argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Energy
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It only took the Minister 12 minutes to revert to type. "Rag, tag and bobtail" if she likes, but that is as nothing compared with how the Scottish people describe her party. However, let me clear up just one little fact about the oil price, which I thought she might raise. Yes, we said it would be $110 a barrel. That is absolutely correct, but can we be absolutely clear that the UK Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change had the barrel price at between $114 and $127, and at the very least admit that the UK Government got it wrong?
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Energy
Callum McCaig (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): If I may return to the oil price and the sheer joy that Members in the Chamber expressed at the collapse in the oil price—I look at the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), who is sitting directly behind the Minister, and the joy and almost delight that were on his face. In the real world, in the constituency I represent, that means jobs are being lost. The Minister has expressed her delight at Scotland staying in the Union, so can she explain to me what the Union is doing to help Scotland at its moment of need?
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Foreign Trade
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I concur with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of UKTI. Unfortunately, in the autumn statement, the Chancellor slashed UKTI’s budget. So outraged was the organisation that its chief executive resigned. Clearly, this Government are not helping UKTI to help exports.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Energy
Callum McCaig (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I have heard that asserted year in, year out, but, as far as I understand it, the tourist sector in Scotland is doing very well. It continues to do well and it is a major sector of growth in the Scottish economy, so I do not quite understand those assertions. I have read that there is anecdotal evidence—it is no more than that—of somebody saying, "I came to Scotland. I drove up the A9 and didn’t like the wind turbines, so I am never coming back." Well, somebody else is there to take their place, and there always will be, as Scotland offers world-class tourism that is not in any way "despoiled"—in the words of the hon. Gentleman—by wind turbines It is not overly negative to say that genuine critiques can be made. On green energy policy, for example, various things have been done, but the most damaging to the United Kingdom’s reputation and to the financial and investor confidence that is required to secure investment in the UK was the decision at the 11th hour—actually it was even later than that—to pull the plug on carbon capture and storage. Two projects—Peterhead and White Rose in Yorkshire—took part in a CCS competition. Big companies invested significant time and resources on the basis of the supposed good word of the United Kingdom Government. Before they had even had the opportunity to submit their bids, the plug was pulled and the damage was done. We cannot underestimate the impact that that and all the other incremental attacks on green energy policy have had. We are missing a major trick here. As I have said, this is a huge opportunity to grow our economy and our skill base and to do it in differing parts of the United Kingdom. To send out such damaging messages really brings into question the commitment of the UK Government not just to green energy, all the talk at Paris and the global climate change deal, but to the economy and investment more widely Finally, let me touch on the Green Investment Bank, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie). It was supported by this party and also by the entire Chamber when it was debated—clearly, that was before I was elected to this place. The bank is a shining example of how we should address market failure. It is how we can ensure that investment is directed to the right areas, and that support is given to nascent industries to help them get off the ground. We have repeatedly criticised what is proposed. Again I say that we will oppose the privatisation of the Green Investment Bank if we do not get cast-iron assurances that its green remit will be protected After Paris, the rules of the game have changed, and the UK and Scotland have a chance to seize the benefits. Scotland is ready, but I fear that, as part of Tory Britain, we are being left behind.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Foreign Trade
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I take what the hon. Lady says about ATP in her constituency, but the UK is clearly a net importer of automotive products. Our largest engineering industry is a net importer from Europe. The plan has not worked.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful speech, as ever, and much of what he says is interesting and potentially accurate. However, I am sure that even he would agree that it is worrying when the contribution to GDP growth from exports is continually marked down in forecast after forecast. While there may well be good, hidden things, the general trend is working against growth in the economy.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Labor
Hannah Mary Bardell (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is important to clarify that, as has been discussed previously in this House, the increase in the national minimum wage by the UK Government is not the same as the living wage that has been set by a number of independent bodies. Conservative Members must recognise that.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I take the hon. Gentleman’s general point. I do not gainsay a number of the micro-decisions that the Government have taken, but we are not seeing the wood for the trees. Let us understand why we cannot get more investment into the manufacturing industry, and why the whole tenor of the economy is anti-export. It goes to the heart of how the Chancellor has conceived his job. He tells us that we have growth, but where has that growth come from in the past six years? It has come from pumping up domestic consumption, not from investment or selling abroad. Where does that extra consumption come from? Does it come from wages? There has been some wage growth in the past few years, but in the most recent statistics, pay growth has slumped to its lowest rate in two years. The growth is coming not from pay but from borrowing Let us consider the latest consumer borrowing figures. We do not have to go back a long way—let’s look at what is happening now. Consumer borrowing on credit cards and overdrafts is expanding at its fastest rate since the financial crisis. Unsecured consumer credit was up by 8.3% in November—consumers borrowed an extra £1.5 billion of unsecured credit in November alone in the run-up to Christmas. While we are facing a potential rise in interest rates, we have merely returned to unsustainable consumer debt in order to carry growth forward into 2016. Yes, there has been growth, but it has come from borrowing. All that the Government have done is to transfer a fiscal deficit from the public sector to private individuals who are even less able to bear it.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am glad that we have moved on from me being wrong to me merely overstating the case—we are making progress. I repeat: in the depth of a crisis such as this, we will move on from unsustainable debt by moving towards export-led growth. That is what some of the countries that suffered worst in the recession and from the crisis with the euro have done. We have not even begun to do that, and if we do only one thing today and persuade Government Members that that is the case, we might have made progress.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I do—that was my point. However, Italy, Spain and Ireland have still managed to double their exports, which is the one thing that the Chancellor said he wanted to do but has not yet even begun Why has the Chancellor not been able to rebalance the economy? What has gone wrong? In truth, although previous Chancellors began this, under this Chancellor Britain has a taxation system that favours investment in physical property, rather than long-term investment in manufacturing. It has continued to have a banking and financial system that prioritises gambling—to use an extreme word—money, and foreign exchange markets, rather than supporting manufacturing and innovation Let me give Members an example that goes to the heart of the matter. Britain’s premier engineering company is Rolls-Royce, a company we would need to rely on as our flagship if we were to rebalance the economy towards manufacturing and exports. Let us look at the tragic history of Rolls-Royce in the past two years. Just over a year ago, Rolls-Royce sold off its gas turbine business to Siemens for £1 billion. Gas turbines, by the way, are the third largest export sector in UK manufacturing. What did Rolls-Royce do with the £1 billion? Did it invest it in a new wave of innovation? Did it invest it in new technology? Did it do more research? No. The nature of the fiscal taxation system, reinforced by cuts to corporation tax, meant it was easier for Rolls-Royce management to use that £1 billion to buy back its shares I am not in favour of raising corporation tax—I think fiscal incentives are good for industry—but the Chancellor continued to cut corporation tax when he knew that most of the money from many companies would actually go on share buy-backs. Rolls-Royce, by dint of buying back its own shares, pushed its share price to something like £10 in the early part of last year. Where is the share price now? It is half that. Our premier engineering company is now in a disastrous commercial state. In fact, the halving of the share price means that the shareholder value of the £1 billion it received from selling off its key turbine business to Siemens has been wiped out Meanwhile, the market has caught up with Rolls-Royce. Its key sales of engines for large, wide-bodied jets have started to dry up. The market has moved on to new jet engines for narrower-bodied jets. The Americans are cleaning up because they had the product ready to go into that market. Rolls-Royce is now in serious trouble. In fact, there is now talk in the City of it being taken over.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am always willing to bow to the Chair. If ever I am found to have made erroneous remarks in this Chamber, I will always withdraw them. We can come back to that The Minister intervened because she wishes to continue to say that those of us who raise serious points about our poor economic performance are talking down British industry. Far from it. I am passionate about British industry. I want industry to grow. It is the fact that the Government are not doing their job that is the problem. I have a profound respect for Rolls-Royce, its history and what it has contributed to this country. During world war two, Rolls-Royce’s main aero engineering factory was in Glasgow. The engines that powered the Spitfires that saved western Europe and democracy in 1940 were produced in Glasgow by Rolls-Royce. I am second to none in my admiration for the company and its engineering history, but I am worried that we are now talking about it being taken over by American aerospace companies because of the situation it is in. I am now worried that the Government may have to consider taking over parts of Rolls-Royce—this has been a matter of press comment in recent weeks—in particular its nuclear engineering division. If anything went wrong and, God forbid, Rolls-Royce were taken over by a foreign company, the Government would be talking about nationalising bits of the company. That is quite a serious pass to have come to.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I could not agree more that what is clearly missing from the UK industrial structure is those medium-sized Mittelstand companies that export and create a value chain, and instead we have a dumbbell shape, with a small number of very large companies and a large number of small companies. One of the reasons we have been unable to do that is because as companies grow to a certain level, they have consistently needed to sell out, usually to foreign ownership, in order to raise capital That brings me to another issue—I shall not be long, Madam Deputy Speaker—which the hon. Member for Bedford raised when he referred to the current account deficit. We have normally been able to fill the current account deficit, even though on a smaller basis, thanks to the financial remits coming in from assets owned by British companies or British citizens abroad outweighing the money from assets owned by foreign concerns leaving the UK. What has changed dramatically since 2010 under the auspices of the Government is the balance between the ownership of assets in the UK and the remit of funds abroad, and UK assets owned abroad and money coming back here. The total value of British-owned overseas assets since 2010 has slipped down to about £1.2 trillion. In that period, the value of UK assets held by foreigners has soared, from £1 trillion to £1.4 trillion. In other words, we are now a net debtor nation. What we own abroad is less than what is owned here, so the net outflow of money will mean in the balance that we cannot cover our current account deficit. In the last year for which we have figures—2014—there was a bare surplus of £2 billion of positive foreign direct investment coming in versus money going out. That could go like snow off a dyke. That has led the Chancellor into what I think are dangerous grounds. Here we need to link up another aspect of financial wheeling and dealing in the UK with the need for manufacturing investment The fundamental way in which we have recently covered our current account deficit is via a huge inflow of money for buying up property in the UK and particularly in the City. Wealth investors have acquired about £100 billion-worth of property in London, using blind overseas companies in just the last six years. Since 2008, something like 28,000 individual purchases of homes, buildings and lands in the capital have been made by corporate structures registered in external tax havens. One in 10 properties in Westminster is owned by an offshore firm. We are funding our current trade deficit by allowing a vast influx of cash from offshore companies coming in to buy property here, yet in many cases we do not know the ownership or where the money has come from. The Chancellor has now developed into an art form the attempt to find ways to get money in to cover the current account deficit, and it is partly connected with his new cunning plan for China.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Foreign Trade
George Kerevan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I might start by ensuring that we actually know who the beneficial owner is when anybody buys property in the UK. That might resolve part of the problem—we could find that some of the money coming in previously no longer continues because people do not want to reveal its source The Chancellor’s latest wheeze is to open the door to Chinese cash. China has no track record of building nuclear power plants, yet the Chancellor has offered massive subsidies over the next 20 years in the hope of encouraging Chinese state companies to invest in our nuclear power industry. So much for encouraging British manufacturing! I believe that the Chancellor’s cunning plan has little to do with energy security, and everything to do with getting China to cover Britain’s disastrous current account deficit. With Chinese money coming in, foreign currency will stay here and cover the deficit. Unfortunately, China is already eating into its capital reserves in a desperate bid to shore up its own currency and stop its rocky banks from imploding. What I think we are likely to see in the next five or six years is running out of the foreign currency to fill the trade gap, which will have big implications for interest rates and our trade surplus What we really need is an industrial policy, which my hon. Friends have mentioned, to revive domestic manufacturing. Instead, the Chancellor has slashed the budget for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills by 17% in the autumn statement. I chide the Minister on the fact that the budget for UK Trade & Investment is being cut over the next four years by £42 million. Yes, it is going up marginally this year, and if the Minister is selective in choosing which years to look to for the budget, she can pretend that there has been an increase. Over the four-year period, however, UKTI funding announced by the Chancellor in the autumn statement will go down by £42 million How can this Government pretend to support exports and promise to double them when they are cutting the budget of the very agency we rely on to liaise with our companies to assist our exports? The Chancellor promised to double exports, and he has form in making similar promises about eliminating the annual deficit—but he did not keep them. This Chancellor has no clothes; if he had, he would have had to import them.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Hannah Mary Bardell (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On the steel and indeed other manufacturing industries, does the hon. Gentleman not recognise there is a place for protecting high-end, highly skilled manufacturing, particularly in the steel industry, for which there is a clear market?
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Technology
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that we need not only a much higher specification for the universal broadband commitment, but provision of a better service level by broadband suppliers so that a customer gets what they know they are signing up to and so that once they have signed up they continue to get it? Customers sometimes suffer a drop-off when other people connect without even being aware of it or how they go about dealing with it. Robust service level agreement provisions must be put in place, too.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Scottish Government have done a fantastic thing this week by supplying £500,000 to encourage local communities to partake in participatory budgeting, thereby allowing them to make their own decisions? That is a real example of decentralisation. Similarly, the first thing the SNP Government did was remove ring-fencing for councils, to allow them to make their own decisions.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Macroeconomics
Hannah Mary Bardell (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is a huge pleasure to speak in a debate that is of such great importance to SNP Members and to our SNP Government. I am sorry that the numbers on the Labour Benches are so deficient, but I pay tribute to those who have been present since the beginning, those good souls who have stuck with us It is always difficult at this stage of a debate to produce new ideas. I shall focus on productivity, innovation and investment in the context of inclusiveness and equality, which have not been mentioned much from the Government Benches. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) spoke passionately of the work that the SNP Government have done in this arena and of the importance of productivity and inclusive growth in closing the trade deficit, and I would like to expand on that. I will also highlight the importance of equality, diversity and inclusiveness in any nation’s drive to be productive and innovative and to encourage investment Nobel laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz, who is part of Scotland’s fiscal commission working group under its chairman, Crawford Beveridge, has said that "countries which are more unequal do not…grow as well and are less stable…A concentration of income restricts economic growth by limiting the potential of people to contribute productively. At the same time inequality may restrict government investment in infrastructure, education, and technology." He points out that since 1975 the income gap has grown faster in the UK than in any other developed country, stating: "Such patterns of inequality will continue to have a negative impact on growth and prosperity over the long-term." If we want to make the UK and its nations an attractive place to invest in and to export from, we must have a stable and equal society. Yet all too often the policies pursued by this Government point in the opposite direction. In contrast, the Scottish Government, with much more limited powers, are developing a more egalitarian economic model. Professor Stiglitz has praised this model, saying: "Tackling inequality is the foremost challenge that many governments face. Scotland’s Economic Strategy leads the way in identifying the challenges and provides a strong vision for change." Meantime, the Conservative Government are pursuing policies that attack our fundamental freedoms and civil liberties and risk widening the gap between rich and poor and the gender pay gap while, worst of all, marginalising the most in need. Those policies come in the form of the repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998, the anti-worker Trade Union Bill, and welfare cuts that take us back to a Dickensian era. Ultimately, the Government are balancing their books on the backs of the poor. If they are serious about boosting productivity, innovation and investment, they should not pursue policies that damage the very fabric of the society they seek to build and develop.
Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity — House of Commons, 2016-01-13
Topic: Technology
William Arthur Roger Mullin (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): One alternative would be to base the centre in Dundee. That would solve the hon. Gentleman’s problem In addition to university research, there is business research. The need to encourage business investment has been mentioned, particularly in manufacturing, where we have fallen behind. I mentioned earlier the UK spend on research and development at 1.7% of GDP. We all know our manufacturing sector faces some real challenges. North Korea’s manufacturing sector is doing pretty well by comparison with many countries in the world. Its GDP spend is 4%. [Hon. Members: "North Korea?"] Sorry, South Korea.