argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Social Welfare
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has made a good point. There are people who criticise universal credit, but, as I said earlier, it is a simplifying mechanism. It proved to be very resilient in response to the pandemic, and it helped millions of people at a crucial time. We have learnt lessons in that regard, but, as we have said before and as I have reiterated today, there are wider lessons that we also need to learn, and we will do so.
Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Technology
Marco Longhi (Conservative, Centre-right): Such incidents are obviously very regrettable, so having robust IT systems and finding ways to design out the human element that might have caused these mistakes is clearly very important. Can the Minister assure me that every possible effort will be made to ensure such incidents do not happen again?
Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Labor
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to, but unfortunately we do not have that data at that individual level. [Interruption.] As I was about to go on to say, let me see what is available, and I can follow up. What I will say is that an error has been made here—I accept that—but we all know that many, many people who work in the Department for Work and Pensions do a fantastic job and are committed to serving people who are very vulnerable. Through this error, I would not want to cast a view across all DWP civil servants; they do a remarkable job. I accept that we made an error in this situation, and I will follow up on the points the hon. Member makes.
Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Social Welfare
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand the point the hon. Member makes. There are obviously competing challenges here. We are here today worrying about the concerns of some very vulnerable people, but we also need to look at the taxpayers’ demands, too, and there are challenges, as the Scottish Government will discover as they start to take on more benefits. We work closely with the Scottish Government in their desire to take on more responsibility for welfare provision, and all I would say is that things are not always straightforward; there are very challenging circumstances, as Members on the Opposition Benches who have been in these offices will know. I accept the challenge, but we are working together with the Scottish Government to give support here. We will learn the lessons from this case and move forward.
Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Social Welfare
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes. We are a very large operational Department that takes care of the needs of millions of people. It is disappointing to me when we make errors. I work as hard as I can day in, day out to ensure we do not make errors. Sometimes we do and they are genuine and then we need to rectify them speedily. Sometimes they are fraudulent situations, and when we have a figure of £8.4 billion for fraud, partly because of the increase in welfare payments around coronavirus, we have to go through procedures, because some people, sadly and disappointingly, are trying to rip off the taxpayer and take money away from people who deserve it. There is a difficult balance. I understand the point that the right hon. Lady makes and I can assure her I am working hard on those points.
Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Social Welfare
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): I think I have highlighted what we are going to do in response to this particular situation. The hon. Gentleman makes some other points about what we are doing on food security and for those vulnerable people. As he knows, we have created an additional support fund—in England, it is called the household support fund—of £500 million across the UK. A chunk of that money—around £21 million, from memory; it is over £20 million anyway—has gone to Wales, and the Welsh Government are using it to help vulnerable people. We recognise that there are people who need further support On universal basic income, people who have tried that out—ask the Finnish Government—said that it is not the way forward; it is untargeted and does not provide a work incentive. I do not think it is the way forward. Of course, we can always improve our welfare approaches, but that is not the approach that would help.
Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Labor
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): More needs to be done to make those processes simpler. Again, this specific area is not part of my portfolio or brief, but we have made significant progress in getting disabled people into work, and we want to move that forward with the disability strategy and a clear action plan. I know that my colleague the Minister for Disabled People will actively drive that forward across the nations, and will work very closely on that with the Scottish Government as well.
Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Social Welfare
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): The exercise to pay the arrears to the 118,000 people is complete. As of 1 June 2021, we have reviewed 600,000 cases. The 118,000 arrears payments were made to those who were eligible, and a total of £613 million has been paid. I will follow up on the hon. Gentleman’s other points.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Social Welfare
David Mervyn Johnston (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement about reducing the self-isolation period. I have a number of constituents who have not seen their relatives in care homes for a considerable time. A member of my own family can have one visitor but has been confined to her small room for coming up to five weeks now because every time there is a case anywhere, everybody is kept in their rooms and cannot go in the garden or the communal areas. Will my right hon. Friend look at these guidelines again, because of course we want to protect care home residents, but the way they are being implemented is having a considerable impact on those people’s physical and mental health?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this most important of issues. In the way he phrased his question, he reflects just how difficult it is to strike the right balance in care homes between protecting the residents but also making sure that they can get the visits that are so important for them. The approach that we have taken in England is different from that in other parts of the country. We do allow more visitors. We are supplying a record number of tests to care homes, not only for the residents but for the staff. For the reasons that he has so clearly laid out, we keep this under review and will remove restrictions as soon as it is safe to do so.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Education
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady raises an important issue: ensuring we do all we can as a Government to work with schools to protect schoolchildren so they can stay in school. No one wants to see what happened before with the lockdowns and children not being able to attend school in the usual way. That is why I hope she welcomes the recent announcement by my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary on a huge new investment in ventilation. My right hon. Friend takes this issue incredibly seriously, working with schools up and down the country, and seeing what more can be done.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: International Affairs
George Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. An email from Mr Speaker has just arrived in our offices. I understand the key issue is that he has been contacted by MI5, and is now warning Members of Parliament that an agent of the Chinese Government has been active here in Parliament—working with a Member of Parliament—obviously to subvert the processes here. As a Member of Parliament who was sanctioned by the Chinese Government, as others were, this is a matter of grave concern to me. I therefore rise to make three important points First, will this now lead to a serious overhaul of the accreditation procedures here in the House of Commons? They are clearly too slack if these people get in, either through all-party parliamentary groups or with individuals Is it possible that we will have a statement from Mr Speaker, from the Chair, about the risks? I am one of those who has done a lot to try to help Hong Kong Chinese who are fleeing the Communist regime. We have the names and numbers of people here in the UK, which leaves me worrying that some of them have been accessed by such an individual. That would put their lives and families at risk, and I am deeply concerned, because my activities may well have been traced, as well as those of my colleagues and friends I understand the latest news is that this individual is not to be deported and no further action is to be taken. How can a foreign, despotic and despicable power, which is hellbent on reducing many people to penury, put somebody into this mother of Parliaments and that individual have nothing done to them other than not being allowed into Parliament? That is surely not good enough. Could there be a statement from the Government on what they plan to do and, with respect, a statement from Mr Speaker from the Chair?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Government Operations
Nigel Martin Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I have not been made aware of how this information has been disseminated, other than the email that Sir Iain Duncan Smith has just spoken about. I am absolutely certain that all parts of the United Kingdom will be made aware in the dialogue that takes place between the devolved Administrations and the Government.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: International Affairs
Tobias Martin Ellwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. This is the sort of grey-zone interference we now anticipate and expect from China but, given the fact that it has happened to this Parliament, there must be a sense of urgency from the Government. Having heard your comments today, I am grateful that you are taking this matter very seriously indeed, but could I encourage and endorse the request for a statement on this before the close of play today, so that we can understand its ramifications and impact and what the Government and, indeed, Parliament intend to do about it?
Transport Committee — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Transportation
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his points and for being very kind about the work of the Committee. It has been a frustration for the Committee that, on matters such as stopped vehicle detection technology, assurances were given to the Committee in 2016 that those would be delivered but that did not occur. In my view, that is one of the greater failures. It also points to a defensive attitude and a culture of building first and implementing safety second. As he will know, it is very hard to implement that technology once a road is open.
Transport Committee — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Transportation
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for his words. Like him, I think that the Government deserve a huge amount of credit for accepting all the recommendations. He will know from chairing a Select Committee that it can sometimes be disappointing to receive the responses, but this one was fantastic. He makes the correct point that this is all about the statistics. There is a perception that smart motorways are not safe, and we have to get that right, otherwise people will not use them. If we use the data from 2015 to 2019, we see that there is indeed a better fatality rate, at least. The serious collision rate is perhaps a little more patchy. If we then take 2019, we see that the reverse is true. For that reason, we called for a pause until we can get to the bottom of that My right hon. Friend asked about the statistical measure—for example, I referred to the 0.12% figure on all lane running motorways. It is measured per 100 million vehicle miles. It is important to recognise that this is on a proportionate basis. It does not compare a small amount of the network with a much larger one in terms of fatalities. I do not have the data on day and night, but I will write to him with that.
Transport Committee — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Transportation
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman—my friend—is right to praise the role of members of the Committee. He is a great one of us, and I thank him for everything he has done in this regard. He is also right to point out the target delivery date. That was one frustration that the Committee experienced. There had been a commitment to roll out the stopped vehicle detection technology for the whole of the existing network by 2023, but the date was then brought forward by a year, to 2022. That was regarded as a positive—which it is—but, as the hon. Gentleman will know, we had received a commitment that from 2016 onwards all new smart motorways would have that technology, so we regarded the date as not one year early, but six years late The hon. Gentleman is right to focus on that issue, because we understand—we will look into this further, as will the Office of Rail and Road—that once the road has been built, installing the technology when the lanes are running will be much more difficult, time-consuming and expensive than it would have been had it been done in the first place. I am also intrigued by the question of whether there is enough technology in place to be delivered, from a supply perspective. I think that the hon. Gentleman and I will work in the Committee to investigate that further.
Transport Committee — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Transportation
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my hon. Friend and his Committee on a superb report, and on persuading the Government to change their mind. The Committee is an exemplar of how a really effective Select Committee can persuade a Government to change their policy It seems to me that retrofitting emergency refuge areas is the most important way of addressing the safety of all lane running motorways. I welcome the Government’s commitment to spending £390 million on an extra 150 emergency areas—at just over £2.5 million a go—by 2025, but they have made no commitment to retrofitting the remainder, and are saying that that must be considered as part of road investment strategy 3. Is my hon. Friend as worried as I am that the Government might try to wriggle out of retrofitting the remainder after 2025?
Transport Committee — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Transportation
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. I agree with his first point, but I have learnt lessons from this as well. I have learnt, for instance, that the way to engage with Government is not only to scrutinise—which the Government would expect of those of us on the Back Benches—but to make the case with reason, and to work alongside them. I commend the Government in that regard, because previous Governments have perhaps been less willing to engage, and I believe there are Ministers in the Department for Transport who might have shared the concerns that my hon. Friend and I have had As for the point about emergency refuge areas, I share that concern, too. I believe that the spacing should be identical on every single stretch. If the £390 million does not cover that, more funding will be needed. What is key with smart motorways is a uniform set of rules that people understand so that they know they will able to reach an emergency bay. We will be keeping a careful eye on this to ensure that it is delivered, as it would have been already if the pilot had been followed. That is the frustrating aspect of the project: it has just slipped. Corners have been cut, and things have not been delivered. We will focus on that, and ensure that we hold the Government and, indeed, National Highways to account.
Transport Committee — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Transportation
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Member. He has completely roasted me. My memory is that we did indeed take evidence to find out what the different bodies felt the best spacing would be, which is how we arrived at the "three quarters of a mile to a mile" recommendation. The Government have said that the three quarters of a mile should be introduced where it is possible, but one mile is probably their standard approach. As for the cost of returning to the original M62 pilot spacing, we will look into that and write to the hon. Member. This is something that we will have to do pursuant to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) about the costing of the Government’s £390 million commitment, but I will do the same calculation for the hon. Gentleman’s 500 metres.
Transport Committee — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Transportation
Peter William Bone (Conservative, Centre-right): I had a very sad constituency case in which a hard shoulder had been opened up because of congestion and a car broke down on it. Some of the people were able to leave the vehicle and go over the barrier, but there was a disabled person in the car. By the time someone in the control room had put the red x on, a heavy vehicle had ploughed into the car, killing that person. Does my hon. Friend know whether that situation has changed? Are there still motorways that rely on someone in a control room switching a button to put the x on, or do we have automatic detection on all motorways now?
Transport Committee — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Transportation
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): My heart goes out not just to the family to whom my hon. Friend referred, but to all who lose their lives on the roads. In any event, where there is a hard shoulder, it is where one in 12 motorway deaths occur. To those who point out that we need a hard shoulder, I say that they are also dangerous. My hon. Friend asked whether the technology is in place for automatic detection. No. That is what we need to see delivered by the end of this year, if that is to be. We also have to make sure that the CCTV operates. The Daily Mail highlighted that. It had somebody go under cover and work in the CCTV control rooms, and it was clear from the evidence that it was not being monitored By putting all that together in one package—the emergency refuge areas to ensure that people can get in faster; the stopped-vehicle detection technology, which means that the lane is closed within a minute; and the CCTV operation and proper staffing—we will make motorways even safer.
Transport Committee — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Transportation
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): Again, I add my condolences to those whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned. The emergency refuge area, as I said, it is absolutely crucial. Statistically, if a car is travelling at 60 mph when it breaks down and the driver needs to get off, it will take 75 seconds under the 2.5 km spacing. If we were to bring that down to the 1 km mentioned, we would see it reduced to about 30 seconds. That could save lives, so I really believe that the emergency refuge area is absolutely crucial and integral The hon. Gentleman is right to focus on the pause and what it could mean for delivering the technology. Rather than just resting on our hands and looking at data, which is absolutely required, and then making a decision on whether to start building again, I hope that all the effort that was going to be put into building new smart motorways will now be put into retrofitting these safety measures. I assure him that, as a Committee, we will continue to monitor that.
Transport Committee — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Transportation
Peter James Bottomley (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the Chairman of the Select Committee on how he has answered questions. He has made the point that even motorways with hard shoulders are dangerous. In my time, a third of the deaths on motorways were secondary deaths. If a running motorway stops running, the traffic jam goes backwards at 30 mph. People need to be aware of that, and they also need to be aware that if traffic is kept off motorways and put on other roads, the dangers are significantly greater than the difference between the different styles of motorways, with or without recessed emergency refuge areas. Will my hon. Friend emphasise to the Government that, as well as the pause, making sure that motorways attract as much traffic as possible should be a key Government priority?
Transport Committee — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Transportation
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Father of the House. He is right to focus on that. It is sometimes a very difficult discussion to have because we are talking about the economic case, but as he rightly says, motorways are the safest part of our road network, and getting more traffic on to the motorways saves lives. There is an economic case. It has been estimated that for every pound spent, £3 is delivered by having additional space on motorways. It is also true to say that might be just for the first year, as when people know there is a better route to travel, more people travel on it, but my hon. Friend is right that the more people who can get on to motorways, the better. That, ultimately and fundamentally, is why the Government’s response is spot on. They recognise that there are concerns with smart motorways and that people may not use them and go on to more dangerous roads. We need to send the message out that smart motorways are safe. They can be safer, but people should continue to use our motorway network, because it is the safest network of all of our roads system.
Bahraini Political Prisoners — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I have very close contacts with Bahrain, and it would dispute those figures for the number of people utterly and completely. Bahrain does not have political prisoners; they are all prisoners who are there because they have committed a crime.
Bahraini Political Prisoners — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene. I have looked at this matter and visited the country several times, and there is not, to the best of my knowledge, a prisoner in a Bahrain prison who has not carried out an offence that is much more than speaking out against the regime—like being a member of a terrorist organisation or propagating terrorism.