argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): On renegotiation, will my right hon. Friend recognise that even if the words "ever-closer union" were removed from treaties in the future, it would not change any of our existing EU obligations and laws, nor fundamentally change our relationship with the EU under the existing treaties? Will he please comment on that?
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): The issue of ever-closer union is important both symbolically and legally. It is important symbolically because the British people always felt that we were told we were joining a common market, and were never really told enough about this political union, which we have never been happy with. I want to make it explicit that for us it is principally a common market and not an ever-closer union, but this concept does have legal force because ever-closer union has been used by the courts to enforce centralising judgments and I want that to change.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I cannot put an exact timetable on when the negotiations will be concluded. Obviously the House of Commons knows that we must have the referendum come what may by the end of 2017, but I do not want to put a timetable on how long it is going to take to complete this negotiation. I am confident that we will make good progress and I will update the House regularly.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said in my statement, we need to achieve the best of both worlds in which we recognise the advantages of being in a reformed European Union while ensuring that this is a membership and a type of European Union that suit us. If we look at what has been achieved in the past, through maintaining our own currency and having a single market, we can see that that is the sort of approach we need for the future.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Lady is absolutely right; it has taken far too long to get this sort of change in place. This is, however, exactly the sort of change that the British process of renegotiation and a referendum is putting squarely on the table. I shall look carefully at her suggestion as we go into the detailed phase of the negotiations to ensure that we get the right sort of deal.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Tyrie (Conservative, Centre-right): Further to the question that has just been put, the EU institutions were specifically designed as a ratchet to deliver ever-closer union year by year. Whatever protections the Prime Minister secures in these negotiations are therefore at risk of being clawed back over time. In the light of that, does he agree that if renegotiation is to succeed in the longer term, we shall need major reform of how the EU takes its decisions in order to give a much stronger voice to member states and Parliaments, and to enable what has hitherto been a one-way street towards ever-closer union to be decisively challenged?
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I would argue that specifically getting Britain out of ever-closer union is not just symbolic; it would also have a legal effect. We can boil down into a single sentence what is required to make a success of the organisation: it is has to be just as possible to be a successful member of the European Union outside the eurozone as it is inside it. That is where things really need to change. The European Union needs to recognise that the same set of processes and decision making is not going to be right for both types of membership. If we can achieve that change, we will have achieved something very important for the UK.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: Foreign Trade
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said earlier, nothing will be off the agenda in those talks. Steel is an important part of our economy, and we will of course be discussing those issues with the Chinese when they arrive this week.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I have set out the four areas on which I think we need to see progress in the negotiation. A lot has changed since the social chapter, which of course John Major kept us out of in the Maastricht treaty, but which has now, in effect, been put into the body of EU legislation. However, those four areas are the ones we are pursuing.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Keith Robert Simpson (Conservative, Centre-right): On Syria, the Prime Minister said that EU members were going to try to persuade the Russians to attack ISIL. It seems to most of us that the Russians are attacking everybody but ISIL. How do we persuade them not to do that?
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend will be aware from my figures that 85% of the targets that Russia has attacked have not been ISIL targets. It is quite easy to tell that by looking at the parts of the country where the Russians have been attacking—ISIL are not in those parts of the country, but the Free Syrian Army and others are. It is true to say that some six days of Russian air strikes went by before a single ISIL target was attacked. The case that we have to make is that Russia, like us, is at risk of Islamist extremist violence. Indeed, in many ways, it is more at risk. Russia has a large Muslim population, principally a Sunni Muslim population. The fact that they are if anything helping ISIL by bombing the moderate opposition to Assad demonstrates that, at the moment, they are both on the side of the butcher Assad and also helping ISIL potentially to take territory as Syrian opposition groups that are not ISIL are attacked by the Russians. It is the wrong approach and we need to do everything we can to persuade them of that.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): On the issue of Turkey, one point I have made about our renegotiation is that we should treat accession countries in a totally different way in terms of unfettered rights to come to Britain. We made that very clear from the start of our renegotiation. We think that these transitional periods have been too short and that it was wrong when they were not properly used. It is important to note that we have borders and border controls in the way that Schengen countries do not. One question that we will have to ask ourselves as a country as we get towards the end of this renegotiation process is, can we guarantee that we will be able to have the excellent juxtaposed border controls in France that we have today if we do not have an adequate relationship with the European Union? That will be an important point.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Peter William Bone (Conservative, Centre-right): I wonder whether I could help the Prime Minister. I think everyone in this House would agree that he is a very hard-working Prime Minister who has lots of things to deal with. He and I are very close on the issue of the European Union, and he is going to write to Europe next month. Would it be a help to the Prime Minister—and perhaps a birthday present to me—if he allowed me to draft that letter?
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not recognise that picture at all. I want to set out our approach in a letter to the European Council, and Council President Donald Tusk is particularly keen to receive that letter because the Council wants to know that we are looking for change in the four areas we have raised and that that is the breadth of the negotiation. I think the right hon. Gentlemen, like some others, has been reading too many newspapers and reports that want to hype all this up into a great row with people being angry or dissatisfied. If there was a meeting like that, it was not the one I attended.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): As the Secretary of State for Defence said yesterday, we are all Eurosceptics now, so does my right hon. Friend agree that the EU institutions ought not to campaign on either side or assist either campaign in the referendum, whether financially or otherwise? Will he accept the amendments in the House of Lords to that effect?
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): The European Commission has said that it will not campaign in the referendum and those of us who want Britain to stay in a reformed European Union probably breathed a sigh of relief when we had that news. There will clearly be an in campaign and an out campaign, and there will be plenty of material on which everyone can make up their mind.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David Nuttall (Conservative, Centre-right): Which outcome does the Prime Minister think would be most helpful after he writes to the President of the European Council setting out his list of demands next month? He will either get everything on the list, in which case he will be accused of not asking for enough, or not get everything on the list, in which case he will be accused of having failed in the renegotiations. I should add that as I believe that the United Kingdom would be better off leaving the European Union, I will be equally satisfied whatever the outcome.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who has never wavered in his view that everything to do with the European Union is wrong and we need to get out of it—he has been pretty clear about that. I have been very consistent. He can read in our manifesto what we want to change in Europe, and that is exactly what our four points are all about.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): Will my right hon. Friend join me in commending one of our foremost business leaders, who has said that the idea that investment will flee the United Kingdom if we leave the EU is "scaremongering", saying that the EU "is an overinflated bureaucracy. There are too many unelected people…who are trying to get even more power" He also said: "It’s not going to be a step change or somebody’s going to turn the lights out", and "if you vote to come out in the referendum, you’re not going to suddenly find on the Monday morning I can’t do this, this and this." Does my right hon. Friend agree with Lord Rose, who is chairman of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign?
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): The Prime Minister called for an ISIL and Assad-free Syria, although encouraging the Russians to target ISIL risks relatively strengthening Assad. While the Syrians continue to suffer in this increasingly complicated civil war, how does my right hon. Friend think we can persuade Assad’s army to stop barrel-bombing his own people?
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): We should seek to persuade President Assad not to use barrel bombs against his own people, not least because they are illegal under international law because in many cases he is using chemical weapons. We have to be frank that in many ways the reason why the Russians became more involved in the conflict is that they feared that Assad was on the brink of falling. What we need to do now is get to a situation where it is clear that there is a stalemate and the only way forward for Syria is to have a new Government, who can of course have a relationship with Russia and Iran, but who are also capable of governing on behalf of all the people of Syria, not just the Alawites, but the Sunnis, the Christians and the Kurds.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): In the Libyan campaign we acted in response to a potential humanitarian catastrophe when Gaddafi was about to murder his own people. After that conflict we stood ready to help the new Libyan Government in any way they wanted help. I brought them to the G8 summit in Northern Ireland. We tried to help them train some of their security forces. We were ready to help in any way we could. It has to be remembered that Libya is not a poor country. It is a middle-income country with huge oil resources which, if spent in the right direction, could help the welfare of its people, but it did not take that path. That is the tragedy for the people of Libya.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: Foreign Trade
Neil Carmichael (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the Prime Minister agree that the aviation sector, both airline operations and aircraft manufacture, demonstrates the success and value of Britain being a member of the single market, and also that the ever-reforming European Union will pack a bigger punch in getting more free trade agreements, which will benefit that sector and all other sectors?
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: Transportation
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): If people who are wondering about Britain’s relationship with Europe want to see some tangible consumer benefits rather than the arcane things that we can talk about in this House, the open skies policy, the cut in air fares and the availability of cheap air travel in Europe have probably been among the biggest changes we have seen in the past 20 years. I hope that the agreement we have recently come to on getting rid of roaming charges will make it much cheaper for holidaymakers and Britons to use their mobile phones abroad. We need to focus on some of these things Britain has a very strong aviation sector and I am sure it will make its voice heard during the debate.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): The point about the referendum on the European Union is that this is a decision for the whole of the United Kingdom to take. When we look across the United Kingdom and ask what people in this family of nations think about the idea of having a referendum, from the opinion polls I have seen it is equally popular in Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Everybody in our country wants a say on this issue, and quite right too.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Jason McCartney (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very proud that the United Kingdom is the second largest bilateral international aid donor to Syria. Will the Prime Minister confirm that this aid is making a real difference to the lives of Syrian refugees in the region?
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I believe that I will get the outcome that we need. The hon. Gentleman should look at the four areas. They are all important and they are all significant. They all go very directly to the things that the British people have been concerned about in Europe: that it can be a brake on competitiveness, and that needs to change; that it can have ambitions to be a superstate rather than a common market, and that needs to change; that we need more control over our welfare, and that needs to change; and that we need proper fairness whether you are in the euro or out of the euro. That is a serious negotiating package, and that is what I will be taking forward in the coming weeks.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): The recent progress made by Turkey in achieving more of its aims in its relationship with the EU shows that the EU can change when it focuses its mind and when there is a greater sense of urgency. Does my right hon. Friend agree that EU member states, and the EU’s institutions, should now be giving greater focus to his reform agenda, because the majority in this House and across the country believe that that is a clear priority and that the situation is increasingly urgent?
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with my hon. Friend. We have approached this in a very calm and sober way, winning a majority at a British general election, setting out the plans for renegotiation with a mandate behind us, going to see each of the 27 Presidents and Prime Ministers, getting it on to the European Council agenda, and setting a deadline of 2017 but giving ourselves plenty of time to conduct the negotiation. Yes, it is urgent, and yes, it is important, but we should take the time to get it right.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the former communist countries of eastern Europe. It has been a real success for the European Union that these countries are now committed to democracy and to economic freedoms. That was very much the British agenda, and the British agenda has come through. In terms of the letter, obviously I will keep the House regularly updated.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): The direct answer to the hon. Lady’s question is obviously that if we were not in the EU we would not be in those discussions. I am trying to secure for Britain what I would call the best of both worlds, which is that we are involved in those discussions, but where we have a discrete national interest in not joining the euro, maintaining our border controls and not being in an ever-closer union, we have that specifically set out properly in the treaty. As for her second question—I cannot remember what it was on—
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): Oh, borders. Well, I think that is unknowable. There is a very good agreement between Britain and France that is in the interests of both our countries. We know that it can be maintained with the current arrangements, but it will be for those who are arguing to leave the European Union to discuss and explain those points.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Atta-Ur-Rehman Chishti (Conservative, Centre-right): The Prime Minister said that the conclusions set out what is necessary. Let me, if I may, take him to paragraph 4, line 4 of the conclusions, which says: "The European Council agreed on the need to focus on the fight against DAESH" The document makes no reference at all to "ISIL". Given that the United Kingdom has agreed to this document, will we now officially use the word "Daesh", which will help us to defeat this evil organisation’s propaganda campaign?
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is very persistent and quite convincing. I have just written him a letter to say that, in all our communications with Arab states and partners that use the terminology "Daesh", we also now use the terminology "Daesh". Clearly, that now involves the European Union as well. I am comfortable that we should never say "Islamic State" or "IS", because I think that confers some legitimacy on them, but I think that if we use "so-called" or, indeed, the term "ISIL", it is clear what we are referring to.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: Energy
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I would say to the hon. Gentleman, first, that we voted with others to put in place the anti-dumping fines—that is important—and we are also working very hard with the steel industry to address excessive energy costs and to get that through the European permission regime. We are also setting out, in our infrastructure plan, our steel needs in the years ahead One of the key things we need to do is to look at exactly what other European countries do in making sure, where possible, that we source steel for our own infrastructure needs from our own country. If other countries can do it within the rules, we should do exactly as they do.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is only going to work if we have such a comprehensive approach. Easily the most difficult part of it is ending the conflict in Syria, but that will be absolutely key to bringing the crisis to an end.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand that the hon. Gentleman wants, rightly, to stand up for his constituents and the area he represents, but I do not see any point in trying to play politics over this issue. The British Government are doing everything that we can, and every issue that we can take up, we will. What I would say to him and other hon. Members who represent such constituencies is: work with us, and we will do everything we can to help these industries.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: Foreign Trade
Thomas Christopher John Pursglove (Conservative, Centre-right): Did my right hon. Friend have the opportunity to raise at the meetings the rules already in place through the World Trade Organisation to address the dumping of steel on our market? We need action on this, and will he please go away and, on behalf of Members from across the House, make the strongest possible case to the Chinese President that this is unacceptable?
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: Energy
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have said, we will take every step that we can—there is looking at the UK demand for steel, there is looking at energy costs, there is looking at any other issues that affect such companies unfairly and there is making sure that we act in Europe in a way that others do, if it is legal, to source steel from our own country. But, there is a problem, which is that the steel price has fallen by more than a half, and that is affecting steel producers the world over. Acting within those constraints, we will do everything we possibly can.
European Council — House of Commons, 2015-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I think it is better for us to decide, democratically in this House, the approach we should take. By saying we will take people from the camps and make that our contribution, together with our financial contribution, I think Britain is fulfilling its moral responsibilities in the world, and using its head as well as its heart. I will defend that with any bishop or any lawyer who wants to have the discussion with me.