argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Engagements — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Questions:   The UK is the global leader in social outcomes contracts, which can deliver public services in an array of areas, from healthcare to mental healthcare, employment, education and development aid. According to Big Society Capital, every £1 the Government have spent in this way has delivered £10 in further economic, social and fiscal value, including £3 in direct savings to Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the time is right for the Government to redouble their focus on this outcomes-led commissioning?
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): The Prime Minister has obviously not been to Wakefield recently. He has crashed the economy and he has put everybody’s tax up. The last Tory he sent up to Wakefield was convicted of a sexual assault. That is not much of a pitch, Prime Minister. Talking of people not up to the job, while the Transport Secretary spends his time working on his spreadsheet tracking the Prime Minister’s unpopularity, thousands of families have had their holiday flights cancelled, it takes forever to renew a driving licence or passport and now we have the biggest rail strike in 30 years. If the Prime Minister is genuine—[Interruption.]
Engagements — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: International Affairs
Questions:   The UK is the global leader in social outcomes contracts, which can deliver public services in an array of areas, from healthcare to mental healthcare, employment, education and development aid. According to Big Society Capital, every £1 the Government have spent in this way has delivered £10 in further economic, social and fiscal value, including £3 in direct savings to Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the time is right for the Government to redouble their focus on this outcomes-led commissioning?
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I am surprised the Prime Minister is giving me advice about my team. If I do need advice, let us say, about a £100,000 job at the Foreign Office, I will ask him for a recommendation. There you have it, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister of this country and his Transport Secretary have not attended a single meeting, held a conversation or lifted a finger to stop these strikes. But I did note that on Monday they found time to go to a lavish ball, where the Prime Minister sold a meeting with himself for £120,000 to a donor. If there is money coming his way, he is there. When it comes to the country, he is nowhere to be seen. Rather than blame everyone else, why does he not do his job, get round the table and get the trains running?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Questions:   The UK is the global leader in social outcomes contracts, which can deliver public services in an array of areas, from healthcare to mental healthcare, employment, education and development aid. According to Big Society Capital, every £1 the Government have spent in this way has delivered £10 in further economic, social and fiscal value, including £3 in direct savings to Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the time is right for the Government to redouble their focus on this outcomes-led commissioning?
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): The Prime Minister cannot help himself. There is a huge problem facing the country, and all he is interested in doing is blaming everyone else. Can he not hear the country screaming at him, "Get on with your job!"? While he blames everyone and anyone, working people are paying the price. This week, his Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that there is a "society-wide responsibility" for people to take a pay cut. At the same time, his chief of staff, the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), is trying to change the law to get bankers’ bonuses increased. So come one, only one of them can be right: is it his Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who says that every worker needs a pay cut, or is it his chief of staff, who says that every banker needs a pay rise?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Questions:   The UK is the global leader in social outcomes contracts, which can deliver public services in an array of areas, from healthcare to mental healthcare, employment, education and development aid. According to Big Society Capital, every £1 the Government have spent in this way has delivered £10 in further economic, social and fiscal value, including £3 in direct savings to Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the time is right for the Government to redouble their focus on this outcomes-led commissioning?
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): The Prime Minister’s chief of staff says that removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses is "reflective of the new approach" Pay rises for city bankers, pay cuts for district nurses—that is the new approach. I did not see that on any leaflets in Wakefield. But this has not come from nowhere, because according to the Financial Times, on 7 June last year, the Prime Minister was directly lobbied for the cap to be lifted. Rather than help working people, he has rolled over on bankers’ bonuses, has he not?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Questions:   The UK is the global leader in social outcomes contracts, which can deliver public services in an array of areas, from healthcare to mental healthcare, employment, education and development aid. According to Big Society Capital, every £1 the Government have spent in this way has delivered £10 in further economic, social and fiscal value, including £3 in direct savings to Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the time is right for the Government to redouble their focus on this outcomes-led commissioning?
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): Fifteen tax rises, high tax, low wages, low growth—that sums the Prime Minister’s Government up. Working people are paying more tax under this Government, and now they are told to take a pay cut. He is having meetings about increasing bankers’ bonuses, but he cannot find time for a single meeting to end the strikes crippling the country It is Armed Forces Week. Under this Prime Minister, those serving our country are facing a real-terms pay cut. Why are his Government more focused on increasing bankers’—[Interruption.]
Bill of Rights — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Government Operations
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): Before I call the Deputy Prime Minister to make his statement, I have to say to him and the Government that I am extremely disappointed that, once again, an important Government policy has been presented to the media before being presented to this House. Why the BBC and Sky News are more important, I will never know. I say again that this is simply not acceptable One thing that did not change in the recently revised ministerial code is this important statement: "When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of Government policy should be made, in the first instance, in Parliament." Yet again, the media have been the first to know I am glad the Deputy Prime Minister is making this statement, but he should have done so before speaking to the media. I would certainly have granted an urgent question, and I thank Mr Bone for tabling one just in case the statement had not been forthcoming. The Government should be aware that I will always do this in similar circumstances. I have to say that I nearly granted both, and I do not want to be put in that position again, so please respect this House and respect Members of every political party. They are elected to hear things here, not via the news.
Bill of Rights — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Eleanor Claire Reeves (Labour, Centre-left): Last week’s scorecard showed pitiful progress on the record low rate of convictions under this Government. The typical wait for cases to complete in court has reached three years, and a fifth have seen waits of four years—and that is if the case even gets to court. The number of rape trials postponed at a day’s notice in our Crown courts has risen fourfold. It is no wonder that rape survivors are dropping out of their cases in droves. Will victims even bother to report their case at all when they learn that the Deputy Prime Minister’s Bill of Rights will stop them forcing our under-resourced police to investigate? It says everything about a Lord Chancellor and a Government who are soft on rape, soft on rapists and hard on survivors, that they want to take away the final backstop available to victims to get justice. Women will be in no doubt that this is a Government who let off rapists and let survivors down, and today is the proof The Bill will see enormous amounts of red tape for victims of crime seeking justice. It is an attack on women and it undermines peace in Northern Ireland. It is the hallmark of a party out of ideas that can no longer govern.
Bill of Rights — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): The Deputy Prime Minister is right about the priority that must be given to public protection, but may I urge him to proceed with care in reforming parole arrangements? Ministers have already taken measures that will give them a veto over the transfer of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences to open conditions, and he will know that there are real concerns that, as well as being procedurally unfair, such measures may increase the risk to public protection. Will he reassure the House that he will make public protection a priority over political gimmickry?
Bill of Rights — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Law and Crime
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Secretary of State share with me the level of support he has for this legislation from the people who will make it work—the lawyers, judges and other professionals? I am not a lawyer, but because I have campaigned with the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) on miscarriages of justice, I have mixed with a lot of lawyers; I have to say that I am worried about the number of lawyers who do not understand the reason for the Bill at this moment There have been three Queen’s Speeches with a promise for a royal commission into the justice system, but that has never appeared; it has not gone anywhere. The last thing I want the Secretary of State to remember is that the justice system is in a mess. The barristers are on strike, we cannot get criminal lawyers to represent anyone and the fact is that the Department of Justice has had the biggest cut in budget since 2010 of any Department.
EU Retained Law — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): It was widely reported that the right hon. Gentleman wanted to introduce a sunset clause under which all EU retained law would disappear after four years unless Government Departments had decided that they wanted to keep it. However, having listened carefully to his statement, it seems to me that he has suffered a defeat at the hands of his Cabinet colleagues—we should pay tribute to the Environment Secretary, who I think described that approach as "messing around". If the right hon. Gentleman is serious about trying to remove constraints on businesses, what is he going to do about the barrel-load of red tape, cost and bureaucracy that has fallen on British businesses since the beginning of 2021 when they are trying to export to the EU? That has had a huge impact, especially on small businesses, some of which have just given up trying to sell goods to Europe.
EU Retained Law — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister is right that it makes a refreshing change from the practice of his colleagues that he came to this House first to tell us about the dashboard, but he might have tried to see whether it works on a mobile phone, because it does not. I know that he is not a fan of being able to simply charge one, but he might accept that most of the British public who want to use the dashboard will have one. No matter—with some assistance, I have been able to log on to the dashboard and I can see that on the list of items that he has put up for grabs are the length of maternity leave and the duty to pay statutory maternity pay. He said in his statement that everything on the dashboard "can now change". Will he assure the thousands of women in this country who rely on the protections of maternity leave and maternity pay that they will not change? If so, what is the point of this? If not, will he be honest that it is really about reinventing the Beecroft reforms?
Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): I just want to check one point. At the moment, about 150,000 working-age people who receive universal credit have their benefits limited by the benefit cap. Am I right to say that these additional payments are not constrained at all by the level of the benefit cap?
Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Marsha Chantol De Cordova (Labour, Centre-left): In opening, the Secretary of State alluded to the fact that 6 million disabled people would qualify for the additional disability support payment of £150. Does she acknowledge that some disabled people—particularly those in receipt of disability living allowance, PIP or attendance allowance—who no longer qualify for the warm home discount since her Government changed the rules, will lose out? In effect, they have taken away £150 through the warm home discount, and the additional £150 really does not do anything to meet the extra costs for people who have already lost out.
Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State will of course know that her figures on absolute poverty and relative poverty are disputed by the various stakeholders who work in this field. One of the issues that is concerning people with regard to poverty is the failure to uprate benefits this year along the lines of this year’s levels of inflation. She has rightly said that pensions and benefits such as disability benefits and universal credit—and, hopefully, the minimum income guarantee and pension credit—will rise in line with inflation this September. She is coming under some pressure on that now. Can she give us a guarantee that she will not resile from that position?
Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman anticipates a point I am going to make, which is why now is a good moment to turn to the specifics of the Bill. I want to raise a number of points that I hope Treasury Benchers will address throughout proceedings this afternoon, particularly regarding how the Bill impacts on four groups: the self-employed on universal credit; disabled people and carers; pensioners; and larger families First, on the self-employed who claim universal credit, the minimum income floor will reduce universal credit payments for some self-employed people to zero. Could the Minister clarify, in responding to the debate, whether self-employed universal credit claimants whose UC payments are zero purely because of the minimum income floor will be entitled to these cost of living payments Secondly, on how this impacts on disabled people, the disability charity Sense has warned today of the increasing numbers of disabled people pushed into debt as a result of the rising cost of living. Those on the Treasury Bench must surely understand that many disabled people have needs that make heating and electricity to power equipment particularly central to their wellbeing, so that economising on energy can bring severe hardship As my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) raised a few moments ago, disabled people on non-means-tested benefits will get £150 as a minimum, and indeed those on means-tested benefits will get the £650. I appreciate that the Secretary of State says this is a responsibility of the Business Secretary, but Ministers did recently change the rules on the warm home discount scheme so that 290,000 people on disability living allowance, PIP and attendance allowance are no longer eligible For people on PIP, that means that the Government are giving £150 to them after it was taken off them through the changes to the warm home discount scheme. This is robbing Peter to pay Paul, and it suggests that one hand of Government does not know what the other hand of Government is doing. How can that be justified?
Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Marsha Chantol De Cordova (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend is making an excellent point, and he probably articulated it even better than I did. Does he also agree with me that the whole premise of DLA, PIP and attendance allowance is to help meet some of the extra costs faced by disabled people? The Secretary of State has stated that this is a different Department—it is BEIS—but she must none the less acknowledge the purpose of these benefits, and taking away one payment and giving some money back with another is actually going to leave nearly 300,000 disabled people worse off.
Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): I am very pleased that the Bill is in front of us. The Select Committee has been clear in the past few weeks that, without a big measure on this kind of scale, low-income families would be in very serious trouble indeed in the coming months. I echo the tribute that has just been paid by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) to Jack Monroe and her campaigning on this. She gave very compelling evidence to the Select Committee at our meeting on 9 March The package that has come forward has been widely welcomed. We put out a call for evidence on the cost of living in May. In response, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that, "the package provided much-needed support for households, which will protect many of them against rising costs over the coming year." Citizens Advice welcomes the targeted support to low-income households and hoped that it would "start to reverse the worrying trends we have seen in our data, including record-breaking food bank referrals." Unlike the previous announcements, this May package is properly targeted on low-income families, as it needed to be. The Resolution Foundation described it as offsetting "the poor targeting of previous announcements." It also described it as "serious redistribution". It is, I think, a serious response to a serious problem. I also welcome the Chancellor’s change of heart over the windfall tax to fund some of the help that is needed However, we need to be clear: the reason the Bill is needed is that the system for social security uprating has failed. It is a long-standing system. There is nothing new about the way it is done, but the unforeseen burst in inflation means that it simply has not worked this year. On this occasion, the decision has been taken to replace adequate uprating with ad hoc payments from the Treasury, which will certainly help us through the next few months. We need now to rethink the uprating system to make sure that it does not let us down again.
Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I have a question for my right hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee. Is he aware that, in 1976, the then Social Services Secretary, Barbara Castle, came to the House and uprated benefits and pensions for a second time in a year—there was a cost of living crisis then as well. The policy of the then shadow Secretary of State, Norman Fowler, was that uprating should take place twice a year. I wonder whether the Select Committee will consider the arguments that were made in the 1970s.
Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. The Select Committee will certainly be looking at that. We are conducting an inquiry later this year on the question of the level of benefits, and the issue of how benefits should be uprated will certainly feature. I am intrigued to learn that the Secretary of State was able to do that in the 1970s given that we have been told that the IT systems in the 2020s cannot cope with it. I am certainly interested in seeing more on that.
Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-22
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): I want to go back to what the Minister said about the benefit cap, and I welcome the point he made. Does he recognise that, in a very high inflation environment, there really is quite a compelling case for looking again at the level of the benefit cap for next year alongside the other benefit uprating matters?
Knife Crime and Serious Violence — House of Commons, 2022-06-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Sarah Ann Jones (Labour, Centre-left): The National Crime Agency is responsible for tackling the organised crime gangs who drive up so much of the knife crime, violence and drug abuse that we see on our streets. Why, then, has the Home Secretary asked it to draw up plans for 20% cuts?
Antisocial Behaviour — House of Commons, 2022-06-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Naseem Akhtar Shah (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) is right to ask the Government what they are doing to tackle antisocial behaviour. In his constituency total recorded crime went up by 59% from 2011-12 to 2020-21, which highlights the Conservative Government’s track record, a damning one at that. No wonder crime is up. Action on antisocial behaviour is down since his Government took out 7,000 neighbourhood police officers—a cut of 30%—so the 1,000 the Minister just mentioned does not quite cut it. Will the Minister tell the House why the Government do not believe in neighbourhood policing, as they have clearly given up on it with the cuts they have made?
National Security — House of Commons, 2022-06-20
Topic: International Affairs
Holly Jamie Walker-Lynch (Labour, Centre-left): Canada, one of our Five Eyes partners, recently announced sanctions against Alexander Lebedev as one of 14 people who "have directly enabled Vladimir Putin’s senseless war in Ukraine and bear responsibility for the pain and suffering of the people of Ukraine." I have asked this question of the Government six times now, but I have not had anything resembling an answer: did the Prime Minister meet Alexander Lebedev without officials and without close protection during the Salisbury poisonings in April 2018—yes or no?
Departmental Morale — House of Commons, 2022-06-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): That sounds very impressive until we come to my part of West Yorkshire, where I talk to the police, to probation officers, to prison staff and to firefighters. Their morale is at rock bottom. Whatever the Home Secretary is doing in the Department, will she for goodness’ sake get out into the country and meet real people, who are depressed and demoralised by this Government’s cutbacks?
Domestic Abuse — House of Commons, 2022-06-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Jessica Rose Phillips (Labour, Centre-left): In July 2021, the Government announced that a domestic homicide sentencing review will look at unfairness in the sentencing of intimate partner domestic homicides. According to Counting Dead Women, at least 105 women have since been killed. The family and friends of these women face immeasurable pain from their loss, so where is the domestic homicide sentencing review, which is now six months late? For the sake of the women who will definitely be murdered next week, may I ask why there is such a delay?