argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-06
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. I have heard that pretty insubstantial information has been provided, particularly on the numbers I was concerned to note that the UK Government have made a call for evidence on trade remedies. They want information from companies, organisations and sectors about which trade remedies are important to their sector. The UK Government do not know which remedies are important, because they have not done the work. They do not have a good enough understanding of the sectoral impact of Brexit I shall highlight a few things in relation to that. The Bank of England recently asked what would happen to cross-border derivative contracts and insurance policies after Brexit. The UK Government have not answered the question. I asked them what would happen to rules of origin and what would happen to companies that, for example, made cars in the UK. What would happen to free trade arrangements that call for cars to have 55% or 60% UK content? Currently, it is EU content, but in the event of Brexit we would seek 55% or 60% UK content. Our cars do not have that much UK content, so I asked the UK Government for their position on rules of origin and what they were doing about that. Basically, the answer was "We don’t really know." There has been a complete lack of understanding. An awful lot of companies and organisations are going to the Government and saying, "This is our problem. You need to fix it—and you can do it this way." Most of them have come up with solutions and have suggested ways to fix things. Insurance organisations, for example, have a huge problem. If they sell insurance to someone in an EU country, after exit date they will no longer be able to collect premiums or pay out in the event that someone makes a claim, and they will not be allowed to write to those people to tell them that they cannot do those things, because that is how the rules work The UK Government could attempt to give certainty now on a number of such issues, including customs. The economic impacts of this are unbelievable, and the regulatory impacts are baffling even the Government. The impacts are going to be too big for anyone to comprehend. Most of the stuff that we will look at in future, according to how the Bill is drawn up, will be dealt with in SI Committees. It is totally inadequate to discuss incredibly important regulatory regimes, levies and taxes in such Committees. That is not how the Government should proceed. They should change their mind on that and look at the amendments that have been tabled, particularly by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie). The SNP is willing to endorse them, and we thank him for introducing them.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-06
Topic: International Affairs
Carol Frances Monaghan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): We have discussed the Irish border an awful lot this week. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one obvious solution to the Irish border situation is for the whole UK to remain in the single market and customs union?
Race Disparity Audit — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
David Melvyn Linden (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the First Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. None of this comes as a surprise to any of us. A lot of work has been done over the years, including by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). Although we would welcome any new, user-friendly website, it really should not have been the centrepiece of today’s statement. I very much hope that the Government will be able to take effective and robust action. Given that Departments are carrying out their own pilots in the reviews, it is important that we have a holistic, multifaceted and co-ordinated response. Therefore, when will the Government come to the Chamber with a statement setting out how Departments will go forward with a joint solution for this problem?
Bombardier — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Joseph McNally (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement The Scottish National party regrets the preliminary ruling by the US Department of Commerce that could put these highly skilled jobs at risk in Northern Ireland, and we sincerely hope that the UK Government are doing all that they possibly can to engage with Bombardier and the trade unions to ensure that the future of all employees is as secure as possible These rulings clearly show that no one will be spared Trump’s protectionist agenda of "America first", with jobs in the UK and Canada—some of the US’s closest allies—being put at risk as a result of the punitive tariffs being imposed on Bombardier I am afraid that the Tory Government have been cosying up to Trump with the false illusion—or delusion—that this will help them sign a trade deal with the US after Brexit, without realising that Trump’s Administration will not give in to any demands that may give a competitive edge to the UK over the US Leaving the EU means that we will lose leverage in trade negotiations as we will no longer be part of the world’s largest single market of some 500 million people, and we will lose the expertise that the EU has built up over the past 40 years negotiating on our behalf Does the Secretary of State not agree that the best way to promote trade and to create jobs across the UK is by maintaining our membership of the single market and the customs union?
Bombardier — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I welcome the Secretary of State’s condemnation. What has happened is condemned not just in Northern Ireland, but across these islands, including by the Irish Government, as the Secretary of State said. I hope Bombardier will accept my invitation, as Chair of the International Trade Committee, to help combat this. However, on the wider issue—the World Trade Organisation aspects—is it not concerning that disputes outside the EU, which might be a WTO issue, and where the efficient European Court of Justice will not, and cannot be, used in a post-Brexit situation, the UK may see itself picked off by friend and foe all the more frequently in the future? Surely it has to be a concern to the Secretary of State that interactions with more states will be at WTO level by definition if the UK has changed status.
Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Here we go again: another return to Parliament and another attempt by the Government to play fast and loose with the democratic arrangements of the House. This is clearly becoming a pattern, and the nation is starting to get really concerned and anxious about their casual disregard of many parliamentary conventions and scrutiny. First, we had the horror of the grotesque Henry VIII powers in the repeal Bill. Then we had the Government fixing the Standing Committees of the House so that they could have a majority in each and every single one of them. Now we have all this nonsense about Opposition day debates and what the Government will or will not do in response to them. I think that I have identified the problem with this particular Government: they cannot accept their status as a minority Government. That is the basis of what we have here. They seem to be doing everything possible to try to deny that new reality, but the harder that they do that, the worse it gets for our democratic proceedings and parliamentary structures The Government have 317 Members out of a total of 650 Members—48.7% of the membership of the House. They are clearly a minority Government. Instead of fighting that reality, why do they not simply embrace it and accept it, then we can all get on with our business normally, with a minority Government trying to govern in this country?
Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am really grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning that point. I was going to come on to that, because it is really important to understand how minority Governments respond to defeats in Parliament. The right thing to do is what the Scottish Government do, which is to review, reflect and consult. Let me cite one issue as an example. We were defeated on fracking. What did we do? We did not attempt to ignore that vote. We consulted, reviewed and came back to Parliament with a ban on fracking. That is the responsible behaviour of a minority Government. I will take no lecture from the hon. Gentleman whose party’s commitment to democratic decisions extends to the hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) not even voting in the European Union referendum There are certain things that a party has to learn when it is in a minority situation in Parliament. The first lesson is that, sometimes, Governments get beat. They get beat here and they get beat in the Scottish Parliament. That is a feature of minority Government and it is alright—it happens. It happens normally in Parliaments right across Europe. This Government should not overly fret about it. They paid £1.25 billion to the Democratic Unionist party to ensure that they had a majority in the event of a threat to their existence. This House must also recognise how we can represent and reflect the democratic will of the people of this country. Sometimes I enjoy being lectured by Conservative Back Benchers about parliamentary sovereignty.
Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): What would we have done without the contribution from the right hon. Gentleman? He does what he wants, as he always has done, and he should make sure he always does that in the future I got a bit sidetracked there with the very interesting intervention from the right hon. Gentleman, but I want to come back to this notion of parliamentary sovereignty, which is something my friends on the Conservative Back Benches hold dear. It is about expressing the will of the people in this House. Parliamentary sovereignty is the be-all and end-all—Conservative Members are even committing this great indulgence of economic, cultural and political self-harm by leaving the European Union so they can have more parliamentary sovereignty. They should start to demonstrate their commitment to it by recognising that this is a minority Parliament. We are here to serve all the people of the country, and we have to have arrangements to make sure we properly reflect that The Government seem to see not being defeated as some sort of virility symbol, as if being defeated shatters their delusion that they somehow have a majority. When it comes to these issues, the Government will have to stop behaving so arrogantly; they will have to accept their minority status and act with a bit of humility. They went to the people a few short months ago to ask for a mandate and for an increase in their majority; that is what it was all about—they wanted to take advantage of what they saw as the situation in the Labour party. What happened? They came back as a minority—they lost their majority—so maybe responding with a little less arrogance and a little more humility would do them some good The second principle of minority Government is that you sometimes have to work harder to get your way. That, again, is what happens in other Parliaments, but we have seen no example of it from the Leader of the House today. There is no point the Government trying to bludgeon their will through in Parliament, as they are currently doing; it is much better to negotiate and make deals to ensure they get solutions. I thought that that was what we were going to get. I will not break the confidence of the Leader of the House by talking about my meetings with her, except to say that when I had my first conversation with her, I was encouraged by what she had to say about her approach to Parliament. She talked about a basis of consensus—trying to get agreement and progress legislation and motions through Parliament on the basis of agreement—but all that seems to have gone. I wish we had the earlier Leader of the House instead of the one who is standing here now.
Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I will move on to Opposition day debates, because I know that is the intended topic of the debate. I do not really understand the Government’s position. Opposition days are a real feature of Parliament. I have been in the House for 16 years and I have always enjoyed Opposition day debates. There is always a bit of tension and there are always good speeches, and they tackle subjects that Governments would not normally bring to the House because they might just get embarrassed —subjects with which they might be uncomfortable. They play an important function in the House, and it is really important that we do not lose sight of their role. The most important thing about Opposition day debates is that they have a conclusion: some sort of decision on the motion is taken by the House. The day that the Government play fast and loose with that arrangement is the day that we really devalue Opposition day debates. We have Backbench Business debates and Adjournment debates. We do not need glorified Adjournment debates; we need real debates that hold the Government to account, and on which we can make a decision and then move on, respecting that decision We accept that the votes in question are not binding on the Government. The Scottish National party are a minority Government in Scotland and we know exactly how these things happen: we will get beat, and this Government will get beat. The key thing is that nobody expects them to change their policy or direction on certain issues just because they get beat on a Labour party Opposition day motion—that is the last thing people expect. Nevertheless, the votes on such motions reflect the will of the House, so people expect the Government to respond in a particularly positive way. They should not try to avoid votes or dismiss debates; they should respond and say something. They should go back and consult, review their position and come back to the House with a new set of recommendations. That is what I think the people we represent want from Parliament and from the Government.
Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I think we have heard enough from the right hon. Gentleman. He took up about 25 minutes of the available time so I shall move on, if he does not mind We on the SNP Benches have a little experience of minority government: we are in our second parliamentary session as a minority Government. We had a minority Government with just two Members more than the second party, and now we are just two short of a majority. In each case we have tended to try to function as a minority Government, respecting the view that we do not have a majority and trying to work in consensus and partnership with other parties. The exercise we are doing around the budget is an example of how things can be done in a minority Parliament I mentioned fracking: it is important that we come back to the Scottish Parliament on that with another view. On other issues on which we are defeated, we will consult further and try to address the concerns. That is how we govern as a minority Government. I am happy to talk things through with the Leader of the House to help her to understand better. If she wants to come to the SNP, we can give her some lessons about running a minority Government. If she is having difficulty with it, which it seems she is, she can come and have a chat with us. I will not break the confidence of our meeting, as she did to me at the most recent business questions. She can come and have a chat and perhaps we can talk through some of the issues.
Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): She is not. That is good, and that is what we expected. All we needed to hear in this whole debate was the Leader of the House say to us, "Well, you know, we did that the first day because we thought we were playing a political game, but we’ll come back and we’ll vote on Opposition day motions." We will get Opposition days; I would like to think that the Government would come along and vote on them We really have to start to get on top of all this. This has been a particularly bad start to the Parliament. I listened to the Leader of the House talking about all the things she did to put in place Select Committees earlier than usual. What utter, utter bunkum. Now that we are back for this long period in Parliament, with sittings right up to Christmas, let us start to show that we respect the political arrangements in the House—the structures and the way we have done things traditionally—and that we can still approach these issues collegiately and consensually, if we can The Government also have to get it into their head that they are a minority Government. We have seen no evidence of that yet. As we go through this Session, a little more of a demonstration of where the Government are just now would be useful and good. I hope that we do not have to have any more of these debates. I have been taking part in such debates almost every week for the past few months, and this is something we need to get over. We need to see the Government respecting their position and respecting the traditions of this House.
European Union (Approvals) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Foreign Trade
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way and for reminding us that as well as the co-operation with Canada, subject to this proposed Act, a much more significant and detailed co-operation agreement was finalised not so long ago. He will be aware that while the Bill has been offered a potential six hours debating time on the Floor of the House, the CETA deal was agreed without a single minute’s debate on the Floor of the House. Does he believe that that allowed the House to properly influence such an important trade deal?
European Union (Approvals) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am happy to speak in support of the Bill. As I mentioned in my intervention, it seems ironic that something that appears to attract little opposition and not even a great deal of concern across the House could, if necessary, be granted a total of six hours of debate—tonight’s allocation and what we had on Second Reading—on the Floor of the House, yet massively important and much more contentious EU legislation, such as the CETA deal, is guaranteed no time whatever on the Floor of the House. The Government were eventually dragged kicking and screaming into an upstairs Committee room for an hour and a half after the CETA deal had been signed off but before it was finally ratified. That was after months, if not years, of determined efforts by the European Scrutiny Committee, whose scrutiny process was ignored and overridden by the Government on that and on so many other matters. I will come back in a moment to explain why that is so vital, but it seems ironic that something relatively non-contentious requires an Act of Parliament before the Minister can sign it when Ministers from all parties have quite happily signed much more contentious EU documents in the past without any appropriate reference back to this House I want first to speak about the applications from Albania and Serbia. We should enthusiastically welcome the movements in those two countries. I am one of a fairly small number in here who can remember the days when Albania was like the North Korea of Europe. Even before the fall of the iron curtain, even when the Stasi were in charge in East Germany and even when the Ceausescu regime was in charge in Romania, Albania was seen to be the most isolationist place of all. We should welcome the fact that it now wants to move closer to the more modern family of European nations. And look at where Serbia has come from in the past 20 or 25 years; we should enthusiastically welcome the fact that it is now asking to be allowed to co-operate much more closely in the protection of human rights and the eradication of racism and xenophobia. We should encourage the Serbian people and Government to continue on that journey.
European Union (Approvals) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Foreign Trade
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I will not rise to some of the nonsense the hon. Gentleman is speaking. Will he confirm whether he is familiar with the resolution of the House requiring Ministers to get either clearance or an agreement to waive scrutiny from the European Scrutiny Committee, and will he confirm that when the International Trade Secretary—I think it was him, but I cannot be sure—signed CETA, he did so knowing he did not have the Committee’s approval? The resolution does not say it has to be discussed at a Backbench Business debate or by an APPG; it quite clearly says it has to be cleared by the Committee, but it was not at that time—
Leaving the EU: UK Legal Systems — House of Commons, 2017-09-14
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: What assessment he has made of the potential effect of the UK leaving the EU on the functioning of the different national legal systems in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
Martyn Day (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The president of the Law Society of Scotland has said that there needs to be a "whole of governance" approach to the UK withdrawal from the EU that takes into account the devolved Administrations. Does the Solicitor General agree with that statement?
General Election Campaign: Abuse and Intimidation — House of Commons, 2017-09-14
Topic: Government Operations
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I fully support the point that the hon. Lady is making. One of my colleagues found it quite frustrating that although they, as a parliamentary candidate, were able to exempt their address from publication, their partner, who happens to be a local government councillor, had to publish their address—thereby negating the whole point.
Yemen — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: International Affairs
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Foreign Secretary met a range of international partners yesterday. Unfortunately, the communiqué from that meeting seemed to talk a lot more about weapons than about getting aid and commercial goods into Yemen. Will the Secretary of State tell me a bit more about what the UK Government are doing to get aid and commercial goods into the country? Aid agencies know that the country needs not just aid but commercial goods. Each day, 130 children are dying in Yemen. We cannot wait any longer.