argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Leaving the EU — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Prime Minister clearly cannot get her deal through tomorrow night—the Foreign Secretary conceded as much last week—despite the false choice we are being offered. Meanwhile, the Leader of the Opposition wants to call an election in the hope, like Micawber, that something will turn up. It gives me no pleasure to say that I am beginning to think that, given how things are going, perhaps we all might as well wait to see whether a mermaid riding a unicorn will happen by and provide a solution. Does the Prime Minister not think that a sensible way forward would be, at long last and finally, to listen to the majority of the Scottish people, and reject Brexit and this entire shambles once and for all?
Leaving the EU — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Prime Minister has said that these written assurances have legal standing and legal force, and that they will be taken into account, but she has also acknowledged that paragraph 2 of the Attorney General’s letter of advice says that they do not "alter the fundamental meanings" of the provisions of the withdrawal agreement. Can she confirm that, ultimately, as a matter of law, in any conflict between the wording of these assurances and the wording of the withdrawal agreement, the withdrawal agreement would triumph, and that therefore, in the months since she pulled the meaningful vote, nothing has changed?
Leaving the EU — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): This Prime Minister and this Government have been engaging in acts of outright fuddery—the spreading of fear, uncertainty and doubt—with the bizarre spectacle of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury running up and down with planted notes saying, "No food" and "No channel tunnel". Is it no surprise to the Prime Minister that people in Scotland, as they watch this ridiculous spectacle, are starting to think that we could do a lot better running things ourselves?
Leaving the EU — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): After two and a half years of complete lack of direction, the Prime Minister wants us to vote for this agreement, which only puts everything into touch and into the transition period. Yet she is somehow trying to convince herself that, to avoid the backstop and avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland, within the next year and a half or so she can agree a trade deal, a customs deal and find from nowhere a technology solution—invented, trialled and implemented within that year and a half. Will she tell me the key milestone dates for this magic solution, and can she name one major IT infrastructure project delivered in such a timescale?
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Things were a bit different in 1993 from how they are now. We have customs checks that are required to be done. We have these production lines, and the storage time is much shorter because we have frictionless movement. If frictionless movement is so unimportant, why have the Government been prioritising it in the potential future relationship with the EU This is not just about the EU. The UK Government have also failed to set out exactly what the future relationship with Turkey is going to look like, for example Will widgets still be able to come in from Turkey in the event of a no-deal scenario The Secretary of State for International Trade was pressed earlier on whether free trade agreements with third countries will roll over. The UK Government have absolutely failed to let us or businesses know which countries have agreed to sign up for their free trade agreement to be rolled over in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Given that the largest manufacturing companies are preparing for a no-deal Brexit, the Government need to be up front and honest about how many of those free trade agreements will actually roll over. I have heard that, potentially, only 10 of them are ready to be rolled over. If that is the case, the Government need to tell us which 10 so that the companies exporting to or importing from those countries can make plans.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I agree that it is absolutely vital. It is interesting that the Secretary of State was unable to give that answer. I have a named day question on this subject and am expecting a response tomorrow. I am aware of at least one organisation that has been asking the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy for the list since November and still has not received it. If the Government intend us to leave the EU on 29 March, and if they intend that we leave with no deal if this deal is not voted through, they need to tell companies about the scenario in which they will be operating after we leave the EU in those circumstances. The Government are wilfully making the situation worse by their refusal to come forward with this information.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is complete chaos. It is ridiculous that businesses are having to prepare for a no deal because the Government continue to hold it over us, which is why Members on both sides of the House have signed a letter saying that a no-deal scenario is completely unacceptable. As has been said previously, opposition to no deal is one of the few things on which there is a majority in this House On the subject of free trade agreements, and on the subject of fantasy economics, the Government’s paper on the deal scenario, the no-deal scenario and the analysis of Brexit costs talks about the potential for signing free trade agreements with the US, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Brunei, China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, plus rolling over all the FTAs on their current terms. The paper says that all the new free trade agreements will be signed on the basis of there being zero tariffs on everything in the scenarios that were modelled, and of all the FTAs being rolled over despite the bizarre assumptions that no sensible person would think are ever likely to happen. We are not going to have a free trade agreement with India with zero tariffs on everything within 15 years. That is absolutely not going to happen Despite all those bizarre assumptions, the UK Government still predict that our trade reduction will be 2.2%. So despite the most ambitious assumptions possible, which no realistic person would think could even vaguely happen, the Government still predict that our trade reduction will be 2.2% of GDP. I do not know how anyone who supports Brexit could stand up and say that we will benefit from increased international trade when it is absolutely clear that we will not, even in the best possible scenario One of the things that the Secretary of State for International Trade is very good at is talking about the increase in our trade with countries like South Korea, with which we trade through the EU’s free trade agreement.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stephen Patrick Gethins (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech on the perils. I wonder whether the Chancellor would agree with a huge amount of what she says. It strikes me that the Scottish Government have outlined their economic analysis of what will happen, yet the UK Government have tried to keep theirs secret. Does my hon. Friend have any thoughts on why that is the case?
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I think the UK Government are trying to say as little as possible about the economic analysis because they know that Brexit will damage the economy I am specifically focusing on the economy, but I will talk about other things in a few moments. Investors have pulled $1.01 trillion out of UK equity funds since the 2016 referendum. That is an eye-wateringly large figure, and it comes as a direct result of the referendum according to Emerging Portfolio Fund Research, a data provider The Scottish Government have said that our GDP would be £9 billion lower under a free trade agreement—that is not under a no-deal scenario—than if we stayed in the EU. Amazingly, the figure is significantly more than even the most Unionist of commentators said that independence would cost the Scottish people. We are stuck with the UK, which is making terrible decisions and cutting more off our GDP than even those least in favour of independence said that independence would cut from our GDP.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a fantastic point. Is not the core of her argument that nobody, however they voted in the 2016 European referendum, voted to become poorer? That is all the more reason to put this to the people again in a people’s vote so that folk can have their say now that they know what the consequences of Brexit actually are.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People were told stories about unicorns and mermaids. They were told that there would be amazing economic largesse in the event of Brexit, and they have been told that for a huge number of years, and not just in relation to the Brexit vote. People have been told by politicians that those who choose to come to live and work in this country make us poorer, which is an absolute lie. Those people contribute to our GDP, they contribute to reducing our public sector net debt and they contribute to our economy, and that is without going into the cultural and social benefits.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): But effectively the deal will be dead tomorrow, so the premise of the people’s vote will be dead tomorrow, leaving only a hard Brexit or revocation of article 50. That is what we are down to now.
St Rollox Railway Works: Closure — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: Transportation
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank my constituency neighbour for giving way. Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the fact that the Scottish Transport Minister has also called for a delay to the statutory consultation, which he did after our counterpart in the Scottish Parliament, Bob Doris, raised this at First Minister’s questions? Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the efforts of the Scottish Government to bring all the stakeholders around the table to find a way forward for the site?
St Rollox Railway Works: Closure — House of Commons, 2019-01-14
Topic: Labor
Christopher Charles Stephens (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman’s speech has been very passionate and I agree with a lot of what he has said. Does he agree that another danger is that the 45-day redundancy notice does not give enough time for a solution to be found for the company and the highly skilled workforce at St Rollox?
Devolved Administrations: Talks — House of Commons, 2019-02-28
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does the Minister agree with the submissions made more than two years ago by the devolved Administrations, and confirmed by more recent analysis by his own Government, that staying in the single market and the customs union would be the best outcome for the whole UK economy?
Devolved Administrations: Talks — House of Commons, 2019-02-28
Topic: International Affairs
Martyn Day (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Will the Government now admit that if they had engaged properly with the devolved Administrations two years ago and had meaningful discussions with the Scottish Government about their—the Scottish Government’s—paper "Scotland’s Place in Europe", they would not now be in the position of having to blackmail the House into choosing between a bad deal and no deal?
Devolved Administrations: Talks — House of Commons, 2019-02-28
Topic: International Affairs
Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Given that the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland has supported a differentiated deal for Scotland in the event that Scotland is removed from the single market by the UK, and given that the Government support a differentiated deal for Northern Ireland, will the Secretary of State confirm that a similar option would be possible for Scotland?
EU Exit: No deal — House of Commons, 2019-02-28
Topic: International Affairs
David Melvyn Linden (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is not quite as simple as that. Surely the best way to take no deal off the table is for the Government just to say that they are taking no deal off the table, so why, when the SNP put an amendment to Parliament last night, did the Government whip their MPs, including Scottish Tory MPs, to walk through the No Lobby and not take no deal off the table?
EU Exit: No deal — House of Commons, 2019-02-28
Topic: International Affairs
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Department’s own report shows that almost a third of the Government’s essential no-deal projects will not be ready for 29 March. The Minister will not say how the Government will vote on 12 March, but if the House votes against no deal, will that be respected?
EU Exit: No deal — House of Commons, 2019-02-28
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I remind the Minister that the fact that a majority of Conservative MPs votes for something does not make it right. Certainly, the experience with the Scottish Tories is that they vote not for what they want to happen but for what they want their Whips to see them voting for Will the Minister comment on the statement made by his colleague the Secretary of State for Scotland last night? He said that the Government voted to leave no deal on the table to make sure that it did not happen, and the SNP voted to take no deal off the table to make sure that it did happen. Does the rest of the Cabinet share the Secretary of State for Scotland’s particular and idiosyncratic form of logic?
EU Exit: No deal — House of Commons, 2019-02-28
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Yet again we see that, when it suits the Government, they insist on looking at the voting pattern of individual constituencies in the north of England but ignore the voting patterns of entire nations that are supposedly partners in this Union. If the reason why we want to take no deal of the table is that, secretly, we want it to happen, does that give us an explanation of why the Government keep telling the Scottish Government to take independence referendums off the table? Are they secretly wanting that to happen as well?
St David’s Day — House of Commons, 2019-02-28
Topic: International Affairs
Ronald Jack Cowan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): If the Welsh put out their second team, that might help us, to put it mildly Often we romanticise Scotland—dashing Jacobites, the flamboyant house of Stuart and a twee caricature of what we truly are. I would hate to fall into that trap when talking about Wales. It has a vibrant linguistic, literary and musical past, present and, most importantly, future. In Scotland, we like to think of ourselves as great contributors to the world, and so are the Welsh. Those contributors include Edward George Bowen, pioneer of radar; Martha Hughes Cannon, pioneer in women and children’s medicine; John Dee, founder of the new school of English mathematics and one of the greatest polymaths of all time; Bill Frost, the Welsh carpenter who patented the aeroplane in 1894 and took to the skies in a powered flying machine the following year, eight years before the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk; William Jones, the noted mathematician and the first to use pi as a mathematical symbol; Brian Josephson, Nobel prize-winning physicist; Francis Lewis, signatory of the US declaration of independence; William Henry Preece, an electrical engineer who was a major figure in the development and introduction of wireless telegraphy; Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician and Nobel prize winner; Alfred Russel Wallace, who conferred with Darwin on the evolution of species; and Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Richard Burton and "Ivor the Engine"—the list goes on and on. And I thought all they did was play rugby Scotland and Wales are nations with a strong tradition of agriculture and forestry, which plays a vital role in our economies. The last two years have seen the Scottish Government and Welsh Assembly work together in a spirit of constructive collaboration as we seek to protect our nations from the threat of Brexit. Protecting Wales from the impact of a Tory Brexit will be vital to the Welsh economy. Figures released on Tuesday show that a no-deal Brexit could cause the Welsh economy to shrink by up to 8%. Between 2014 and 2020, Wales is due to receive €5 billion in EU-related funding. Some guarantees are in place for the period after Brexit and beyond 2020, but uncertainty remains over the future shape of regional development and agriculture funding. The UK Government should ensure that all voices are heard from across the UK as they proceed with Brexit negotiations. I add a word of warning from Dylan Thomas: do not go gentle into that good night To close, I will say this to the people of Wales: when Scotland claims its place at the top table as an equal independent country among equal independent countries, we shall keep a seat beside us for you, and if it is your will, I hope that you will join us.
Net Zero Carbon Emissions: UK’s Progress — House of Commons, 2019-02-28
Topic: Environment
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this very important debate. In Scotland, the Scottish National party and the Green party in the Scottish Parliament have been able to work together. I am not saying that everything is perfect, but does she welcome that cross-party collaboration to try to drive forward sometimes quite difficult decisions that will help to reduce carbon emissions and tackle climate change?
Yemen — House of Commons, 2019-02-28
Topic: International Affairs
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his efforts in this space. I am aware that Mark Lowcock, the UN relief co-ordinator, prior to the pledging conference, met women’s groups in Yemen. Can he tell me any more about what is being done to reach women in Yemen?
Public Sector Procurement — House of Commons, 2019-02-06
Topic: Labor
Thomas Sheppard (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am aware that current statute means that wage rates cannot be mandated, but it is possible to use the procurement process to encourage employers to consider paying the real living wage in the context of fair work policies. Indeed, that is the process undertaken by the Scottish Government. Will the Minister consider following Scotland’s lead and using procurement to ensure that employers pay the real living wage?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2019-02-06
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: Last Friday, the Health Secretary made a superb visit to Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, where he met inspirational staff doing outstanding work for patients. However, our hospital is crumbling. Sewage is coming into the operating theatres and our infrastructure is failing. Will my right hon. Friend lobby the Treasury to ensure that we get capital funding so that Harlow can get the new hospital that we desperately need?
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I welcome the Minister to his place While the chaos of the UK Government’s shambolic Brexit negotiations has dominated the headlines, this Government have sneaked through a cut in pension credit that will see some couples up to £7,000 a year worse off. An estimated 300,000 more pensioners are now living in poverty than in 2012. Does the Minister agree that his Government need to change course and, instead of robbing pensioners, start supporting them?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2019-02-06
Topic: Labor
Questions: Last Friday, the Health Secretary made a superb visit to Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, where he met inspirational staff doing outstanding work for patients. However, our hospital is crumbling. Sewage is coming into the operating theatres and our infrastructure is failing. Will my right hon. Friend lobby the Treasury to ensure that we get capital funding so that Harlow can get the new hospital that we desperately need?
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): We certainly did not vote for that. What we have seen from this Government is that they continue to put their hands into the pockets of the poorest in our society. In fact, this Tory Government are allowing a proposal to take free TV licences from pensioners. It is this Conservative Government who are denying women born in the 1950s their full rights to state pensions. It is this Tory Government who preside over the lowest state pension in any developed country—quite shameful. Pensioner poverty is not a myth; it is a reality. With Scottish pensioners being short-changed by the UK Government, the Minister must agree that the only way to end pensioner poverty in Scotland is to put fairness back into our pension system and give older people the dignity that they deserve in retirement— for pension reform to be taken on by the Scottish Government in an independent Scotland, where we take our responsibilities seriously.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2019-02-06
Topic: Labor
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During Prime Minister’s questions, I raised the issue of the attack on pensions and pensioners, and I was surprised to hear the Minister for the Cabinet Office claim in response that the Scottish Government had responsibility, if we so chose, to deal with the problems created by the UK Government. He will know that pensions are reserved and that the Scottish Parliament cannot create any new pension or old-age benefit because of the restrictions in section 28 of the Scotland Act 2016, under which we cannot give pensions assistance or assistance for reasons of age. We find it intolerable that time after time the UK Government claim that the Scottish Parliament or Government have powers they patently do not have, and it must stop.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2019-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I shall keep this brief, Mr Speaker. I did not have the chance to advise you of my point order in advance, as it arises from that of the right hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). May I respectfully suggest to you that you respectfully suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he might want to go beyond the headlines of the BBC in future? What the European Council President Donald Tusk actually said was that there is a "special place in hell" for "those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely" So perhaps—[Hon. Members: "Oh!] Well, Mr Speaker, sometimes the truth hurts, doesn’t it?