argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): The premise of my right hon. Friend’s question is that if the future relationship is not in place by 1 January 2021, and if in some sense there needs to be that interim arrangement, we would then automatically go into the backstop. That is not the case. The withdrawal agreement makes it clear that there is the alternative of the extension of the implementation period, but it also refers to these alternative arrangements, and, as I said in my statement, I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his proposals in relation to that matter and we are working on them. So it is simply not the case that we automatically fall into the backstop described in the withdrawal agreement Secondly, there are many instances in the document—I will not go through the full list—where it is clear that that arrangement, whether the extension of the IP, an alternative arrangement or a backstop, is there for a temporary period before we are able to put the future relationship in place. What the backstop and those alternative arrangements and the proposals amount to are what I think my right hon. Friend was talking about at the end of his question, which is our commitment to the people of Northern Ireland that there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and that they will be able to carry on their business much as they do today. That, I hope, is what we are all striving to achieve in relation to this matter. There are a number of ways in which we can achieve that, as the withdrawal agreement and political declaration make clear, and we are working on all of them.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: Agriculture
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): I think it will help the right hon. Gentleman if I repeat what I said in the statement. We will become an independent coastal state with control over our waters, so our fishermen get a fairer share of the fish in our waters. We have firmly rejected a link between access to our waters and access to markets. The fisheries agreement is not something we will be trading off against any other priorities. We are clear that we will negotiate access and quotas on an annual basis, as do other independent coastal states such as Norway and Iceland. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman may choose to shout at me from a sedentary position, but I have to say that he devoted all his response to my statement in—[Interruption.]
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: Agriculture
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman devoted all his response to the issue of fishing. He is sitting there chuntering that this is a sell-out of Scottish fishermen. I will tell him what a sell-out of Scottish fishermen would be: the policy of the Scottish nationalists to stay in the common fisheries policy.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend accept that this declaration is self-contradictory in that it insists on the sovereignty of both the EU and the United Kingdom legal orders, and that without control of our own laws and by surrendering to binding rules of the European Court, this declaration cannot be reconciled with the repeal of the 1972 Act or with the referendum vote? Will she further note that the European Scrutiny Committee has resolved to hold an inquiry into the Government’s handling and the outcome of these negotiations?
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): This political declaration asserts the sovereignty of both sides of the agreement—the United Kingdom and the European Union—because that is exactly what will persist. We will be a sovereign nation. We will no longer be under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. There are circumstances where a point that is being looked at—for example, in arbitration—is considered to be a matter of the interpretation of European Union law. There is one body that interprets European Union law: that is the European Court of Justice. What we make clear is that, in those circumstances, the arbitration panel may ask the European Court of Justice for an opinion on the interpretation of European Union law; the arbitration panel will then consider its decision in the light of that opinion.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Owen William Paterson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the Prime Minister for her movement in paragraphs 26 and 27, taking on board our proposals to use on the Irish border modern techniques and processes used elsewhere, but—there is a big but in this—as long as the backstop exists in a legally binding document, there is a danger that, should talks fail, the backstop becomes accepted and we have the horror of being in the customs union, the horror of Northern Ireland being split off under a different regime. As I saw in Washington this week, if we cannot control our tariffs and our regulatory regime, we cannot do free trade deals with other countries. At this late stage, will she consider withdrawing the backstop from the legally binding draft document and replacing it with the draft trade facilitation chapter and border protocol that we gave her earlier in the week, and making that legally binding so it could become the new backstop?
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have indicated, I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) for the work they have been doing on this issue In the withdrawal agreement we negotiated a specific reference to alternative arrangements that enables us to work up those alternative arrangements such that they will be, as the name suggests, an alternative to the arrangements for the backstop, or would enable us to come out of the backstop if we had started down that route I continue to say to my hon. and right hon. Friends, and to Members of this House more widely, that it is the firm determination of this Government, and indeed it is the determination of the European Union, that we will work to ensure that we have the future relationship arranged and able to be in place by 1 January 2021. It is not the case that there is a sense in which the backstop is automatic. The backstop is not automatic. There are alternatives to the backstop, and the United Kingdom can choose those alternatives. There are pros and cons to those alternatives and, when the time comes, obviously the choice will measure those pros and cons, but what matters is that it will not be the case that the only way to deal with the interim period is through the backstop; it can be dealt with by alternative arrangements, or by an extension to the implementation period.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): When we leave the European Union we will cease to be a member of certain European Union agencies. The right hon. Gentleman might have noticed that there is a strong reference to close co-operation in the text in relation to the European Aviation Safety Agency, which already permits a third country to have access to the agency. That is not the case with the European Medicines Agency or the European Chemicals Agency, which is why, as we identified in the White Paper published in the summer, it will be necessary to work on what should be the access arrangements to those agencies. The EASA already has a model that can be used, and the other two agencies do not. In relation to these negotiations, we are not able to put legal texts together until we have left the European Union and are no longer a member of the European Union—that, of course, is what we will be able to do when we leave on 29 March 2019.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): The backstop ties the UK to the customs union and single market rules with no voice and an EU veto on our exit, while paragraph 23 of the political declaration makes that the starting point for future relations to build on. The top reason people voted to leave the EU was to take back democratic control over our laws. Is it not the regrettable but inescapable reality that this deal gives even more away?
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): I say to my right hon. Friend that I have explained, in response to other right hon. and hon. Members, the point about the backstop—it is not the automatic route for dealing with a temporary period in relation to any gap that exists between the end of the implementation period in December 2020 and the future relationship coming into place. The political declaration is about that future relationship. There are important points that have been agreed within the withdrawal agreement that will ensure that we can get a good agreement in relation to borders and to our trade area when we become that independent state outside the European Union. He will be aware that, as is reflected in this political declaration, there is a spectrum and there is a balance between willingness to abide by rules and the necessity for checks at the border. It continues to be our ambition and our objective to get that frictionless trade at the border, because we believe that is important.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. He started off by reflecting the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As I have said in this Chamber, and as others have said in this Chamber, none of us wants to see the backstop being used. The best way to ensure that the backstop is not used is to get the future relationship into place. There are all those alternative arrangements and we will be working on them, and I am happy to discuss with the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues what those alternative arrangements could be. But what is important is that we have within the document means by which we can guarantee to the people of Northern Ireland—and from the EU’s point of view it wants that guarantee in relation to Ireland—that trade across the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland can continue as it does today. That is the commitment we have made—no hard border—and that is what we will continue to be committed to providing.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): Outside this House there is a much higher appreciation of the tenacity of the Prime Minister in pursuing a successful deal than we sometimes hear inside it. One of the principal worries, as we are hearing, has been that in some way we will be trapped forever, either in the backstop or in a customs union. What is there in this declaration and in the withdrawal agreement to calm those fears?
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): There are several elements that I would suggest to my right hon. Friend would calm those fears. First, there are many statements within the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration that explicitly recognise that the backstop, should it be necessary, would only be a temporary arrangement. Indeed, article 50, which is the legal basis for the withdrawal agreement, cannot establish a permanent relationship. That is reflected in the text and that is accepted by the European Union. There are also, as I have just explained, the alternative arrangements that can be put in place and the possible extension to the implementation period. But the best route to ensuring that those concerns are calmed is to ensure that we work to get the future relationship, as set out in this political declaration, in place by 1 January 2021 so that there is no need for any interim arrangement at all to provide our guarantee and commitment to the people of Northern Ireland.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): We have of course put forward proposals that would enable frictionless trade to be achieved outside the customs union and outside the single market. That is not something that is accepted by everyone in the European Union—I fully accept that—but we have in the future negotiations the ability to continue to work for our objective of achieving that frictionless trade. The right hon. Gentleman talks about concern about uncertainty into the future; I have to say to him that the thing that would create most uncertainty in the future is a failure to take and agree a deal that is going to be good for the UK, that delivers on the vote of the people in the referendum, and that does so while protecting people’s jobs and security.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): May I regretfully point out to my right hon. Friend that of course nothing in this political declaration changes the hard reality of the withdrawal agreement, which gives the EU a continuing veto over the unilateral power of the entire United Kingdom to do free trade deals or to take back control of our laws? May I therefore respectfully suggest that we can accept the generalities and the self-contradictions contained in this political declaration, but we should junk forthwith the backstop upon which the future economic partnership is to be based, according to this political declaration, and which makes a complete nonsense of Brexit?
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure that my right hon. Friend will recall the discussions we had earlier in the year when we were agreeing the temporary customs arrangement as our proposal for the basis on which we would ensure that we guaranteed the commitment for the people of Northern Ireland, and, indeed, obviously elements of that have been reflected in what we see in the withdrawal agreement. There are various arrangements that we can put in place, as I have said to others who have questioned me so far in this statement in relation to the backstop. I say to my right hon. Friend that the future relationship that we have set out in the political declaration ends free movement, ends sending vast sums of money to the European Union every year, and ends the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice here in the United Kingdom, and it enables us to hold an independent trade policy and to negotiate trade deals around the whole of the world. I know that my right hon. Friend has in the past expressed his desire to have all those elements available to the United Kingdom, and that is what this deal delivers.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): On the contrary, if the hon. Gentleman looks at the comments that have been made by business in relation to the declaration—that were made, in fact, in relation to the outline political declaration last week—he will see that organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses are very clear about the certainty that is provided for businesses looking into the future. When he looks through the political declaration and, indeed, through the withdrawal agreement, he will also see the firm commitment on both sides to ensuring that we work to put in place that legal text. Yes, it is the case that we cannot have the legal text on the future agreement until we have left the European Union, and one of the elements towards the end of the political declaration, as the hon. Gentleman will have seen, sets out the commitments in relation to working on that for the future. I say to the hon. Gentleman that what is important is that we have here a political declaration that is fuller than the outline that we published last week and that sets out very clearly a deal for the UK that is good for the United Kingdom and good for jobs.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Justine Greening (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not believe that this is a good deal for Britain and I do not think that many young people in our country think that this is a good deal for Britain at all. Does the Prime Minister accept that, if the meaningful vote is lost, and if this House votes also against exiting the EU with no deal, the only right option then is to go back to the people and allow them to have a final say, including young people—[Interruption.]
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Justine Greening (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I think that young people would like to be listened to in this debate as well. I was asking the Prime Minister whether, if the meaningful vote is lost and if this House, as I believe it will, votes against a no-deal exit from the EU, the Government intend to come back with an alternative proposal on how to break the deadlock, and why would that not include going back to the British people to ask them their views?
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course, we have set out in legislation the procedure that would be followed were the meaningful vote to be lost in this House. My right hon. Friend asks about going back to the people in a second referendum. I say to her, as I have said now on many occasions here in this House, that this House and this Parliament overwhelmingly gave the British people the choice as to whether or not to leave the European Union. The people of Britain voted to leave the European Union. I believe that it is important that politicians do not turn around and say, "Well, what do you think now? Would you like to think again?" but say, "You voted to leave and we will deliver that Brexit—that leaving of the European Union."
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): If the hon. Lady looks at the sections that we have on the services sector, she will see that the arrangements we have in the political declaration go beyond any that have been offered to any other non-member of the European Union.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick McLoughlin (Conservative, Centre-right): May I say to my right hon. Friend that a number of people I speak to are fully in admiration of the determination that the Prime Minister has shown over these very difficult negotiations, doing something that no other Prime Minister has ever been tasked with doing? Will she explain to the House a little bit more? If this agreement—the 585 pages of the withdrawal agreement and today’s document, which has been agreed with the Commission—is rejected, does she think that the six paragraphs offered by the Opposition are the alternative?
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I thank my right hon. Friend for his opening remarks. Secondly, I say no. The Opposition have set these six tests, but at no stage have they set out what their plan for an alternative arrangement with the European Union would be.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): I responded on the issue of the second referendum when I responded to my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening). On the question of the economy, this is a deal that protects jobs and livelihoods across the whole of the United Kingdom.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): Is not the lesson of this long negotiation that, when you try to unravel yourself from an international rules-based system because you do not like the rules, unless you want chaos, you start creating a completely new set of rules, many of which are in fact as binding and onerous on this country as any that we had before? In that context, the backstop—I have to say this to my right hon. Friend—is a constitutional anomaly of the first order because it makes the EU the guarantor of a bilateral treaty between ourselves and Ireland on which the people have never been consulted. I urge her in those circumstances, if she wants to go ahead with this, to put her deal to the people of this country and to offer them the alternative of remaining, because the one big eye-opener that one sees from all this is that, however hard she has tried, at the end of the day, we will be in an international rules-based system because that in fact is where our national interest lies.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. and learned Friend has heard my response about asking the people in a second referendum what their views are. What we have negotiated is an arrangement with the European Union that continues a close partnership between the United Kingdom and the EU. I believe that that is the right thing for us to do and that coming out of the EU will enable us to develop even closer partnerships with other countries around the world through our trade deals and, indeed, through other means of support and the work we will be able to do with them on security and defence. It is also important, given our geographical position and given that the EU is our nearest trading neighbour, that we continue to have that good relationship with the EU, and that is what this delivers.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): The position, as I have mentioned to others, is that it is of course not possible for us to agree the legal text of our future relationship with the European Union until we have left the European Union. If the hon. Lady looks again at the text, she will see that it clearly expresses what we have expressed previously in relation to trade—that there is a spectrum, there is a balance between commitments that are given on rules and the issue of the checks that take place at the border. It remains our intention as a Government to work towards that frictionless trade.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Anne Villiers (Conservative, Centre-right): There are clearly parts of this document that are positive and that I welcome, but my grave worry is that it will never come into effect anyway. The EU is unlikely to agree a new economic partnership with us because the withdrawal agreement locks us into paying the £38 billion and also commits us to a backstop that has us obeying EU rules and applying its customs rules without our having any say in them.
Progress on EU Negotiations — House of Commons, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Centre-right): May I welcome this political declaration, particularly paragraph 77 on the global co-operation enshrined in this agreement? Does the Prime Minister agree that we must continue to work more closely than ever with our European partners, even when we leave the European Union, on trans-border issues such as climate change, trade protectionism and all the other issues that we have to deal with together and cannot deal with singly?