argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: Government Operations
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I am going to press on You will have seen today’s Order Paper, Mr Deputy Speaker. Coming from someone who thinks that we should catapult Parliament into 21st century, the wording of our motion is a little odd. The motion borrows widely from parliamentary procedure used to require Ministers to lay before the House or a Committee a specific document. "Erskine May" says the following: "Each House has the power to call for the production of papers by means of a motion...the power to send for papers by means of a motion for unopposed return extends to papers which are in the possession of Ministers or which Ministers have the authority to obtain." That procedure has widely been used for many decades—the Opposition Whips tell me it has been used for many centuries. If anyone doubts the procedure, they should see on page 3 of today’s Order Paper that the Home Secretary has used the same procedure in relation to a different report What is important about this procedure is that we believe this is a binding motion, and that makes it—we hope—impossible for the Government to pull their usual Wednesday afternoon trick of not voting on Opposition day motions or not taking any notice of them. That is why we have chosen the procedure that we have. But let me be clear: our motion does not require blanket publication without further consideration. Instead, it would require that the documents covered in the list should be provided to the Brexit Committee—or other Select Committees if the Government’s concern is that that is too limited and these things ought to go to all the Select Committees. We are very open to that discussion, but these documents should go to the Brexit Committee. Then it would be for that Committee—or any other Select Committee—to decide which documents should and should not be published. It would also fall to that Committee to decide in what form publication should occur Members may ask why we have chosen the Brexit Committee. We have done so because it is a cross-party Committee; it has a lot of expertise and support staff; and it has a Government majority, so the Opposition cannot be accused of being party political here. It is a trusted and responsible Committee.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: Government Operations
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I will give way in a minute. As I have said, we are open to hearing from the Government if they have alternative mechanisms or procedures to allow publication in an appropriate fashion. We are not wedded to the form we have put forward. We are wedded to challenging the blanket approach that the Government have taken.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: Government Operations
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): Because that is not necessary and this is an important motion, and because in recent weeks we have seen contempt for motions in this House—week after week on Opposition day motions—from a Government who are too weak to turn up or too weak to accept the outcome. Therefore we have chosen a procedure that is binding on this Government Only a weak Government push Parliament away and ignore the facts. It should not require an arcane parliamentary procedure to force the Government to release these documents, but after 10 months of trying that is what Parliament now has to do. The current impasse prevents Parliament doing its job, undermines accountability and is inconsistent with transparency. The Government should support the motion before the House today.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: Government Operations
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister confirm that the list of sectors was not published directly to the House in a ministerial statement, despite more than 120 MPs calling for its publication? Will he also confirm that Parliament’s votes in October and December last year, to which he referred, were on Opposition day motions?
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: International Affairs
Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister must accept that the impact of Brexit will not be uniform across the country, which is why the Chancellor acknowledged that the Government have not only carried out sectoral impact assessments but looked at regions. Will the Minister explain what information the Government will release about the impact on different regions of the UK, so that we can not only understand the impact of Brexit but prepare for it?
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Shaun Ruane (Labour, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman is a former Secretary of State for Wales, and I think that he sent £120 million back from Cardiff to London. Will he now support calls from the Opposition to ensure that Wales does not lose out on the money it is currently receiving from Brussels?
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: International Affairs
Heidi Alexander (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend, in his capacity as Chair of the Select Committee, asked what safeguards could be put in place to ensure that information that would be detrimental to the UK’s negotiating position is not released, and I wonder whether he could comment on that.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: Government Operations
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): It is not for me to argue the Government’s case, but if it were a bogus forecast I would be very surprised if the Government would have put it in an assessment they had drawn up—[Interruption] Please do not tempt me on this subject. This point raises the question of why, thus far, the Government have had a blanket policy of non-publication Having said all that, I welcome the spirit of what the Minister said today, even if I and—I venture to suggest—the House are not absolutely clear what was being offered when he helpfully said that the Government will not be opposing the motion. In that same spirit, I say to him, in conclusion, that if the Government comply with the motion, as they should if it is carried, and pass the information to us, I am sure the Select Committee—I hope the members who are here do not mind my saying this—would be very happy to discuss with Ministers how the material should be handled. We would be happy to discuss what can be published—to come back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander)—and where the Committee might share the Government’s view that there might be some difficulties if it were put into the public domain. I hope that that offer to the Minister is helpful as the Government give effect to the motion, if, indeed, it is carried by the House this evening.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): Does the right hon. Lady agree that her constituents and mine have the right to know the costs of a no-deal Brexit option? The Government are refusing to answer my parliamentary questions asking how much each Department is putting aside for Brexit contingency planning and planning for a no deal. Does she agree that that information should be in the public domain?
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: Government Operations
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Knowing the facts and figures behind the Government’s thinking in various sectors is even more important in the regions, where there can be an over-dependence on one industry Parliament should be hugged, not pushed away. The Government should be hugging us, because they need us. In some ways, the Government’s Front-Bench team needs us more than we need them. I would welcome another election; let us have one tomorrow. We have to work together on this, but we can work together only if Members do not feel frustrated and left in the dark.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: Government Operations
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with my hon. Friend and thank her for all her excellent forensic questioning in this area. It is sad, however, that she has had to spend hours and hours asking those questions when it is really our basic right as parliamentarians to have the information we need for this important treaty making. It is probably the most important constitutional question that we in this Parliament will have to grapple with. My worry is that we could be heading for a crash course, which relates to my intervention on the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) about there being an element of people not wanting to know the facts and figures. Those who have already made up their mind want to be positive, but perhaps they also want to ignore the facts. That is the opposite extreme, and opposites are unnecessary and probably bad in this regard.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: International Affairs
David Lindon Lammy (Labour, Centre-left): I am very grateful to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. I have always believed in the ability of our country to pool sovereignty with the European Union. I have listened to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) over many, many years trying to persuade me about the sovereignty of this Parliament. It is great to participate in a debate that is demonstrating the sovereignty of this Parliament I first started asking questions on this issue on 4 September, using that sovereignty and my role as an MP to raise these issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) made a freedom of information request, again using her ability as an elected Member to get to the truth. We now see my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) assert the sovereignty of this House by dragging the Government to the House to raise these issues. We have heard from Select Committee Chairs, an important institution in this House, that they could well consider this information. They understand that some of it may be redacted, but it all goes to the issue of a sovereign Parliament: we cannot argue for taking back control and then seek to thwart the will of this Parliament, its Select Committees and hon. Members, to get to the heart of the truth I want to see the impact assessments, because there are things in them that I expect to read. I expect to read that the health service is going to do a lot with the £350 million. I look forward to seeing it. I expect to read, as we heard during the referendum campaign, that we do not need to worry about a skills gap because there are lots of people in our country who are going to step into those roles. I look forward to seeing what the Department for Work and Pensions makes of the assessment on skills, along with its colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. I look forward to hearing what assessment has been made by the Home Office of whether, when we have limited free movement and we ask the Indians for a trade deal, they will ask whether they can have visas. For all those reasons, it is important to understand whether the arguments that have been put forward by many Conservative Members are actually made in those impact assessments However, the real reason this is important is the seriousness of this debate. As night follows day, it will mostly not be us in this Chamber who suffer or struggle as a consequence of any shift in our economy. It is people’s jobs and livelihoods and how they feed their children that matters, and for that reason, we must see those impact assessments. It is a crying shame that this process began because of parliamentary questions and freedom of information requests, and not because the Government felt able to be open.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Nathan Kinnock (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to urge Members on both sides of the House to support the motion. I do so for the simple reason that, without publication, it is impossible for this House to do its job, which is to hold the Government to account. We must have a full, frank and informed debate about what Brexit means, and particularly about what a no-deal Brexit would mean for our society, for our economy and for jobs, trade and living standards. The fact is that this House and the British people cannot have that debate without access to the key information We face a productivity crisis, a weakened pound, creeping inflation, higher input costs and the slowest GDP growth in Europe—all challenges that would be deeply and dramatically compounded by a no-deal Brexit. No deal would mean customs chaos. Adding just an extra two minutes to customs proceedings at Dover would mean a 17-mile queue from Dover almost back to Ashford. No deal would mean airlines were not sure whether their planes would be able to take off post Brexit. No deal would mean thousands of citizens and businesses left in limbo—maybe temporarily, maybe not—when it was realised that many of their products were no longer eligible for sale across the EU. So let us hope that the Government will now drop their dangerous and vacuous no-deal bluff. The Government contend that to maximise leverage in the negotiations we must make it clear that we are prepared for and willing to accept a no-deal scenario. Taking this logic at face value, surely, then, the more bullish we look and the better prepared we appear to be to manage the new tariffs and customs duties at Dover or at the airport, the greater our leverage would be If the impact assessments were positive, they would not only have been published—their findings would be screamed from the rooftops. That is why the failure to publish makes it crystal clear that the no-deal rhetoric is a bluff—a bluff that weakens us and undermines our credibility in the negotiations. It is yet another example of the Brexiteer tail wagging the Tory dog; yet another example of the national interest playing second fiddle to the internal factional interests of the Conservative party; and yet another example of putting party before country, where the Prime Minister has put the placation of her own Back Benchers ahead of the interests of our country. I ask right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House to put country first and to support this motion tonight.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: Macroeconomics
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) for securing this important debate, and I thank all hon. Members who have called for the publication of the sectoral impact assessments Our economy is on the brink of the biggest change for generations. Sharing these reports is an important part of how Parliament and the Government will plan together for the big change ahead to achieve the best deal for British businesses and families. It is unclear to me why the Government are determined to keep 29 million British workers and their parliamentary representatives in the dark about the impact Brexit may have on their jobs, careers and livelihoods. This is not just an Opposition issue; Chairs of Select Committees have supported publication, and over 180 MPs from across the parties have backed a letter written by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and me to the Secretary of State. This matters because the situation we face is potentially very serious. One sign is that the Bank of England believes up to 75,000 jobs could be lost in the financial services industry as a result of Brexit. Another is that in the year since the referendum, we have fallen from the top to the bottom of the G7 growth league table To have a proper debate about the impact of Brexit on our economy, jobs and living standards, we need to know to the fullest possible extent the effects it will have on every sector. This is not about leave or remain, but about putting country before party. It is not about taking sides, but about a nation planning together. It is about leadership, transparency, clarity and responsibility.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: International Affairs
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): I will come on in a moment to talk about the confusion that I believe is holding back common sense in this debate We are getting the sense that there has been a change of heart by the Government. I welcome that because supporting the motion is the right thing to do. I hope that before the reports are provided to Parliament the Ministers will read them first. I hope that we will also receive confirmation today of the time by which this will happen. The list of studies was published this week, four months after they were first promised, but with 17 months to do until Brexit day, time is of the essence In two years, the Secretary of State has gone from saying of FOI requests that "information is withheld from the public for no good reason other than to spare the blushes of the powerful" to saying now that the Government need a "safe space" for policy development to be conducted in private. In a year, he gone from saying: "We have more to gain than we have to lose, while the opposite is true for the EU" to telling the Lords EU Committee yesterday that Britain’s Brexit withdrawal agreement will "probably favour" the EU. The confusion at the heart of Government must not now get in the way of a nation planning together for the huge challenges to our economy that clearly lie ahead The Government interpreted Opposition day motions on 12 October and 7 December 2016 as binding. In the interests of the country, they should do so in relation to the motion that I am sure and confident the House will pass today.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: International Affairs
Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Centre-left): The Government’s position on this issue is hugely symbolic. Ministers’ unwillingness to furnish a Committee of this House with basic information is a symbol of a Government in trouble, seeking to avoid proper scrutiny and challenge by elected Members of this Parliament. The Government’s position on the motion is also symbolic of what is entirely wrong with this Government’s approach to Brexit, and how we find our country moving through this historic approach since the referendum Last year, as the Prime Minister came to power, she found herself leading a nation that was clearly divided on the subject. The Government should have been straining, and should be straining, every sinew to bring this country back together, but instead we have an unelected Prime Minister, determined to press ahead with a who-knows-what Brexit regardless of the consequences for different parts of the country and sectors of the economy. The Government are willing to do this with as little scrutiny as possible, with Ministers taking a "Whitehall knows best" approach to a process that will profoundly impact this country for decades to come. Instead of bringing the country back together, this total lack of transparency and engagement with people’s very real concerns is serving only to create further distrust and division Why is that important to the north-east? Well, we know that the Government have undertaken modelling of the impacts. It has been reported that the Department for Exiting the European Union has carried out analysis that concludes that the north-east of England and Scotland will be the region and country worst affected. It stands to reason, because 60% of our exports go to the EU and we rely on millions of pounds in agricultural, structural, social and university funding We were told loudly and clearly last year that leaving the EU was about taking back control and that voting to leave would ensure the primacy of this sovereign Parliament. Instead, we now have a minority Government determined to obfuscate at every stage, overriding parliamentary democracy at every opportunity. This must end today.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: International Affairs
Charalambos Charalambous (Labour, Centre-left): The 58 impact assessments that we know have been carried out on the instructions of the Government cover almost every imaginable area that will be affected by Brexit. Withdrawal from the European Union is arguably the most important decision that Parliament will take in over 40 years. It is only right and proper that parliamentarians should have the right to know what the impact will be on the different areas covered by the impact assessments Let me pick just a few areas covered by the impact assessments. On aviation, if I book a flight to Spain for 31 March 2019, will my flight be able to take off and land as it would now? What will happen to automatic flying rights if transitional arrangements are not agreed? On legal services, will lawyers be able to practise in other European countries that currently recognise their professional qualifications, or will they have to take exams or join the professional bodies of each country they wish to practise in? On higher education, will universities lose funding as a result of being unable to get students from EU countries to come over easily to study? Will universities stop attracting top academics from other EU countries? Will we struggle to get funding and collaboration on research projects? I could ask many more questions on the other areas covered by the impact assessments that the Government are refusing to release The Government say that they will not disclose the impact assessments because to do so would adversely affect their negotiations with the remaining EU countries. Do they honestly believe that the EU has not carried out its own assessments of what Brexit will mean for those 58 areas We, as Members of Parliament, have the right to be as well informed as possible about the effects of Brexit. The decisions that we take by 29 March 2019 will have a huge impact on a generation. We have a duty to make the best decision we can for our constituents, and that means being as well informed as possible. For those reasons, we must be given the impact assessments as soon as possible. We should not be kept in the dark by the Government. We have a fundamental right to know. The impact assessments must be disclosed to the appropriate Select Committees in full.
Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments — House of Commons, 2017-11-01
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Christopher Blomfield (Labour, Centre-left): I am pleased to wind up a debate on an issue that is fundamental to the way in which we approach the most important negotiations our country has faced arguably since the second world war I am pleased that strong voices have been raised on both sides of the House in support of our motion. We have heard some noise from the Conservative Benches seeking to defend the indefensible and say that no part of the documents should be published in any circumstances—doing so apparently in contradiction of the Conservative Front Bench.