argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: Environment
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as I said at the start of this debate, the issue of environmental protections has been widely discussed during the Bill’s passage through both Houses, and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed today. In particular I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones—who I know feels passionately about these issues—that we agree with her that the environment should be left in a better state than when we inherited it, and that we want to use the opportunity of Brexit to design environmental policies that in many respects are more advanced than those of the European Union but are tailored purely for the benefit of the United Kingdom. I am sorry that the noble Baroness feels disappointed, but she has the commitment of the Government—and the Secretary of State—to take these matters forward in the Bill once the consultation is finished I will address some of the points that were made. As I set out earlier, the consultation document is clear that these proposals are for England only. They cover areas that are the responsibility of the UK Government. The amendment requires the Secretary of State to publish a draft Bill and makes no substantive change to the law in Wales or anywhere else. This goes to the heart of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. We will work closely with the devolved Administrations on the new body, including on whether they wish to take a similar or, indeed, different approach themselves. The UK Government view is definitely that this amendment does not meet the test for legislative consent I reiterate that the amendment sent to us from the Commons represents an opportunity to strengthen and enhance our environmental protections, not to weaken them, and I hope that your Lordships will agree it today. I emphasise that we are still out to consultation on the main legislation. There will be plenty of opportunity to contribute to that consultation. I know that noble Lords and noble Baronesses who feel passionately about these matters will be able to contribute to that consultation—and then, of course, once the draft Bill is launched, there will be frequent opportunities in this House to debate the issues at great length, which I am sure noble Lords will take full advantage of. I beg to move.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: Government Operations
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I give my strong support to government Amendment 4B in its unamended form and to Amendments 4C, 4D and 4E, and I encourage others to do so, if necessary. Throughout the passage of the Bill I have been concerned about serious mistakes that might creep on to the statute book if statutory instruments made under the Act are not published and consulted on. Proposed new paragraph 5CB(2) responds well to those concerns with, 28 days in advance, publication of the drafts of any instruments making changes to provisions enacted under Section 2(2), which has been the parent of much UK law over the last 45 years If I have understood correctly, there is cause to celebrate and to thank the Minister for this change and for the other scrutiny changes. They will allow all relevant stakeholders, whether they are consumers, trade unions or from business, or indeed from other countries, to review such drafts and help the Government to address any concerns and correct any errors of the kind that we all want to avoid as EU rules are carried over into UK law on Brexit day.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for his comments and for his support, which I think I detected, for the Government’s amendments. I am also very grateful for the comments of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, who has taken a close interest in this matter. It is a very technical but important matter, and I know that she has engaged on it with Ministers and officials. She brings the benefit of her experience in government and we are grateful for her contributions As I said in opening the debate on this Motion, the government amendments are the final thread in the tapestry of protection woven by the Bill. On Report, we addressed protected EU regulations and treaty rights, and now we are adding, as requested, an enhanced procedure to protect the legislation implementing directives. Most importantly, the government amendments deliver the procedure and the protection that underlies it. I therefore commend them to noble Lords.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have spoken in this debate, in particular the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Beith, for their observations about engagement with the Government over these matters. The Government have listened and the other place has agreed to significant amendments in respect of certain challenges based on general principles of EU law. Given that, I hope that the House will endorse the decision today.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my noble friend. He is indeed a friend. I have always found him both highly intelligent and very entertaining. However, on a point of clarification, can he say whether it remains his position that he wishes at all costs to destroy Brexit?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Centre-right): Can he say whether he wishes to destroy Brexit—that is not a very parliamentary gesture, if I may say so to the noble Lord opposite—and that this amendment is in fact about sabotaging Brexit? That seems to be the case. On a second point of clarification, can he tell us what discussions he has had with the Opposition Front Bench on this amendment?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Douglas Hogg (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend’s second question was whether I am seeking to frustrate Brexit. I do not believe in Brexit, that is perfectly true. I think it is a national calamity. But I believe above all that the House of Commons should have a decisive say one way or another Moving on from that point, which I had the pleasure of making to my noble friend—
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: Government Operations
Douglas Hogg (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend Lord Garel-Jones was one of the best Deputy Chief Whips I have ever met—better even than my noble friend. Of course, he is right. But the point is that this Government have sought to prevent a meaningful vote in every possible way. I want to ensure, if I can, that Parliament in fact has a meaningful vote. I do not want to see it left to chance I need to turn briefly to what the amendments before your Lordships’ House say. I commented on Grieve I, which is not before the House. I have already summarised it and I acknowledge that it was directional and mandatory. That caused serious problems for the Government, which Mr Grieve understood. It was for that reason that Mr Grieve was negotiating with the Solicitor-General. Grieve II—that is the Motion before your Lordships’ House, and here I am referring effectively to subsection (5F)—requires the Government, in the absence of any political agreement having been made by the end of 21 January next year, to make a statement setting out how they propose to proceed and to make arrangements for the House of Commons to approve the statement by way of a Motion I have taken the best advice available to me. I believe that the Motion in the House of Commons would be amendable but not justiciable—that is to say, the Motion could not be enforced by legal action. However, the political consequences for a Government who sought to act differently from the Motion, whether amended or not, would be very grave. In that respect, Grieve II gives Parliament and, in particular, the House of Commons a meaningful vote.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Douglas Hogg (Conservative, Centre-right): I am simply not going to speculate. The truth is that the world at the moment is extraordinarily unpredictable and all the parties are extremely divided on this issue, so I think it is wise not to speculate about what would happen if the Government lost, save to say that the political consequences would be very great However, I want to consider what the Government are offering by way of an alternative—in other words, how the Government are proposing to honour their repeated promise to give Parliament a meaningful vote. What is on offer—and it is only this—is as follows. In the event of no deal—that is to say, when there is every probability of the United Kingdom crashing out of the European Union, an outcome which in the eyes of most would be a calamity—the Government are offering a Statement followed by an unamendable take-note Motion. My noble friend’s amendment—she did not refer to its terms when she first introduced it—is that the take-note Motion should be in neutral terms. What is meant by "neutral terms"? It means that it may not express approval, it may not express disapproval and it will not be subject to amendment. The Government’s amendment not only fails to deliver the promised meaningful vote—that would be an act of omission and bad enough—but is far worse as the Government are seeking to make the promised meaningful vote impossible, and that is an act of commission, contrary to what Ministers have on many occasions promised. It deliberately removes the possibility of a meaningful vote and, moreover, the Government’s amendment is being brought forward at least in part by my noble friend Lord Callanan, who on 14 March in this House, to the amazement of everybody who heard him, said: "We have never used the term ‘a meaningful vote’".—[Official Report, 14/3/18; col. 1650.] That statement was inaccurate as to fact, but deeply revealing as to intention.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Douglas Hogg (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not going to give way. Much as I admire my noble friend, I am now going to proceed. I come to the last and fundamental question: why should this House support Grieve II? There are essentially three reasons for that. The first is this—if I can find it in my notes.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Douglas Hogg (Conservative, Centre-right): That is very kind of my noble friend but he has given me an opportunity to find my notes, so while I am grateful to him he is going to have to resume his seat. The first reason is this: the House of Commons has never had an opportunity to vote on the amendment, so it is a matter of procedural propriety. Secondly, the Government have failed to deliver on their promise to provide a meaningful vote. Grieve II represents the agreement negotiated in good faith between the Solicitor-General and Mr Grieve but which others thought fit to reject, so it is a matter of honour Thirdly, and by far most importantly, it is in the national interest. I appreciate that the Prime Minister faces great difficulties in the conduct of these matters. There are serious divisions within her Government, divisions reflected within all the parties and indeed within the country itself. However, consider where we are and how we got here. The Article 50 process was triggered without any collective agreement as to the desired outcome—indeed, without any collective agreement as to the negotiating framework. Now, just a few months before the deadlines expire, that remains the situation This is not an occasion for anything other than temperate language—the political temperature is already far too high—so I shall content myself with questions. Was it wise, prudent or responsible to start the Article 50 negotiations without a firm collective agreement as to where we wanted to go or how we were to get there? Was it perhaps a serious error of judgment to trigger the Article 50 procedure without there being a clear policy on these matters? Is it right that, in the absence of a deal, Parliament should risk crashing out of the EU on the basis of a take-note Motion cast in neutral terms and as a result of the unconstrained decisions of Ministers—these Ministers Your Lordships’ answer to those questions may help you to decide whether, to safeguard our nation’s vital interests in the event that there be no deal on the table, Parliament—and here I mean the House of Commons—should have the authority to intervene. Ministers, the Prime Minister in particular, have promised a meaningful vote. As yet, that promise has not been honoured. My noble friend’s amendment frustrates, and is intended to frustrate, that commitment. If your Lordships want Parliament to have a truly meaningful vote then Parliament must insist, and the Grieve II amendment would enable the House of Commons to do that. I beg to move. Motion F4 (as an amendment to Motion F3)
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Howard (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this is not a debate about the integrity of Mr Dominic Grieve, and I shall do my very best to avoid mentioning his name again. It is a debate on the terms of the amendments before your Lordships’ House this afternoon. My noble friend the Leader made a cogent and compelling case for the government amendments and I do not intend to elaborate on it at any length. She made it clear that the effect of the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Hailsham would be to confer on Parliament a negotiating power that has always resided in the hands of the Executive in our country. That is why, as my noble friend the Leader said, Professor Vernon Bogdanor has described the amendment as a "constitutional absurdity". It is a measure of the weakness of the case put forward by my noble friend Lord Hailsham that he was driven, in the end, to impugn the validity of the Article 50 vote in the House of Commons—a vote passed by a very large majority in the very House whose cause he purports to champion as the basis of his amendment I want to elaborate briefly on a point just made by my noble friend Lord True. My noble friend Lord Hailsham said, at the very outset of his speech, that the purpose of his amendment was to give the House of Commons the opportunity to consider it. It is a simple and irrefutable fact that the House of Commons will have that opportunity without passing my noble friend’s amendment. The House of Commons will have that opportunity if the Government’s amendment is passed, because that amendment has not been considered by the other place. So, when the Government’s amendment comes to the other place, it will be open to them to accept it, reject it or amend it. They can amend it in the terms of the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Hailsham. The very purpose of his amendment—
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Howard (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness said "the chances are"; that was the operative phrase in her remarks It is often said in our debates that the purpose of the amendment put forward is to give the other place the opportunity to think again. It is a powerful argument, which has influenced many of your Lordships in putting forward amendments and in voting for them. I submit that it is not necessary to defeat the Government to achieve that objective with these amendments I shall say one more thing before I sit down. Many of your Lordships—conspicuously not my noble friend Lord Hailsham—have vociferously denied any intention to delay Brexit. The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord True gives effect to those denials. The only people who need have any concern about the effect of the amendment put forward by my noble friend are those who indeed desire to delay Brexit. I therefore congratulate my noble friend on his amendment, and should he wish to test the opinion of the House on it, I for one will vote in its favour. The one thing that should not happen is that a message goes out from this House that this unelected Chamber is determined to delay the implementation of the wishes of the British people.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Norman Stewart Hughson Lamont (Conservative, Centre-right): Noble Lords opposite are living in a slight fantasy land if they think we could reach no deal without there being a very long debate and a whole set of arguments in the House of Commons At no stage have I been an advocate of no deal in the negotiations, but not advocating no deal does not mean that we should rule it out in all circumstances, and it does not mean that you should rule it out as being on the table as a negotiating tactic. If, as Dominic Grieve has suggested, we make no deal completely unthinkable, we in effect undermine the position of our negotiators. If our negotiators cannot walk away from the table or if the other side—Monsieur Barnier and so on—know that they cannot do so, all the other side has to do is to sit there rejecting things until we eventually agree with everything it wants. Ruling out no deal completely as an option, even as a theoretical negotiating objective, would place the Government in an impossible position.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Norman Stewart Hughson Lamont (Conservative, Centre-right): But we are also talking about Motions and amendments, and the distinction was the very point I was making. Although my noble friend Lord Hailsham has removed the word "direction", we have to consider what is meant by having amendments and the purpose of insisting that a Motion that the Government bring forward should be unamendable The second reason put forward, in addition to making no deal an impossibility, is parliamentary sovereignty. I do not wish to be too aggressive about this but to many of us this seems a very ironic reason when, for year after year in European matters, parliamentary sovereignty has just been ignored. A fundamental point, however, that we cannot forget is that on this issue we have ceded sovereignty to the people of this country. That is what we did when we held the referendum. Noble Lords talk about a meaningful vote but it seems that they want to make the vote on the referendum meaningless; the vote on Article 50, meaningless; and the election itself in which—
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Norman Stewart Hughson Lamont (Conservative, Centre-right): That of course is what Article 50 was about but it is also true that, during the election and during the referendum campaign, many commitments were made over and over again that we would honour the result of the referendum The most objectionable part of the original amendment, Grieve mark I, was the use of the word "direction". To my mind, it obviously was impractical for Parliament to direct the Government in every aspect of the negotiation if there were a situation in which there was no deal. It is one thing for Parliament to direct our own Government as to what they can accept or propose, but what it has no control over is what the other side will accept. Therefore, by saying that Parliament would direct the negotiations, we would be forcing the negotiators to go to the other side with a list of things that we knew it would be able to accept, and, as I say, all flexibility would be removed from the negotiations Then we have the question: if Parliament is going to be directed, how will it be directed? There are 650 different Members of Parliament—
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord, Lord Monks, for his speech. I did not agree with the sentiments, but I take his point. We are fully committed to involving Parliament throughout the process of our negotiations to leave the EU. We have given what may be an unprecedented level of parliamentary scrutiny of Ministers across the Government and of the preparations and negotiations on exit. However, this amendment is not the right way for Parliament to scrutinise the negotiations. The House of Commons has taken a clear decision on it and I urge noble Lords therefore not to insist on it.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Ian Duncan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I hope I can be brief, as befits the hour. I thank again my noble friend Lord Patten for his amendment and all the work he has undertaken since it has been lodged. Indeed, I thank all noble Lords who spoke on Report. When we first addressed this amendment, we made clear that, while we agreed with the spirit and intent of the amendment, its language was potentially too loose and perhaps the Bill was not the most appropriate home for such an amendment. Since then, we have reflected further. Ultimately, we acknowledge that it is difficult to justify opposing something with which we almost entirely agree. On that basis, as the Government stated in the other place on Tuesday, we are happy to accept the thrust of the amendment. The only reason we return it to your Lordships’ House is to ensure that the amendment we accept in principle is fit for the statute book To achieve that aim, the other place has agreed amendments in lieu of those tabled by my noble friend Lord Patten. These amendments do three things. First, they ensure that the amendment reflects the reality that the withdrawal agreement will be concluded between the UK and the EU, not the UK and Ireland. It is important to reflect this reality, because otherwise the amendment risks contravening the principle of consent in the Belfast agreement, an issue raised when we debated this matter by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and my noble friends Lord Trimble and Lord King of Bridgwater. The Belfast agreement does not provide for joint authority over Northern Ireland between the UK Government and the Irish Government. That is why the Government replaced the reference to the Government of Ireland with a reference to the EU Secondly, the changes tabled in the other place ensure that we refer back to the Northern Ireland Act when we talk about north-south co-operation, rather than creating a new definition. Thirdly, the changes tabled in the other place tighten the amendment. The wording in the original amendment was not legally watertight, so the Government’s reductions are important in ensuring that this amendment sits appropriately on the statute book. Ultimately, this amendment in lieu still refers to "checks and controls", so covers the different types of checks and controls listed in my noble friend’s original amendment. I stress that this amendment is only about the powers in the Bill, and applies only in relation to the agreement we reach between the UK and the EU. Its effect does not stray more widely. As we have said before, the Northern Ireland border will be dealt with in the withdrawal agreement, which will be implemented in domestic law by the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill In conclusion, I hope I have the support of your Lordships in backing the amendment in lieu from the other place to ensure that this otherwise sensible amendment can complete its journey to the statute book.