argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): I shall come to that in a minute, but my hon. Friend dwells like an old-fashioned mercantilist on the trade statistics alone. I suggest to him that there are wider issues at stake about the overall impact on our economy and the benefits of the growth, investment and dynamism that being part of a 500 million-strong market of very wealthy consumers delivers to us.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, but we will do that only by delivering a robust economy that is soundly based and can go forward in the future. The most effective way of doing that is by being part of the European Union Our membership of the EU gives us both the freedom to trade in the world’s largest single market—a market of more than 500 million consumers—without tariffs and the bureaucracy of customs barriers, and access to more than 50 other markets besides, through EU free trade agreements. The benefits of being in that single market are clear for us to see: 44% of Britain’s exports go to the EU. How much of that trade would be lost if we put up the shutters and renounced our EU membership? How many businesses and employees who depend on that trade would go to the wall? How long would it take to negotiate a new trade agreement with our European neighbours? What would the terms be? I am prepared to bet that they would be nothing like as favourable as the terms that we have on the inside.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman raises a good point, and he will have heard the Prime Minister talking about that very issue only a few moments ago. We can expect that it would take us at least two years to negotiate our exit from the European Union if that was what the British people decided on 23 June. Thereafter, we would have to negotiate a trade deal with the European Union, and then trade deals with the 53 other countries around the world with which the EU has free trade agreements There is a small technical hitch, to which I have drawn the House’s attention before: we do not have any trade negotiators, because for the past 40 years the European Union has conducted our trade negotiations for us. It is about not just time but the price that we would have to pay to negotiate that access to the single market from outside. From the evidence of others who have done that, the answer is clear. That price would involve our freedom of movement, acceptance of the entire body of EU regulation, and a whopping sub to boot—all the things that the leave campaign tell us we will escape from—with no say at all in how the rules are made. It would be the worst of all worlds.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Chris Ian Brian Mynott Philp (Conservative, Centre-right): On the question of the trade deficit with the EU, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) mentioned a moment ago, does the Foreign Secretary agree that were we to exit the single market, the component of EU free trade that would be placed most at risk would be free trade in services, on which we enjoy a £20 billion trade surplus with the EU?
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I want to address that important point later in my speech Any deal that we achieve with the European Union will almost certainly exclude free access to the market for services, which is something of a problem when services account for almost 80% of our economy.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me just make this point, then I will give way again By contrast, if we remain inside the EU, we can look forward to a huge dividend from an opening of the market in services over the coming years. The truth is that we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to the EU single market. The single market in goods is well developed, but in the sectors in which the UK is truly market-leading—financial, business, technical and professional services, the digital economy, the creative industries and energy—the potential remains huge, and the EU’s high-value market is the place to realise it.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: International Affairs
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): That question has never been effectively answered—how many jobs are those advocating Britain’s exit from the European Union prepared to sacrifice on the altar of their notion of sovereignty? We have never had a straight answer to that question. What we do have is a range of independent estimates of what that number would be if we voted to leave next Thursday. I shall come to that in a moment It is because of the potential for the UK to open up the services market in the European Union that the deal the Prime Minister negotiated in February is so important. We now have a clear political commitment from all 27 other EU member states, plus the Commission, to accelerate the development of that market. These are the sectors in which the UK leads in Europe, and in which an expansion of the single market will disproportionately benefit the United Kingdom over the years ahead.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: International Affairs
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend agree that the reason why the markets had such a shock yesterday was the prospect of us leaving, based on a couple of polls? That £30 billion shock to our financial system hit not just capitalists but the pension funds of hard-working people, which deteriorated. If the prospect of Brexit caused that shock, what on earth would actual Brexit look like?
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Energy
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right. We can regard what has been happening in the markets this week as a fore-tremor—a taste of what could be to come if the people of Britain vote to take a leap into the dark on 23 June. A fully fledged energy union in gas and electricity markets could save £50 billion a year across the EU by 2030, with huge benefits for consumers through their energy bills, as well as making Europe safer from threats of energy blackmail. But it is not just intra-EU trade benefits that our membership delivers. As a member of the world’s largest economic bloc, we benefit directly from being party to EU trade agreements with more than 50 other countries, with terms far more favourable than any that we could have negotiated alone, because of the combined negotiating muscle of an economic bloc with a quarter of the world’s GDP.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Lady is right. The deal on the table between Switzerland and China is deeply asymmetric and deeply unfavourable to the Swiss, but reflects the mismatch in scale between those two marketplaces. Being part of the world’s largest economic bloc allows us to stare squarely into the eyes of Chinese and American interlocutors when negotiating trade deals It is a well rehearsed and well understood fact that 44% of the UK’s exports go to the EU, but it is an underestimate because it addresses only exports to the EU. If we take into account the countries with which the EU has a free trade agreement—destinations for another £56 billion of British exports—the figure goes up to 56%, which does not take into account any of the countries with which the EU is negotiating free trade agreements. If we included them, we would be talking about more than 80% of UK exports going either to the EU or to countries with which the EU had trade agreements. At the very least, more than half of Britain’s exports would therefore be at risk if we left the European Union, and it could take a decade or more to put in place new deals with the EU 27 and the 53 other countries with which we have free trade agreements. It is not about choosing between growing our trade with the EU or with the rest of the globe—as the figures show, our EU membership is key to both.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): Is not the central absurdity of talking about the EU deficit and the surplus with the rest of the world that our trade with the latter is largely conducted through foreign companies—Japanese car makers and American banks, for example—that base themselves here precisely because we are in the single market? They trade with the whole world—they do not see it as two different places. We as a country should have that attitude.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right. The world’s supply chain has globalised itself. If I am honest, when I listen to the arguments of some of our opponents in this debate, although framed in terms of hostility to the European Union, I sometimes wonder whether what I am hearing is hostility to the globalisation of our economy What is true for trade is also true for investment—the other side of the coin. The reality is that Britain benefits hugely as a platform for investment from both EU and non-EU countries, many of which see us as a gateway to the rest of the European Union. They come here because of our language, our skills, our flexible labour market and our domestic regulatory environment, but if I talk to foreign companies based in this country—I have lots of them in my constituency, and other Members will be in a similar position—and to others around the world thinking of making that investment decision, it is clear that the single most important factor in the decision making of most of them is our membership of the European Union. Our membership makes Britain a launch pad for doing business with the rest of Europe. Almost three in every four foreign investors cite our access to the European market as a principal reason for investment in the UK. If we lost that access, we would lose the investment. It is as simple as that.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
David Henry Rutley (Conservative, Centre-right): Is my right hon. Friend aware of Ernst and Young’s recent report showing that the UK continues to be the No. 1 destination for foreign direct investment in Europe, with the north-west seeing the biggest increase? Does he agree that a vote to remain would encourage yet further investment in the northern powerhouse and in other regions?
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right. Treasury analysis shows that the UK is the largest recipient of foreign direct investment in the EU, ahead of Germany and ahead of France. We get almost a fifth of total inward FDI into EU countries—20% of the investment, with less than 12% of the population. I remind the House that every pound of that investment creates jobs in the UK. It is why Australia is a disproportionately large investor here, it is why so many Indian firms use this country as a base, and it is why world leaders, such as President Obama, Prime Minister Abe and Prime Minister Modi, believe we would lose out if we voted to leave the EU.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Energy
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): Not just for our new generation of nuclear power, but for a large part of our thriving car industry, which is built and based on our ability to export to the European Union. Japanese investment has transformed the economics of and labour relations in our car industry—it has done wonders for this country. It astonishes me that we would even contemplate undermining the basis on which that investment is made.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): I will just make a little progress if my hon. Friend will allow me If we left the EU, the practical consequences of lower trade and lower investment would be felt directly by the British people: fewer jobs and higher unemployment. An estimated 3.3 million jobs in the UK—more than one in every 10—are linked to exports to other EU countries, with 250,000 jobs in Scotland, a quarter of a million in the south-west, half a million in the midlands, and 700,000 in the north. How secure will they be if we vote for Brexit next Thursday? How will the spectre of rising unemployment undermine consumer spending and sap business confidence—to blight, once again, those areas of the country that have been in this cycle all too often?
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): Rolls-Royce has a manufacturing facility in my constituency and has made the threat to jobs very clear. Unemployment has fallen 60% since 2010, but that improvement will be put at risk, as highlighted by a CBI report stating that the shock to our economy could cost 950,000 jobs. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that that risk is simply not worth taking?
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It is a risk we do not need to take, and it is a risk that it would be absurd to take. I just cannot believe that after all the grief and pain we have been through in this country to rebuild our economy following the disaster of 2008-09 we are seriously thinking about going back there. That astonishes me Economic experts have judged overwhelmingly from the evidence that Britain’s economy will be stronger and more resilient if we remain in the EU. The G7 Finance Ministers, nine out of 10 economists, and independent organisations such as the IMF, the World Bank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the World Trade Organisation have expressed the view that the UK will be better off inside the EU And not just economists but more than 200 entrepreneurs —founders of household names such as Skype, lastminute.com and innocent drinks—agree. Rarely, if ever, can an issue have united the opinions of everyone from global institutions, through trade unions, to British businesses, large and small. The overwhelming weight of economic and business opinion is clear: Britain is better off in.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: International Affairs
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): Will my right hon. Friend nail from the Dispatch Box the canard that some on the exit side are peddling—that this is just a vehicle for another round of never-ending renegotiations? This is a serious, one-off decision. We will abide by the decision, and it has to be right for the future of our country.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: International Affairs
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am happy to repeat what he says, as the Prime Minister did earlier. The British people will have their say; they will make their decision, and we will implement it. I do not believe that our 27 partners in the EU would say, "Oh, fine, let’s go through all this again," even if we wanted to. This has to be the deciding point. It is make your mind up time. People have to look at the options bus: a future they know and can predict, with Britain in the European Union—a Britain that has created 2.5 million jobs over the last six years, and a Britain with a growth rate that has outstripped that of every other country in the European Union—or a leap in the dark.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: International Affairs
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): I am going to make some progress now. I want to finish so that others can contribute What would be the consequences of a vote to leave? They would be: less trade, of course; lower investment; slower growth; and fewer jobs—less trade, because we would lose our access to the EU single market and to the free trade agreements the EU has; lower investment, because foreign businesses using the UK as a launchpad into the EU would go elsewhere, and UK businesses would be seeking to rebuild their markets, rather than investing for expansion; slower growth, because the economy would effectively be on hold for at least two years, and almost certainly very much longer, while we negotiated the terms of our exit from the EU; and fewer jobs, because, in a climate of such economic uncertainty, few companies would be hiring or expanding their workforce. Indeed, to answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), the director general of the CBI, Carolyn Fairbairn, estimates that, if we left the EU, there would be almost a million fewer jobs in the UK by 2020 and that those under 34 would be hit the hardest Let us be clear: an exit negotiation with the EU will be far from the straightforward affair the leave camp is suggesting. We have general elections next year in France and Germany, and I can promise that every single vested interest in both those countries will be seeking to benefit from the British exit. We should expect no favours from those whom we have just snubbed. The Brexit campaign wants us to believe that we could negotiate a better deal for Britain from the outside than the one we actually secured from the inside at a time when the entire European Union was seeking to persuade us to stay. This is simple fantasy. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear!"] It will not happen.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend spoke about how companies that export to Europe would be badly affected by leaving the European Union. If we have a Brexit recession, not only will businesses that export to the EU be hit, but almost all businesses will be affected by the loss of investment in the UK and the loss of consumer income. Will not all businesses be affected?
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: International Affairs
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am afraid that I can predict, on the basis of experience, what will happen. If we get a Brexit vote, markets will go into freefall, business confidence will collapse, business investment will freeze, and consumers will panic and stop spending, and that will have a massive effect across the width and breadth of our economy The United Kingdom is, and should remain, an outward-looking trading nation. If we want to remain prosperous, we must move up the value curve, not down it. Britain’s future has to be about higher skills, higher wages and higher investment, not the opposite The EU has many failings, and no one is pretending that the reforms negotiated by the Prime Minister should be the last word. If we remain on the inside, we can and should continue to influence the speed and direction of reform. If we step outside, we will continue to be affected by EU rules, but we will have no way of influencing them and no way of reforming the institutions The consequences of the decision the British people make on 23 June will reverberate down the generations. This is not a decision to be taken lightly; all our futures depend on it. Now is not the time for reckless risk-taking; it is time for cool, calculated consideration of the facts, the evidence and the expert opinion, and all point to the same conclusion: we are stronger, safer and better off inside a reformed European Union.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Can the hon. Gentleman explain why the trade of a number of countries that are neither a member of the EU nor have any special arrangements with it has grown considerably faster than our trade with the EU from inside it?
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Prosperity, not austerity, is what we want, and that will be so much easier to achieve when we cast off the shackles of the European Union. It is an institution renowned for its gross austerity and the damage it has done throughout great swathes of our continent, driving young people into unemployment, preventing school leavers from getting any job at all, and starving public services of cash. Those policies have done terrible damage in Greece and in parts of Italy, Spain and Portugal. It is good that we have some freedom to distance ourselves from those policies, and we will have even more freedom when we take back control of our money, taxes and budgets It was bizarre to wake up this morning to press comments that there would need to be a post-Brexit-vote Budget. I am going to wait to see what the British public really want in a vote that is still to be decided, but the Government seem to have conceded defeat by saying that they would launch an austerity Budget if the British people dare to vote for their freedom and democracy. There is absolutely no need to do that, and I reassure the British people that there would be absolutely no chance of them getting such a Budget through the House of Commons. There is no enthusiasm for it from the SNP or the Labour party, and after Brexit many Conservative MPs will vote for lower taxes and more public spending, because that is what we will be able to afford as a result of the Brexit bonus, or dividend, when we get back the £10 billion a year that we send to the EU and currently do not get back.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Mr Deputy Speaker, I know that you are very keen that I keep these remarks very short. This is an important case that does not get heard in the House, so for once I will not be able to take interventions The position is quite simple. Outside the European Union we will continue to trade fully with it, as we do today. We who want to leave the European Union are not proposing a wholesale removal of rules and regulations. One of the genuine benefits of the single market, as has been pointed out, is that there are common rules and regulations for trading with all countries. The great news is that we will get the benefit of that whether we are in or out. The Americans, who have grown their trade with the EU more quickly than we have done from within, get the benefit of that part of the single market because they have to supply only to one specification, just as we do from within. Many of the common rules and standards are informed by global ones, but we have been kicked off the global bodies by the European Union. Outside the European Union we would have the advantage of getting back our seat, vote and voice on the global bodies, so we would have more influence at the top table in return for no longer being part of the EU For prosperity not austerity, for control of our own taxes, for spending our own money, for providing growth by spending that extra money, and for trading freely with Europe without all the restrictions, controls and arguments, vote leave.
EU Membership: Economic Benefits — House of Commons, 2016-06-15
Topic: International Affairs
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): As usual, the right hon. Gentleman is off beam. He is completely incapable of getting anything on the European Union right. Decisions are taken in the Council of Ministers, as he well knows, largely behind closed doors by COREPER. Those decisions are not made in the manner he suggests.