argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: Foreign Trade
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend could have added that those industries also have a high trade penetration with the European Union, and they depend critically on maintaining open and free-flowing trade arrangements with it. The deal before the House today allows us to maintain those trading patterns with the European Union and protect our supply chains, businesses and commercial relationships, while also having the opportunity to go out and make new trading partnerships with friends, old and new, around the world. In my view, that is the best possible outcome for businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency We have to make our choice as a nation, and it falls to this House to act on the nation’s behalf, setting aside narrow party interests and focusing on what is in the national interest of our United Kingdom. After two and a half years, it is time to choose and time for Britain to move on. This deal will ensure that we move forward as a nation, taking back control, protecting jobs, getting business investing again, growing, thriving, and bringing the nation back together. It sets the United Kingdom on a course for a prosperous future, with a close relationship with our biggest trading partner and the ability to strike trade deals with the rest of the world. It supports our economy and lets us get back to the priorities that the British people elected us to deliver: investing in the infrastructure and skills of the future, keeping taxes low, reducing our debt and supporting our vital public services. Let us get on with it. Let us back this deal, honour the referendum, protect our economy and work together in the national interest to build a brighter future for our country.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: International Affairs
David Thomas Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): I am listening with intent to what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, which is very measured. Speaking apolitically and being measured myself, I ask whether he would please consider voting for this deal, so that we can all move on with our lives.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: Macroeconomics
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman’s third point is no different from the approach that the Government have taken, so there is clearly a unanimity there. He started his speech in a serious and sober tone, which is to be welcomed. However, my constituents fear—as do I, and many Government Members—that warm words butter no parsnips and that in his pursuit of political instability through a general election, he is prepared to sacrifice the jobs and economic opportunity that he and I hold dear, on the altar of party politicking.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: Foreign Trade
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (Conservative, Centre-right): Would the shadow Chancellor abandon his commitment to remain in the customs union if the backstop were not there and there was an absolute legal requirement for the 27 member states to reach a free trade agreement within the initial transition period?
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: Foreign Trade
David Thomas Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): If we leave under this agreement, we would have free trade. We have two economies running in Ireland at the moment, one with the euro and one with the pound. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that that would carry on under this agreement because, as we would be leaving the EU, the backstop is an insurance policy or a legal ramification to this agreement?
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: Foreign Trade
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman said that Labour is looking for a comprehensive customs union agreement in which Britain will have a say in future trade agreements, but if we were in a customs union with the European Union, we would not have a say on future trade agreements. Can he clarify that?
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman started in a welcome tone of offering cross-party collaboration. I was waiting to see what he proposed as the starting point for the Labour party. He spent about 30 seconds on that, in a couple of sentences, and he is now back to attacking the Government and the withdrawal agreement. Am I right in understanding that he essentially agrees with me that we should stay in a customs union and collaborate with our European partners on international trade deals? He talked about us collaborating with the single market, which I do not quite understand. Nowhere in the world is there an open border between two countries unless they have a customs union and regulatory convergence. Is he advocating that? That not only solves the Irish border problem, but eases the economic consequences of leaving the European Union to a considerable extent.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: Macroeconomics
David Michael Davis (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman, quite rightly, makes the point that a number of expert economic opinions all say much the same thing, but of course that is exactly the same as was the case before the referendum. [Interruption.] Members may not like the facts, but I will repeat the facts to them. Exactly the same was true before the referendum. The Government’s forecast was in the middle of those expert opinions and the outcome was approximately £100 billion out in the first two years after the referendum. So there is a reason to say that the experts may be all talking within a hall of mirrors.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: Macroeconomics
Luke Patrick Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): Before my hon. Friend’s intervention, the hon. Gentleman was making a point about looking at economic futures and the Government facing facts where growth could be less than expected. Does he not see the irony of SNP Members making that point, when reports clearly state that Scotland, were it to be separated, would face 25 years of austerity? Keeping to his more consensual tone in the Chamber, I would just say that when he quotes GDP figures and minus or plus, addition or subtraction, could he be clear to the House, because I think it is very important for all those watching, that we are talking about growth being less than forecast? Growth will still happen, but it will be less rather than none at all.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Charles Baron (Conservative, Centre-right): I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s generosity. All the evidence shows that inward investment is about relative advantage. It is about lower corporation tax rates and flexible labour markets. It is about a skilled workforce and our universities. Tariffs of 3% to 5% are not as important as other factors, and I suggest that he look at the record inward investment that we have seen in this country since the referendum result, to prove that point.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: International Affairs
David Michael Davis (Conservative, Centre-right): People have to read more than one line of a speech. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman’s iPad is too small to carry more than one sentence. I also said that the critical part of the negotiation would not be the first two years, but the last three months, when France and Germany would determine the outcome. If the hon. Gentleman wants to quote me again, he should get it right next time.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: International Affairs
Simon Richard Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): May I reassure my right hon. Friend on that point? It is clear from article 3 of the protocol that it is not necessarily a right for us to have that extended transition. We can only ask for it, and that is a different thing.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: Foreign Trade
David Michael Davis (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, that is also true, but the general point is that the overall timetable is not in our control; it is in the other side’s control. As we have seen throughout this entire negotiation, the moment we gave away sequencing at the beginning, we gave an advantage to the other side. My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), the former Minister of State, is nodding: he remembers it There are essentially three emblematic conclusions to this. The first is the World Trade Organisation, which we have talked about already—I doubt whether it will be a deliberate conclusion, but it is a possible one—the second is Norway, which a number of Members on both sides of the House have suggested might be the best outcome, and the third is Canada plus, plus, plus. There are compromises between them; there are mixtures of them; but those three essentially capture the possible outcomes Let me start with the issue on which I disagree with pretty much everyone who has spoken so far: the World Trade Organisation deal, the so-called no deal. The Chancellor called it a strict no deal, because he knows full well all the preparations that have been made in the Government to create a basic no deal, or basic negotiated outcome. There is a whole stratum, a whole spectrum, of possible types of no deal. Some of them deal with the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) raised earlier—aviation, data and so on. If this deal goes down, as I think it will in a few days, there will be a scramble in London and Brussels to start putting those one-on-one, unilateral negotiations together. So there is a range of possibilities.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: International Affairs
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend looked at the evidence that pharmaceutical companies have given to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee about the catastrophic results of a no-deal Brexit. I recall him saying that we would not need an implementation period, because we would have had our deal by now. I am afraid that it is not as easy or as simple as he appears to wish to outline.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: Foreign Trade
David Michael Davis (Conservative, Centre-right): What a pity, Mr Speaker. I enjoy interventions, as you well know My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) has misquoted me from somewhere. It was I who negotiated the implementation period element, precisely because it is not without hiccups. It is not without issues. There will be practical issues in the first year of a WTO outcome, but that does not overwhelm the big advantages—the massive advantages—of having the freedom to negotiate our trade deals in the future.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: International Affairs
David Thomas Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): I have been sitting here all through this afternoon’s debate listening to colleagues on both sides of the House. I welcome the tone of this debate, which has been very mature and stable, especially early on when the shadow Chancellor was speaking. I do not see eye to eye with him at all times, but there was quite a lot we did see eye to eye on. We are working to find a way forward on this whole issue for the UK, and we have to set aside our differences. I have thought about this long and hard, and I am sure a lot of colleagues have done the same, but what are we looking at in reality? If we strip away the political ideology and get down to the business, we find there is very little in this deal we cannot agree with. Had this deal been put on the table at the time of the referendum result, we would have snatched the Europeans’ hands off, but we are where we are now. Sadly, some Members from my party have mixed up this issue with—
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: Transportation
David Thomas Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): Leadership bids, as the hon. Gentleman said, but that has been and gone. In all honesty, what is going to happen on 29 March is that some people’s political careers in here that hinge on that day will be null and void, because that is all they have talked about for the past two years and, in some cases, for all their political lives. As has been said, we have to grasp this nettle and move forward. I think we heard the finest speech this House has heard for generations from my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames). I had hairs stand up on the back of my head. I want to say that because he is not just my friend; he is an inspiration. He inspired us all. When all is said and done, what does this actually mean? This is about the country. His grandfather led us through our darkest times, and because of his grandfather’s contribution we are still free and we are still working forward as a nation If we do not get—[Interruption.] It is nice to hear people giggling on the Opposition Back Benches. It is a pity they are not listening. If we move forward and get into a position where we can get our trade reinstated properly, in a free-flowing way, that would be welcomed by my constituents On hauliers, this is from the Department for Transport’s guidance on determining international road haulage permit allocations with the EU: "There are a limited number of…permits available for UK hauliers. For 2019 there are 984 annual permits for Euro VI emission vehicles, 2,592 monthly permits for Euro VI emission vehicles, and 240 monthly permits for Euro V or VI emission vehicles. Annual permits cover all journeys made using the permit between 1 January and 31 December 2019." F. Edmondson & Sons is a haulage company in my constituency—Members should bear in mind that we have a port that relies on haulage—that wrote to me to say: "We are a family owned and operated international road transport company, established in 1948, specialising in international furniture transport For over 40 years we have been delivering furniture made in the UK throughout Europe. If the proposed Brexit deal is not agreed and the movement of freight is compromised through restrictive border controls it is not just the haulage industry that will suffer"—
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (Conservative, Centre-right): Before I start, I want to say this. Two Opposition Members have called myself and other honourable colleagues "extremists". I am not an extremist; I am a humble Back-Bench MP trying to deliver what the British people asked us to I wonder how posterity will record this period of our island’s history and democracy. Will it be a period of unity, courage, integrity and democracy in action, or will it be a period of division, rancour, faint-heartedness, lack of integrity and the will of the people disrespectfully ground into the dirt? I had hoped and prayed for the former, but I fear the latter is more likely to darken the pages of our history books in the future, unless there is a Damascene conversion in Government policy. I remind the House that we agreed to an EU referendum by 544 to 53 votes, to trigger article 50 by 461 to 89 votes, and to pass the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill by 498 to 114 votes. Those were not marginal wins Our instructions and our duty are clear: to leave the EU in its entirety. However, regrettably and sadly, there are many politicians on both sides of this House and the upper House who are doing all they can to prevent Brexit. If their will wins, why on earth should any of us stand for this place again? Why should we knock on doors and sell our hopes for the country, whichever party we belong to, when no one will believe a word we say? Despite frequent warnings, we are being led to a dark place, unprecedented in our history I was grateful to be granted a private meeting with the Prime Minister on Tuesday. Having written to her frequently with my blunt assessments of her direction of travel, what I say in this Chamber. I have communicated directly to her Many colleagues have already exposed the deal for what it really is, but I would like to briefly list five of the reasons why I cannot vote with the Government on Tuesday. First, it does not deliver what the people voted for. Secondly, the backstop is a potential trap. Thirdly, the Prime Minister promised repeatedly to respect the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom; the withdrawal agreement does not. Fourthly, we intend to hand over up to £39 billion of taxpayers’ hard-earned money without so much as a by-your-leave. Fifthly, the much ignored and extremely ambiguous political declaration leaves far too much room for mischievous politicians, both here and in Brussels, to play fast and loose with the UK struggle to leave the EU As I have the time, may I briefly touch on the no deal? When we negotiate, we have to have something to fall back on. We need a point beyond which we will not go any further, and that is what the no deal option is. It is one that none of us wants—whatever those in this House think that people like me think, we do not want it—but the WTO terms are not the end of the world, and under those terms the EU cannot discriminate against us. This whole debate is about our destiny—the future—and once we have grabbed that future, the rest will fall into place.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy John Elton Lefroy (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to look forward 10 years from now, at the position our country will be in if we vote for the withdrawal agreement, as I intend to, and have a deal along the lines of the political declaration. I believe that we will see a country in which we have implemented the results of the referendum and that we will almost certainly—I will come on to that in a minute —have broad and comprehensive agreements with the European Union. We will probably have agreed free trade agreements with many other countries, including those that we do not have them with at the moment However, there is, of course, uncertainty in that. There is uncertainty in every course that we could take. Indeed, there is even uncertainty if we stay in the EU—we do not know what the EU will be like in 10 years’ time and how much more integration will have occurred. In the long term, however, our future is going to depend far more on proper investment in the education of our young people in this country, on an approach to immigration based on skills and not on salaries, on ensuring that our universities thrive, and on investing far more than we have done, even as a member of the European Union, in capital and research One thing I know is that I cannot under any circumstances support a no-deal outcome. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) described on Tuesday the consequences for his constituency, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon) said yesterday that "no deal would be highly irresponsible."—[Official Report, 5 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 939.] Having visited the port of Dover, Honda in Swindon and Toyota in Burnaston last week, having spoken to Jaguar Land Rover, a very important employer in my part of the world, and having seen the dependence on frictionless trade, I absolutely agree One thing is really important. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) mentioned it earlier. This is about more than just a trade deal or a future relationship. This is about investing in our communities, the communities that have been left behind and have been ignored by us—Members on both sides of the House—over the last eight years. It is time that we got real. It is time that we had something almost like a Marshall plan for the United Kingdom to put us into a position in which we can thrive and compete in the 21st century, and, to be honest, I do not think that our membership of the European Union is as important in that respect. All those decisions will be made right here, in the House Let me say finally that we have to work together, across the House, to ensure that whatever happens on Tuesday—and it looks very much as though this deal will not get through, at least on Tuesday—we work to secure an agreement so that we do not leave without a deal next March.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: International Affairs
Hugo Swire (Conservative, Centre-right): No one ever said it was going to be easy. I never shared the lofty visions of the founding fathers of the EEC, the EC and the EU—Schuman, Adenauer, Monnet and others—but I totally understand where they were coming from in post- war, post-consensus Europe and what they were trying to achieve. I never shared the vision of wanting an ever closer set of federal European states or a European army. I am pleased we were awkward members of the club, as de Gaulle always knew we would be, and that we maintained our own currency, and so on We had a failure of understanding and a failure of negotiation when my friend David Cameron, the former Prime Minister, went to try to persuade Chancellor Merkel that he needed to be given something to bring back to the United Kingdom. She did not quite understand his predicament None the less, I voted to remain because I believed that the EU is immeasurably stronger with the United Kingdom as a moderating force. I questioned who would benefit from a weakened EU, and I still maintain that that is Russia. I have no doubt that people living in Sweden or the Baltic states would share that view. As a former Northern Ireland Minister, I did not understand how we could address the issue of the Northern Ireland border, which I was sure would come up My constituents in East Devon, by a small margin, voted to come out of the EU, and I respect that view. Nationally, 1.3 million more people voted to come out of the EU, and we must respect that view. I have been perturbed and variously alarmed and horrified by the way our negotiations have been conducted over the past few months. How we could have agreed to pay a sum of up to £40 billion without securing an agreement I do not know, and I hope my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union will look carefully at the idea of paying the EU with a Brexit bond, linked to the EU’s co-operation with us, to ensure our economy actually prospers Normally, as a former remainer, the House would expect me to endorse the withdrawal agreement in the vote next week, but I am currently unable to do so because of the Northern Ireland protocol. I cut my political teeth in Scotland as a Conservative and Unionist candidate, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), who made such a good speech earlier, and as did you, Mr Speaker. I served in Northern Ireland as a Northern Ireland Minister. [Interruption.] You are now denying it, Mr Speaker, but I think you did fight a Scottish seat, unless I am entirely wrong.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-06
Topic: International Affairs
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. Stop the clock. I did in 1987, but I have not the slightest recollection of expatiating on the matter of the European Union and, by definition, I certainly could not have done so on the matter of the withdrawal agreement.