argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union Citizenship — House of Commons, 2018-03-07
Topic: Technology
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour is making a strong speech. Does she agree that many people, particularly in places like Cardiff where we have a strong and thriving university sector, see themselves much more as part of pan-European collaboration in science and driving forward progress in discovery, and key to that is their European Union citizenship? By taking that away we potentially do great damage to those relationships on a European level that are taking forward all sorts of exciting scientific discoveries.
European Union Citizenship — House of Commons, 2018-03-07
Topic: Foreign Trade
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): That is good timing by the hon. Gentleman, because this afternoon the European Commission published its draft negotiation for the future relationship. One of the final paragraphs states that the European Union will be prepared to reconsider the idea of an FTA settlement if circumstances change and the situation evolves. The EU is saying that if the Government drop their ridiculous, self-imposed red lines on the customs union and the single market, it will allow us to have those benefits. I think that is the route we need to pursue.
Armed Forces Covenant: Northern Ireland — House of Commons, 2018-03-07
Topic: International Affairs
Owen Smith (Labour, Centre-left): The point is that this is clearly a politicised and, at some level, a political issue. Clearly, points are being scored on both sides of the divide in Northern Ireland. The key point I want to make is that the Government’s view, which we share, is that—
HMRC Staff: Dudley — House of Commons, 2018-03-07
Topic: Government Operations
Ian Austin (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise in the House the threat to 250 jobs of hard-working and highly skilled civil servants employed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs at the Waterfront offices in Dudley. I am also grateful for the brilliant work done by the local representative of the Public and Commercial Services Union, Tim Crumpton, and to constituents of mine who work at the centre for speaking to me about this matter. I congratulate them on their campaign to save the jobs and to keep the staff working in our community These are jobs that neither the staff themselves nor the wider community in Dudley can afford to lose, and that is why I am asking Ministers to look again at this decision. We want them to keep the Brierley Hill offices open and ensure that the highly skilled HMRC staff continue to work for the Government, serving the public. As Members will know, HMRC announced a radical office closure programme in November 2015, reducing the number of offices to just 13, spread across the UK.
HMRC Staff: Dudley — House of Commons, 2018-03-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Ian Austin (Labour, Centre-left): I completely agree. It is not party political knockabout to say that the introduction of universal credit is clearly not going according to plan. It has obviously hit some wrinkles along the road—that is a charitable way of putting it—and it is an odd decision to get rid of staff when we do not know how difficult it is going to be to properly introduce the new benefit The new regional centre for the west midlands will be in Birmingham. That led to the closure of the Walsall office in 2016, while the Worcester office is due to close next year and the Wolverhampton, Coventry and Solihull offices are due to close in 2020 or 2021.
HMRC Staff: Dudley — House of Commons, 2018-03-07
Topic: Macroeconomics
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I held a public meeting in Coventry at the end of January. There is a lot of concern because 300 jobs will go from the local tax office and people will either have to travel to Birmingham, or use a phone line, which is not always adequate for their needs. Does my hon. Friend agree that a halt should be called to this?
HMRC Staff: Dudley — House of Commons, 2018-03-07
Topic: Labor
Ian Austin (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is completely right. Everybody knows how hard he fights for jobs in Coventry and that it cannot afford to lose those jobs, just like the Black country cannot afford to lose the ones in Dudley. The city council passed a motion unanimously, probably in no small part due to his campaigning It was announced that the Dudley office at the Waterfront and Merry Hill would be taken on by the Department for Work and Pensions, and that staff would transfer to that Department; a small number of staff would have transferred to the Birmingham office. Staff at that office employed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to work on tax credits were told in 2015 that they would be transferred to the DWP to work on the introduction and implementation of universal credit. As recently as last October, they were told that they would remain at the Waterfront offices to work on the new benefit. Instead, at the end of January it was announced that the Government had changed their mind, that their jobs were at risk and that the office would close. That came as a huge shock to the hard-working, highly skilled and loyal staff. On the same day, DWP announced up to 150 job vacancies at the Waterfront site. Inquiries have been made and they are fixed-term appointments, although local discussions have revealed that they could become permanent. The announcement had little detail and more was promised, we were told, in April 2018 It was originally envisaged that the Birmingham regional centre would have a capacity of about 3,200 full-time equivalent staff, but when the site of the Birmingham office was announced in October, that figure was reduced to 2,600. No official reason has been given for that, but sources are very clear that it is based on the high costs of premises in Birmingham. The figure of 2,600 did not include the Merry Hill staff, because they were due to go to DWP We have discussed the situation in Coventry, where hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), have been campaigning. The same is true in Wolverhampton, where MPs also want their HMRC office to stay open. It has 300 staff and the local council also supports the campaign. Discussions have opened with Andy Street, the West Midlands Mayor, based on the combined authority agreement, which was signed by the then Chancellor with all of the West Midlands combined authority councils, and which uniquely states that there should be a regional Government hub in Birmingham and sub-regional hubs elsewhere in the region.
HMRC Staff: Dudley — House of Commons, 2018-03-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Ian Austin (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is completely right. I will make that point later. These are highly skilled, highly trained staff, who are very experienced in dealing with complex benefits. No better group of people could be employed for the introduction of universal credit. That is the case we are making to Ministers tonight and I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is here to do so, too. I very much hope that Ministers will listen to and consider the argument over the next few weeks That is a really important point, because for staff in Merry Hill the closure will present grave difficulties. A high proportion of them have caring responsibilities which would make the journey to Birmingham impossible; I have spoken to mothers in exactly that position. A number of the staff came from offices that closed in the 1990s, and the journeys would make such a move impossible or impractical for them. The recent closure of the office in Walsall left more than half the staff without jobs, and the closure in Worcester is affecting nine out of 10 staff, who now face voluntary or compulsory redundancy; the majority of those staff have caring responsibilities HMRC insists that 90% of staff will have a job in the centres, despite the fact that all the closures so far have resulted in much higher job losses. The loss of these skilled and hard-working staff is very risky and it contradicts recommendations made by Committees of this House, which have called for a halt to the office closure process. Staff in Merry Hill believe that the DWP explanation that it has sufficient staff for universal credit to work properly flies in the face of all the current information we have about this complex new benefit’s introduction, as we heard a moment ago. Staff who work there are highly skilled: they have dealt with tax credits work since those were introduced, and they are helping with the changeover to UC from tax credits already. They were also stunned that the DWP vacancies were not even considered when the announcement was originally made Another point that I know will be of interest to the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) is that the office is in the middle of a recently announced enterprise zone, DY5, and the roles undertaken by HMRC staff completely fit into the Government’s vision for this enterprise zone. This brings me to my final point, which is about unemployment in Dudley.
HMRC Staff: Dudley — House of Commons, 2018-03-07
Topic: Labor
Mark Phillip Hendrick (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) on securing this debate on an important subject. I thank the PCS trade union in Lancashire for bringing the situation in respect of HMRC staff in Lancashire to my attention. Since October 2017, approximately 200 staff at the Guild Tower in Preston have transferred to work on universal credit for the DWP, and in April this year, the next set of staff is due to transfer over, but for the past four to six weeks, rumours have been rife that the imminent transfer of staff will be the last, and that after that tranche has moved over the DWP will no longer need any staff for universal credit. Let me explain the bigger picture. The original plan was for 4,000 HMRC staff throughout the country to be transferred to the DWP to work on universal credit. There are 600 HMRC staff in Preston who were not part of those plans. They were needed at the new regional centres in Manchester or Liverpool. By February this year, the 4,000 staff throughout the country had reduced to 2,000, with staff in Liverpool, Merry Hill—to which my hon. Friend referred—St Helens and Dudley told that they would not be transferring. Of the remaining 2,000 staff, between 1,400 and 1,500 are in Preston at the Unicentre and the Guild Tower, which have a combined 20 floors, with the rest in Dundee. So far, 200 staff have transferred, and rumours are that the 100 who will transfer next month may be the last to go. This would equate to the loss of between 1,700 and 1,800 jobs in Preston Under HMRC’s "Building our future" plans, all the existing HMRC offices in Preston either will transfer to the DWP or are scheduled to close. Although Preston was among the original 40 sites shortlisted for consideration as a regional centre, under the current plans there will be no HMRC presence there at all after 2022. That could mean thousands of staff facing either the prospect of moving to work at HMRC’s designated regional centres in the north-west, in Manchester and Liverpool, which are unlikely to be within reasonable daily travel distances for staff from Preston, or the prospect of mass redundancies Will the Minister please look again at the plans? It is unacceptable that between 1,700 and 1,800 jobs might disappear from Preston. The scale and size of the new regional centres should be reviewed, because huge numbers of jobs in Preston are clearly at risk because of the plans that are dispensing with many staff who the Government know will not transfer to Manchester or Liverpool because of the distances involved.
Local Authority Funding — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on trends in the level of funding for local authorities since 2010.; What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on trends in the level of funding for local authorities since 2010.
Rushanara Ali (Labour, Centre-left): Local councils have faced devastating cuts. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that, between 2010 and 2020, councils will have had their direct funding cut by 79%. In Tower Hamlets, we have lost £138 million through budget cuts since 2010. With one of the Conservative party’s own councils going bust, will the Minister now finally commit to funding local authorities properly, so that they can provide vital services to their communities?
Local Authority Funding — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on trends in the level of funding for local authorities since 2010.; What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on trends in the level of funding for local authorities since 2010.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour, Centre-left): My own council of Brighton and Hove has had to make £52 million-worth of cuts in three years, despite superb Labour leadership in the city. With one of the Minister’s own Tory councils going bust, will the Chancellor finally commit to properly funding local government in tomorrow’s local government finance settlement?
Local Authority Funding — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on trends in the level of funding for local authorities since 2010.; What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on trends in the level of funding for local authorities since 2010.; My county council of Derbyshire has seen its Government funding cut by over £200 million, and two thirds of its spending goes on adult social care. Does the Minister think that a postcode lottery of which counties can afford the most council tax should determine whether their elderly get looked after decently?
John Martin McDonnell (Labour, Centre-left): First, if you will forgive me, Mr Speaker, as we came into the Chamber we heard the news of the death of Simeon Andrews, who co-ordinated a large number of all-party groups and trade union groups, and, if we can, I would like us to send our sympathies to his family on behalf of the House The ministerial responses we have heard demonstrate absolutely no understanding whatsoever of the crisis created by the cuts of the past eight years and their impact on local government. Local councils are now facing a funding gap of nearly £6 billion by 2020, and it is the most vulnerable in our society who are suffering. The number of children taken into care is at its highest level since 1985, and one in three councillors are warning that the cuts have left them with insufficient resources to support these children. The leader of the Chancellor’s own Surrey council said: "The Government cannot stand idly by when Rome burns." Will the Chief Secretary commit today to use the opportunity of next month’s spring statement to address the funding crisis in our local councils?
Local Authority Funding — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on trends in the level of funding for local authorities since 2010.; What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on trends in the level of funding for local authorities since 2010.; My county council of Derbyshire has seen its Government funding cut by over £200 million, and two thirds of its spending goes on adult social care. Does the Minister think that a postcode lottery of which counties can afford the most council tax should determine whether their elderly get looked after decently?
John Martin McDonnell (Labour, Centre-left): With the crisis in children’s services, to be frank this is not the time for political knockabout responses. I am not sure whether the Chief Secretary has witnessed a child being taken into care; I have, and it can scar that child for life. But do not listen to me; listen to the all-party inquiry into children’s social care, which warned that nine out of 10 councils are struggling to meet their legal duties to children. The president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services has said: "We cannot go on as we are", and it is reported that over half the councils in England are planning further cuts to children’s services Recent estimates of Government spending and income show that the Chancellor will have sufficient resources to protect our children from further cuts. So I appeal—once again—to the Chancellor to use the flexibility he has to use the spring statement to address the £2 billion funding gap in our children’s services, to protect our children.
PFI Contracts and Carillion — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Labor
Graham Peter Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I am concerned about the workers. Apparently, 90% of Carillion’s private sector contractors have suggested that they will continue to pay staff, but only in the interim period. What about the 10% who are not going to be paid, and what is going to happen to the staff after the interim period? Are the Government going to guarantee the employment status and pay of those individuals?
Road and Rail Investment — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Transportation
Questions: What recent assessment the Government have made of the effect of the national productivity investment fund on road and rail infrastructure in the north-west.
John Derek Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): The problem is that the national productivity investment fund is not doing anything to stop the disrepair on our roads and motorways. The Government are simply not putting in enough money for local councils and the national agency to make sure that repairs on motorways and local roads are brought up to standard. We now have a greater crisis than we have seen for some time.
Road and Rail Investment — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Transportation
Questions: What recent assessment the Government have made of the effect of the national productivity investment fund on road and rail infrastructure in the north-west.
William Roffen Esterson (Labour, Centre-left): This Government have done nothing to deliver local rail infrastructure in the north-west, which is vital for jobs and the economy. When are they going to invest in decent local rail services, including those used by my constituents from Southport to Manchester? If the Government will not do it, they should stand aside and let us get on with the job.
Major Infrastructure Investment — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Transportation
Clive Anthony Lewis (Labour, Centre-left): Contrary to the Treasury’s own assessment, a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research North recently found that transport investment in London is two and a half times higher per capita than in the north. We know that in Norwich Britvic is shedding hundreds of jobs, citing poor transport as a key cause. That inequality hurts business and local authority revenue, so what actions will Ministers take to redress this unjust imbalance? Will they commit to working with the Mayors of Manchester and Liverpool on the convention for the north that was announced this morning?
Leaving the EU — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: International Affairs
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): The Chancellor knew in 2016 that the majority of people would prefer a soft Brexit to a hard Brexit. I am referring to remainers, plus people such as the Foreign Secretary, who said he favoured a single market and would vote for it. Now that the Chancellor knows that a hard Brexit will cost us £45 billion in lost tax receipts, will he at least acknowledge that people such as me on both sides of the Chamber who support our remaining in both the customs union and the single market do so in the name of prosperity and of upholding democracy?
Leaving the EU — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): Mr Speaker, "I believe that the best way forward is for Britain to renegotiate a new relationship with the European Union—one based on an economic partnership involving a customs union and a single market in goods and services." Those are not my words, but the words of the Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade on his website. What representations has the Minister had from the Secretary of State in support of our membership of the customs union and single market?
Leaving the EU — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): Many Cabinet members have made their views clear about the single market and customs union. The Chancellor has said that he would like to see no tariffs with Europe after we leave the EU and no hard border in Northern Ireland. His exact words, which were in a letter to the Treasury Committee, were that he wants a deal "that facilitates the freest and most frictionless trade possible in goods between the UK and the EU, and allows us to forge new trade relationships with our partners in Europe and around the world." Will the Financial Secretary therefore welcome the speech that the Leader of the Opposition gave yesterday in which he proposed a new UK-EU customs union that would, to quote the Chancellor directly, facilitate "the freest and most frictionless trade possible in goods between the UK and the EU" and allow us to "forge new trade relationships with our partners in Europe and around the world"?
EU Exit Analysis — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union on the Government’s preliminary EU exit analysis; and if he will make a statement.
Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Chancellor for that answer. Does he agree with the former permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade that giving up the single market and the customs union is like giving up a three-course meal for a packet of crisps in the future? If not, can he identify what specific evidence his Department has seen to suggest that the benefits of future trade agreements will outweigh the damage of leaving the single market and the customs union to businesses and jobs across the country, particularly in the north-east?
Public Sector Pay and Equality — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Labor
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): Well, public sector servants have certainly not been rewarded fairly, but let me turn to pay differentials in the private sector. Is the Chief Secretary as concerned as I am that many private sector firms are excluding partners’ income in their reporting obligations on the gender pay gap, on the basis that they are not employees? What will the Government do to close that loophole?
Household Debt — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Labor
Imran Hussain (Labour, Centre-left): After seven wasted years, wages are still lower than they were in 2010. Self-employed people are paid less on average than they were a generation ago and 6 million people are earning less than the living wage. Does the Minister share my alarm that too many people have to worry about buying school uniforms, affording a family holiday, or even just paying their rent or mortgage?
Leaving the EU — House of Commons, 2018-02-27
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: What assessment his Department has made of the potential merits for the economy of the UK adopting an EEA Norway-style arrangement after the UK leaves the EU.
Thangam Elizabeth Rachel Debbonaire (Labour, Centre-left): What assessment has the Chancellor made in particular of the potential benefits of EEA membership for the £91.8 billion contribution to the UK economy made by the creative industries that are so important for my constituents in Bristol West?