argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): This company has been financed by more than £3 billion of taxpayers’ money at a time when my constituents have had the third lowest pay increase in any part of the country since the financial crisis of 2008. The pay of my constituents and those of the hon. Gentleman has been eroded and depressed over the past year as a direct result of the actions of reckless bankers. Given that, and given the journey on which we have travelled in the past 10 years, it would be negligent of us to privatise a fully owned state bank without introducing protections to prevent the huge increase in remuneration that tends to take place when state assets are privatised.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): The bank will not be financed principally by private money. We do not know how much it will be sold for, but at present it is financed 100% by public money. I do not know whether whoever takes it over will put in the £3 billion match funding that the Government have put in, but they will certainly not be putting in that money on day one This bank was set up to be an exemplar to the banking and financial industry. It was not set up to be just another bank; it was set up to do something special, and to be something special. The Minister has reassured us—we hope it is the case—that the special share will protect the specialness of its green purposes, although I think there is a question mark over how long that will last. What I want to know, given that the bank was also set up to be an exemplar in respect of executive pay, is why that part of it should be lost.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): May I develop my arguments? I shall be happy to take further questions a little later Following a discussion with my colleagues in the Environmental Audit Committee last week, I wrote to Lord Smith of Kelvin, the chair of the Green Investment Bank, asking for clarification of the proposed remuneration for the bank’s senior executives. Our shareholders—taxpayers—could potentially remain as minority shareholders in the enterprise. I think that as long as the UK taxpayer has even a 1% shareholding in the bank, that should be carried forward. Taxpayers have committed £3.8 billion to the bank, and rather than talking about what a future owner will put into it, let us wait until we see the colour of that future owner’s money In that letter, I made it clear that the Environmental Audit Committee could see no reason for increasing remuneration as a result of a change in the bank’s status. We were particularly interested to know the proposed structure both of the management fee that the privatised bank would charge investors, and of any form of profit share or participation rights for management proposed in the offering to new shareholders. We wanted to know the board’s view regarding the quantum and structure of executive profit share incentives. We also sought an assurance from the board and management of their commitment to maintaining the staffing levels that the public purse has funded, to ensure that the bank continues fully and effectively to serve the UK’s needs for investment in green infrastructure Lord Smith’s reply to me reassured the Committee that the proposed business plan "will require the current staff complement with possibly a small number of additions." That was reassuring, but less welcome was his response that the information memorandum for investors, which includes projected revenues and costs, including staff costs—this therefore has already been decided and written at board level, and had probably been decided and written when the Minister was in Committee with us—is commercially confidential and cannot be shared.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): The Committee’s remit was not to second-guess what the Government could or could not get for the bank. I am sure that there are people in the City who are much better able to do that than I am, and I am sure that some Members, certainly Conservative Members, could make a good stab at it When I worked with small businesses, it was possible to get multiples of income, but that depends on what is being bought. In this case, what is being bought is an asset book with, it is to be hoped, future revenues from the investments that have been made—as well as what might be described as senior bank management intellectual capital—but what is also being bought is £3.8 billion of Government investment in green projects from which the purchaser will hope to gain revenue and capital streams as, at some point, they are sold off. The situation will also depend on what the purchaser will put into capital projects.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): We have not calculated the net present value, but I am sure that it would be quite a simple process and that there will be a number of attempts to calculate it as the sale proceeds. No doubt the Government will wish to let us know whether they think that that has been achieved.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): Once the bank is sold, my Committee will have no locus in scrutinising what it does. We could look into it only as a matter of interest. This is the final legislative opportunity that we have collectively as parliamentarians to say what we want to happen to the bank. We might have a chance to discuss it further if the matter is debated upstairs in Committee, but the process is now at its penultimate stage. The starting gun has been fired; the first round of the bidding process has already started. If the Government decide that they want to sell 100% of the bank by, say, September or Christmas, the Environmental Audit Committee could look into whether best value had been achieved, but only as a matter of interest. However, we want to test the proposals on the special share today to ensure that the public interest is protected, as the hon. Gentleman says, and that the green vehicle can continue to move forward. The Green Investment Bank is a really important financial institution for enabling us to meet our climate change targets The Chancellor said in January that the sale of shares in Lloyds would be postponed because of market turbulence. The sell-off was scheduled for the spring, but he has now said that it will come after Easter. We shall wait and see when that happens. Since the start of the year, we have seen a bear market, great turbulence in the financial markets, panic selling of crude oil, and oil prices at a 13-year low. These are worrying times for the global economy and the market is hugely volatile. All bank shares are currently falling in price, whether they are UK bank shares, European bank shares or US bank shares. Just this morning, we have heard that the Bank of England has announced it will give commercial banks three exceptional opportunities just before and after the EU referendum to borrow as much as they like to offset any threat of a run on banks and to prevent a repeat of the chaos of the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008. In the light of that bleak, turbulent and choppy financial picture, we have to ask whether the Government’s decision to launch the sale of the bank last Thursday was the right one. Whatever one’s views on privatisation, this hardly seems to be the most auspicious time to sell off a state asset, let alone a state-owned bank.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Caroline Louise Flint (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a persuasive argument. Does he agree that if we are to be a country represented by, as the Chancellor said, a "march of the makers", part of that is being at the front of the queue when it comes to leadership and supporting innovation in the green energy and green environmental products marketplace? Does my hon. Friend feel that privatising the Green Investment Bank will just create yet another bank—one that will not do the job for which it was intended?
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): Lord Smith of Kelvin may or may not be the chairman of the bank when this sale proceeds, so I therefore ask the Minister to answer the question I asked in the debate: will this special share apply if the bank is sold by any future owner, yes or no?
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister criticised me in Committee for referring to people who work in the Office for National Statistics as boffins. May I remind her that a boffin, according to Wikipedia and the Oxford English Dictionary, is a person engaged in technical research? In fact, the term originates from the war-winning researchers of world war two, so I do not think that I have anything to apologise for in describing them as boffins We have been looking for a guarantee that the mechanism that the Government are proposing would indeed satisfy the ONS. The Minister has confirmed on the Floor of the House today that she cannot offer that guarantee to us. We do not want to let this legislative opportunity pass by to ensure the green purposes of the Green Investment Bank. On that basis, I will be asking my right hon. and hon. Friends to join me in the Lobby as I seek to divide the House on new clause 4 Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): I am happy to confirm that the Opposition will be supporting amendment 18, tabled by the Scottish National party, which we discussed in Committee This is the bit of the Enterprise Bill that has nothing to do with enterprise; it is largely about spin, to be perfectly honest. Let me make it clear, as I did in Committee, that Her Majesty’s official Opposition agree that excessive exit payments in the public sector should not be paid, and that any abuses in that regard should be ended. The problem with the Government’s approach is that they are attempting to govern by headline in a very complex area, and in so doing they are creating the sorts of anomalies and unfairnesses that I am sure we will hear about during this debate. Including a headline-grabbing figure—in this case £95,000—on the face of the Bill is, frankly, the worst kind of utterly vacuous government, and it is exactly the sort of rigid legislating that good civil servants advise against, and that bad Ministers promote The inclusion of that figure in the Bill is really about allowing the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to have his tabloid headline about fat cats, which was one of the odious remarks he made on Second Reading. That was an insult to thousands of decent, hard-working people across this country, many of whom have never been paid anywhere near £30,000 a year, let alone the £3 million a year that the Secretary of State used to get when he worked for an investment bank. [Interruption.] That has a lot to do with it, because of the language he used If I was to accuse the Secretary of State of being a fat cat—I am not going to do that, Madam Deputy Speaker—the Minister would be huffing and puffing in her usual way, muttering "Outrageous" and "Disgraceful" from a sedentary position. She and the Secretary of State like to dish it out, but they do not like to take it when it comes back their way. She was quite content to sit there on Second Reading and cheer the Secretary of State on as he traduced public servants, including long-serving local librarians and even privatised nuclear decommissioning workers, and described them as fat cats. I wonder how they felt about the Secretary of State using that language. Actually, I know exactly how they felt, because they wrote to us in their droves to express their anger at his insulting rhetoric, and that evidence—there was a lot of it—was officially submitted to the Committee Amendment 15, tabled by the Opposition, seeks to protect those workers who earn less than £27,000 a year from the proposed exit payments cap—yes, those who earn less than £27,000 a year are the Secretary of State’s so-called fat cats.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Centre-left): My intervention very much complements that of the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens). One of the big concerns about the change, which I am sure my hon. Friend shares, is that the consultation was so inadequate. The Government have also failed to undertake any public sector equality duty review, as required under the Equality Act 2010. The changes could therefore have many unintended consequences, but the Government are not taking the time to explore them.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): Yes. I will briefly touch on the inadequacy of the consultation later Amendment 15 is about workers earning less than £27,000 a year. As I mentioned, it was the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), when she was at the Treasury, who said a year ago: "those earning less than £27,000 will be exempted to protect the very small number of low earning, long-serving public servants." She was commenting on the Government’s plans to create the public sector exit payment cap.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend briefly mentioned the dates of the consultation—between July and August. Does it not occur to him that if the Government were genuinely keen to hear back from people potentially affected by, or interested in, this change, they would not have introduced the consultation for such a short time over the summer holidays?
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): Exactly. The Treasury’s justification is that, even though the companies have been privatised, the workers are still deemed by the Office for National Statistics to be on the Treasury books, because of the nature of their work. It is understandable that their work needs to be underwritten by Government, because they are decommissioning nuclear sites and no one can get an insurance policy for that That technical, statistical designation, however, does not mean that applying the cap to those workers is fair or that it necessarily represents value for money for taxpayers in the long term. There is no proof that taxpayers will receive any benefit, as the private operators of the companies often receive higher incentive payments in their contracts as a result of this kind of change. Unless the Government decide to act, employees in the sector will note that the Treasury has excluded them from the public sector when it comes to pension provision and other issues, but considers them within the scope of the capped exit payments.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): What the hon. Gentleman may not realise is that the workers of the banks that have been taken into public ownership will be specifically excluded from the exit payments cap under the Government’s plans. That might change his mind, so he might like to join us in the Lobby later. Yet again, it seems to be "Up with the bankers and down with the workers." What a shocking value-free zone this policy is, if the Government stick to it.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Immigration
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): It is very confusing. This has not been made clear, but my understanding is that if these people were to leave today, they would be given the full package, yet the companies have been told that the measure will apply from October and those very companies are now saying that people cannot go until then. That is what is being said by the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and my constituents who have been writing in The Minister could end the confusion today. She could say that she will honour, as Mrs Thatcher and other Tory Ministers did, the protected rights and status of these individuals, and we could have a vote. Lawyers will argue about whether people can be protected, but we should not leave it to the lawyers—the House of Commons has the opportunity to act today. I hope that Members across the House will support new schedule 1.
Enterprise Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): Mr Brennan, I think it is for me to decide. I am sure it was going to be about time, and I am sure we are all aware of the time and what time the debate has to end.
International Women’s Day 2016 — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Madeleine Moon (Labour, Centre-left): Everyone knows that women were given the vote at the end of the 1914-18 war, but that cloaked the fact that working-class men were also given the vote. Does the hon. Lady, like me, celebrate the fact that women, through their campaigning, also led to those men accessing the vote? That should never be forgotten.
International Women’s Day 2016 — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): When we organised the photo that is now in the Admission Order Office for all visitors and Members to see, there had been only 370 women MPs. There have now been 450 female MPs over 98 years, but there are currently 459 male MPs in this House alone. The right hon. Lady and I are privileged and happy to be among those female MPs in the House today, but does she agree that those figures are not good enough?
International Women’s Day 2016 — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Valerie Carol Marian Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), and I congratulate everyone who is taking part in the debate. I apologise for squeezing a nine-minute speech into four minutes This debate takes place against the background of the recent murder of Berta Cáceres, a feminist activist who was shot in her home in western Honduras because of her defence of the rights of indigenous people. I hope that many women will continue her work. The Secretary-General of the United Nations has said that when he took office there were nine Parliaments in the world without women. That figure is now down to four, but that is four too many, and there has still been no female UN Secretary-General. Hon. Members are right to mention the percentage of women in this Parliament, which now stands at 29%. Her Majesty’s Opposition, the Labour party, has 43% female MPs, which is nearing equality.
International Women’s Day 2016 — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Valerie Carol Marian Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): I will, and I am delighted that she was selected. However, the statistics are still damning. In law, one Supreme Court judge is a woman, and only 13% of QCs are women; in science, women make up only 14.4% of the science, technology, engineering and maths workforce in the UK; in business, only 5.5% of chief executive officers in FTSE 100 companies are women. What about the gender pay gap? In 2014, according to the Office for National Statistics, it was 14.2%, which means that in effect, women work from about 9 November to the end of the year without any pay I want to raise two issues about women in my constituency. Locally, there was an equal pay judgment in 2008, and the poor women who worked for Birmingham City Council are still waiting for a pay-out. The men who did the same sort of work picked up extra pay through routine overtime and other bonuses. Mary Ashby and Josephine Haynes are retired, and they have a right to their pay-out. The Government can find £375 billion for quantitative easing, so will they please find the money to make sure that all the women get their pay-out?
International Women’s Day 2016 — House of Commons, 2016-03-08
Topic: Civil Rights
Valerie Carol Marian Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): Would my hon. Friend mind if I do not? I am running out of time On Saturday morning, more than 500 people in Walsall town centre signed a petition to ask the Minister to look again at this dislocation of women’s lives and stop the relocation to Birmingham Internationally, there may have been a fantastic victory in Burma for the National League for Democracy, but the Burmese army has used rape and sexual violence against women for decades as part of its warfare against ethnic minority groups in the country. Many victims were gang-raped and many were killed, and United Nations reports have described rape and sexual violence as "widespread and systematic". The Burmese army accounts for 25% of the Burmese Parliament. We must keep up the pressure to get rid of the army from the Parliament in Burma In Delhi, there was an outcry following the gang rape, assault and murder of Jyoti Singh on a bus. Leslee Udwin’s film "India’s Daughter" showed the devastating impact of Jyoti’s murder. Who can forget the late Sue Lloyd-Roberts’ interview with the cleric from Gambia in which she challenged him about female genital mutilation, or the Nigerian girls who were kidnapped almost two years ago this April We need to do more than just have a hashtag, and that is where Governments come in. Almost every major piece of legislation that has improved the lives of working women has been introduced by a Labour Government: the Work and Families Act 2006, which extended the right to statutory maternity leave to a full year for all employed women, regardless of length of service; the introduction of paternity leave in 2003; and legislative protections for women and mothers under the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Equality Act 2010. Everybody knows how brilliant Sure Start centres are in helping local children, mothers and fathers in our communities. We need to save them Education is the key. As Gandhi said, if we educate mothers we educate society. Women cannot wait for the trickle-up to promotion—there needs to be positive action. Marin Alsop, who in 2013 was the first female conductor of the last night of the Proms, admitted to being "quite shocked that it can be 2013 and there can still be firsts for women" Let us hope that by this time next year, women’s place at the highest levels will be commonplace. We owe it to future generations.