argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: International Affairs
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): No; the hon. Gentleman will resume his seat, please. [Interruption.] I thank hon. Members, but I am perfectly capable of dealing with this matter. It is not in order for the hon. Gentleman to ask for an explanation. That would be to question the judgment of the Chair, which is—I should carefully say—a matter up with which I will not put. We will debate new clause 2, which will be moved by Mr Paul Blomfield New Clause 2 Conduct of negotiations "Before giving any notification under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the Prime Minister shall give an undertaking to have regard to the public interest during negotiations in— (a) maintaining a stable and sustainable economy, (b) preserving peace in Northern Ireland, (c) having trading arrangements with the European Union for goods and services that are free of tariff and non-tariff barriers and further regulatory burdens, (d) co-operation with the European Union in education, research and science, environment protection, and preventing and detecting serious and organised crime and terrorist activity, (e) maintaining all existing social, economic, consumer and workers’ rights."—(Paul Blomfield.) This new clause sets out statutory objectives that the Government must have regard to whilst carrying out negotiations under article 50. Brought up, and read the First time.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Peter William Bone (Conservative, Centre-right): The shadow Minister is making his case very clearly. As I understand it, Labour’s position is that the economy should be at the heart of the negotiations and that if, for instance, we could not get rid of free movement, so be it, because the economy is more important.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the hon. Gentleman accept that both sides of the House completely agree that we want the maximum possible access to the single market for our exporters and that we will offer the single market the maximum possible access to our market? Does he further accept that we therefore do not need to argue about that? The answer to whether we get that or get most favoured nation status through the WTO lies not here in Parliament, but the hands of the other 27 EU member states.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Energy
John Michael Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the shadow Minister for so generously giving way. He probably knows that the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy is in my constituency. People there told me how concerned they were about this issue, but they decided that the amendments to the Bill were not helpful. They said that it was much better to deal with Ministers directly, and to put pressure on the Treasury to achieve their objectives.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I find myself in agreement with new clause 2, which makes perfectly sensible statements about what our negotiating aims should be. I have even better news for the Opposition Front-Bench team: it is a statement of the White Paper policy. Of course we wish to maintain a stable, sustainable, profitable and growing economy, which we have done ever since the Brexit vote. Of course we wish to preserve the peace in Northern Ireland, to have excellent trading arrangements with the European Union for goods and services free of tariff, to have lots of co-operative activities with EU member states and institutions in education, research and science and so forth, and to maintain the important rights and legal protections enshrined in European law. As I understand it, the Government have made it crystal clear in the White Paper and in many statements and answers to questions and responses to debates from the Front Bench that all those things are fundamental to the negotiating aims of the Government Having excited the Opposition with my agreement, I need to explain why I will not vote for this new clause. I have two main reasons, which I briefly wish to develop. First, I am happy to accept the promise and the statement of our Front-Bench team, and I advise the Opposition to do the same. Secondly, although the words do not explicitly say, "This is what has to be delivered", the fact that it is embedded in legislation implies that all these things must be delivered, and some of them are not in the gift of this Government or this Parliament. I return to the point that the Opposition never seem to grasp: we are all united in the aim of ensuring tariff-free trade, but it will be decided by the other 27 members, not by this Parliament or by Ministers.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Agriculture
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): No, it clearly is not. The hon. Gentleman has not been listening to what I have been saying. The whole point about the single market is that it does not allow us to have a sensible fishing policy or a sensible borders policy, which are two notable omissions from the list, which, fortunately, were not absent from the White Paper or from the Government’s thinking.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: International Affairs
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree that Norway decided to sacrifice control of her borders to get certain other things from a different kind of relationship with the EU, but we do not wish to join the EEA because we do not wish to sacrifice control over our borders. That is straightforward.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend agree that if Opposition Members are serious about the flourishing of our economy, 80% of which is services, they should accept that we need to be able to do trade deals on services, which means that we have to leave the EEA so that we can negotiate about regulation?
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): That is quite right, and they also ignore the whole of the rest of the world. It so happens that we have a profitable, balanced trade with the rest of the world. We are often in surplus with the rest of the world overall and we are in massive deficit in goods with the EU alone. There is much more scope for growth in our trade with the rest of the world than there is with the EU, partly because the rest of the world is growing much faster overall than the EU and partly because we have the chance to have a much bigger proportion of the market there than we have, whereas we obviously have quite an advanced trade with the EU that is probably in decline because of the obvious economic problems in the euro area.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): First, let me congratulate my right hon. Friend on recognising that there is nothing in new clause 2 that is remotely objectionable to either leavers or remainers as an objective for the country in the forthcoming negotiations. If tariff-free access to the single market is desirable, does he accept that access to any market is not possible without accepting obedience of that market’s regulations? Otherwise, there are regulatory barriers. We need some sort of dispute procedure. If we start to reject the European Court of Justice and say that all the regulations must be British and that we are free to alter them when we feel like it, we are not pursuing the objectives in new clause 2 with which my right hon. Friend expresses complete agreement.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course there is a dispute resolution procedure when we enter a free trade agreement or any other trade arrangement. There is a very clear one in the WTO. We will register the best deal we can get with the EU under our WTO membership and it will be governed by normal WTO resolution procedures, with which we have no problem. The problem with the ECJ is that it presumes to strike down the wishes of the British people and good statute law made by this House of Commons on a wide range of issues, which means that we are no longer sovereign all the time we are in it.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): It is quite obvious that Germany will export more at the early stages of development in an emerging market economy, because it tends to export capital equipment of the kind that is needed to industrialise, which is what China bought in the last decade. Now that China is a much richer country, she is going to have a massive expansion of services and that is where we have a strong relative advantage, in that if we have the right kind of arrangement with China we will accelerate the growth of our exports, which China will now want, more rapidly. The hon. Gentleman must understand that the EU imposes massive and, I think, dangerous barriers against the emerging market world for their agricultural produce. The kind of deals we can offer to an emerging market country, saying that we will buy their much cheaper food by taking the tariff barriers off their food products in return for much better access to their service and industrial goods markets where we have products that they might like to buy—[Interruption.] I hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) express a worry about British farmers, and British farmers, would, of course, have a subsidy regime based on environmental factors, in the main, which we would want to continue.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Agriculture
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I just explained that it should boost it. I am sure that more market opportunities will open up for Welsh farmers, but we will also debate in this House how to have a proper support regime. I hope that it will be a support regime that not only rewards environmental objectives but is friendly to promoting the greater efficiencies that can come from more farm mechanisation and enlargement, which will be an important part of our journey to try to eliminate some of the massive deficit we run in food with the rest of the EU, while being more decent to the emerging world—the poor countries of the world to which we deliberately deny access to our markets.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure that that would be a very appropriate part of the discussions our country holds with New Zealand and Australia. I broadly take the view—I thought Labour was now of this view—that getting rid of tariffs was a good idea. Labour has spent all of the past six months saying how we must not have tariffs on our trade with Europe, but now I discover it wants tariffs on trade with everywhere else in the world. It is arguing a large contradiction.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Agriculture
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I think that we have teased out something very important in this debate. The Opposition want no barriers against ferocious competition from agriculture on the continent, which has undoubtedly damaged an awful lot of Welsh, Scottish and English farms, but they want maximum tariff barriers to trade with the rest of the world so that we still have to buy dear food. That does not seem to be an appealing package.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend might be interested to know that just last week I visited Randall Parker Foods in my constituency, a company that slaughters and processes several hundred thousand Welsh lambs every year and that is salivating at the chance of opening up the US market, in particular, where Welsh lamb is under-represented and where there is huge potential for us to export more than we do.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Agriculture
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Like my hon. Friend, I think that there are some great English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish agricultural products, and that with the right tariff system with the rest of the world we could do considerably better with our quality products.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: International Affairs
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his great speech, but I want to ask him one question that goes to the merits of the new clause. It says that the Prime Minister "shall give an undertaking", which is clearly a mandatory requirement under statute, and which itself calls for judicial review if somebody decides to do that. However, in all my time in this place, I have never seen a clause proposing the preserving of peace in Northern Ireland as a matter of public interest and of judicial review. It is unbelievably unworkable and completely contrary to all the assumptions that one might rely on for a decent provision.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing me back to my central point. He kindly said that I have made a good speech, but I have just responded to everybody else making their own speeches and riding their own hobby horses. I hope they have enjoyed giving those hobby horses a good ride To summarise my brief case, the aims of the new clause are fine. They happen to be agreed by the Government. However, it is disappointing that the Opposition have left out some important aims that matter to the British people: taking back control of our borders and laws, and dealing with the problem of the Court immediately spring to mind, but there are many others. They leave out, as they always do, the huge opportunities to have so many policies in areas such fishing and farming that would be better for the industry and for consumers. They have now revealed a fundamental contradiction in wanting completely tariff-free trade in Europe, but massive tariff barriers everywhere else, and do not really seem to think through the logic My conclusion is that there is nothing wrong with the aims. We need the extra aims that the Government have rightly spelled out. It would be quite silly to incorporate negotiating aims in legislation. I believe in the Government’s good faith. We are mercifully united in wanting tariff-free, barrier-free trade with the rest of Europe. It is not in the gift of this House, let alone the gift of Ministers, to deliver that, but if people on the continent are sensible they will want that because they get a lot more out of this trade than we do. They must understand that the most favoured nation tariffs are low or non-existent on the things we sell to them, but can be quite penal on the things they have been particularly successful at selling to us. The aims are a great idea, but it is silly to put them into law.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: International Affairs
Karl McCartney (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. and learned Friend for giving way; as a fellow member of the Brexit Select Committee, I hope that she would treat me as a friend, rather than as just an hon. Member sitting on the opposite side of the House. I do not disagree with her when it comes to Gibraltar and maybe even Scotland, but we are acting on behalf of the whole UK. If there were to be a list in the article 50 letter, are there any other places, such as the Isle of Man or Jersey, that she would like to see included on it? Would she like to see a long list of places?
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: International Affairs
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful to the hon. and learned Lady. She was waxing lyrical about the importance her party places on Gibraltar, but when I was listening to the evidence from the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, he was rather more committed to the continuance of the United Kingdom than the Scottish National party, which does not seem to be committed to it.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: International Affairs
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend has been here only as long as I have, so we are clearly both still learning the ropes. I wanted to assist him. The Prime Minister has been clear on the record that she intends to take a very generous approach. To go back to the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), part of the roadblock is that some EU member states will not negotiate with us until we have triggered article 50. In fact, the quicker we get the Bill on the statute book and get article 50 triggered, the quicker we can get that arrangement in place and reassure EU nationals in Britain and British citizens overseas.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: International Affairs
Edward Vaizey (Conservative, Centre-right): That is an excellent point. A difficult road lies ahead and we will have to make some pretty unsavoury compromises. They are understandable compromises, but we should make no mistake that the mood of the House among many colleagues who supported Brexit is to move as quickly as possible to provide reassurance to European citizens in this country. I wanted to use this opportunity, before I got mired in a procedural quagmire and moved closer to the Chief Whip’s tarantula, to make it as clear as possible that I stand four-square behind European Union citizens living in this country and their contribution.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Edward Vaizey (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady makes an interesting point and allows me to segue to the next issue, which is Britain’s global leadership in free trade Hon. Members who were lucky enough to hear me speak on Second Reading know that the constant talk of free trade treaties is driving me round the bend. As a Minister, I took part in the state visit from President Xi, and as a Member of Parliament I was in Westminster Hall to hear the address from President Obama—I know I should not stray on to the subject of presidential addresses in Westminster Hall, which is a dangerous road to go down—and I fail to understand those who cite the lack of British influence that has existed while we have been members of the European Union. Heads of State and Presidents from countries all over the world are only too happy to come and visit I am a loyal Conservative Member, but the point made about Germany’s trade with China was well made. People refer constantly to free trade treaties. I hope we will be able to negotiate them within a matter of days of leaving the European Union, but it strikes me that people are unaware of what happens in the real world if they think that our farmers, who are the best example, will simply sign up without a murmur to free trade treaties with countries such as the United States, which has very different welfare standards from ours. I understand the arguments of those who support free trade with, for example, developing nations, and I understand people who say that we should open our markets to them and support our farmers in different ways, but our farmers will have severe concerns. We also have to wonder whether developing nations have the same welfare standards as us.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Agriculture
Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Centre-right): I entirely agree and support my right hon. Friend on his first point. On his second point, does he agree that many hon. Members, while wishing the very best, worry that those deals and transactions will take a long time to fulfil, particularly in the case of the farmers, and that there is therefore the great danger of being in limbo-land?
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Edward Vaizey (Conservative, Centre-right): That worries me, and I thank my right hon. Friend for making the point This is obviously a remoan. I know it is a remoan. I am a remainer just getting things off my chest. It is probably not very constructive, but it strikes me as bizarre that we have given up extraordinary influence over a market of 500 million people to sail off to negotiate free trade deals that will not be without controversy.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Peter Lilley (Conservative, Centre-right): I would not dream of correcting my right hon. Friend, but I would ask him this question. When it appeared that we were going to stay in the EU, was he concerned about the terms of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and what that would have done to British farmers? Was he concerned about the trade agreement with the Canadians, of which we have today voted to take note? Was he concerned about those things, or is he concerned only when it feeds his remaining remoan tendencies?
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Edward Vaizey (Conservative, Centre-right): I did not accept the argument that TTIP would undermine our NHS, and I did not receive any representations from my farmers about its impact on them. I was concerned about the French introducing cultural protections, but felt that we were getting close to a free trade agreement thanks to the negotiating power of the European Union.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): Further to the intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), I wonder whether the logical extension of the argument of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) is that we should withdraw from the World Trade Organisation. For example, is it fair that the textile workers of Leicester were exposed through our WTO membership to the textile industry in China, which has largely meant a transfer of that industry to that country?
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-08
Topic: International Affairs
Edward Vaizey (Conservative, Centre-right): My argument is simply that it will be very difficult to negotiate the free trade agreements that people talk about. It is a very unconstructive and unhelpful argument and will not take us very far. It is more therapy on my part because I feel so frustrated that the tone of the debate since the referendum has been so awful and unpleasant; that we forget that 48% of the country voted to stay in the European Union; and that we are unable to build a consensus on the way forward. The remain part of the House and the country has, by and large, accepted that the referendum result is clear and decisive, and that it will take us out of the EU. We want to work extremely constructively to make that happen, despite my earlier remarks. We are urging all sides to have a realistic assessment of how difficult it will be so that we can work together in the national interest.