argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Environment
Clive Anthony Lewis (Labour, Centre-left): The UK’s credibility as COP president rests on demonstratable climate action at home, yet much like the Government’s failed pandemic response, which has left 130,000 people dead, the Government are acting too slowly, prioritising profit over public wellbeing. The Government’s boasts of our road building, and their plans of cutting £1 billion from the public rail infrastructure budget and allowing the Cumbria coalmine to go ahead are simply not compatible with achieving net zero. Will the Minister therefore admit that the Government’s stated ideological beliefs are incompatible with even their own meagre climate goals?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Environment
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): I have never been called that before I warmly welcome the President of COP26 to his full- time role. It is in all our interests that he should succeed, and we want to do everything that we can to help. The central judgment of COP26’s success is whether it keeps alive the Paris target of limiting global warming to 1.5°. To make that happen, the UN says that we need to more than halve global greenhouse gas emissions from 52 gigatonnes today to 25 gigatonnes by 2030. Will he assure us that he recognises the scale of this challenge and the need for maximum ambition, and tell the House how close to that target he thinks we can get at COP26?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: International Affairs
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): A crucial issue for the success of the COP is international finance for developing countries, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, and they are facing poverty, the pandemic and climate change. Yet the Government have shamefully chosen this moment to cut £25 billion to £30 billion from overseas aid over the course of this Parliament. They say that they are protecting climate aid, but they have not set out what that means year on year, so will he guarantee today that, in the coming financial year when the COP takes place, there will be no cut to the level of the UK’s climate finance budget or to the climate programmes that we fund?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Environment
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): Zero Carbon Humber is a partnership that aims to build the world’s first net zero carbon industrial cluster while creating high-quality green jobs. My question simply is: will the COP President look kindly on its submission of interest to be part of COP26?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Macroeconomics
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): Here is the difference. If you need £500 to isolate, you are out of luck. If you have got the Health Secretary’s WhatsApp, you get a £1 million contract Turning to next week’s Budget, I do not expect the Prime Minister to pre-empt what is in the Budget—if I want that, I can read it on the front page of The Times —but will he at least agree with me today that now is not the time for tax rises for families and for businesses?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Macroeconomics
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): The Prime Minister wants to talk about tax rises, and he should, because it matters. Councils up and down the country are being forced to decide now whether to put council tax up. That is a £2 billion rise on families. I am not blaming councils. They have been starved of funding for a decade, and Labour and Conservative councils are in the same position. For example, the Prime Minister might want to concentrate on his own constituency. His own council, Conservative-run Hillingdon, is voting to increase council tax by 4.8%. Does the Prime Minister think that the council is right to do that?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Macroeconomics
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): The fact is that £15 billion has been taken out of council budgets over the last 10 years. The Prime Minister should stop blaming others for the damage he has done. He quotes the Mayor. This is the former Mayor who bought water cannon that could not be used, spent millions on a garden bridge that never got built and then more recently gave a pay rise to Dominic Cummings This is yet another PMQs with no answers. The truth is this. The Government spent a decade weakening the foundations of our economy and our country. As a result, we have the highest death toll in Europe. We have the worst recession of any major economy. Families are facing council tax rises and millions cannot afford to self-isolate. And all the Prime Minister offers is a return to business as usual. Next week’s Budget is a chance to choose a different path, to build a stronger future, to protect families, to give our key workers the pay rise they deserve and to back British businesses by supporting 100,000 new start-ups. Will the Prime Minister do so?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Education
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): The education and wellbeing recovery of children from the pandemic is one of the biggest challenges facing our country. We went into this pandemic with rising child poverty, a widening attainment gap, and school funding falling in real terms. Given that, does the Prime Minister believe that the 43 pence per pupil per day announced today really cuts it? If he does, would he be happy to see that amount spent on his own children?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Education
Rosemary Elizabeth Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): There has been much focus of late on children returning safely to school. In my constituency, successive cohorts of pupils have had to wade through overflowing drains to get into school, and they are routinely evacuated from flooded classrooms. That takes a huge toll on the quality of their learning. Will the Prime Minister work again with Lancashire County Council and the headteacher of Town Green Primary School to ensure that no child in West Lancashire loses a vital day of education, especially to flooding-related issues?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Social Welfare
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I was disappointed that the Prime Minister did not accept my offer to meet him when he recently visited my constituency’s wonderful Fujifilm vaccine complex in Billingham to celebrate our local success story. I could have taken him to nearby Billingham food bank, where he would have learned that over a third of the children in my constituency live in poverty, yet two in five of those same children are still not entitled to free school meals because the threshold is so low. Will he urgently address that scandal, take long-term action on universal credit and school meals, and help free our children from poverty?
Covid Contracts: Judicial Review — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Government Operations
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): Covid contracts continue to be literally a matter of life and death, so the public are right to expect accountability and transparency. While nurses wore bin bags instead of proper PPE, contracts were handed out to Ministers’ mates. Will the Minister do the right thing and, at the very least, reveal the 29 businesses Serco outsourced operations to?
Covid Contracts: Judicial Review — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Government Operations
Bellavia Janet Ribeiro-Addy (Labour, Centre-left): The scandal surrounding covid contracts has not just been about the lack of transparency, but about the poor performance of these companies: £350 million to PestFix for PPE that did not meet the required standards; another £347 million to Randox, which had failed on its original £133 million contract by distributing test kits that were not sterile; and, of course, the millions to Serco and others that failed with the track and trace system. Does the Minister agree that all public sector contractors should be held to the highest standard, no matter who their friends are, and will he outline what plans the Government have to hold such contractors to account and recoup millions of pounds of public money, or will he uphold these standards depending on whether the contractors have links with the Conservative party?
Covid Contracts: Judicial Review — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Government Operations
Margaret Olivia Hillier (Labour, Centre-left): I will touch on that point first. Paragraph 18 of the summary says exactly what the Minister said, but it then goes on to say, however, that frontline workers reported shortages of PPE. It does not behove him well to come to this House clearly having had Back Benchers briefed about a partial element of the National Audit Office’s report that is inaccurate when taken in the round. He needs to deal with that point My bigger point is on the transparency of the contracts. The Minister has talked breathlessly about the urgency at the early stage of the pandemic. Let us be clear: by the end of the summer and the autumn, many of the contracts had still not been published. The civil service is usually good at record-keeping and transparency, but on this occasion there was a failure. He should have the guts to come to the House, apologise, and promise it will not happen again. More transparency, not less, is vital when billions of pounds are being spent, in haste in a pandemic.
Covid Contracts: Judicial Review — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Government Operations
Peter John Kyle (Labour, Centre-left): There are 60,000 pub landlords in this country and many of them have lots to give in a time of crisis, but is it not a coincidence that the one who gets a massive contract happens to be the one who has the mobile phone number of the Health Secretary? There are hundreds of racehorse owners in this country. Is it not funny that it just so happens that the one who gets a top job, without the need for an interview, happens to be a mate of the Health Secretary? And on and on it goes. If this behaviour was going on in a country in the developing world, there would be howls of "Corruption!" from those on the Tory Benches and calls for the aid budget to be cut. Is it not true that, when it comes to jobs for friends, dodgy contracts and all the rest that has been going on which has been normalised by this Government, they and the Tory party have a blind spot?
Covid Contracts: Judicial Review — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Ruth Lorraine Jones (Labour, Centre-left): The people of Newport West have looked at the media reports, the court judgments and the answers given in this House on this matter with horror. There appears to be no respect for honest, law-abiding citizens who play by the rules, and that is unacceptable, so when will Ministers finally show their respect for the will of the people and the ruling of the court and stop this reckless behaviour?
Uber: Supreme Court Ruling — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Labor
Andrew Joseph McDonald (Labour, Centre-left): Last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling on Uber was a landmark victory for working people, and testament to the hard work of the GMB union, the App Drivers and Couriers Union and the drivers who brought the action. It rejected Uber’s bogus claim that its drivers are self-employed, ruling instead that they are workers and therefore entitled to basic rights that they have so far been denied, such at the national minimum wage and holiday pay. The ruling has far-reaching consequences for tens of thousands of Uber drivers as well as all gig economy workers Yet Uber is attempting to dodge the Supreme Court’s ruling, just as it attempts to dodge its responsibilities to its drivers, by trying to interpret the ruling so that it applies to only a tiny minority of its workforce. If Uber ignores the ruling, tens of thousands of workers will be cheated out of their rights, forcing low-paid and precarious workers to spend time and money that they can ill afford in order to litigate to recover withheld wages, in cases that they will likely win but will take years to conclude. The Government should not abandon working people to fight for their rights in the courts, so will the Minister take this opportunity to make it clear that the judgment applies to all Uber drivers, and that the company cannot continue to cheat its drivers out of their basic rights Even before the pandemic, one in 10 working adults—around 5 million—were found to be working in the gig economy, in fragile and insecure work, and with one-sided flexibility. It is bad for those workers, bad for the economy and, as we have seen from the pandemic, a disaster for public health. Will the Minister confirm that the principles of the judgment in the Uber case must apply not only to all Uber drivers, but to all those on similar arrangements across the country Let me say again that the Government cannot abrogate their responsibility by telling workers to fight for their basic protection through an employment tribunal system that barely functions following a decade of neglect. Working people need a Government who will stand behind them, so will the Minister commit now to legislate to end bogus self-employment and provide security to all gig economy workers?
Uber: Supreme Court Ruling — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Labor
Michael Lee Amesbury (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister agree with the GMB union, which fought this legal battle for four years, that now is the time for Uber to face up to its legal and moral responsibilities, pay decent wages and give decent holidays to its employees? It truly is time to legislate, legislate, legislate, rather than look again.
Uber: Supreme Court Ruling — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Transportation
Zarah Sultana (Labour, Centre-left): The Court ruling has confirmed that taxis are a form of public transport, but they are the only ones to not receive coronavirus-specific funding. Will the Government urgently launch a sector-specific support package for taxis set at the same pro rata level as funding for the bus sector and applied retrospectively?
Uber: Supreme Court Ruling — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Labor
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): I know that these issues are close to your heart, Madam Deputy Speaker, as a constituency neighbour of mine, so it is good to see you in the Chair Does not the Minister understand that these issues cannot just be left to the courts and that, in this David versus Goliath battle with big multinational companies that are exploiting workers, avoiding tax and flouting safety rules, people need to see the Government on their side? With that in mind, will the Government finally legislate to give gig economy workers the protection they deserve? Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana), is not it finally time to give taxi drivers and private hire drivers the support they desperately need as a result of the impact that the pandemic has had on the pound in their pockets?
Uber: Supreme Court Ruling — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Labor
Janet Jessica Daby (Labour, Centre-left): The Government have previously pledged that they will bring forward an employment Bill to make the UK "the best place in the world to work." If that is true, can the Minister tell us why we are yet to see a Bill—or has it been kicked down the road indefinitely?
Uber: Supreme Court Ruling — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Labor
Justin Piers Richard Madders (Labour, Centre-left): It is a disgrace that people have had to fight court battles over four years to get basic employment rights, and the Minister must recognise that the only reason they have had to do so is that the Government have sat on their hands for too long. Will the Government finally recognise that the trade-off between flexibility and security is an illusion, and legislate so that everyone who is in work can get the basic protections they should be entitled to in a civilised society?
Uber: Supreme Court Ruling — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Transportation
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests about my membership of the GMB, which drove this historic victory, along with others. I work closely with drivers in my constituency, many of whom are GMB and Unite members, and I want to praise the Welsh Labour Government for the support that they have given drivers in grants, support and free personal protective equipment during the covid crisis However, many of the drivers tell me that although most taxi and private hire drivers charge on average £2.20 to £2.40 a mile, Uber pays only £1.10 to £1.25 a mile. Many drivers are getting into serious debt or even bankruptcy. What will the Minister do to ensure that drivers of Uber and beyond get a fair day’s pay from a fair day’s work?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Government Operations
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The last year has been difficult for so many people at work, and as our constituents’ lives have been thrown into uncertainty by covid, our staff teams have been dealing with more cases than ever. In my office, our workload has increased by over 300%. That is why I was so frustrated, to put it mildly, to read about a study by King’s College London, which sent fake casework to MPs, including me, to test how efficiently our staff responded. Our small but wonderful teams are working all the hours they can to answer genuine constituents’ concerns. It is unacceptable that people faked being constituents, and took up time that could have been spent helping real people. Our time is paid for by the taxpayer, and this is a gross exploitation of that. It is unethical, it is a waste of taxpayers’ money, and it shows a complete lack of understanding of the pressures on our offices’ resources a year into a global pandemic Madam Deputy Speaker, could you please advise me on how I can put on record my thanks to MPs’ staff across the House at this busy, stressful time, including GMB and Unite staff branch members, and could you please advise the House on how we can ensure that our staff’s time and public funds are not wasted like this again?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Government Operations
Margaret Olivia Hillier (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In a previous urgent question, a Minister came to the House and cited the National Audit Office in support of arguments that he was making about the procurement of personal protective equipment in the middle of the pandemic. This is a growing trend. Ministers come to the House, or appear in the media, and cite the National Audit Office, as though comments in those report are a conclusion and a determination by the National Audit Office Will you help the House and Ministers, Madam Deputy Speaker, by telling me and others how Mr Speaker can enforce the understanding that the National Audit Office is an independent body, headed by the Comptroller and Auditor General, who is an officer of this House, and whose integrity should never be questioned, and that reference to the NAO should never be used in an improper way in this House or in the media to back up arguments that it does not back up? I have the privilege of reading all the National Audit Office reports, and I see them in the round. We are all careful with this, but it would be very helpful if you could rule as Chair on what you think could be done to improve how these reports are used by Ministers in particular.
Covid-19: Support with Essential Living Costs — House of Commons, 2021-05-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): Hard-working, law-abiding families without indefinite leave to remain have not had as much support as others during the covid-19 outbreak because of the effect of the no recourse to public funds condition. Some of those families have been able to benefit from the job retention scheme, so how will they be supported after that scheme closes in September?
Universal Credit Uplift — House of Commons, 2021-05-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): Since 2010 poverty has risen significantly in all parts of the UK, so much so that, despite having a job, one in eight workers are living in poverty under this Conservative Government. Given that the Government are adamant that they will make this cut to universal credit, which will affect people in work, should we understand that despite the Prime Minister’s levelling-up agenda, in-work poverty will continue to rise?
Universal Credit Uplift — House of Commons, 2021-05-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): I say to the Minister that work is the best route out of poverty but it has not been working for the last 11 years, and the evidence is there for all to see Many disabled people are worse off on universal credit than under the old legacy systems. Ministers know this because they were forced to introduce transitional protections and, when speaking in this Chamber, always urge people to use a benefits calculator when applying in case moving to universal credit would cost them money. Keeping the universal credit uplift would go some of the way, although not all the way, towards mitigating this unfairness, so if the universal credit cut goes ahead what is the Government’s proposed solution for these disabled people—or is this yet another area where the Government actually plan to level down?
In-work Poverty — House of Commons, 2021-05-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Emma Louise Lewell-Buck (Labour, Centre-left): I am not at all surprised that the Minister’s answer bears little resemblance to the reality. Even pre-pandemic, 75% of children living in poverty lived in a household where at least one person worked. A recent NHS England-funded report found that around 700 child deaths could be avoided each year by reducing deprivation rates. Under this Government, work is no longer a route out of poverty. Why is that?
In-work Poverty — House of Commons, 2021-05-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): In my Rochdale constituency, no ward has fewer than one in five children living in poverty. Some wards have over half of all children living in poverty, and the bulk of those have parents who are working. That is a scandal. What is also a scandal is that the Minister insists that work always pays and keeps people out of poverty. It does not. What can he say to my constituents to assure them that they will be part of a genuine levelling-up process, with money in their pockets and their children not living in poverty?
In-work Poverty — House of Commons, 2021-05-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour, Centre-left): Over the years, Ministers have parroted the same lines over and over again on poverty, which is that work is the route out of it. Elements of the right-wing media have been trying to unscrupulously label hard-working people as scroungers from the welfare state, yet the true legacy of a decade of Tory Government is that the number of households in poverty where at least one adult is working increased by almost 2 million people. What are the Government going to do to rectify that unacceptable situation and ensure that hard-working Brits get a decent wage?
Kickstart: Youth Unemployment — House of Commons, 2021-05-17
Topic: Labor
Matthew Raymond Western (Labour, Centre-left): I am afraid it is more damp squib than kickstart. An IT support and services company in my constituency started the much vaunted kickstart process on 15 September last year, with the expectation that it could recruit after 30 days. Eight months on, it still does not have anyone. Its conclusion: the scheme is pretty much a waste of everyone’s time and resources. Put simply, does this explain the fact that for every 25 young people who have lost their jobs over the past 12 months, kickstart has helped just one back into work?