argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): As no questions were actually raised in the hon. Gentleman’s response to my statement, I am tempted simply to sit down again One of the reasons we give advance notice to Front Benchers is to try to ensure that they are at least be talking about the same issue as we are. However, I am afraid the shadow Secretary of State does not seem to understand that the Trade Bill, which we will debate tomorrow, specifically does not involve future free trade agreements; it merely involves continuity agreements. If the hon. Gentleman does not understand that point, I am not sure what else in the Bill he will understand Today’s statement related to new free trade agreements. I gave the House a commitment that I would set out, before the summer recess, what our proposals would be, in the context of transparency and inclusivity, when it came to negotiating those new free trade agreements. The fact that we are making statements during the negotiations, and giving updates to the International Trade Committee, shows that we have acted in good faith. I am afraid that this afternoon we have simply had bluster and bunkum instead of reason and rationality, and if anyone was making a mockery of anything, it was a mockery of Front-Bench duties.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. It will be obvious to the House that, as the statement made clear, this is about how Parliament, the devolved Administrations and the wider public will be engaged in the process of forming free trade agreements with new partners, and scrutinising those trade agreements. In other words, this is a relatively narrow canvas to which colleagues can fit their questions. The Chair will not entertain long speeches about anything to do with Brexit. I am sure that Members will find a way of asking the questions that they wish to ask, while keeping within the narrow canvas that I have just described.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): I rather share the suspicion of the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) that the only reason this non-urgent statement was made today was to reduce the already inadequate time that we will have in which to debate the highly important Bill that follows, which is likely to be squeezed into four hours for speeches and Divisions—although the hon. Gentleman then filibustered. I shall try to avoid contributing to that filibuster As you have given your ruling, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will not ask the full question that I was going to ask about the rumours that the Government will adopt, this afternoon, amendments that are directly inconsistent with the White Paper of a week ago, including amendments tabled by my hon. Friends. For instance, new clause 36 contradicts paragraph 17(a) of the White Paper, on page 17. Are any statements by the Government on its trade policy in future to be relied on for more than a week or two at the moment, and is it not rather premature for the Secretary of State to come here and explain exactly how we may eventually be contemplating new trade agreements of our own, which will take many, many years to achieve?
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for a response with some substance. He is quite right to say that the length of time available is important; it is why we have chosen a consultation period of 14 weeks—the EU, for example, has 12, and other countries have less than that—and it is important that we allow that to happen. He is also right that with TTIP many of the public felt they had not been involved from the beginning of the process; there was no equivalent process to the one we are setting out today for the pre-negotiation phase so that the public could set out their ambitions and objectives for any trade agreement On future agreements, I ask the hon. Gentleman to look at what this House has already agreed on CETA: chapters 23 and 24 specifically place restrictions on Governments from watering down in any way their labour or environmental laws for the promotion of trade. We have already agreed that that will be the basis of our future trade agreement with Canada, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to judge the Government on what we do, not on what is said.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Centre-right): It will be brave man who does not acknowledge your strictures, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I shall stick faithfully to them First, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the energy with which he is preparing the ground for these fiendishly complicated arrangements. May I endorse very strongly what he said about the TTIP process and the absolute need for people to understand clearly what is and is not involved in these questions and negotiations? Will he particularly do much more with our febrile and irresponsible press to convince them that these trade arrangements are not all about toxic chickens?
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is right: it is important that we explain what is involved. It is also important to genuinely consult, as he says. That is why the Government in their pre-negotiation phase are doing what has never been done to this extent before. Pascal Lamy, the former director-general of the World Trade Organisation, said we are leaving a period in trade which was about the protection of producers and entering one about the precaution of consumers. Our consumers are very much more interested in trade policy today than they have ever been, and therefore they will expect, and we have a duty to provide, the appropriate consultation for them.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): Madam Deputy Speaker, of all Members of the House I know what it is like to invoke your wrath, so I will not stray into that territory about what may happen on legislation later today. All I can say is that the Government gave a commitment that before the recess we would come to the House with our proposals for consultation on and scrutiny of new free trade agreements, and that is exactly what we have done.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I strongly support the Government’s line that where we have an existing trade agreement through the EU, we are as entitled to take that over for us as it is for the residual EU. I trust my right hon. Friend will just crack on with that and have it ready by March 2019 in case we leave then, while having a different process for a new trade deal, which I am sure the public will welcome.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): We have always made it clear, as I did at the beginning of my statement, that there is a distinction between the continuity agreements covered in the Trade Bill that we will debate tomorrow and new free trade agreements, which we promised we would set out the scrutiny procedure for, and that is what has happened today. I know that it sometimes comes as a shock to the House when a Government do exactly as they said they would do in exactly the timescale allocated, but I am afraid that that is exactly what has happened today.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): The whole point of the negotiation phase, which is one of five phases of a free trade agreement, is that the public set out what they believe the level of ambition should be. Those who want to set restrictions on what they think the Government’s mandate in the negotiation should be will be free to express themselves during that period. That is exactly why we are putting this forward, because the worst thing would be to go into a negotiation when the public felt that their views had not been taken into account in any way. As I have said, this is not just about the Government being philanthropic in the trade space; it is also about our self-interest, because it makes the job much easier for the Government and for Parliament if the public feel that they have genuinely been consulted. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) said, one of the problems with the TTIP process was that the public felt that they had been ignored and that the negotiation had happened from start to finish away from public scrutiny. We have to try to avoid that happening in future if we are to take advantage of the freedom that new free trade agreements will give to the country.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Gregory William Hands (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my right hon. Friend on outlining the broad parameters of how future trade policy and consultation will work. I think he is on exactly the right lines, particularly with the commitment to primary legislation for each individual trade deal. Will he tell us a bit more about the consultative roundtables that he has described? One of the things we will discover is that politicians and producer interests will quickly try to get to the front of them, so how will he ensure that consumers, consumer companies and consumer groups will have a proper voice in that consultation?
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): As I mentioned earlier, one of the key elements will be the setting up of the strategic trade advisory group. We will ensure that we have representatives across that, including small and medium-sized enterprises, consumer representatives, development organisations and non-governmental organisations. I go back to the point that I made earlier: it is absolutely essential that people feel they have been genuinely consulted throughout the process; otherwise, they will say that they do not accept the agreement because there has not been sufficient transparency throughout the process.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Government Operations
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I gave earlier, which was that the Government should be judged on what they are doing. In terms of the agreements we are now looking at and will be debating tomorrow, they all include those. I find it difficult to imagine that, when we have a widespread consultation, that will not be a strong ask of the Government.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not sure that that question was entirely within the scope of the statement, Madam Deputy Speaker. Even if we are looking purely at goods issues, I think that the ability of the United Kingdom to abolish or reduce to zero tariffs with the United States on cars, for example, would have been something that President Trump would have welcomed last week.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): Back when we signed the memorandum of understanding, we made it clear that if there are areas where any of the devolved Administrations might have specific interests, that may allow us to have a seat at an international negotiation. Of course, that would involve having to further the Government’s position because, remembering that trade is still a reserved matter, we could not go into negotiations with someone sitting on the British side of the table who took a different view from the Government’s broader objective for the whole United Kingdom.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): My old mum told me that I should not cherry-pick rules. When we try to make free trade agreements with America, for example, will the Secretary of State confirm that, following the Chequers agreement last week, we will have to accept the common rulebook in its entirety and that nothing in those deals can deviate from it?
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): If that is the agreement that we come to with the European Union, that would be the case, and my hon. Friend is right that there would as a result be some restrictions in the offers that we could make in a free trade agreement—it is pointless to state otherwise. However, there would still be considerable freedom on agricultural tariffs, for example, and on quotas, and many of things that many of the countries with whom we will be negotiating want would still be entirely within our gift.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope that I have set out the broad direction of travel on that, and we will now be negotiating and holding discussions with and informing the devolved Administrations to see how we can make that work in practice. I say to the hon. Lady in all candour that if trade is to be a reserved issue for the whole UK, it must become self-evident that its benefits are actually for the whole UK.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: International Affairs
Julian Murray Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): For the avoidance of any doubt, will the Secretary of State confirm that none of these proposed arrangements would in any way be adversely affected if we left the EU without a deal and found ourselves operating on WTO terms?
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): The arrangements that I have set out today must stand alone and have to apply whatever final agreement we come to with the European Union. They are about the scrutiny of our future trade agreements. There are no pre-conditions attached to how we have devised the mechanism itself.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): The whole point of free trade agreements is to gain market access where we do not have it today for the benefit of our businesses that want to export. I hope that businesses will outline their level of ambition as each trade agreement is set out so that the Government understand just what they think they could do if markets were more open than they are today.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Agriculture
Andrew William Murrison (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. What reassurance is he able to offer those who say that the inclusion of agri-food in the common rulebook is a sop to farmers in southern Europe and a snub to potential partners in places such as north Africa and Latin America?
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Agriculture
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): One of the most recent comments I have read is that this would stop Britain being able to import food of a standard that we do not currently find acceptable. I have said at the Dispatch Box many times that the Government have no interest whatsoever in reducing the quality of the food that we have in the United Kingdom nor the standards by which it is produced. In any case, if we reduced our standards, that would undermine the reputation of the goods that we sell abroad. It is because of our high standards that, according to Barclays, 57% of Chinese consumers, for example, are willing to pay more for goods made or produced in the UK.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): I would imagine that, in line with other agreements, we would seek legislative consent from the devolved Administrations where there were elements in which they were required to apply parts of those negotiations. I would hope that, because I believe our interests are one and the same, we would want to work together to ensure that what we get for UK consumers, UK producers and UK exporters are of maximum benefit.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
James Spencer Cleverly (Conservative, Centre-right): In my experience of public consultations, it is often the case that the people responding are not particularly well informed of the status quo, so will my right hon. Friend ensure that, as we move forward into this new way of working, we inform the public both of the situation as it currently is and of how it would be improved with the free trade agreements that are to be signed?
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, as it is perhaps something I should have included in my statement. He is entirely right that, again to go back to the TTIP example, the public did not feel they were suitably informed. For each of the potential trade agreements, we will make available to the public a summary of what a free trade agreement actually is, the chapters that it constitutes, the specific nature of the country in question in terms of its market and what the opportunities will be. The more information we are able to give to all those stakeholders who will want to be part of the consultation, the better the collective decision we are likely to reach.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Rebecca Faye Clark (Pow) (Conservative, Centre-right): On that note, bringing people with us by clearly outlining, explaining and engaging with everybody about what is proposed in the new free trade world is essential, and I welcome my right hon. Friend’s approach today. This is absolutely the right way to go. Will he confirm that these consultations will be straightforward so that my constituents can get involved in this new free trade world?
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: International Affairs
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): It will be dependent on what both sides are willing to concede and on the level of ambition that both sides have. Following my discussions, not least with the President of the United States last week, I am very optimistic that such an agreement is well within the reach of both parties.
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Thomas Christopher John Pursglove (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State met the US President last week. Did the President indicate the US’s desire to do a free trade deal with the United Kingdom? If so, how will this consultation help to directly affect and influence that process?
Trade Policy — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): In line with his patience, I take the opportunity to thank my hon. Friend for all the work he did as my Parliamentary Private Secretary. He was one of the best PPSs it has been my pleasure to come across in my 26 years in the House of Commons Yes, the United States did show it has an appetite for a free trade deal, and what I think will be of interest to it is our willingness to be extraordinarily transparent and to give Parliament the scrutiny powers that most other countries take for granted.
Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): I will take my hon. Friend’s intervention in a moment It was Margaret Thatcher who, as a proud Conservative, championed free trade. I am a Tory. I believe in business. I believe in capitalism and in enterprise. I believe in our economy as it provides jobs and prosperity. It is indeed an engine of aspiration for so many of my constituents who want to see themselves going into apprenticeships at Rolls-Royce as much as they would like to go the finest universities.
Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: International Affairs
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not pretend to be able to walk in Margaret Thatcher’s boots, but I have read her speeches about the advantages of the single market. She was a huge champion—probably the biggest champion—of the single market. It was Margaret Thatcher who went over to Japan and promised the Japanese that our country would always stay in the single market. On that basis, Japanese business invested billions of pounds in this country My hon. Friend attacks me in a wholly unnecessary and really rather foolish way, but I hope that he will speak freely and honestly in our debate and give his assessment of what is facing our country if we do not get Brexit right. It is all well and good for Members to have their ideologically-driven, hard Brexit ideas when they are not able to face up to the reality of what they mean for people in my constituency and the rest of our country.
Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): In a moment The reality, which is faced in the White Paper, is that if we do not deliver frictionless trade in the way in which companies such as Toyota need and demand, they will simply not be able to operate. Some 81% of Toyota cars produced at Burnaston are exported into the European Union. And before anybody says, "Well, there will be new markets"—those unicorns that our Government will be chasing in new deals—please understand how the modern manufacturing industry works. Companies such as Toyota already make cars in other parts of the world to satisfy and supply the local market.
Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not wish to be rude to my hon. Friend, but that really is the stuff of madness. Of course we need to export more, but here is the real question that he should be asking. At the moment, a lorry that comes in from the European Union through Dover will take, at the most, two minutes to go through. If it comes from outside the European Union, the process takes 20 minutes at the least, and at the most—and more typically—it takes two hours. How does that transpose to the manufacturing sector and to the Toyota workers outside Derby—some 3,000 people, with three to five times as many in the supply chains I say to my hon. Friend that this, Sir, is the real world. In the real world, when Toyota makes an order for car seats, they are delivered absolutely ready on to the production line within four hours of the order being placed. If we do not deliver frictionless trade, either through a customs union or some magical third way that the Prime Minister thinks she can deliver—good luck to her on that—thousands of jobs will go, and hon. Members sitting on the Government Benches, in private conversations, know that to be the case. What they have said in those private conversations is that the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs will be worth it to regain our country’s sovereignty—tell that to the people who voted leave in my constituency. Nobody voted to be poorer, and nobody voted leave on the basis that somebody with a gold-plated pension and inherited wealth would take their jobs away from them.
Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-07-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): I think the point that my right hon. Friend did not want to take is that there are plenty of businessmen who are in favour of leaving the European Union The point that I wanted to raise with my right hon. Friend is that her whole argument is passionately based on the fallacy that one cannot have just-in-time supply chains crossing international customs frontiers. In fact, that is the way that most of the rest of the world trades. At Toyota in her own constituency—I met Toyota last week—quite a substantial proportion of its componentry arrives from outside the European Union to be bolted on to its cars. She is putting up these completely false fears that just-in-time supply chains are threatened by trading across customs frontiers.