argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Oliver James Dowden (Conservative, Centre-right): First and foremost, we are introducing a national living wage, which will deal with the current problem and give people a massive pay rise. Ultimately, however, there is a wider point to be made. Opposition Members are decrying every single measure in the Bill, but if they oppose our welfare reform measures, they must be able to tell the House and their constituents what measures they themselves plan to introduce. Which other welfare costs do they intend to cut, and which other taxes do they intend to increase—or do they intend to continue to borrow, thus forcing our level of national debt ever higher That is the contrast between Labour and the Conservatives, who are willing to make difficult decisions. None of us enjoys making those decisions, but we make them in a principled fashion that sets the economy and the country on the right track.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Labor
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): There are many measures in this Bill, but I shall discuss just one or two aspects of it I am the vice-chairman of the all-party group on youth employment and I am delighted that under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) its name has been changed from "youth unemployment" to "youth employment", showing a more positive outlook. Likewise, this Bill is called the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, which also shows a welcome direction of travel Clause 1 has the welcome ambition of reaching full employment and a reporting obligation to ensure that we here in Parliament are regularly updated on progress. Over the past two and a half years I have had the pleasure to run a jobs club in my constituency, from the Pilot pub in Canford Heath, and I pay tribute to its landlady, Lisa Ballet, for being so community spirited and permitting that jobs club to exist The claimant count in Mid Dorset and North Poole is down to 312. Of course I do not claim credit for that entirely, but I do welcome the ambition to lower the claimant count in my constituency. Although I would ordinarily guard against targets and a target culture, if this is simply an ambition, then I welcome it, and I look forward to the numbers in work in my constituency increasing over the coming Parliament.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Labor
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my Dorset constituency neighbour agree that we have to view alongside the tax allowances measures the increase in the minimum wage with the aspiration of going to the living wage? For areas such as those in Dorset that we represent where median or average wages are quite low, those are real incentives to get back into work.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour Clause 3 sets out the reporting obligations for the troubled families programme and I pay tribute to that programme in Dorset, which is aimed at the hardest-to-reach families. There are potential long-term cost benefits because these are the families that cost the country the most, but more importantly these are the families that are most likely to benefit from this measure, and I welcome it Opposition Members have from the outset expressed concerns about scrapping the current child poverty measure, and they have done so again this evening. However, scrapping that measure is not the same as scrapping the route out of poverty; it is quite the opposite in fact, as that child poverty measure was flawed and did not provide a proper test of whether children’s lives were improving. For example, in the aftermath of the recent recession the number of children in poverty went down significantly under the old measure; in one year it fell by 300,000. Does that mean that those children’s lives were really altered in such a way as a result of the recession? Of course not; a shrinking economy is not the way to raise children out of poverty A second example, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden), is the arbitrary line introduced by the last Labour Government. Does tipping a family that falls just below an arbitrary line up above it really mean poverty has been alleviated? Of course not I encourage Opposition Members to support this Bill, as it is aimed at the real causes of poverty. It addresses family breakdown, school attendance and attainment and levels of work within the family. It focuses on ways to make a real improvement to children’s lives rather than offering illusory measures As I have said, the most vulnerable must be protected. There must be a safety net but, by removing disincentives to work, introducing a living wage and reducing the benefits cap, this Bill will encourage more people away from a life on benefits and towards the real benefits of getting into work—better health, greater wellbeing and the self-esteem that comes from being in work. Work really is the best way out of poverty.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you for calling me to speak in this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall start by focusing on one or two comments that Members made earlier and then return to a central issue—getting those with disabilities back into work The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) said that 3 million strivers will be hammered. I am a great fan of his—he is the Chairman of the Select Committee of which I am a member, and I am sorry he is not in the Chamber to hear this—but his gloom tonight was focused on two things. The first is the big problem of unity and what approach to take to welfare and work within his own party. The second is an underlying belief that the only way to help the poor is ultimately to increase benefits from taxpayers, and that the only way out of poverty is to grow a tax credits bill that is already, at £30 billion a year, far greater than in the similar populations of France or Germany, and is, in the words of the former Chancellor, previously the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West, "subsidising lower wages in a way that was never intended" when it was first introduced by the Government of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead The reason the right hon. Gentleman and his party are discombobulated on the issue is that they rightly feared a reduction in benefits before an increase in wages and did not expect that my party, the party of compassionate conservatism, would implement precisely that: a national living wage considerably above that mooted by their former leader, plus an expansion of the tax-free allowance that will take the amount one can earn without paying income tax to almost double by 2020 the £6,500 allowance of 2010. They know that higher wages, lower tax and less welfare is the right way forward, because there was no social justice in spending over £170 billion more than we received in tax revenues, leaving the interest on Labour’s debts alone—the interest alone—costing us more than the entire education budget. There is no social justice in spending more on benefits—on the interest on all that debt—than on helping our children with education and giving them the chance to attain and to go on to good jobs Some of Labour’s leadership candidates have realised that point and seen that there are no more sweeties in the sweet bag and no credible alternative to this overall philosophy of higher wages, lower tax and less welfare— unless one believes that living within one’s means is always for someone else and not for us, and one wishes to follow an anti-austerity programme that has led a country like Greece to the brink of disaster. That is a political option, but it is not one that the city of Gloucester would ever want this country to follow I turn briefly to the second part of my speech. The Chancellor promised in his Budget speech that we would always support the elderly, the vulnerable and the disabled.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Jeremy Mark Quin (Conservative, Centre-right): Our hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) said that £30 billion a year is being spent on disability living allowance and on similar allowances. Does my hon. Friend agree all Government Members welcome that?
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that the current welfare bill is unsustainable, but he is also right—I have heard him say this in Select Committee meetings—to say it is vital that we support the elderly, the vulnerable and the disabled. It is true that the Work programme has been far more successful for those on JSA than for those on ESA. The question therefore is: how do we help those people with disabilities who are currently not getting a job and not benefiting from the Work programme in the same way as those on JSA Some 61% of those in the ESA work-related action group say that they want to work, and the evidence is that they do. I have heard from charities and from people with disabilities in my constituency how passionately they want to have the same working opportunities as the rest of us, so what can we do to help them? The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), in his role as the Minister for disabled people, has the ambitious task of halving the number of people with disabilities who are out of work. He will need some innovative thinking to help him, so let me make a couple of suggestions.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Labor
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady raises a perfectly valid point. There is a philosophical difference here: do we take the difference between what they currently get on ESA and JSA and use that money to help give them the greater support that should get them into jobs, or do we just carry on as we are, knowing that the current programme is not that successful? We have to do something different. We have to do more in the Work programme to make it more likely that people with disabilities will get jobs. The jobs are there; all the statistics tell us that more jobs are available than there are people looking for them, but those with disabilities are not getting them at the moment. They need more help with resilience and confidence—the things that make a difference when people go to an interview. They need employers who understand, so the Disability Confident programme is important. They need—we need—providers to understand that they must do more to help, and in return we probably need to give more cash up front, rather than depending solely on payment by returns for those in the ESA category. We MPs need to do our bit. When we hold job fairs, how many of us focus on those on ESA? It is time to tilt our jobs fairs away from those on JSA and towards those with disabilities and on ESA. We can do that, with the help of the Department for Work and Pensions There is much to be done, and I believe Ministers are aware that when they review the Work programme they will have to innovate to make sure that those with disabilities and on ESA stand a better chance of winning jobs in a competitive marketplace. We need to do more to help employers realise the importance of this. All of us need to do more as Members to inspire our residents and our businesses to apply for those jobs and to help them win them. That will be vital in reducing the working age welfare cost from 13% of all public spending at the moment to a more reasonable figure.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Heidi-Suzanne Allen (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you. I do not have children, so I often tread carefully in these sorts of debates because I do not want people to point the finger and say, "Well, you don’t understand." But I am certain of one thing: a choice between one, two or three children is a choice. If you cannot afford it, why should the taxpayer subsidise you? Can she answer that? [Interruption.]
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the hon. Lady recognise The Children’s Society’s comments? It said it supports plans to add additional reporting requirements on parental employment and educational attainment as these are important in contributing to children’s welfare. I know she would say that these were additional, not a substitute, but does she recognise that they are important measures to study?
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Social Welfare
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): We hear that there is something of a quandary among Labour Members about how to vote, perhaps characterised as a decision on whether they go for political pragmatism or principles of social justice. Let me assure them that they need not worry. If they vote with us, they will be voting for social justice, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) said, this Bill is based fundamentally on social justice I want to highlight the three key principles that show that this Bill is about social justice. The first and most important relates to the dependency culture. There is an idea among Labour Members that if benefits are reduced, that will be it: people will be static and will never be able to go out into the workplace and improve their situation. We have to accept, however, that those benefits are far too generous—£30 billion a year is huge—particularly the individual awards to workers I have run a small business and have seen what it is like. People earn £13,000 from work and a similar amount from tax credits. In that situation, benefits are permanent. How can someone in that position ever reduce their benefit take when the amount they need to earn from work in order to overcome it is so big? That represents a massive extension of the dependency culture, and taking the tough decisions to row it back is a socially just agenda, which I support The second key principle relates to fairness to taxpayers. After all, the working population have to pay for these benefits. I strongly support the benefits cap. There is a great social injustice when people in work earn less than those on benefits. That may not happen in a large number of cases, but we should never accept it. It should be a key principle of our welfare system always to seek to reduce the benefits bill and increase in-work wages. That is our agenda, which will come through in the national living wage The third principle is the move towards full employment. I want to focus on a point that the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) made several times in his speech. He said that the measures attack work incentives, but I am afraid that that simply does not stack up in the real world. I am talking not just about my experience; every other employer to whom I have spoken who, like me, has had staff on tax credits, finds it difficult. That is particularly the case with part-time staff who are on tax credits: they do not want to work any more hours and often do not even want to take pay rises, because of the dependency system. That is what we are up against.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Labor
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): The employment statistics are very much on the side of the agenda we have been pursuing: employment is now at a record high. The fact is that this Bill is socially just because it will enable people to stand on their own two feet and to support themselves through their wages, not rely on the state. That is a sound Conservative principle.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Labor
Heidi-Suzanne Allen (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to reiterate two of the points my hon. Friend has made. First, I am also an employer and have lost count of the number of times part-time workers have turned down wage increases or further hours—when I know that their households are short of money—purely because of tax credits. On the flipside, just this Friday I was visited in one of my constituency surgeries by a young married lady with three autistic children—it is a very sad case—who was scared to accept payment for the precious hours she worked as a volunteer teacher, for fear of having her benefits taken away.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend corroborates my point. I repeat that this is not a fantasy: every employer to whom I have spoken is wrestling with this situation. Tax credits can work as disincentives. I accept the point made by the right hon. Member for East Ham about lone parent employment, but to be completely honest I do not have that statistic to hand. The general statistics on employment are extremely strong Our agenda is one whereby we will reduce benefits but raise wages. Real wages are now increasing sharply. Obviously, after the credit crunch there was a period when wages were static. It was very difficult to follow that financial shock with a strong recovery, but we have achieved economic stability. The next stage is to share our prosperity more widely and the key to that is not the benefits system or dependency, but higher wages and people supporting themselves. That is a sound Conservative agenda, but it is also socially just.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Marcus John Hudson Fysh (Conservative, Centre-right): In 2003 the former Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath was spending 0.9% of GDP on tax credits. Under his stewardship that rose to 1.9% of GDP in 2010. By 2020, this Government will have brought that down again to 1.2%, which will still be one third more than the highest levels of spending on tax credits under Labour from 1997 to 2003 I support the Government’s desire to focus our welfare spending on those who are particularly vulnerable, and to make the system encourage work and people doing better at work. Welfare should be a safety net, not a net that ensnares those it is meant to help. People understand that welfare must be reformed, and even some Labour Members know that the system needs to change and that Gordon Brown’s attempt to create a client state was wrong. His use of tax credits to flatter his relative poverty measure was disingenuous People in Britain find abuse of welfare distasteful. A week ago a constituent who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness came to me. He may have a more difficult time under these measures, but he said, "I’m so glad that you are tackling this because the level of welfare is completely unfair on people who work." The Bill is full of positive steps such as measuring the root causes of poverty and rightly emphasising the positive intent in calling the measurement process "life chances".
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Marcus John Hudson Fysh (Conservative, Centre-right): We need to enable more people to get better work, and that is what my Government are focused on doing There are other very good measures in this package, such as keeping financial support for people in difficulty with their mortgages, and ensuring that people who claim benefits now face the same choices as people in work. We need to ensure that a job always pays better than welfare and turns life chances around It is telling that the Opposition are so divided on these issues, tabling conflicting amendments and saying they will come up with more later. Who knows what they will support in the end? What we do know is that the Liberal Democrats have for now, by their blanket opposition, moved further to the left than the Labour party and into the same basket as the SNP. No longer do they seem to have any intention of balancing the budget and rebuilding our finances I commend the Bill to the House.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Commons, 2015-07-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): When viewed alongside the recent Budget, this important Bill shows a clear determination among Conservative Members and the Government to recalibrate Britain and our society in a way that is to be welcomed for the reasons that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends have given I support the Bill wholeheartedly, but many Members will be looking for further detail and clarity as it progresses. In particular, I draw Ministers’ attention to carers and the need to ensure that local authorities have enough money to deliver the troubled families programme, which I welcome. Additional thinking also needs to be given to the condition regarding a woman having to prove rape. That is an enormously sensitive issue on which further work and clarity are needed Government Members have sat and listened to this debate in amazement. In the speeches of Opposition Members, Ministers have resembled the four horsemen of the apocalypse, riding through the town, with the firstborn having to be sold and vital organs having to be cut out to pay the bills. It has been a debate riven by ideology; not the ideology of the Government, who have approached the Bill as a pragmatic and one nation Government, but the ideology of the left—both the separatists and the Labour party—which believes that welfare is and should be a lifestyle choice. I do not know which planet some Opposition Members are living on if they do not believe that certain people in society have made a choice. Under the system that has been allowed to emerge under Governments of both colours, welfare has ceased to be a safety net and has become a way of life. Let us return to the welfare system that Beveridge envisaged: a helping hand up, and a safety net below which no fellow citizen should fall Some may want to wade through vomit, like the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), but I suggest that the hon. Gentleman is wading through the primeval swamp, for the Labour party is clearly in disarray. No Labour leadership contender was prepared to put his or her name to either the Opposition or the rebel reasoned amendment I listened with great attention to the Scottish nationalists this afternoon, because, according to the press, they can no longer say their Rs. Well, they could certainly say their Rs today, but I am afraid that, when it comes to welfare reform and economic management, they do not know their Rs from their elbow The Bill will reward work, incentivise our fellow citizens, and, most importantly, deliver fairness to hard-working families and the taxpayers who have to pay the bill. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has worked hard on this Bill, and it deserves the full support of the House.