Unready After the Second World War, Britain grew her way out of debt. The national debt-to-GDP ratio fell from its wartime high of 259% to a post-war low of 26% in 1990. In the past 50 years, we have had a budget surplus only six times: three of those under the last Labour Government and two under Margaret Thatcher. What brought the debt-to-GDP ratio down in the post-war period was not austerity but economic growth, spurred by massive public investment in housing and a huge investment in infrastructure—it had twice the share of GDP it has today. The NHS would not have been in peril of being overwhelmed had it not been starved of funds for so long; nor, so shamefully, would adult social care, cut by £7.7 billion these past 10 years. The old normal delivered a massively unfair deal to millions of ordinary citizens and left the economy ill-equipped to face the future. We need a new normal.
Budget: Economic and Fiscal Outlook — House of Lords, 2020-05-05
Topic: International Affairs
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I want to follow on from where the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, ended in talking about the future importance of a Britain outside the European Union co-operating with our European friends and allies. I have been much saddened by this debate. Frankly, some of the speeches have demonstrated hatred—I would put it like that—of the European Union and no recognition of interdependence; that is, that we must live with our closest neighbours on the continent. I want an assurance from the noble Lord, Lord True. He said that the Government believe in European co-operation, but what are their practical plans for that to get us out of the present crisis Look at the number of different possibilities. First, we need macroeconomic co-operation. We need a repeat of what Gordon Brown did in 2008-09: working with our European partners on a co-ordinated fiscal stimulus. If you do not have that degree of co-ordination, fiscal stimulus is ineffective Secondly, we need to work closely with European countries on our research programmes, which have never been more important than during this health crisis. We need to strengthen research co-operation, not reduce it. This is vital for many British universities Thirdly, we need sectoral co-operation in key areas of our industry. For example, let us go back to the financial crisis again. The car industry was in a terrible mess then. It is in a terrible mess today. We had adopted, by agreement with several of our European friends, a system of car scrapping incentives. This could be done again with green new deal objectives in mind. We should work towards that to save the European car industry. Similarly, Airbus is absolutely fundamental to our manufacturing position in this country. What are we doing with France and Germany to guarantee the future of Airbus and its manufacturing in Great Britain One could go on with many other examples. We need practical European co-operation. Will we get it from the Government of the noble Lord, Lord True?
Budget: Economic and Fiscal Outlook — House of Lords, 2020-05-05
Topic: Macroeconomics
Thomas Lyttelton (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Government’s assessment, the Minister and many other noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon acknowledge the certainty of a very high—possibly record—level of deficit this year, of over £200 billion. As the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, has argued, it is very uncertain that the recovery will be as swift as many people hope, and possibly not as swift as the OBR is assuming. Against this background, the Government must not fetishise the level of deficit, based on economic illiteracy, unlike the devastating period since 2010, as my noble friend Lord Hain has highlighted. There should be a gradual glide path of reducing deficits, but with a prioritisation of essential public expenditure We must of course look for increases in tax. Does the Minister agree that there is overwhelming evidence that those increases in taxation should come on capital and, in particular, that the natural time for that is when capital is transferred between generations, both in life and on death The single most important factor in economic recovery is the earliest possible introduction of a vaccine, as has been so cogently argued by Sir Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust. I welcome the UK Government’s commitment, as part of the global effort, to the funding of accelerated research and the production and distribution of vaccines, as well as of therapeutics and diagnostics. The Wellcome Trust’s COVID-Zero initiative is encouraging global business and philanthropic contributions, and it is to be welcomed I have one question for the Minister in this respect. Although equality of access to vaccines is vital to our national interest, can he confirm that the funding that we are committing does not come from DfID’s ODA budget and will not be taken as part of our 0.7% commitment to international aid under the international development Act of 2015?
Covid-19: Department for Work and Pensions Update — House of Lords, 2020-05-05
Topic: Labor
Jean Lesley Patricia Drake (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it took 16 years to get consensus and fully implement pensions auto-enrolment, so I certainly welcome the decision to maintain employers’ auto-enrolment duties, thus avoiding undesirable consequences and the negative impact on younger generations, and the fact that the job retention scheme allows grants to cover employers’ statutory contributions for furloughed workers. However, with 6.3 million furloughed workers, that scheme cannot suddenly cease without triggering widespread redundancies and loss of earnings. Are the Government committed to maintaining adherence to employers’ auto-enrolment duties in the rebuilding of the economy? What discussions is the DWP having with the Treasury on the manner and timing of the phasing down of the job retention scheme, the consequential increase in the number of benefit claimants, and the number of furloughed workers becoming redundant? Finally, I too thank DWP staff.
Covid-19: Department for Work and Pensions Update — House of Lords, 2020-05-05
Topic: Social Welfare
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too thank DWP staff for their amazing work. I welcome the increase in the UC standard rate but in the face of accumulating evidence of serious hardship, even hunger, among families with children—and the stated intention to help those in greatest need—why have the Government resisted growing civil society calls for an increase in child benefit or other benefits for children? Given that it takes only two months to implement the uprating of legacy benefits from when they were agreed by Parliament, will they reconsider their refusal to increase legacy benefits on technical grounds? At the very least, will they consider a one-off bonus to compensate for not doing so?
Covid-19: Department for Work and Pensions Update — House of Lords, 2020-05-05
Topic: Social Welfare
Alicia Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for agreeing to look into the issue raised by my noble friend Lady Sherlock as to why an anomaly exists in the way universal credit differentiates between maternity allowance and statutory maternity pay. Thousands of pregnant women are worse off. The anomaly needs to be changed. Does the Minister agree that, following the review of this policy, any subsequent changes should benefit those who have already applied for universal credit during this crisis?
Covid-19: Department for Work and Pensions Update — House of Lords, 2020-05-05
Topic: Labor
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her Statement. In particular I congratulate the Health and Safety Executive staff, who have produced a very wide range of important activities, all designed to keep the workforce safe. However, I suggest that the guidelines it produced on social distances are pretty feeble, because for employers who do not comply—that is practically every employer in the land—the remedy in the guidelines is that, "we will consider taking a range of actions", including "the provision of … advice … through to … enforcement" actions. Will the employers notice any of this? Perhaps the Minister could write to say how many enforcement actions were taken against employers in the last year. Surely the answer is to have binding and enforced standards for this purpose.
Port Examination Codes of Practice and National Security Determinations Guidance Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-10
Topic: Law and Crime
David Blunkett (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on demystifying a complex area and welcome the changes made in this statutory instrument, particularly the updating of Schedules 7 and 8 of the 2000 Act and their relationship to Section 3 of the 2019 Act. However, I want to concentrate not so much on the safeguards that my colleagues have previously raised but on the importance of the revised NSD guidance and extending the retention of biometric materials from two to five years The 2012 Act was a reaction to the campaign of those who rightly concentrated on civil liberties but who failed to understand how vital retaining biometric data is in safeguarding our well-being. Given that we are talking about state-sponsored terror, and in light of the examples the Minister gave concerning the Syrian conflict, this is about the protection of the nation, so updating those measures and closing the loophole in the 2014 Act must be welcomed It does not matter how good the updating of the NSD guidance and the processes are if we are not covering all the entry points into the country. We are talking about ports, many of which are not covered in a way that would make this border relevant. Can the Minister say something about that?
Port Examination Codes of Practice and National Security Determinations Guidance Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-10
Topic: Law and Crime
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for presenting to the House these regulations, which flow from our debates last year when we considered the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill. Then, the House made a number of important changes to the legislation. I am content with what is before us but I have a few comments and questions which I hope that she will be able to respond to I endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Blunkett about the retention of biometric data. This is important, as we are talking about the protection of our whole country from acts of terrorism and, as he said, state-sponsored terrorism A number of noble Lords have drawn attention to the fact that a number of ports might not have officers stationed at them to undertake the supervision of people arriving in the UK. I want to expand that to airports and small airfields. Are we confident that we are properly protected My noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, raised the important point of the risk to our security of people claiming to be journalists and saying that the material they have on them is protected from being searched. I want to protect real journalists from having their material searched, but this cannot be a means for those who want to do us harm to get into the country. Therefore, can the noble Baroness set out what protections we have? I have a Twitter account, have written a few blogs and have even had the odd article published, but I would never claim to be a journalist.