argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): When I wander down Stockton High Street, I see the signs of poverty everywhere. I see young people with no hope on their faces and no hope of getting a job. I see people who probably have to shop in the charity shops because it is pretty obvious that they have not been able to buy any new clothes for a while. I see families going discount store to discount store to buy one item because it happens to be a couple of pence cheaper than it is elsewhere. Did my right hon. Friend see anything in the Budget to correct that?
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Alexandra Mary Davies-Jones (Labour, Centre-left): It is also important that the House remembers that 3 million people have still been completely excluded and forgotten by this Government since March last year. There was nothing for them in yesterday’s Budget. They have been neglected yet again.
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is completely right about that. She anticipates my next point brilliantly; it is a useful segue. If we want to understand why growth is so anaemic, she is right that we need look no further than the Chancellor’s failure to seize the opportunities for green growth. This is an important point: the prudent and responsible economic call—I suspect the Business Secretary agrees—for economic growth is to invest at scale in the transition to a zero-carbon economy. Let us be honest, it is now a completely open secret that the problem is that the Chancellor is not a believer, and it showed yesterday. As we prepare to host the most important international summit ever on climate change, as delegates gather from all around the world, and as the eyes are on Britain, what did he unveil as his flagship measure yesterday? To cut air passenger duty for domestic flights. You literally could not make it up. People want good and affordable rail services, but the plan for rail seems to have been postponed again, and instead there will be 400,000 more domestic flights as a result of that decision. Once again, that shows that the Treasury is not signed up to the agenda I am such a nerd that I was reading the OBR report last night and there is an interesting and illuminating bit on, I think, page 176—Members can check—which says, in OBR language: "the…costs involved in getting the rest of the way"— to net zero— "remain significant and their apportionment between businesses, households, and government…remains largely unclear. This leaves the costs associated with the transition to net zero as a major source of longer-term fiscal risk." Let me underline that point for the House. The July 2021 OBR report, which for the nerds among us is brilliant, and which I strongly recommend to Members as bedtime reading—Madam Deputy Speaker is laughing at me, or perhaps with me—warned of the danger of not acting on the climate and of debt climbing to eye-watering levels as a result. When my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West said yesterday that debt would rise to 300%, I noticed a Conservative Member at the back look at his hon. Friend and say, "Oh that can’t be right," but that is what it says. The interesting thing about that report is that it warns not just about the danger of not acting, but about the danger of delay. It says that delaying action on the climate by a decade will double the cost of the transition as we lock in high-carbon choices.
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Energy
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We have been successful in offshore wind generation, and it is right to acknowledge that. The ground was laid by the last Labour Government, but I will leave that to one side. We have been successful at generating the wind energy, but not the jobs. He is completely right that we have not delivered for many people when it comes to jobs As I was saying, not acting increases the cost, so the prudent responsible choice is to invest. I will mention some key sectors, because again, there has been a deafening silence. I come back to the steel industry, which is such a litmus test. It needs about £6 billion of investment to get to net zero by 2035. The view is shared on both sides of the House that it needs to get to net zero and that it is a foundational industry that we need and that is incredibly important to communities across the country. There are 20 demonstration projects around Europe but none here at the moment. It requires a partnership of the public and private sectors and needs both sides to invest. There is a crucial role for the Government in that We have set out a commitment of up to £3 billion over a decade to create that partnership with the steel industry so it can make the transition and we can keep those good jobs with good wages that are vital to many communities. It is a test of us as a House of Commons. The Government talk about a £250 million clean steel fund, but even that has still not been delivered. I hope that it is still Government policy, but it seems to be in the balance and might have been got rid of. That is not good enough. The Treasury has to understand that unless we invest in steel, automotive and hydrogen, we will fall behind in the global race, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) said.
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Environment
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): That is definitely the Whips Office’s talking point. The reality is—[Interruption.] I will tell them: our last manifesto said that "the substantial majority of our emissions reductions" should happen by 2030, and that is absolutely right. We should be going faster and we should not be delaying. The interesting point is that delay is wrong not just for the climate, but economically. That is the brilliant platform on which my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West, the green shadow Chancellor, is standing. We will fall behind if we do not act, and I suspect that, in his heart of hearts, the Business Secretary knows it.
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Environment
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): It is completely consistent, yes. Let me turn from industry to retrofit and insulation. Of all the things that were missing from the Budget and that I thought the Treasury would have been persuaded about, the one that is as close as we can get to a fiscal, economic, climate no-brainer is a proper 10-year retrofit and insulation plan. If we invest, we cut bills and carbon emissions, make ourselves less exposed to the international gas market, and create tens of thousands of jobs. I do not get why it has not happened. All we get are piecemeal schemes and no proper plan. I will not even go into the fiasco of the green homes grant—emissions from buildings are higher than they were in 2015.
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Environment
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend will recollect our discussions about the tremendous success of the warm zones project at the turn of the century. We went door to door, day in, day out, to install thousands of measures that saved consumers a tremendous amount as well as reducing emissions. Does he agree that we need that systematic approach if we are going to crack the problem?
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): I will make some progress and finish Labour would deliver a climate investment pledge of £28 billion extra every year for the rest of the decade. That is an investment in bringing down energy bills; delivering affordable public transport and cleaner air; and backing British industries with a real plan for jobs and wages. That is what real action on the climate emergency and industrial strategy looks like Given the cost of living crisis, the immediate issues facing business, and the need for longer-term investment, this is not the Budget we require. It does not make choices to help working people; it hits working people. It cuts taxes for the banks but raises taxes for workers. It deserts key British industries and it fails to invest, as we need to, in the green transition. If the big challenge of the future is how we build an economic model that rights the wrongs of the past, this Government cannot be the answer and nor was this Budget.
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): May I congratulate the Secretary of State on the happy news in his family? How many businesses does he think will go out of business this autumn because they owe the Government money from covid loans, cannot pay their energy costs and are worried about the weight that the increase in wages from the national minimum wage and national insurance contributions will put on their 12-month forecasts?
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Energy
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman was asked a very direct question, as he said, by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). The right hon. Gentleman acknowledged two weeks ago the very difficult situation of the energy-intensive industries and said that he had submitted a formal request to the Treasury. What has happened?
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Energy
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): It is hard to follow that response from the Secretary of State; he said, "a general context in which…something, something." Can he just answer the question: when are we going to know what help is available for energy-intensive industries, if any, and what kind of help is it going to be?
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Energy
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He talks absolute nonsense: I have spent 11 years championing energy-intensive industries in my constituency, trying to ensure people keep their jobs. He knows that, because I have met him and talked about it time and again, and what do I see? I see very little action. It is about time he got on the right horse, got down to Ofgem and started talking seriously about how we can put things right for energy-intensive industries in my constituency.
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Mary Theresa Glindon (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) Today my husband Ray would have been 75, and he would have been glued to the Parliament channel, not only looking out for me on the green Benches—hopefully —but, more importantly, following the Budget debate and scrutinising the Chancellor’s announcements, because as cabinet member for finance on North Tyneside Council, he would have wanted to work out just what the Budget meant for our borough and the people of his Camperdown ward. I know that his successor, cabinet member Councillor Martin Rankin, will be doing just the same Having missed out on freeport status in March, I hoped to hear of some direct benefit for our green industries and other businesses on the Tyne in the Chancellor’s statement, but once again it seems that for some—known—reason, Teesside has the Chancellor’s favour. The Chancellor can be sure that I will keep banging on his door and those of his Cabinet colleagues asking for help for the Tyne’s industries to compete on a fair playing field, nationally and internationally, until we get what we need I congratulate those involved in the North East Homeless hub and the Whitley Bay Big Local community building, which have been granted £300,000 each from the community ownership fund. The North East chamber of commerce has commented that the Budget contains some welcome announcement for businesses in the north-east, but "substantial longer-term strategies like the levelling up White Paper, the integrated rail plan and details on how the Shared Prosperity Fund will work, have yet to see the light of day. Without these plans it is difficult to judge how much of a long-term impact the levelling up agenda will have on our economy".
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): It has taken me a while to dig out the quotation with which I wanted to intervene when my hon. Friend mentioned freeports. Bristol’s freeport bid was also rejected. According to the OBR’s document, published yesterday, the primary function of freeports is "to alter the location rather than the volume of economic activity. So the costs have been estimated on the basis of activity being displaced from elsewhere." That feeds into our biggest concern about freeports—that they do not boost economic growth and performance overall. It is just a case of taking those from one area to another, and it means that areas like ours will miss out even more.
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Mary Theresa Glindon (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is exactly right. That was one of the biggest fears about freeports, and it is why we so desperately needed them to be close to each other With inflation set to rise, taxes being increased and the cost of living soaring, there is little comfort for my constituents, especially those on the lowest incomes, who are worried about how they will manage their own budgets. Moreover, there is no certainty about what the public sector pay rise will mean in real terms. It was very worrying to learn that, this very morning, the Northumbria police and crime commissioner, Kim McGuinness, resigned from her national role negotiating pay deals for police staff in response to what she has described as the grossly unfair pay offer made to police staff and officers. She has said that if Ministers will not stand by our workers, there is no point in negotiating with this Government. Unions across the public sector agree that the Chancellor must allocate extra money to Government Departments to fund pay rises. He must put his money where his mouth is. Data shows that real wages have fallen in every region in England over the last 10 years, by more than £23 per week on average. When we add to that the fact that more than 11,000 households in North Tyneside claimed universal credit and more than 4,700 of them were working people, only a third of whom will benefit from the taper rate, things are looking very bleak for many of my constituents North Tyneside Council has suffered Government funding cuts amounting to £127 million since 2011. When my Ray delivered his budget speech to the full council in February this year, he announced that the Labour Cabinet under Norma Redfearn, our elected Labour Mayor, had worked to fill the £6.3 million gap in funding and protect services, including the council’s poverty intervention fund, which has been a lifeline for many people during the pandemic. No doubt there will be many calls on the fund in the coming months However, the Local Government Association has pointed out that among the announcements for councils, the spending review makes no mention of whether local government will receive a three-year financial settlement, or whether and when local government reforms will be implemented. In recent years, settlements have been published in draft form very late in December, after the stated target date of 5 December. The LGA rightly says that this target should be met and that councils should receive early certainty with a three-year local government settlement Whether it is in public services, local government, household budgets, the environment or business support, there remain so many ifs and buts in this Budget that I am afraid we may need heavenly help if we are to get anything worth while or concrete from our Chancellor.
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I am in the same place as my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband): we do not know what planet the Chancellor is living on. But we do know that he urgently needs to get back in touch with reality. In yesterday’s Budget, he kept referring to the biggest investment changes in a decade and spoke of an "age of optimism"; I remind him that the only reason his investments look even remotely positive is that the past decade was defined by the devastating cuts and under-investment from Conservative Governments who have driven public services into the ground. Even if he was talking about new money, particularly for public services, it would replace only a fraction of the huge cuts over the past 11 years The truth is that this Budget is an underwhelming and uninspired response to the anxiety inducing cost-of-living crisis that our constituents face. Tax cuts for champagne and domestic flights will not go far to offset the difficulties of the long hard winter ahead. Over the next five years, real household disposable income is expected to grow by only 0.8% per year—far below the historical average. It is worth repeating what Paul Johnson, the director of the IFS, said: "This is actually awful. Yet more years of real incomes barely growing. High inflation, rising taxes, poor growth keeping living standards virtually stagnant for another half a decade" The rising cost of living is biting hard in my constituency and the Budget does nothing for those hit the hardest. Figures published yesterday by the financial management company Aryza showed that the average personal debt in Teesside stands at £19,345—the second highest average in England—yet a recent report from the North East Child Poverty Commission revealed that in the north-east, spending to support people in financial crisis fell by 78% in the decade from 2010 to 2020, and the number of local welfare assistance awards made in the region fell from more than 16,000 to just over 12,000 I have seen local Conservatives spin the Budget as one that is good for the Tees valley, but that simply is not true. Once again, the Tees freeport has been trumpeted, but the actual forecasted benefits are extremely limited. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned, the OBR’s October fiscal outlook notes that "given historical and international evidence, we have assumed that the main effect of the freeports will be to alter the location rather than the volume of economic activity, so the costs have been estimated on the basis of activity being displaced from elsewhere." We have been promised tens of thousands of jobs, but now it appears that the Government’s own Office for Budget Responsibility suggests that that is nonsense.
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): That point about freeports ties in with the Government’s approach, which seems to me to be that they want announcements that get them photo opportunities and good press releases, and the MP who managed to get the freeport can then put that on their leaflets. But freeports contribute nothing at all to the overall picture; they just take from one area and give to another, which is no way to run the economy and to try to stimulate economic growth. We need a strategy by which everyone is helped to level up.
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): The mistake with Budgets is to think that they are the beginning of a financial process. Often, they are the result of one. This Budget is the result of 11 years of austerity and under-investment. Wages flatlined, and our public services and infrastructure were ill-equipped for the pandemic and to be the engine of growth that we need to bring us out of the economic crisis it has precipitated The Budget is uncomfortable for Conservative Members of Parliament. No Government since the war has implemented a higher tax take from the people of this country.
Income Tax (Charge) — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Patrick Bosco McFadden (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to respond to today’s debate on behalf of the Opposition. Although the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is not in his place, I begin by congratulating him on becoming a father for the first time. He would not tell us his age, but if he is an older dad, as I was, I suspect that he is learning the reason that people have children in their 20s and 30s. That is a lesson that we learn when we have them a little bit older in life, so I give him my full solidarity and best wishes on his new baby I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to the debate, which were wide-ranging. Several hon. Members talked about the need for business rates reform in the longer term, which the Opposition very much support. Others raised continuing issues with universal credit and made the point that the changes made yesterday will benefit only a minority of those affected by the cut of £20 a week that was implemented a few weeks ago. There were also contributions on artificial intelligence, the return of inflation, bank closures and many other issues Several Welsh colleagues raised coal tip safety. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) rightly reminded us that it has been just over 55 years since the tragedy in Aberfan. I remember visiting the graveyard in Aberfan as a young man with my friend Huw Lewis, the former Assembly Member for the constituency: I will never forget the pictures of children on the graves, lovingly cared for and frozen in time forever. Fifty-five years on, I hope that the UK Government and the Welsh Government manage to reach agreement on securing the safety of coal tips for the future. I thank hon. Friends for raising the matter The Budget, like all Budgets, covered many things, but the stand-out feature was the Chancellor’s admission that taxes are set to rise to their highest levels since the early 1950s—higher than under Norman Lamont, higher than under Ken Clarke, higher than under Denis Healey, higher than under any of the Chancellor’s predecessors. Corporation tax, personal allowance freezes, national insurance, council tax—there is one tax rise after another. A new analysis today shows that the combination of them is set to mean £3,000 more in taxes per household than when the Prime Minister came into office The reason for all the tax rises is simple: the Tories have become the party of high taxation because they are the party of low growth. In the 11 years in which they have been in office, economic growth has averaged just 1.8%. In the previous decade, it averaged 2.3%.