argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
People with Disabilities: Assessments — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Marsha Chantol De Cordova (Labour, Centre-left): The Government’s national disability strategy finally recognises that the assessment process for PIP and ESA is burdensome for disabled people. Given that the Government now admit to the failures of these assessments, given the mental distress that they have caused, and given that more than 70% of decisions brought to an appeal tribunal are overturned and thousands of disabled people have died after being found fit for work, will the Minister now do more than simply lessen the number of reassessments? Will he scrap these unfit-for-purpose assessment frameworks for ESA and PIP once and for all?
In-Work Poverty — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Labor
Michael Lee Amesbury (Labour, Centre-left): The reality of the so-called jobs miracle is nothing but a mirage for families up and down the country. Two thirds of children living in poverty are in working households, earnings have not even recovered to 2008 levels, and the use of zero-hours contracts went up by 15% last year. Will the Minister have a word with the Prime Minister and get zero-hours contracts kicked into touch once and for all?
Universal Credit Roll-out — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Justin Piers Richard Madders (Labour, Centre-left): I have some extra information for the Minister’s research and evaluation. A problem regularly raised in my constituency surgeries is that claimants who receive two payslips in one month find themselves in real difficulty the following month. That is happening far too often for it to be loaded on individuals. Can something be done to alleviate these difficulties?
Benefits: Administrative Errors — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What assessment she has made of trends in the level of administrative errors made in the processing of applications during the roll-out of (a) universal credit and (b) personal independence payment in Hartlepool constituency.
Margaret Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): The day after the general election, the Government had the audacity to sneak out the fact that more than 650,000 disabled people lost out financially when transferring from the disability living allowance to PIP, which is 46% of all former DLA complaints. This should not be swept under the carpet, so will the Secretary of State explain why the Government have cut support for more than half a million disabled people?
Universal Credit: Monthly Assessment Period — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Labor
Questions: What steps her Department is taking to ensure that the monthly assessment period for universal credit is able to reflect a claimant's fluctuating income.
Jeffrey Smith (Labour, Centre-left): Salary payments that do not align with assessment periods have caused real problems for my constituents, not only in respect of the actual money that they receive but in respect of cash flow. Why will the Government not follow the recommendation of Unison and the Child Poverty Action Group and allow people to adjust the dates of their assessment period when they are paid very close to the end of the month?
Universal Credit: Transitional Support — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Nadia Edith Whittome (Labour, Centre-left): Universal credit and transitioning to universal credit are causing real hardship in Nottingham, with more than 26,000 people using food banks for emergency supplies in the past year alone. Will the Minister accompany me to my constituency to see for himself the destitution and desperation caused by his Department’s policies?
Universal Credit: Transitional Support — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Janet Jessica Daby (Labour, Centre-left): In 2013, I set up a food bank with various community leaders, not only because of the poverty and deprivation that existed, but because, at that time, there was the impending prospect of universal credit. Do the Government see food banks as a long-lasting feature for those of our population who happen to be dependent on universal credit?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Labor
John Eugene Joseph Dromey (Labour, Centre-left): The Government have said that the aim of the Pension Schemes Bill is to support pension saving, putting the protection of people’s pensions at its heart. However, this weekend, we learned that the Financial Conduct Authority is preparing to write to just over three quarters of firms that advised individuals on pensions between 2015 and 2018 about "potential harm" in their defined benefit transfer advice. How can the Government claim to have a joined-up pension policy when pension freedoms can be exploited, giving licence to rogue financial advisers to put at risk people’s savings for retirement? Some have paid a terrible price, impoverishing them for years to come.
5G Network and Huawei — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Technology
Tracy Lynn Brabin (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) on securing this important urgent question, though I am deeply dismayed that the Prime Minister is not making a statement on this matter, which is of critical national importance. It is difficult not to agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) that the Prime Minister is "doing a runner". Can the Minister confirm that the Prime Minister will take full responsibility for any decision reached at tomorrow’s National Security Council meeting, and not seek to hide behind his Ministers or the civil service Any decision to allow Huawei’s involvement in building our 5G network will require concrete assurances about the integrity and safety of the network. The most recent report from the company oversight committee concluded that it had made "No material progress" on these issues. That was last March. Since then, what assurances have the Government received that the situation has changed? If, as has been reported, the Government’s solution is to limit the company’s involvement to non-core parts of the network, how will that be enforced According to Mobile UK, any restriction on Huawei’s involvement could result in an 18 to 24-month delay to the 5G roll-out, at a cost to our economy of up to £6.8 billion. How then will tomorrow’s decision affect the Government’s ambition for the majority of the UK to have 5G mobile coverage by 2027? Part of the reason why the delay would be so long is Huawei is already embedded in our 4G network, so where are our alternative homegrown suppliers? What are the Government doing to build the sector, and does the Minister accept that chronic lack of investment and leadership from the Government has brought us to this parlous situation? Finally, what is he doing to ensure that we are never again dependent on foreign powers to secure our critical national infrastructure and security?
5G Network and Huawei — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Macroeconomics
Benjamin Peter James Bradshaw (Labour, Centre-left): Can the Minister assure me that this decision, the one on the digital tax and all the other important decisions facing our country will be based on what is in our national interest and not on threats and bullying from the White House?
5G Network and Huawei — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Francis Spellar (Labour, Centre-left): I am puzzled by the accusations of US protectionism, because European companies, such as Ericsson and Nokia, have a long record of technical expertise. Is not the real problem the Treasury’s short-term doctrine of cheapest is best, even if the company is heavily subsidised and supported by its Government? Why are we putting our security and our economic relationship with long-term allies at risk just to save a few bob?
5G Network and Huawei — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Technology
Darren Paul Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I declare my interest as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests The issue of internet-connected devices in our critical national infrastructure is related not just to 5G and Huawei, but to water, electricity and supermarket food distribution systems—every part of our way of life. Yet we are caught in the middle of a China, European Union and United States policy approach to developing these technologies. The Minister has been asked a few times today—he has not quite answered the question—what representations he has made to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to include in the Government’s industrial strategy sovereign capability in the manufacturing of technologies. We want absolute reassurance that technologies are safe in our critical infrastructure.
5G Network and Huawei — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Technology
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): We are talking about 5G, but a lot of my constituents would quite like to see some 4G—or, frankly, any G at all In China, we face a political party, running a country, that believes it is perfectly acceptable to mount regular cyber-attacks on the network of the House of Commons and on key infrastructure in the UK. It frequently decides to engage in state-sponsored industrial espionage. It is difficult to see that it is a fair and honest broker for us to do business with.
5G Network and Huawei — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: International Affairs
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): Any Members who chose to visit China—and I encourage all colleagues to do so—would, for instance, be advised by our security services not to take their smartphones. They would be told that even if the phones were turned off and the batteries were taken out, they would be compromised immediately upon landing on the Chinese mainland. In that context, how can we explain to our constituents that the Government are even considering allowing Chinese state-backed entities further access to critical UK infrastructure?
5G Network and Huawei — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: International Affairs
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Huawei surveillance technology, as practised in Xinjiang, represents a massive public security cloud that is oppressing hundreds of thousands of Muslims in what can only be described as a repressive dystopian police state. How do we justify importing tools of mass surveillance and mass oppression that could still have foreign control? It just does not seem right.
5G Network and Huawei — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alexander James Jorden Norris (Labour, Centre-left): Each day in this place, a Minister talks from the Dispatch Box about the importance of building a high-skilled economy, but it does not say much about the Government’s industrial strategy that we are not even considering our own domestic provider in this case. The Minister has said that that will change in time. What year?
Automated Facial Recognition Surveillance — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Diane Julie Abbott (Labour, Centre-left): Facial recognition technology is potentially an important crime-fighting tool, but not without the correct safeguards, and the Minister has failed to persuade the House thus far that all the correct safeguards are in place. Does he accept that the random use of facial recognition technology requires not just a High Court judgment, but a specific legal framework and specific arrangements for scrutiny? After all, when blood, saliva or hair samples are provided, they are done voluntarily or under compulsory detention and charge. Facial recognition evidence is given involuntarily. He will have heard different reports about the unreliability of the evidence. Does that put people at risk of being wrongly accused of a crime? He will have heard the reports that the facial recognition technology finds it difficult to recognise black people and women, and that the technology deployed is often inaccurate. To bring in technology that might be inaccurate and mean that the guilty go unapprehended and the innocent are wrongly identified would be a spectacular own goal, leading to a breakdown of the bond of trust between the police and public.
Automated Facial Recognition Surveillance — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Technology
Darren Paul Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome you to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have not yet had the chance to congratulate you on your new role In the previous Parliament, the Science and Technology Committee looked at this issue as part of the biometrics and forensics strategy review. All of the key stakeholders recognised that a biometrics strategy that was not fit for purpose and not of the quality required to provide a regulatory framework for facial recognition technology was at the root of the issue. Can the Minister confirm whether that strategy has been updated since last April?
Automated Facial Recognition Surveillance — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Technology
Chinyelu Susan Onwurah (Labour, Centre-left): Like all artificial intelligence, and unlike the spotter in a football crowd that the Minister cites, facial recognition technology automates the prejudices of those who design it and the limitations of the data on which it has trained. If it is not diverse by design, it will be unequal by outcome, so what minimum standards is he placing on this technology before it is rolled out?
Automated Facial Recognition Surveillance — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Transportation
Daniel Stephen Zeichner (Labour, Centre-left): The approach of trying it out and seeing how it goes is exactly the wrong way to maintain public trust. Many of my constituents use King’s Cross railway station, and last year they discovered that they were, in effect, being spied on. The legal framework is not in place. When even the head of Google is saying we should move more slowly, because we need to keep the public with us, is it not right that we follow the example of the European Union and put it on pause while we work out the right way to proceed?
NHS Funding Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: International Affairs
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Secretary of State for updating the House and for letting me intervene at this point, before we move on to the substance of today’s debate. First, could he offer some further clarification? According to the newspapers, there are suggestions that France, the United States and Japan are airlifting their citizens out of Wuhan tomorrow. I emphasise that I am going off newspaper speculation and I appreciate that that is not his portfolio, but how advanced are the Foreign Office’s plans? Secondly, could he update the House about whether it is correct that the treatment of coronavirus would need a number of extra corporeal membrane oxygenation beds to be open? ECMO beds are in high demand in winter. Could he update the House on how many ECMO beds are currently open, and on what preparations the NHS is making on that front?
NHS Funding Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: International Affairs
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State will know that we are all looking forward to lots of celebrations of the Chinese new year. What communication has he had with Chinese organisations that are arranging these, so that they can get in contact with people who may have come from Wuhan so as to try to identify risk and pre-empt problems?
NHS Funding Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Transportation
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): My constituency borders Heathrow, and many of my constituents will be working at Heathrow with the airlines and in many other roles. I appreciate that the risk may be low, but could the Secretary of State update the House on whether advice has been given to Heathrow and airlines on how to give advice to their staff who may have come into contact with people who might be affected so that everybody can be assured that all is being done and that any support they may need is available?
NHS Funding Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Macroeconomics
Lilian Rachel Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State has set out many commitments relating to what he wants to deliver with the extra funding in the Bill. However, the funding in the Bill is purely in cash terms. Will he make a commitment here and now that if inflation rises, such that £33.9 billion does not equal £20.5 billion in real terms and therefore does not deliver the real-terms increase that he has promised, he will exceed the amounts that are set out in the Bill?
NHS Funding Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Macroeconomics
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an important speech and has just made reference to the cuts to capital budgets. Does he agree that it is staggering that since 2014 we have seen five consecutive switches from capital budgets to revenue budgets, totalling about £4.29 billion? The consequences are now being felt by all our constituents throughout the country.
NHS Funding Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is a considered authority on these matters, and I appreciate the spirit in which he has made his intervention. We are not convinced that a social insurance model will work. In those countries where there is a social insurance model—I think in Germany and in Japan—they have largely been building on a social insurance model for their healthcare delivery. In Japan—I may be wrong on this, and I will correct the record if I am wrong—there is a taxation element as well. We believe that there is a degree of political consensus on the future funding of adult social care. We agree with the House of Lords Committee, which includes people such as Michael Forsyth and Norman Lamont, that we need a form of free adult social care paid for by taxation. There is a version of it in Scotland and in Northern Ireland. We believe that, if the Government are prepared to talk to us on those terms, we could find political consensus, but at the moment the Secretary of State stands outside that political consensus.
NHS Funding Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Foreign Trade
Matthew Raymond Western (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the hon. Member to his place. He is making an important point. I think most of us recognise the crucial opportunity for the UK given that the NHS has a massive pool of data over many decades, but does he share my concern about the future ownership of that data in any free trade deal?
NHS Funding Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-27
Topic: Transportation
Matthew Raymond Western (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Member makes a very important point about rural provision and the difficulty for so many communities of accessing these services, particularly when people are dependent on public transport. My father and my mother used to live in South Dorset, near Swanage, and it took two hours to get to Bournemouth.
EU Single Market Access: Manufacturing and the Economy — House of Commons, 2020-02-11
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: What assessment the Government have made of the potential effect on the (a) manufacturing sector and (b) economy of the UK not having access to the EU single market.
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): Three years ago, at my first shadow Treasury questions from this Dispatch Box, I asked the Government about their plan to continue market access for financial services to EU countries after Brexit. Since that time, the Government’s ambitions have faded from the wide-ranging access-all-areas free trade deal that we were promised, to a basic agreement barely covering goods. The Chancellor has announced this morning that he is asking for enhanced equivalence for financial services, which the EU has already ruled out and which does not even exist in sectors such as insurance. This is our largest export sector, so how is it that we are still waiting for a credible plan after three years?
Transport Infrastructure Funding — House of Commons, 2020-02-11
Topic: Transportation
Christopher Philip James Elmore (Labour, Centre-left): May I press the Chief Secretary on infrastructure funding for south Wales, and particularly our railways? I have been asking for three years for additional investment in station improvements, electrification and the level crossing issue in my constituency. If there is any additional funding for infrastructure, please do not forget Wales.
Transport Infrastructure Funding — House of Commons, 2020-02-11
Topic: Transportation
Judith Mary Cummins (Labour, Centre-left): Reports over the weekend that the Bradford city centre stop is to be dropped from the Northern Powerhouse Rail route are extremely concerning. Given the importance of NPR to any improved transport infrastructure, can the Minister confirm here today that the Government’s preferred route still includes Bradford?
Net Zero Emissions Target — House of Commons, 2020-02-11
Topic: Environment
George Edward Howarth (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister will be aware that, as part of the drive towards zero emissions, there was a recent announcement about bringing forward the phasing out of diesel, petrol and hybrid vehicles to 2035. What assessment has he made of the economic and fiscal impact of doing so, and in particular the loss of jobs that will happen, because the industry is in imminent danger of collapse?
Small Businesses — House of Commons, 2020-02-11
Topic: Foreign Trade
Thangam Elizabeth Rachel Debbonaire (Labour, Centre-left): But small businesses will be affected by the news over the weekend that there will not be frictionless trade and that the Government are insisting on not sticking to a level playing field, which will affect small businesses, whether they import or export. So what is the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his Department doing to prepare small businesses for the inevitable changes that that will bring?
National Infrastructure — House of Commons, 2020-02-11
Topic: Transportation
Nicholas Desmond John Smith (Labour, Centre-left): Blaenau Gwent needs investment in the Ebbw Vale to Cardiff train line for extra services. The shared prosperity fund could be a crucial route to providing that. When will the fund be ready to support infrastructure projects in our eastern valleys?
Off-payroll Working Rules Review — House of Commons, 2020-02-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Questions: What progress his Department is making on its review of the implementation of changes to the off-payroll working rules; and if he will make a statement.
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): We all want to crack down on tax avoidance but legitimate contractors in my constituency face uncertainty about their status and tax liability thanks to unclear HMRC guidance and the unreliability of CEST—check employment status for tax—and the firms they work for are cancelling contracts because of the confusion. What is the Minister doing to address their concerns?
Local Authority Funding: Discussions with Secretary of State — House of Commons, 2020-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on the adequacy of allocations of funding for local authorities.
Charalambos Charalambous (Labour, Centre-left): For over 10 years, Enfield has been significantly underfunded, which has had a huge impact on the provision of local services. The proposed settlement goes nowhere near addressing the shortfall. Will the Minister meet me and the Enfield Borough Over 50s Forum to discuss Enfield’s needs?