argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
UK-US Trade Deal — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Foreign Trade
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): That certainly will be part of our trade negotiations. There are many industries across the UK that face high tariffs and high barriers. We want those removed so that we can see every part of the UK thrive.
UK-US Trade Deal — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Foreign Trade
Imran Nasir Ahmad Khan (Conservative, Centre-right): Ever since King George III accepted John Adams’s credentials as ambassador to the United States, both states respectively have regarded each other as sovereign equals and worked ceaselessly towards fostering ever closer diplomatic, military, cultural and commercial ties. Does the Secretary of State agree that a future free trade agreement should be seen as part of this story? I am a proud Yorkshireman, and like many of those who come from God’s own country, we love the USA. Any agreement that makes it easier for my American friends to more easily and affordably buy Harrogate’s world-famous Yorkshire Tea is to be welcomed.
UK-US Trade Deal — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Foreign Trade
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): My friend is absolutely right. We have seen the growth of sparkling wine exports, which now, I think, total more than £100 million a year. I see huge opportunities in removing those tariffs and getting more of our excellent sparkling wine into the United States.
UK-US Trade Deal — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Energy
Martin John Vickers (Conservative, Centre-right): North-east Lincolnshire is a major centre for the renewable energy sector, and a number of US delegations have already visited to look at opportunities. Would the Secretary of State give an assurance that her Department will support the small and medium-sized companies that want to get into the supply chain in this sector?
UK-US Trade Deal — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Foreign Trade
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): One of our key asks from the US trade deal is a dedicated chapter to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises by removing some of the customs red tape, being able to do more things online, and being able to get better information. I will certainly look at my hon. Friend’s specific businesses in Cleethorpes in that regard.
Medicines and Medical Devices Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure that this debate will continue in Committee, but for clarity, those delegated powers existed under the European Communities Act 1972. The Bill proposes to replace existing delegated powers from the 1972 Act with new powers to make such regulations under the new Act. This is not a new set of delegated powers; it replaces one set with another—indeed, the Bill replaces those powers with clearer safeguards on those matters to which the Secretary of State must have regard.
Medicines and Medical Devices Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Agriculture
Johanna Peta Churchill (Conservative, Centre-right): As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I am always happy to have a discussion to see whether any accommodation can be made. As far as veterinary medicines go, I should say that, unlike with human medicines, we pay attention to the environmental impact as they go through.
Medicines and Medical Devices Bill — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Agriculture
Neil Peter Hammerton Hudson (Conservative, Centre-right): I should declare an interest as a veterinary surgeon. I want to bang the drum for part 2 of the Bill and the importance of the way in which it addresses veterinary medicines. The Bill will go some way towards providing assurances to the UK veterinary profession that there will be continuity in its ability to prescribe for and treat a group of patients that have not been discussed much tonight: animal patients in our country.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Andrew George Stephenson (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move, That if a Bill is presented to this House in this session in the same terms as those in which the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill stood at the last stage of its proceedings in this House in the 2019 session— (a) the Bill so presented shall be deemed to have passed through all its stages in this House, and (b) the Standing Orders and practice of the House applicable to the Bill, so far as complied with or dispensed with in the 2019 session, shall be deemed to have been complied with or (as the case may be) dispensed with in this session That the above Orders be Standing Orders of the House I am delighted to be here this evening to undertake my first piece of parliamentary business as the new Minister for high-speed rail. I have been given specific oversight of this hugely significant project The High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill, also known as the phase 2a Bill, concerns a section of HS2 that will extend the railway from the end of phase 1, just north of Birmingham, to Crewe. Hybrid Bills are unusual and relatively rare. A hybrid Bill is both a public Bill and a private Bill in one—hence, hybrid. The Bill could be characterised as an alternative planning consent process The Bill was introduced into this House in July 2017. It passed its Second Reading in January 2018 and moved into its Select Committee stage. Over 300 petitions were received. In response, two additional provisions were promoted that made changes to the Bill to resolve those petitions. That process took over a year. Hearings finished in the spring of 2019, and the amendments were agreed. The Bill then completed its stages in this place and moved to the House of Lords, where it had its Second Reading last September It is normal for a Bill like this to carry over from one parliamentary Session to another. The previous Parliament did not make time available to secure carry-over motions, so I am bringing the Bill back today with this revival motion. Private Bills that are not carried over are often revived. Revival has been used before for a hybrid Bill. For those who may be geeky and interested, the process is set out in "Erskine May", in paragraph 37 of chapter 45 on page 1,162.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Theakstone Percy (Conservative, Centre-right): This is indeed very geeky and technical, and all very interesting, but can I urge the Minister, particularly when he responds to the debate, to talk about the benefits of HS2 and how we can bring those benefits online now? May I particularly commend to him the new Siemens rail factory that is coming to Goole, with £250 million of investment, and our excellent steelworks at Scunthorpe, which already supplies Network Rail with all of its railways, thereby demonstrating the benefit to the whole of the country of this Bill?
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. The hon. Gentleman asks the Minister whether he can make certain commendations. He can try, but I am afraid he cannot, really, because this is a very, very narrow motion on procedure; it is not a debate on the merits or otherwise of the Government’s railway policy.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Andrew George Stephenson (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you for that guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I can, however, assure my hon. Friend, who is a doughty champion of the Brigg and Goole constituency, that 98% of businesses involved in HS2 are British, and approximately 70% of the contracts already awarded are going to small and medium-sized enterprises. I am sure he will continue to champion the businesses in his constituency to ensure that they get the maximum benefit from this scheme.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): On a procedural point, my hon. Friend will be aware that there are some experienced politicians who could use various tactics to delay this measure. I would not like to join those people. Can I just mention, though, that if we are spending £100 billion on this, my constituents are very keen on the Government giving £1 million only to London North Eastern Railway for our through train to Grimsby and Cleethorpes via Market Rasen? I would very much hope that the Minister, in terms of procedure and ensuring a smooth passage and support for this measure, could perhaps give a gentle green light to my through train for just £1 million.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Andrew George Stephenson (Conservative, Centre-right): I note my hon. Friend’s concern. My direct reference to "Erskine May" would, I hope, have put his mind to rest as to why we are using this procedure in this rather unique circumstance Since the Government have decided that HS2 should go ahead and that phase 2a should be built, we now need to take the next step, which is to revive the Bill. This motion has the same effect as a carry-over motion, and if Members agree it today, the Bill will resume in the same place that it stopped. That means it will pass to the House of Lords, where it would resume its Select Committee stage. Passing this motion therefore allows the progress already made to be kept. It allows those directly affected to continue with the legal processes they still have to complete, safe in the knowledge that the changes they requested to the Bill and previously received will be kept.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): One issue that many people like me on the south coast have, which I hope Ministers will look at, is that the average speed from London to Portsmouth and Southampton has not changed since the 1920s. At the moment, we are seeing vast amounts of money going into a project of mixed popularity, to put it mildly, while people in Southampton, Portsmouth and my constituency of the Isle of Wight will be struggling with speeds—
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
David Timothy Simmonds (Conservative, Centre-right): I have a very specific point on this issue. One of the lessons from my constituency about the first phase of HS2 is that commitments given to this House on earlier phases have simply not been honoured by HS2 Ltd. I would encourage us, and ask the Minister, to consider how we can hold it robustly to account on this second phase to ensure that, when commitments and promises are made to this House about how local communities and individual families will be treated and supported sensitively and they are not honoured, there must be consequences.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Geoffrey Robert Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Centre-right): The most interesting speeches in this place are always given when one does not expect to make them. I am sure that what I am about to say will not find favour with a lot of my colleagues, but sometimes one has to stand up in this place for what is right. I spent over a year on the phase 1 hybrid Bill Committee. We delved into that railway in enormous detail. I am sure that my colleagues who served on the phase 2a Committee, which also took nearly a year, delved into that in huge detail as well. I commend the motion to the House. This resurrection motion is the correct thing to do I started my service on that Committee opposed to the railway on the grounds that it was high-speed rail. However, it is nothing to do with high-speed rail; it is all about capacity. Unless we take passengers and freight off the east coast and west coast main lines, our roads will clog up, journey times will become completely untenable and we will fail to meet our carbon targets in 2050. The revival motion is therefore right and we need to build this railway. We need to build not only phase 1, but phase 2 and phase 2b As deputy Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, I want absolute value for money. I have already seen, in the phase 1 Committee, some of the horrors that took place. The evidence before us was, in many cases, disingenuous. The costs of the things we were doing were not fully costed. Nor was it fully understood how they could be delivered. I would be very concerned if the motion led to the same things on phase 2a Let me, with a little bit of latitude, give the Chamber some examples of what we found. The chief finance officer for HS2 Ltd asked permission in writing to pay enhanced redundancy payments. He was told not to, but he went ahead and did it anyway. That cost the taxpayer nearly £2 million. On Wednesday, the Public Accounts Committee will examine the costs. We will consider why £2 billion of savings—most of this is expected to come from phase 1 and phase 2a, which is what we are negotiating tonight—are probably undeliverable. Whatever the costs at the moment, they will be higher than whatever anybody says We need to build this railway. We need to increase capacity on our railways. We need to get cars and freight off our roads, otherwise they will clog up. That is why I support the motion.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kieran John Mullan (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful for the opportunity to speak, because this matter is hugely important to my constituency. I welcome the revival of the Bill, and hopefully its imminent passage, as evidence of the Government backing Crewe and backing the north. If you will allow me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to explain why I support the revival of the Bill I was glad to have had the opportunity to host the Minister at Crewe station just last week, where he got to hear first-hand about what is already happening locally: businesses opening up in Crewe and the plans Cheshire East Council has to create a new economic hub around the station. The revival of the Bill will accelerate the positive changes we see locally.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend accept that originally the railhead was going to be in Crewe? It was only frustrated by decisions on housing grounds taken by the district council. In fact, it was dumped on Stone in my constituency without any notice.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Kieran John Mullan (Conservative, Centre-right): I cannot pretend, as a new Member, to have my hon. Friend’s knowledge of the intricate detail and the history of the development of the railway line. However, whether we support or oppose it, we all have a duty, when decisions on individual stations are looked at in detail, always to be open-minded to change if things are undergoing scrutiny. Ultimately, as I will come on to say, if we are building a major new railway it is inevitable that some people will face a negative environmental impact and some will have some part of the railway deposited on their patch, which they are not happy with. If we allowed that to, in effect, put a moratorium on the development of major infrastructure, that would not be the right decision for this country, even if individual Members were unhappy with it. On what does work for my constituents, they are not very interested in getting to London 30 minutes quicker; they really are not very interested in that. What they are interested in, and what we must remind them of in terms of what we get from HS2, is that it opens up capacity as we shift inter-city traffic on to HS2 so there are more routes and journeys available to them. Faster routes tend to push the local services off the track. They welcome HS2 because it means we can transport more freight by rail. Local businesses in my area cannot get freight on to rail. When they can do that, they will be more competitive and we will move congestion off the roads. If you drive around the A roads in Crewe at night, you will see lorry after lorry after lorry parked up. That is how things are moved around and we need to switch back to the railway.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Michael Louis David Fabricant (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend not realise that there is a danger that for constituencies such as mine that are not directly served by HS2—of which there are many along the west coast main line—moving freight on to the west coast main line could result in a diminution of passenger services to cities such as Lichfield?
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Kieran John Mullan (Conservative, Centre-right): I go back to my original point: at the moment, those more local services are hampered by the use of the west coast main line for freight and inter-city services. We will see an opening up of local routes if we move ahead with HS2, not a diminution of them On passengers and peak-time travel, at the moment price control is used to control peak-time travel. People cannot come down to London at 8 o’clock because the tickets are extortionate, primarily because that is the only way that we can manage the over-capacity at peak times. If we move the inter-city journeys at peak times on to HS2, there will be more, cheaper, accessible peak-time travel on the west coast main line and it will still get people to London in an hour and a half Another thing that my constituents will welcome is the link to the northern regions through Northern Powerhouse Rail.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Kieran John Mullan (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely. It is not either/or; it is about working together. High Speed North is a rebranding and a new way of organising this—we should firmly hammer that point home—and it is about making this project one that is led in the northern regions by the northern regions, for the northern regions. I welcome that change in the governance.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Robert Largan (Conservative, Centre-right): Further to what my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) pointed out, people in London were not forced to choose between Crossrail and Crossrail 2. It is completely wrong to try to force people in the north to choose between HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and other key infrastructure projects.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival — House of Commons, 2020-03-02
Topic: Transportation
Kieran John Mullan (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely. Inevitably, projects overrun. That is unfortunate and not something that we welcome, but they do, and the fact that this has overrun should not mean that we therefore cancel it, because other people have not had to make the same choice in the south. HS2 is a fantastic opportunity for Crewe. We have an amazing heritage and enormous local expertise in the rail industry. Crewe is and has always been a fantastic railway town. Passing the Bill and the delivery of the railway will create thousands of skilled jobs in Crewe for people helping to build the railway line I understand the concerns about the natural environment and I commend colleagues from constituencies where the impact will be greatest for speaking up on behalf of their residents. That is absolutely the right thing for them to do, but as I mentioned, any new major railway line connecting our cities and towns will have some degree of environmental impact. That is inevitable. We must be realistic about whether some of the strongest critics—they are not all in this House; some are outside this place—will ever really be satisfied. If we listen too closely to the voices of opposition in terms of trees and the environment, we will put a moratorium on creating major new rail and road infrastructure in this country, and that cannot be the right decision It is simply not feasible to suggest that we can deliver significant new capacity on our railway networks through a piecemeal approach. Network Rail estimates that it would take almost 30 years of weekend closures for even less of a result in terms of increased capacity. When this was last done on the west coast main line, the budget exploded. It might be harder to track and there might be fewer newspaper-worthy headline figures, but hundreds of smaller projects are at just as big a risk of overrunning and overspending. We need to get better at controlling costs when building infrastructure, full stop. The answer is not to halt the big-ticket items where the failings are most easily seen, because they are there on small projects, too. It is just not so easy for a journalist to add up the figures over 100 different projects and put that in a newspaper. We should not listen to that kind of criticism; it is not valid I recognise the significant costs involved, but this is being spent across two decades. It will work out as approximately £4.4 billion a year. The context of the timescales is too often lost when we use the headline figure. Network Rail spends around £6 billion a year on maintaining and making much smaller upgrades to our rail network, and we are planning to spend £40 billion over the next five years on other projects outside HS2. The idea that we could build a brand-new major railway line for much less than the £6 billion a year already being spent is fantasy. Let’s be ambitious for our nation. Let’s look forward, not down at our feet, get on with delivering this project and send the message to the world that the UK is open for business.