argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
State Pension Age (Women) — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Labor
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right. When the Pensions Act 2011 was debated in the House of the Commons, the current Secretary of State said, "but we will consider transitional arrangements."—[Official Report, 20 June 2011; Vol. 530, c. 52.] Where are they? Those ladies are still waiting. It is about time the Secretary of State came to the Dispatch Box and set out those transitional arrangements, because those women cannot wait forever We have already had the first U-turn from the former Pensions Minister, who said that he was not properly briefed. That says a lot about the calibre of Liberal Democrat Ministers in the former coalition Government. Now we have a Pensions Minister in the other place, who was a champion for those ladies until she took the Queen’s shilling. She now says that she cannot do anything about it. What utter nonsense. What is the point of having a Minister if she cannot do anything about it? It is time that Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions got off their backsides and did something to help those women Following on from my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), I will give the Minister some friendly advice. I appreciate that it is not his area of responsibility but that of the noble Lady at the other end of the building who speaks on pensions. My hon. Friend likened the WASPI ladies to wasps. Wasps can be pests and nuisances. They cannot easily be bashed away and, when that happens, they get angry and come back. If they are really annoyed, they sting and, unlike bees, they can sting more than once. Let us have some justice for these ladies; it is long overdue.
State Pension Age (Women) — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Labor
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): I want briefly to talk about the situation of two women who have contacted me. The first was born in July 1953 and expected to retire at 60. This initially increased to 62 years and three months. She had no problem with that because she had been given plenty of notice and agreed with the gradual move towards equality of retirement age for men and women. Then, of course, with no warning, the retirement age was increased, so she now has to wait until she is 64 before she gets her higher state pension. The injustice is in the way it has been done—on a sliding scale—which means that some people in her class at school will get their pensions almost two years before her, despite their having worked for the same length of time and the same number of pension years. My constituent is still working but says she is fortunate because she has a good civil service pension. She is deeply concerned, however, that many other women rely on their state pension and now find they have to wait for many more years to get it, as discussed this afternoon. Another constituent of mine is in that unfortunate position. She worked for 20 years as a secretary, and although the male workers in the company were automatically enrolled in the company pension scheme, women were not. It was very different for women in those days. My constituent has arthritis and is continuing to work as a cleaner because she simply cannot afford not to. She also agrees with pension reform to equalise the retirement age. That is not a problem for women; it is the way it is being done that is so very upsetting. Younger women have had to time to adjust to, and plan for, these retirement dates and the changes. Women such as my constituent, however, do not have that opportunity I am willing to give the Government the benefit of the doubt and say that perhaps they did not understand just how many women would be affected. I can accept that, but what I cannot get my head around is why they are refusing to look at it again. To me, this is simply callous. You know so many women are being affected; you could look again; you could listen; you could change things—[Interruption.] Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker I ask the Government to look again at the people who have been disproportionately affected. They should listen to what those people are saying and get up and do something to help.
State Pension Age (Women) — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Labor
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): I commend the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) for securing and opening this debate. It is perhaps an irony, however, as we are discussing pensions, that she is further from retirement age than any other Member of this House. I also want to pay a warm tribute to WASPI on its campaign and the dignity with which it has conducted it. It is a measure of the campaign’s success that every Member of this House knows the meaning of the acronym WASPI. I also pay tribute to the other groups and individuals who have been advocating the cause of women born in the 1950s The level of interest in this debate is summed up by the fact that we have had 26 Back-Bench contributions from Members from all parts of the United Kingdom. I want to pick out two contributions: that of my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who has done so much work on this in recent years, and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), whose deep commitment to this is known across the House I also want to pay tribute to my Labour colleagues who in 2011, when the Pensions Act was going through this House, pressed the issue of transitional provisions as hard as they could. It is a shame the Government did not listen to many of our proposals set out at the time.
State Pension Age (Women) — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Labor
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): That points to what has happened here. In previous debates on this matter the Minister has talked about the cap on the increase being reduced from 24 to 18 months, but that was as far as it got, and we see the Government today have no positive proposals. They keep asking the Opposition about their proposals, but it is the Government whose mind has gone completely blank on this issue Let us not forget the fundamentals of this debate. Many women born in the 1950s will have started their working lives without even the protection of the Equal Pay Act 1970. Many of those women will have been paid at a lower rate than men for no reason other than that they were women. The gender pay gap is at its widest for many of the women under discussion today. Also, let us not forget the time that many of them took to work part-time or bring up children when they have not even had the chance to contribute to occupational pensions The Pensions Act 1995 increased the state pension age from 60 to 65 for women between April 2010 and 2020, to bring it into line with the state pension age for men, but the coalition Government moved the goalposts. They decided to accelerate the increase in the women’s state pension age from April 2016 so that it reached 65 by November 2018. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) has pointed out, in the Second Reading debate in this House on 20 June 2011 the Secretary of State made it absolutely clear that the Government would "consider transitional arrangements." The much vaunted reduction in the cap—capping the maximum increase at 18 months—that the Minister has pointed to in recent debates simply is not enough. Do the Government understand the anger at the fact that more transitional provisions have not been considered—over 100,000 signatures for a debate in this House, the online campaign and the great response to it in the media? Recently I was told by the Sunday Post that a feature on this subject brings an unprecedented response from the hundreds of thousands of women who are affected Let us ask ourselves what the Pensions Minister in the coalition Government at the time thinks. This is what he told the Institute for Government: "There was one very early decision that we took about state pension ages, which we would have done differently if we’d been properly briefed, and we weren’t." He added: "We made a choice, and the implications of what we were doing suddenly, about two or three months later, it became clear that they were very different from what we thought." He then said: "So basically we made a bad decision. We realised too late. It had just gone too far by then."
State Pension Age (Women) — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: International Affairs
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister cannot have been listening to what I said earlier. A substantial proportion of what I said showed that that is not the case, although he and his colleagues are hiding behind that argument. We were not required to do that. Some EU countries are not equalising until 2040 or 2044, and some are maintaining a difference. Will he please stop hiding behind something that is not true?
State Pension Age (Women) — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Macroeconomics
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister for being so generous in giving way. He read out the quote about £1 billion being a "serious amount of money", but he really should have quoted the whole sentence, which begins: "this was a measure to save 30 billion quid over how many years, and we wanted 10% of that back to soften the blow" Steve Webb wanted £3 billion back but got only £1 billion.
Children in Care — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Anna Catherine Turley (Labour, Centre-left): Will the hon. Lady join me in thanking and paying tribute to the many thousands of family members around the country who step in and support children when the parental relationship has broken down? Those kinship carers, as they are known, do a fantastic job, and we would like to see more support for them, perhaps on an equal partnership basis with those who adopt. They save the state an awful lot of money and give kids a life chance they might not otherwise have had.
Children in Care — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Madeleine Moon (Labour, Centre-left): I am a Welsh MP and in Wales we have the Flying Start scheme for families with difficulties in areas where poverty is high. The scheme starts at the point of pregnancy and there is regular engagement with a midwife. Once the child is born, dedicated nursing services provide support by discussing play, talking, food and setting boundaries, as well as by tackling any drug and alcohol problems in the family. Is not that kind of holistic embracement the way forward for many families?
Children in Care — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Centre-left): Before becoming a Member of the House, I represented parents whose children were taken into local authority care. One thing I noticed was that, when a baby was up for adoption, there was an unseemly haste, and local authorities did not try to work with the family or the mother to be able to give the child back to the family. I found that very disturbing.
Children in Care — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Madeleine Moon (Labour, Centre-left): It is some time since I placed children for adoption and some time since I have been involved in child protection work, but the guardian ad litem system is being disregarded. It plays a vital role in ensuring that all potential other sources of care are examined and explored before the case goes before a judge. I would like that to be examined and acknowledged.
Children in Care — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Alan Arthur Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): I am delighted to join the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) in sponsoring this debate To declare my interest, I am the patron of the Family Rights Group, the charity that works with parents in England and Wales whose children are in need, at risk or in the care system. May I follow the hon. Lady in this preamble to my speech and say to those on the Treasury Bench that the Family Rights Group provides the only free, open-access, specialist legal advice service for such families? Governments of all persuasions have recognised its importance The simple fact is that demand for the charity’s services has gone up and its funding has been reduced. That is bad enough, but if the Government do not pull their finger out, the service will cease completely on 31 March —just a few weeks from now. I hope that the Minister will say something on that in his response, because the need for the work that the Family Rights Group does and the advice that it gives underpin all the various elements that we will hear about in the debate on this huge subject today. Preserving it would be the first step towards carrying out the terms of the motion I do not claim to have changed the world in my short period as Secretary of State for Education, but together with my children’s Minister, now Baroness Hughes of Stretford, I tried to improve the situation for children in care through the measures in the "Care Matters" White Paper. We were driven by a host of depressing statistics, but the most scandalous of all was that children in care accounted for 0.5% of the child population, but as adults accounted for 27% of the prison population. We might as well, as a society, direct them straight to Wormwood Scrubs and the other institutions they are going to end up in We did much in government to address that problem, but after 10 years in power, which is when I became Education Secretary, and despite an awful lot of concentration on what we used to call social exclusion, that statistic remained. My point is that this is not a party political joust. This problem is so deeply entrenched that we need to work on the solutions together across this House and not deal with it in a combative way.
Children in Care — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Alan Arthur Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): I do not concur with that at all All these problems are profound and multidimensional —of course they are—but I could sum up the problem in my time, although more recent children’s Ministers may sum it up differently: children are pushed into care too easily, moved around too much and kicked out too soon. That is the issue that we were trying to face in the "Care Matters" White Paper in 2007. I will focus on the first of those three problems—the fact that they are pushed into care too easily—and on kinship care On the point about young people being removed from care too soon, I congratulate the Government on the important step that they took in the Children and Families Act 2014 of insisting that young people in care who reach the age of 18 may remain in care or "stay put", to use the terminology, with foster carers until the age of 21. In response to the intervention by the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), we used to kick them out at 16. Nowadays, children practically cling on to the door mantel when you try to get rid of them, if I may say so as a father. The average age when children leave home is 27. Kids in care—the most vulnerable children—were kicked out at 16. Of course that contributed to the pressing statistic on where they ended up.
Children in Care — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Ann Coffey (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) is right to express concern about the rising number of children taken into care and to ask whether more can be done to keep families together, but perhaps consideration should also be given, particularly in respect of older children in care homes, to whether the care system could be more flexible in supporting relationships with families, if that is what the child wants. In European countries such as Denmark, there tends to be a much stronger focus on prevention and family support, and that is characterised by the care system operating more flexibly around the family. Residential care is likely to be more local, allowing work with the family In March 2015, there were 6,570 children in children’s homes in England. They are likely to have had more placements than children in foster care and to have significant emotional, behavioural and social difficulties.
Children in Care — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Jeffrey Smith (Labour, Centre-left): As a children’s home visitor until my election here in May, I am very aware that, as my hon. Friend says, care homes are not the best environments for vulnerable young people, who often have mental health issues, to grow up in. I am sure she agrees that the best approach is to intervene before families go into crisis. Does she agree that unfair cuts to the most deprived local authorities, such as those in Manchester, make it much harder for the authorities with the greatest need to provide services such as Sure Start to the families with the most vulnerable children?
Children in Care — House of Commons, 2016-01-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Alan Arthur Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): I am puzzled by the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. Nobody supporting this motion or sponsoring it does not believe that children who are in danger should be removed from that danger quickly. His whole contribution and opposition to this motion are based on a total misconception. What we are saying is there are many children who go into care—and their voice is important, by the way—who actually would be better placed, and happier, with family members. I suggest that that proposition should unite the House, not be defeated by some suggestion that people disagree that children in danger should be removed from that danger quickly.
Chemical Spills (River Tamar) — House of Commons, 2016-02-04
Topic: Environment
Christian John Patrick Matheson (Labour, Centre-left): Indeed, sir. Cornwall is well-known for its history of mineral extraction, whether it be china clay or Cornish tin. Cheshire is about to enter into mineral extraction as well through fracking. The Government have gone back on their pledges on monitoring and preventing chemical spills from fracking rigs. While the Minister is considering the potential pollution of the Tamar, will he also consider whether there is sufficient monitoring to prevent chemical leaks from fracking in the headwaters of the River Dee, like that in the headwaters of the Tamar?
Emissions Standards: Fines — House of Commons, 2016-02-04
Topic: Environment
Questions: What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Transport on the proposals by the European Commission for it to levy fines on vehicle manufacturers that do not meet emissions standards.
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): Car emissions are a main contributor to poor air quality in this country. Many of the former local authorities that covered my constituency were among the first to sign up to the Clean Air Act 1956, but much of that progress has gone backwards as a result of poor air quality in urban areas. Is it not time for a new clean air Act that is fit for the 21st century?
Food Waste — House of Commons, 2016-02-04
Topic: Agriculture
Paul Christopher Blomfield (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister is right to highlight the reduction in household food waste, but he will know that that is not being matched by the food industry. Will he explain why Government Whips objected to the Food Waste (Reduction) Bill, which was promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) last Friday? Would it not be better to get the Bill into Committee, where its provisions and the positive course of action that it proposes could be properly considered, and we can take the opportunity to end the scandal of food waste?
British Food — House of Commons, 2016-02-04
Topic: Agriculture
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): To hit a more serious note, after that interesting and humorous exchange, may I say to the Secretary of State that to produce great British food, we need great British technology? The news yesterday that Syngenta, our leading European food innovator, which produces wonderful technology and innovation and has a large plant in my constituency, is to be taken over by ChemChina means that overnight the European capacity for innovation in food technology and much else will be wiped out. Should the House not debate that very seriously before it goes through?
British Food — House of Commons, 2016-02-04
Topic: Agriculture
Angela Christine Smith (Labour, Centre-left): The Great British Food Unit depends on great British farmers producing the goods for the unit, but many farmers are still experiencing problems with the Rural Payments Agency. One of my constituency farmers was only told late on Sunday afternoon of the failure to issue his payment, and even then it was done by email. What will the Secretary of State do to make sure that farmers are properly supported by the RPA?
Nature Improvement Areas — House of Commons, 2016-02-04
Topic: Environment
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): The 12 nature improvement areas were the right response to the Lawton report, but they were supposed to create 1,000 hectares of new woodland, 1,000 hectares of new chalk grassland, and more than 1,500 hectares of new wetland. How many hectares of each of those have actually been created?
Broadband Services — House of Commons, 2016-02-04
Topic: Agriculture
Chinyelu Susan Onwurah (Labour, Centre-left): In 2012, when I criticised the Government for abandoning Labour’s universal broadband commitment, the then Secretary of State said: "We have a plan and we are going to deliver it."—[Official Report, 25 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 1059.] So was it part of the plan that, in 2016, farmers would still be unable to get the broadband access they need in order to fill out the forms that the Department makes it mandatory to complete online? What is the plan now?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-02-04
Topic: Environment
Questions: Will the Minister confirm that the Government will reallocate fishing quota from those who hold it only as an investment to active, small-scale fishermen such as those who fish out of Lowestoft, who bring real benefits to their local community?; The recent Tesco case has shown the importance of the Groceries Code Adjudicator. Does the Secretary of State share the view of the National Farmers Union, the Farmers Union of Wales and many in the dairy sector that now is the time to consider extending the adjudicator’s remit right across the supply chain, from gate to plate, even if that requires legislative change?; Cross-compliance rules prevent hedge cutting in August, yet the only bird that seems to be nesting at that time is the very prolific wood pigeon. The rules are preventing farmers from doing vital work, as they are unable to get on to that land during August. Will Ministers agree to look at this to see what can be done to change these rules?
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): One less well-publicised deal the UK has been negotiating with our European partners recently is the circular economy package, which could not only bring about significant environmental benefits, but create jobs and growth. The Government, however, do not seem to have a strategy for achieving the ambitious waste targets set out there or for unlocking the economic opportunities that would come from greater resource efficiency. When are we going to have a proper waste resources strategy from the Secretary of State?