argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): The Justice Committee has always made it clear that it recognises that there are great pressures on our prisons, and that includes pressures on the dedicated men and women who work in them. However, does the Minister accept that it is not helpful, given the efforts that are being made to turn the situation around, which takes time to achieve, to embark on a course of action that, legal or otherwise, creates further restrictions on the regime and, therefore, further tensions in the prison population? That makes it harder to deliver rehabilitation and, sadly, makes the job of prison officers harder in the long term.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The Chairman of the Justice Committee makes an important point. We have made progress on pay with the Prison Officers Association, and we have had progress on health and safety; indeed, today we were to meet the POA to discuss pensions. I absolutely agree with the Justice Secretary that today’s action only puts prisoners and prison officers, who work very hard, at risk.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is right—the morale of prison officers is important to us. However, let me be clear: we had a pay deal endorsed by the Prison Officers Association towards the end of last year that was rejected. That pay deal is now a matter for the independent pay review body. We have submitted evidence and the POA can submit its evidence, so we are taking action on pay for the Prison Service as a whole. We have also put in place additional allowances for 31 jails where it is particularly hard to recruit. Further to that, we have created a new progression opportunity for 2,000 prison officers across the country, and today we were due to be in talks about pensions. We value prison officers and the work they do, and we want to support them, but unlawful strike action is not the way to progress. It would actually achieve the opposite, which is to put prison officers at risk.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Labor
Andrew Edmund Armstrong Selous (Conservative, Centre-right): While strongly regretting the strike action announced by the POA, I welcome the reduction in retirement age to 65 that the Minister has told the House about. In his further discussions on pensions when this strike is over—I hope he will be able to get back around the table soon—will he bear in mind the comparison with the pension offers for the police and the armed services, in that members in those schemes have to pay more?
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said earlier, involvement in ACCT processes and ceasing suicide and self-harm are fundamental to a prison officer’s duty. I would encourage and urge all prison officers to carry on with their tasks as they should.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (Conservative, Centre-right): May I congratulate my hon. Friend on the excellent work that he is doing with a difficult pack of cards? Does he agree that a prison officer joins to serve, and that that means to serve in whatever guise without striking?
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that we published a White Paper last year, and only last week introduced the Prisons and Courts Bill—the first Bill in 65 years that not only puts turning around our prisoners’ lives at the centre of our work but improves safety and security in our prisons. We are taking action.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The central aspect of the Bill is to make it very clear that the fundamental purpose of prisons is to turn around offenders’ lives. If prisons are focused on that, we will reduce reoffending, and the £15 billion reoffending bill, but also help to make our prisons places of safety and reform.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): We will obviously look at its recommendations. Let me make this clear: we value prison officers and the hard work they do, and we have already taken a lot of action to recognise that. The right hon. Gentleman cannot ask me to commit at the Dispatch Box to results that I do not know.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the Minister that it is wrong for this strike to go ahead, particularly given the services that it affects. I know he will share my concern at the 6,000 assaults on prison officers up until June 2016. Will he reassure me on the actions being taken to tackle this and to ensure that those who commit these assaults are held to account?
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Prison officers work in a very challenging environment, and our job is to keep them safe in that environment. We are looking at a number of things, including making sure that any crime scene is preserved, working with the local police forces that attend the scene, and making sure that impact statements are well prepared and admissible in court. We are also ensuring that when someone assaults a prison officer and is convicted, the sentence is consecutive rather than concurrent with their existing sentence. I agree that it is vital that we keep prison officers safe.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): I have said right from the start that the levels of violence in our prisons are too high. We have been working very closely with the Prison Officers Association on health and safety and have made progress—for example, on regime management plans that the POA would accept. We are also investing £100 million to add 2,500 officers to the frontline, in addition to the points on pay that I have already made. These problems were long in the making, and yes, it will take time to resolve them, but we have the resolve to do so and we are doing it.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
David Nuttall (Conservative, Centre-right): The job of prison officers is made more difficult by the presence in our prisons of drugs and mobile phones. Can my hon. Friend tell me by what date will we have at least one prison—just one—that is free of drugs and mobile phones?
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend will have noticed measures in the Bill that we introduced last week to make it easier to test for drugs and deal with the problem of drugs in our prisons, and we are taking a lot of action on mobile phones. For example, new legislation under the Serious Crime Act 2015 has allowed us to turn off 160 mobile phones in our jails in the past few months. We are also working with mobile network operators so as to be able to switch off mobile phones in our jails. A lot of work is being done, but it will take time.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have said, strike action is unlawful. If prison officers withdraw their labour, that will make the regime even more restrictive, as the Chairman of the Justice Committee suggested. That is why we are urging hard-working prison officers to go back to work and make sure that prisoners can carry on with these regimes, whether in continuing important rehabilitative work or in making sure that our prisons are safe.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure that our prison officers will always do their duty if there is disorder in prisons, even at this difficult time. We are obviously urging the POA to withdraw its bulletin, but we also make sure that we have contingency plans for times like this.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): Modern, fit-for-purpose prisons will have a huge impact on prison officer safety, not least because they will not have all those corners where people can hide. They will also be good for rehabilitation. Today we have opened Her Majesty’s Prison Berwyn, which is the largest prison in Europe and is taking its first prisoners today. That is a huge step in our efforts not only to reorganise the estate, reduce overcrowding and improve safety in our prisons, but to ensure that they can be places of rehabilitation.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have said, our prison officers do an incredibly difficult job. I visit prisons almost every week and I know how hard the officers work. The POA has decided to make a stand on pay, as we have seen in today’s bulletin. I urge it to withdraw its bulletin because it will not do anything to improve safety in our prisons.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): In addition to the workforce strategy that we will publish later this year, which will focus on the professionalisation of the workforce, last week we announced a progressive promotion opportunity that will allow band 3 officers to do roles relating to safer custody, mentoring and hostage negotiation, and to get a pay rise. That is a huge step not just in professionalising the workforce and allowing people to operate in more senior roles, but in improving the pay packets of our hard-working prison officers.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): It would be easier to manage the 85,000 prisoners in our jails if we did not have to incarcerate 10,000 foreign nationals who should be in prison in their own country. This week Jamaica rejected the Government’s offer of returning its foreign nationals. What steps are the Government taking to get these people back to secure detention in their own countries?
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): We lost 6,000 or 7,000 prison officers, as the hon. Lady has said, but during that period we also closed 18 prisons. The key change in our prisons, as she has rightly says, is the advent of drugs such as Spice and Black Mamba, which have a huge value in prisons and make prisoners violent. In addition, our cohort of prisoners has become more violent: three fifths of people in our prisons are there for dangerous or drug-related offences. That is why we face a game-changing situation. More staff is part of the answer, but dealing with drugs and mobile phones is a key part of it, too.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Peter William Bone (Conservative, Centre-right): Is not improving working conditions for prison officers part of the solution to the problem, and are not the Government wholly right to close old Victorian prisons and open modern ones, such as that in Wellingborough?
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the working conditions for prison officers and the estates in which we house prisoners are important to improving safety in our prisons. I look forward to the new prison in Wellingborough opening shortly.
Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, prison governors will have control over their budgets and will be able to make decisions about staffing and how their staff are deployed from this April. We have to be absolutely clear. The POA says that this unlawful strike action is about pay. However, only last week we announced not only promotion opportunities but increased pay for vast numbers of prison officers across the country.
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): Recent legal judgments have interpreted the assessment criteria for PIP in ways that are different from what was originally intended by the coalition Government. We are therefore now making amendments to clarify the criteria used to decide how much benefit claimants receive in order to restore the original aim of the policy previously agreed by Parliament, which followed extensive consultation I want to be clear about what this is not. It is not a policy change, and nor is it intended to make new savings. I reiterate my commitment that there will be no further welfare savings beyond those already legislated for. This will not result in any claimant seeing a reduction in the amount of PIP previously awarded by the Department for Work and Pensions Mental health conditions and physical disabilities that lead to higher costs will continue to be supported, as has always been the case. The Government are committed to ensuring that our welfare system provides a strong safety net for those who need it. That is why we spend about £50 billion to support people with disabilities and health conditions, and we are investing more in mental health than ever before, spending a record £11.4 billion a year Personal independence payments are part of that support, and they provide support towards the additional costs that disabled people face. At the core of PIP’s design is the principle that support should be made available according to need, rather than a certain condition, whether physical or non-physical. PIP is also designed to focus more support on those who are likely to have higher costs associated with their disability. PIP works better than disability living allowance for those with mental health conditions. For example, there are more people with mental health conditions receiving the higher rates of PIP than there were under the old DLA system This is about restoring the original intention of the benefit, which has been expanded by the legal judgments. It is entirely appropriate for the Government to act to restore clarity to the law, as Governments have done before and will no doubt continue to do in the future.
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): I thought every part of that question was based in error, if I may say so. Nobody is losing money compared with what they were originally awarded by the DWP, so that part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question is simply factually incorrect Far from being slipped out, the Department made a huge effort to let people know that this was happening. I left a message for the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), and I spoke to the Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field). I know that my hon. Friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work also spoke to a number of colleagues, so the idea that this was slipped out is simply ridiculous The right hon. Gentleman talks about individual conditions, and I can only repeat what I said earlier: PIP is awarded not for conditions, but for the living or mobility difficulties that result from such conditions. All that the regulations do is to restore the situation to what it was in late November, before the two court judgments. This is not a new policy or a spending cut; this is simply restoring the benefit to what was intended when it was first introduced under the coalition Government.
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Crabb (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend agree that any welfare payment, especially one providing a tiered range of cash payments to people living with enormously diverse physical and mental conditions, requires clear assessment criteria and clarity in law? The new regulations will restore precision to the law, which will benefit all users of the system.
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree with my right hon. Friend, who obviously has huge expertise in this area, that we need clarity. In particular, the vulnerable people receiving PIP deserve clarity. I reassure them and the House that all the regulations will do is to restore us to the situation that everyone knew they were in late last year, and in which they have been ever since PIP was introduced.
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me deal with some of the detailed points raised by the hon. Lady. Incidentally, we are appealing the judgments, but because of the lack of clarity that would be caused by leaving the current regulations in limbo following the upper tribunal’s decisions, it is better to move quickly. I should also say that the tribunal has itself said that the assessment criteria are not clear. If the tribunal believes that, I am more than happy to accept it—indeed, I am grateful to it for telling us that the criteria are not clear—so I am now taking the opportunity to clarify the existing regulations The hon. Lady talked about the effect on disabled people. I absolutely agree with her that that is the central core of what we are trying to do. I point out to her that over two thirds of PIP recipients with a mental health condition get the enhanced rate daily living component, compared with just 22% who used to receive the highest rate of DLA care. That is why PIP is a better benefit than DLA. That happened previously under the existing regulations, and I am now restoring that situation The hon. Lady’s questions were predicated on this being a cut. It is simply not a cut; it is not entirely honest of her to say that it is a cut. If she looks at the facts of the case, she will recognise that people claiming PIP—specifically those with mental health conditions—have been and are better off with PIP. We are making the benefit clear. We are making the change so that the benefit is paid as it has been since it was first introduced, which is better for people, particularly those with mental health conditions.
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend, who also has huge expertise in this area, is exactly right. There was very extensive consultation when PIP was first introduced about the design of what is, inevitably, a very complex benefit. As I have explained, we have seen a considerable improvement in awards, particularly for those with mental health conditions. The Government’s changes will restore that situation, which was better than people ever knew in the past.
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady will know that what is considered for debate are matters for the usual channels. It ill behoves any Secretary of State to try to interfere in the actions of the usual channels The hon. Lady’s first question is based on the misapprehension that people with mental health conditions are doing worse under PIP as it is currently run. That is simply factually not the case. I am proud of the fact that overall the Government are spending £11.4 billion on people with mental health conditions—more than any previous Government have paid out. Overall, we are spending £50 billion a year on disability benefits. In every year of this Parliament we will be spending more than was spent in 2010. That is how we are meeting our commitments to disabled people, which I take very seriously and the whole Government take very seriously.
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): There are always lessons for anyone who writes regulations. By necessity, benefit regulations are complex, particularly because they need to be very sensitive. We are dealing with vulnerable people. In this case, we are dealing with disabled people who have extra living costs or difficulties with mobility. Inevitably, the framers of regulations try to make them as exact as possible. It is one of the roles of the courts to point out where that has gone wrong. In this case, the courts have said that they were not clear. What the Government are doing is clarifying them. That is to everyone’s benefit.
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is wrong to say that 160,000 people will not get PIP because of the decision. She knows the details well enough to know that this is not about whether or not people receive PIP. There are two different cases and two descriptors—[Interruption.] She keeps treating me as though I am the Prime Minister. I am grateful, but I am not. I am the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. The hon. Lady is simply wrong when she says that this will deny people PIP. As she knows, PIP is given on the basis of the difficulty of living costs or mobility costs. It is not a binary case. Twelve different attributes are considered and each attribute has a large number of descriptors. The court case affects two descriptors. It is not as she paints it.
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Kelly Jane Tolhurst (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Secretary of State for his clarification. Can he assure my constituents who are affected by PIP that the Government are committed to ensuring that PIP assessments are high quality and that people are properly supported throughout the process?
Personal Independence Payments — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): We are engaged in a PIP improvement project. My hon. Friend is right to ask the question about consistency of assessments. That is one matter we are certainly addressing. The other matter, which I know is of concern across the House, is delays. I am glad to report that because of the PIP improvement plan, claims are now being cleared at over five times the rate they were in January 2014. The delays in the system are being reduced and we are addressing the issue of consistency.