argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Tax Credits (Working Families) — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): If he had been present during the debate, the hon. Gentleman would have heard a lot of agreement that raising levels of pay is a good thing. That is the right way to reduce the cost of tax credits; not taking an axe to them now in the hope that pay will go up at some point in the future. Calculation of the living wage assumes that families receive tax credits. Those who calculate the living wage say that if families did not receive tax credits, the living wage would have to go up by another 25% Working people need a long-term plan to back businesses that commit to paying the living wage—I agree with the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) on the importance of that—and share with them the Exchequer savings, as we have proposed with our "make work pay" contracts. We need to give the Low Pay Commission the remit and the powers to tackle low pay across the country, as proposed in the report by Alan Buckle, the former deputy chair of KPMG. We need economic and industrial policies to support more high-skill, high-productivity jobs created by innovative competitive businesses of the future. Belated conversion to the cause of tackling low pay must not be an excuse for Ministers cutting away the vital support on which so many working families rely. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) pointed out to the Prime Minister two weeks ago, not a single family will be helped into work and not a single worker will see their earnings rise simply as a result of cutting tax credits. Ministers should be tackling low pay, but they must not attack the low paid The Government promised to eradicate the deficit in one Parliament and failed completely to do so, but working families must not be made to pay the price for that failure. Can the Minister assure us that any action taken to tackle low pay or in other ways to support the finances of working families will make up for the losses arising from tax credit cuts? I fear he cannot. He will not be forgiven for a shabby raid on the incomes and security of working families simply to get the Prime Minister and the Chancellor out of a hole. I hope that Members on both sides of the House will join us in supporting this important motion tonight.
Mass Migration — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Immigration
Questions: What assessment he has made of the likely long-term effects of the current refugee crisis on efforts to address mass migration into and within the EU.; What (a) assessment he has made and (b) discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on the likely long-term effects of the current refugee crisis on efforts to address mass migration into and within the EU.; What assessment he has made of the likely long-term effects of the current refugee crisis on efforts to address mass migration into and within the EU.
Stephen Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): How will the Government ensure that the 20,000 refugees they have agreed to take from the region include some of the most vulnerable—children, disabled people, women who may have faced sexual violence—and how many of those refugees does the right hon. Gentleman expect to be here by Christmas?
Mass Migration — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Immigration
Questions: What assessment he has made of the likely long-term effects of the current refugee crisis on efforts to address mass migration into and within the EU.; What (a) assessment he has made and (b) discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on the likely long-term effects of the current refugee crisis on efforts to address mass migration into and within the EU.; What assessment he has made of the likely long-term effects of the current refugee crisis on efforts to address mass migration into and within the EU.
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): Some of those fit young men are fleeing the conscription of Assad’s regime because they do not want to kill their own people. Turkey and Lebanon cannot continue indefinitely to absorb the millions of refugees from Syria’s crisis. What is the right hon. Gentleman going to do to respond with compassion and competence in the European Union? Will he reconsider his decision not to participate in the resettlement from within the EU, as Ireland and Denmark have done?
Paris Climate Change Conference — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Questions: If the Government will invite a Minister of the Scottish Government to join the UK delegation to the Paris climate change conference in December 2015.
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): Perhaps the Minister would like to revise his answer, given that Al Gore has said: "It is time for the UK government to honour and live up to that legacy, and return to its global leadership position, domestically and abroad, by supporting an ambitious international agreement in Paris" It appears the Prime Minister may have lost interest in the subject, and the solar industry is in crisis domestically.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Civil Rights
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): It was reported yesterday that 14 cleaners who work at the FCO were called to an investigatory meeting by the Department’s contractor, Interserve, because they had the temerity to write to the Foreign Secretary to congratulate him on his reappointment and ask to discuss the living wage. Given that a basic freedom is the right of any individual to contact us as elected representatives, without fear or favour, will the right hon. Gentleman join me in condemning this attempt to intimidate staff for having exercised that right?
Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Tom Blenkinsop (Labour, Centre-left): If the Secretary of State really believed what he was saying today, he would have made an oral statement instead of having to be dragged here yet again to answer an urgent question from the Opposition Benches. Why is he again raising the issue of £80 million for Redcar? It is not £80 million, as he knows all too well, because his own Prime Minister has blocked access for the entire sector to get hold of EU globalisation adjustment funding, of which £5 million could have been accessed by the sector to help the 5,200 workers who are directly affected. More than that, the Secretary of State knows that our EU and US allies have personally taken action against Chinese dumping. Act now, or we might not have an industry left!
Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): Steel is one of our foundation industries, and it can still be saved. Will the Minister examine the European material from the North East of England Member of the European Parliament, Judith Kirton-Darling, to see just how the state can properly intervene? Will he do that before Teesside and other parts of the UK follow the same path to ruin as Ravenscraig in central Scotland, where the community has still not recovered, 25 years later?
Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Angela Christine Smith (Labour, Centre-left): Clearly, urgent action is needed to stem the flow of job losses in the steel industry, and what the Business Secretary has had to say today is woefully inadequate. What is even more inexplicable is his refusal to commit to a long-term strategy for the future of the industry. Elsewhere in government there has been a commitment to a 25-year strategy to secure the future of food and farming, so why can he not do the same for steel?
Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jenny Chapman (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister has used many words about action, getting things done and taskforces, but from my constituents’ point of view this does not look like action at all—it looks like disinterest. Five asks came out of the steel summit. Does he even know what they were? What is his response to those asks?
Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Philip Wilson (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Secretary of State tell the House what he is doing to map out the problems facing the companies in the supply chain? Does he know who they are, where they are and how many people they employ? What more can he do to help them out?
Paramilitary Groups (Northern Ireland) — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Conor Patrick McGinn (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and commend my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) for his response. The Secretary of State said that she wants to see the full implementation of the Stormont House agreement, and I wholeheartedly share her sentiments and support her in that. Is it the Government’s position that they wish to see agreement between all the parties before legislating on the Stormont House agreement, and how long does she anticipate it will take to get that agreement?
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Other
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): I do not think I even need to respond to that intervention. The hon. Gentleman is seeking to trivialise this debate. We have been very clear about what we would do and about what we are calling on the Government and his party to do. His constituents will be watching him today and asking: who he is standing up for—his constituents or his party?
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not on the basis of one occasion that we are saying that the Government have changed their mind or have not told the truth; they have not told the truth on this measure step by step since it was first introduced in the Budget. They have tried to hide the impact on hard-working families across Britain. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the £1,300 figure is an average, and many families are set to lose much more.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Other
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope that the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) heard my answer. Perhaps his constituents will also be asking whether he has heard them. I am sure they are wondering who he will stand up for today.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend talks about the impact of these changes. Let me give her one simple example from my Walthamstow constituency of a working mum. When her tax credits were delayed, we had to refer her to a food bank because they were literally the difference between being on the breadline and having bread. Does my hon. Friend agree that that will happen to working people across the country if these changes go ahead?
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her comments. Perhaps she will say what she is doing for the 6,300 families in her constituency who will be affected by these changes. Perhaps she should speak to those in her party who have raised serious concerns about the changes, including Lord Tebbit Before the debate on the statutory instrument in September, the Government chose either not to perform or not to publish an impact assessment of these changes, so one was not available for the debate in the Commons. The Exchequer Secretary seemed to suggest that they had done that, when clearly they had not. The distributional analysis that the Chancellor finally submitted to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in the other place last week has been described by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, as a "sleight of hand" and an attempt to "bamboozle".
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): It is clear that the Conservative party is in disarray. Lord Tebbit, the hon. Members for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) and for Telford (Lucy Allan), and others, are calling for reforms, or for the Chancellor to think again.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Housing
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is right, and cuts are being made without any recognition of rising rents and the cost of living that affects household budgets. We cannot make such a move without thinking about the impact on family budgets, particularly of rents.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Chuka Harrison Umunna (Labour, Centre-left): Let me ask the Minister about the subsidy point. We can all agree on the context that we need to reconfigure our labour market. Almost 6 million people are not earning a wage that they can live on. Ultimately, yes, a subsidy going to employers is not desirable, but surely the issue here is the order in which we transform our economy. The fact is that through a properly prosecuted industrial strategy—something that we have obviously not seen in our steel industry—it is possible to reconfigure the labour market. That should come first—before taking away the tax credits and support from people who are not earning enough. Ultimately, that is the difference between the two sides.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Other
Natascha Engel (Labour, Centre-left): Order. Before I call the Chair of the Select Committee, I point out that we have less than three hours left and more than 50 Members wishing to catch my eye. Dropping the speech limit down to two or three minutes seems ridiculous at this stage. There will also be a maiden speech following the contribution of the Chair of the Select Committee, and I do not want to impose a limit until after that. Can we please keep interventions to an absolute minimum and speeches as short as possible, so that I can put the time limit on as late as possible? With that, I call Frank Field.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Roger Duncan Godsiff (Labour, Centre-left): May I first congratulate the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) on her remarkable, thoughtful and excellent speech? I am astonished that she will not be in the same Division Lobby as Labour Members tonight, but I congratulate her nevertheless A lot of my constituents are low-paid workers. Many are paid the minimum wage. They work very long hours. Some have two or even three jobs in order to have enough money to feed their families and pay the bills. Even then, some of those families cannot afford to put food on the table seven days a week and have to endure the humiliation of going to food banks with their families. These low-paid workers are not shirkers or skivers, and they are not lazy or feckless. As a matter of interest, they are not the people who caused the financial and banking crisis in 2008, which led to so much damage to the economy and cost the taxpayer billions of pounds to pay off the gambling debts. To go back to what the Conservatives said at the last election, if the curtains of the houses of those workers are drawn at 7 or 8 o’clock in the morning, it is not because they are skiving or being lazy; it is because they only got home from work after midnight These are the people in my constituency who rely on working tax credits to top up their poverty pay and who will suffer if these tax credit changes go through. The only crime—I do not consider it a crime—they have committed is that they are poor. I never thought that poverty was a crime. Most of them would like to get better jobs. Unfortunately, they cannot. These are the people that the House will penalise for working hard to try to sustain their families It is not just the working poor who will suffer; as has been said, so will self-employed people. I want to share with the House a constituent’s letter to me, because it encapsulates the problems facing self-employed people. Let us call the lady Isabella. She says: "I’m writing to ask you to complain as strongly as you can about the upcoming tax credit cuts and to ask what I should do. I run my own business with my husband which is growing year on year but we still only earn a small amount, our family has an income of £13,000. Last year my business turned over nearly £50,000. I receive the full amount of tax credit and it is a life saver and allows us to grow our business and become useful members of society. We have won awards for our work...and we work long hours…to try and make the business become a success." She says she does not have a pension, but hopes the business will grow because that will be her pension. If the changes take place, her family will lose £1,700 a year, which, as a self-employed person, she says will make life virtually impossible on the income that she and her husband are making. She asks what she should do and whether the Government want her to close down her business. She says: "Am I not exactly the sort of person this government purports to be celebrating and supporting?" Do the Government want her to close down her business and join the ranks of the unemployed?
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Other
Natascha Engel (Labour, Centre-left): Order. The list of speakers seems to be growing rather than shrinking and almost 40 Members still want to speak, so before I call the next speaker I shall drop the time limit down to three minutes in the hope we can get as many in as possible.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Graham Peter Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I find the hon. Gentleman’s comments bizarre. This matter is close to home for me. My son and his wife are on tax credits. He does over 40 hours a week, and she is retraining and doing 12-hour bank shifts. I have a granddaughter who is going to suffer a cut of more than £100. Can the hon. Gentleman explain to me how they can retrain any more than they are, where they are going to get extra hours when they are both doing nearly 50 hours, and the impact that that has on my granddaughter? The hon. Gentleman is out of touch.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Paula Michelle Sherriff (Labour, Centre-left): I look at this debate as someone who, perhaps unlike some Conservative Members who have spoken, did an ordinary job on an ordinary wage before I came to this House. Many of the people I worked alongside in the NHS relied on tax credits to make work pay and now find themselves caught in a pincer between the Government’s pay cuts and the work penalty. More than 13,000 children in my constituency are in families supported by tax credits—over two thirds of all families with children in Dewsbury and Mirfield. Literally thousands of the people I represent are now fearful for their future.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Imran Hussain (Labour, Centre-left): Time is short so I will focus on two areas: the effects of the changes to tax credits on my constituency, and the disproportionate effect of those changes on black and minority ethnic communities In my constituency these cuts will be devastating. Areas that are already impoverished and where many depend on tax credits will suffer far more than richer areas. Some 15,500 families in Bradford East receive tax credits, and 13,700 of those have children—four times as many as in the Chancellor’s seat. He does not understand the effect that these cuts will have, and he never will More than 5,000 families in Bradford East have three or more children. Bradford East already has above average unemployment and high levels of deprivation by any measure, and thousands of children live in families that are to be made significantly worse off. Families will have to make heart-breaking decisions about whether to pay the gas or electricity bill, or whether to buy food. Thousands of children living in families dependent on food banks; thousands of children being forced to live in ever-worsening poverty and despair—that is the reality of these proposals In terms of racial discrimination, the effects of the proposals are truly shocking. Government data show that tax credits constitute, on average, 2% of weekly household income for white households. That rises to 6% for black households and a further 10% for households of Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage. These families are often already in poverty because of poor wages. According to Omar Khan, director of the Runnymede Trust, an independent think-tank focusing on race equality, these cuts "Will inevitably increase racial inequalities and probably increase rates of child poverty" Will the Minister tell me what this will mean for my constituency, with its large Pakistani and Bangladeshi population? What will this mean for the local economy, where poverty and despair will be further fuelled? What will this mean for local businesses, for the local corner shop whose customers are being squeezed harder and harder? I have to ask myself: is it the Government’s intention to create ghettoes in our cities? The cumulative effects of the cuts will not only have a shocking impact on Bradford’s families from all backgrounds; it will have a devastating effect on our local economy. I cannot see what is fair about any of that, I cannot see what is northern powerhouse about any of that, and I certainly cannot see how we are all in it together.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Peter John Kyle (Labour, Centre-left): I want to make three points in the time that I have. First, I want to explain why Labour used tax credits to start with. It is extraordinary for Labour Members to hear the party that opposed the minimum wage say that we are not supporting the living wage. If, when we implemented the minimum wage, the Conservatives had been fighting on the other side and said that we were not doing enough and it was not high enough, the dynamic of the argument about poverty in work would have been completely and fundamentally different. Every single measure that the Labour party tried to implement to tackle in-work poverty was opposed by Conservative Members. We implemented the minimum wage, and in the first 10 years of the Labour Government the bottom 20% got richer faster than the top 20%. We lifted 1 million children out of poverty, but the Resolution Foundation has said today another 200,000 will be plunged back in as a direct result of the Chancellor’s Budget Secondly, Government Members have been pointing at Opposition Members today and saying that we do not support the aspiration to replace tax credits with wages. That is fundamentally wrong, as my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) and many others have proved. It is the right thing to do, but the Government are implementing it in the wrong way Thirdly, this change will have a fundamental negative impact on vulnerable people and on communities. Each of us has people in our constituencies who turn to us in their hour of need with problems with tax credits. We know how vulnerable they are and the Government’s policy will do nothing more than make poor people vulnerable people. It is wrong.