argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Land Registry — House of Commons, 2016-06-30
Topic: Government Operations
Nia Rhiannon Griffith (Labour, Centre-left): Indeed. My hon. Friend puts it concisely Let us remember what happened with Royal Mail. Who is to say that this Tory Government will not be wilfully incompetent and will not sell off the Land Registry at a bargain basement price, as they did with Royal Mail, depriving the public purse of the true value of the asset? Even worse, we hear that the private companies interested in taking over the Land Registry have links with tax havens. It would be a double whammy: first, the Treasury may lose the revenue that the Land Registry brings in; and then, to add insult to injury, the Treasury may lose out because profits are offshored. We would lose not only the revenue but some of the tax take. As other Members have pointed out, in situations such as that with the Panama papers the public interest would be seriously hampered if FOI did not apply, as I understand it would not were the Land Registry a private company All in all, it would be an absolute disaster, and that is before we even come to the issue of trust. Currently, the Land Registry’s customer satisfaction rating is enormously high—some 98%. People trust it because they know it is impartial, as only a Government body can be. How could we possibly guarantee that there would not be conflicts of interests if it were a private company? Then there is the issue of data protection. I am advised that there is nothing in law to prevent a private company from selling on personal data to buyers who wanted that information. For all the reasons mentioned both by me and by my hon. Friends, I implore the Minister to think again. He should listen as well to Government Members who also have concerns. Privatising the Land Registry is simply not the right thing to do. It is not just us who are saying that. The Law Society has set out its concerns very clearly. We have already heard concerns from practising solicitors. We really must keep the Land Registry in public ownership, so that we can maintain its integrity.
Land Registry — House of Commons, 2016-06-30
Topic: Foreign Trade
Christian John Patrick Matheson (Labour, Centre-left): It strikes me that the companies that my hon. Friend has just cited as potential owners are also all foreign based. Does he share my concern, apart from their being tax dodgers, that we should resist placing something so fundamental to the UK in foreign hands?
Land Registry — House of Commons, 2016-06-30
Topic: Foreign Trade
William Roffen Esterson (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right. Of course, we have seen a steady direction of travel towards foreign ownership of British interests for a great many years. It is surprising that we have anything of any substance left in this country that is not foreign owned, given the way the Government proceed. He puts his finger on an important aspect of the debate and another good reason why the proposal should be turned down My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) mentioned the timing. The way in which the Government time their announcements is normally a good indication of how conscious they are that they are on thin ice. The proposal to relax Sunday trading laws is one such example, because they slipped out that unpopular policy at the last possible moment—the night before it was debated and after legislation had gone through the Lords, where the relevant Bill started its life.
Land Registry — House of Commons, 2016-06-30
Topic: Macroeconomics
David Lindon Lammy (Labour, Centre-left): When the Minister says the Government have no plans, is he in fact pronouncing on the consultation? He has heard the House this afternoon: no one has risen to speak in favour of privatisation. Obviously, one is reflecting carefully on whether to test the strength of feeling by putting the matter to a vote. It is important to understand what the Minister is saying, because the real concern is that this is a Treasury-driven proposal—that was one of the reasons he gave. If that is the case, it probably is right that the House of Commons demonstrates to the Treasury that it probably would not get the privatisation through.
Social Care Budgets — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): Indeed, good morning, Mr Speaker A big challenge for local authorities and adult social care is how to fund the increases in the minimum wage that care providers have to pay. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) just detailed, the 2% social care precept does not cover all the increased costs and, indeed, in some areas, it is not even being passed on to care providers. The Local Government Association asked Ministers for £700 million from the better care fund to help with that increased cost this year and next year—not in 2019. When will Ministers listen to local councils and agree to bring forward that much needed funding to support what is effectively their own policy in the care sector?
Health and Social Care Integration — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Elizabeth Anne McInnes (Labour, Centre-left): We recently had a Westminster Hall debate on care workers not even being paid the national minimum wage, and now we have private social care providers saying that they will not be able to afford the new national living wage. How does the Department intend to address this impending crisis?
Child Refugee Resettlement — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Government Operations
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): I commend the excellent work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) in leading the campaign on this issue and welcome the Government’s new approach, but may I ask the Minister, who has talked about transparency, why he has refused to answer my right hon. Friend’s parliamentary questions and the freedom of information request? In particular, we want to know the number of applications being made so that we can judge how quickly the Government are acting.
Child Refugee Resettlement — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Education
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister says that we cannot get 300 children here in time for the start of the school term because he needs to consult local authorities, but that is why, a calendar month ago in the House, following my conversations with leaders on Merseyside, I asked him whether he had spoken to local authority leaders about educational needs for children coming here. He said then that he had, so will he confirm that consultation with local authorities started at least a month ago?
Child Refugee Resettlement — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): I was taken aback by your encyclopaedic knowledge, Mr Speaker Citizens Cymru in Cardiff and the Vale has been very clear about the need to take urgent action on this issue. It wants to know from the Minister whether we are talking about a ballpark figure of 300? I understand that he will not give us a specific number, but is this the sort of figure involved, which Citizens Cymru and the Archbishop of Canterbury have asked for? The Minister has talked about the best interests of the child and I agree with him absolutely on that, but does he agree, given the conditions that we have heard some of these children are in, that seven months is unlikely to be in the best interests of the child?
Child Refugee Resettlement — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Education
Natascha Engel (Labour, Centre-left): We now come to the statement on key stage 2 tests. Before I call the Minister for Schools, I should inform the House that the Speaker had granted an urgent question to the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), but the hon. Gentleman has withdrawn it in the light of the Government’s offer to make a statement on the matter
Key Stage 2 Tests — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Education
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): Having listened to the Minister today and heard the statement about the U-turn on academies recently, it seems to me that the Department for Education should now be put in special measures. When the Minister cannot even get the basics right in education, what confidence can we have that the Department will get the big issues right?
Key Stage 2 Tests — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Education
Fiona Margaret Mactaggart (Labour, Centre-left): I speak as a former key stage 2 marker, and I support efficient, effective testing of children, but I do not think that the Government understand what testing is for. The Minister’s statement said that it was for the accountability of schools, but it seems to me that what testing should be about is measuring and developing a child’s learning. That is why we should not put so much emphasis on a national test that is about school accountability and leads to this kind of appalling behaviour from one teacher. We should focus on ensuring that children understand what they are learning and that we get appropriate tests for individual children.
Key Stage 2 Tests — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Education
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister needs to move to the bottom of the class, because he must try harder. This is not the first time that tests have been compromised in this academic year; it is the second time on his watch. Will he sincerely apologise to parents, teachers and those pupils who have taken the test today? Will he also assure them and us that every measure that he needs to take will be taken so that this will not happen on a third occasion?
Key Stage 2 Tests — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Education
Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State appeared before the Education Committee on 27 April and told me that the new testing regime for key stage 1 and key stage 2 had not been handled badly. I, and parents and teachers throughout the country, strongly disagree. Does the Minister accept that his Department’s actions are making the working lives of teachers more stressful and more difficult, and explain how he thinks that will help to solve the already very worrying teacher recruitment crisis?
Key Stage 2 Tests — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Education
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): The Government made a big song and dance about testing, which they cannot now deliver. This weekend I was in the Wirral talking to school governors about how to cope with forced academisation, but the Government had already U-turned. The next time the Minister comes to the Dispatch Box with a grand plan to improve education, why should teachers, parents and pupils in the Wirral believe what he has to say?
Key Stage 2 Tests — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Education
Julie Elliott (Labour, Centre-left): I hope the Minister will agree that stability is key to a child thriving at primary school. As has been said, however, the Department for Education has changed documents and resources almost every other day recently, and that has been compounded by the disgraceful leak of the tests. Government Members are rewriting history—something the UK Statistics Authority told them to stop doing—because the Labour Government improved standards from 1997 to 2010. I will give the Minister another chance to apologise to teachers, parents and pupils, and to allow teachers to get on with teaching and children to thrive. Apologise!
Key Stage 2 Tests — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Education
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): Labour Members are most concerned about the fact that this is the second case in a matter of weeks of major pupil testing errors, and that suggests quite strongly that the Government have taken their eye off the ball. How has their preoccupation with enforced academisation affected their ability to monitor their contractors?
Universal Credit (Children) — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Christina Elizabeth Rees (Labour, Centre-left): Does my right hon. Friend think it right and fair that, as a result of the piecemeal roll-out of universal credit, along with the cuts to work allowances, some families could be more than £3,000 a year worse off than they would be if they were in exactly the same financial circumstances but lived in an area where tax credits were still available?
Universal Credit (Children) — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): No, I do not think that that is fair. There is now a large and growing group of people who are significantly worse off than they would have been because they have the misfortune of being in an area where universal credit is paid instead of tax credits. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to that When the universal credit project started in 2011, we were told that it would be completed in six years. Today, five years later, we are being told that it will be completed in another six years, by 2022. Five years into this initiative, its expected completion has been delayed by five years. We are no nearer the end now than we were told we were five years ago.
Universal Credit (Children) — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): Of course that is right. There should have been a sensible timetable and plan from the start. It was pointed out to Ministers that the original plan was unrealistic, but unfortunately they took no notice of that It is not just the timetable that has changed, however, but the substance. What is being implemented is now significantly different from what it was originally going to be. A report published last week by the Resolution Foundation has made that very clear; I will refer to that report a number of times in my speech, but at this point I will quote one observation from its executive summary, which says that "the latest series of cuts—announced at last year’s Summer Budget—risk leaving UC as little more than a vehicle for rationalising benefit administration and cutting costs to the Exchequer." That is at the heart of this debate. Universal credit is now set to be a pale shadow of what Ministers initially announced. The losers, both from the cuts made to the original proposals and from flaws in the original design that have never satisfactorily been addressed, will above all be the nation’s children The Resolution Foundation has explained the impact of the £3 billion cut announced last summer: "As initially designed, UC gave broad parity with the current tax credit system…Now, UC will…be less generous than the tax credit system for working families." That is what gives rise to the anomaly and unfairness to which my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) drew our attention.
Universal Credit (Children) — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Rebecca Long-Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): Is my right hon. Friend as shocked as I was to hear that a recent report from the Children’s Society has shown that disabled children will get considerably less money under universal credit, and many will receive only around half of what they currently get under tax credits?
Universal Credit (Children) — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is a shocking aspect of what has always been proposed with universal credit—the support for disabled children is being drastically reduced. I hope we will have time to discuss that Will the Minister publish an updated version of the impact report for universal credit that was published alongside the 2011 Welfare Reform Bill, which introduced it? I will come back to that, because what is now being introduced is certainly not what the previous Secretary of State had in mind when he launched the universal credit initiative six years ago Throughout the last Parliament, Ministers repeatedly said that they were committed to eliminating child poverty, and they cited the introduction of universal credit as key to helping to achieve that. The 2011 impact assessment, which I hope the Minister will update, said that universal credit would reduce child poverty by 300,000. A written answer in January 2013 gave the lower figure of 150,000, half the initial figure of 300,000. We have not had an update since the really big cuts to universal credit announced last summer. That is what I am hoping the Minister will give us All of us will recall the furore when the Chancellor announced swingeing tax credit cuts last summer. I pay tribute to those Government Members who, unlike the Chancellor, grasped what those cuts would mean to many hard-working families struggling to make ends meet, such as the family of an ambulance driver earning £20,000 a year, who stood to lose a full £2,000 from the cuts. Thankfully, the Chancellor was forced to abandon those plans. But the equivalent cuts to universal credit—at that time, claimed by hardly anyone in work—went ahead, so the Chancellor’s cuts to tax credits will, over time, be implemented by stealth. Working families on universal credit rather than tax credits saw a big income cut last month, as my hon. Friend the Member for Neath has already pointed out.
Universal Credit (Children) — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend is making a strong point about the value of the cuts and the wider impact of the changes. Does he agree that there is a significant challenge with the move from weekly or fortnightly payments to monthly payments? With a week’s processing time for claims, and payments in arrears, that could leave five weeks before people receive claims under universal credit. We are told that there is an advance payment system but Citizens Advice has said that six in 10 clients coming to a citizens advice bureau about universal credit have not been told about it. We could see many people out of pocket and really struggling to get by, through no fault of their own. That can have a huge impact on children.
Universal Credit (Children) — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Christina Elizabeth Rees (Labour, Centre-left): Does my right hon. Friend agree that guidance from the DWP that instructs people to work an extra 200 hours a year for no extra money, to make up the thousands of pounds a year that families are set to lose as a result of cuts to universal credit, is unacceptable?
Universal Credit (Children) — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): Yes, the suggestion that people can make up those losses simply by working more hours is unrealistic in many circumstances. The Resolution Foundation also points out: "For second earners in couples the situation may be worse still, with increasing numbers potentially deciding not to enter work at all." The whole point of universal credit was supposed to give people incentives to be in employment—indeed, yesterday the Secretary of State reiterated that point at questions to the DWP. The problem is that as currently proposed, those incentives will not be in place when universal credit is rolled out Let me draw the Minister’s attention to an article that was published last month and written by Deven Ghelani, who was one of the original architects of universal credit at the Centre for Social Justice. He describes the cuts to universal credit work allowances that were introduced on 11 April as "undermining the original intent of Universal Credit—to make work pay…The Government should maintain support for work incentives within Universal Credit…these cuts to work allowances will not help to make work pay for low earners." That is a deep problem with what is now proposed The Minister will argue that calculations of child poverty—the reduction in child poverty of 300,000 that was announced by the Government in the original impact assessment for the legislation, and the subsequent written answer estimate of 150,000—do not allow for the dynamic effects of universal credit and of encouraging people into jobs. In his article, Deven Ghelani addresses exactly that point and states: "Lower work allowances will limit the dynamic effect of Universal Credit and…will make it harder for households to make up their shortfall by working additional hours." That point was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Neath.
Universal Credit (Children) — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Kate Ofunne Osamor (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) for his eloquent introduction to the debate and the Backbench Business Committee for bringing it to the main Chamber This debate is of particular concern in my constituency, where there is a high proportion of people claiming welfare benefits. As of April 2015, there were 14,500 people on tax credits, and it is estimated that, by 2020-21, 19,000 people will be on universal credit. According to figures from Child Poverty Action Group, reductions in work allowance under universal credit, introduced in April 2016, will result in a working single parent in rental accommodation losing up to £554 per year and in a working single parent who owns their home losing up to £2,000 per year. In both cases, this is more than double the loss suffered by working couples. The majority of these single parents are women. Once again, this is a cut that comes at the expense of women, who account for 86% of cuts to benefits and tax savings. This figure has increased, not decreased, as a result of the Chancellor’s latest Budget A single parent already working full time on the national living wage will have to work an extra 46 days each year—more than two additional working months—to make up what they have lost. While the Government may paint these reductions in income as an incentive to work, for single parents already in full-time work, extra hours are not realistic. Support for childcare might have increased from 70% to 85%, but this will not compensate families for the losses they will suffer as a result of the changes in universal credit. End Child Poverty estimates that 42% of children in my constituency live in relative poverty, which makes it the constituency with the sixth-highest level of child poverty. The four-year freeze on support for children under universal credit is expected to reduce the value of key children’s benefits by 12% by the end of the decade, when creeping inflation will also have added to the cost of living In 2011, the Government forecast that universal credit would lift up to 350,000 children out of poverty. In 2013, this figure was amended to 150,000 and the Government today refuse to give a figure. There remain significant gaps between the Government’s aim of making work pay through the new universal credit regime and the reality of families facing huge cuts to their income. I would like to ask the Minister two questions. First, will the Government review the impact of work allowance reductions on working families, particularly working single families? Secondly, will they agree to review annually the decision to freeze most key children’s benefits for four years As I have stated, the impact of changing tax credits to universal credits will affect families in my constituency. I am here representing them and trying to get their voices heard in the Chamber, so I ask that the Government take very seriously the effect the changes will have on families and women.
Universal Credit (Children) — House of Commons, 2016-05-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does she agree that we should be particularly concerned about the plight of the self-employed—an increasingly large group of income-insecure people? Does she share my concern that about 800,000 self-employed people are likely to lose £1,000 a year as a result of the cuts to universal credit?