argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Employment Rights: Government Plans — House of Commons, 2021-01-25
Topic: Labor
Lee Anderson (Conservative, Centre-right): For the Labour party to decide on our employment rights, it first needs to win a general election. The good news is that the British working classes will not allow that; they do not trust Labour The United Kingdom has one of the best records on workers’ rights anywhere in the world, but of course the Labour party is still bitter about us leaving the EU. It does not think that our elected MPs should have the power to decide what rules apply in the UK. It is the policies of the Labour party that threaten workers’ pay and conditions. It wants to keep people on benefits and flood the workplace with cheap labour, through free movement. How does that help the British worker? It does not Our new Business Secretary has been very clear: we are not going to lower the standards of workers’ rights. Why would we? It makes no sense at all. Even the Mayor of London, who gets most things wrong, got it when he said there was no evidence for Labour’s claims that workers’ rights would be eroded after Brexit However, I think we should always look at strengthening employment rights, especially when some workers are being exploited by people who, quite frankly, should know better. Let us start with the Labour party. During the 2015 election, I recall that security guards at Labour’s offices were being paid less than the living wage, despite the Labour party being an accredited living wage employer. I am not quite sure who the Labour party leader was at this time, but perhaps the Minister could remind the House when he sums up In 2018, four Labour Front Benchers advertised jobs in their offices for below their own £10 an hour living wage pledge. It is total hypocrisy: they say one thing and do another. They say they are against private schools, yet send their own kids to private schools. They say they want better workers’ rights, yet fail their own employees In a nutshell, we have some of the best protections in the world, and I am confident that this Government will go much further. Meanwhile, I predict that the Labour party will slide much further back, as the real workers in this country are sick to death of hearing them moaning all the time. Now, I have done my time, done my graft, done my shift down the pits, but what do they really know about workers’ rights? Absolutely nothing, because most of them have never done a proper day’s work in their lives. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; that’s me done.
Employment Rights: Government Plans — House of Commons, 2021-01-25
Topic: Labor
Antony Higginbotham (Conservative, Centre-right): Today, we have seen the Labour party do its typical thing for Opposition day debates—roll out its spin machine, this time to cling on to EU regulations by the back door, rehashing lines from the remain campaign—but we can all see through it. My constituents do not want to hold on to EU rules and regulations. What they want is a high-wage, high-skill, high-standard economy: high wages by introducing a new immigration system that ends the practice of people being brought into the UK to undercut our workforce; high skills by using schemes such as kickstart, the lifetime skills guarantee and the new skills for jobs White Paper; and high standards, reflecting the clear commitment from the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy who said at the Dispatch Box that there will be "no changes" to workers’ rights in the UK We have some of the best standards in the world for workers—there will be no change. What are those standards? We have 28 days of annual leave in the UK, compared with a requirement of 20 in the EU. Parental leave allowance stops for a child of eight in the EU but at 18 in the UK. Maternity leave is paid for 39 weeks in the UK, but for only 14 weeks in the EU. However, protecting UK workers means more than just these rights; it is about making sure that people get a decent wage for the work that they do. Again, it is the Conservative party—MPs on this side of the House—that is committed to making that happen. It is this Government who have cracked down on employers not paying the national minimum wage. It is this Government who have increased the national minimum wage by more than 50% since 2010, and there is 20% more to go before 2024 Let us not forget that when Labour were in Government, they scrapped the 10p tax bracket, hitting those on the minimum wage. That is not protecting British workers. Let us put that into pounds—under the Labour party, when it left power, someone earning the minimum wage and working full-time would pay £815 a year in tax. Today, someone on the minimum wage working full-time pays £672 in tax. Take-home pay has increased from £767 under Labour to £1,200 today, so the Labour party might want to talk about protecting workers but in reality it means nothing of the sort. It wants to tie us to EU rules in perpetuity, dismantling our flexible workforce. We need to recognise the protections we have, recognise the measures that we have taken and continue to build a flexible, highly skilled and well-paid workforce.
Employment Rights: Government Plans — House of Commons, 2021-01-25
Topic: Labor
Angela Joy Richardson (Conservative, Centre-right): This country is a brilliant place to live and work, and when it comes to supporting workers it is the Conservative party, as was proved at the ballot box just over a year ago, that is the party of workers and of business and the economy. We are also the party that understands what workers want and aspire to, not just in their workplace but in their communities, like mine in Guildford. That is why we stand proudly on our manifesto commitment to raise workers’ rights standards and to strike the right balance between the flexibility that the economy needs and the security that employees deserve, including new protections for workers. It is the Conservative party that has a plan for jobs as we recover from this pandemic, including exciting new green jobs, and it is this party that will help to upskill workers to take advantage of jobs that are, even this minute, being created Although it was not moved, I speak in support of the amendment tabled in the name of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Now that we have restored full parliamentary sovereignty, this Parliament will decide which policies are right for workers, our future innovation and our job creation. Because we recognise how important the relationship is between employers and their employees, we have sought to save as many jobs as possible by introducing the furlough scheme. It might feel as though we are in the depths of winter, but I, for one, look forward to the thaw that the vaccine roll-out will bring and the renewed hope for all workers who will be a key part of the green shoots of our economic recovery. I, too, thank all those who have tirelessly continued to work throughout the past year for their courage and fortitude Last year, I took part in the baby loss debate, where Members from both sides of this House spoke movingly on this incredibly difficult subject. One of the single most important things we have done is to strengthen employment protections for parents who lose their child, supporting everyone who goes through this tragedy. We have implemented a statutory right for a minimum of two weeks’ leave for all employed parents if they lose a child under the age of 18 or suffer a stillbirth from 20 weeks of pregnancy. Eligible parents will be able to claim statutory pay while absent from work. This is the most generous offer on parental bereavement leave and pay in the world We Conservatives are the party of the family. It was a Conservative-led Government who introduced shared parental leave and pay in 2014, giving parents flexibility in who takes time away from work in the first year of their child’s life. Labour has abandoned the family, community, pride in their country, and support for the values that our workers hold dear. Throughout this last difficult year, and going forward, it is the Conservatives who will continue to champion these values. It is the Conservatives who are the party of the worker.
Employment Rights: Government Plans — House of Commons, 2021-01-25
Topic: Labor
Robert Joseph Roberts (Conservative, Centre-right): The UK has high levels of workers’ rights. The hon. Members for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) and for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) have helped us to understand why we are having this debate, which is another episode in the long series of Labour Members’ bombastic scaremongering. First, they whip up anxiety on an emotive issue—today, employment rights. They undermine, they misrepresent and they scare the public. Then they bring it to the House and use the authority of this Chamber to legitimise their spin. Opposition day debates such as this never serve to shine a light on issues and foster positive debate; they serve only to attack and to stoke fear. The final stage is to bring the issue online. This is where we see the results of their dangerous rhetoric: it generates such divisive discourse and leads to horrific abuse of Conservative Members, ending with vandalism and even death threats, sadly often targeted at female Members. It has to stop It is correct that things such as fire and rehire are challenging, but they are part of an inherent flexibility that has to exist in the workplace but must be used responsibly. The Government have engaged ACAS to provide evidence and report on the situation, and I am confident that it will be properly dealt with. The national living wage is increasing, boosting the income of the lowest paid, and who is responsible? This Conservative Government. The £280 billion package of support to get people through the last 12 months, and beyond, has been brought in by this Government while the Labour party saw it as a good crisis to exploit. In many areas, the UK has higher levels of employment rights than were required as part of our EU membership, confirming that if we had wanted to have lower standards, we could have done, but did not—and do not intend to. Leaving the EU has not lowered our standards. It has given us the opportunity to continue to raise workers’ rights, just as we always have. I commend the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) for her ideas about assisting with child illness. Sadly, she is in the minority in her party in terms of helpful suggestions It is typical of the Labour party to avoid talking about the real issues. If it is not employment rights, it is the NHS. In 1997, Tony Blair warned us there were 14 days to save the NHS, then it was 24 hours on the day before polling. By 2012, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) declared we only had three months to save the NHS, before telling us again in 2015 that we only had 100 days. Despite these predictions of doom and disaster, it is still there, and it has brought us through some of the darkest and toughest months in recent history The Government are committed to strengthening and protecting workers’ rights, but Labour Members already know that. I urge them to buck up their ideas, drop the spin and join the real debates, because a strong Opposition make for a stronger Government, and that is what we should all be striving for.
Employment Rights: Government Plans — House of Commons, 2021-01-25
Topic: Labor
Marco Longhi (Conservative, Centre-right): A former Leader of the Opposition called businesses predators, but business is what makes Britain great. It is what will see us flourish outside the EU and what will help us all pull through this pandemic As the Opposition seem still to think that business is what sets workers’ rights back, let me give them some insight. The Thomas Dudley Group in my constituency is a family-owned group of manufacturing businesses in the Black Country, employing more than 400 people. Before the first lockdown last March, it made the decision to pay all employees up to 10 days’ full pay while they were off sick with the virus, rather than simply paying statutory sick pay. When lockdown inevitably impacted on the business it saw a 70% reduction in its turnover, but to protect as many staff as possible all directors took pay cuts of between 20% and 50%. Where parents were struggling with childcare, the business supported them to work from home or to change shifts to accommodate it. The business supported some employees with interest-free loans when they found themselves in hardship. It introduced flexitime working where possible to support a better work-life balance and is introducing long-service holidays of a day for every five years worked That does not sound to me like predator behaviour at all, and pitching business against workers, as Labour wants us to, is wrong for all concerned. Employers and employees must be given the flexibility to arrange the terms and conditions of employment. We should expect all employers to treat their workers fairly, much like Thomas Dudley in my constituency. However, there are businesses that appear to have pursued fire and rehire tactics. I have constituents who have been in touch with me about this who work for British Gas. When so many are worrying about their jobs and the impact the pandemic will have on their livelihoods, where it is affordable employers should treat their workers fairly and with compassion. I look forward to the outcomes of the work the Government are doing with ACAS better to understand the issue of firing and rehiring. It is essential that we all come together, whatever our political allegiances, to protect lives and livelihoods. The Opposition would do well to focus on job creation, rather than seeking ways to throttle the economy.
Employment Rights: Government Plans — House of Commons, 2021-01-25
Topic: Labor
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): There is a lot in this Opposition motion that we can all agree on, which is why the Government are right not to move a counter-amendment. None of us wishes to alter important employment rights such as rest breaks at work, nor should any Opposition MP want to alter the changes brought in by the Conservative Government of the last decade, such as shared parental leave and the national living wage, which has increased a 21-year-old’s earnings by over a third, or more than £5,200 a year. Let us never go back either on the near doubling of the tax-free allowance since 2010, which the Secretary of State referred to, and which amounts to an extra £1,000 a year of take-home pay So far, then, there is agreement. However, there were also telling things missing from the shadow Minister’s speech. First, there was a misreading of the Secretary of State, whose first announcement asked for faster payment of small businesses by big business, making sure that those companies—the subcontractors and the members of the Federation of Small Businesses and of the chambers of commerce, and which are the lifeblood of every constituency—get paid properly, especially during the pandemic There was a lot else that was missing. The second thing was that the shadow Minister failed to answer my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), who asked about the Labour party’s manifesto commitment to a four-day working week. If that is Labour’s recipe for increased productivity, success and Britain’s global way forward, I invite the shadow Minister to come down to Gloucester and talk to some of our Queen’s award-winning manufacturers to get a dose of reality. It is a competitive world, and we do not win with a four-day week The third missing element from the speech was that the Opposition did not look at themselves. The worst published cases of employer abuses of employee rights have been in Leicester. Which party runs the council, with 52 out of 54 councillors, and has an elected Mayor, returned three times, and three out of three MPs? It is a national embarrassment, and until Labour sorts out the abuses in Leicester, it should be careful about lecturing anyone on employment rights and protections The fourth missing ingredient was the most important issue of all: jobs and job creation in a pandemic and an economic crisis. Today, we know that employers have signed up to offer 120,000 six-month kickstart work placements as soon as it is possible for them to start. Government Departments, such as the Department for International Trade, are on the case too. In a few days, I will host a trade export event in Gloucester to help businesses find new markets, which I hope will lead to new jobs. It is businesses that drive new jobs, as the Secretary of State knows. That is why he is supporting my efforts on promoting more marine energy around our coasts, bringing green energy and sustainable jobs. That is what we need: skills and jobs.
Employment Rights: Government Plans — House of Commons, 2021-01-25
Topic: Labor
Christopher Lionel John Loder (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to declare that I am not a member of Unite or the GMB trade union. When I was elected, I thought I had left the union meetings behind on the railways, but no: today, it feels like I am gate-crashing a 1970s union meeting in the House of Commons, so socialism is definitely alive and well in today’s Labour party Here we are again. This is another example of the Labour party, rather than addressing the issues of the day, just wanting to stay wedded to the European Union. The EU position on employment rights is worse than the UK’s by a country mile, yet Labour wants us to be bound to EU standards. Maternity leave is 52 weeks in the UK, compared with just 14 in the EU. Annual leave is 28 days in the UK, compared with just 20 in the EU—I could go on We should ask ourselves why the Labour party has really brought this motion before the House today. I think it is because its union paymasters are pulling the strings. The GMB union sent me a briefing last night, so I thought I would do some research into its interest in this debate. That union has filled Labour MPs’ pockets with £360,000 during this Parliament alone, and Unite the union has put £578,000 into the pockets of 61 Labour MPs. These are the unions supposedly fighting for rights, when really all they are doing is funding the Labour party to suppress good, decent, hard-working people from choosing how much they work, earn and save with its proposed 32-hour working week This Conservative Government have almost doubled the personal income tax allowance, so a person can earn £12,500 before paying any tax. We have banned exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts. We now have shared parental leave, and we pay to give working parents that flexibility, too. These are signs not of a Government that want to reduce employment rights, but of one who will continue to strengthen them, despite the adversity of the Opposition.
Employment Rights: Government Plans — House of Commons, 2021-01-25
Topic: Labor
Suzanne Webb (Conservative, Centre-right): The Secretary of State has been very clear: we are not going to lower the standards of workers’ rights. There is no plan to do so—there is no doubt in this area—so where is the debate We have one of the best workers’ rights records in the world—rights that go much further than the EU’s—and high standards that were never dependent on our membership of the EU. The whole point of leaving the EU and acting as an independent country is that it is now up to the UK Government and elected MPs to decide what rules should apply—rules that work best for the UK, including on policies that strengthen protections for workers. The Government’s 2019 manifesto is clearly committed to raising workers’ rights’ standards. We expect all employers to treat their workers fairly and we condemn strongly the use of fire and hire as a negotiating tactic Seizing the new opportunities available to us outside the EU is exactly the reason why we left it. We wanted the flexibility to make our own decisions on how best to uphold our high standards, reinforcing our role as a global leader in areas of labour We should not forget that our flexible, dynamic market has increased employment levels. The UK has had the third lowest unemployment rate among the G7, which I am incredibly proud of, having seen unemployment when I was a young adult at its highest There was no need for a debate on this issue today. Debates such as these prey on people’s lives for the sole purpose of a social media clip for a political soundbite. We should all be working together and debating together on our plan for jobs and the road to recovery, spreading the good news about the fantastic kickstart scheme getting young people into work, keeping people in jobs, and giving people the confidence that while, yes, this pandemic has ruthlessly undermined both our national and personal economies, there is a route out of it This is the Government of the worker, and never more so than now. This is the time to come together for the sake of people’s livelihoods and jobs, and to allow this great and united nation to rise quickly above the mire of devastation the pandemic has inflicted on our jobs, the economy and people’s lives.
Employment Rights: Government Plans — House of Commons, 2021-01-25
Topic: Labor
Gary William Sambrook (Conservative, Centre-right): Another week and another attempt by the Opposition to scaremonger and spread fear—time that could have been used in this place to debate how we respond, collectively, to the pandemic and global health crisis, but time yet again wasted on providing social media videos to scare people across the country. It is as if the Labour party has some kind of holy trinity of scaremongering—the NHS, animal welfare and standards, and employment rights—which they attempt to scare people with time and again. It was Einstein who said that the definition of madness was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We saw it in 2010, 2015, the 2016 EU referendum, 2017 and 2019. Again and again, these arguments were deployed across the country and every single time those arguments were rejected roundly by the public I genuinely think Labour Members do not understand the British working class anymore. It is because of our NHS, it is because of our standards in animal welfare and food, and because of our employment rights that people are proud to be British. Time and again, at every election and at every opportunity such as today, they see Labour MP after Labour MP talking down this country and its achievements—the very reasons why we are able to stand tall around the world. It is because of the living wage of £10.50 by 2024 that people are proud to be British. It is because of our 28-week sick pay that they are proud to be British. It is because of our 52 weeks maternity leave that they are proud to be British. And it is because of our minimum 28 days annual leave that they are proud to be British Every time we hear from Opposition Members, they try to make the same comparisons with the European Union and the ways that British standards are inferior, but it does not take five seconds to Google those comparisons. There is no requirement in the European Union for a living wage. There is no minimum for sick pay. There is 14 weeks compared with our own 52 weeks for maternity leave, and 20 days rather than 28 for minimum annual leave. It is because of this that people do not believe these scaremongering tactics. It is because of this that they dismiss their many Facebook and Twitter videos. When they look at the Labour party, they no longer see a serious alternative Government, because on occasions such as this, when it could step up to the challenge and debate the issues facing this country, it decides—