argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Stephanie Louise Peacock (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I also place on the record my thanks to you for selecting this debate, which I am pleased to have secured for one simple reason: to give the Government a chance to do right by retired miners and their families in my constituency and coalfield communities across the country I understand the significance of the mineworkers’ pension scheme to other hon. Members here today, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), who has brought so many of those involved together; my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith), who led the recent Westminster Hall debate; hon. Members who are themselves former miners; and the many other coalfield MPs who join me here today This debate specifically seeks to address the injustices of the surplus sharing arrangement agreed in the mineworkers’ pension scheme back in 1994, but I want to start by explaining just why it matters so much to people in areas such as Barnsley. Our community is one built on the coal industry. It once helped sustain some 30,000 jobs in the area, many of which were directly involved in mining itself, where the work was tough, difficult and dangerous. Aside from the economy that depended on it, the industry also fostered an identity and a sense of community spirit that lives on to this day In the same way that mining powered our community, our community powered a nation, so I firmly believe that those who did so deserve nothing less than a fair arrangement that properly looks after them in later life. Unfortunately, the current scheme, agreed with the Government on the privatisation of British Coal in 1994, no longer does so. Back then, the Government offered to act as a guarantor to the scheme, ensuring that the pensions hard earned by miners would not decrease in value.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Nicholas Desmond John Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. She is doing a great job here this evening. Does she agree that we are not disputing the importance of the Government guarantee? It is giving retired miners like my uncles peace of mind that their pensions are secure, and that is really important. The question is whether the Government still need to take a 50% share, more than £3 billion over 25 years, out of the scheme, when they have not made any—any—direct payment into it. Finding the best way of giving former colliers and their families a fairer share of the pension is what has earned our focus tonight, and that is what she is leading on.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Stephanie Louise Peacock (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I want to make it clear at this stage that my complaint is not with the deal at large. There are some concerns over the details of the bonus element of the pension, whereby disappointing investment returns could see bonuses lost over time and members’ pensions worse off by around 30% in real terms—I intend to press the Minister on that issue later—but like the trustees I acknowledge that elements of the deal are beneficial.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stephanie Louise Peacock (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my right hon. Friend for her comments. She is absolutely right, and I will come on to talk about that in a moment. She talks about when the agreement was set up. The Minister admitted to me, in response to a written question asking what actuarial advice was taken, that "no such advice was obtained" Can we consider that for a moment, Madam Deputy Speaker? This arrangement was put in place with no expert advice. It is little wonder that the initial prediction proved woefully inaccurate and the surplus has been substantially more than anticipated—and it shows. The sheer amount of money that has been taken out by the Government since 1994 without returning a single penny is staggering. The Treasury has pocketed £4.4 billion since 1994.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Agriculture
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and I am sure many ex-miners in Coventry—we used to have two collieries—will be very grateful to her for securing this debate and for trying put some wrongs right. I am sure they will appreciate that very much, because a lot of them suffer from silicosis and other diseases. She is doing a great service to the miners.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Agriculture
Stephanie Louise Peacock (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right that a lot of former miners are taking a great interest in this debate, not least because the Government have taken £617 million this year alone, on top of £102 million over the past two years. As if that was not already enough, they plan to take another £427 million over the next three years.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Roberta Carol Blackman-Woods (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a really powerful speech. Does she agree that pensioner miners in areas such as mine in Durham should be getting an enhanced set of benefits from the scheme, rather than the Government creaming off this money? It is an absolute outrage.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Energy
Stephanie Louise Peacock (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. I know that her constituency hosts the Durham miners’ gala, which celebrates the coalfield communities. She is absolutely right about the money that the Government have taken out. I repeat that they have not contributed a single penny from their own funds. These are huge sums of money.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Agriculture
Ann Clwyd (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. The miners have had to fight every inch of the way, including for pneumoconiosis compensation and everything else. In my constituency in the Cynon Valley there is real anger and a feeling that the miners have been cheated by the refusal to share out this surplus money in a fair and proper way.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Stephanie Louise Peacock (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The average pension is just £84 a week, but it is a lot less for widows in receipt of a pension. Some are forced to get by on much less. For instance, I have read of one who receives as little as £59 a week, after spending the best part of three decades down the pit.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Gareth Craig Snell (Labour, Centre-left): Of course, the north Staffordshire coalfields were some of the most prosperous and efficient coalfields in the country. Does my hon. Friend agree that if the money that the Government are taking into the Treasury was spent directly on pensioners, the economic impact on their local communities, which have been starved of funds, would be immense, and in some cases transformative?
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Stephanie Louise Peacock (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and that is the purpose of this debate. It is time that action was taken. We should consider what a difference it would make to pensioners’ lives if we diverted more money into their pockets, rather than into the Government’s coffers.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is speaking compellingly, despite the many interruptions. She certainly speaks to the sense of injustice around this issue in my constituency. Has she had any discussions with the trustees of the mineworkers’ pension scheme to find out their views on what a fair way forward would be?
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Stephanie Louise Peacock (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. I am pleased that we have cross-party support today. It is very welcome The risk undertaken by the Government in guaranteeing the pensions no longer justifies the price paid by the miners for that assurance. The membership of the scheme alone has decreased substantially over the decades since the deal was struck. In 2006, there were 280,000 members; now, there are 160,000. The Government’s financial risk in their role as guarantor of the pensions is in permanent decline, yet in essence they are still charging miners the same price that they charged 25 years ago.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is completely right and is making a really powerful case on behalf of mineworkers all over the country. Does she agree that we need to know whether the Government are seeing the mineworkers’ pension as a source of income generation? If they are, that would be utterly morally wrong, given the contribution that the mineworkers have made to our economy over so many years.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Ronnie Campbell (Labour, Centre-left): I speak as a serving miner at one time, who had two broken legs. I wonder about this sometimes when I see in the newspapers about this Sir Philip Green and how he stole all the pensions, yet here we are, sitting here and the Government are stealing pensions. They should have their knighthoods taken off them as well.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Stephanie Louise Peacock (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is totally unfair. That is why I ask the Minister to dispel the concerns that I briefly touched on earlier and protect the bonus element of the members’ pensions, which will prevent real-terms losses to pension value in times of poor investment return. Most importantly, is she prepared to amend the surplus sharing scheme and meet the coalfield MPs, the scheme trustees, members and the National Union of Mineworkers to discuss a revision, including consideration of the recent NUM-commissioned report that suggested a 90:10 split in favour of the miners Miners and their families in this country had their way of life ripped apart. They were branded "the enemy within". Men were imprisoned because they were fighting for their jobs. Women ran soup kitchens because they were fighting for their community. Spirits were bruised but never broken. Tragically, too often our miners were let down. The unfairness of the scheme must not—cannot—be allowed to stand as the final chapter in that dismal history. Retired miners have waited long enough for the only thing they ever wanted: their fair share.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Gloria De Piero (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) for securing the debate, for her excellent speech and for the opportunity to speak very briefly on an issue that I am extremely passionate about. Many of us are now familiar with the shocking headline figures behind the mineworkers’ pension scheme story. The Government have received nearly £4.5 billion from the MPS since 1994. They have never had to pay a penny into the scheme in their role as guarantor and they are still pocketing in the region of £142 million a year. Those figures do not even include any moneys that they have received from the other coal pension scheme—the British Coal staff superannuation scheme, from which they have also made billions of pounds.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Energy
David George Hanson (Labour, Centre-left): Just to confirm what my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) said, I served on the Labour side on the Bill that privatised the coal industry in 1994, and those guarantees were given at that stage.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Gloria De Piero (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point. What the headline figures that I have quoted do not tell us are the personal stories of hardship that our ex-miners and their widows are facing. The average weekly pension is not much more than £80 a week. It is hardly a sum that someone could live a luxury lifestyle on. MPS pensioners rightly feel aggrieved at seeing the profits from their pension investments being used to boost the Treasury’s coffers. An MPS pensioner from my constituency called into my office recently to show me his recent pension statement. He had received the news that, thanks to a 3.4% increase to his guaranteed pension and a 4.2% bonus, his pension was going up to the grand total of £74.71.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Social Welfare
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Ashfield and for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) for making such powerful speeches. Does my hon. Friend agree that, at a time when we have had 40,000 excess deaths, many of them old people—the highest level for 40 years in this country—and when we see pensioners’ income under attack from higher inflation and risks to their benefits, such as free TV licences, this is a wrong that must be righted by the Minister? These communities were devastated when their pits closed. These people lost income during their lifetime and are now being denied it in retirement.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Gloria De Piero (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend makes a very good point from a wealth of experience of campaigning on this issue I, Labour colleagues from other coalfield constituencies, the National Union of Mineworkers, other campaigners and, crucially, the trustees of the mineworkers’ pension scheme—the Minister shook her head when my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East raised that point, but I and other colleagues have met them and they have told me to my face, "This is not right"—know that this is unfair and that the schemes need to be renegotiated. Approaches have been made to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but no meaningful efforts to engage have been made by the Government. That has to change and quickly, because the number of MPS pensioners is decreasing every year. Action needs to be taken now, so I ask the Minister to commit to giving ex-miners a fairer share of their pension fund surpluses now.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Labor
Nicholas Desmond John Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I understand that the mineworkers’ pension scheme trustees tried to meet the Department before Christmas to talk about the guarantee but have still not heard from the Department about a meeting. Will the Minister pledge this evening to meet the mineworkers’ pension scheme trustees within the next fortnight?
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Nicholas Desmond John Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I have listened to what the Minister has said. We argue that the Government have received at least £3.5 billion in surplus in recent years. The Minister says that they have spent £1 billion in coalfield communities in the last 20 years. Labour Members feel that our communities have been short-changed by £2 billion. Given that the last review took place nearly 20 years ago, why will the Minister not do the right thing now and agree to another review?
Local Authority Services — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What recent assessment he has made of the effects of changes in the level of central Government funding for local authorities on the adequacy of services provided by those authorities.
Adrian Edward Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): Ofsted has said in its latest monitoring report that despite the good work of my council, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, it is still deeply concerned that children risk abuse due to unbearable case loads and a real problem in recruiting staff. Does the Minister think that that might have something to do with the £180 million in funding that the council has lost since 2010, and will he say whether the proposed community fund will fully and adequately restore the appropriate level of funding?
Local Authority Services — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What recent assessment he has made of the effects of changes in the level of central Government funding for local authorities on the adequacy of services provided by those authorities.; On Friday night, my community saw the despicable murder of 17-year-old Jodie Chesney in Harold Hill. If the Government’s serious violence strategy is to work, we need confidence that all parts of the system are adequately resourced, including councils’ children’s services and social services. What assurances can the Secretary of State give me on that front, and what conversations has he had with the Home Office to talk about these most serious of issues?
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): I have previously raised with the Secretary of State the Government’s proposal to remove deprivation as an element from the foundation funding part of the local government allocation. Is he aware of the research done by the University of Liverpool and the Institute for Fiscal Studies showing that although deprivation accounts now for only a 4% difference in spending, if we go back before austerity in 2010, in the early years before the disproportionate cuts in grants to the poorest communities, deprivation accounts for more than 10 times the amount of spending? In the light of that, will he review his decision to remove deprivation as a key element of spending allocations?
Future High Streets Fund — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Transportation
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): One of the problems the Minister might encounter in improving the high streets could be described as a roadblock, because it is a roadblock: the problem is that our roads are just so poor. I was disappointed that Hull missed out on the transforming cities fund to improve a road that is notorious for being an absolute roadblock: Calvert Lane. Will the Minister therefore look favourably on Hull when it bids for this money again—or alternatively just give us the cash now?
Adult Social Services — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Thelma Doris Walker (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his response. However, 96% of all local authorities told the Local Government Association that there is a major national funding problem in adult social care. Demographics are changing and demand is growing. What are the Government doing to provide long-term sustainable support to local authorities such as Kirklees Council, so that they can deliver vital services to our most vulnerable citizens?
Adult Social Services — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Julie Elliott (Labour, Centre-left): The Princess of Wales Centre dementia day-care facility, which is based in the neighbouring constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) but serves the whole of Sunderland, recently announced that it will close in June, partly due to the cut in local government funding. What will the Minister do to help to support my constituents and those of my neighbour before the extra funding becomes available? Will he meet me and my colleagues to discuss the matter?
Public Services: Newcastle — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Social Welfare
Chinyelu Susan Onwurah (Labour, Centre-left): Since 2010, successive Conservative Governments have cut funding for children’s social care in Newcastle by 40% and, at the same time, the number of looked-after children has risen by 40%, which is obviously untenable. Instead of talking about strengthening local authority funding when he has halved the amount available to Newcastle City Council, will the Minister instead say whether he agrees with the national charity Action for Children, which has called these cuts "devastating and dangerous"? Will he give us the money to look after our children?
Local Authority Finances — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Macroeconomics
Bridget Maeve Phillipson (Labour, Centre-left): Since 2010, Sunderland City Council has been forced to make cuts of more than £290 million, yet the announcement today of the so-called stronger towns fund will see only £105 million for the whole of the north-east region put together. Given that our communities will be hit hardest by this Government’s Brexit plan, does the Minister seriously expect us to be grateful for this announcement, and does he expect us to support another decade of Brexit-driven austerity and decline?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: International Affairs
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker One year on from the Salisbury poisoning, we stand with the people and the city, and we applaud their resilience. The other message from Labour is also clear: such foreign aggression on our soil will never be tolerated Four weeks to Brexit, yet the Secretary of State is part of a Government who still threaten the country with a final collapse in negotiations and a crash-out exit. He may say that a no-deal Brexit is not his preference, but he supports this remaining an option and he is part of a Cabinet preparing for it. How many fewer homes will be built each year in the event of a no-deal Brexit?
Knife Crime — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): Fatal stabbings are now at their highest level since the second world war, and the number of youth stabbings has doubled in five years. Teenagers are dying on our streets, and families are being devastated as a result. I agree with what the Home Secretary said about a public health approach, but that is why it was so concerning to hear the Health Secretary dismiss such an approach—the Home Secretary did not respond when his comments were raised earlier. That creates a feeling that there simply is not the right sense of urgency and grip across the Government on this crucial issue: this morning a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner warned of a lack of national leadership Does the Home Secretary believe that all the measures that he talked about earlier will lead to a fall in knife crime and in the number of serious stabbings in the next 12 months? If he does not, this is not a good enough plan.
Knife Crime — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): No one doubts the Home Secretary’s desire to do something about knife crime across the country, but does he not recognise that for months this House has been crying out for the Government to get a grip: it has been crying out for the Government to do more about this? Belatedly, we all seem to be recognising that it is a national crisis—a national emergency. In the face of national emergencies—whether terrorism, flooding, or foot and mouth—the Government convene Cobra, because Cobra drives the Government forward with an urgency and passion that is lacking at present. Will the Home Secretary go back to the Prime Minister and say that we need to convene Cobra—we need to bring the right people together to drive forward with the enthusiasm and desire that this needs to be tackled as the national emergency that it is?