Mentions
What was said, and which frame it usedEvery item the dashboard counts, newest first. The marked words are the phrases that made it count; the tags say whether it used an opposing frame, an MMT-consistent idea, or named MMT. These are keyword matches: whether an item endorses or attacks an idea is shown once our classifier's accuracy is published.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
…me the punishment. With a minimum cost of £20 million, on average, and a maximum cost of £20 million per inquest, the total equates, as one Policy Exchange paper put it, to in excess of £1 billion of taxpayers’ money. On the other hand, we have the legacy commission. Let us build it. Let us make it better. Let us make it the single route to truth, reconciliation and justice. It has more investigative powers, it can move faster and it will bring the end state at a delivery cost of a fraction of that of inquests. What other country delivers reconciliation through a twin-track approach? It just…
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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Pensions Triple Lock
The SNP wasted more than £28 million of taxpayers’ money on social care plans that went nowhere: no improvement to outcomes, no improvement to the terms and conditions of social care workers in Scotland. Now, the SNP is trying to hoodwink my constituents by telling them that these plans would make them worse off. The plans would increase Barnett consequentials for Scotland, which could be spent on a national care service. Will the Secretary of State learn from the SNP’s failures and reassure my constituents?
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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International Update
…sel prices have hit £2 a litre for the first time ever. Against that backdrop, the Chancellor will deliver a Budget in two weeks. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that there is a £35 billion black hole in the public finances. More borrowing or more taxes are on the way, because we know that the Prime Minister will not cut spending. This is at a time when families and businesses are already suffering under the weight of £70 billion in Labour’s tax rises. So what has the Prime Minister chosen to focus on today? Brexit. His exact words earlier this year were that “the last thing we sho…
- Opposing frame: Fiscal black hole
- Opposing frame: How will you pay for it?
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Pupils with SEND: Mainstream Schools
Six months ago, the previous Secretary of State revealed the Government’s plan to carry out SEND reforms. Since then, we have had a new Prime Minister and a new Secretary of State, who last week stated her intention to carry out those reforms. Yet there has been little detail on how the Government will fill the £2 billion black hole in the SEND budget, despite fiscal pressures on the Government continuing to increase, as we all know. When will the legislation come to the House, and where will the money come from? Parents, teachers and children deserve answers.
- Opposing frame: Fiscal black hole
- Opposing frame: How will you pay for it?
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Proposed Leicester City Council Boundary Expansion
In the Government’s own consultation about the expansion of Leicester, nine out of 10 people said that they were against it. Now, with millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money wasted so far, Ministers are having to do a complete reworking of this whole chaotic, undemocratic process, amid accusations of gerrymandering. Despite this, the Mayor of Leicester and the Government want to press on regardless. Local people do not want this, so I present this petition, which is part of a county-wide petition that has gained 40,000 signatures. I would like to thank everyone who signed it. We are making pr…
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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Israel and Palestine
Indeed, I agree with my hon. Friend. We heard of examples of that when we visited this year, and it is of course deliberate. It consists of incidents such as she describes, but also of people peering in windows and polluting watercourses used usually by the women of a village. That kind of behaviour is just not acceptable. The villagers of Khirbet Zanuta won a Supreme Court ruling that they could return to their village, and many of them did, but they were forced out again. This time, the settlers bulldozed the village, including its school, which had been built in part with UK taxpayers’ mon…
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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Public Inquiries
My Lords, given that statutory inquiries are held when events have caused public concern, and often cost tens of millions—if not hundreds of millions—of taxpayers’ money, does the Minister agree that reasons should always be given by Ministers for rejecting inquiry recommendations, so as to ensure due openness and accountability to the public?
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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Fiscal Outlook
…Labour decisions have weakened growth, dug us deeper into the debt hole and increased our fiscal vulnerability. What is needed is a plan to control spending and strengthen the underlying budget so we live within our means, bear down on inflation and the cost of our debt, and, above all, get the economy growing faster. But the Government’s actions have produced the reverse of all that. Let us look at spending. I was intrigued to hear the Chancellor say on Monday: “Staying true to our values means being honest about the need to control government spending”. For a moment, I thought I was listen…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
- Opposing frame: Maxed-out credit card
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Fiscal Outlook
…London down the road, they are looking at nearly £3 trillion of our national debt, our rising debt interest and our shrinking fiscal buffer, and asking whether we as a nation have a credible plan to live within our means. Here, down the Corridor in the other place, in the City of Westminster, are 403 Labour MPs, many demanding that the Government spend more, tax more, borrow more or, at the very least, do not spend less. Many of those MPs understandably argue that: indeed, it is what brought them into politics. Plaudits to them; they are standing up for their convictions and beliefs. They b…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
- Opposing frame: Maxed-out credit card
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Fiscal Outlook
…other growth-driving infrastructure—also in some pump-priming, which the noble Lord, Lord Howell, was encouraging us to think about. Taking this approach is responsible: it means the Government will balance the books with a buffer to protect against uncertainty, will control borrowing, and will reduce long-term pressures on our public finances. As the Chancellor said, there is nothing progressive about spending £1 in every £10 on debt interest. I thought the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Morrissey, was a classic speech from the House of Lords of such insight and expertise about how the…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
- MMT-consistent idea: Deficit myth
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Fiscal Outlook
…approaching £3 trillion. Yet he has already run up a potential bill of more than £50 billion while proposing further uncosted public ownership. Nationalising water alone could cost some £140 billion. Where will the money come from? Will the Prime Minister break his pledge and Labour’s manifesto commitment not to raise taxes? The tax burden, as we have heard before, is already at a record high. Any further increases will discourage hiring, investment and entrepreneurship and accelerate capital flight. Some 27,300 high net worth individuals and 6,000 business owners have left Britain in the la…
- Opposing frame: Fiscal black hole
- Opposing frame: How will you pay for it?
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Railways Bill
I beg the Committee’s pardon: I got slightly muddled because of changes to the groupings. I come to my Amendments 60, 64A, 83, 84, 87, 94, 124, 125 and 291. The central issue running through these amendments is accountability. We are creating an enormous, new, publicly owned organisation that will, in all likelihood, receive billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money and exercise extraordinary control over the railway. It therefore needs clear objectives, measurable performance indicators and consequences for when it fails to deliver. Amendment 60 addresses the funding objectives. As drafted, the…
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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Ukraine and Russia
…me reprioritisation to make sure we are prioritising the activities that will provide most impact at this point in time. I acknowledge, however, that one of our responsibilities as a Department is to live within our means. One discipline I have to bring to the Ministry of Defence, drawing on my experience at the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS, is to ensure there is no culture of routine overspending, that we are improving productivity, that we deliver value for money and that we recognise that the money we are investing in defence comes with choices and trade-offs that appl…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
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Job Support: Public Procurement
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing the important work of Together Gloucestershire to the House’s attention. It is an excellent example of where social value can ensure that British taxpayer’s money is directed towards delivering British jobs and skills in our constituency. I will ask the Minister and our officials to meet with my hon. Friend and businesses in his constituency.
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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Pharmacies: Government Funding
…ly available to community pharmacies. There is a strong feeling among local branches that the extraordinary contribution pharmacies made during the pandemic has been forgotten. They are struggling to balance the books, as a number of Members have explained. Community pharmacy funding has fallen substantially in real terms over the past decade. The Government’s recent funding settlement is a welcome step in the right direction, with significant increases announced for ’24-25 and ’25-26 and continued support for services such as Pharmacy First, blood pressure checks and contraception, but we m…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
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Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies
JLR’s plan to cut 4,000 jobs is devastating for workers, families and communities in Coventry and across the west midlands. JLR is based in my constituency and its highly skilled workforce is vital to our region’s economy and industrial future. The trade union Unite is right to demand urgent answers and for every alternative to job losses to be explored. The Business Secretary has now met JLR and Unite, so can the Minister tell the House what has actually been secured from JLR, a company that has already been granted £1.5 billion of public money? Will the Department publish the company’s plan…
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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NHS: Agency Medical Staff
My Lords, while the Minister talks about reduced agency spending, which is welcome, total temporary workforce costs remain largely unchanged, seemingly displacing into bank premiums, overtime and other insourcing. Will the Minister commit to publishing the total combined costs of flexible staffing, so that Parliament can judge whether taxpayers’ money is actually being saved or merely reshuffled within budget lines?
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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Israel and Palestine
During the debate in this House on 9 July, I and other Members raised our concerns about charities working in the illegal Israeli settlements and, in particular, about the use of taxpayers’ money through gift aid contributions to those charities. As a result, I received a response from the Charity Commission for England and Wales sharing those concerns about the potential impact, including on public trust and confidence in the charity sector, of charities being seen to actively assist in the development or expansion of illegal settlements in Palestine. What more will the Foreign Secretary do,…
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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Public Sector Productivity
Public sector productivity is improving, with the NHS delivering 3.5% productivity growth in 2025-26, beating its 2% target. The Government will continue to drive public sector efficiency so that taxpayers’ money delivers the best possible public services. In addition, we are investing in AI adoption across the public sector to help realise the overall target of £14 billion of efficiencies by 2028-29, as agreed at the last spending review.
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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Economic Growth
Sometimes it is necessary, in order to fund improvements in our national health service and to fill the £22 billion fiscal black hole that we inherited.
- Opposing frame: Fiscal black hole