argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Cyclone Idai — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on Britain’s help for those caught up in the cyclone disaster that is afflicting southern Africa.
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on Zimbabwe, will want to know that we have been at the forefront of trying to work with our partners to assess the scale of the need. The port of Beira is not just the port for a large part of Mozambique but also the port that is most used by Zimbabwe and Malawi for food imports and exports, so that is, in addition, a particular vulnerability. I understand from the early assessments that reports from eastern Zimbabwe suggest that there has been a severe degradation of the infrastructure as well, and it is very difficult to access all the afflicted populations. We cannot over-emphasise how difficult it is for us to be able to reach people. The pre-deployed kits have reached the airport at Beira, but at the moment many roads out of Beira are closed, and that will also affect eastern Zimbabwe’s response. We are at the forefront of working with partners—for example, UNICEF—in eastern Zimbabwe, and that will need to inform, after the rain has stopped, our ability to respond to some of the lasting damage there.
Cyclone Idai — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on Britain’s help for those caught up in the cyclone disaster that is afflicting southern Africa.
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): This allows me to pay tribute to the Scotland-Malawi partnership, demonstrated by the statistic that 43% of people in Scotland know someone who is, or are themselves, part of links between Scotland and Malawi. I know that civil society across Scotland will be engaging both with these local partnerships but also more widely through the appeal. I thank everyone in Scotland for their generosity towards this cause The hon. Gentleman asked specifically about the work that we will be doing on resilience, which is also for the United Nations. Resilience takes many forms, but one of the most important is the crops that are sown, the ways in which they are sown and the way that the land is used. That is an important part of the work that we are doing—helping farmers to make use of the land in a way that gives them the best resilience to these kinds of climate shocks.
Cyclone Idai — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: Environment
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on Britain’s help for those caught up in the cyclone disaster that is afflicting southern Africa.
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the work that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth is doing in having commissioned work to see how the UK can show leadership on net zero. We await what comes out of that report. He will be aware of the UK’s leadership so far in terms of our ability to have reduced our own carbon emissions very significantly. He will be aware of the programming that is being done through international climate finance, which has already helped to avoid or mitigate some 10.8 million tonnes of emissions in the atmosphere. He will also be aware that we are leading through our international networks. I mentioned the uplift in our new approach to climate change in Africa, but we will be convening the international community at the United Nations to deal with the all-important issue of resilience.
Cyclone Idai — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on Britain’s help for those caught up in the cyclone disaster that is afflicting southern Africa.
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I can reassure the hon. Lady that, since climate change is a major threat to achieving the sustainable development goals, tackling it is a strategic priority for the Department for International Development. We work across the Government on this with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I am glad that the independent ICAI report said that UK international climate finance shows a "convincing approach", with some "good emerging results" in influencing others and making some good strategic choices.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Mark Gino Francois (Conservative, Centre-right): (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union if he will outline what checks the House of Commons has over the powers of the "Joint Committee" contained in the proposed EU withdrawal agreement.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): As is common in international agreements, the withdrawal agreement provides for a Joint Committee comprising representatives of the UK and the EU to govern the implementation and application of the withdrawal agreement. The Joint Committee will have the powers listed in article 164 of the agreement, to ensure that both parties are able to discuss any issues that may arise concerning the management and operation of the withdrawal agreement. As set out in paragraph 3 of article 166, the Joint Committee will make all its decisions and recommendations "by mutual consent" of the parties. In other words, it cannot act if the UK does not agree. This is an important protection for the UK that Members should welcome Clearly Parliament will expect to be able to undertake scrutiny of the work of the Joint Committee, as indeed will the European Parliament. Quite how that will operate is something that the Government will discuss with Members of this House and the other place, should this House give its support to the withdrawal agreement. But this House should be in no doubt: the Government’s approach at the Joint Committee will be underpinned by full ministerial accountability to Parliament.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Mark Gino Francois (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Bishop In summary, the Joint Committee contained in the draft withdrawal agreement has hardly ever been discussed in the House of Commons or the media, despite the fact that it potentially gives two unelected civil servants the power to make decisions that are binding in international law by an exchange of notes, without the knowledge, let alone the consent, of this House. If we are to approve the withdrawal agreement, we will approve this procedure too, which is why it is so important we should know about it. I believe that these facts must be exposed for debate in this House before the Prime Minister departs for the European Council tomorrow. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question, and I look forward to hearing—I will be intrigued to hear—the Minister’s reply.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend asked me which bits of what he said I agree with, or which bits I thought were true or not true. Clearly, I agree with some of the things he said, and I think some of the things he said were slightly off the mark. The assumption underlying his question, as it seems to me, is that the Joint Committee is some subterranean plot with wire pullers attempting somehow to subvert the will of this House or to subvert our democracy My right hon. Friend will understand, as will the House, that the structure of the Joint Committee is very common in international agreements. An international agreement with two parties has to have a point of arbitration, and the Joint Committee, comprising representatives of the UK and the EU—[Interruption.] It is true that it is separate from the arbitration panel, but it will decide and govern the implementation and the application of the withdrawal agreement. This is entirely in keeping with what happens in international treaties. I would also suggest—
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): On that list of questions, it would be absolutely customary and right for a Government Minister to make a statement when the Joint Committee had opined or made recommendations. That is absolutely in order. With regard to the hon. Gentleman’s request about a Committee, that is a matter for the House. It is not for the Executive to decide which Committees of this House can or cannot be formed We have ample and very full discussions with the devolved Administrations. They will of course be involved in aspects of the Joint Committee’s decisions, particular with regard to the question of Ireland and the backstop. There is no way, and this is carefully documented in the withdrawal agreement itself, that the Joint Committee would be making statements or recommendations about the backstop or any other matters relating to Ireland without, on our part, some representation and involvement of the Northern Ireland Government. On that question, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there will be ample consultation and involvement of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): On that specific question, the Joint Committee will have a role in suggesting what has not been foreseen. This is a very hypothetical question. What I find so extraordinary in this whole episode is that all of this is contingent on the withdrawal agreement being passed, yet my right hon. Friends who are asking these questions have consistently voted against the agreement. It seems very bizarre to me—[Interruption.] No, the point is that there is no way, as the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford suggested or seemed to imply, that this is some sort of mystical plot, as I have said, to undermine the democratic processes of this House. The Joint Committee will not be doing that. The British Government will be in wide consultation with the House, there will be ample room for debate and everything will be done with the utmost transparency.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to clarify that there is no scope within the Joint Committee for some form of delegation or negotiating team. Its sole function is to ensure that the terms of the withdrawal agreement are complied with As my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) so ably enunciated, all the workings of the Committee are to be found in Annex VIII of the agreement. The annex is some 20 to 25 pages long and very carefully sets out how the Committee will work.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Why do the Government think it acceptable that any legal dispute about European law will be resolved by a decision of the European Court of Justice—a court for one of the two parties to the agreement—given that practically every legal dispute would be about a matter of European law, because both parties would still be under comprehensive European law?
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): There are two stages to the process. Clearly, there is the period after the end of the implementation period when the CJEU will decide matters of EU law. During the implementation period, as my right hon. Friend knows, it will be as if we were a member state—that is what the implementation period means. As my right hon. Friend suggested, within the implementation period, matters of EU law will be decided by the CJEU. After that, its powers are restricted only to matters of EU law, which we would be outside. That is the position as clearly set out in the withdrawal agreement.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): I assure the hon. Gentleman that I have not been consumed by a tiger and I am still smiling. If we get the deal through the House—I look forward to his support in that—we will leave the EU and be able to move forward, I hope, in a progressive and measured way. However, I thank him for his poetic interjection.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Anne Villiers (Conservative, Centre-right): I take the Minister’s points about this structure being used in several contexts in international treaties. Many of my constituents would say that it was still unacceptable, and that they would like more transparency. However, even assuming that the structure is acceptable in the context of some international treaties, what is my hon. Friend’s response to the comment that the treaty would be uniquely powerful, were it to be adopted, because it would involve this country and this House being subject to laws made for us by other people, over which we had no say?
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not accept the premise of my right hon. Friend’s question. Clearly, our relationship with the EU over decades was complicated and involved and the withdrawal agreement is a capable way of getting out. Few of its provisions last beyond the end of the implementation period. It is a clear and orderly way of leaving the EU, and I urge hon. Members, including my right hon. Friends behind me, to support it.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have said to the House, there will be ample scope for debate and consultation. The Government fully understand that the House has to have an active role in shaping and deciding what our position as a country will be. I stress once again that paragraph 3 of article 166 says that no recommendations or decisions can be made without mutual consent. The mutual consent is between the UK and the EU, but as far as the Government are concerned, part of that mutual consent means engaging fully and transparently with the House.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): I am afraid that my right hon. Friend has too little faith in the UK Government. We have repeatedly said—and he knows this as well as anyone—that such payments or penalties would be imposed only by mutual consent. That is the key element. There is no way that the Joint Committee can unilaterally impose fines on us that we have not agreed to.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): I disagree with the hon. and learned Lady. The terms of the withdrawal agreement relate largely to the implementation period. I remind the House that during the implementation period, we will technically be a member state. [Interruption.] During the implementation period, that is the case. After that, the CJEU will have some role in interpreting EU law, but we will be outside its jurisdiction.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): May I return to the question raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) to contest my hon. Friend the Minister’s rather doubtful assertion that this is normal for an international treaty? I do not know of any other international treaty where one of the signing parties is submitting to a law-making power by the other, the laws will be made in a Joint Committee that can sit in secret, and any matters of dispute will be referred to the court of the other party. Can he give any examples of an international treaty of this nature where those arrangements exist, and where the laws being made are directly applicable and have direct effect in the domestic law of only one of the states?
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): What I would say to my hon. Friend in respect of his question is that we were in the EU for 46 years. During that time we were absolutely and totally 100% under the jurisdiction of the EU. The withdrawal agreement essentially seeks to get a tunnel, or a pipe, away from that jurisdiction into a situation where we have left the EU absolutely. Now, my own understanding is that this is a wholly unique set of circumstances. In that respect, the withdrawal agreement seeks to be transitional—it is trying to get from state a to state b—so it is understandable that we will not be able to get immediate freedom, if that is how he would put it, but the withdrawal agreement substantially gets us from one state to another. If it is endorsed, I think we will be able to proceed in an orderly way out of the EU.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): That refers to circumstances that relate to EU law. There will be other points of dispute that do not involve EU law. It is clear that after the end of the implementation period the Court’s jurisdiction will be restricted.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: Government Operations
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): Regrettably, I was explaining why I was delayed for a 2 o’clock appointment—so that I would have the pleasure of being in the Chamber to listen to this important urgent question. My apologies for being unduly modern. I hope, Mr Speaker, you will follow in my footsteps of antiquity as a general rule To come to the gist of the question, I wonder whether it is correct that the Joint Committee will be subject to article 4 of the treaty, which means that any rulings it provides are senior law in the United Kingdom and therefore could overwrite statute law—making Henry VIII powers, which have been a matter of some controversy in this House, seem relatively minor?
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): Obviously, this is a rather circular point. Article 4 is the conduit pipe, if you like, through which the provisions of the withdrawal agreement would come into UK law. The point of the Joint Committee is to look at the implementation of the withdrawal Act. There really should not be a conflict between article 4 and the Joint Committee. As I say, if there is a dispute, that would have to be resolved within the Joint Committee. As far as the British Government are concerned, there will be ample consultation, debate and questions in this House.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: Government Operations
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, I would like to put it on the record that we have an extremely fine and professional body of civil servants. I think that that is undisputed in this House. On the second point, as I have said on a number of occasions, we hope and expect to have full involvement and engagement with the devolved Administrations.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: International Affairs
David Ian Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): Annex VIII of the withdrawal agreement provides that the Joint Committee will be co-chaired by a member of the European Commission and a Minister of the British Government or, alternately, a "high level official". Given the hugely important role that this Committee will play in the governance of this country, does not my hon. Friend agree that, as far as the British side is concerned, the chairman or chairwomen should always be a Minister rather than an official, so that he or she is answerable to this House? Is he prepared to give an undertaking to this House today that that will always be the case—if, of course, the withdrawal agreement is ever concluded?
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: Government Operations
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): Once again I have to say that I think all my colleagues, all my right hon. and hon. Friends, have very full confidence in our civil service. With regard to my hon. Friend’s question, yes, the Joint Committee will decide, and will have a view on what circumstances are foreseen or unforeseen, but I have to address this point: the Joint Committee’s purpose is not to hoodwink or in any way subvert what we do as a democracy in this House. It is the Government’s full intention to engage extremely attentively to opinion in this House.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: Government Operations
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): We fully anticipate and hope that the Assembly will be restored, but in the absence of its restoration we will engage, as we have done, with those of all shades of political opinion across Northern Ireland, to ensure that their representations, their feelings, are reflected in the decisions of the Joint Committee.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: Government Operations
Luke Patrick Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): Can the Minister confirm what he said earlier—that any decision making of the Joint Committee will be subject to ministerial oversight unless it is democratically accountable in this place? Secondly, he mentioned engagement with the devolved nations; can he confirm that that engagement specifically on reserved matters will take place through the MPs who represent those constituencies in this place?
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: Government Operations
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): With regard to the Joint Committee, if we assume that the implementation period lasts until the end of 2020, as is set forth in the agreement, there will certainly be ministerial involvement—Ministers will be involved—in, I suspect, every meeting of the Joint Committee. With regard to devolved matters, I know that my hon. Friend, in another capacity, is an extremely active MP who represents the interests of his constituents, and he and other colleagues across the House will be fully engaged in devolved matters, as has already been the case.
EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight — House of Commons, 2019-03-20
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is quite right to say that the EU may have a veto, but just as the mutual consent provision gives the EU a veto, it also gives us—the UK Government—a veto over such decisions. On VAT and other matters, much of what my hon. Friend said referred, in my understanding, to phase 2 of the negotiations, in which there will be, one hopes, a more comprehensive free trade agreement. That is the ultimate goal to which we are tending.