argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Social Security — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Margaret Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Lady for making the point so powerfully The benefit freeze increases poverty. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the freeze is set to drive almost 500,000 more people into poverty by 2020. In 2018, a couple with children claiming universal credit were up to £500 worse off, and a lone parent with children was up to £400 worse off, due to the benefit freeze. The JRF says that the freeze is the single biggest policy driver behind rising poverty levels. Before the freeze was introduced in the Welfare Reform and Work Act, working-age benefits were capped at 1%, yet living costs are rising. In the 12 months to September last year, prices grew by 2.4%, according to the CPI inflation measure. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says that between the introduction of the benefits freeze in April 2016 and November 2018, the annual cost of living for people on low incomes rose by £900 Rising living costs and frozen social security mean that the value of benefits is increasingly inadequate to protect people from poverty. A recent report by the National Audit Office shows how the real value of the basic rate of jobseeker’s allowance and income support has fallen nearly every year since 2012-13, and it is now below its value in 2009-10. Overall, the real cut to many benefits from the four-year freeze is over 6%. According to the Resolution Foundation, child benefit is now already worth less than it was in April 1999. Beyond a family’s first child, child benefit in April 2019 will be worth 14% less than it was when it was fully introduced in April 1979. This is compounded by the Conservatives’ broken economy: low wage growth and the rise of insecure and zero-hours contracts mean that incomes are failing to meet the rising cost of living.
Social Security — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Margaret Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): I will come on to pensions further on in my speech, if the hon. Gentleman will wait for that Some 8 million people are in poverty and live in families where at least one person is working. According to Shelter, more than half of homeless families in England are in work. Under the Conservatives, having a job is not even a guarantee that someone can avoid homelessness. The benefit freeze cannot be seen in isolation. It is just one part of the Conservative austerity programme that has seen billions cut from public services around the country and taken the core out of our communities. The Conservatives have targeted social security with devastating cuts, taking vital support from poor and disabled people. According to figures produced by the Library, measures announced in the June 2010 Budget onwards are forecast to cut social security by £36 billion in 2020-21. Nearly £5 billion is forecast to be taken from disability benefits, including employment and support allowance and incapacity benefit; £4.6 billion from tax credits; and £3.4 billion from child benefit. These cuts have had a devastating impact on the incomes of millions of people. The freeze should be seen in the context of the chaotic roll-out of the Government’s failing flagship social security programme, universal credit.
Social Security — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): If it is true that, as we heard from the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), tax income outstripped public spending by £14.9 billion this January—giving the Government their biggest surplus since records began—we have to ask ourselves why on earth we are doing this. There can be no persuasive economic case to support it. Why is there a need to persist with another year of benefits freeze? Why are we holding most working benefits and tax credits to their 2015-16 value Pensioners, as we have heard, can expect a 2.6% increase, which I welcome, but the Minister’s persuasive argument for the triple lock to maintain income security for vulnerable pensioners could just as easily be made for all the other people who are about to lose out. Benefits aimed specifically at disabled people and carers are also set to rise, and I welcome that too, but how are those people fundamentally different from young children in their needs I will not go over all of this, but we have heard about the range of frozen benefits—in particular, child and working tax credits and child benefit. The attack on those benefits is about the meanest of all. If they were not frozen, those benefits would be rising by about 2.4% in today’s announcement. That might make the difference in whether someone can buy their kid a pair of shoes or guarantee that they have their breakfast before they go to school in the morning. Over the past four years, the most exposed, the most vulnerable and those at the poorest end of our society have suffered the loss of about 6.1% of the value of their benefits. It looks as though this is a deliberate strategy to punish people for being poor and vulnerable. It is hard to equate that with the idea that austerity is over As we have heard, the ending of this benefits freeze would lift 200,000 people out of poverty, but as things stand this Government are on course to plunge a record number of children into poverty, and it sends the signal that they do not care. They could do something about it—there is no economic case here—but they do not care. If the Prime Minister had been sincere when she stood on those steps outside No. 10 Downing Street, we would not be listening to this uprating today. The social security uprating that has been announced tells us all we need to know about this Government. They are not only incompetent but mean-spirited and punitive towards the very people in society who should be most able to rely on our help.
Social Security — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Labor
James McMahon (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister must surely know that the reason there are more people in work is that there are more working-age people. In my constituency, unemployment is higher this year than it was last year, and there is still a struggle to get people on long-term unemployment back into the labour market. He must know that, surely.
Social Security — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ruth Stephanie Nicole George (Labour, Centre-left): I assume that in claiming that I am attacking policies aimed at job creation, the Minister is referring to the huge cuts in mainstream corporation tax, which I analysed at the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers when working on some of the major supermarkets. They actually took their corporation tax reduction and refused to even put that amount into wage growth, let alone into jobs. This is not a job creation scheme; it has made profits for shareholders, not for workers.
Social Security — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Social Welfare
James McMahon (Labour, Centre-left): Can we just take away this artificial divide between taxpayers over here and claimants over there? People who claim benefits also pay tax. They contribute and work hard, and they deserve a better deal than this.
Bus Services: Greater Manchester — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Transportation
Elizabeth Anne McInnes (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. In my constituency, we are extremely reliant on the bus services. We have only two railway stations that serve only a part of the constituency. Complaints about bus services are a constant in my constituency emails. I am very grateful to him for raising these really important issues, which mean a lot to my constituents.
Bus Services: Greater Manchester — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Transportation
James McMahon (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I congratulate her on the work that she does in supporting constituents for whom this is a real issue. Middleton and Heywood have First Bus as the main operator as we do in Oldham, with the main depot being based in Oldham for north-east Manchester. It runs the lion’s share of the routes, so there is no competition that would mean that the standard was raised. I appreciate that point being made.
Bus Services: Greater Manchester — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Transportation
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): Is my hon. Friend and neighbour concerned, as I am, about the reliability of bus services? That is a constant cause of concern not just in casework but among my staff, one of whom had to wait over an hour for a bus tonight and was yet again late. Is my hon. Friend also concerned about the decrease in the use of bus services? There has been a decrease of 25 million journeys in the space of five years in Greater Manchester.
Bus Services: Greater Manchester — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Transportation
James McMahon (Labour, Centre-left): Over the past decade, we have seen 32 million fewer bus journeys a year as a result of poor services. I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour on the work that she does in fighting for access to rural services, where many people feel isolated. When the bus does not turn up on time when it is needed, particularly in the winter when it is dark, as at the moment, it can be very difficult for local people. She campaigns on that with real effect, and I congratulate her.
Bus Services: Greater Manchester — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Transportation
Elizabeth Anne McInnes (Labour, Centre-left): It is really important that we remember the role of bus services in addressing social isolation. A constituent came to see me about the cutting of a bus service, which meant she was unable to go out in the afternoons to shop and visit friends and family. She was an elderly lady. I wrote to the Minister for loneliness about it, who wrote back to me and said, "This is a matter for the Department for Transport." Does my hon. Friend agree that there needs to be more joined-up working between Departments?
Bus Services: Greater Manchester — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Transportation
James McMahon (Labour, Centre-left): Just for the record, the additional powers the Mayor of Greater Manchester will receive through the statutory instrument tomorrow relate to precepting powers to pass the charge on. The Government have not provided the funding required to deliver bus franchising in Greater Manchester, so it now has to go on the council tax payers of Greater Manchester.
Rail Fares — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Peter John Kyle (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. Last April, the then rail Minister wrote to me to say that he was conducting a review of fare simplification on the Brighton main line. In oral questions that month, he said that the review would be completed "rapidly". Only the context of this Government’s handling of rail fares could the best part of a year be called rapid. When will that review be completed and when will fares be simplified on the Brighton main line?
Rail Fares — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): Fares have gone up everywhere, including for Hull Trains, which has been particularly difficult for residents of Hull to swallow because the reliability of the trains has been so poor. I will offer the Minister a gift this morning—an opportunity to be a hero cost-free. I would like him to contact First Group and put extreme pressure on it to give Hull Trains a new train six months earlier than promised. If he can do that, it will improve reliability—and I am not even asking him for any more money.
Leaving the EU: Aviation — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Virendra Kumar Sharma (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for his response to my question. What is the Department’s estimate of the effect of leaving the EU on the opportunities for the thousands currently employed in the aviation sector as apprentices?
Leaving the EU: Aviation — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): I chair the parliamentary air safety group, and I know a little about the aviation sector. During consideration of a statutory instrument upstairs recently, I challenged a Minister to tell me which chief executive or chair of any airline he had talked to about this subject. I have talked to them, and they are terrified of the impact of a no-deal Brexit. He could not name one.
Leaving the EU: Aviation — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Karl Turner (Labour, Centre-left): The Prime Minister’s deal looks dead and we could well be heading into the chaos of a no-deal Brexit. If that is the case, we will no longer be a member of the European Aviation Safety Agency. Given that we do not currently have a bilateral air safety agreement with the US, can the Secretary of State give a guarantee that in the event of no deal there will be no disruption to flights?
Community Transport — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): That is a tiny amount to invest in community transport. My constituency is largely rural, and people in our villages—particularly older people—are left isolated because profit-making bus companies are not interested in serving them. There is some community provision, but very little funding. Will the Minister offer my isolated communities some comfort and commit more money to that sector, either directly or through the combined authority?
Community Transport — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Mathew Richard Allen Rodda (Labour, Centre-left): Community transport is a lifeline for many older or disabled people who would otherwise be trapped in their own homes, yet the Government propose to introduce a significant and unwanted extra burden on the charities that run those vital services. Age UK has reported that the majority of its community transport services would be forced to close because of the Government’s mistaken proposals. Will the Minister commit to reconsidering her approach and to working with, rather than against, the charities that run those vital services?
Leaving the EU: Ports — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Questions: What steps he is taking to reduce potential disruption to travel at UK ports in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.; What steps he is taking to reduce potential disruption to travel at UK ports in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Lilian Rachel Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): It has been reported that the Secretary of State’s Department is in talks with two rail freight companies about options to provide additional services via the channel tunnel and High Speed 1 to ensure supplies of food and medicines in the event of blockages at Kent ports. It is also claimed that the Department has written to Southeastern trains warning of possible disruption to its services if additional daytime freight movements are required. Is his Department really contemplating emergency rail timetables in the event of a no-deal Brexit? Has he written to Southeastern regarding such contingency plans? Should the many thousands of rail commuters in Kent be bracing themselves for possible disruption?
Leaving the EU: Ports — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Questions: What steps he is taking to reduce potential disruption to travel at UK ports in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.; What steps he is taking to reduce potential disruption to travel at UK ports in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Andrew Joseph McDonald (Labour, Centre-left): Here’s another one the Secretary of State might not answer. As a result of this debacle, a variety of legal challenges to the Secretary of State may well flow from, among others, existing freight service providers with capacity. On Tuesday, he said that Seaborne will be able to run ferry services immediately, but on Wednesday the Government said that Seaborne will not be able to open the route between Ramsgate and Ostend until late April at the very earliest. Surely that puts Seaborne in default of its contract to deliver services from 29 March and the contract is therefore void. In those circumstances, should not he reverse his appalling judgment and cancel the contract without delay?
CrossCountry Rail Franchise — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Luke Pollard (Labour, Centre-left): In November, an unbelievable 30% of CrossCountry trains to Plymouth terminated early at Exeter because the Voyager trains could not get through Dawlish in bad weather. As well as placing orders for new rolling stock for the long term, will the Minister look at requiring CrossCountry to use the GWR HST trains that are currently being replaced with newer trains, to give Cross Country extra, interim, Dawlish-proof capacity?
CrossCountry Rail Franchise — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Questions: As the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) outlined, there are constant issues with CrossCountry services west of Exeter due to their lack of resilience on the Dawlish coastal stretch. Can the Minister outline to me, and reassure me, that both the future rolling stock requirements and the work that we are doing to improve the resilience of this iconic coastal line will make a difference?
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): Before Christmas, I travelled between Leeds and Sheffield on a CrossCountry train and experienced what my constituents regularly experience—as many passengers standing as sitting. The simple fact is that the four-car trains on the busiest part of the route between Leeds and Birmingham are simply inadequate. When we get a new franchise, will the Minister ensure that those four-car trains are extended, so that there is the capacity for people to actually get a seat on them?
Manchester Oxford Road Station — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Graham Eric Stringer (Labour, Centre-left): A review simply is not good enough. More than three quarters of trains at Oxford Road do not comply with the timetable. We have had delays, cancellations, reviews. We need an immediate implementation of the Northern Hub investment programme —extra platforms at Salford, and extensions of platforms at Oxford Road, moving to new platforms 15 and 16. Will the Minister do that, and reject the ridiculous idea that this problem can be solved by digitising the signalling system, when there is such mixed rolling stock on these rails?
Manchester Oxford Road Station — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): My constituents, who use the line from Oxford Road through my constituency to Liverpool Lime Street, continue to experience repeated delays and overcrowding, and they are told to expect that situation to continue at least until April. What penalties will Northern face, as much of this seems to be due to lack of rolling stock or of train crew?
Rail Travel: Affordability — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that reply, but 2018 was an abysmal year for rail travel, with tens of thousands of services cancelled in Yorkshire and across the country. Services in Yorkshire are among the least reliable anywhere in the UK and it is having a huge impact on Wakefield city centre. Will the Minister look again at the Transport Committee’s excellent recommendation to enable season ticket holders to have a discount on their season tickets on the worst-performing lines, which at the moment are TransPennine Express and Northern? Both are heavily used by my constituents, who do not have time to claim for every train service that does not turn up on a daily basis.
Heathrow Third Runway: Highway Vehicles — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Ruth Margaret Cadbury (Labour, Centre-left): The terminal 5 inspector recommended that that expansion should be dependent on additional rail access, and we have seen the consequences locally of that not having happened. The Department for Transport’s own figures say that a third runway will put an additional 54,000 vehicles a day on our local road system. Will the Secretary of State make any further expansion at Heathrow conditional on western and southern rail access?
Heathrow Third Runway: Highway Vehicles — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State has mentioned the Piccadilly line upgrade, but he knows that that—and, indeed, Crossrail—is there to cope with existing and future passenger demand, and not Heathrow expansion. Given that we know that Heathrow, as always, will do nothing to cope with the problems that it causes, what will the Government do when there is this massive increase in passengers, a 50% increase in flights and no capacity on those lines to deal with those?
Access for All — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
David George Hanson (Labour, Centre-left): To get from the car park to the south side of Flint station in my constituency involves two footbridges, and that is one of the projects that was nominated in November last year. Will the Minister assure me that access to funds for those projects will be maintained in the current spending review?
Rail Electrification — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Christian John Patrick Matheson (Labour, Centre-left): It strikes me that a lot of official capacity is currently being sucked out of the Department by preparations for a no-deal Brexit, and that is slowing up projects that should be pushing ahead. What progress is being made on plans for electrification of the Chester to Crewe and north Wales line or, if not electrification, on the procurement of the electro-diesel trains that are the next best option?
Rail Electrification — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Questions: Passenger numbers on the transpennine route are set to double over the next 20 years, but still it appears that the upgrade is being downgraded. Given that one third of transport spending in England is in London, will the Transport Secretary help to redress the imbalance by matching Labour’s commitment to Crossrail for the north?
Dennis Edward Skinner (Labour, Centre-left): Would it not make a lot more sense to electrify the whole of the midland line, rather than stopping at Kettering in Northamptonshire? If that happened, we could save some of the £56 billion that HS2 will cost us, and save about 30 to 40 houses in Derbyshire that are due to be knocked down. All those things could happen if the Minister electrified the midland line, and passengers would get to London 30 minutes quicker—not that I want that—which is one of the promises the Government have made. For God’s sake, make a big hole in that £56 billion and electrify the midland line.
Rail Electrification — House of Commons, 2019-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Questions: Passenger numbers on the transpennine route are set to double over the next 20 years, but still it appears that the upgrade is being downgraded. Given that one third of transport spending in England is in London, will the Transport Secretary help to redress the imbalance by matching Labour’s commitment to Crossrail for the north?
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): Labour’s commitment to electrification has been unwavering, yet the Government have pulled electrification projects across the country. Last month we learned that the transpennine route will no longer support future freight, meet journey time ambitions or, without electrification, deliver on reliability either, depending instead on heavy and polluting diesel bi-mode trains—[Interruption.]