argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): In the Treasury Committee yesterday, we heard evidence from the Office for Budget Responsibility, which predicts that 95% of councils will raise their precept to the maximum to cover social care—another thing that will have an impact on the cost of living. The letter that I quoted from earlier, which was written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care not by me, but by the leader of Conservative-led East Riding of Yorkshire Council, says that adult social care is in crisis.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The levy to fund social care is one more tax that will hit hard-pressed families in the spring and will do nothing about the deep-seated need to address the social care crisis and the increasing pressure from an ageing demographic—it will not even touch the sides.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Education
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Member may not remember the Dilnot plan, which had cross-party support until Conservative Members torpedoed it. He may not have read the five principles that Labour has set out to underpin our approach to social care, including preventive investment to keep people at home and living independently for as long as possible, as we all want to. We have a plan that would invest in the workforce. It is not enough just to wish for better social care; the people have to be there to deliver it. That is Labour’s plan, and if the hon. Member would like more details, I am very happy to send them to him Despite 1.6 million people waiting for treatment, there was no guarantee in last week’s Budget that mental health will receive its fair share of NHS funding. Health stakeholders were most critical of the lack of a workforce strategy or a multi-year funding settlement to support it. We cannot deliver world-class healthcare if we do not invest in recruitment, retention and staff development. It is no wonder that the NHS is struggling when the number of adult health and care students declined by 15% in the three years before the pandemic The pandemic also shone a light on the problems that our schools, colleges and early years providers were already facing. No doubt it exacerbated them, but it did not create them. Last week, the Chancellor set out a £3 billion investment in skills, and the Secretary of State claimed that it was the biggest in a decade—but it comes after a decade of cuts to post-16 provision. The Learning and Work Institute calculates that funding over the spending review period will still amount to only 60% of the 2010 figure It is astonishing that at a time when our economy has to adapt to the challenges that the Secretary of State referred to—globalisation, digitisation and climate change in the post-Brexit environment—investment in skills remains so lacking. Four in 10 young people are leaving education without the level of qualification they need, the number of apprenticeships has fallen by more than 40%, and 9 million adults lack basic skills in literacy or numeracy. No wonder the Chancellor can promise only a paltry 1.5% increase in growth in the final three years of the forecast period At the same time that it is talking up the importance of vocational education, the Department for Education is scrapping most BTECs—well-recognised and respected qualifications that give opportunities to hundreds of thousands of young people.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Education
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the importance of BTECs, because for many young people and indeed many adults, BTECs are the route through the education system. As somebody who has a BTEC national certificate in business and finance and a higher national diploma in business and finance, I know that—it was my route through the education system. Let us make sure that we keep it open for future generations, too.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Education
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Again and again, I have met people who have described their learning journey from BTECs to university and an excellent career. Of course we want T-levels to succeed, but there is no reason to remove other qualifications that provide a different route that is more appropriate for some young people. Under Labour, every young person will receive education that is appropriate to them, whether that is an apprenticeship, technical education or university, and will leave it ready for work and life.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Education
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will make some progress. OECD data show that the UK has some of the world’s highest childcare costs—the cost of nursery provision for a one-year-old increased four times faster than wages between 2008 and 2016—but despite the high costs for parents, many early years providers are struggling to stay afloat. This year alone, nearly 3,000 childcare and early years providers have closed their doors. This Budget could have been an opportunity to put provision on a sustainable footing, reduce costs to parents and invest in quality, making a real difference to millions of families, but the announcements that we got were inadequate Don’t get me wrong: any investment in families with young children and in support for new parents is welcome, but the family hubs project is a pale imitation of what the Conservatives inherited in 2010. [Interruption.] "Nonsense," says the Minister, but let me tell him that when Labour left office, there were 3,500 Sure Start centres delivering support to more than 2.9 million children in every local authority in the country. Since then, 1,000 children’s centres have closed. A moment ago, I think the Secretary of State was promising new family hubs in only half of local authorities. Can he tell me how many family hubs in total will be created as a result of the spending announcements By the 2021 summer term, children had missed an average of 115 days of schooling, and on 21 October, just before the half-term break, 248,000 children were still out of school as a result of covid, yet the Government’s response falls well below the scale of ambition needed for children’s educational recovery. The extra £1.8 billion announced by the Chancellor last week brings the Government’s recovery plans up to a total of £5 billion—far short of the £15 billion that their own expert adviser said would be needed to ensure that children make a full recovery from the pandemic Labour, by contrast, remains committed to our £15 billion children’s recovery plan. Whereas the Government will provide tutoring to just one in 16 pupils this year, Labour’s plan would resource schools to deliver tutoring to all who need it. We would deliver universal catch-up breakfast clubs and extend the school day for additional activities—I noted that the Secretary of State seemed to be in favour of that at Education questions yesterday, but he got nothing from the Chancellor. We would invest in training world-class teachers and teaching assistants and in supporting the early years sector, schools and colleges with an education recovery premium. We would prioritise young people’s mental health, giving every school access to a professional mental health counsellor.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): I have absolutely no idea where that £400 billion figure comes from. The hon. Member says that it is uncosted, but there is no such uncosted plan; he needs to check his figures. The £15 billion costed plan—a plan advised by the Government’s own expert adviser—will, of course, be covered by the covid funding pot that the Government themselves admit has to be set aside to meet the costs of the pandemic. If the hon. Member cares to examine the tax burden from the Budget, he will see that it is not Labour that is increasing taxes on hard-pressed families. Taxes will hit families by an extra £3,000 as a result of his Chancellor’s Budget.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Education
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes the case Labour’s plan would deliver the wellbeing and academic support needed to meet the scale of the challenge and ensure that all children can reach their potential. That is the level of the investment that the Government should have been making in the nation’s children When we look at overall school spending, the picture does not get much better. The Chancellor announced a 2% per annum real-terms increase in school budgets over the next three years. I want the Secretary of State to listen to this very carefully, because we are messing around a bit with figures here. That increase will finally return school spending to 2010 levels, in real terms, in 2025. As Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has said, "To have no growth in 15 years in such an important part of public services is unprecedented’’ This means that 732,000 children in state-funded reception classes in 2010 have seen their whole school careers affected. A whole generation of children has been failed by consecutive Conservative Governments The Secretary of State spoke of a cash increase in school spending as a result of the Budget, but schools are facing a host of rising costs to set against that: covid costs, energy bills, and employer national insurance contributions. The ending of the public sector pay freeze is overdue, but it is schools that will have to fund the teacher pay settlement The impact of this underfunding is plain to see. Some 200,000 children are growing up in areas with not a single primary school rated good or outstanding. Forty per cent. of young people leave compulsory education without essential qualifications. By the time they finish their GCSEs, pupils from poorer families are 18 months behind their wealthier peers in terms of attainment, and a third of teachers leave our schools within five years of qualifying. Last week’s Budget was an opportunity to fix those deep-rooted problems, but the Chancellor failed to do so Youth services help to equip young people with the skills and confidence that they need for life. They provide careers guidance and mental health support, they are one of the most effective ways of tackling the root causes of crime, and they help to build community cohesion. However, although they have already experienced a decade of cuts, last week’s Budget went on to inflict on them the single biggest one-off cut in youth services for a decade, leaving a £470 million hole in the youth budget. The Chancellor’s boasts of investment cannot disguise this crippling cut. Under the last Labour Government, youth services were accessible to people whatever their background; today, they are a patchy postcode lottery.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): I am about to finish my speech, so I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not. This Budget failed to address the challenges facing our education system—from early years to schools and from skills to higher education, about which the Chancellor said almost nothing last week—just as it failed to address the challenges facing the country. There was no plan to tackle the growing cost-of-living crisis, no plan to remove the enormous tax burden that the Conservatives have placed on working people and businesses, and no plan for growth, which is crucial to boosting our economy. This is not a Budget for the stronger economy of the future about which the Chancellor boasted; it is a Budget that lets down business, lets down our public services, and lets down the British people. They deserve better from this Conservative Government.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): Mr Deputy Speaker, in the light of the point of order from a Government Member earlier, which I thought was rather churlish, will you pass on my thanks to the Speaker, your fellow Deputy Speakers, the House of Commons Commission and the House staff for all their help and support, and the safety in which they keep us in the House Bootle is one of the most deprived towns in England and has five super-output areas in the lowest 1%, so how can it be right that our levelling-up fund bid has been rejected? In the light of that type of Government approach, it is becoming apparent that the Chancellor’s financial statement was pretty shallow and a sort of economic whistling in the dark. Inflation is on the rise; interest rates are on the rise; taxes are on the rise; the deficit is on the rise; the national debt is on the rise; inequality is on the rise; billionaire incomes are on the rise; profits from dodgy covid deals are on the rise; covid infections are on the rise—the Chancellor is taking the rise The Chancellor’s statement came three months after the Prime Minister’s levelling-up speech, in which he committed to working "double hard to overturn…inequalities"— inequalities that the Prime Minister and other Tory Governments have exacerbated. I am afraid the Prime Minister working "double hard" does not fill me with much confidence: 100% of nothing multiplied by two is still nothing What about the Government’s fiscal rules? They have missed so many targets that they have stopped counting. On 18 October, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said: "There are currently no active fiscal rules in the UK. The fiscal rules adopted in the 2019 manifesto were abandoned just four months later with the onset of the Covid pandemic." The Chancellor did announce some fiscal rules, but they are unlikely to be met, like those of other Tory Chancellors, although hope does spring eternal How about the national debt? In May 2010, the Tories inherited a national debt of just over £1 trillion, or 63.2% of GDP; in August 2019, it had gone up by three quarters to £1.7 trillion, or 78.4% of GDP; in February 2021, just pre-covid, it had gone up again to £1.784 trillion, or 81.9% of GDP; and by September 2021, it was at £2.218 trillion, or 95.5% of GDP. So the Tories have added £16,000 for every man, woman and child in this country. That is why—to respond to the question from the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter)—you cannot trust the Tories with the economy. The party of fiscal rectitude has more than doubled the national debt in just a decade—more wrecked than rectitude.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Labor
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): The problems with recruiting were raised by East Riding of Yorkshire Council, and one reason why it is asking the Government for more money is that it wants to be able to offer higher wages to try to compete with organisations such as Amazon, which attract workers who would previously have worked in care.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Katharine Helen Brooks-Osborne (Labour, Centre-left): It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) This is a Budget that has nothing to do with levelling up or building back better; it is the same old Tory economic policy that will squeeze people on middle incomes while giving a tax cut to the super-rich. How can the Chancellor justify cutting taxes for the super-rich while increasing national insurance contributions? The consequence will be that a person on an average income can expect their real income to fall next year once tax increases and inflation are taken into account. Alongside falling incomes, there will be rising energy prices, rising council tax, the withdrawal of furlough, continued use of the disgraceful practice of fire and rehire, and the axing of the £20 universal credit uplift This Budget does nothing to mitigate those issues. It risks leaving the vast majority behind in pay and in the public services that we all rely on. We should have seen reforms in it to create a fairer tax system in which the wealthiest in our society pay a fairer share through a wealth tax that helps to fund public investment to create good green jobs and a net zero economy. Instead, we have seen no action on the climate emergency—in fact, the Chancellor has opted needlessly to cut taxes on domestic flights. In the week of COP26, that is just astounding, as is the Prime Minister’s decision to fly to Glasgow rather than use the rail network Although there are some changes in the Chancellor’s Budget—such as the reduction in the universal credit taper and the rise in the minimum wage to £9.50 an hour—that will have some impact on incomes, sadly they will not be enough. The public sector pay freeze should be truly ended with an above-inflation rise and the minimum wage should be lifted to the level of a real living wage that people can survive on Despite the claims of levelling up, this Budget offers nothing to get our key public services back to where they were before 2010. The Government have said that spending on schools will return to 2010 per-pupil levels by 2025. That means that there has been no extra investment in our children’s education for 15 years, despite what the Secretary of State for Education said earlier today Even the funding planned for the NHS falls well below what has been delivered in the past and what many believe is needed now. Since 2010, the Government have put in less than half of the NHS’s historic spending growth rate of 3.6% per year since its creation. After more than a decade of cuts and the pandemic, our services are under enormous strain, and it is showing. Our public services are crucial to improving people’s everyday lives, and they are key to creating a more equal and just society This Budget was a missed opportunity to increase living standards for the many, to improve our public services and to invest in our communities. It does very little for the north-east and for constituencies such as Jarrow, where levelling up is still something of which we have yet to see any evidence.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Transportation
Bridget Maeve Phillipson (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely. I supported the bid, so of course I welcome it; that is hardly a revelation. I will always welcome additional investment coming to my constituency, although I notice that the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) is also in his place, and I am sure that, like me, he was disappointed that our restoring your railway fund bid to look at reopening the Leamside line, which would create benefits for the wider north-east, was sadly knocked back by his Government. I am afraid that it is not entirely good news for Sunderland and the north-east.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Transportation
Bridget Maeve Phillipson (Labour, Centre-left): I will happily give way again, but when I do, will the hon. Gentleman tell me whether he will work with me to get the Government to look again at our restoring your railway fund bid? I am sure that he was as disappointed as I was that we were knocked back once again.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Transportation
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): While we are on the subject of railways, is my hon. Friend as frustrated as I am that we have yet to see the integrated rail plan and that there have been no announcements regarding Northern Powerhouse Rail? It was not meant to go from Manchester to Leeds; we were originally promised that it would be from Hull all the way over to Liverpool? I hope that she will put as much pressure on the Government as I will to get that delivered.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Bridget Maeve Phillipson (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely; 60 times we have had announcements on the plan, but not a single spade in the ground. I will now make a little more progress The theme today is public services. I put on record again our immense gratitude to all those who have been keeping our public services going during the most challenging times over the last 18 months. There are really too many public sector workers to mention, but their contribution should be noted. The Government claim that they will give public sector workers belated pay rises, but cannot confirm whether they will be real- terms pay rises. Only under the Tories could a so-called pay rise mean that people are actually less well off Working people are being expected to pay so much more, but what for exactly? There are 5.7 million people on waiting lists for operations, GP appointments are harder than ever to come by and there are 100,000 vacancies in our NHS. We see falling apprenticeship starts, supersized classrooms for our children, antisocial behaviour at its highest level for years, rape convictions at record low levels, violent criminals walking free, fewer police officers and less safe communities. However, there was a vanity yacht for the Prime Minister, when he could have tackled antisocial behaviour instead. Tory Ministers have finally discovered, 11 years late, that the early years matter—who knew? But there is no apology from the Chancellor for closing more than 1,000 children’s centres since 2010. What price the unrealised potential and limited life opportunities over that lost decade This is a Budget with no plan for the cost-of-living crisis, no plan for fairer taxes and no plan for growth. The clocks went back an hour at the weekend, but in tax terms this Budget wound the clock back all the way to the 1950s, when taxes were last this high. It is the Conservatives’ record of low growth that has driven them to higher taxes, just as their failure to plan ahead has led to higher inflation and higher bills Labour would tax fairly, spend wisely and get the economy firing on all cylinders. We would cut VAT on heating bills and help to insulate homes. We would back our world-leading industries, and buy, make and sell more here in Britain. We would scrap business rates and replace them with a much fairer system that is fit for the modern world. We would secure our transition to net zero with well paid, highly skilled jobs in every corner of our country. We would not clobber working people and British businesses while online giants get away without paying their fair share. We need a Budget to ease the urgent pressure on families and businesses—a Budget to seize new opportunities and to unleash our country’s potential. We have a proud history but I believe that our best days are ahead of us. The Chancellor has made the wrong choices throughout this Budget; the Conservatives have made the wrong choices throughout the past decade. Our country deserves better.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): I am aware that the Minister is very familiar with the area I represent, and indeed the local council, but on the issue of labour shortages I raised in the debate, and have raised in earlier proceedings, we have a shortage of adult social care workers in the East Riding of Yorkshire—a shortage so great that people cannot access all the care that they need. When he talks about labour shortages, is he going to address the shortages we have in that sector?
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2021-11-02
Topic: Labor
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): Unless there are pay increases for care staff, the small dribbles in amounts of training, and bits of this and bits of that, will not deal with this serious crisis. There are 105,000 vacancies, and people are leaving in droves to go and work in burger bars and other forms of retail.