argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Pension Equality for Women — House of Commons, 2017-12-14
Topic: Labor
Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am about to come specifically to the hon. Gentleman. He mentioned the problems faced by the pensions system, and I completely agreed with the spirit of his speech. I understand that Gordon Brown had a field day with the pensions pot and made things a hell of a lot more complicated for everybody. I accept that as reality and a historical fact. However, the fact that I agree with the hon. Gentleman about those grave concerns shows why we need to fix this problem. We always hear the argument about it being unfair to put costs on to the younger generations because they are the ones who will be footing the bill—the pay-as-you-go system that the hon. Gentleman referred to. I am from that generation, and I am looking at this problem and thinking: these women have done nothing wrong, yet the Government are still able to afford all these things that I really do not think are that important. Are the Government really not going to act because of me? Wait a second—why should I be paying national insurance, if at the last hurdle the Government can change the rules and move the goalposts? Why should my generation take anything that the Government say seriously? We must be grown up about this—I can’t believe I have to say that in here—and we need to address and fix this problem. This is above party politics, so let us be practical Where the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) and I will disagree is when I say that this comes down to tough political choices. The Government have a deal with the DUP to maintain power, and billions of pounds are being spent on Trident. There is the refurbishment for this place, and we have heard about some ridiculous campaigns for boats and royal yachts and so on. I am sorry, but those things are not the priority right now. These women entered a contract—national insurance is a contract; it is a basic fundamental of our welfare state as it functions. We cannot undermine that, yet that is all the Government are serving to do. If this were a private company it would, rightly, be getting dragged through the courts right now, and the Government should reflect on that The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) said that section 28 of the Scotland Act 2016 gives the Scottish Parliament the power to mitigate these changes. I have a problem with that argument because section 28 of that Act states that we cannot give pension assistance or assistance by "reason of old age". We are not allowed to do that—pensions are completely reserved, and when we campaigned for the devolution of pensions we were told no.
Pension Equality for Women — House of Commons, 2017-12-14
Topic: Labor
Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says, but the WASPI women are not receiving a pension because the UK Government will not give them one, so that is a ridiculous notion. I commend the hon. Gentleman because he supported us during an Opposition-day debate. That was commendable and brave, so fair play to the guy, but that is a totally ludicrous point of view and I will explain why As I have said—I am coming to a conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker—I disagree with Labour on constitutional grounds, but that is because I want to cut out the middle man. This is the perfect example of why I support independence. Why are we paying taxes to come to London to be told by a Conservative Government what we can and cannot spend the money on? The irony is that, when those policies start to take effect, the Government turn round and say, "We want the Scottish Government to fix it." I don’t think so! If they want to devolve pensions, great. Until then, this is a UK problem and a Conservative problem, and it is not going away. It has to be fixed, and it has to be fixed soon as. Do the right thing.
Pension Equality for Women — House of Commons, 2017-12-14
Topic: Labor
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Perhaps the Minister could offer me some assistance. He talks about life expectancy increasing, and I do not want to argue the toss about whether it is or is not. I am curious about something, and I hope he will be able to explain this to me. Just because people are living longer, I do not understand why this particular generation of women should pay the price, given that they expected to receive their pensions at 60. The argument about life expectancy might be one about reforming pensions in the future, but we are talking about this particular group of women, who feel very let down and cheated because at 60 they have not got their pension.
National Living Wage — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Labor
David Melvyn Linden (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am afraid that the argument the Government have put forward blows a hole in the idea that they are building a country that works for everyone. The reality is that under-25s are not included in the national living wage. Why do we have state-sanctioned pay poverty under this Government and why, shamefully, are apprentices paid as little as £3.70 per hour under this Budget?
Major Infrastructure Projects — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Transportation
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): With all this money swilling about for major infrastructure investment, will the Chancellor explain why the rail funding formula has been ignored and Scotland’s rail budget has been cut by £600 million over the next investment period?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Questions: Small businesses in my constituency suffer from late payments from their larger clients. Some firms have been forced to accept discounts of up to 10% just to get paid within 90 days. The Government have introduced welcome measures to make large firms behave more transparently on payments, but does the Chancellor stand ready to take further action to stop big firms using small businesses as a source of cheap loans?; Businesses in Newark welcome rising public investment in research and development, but even more they welcome the chance to do it themselves with lower business taxes under this Government. What will the Chancellor do to encourage more businesses to take up the increased research and development tax credits and the patent box delivered in the Budget?
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): In the Budget, more than £1 billion of the so-called extra money for Scotland was in the form of financial transaction money—that is money that the Scottish Government have to pay back. The block grant for spending on frontline services is down £230 million in real terms. How can the Chancellor suggest that a £230 million reduction for Scotland is a good deal for our country?
Leaving the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On a day in June 2016, the people of the United Kingdom were asked one question on one day. As a result of the answer they gave to that one question, there is no going back on Brexit. On 1 November, Parliament was asked one question, but for the intervening 27 days the Government have done everything possible to deny and defy the instruction—it was not a request—that they were given by this Parliament, to which, we are told, sovereignty is being restored by the Brexit process. I remind the Minister that the question of what the Government will provide to the Select Committee is not for the Government or, indeed, for the Select Committee to decide. This Parliament has decided, and there is no discussion, debate or negotiation as to the extent to which that decision will be complied with. It must be complied with in full; otherwise, as the letter published recently by the Chair of the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union makes clear, the Select Committee will have to consider whether to table a motion on contempt. How is that going to look to our European partners? What will it do to the credibility of the Government, and particularly of the Brexit team, if they end up being held in contempt by the Parliament to which they claim to be returning sovereignty Will the Minister confirm that the resolution of the House was about not what was made public but what was provided to the Select Committee? In those circumstances, does he not accept that what must be made available to the Select Committee is everything—absolutely everything? If the Government are not prepared to comply with that instruction, they should not be in government. Will he tell us categorically whether he accepts that a decision on what to publish, within the bounds of parliamentary privilege, is for the Select Committee alone, and will he confirm that he and his Government are prepared to trust the judgment of that Committee to exercise on behalf of the House responsible judgment about what the public are entitled to know?
Leaving the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Minister has mentioned the devolved Administrations on a number of occasions. I am advised by Scottish Government colleagues that the documents they have received contain nothing substantial at all about Scotland. On 24 and 25 October, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Existing the European Union gave evidence—to the Scottish Affairs Committee and the Exiting the European Union Committee respectively—that assessments of Brexit’s impact on the Scottish economy existed and would be shared with the Scottish Government. Will the Minister confirm that those unedited documents will now be shared without further delay?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As you will know, Mr Speaker, I wrote to you on 7 November asking you to consider contempt proceedings against the Government for failing to provide these Brexit analysis papers in full, as mandated, as you said, by the fully binding motion agreed by the House. You very generously gave the Government three weeks to comply, and you said you were awaiting the outcome of the conversations between the Secretary of State and the Chairman of the Exiting the European Union Committee. We have now had those conversations, and we have now heard the response from the Chairman of the Committee, who stated in this very Chamber just a few moments ago that the Government do not meet the motion in full. I therefore ask you to reconsider my letter of 7 November and to consider bringing contempt motions, as detailed on page 273 of "Erskine May". I am sure you are aware of the significance of this, and I know you will deal with this sensitively. This is contempt, and the Government must be held accountable for their failure to comply.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I just want to probe the Secretary of State about what thinking has been going on in government following Bill Gates’s speech in the spring about taxing robots. We only have to go into a high street shop to see that many jobs have been displaced by machines, which are not taxed. If a person was still working there, they would be paying tax to the Exchequer, and that money could help future innovation. Have the Government given any thought to all these labour-saving devices and to getting some revenue from the way in which robots are doing many of the jobs that people used to do?
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Secretary of State is being generous in giving way. How might the industrial strategy develop if we find ourselves with open borders and no border checks, which was talked about as recently as yesterday? If we are to have an open border with the Republic of Ireland, the UK will need an open border with everywhere else, meaning that the UK will not be running any tariffs at all. How will that affect the industrial strategy? Under most favoured nation status, if we have an open border with Ireland, we will have an open border with everywhere else.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is talking about competing with our international competitors. Where will her industrial strategy be on trade defence? We know the Conservative Government do not seem to have trade defence, but she supports them on the UK being out of the customs union, and I presume she has the same view of not wanting to partition Ireland with a customs union. Therefore she would be running no tariffs on the Irish border and there would be no trade defence. Where would that leave her industrial strategy, given that, we must remember, there was not a hair’s breadth between the Tories and Labour on austerity? Labour was going to do £7 billion-worth of cuts and, with students, it is responsible for £6,000 of the £9,000. Where is Labour different from the Conservatives on trade defence and industrial strategy, particularly with reference to the Irish border?
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I agree with the first part of that intervention entirely. The big story from the Budget was that the growth figures were marked down over the entire forecast period that productivity per head was almost halved for that period and that pay growth was marked down, which has an impact on real people. As for a debate, we have been having debates about the productivity conundrum and growth since before I was an MP, and given that I am now about 110, that was some time ago. I suspect that we need to look at the work that has gone into the White Paper. Let us get behind the things we can support and make suggestions when we can improve things—my goodness, there are some we can most certainly improve—but we do not need to go back to the drawing board again I think that each and every one of us, if given a blank piece of paper, would come up with broadly the same plan with regard to fairness about investment, infrastructure, education, and supporting R and D and exports. I do not think that there is anything particularly new there. The question for me is: can we deliver that this time, or will this be to no avail if Brexit undermines the potential of any of these plans?
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Both Labour and the Conservatives recently voted in this House to come out of the customs union. That will increase trade barriers with 27 countries, as well as another 67 countries that rely on 38 to 40 other deals with the European Union, so we stand a very real risk of increasing trade barriers with up to 94 countries. Surely to goodness that is putting an already perilously placed UK in an even more perilous position? That was supported by the Labour and Conservative parties, hand in hand, damaging together.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Foreign Trade
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right. Every single assessment that we have seen, starting with the leaked Treasury document of a couple of years ago, says that the worst-case scenario—if there are tariffs, other regulatory barriers and an immediate reversion to World Trade Organisation rules—is a 10% hit on GDP, full stop, before we start. I do not understand why anyone—even Tories, and certainly the bulk of the Labour party—voted to come out of the customs union. That was an idiotic thing to do. If we must leave at all, we should look to have the closest possible formal links, so that we maintain as much trade as possible on current terms.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Energy
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend brings up a fantastic point, on which his view is shared by the SNP and the Scottish Government. The UK Government choose to penalise the place where the wind resource is, but unfortunately the wind just will not blow at the whim of the bureaucratic pen of the UK Government. I would have thought that they would have realised that after all these years.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): One would have thought so, given the number of times the Government have been told that this is an ongoing problem. I could almost repeat it verbatim: there is £23 per kWh charge in the north-west of Scotland and a £7 per kWh subsidy down in the south of England. At some point soon, now that the Government have a clean energy strategy as part of the future economy, I hope that even they might think to address that fundamental inequity I want some real joined-up thinking. I know that the industrial strategy recognises, as the Secretary of State said in his statement yesterday, the contribution of the Scottish Government and the other devolved institutions. It is worth putting on record that the Scottish Government already have an economic strategy, with strategic plans for trade, investment, manufacturing, innovation and employment. Following the recent enterprise and skills review, they are aligning their agencies and resources behind those plans. The UK Government should have such a joined-up approach The Scottish Government are taking action to support the economy and to counter some of the uncertainty brought about by Brexit, despite the real-terms Budget cuts. This includes the £500 million Scottish growth scheme to target high-growth, innovative and export-focused small and medium-sized enterprises. The first tranche of that money was delivered in June, and a further tranche will be made with an expansion of the SME holding fund, along with the leveraging in of private capital. The Scottish Government are also taking forward infrastructure investment plans, with projects valued at more than £6.5 billion either in construction or starting this year In addition to the innovation and investment hubs in London and Dublin, the Scottish Government have established hubs in Berlin and Paris. They are maximising the opportunities there while also developing our existing presence in Brussels into a hub. That is important because there is no point in just supporting big businesses that already export. If we are ever to mitigate the potential loss of export trade with the EU, we need to have the people and resources in place to hold the hands of businesses and ensure that more of them start to export. The Scottish Government are establishing a new south of Scotland enterprise agency The Scottish Government are implementing a number of other measures, the most important of which is the roll-out of digital connectivity. Had the roll-out of 4G been left to the market and the UK Government, I understand that we would be about 60% of the way there. However, because of the additional hundreds of millions put in by the Scottish Government, we are at 95%, and we are driving forward the "Reaching 100%" project to deliver superfast broadband access to all residential and business premises by 2021.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Technology
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is giving a long list of impressive boasts by the SNP Government, but he may not know that people on the west side of one of the smallest islands in the Outer Hebrides can get 48 megabits per second. I believe that central London and many other places cannot match what the SNP Government have achieved in the west of the highlands and islands of Scotland.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): That sounds to me like a pitch for inward investment for Barra, given what my hon. Friend says about 48 megabits per second. The whole point is that it is possible to deliver to some of the most remote communities the kind of access to technology that every business and individual needs We welcome the fact that the UK Government have published their industrial strategy, and we are committed to working with them to ensure that the strategy delivers the maximum benefits for Scotland. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) said yesterday, we are disappointed that the Scottish Government were not formally consulted ahead of the publication of the strategy, even though the White Paper recognises the critical role that the Scottish Government have to play. That is a worry in areas such as life sciences, in which Scotland is a world leader, because a sectoral deal seems to have been agreed without any consultation with the Government in Scotland We have set out our programme for government in Scotland, which includes a commitment to create a Scottish national investment bank to deliver infrastructure development, finance for high-growth businesses and strategic investments in innovation. That mirrors much of what the UK Government have said—[Interruption.] I am conscious of the time. I have had 20 minutes, but I will finish soon; I am sure there will be plenty of time for Labour Back Benchers. We are also committed to a transition to a low-carbon economy, as this is an important economic opportunity for Scotland Finally, let me make a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey also made yesterday. We welcome the plan and the substantial sums that are being invested, but we note that the £7 billion for the extension of the innovation fund will not to be spent until 2022-23. If it is important to spend that money, and it is, and if it is important to mitigate the damage that Brexit might do, and it is, I simply say to the Secretary of State that he should perhaps bring forward that spending.