argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Contracted-out Health Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What recent assessment he has made of the (a) accuracy and (b) efficiency of contracted-out health assessments for employment and support allowance and personal independence payments.
Marsha Chantol De Cordova (Labour, Centre-left): Let me start by welcoming the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), to her place There has been a 900% increase in the number of complaints about personal independence payment assessments. Statistics from HM Courts & Tribunals Service show that both the number of appeals lodged and the proportion of DWP decisions overturned have increased. There was a 67% increase in the number of appeals in the first quarter of 2017 in comparison with the same period last year. Just last week, Britain’s most senior tribunal judge said that most of the benefit cases that reach the courts are based on bad decisions when the DWP has no case at all. The quality of evidence—
Contracted-out Health Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What recent assessment he has made of the (a) accuracy and (b) efficiency of contracted-out health assessments for employment and support allowance and personal independence payments.
Marsha Chantol De Cordova (Labour, Centre-left): I certainly am, Mr Speaker. What action is the Secretary of State taking to improve the PIP assessment framework, the accuracy of decision-making and the standards of mandatory reconsiderations, and will he stop wasting taxpayers’ money on unnecessary and lengthy tribunal appeals?
Pension Provision — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Labor
Carolyn Harris (Labour, Centre-left): Two former Pensions Ministers have criticised the Government for the policy, all Opposition parties recognise that the Government are wrong, the continuously growing number of cross-party MPs who have joined the all-party parliamentary group say it is wrong, and hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged 1950s-born women know it is wrong. When will the Pensions Minister and the Government admit their mistake and take action to rectify this grave injustice?
Pension Provision — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Labor
Yvonne Helen Fovargue (Labour, Centre-left): The Government’s former Pensions Minister, Baroness Altmann, has said that she regrets the Government’s failure to properly communicate state pension age equalisation, an approach she described as "a massive failure in public policy." Does the Minister appreciate how much this failure has affected the ability of the 1950s-born women to plan for a happy and secure retirement, and their sense of outrage about this issue?
Pension Provision — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Labor
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): The Government seem to be under the misapprehension that the campaign by the wronged ’50s-born women will eventually go away if they just keep ignoring it. They even told the Table Office that they would not answer a question on the subject from my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams). It will not go away, however, so why does the Minister not engage with the campaigners to find a solution, and in the meantime support our proposals to extend pension credit to the most financially vulnerable and give them all the opportunity to retire up to two years earlier?
Universal Credit: Food Poverty — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: If he will make an assessment of the effect of the length of waiting time to receive universal credit on levels of food poverty.
Karen Elizabeth Lee (Labour, Centre-left): The manager of a food bank in Lincoln has said that there is evidence of a clear correlation locally between the introduction of universal credit—in Lincoln, we have only had it partially so far; we are getting full roll-out in March—and an increase in the use of food banks. I ask for your comments on that, and do Government Members, including yourself, think it is acceptable that people in Lincoln and across this country are starving but for food banks because of waiting for universal credit payments.
Universal Credit: Food Poverty — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: If he will make an assessment of the effect of the length of waiting time to receive universal credit on levels of food poverty.
Frank Field (Labour, Centre-left): I will not ask Government Front Benchers for a fifth time whether I should believe the Secretary of State’s statement that the roll-out of universal credit in Birkenhead will be hunky-dory, or the opinion of the food bank, which says that it will need an extra 10 tonnes of food to prevent people from going hungry—if he cannot abide the word "starving". We will have a debate on this on Thursday, which Members across the House have signed up to. This will be the first time that Conservative Members will have an opportunity to vote on whether they want to reform universal credit. Will the Secretary of State open that debate, hear it and take the message directly back to Cabinet, please?
Universal Credit: Food Poverty — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: If he will make an assessment of the effect of the length of waiting time to receive universal credit on levels of food poverty.
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): One of the original objectives of universal credit was to reduce child poverty. In 2010, the Government said that UC would reduce child poverty by 350,000. That figure was revised to 150,000 in 2013, but last year, Ministers failed to produce a figure in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). What is the Government’s current estimate of how many children will be lifted out of poverty as a result of universal credit?
Universal Credit: Food Poverty — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: If he will make an assessment of the effect of the length of waiting time to receive universal credit on levels of food poverty.
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): That was a really disappointing answer. As we have already heard, the Child Poverty Action Group published data last week predicting that 1 million more children will be pushed into poverty as a result of universal credit cuts, 300,000 of whom will be under the age of five. Another objective of universal credit was always to make work pay. Given that four out of 10 people on UC are in work and will be on average £2,600 a year worse off, when will the Government admit that UC is not fit for purpose or fit to meet the challenges of a new labour market and stop its roll-out?
Parkinson’s Disease: Personal Independence Payment — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Social Welfare
John Timothy Grogan (Labour, Centre-left): Would it not save a lot of time, money and distress if all those on the higher rate of disability living allowance with degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s were transferred automatically on to personal independence payment? How many people with Parkinson’s are currently in the "no review" category?
Universal Credit — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Elizabeth Anne McInnes (Labour, Centre-left): The Trussell Trust says that food bank use has increased in areas where universal credit has been rolled out. Universal credit has not been rolled out yet in my constituency, but this weekend the Heywood food bank ran out of food. What safeguards will the Secretary of State put in place to ensure that universal credit claimants do not have to rely on the charity of their neighbours, a system that sometimes fails?
Job Creation — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): Every new job is welcome, but we have a country where 55% of people new into work are in receipt of benefits and living in poverty and where the better-off are now disgustingly well-paid. What are the Government really going to do about this?
Universal Credit: Advance Payments — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Ruth Stephanie Nicole George (Labour, Centre-left): Today is exactly six weeks until Christmas day. Anyone who applies for universal credit today will have to make do on just two weeks of universal credit payments until after Christmas. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact on such families and their ability to let their children enjoy Christmas?
Universal Credit: Lost Applications — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): There are serious concerns about glitches with universal credit apparently arising because the IT does not yet work properly in some areas. The Child Poverty Action Group has reported instances of claims being made and then vanishing into the ether without trace. Will the Minister assure the House that glitches of that kind will be addressed and resolved, not simply denied?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Labor
Questions: The Minister will know that motor neurone disease is a degenerative disease, so may I ask what plans the Government have to ensure that people who suffer from that terrible disease do not have to be re-assessed for personal independence payments?
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): We all know that the Government are bogged down in all manner of ways and that they have been slow to develop secondary legislation for several new Acts, but will Ministers tell the House when they will bring forward regulations to enact defined contribution and give pension savers the opportunity of the vastly increased benefits of those schemes that was predicted this week by the Pensions Policy Institute and Schroders?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: Labor
Questions: The Minister will know that motor neurone disease is a degenerative disease, so may I ask what plans the Government have to ensure that people who suffer from that terrible disease do not have to be re-assessed for personal independence payments?; Can the Minister update the House on progress with the pensions dashboard and confirm that all pension schemes will be required to release the comprehensive data required to make that system useful?; How does the increased conditionality associated with universal credit, such as the requirement to attend at jobcentres more frequently, square with the DWP’s estates review and the decision to close jobcentres, starting with Maryhill in my constituency—which, incidentally, I have visited?; Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that the inaccurate use of universal credit statistics can cause huge distress and concern to vulnerable claimants? Does he agree that everyone has a duty to check their facts before using them in this House?; Many veterans with psychological injuries carry out physical activity as part of their rehabilitation process, but some report that they are being sanctioned because of this. Will the Secretary of State give his guarantee that the Government will no longer sanction recovering veterans?; I will take the hon. Gentleman’s place, Mr Speaker.My local authority in Renfrewshire is having to set aside nearly £1 million to mitigate the devastating impact on families of the roll-out of universal credit. It is hiring extra staff to deal with rent arrears, which it expects to increase by 5%. With all levels of government in Scotland forced to pick up this Government’s slack, what further evidence does the Secretary of State need to see the huge systemic problems in UC and to understand that he must pause the roll-out now?; Universal credit is proving to be a real challenge for self-employed people as it fails to account for fluctuations in income from one month to another, meaning that many are losing out on hundreds of pounds of benefits. This is totally counter to the aspirational vision of universal credit that the Government preach, so will the Minister commit to immediately reviewing the benefit’s suitability for the self-employed and fixing this anomaly?; In Southwark, 12% of council tenants on the universal credit pilot accumulated £5.3 million of rent arrears. Given the Secretary of State’s astonishing refusal in the face of such evidence to pause the universal credit roll-out, will he say precisely what he is doing to stop more of my constituents being made homeless as a consequence of this decision?
Nicholas Dakin (Labour, Centre-left): Members of the British Steel pension scheme need to decide whether to go into British Steel pension scheme 2 or the Pension Protection Fund by 11 December, but there is still a lack of clarity around the position of high/low pensioners in the PPF and whether that might change after the point of decision making. Will the Secretary of State look at this so that the information is available to people before they make that decision?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Tulip Rizwana Siddiq (Labour, Centre-left): My constituent Richard Ratcliffe wrote about his wife’s case in the Evening Standard: "My complaint is not that her imprisonment has become a diplomatic incident this past week. It is that it wasn’t for the 19 months that came before." That shows the sheer dignity with which my constituent has been campaigning for his wife’s release for 19 months Richard has told me that their family’s lawyer, working together with the non-governmental organisation Redress, wrote to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office two months ago with a legal opinion about Nazanin’s right to diplomatic protection. I know that the Foreign Secretary has already said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) that he will consider diplomatic protection, but will he urge that a meeting takes place between the FCO and the lawyers, and will he give some indication of whether diplomatic protection will be given, as this could save my constituent’s life?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): From my experience of trying to get two British nationals out of jail in Laos in 2009, what is needed when dealing with a very difficult country is absolute commitment and persistence —to go to bed every night worrying about what is happening to that British national in another country; to be very disciplined; and to make sure that every single member of the Government is speaking with the same voice. The Foreign Secretary could not possibly argue that that has happened in this case. What I really do not understand, though, is that when he made a complete mess of appearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee, his office rang to correct other, completely incidental parts of the record, but still refuses to correct this part. Will he do so now? Otherwise, frankly, he will have learnt nothing from this.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): The Foreign Secretary has rightly said that the priority for everyone should be the return of a wrongfully and inhumanely imprisoned mother, who has been separated from her child. That is welcome, but he also knows that words matter. Every time he says things such as, "My words were simply open to misinterpretation", he provides a lack of clarity and sounds as if he is wriggling in a way that other people can exploit. For the sake of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, will he say unequivocally for the record, "I got it wrong"?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Benjamin Peter James Bradshaw (Labour, Centre-left): While the right hon. Gentleman is in the business of correcting the record, will he correct his statement from last week that he had never met Joseph Mifsud, the UK-based so-called academic at the centre of the Trump-Putin collusion allegations, given the publication in the newspapers yesterday of a photograph of just such a meeting?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): Following the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who also sits on the FAC, will the Foreign Secretary now write to the Committee and all its members correcting the record? While he is doing that, will he also clarify and correct the wrong report in The Sunday Times that he was badly briefed before his remarks to our Committee?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): Over one year ago, the United Nations working group on arbitrary detention ruled that Nazanin’s detention was arbitrary and referred her case to the special rapporteur, and the UN called for her immediate release, yet it appears that our own Foreign and Commonwealth Office might not have done so. Will the Foreign Secretary please explain?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Phillip Flynn (Labour, Centre-left): Will the right hon. Gentleman reflect on this and the rest of his conduct as Foreign Secretary in order to realise that his brand of clownish incompetence is a joke that is no longer funny, and consider being replaced by a competent politician who will attract the respect of the world and not the ridicule that he attracts?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): The furthest that the Foreign Secretary seemed prepared to go in his response was to say that his words last week were "open to being misinterpreted". I do not think that they were misinterpreted. Earlier, he asked from a sedentary position, "What else could I say?" He could simply say, "I got it wrong." That would be helpful, because it would give a clear signal that the Government were serious about saying that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was not there for the purposes that he suggested last week. Will he just say, "I got it wrong"?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Angela Christine Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with the Government that the only thing that matters is that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is taken out of prison because she is wrongly incarcerated, but that does depend on the Foreign Secretary raising his game, as Amnesty International suggested earlier this year, so will he commit after having met Richard Ratcliffe to come back to this place and make a statement making it absolutely clear that he will now do everything in his power to get Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe home?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): Richard Ratcliffe’s representatives wrote to the Foreign Office requesting diplomatic protection for Mrs Ratcliffe over two months ago. What consideration was given to that request, and has the Foreign Secretary’s position on it changed since his appearance before the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs?
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Helen Mary Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Contrary to what he keeps saying, the Foreign Secretary’s words to the Foreign Affairs Committee were not capable of misinterpretation. They were clear but wrong, and whether deliberately or through carelessness, he put a British citizen at risk from an arbitrary and authoritarian regime. May I now give him a further chance to apologise, not for anything else but for the words that he got wrong in that Committee? His high office demands that he take responsibility.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Christian John Patrick Matheson (Labour, Centre-left): If I were in jail in Iran for a crime that I had not committed, I could not hope to have a better Member of Parliament than my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), and I hope that the Foreign Secretary will pay tribute to her. Mr Ratcliffe has close family in my constituency, including a well-respected former Lord Mayor of Chester. When the Foreign Secretary goes to Iran, will he undertake to take with him a delegation of Members of this House who have a constituency interest in this case? That delegation would surely include my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn.
EU Exit Negotiations — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that there will be primary legislation to implement the EU withdrawal agreement. That is another recognition by the Government that they need to listen to the House of Commons. The question that I want to ask is about Northern Ireland. It is becoming increasingly clear that there is a contradiction between the Government’s clearly stated desire that there should be no return to a hard border—no customs border—and their determination to leave the customs union and the single market. As their proposals to try to square that circle have so far failed to persuade the Government of the Republic of Ireland about that hard border, what do the Government now propose to do about what is, after all, one of their central negotiating objectives?
EU Exit Negotiations — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Catharine Letitia Hoey (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Secretary of State’s firm rebuttal of the ridiculous idea that Northern Ireland would be taken out of the rest of the United Kingdom and made to stay in a customs union. Does he also recognise that the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee recently met the head of customs in Switzerland, which is not in the EU, and the one thing that he said over and again was that there was nothing that could stop this from working if there was full co-operation on all sides? Is that not what this is really all about—if the Republic of Ireland do not want to have a hard border, that can happen?
EU Exit Negotiations — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Government coming forward with a separate Bill for the withdrawal agreement. That is something on which I and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) have tabled amendments. Can the Secretary of State clarify the timing? He just said that it was only in an ideal world that this withdrawal agreement Bill would come before Brexit day. There is a real problem if the Government think that they can simply use clause 9 provisionally to implement a withdrawal agreement through secondary legislation, while not having the withdrawal agreement Bill until after Brexit day. Will he confirm that the Government will bring the withdrawal agreement Bill to the House before Brexit day, not after?
EU Exit Negotiations — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): Has not the Secretary of State just given the game away on what a sham this offer is? It is totally worthless to Parliament and essentially tries to buy people off by saying, "Look, we’re going to give you an Act to shape things." In fact, it is a post hoc, after-the-horse-has-bolted piece of legislation. We might have left the European Union—the treaty and the deal would have been done—and Parliament could do nothing at all to shape the nature of the withdrawal agreement. The Secretary of State has to do much better than this. Parliament must have a say on the withdrawal agreement before we are thrown over the cliff edge.
EU Exit Negotiations — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): This does not make any sense. The Secretary of State has said on any number of occasions that a deal could be done right at the last moment. For the reasons just explained, will he be clear? He cannot hold that position—that a deal could be done right at the last moment—and support this amendment from the Government to nail down the specific date.