argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Lisa Eva Nandy (Labour, Centre-left): I do not disagree with what my right hon. Friend said, but does he understand why those of us in seats that voted heavily to leave, and who stood on a manifesto in 2017 that said that we would respect the result of the referendum, feel very strongly that this Bill must be allowed to proceed to Committee so that we can engage in the detail and see whether it is possible to get a Brexit deal that protects our constituents? For many people back home in towns such as Wigan, this is an article of faith in the Labour party and in democracy, and those of us who are seeking to engage in the detail do so not because we will support a Tory Brexit—our votes at Third Reading are by no means secure—but because we want to see if we can improve the deal and keep people’s trust in our democracy.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I also thank her and other colleagues, some of whom represent seats that voted heavily to leave, for their engagement, for the discussions and for the constructive way in which all that has been approached. I do understand the concerns in those constituencies and communities. I know that she supports the principle of a customs union, which the Labour party placed in its manifesto and has restated since. My view is that we should vote against this Bill this evening for the reasons that I have set out. I understand her view that it is possible to amend it in Committee—that is always the process in Parliament—but my recommendation would be to vote against this Bill. However, I understand and respect the way in which she has approached this and the way in which she represents her community and her constituency. She will join me in being pretty alarmed at the stress that the manufacturing industry is under at the moment. If we do not have a customs union, manufacturing in this country will be seriously under threat.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
David Lindon Lammy (Labour, Centre-left): For many areas that rely heavily on manufacturing, the deal as it has been set out, which includes leaving the customs union and single market, inevitably means tariffs, which inevitably means less manufacturing and fewer jobs in those areas.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend’s constituency, which I know very well, was once a centre of manufacturing in Britain, but the Government of Margaret Thatcher put paid to that. He is right that, in the event of tariffs being introduced on manufactured goods and in the event of WTO conditions, the opportunities for sales in the European market, which are obviously huge at present, would be severely damaged. I ask colleagues to think carefully about what I see as the dangers behind the Prime Minister’s approach, because he does not offer a safety net—[Interruption.] There are so many people trying to intervene. Can I deal with one at a time, please? That would be kind. The Prime Minister does not offer a safety net—[Interruption.]
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Gloria De Piero (Labour, Centre-left): I am minded to vote in favour on Second Reading not because I support the deal but because I do not; I want to improve the deal so that it reflects the manifesto that I stood on and respects the referendum result, and so that we leave with a deal that protects jobs and trade. Does my right hon. Friend understand my motivation?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Having on several occasions spent time with her in her constituency, talking to people in her community and visiting factories and enterprises in the area, I fully understand both her concerns and their concerns. I commend her for her work in representing that area and the obvious friendship that exists between her and all the people she represents—she is a great MP. She wants to represent her constituency and her constituents’ concerns. I hope that she will understand why I believe this Bill should not be given a Second Reading, but I am sure she will agree with me that to bring this Bill for debate less than 17 hours after it was published is a totally unreasonable way of treating Parliament, and I hope she will join me in the Lobby this evening in opposing the programme motion It is no wonder that some Conservative Members are suddenly so keen to jump on board with this deal, because it opens the door to the no-deal exit that this House has voted against on numerous occasions.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I do not know what has happened to the hon. Gentleman’s maths, but so far three Members have intervened who have expressed disagreement with the Bill and want to get a better deal to get a customs union, which is hardly the position he adopts, so he should be careful of assuming that all my colleagues over here, who are desperate to represent hard-up communities that have been so disgracefully treated by this Government, are suddenly jumping on board with him. I have news for him: they are not It is plain and simple: this Bill is a charter for a Brexit that would be good for the hedge fund managers and speculators, but bad for the communities that we represent, our industries and people’s jobs and living standards. Industries from chemical processing to car manufacturing are all deeply worried about how the Bill will operate.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Labor
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): Parliament needs to do its job and that is what we should be given the chance to do; we should not be rushed into this 17 hours after the Bill’s publication. I would also say—I was a trade union organiser and official before I came into this House—you do not give up what you have won and gained; you protect what you have and try to get better in the future. The Bill undermines workers’ rights in our country and in our society, and those who vote this thing through in its present form will find that many of our current rights will be severely damaged.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
James McMahon (Labour, Centre-left): I was catching a breath—the Prime Minister wore me out; I was getting up and down so much earlier Opposition Members are genuinely agonising over the best way forward in reconciling constituencies that have very different views on Brexit, and I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the work he is doing to try to retain that coalition. Regardless of where people come from, surely it is important that we have the right information and the right risk assessment. Is it not wrong that the risk assessments are incomplete and that the Government’s own advisers have not even been able to rate their risk assessments because of the lack of time?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As a distinguished former leader of his local authority, he knows the importance of going through documents in detail and having a chance to take advice on the implications. Even with the greatest brains in the world—I am sure this House does contain the greatest brains in the world, there is no doubt about that—17 hours is not very long to deal with 40 clauses and 110 pages of legislation The Prime Minister is trying to blindside Parliament to force through this deal, and this Parliament must challenge him.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Marsha Chantol De Cordova (Labour, Centre-left): Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that, should it be passed, this Bill will open us up to a free trade agreement with the US that will have huge ramifications for our valued national health service and for the food we eat?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): Yes, it will. The only way forward for the Prime Minister would be to go on to WTO rules and then to seek a special trade deal with the United States. I do not know whether the Prime Minister has noticed, but Donald Trump adopts an "America first" policy. Donald Trump’s attitude towards trade is, to put it most generously, one sided towards the USA. There will be no equitable deal with the USA, and those companies in the USA that want to get control of our health service will come knocking on the door to take over our national health service This is a Bill of huge significance and complexity, and it will decide the future of our country, of our economy and of the economic model we follow. Accepting the programme motion will mean that all 40 clauses have to be considered and voted on within 48 hours, starting this evening. That would be an abuse of Parliament and a disgraceful attempt to dodge accountability, scrutiny and any kind of proper debate.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Government Operations
David George Hanson (Labour, Centre-left): Has my right hon. Friend noticed that clause 36(1) says "It is recognised that the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign" Yet the Prime Minister will not give this Parliament of the United Kingdom the chance to fully scrutinise his proposals.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend makes a strong case that Parliament should have the opportunity to properly scrutinise what the Executive want to do. I do not think the Prime Minister has really taken that into account in his botched and speedy procedure and in his obsession with getting all this stuff through in a few days What the officials once said would take four weeks to properly scrutinise is now being done in one day. Colleagues on both sides of the House should simply ask themselves why. So much for Parliament taking back control. Parliament is being treated as an inconvenience that can be bypassed by this Government There is a crucial element to this. When we in this House deal with major issues for the country, we need the information and we need—
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): If hon. Members hang on a second, I will deal with this. No economic impact assessment whatsoever has been made or presented to this House. At the very least, this House should have that assessment and that expert advice in order to scrutinise the Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer does not seem to think it is relevant that this Bill and their deal need that kind of scrutiny—even more so in the light of today’s dire public finance figures.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anna Catherine Turley (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that there has been no economic impact assessment of the Bill, so many of us have to rely on the impact assessment of the previous Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement, which showed a detrimental impact on the north-east to the degree of 7% of our GDP. How can that be justified to our industry and manufacturing in the north-east, which are already so far behind the rest of the country?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): Indeed. My hon. Friend represents a constituency that has suffered grievously from the Tory Government’s industrial non-strategy. SSI Redcar was closed down, and there are huge issues for manufacturing investment across her region and across her constituency. This House knows full well—and if Conservative Members cared to listen, they would know full well—that this proposal will damage manufacturing industry and, therefore, jobs, particularly in the north-east, which is the only part of the country with a manufacturing surplus on trade with Europe and the rest of the world.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Centre-left): The Prime Minister shakes his head, but every single Member represents people who voted leave and people who voted remain. Nobody voted for a wing-and-a-prayer, cake-and-eat-it, blindfold Brexit with no economic impact assessment of the biggest transformation of our economy in peacetime history Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a completely unacceptable way to bring forward this legislation? It is not fair on this House, and it is not fair on the people who will lose their jobs as a result.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I commend my hon. Friend for what she says and the way she says it. We all represent people who voted in different directions in the referendum, or who did not vote at all. We all have to represent them but, in making these decisions, we have to ask ourselves this question: if this deal is good for our country, why have the Government not produced a single scrap of evidence showing that?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I am sure she and the whole House would agree that the Good Friday agreement was an historic step forward that has brought relative peace to Northern Ireland. My concern is that this Bill creates a customs frontier between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK—the Prime Minister told the DUP conference that that is something he would not do—and requires the certification of goods before they can be sent from Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK, and it therefore creates a different trading relationship Although there might not be an aspiration at the moment to put any physical customs points on the road borders between Northern Ireland and the Republic, I gently say that the direction of travel is not a good one. The hon. Lady knows as well as I do that, as soon as we start doing that, we will end up seriously undermining the historic achievements of the Good Friday agreement.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I also recall that I strongly supported the social chapter in order to try to bring social justice across Europe, and I just remind the right hon. Gentleman of his historic achievement of bringing in universal credit and all the damage that has done to so many people in this country The only economic evidence we can go on is the economic assessment carried out under the previous Prime Minister, and that was clear.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Janet Jessica Daby (Labour, Centre-left): Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should not vote for anything that could make our country poorer, and this Brexit deal would do exactly that? Does he also agree that the previous referendum should have been regarded as illegal due to the overspend by the Prime Minister? The only way forward is a people’s vote.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): People voted in different ways in the referendum in 2016—that is obvious—but nobody voted to lose their jobs, or to find that their regulations and living conditions had been damaged. The function of Parliament is to hold the Government to account and scrutinise this agreement. A bare bones free trade agreement, which is what the Prime Minister is promising, would dramatically hit our country’s GDP, and would disproportionately hit the poorest regions and make everybody in this country worse off. It would also lock in the existing privatisation of our national health service, and nothing in this Bill protects our health service or public services from future trade deals.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I have given way a great deal, as I am sure all Members would agree. I am going to make some progress and then give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) On jobs and manufacturing, this deal will reduce access to the market of our biggest trade partner and leave our manufacturers without a customs union. As we have heard in many interventions, Members have heard desperate pleas from businesses in their constituencies all saying that they need frictionless supply chains. So I ask all Members to do the right thing: let us work together to make sure that a comprehensive customs union is hard-wired into our future relationship with the EU.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Labor
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I will give way to my hon. Friend, with his quiet demeanour, but let me just say, on workers’ rights, that by removing any level playing field provision the Government are asking us to give them a blank cheque on rights at work.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Peter John Kyle (Labour, Centre-left): Over the past couple of years Members from across the House have asked many, many questions about the customs relationship between the EU and the UK post-Brexit, but nobody thought to ask whether customs arrangements within their own country would be affected. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister should have, at that Dispatch Box, apologised to the businesses in Britain that trade within Britain and are now going to have start filling out forms that they would never have had to fill out before?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): One reason why we need greater scrutiny is that as a result of the Bill, the relationships in Northern Ireland fundamentally change the decision-making processes. The stakes are so high and the risk is evident for us all to see. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need proper scrutiny and more time to consider the Bill, for the sake of peace?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Labor
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): Indeed, the Northern Ireland peace process—the Good Friday agreement—is one of the most significant things that this House has ever done. We should understand the threat that the Bill brings I was speaking about workers’ rights, on which the Government want us to trust them. The provisions in the Bill will mean that the Government merely have to inform the House if they propose to diverge from EU standards. Am I correct in understanding that no notification, let alone a vote, would be required if the measure is currently contained in secondary legislation? The provisions fall way, way short of those in the Workers’ Rights (Maintenance of EU Standards) Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), and the TUC concluded: "The deal itself does not meet the TUC’s tests that any brexit outcome must protect jobs, rights, and peace in Northern Ireland. By moving away from a close economic relationship with the EU, the deal would be a disaster for working people’s jobs and livelihoods. The deal would not require"—[Interruption.] I am surprised that Government Members do not want to hear what the TUC says about the deal. The TUC continued: "The deal would not require government to maintain existing rights, would not require rights to keep pace with those across the EU, and would leave workers with a significantly reduced ability to enforce the rights they do have." The TUC concluded by saying: "It would do nothing to improve employment rights in the UK, now or in future." The Government talk about maintaining world-class environmental standards, but actions speak louder than words, so can I ask the Prime Minister—
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Environment
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I am not giving way for a while Why has the Prime Minister, instead of entrenching non-regression environmental standards into the Bill and the deal, taken out the level playing field commitments? I always say, Mr Speaker, that on all these issues you do not have to take my word for it; manufacturers and industry are deeply concerned about this deal. Environmental campaigning groups and green groups are deeply concerned. I challenge the Prime Minister to name a single trade union in this country that backs this deal. He knows that he cannot, and they have made their views very clear through the TUC.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): The Prime Minister and I agree on very little, but we both give way a great deal. I am not going to give way for the moment Clause 30 makes it worryingly clear that if no trade deal with the EU is agreed by the very ambitious date of December next year, Ministers can just decide to crash the UK out on World Trade Organisation terms. That is not getting Brexit done; it is merely pushing back the serious threat of no deal to a later date. Let us be clear: as things stand the Bill spells out the deeply damaging deal that the Prime Minister has negotiated—and he knows it, which is why he is trying to push it through without scrutiny. Labour will seek more time to scrutinise. We will seek a clear commitment on a customs union, a strong single market relationship, a hard-wired commitment on workers’ rights, non-regression on environmental standards and the closure of loopholes to avoid the threat of a no-deal Brexit once and for all Lastly, the Prime Minister’s deal should go back to the people; we should give them, not just Members of this House, the final say. They always say that the devil is in the detail; I have seen some of the detail and it confirms everything we thought about this rotten deal. It is a charter for deregulation across the board, paving the way for a Trump-style trade deal that will—[Hon. Members: "Oh!"] Government Members do not like hearing this bit, so I will say it again: it will pave the way for a Trump-style trade deal that will attack jobs, rights and protections and open up our precious national health service and all the history and principles behind it, and other public services, to even more privatisation. That is exactly what the Prime Minister set out in his letter to the President of the EU Commission, when he said that alignment with EU standards "is not the goal of the current UK Government." There we have it in his own words. That is a vision for the future of our country that my party, the Labour party, cannot sign up to and does not support. That is why we will be voting against Second Reading tonight and, if that vote is carried, we will vote against the programme motion, to ensure that this elected House of Commons has the opportunity to properly scrutinise this piece of legislation.