argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
UK/US Trade Agreement: SMEs — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right. I understand that Leyland Exports can face up to 25% tariffs on the export of goods vehicles to the United States, and 5% tariffs on its exports to Australia. In the free trade agreements we are looking for from the United States and Australia, one of our key asks will be to get rid of those tariffs, and to make it much easier for the car industry—by reducing testing and red tape—to ensure that we can get our fantastic exports into those markets.
UK Ports of Entry — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the preparedness of UK ports of entry to facilitate international trade after the transition period.
Gregory William Hands (Conservative, Centre-right): We are using the transition period to ensure that the UK rises to the challenges of leaving the European Union while being ready to take advantage of all the benefits. Work on ports preparedness is being led by the Cabinet Office’s border delivery group. I remind the House and onlookers that tonight is the closure of our consultation on the new UK global tariff.
UK Ports of Entry — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the preparedness of UK ports of entry to facilitate international trade after the transition period.
Gregory William Hands (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Member makes an extremely good point, and that is one of the points of the free port policy. We launched the consultation last month with the Command Paper, and it closes on 20 April. It would not be proper for me to make comments specifically about the location of future free ports, but the Tyne port in particular is very important to this country, as it is the second largest vehicle port in the nation. Free ports are designed to support jobs, trade and investment.
UK/US Trade Agreement: Thames Valley — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Gregory William Hands (Conservative, Centre-right): An ambitious United States free trade agreement could boost the economy in the south-east, including the Thames valley, by £622 million in the long run, supporting the growth of key local industries such as professional business services, and automotive and digital businesses. The FTA presents a golden opportunity for the region, which has a thriving trade with America, with the equivalent of £14,000 of goods exported to the US every minute.
UK/US Trade Agreement: Thames Valley — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Gregory William Hands (Conservative, Centre-right): May I start by congratulating my hon. Friend yet again on being a brilliant new representative for the Buckingham constituency? The Silverstone technology cluster includes excellent tech and start-up companies such as Advanced Automotive Technologies, Altair Engineering, room44 e-bikes and many more. Those are exactly the kind of companies that we want to see exporting more to the USA and to benefit from fewer hurdles to trade. That is why both sides want an SME chapter in the trade deal.
UK/US Trade Agreement: Thames Valley — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Gregory William Hands (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Member does not do this question justice. Our objective, of course, is to have both a very good free trade deal with the European Union and a new trade deal with the United States of America, which would have the potential to raise the gross value added of the north-eastern region by some £170 million. She should join us, work with us and ensure that the benefits of these deals can be heard by all her constituents across the region.
Global Exports: Tech Start-ups — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Technology
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): We are a world leader in tech. Following our departure from the European Union, we have launched a new GREAT campaign that promotes everything from our agri-tech to our gaming capabilities. The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), recently led a delegation to Las Vegas where he promoted UK tech at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Global Exports: Tech Start-ups — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Technology
Mohammad Saqib Bhatti (Conservative, Centre-right): To meet the challenges of our time, we must ensure that we create an environment where we encourage tech start-ups to set up, thrive and innovate. What are the Secretary of State and Ministers doing to ensure that tech start-ups in the west midlands are able to fulfil their potential?
Global Exports: Tech Start-ups — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Technology
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): Birmingham has the largest tech sector outside London. It has firms specialising in FinTech, games, health-tech and cyber-security. We will keep the UK at the top of the investment tree. Last year we saw investment in UK tech growing faster than in any other nation in the world. We need to keep at the forefront, and there are huge opportunities for our tech industry.
Global Exports: Tech Start-ups — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): I disagree with the premise of the hon. Lady’s question. Now that we have left the EU, we have the opportunity to set our own rules and regulations in tech, and really lead the world in areas like artificial intelligence and blockchain. That is exactly what we are seeking to do with these new free trade agreements. We are also seeking, at the World Trade Organisation, to lead in areas like the joint statement on e-commerce, and looking for new SME-friendly chapters in our trade deals to help exactly these types of tech start-ups to sell their goods around the world.
Trade Agreements: Non-EU Countries — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Conor Burns (Conservative, Centre-right): As we said earlier, only this week we have launched our negotiating platform for a free trade agreement with the United States. Those for Australia, New Zealand and Japan will follow in due course, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will set those out. My role within the Department is to support her in scoping out and assessing the potential for future free trade agreements around the rest of the world.
Trade Agreements: Non-EU Countries — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Conor Burns (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand that the hon. Lady attended a briefing yesterday on the negotiations, led by our brilliant chief negotiator. She asks whether we are pursuing concurrent trade negotiations with the EU and the United States. The answer is yes we are, in exactly the same way that the EU is currently negotiating with the United States.
Trade Agreements: Non-EU Countries — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Conor Burns (Conservative, Centre-right): A free trade agreement with the European Union is our ambition, and we hope that it shares that ambition. Our ambition is also to engage in free trade negotiations, which the Secretary of State is leading on, with the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan in the first instance. I can tell the hon. Gentleman and sceptics on the Opposition Benches that the interest in the opportunities for the United Kingdom to engage bilaterally around the world, now that we control our own independent trade policy for the first time in almost 50 years, is almost unquenchable—I think of the conversations we have had in the last six months with the Gulf Co-operation Council, Vietnam, Brazil, Chile, Morocco, Algeria and Commonwealth Trade Ministers. I just hope that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will welcome the opportunities that we are giving them to trade with the world and enjoy ever increasing prosperity.
Trade Agreements: Non-EU Countries — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: International Affairs
Conor Burns (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question. The answer is unequivocally yes. We are determined that the entire United Kingdom—all nations and every region of it—will benefit, and I had the pleasure of returning home to Northern Ireland only a couple of weeks ago to talk about those ambitions with the Executive and businesses in Northern Ireland.
Trade Strategy — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Graham Charles Stuart (Conservative, Centre-right): UK exports are at a record high, with the latest figures showing exports of £689 billion—up 5% on 2018. We are committed to doing even more, building on the measures in our export strategy. Just last month, we launched a new business support campaign, helping businesses of all sizes to fulfil their exporting potential.
Trade Strategy — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: International Affairs
Graham Charles Stuart (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is quite right to highlight the issue of trade’s role in parts of the world where human rights are being breached. Right across the Department, we seek to ensure that all such considerations are taken into account, while recognising the need to engage with regimes that may have less than perfect Governments, for the benefit of the people there. It is a balance that we take very seriously, and I look forward to further discussion with him to get it right.
Trade Strategy — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Graham Charles Stuart (Conservative, Centre-right): We could look at Japan, or we could look at Mercosur, which took 20 years of negotiation. Some say that the UK shorn of the heft of the EU will be less able to do deals. There are ways in which that would be true, but fundamentally, with agility, as many countries have shown, we can do more deals more quickly and, most importantly, bring greater prosperity, employment and opportunity to my right hon. Friend’s constituents and mine as a result of the UK having its own independent trade policy for the first time in 40-odd years.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): Following our departure from the EU, the UK has established itself as an independent trading nation. On Tuesday, I was the first UK Trade Secretary in almost 50 years to make a speech at the World Trade Organisation representing the UK as an independent trading nation. We will use our position at the WTO to champion free trade, champion reform and make the case for liberalisation in digital and services. Mr Speaker, I can tell you that Britain is back.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Agriculture
Stephen Daniel Double (Conservative, Centre-right): The British Egg Industry Council recently commissioned a report on the impact that changes to import tariffs would have on UK egg producers. The report particularly highlighted concerns about cutting import tariffs on egg products when they come from countries with much lower welfare standards. How does my right hon. Friend plan to protect the good eggs, such as St Ewe Free Range Eggs in my constituency, which produces the finest free range eggs money can buy, against the bad eggs from countries with lower welfare standards?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): The consultation on the UK global tariff, which will set the most favoured nation tariff rate for eggs, among other products, closes tonight, so I suggest that my hon. Friend gets the eggs-cellent company in his constituency to put in a submission to the consultation and make its views known.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): We are working very closely with the Cabinet Office to make sure that businesses have all the information they need to prepare for transition at the end of this year. This is also an opportunity, of course, to get more businesses trading with the rest of the world, and we will be saying more about this soon in our new export strategy.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: My constituency of South Cambridgeshire is not just the life sciences capital of the UK or of Europe, but it claims to be the life sciences capital of the world. It has the global headquarters of AstraZeneca, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, which is leading the world in genome sequencing, and Abcam, a start-up company now worth £3 billion, which is leading the UK in antibody products, and many of these are exporters. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the commercial opportunities for these firms of a potential UK-US free trade agreement?
Gregory William Hands (Conservative, Centre-right): That is properly a question for a different Question Time, because it is Taskforce Europe that is responsible for our future trading relations with the European Union. What I can say to the hon. Member is that the mutual recognition of professional qualifications is one of the key aspects we are looking at in free trade agreements with counterparties across the world.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: My constituency of South Cambridgeshire is not just the life sciences capital of the UK or of Europe, but it claims to be the life sciences capital of the world. It has the global headquarters of AstraZeneca, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, which is leading the world in genome sequencing, and Abcam, a start-up company now worth £3 billion, which is leading the UK in antibody products, and many of these are exporters. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the commercial opportunities for these firms of a potential UK-US free trade agreement?; Can the Secretary of State confirm that the free trade agreement will benefit the whole of the UK, including my constituency of Ynys Môn in north Wales, which will be disproportionately affected by the collapse of Flybe overnight? And does she agree that the port of Holyhead is a prime candidate to be one of the new free ports?
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has been lobbying extremely hard for Holyhead to be considered as a free port, and we are very grateful for all her input to the free port consultation. She is right, of course, that a US free trade deal will benefit every single part of the United Kingdom, including Wales. There are particular opportunities for the export of Welsh lamb into the United States, where it is currently not allowed. I also agree that we need to ensure—I know the Transport Secretary is working hard on this—that we continue to keep routes open and that new companies can operate those flight routes, which are so vital for our connectivity.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: My constituency of South Cambridgeshire is not just the life sciences capital of the UK or of Europe, but it claims to be the life sciences capital of the world. It has the global headquarters of AstraZeneca, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, which is leading the world in genome sequencing, and Abcam, a start-up company now worth £3 billion, which is leading the UK in antibody products, and many of these are exporters. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the commercial opportunities for these firms of a potential UK-US free trade agreement?; Can the Secretary of State confirm that the free trade agreement will benefit the whole of the UK, including my constituency of Ynys Môn in north Wales, which will be disproportionately affected by the collapse of Flybe overnight? And does she agree that the port of Holyhead is a prime candidate to be one of the new free ports?; Last summer, the Government were found to have unlawfully committed arms exports to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. In September it emerged that this ban had been repeatedly violated. In response, last month the Secretary of State said processes had been updated. If she genuinely wants to give confidence that this Government will not put the interests of arms dealers ahead of human rights yet again, will she commit to an immediate embargo on all arms exports to Saudi Arabia?
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): I was very clear in the statement I made to the House that there had been problems with our process. I subsequently issued a written ministerial statement, followed by an internal review conducted by another Government Department We have now fixed that problem. The information is now being provided in real time, and that fulfils the requirements of the court order.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: My constituency of South Cambridgeshire is not just the life sciences capital of the UK or of Europe, but it claims to be the life sciences capital of the world. It has the global headquarters of AstraZeneca, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, which is leading the world in genome sequencing, and Abcam, a start-up company now worth £3 billion, which is leading the UK in antibody products, and many of these are exporters. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the commercial opportunities for these firms of a potential UK-US free trade agreement?; Can the Secretary of State confirm that the free trade agreement will benefit the whole of the UK, including my constituency of Ynys Môn in north Wales, which will be disproportionately affected by the collapse of Flybe overnight? And does she agree that the port of Holyhead is a prime candidate to be one of the new free ports?; Last summer, the Government were found to have unlawfully committed arms exports to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. In September it emerged that this ban had been repeatedly violated. In response, last month the Secretary of State said processes had been updated. If she genuinely wants to give confidence that this Government will not put the interests of arms dealers ahead of human rights yet again, will she commit to an immediate embargo on all arms exports to Saudi Arabia?; [R] Israeli exports to the UK grew by 286% over the last decade, and bilateral trade levels are also at a record high, so it was no surprise that one of the first post-Brexit trade agreements we signed was with Israel. What steps will the Secretary of State be taking to further strengthen and enhance our trade relationship with Israel and go beyond the terms of the continuity agreement that is already in place?; Bearing in mind the latest comments coming from the US, what steps will the Minister take to provide legal safeguards and reassure the British public that our food and animal welfare standards will not be at risk in a US-UK trade deal?
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady can see that laid out in black and white in our objectives: we simply will not do a deal that undermines our food safety standards, and we will also retain our very high animal welfare standards. That is very clear and, ultimately, if the US is not prepared to agree to that, we will walk away.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: My constituency of South Cambridgeshire is not just the life sciences capital of the UK or of Europe, but it claims to be the life sciences capital of the world. It has the global headquarters of AstraZeneca, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, which is leading the world in genome sequencing, and Abcam, a start-up company now worth £3 billion, which is leading the UK in antibody products, and many of these are exporters. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the commercial opportunities for these firms of a potential UK-US free trade agreement?; Can the Secretary of State confirm that the free trade agreement will benefit the whole of the UK, including my constituency of Ynys Môn in north Wales, which will be disproportionately affected by the collapse of Flybe overnight? And does she agree that the port of Holyhead is a prime candidate to be one of the new free ports?; Last summer, the Government were found to have unlawfully committed arms exports to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. In September it emerged that this ban had been repeatedly violated. In response, last month the Secretary of State said processes had been updated. If she genuinely wants to give confidence that this Government will not put the interests of arms dealers ahead of human rights yet again, will she commit to an immediate embargo on all arms exports to Saudi Arabia?; [R] Israeli exports to the UK grew by 286% over the last decade, and bilateral trade levels are also at a record high, so it was no surprise that one of the first post-Brexit trade agreements we signed was with Israel. What steps will the Secretary of State be taking to further strengthen and enhance our trade relationship with Israel and go beyond the terms of the continuity agreement that is already in place?; Bearing in mind the latest comments coming from the US, what steps will the Minister take to provide legal safeguards and reassure the British public that our food and animal welfare standards will not be at risk in a US-UK trade deal?; The Secretary of State knows that I am very excited about the prospects for Scotland to grow its exports. Scottish Development International does a good job, but it does not have, as it would concede, the global reach of her Department. So to ensure that Scottish businesses get the maximum support going forward to grow exports, will the Minister commit today to increase the Department’s presence on the ground in Scotland?;   Is the Secretary of State confident that the Government stance in the EU trade negotiations meets the needs of successful horticultural businesses such as Seiont Nurseries in my constituency, whose time-sensitive exports just will not thrive with delays at the ports, regulatory divergence and punitive tariffs?
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): We are leaving the EU so that we can make our own regulatory decisions, including about how we manage our agriculture and horticulture. Of course we want to get the best possible free trade deal with the EU, but that does not mean continuously harmonising with its regulations.