argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Air Rifles — House of Commons, 2017-10-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Karin Marguerite Smyth (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, for the information he has shared with me and for his expertise in this area. The point I will come on to is that we need to learn in England from what happens in Northern Ireland and Scotland and that children in Bristol South should be afforded the same level of security as children there, and I will return to that Hon. Members will know that, following a series of tragic incidents involving air weapons, the Scottish Government acted to address the problem. Under the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2015, it has been an offence since the start of this year to use, possess, purchase or acquire an air weapon without holding an air weapon certificate. It is a condition of that licence that weapons are securely stored in order that access and possession cannot be gained by a person who is not authorised. The licence application also requires the disclosure of criminal convictions, and the police must be satisfied that the applicant can possess an air weapon "without danger to the public safety or to the peace" before issuing an air weapon certificate. That is over and beyond section 21 of the Firearms Act 1968, under which a person who has been convicted of an offence may be prohibited from possessing firearms, including air weapons In the run-up to the change in the law, 20,000 air weapons were surrendered to the authorities in Scotland and destroyed—20,000 fewer potentially lethal weapons were on the streets, and I think the House will agree that that makes Scotland safer. However, in England, just since the start of May 2017, there have been incidents involving air weapons and children in Carlisle, Bury, Chelmsford, Ipswich, Exeter and, most tragically, Loughborough, where, in August, a five-year-old boy was reportedly shot and killed with an air rifle—another tragic child death. In spring 2016, a 13-year-old boy was killed in Bury St Edmunds.
Air Rifles — House of Commons, 2017-10-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Karin Marguerite Smyth (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for that intervention, and I certainly want to learn from other hon. Members’ experience and work in this area. I assured the Studley family in my constituency that, on issues such as this, hon. Members will work together cross party to achieve the best legislation In his speech last year, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn informed the House that 17 children had died as a result of air weapons in the last 27 years. Sadly, it appears that that number has risen again, and I repeat that we need to do something about that. I ask the Minister to reconsider the response given last year to my right hon. Friend; it is simply not good enough to review the text of a leaflet In this House, on 20 April, the then Leader of the House of Commons, the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), told me the Government have "no plans to ban or licence"—[Official Report, 20 April 2017; Vol. 624, c. 801.] air weapons, on the basis that misuse applies only to a small minority of people. Many of the people we represent would argue that many of the laws that currently protect them from all sorts of heinous acts are in place to protect them from a small minority, and even if only a small minority is affected, the consequences of their actions are grave and merit our attention, regardless of the numbers Many hon. Members share an interest in animal welfare, and I would add that, since successfully securing this debate, I have been contacted by Cats Protection, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and others.
Air Rifles — House of Commons, 2017-10-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Karin Marguerite Smyth (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention and I know from my reading of previous debates that she has done a lot of work on this issue. I shall certainly be asking for more updates on the comparison with Scotland to identify whether that is the right way to go Most of the law in England and Wales on air weapons dates from the 1960s and it is time properly to re-examine the legislation to see whether it is fit for the 21st century. When an issue has such a devastating effect on the lives of families with such regularity, I would expect the Government to be considering such action already. It is for the Minister to decide what any review should cover, but at the very least I would expect a detailed consideration of licensing in the light of the change to the law in Scotland; of whether the fitting of trigger locks should be mandatory for all new air weapons sold; and of whether the reasonable precautions requirement on all airgun owners for the safe storage of air weapons and ammunition is adequate. My constituents are also interested in laws governing the registration and transfer of these weapons and would be grateful for an explanation of the current position and any proposed changes I am grateful for the opportunity to raise these questions and stress in closing that the purpose of my securing this debate is not to ban air weapons outright. It is about their safe use. I want children and young people in my constituency to be protected from future tragedies like those that have been all too common in recent years. Surely Bristol South’s children deserve the same protection as children living in Scotland.
Disability Confident Scheme — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Labor
Melanie Onn (Labour, Centre-left): The truth is that this simply is not working. My constituent, Alan, has just graduated with a BSc honours degree in computing technology. He is blind and has a guide dog to assist him, but when he tells prospective employers about this in advance, they just do not take his applications. He has applied for 857 jobs but he has got absolutely nowhere. What is he going to do?
Disability Confident Scheme — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Labor
Marsha Chantol De Cordova (Labour, Centre-left): In the recently published "Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families" paper, the Government said that they wanted to work in partnership with employers to help them to draw fully on the talents of disabled people. However, following the Chancellor’s recent comments scapegoating disabled people as being the reason for low productivity, does the Secretary of State agree that there is a need for a clear and coherent message from the Government that employing disabled people can enhance productivity and make a real contribution to organisations and businesses across the UK?
“Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families” — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
David George Hanson (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister think that the fact that she is failing to support people who are workless and still in poverty is one of the reasons why Alan Milburn resigned as chair of the Social Mobility Commission?
Rights of Disabled People — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What steps his Department is taking to respond to and implement the recommendations in the concluding observations of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, published on 3 October 2017.
Mary Elizabeth Twist (Labour, Centre-left): The UN report specifically called on the Government to repeal the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2017 and to ensure that eligibility criteria in assessments to access PIP, employment and support allowance and universal credit are in line with the human rights model of disability. Will the Minister commit to that today?
Rights of Disabled People — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What steps his Department is taking to respond to and implement the recommendations in the concluding observations of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, published on 3 October 2017.
Frank Field (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister please consider a root and branch reform of PIP? Someone who came to Feeding Birkenhead was doubly incontinent due to cancer, but she received a nil rating for PIP. While she needed food, she also needed nappies. When she did not turn up after a few days, people went to see how she was, and she was washing babies’ nappies, because she wanted to get about and was too ashamed to come and ask us for more. Is there not something wrong with PIP assessments when those sorts of cases occur?
Poverty: In-work Households — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: CPI—consumer prices index—stands at 2.8%, food inflation is at 4.2%, its highest for four years, and the big six energy companies have announced price increases of between 8% and 15% this year. That comes against a backdrop of freezes on working age benefits, so is it surprising that people are having to go to food banks?
Margaret Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): On behalf of Labour Members, I would like to express our condolences to Mr Deputy Speaker. Our thoughts are with him and his family Disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as non-disabled people because of the extra costs they face. The Equality and Human Rights Commission recently estimated the cumulative effect of Government cuts since 2010 at £2,500 a year for a disabled adult, but when the Government discovered that they had underpaid approximately 75,000 disabled people who transferred on to ESA support between 2011 and 2014, they announced in last Thursday’s written statement that they would only be repaying claimants from October 2014. How many of the 75,000 disabled people will receive an arrears payment? Given that attempted suicide rates among ESA claimants doubled between 2007 and 2014, what estimates have been undertaken on the impacts on claimants’ mental health as a result of this Department for Work and Pensions error?
Poverty: In-work Households — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: CPI—consumer prices index—stands at 2.8%, food inflation is at 4.2%, its highest for four years, and the big six energy companies have announced price increases of between 8% and 15% this year. That comes against a backdrop of freezes on working age benefits, so is it surprising that people are having to go to food banks?
Margaret Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): Recent data shows that 8 million working families are living in poverty. Despite Government rhetoric, work is not the route out of poverty.; four out of five people who are in low-paid work now are likely to be in low-paid work in 10 years’ time. But in his interview on yesterday’s "The Andrew Marr Show", the Secretary of State failed to mention that, under universal credit, sanctions have escalated and are being applied to people who are actually in work. The Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office have both raised concerns about the impact of sanctions on debt, rent arrears and homelessness. So why is the Secretary of State intent on punishing people in low-paid work by sanctioning them?
Universal Credit: Food Bank Usage — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: If he will make an assessment of the effect of the length of waiting time to receive universal credit on levels of food bank usage.; If he will make an assessment of the effect of the length of waiting time to receive universal credit on levels of food bank usage.
Karen Elizabeth Lee (Labour, Centre-left): Given the waiting period for universal credit, people face a choice: they can have no money to buy food, so either use a food bank or starve, or they can get a loan, as the Secretary of State says. Does he agree that pushing people who are already on a low income because they are on a benefit into debt in this way is totally unacceptable?
Universal Credit: Food Bank Usage — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: If he will make an assessment of the effect of the length of waiting time to receive universal credit on levels of food bank usage.; If he will make an assessment of the effect of the length of waiting time to receive universal credit on levels of food bank usage.
Helen Elizabeth Hayes (Labour, Centre-left): The Peabody Trust estimates that 60,000 households will have made a new universal credit claim in the six weeks before Christmas and will not receive their first payment before the holiday period. The need is already being felt in my constituency, where last week Norwood food bank provided food for an extraordinary 128 people in a single session. What is the Secretary of State’s advice to families who are trying to provide a happy Christmas for their children without the means to afford even basic necessities?
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: Whether his Department has set a target for the time taken for a personal independence payment claim to be processed from application to decision.
Lilian Rachel Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): Sixty five per cent of PIP tribunals find in favour of the claimant, meaning that hundreds of disabled people are being denied the support to which they are entitled. This puts an intolerable strain on whole families, including my constituents Chris and Cathryn Stoney who, having coped with Cathryn’s bowel cancer surgeries, brain haemorrhage and cardiac arrest, now face a further ordeal appealing against an unjust assessment. Will the Minister agree to meet me, the Stoneys and Nottingham advice services to hear how the system is failing disabled people?
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: Whether his Department has set a target for the time taken for a personal independence payment claim to be processed from application to decision.
Marsha Chantol De Cordova (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister agree that Paul Gray’s recommendations in the second independent review of personal independence payments that the routine provision of the assessment report to the claimant would both improve identification of error and incentivise better performance at the assessment stage, and will she fully accept that particular recommendation?
Universal Credit: Sanctions — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Pelham Pound (Labour, Centre-left): Well, what an answer! Never would I accuse the Minister of dedolence, but I must say that that sort of Panglossian response shows an absence of empathy or understanding, particularly of the empirical evidence that we have had to date. My constituents see universal credit as a rock rolling down a hill next April. However, as this is Christmas and we are in the spirit of giving and generosity, will the Minister join me in my impetration to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority for additional secretarial support during those dark days when this awful universal credit is rolled out and over our constituents?
Universal Credit: Sanctions — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Grahame Mark Morris (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I refer the Minister to the question I raised with the Leader of the House on Thursday. Will the Minister provide an assurance that when the Department makes mistakes in the administration of universal credit, claimants will be fully compensated in claims backdated to the point where they will be no worse off?
Job Creation — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Labor
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): Is the Secretary of State not aware that hundreds of thousands of people in this country are yearning for a good and well-paid job? Many are young people who cannot get an apprenticeship. Apprenticeship starts are down by 62% this year and further education colleges are in trouble. When is he going to do something about training young people and really giving them the chance of a good job on good pay?
Contracted-out Health Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What recent assessment he has made of the (a) accuracy and (b) efficiency of contracted-out health assessments for (i) employment and support allowance and (ii) personal independence payments.
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): Forty people in Wakefield have written to me with their concerns that, at their employment and support allowance or PIP assessment, they were not seen by an appropriate person. That includes one person with mental health problems, who was assessed by a paramedic. The Work and Pensions Committee recently heard that Atos and Capita employ only four doctors between them, and statistics released by the Minister’s Department today show that those contractors have consistently failed to meet their targets for the number of unacceptable assessments, so how can sick and disabled people in Wakefield have any confidence in the assessment process?
Universal Credit: Torbay — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker. There will be problems in Torbay and elsewhere if the universal credit calculation is wrong. The Minister told me in a written answer that there is no specific initiative called Late, Missing and Incorrect, but it turns out that there is, run jointly by his Department and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Will he confirm that if real-time PAYE—pay-as-you-earn—information is late, missing or incorrect, then the universal credit calculation will be wrong?
Social Security Spending: Working Households — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Labor
Laura Smith (Labour, Centre-left): With 8 million people living in poverty in working households and 28% of my constituents earning below the voluntary living wage, what action is the Secretary of State taking to address labour market inequalities with low-paid, low-skilled and insecure work?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Education
Daniel Stephen Zeichner (Labour, Centre-left): The universities superannuation scheme is a strong pension scheme that recently closed its defined-benefits section, moving to a defined-contribution scheme and, in effect, transferring all risk to the employee. Many argue that over-cautious accounting rules drive these changes, creating a poorer scheme that leaves many people less well off in future and puts pressure on our universities. What is the Secretary of State doing to protect the future of our higher education sector?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Labor
Questions: I welcome my right hon. Friend’s recent announcement of the extension of auto-enrolment to 18 to 21-year-olds. In the meantime, does he have any figures on how many people have started saving and benefited from auto-enrolment in individual constituencies, including mine?
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State will be aware of the crisis engulfing members of the British Steel pension scheme, with advisers cashing in by persuading them to sink their pensions into all manner of dodgy, high-cost schemes, and he will be aware of the Financial Conduct Authority’s apparent failure to deal with the situation effectively. He will know that today the negotiations on the future of the universities superannuation scheme are coming to a head, with the threat of industrial action—something that should be interesting the Government. I am surprised that he is simply sitting back and leaving these matters to those who are directly involved. Surely, he can tell us today how he is going to get involved and take action to protect members of both schemes.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: I welcome my right hon. Friend’s recent announcement of the extension of auto-enrolment to 18 to 21-year-olds. In the meantime, does he have any figures on how many people have started saving and benefited from auto-enrolment in individual constituencies, including mine?; What steps has the Department to taken to help older people who are looking, perhaps after redundancy or caring responsibilities, to get back into work?; I thank my right hon. Friend for the flexibility he has shown in the budget in terms of the changes to universal credit. Will he continue with the dialogue and the flexibility as the roll-out continues?; Some 68% of personal independence payment decisions taken to tribunal are being overturned by judges, so is it any surprise that my constituent Mr Parish and others in his situation have no faith in the assessment process? What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the accuracy of PIP assessments in the light of statistics that show that there has been a ninefold increase in complaints to the Department in just one year?
Carolyn Harris (Labour, Centre-left): With the uncertainty of universal credit payments following the roll-out in Swansea last week, my local paper, the South Wales Evening Post, has co-ordinated the collection of food and warm clothes to help those in need. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating the South Wales Evening Post on doing what the Government are failing to do, and making sure everyone has a good Christmas?
European Council — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: International Affairs
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): On 10 December, the Brexit Secretary described the phase 1 joint agreement as "more a statement of intent than it was a legally enforceable thing." However, last Friday’s European Council guidelines state: "negotiations in the second phase can only progress as long as all commitments undertaken during the first phase are respected in full and translated faithfully into legal terms as quickly as possible." Can the Prime Minister therefore confirm that all the commitments she made in the phase 1 joint agreement, including in respect of the border in Northern Ireland, will be written into UK law?
European Council — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: International Affairs
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Prime Minister now agree that the meaningful vote to which she referred should take place on a statute, as set out in the terms of amendment 7 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, before any withdrawal terms can be implemented? Does she also agree that those who voted for amendment 7 did so in good faith to ensure that power would not be too heavily concentrated in the hands of the Executive, and that it was completely wrong to do what the Daily Mail suggested and accuse them of treachery?
European Council — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Labor
Chuka Harrison Umunna (Labour, Centre-left): Last year, the Prime Minister wrote to me giving the same general assurance on workers’ rights that she just gave to the Leader of the Opposition. She did not actually answer his specific question today, however, so I ask her again: given that her Cabinet colleagues are now agitating for some of those rights to be done away with, will she guarantee that none of the working time regulations—importantly, the 48-hour working week—will be done away with by her Government after we leave the European Union?
European Council — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): I urge the Prime Minister to reject the notion that we should get all the way to exit day and not have the full details of the future trade arrangement between the EU and the UK. If all we have is a sketch of the framework of a possible trade deal, it would not be acceptable to the public or to businesses. It is simply unacceptable to have something that looks like less than a half-baked arrangement.
European Council — House of Commons, 2017-12-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): The Prime Minister has admitted today that we are looking at a £40 billion bill for Brexit. The Chancellor is already spending billions on contingency preparations, and we have two Cabinet Ministers jetting around spending lots of taxpayers’ money. Has she seen the analysis today from the Financial Times showing that rather than getting the £350 million for the NHS that was promised on the red bus, there will be a cost of £350 million per year—[Hon. Members: "Per Week."] That would be the cost to the British economy, as economic output is 0.9% down?