argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not give way now, because I have been on my feet for 22 minutes, and there are, I think, 53 amendments and new clauses to deal with. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman a little later I turn to the long series of amendments that are designed, in one way or another, to oblige the Government to publish reports or assessments on specific areas or issues, some in advance of exit day. They are new clauses 31 to 33, 40 to 44, 46, 47, 71, 72, 82, 84 and 85, and amendments 85, 86 and 219 to 221. It is in no one’s interest for the Government to provide a running commentary on the wide range of analysis that they are doing until it is ready to support the parliamentary process in the established way. All the amendments and new clauses I have mentioned share one common flaw. Ministers have a specific responsibility, which Parliament has endorsed, not to release information that would expose our negotiating position. The amendments and new clauses risk doing precisely that. I commend the excellent speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who is in his place. I thought that his speech was an interesting reflection of his own experience The risks and difficulties are easily illustrated by looking at some of the specific reports that are called for. New clause 42 asks for a report on severance payments for employees of EU agencies, but that is not a matter for the UK Government. The right to severance pay is a matter for the EU agencies, although we hope and expect that they would honour any relevant commitments to their employees New clause 48 calls for a strategy for the certification of UK and EU medical devices by UK bodies so that the UK can maintain a close co-operative relationship with the EU in the field of medicines regulation. That is of course our aim: we intend such a strategy to form a key part of our deep and special future partnership with the EU New clause 71, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), seeks to require a Minister to report before exit day on the Government’s progress in negotiating mutual market access for financial and professional services. I understand his motivations in wanting this information to be published. We are working to reach an agreement on the final deal in good time before we leave the EU in March 2019.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Foreign Trade
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to complete my argument, for the benefit of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, who tabled this new clause We are seeking an economic partnership that will be both comprehensive and ambitious. It should be of greater scope and ambition than any previous agreement so that it covers sectors crucial to our linked economies, such as financial and professional services. We are confident that the UK and the EU can reach a positive deal on our future partnership as this will to be to the mutual benefit of both the UK and the EU. We will approach the negotiations in this constructive spirit I want to provide reassurance to my hon. Friend on his new clause 72, which seeks to ensure that any ministerial power to charge fees in respect of inspections of imported food and animal feed is exercised in a way that ensures full cost recovery for public authorities.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Agriculture
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): Before I give way to my right hon. Friend, I want to respond on the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst I would like to persuade my hon. Friend that his new clause 72 is not necessary. First, there is already sufficient statutory provision to ensure that the cost of mandatory veterinary checks on food and animal feed, on their importation, are fully recoverable. The arrangements for setting inspection fees for imported food and animal feed vary according to the type of inspection. All imports of products of animal origin must be inspected by a port health authority at a border inspection post. For high-risk products not of animal origin, these checks are carried out by a port health authority at a designated point of entry. Broadly speaking, these checks must be satisfactorily completed before a consignment is released for free circulation EC regulation No. 882/2004 on official controls, together with supporting domestic legislation—for England, it takes the form of the Official Feed and Food Controls (England) Regulations 2009—provides the legal basis for charges in respect of these inspections. The Bill will convert that EC regulation into UK legislation. The nature of the charges that the port health authority can make depends on a number of factors, including the nature of the food or animal feed being imported and its point of origin.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Agriculture
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the Minister for going into such detail on the basis for charging. May I mention that the other purpose behind new clause 72, which is a probing amendment, is to remind the Government of the importance of seeking in our negotiating objectives—no more and no less than that—a continued form of mutual recognition, if at all possible, for checks on food and feed?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I will make the argument on this point. We maintain that it is absolutely right and necessary for existing domestic powers granted by Parliament in other Acts to be able to operate on retained direct EU legislation, which will become domestic law. Fettering these powers would prevent important and necessary updates being made to our law, where that is within the scope and limitations of the powers and Parliament’s will. Similarly, it is important that future delegated powers created after exit day should be able to modify retained direct EU legislation, so far as applicable. This provides important clarity on the status of retained EU law and how it will interact with these powers. Further, where it is appropriate to do so, future powers can of course still be prohibited from amending retained direct EU legislation.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): Of the three points the Minister has made, the latter is without doubt the one that has the greatest force. It is worth bearing in mind that it highlights the fact of the supremacy of EU law, which is being preserved for the purposes of retained EU law. That, if I may say so, is a good reason why he should listen carefully to what I said about people being able to invoke general principles of EU law in order to challenge its operation. All these matters are interconnected.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Government Operations
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I am most grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. I know he is going to take this matter up further with my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General. I did actually just make two points, but perhaps I structured them ambiguously The third point is that in the event of a strike-down there would be no existing power under which fresh regulations could be brought forward, so it would be necessary to bring forward a fresh Act of Parliament or to rely on the remedial order-making power within the HRA itself. I should say that the remedial order-making power within the HRA was not designed to be the default means by which incompatible legislation is remedied or to deal with the policy changes that could be required The remedial order-making power may only be used if there are compelling reasons for doing so and it is targeted at removing the identified incompatibility. If wider policy change were needed following a finding of incompatibility, a fresh Act of Parliament would be the only means of doing that and we could be left with damaging holes in the statute book unless and until such an Act was passed. That is why the Government concluded that converted EU law should have the status of primary legislation in relation to the HRA, and that is why the Government will not be able to accept the two amendments.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): I wish to pick up on the important point raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). For the avoidance of doubt, will the Minister clarify that it is not the Government’s intention to set up retained EU law in UK statute in a manner that would encourage a UK court to strike down another primary statute? If that is the intention, may I suggest it might be something the Government will have to look at?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General has just confirmed to me that we do not want that to happen. I am sure that that will be given further consideration, along with the issue of general principles that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield has raised.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Government Operations
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Will the Minister confirm that Parliament is going to have its way? We will have a vote on any agreement, and it will then need primary legislation—the most intense scrutiny of all—to put it through. That, surely, is a major win for those who wanted that approach. I am quite happy with that. That is what amendment 7 leaves us with. Will he confirm that there will be full parliamentary scrutiny, debate and legislation on an agreement?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I will confirm that of course there will be full parliamentary scrutiny. One of the things that is bringing me great joy, particularly at Christmas, is the extent of parliamentary unity on this point of parliamentary sovereignty. One reason so many of us campaigned to leave the EU is that we wanted our voters to have a choice over who governed the UK in as many matters as conceivable I do not wish to revisit the arguments around amendment 7. I wish rather to conclude my consideration of the issue before us.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not going to let the hon. Gentleman come in on this point, which we have dealt with I emphasise again that our approach does not immunise converted law from HRA challenges. If an incompatibility were to be found, it places the matter in the hands of Parliament to resolve, without creating a legal vacuum in the interim. This approach strikes the right balance and recognises that supremacy of Parliament. I know that my right hon. and learned Friend has wider concerns regarding the rights of challenge after exit, including, in particular, where these are based on the general principles of EU law. I am happy to repeat the commitment made by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General earlier that we are willing to look again at the technical detail of how certain legal challenges based on the general principles of EU law might work after exit. We will bring forward amendments on Report to address this, and we are happy to continue to discuss these concerns with him.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the Minister for that assurance, particularly in the light of recent press reports of attempts by the Spanish Government to exclude Gibraltar from the transition and end-state process. It is important for the Government to make that clear commitment, subject, of course, to the existence of the proper regulatory equivalents and standards. If the Minister will give me an undertaking that that will happen with the full involvement of Gibraltar’s Government, I think that those of us who supported the amendment will be satisfied.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Foreign Trade
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his positive reaction to our amendment. The situation is as I have described it: our unshakeable objective is to secure the seamless continuation of existing market access to the UK, and to enhance it where possible.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Foreign Trade
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): The position is as I have set out, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if, in all the circumstances, I stick to that position. I hope that he will understand the strength of our commitment from that. We will deliver on our assurances that Gibraltar businesses will enjoy continued access to the UK market, based on the Gibraltar authorities having already agreed to maintain full regulatory alignment with the UK.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): Parliament will have an opportunity to give its assent to the Government’s approach to the transition deal, which they are on the point of trying to negotiate over the next few weeks. I have never known a Government go into an international agreement and start negotiating something towards a conclusion without giving the House the opportunity to express its views and without subjecting themselves to the judgment of the House on the objectives they are declaring This transition deal—I think that this is agreed on all sides—is probably going to be agreed in the next month. We are about to go away for Christmas. Everybody is hoping we will have a clearer idea of the transition or implementation deal by the end of January. As things stand, I do not think this House has ever discussed this—it has never had a debate on the subject. No motion has been put before this House to approve what the Government are seeking to do. If the Government have their way, we are simply going to discover, when they come back from the next step in the negotiations, what exactly they have signed up to The reason it is important that we should put down this marker is that I want to stick with what was set out in Florence, which was a Government policy position. At this moment—over the course of this week—the Cabinet is having a discussion. There is an attempt to keep this secret, but, unfortunately, leaks are coming out in all directions, and I sympathise with the Prime Minister on that. The Cabinet is debating whether everyone is prepared to be bound by the Florence speech or whether some of its members want to reopen it and start modifying it. That is why this new clause is a chance to say that if that be the case, the overwhelming majority of Members confirm and approve what was set out in the Florence speech I hope that we will not see the extraordinary spectacle of the fear of right-wing Eurosceptics meaning that such lengths are gone to that the Government put a three-line whip on their Ministers and all their Back Benchers to cast a vote against the Florence speech, so that some room is left for them to be able to negotiate further with the Environment Secretary, the Foreign Secretary or whoever it is wanting to reopen it again. The Foreign Secretary made a speech before the Florence speech in which he tried to undermine the Prime Minister’s position going there. When she had made the Florence speech, he wrote an article a few days later—I think that I have this the right way round—putting out a starkly different interpretation of what she had said. This House of Commons has not so far had the opportunity to express an opinion, which is what new clause 54 is about.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Government Operations
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): I shall not go back to waxing too much about the nature of the debates we have been having. We can be clear that it is the fault not of the Ministers but of the brief they have been given to keep things going until the timetable motion comes in, at which point if all is intact, they have made it—that is their job done. Those of us who have been Ministers have probably been in that situation ourselves on various occasions. Just as in the debate about the meaningful vote when the Minister at no stage engaged in the question what sort of meaningful vote the House of Commons should have, on this occasion the Minister has not engaged in any feature of the Florence speech with which he had any reservations. The substance was not challenged by a word that he said, hence my speculating why we might see the extraordinary spectacle of the Government instructing all their Ministers to vote against a prime ministerial declaration of Government policy from which, as far as I can see, the Prime Minister has at no stage personally withdrawn.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): I will conclude if I may. I have already taken longer than I said, so please forgive me Let me just touch on this question: how we can get this whole debate into the grown up world and accept the reality that exists in a globalised economy. What do we mean by international trade agreements? What is beneficial to a country such as ours to give us the best base for future prosperity in the modern world? Frankly, at times, some of the debate has taken on an unreal quality I will not follow the hon. Member for Nottingham East, my collaborator in this new clause, because he gave a very carefully researched and very clear description of what actually is involved in trading arrangements. The first simple political point I will make is that, at the moment, we have absolutely unfettered access, by way of regulatory barriers, customs and so on, to the biggest and most open free-trade system in the world. Nowhere else has rivalled it. Mercosur failed because it did not have the institutions such as the Court or the Commission; the North American Free Trade Agreement—NAFTA—is collapsing; and the Americans have pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Everybody wants these deals, but only 28 European nation states have succeeded in getting such an open one. Of course the hon. Member for Vauxhall and others have argued strongly that we voted to leave that. Anything new that we put in by way of tariff barriers, customs barriers or regulatory barriers is bound to damage our position compared with where we are now. That is why we should minimise all those things as far as we can It is no good developing some fantasy that we are going to reach an agreement that puts up new barriers to trade—that we are going to get protectionist towards the rest of Europe, while being ultimate free traders towards the rest of the world—without damaging ourselves. Both sides exaggerate, which is pretty typical of most political arguments that take place in any democracy. Once people start putting mad figures on everything, they can get carried away.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
George Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): Excellent. It is always good to take a sedentary intervention from my hon. Friend I said I would be brief, so I will bring my remarks to a conclusion. I support the amendments and I congratulate those who drafted them. I want the Government to get through this as best they can. They should listen carefully where there are changes to be made but, if we have to return to this matter on Report, they will certainly have my support in making whatever changes are necessary to accommodate concerns so that we get a Bill that is reasonable, feasible and puts the power back into the House I would make one small point, however, to those who opened up this massive debate about what happened during the referendum and the idea that we can guess what was in people’s minds. It was said again and again, as I recall, by the then Prime Minister, by the then Chancellor, by Lord Mandelson and also by many in the vote leave campaign, that voting to leave meant leaving the customs union and the single market. Now, I understand and accept that people might not want to do that—they advance all sorts of reasons for not doing it—but it was said again and again. On the idea that the British people were too stupid to understand what they were voting for, I say that they were right in their decision and made a decision that was a lot more intelligent than people give them credit for.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): When that was said—it probably was said by one or two campaigners on the remain side during the referendum campaign—it was used as an argument against voting to leave. The reaction of leave campaigners was to dismiss it, saying it was the politics of fear, that people were being alarmist in talking about leaving the single market and that in fact our trading arrangements would remain absolutely unchanged, because the Germans had to sell us their Mercedes. That was the role it played in the referendum campaign.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
George Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I always like to take an intervention from my right hon. and learned Friend. We agree on many things, but not on this, it has to be said. He will remember that, when he was Lord Chancellor, I supported him in getting through his very good and far-reaching reforms—I wish they had all been put through, but they were not, as he knows. To that extent, I have long supported him, but on this I do not fully agree with him. I think it was clear. It is no good saying that "some" people on the remain side said it. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor were the leaders of the remain campaign, certainly on the Government Benches, but also from the stand point of the country, and they were very clear on this. I do not recall anyone—I certainly did not—saying, "No, no, we’ll stay in the single market and customs union." I have always made the point that leaving means leaving the Court of Justice, the customs union and the single market. Voters were, I believe, clear about that, but we can all debate and rerun the arguments.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Foreign Trade
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): I will undertake to send to my right hon. Friend a list of the various quotes from leading members of the leave campaign who told the British people, "There will be no change in our trading arrangements", "We’ll do deals in a day and a half", "We can be like Norway", "We might want to be like Switzerland", and so on and so forth. It was made very clear to the British people that the trading arrangements and economic benefits of the EU would remain the same. Does he honestly think that in his constituency of an evening in the Dog and Duck people sat there and said, "I tell you what, you know this single market, well I’m all for out of that"? Does he honestly think they really understood the issue, when there are obviously right hon. and hon. Members in this House who still do not understand what the single market and the customs union are?