argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Establishment of a Food Standards Commission — House of Commons, 2020-06-30
Topic: Agriculture
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I rise to present a petition on the establishment of a food standards commission. The petition states: The petition of residents of the constituency of North Ayrshire and Arran, Declares that the UK Government has not put proper safeguards in place to protect food standards post the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union; notes that the Government has rejected cross party amendments to the Agricultural Bill that aimed to protect standards of imports and ensure that any imports would not be able to undercut UK producers; further notes that leaving the European Union without a deal on 31 December 2020 will mean trading on World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms, and that the most favoured nation status will mean that the UK cannot prevent the import of hormone injected beef or chlorinated chicken from the US; further notes that the consumer group Which? has stated that a US trade deal poses the biggest risk to food standards since the BSE crisis and notes that the current deals struck by the EU provide the necessary protections; further declares that an extension to the transition period would create a short term protection against low standard imports, and that a Food Standards Commission with the remit of ensuring quality and welfare standards of food and drink imports in any trade deals could provide longer term protections for our farmers and growers in Scotland and the wider UK The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to consider the establishment of a Food Standards Commission to monitor any trade deals involving food and drink products and to protect UK welfare standards and value our farmers and growers who produce in Scotland and the wider UK And the petitioners remain, etc [P002583]
Universal Credit (Reducing Poverty) — House of Commons, 2020-06-29
Topic: Social Welfare
John MacKenzie Nicolson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I would like to begin by saying that my party’s thoughts are with the victims of the terrible knife attack in Glasgow, and we want to thank the emergency services for their incredible bravery According to the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, the DWP last published a full impact assessment of universal credit in 2012, and no formal impact assessment has ever been produced on advance payments. How can we have any idea of the effectiveness or otherwise of universal credit unless assessments are available for scrutiny?
Universal Credit (Reducing Poverty) — House of Commons, 2020-06-29
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Mark Flynn (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Social Mobility Commission has highlighted that, in the last seven years, there has been "little or no action" by the UK Government on a third of its recommendations, including on ensuring that child poverty is not exacerbated by universal credit. Indeed, its damning report criticised DWP for failing to provide a detailed assessment of how benefit changes are tied to these poverty rates. On that basis, how can the Minister possibly know whether universal credit is increasing or decreasing poverty?
Universal Credit (Reducing Poverty) — House of Commons, 2020-06-29
Topic: Social Welfare
Richard Gordon Thomson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that, despite the DWP’s temporary increase to universal credit, out-of-work households with children are, on average, £2,900 a year worse off than they would have been without cuts since 2011. Does the Minister understand that, far from doing a superb job, as he says, universal credit is leaving some families in serious difficulty and poverty, and will he commit to looking at the IFS findings?
Universal Credit (Reducing Poverty) — House of Commons, 2020-06-29
Topic: Social Welfare
Neil Charles Gray (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friends have highlighted the range of expert reports out over the past couple of weeks showing that the DWP has no idea how universal credit impacts child poverty. It has done precious little to address it and could have made it worse through systematic cuts, leaving families and children worse off since 2011. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Save the Children say that families need an extra £20 a week in the child element of universal credit and child tax credits. Will the Minister ask the Chancellor to make that happen?
Universal Credit (Reducing Poverty) — House of Commons, 2020-06-29
Topic: Social Welfare
Neil Charles Gray (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I note that the Minister did not answer my question. There is growing pressure on the UK Government to act here. The former DWP Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), has called on the Minister and his colleagues to accept the recommendations of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Save the Children and to uprate legacy benefits, too. Poverty Alliance’s report today shows that UC is pulling people into poverty rather than acting as a lifeline, so will he agree to convene a cross-party meeting, including the former Secretary of State and a Treasury Minister, to look at ways to make that recommendation happen?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2020-06-29
Topic: Social Welfare
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Minister talks of fairness with regard to the two-child limit, but how can it be fair that the 60,000 families who have made a claim since lockdown began, who could not have anticipated having to claim universal credit, are now struggling to feed their third or subsequent children? They could not have planned for this; how is that fair?
Xinjiang: Uyghurs — House of Commons, 2020-06-29
Topic: International Affairs
Alyn Edward Smith (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am glad to see such an element of consensus across the House today; I find it difficult to disagree with any of the previous contributions to this discussion. The challenge for us is to decide what we are actually going to do about it. Warm words and sympathy come easily to politicians, but Beijing would be entitled to feel that it is getting somewhat mixed messages. I concur that the UN mechanisms are pretty stymied. This is not a new problem—it has been going on for a number of years—and the UK is becoming increasingly involved in strategic developments with, in effect, emanations of the Chinese state. Huawei is one example, but there are others. Will the Minister undertake at least to promise to promote investigations by UN observers of the camps and, indeed, the reports of forced sterilisation, which is a degree of ethnic cleansing under the Rome statute? This is serious stuff on which we must take action. Will the Minister also come back to the House with an audit of all Government procurement contracts with Chinese companies and an assessment of these concerns?
Xinjiang: Uyghurs — House of Commons, 2020-06-29
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I have constituents who have repeatedly raised concerns with me about China’s human rights record, whether towards Buddhists in Tibet or towards Falun Gong practitioners, and now we are faced with allegations of human rights violations of the highest order. The Minister keeps saying that companies should conduct due diligence about their supply chains. What is he doing to ensure that they actually conduct that due diligence, and what is his advice to companies that find that there are human rights abuses in their supply chains?
Xinjiang: Uyghurs — House of Commons, 2020-06-29
Topic: International Affairs
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Only a few short years ago, the Chinese President was accorded a UK state visit, when he was fêted and petted by the UK establishment, and great care was taken not to mention human rights violations publicly. Given what we know about enforced organ transplants in China, and now we hear of the sterilisation of 34% of all unmarried women of child-bearing age in the Uyghur majority city of Hotan and a whole range of other human rights abuses, what assurances can the UK Minister give this House that, in future, the UK Government will treat China as the international lawbreaker it is?
Xinjiang: Uyghurs — House of Commons, 2020-06-29
Topic: International Affairs
Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The actions of China would today be considered one of the most serious threats to human rights in any state anywhere in the world. Hongkongers are facing intervention, against international law. Millions are imprisoned for their ethnicity, and these reports of forced sterilisation—if proven to be true—now show the full extent of China’s disregard for human rights. Given the question marks over that country, how can this Government, in good conscience, pursue a commercial agreement with Huawei—a company with direct ties to the Communist party of China?
Xinjiang: Uyghurs — House of Commons, 2020-06-29
Topic: International Affairs
Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): In common with all who have spoken this afternoon, I agree that the Chinese Government’s policy towards its minority Uyghur population is and has been a stain on that country for many years. Sadly these revelations, while shocking, are not new. As early as 2014, senior Chinese Government Ministers were openly talking about extending the draconian family planning policies specifically to curb population growth among the Uyghur population. Will the Government assure the House that as they seek post-Brexit trade deals, they will not pursue trade to the exclusion of human rights, and that that remains an unmovable precondition?
Free Trade Agreements: Environmental Protection Standards — House of Commons, 2020-06-18
Topic: Agriculture
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Scottish Land and Estates has said that food and farming is critical, and it is concerned that UK producers are not placed in an impossible situation where they have to compete in an effective "race to the bottom". What guarantees can the Secretary of State give that cheaply produced agrifood imports will not lead to that race to the bottom?
Free Trade Agreements: Environmental Protection Standards — House of Commons, 2020-06-18
Topic: Agriculture
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for her answer, but I did not ask about food quality standards; I understand that. I am asking about production standards. As the National Farmers Union of Scotland has pointed out, there is deep concern about the importation of agrifoods into the UK that may be produced to an inequivalent and uncompetitive standard. How will she guard against agrifood imports produced to that inequivalent standard, which is much cheaper and simply could not or would not be done in the UK?
Free Trade Agreements: Environmental Protection Standards — House of Commons, 2020-06-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Tapadh leibh, Mr Speaker. We hope to see the Secretary of State at the International Trade Committee next week, as requested by Committee members for a number of weeks. At yesterday’s Committee hearing, the NFU, the CBI and the TUC all coalesced around the figure that Brexit would cost the UK about 4.9% of GDP and an American trade deal would benefit it by around 0.16% of GDP—a thirtieth of what is being lost by Brexit. They said that gains from the Japan deal would be a lot less than the paltry lot from the US deal, so can any Minister furnish the House with the figure for what would be gained as a percentage of GDP from a Japan-UK trade deal?
Free Trade Agreements: US and Japan — House of Commons, 2020-06-18
Topic: Agriculture
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Despite what the Secretary of State said in response to previous questions, there are persistent concerns about the lifting of the ban on pathogen reduction treatments, which would permit chlorine washes over food as part of future trade deals. That would be bad for us and bad for animal welfare. To address those concerns once and for all, will the Secretary of State commit to enshrining minimum food standards into law? If she will not, will she devolve the necessary powers to Scotland to allow us to do it for ourselves?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2020-06-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
Lisa Cameron (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): From the continuity agreement, exports to Chile have grown on average by 16% a year and consumers in the UK have benefited from lower prices on fruit, nuts and excellent Chilean wine. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Chile, I ask the Secretary of State what further progress will be made to ensure that that trading relationship with Chile goes from strength to strength?
DFID-FCO Merger — House of Commons, 2020-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Murray Alexander Law (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The decision to abolish the Department for International Development and rechannel funds for eradicating global poverty to further diplomatic and commercial interests is unforgivable, particularly amid a global pandemic. The last three Prime Ministers opposed this merger, as does every development organisation that has been in touch, and the SNP. Today the International Development Secretary is not even present to answer any questions. Will the Foreign Secretary say whether the Cabinet was consulted? Were international development organisations consulted, and which, if any, supported this decision How will aid spending be scrutinised in the new Department? Will the UK continue to follow the Development Assistance Committee definition of official development assistance, or will the Government try to redefine aid on their own terms? Finally, today we learned that one of the UK Government’s recent Secretaries of State would like the HMS Royal Yacht Britannia to be funded on the back of the poorest, most vulnerable and marginalised people in the world. Is the royal family even aware of that? Is it not the case that such a move is led not by a vision of global Britain, but by the myopic Prime Minister of "let them eat cake" Britain?
DFID-FCO Merger — House of Commons, 2020-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Lisa Cameron (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Approximately 600 jobs in the Department for International Development in East Kilbride in my constituency may be placed at risk by the shocking Government plans announced this week—shocking to staff, who found out just a few hours before the announcement, and shocking to the international community. They have caused considerable anxiety for local staff and all their families, who have been contacting me. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me to discuss these crucial issues for my constituency and to guarantee that those highly skilled DFID jobs will remain in East Kilbride?
DFID-FCO Merger — House of Commons, 2020-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Alyn Edward Smith (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The reorganisation of Government Departments is day-to-day business; what we object to is the explicit and deliberate politicisation of international aid. Will the Foreign Secretary at least commit to meeting the international development non-government organisations to discuss, for the first time, implementing this selfish vanity project in the least bad way possible?
International Development — House of Commons, 2020-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I echo the comments of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) about how we often see, through the budget of the Department for International Development, examples of the UK at its best—trying to address the discrepancies, as he put it, in poverty and wealth between nations and peoples across the globe. If we were to use the language of global Britain, that might be one of the best examples to turn to The orders are welcome in their attempts to address global poverty. Much mention has been made of Africa, and at first glance it looks as though it will be business as usual for our international aid budget. However, if you will permit me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to explain briefly why I do not think that that is the case, welcome though today’s announcements are Once we discount most—not all, but most—Tory MPs, there is no disguising the fact that the momentous decision and announcement this week has caused great alarm. It will have far-reaching consequences for the poorest people in the world—the poorest people on earth. The overwhelming consensus of opinion would bear that out, certainly among experts who work in the field of international development I cannot help but notice that, despite her name being on the Order Paper for the very welcome measures that have been put forward, the outgoing Secretary of State for International Development is not here today. I wonder whether her conspicuous absence should be seen in the light in which it appears. Perhaps she also has concerns about the recent announcement that has been made The announcement could not stand in greater contrast with the lesser course that many of us in the House fear is now being steered towards international aid. We have rightly heard today much praise for the work of the Department for International Development, and one wonders why a Department that has garnered so much praise and attracted so much admiration should suddenly find itself downgraded. The move has been described by those working in the field as an "act of political vandalism". I will leave others to judge for themselves, but in my constituency, questions are being asked about whether this decision is ideological.
International Development — House of Commons, 2020-06-18
Topic: International Affairs
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will endeavour to make my remarks as brief as possible. I would say in response to the right hon. Gentleman’s question that the Scottish Government have a Minister in charge of overseas development. The right hon. Gentleman might want to reflect on that, because that is the importance we in Scotland place on overseas development The House welcomes these measures, but the fear is for the future. The fear is that putting the word "super" in front of the Foreign Office is not going to cut it, and it will not address the concerns. As set out in the measures, we have historical responsibilities to the poorest nations around the world, as well as moral responsibilities, as we seek to take our place on the international stage It is worrying—this is no secret—that aid is now to be used to pursue security and diplomatic aims. There might be an argument to make for that, but that is not what aid is for. Aid must be driven by need. I fear that in the future, we may have fewer of these measures that are so welcome, through which we seek to put a hand out and help up those countries that need and deserve the help of the international community. It must be based on need. We hear much from Government Members about global Britain—well, whatever floats your boat. If they want to float that particular boat, they may want to take their place on the international stage and lead in the area of international development, instead of downgrading it and using it as a way of pursuing their own diplomatic aims. We in the SNP will not oppose these measures—we welcome them—but we have profound fears about the future and how aid will be administered from hereon in.
Establishment of a Food Standards Commission — House of Commons, 2020-06-18
Topic: Agriculture
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I rise on behalf of the constituents of the constituency of Kilmarnock and Loudoun who have sent this petition in the consideration of a food standards commission. They are rightly concerned about food quality in the UK post Brexit. They understand that, despite assurances of the UK Government about keeping out the likes of chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef, proof of the UK’s intent was evidenced by the refusal to accept a cross-party amendment to the Agriculture Bill. They know that all bets are off when it comes to a trade deal with the US. They understand that trading under WTO rules in a no-deal Brexit crash-out means that these products cannot be banned; that is the position under most-favoured nation rules. They know that, with the number of free marketeers within the Tory Cabinet, there needs to be an independent food standards commission to protect the standards of food and drink on our shelves and to protect the Scottish farmers, who produce such high-quality goods The petition states: The Petition of residents of the United Kingdom, Declares that the UK Government has not put proper safeguards in place to protect food standards post the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union; notes that the Government has rejected cross party amendments to the Agricultural Bill that aimed to protect standards of imports and ensure that any imports would not be able to undercut UK producers; further notes that leaving the European Union without a deal on 31 December 2020 will mean trading on World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms, and that the most favoured nation status will mean that the UK cannot prevent the import of hormone injected beef or chlorinated chicken from the US; further notes that the consumer group Which? has stated that a US trade deal poses the biggest risk to food standards since the BSE crisis and notes that the current deals struck by the EU provide the necessary protections; further declares that an extension to the transition period would create a short term protection against low standard imports, and that a Food Standards Commission with the remit of ensuring quality and welfare standards of food and drink imports in any trade deals could provide longer term protections for our farmers and growers in Scotland and the wider UK. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to consider the establishment of a Food Standards Commission to monitor any trade deals involving food and drink products and to protect UK welfare standards and value our farmers and growers who produce in Scotland and the wider UK And the petitioners remain, etc [P002581]
US Free Trade Agreement — House of Commons, 2020-05-12
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Business and trade are all about the bottom line and numbers, and we know from the Treasury estimate that Brexit will cost about 6% of GDP. An American trade deal—and remember that the USA is a quarter of the global economy—will only give an average lift of about 0.2% to GDP, or a thirtieth of what Brexit will cost. Is there any prospect of that number improving? What are the GDP lifts for the deals with Australia, New Zealand and Japan and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership? We need to get to the numbers at the bottom of Brexit.
Free Trade Deals — House of Commons, 2020-05-12
Topic: Foreign Trade
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Around a third of the value added of UK trade comes from indirect trade—indirect links—where goods and services are first exported to one country and subsequently exported to the UK. Given the importance of indirect trade and value chains generally, I am sure the Secretary of State would agree with the Dutch Trade Minister that we should rethink our trade deals to take a closer look at the sustainability of those value chains. Will she go further and agree that we should not just be looking at sustainability, but that trade deals should be as inclusive as possible and based on World Trade Organisation rules, and because of the importance of value chains and indirect trade—