argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): On that point, does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the Attorney General gave advice to the Government on the revocability of article 50 and has hidden that advice from this House, and that is why we have not had that disclosure?
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Of course I do. The whole point is that this House is entitled to the full legal advice. The Government are hiding behind this cloak of saying, "Oh, the national interest; oh, negotiations; oh, security." That has nothing to do with it What I am illustrating with these legal arguments is that there are alternative views that need to be fully discussed so that we can take the right decision on the withdrawal agreement in full knowledge of the facts. We have had a doctored version that is politically spun in the interests of the Government getting their objectives through. They are protecting themselves by saying, "Oh, there might be issues of national security, MI5, the public interest, etc." I have great support, I must say, for the Father of the House’s suggestion that if there were such problems with national security and so on, those parts could be redacted and we could see the full legal advice This motion focuses clearly on the legal advice provided by the Attorney General on the EU withdrawal agreement. Implicit in that, in my interpretation, is that we obviously do not need lots of details about MI5, national security, the negotiating position and so on. What we want to know is the legal position in respect of article 50 and of the illegalities during the advisory referendum that made it flawed, thereby undermining the power that the Prime Minister has under the EU (Withdrawal) Act based on the advisory referendum that we now find is flawed. None of this was brought before the House. Why? Either because the Attorney General and his colleagues are incompetent or because they are withholding that information.
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Yes, that is precisely right. What the House wants is the complete legal arguments on either side of the debate on the EU withdrawal agreement. These are difficult issues; we all accept that, and we are all grown up. They might say, "Well, there are all these things about national interest, negotiation and security," but people are not interested in that. We want the full facts. I have made some simple legal points that show the full debate has not occurred.
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Yes, I am sure we would all be interested in that if it were available, but the issue on the table is whether the Government are in contempt, and there is reason to believe they are in contempt, because a lot of the legal arguments are simply being taken out.
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend referred to the suggestion of the Father of the House. Does he recall that the last time a Humble Address was passed by the House, which instructed the Government to hand to the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union the exit analyses, I made it clear to the Government on behalf of the Committee that the Committee would take the decision about what was released? In the end, having read all the pages, we released 36 or 37 of them and held three back, because we accepted the argument made by the Government at the time, that those might not be in the national interest, given that negotiations were taking place. That is an example of the way in which a Committee of the House has been able to exercise that judgment on behalf of all Members.
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): In the debate that would transpire, I do not think that hon. Members would vote for such a motion. The hon. Gentleman asks me a hypothetical question, and we have been dealing with lots of hypotheticals. I have tried to search through history for a moment when the Government refused to abide by the will of the House when there was a Humble Address and I simply cannot find one. We should therefore deal with the actuality rather than the hypothetical. I say to Conservative Members that it is all very well when sitting on the Government Benches to say that the Government should have their way, but that does not normally serve the long-term interests of the nation, and in our current system, the Government have phenomenal power.
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): It would have been interesting if the Government had made that argument, but they did not. They made no argument—they allowed the motion to go through. If they had said in the meantime, for example, yesterday afternoon, "We will provide the document that you want. We’ll give it to the Chair of the Exiting the European Union Committee, which has a majority of Conservative Members, and it can decide what should be in the public domain", I think the House would have been content. That would have been a perfectly logical process to adopt, but the Government have not done that. Perhaps they will do it later today if they lose the motion—I do not know Let me consider the important substantive point. Can the House require the Law Officers to provide their legal advice to Parliament? It is important that Select Committees can require documents of all sorts of people outside Parliament, and it is difficult to enforce that if we cannot even require documents of Ministers. Yesterday, the Attorney General referred several times to "previous editions of ‘Erskine May’" to show that "the motion to return" is traditionally always "confined to documents of public and official character."—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 563.] That was his argument for saying that "Erskine May" did not really allow for Law Officers to provide anything that was sought by the House, even though the current 24th edition does exactly that. He suggested that the 22nd or the 23rd edition had changed the rule and that we should return to a previous version Perhaps the Attorney General was referring to the 10th edition of "Erskine May", which, as I am sure the hon. Member for North East Somerset knows, came out in 1893. In that, the traditional version of this doctrine, which I think the Attorney General meant, is laid out: "The opinions of the law officers of the Crown, given for the guidance of ministers, in any question of diplomacy or state policy, being included in the class of confidential documents, have generally been withheld from Parliament." I think that the Attorney General believes that that should still be the case, although that has been superseded. Unfortunately for the Attorney General, "Erskine May" goes on to say: "In 1858, however, this rule was, under peculiar and exceptional circumstances, departed from, and the opinions of the law officers of the Crown upon the case of the Cagliari, were laid before Parliament." I will not go into the instance—I know that hon. Members are saddened by that The point is that, when the House has required that the Law Officers provide the information, they have always done so. The Attorney General’s argument therefore does not stand.
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): It was required by the House. Indeed, it was required by the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The point about the 1893 version, which survived for a while, was that the information was provided "under peculiar and exceptional circumstances", but they were peculiar and exceptional in a remarkably similar way to the current case, because the information dealt with international treaties and the relationship between other countries in Europe The House must surely be able to require documents. Just as the Speaker is the servant of the House, so in the end, the Government have to bow the knee to Parliament. It is not good enough for the Government to say, "You’re all wrong; you’re benighted; you don’t understand the full implications. We, the Government, are the only people who have seen the whole truth and understand the security implications." If they want to find some other arbitration method through the processes of the House, such as a Select Committee, that is fine, but that is not what they have done In the end, we reach the simple point, which I do not think a single one of my constituents would understand: the Government look as if they are trying to keep something secret; the Law Officers want to say one thing in private, in Cabinet, and another in Parliament. That is not to accuse anybody of hypocrisy. It is simply to say that my constituents would not understand why the Government would want to keep the information secret. I say to Government Members: one day, you will sit on the Opposition Benches and if you vote against this being contempt and therefore against requiring the Government to produce the documents, that power will be gone forever.
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: Government Operations
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that what has upset Members on both sides is the fact that the Government several times now have ignored the will of the House? That has antagonised a lot of Members.
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): When I sued Rupert Murdoch for hacking my phone, the court required him, under the Norwich Pharmacal procedures, to provide all the documents. His team legally had to do so, because if they did not, they would be in contempt. That is an exact parallel of what is happening here.
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: Government Operations
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I have listened carefully to the debate, in which some very good points and some very bad points have been made. The Labour party is well aware of the two principles laid out by the Father of the House. The first is that only in exceptional circumstances will privilege be overridden, and the second is that orders of this House should be complied with; 13 November was about the first principle and the Government did not oppose the order, and today is about the second In drafting this motion, we have been careful to refer to Ministers rather than individuals to reflect some of the points that have been made in this debate. We have also been careful to ask for the remedy, which is that the order is complied with before we think of anything else, in fairness to the Government. The Father of the House said that there surely must be some way that this can be agreed and the order can be complied with, and lots of Members indicated that as well. In the three weeks since the debate about the first principle to today, the Government have put no suggestion to me of any sort of mechanism to enable them to comply with this order, and the House will make of that what it will. For that reason, I must push the motion to a vote Question put, That the amendment be made.
Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: Government Operations
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The House has now spoken, and this is of huge constitutional and political significance. It is, I think, unprecedented for the House to find Ministers in contempt. The motion makes it clear that the Government must now publish the Attorney General’s final legal advice in full. I hope that they will now confirm and comply with that order, but if they fail to respond, what steps can I and others take to ensure that they do comply with the motion and before the votes that we shall have next Tuesday?
Business of the House (European Union (Withdrawal) Act) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Valerie Carol Marian Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Leader of the House and acknowledge that she has been in the Chamber since lunchtime. I hope that she gets the chance to have a break I do not intend to detain the House long on this matter. The Opposition support the business of the House motion. We are glad that the Government have seen sense, and that the motion accepts that the House will deal with amendments in the usual way, before the main motion. We welcome the fact that the Government have accepted the recommendations of the Procedure Committee, and I would like to put on record our thanks for its report The Labour party will support the amendment in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and others. There is an important principle here. The Government are accountable to Parliament. At every stage in this process, the Government have sought to prevent Parliament from having a meaningful say on how this country approaches the withdrawal from the EU. The Prime Minister has sought to sideline Parliament. The amendment would simply ensure that Parliament would be given another meaningful say if the Government lose on Tuesday—no true democrat and parliamentarian could vote other than in favour. We support the motion.
Business of the House (European Union (Withdrawal) Act) — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): I will be very brief. First, I acknowledge that, in this business motion, the Government have listened to representations made by both the Exiting the European Union Committee and the Procedure Committee, although I gently say to the Leader of the House and other Ministers present that this whole process, unfortunately, has shown the Government’s marked reluctance to listen to the House, to trust the House and to share information with the House. I suspect that what the Government have sown, they will reap in the vote next Tuesday Secondly, I rise to support the amendment tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). As it bears more than a passing resemblance to amendment (c) that I have tabled to the motion on the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration, he is probably not surprised to hear me say that. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) talked of a lifeline, and it is essential that the House of Commons has the opportunity, if the deal is voted down next Tuesday, to give itself a voice and to express a view about what happens next. Amendment (d) to the Business of the House motion would, as we have just heard, remove the obstacle to that, and I hope the whole House will vote for it Amendment proposed: (d), at end add "(11) The provisions of Standing Order No. 24B (Amendments to motions to consider specified matters) shall not apply in respect of any motion tabled by a Minister of the Crown pursuant to any provision of section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018."—(Mr Grieve.) Question put, That the amendment be made.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): The Prime Minister spoke of security co-operation, yet when I asked the Home Secretary the other day whether we would be left more safe or less safe as a result of this deal, he could not answer the question, because he could not guarantee that we would have access to the crucial SIS II database that ensures that we have information on terrorists, paedophiles and other criminals trying to cross our border. That is the reality of the deal that she has put before us.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): My constituency was split pretty much down the middle during the referendum. May I explain the crux of the problem that the Prime Minister has next week? She set as the benchmark for security co-operation things being better than the relationship the EU has with other countries. My constituents who voted leave voted for a better future for our country, and my constituents who voted remain wanted to protect all the good that we have with the European Union. With the deal she has negotiated, she has brought those two groups together, but against her deal.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Centre-left): I absolutely agree with the Prime Minister that we need to start coming together as a country once this process is over, but does she agree that if she is so convinced that her deal and political agreement are what the British people voted for, she should have the confidence to go back and ask them to verify whether it is something they support?
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): I must intervene at this point. The Prime Minister claims that this political declaration is detailed and specific. If that is the case, why was the Treasury Select Committee told today that it was not even possible to produce an economic analysis of the document because it was not specific enough?
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Prime Minister for giving way—she is being very generous—but does she not understand that by over-claiming what is in the political declaration, she is undermining trust? She is asking for our trust in her, and in the UK, to determine what will happen in future, because so little is resolved. Not only on the spectrum on the economics, but also on the security issues, she is over-claiming. She suggested to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) that she had effectively secured agreement to SIS II, but she knows that she has not, because she tried to do so. Paragraph 87 of the political declaration does not refer to SIS II; it simply says that "the Parties" will "consider" the arrangements, and if we are lucky we will get something that will "approximate". That is not the same as SIS II, and the Prime Minister knows it. Will she be straight with the country and with Parliament about the political declaration?
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): This is a seminal debate in the history of this House and for the future of our country. I have been in the House since 1983, and this debate and the decision we will take next week is one of the most important we will ever take as Members of this House The deal before us would make our country worse off. Taken together with the withdrawal agreement and the future partnership, it represents a huge and damaging failure for Britain. The Prime Minister says this is a good deal, and is so confident of that that she attempted to refuse to publish the Government’s legal advice—she was forced to publish it by votes in this House today. However, the economic assessments and other assessments that we will see indicate that this is actually a bad deal. These documents are the product of two years of botched negotiations, in which the Government spent more time arguing with itself than it did in negotiating with the European Union. It is not only on Brexit where they have failed. The economy is weak, investment is poor, wage growth is weak, our public services are in crisis and local councils are collapsing because of this Government’s refusal to fund them properly. More people in this country are living in poverty, including half a million more children, since 2010. The Government should be ashamed of themselves for that. Poverty is rising, homelessness is rising and household debt is rising, too It is against that backdrop that the Government have produced this botched deal, which even breaches the Prime Minister’s own red lines. Across the House the deal has achieved something—it has united Conservative remainers, Conservative leavers and Members of every Opposition party in an extraordinary coalition against the deal.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It could have all been so different. Following the 2017 general election, the Prime Minister could have attempted to build a consensus, recognising the new arithmetic of Parliament, and sought a deal that brought people together. Instead, just like her predecessor, who called a referendum without preparing for the eventuality of a leave vote, the Prime Minister has seen these negotiations only as an exercise in the internal management of the Conservative party, and that did not work out very well at all. When the two previous Brexit Secretaries, who, theoretically at least, led the negotiations—well, they did theoretically—say that they cannot support the deal, how can she expect anyone else in this House or in this country to have faith in a deal that has been rejected by two of the people who were involved in the negotiation of it?
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): Mr Speaker, no deal is not a real option, and the Government know that, because they are not seriously prepared for it. Eleven out of the 12 critical infrastructure projects that would need to be in place by the end of March 2019 to manage a no-deal Brexit are at risk of not being completed on time, according to the National Audit Office.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I am quite happy to debate with the Prime Minister. I notice she was not very keen to debate with anybody during the general election, but we understand that The Government have been forced to publish their full legal advice, as voted for by this House. I hope and assume that that advice will be published tomorrow, because Members ought to be in possession of all the facts. In 2007, the Prime Minister then argued, and I absolutely agreed with her, that the full legal advice should have been made available before the Iraq war. Why did she push it right to wire here and lose two votes in the House in order to try and prevent the publication of the legal advice, which is so necessary to inform us in our debates This withdrawal agreement is a leap in the dark. It takes us no closer to understanding what the future of our country post Brexit would look like, and neither does the future partnership, which I will come on to. The Prime Minister states that the transition period ends in December 2020. Article 132 actually says it can be extended for up to two years, to 31 December 2022.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Rupa Asha Huq (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. He makes a very good point: Brexit is painted as dividing our nation, but it has actually united our party in opposition to the Prime Minister’s proposals. It has also united many Conservative Members against her proposals, including two former Brexit Secretaries, the former Foreign Secretary and two former science and higher education Ministers. I wanted to ask the Prime Minister who the new science and higher education Minister is, but she did not take my intervention. Perhaps batting for that sector is incompatible with her Brexit, and indeed any form of Brexit.