argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): Clearly, the Chancellor is not dodging any difficult questions because I did not hear any difficult questions from the hon. Gentleman. It is a bit rich that the new shadow Chancellor has chosen to make his first attack on the Government’s economic policy by drawing attention to his party’s woeful track record on bank regulation and by publicly disagreeing with the advice of the Governor of the Bank of England Last week the hon. Gentleman told this Chamber: "I have had plenty of time to reflect on the result of the general election. Obviously, we are disappointed with it and we will review our policies accordingly".—[Official Report, 4 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 789.] Clearly, that reflection does not include apologising for the lax regulation of our banking sector or realising that the British people do not want a Government who are committed to borrowing more, spending more and nationalising more. Above all, the hon. Gentleman’s reflection clearly does not include recognising that his mentors, Gordon Brown and Ed Balls, paid a high price for their intervention in the Royal Bank of Scotland. I will take no lectures on economic competence from an Opposition party that in office sold off the country’s gold reserves at an all-time low, crashed the banking system and the economy, and left us with the biggest peacetime deficit in our nation’s history I will answer the hon. Gentleman’s questions. He asked whether the Government will publish a break-even share price for RBS. I do not know whether he is Mystic Meg, but I do not know exactly at what price the sales will be made. The hon. Gentleman will have seen the Rothschild report that we have published today. Under his Government, it was forecast in 2009 that the bank interventions would result in a total loss of between £20 billion and £50 billion. We have turned the economy and the banking sector around, and as of this week the Rothschild report estimates that the overall sum total of the interventions will benefit the taxpayer by £14 billion.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his unopposed re-election as Chair of the Treasury Committee. That he asks a question about the footnote illustrates his forensic reading of the published materials. As he knows, at the end of 2009 the estimate was that the cost of bank interventions would range between a £20 billion loss and a £50 billion loss. As of last week, the Rothschild report estimates that that situation has completely turned around, and that the overall recovery from the bank interventions is in the order of a £14 billion magnitude. The overall cost of funding on our Treasury issuance is at record lows thanks to the prudent economic management of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I thank him for his kind words of welcome. He is correct to say that we are not doing this purely for price reasons. It is important to take into account the wider economic impact. That is why I am grateful to the Governor of the Bank of England for highlighting the ways in which a banking sector free of public ownership will allow more capital, more restructuring and more competitive characteristics in our economy.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words As the Chancellor made clear in his Mansion House speech last night, he was responsible for the decision point yesterday and for articulating a future path away from the situation he inherited. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that the Treasury predictions at the time of the interventions were that they would cost the taxpayer between £20 billion and £50 billion overall. The situation has moved on and the economy has recovered substantially from the largest recession in our peacetime history. It is time to put the banking sector into a new settlement, and to have a new settlement for our financial services
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. I know he has a great deal of experience in these matters. He is absolutely right that this is a key part of the long-term economic plan. We cannot have a healthy economic recovery without a healthy financial sector. I do not think that anyone in this place would argue that we can have a healthy banking sector when a large chunk of it, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has said, is in taxpayers’ hands.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): May I, too, welcome my hon. Friend to her post? I also welcome the shadow Chancellor, although I think we rather miss the more rambunctious approach of his predecessor. My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) illustrated the fundamental investment fallacy of not selling things on the basis of an historic price. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that the only reason the Opposition can take this foolish position is that clause IV may be out of their rulebook but it remains within their hearts?
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I really will not take any lectures on letting the country down in terms of economic management. The people who suffer the most when the banks fail, the regulatory system fails and the economy fails are the very poorest in our society. It is outrageous for the hon. Gentleman to suggest that the economic recovery, the clear turnaround in this portfolio of legacy assets and clearing up the mess that his party left behind is anything other than progress.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome my hon. Friend to her place. I agree with her. She points out an important passage in the letter from the Governor of the Bank of England. He believes, for all sorts of reasons from where he sits as our overarching economic regulator, that it is important that we come to this decision point and staging post. I also emphasise that this process will take some time. It is not something that will happen today, tomorrow or the next day. The process of clearing up the mess left behind by the previous Government is a lengthy one.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the table is a snapshot of a moment in time. As time progresses, we will no doubt be able to pin down exactly the overall costs of clearing up the mess that Labour left behind.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I have to disagree with the hon. Gentleman. A long time has passed since the initial flotation, during which the markets have done a lot better. The markets have welcomed the re-election of a strong Conservative Government who have turned the economy around and made huge improvements in our public finances. It is largely due to that that the price is so much higher.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend ably summarises a range of options. Today’s statement clearly illustrates that we have rejected his first option of doing nothing. The Government have never shrunk from making difficult decisions that are in the right interests of the country’s economic future. On the second option of selling everything in one go, it is not our opinion, given the size of the holding and as the reports make clear, that the sale can be done in short order; it will take a period of time—which leaves us with the third option.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): May I express my thanks to the British people for ensuring that we have a Government focused on the economic future of this country, not on the failures of the past and the longest economic suicide note in history?
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady’s question started off very well by acknowledging the risks of high public debt. It is incredibly important for those people whom she rightly draws our attention to that we have a strong and healthy economy, and a strong and healthy financial sector is part of the solution. I am not sure, however, whether she is arguing that we should borrow more for longer by holding on to the shares for longer.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Julian Carlton Knight (Conservative, Centre-right): Is my hon. Friend aware that just prior to the financial crash, the then Labour Government were running an underlying fiscal deficit equivalent to 6% of GDP—twice the level recommended for the EU? Is it not a bit rich, therefore, for Labour Members to dish out advice on both the management of the banks and government finances?
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Heidi-Suzanne Allen (Conservative, Centre-right): It strikes me that the concern is about the process at the beginning of the sale. All the advice—from the Bank of England and Rothschild—is about phasing, which is part of the journey to return to profitability. May I suggest a rebranding exercise? Perhaps we should call this something different—I know what: a long-term economic plan!
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome my hon. Friend and her excellent question. She is absolutely right that today’s statement announces a decision point on the journey of implementing our long-term economic plan. Part of that is returning the financial sector to its normal state of health.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
William David Wiggin (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome my friend and parliamentary neighbour to her new role—she has a tremendous wealth of City experience. My constituents would like to know whether the Government expect the share price to go up, in which case they ought to buy some, or whether it will go down, in which case we should sell considerably more.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman’s invitation to yesterday’s dinner got lost in the post—or perhaps he was not invited. What I do not understand about his question is why he seems to argue for ongoing fiscal irresponsibility, which is what got us into this mess in the first place.
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Henry Edward Millar Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my hon. Friend on her appointment as Economic Secretary, and I congratulate the Government on further recovering our economy on behalf of taxpayers. Mention has already been made of the Governor of the Bank of England saying that, for the sake of the taxpayer, we need to get on with the sale sooner rather than later. Mark Carney also mentioned the need for stricter custodial sentences for those convicted of financial mismanagement. Although this is not my hon. Friend’s brief, will the Government consider it?
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman has failed to apologise for the regulatory system that allowed us to get into this position in the first place. The letter from the Governor of the Bank of England is on the record. The hon. Gentleman must accept that this is part of the improvement in the overall long-term economic outlook—[Interruption.]
Royal Bank of Scotland — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Government Operations
Scott Leslie Mann (Conservative, Centre-right): May I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests? I am a former Royal Mail employee, and a small shareholder How does my hon. Friend think posties up and down our great country will have responded today to the announcement of a 1% gift in shares, and the announcement of the continuation of our universal service obligation?
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: International Affairs
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time This is a short but important Bill. Let me begin by explaining the background to it. A little over two years ago, at the February 2013 European Council in Brussels, the Prime Minister secured an historic deal. On the expenditure side, it meant that the EU budget was cut in real terms for the first time, and on the revenue side, it protected our rebate As Members will recall, under the financing arrangement that was agreed in 2005 and is currently in force, the then United Kingdom Government gave away part of the UK rebate. That has had, and will continue to have, an impact on the UK’s contribution to the EU budget. The European Commission estimated the cost at £6.6 billion over the previous seven-year financial framework, and in future it will cost us about £2 billion a year.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have said, the estimated cost over the previous seven years was £6.6 billion, and in future it will be about £2 billion a year. I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making: he want us to clear up yet another mess that was created by the last Government, although I acknowledge that he was as disappointed by his Government as we were. As for what the UK Government can do about the financial position, let me explain what we did in the 2013 negotiations. Whereas the last Government had agreed to an 8% increase in the spending ceiling, we proceeded with an agenda that was in the UK’s interests. This time, the two sensible things that we could do to protect the British taxpayer were to get the overall budget down and to protect our rebate, and that is precisely what we achieved The agreement that the Prime Minister secured back in 2013 was good for Europe and good for the United Kingdom. At the time, some argued that it was not possible, and that the interests of the UK were in some way incompatible with the wider aims of the European Union, but the Government showed them that they were wrong.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: International Affairs
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the Bill not endorse a system that takes £12 billion of our taxpayers’ money and spends it elsewhere on the continent, while we receive not a penny of benefit? If the British people voted "out", they could presumably be given a £12 billion tax cut to celebrate our leaving the European Union.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: International Affairs
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend has taken me in the direction of the wider issue of our EU membership. As became clear this week, the people of the United Kingdom will have an opportunity to vote on that, but this is the system that applies while we are members of the European Union. My right hon. Friend may wish to present his argument during a future debate, but what cannot be in doubt is that the Prime Minister’s achievement during the 2013 negotiations constituted a huge improvement on the record of the last Government. It protected the rebate, and it ensured, for the first time, that we were able to reduce the overall expenditure of the EU over the multi-annual financial framework period.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: International Affairs
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): It would be a bit rich for the Labour party to claim this success as its own. We have a record of a Conservative Prime Minister who was able to protect the rebate in full as it stood, and also managed to reduce EU expenditure. That is in stark contrast to the record the previous time this process was undertaken in 2005, when part of our rebate was surrendered at significant cost, as I have already set out.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Agriculture
Peter William Bone (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend remember that at that time the House was sold a pup on the basis that Mr Blair said reform of the common agricultural policy would mean it would be cost-neutral, which turned out to be completely false?
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Agriculture
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): The Conservative-led Government have a very good record in protecting the interests of all parts of the United Kingdom. Indeed, in terms of some of the changes we might have seen in the structural funds, we ensured all parts of the UK were treated fairly, which would not otherwise have been the case. So all I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that of course the Government are determined to protect the interests of all parts of the UK, and, looking at the longer term future of the EU, the CAP does need the type of reform that was once promised and not properly delivered by the last Labour Government.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: International Affairs
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me make a little progress This Bill relates only to agreement reached on the revenue side of the EU budget. This is an area that receives much less interest, but is no less important—nor any less of a success for the UK—than the cut to the EU budget. I would like, however, to first remind hon. Members of the details of the deal reached on expenditure, before moving on to revenue, the nub of the Bill When others argued that the EU would never reform, and certainly would not cut its budget, we argued that a cut in the EU budget was the right thing to do, especially at a time when so many countries had had to make difficult decisions in their own budgets. We argued that EU spending should be focused on where it could provide real growth, in areas such as high-value research and development, and tertiary education—from which Britain’s universities are particularly well-placed to benefit. We made sure that the UK would not be overly disadvantaged by reductions in spending: so, for instance, we ensured that structural funds would continue to flow to our less well-off regions. Above all, we argued from the point of the view of the British taxpayer, who expects and deserves good value for money—and I should add that the British taxpayer is not unique in this respect. So the seven-year EU budget deal—2014 to 2020—secured by the Prime Minister represents a real-terms cut to the payments limit to €908 billion in 2011 prices. Overall spending on the CAP over this period will fall by 13% compared with the 2007-13 EU budget period. At the same time, spending on research and development and other pro-growth investment will now account for 13%, a 4% increase on the previous budget. That is a good deal for Britain, a good deal for the taxpayer, and very different from the previous time round.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: International Affairs
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point and I think there is a case for particularly some of the wealthier countries in the EU determining their own priorities with the structural funds. Indeed, that has been looked at in the past.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: International Affairs
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): The deal Scotland gets includes support from the structural funds which have been protected as a consequence of decisions made by the UK Government in the last Parliament Turning to the deal secured on the revenue side, as hon. Members may be aware, the system by which EU member states finance the annual EU budget is set out in EU legislation known as the own resources decision—ORD for short. At the 2013 February Council, there was strong pressure from some member states, the Commission and the European Parliament to reform the way member states finance the EU budget. These included proposals to introduce a financial transaction tax and do away with the UK rebate, or at least change the way it works The Prime Minister stood his ground and made it clear that the UK would not agree to such proposals, nor agree to anything that changed the way our rebate worked. It was a specific objective for the UK that this new financing system would require no new own resources or EU-wide taxes to finance EU expenditure, and no change to the UK rebate, and that is precisely what we achieved The political agreement at the 2013 February European Council was accurately reflected in the financing arrangements which all EU member states agreed unanimously at a meeting of the Council of Ministers in May 2014. Under the agreement, which this Bill will implement, the Prime Minister protected what is left of the UK rebate, and this is maintained without any change throughout the life of this agreement The agreement also ensures there will be no new types of member state contributions and no new taxes to finance EU spending over this period. The new ORD does not make any changes to the way that the EU budget is financed. There are some changes in the detail of the ORD compared with the previous one, however. For example, it reintroduces reductions in the GNI-based contributions of the Netherlands and Sweden, and introduces small reductions in these contributions for Denmark and Austria. The UK will contribute to these small corrections, which will mean an additional £16 million in contributions from the UK per year compared to the last ORD; that is around 0.1% of our total gross contribution in 2014. Moreover, this will be largely offset by changes in other corrections.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the Prime Minister and the Minister on defending Britain’s interests against a far worse settlement, but is it not also the case that under the pre-existing agreements if Britain grows more quickly than the euroland, which it is doing and appears that it will carry on doing, we will get caned by having to pay more tax?
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
David Michael Gauke (Conservative, Centre-right): Part of the calculation of member states’ contributions is based on the size of their economy. That means that bigger economies pay more and smaller ones pay less. As an economy becomes relatively bigger, it makes a bigger contribution. That is the factual situation; that is how it works I referred earlier to the corrections and the small reductions in the contributions from Denmark and Austria. The UK has always supported the principle of budgetary corrections set out at the 1984 Fontainebleau European Council, which gave us our rebate. In the absence of any meaningful reform on the expenditure side of the budget, we believe that those member states that make disproportionately large net contributions to the budget in relation to their prosperity, such as the UK, should receive corrections.