argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: International Affairs
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): No, never. The fact that all the replacement of the functions of the 40 EU agencies is to be done by regulation means that vast swathes of legislation, covering matters from aviation security to medicine safety, will be implemented using these processes The Procedure Committee received evidence from academics, four other Select Committees and a large number of civil society organisations, from the TUC to the Archaeology Forum and a lot of environmental groups, who are rightly concerned because 80% of environmental legislation is derived from the EU. All our witnesses raised important issues. The risk is that delegated legislation will be used not just to transfer EU law, which is the Government’s stated intention, but to change its legal effect In clause 9 the Government seem to be seeking the flexibility to change the law to comply with the withdrawal agreement. How can the House be expected to agree to that, given that the Government have steadfastly refused to agree or even share their negotiating objectives with the House? The Government are still refusing to provide in primary legislation for a vote on the final deal, but we are supposed to pre-agree now any changes that flow from the withdrawal agreement. I know what my constituents want from Brexit. They want to control immigration, maintain the social chapter and continue with the EU arrest warrant. But I do not know what the Government want. We cannot pre-approve the final deal The Government claim that they want certainty, but their secrecy is preventing anyone from predicting where we will end up. It would be normal to share statutory instruments in draft, but the Government have not even told us in which areas of legislation they will use these procedures. Another major issue is who decides which procedures are used, and how Parliament, rather than the Executive, can do that. This cannot be dealt with solely through the Bill. Changes may be needed to Standing Orders. We may need to establish new Select Committees in the Commons and jointly with the Lords. The Leader of the House, who is not even in her place, has utterly failed to bring forward any plans to show what she will do in terms of resources, time or procedure. The Government have deliberately delayed establishing the Select Committees and have been secretive, nervous and unco-operative. Even today, Tory Members have had a letter from the Secretary of State, but the rest of us have not seen it. We cannot trust these Ministers, and so we cannot give them such vast powers.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: Government Operations
Mark Phillip Hendrick (Labour, Centre-left): Many of us have a beef not with the way in which the laws will be transferred from Europe to the UK, but with the way in which the laws will be treated afterwards. The sweeping powers that the Bill provides will make it possible for Ministers to abuse powers that they have not been given by the electorate. This House should have control of that, not Ministers by their gerrymandering in this Bill.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: Environment
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We will not simply be able to cut and paste chemicals measures. REACH is the big regulation on registering, evaluating and authorising chemicals. It protects the public and the environment from hazardous substances and it is vital to British jobs, growth and investment. Our chemical industry is the second largest exporter to the EU after cars, selling £15 billion of chemical exports to the EU every year. Leaving REACH could cause market freeze and supply chain disruption to the industry. The Environmental Audit Committee heard from techUK and the defence industries how incredibly concerned they were about that. One in five UK chemicals companies represented by the Chemical Business Association are not waiting for regulatory certainty from the Government, and are already investigating opportunities to set up shop in other EU countries, harming jobs, investment and growth in this country The Bill does not protect the citizen and it does not incorporate either the principle of EU law that the polluter pays or the precautionary principle. For those reasons, for the vast destruction of our environmental and social rights, I shall vote against the Bill.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Paul Farrelly (Labour, Centre-left): The Bill asks us to transfer to the Executive what the hon. Gentleman considers a flaw without this Parliament having much of a say in what may happen. There are good reasons to oppose the Bill on the basis of clause 9 and the lack of a meaningful vote in Parliament—the Bill would allow the Government to get around that To continue the school metaphor, the Bill is not only unsatisfactory and in need of improvement, but wholly inadequate. The Government need to go back to the drawing board and rethink their approach. There is no mandate for a hard, cliff-edge Brexit or for shredding long-won relationships with the other 27 countries of the European Union, nor is there a mandate for a hard transition. There is certainly no mandate to hand the powers in the Bill to a minority Government and a caretaker Prime Minister. I hope that my colleagues and concerned Members on both sides of the House will vote against the Bill. Not to do so would give the Government a strong signal that they can get away with anything they like.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: International Affairs
Geoffrey Robinson (Labour, Centre-left): I shall be brief and to the point, as we are about to reach a critical stage in proceedings Like many hon. Members, particularly Opposition Members, I voted to remain in the European Union. Like many others, I was active in my constituency and throughout the west midlands in arguing that case, particularly to the manufacturers and traders for which the region is well known. I was disappointed, like many people, that the referendum turned out the other way. A result of 48:52 is pretty close, but in Coventry it was 40:60—60% of people voted to leave and 40% to remain When it came to the triggering of article 50 in the House, I had little doubt in my mind—indeed, I would never think of going against a clearly democratic vote—that we would have to do so, and we duly did. However, I also set out a couple of points that I thought would be essential if we were to avoid the worst aspects of what Brexit could mean: we needed a transitional period to the new arrangements, and those arrangements should be as soft as possible. I believe that both those points are as valid today as they were then. I agreed to sit back and watch how far the Government could get on achieving them. Unfortunately, they have not made much progress that anyone in this country or in Europe has noticed On the transitional arrangements, which would imply a period during which we would be in the single market and in the customs union, we have seen a remarkable performance. On the single market, half of the Cabinet is in and the other half is out; and another day the other half is in and the other half is out. The same goes for the customs union. What sort of negotiating activity that is I do not know. I cannot imagine what other kind of activity it is, but it is not skilful negotiation. We have not made any progress at all—if anything we have gone backwards on both those important considerations on which I was particularly looking for progress so that I could continue to give my unqualified support by recognising the vote in my Coventry constituency and happily supporting my constituents The simple fact is that the Government, having made a dog’s breakfast of the negotiations, have asked us to trust them to go ahead and change the laws of this land with a Bill that has been roundly criticised—I will not try to rise to the heights of hyperbole reached by colleagues on both sides of the House—as a travesty of good government and good legislation. The Bill is clearly full of faults, defects and inadequacies that have to be put right. The Government say, "Trust us, we will put them right." They say that at the end of the process we will have a Bill that meets the needs and has the guaranteed support of the House. I say no to that; it will not do. Given their record in the negotiations, they are neither competent nor honest enough to deliver what is possible, and there is insufficient determination in the Executive or civil service to do so.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: International Affairs
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) Let me make it clear at the outset that since the referendum of 23 June last year, I have always respected the outcome of the vote, both in my constituency and throughout the United Kingdom. That is why I have spent the last 15 months arguing for the best possible Brexit deal, which will secure jobs and prosperity in my constituency. This Bill, however, is not about the principle of withdrawal from the EU. It is about constitutional arrangements, and, as a Welsh Member of Parliament, I note in particular that the Welsh Government does not have the power to amend retained EU law—in other words, the law that is brought back via the Bill. This is about the kind of democracy that we are, and it is about the rights of our citizens. As I said in an earlier intervention, citizens currently have the right to take the Government to the European Court when they are found wanting in respect of certain matters, including environmental matters. Where is that remedy, or its replacement, in the Bill? It is not there Above all, there is the argument—I have heard it on a number of occasions, and I respect it—about bringing powers back to the House of Commons. The Bill does not achieve that. It is not so much a Bill to take back control to Parliament as a Bill to take control away from the legislature and give it to the Executive. I am deeply concerned about the Henry VIII powers in clauses 7, 8, 9 and 17; to put it simply, I do not trust Tory Ministers with those powers At the weekend, I was very interested to read a leaked letter signed by, apparently, up to 40 Tory MPs. It set out various red lines in respect of the transition deal that they want to see. What did it say about Henry VIII powers? It said: "There can be no Henry VIII laws which automatically add EU/EEA laws onto our statute books" How are we, as Opposition Members, supposed to trust Ministers with Henry VIII powers when their own MPs will not I looked back at the past to see whether there is any precedent for handing over such powers to the Government. I had to go back as far as the Rating and Valuation Act 1925, would you believe, to find an Act that allowed Ministers to change the provisions of that Act. It states that "any such order may modify the provisions of this Act so far as may appear to the Minister necessary or expedient for carrying the order into effect" That led the Lord Chief Justice of the day, Lord Hewart, to write a book called "The New Despotism" in 1929—I recommend it to Ministers—about what he called "the departmental despot", who would be in a position to carry out law making away from proper accountability, away from scrutiny, and away from the reach of ordinary law.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: International Affairs
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with my hon. Friend that clauses 7, 8 and 9 are Henry VIII clauses, enabling Ministers to repeal and replace elements of the statute book at will and implying that our Parliament will not be able to take back control. It is clear that, rightly respecting the British public’s decision, we will be leaving the EU because article 50 has been triggered, but does my hon. Friend agree that, as it stands, the Bill is fatally flawed because it amounts to a power grab by Ministers?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: Labor
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right that it is fatally flawed, and that is why I will vote against it with hon. Friends in the Lobby tonight I will simply never be able to trust Tory Ministers with things like workers’ rights, environmental protections and consumer rights. Let us take workers’ rights as an example. The Prime Minister has promised to retain all our workers’ rights as long as she holds office. In light of recent events, I hardly think that is particularly comforting, but in case we have any other doubts, let us just see what the then Tory Employment Minister, currently the International Development Secretary, said during the referendum campaign. She gave a speech at the Institute of Directors on 17 May 2016, about a month before the referendum. What does she want to do? To quote her, she wants to "halve the burdens of the EU social and employment legislation" That is what the Tory Employment Minister said at the time of the referendum. It is no surprise that the Tories cannot be trusted now.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: Environment
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): I have nothing against British judges taking decisions. What I am talking about is the failure of this Bill to provide clarity about how the law now will be transposed into the law then. Let us talk about a judge down the road who is faced, for example, with a citizen demanding a remedy of holding the Government to account for failure to deal with pollution. They would previously have had a right to go to the European Court. What will be their right under the Bill? The Government have absolutely no idea. Let us have a Bill that gives that clarity post Brexit, which this Bill manifestly fails to do.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: International Affairs
Gareth Craig Snell (Labour, Centre-left): The last seven hours have demonstrated what this place does best. My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) and for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) have made excellent contributions to the debate. They have demonstrated that this Chamber of this House of Commons is able to debate matters in a way that no other place can, and that is what makes the content of the Bill so offensive Listening to Government Members today, I have heard several variations of something that they will all know is called the politician’s fallacy: "Something must be done. This Bill is something. Therefore we must do it." I heard no substance or content, simply an argument that this is what we have and therefore we must do it. Nobody on the Opposition Benches is arguing that the wholesale adoption of European law should not take place; the argument is that the way in which the Bill is written is an affront to the democratic values that we hold dear We have heard from the right hon. Members for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and the hon. Members for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay), for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), for Poole (Mr Syms) and for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) that the Bill is flawed. They have all said in their own words that the Bill is flawed, but they have hope, anticipation, expectation and trust in the Government. They have been assured that amendments will come forward to assuage their concerns. Rather than consider what might come, I ask them to look at how this Government have treated this House. The article 50 vote was delayed while the Prime Minister pursued a legal case to prevent her own Members from having a vote on it. There is a motion before the House tomorrow that will rig the Committee system to allow a minority Government to have a majority on Bill Committees, which is simply unacceptable.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: Government Operations
Gareth Craig Snell (Labour, Centre-left): I will not Words such as "the Minister may make regulations" are littered throughout the Bill, and clauses 7, 8, 9 and 17 produce unprecedented levels of power for the Ministers on the Treasury Bench. We are to understand that they have been in listening mode today, but when asked either by Government Members or by Opposition Members to address some concern not once have they intervened to do so. They have sat quietly, passing notes—I can only presume to the Government Members who delivered their whipped speeches so wonderfully—instead of making a contribution to the argument.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: Government Operations
Gareth Craig Snell (Labour, Centre-left): No, I will not give way We also have a programme motion that seeks to allow 64 hours of debate on what Government Members have described as one of the greatest constitutional changes in their lifetime. The money resolution seeks to allow any amount of money to be spent by Ministers if they deem it necessary.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: International Affairs
Gareth Craig Snell (Labour, Centre-left): No, I am not going to take it The ways and means resolution allows for "any taxation". I thought the Conservative party was opposed to general taxation, but its Members are voting this evening for taxation for the sake of paying for a Bill that they will not allow to be scrutinised in this House. We are elected by our constituents as equals to have a say on the future of our country once we leave the European Union. No seat delivered a greater leave vote than mine. My constituents made their voice clear and I respect that, but they sent me here to get the best deal for them. I will be denied that right if I vote for this Bill’s Second Reading this evening The leave campaign talked about taking back control, but this Bill takes control away from Parliament. We will be relegated to observers in something that we have been told is the greatest constitutional event of our lifetimes. I will be joining my colleagues in voting against the Bill’s Second Reading, because it is not what my constituents want, it is not what I came here to do, and I refuse, like my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East, to vote myself out of a role in the Brexit negotiations.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: Environment
Mary Elizabeth Twist (Labour, Centre-left): First, let me make it clear that people in my constituency voted leave in the referendum, but they did not vote to risk the regulations and protections that they have to safeguard them. I want to talk about not clauses and regulations, but practicalities. My constituency has suffered serious problems arising from two landfill sites. Last year, we had three months of—not to put too fine a point on it—stench from one of the sites. The year before, we had a serious litter escape that blighted the local rural landscape The House will not be surprised to hear that many of us want greater environmental controls, not only on landfill sites, but to protect our rivers, air and natural environment. My constituents are worried about and want to retain all the employment and health and safety rights that they have under European regulations. It is crucial that Members of this House have the opportunity to examine the process of bringing those regulations into domestic legislation and how they are to be carried forward. In its reliance on secondary legislation, the Bill takes away the House’s ability—the ability of all us Members—to ensure that existing protections remain. I want to make sure that not only environmental but other protections from European legislation remain; if they will not, I want to be able to raise those issues with the Government and in the Chamber Government statements have said that they are going to transfer all regulations—everything is going to be okay, and it is all going to be incorporated into UK law—but as more than one Member has said today, the devil is in the detail. It is that detail that we need the opportunity to deal with. To use another well-known phrase, fine words butter no parsnips. The Government have come forward with fine words, but we need them to come forward with practical mechanisms to allow the proper scrutiny of regulations in this House, and they must do so.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander James Jorden Norris (Labour, Centre-left): During June’s election, I made two promises about Brexit to my electorate, now my constituents: first, that I would respect the outcome of the referendum; and secondly, that I would work to get the best deal for our fine city. Those are promises that I endeavour to keep every day—I am visibly proclaiming that—and I will do so today by voting for Labour’s reasoned amendment and against this Bill getting its Second Reading. It is of course critical that we recognise the outcome of the referendum. The majority of my constituents, and of our country, voted to leave the EU, and they rightly expect their Parliament to get on with the process; I accept that. However, we are talking about not whether we should leave—although regrettably we have spoken a lot about that today—but how we do it. We were not voted in to give Ministers unfettered, unqualified and unchallenged access to doing as they wish. This Bill is fatally flawed, because it utterly bypasses the very Parliament that our constituents elected us to form. That is not a leave or remain issue, or a left or right issue, and it is certainly not an issue of patriotism; it is about believing in our British democracy. If we did accept the Bill tonight, what would we not accept? If Parliament could be demeaned and reduced to a footnote at the stroke of a Minister’s pen, and if decades of hard-won rights could be dissolved on the 16:50 train back to a Minister’s constituency, what would be the point of having this parliamentary democracy To accept this Bill is to accept that Parliament is the Executive’s creature. That is not taking back control. Parliament is sovereign and should have the due opportunity to act as such. We have been asked to take on trust Ministers’ assurances—"Don’t worry, the Bill will be improved over this process, and certainly don’t worry if it comes into law, because all these lovely powers you’re giving us, we’ll give straight back." I say to the Chamber: be very wary of the politician who says there is no alternative but to give them absolute power over something. Similarly, be very wary of the politician who says that they will give that power back.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-11
Topic: International Affairs
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government did not want us to debate Brexit originally? It took a court case for article 50 to be brought to this place, so we should not trust this Government, because they have been dragged kicking and screaming every step of the way.