argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): We had 45 years to get that right, and I think my hon. Friend would probably agree with me that it did not happen in the way she now says she wished it had. When I was the single market Minister, I tried to do this. I brought draft proposals to the House to try to get comment before I went off to negotiate. I felt that that was the only time it was worth hearing Parliament’s view because there was still the chance of trying to change things. If Parliament agreed with me that the draft was very unsatisfactory, it was marginally helpful to be able to say to the EU, "By the way, the United Kingdom Parliament does not like this proposal", although the EU did not take that as seriously as I would have liked it to. The truth was that we could then be outvoted, under a qualified majority voting system, and we often were if we pushed our disagreement, so the views of Parliament mattered not a jot, even if we did the decent thing and invited Parliament to comment before the draft was agreed As my hon. Friend must know, once a draft was agreed, if it was a regulation, that was immediately a directly acting law in the United Kingdom and this Parliament had no role whatsoever. If it was a directive—directives can be very substantial pieces of legislation—we could not practically change anything in that law. Whatever Parliament thought, it had gone through.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (Conservative, Centre-right): I sit on the European Scrutiny Committee and have done so for some time. I can confirm that, although we briefly look at all the laws coming into this country, we certainly do not have the time to scrutinise them. I can assure the House that the House does not have the time to do so either.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: Agriculture
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the hon. Lady not agree that we can do better on animal welfare than the EU currently allows us to do? For example, making foie gras is prohibited in this country, but we cannot stop its being imported from countries in the EU that make it, such as Belgium and France, because that would be against the free movement of goods. Does she not agree that the Conservatives are now putting in place tougher sentencing for animal welfare breaches, and we should focus on that, rather than looking at the past?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. If he had sufficient time at his disposal, he might have seen the evidence that I gave to the Constitution Committee in the other place, in which the issues in clause 6 were discussed—the interpretive provisions that he and I and others debated in Committee May I come back to the fundamental point about the charter? It was never intended to create new rights. It was a document that reaffirmed rights that already existed in EU law.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not; I am developing my argument. It was a point that was made clear, not only in the charter itself but in protocol 30, which was signed by Poland and the UK at the time of the Lisbon treaty. In addition—this is important, and this, it seems to me, having listened carefully to the debate, is not understood—the charter does not apply to member states in everything they do. Although it applies to the EU and its institutions in all areas, it binds member states only in so far as they are acting within the scope of EU law. Therefore talking about the charter in a domestic context misunderstands its purpose and point: it was not drafted in that context. I am afraid that there has, I think, been a regrettable misunderstanding about that in this debate.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. and learned Friend and I agree about general principles, which is why the general principles that underpin the recently drafted charter remain and, of course, do apply in respect of retained EU law. His second point about the means by which individuals challenge that is, of course, a matter of ongoing debate. I shall come back to the points raised in not only his amendment, but mine as well.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): The position that my right hon. and learned Friend took on the charter back in 2007 is the right one. As I was saying, it is in the interests of maintaining the rule of law that we maintain clarity, consistency and a clear authoritative source for those rights. My genuine concern about the importation of this particular charter into our domestic law is that we will sow confusion. That is not good for the maintenance of the rule of law, for the citizens of our country, for the future development of the law or for the position of this place vis-à-vis that development.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): I entirely endorse what my hon. and learned Friend is saying, not least because of the acquis itself. Secondly, there are the adjudications under the European Court itself. Thirdly, the charter is like a legal ectoplasm: it seeps into everything. There is no way in which we would ever be able to extract ourselves from the entirety of the provisions in perpetuity.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who raises a genuine concern about the impact of protocol 30. Many Opposition Members were here 10 years ago; they were anxious then to make sure that the protocol was included in the Lisbon treaty. They are now happy to resile from that position and take an entirely different view. I take great issue with that: the legal principles were the same then as now. Nothing has really changed about the potential force of the charter, so I am rather bemused to hear about that volte-face on the part of many Opposition Members.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): May I just calm the hon. and learned Lady? [Interruption.] Well, she is making a point that is frankly not the case. We have committed to supporting our membership of the European convention throughout this Parliament, and that is a position I entirely support.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. and learned Friend’s argument would make more sense if the Government had not decided to retain the principle of the supremacy of EU law in the Bill. Once they have done that, removing the mechanism of a challenge on the basis of general principles creates something that I think is rather odd. I would not have pressed the issue if the Government had adopted an alternative approach, but that was their own decision. This has, I think, highlighted some of the oddities of the way in which the matter has been approached. It may well be that they can be sorted out in the other place, but I think my hon. and learned Friend must acknowledge that they are odd.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend is allowing me to intervene on his intervention. Let us not forget that we are dealing with the pre-exit situation. The EU acquis is being frozen, in the sense that its full effect in a pre-exit sense must be maintained so that we can maintain certainty. I agree that it is a strange and rather unusual concept, but I think it preserves that all-important certainty Time is short, and I want to ensure that I deal with further amendments.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: Agriculture
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I must press on, I am afraid The amendments tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield relating to the way in which we designate EU legislation make important contributions to the debate, but they are laden with problems. The sheer volume of what we are dealing with—well over 15,000 pieces of legislation—leads me to draw back from trying to create a convenient categorisation of retained EU law. With the greatest respect, I think it far wiser for the Government to approach each item on a case-by-case basis, not making glib assumptions and trying to downgrade EU law, but getting each particular measure right Amendments tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West and others deal with, again, the debate on clause 6 and the interpretation of retained EU law. I entirely understand why the amendments were tabled, because the debate is intense, but I would say to those Members, with respect, that I think less is more. The more we try to enshrine in law principles such as persuasive authority—which is in one of the amendments—the more I see the potential for judicial head-scratching and litigation of a type that I do not believe the judiciary would welcome. I have said it before and I say it again: I trust our judiciary to answer the question put before them rather than to survey like lions of the constitutional savannah and to run across the landscape. They answer the question that is put to them, and I trust them to do that and to use the discretion that quite naturally they should be given In relation to the new clause in the name of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), it is clear that the Government regard animals as sentient and we of course support the sentiment behind the new clause, as we did on a previous occasion, but we could not support it then and the reasons for not supporting it have not changed. Article 13 places an obligation on the EU when developing certain policies, and on EU member states when developing and implementing those policies. That obligation, because animals are sentient beings, is to have full regard to their welfare requirements, but article 13 applies only to a limited number of EU policy areas, and frankly it also allows for practices that we would consider cruel.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: Government Operations
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I can see the hon. and learned Lady’s point that, in the light of the changes that the Government have made to clause 7, it may be appropriate to change "appropriate" to "necessary" in the schedule. However, will she confirm that her amendment 49 does that for devolved authorities’ Ministers, not for the Crown, and that that comes later in the sequence of amendments?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: Government Operations
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): I will speak only briefly to somewhat lament the fact that we have not made more progress on this clause 11 issue. Let me explain the background. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee has taken an interest in this matter. We have taken an extensive interest in the inter-institutional relations between the different Parliaments of the United Kingdom and the different Administrations of the United Kingdom, which is a very undeveloped part of our constitution. We have the legal framework, but we do not have the practices, the culture or the institutional underpinning. The debate about the legislative consent motions in relation to this legislation has shown that up to a degree I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), recently departed from the Government, who played a crucial role in making considerable advances on the question of how the legislative consent motions in support of this proposed Act of Parliament should be supported by the devolved Parliaments. It seems to me that the process has stalled somewhat, and it is unfortunate that we do not have the Government or others tabling amendments at this stage of the scrutiny of the Bill, when some of us had hoped that that would be the case. I am bound to say that it may reflect the fact that there is not yet a consensus, and it would be more important to reach a consensus on this matter than to table some amendments that do not reflect a consensus.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): I accept that. Whatever compromise or proposals emerge in the other place, we can either debate them, vote on them and accept them, or we can debate them, vote on them, reject them and send back our own proposals to the other place at that point, so this House will have an opportunity to debate this very fully—just as fully as on Report This is, ultimately, a question of trust. We need to build up trust. Whatever the future holds for our United—or disunited—Kingdom, there need to be relationships of trust between the four Parliaments of these islands, the four Administrations of these islands, to enable us to make our way in the world as effectively as possible after we have left the European Union. That trust is still somewhat lacking in those relationships, and there may be one or two who want to foment distrust for their own political reasons. That makes getting this sorted out in an amicable way more challenging, but all the more necessary.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: Government Operations
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): We have come a long way since the Government first published the Bill in draft last summer, when there were very peremptory conversations with the devolved Administrations and they felt very unconsulted about the Bill that had been published. There has been quite a lot of trust building and discussion, and the meetings of the Joint Ministerial Committee, which has discussed these matters and produced joint memorandums, shows that the trust is capable of building. I do think we have gone backwards a little bit in recent weeks, but I hope that the work that my Committee is doing will help. My Committee is going to Cardiff at the beginning of February and then we will be making an official visit, following an unofficial visit late last year, to Edinburgh, to build up these relationships and these understandings between the different Parliaments and the different Administrations. I do hope that in the end we can arrive at the right destination.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): Trust is about what is offered to the other party. In this case, the Government have been consistently misconstrued. Given the drafting, clause 11 can be read as though the Government intended to hold on to the 111 powers for all time, withholding them from the Scottish Government, but the Government have repeatedly said that that is not the case. My Committee has also consistently said that the Government’s intention is that the devolved Administrations and Parliaments should finish with substantially more powers as a result of leaving the EU than they had before.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: Government Operations
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): It is very problematic. My Committee has repeatedly attempted to make an official visit to the Province, but that has not been regarded as expedient at this time. However, I sometimes run into the hon. Lady and I talk to other elected representatives of the Province; I hope that there is, at least within this House, trust and understanding between the democratically elected representatives on this matter. However, I invite the hon. Lady to a further conversation offline. We are continuing our inquiry and our work. I make it clear to my party’s Front Benchers that I expect amendments to be tabled to clause 11 to clarify how long the powers should exist. Why is there not a sunset provision at the end of clause 11, so that it is seen clearly as a temporary expedient and not a final destination? Why is there not some qualification to the powers that have been retained, to show that they are for a particular purpose rather than just a blanket withholding As I said in Committee, it was instructive that even the work commissioned by the Scottish Parliament demonstrated that most of the powers being recovered from the EU—those with relevance to the UK single market, for example—are naturally reserved powers. We are dealing here with only a relatively small proportion, albeit on significant matters such as the environment, farming and fisheries This is an important test for the relationship between Whitehall and its counterparts elsewhere in the United Kingdom—and, indeed, with this Parliament, because the relationship between the Parliaments is just as undeveloped, possibly even less so, than the relationship between the Governments. The Governments have to work together, and on the island of Great Britain we have a single civil service that naturally works together. But the idea of the Parliaments of the United Kingdom working together is a completely alien concept and has not yet come into our political idiom at all Our Committee continues to work on the issue. I hope that we shall make some radical recommendations to help us learn from other, decentralised systems of government in other countries. This is in the DNA of their constitutions. We need to develop the same facility, so that after we leave the European Union and the powers have been devolved, the four parts of the United Kingdom work effectively and harmoniously together for the common good and the future of our country.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: Government Operations
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): Is the hon. Lady not aware that there are ongoing discussions between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations about this very subject, that there are positive signs that an agreement will be reached—if it has not already been reached—and that therefore she is scaremongering in respect of these powers?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: Environment
Luke Patrick Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): I share the hon. Lady’s frustration that the Government have not tabled an amendment, which I think will be well documented in the debate. Does she agree, however, that there is an opportunity for us to have a stronger United Kingdom through UK frameworks? The environmental point is very clear: pollution does not respect national or regional boundaries. We need strong nations, but we need a strong United Kingdom as well.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: Government Operations
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin). I want to raise two points, and the first of them goes to the issue around devolution and clause 11 and the lack of Government amendments. I do not share the hon. Lady’s somewhat apocalyptic view on this issue, but I certainly acknowledge that it is not desirable, because it is clearly not the Government’s intention for the process of Brexit to result in a diminution of devolved authority either in Scotland or Wales, or for that matter, in so far as Northern Ireland is going to get a viable Administration, in Northern Ireland. My view has always been, on looking at and reading the way the Bill was drafted, that we can do better than what appears in it at present. My understanding is that that is also acknowledged by the Government, although I do slightly regret that the Bill was introduced in its current form, because it seems to me that it was, to an extent, unnecessarily provocative However, it is worth bearing it in mind that ultimately the devolution system—I participated in the debates that set it up—had behind it the implication that the adjustments were not just a one-way ratchet, and I want to emphasise that point: the implication was that devolution might at times require adjustments that gave powers back to Westminster, just as they conferred more powers over time to both Cardiff and Edinburgh. That was clear in the course of those debates when Parliament set the original system up, and it has been repeated on a number of occasions since.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: Government Operations
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is making a good point about the legislative consent motion and the requirements that need to be in place for it to happen. The Labour amendment would not bring that about. There needs to be an agreement between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. Without that agreement, it is impossible to replace clause 11 satisfactorily to secure that LCM.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Luke Patrick Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that negotiations are two-sided? He talks about the agreement of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, so can he guarantee that if this House were to adopt the Labour amendment, the LCM would be passed in both of those?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you for allowing me to say a few words in this setting, Mr Speaker. I wish to make it clear that, despite whatever else I may say in this speech, I support this Bill wholeheartedly and I wish it to be a success. Uppermost in my mind when considering the Bill are the ramifications of there not being a Bill. I think about the choice the British people made to leave the EU and I respect it. We made a commitment to act on that instruction and act on it we shall—we will honour that vote. Those who choose to disregard the vote of the British people must answer to the British people. My constituency voted to remain in the EU, but I know that my constituents are democrats who expect me, as their elected Member of Parliament, to ensure that their best interests are served in the light of the outcome and that the result is upheld. Many businesses and individuals in my Stirling constituency are ready to make the best of Brexit.