argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Christopher Philip James Elmore (Labour, Centre-left): I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Today’s figures show that the Government are out of kilter with what is happening to constituents across the land. Do Conservative Members not do a weekly shop like their constituents? Do they not see that prices are rising, whether on fuel or food? These things makes a huge difference, and the Conservative party is condemning families to have less in their back pocket as we approach the autumn and winter months. This afternoon Conservative Members will march through the Lobby and pretend it has no impact on their constituents. You could not make it up, Madam Deputy Speaker There are only so many hours in the day. Where are these people meant to find the hours to make up for the cut that the Conservatives are pushing through in the coming weeks? This is why we have seen poverty skyrocket across the country. The cut to UC is simply an old idea imposed on a new generation. If the Government were serious about tackling structural problems in our national economy, they would get to grips with low productivity rates and support investment led by communities, not Whitehall Yet again, the Government’s actions stand in stark contrast to their rhetoric. They claim to be levelling up—it would be funny if it was not so serious—but in truth they seek only a race to the bottom. Conservative Members will show their true colours again this afternoon in voting for stale economic thinking, whereas Labour Members will show a fresh alternative for the future of work.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Naseem Akhtar Shah (Labour, Centre-left): We have had that debate for hours in this Chamber; I am not going to regurgitate it. It is clear that Members on the Government Benches do not agree and are happy with the tax hike. The tax rise affects those at the bottom end of the scale in terms of work and wages. It does not affect Government Members, as many colleagues commented earlier. The truth is that my constituency is the worst affected in the country—that means the children of Bradford West. When children do not get a healthy meal, they do not learn. When mothers have to make the choice between feeding their children and putting the heat on, that is an absolute shame for our country, which is the eighth or sixth richest in the whole world. That is what we are talking about We will not let the Government get away with the gesture politics of clapping for key workers last year during the height of the pandemic, while they now rush through inhumane reforms to the tune of scraping spoons on empty dining tables across the country. That is the reality if this £20 cut happens. I urge the Minister, and not just for my constituents in Bradford West: please do not take this lifeline away from those who rely on it and who have to make the stark decision between food and heating for their children and families.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Paula Barker (Labour, Centre-left): I cannot claim to be surprised we are here debating the scrapping of the £20 uplift to universal credit. As the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) alluded to earlier, the fact that universal credit had to be uplifted is surely an admission that the provision afforded to those falling on hard times was not nearly adequate in the first place. Yet in this moment, when we are told that our economy is on the road to recovery, this Government shamelessly pull the rug from under the feet of millions of decent people. It is morally reprehensible and also bad economics. In my constituency of Liverpool, Wavertree, it translates to 11,500 households, affecting more than 6,000 children. That number includes the more than 33% of UC claimants in my constituency who are in work We on the Opposition Benches are the party of work and workers. We do not make work pay through a low-wage economy subsidised by Dickensian social security systems, no matter how many times the Government employ divide and conquer tactics through the false dichotomy of strivers and skivers I am sorry that the Secretary of State is not here to listen to how this cut will affect my constituents. She grew up in my wonderful city, and it obviously left a very poor impression on her if she is prepared to turn her back on the 62,000 households affected in the city of Liverpool alone, never mind the many more in towns and cities across this country. Let us say it clearly: this is a grotesque act of levelling down. It is levelling down, not levelling up. Indeed, what is "levelling up", if her Department is prepared to remove £12 million from the pockets of those in Liverpool, Wavertree, £12.5 million from the pockets of those in Heywood and Middleton and more than £10 million from those in Darlington As the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) did not know the figure for his constituency, for the record it is just over £5.5 million, affecting 5,340 households and 4,008 children. It is shameful. I am sure the penny pinchers on the Government Benches are perfectly aware of those sums, but then of course there are those other sums trotted out by the Secretary of State. For someone with a PhD in chemistry, I thought she would have a good grasp of detail, such as how many hours it would actually take to make up the £20 loss in income. It is obvious, considering the bluster and false rhetoric, that she has no coherent strategy to make work pay on the back of this £20 cut. Ultimately, it represents an act of war on the low-paid and the unemployed. The consequences for ordinary people will be grave: more food banks and hunger, more homelessness and more destitution in our communities. I am sure it will provide ample opportunity for the regular circus of Tory MPs taking selfies at the very food banks their policies helped to create.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Ruth Margaret Cadbury (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to speak on behalf of the 17,296 adults in claimant households in my constituency who are about to be hit by the universal credit cut, nearly 40% of whom are in work. Before the pandemic, the majority of local universal credit claimants were working, due to the high levels of low-paid work in Hounslow borough and its environs. Many of my constituents who are now unemployed worked in live events in the arts or at Heathrow airport, and the downturn in international aviation since covid has exposed the over-dependence of our local economy on Heathrow. This means that Hounslow has gone from being an area of very low unemployment to having one of the highest levels in the UK Behind every one of the 17,296 local claimants there is a person, often with children, and for them the proposed cut will have a very real impact on their households—households already living in poverty. Many have told me what it will mean. One said that the payment makes "a lot of difference and helps us to eat" "Helps us to eat", in the 21st century in the UK, is disgraceful On the one hand we have had Ministers’ weak attempts to defend this cut, but why do they not also mention the countless acts of wasteful spending we have seen over the last 18 months, such as a test and trace system that does not really trace and unusable PPE? We should also not forget the wider context of this cut. As the Government push through this £1,000 cut per claimant, they are also increasing taxes on working people through the national insurance hike and forcing councils to increase council tax, while today we hear of the rise in inflation to 3.2%. Furthermore, in high rent areas such as my constituency, the benefit cap and local housing allowance levels mean that many of my constituents are using the money from their standard allowance, which should be for food and utilities, to pay the rent. As the Leader of the Opposition highlighted at PMQs today, a full-time worker on the minimum wage will need to work for nine more hours to make up for the £20 cut Cutting UC on top of all this is not only cruel, but economically incompetent. Some £15 million will be taken out of our local economy in my constituency. We know from research that when there is more money in poor people’s pockets, it goes to local businesses and local shops—businesses that themselves employ people and pay tax. It is such a shame that the Chancellor and his Ministers are not here to lead for the Government in this debate rather than the DWP team, who we hear privately share our concerns about the impact of this cut.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Angela Eagle (Labour, Centre-left): On the final night of the Tory party conference, as the Government wine and dine their billionaire donors, the same Ministers have decreed that millions of our fellow citizens will face the biggest cut to social security benefits since the 1930s. On 6 October, the Government will ram through their plan to scrap the £20 uplift to universal credit, at a stroke leaving 6 million households more than £1,000 worse off a year. By next April, 2.5 million will be £1,300 worse off because their national insurance tax contributions will rise by 10%. In Wallasey alone, more than 10,000 households will lose £10.5 million in support. That money provided a vital lifeline to those struggling throughout this pandemic, many of them key workers. This callous Government have made a political choice to withdraw that support. This is money that is currently spent in our local economy but which will disappear overnight The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that these cuts threaten to push 750,000 people into poverty and 500,000 further into deep poverty, which is defined as being more than 50% below the poverty line. There are 6,000 children whose parents are reliant on UC in my Wallasey constituency. This callous cut will be the difference between them putting food on the table or not in the coming months Analysis by Action for Children found that almost 30% of children in Wallasey already live in poverty after housing costs. In supporting this cut, every Conservative Member is voting in full knowledge of its effects. The Government’s own leaked assessment has described the cut as "catastrophic" So egregious is this cut to UC that six of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions’ Tory predecessors have spoken out against it, yet she has pronounced herself "happy" that it is going ahead, and yesterday she was being either disingenuous or ignorant when she claimed that just a couple of hours of extra work would make up for the cut. We know that is not true, and we know that while 40% of those on the benefit are in work, some claimants cannot work for various reasons ranging from illness to child caring responsibilities In Wallasey 36% of people claiming UC are in employment, and nationally one in six working households cannot make ends meet already. The last decade of benefits cuts has left working families worse off than they were 10 years ago. The pandemic uplift has acted as a vital buffer, and now even this is being taken away To govern is to choose; the Conservatives have chosen hardship over hope, and poverty over support. As they sip their champagne and hobnob with their millionaire supporters at their conference, we will never let them forget that.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Mohammed Afzal Khan (Labour, Centre-left): It is frustrating once again to have to plead with the Government not to take a key financial lifeline away from my constituents and working families across the country. As so many of today’s contributions have shown, for many hard-working families, the £20 a week universal credit uplift has been the difference between children going hungry and having food on the table, or between turning the electricity off and topping up the meter If the Government push ahead with this cut to universal credit, it will affect 6 million families across the country, and it has the potential to push 700,000 more people, including 300,000 children, into crippling poverty. In my constituency of Manchester, Gorton, the cut will directly affect 12,000 children This cut will be utterly devastating for my constituents. It will be the single biggest overnight cut to the basic rate of social security since the creation of the modern welfare state. Not only that, but for all the Government’s talk of levelling up, the north will bear the brunt of the cut’s impact. This cut is not necessary; it is a choice that this Tory Government are making. They are choosing to take money out of the pockets of working families struggling to make ends meet. It is a disgrace If the Government will not listen to me, my colleagues on the Opposition Benches, their own colleagues, six previous Conservative Work and Pensions Secretaries, numerous all-party parliamentary groups, or endless charities and campaign groups, then perhaps they will listen to the powerful words of one of my constituents. He is an NHS worker claiming universal credit to make ends meet, and he wrote: "My morale has gone, my head has gone, my heart has gone. Ripped out by a system that doesn’t care for those of us who worked so hard to keep the country together during one of its darkest hours." He is not the only one to have contacted me; hundreds of constituents have written to me desperate for the uplift to be maintained. The hard-working families of Manchester, Gorton do not want this £20 a week; they need it. Will the Government listen to them?
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): Last Friday, a blue plaque was unveiled in memory of Rev. Don Robins, who was appointed vicar of St George’s church in the heart of Leeds at the time of the great depression. Looking around his new parish, he saw the homeless, the hungry and the destitute, and he decided that he must do something. He had an old crypt below the church, and he resolved that it should be used for the living and not the dead, so he turned it into a soup kitchen and night shelter. Since that day, the St George’s crypt has been serving those for whom life has been hard. I sit here and wonder, if he was still with us, what he would have to say about the choice facing the House today. Although the great city of Leeds has seen much prosperity and development in the intervening years, poverty and inequality and hunger have not gone away. They continue to bear down on our communities My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) talked about shame. It is shameful that three in 10 children in my constituency live in absolute poverty. It is shameful that in the three or four miles from the most prosperous to the least well-off parts of our city, life expectancy declines. It is shameful that some children come to school too hungry to learn and that the number of people who have to go to a food bank—that is, after all, going up to a complete stranger and saying, "I know we’ve never met, but can you help me to feed my family this weekend, because I cannot?"—has risen in the last decade There is only one conclusion we can reach. The former Work and Pensions Secretary was absolutely right. There are too many households in our constituencies where the money coming in is insufficient to feed, clothe, shelter and look after a family. That is why it is completely unforgiveable that even though Ministers know this—even though they are well aware that poverty and hunger have got worse during their time in Government—they are still determined to go ahead with the cut to universal credit on which so many of our constituents rely, as we have heard today. One woman put it to me like this: "It may not seem like a lot, but it is absolutely vital to me and my family." I am sure there are many Government Members who, as they vote to make the cut today, will know in their hearts it is wrong. But it is what we do, as Don Robins showed, that counts. He committed himself to be where the work is hardest. It is really hard work to raise a family when you want to do your best but do not have enough money. This cut is wrong and the Government should think again.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Rebecca Long-Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State said that the best route out of poverty is to work. If only that were true. When I came into this place, I knew there would be Tory Members who believed that poverty was a self-infliction, or a "personality defect" in the words of Margaret Thatcher herself in 1978. But I also naively hoped that there might be one or two good people on the Tory Benches who understood that the struggles of many people’s lives were not self-inflicted, but imposed upon them by an economic system that was simply stacked against them and that possibly, just possibly, they might stand up when the time was right So I ask Tory Members today: what kind of Tory are they? Are they one who understands that 40% of the 15,000 universal credit claimants in Salford and Eccles are actually in work, work that pays so little they have to rely on Government support to top it up? Are they a Tory who would help my constituent who wants to work, when she says: "With the amount I would get from Universal Credit coupled with the childcare costs and my potential wages, what I would have left at the end of the month will leave myself and my husband very tight on finances. The £20 uplift makes a huge difference in our finances and my ability to work" Or are they a Tory who simply dismisses her, and indeed analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that shows the majority of families that lose out will be working families who were already suffering before the pandemic hit For those unable to work, the situation is even bleaker. The reality is that the basic rate of universal credit is only a sixth of average weekly pay, and many on legacy benefits did not even get the uplift at all. Frankly, rather than being cut, universal credit should be increased to at least 80% of the level of the living wage and the temporary £20 top-up extended to those on legacy benefits If the Tories mean it when they say that the best route out of poverty is work, then I say to them: do something about it. Outline an ambitious agenda to tackle in-work poverty, including a higher minimum wage, collective bargaining, secure work, a ban on zero-hours contracts, progression opportunities, and affordable childcare and housing costs. Tory Members, prove to me today that my naive hope that there is some semblance of common decency on the Government Benches is true, and stop this cut.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Helen Elizabeth Hayes (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to speak against the cut to universal credit, which is cruel, illogical and unnecessary. It is cruel because £20 a week makes all the difference to those on the lowest incomes, many of whom are already working all the hours they can but simply cannot make ends meet. Norwood and Brixton food bank, which serves many of my constituents every week with love and care, has been warning for many months that if local people on universal credit are subjected to this cut, the need for emergency food support will increase, placing even more pressure on its staff and volunteers. Our welfare state was established to provide a security safety net for people who cannot make ends meet, yet this Government are taking us back to Victorian Britain, where people forced into appalling hardship by the Government’s failures are reliant on the good will of our communities in ever-increasing numbers This cut will cause unspeakable hardship. Parents will go without food so that their children can eat. People will suffer in cold, damp homes because they will not be able to afford the heating. Debt will increase and physical and mental health will deteriorate. This cut is illogical, because at a time of fragile economic recovery, when high streets up and down the country are struggling and shops are closing, it makes no sense to be taking millions of pounds of expenditure out of every single constituency in the country. And this cut is unnecessary, because it is a political choice There are many ways in which the Government could lift people out of poverty. They could raise the minimum wage to the real living wage, make housing more affordable, make childcare more affordable and ban zero-hours contracts, but they have failed those on the lowest pay for more than a decade and now they are punishing the same low-paid workers. These are the same people who have been at the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic: social care workers, shop workers, childcare workers, delivery drivers, hospital porters, bus drivers and others. This is no way to treat those who have seen us through the greatest crisis since the second world war It does not take a degree in engineering to know that if the screws are too tight, the pressure will buckle and break even the strongest of materials. Make no mistake, this cut will break people who have already faced so much pressure from the cruel policies of this Tory Government bearing down on them. Government Members have a choice: they can live with this cruellest of cuts or they can join us in the Lobby and vote against it, because it is wrong and unacceptable.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Zarah Sultana (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. "I will not have enough money to buy food or heat my home…I don’t know how I will eat...I am afforded no dignity...I am thrown on the scrap heap"— those are the words of Joan, a woman in her 60s who wrote to me about the effects of the cut to universal credit. She said: "I am ashamed to be in this situation" Another person who wrote to me was a single mum who told me about her beautiful daughter. They escaped domestic violence but now, even "with the uplift... life is crushingly hard", she wrote. She continued: "But losing 20 pounds a week will send us spiralling down." She said that she does not know "how the Conservatives can do this to people" That is a tiny snapshot of the correspondence that I have received about the cut to universal credit and working tax credits. "How can they do this to people?" was the question. It is the single biggest overnight social security cut in the history of the welfare state, hitting more than 6 million families, including around 10,000 households in Coventry South. It is expected to push 700,000 more people, including 300,000 children, into poverty, with more than 500,000 pushed into extreme poverty Let us look at who is pushing this through. In the words of Amy, another person who wrote to me: "I truly wish the Conservatives understood the impact of this cut. I don’t want to be on benefits" But what makes it "really humiliating", she said, is "that we have to prove we’re worth an extra 20 pounds a week to people who say they can’t survive on 150,000 pounds a year." That is the truth. The Conservative party is from a different world from those who are being hit by this cruel cut In one of my first speeches in Parliament, I called for an end to the inequality in opportunities that exists between working-class children and those born to wealth and sent to schools like Eton. For that simple demand, a Government Member accused me of "class warfare". But if there is class warfare in Britain, this is it: led by an old Etonian, a Chancellor who is the richest member of the House, a Cabinet that is two thirds privately educated, and funded by the super-rich. The Conservative party is launching one of the biggest ever attacks on the living standards of the working class in this country, pushing millions more into desperation and misery. If Government Members have even a single scrap of decency, they will vote against this cut and instead, at the very least, extend the uplift to all legacy benefits.