argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Rachel Jane Reeves (Labour, Centre-left): In today’s forecast from the OBR, GDP growth this year is being revised down by 0.4%. The largest downward revision is to business investment—a downward revision of 3.2%. Business investment is now expected to shrink by 1% this year after shrinking by 1% last year. The Federation of Small Businesses says today that confidence is at "rock bottom". The CBI says on tariffs that there has been "no consultation with business and no time to prepare", and that this is "a sledgehammer for our economy." Does the Chancellor recognise that businesses are losing patience with this Government and that unless businesses invest and help to grow our economy, productivity and wages are going to stay at rock bottom? What is he going to do to reverse this incredibly worrying and dangerous reduction in business investment?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Education
Lucy Maria Powell (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am reclaiming "bossy" Is it not the case that cuts to police, local services and schools are a false economy? We pay for the cost of failure, the cost of rising knife crime, the cost of school exclusions, the cost of rising poverty and the cost of failing families and children. Will the Chancellor prioritise in his forthcoming spending review early intervention, to support families and help children get the best start in life?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Angela Eagle (Labour, Centre-left): Many Members on both sides of the House have expressed worry about the slowdown in growth forecast, but all of us see that there is some growth. Given that the economy is growing, albeit too modestly, will the Chancellor look at the £1.4 billion of cuts that will be made to benefits through the benefit freeze in three weeks’ time, which means that he is taking money away from those who are least able to afford it? All economic theory shows that those who are on very low or modest incomes spend money that is given to them, which will stimulate our economy some more. Will he get up at the Dispatch Box and tell us that he is going to end the benefit freeze, which is due to hit all those people in three weeks’ time?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): I have more respect than many in this House for the work of economic forecasters, but let us be honest: what we have today is a big long sum predicated on the idea that Brexit will be fine. However, surely the events of the past 24 hours demonstrate to us that Brexit is not going very well, is it? Things are not going well in the country either. Last year, the Trussell Trust gave out nearly 1.5 million three-day food parcels, which is a massive increase on last year. When will the Chancellor admit that Brexit is a massive distraction for our country, and that it is about time we got back to tackling what the public really care about—rough sleeping, poverty and the position of the worst-off in our society?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Education
Jessica Rose Phillips (Labour, Centre-left): To follow up on that question, I am sure the Chancellor has noticed that there are children all over the country, including in the Prime Minister’s constituency—and among those children are my children—who will no longer be able to go to school all day on a Friday. My son’s school is going to shut at 1 o’clock, like 15 other schools in Birmingham and hundreds of schools across the country. They have been getting in touch with me, including those in the Prime Minister’s constituency, and I am sure they will be writing to her, because they are certainly writing to me. What has he offered today for the Government to do the most basic thing, and keep my children in school? What is being given today and what will be given in the CSR? I hope he is looking forward to seeing my children, because I am bringing them to be looked after by him every Friday at 1 o’clock.
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Law and Crime
David George Hanson (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Chancellor confirm that many millions of pounds more are being cut from the police budget than the £100 million he has put in for overtime to support our hard-pressed police officers? Will he confirm something in particular? In his statement, he said that the £100 million is for England. When I was a Home Office Minister with responsibility for the police, Home Office funding was for England and Wales. Has Wales been left out again?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): Is it not true that poverty in this country increasingly wears a working face, that we now have the highest ever proportion of families in poverty who are in work, that a family of four with two people working full time on the national minimum wage will be £600 a year worse off by 2020, thanks to the Chancellor’s benefit freeze, and that, because he will not tackle the benefit freeze, including on in-work benefits, families in that condition will see absolutely nothing as a consequence of today’s statement?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Environment
Ann Clwyd (Labour, Centre-left): I, too, want clarity from the Chancellor. When he talked about environmental spending in England, did he mean only England, or England and Wales? Will a certain amount of money be given to Wales? When I was first elected, 35 years ago, my constituency had one of the worst industrial polluters in the whole UK. It has left us with 27 acres of derelict land at the bottom of a valley, and a lot of wasted investment. Will he please help us to get that toxic waste cleared up and taken away so that the land can be made suitable for people to use?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Law and Crime
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): Although any extra money for the police is welcome, officers will be looking on in horror to find that it is due only on overtime as they are so overstretched already. We know that the Chancellor has said that they should be reprioritising, but does he agree with the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) that they should be deprioritising spending on historical child sexual exploitation?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Transportation
Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Centre-left): The Chancellor made a welcome but passing comment in respect of Northern Powerhouse Rail, but when will he bring forward investment in the east coast main line to make it fit for purpose and HS2-ready? Without that investment north of York, the communities on the HS2 east coast main line risk being further away from, rather than closer to, the required connections.
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Law and Crime
Rosena Chantelle Allin-Khan (Labour, Centre-left): By 2021, this Government will have cut £1 billion from the Metropolitan police budget. That is why I wrote the Chancellor a letter, signed by every single London Labour MP, asking for more funding to tackle the rise in violent crime. Can the Chancellor confirm how much additional funding has been allocated to the London Met?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Education
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): The Select Committee on Education has received evidence that children with special educational needs and disabilities are getting support based not on their needs but on the rationed resources available. SEND funding is in crisis and parents are feeling desperate. Will the Chancellor take this opportunity to act immediately and make ring-fenced funding available to give all our children the support they need?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Law and Crime
Rushanara Ali (Labour, Centre-left): The Government have slashed millions of pounds from policing, with 21,000 police officers taken out of the system. Violent crime has gone up; the knife crime epidemic is terrorising our communities; and the police are at breaking point. Will the Chancellor, ahead of the next spending review, prioritise investing in the police service so that we can genuinely tackle knife crime and violent crime in our country?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Danielle Rowley (Labour, Centre-left): While I welcome the period provision announcement and thank the Chancellor for listening to campaigners, will he extend it to primary schools, universities and homeless shelters, and will he also commit to scrapping the tampon tax as soon as we come out of the EU? Does he recognise that the girls he talks about missing days of school are the same girls who go to school hungry and that we will not end period poverty until we have ended poverty?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Gerald Jones (Labour, Centre-left): The Chancellor will be aware that the budget for the Welsh Government has been reduced by some £4 billion since 2010 because of his austerity. There is a massive impact on local councils and public services. Jobs and frontline services are all that is left to cut, so will the Chancellor end that austerity and apologise for the pain he has caused public services?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Education
Karin Marguerite Smyth (Labour, Centre-left): The fragmentation of money and control in further education, the apprenticeship levy, T-levels and the adult education budget is a barrier to productivity in Bristol and the wider economic region. What support will he give to Bristol and the wider west of England region to bring those things together so that we can improve our productivity?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Social Welfare
James McMahon (Labour, Centre-left): The Government will know that, since they walked away from local councils, frontline services such as adult social care and children’s safeguarding have been massively underfunded, adding more and more pressure on low-income families and council tax. When will he eventually give proper funding for children’s services and adult social care?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Imran Hussain (Labour, Centre-left): Almost half the children living in my constituency are living in poverty as a direct result of the Chancellor’s ideological austerity agenda. Why is the stain of rising child poverty not enough for him to act today?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Foreign Trade
Adrian Edward Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): To end Brexit uncertainty, business wants a commitment to the customs union; frictionless access to the EU market; and the skilled and unskilled labour that comes from it. Will the Chancellor commit to supporting a deal that delivers just that?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): Four babies in 1,000 will not reach their first birthday as a result of this Government’s austerity policies. If the Government are so keen on tackling burning injustices, why will they not end the freeze and end it now?
Spring Statement — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Education
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): York schools are the worst-funded in the country, we have the highest attainment gap, and the schools in the most deprived areas have had the largest per pupil funding cut. When will the Chancellor address this huge inequality?
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Secretary of State. He seems to be making a speech about last night’s debate rather than today’s. The debate that we are having today is about no deal. Can the Secretary of State imagine being the Prime Minister—I am sure he spends a lot of time imagining that—and coming to the House for a vote of this importance, and the Government’s not having an opinion on whether their own members should vote for or against it?
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State is making a very strong argument against no deal and the damage that it would cause. The purpose of the votes today and tomorrow is to establish the default position. If we do not have a deal in place—and we do not have a deal in place with the majority behind it in the House—what will the default position be on 29 March? Will he clarify his position on this, as it is not clear in the motion? If there is no deal in place by 29 March, does he agree that the default position cannot be simply to leave without a deal?
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Peter John Kyle (Labour, Centre-left): I take compliments wherever I can find them. The Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have said at the Dispatch Box, previously and today, that the House is very good at striking down things that are on the table but very bad at putting forward alternatives. I have noticed in recent days that both of them have been doing exactly the same thing; they spend a lot of time striking down any other proposition that is mentioned from across the House, but the one they are sticking to has also been decisively struck down more than any other—twice, in historic proportions. If we carry on doing the same thing, we are going to get the same result. Is he suggesting that he will bring the deal back again and again and again, or will he show the leadership expected of somebody in his position and someone in the Prime Minister’s position and change course, listen to other propositions and engage with people who are trying to compromise?
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Emma Elizabeth Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): If the Government are serious about engaging with alternatives to the deal that we voted on last night and serious about listening, why will they not grant a series of indicative votes, as recommended by the Exiting the European Union Committee, on which I serve and which is chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), to determine the will of the House?
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome today’s debate. The Prime Minister is leaving; I know she wanted to open this debate and we understand why she cannot; I send our best wishes for her speedy recovery. I am sure that goes for the whole House If the Prime Minister had opened the debate, I think she would have engaged seriously with the points being made by others, rather than hurling easy insults and not engaging with the points. This is a serious debate about a very serious matter, and it needs to be conducted in the right way. The debate is long overdue. On this side of the House, we have never accepted that there should be a binary choice between the Prime Minister’s deal or no deal—"very bad" or "even worse" is not a meaningful choice and would be a very sorry end to the negotiations. Yesterday, the House overwhelmingly voted to reject the Prime Minister’s deal, which is the first of those options. Today, we have the chance to reject the second, and we should do so with as big a majority as possible. The mantra of "My deal or no deal" needs to be dead and buried tonight.
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I will in just a moment. Labour has always opposed a no-deal outcome. We have repeatedly warned that it would be catastrophic for jobs, for the economy, for security, and for peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland, and I will come to those points later.
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Karin Marguerite Smyth (Labour, Centre-left): One of the things that was said time after time was that there would be no consequences for peace on the island of Ireland. We have heard today from the Dispatch Box—the Secretary of State may want to come back on this—that a consequence of the Government not ruling out no deal tonight is, potentially, direct rule. That is a major shift in the Government’s position. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that those are not fears, but the actualities we are dealing with?
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I will come to the position in Ireland, because it was and has been treated casually, as if it is all a technical question of a line in the road. Anyone who has spent any time in Ireland in the past two years will realise the impact that Brexit is having on the politics of Ireland, which go well beyond the technicalities of the customs union and the single market.
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I have spent a lot of time talking to officials in Brussels over the past two years, and I have been discussing the question of an extension for six months, because it occurred to me back then that we would be in this position. We will need to address that in tomorrow’s debate, but, for my part, I have not received the message from Brussels that there is no prospect of an extension—quite the contrary.
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Foreign Trade
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I will just make some progress and give way again in a minute The Prime Minister used to tell us that no deal would not be the end of the world. Past Brexit Secretaries even talked up the merits of leaving on WTO terms or told us how crucial threatening no deal was to the negotiations. But Labour Members have been steadfast in insisting that no deal is not a viable option. Why? It is hard to know where to begin. First, there is the economy. On this, the vast majority of businesses and the trade union movement speak with one voice—and that does not happen very often. I have been to meetings with businesses all over the country, and I have spoken to trade unions in those businesses, and I have taken notes of what they tell me. At the end of those meetings, one could almost rub out the identity of who was in the meeting and have the same read-out of their level of concerns. That persuades me that they have a very good point and a very strong case Only today, Carolyn Fairbairn from the CBI said that no deal would be "a sledgehammer to the economy." Frances O’Grady from the TUC said that a no-deal Brexit "would be a hammer blow to our manufacturing industries and the communities they support." A no-deal Brexit could be terminal for Britain’s manufacturing and the thousands of skilled jobs it provides. As the son of a toolmaker, I remember when manufacturing was in the doldrums, but now there has been a revival. Manufacturers operate a just-in-time regime that relies on open borders, and they do so successfully. No deal poses a huge risk to them.
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Foreign Trade
Adrian Edward Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): Earlier the Secretary of State referred to the 140,000 or so companies that trade exclusively with Europe, only about 40,000 of which have registered and got their EORI numbers, which is necessary in order to do so. The business community has pointed out that there is no reason why HMRC could not give companies an automatic EORI number if they are VAT-registered, as most of them are. It is very worried that the Government are trying to shift the blame for a chaotic no-deal Brexit from their own lack of support and on to business.
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Foreign Trade
Susan Elan Jones (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. and learned Friend has said that he is not a gambling man, but it seems that the Secretary of State for Wales might be, because he is refusing to rule out supporting no deal. If one considers Wales’s agriculture, manufacturing industry and so much more, that is absolute madness, in my view. Does the Secretary of State—not quite the Secretary of State yet, but the shadow Secretary of State—agree?
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Judith Mary Cummins (Labour, Centre-left): My constituency voted to leave. I am a democrat, and I respect the result of the referendum, but does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that a no-deal Brexit would not be in the interests of my constituents or this country?
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Foreign Trade
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I will give way in a moment, but I have given way a lot, and I need to make progress. I am aware that others want to contribute to the debate I was dealing with the impact on manufacturing. Some of the large manufacturers have told us what the impact of no deal will be on them. Ford was clear that it "would be catastrophic for the UK auto industry and Ford’s manufacturing operations in the country" Airbus used similar language, saying that it would be "absolutely catastrophic for us". More recently, Honda said: "If we end up with WTO tariffs, we’d have something like 10% of costs in addition on products shipped back into Europe", which would impact its "productivity" and "competitiveness". This is not exaggeration. These are companies speaking about their businesses. This will impact on their businesses, and real people’s livelihoods will be at stake We do not have to only take the word of businesses and the trade unions, though it is a powerful voice. We can also look at the Government Benches. The hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks), who I believe is still a Business Minister in the Government, said that no deal "would be completely disastrous for business in this country"— no doubt because, like me, he has been talking to those businesses. He then took a novel approach to collective responsibility by saying: "I am very happy to be public about" the dangers of no deal "and very happy if the Prime Minister decides I am not the right person to do the business industry job." He was backed up by the Business Secretary, who said "no deal is fully acknowledged—certainly by me and the industry—as being ruinous for our prospects"—[Official Report, 4 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 68.] The Government’s own figures show that no deal would mean a reduction in the economy of between 6.3% and 9% over 15 years, and every region would be poorer—Wales by 8.1%, Scotland by 8% and the north-east of England by 10.5%. Anybody who votes tonight to keep no deal on the table needs to explain to their constituents why they are taking that risk with jobs and our economy.
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: Foreign Trade
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. and learned Friend is making the point that the worst deal is no deal. He has talked about manufacturing, and this issue has been raised with me by GMB, Unite and other unions. Does he agree that the uncertainty over the trade agreements between other countries and with the EU, which we trade under and which account for about 12% of our imports and exports, is already causing great problems for manufacturing, imports and exports and jobs in our constituencies?
UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union — House of Commons, 2019-03-13
Topic: International Affairs
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for that intervention, because it takes me to a point that was repeatedly made by the Secretary of State, which is that it is somehow somebody else’s fault that the deal is not going through and that the Government do not bear any responsibility for failing to bring the House with them.