argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Pension Schemes: Younger Workers — House of Commons, 2016-05-09
Topic: Labor
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Pension saving has been undermined by the new lifetime ISA, a new gimmick from the Chancellor, which will promote ISA saving from taxed income over pension saving from pre-tax income—in other words, it is a convenient tool to increase tax receipts today. No employee will be better off saving into an ISA than through workplace pension saving. The Association of British Insurers has forecast that someone saving 4% of an income of £25,000 in an ISA would be £53,000 worse off by age 60. Will the Minister tell the Chancellor to stop his gimmicks, stop this nonsense and get back to pension savings? We need no more con tricks from this Government.
State Pension Reform: Gender Inequality — House of Commons, 2016-05-09
Topic: Labor
Hannah Mary Bardell (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Protection is all very well, but introducing the new state pension in 2016 means that 350,000 women who were born between 1951 and 1953 will retire on the old system just before the new provisions come into force, whereas a man born on exactly the same day will retire slightly later but receive a pension under the new arrangements. Will the Minister please heed the Scottish National party’s calls to establish a pensions commission in order to end these inequalities?
State Pension Reform: Gender Inequality — House of Commons, 2016-05-09
Topic: Labor
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I have listened carefully to what the Minister has just said. State pension equalisation has left 500,000 women born between 1953 and 1955 much worse off, with some facing a financial loss of up to £30,000. When will this Government take responsibility for the severe financial impact on those women and, in the interests of justice, do the decent thing, relent and put in place transitional arrangements?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-05-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: Last week I had the honour of attending the national Young Enterprise tenner challenge final where two students from my local school, Mangotsfield school in my constituency, Archie Kenway and Joel Vadhyanath, received an award for turning £10 into a staggering profit of £3,289. Does my right hon. Friend agree that initiatives for young people such as the tenner challenge could help ensure that young people acquire valuable skills for the future in the workplace?; Changes to the walking assessment have led to nearly 14,000 disabled people across the country losing access to their Motability vehicles. That has caused some of my constituents to lose their jobs and their independence. Why is the Secretary of State punishing disabled people in this way?; The business case for universal credit identifies savings of £80 million a week in steady state after implementation. These come both from IT simplification and from the removal of barriers to getting back into work quickly. Will the Secretary of State confirm that there is a focus not just on delivering the technology, but on ensuring that those benefits will be delivered when the time comes?; The Resolution Foundation has calculated that universal credit could leave 2.5 million families on low pay worse off by more than £3,000 a year. Does the Minister agree that universal credit is abjectly failing to provide incentives to work and lift families out of low pay, which we were told was its intention?; In anticipation of the White Paper on disability, will my hon. Friend embrace Leonard Cheshire’s Change100 programme, which allows disabled graduates to gain paid employment with major employers?; I recently asked a written question about the equality analysis that was carried out on the PIP consultation documents, and I was astounded to find out that the Department has only to pay due regard to the equality aspects of decisions, and that it was up to the Department to decide whether to publish that analysis. Does the Secretary of State agree that in the spirit of full transparency equality analyses must be published and made publicly available?; The Government intend to replace the current statutory child poverty measures with new measures of life chances. Researchers at the London School of Economics analysed responses to the Government consultation on child poverty measurement and found that 99% of respondents believed income and deprivation should be included. Does the Minister agree or disagree with them?
Elizabeth Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Secretary of State is reportedly set to reduce the benefits cap by up to £6,000 per year. Who does he think will miss out most from this? Does he think that private landlords with out-of-control rents will just accept £500 a month less, or that children, who have no control over any aspect of their lives, will be the ones to suffer yet again?
Safety in Custody and Violence in Prisons — House of Commons, 2016-05-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Inspectors have warned of "Dickensian squalor" inside Wormwood Scrubs, following a scathing report that revealed that the jail is rat-infested and overcrowded, with inmates spending up to 22 hours a day locked in very squalid cells. Overcrowding and poor conditions exacerbate the risk of violence not only to staff but to other prisoners. It is clear from a recent statement from the Prison Governors Association that understaffing is still an issue. Will the Minister assure us that the ideological drive to cut public services and to shift to private sector provision will not further jeopardise staff and prison safety Will the Minister also look to the example of the Scottish Government? Their approach of recommending a presumption against shorter sentences of three months or under has led to the numbers of such sentences plummeting, and the reconviction rate is at a 16-year low. Will he take steps to follow their lead in creating a presumption against short sentences and investing instead in robust community sentences in order to address the underlying causes of crime more effectively?
“Educational Excellence Everywhere”: Academies — House of Commons, 2016-05-09
Topic: Education
Carol Frances Monaghan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for today’s statement. Many school communities will also welcome today’s announcement. Although I, like many teachers across these isles, would love to think that the Government do listen to teachers, the reality seems to be that this embarrassing U-turn on a centrepiece Budget announcement has been brought about by a handful of the Government’s own Back Benchers. Those who have the greatest impact on the success of a school are teachers, and a first-rate headteacher can turn a school around regardless of whether it is an academy, but there is no doubt that this grand plan has caused great anxiety, and teachers who are already struggling with severe workload issues have had an additional burden placed on them by the academisation plan. The Secretary of State says that academies allow schools the freedom to innovate with the curriculum—[Interruption.]
“Educational Excellence Everywhere”: Academies — House of Commons, 2016-05-09
Topic: Education
Carol Frances Monaghan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The ability of schools to set their own pay scales will raise questions around teachers’ pay and recruitment, and there is concern that the long-term impact of academies will mean higher salaries and better terms and conditions in some better-funded academies. What consideration—[Hon. Members: "Hooray!"] I am glad that I amuse the House. What consideration has the Secretary of State given to teacher recruitment in poorer areas in terms of being able to attract the teachers they need to raise attainment? We in the Scottish National party are firmly committed to national bargaining in the public sector. How will she ensure that, by abandoning nationally agreed pay scales, this will not affect recruitment and retention in more challenging schools?
BIS Sheffield/Government Departments outside London — House of Commons, 2016-05-09
Topic: Government Operations
William Arthur Roger Mullin (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) not only on leading the charge in the debate, but on his quite excellent forensic analysis of why this is a deeply flawed policy decision The dispersal of Government offices has been argued for for many years—from as far back as the early 1960s. Although this is not a new debate, therefore, it may be wise to rehearse some of the reasons why dispersal can be forcefully argued for. I would like to focus in my short speech on just three First, on cost, it will be considerably more cost-effective to locate Departments in Sheffield or Kirkcaldy than in overheated London. A number of hon. Members have pointed to the fact that they cannot find, or cannot get released, any detailed cost-benefit analysis. Perhaps that is not surprising if no proper cost-benefit analysis has been undertaken in the first place. Secondly, this is about not just the cost of dispersal but the benefits to the recipient regions. In particular, if dispersal happens in areas that have relatively weak economies compared with London, the benefit of even a few hundred well-paid and secure jobs can be considerable. Many towns in the north of England would benefit greatly if there was more dispersal out of London The third point I want to raise, which is much less talked about generally, although a number of hon. Members have raised it today, is the benefit to Government intelligence and decision making. It is unhealthy for all key decision makers and advisers to be based in one location, particularly if that location is out of character with the rest of the country. Dispersal provides an opportunity for better engagement. When we presented the case for this debate at the Backbench Business Committee, I argued that one of the problems is that this decision seems to reek of group-think by the Government. To put it in a slightly more academic fashion, it reminded me of reading for the first time the work of Kenneth Hammond on his cognitive continuum theory, with which I know everybody is deeply familiar. He argued that decision making can be on a continuum from highly intuitive, at one extreme, to highly analytic, at the other extreme, with a mix in between. It strikes me that the reason why a lot of evidence cannot be provided for this decision is that it reeks more of intuition than of detailed analysis of the true benefit In the Backbench Business Committee, I was asked why a Scottish MP would want to speak in this debate. Perhaps, without wishing to be accused of any arrogance, there might be one or two examples that could be brought from Scotland to show the benefit of dispersal.
BIS Sheffield/Government Departments outside London — House of Commons, 2016-05-09
Topic: Government Operations
William Arthur Roger Mullin (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Well, I will give the right hon. Lady 15. I was going to make it three, but because of her intervention I know she would like many more. The first, of many, is that of the five major buildings that house all the policy civil servants in Scotland, two are based well beyond Edinburgh. To give an example close to the functions of BIS, locating lifelong learning well outside Edinburgh in a place closer to the majority of higher education and further education institutions has given great benefit. When I talked to the principal of a college in Scotland who had originally been a principal in England, he commented that he found it so much easier to get access to senior civil servants in Scotland than south of the border Since the Minister kindly invited me to provide more examples, let me talk of Scotland’s 34 executive non-departmental public bodies, the majority of which—some 19—are based outwith the capital, Edinburgh. This includes headquarters in such centres as Inverness, Grantown-on-Spey, Dundee, Stirling, Balloch, Hamilton, Newbridge and Paisley, in addition to Edinburgh—[Interruption]—and Glasgow, of course. Some of these play a very significant role in supporting local economies, in addition to being cost-effective locations I can go even further, to satisfy the Minister, on to those whom one might want to influence in terms of policy-making advice—the cabinet, for example. Way back in 2008, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) instituted a then fairly modest initiative to take cabinet meetings, during the summer recess, to one or two different locations away from Edinburgh. This has developed over the years until, now, in mid-2016, 42 cabinet meetings have been held outwith Edinburgh. In the past year alone, cabinet meetings have been held in Dumfries, Aberdeen, Alloa, Inverness, Cupar, Ullapool, Oban, Coatbridge, Greenock, and West Dunbartonshire. Those meetings help with engagement because when they are over, public meetings are held so that the public can come along and question cabinet members. The benefit of that is that thousands of ordinary members of the public have been able to come along and influence decision making We should be debating not so much why 247 jobs are being moved from Sheffield to London, but why tens of thousands more jobs are not being located out of London into the regions and nations of the UK.
Energy Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-05-09
Topic: Energy
Callum McCaig (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is with an unfortunate sense of déjà vu that we return to debate an issue we should have put to bed months ago, if not longer. I struggle to recall when the Wood review reported, but it was well in excess of 18 months ago, and as has been said many times, including by me, it was a completely different time in the oil industry’s lifespan. Up to a point, the Government have taken the action expected, but they did so at the time of the Wood review, when things were very different. Further delay should not have happened The Bill should have been on the statute books months ago and should not have conflated the OGA with onshore wind. It might have seemed like a neat parliamentary ruse at the time, but it is causing potentially significant damage. The last time we dealt with this—a week or so ago—the Minister told Opposition Members that we should be ashamed of ourselves. The most unedifying aspect of all this is that we are now talking only about projects in Scotland—four Scottish wind farms—and the OGA, which will largely deal with the oil industry in Scotland, and yet this House and that House cannot get their act together to protect two vital Scottish industries. That, for me, is utterly shameful and unacceptable. Not content with decimating the wind industry in Scotland, the Tory party, supposedly in the name of public opinion, is twisting the knife in the face of public opinion. The four projects affected by the Bill all got planning permission from the local council. That is the definition of public support, which is what this should be about. There is public support for wind farms that would have significant community benefit. We have talked about the £7 million cost. I wonder how much we would have saved had we not delayed in establishing the OGA and provided it with the teeth it should have had months ago. We are squabbling over a relatively small figure, in the grand scheme of things, compared with the colossal amounts of money the Government will waste on the white elephant at Hinkley Point C. That sticks in my craw and that of folks in Scotland The Lords have compromised—good on them—because they want to get a deal done. I am no expert in parliamentary procedure, but the Minister talks about wanting to pass the Bill. It could be done very simply by accepting the amendment. We run the risk, before we prorogue for the Queen’s Speech, of the Bill falling. If that happens, it will be a shameful betrayal of the entire cross-party process over the establishment of the OGA, the development of its agenda and the provision of the tools it requires to help our oil industry. That cannot be allowed to happen. The risk is that we sacrifice the OGA on the altar of Tory party dogma on onshore wind. That is utterly unforgiveable.
Energy Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-05-09
Topic: Energy
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am loth to interrupt my hon. Friend, who is making a powerful case in defence of the Lords amendment, but I am sure he has seen the evidence submitted to the Scottish Affairs Committee and how the energy has been taken out of the sector because of the Government’s arbitrary decision. He is right that they made a manifesto commitment, but it is totally unacceptable to do this in a year and leave these four plants in a state of limbo. There is a simple way the Government could solve the issue this evening and get the Bill through: accept the amendment, get on with it, deliver the Bill and make sure we do our best for both sectors.
Energy Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-05-09
Topic: Government Operations
Callum McCaig (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is. It is an ideological attack, and despite the potential consequences for wider industry sectors, they are happy to see it happen. We have this squabble over an issue in Scotland between the unelected House of Lords and a Government who, with their sole Tory representative, might as well be unelected in Scotland. We are talking about grace periods. Thus far, the Government have acted completely and utterly without grace. It is not too late to change that.
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2016-05-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I apologise for being semi-comatose during the speech from the Leader of the Opposition—most of us were. The Prime Minister mentions the economy and productivity. Will he tell us why the word "productivity" does not appear in the Gracious Speech? Is it because the productivity record of the Prime Minister and this Government is so appalling?
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2016-05-18
Topic: Government Operations
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Is not the reality that this Queen’s Speech was not for viewers in Scotland—so much so that the Scotland Secretary has been nowhere to be seen on the Front Bench? I think that even my predecessor, Sir Teddy Taylor, had more to say about Scotland. Perhaps my right hon. Friend could encourage the Prime Minister to tell us what new plans he has to embolden our national Parliament in Edinburgh.
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2016-05-18
Topic: Government Operations
Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): May I make a little progress? I will be happy to come back to the hon. Gentleman The SNP’s alternative Queen’s Speech would deliver a Scottish home rule Bill, which would involve a strong package of powers for the Scottish Parliament. The wording is quite important, because of course the people of Scotland were promised home rule and near federalism. My degree is in politics, and I have had a look at federal systems around the world. There are a number of parties in the House that favour federalism, but we do not live in a federal state in the UK, and nothing in the Scotland Act comes remotely close to "near federalism". That was not in the Queen’s Speech. It would have been good to see it there; perhaps the Government might think about it, but I hae ma doots—"I have my doubts," he says, looking at the poor Hansard writers The Government are unlikely to deliver a Scottish home rule Bill, but perhaps, given the unhappiness on the Treasury Bench about the House of Lords for the first time in a long while, the time has come for even the Conservative party to realise that there is a need for parliamentary reform. Let us be serious. We work in a Parliament where the second Chamber is not elected by anyone. Let me say that again: the second Chamber of the Parliament described as the mother of all Parliaments is made up of people elected by nobody. This is the 21st century. Please let us get on with replacing the House of Lords.
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2016-05-18
Topic: Government Operations
Martin John Docherty-Hughes (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am delighted that my right hon. Friend has raised this matter. Is it not right that we inform the Prime Minister, given that he has appointed more Members to that unelected, unaccountable House of Lords than Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and John Major put together?
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2016-05-18
Topic: Government Operations
Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am delighted to speak today on behalf of a parliamentary party that has never nominated a single person to the House of Lords and never will. However, if we wished to have a second Chamber with the oversight responsibilities that many people argue are necessary, why not have a Chamber made up of representatives of the nations and regions? This is the 21st century—why don’t we get on with it While we are doing that, why not consider electoral reform? The Leader of the Opposition raised that issue. He has clearly rowed in behind the changes that the SNP proposed for the independence referendum, which proved that giving the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds—the issue on which I made my maiden speech—is a sensible move forward. Sixteen and 17-year-olds should be fully enfranchised The time has also come to establish an independent commission on proportional representation to report on possible models for the Westminster Parliament, and I say that as a member of a political party that might do worse under proportional representation. It was our policy when we were under-represented and it is our policy when we represent almost every seat in the country. In my speech last year, I made the point that the SNP does not represent everybody in Scotland and that we are mindful of that. It is important for all of us as democrats to ensure that the electoral systems that we use properly reflect in Parliament every strand of opinion that has support, and this place should be no different.
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2016-05-18
Topic: Labor
Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does my right hon. Friend agree that the life chances—we have been hearing those words all day from the Government—of children in the 4 million families who are set to lose out because of cuts to work allowances will be severely disadvantaged because of those changes?
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2016-05-18
Topic: International Affairs
Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner for his constituents on that and makes his case well. The Prime Minister is sitting on the Treasury Bench and I hope he was listening because, given what was promised in 2014 in the run-up to the Scottish referendum, it would be intolerable if he went back on the commitments made at that time On foreign affairs, I would like a return to something that was said not that long ago: that the UK should have an ethical foreign policy. I am profoundly troubled by the way in which the United Kingdom sells weapons that are used in armed conflict. The people who use the weapons are trained by the UK military, fly planes produced in the United Kingdom, and fire weapons made in the United Kingdom. Currently, that is being done by Saudi Arabia in Yemen. The time has come better to regulate weapons trading. The Government should have brought forward a weapons trading Bill but they have not. We should end our existing arms deals with Saudi Arabia, following the example of our European neighbours. We should have an ethical foreign policy and the Government should pursue it. Sadly, they do not.