argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Paris Climate Change Conference — House of Commons, 2015-11-19
Topic: Environment
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I, too, congratulate the sponsors of the motion, and in particular the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on her substantial contribution It is clear we all agree today that climate change is the biggest challenge facing the planet and its people. It exacerbates the existing challenges of poverty, conflict, disease, resource depletion and population displacement and it increases the risk of greater insecurity around the world, reversing the progress made to a more peaceful and just world. The opportunity in Paris in a couple of weeks should not be overlooked, and in the light of the dreadful atrocities of last week, that opportunity is even more important. By the end of this year the city should not be remembered only as a target of terror, but as the cradle of a climate deal that cares for our communities and our "common home", which, as we have heard, is how Pope Francis describes the planet in his encyclical on the planet Earth I thank the Members from various different parties who signed the early-day motion I tabled recognising and welcoming the encyclical when it was published. That was an extremely prophetic call from the Pope. I enjoyed the slightly theological exchanges between the hon. Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and for Bishop Auckland. Catholic social teaching is not usually either/or, and I have something to say about the messages the Church has produced going back over 150 years, as well as more recently—the Pope’s immediate predecessor Benedict XVI should be given credit for the work he did on the environment and this year we mark five years since his visit to the UK. Catholic social teaching does not prescribe specific courses of action; it outlines a direction of travel and broad principles, and it is then for decision makers, including all of us here today, to make judgments on the right course of action It is right to describe much of what Pope Francis has said as a prophetic document, in particular in paragraph 49 where he says that "a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor." That is the challenge before us today I also recognise the comments of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) that many religious leaders, and indeed secular leaders, of good will are behind this call. What the encyclical represents—at least if we come from that perspective—is the pinnacle of a global consensus that now is the time for action. That was ratified, as it were, at the UN back in September when the sustainable development goals were agreed by every single member state.
Paris Climate Change Conference — House of Commons, 2015-11-19
Topic: Energy
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is putting forward some very good arguments. There is an underlying assumption that going green and acting to reduce carbon emissions come at a cost. However, I want to put on record that I recommend Amory Lovins’ TED talk—a well-spent 27 minutes and 10 seconds—entitled "A 40-year plan for energy". It underpins some of her arguments and shows that we will not necessarily lose out financially by adopting green policies. On the contrary, it demonstrates that we could gain financially and that they could provide a boost to our economy.
Paris Climate Change Conference — House of Commons, 2015-11-19
Topic: Energy
Callum McCaig (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman mentions subsidies from a sedentary position. In her speech yesterday, the Secretary of State acknowledged that no form of new generation will be built without subsidies. That is the reality of the energy climate in which we work today. Whether we like it or not, subsidies are required. If we take in carbon costs, the area that is most likely to be developed without subsidy is onshore wind, which, ironically, is the one that has been ruled out I welcome the fact that Scotland will be able to play its part in the UK delegation. Our story, as part of the UK story, is compelling, and I look forward to the UK, with Scotland playing a leading role, taking this matter forward, showing true global leadership and ensuring that we get a deal that is worth its name.
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Education
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): May I take the Leader of the House back to January 2004, when Tony Blair’s Government were proposing top-up fees for English students? At the time, I was lobbied by the then Conservative Opposition and by Labour rebels, who told me that the Scottish National party should vote against that proposal on the basis that top-up fees for English students would have a knock-on effect on Scotland through the Barnett formula. Why has the Conservative party changed its mind? If these proposals go through, would I be in a position to exercise a vote on such a measure in the future?
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Government Operations
Neil Charles Gray (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Leader of the House seems to be making a perfectly good pitch for an English Parliament, which is a perfectly legitimate pitch to make. Why will he not make the case for that, rather than for this constitutional fudge?
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am actually grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that important point. What we did—I will say this ever so gently and carefully to the hon. Gentleman—is this. We went around the difficult business of creating a Parliament. We did the work. We had a constitutional convention, and we consulted with communities and with interests across Scotland. What he wants to do is to create this quasi-English Parliament in two weeks. "Go and do the work." That is what I say gently to English Members. "You cannot create a Parliament on the basis—on the back—of just changing the Standing Orders of the House. You must debate, you must consult, and you must make sure that you take the nations with you. Do the work, English Members!"
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): What the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said in his rather lengthy intervention is partly right. What we have in this House, and what we have in this nation, is an issue and a difficulty. It is called "asymmetric UK", although Members may prefer to call it "asymmetric Britain", and what it has led to is our own unhappiness. We agreed to—we voted for—a particular dynamic or trajectory of Scottish politics. We wanted to see further powers for our Parliament. That has been turned down by English Members, so we are unhappy. I sense that my Welsh colleagues are unhappy as well. In a debate last week, I heard them raise some of the cross-border aspects of what is being suggested. I know, because we are hearing it non-stop, that English Members are unhappy, and they are probably right to be unhappy. I know that they are furious about Scottish Members. How dare we come down and vote on their precious public services? However, there is a solution: it is called federalism, and it is what we thought we were voting for last year. What we were promised was as close as possible to federalism, or to home rule.
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): No, I will not We could do our own thing and decide what we want, English Members could decide what they want in their own Parliament, and Welsh Members could decide what they want. I see that the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) agrees with all that I am saying. What is wrong with it? We could then come together in the House to decide on important matters such as foreign affairs, defence, international relationships, the monarchy and the currency. That would resolve all the outstanding issues, and would deal with some of the unhappiness on these Benches, on the Government Benches, and on the Benches to my right. Why can we not do it? I will tell the House why we cannot. It is because English Members do not want to pursue a logical solution to a question that is deeply hard to answer.
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I do not really know what to say in response to that, other than "Yes, so would I." The Speaker of the House of Commons will now be thrust into a political role in which he will have to decide—if he is not to be bullied or pushed around by the Leader of the House—what will constitute Barnett consequentials. He will have to decide what will have an impact on our Parliament, and what will have an impact on the constituents whom we are all here to represent. The Speaker of this House will have to decide whether a Bill has a spending impact on the Scottish Parliament, and on public services in Scotland. That is a dreadful, dreadful position for him to be in. I say to the Leader of the House, "Shame on you for placing our Speaker, our cherished Speaker, in such an invidious political situation."
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): That is exactly the point that I was coming to. There are ways of dealing with it. I suggested a solution in the form of federalism, but I did not sense any warmth towards that proposal from Government Members, so let us try another way. The right hon. Gentleman is right: we do not vote on English-only legislation. What we do is this. Every time a Bill is introduced, we scour it for the Scottish interest. We look for the Barnett consequential issues, and we establish whether it will have an impact on Scotland. If it will not have that impact, we leave it alone. We stay well away: of course we do. With all due respect to my English friends, I have better things to do than scour legislation about policing arrangements in Plymouth when I am looking after the people of Perth and North Perthshire As the right hon. Gentleman says, if there is no Scottish interest, we take no interest ourselves. How about building on that? How about saying. "This is a voluntary arrangement that seems to work reasonably well; why do we not continue to pursue it?" There may be issues on which the Leader of the House and I do not entirely agree, but surely we could try to resolve them by means of a voluntary arrangement, without creating two classes of Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. Why should that not be a solution?
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It was not so much Labour as the demand from Scotland that set up asymmetric devolution, but the hon. Gentleman is right to say that it must be addressed. I am suggesting a way of doing that: I am trying to be helpful to Members.
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is always my friend regardless of the occasion, and she is absolutely and totally right. The Leader of the House could get to his feet at this very moment and say that anything that has a Barnett consequential will not be subject to this English votes for English laws provision. He has that chance, but sits defiantly in his place. This is the difficulty my hon. Friends and I have.
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Yes, but I do not just want that; I want what every other meaningful and significant piece of reform of this House receives, which is a Bill—a piece of legislation we can properly scrutinise. I do not want just an extra day; I want the process that involves this House looking properly at all this This is an absolute and utter shambles and it is falling apart in front of the Government as we speak. The Leader of the House has divided the whole House on these issues, with Labour, the SNP, the Liberals and everybody else against the Conservatives. I suggest that the Leader of the House takes these plans away, looks at them properly, and brings them back when we have an opportunity to debate them properly and scrutinise them effectively, and this House gets its say on these issues. As things currently stand, you, Mr Speaker, are placed in a dreadful situation and this provision does not command anything like a spirit of partnership or a consensus across this House. Take them away, bring them back, do something better, and do not treat us as second-class citizens in the unitary United Kingdom Parliament of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is unacceptable to us.
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who was nearly the Member for Central Fife many years ago. Just to make sure that I have understood this proposal, does it also apply to Member of the other place? Or are we creating a situation in which Scottish MPs who successfully retain the trust of their constituents and get re-elected to this place become disqualified from legislating, whereas former Scottish MPs who get kicked out of here but then get appointed to another place are rewarded for their failure by being allowed to legislate on matters from which the democratically elected MPs are excluded?
English Votes on English Laws — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Government Operations
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I ask your reassurance that you had not certified that measure as something on which Conservative MPs were not allowed to vote. We are hoping that the abstention is the first of many to come on Government measures—the Leader of the House seems not just to have abstained but to have fled the field entirely The point of order made by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) is an important one. On both sides of the Chamber, most of us detected a feeling that, at the very minimum, a lot more discussion needs to be had before any such measure is railroaded—if the Government have the power to do that any more—through this House of Commons. Is that not the import of the massive vote against the Government we have just had?
Tax Credits (Working Families) — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker I congratulate the Labour party on bringing this most important debate to the House. Having listened to the Minister over the past 25 minutes, I think that we on the SNP Benches must live in a different world from the one that he lives in. When we revisit what has been happening over the past couple of weeks, with the scandal of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions coming to this Chamber and wanting to redefine how we measure child poverty, we can see that that indicates the scale of the problem we face. But the cat is now well and truly out of the bag. We listened to the Minister taunting the Labour party and accusing it of being the party of welfare. On these Benches, we see the importance of what we call social security in Scotland. We believe that society is as strong as its weakest link. The battle that we are facing in this Parliament is an ideological one with a Government who want to demonise the poor of this country Let this House take the opportunity to say to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, before he rises to deliver his emergency Budget tomorrow, that he should not use the failure of the Government to fix the deficit as an opportunity to attack the poor and the disadvantaged in our society. In particular, the Government should pause and reflect on the importance of tax credits to those who rely on the contribution that they make to the household budgets of many of our citizens. Tax credits have a significant impact in raising the income of low-income households, particularly those with children. The tax credits system was designed as a key mechanism for tackling poverty and inequality, and the SNP firmly opposes any moves to gut it, as the Tories have hinted at doing Tax credits require a significant amount of expenditure, which largely goes to supporting children in lower income families. In 2013-14, tax credit expenditure in Scotland was £2 billion, supporting thousands of people on low incomes. The SNP recognises the vital role that tax credits play in providing such support, and that is why our manifesto proposed to protect their value by increasing tax credits annually in line with inflation We need to go much further, however, and do more to raise wages, including raising the minimum wage, promoting the living wage and increasing the work allowance in universal credit. It is the delivery of real wage growth that will lead to a natural reduction in tax credits. These benefits cannot be removed at a time when many are on low pay.
Tax Credits (Working Families) — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Macroeconomics
William Arthur Roger Mullin (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right to talk about the moral case and the position in which the poorest in our society are being put. The Conservative party also talks about productivity. Does my hon. Friend agree that cutting tax credits will harm the possibility of raising productivity in the economy?
Tax Credits (Working Families) — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We hear much in this Chamber about productivity, but the reality is that over the past seven years productivity has fallen by 0.7%. Rather than attacking the poor, which is what the Government are doing, their Budget tomorrow should introduce a programme for investment in this country that will lead to a rise in real wages, improve productivity and negate the need for tax credits. Removing tax credits will not fix the problems this country is suffering The failure to drive sustainable economic growth means that many people who are in work are in poverty. As a result, many of them rely on tax credits in order to put food on the table to give thousands of young people a decent start in life. There has to be dignity in work, and much has to be done to drive investment in our economy, enhance productivity and see a sustained rise in real wages Tax credits are an investment in our people and, as a consequence, the future prosperity of our country. Tax credits have made an important contribution to tackling poverty and inequality. In 2013-14, 90% of tax credit expenditure went to families with an income of less than £20,000. Families with children received an average of £6,900, and families without children an average of £2,200, from tax credits. That represents a very clear contribution to boosting incomes and tackling poverty and inequality. Tax credits help tackle in-work poverty and child poverty It is worth noting that about 70% of tax credits go to families where somebody is in work, predominantly supporting low-income working families. Given that a majority of people in poverty are already in work, tax credits are thus a crucial tool to support working people The Child Poverty Action Group estimates that the UK Government’s welfare cuts will push an additional 100,000 children in Scotland into poverty by 2020—and that does not take into account the additional £12 billion-worth of cuts that this Government want to push through. Given that 500,000 children benefit from the tax credit system in Scotland, cuts to tax credits would certainly have a further detrimental impact on the wellbeing of children in Scotland and on child poverty figures Figures due to be published tomorrow by the Scottish Government show that if the Chancellor cuts child tax credit back to 2003 levels in real terms, as has been reported, the poorest 20% of Scottish families with children will lose an average of nearly 8% of their income. That will have the impact of taking a total of £425 million out of the Scottish economy. How are we to deliver sustainable growth when we take £425 million out of the pockets of the poorest in our society? It beggars belief. We want a caring, compassionate society; that is not what we are getting from this Government.
Tax Credits (Working Families) — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): That comment from a sedentary position is correct. We used to talk about the nasty party when Thatcher was in power; it seems to have returned. SNP Members will reflect on the choices made by the previous Government and this one. Some £375 billion of new money has been created through the quantitative easing programme. We recognise that some of that was necessary, but it created circumstances in which those in the financial markets benefited massively. A 90% increase in the value of the FTSE 100 since 2009, a huge increase in the value of financial assets, and banker’s bonuses that continue to reach eye-watering figures are the impact of this Government’s political choices. They have created the circumstances that have delivered increased value in financial markets; they have not created the circumstances in which wages could rise and the country as a whole could benefit. "All in this together"? You’ve got to be kidding!
Tax Credits (Working Families) — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I must tell the hon. Gentleman that according to the figures released two weeks ago, child poverty in Scotland is up by 20,000. That is the reality of what his Government have done to people in my country.
Tax Credits (Working Families) — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, because we need a debate about that in the House. The real reason behind quantitative easing was exactly that—to produce an increase in bank lending—but if we look at what has happened over the past five or six years, we can see that there has hardly been a significant increase in bank lending. The money has gone into the financial markets and benefited the banks and the bankers, but we as a country have not seen the benefits that we should have had. That is the reality of what has happened. The previous Government had the choice between investing in the real economy and sticking cash into the back pockets of the bankers, which is what they achieved Why do the Government not invest in growing the economy and supporting low-paid workers, rather than punishing them for the Government’s failure to deliver sustainable economic growth?
Tax Credits (Working Families) — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Absolutely. I concur 100% with the hon. Gentleman. When we come to vote on the emergency Budget, I appeal to Conservative Members to examine their own consciences, look at the pain that will be caused if they go ahead with cutting tax credits, and recognise that we need to invest.
Tax Credits (Working Families) — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I must say that I find it remarkable that the hon. Gentleman has asked such a question. I have spent much of the past 10 minutes talking about the need for sustainable economic growth, because that is how we can reduce the deficit, not by punishing the poor in this country. That is what he fails to accept.