argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: International Affairs
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): The good news coming out of this debate is that everyone in the House agrees with clauses 2 and 3, on which the clause stand part decision will be made shortly. We are all in favour of them because they are pretty straightforward. Clause 2 says that all the European law that came to the United Kingdom by way of directive is now fully incorporated into statute law and statutory instruments in the United Kingdom, and that that will continue. All that law that comes to us directly as a regulation or a Court judgment will, up to the date of exit, be transferred and incorporated into good UK law by virtue of the legislation before us, and particularly by virtue of clause 3 It is good news that we all agree with the main item on the Order Paper for this afternoon, so why are we having a long debate? My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General got to the heart of the debate during their interesting exchanges. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and agree with a lot of what he said The issue revolves around what scrutiny and interest Parliament should take when the transfer of European law that currently directly affects UK law requires some changes. Most of us think there are going to be a lot of changes and that most of them are going to be entirely technical or minor. They will adjust the EU to having one fewer country in it, recognising that we are no longer a member, or adjust the appeal body to a natural appeal body that is already well established by statute in this House, which is a UK body, not a European body. It is the right of the House and of Parliament to decide how much scrutiny any one of those things needs and to give it the proper attention required to check that the Executive are doing a good job We all want to ensure continuity of the law. We recognise how many changes and proposals are involved, so we need a way of sifting so that Parliament can concentrate on the ones that could be genuinely contentious or are more material than the others, thereby ensuring that Parliament does not waste too much time. Parliament must decide how much it trusts Ministers to do the sift for it, and I look forward to hearing further thoughts from my colleagues on the Front Bench on exactly how that process is going to work. Personally, I trust the Ministers. From my point of view, the changes are all going to be technical and I do not believe that there is going to be any attempt to change the law. Were there any such attempt, Parliament would be well up to the challenge and there would be an almighty row pretty quickly.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Environment
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I think Parliament is doing a good job of explaining to Ministers exactly what Parliament wants, and I think it is going to carry on doing that. I have every confidence in Parliament. I look forward to hearing what more can be said from the Front Bench in due course. I think it is all going to be technical and so can be done expeditiously, but clearly Parliament needs to be satisfied. I am completely satisfied that in the areas for which the official Opposition would like there to be some kind of reserve or special status, there is absolutely no intent to amend, change or repeal on either side of the House I have heard strong assurances from all parties that there is absolutely no wish to water down employment protections or environmental protections, and I see absolutely no evidence that anyone would try to do that. I am quite sure that, were they to try, they would soon discover that there was an overwhelming majority in the Commons, on the Government and Opposition Benches, of very many people who would say, "You cannot do that," and we would have every intention of voting it down Those laws already in place came via directives and are very much at the heart of what they are trying to protect. They are trying to protect something that Parliament has already put through as UK legislation. No manifestos or other party statements have threatened them, which implies that those things are at risk. It is also important to remember that when many EU directives were implemented—whether by Conservative, coalition or Labour Governments—that was often done in a way that went beyond the minimum standards that the directive required. Where it was possible to go beyond those standards, quite often successive Governments decided to do just that.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: International Affairs
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna). We are co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group on EU relations; our relationship with the EU will continue. He chairs it extremely ably. I am grateful to him for the kind comments that he made at the beginning. His analysis, as ever, was absolutely spot on. For far too long, we have had far too much rhetoric and far too many insults flowing around. We have to stop the silly things that have been said about people like me, and indeed him and other right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, and the constant attacks. We are told that if we have the views that we have then we are remoaners who are trying somehow to thwart the will of the people and so on. It does not help and it has not helped. History will not be kind to this place when what has happened since the referendum back in 2016 is written about What is really interesting as we enter day two of this debate is to see Conservative Members suddenly coming over and talking to each other. People who voted leave and were very vociferous during the campaign are coming over and talking to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) where there are clear concerns on constitutional matters and on the sovereignty of this place. Conversations are held between those of both main parties and of other parties. All these things are good. This is about healing the great divide that has occurred in our party. The fact that it is happening on this side of the Chamber as well is important The reason that people like me get so agitated is that one moment last night was really deeply unpleasant. Some of my right hon. and hon. Friends, when they saw the electronic copy of that newspaper, were genuinely concerned and worried because they knew that they would get the sorts of emails, tweets and Facebook postings that we have had before, and we would get all that stirring up of the old antipathy of this long-running sore that has bedevilled my party in particular. It is not acceptable when people keep perpetuating these myths. As the hon. Member for Streatham says, it fuels the flames If nothing else, I think we can now make progress. Let us stop the rhetoric, stop accusing people like me of wanting to thwart the will of the people and accept that we are leaving. If my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) accepts that we are leaving the EU, how many times do we have to say it before all these insults stop and we make the progress that we need to make in now delivering a Brexit that benefits everybody in this country? I support new clause 22.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): I would love to ignore death threats, but I actually find them quite frightening. As a result, I have in the past reported at least two to the police. The courts took it very seriously, I say gently to the hon. Lady. They sent one person to prison and suspended the other person’s custodial sentence. I am glad that some people in this place take it seriously.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I go on about what history will write about this place, and one of the observations of history will be the lack of debate until almost this point, which does us no credit. Another will be that at least two thirds, I reckon, of the people elected to this place are of the same view on the customs union and single market.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Government Operations
George Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I seem to recall it was not so long ago that the right hon. Gentleman was in a coalition Government in which my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) insisted that we withdrew two regulations for every new one that we introduced. Does not that make the right hon. Gentleman a regulation cutter, like the rest of us?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): I entirely endorse what the hon. Gentleman says about a free trade agreement with the European Union requiring regulatory equivalence. Actually, this is not a uniquely European thing or a malicious Brussels proposal. Modern trade agreements in a globalised economy all depend, more than anything else, on mutual recognition or regulatory convergence in the sectors where free trade is going to be allowed.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Agriculture
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): We in this country are of course well known throughout Europe as a nation of animal lovers. The hon. Lady was kind enough to say that we started off this whole process. Once we leave Europe, will she join us in ensuring that in our own laws we have the best animal welfare protection in the world?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Agriculture
Anne Margaret Main (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the hon. Lady agree that, once we have left, we will be able to increase our animal welfare standards—for example, by stopping the live transportation of horses and other animals, which we are currently forbidden to do—
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Environment
Anne Margaret Main (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman asks about badgers. I have actually been leading some of the campaigning against culling badgers. I hope that the hon. Lady agrees that we will have the ability to raise standards where we are currently forbidden to do so.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Agriculture
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): The intervention by the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) was a little unfair on the Secretary of State, because he is not just using warm words. There has been a flurry of activity and real commitment in the past four months, including banning neonicotinoids just a few days ago, placing CCTVs in every abattoir in the country, raising sentencing from six months to five years for those who engage in cruelty to animals, and banning the ivory trade. I could spend 10 minutes reeling off the Secretary of State’s achievements, promises, commitments and actions. We should celebrate that. It is extraordinary.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Environment
Anne Margaret Main (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is making a valid point, but some of the EU’s principles are lower than ours. For example, it will not allow us to ban microbeads. We are very concerned about plastics in the water, so I look forward to being able to enhance our waterways by being able to ban microplastics.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Foreign Trade
Anne Margaret Main (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of clarification, the hon. Lady said that she was not aware that we could not ban microbeads in plastics, but an independent report from the House of Commons Library warns that any attempt to impose a unilateral ban could break EU free trade laws because microbeads are in products. I think she will actually find that even though the Government wanted to ban them in July 2017, we were warned that we would be in breach of EU trade laws if we did so.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Environment
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I have a large degree of agreement and sympathy with what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has just said. So far as animal sentience is concerned, I suspect we may find that there is more on that already in UK law than she is allowing, but I wait to hear from the Government about that. However, I do agree that, one way or another, we need it to be present in UK law at the end of this, and I think the Secretary of State is probably pretty convinced of the same thing I want mainly to talk about the question of new clauses 60 and 67, or more precisely what they are aiming at and how best to achieve it, because the point at which I disagree with the hon. Lady is not one of ends but one of means. It is a rare thing to happen in the House of Commons, but I hope I might at least half-persuade her by the end of my remarks that it would be better for her to adopt a different view of the mechanics than she is suggesting Let me begin with this: I agree with the hon. Lady wholeheartedly that, in the light of schedule 1, we cannot possibly rely on clause 6—even as I hope it will subsequently be adjusted—and still less on clauses 2 and 3 to do the heavy lifting that she rightly wants to get the precautionary principle and other critical principles into UK law. She is absolutely right about that The question that the hon. Lady and I are both asking is, how best can we get over that problem and get to the position where the UK courts and the UK Administration as a whole—the Government and their agencies—carry on applying those principles in a sensible and serious way to our environmental protection over succeeding decades? This is obviously a matter not just of a minute or a day or a year, but of a long period over which we want a settled, continued policy being carried on by succeeding UK Governments of different persuasions If that is the question, clearly one route would be some variant of new clause 60, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), or new clause 67 or some other variant. I completely admit that that is a route, but I want first to explain why I do not think it is an optimal route and then to explain why what has been talked about by the Secretary of State is a better route.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman asked that question, because more or less the whole of the rest of what I want to say answers that very point. I think there is a better structure available to us, which will enable Parliament to be much more certain that the courts will be enforcing a set of much more detailed principles in a much more concrete and much more certain manner. I think that would answer the hon. Gentleman’s point and reassure him, and I believe it would do better at achieving what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion wants to achieve than her own suggestions.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Environment
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): May I explain what I have in mind? I am more than willing to give way to the hon. Gentleman again if he does not agree as I go along The first point about a better structure is that it does indeed need to have a statutory base, but that need not be in this Bill. In fact, I think it is much better that it should be an environment Bill, because an environment Bill gives the scope and opportunity to determine these things in much more detail and much more carefully, and gives the House, rather than what we have now—two and a half hours, not all of which will be spent on this topic—days and weeks of consideration in both Houses. That is the right way to do long-term environmental legislation.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Environment
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): Well, we must leave it to Ministers to speak for themselves, but I have to say that the discussions that I and others had with the Secretary of State, who, as people have remarked in this debate, is of a very different cast of mind from some previous Secretaries of State, suggest to me that actually there will be an environmental protection Bill coming forward. I think that is—[Interruption.] Ah! Maestro! With perfect timing my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State comes into the Chamber, at just the right moment for him to signify with a nod, if nothing more, that the possibility of proper environmental legislation in the form of a new statute is on his mind.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Environment
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I am confident that this Secretary of State will be here for rather longer than some other Secretaries of State have been recently. I welcome that, because I think he is a very, very fine Environment Secretary. Secondly, I am not saying that it is inconceivable that there could be two pieces of legislation, but I think it rather inelegant to legislate in a slightly awkward way, and then to repeal that legislation in a Bill that would probably start its passage before the passage of this Bill has been completed. I would prefer it to be done properly, although opinions may differ.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Environment
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): What gives me the confidence is that I think it is perfectly doable, and I think the Secretary of State intends to do it. I am in a slightly odd position—the Secretary of State has to nod each time I say these things, because I cannot speak for him—but I assure the hon. Lady that I really am very confident about that. Let us proceed for a moment, however, on the assumption that that is indeed going to happen. That gives us a place in which to do things, although of course it does not solve all the problems My second point is that, unlike the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, I think that a national policy statement is an ideal vehicle for the translation of these principles into something much more solid and much more determinate. A national policy statement is not just something that a Minister dreams up and issues like a piece of confetti. It comes before the House of Commons and is subject to resolution by the House of Commons, and it is therefore debated. It is exposed in draft, and it is discussed by the green groups There will of course be considerable debate about the exact terms of a national policy statement that seeks to turn those principles into something much more concrete, but I think there is ample scope for turning it into something of which we could be really proud. It would also have a huge advantage over mere principles when the courts came to judge the actions of the state and measure them against it—for that is exactly what would happen. A national policy statement is a policy statement by Ministers. If Ministers do not follow that policy, they are, by hypothesis, acting irrationally and in a Wednesbury unreasonable way, and can therefore be judicially reviewed. When they are judicially reviewed, the courts will look at the policy statement and compare it with their actions. If the policy statement is properly debated, properly exposed and properly expressed, those actions can be measured against it in a very determinate and careful way, and we can end up with a much more solid environmental protection than we would ever have got out of the principles.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Environment
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): Perhaps we will not reach agreement about this. I disagree with every part of what the hon. Lady has just said. First, judicial review has been a highly successful mechanism for environmental campaigners. It is, in fact, from judicial review that the clean air measures have arisen. Secondly, the reason why it is particularly effective in the case of a national policy statement is that a policy statement is a policy statement by Ministers and therefore creates a presumption of Wednesbury unreasonableness if it is departed from, so it is very easy to use as a tool for judicial review. Thirdly, judicial review is the mechanism that the principles in the new clause of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, or the Opposition new clause or the new clause of the hon. Member for Wakefield, would have to operate on. It is not the case that the courts in our country would simply take a set of principles and apply them to some set of cases. They would not know what to do with them. The Government would have to be judicially reviewed for failing to apply those principles in their policy.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I will give way in a moment It is much better to be in a position where we can take the Government to judicial review for failing to apply a much more detailed set of policies, which are the Government’s policies, as approved in the House of Commons by resolution, and which have been fully debated and where we then know whether the court is likely to find that the action is or is not in accordance.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Environment
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I will give way to both hon. Ladies shortly, but first I want to come to a further point that is an important part of the architecture I do not personally believe that even the combination of an environmental protection Bill and an NPS emerging from it and under it would be sufficient. This exactly answers the last point of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion. I accept that it is difficult for campaigners and others to use the vehicle of judicial review, which is why I and some of my hon. Friends have advocated what we have proposed, and why we have agreed with the Secretary of State.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-15
Topic: Environment
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): The Secretary of State is again nodding. That is why we have agreed that it is necessary under that same statute to create a body which is a prosecutorial authority, wholly independent of Government, along the lines of the Victims’ Commissioner, the Children’s Commissioner, the Office for Budget Responsibility, or the Equality and Human Rights Commission—we can choose which model—and which is an entity that is small and lean but, like the Committee on Climate Change, very serious. It would be established under statute, and charged with a duty under statute to ensure that the NPS is observed. I advocated the CCC when I was first working with Tony Juniper to get what became the Climate Change Act accepted in this House, and at an early stage I came to believe that the combination of clarity of objective and a body wholly independent and staffed by serious experts was a powerful mechanism, and so I think it has proved to be.