argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Seaborne Freight — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the cancellation of a contract with Seaborne Freight as part of the Government’s contingency planning for a no-deal Brexit.
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The UK Government have been aware of the possibility of a no-deal Brexit since article 50 was triggered in March 2017, so can the Secretary of State tell us why this contract, which was awarded only at the end of December 2018, proceeded under regulation 32 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 without competitive tendering? Will he state clearly for the record, as I have asked this question of him and other Ministers five times now: what were the reasons of extreme urgency and the unforesee- able events that justified his Department proceeding without competitive tendering under regulation 32?
Seaborne Freight — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the cancellation of a contract with Seaborne Freight as part of the Government’s contingency planning for a no-deal Brexit.
Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Putting aside the further reputational damage caused, is the Secretary of State fully satisfied that he has handled this affair to the very best of his ability? If this embarrassing shambles was indeed him at his very best, what on earth has to happen on his watch to make him resign?
Seaborne Freight — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the cancellation of a contract with Seaborne Freight as part of the Government’s contingency planning for a no-deal Brexit.
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Throughout this ridiculous Brexit shambles, Brexiteers have liked to lean on historical events to justify the metaphors for some of their Brexit fantasies. Was this calamity actually engineered by the Secretary of State, so that he could paint himself as some kind of latter-day Horatio Nelson—"I see no ships"? Well, we see no competence. Will he resign?
Universities: Financial Sustainability — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Education
Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The University of Reading is an example of the recent trend of universities running into financial difficulties. It has got a short-term loan, but it is very unclear what this Government intend to do, as the Office for Students said last year that it would not bail out universities any more. Is it or is it not the Government’s position to offer financial aid to universities with cash-flow issues Universities UK is extremely concerned about all the issues that universities are facing, such as pensions and the Brexit strategy being pursued by the present Government. Will the UK Government look at universities—the place they hold in society across the UK and the amount of cash they generate for the UK economy—and help them to get through this real and immediate crisis?
Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: International Affairs
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Minister talks in his letter about how things are deemed to be beneficial for the UK, but he and I will have very different opinions on what would be beneficial for the UK, or indeed on whether Scotland should be part of the UK, so how can he say that that is not a policy decision?
Food Waste — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Agriculture
Deidre Leanne Brock (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Secretary of State will accept that food produced here that cannot go to market in the EU and cannot be sold here profitably will increase food waste. Will he reverse the change in the guidance on protected geographical indications that he issued last week and provide Scotland’s high-quality food and drink exporting industry with all the support that it needs to maintain protections across the EU rather than leaving producers to do it themselves all over again?
Leaving the EU: Fisheries — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Agriculture
Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Over the past 40 years, shellfish producers in my constituency have perfected the art of getting fish out of the sea and on to tables in Europe within a matter of hours, so they are dismayed that the Eyemouth fishing and supplies company D. R. Collin & Son has been refused every single ECMT haulage permit it has applied for. Will the Secretary of State explain why fewer than 1,000 of the 11,000 permits that have been applied for have so far been given out?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: Foxhunting was banned in 2004, yet the practice remains widespread. Is it not time that the Government beefed up the Hunting Act 2004 and introduced prison sentences to deter people from taking part in and organising these barbaric sports?; Leaving the EU gives us the opportunity to enhance animal welfare standards, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has consistently said that, once we have left, we will control the export of live animals. Will the Minister confirm that all options are still on the table and that a ban remains a possibility?; What steps have the Government taken to ensure that once we leave the EU pet travel scheme, the UK becomes a listed country so that people such as guide dog owners are not disadvantaged?; Scores of large, polluting cruise liners moor at Greenwich pier each year. What are Ministers prepared to do to support better efforts to regulate shipping emissions on the River Thames?
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Secretary of State told me a few weeks ago that he believed that other European countries would be looking enviously at the United Kingdom’s withdrawal agreement and its attempts to leave the European Union. Is that still his position?
Northern Ireland Parties: Donations — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: If the Electoral Commission will publish its correspondence with the Cabinet Office on the publication of donations received by political parties in Northern Ireland from 2014 to 2017.; If the Electoral Commission will publish its correspondence with the Cabinet Office on the publication of donations received by political parties in Northern Ireland from 2014 to 2017.
Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Electoral Commission has stated: "We continue to urge the UK Government to bring forward additional legislation to allow the publication of donations from 2014 onwards." It is astounding that this Government refuse to allow those donations to be published, so will the hon. Lady call on the Government to remove the shield from those responsible for dark money?
Divisions of the House — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Government Operations
David Melvyn Linden (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Indeed, the Institute for Government estimates that we have spent nearly 49 hours trooping through the packed Lobbies, which must be in breach of health and safety. In a week when Westminster is in absolute chaos, does the fact that we wander through the Lobbies like elephants in some sort of circus not just highlight the fact that Westminster is broken and does not work for Scotland?
Divisions of the House — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Government Operations
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman will be delighted to know that I took his advice from the previous House of Commons Commission questions and wrote to the Chair of the Procedure Committee suggesting that it finally get to grips with the issue. I look forward to joining the right hon. Gentleman in giving evidence to the Committee and making the case for reform of the outdated Lobby voting system in the House of Commons.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Secretary of State has given us a good rundown of eastern growth metrics. This is why the EU is making the free trade deals with Japan and Korea that we are worried we are going to fall out of. The percentage that I would like him to give us is the gain to gross domestic product for the UK in any deals. We know that the UK will probably gain about 0.2% of GDP with a United States deal, as opposed to the 6% to 8% that it is going to lose from the European Union. That is only about one thirtieth or one fortieth of the gain. If the right hon. Gentleman is talking percentages, will he give us the percentages in context? He says that there will be a loss from Europe and gains with the United States of America and other places, but sadly those gains will be dwarfed by the losses.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Is the right hon. Gentleman seriously saying that the Treasury’s suggestion that getting out of the European Union and the single market will hit the UK economy by 6% to 8% is not actually the truth? That is what is going to happen; he knows that we will take a GDP hit from that. He also knows that a deal with the USA, which accounts for a quarter of the world’s GDP, will give us only a 0.2% gain. He will need to make about 30 or 40 USA-style deals to make up for that loss. Given that the USA accounts for a quarter of the planet, he is going to have to trade with seven or eight planets to make up the loss resulting from his Government’s policy on Europe.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), the Chair of the International Trade Committee, has got to the nub of this. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research said 18 months or so ago that we would lose around 20% of total UK trade even with an FTA with the EU. However, FTAs with the main English-speaking economies and with all the BRICS countries would only see trade rise by 2% or 3% respectively, which goes nowhere close to filling the gap. The point that my hon. Friend is making in GDP terms and the one that I am making in trade terms is at the heart of this. Liberalisation or not, there is no way that we can fill the gap left by what we are about to lose.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Let me provide a little extra scrutiny. The Secretary of State has talked a lot about trade policy and trade agreements, but these are very different from trade; trade is a different thing. I am thinking about my constituency, where there are guys who travel to the European continent on a weekly rotation basis with lorries containing live shellfish. Now, if we have trade agreements with New Zealand, it is not so easy to drive there on a weekly rotation with a lorry of live shellfish. These guys would also face snarl-ups and there would not be the openness that there currently is to access the French, Spanish, Italian and German markets. How will the interface between trade, trade policies and trade agreements actually work in practice for lorry drivers of shellfish? That is what these people need to know.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I have a philosophical question. There are two schools of thought regarding what is to blame for the Honda situation. It is either Brexit and the anticipation of trouble at the borders either now or in 21 months’ time as the Prime Minister kicks the can down the road and we leave the customs union and the single market; or, as the hon. Gentleman has just postulated, it is the EU-Japan free trade agreement. If it is the latter, is it not negligent for a country within the EU not to raise this issue as a defensive interest and ensure that this situation does not happen? It would seem to be extreme UK negligence for a country within the EU to have burned its car industry on the basis of getting a free trade agreement.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I hesitate to intervene to make a discordant point, because the hon. Gentleman was being generous. However, on balance I think I should say that if we have a customs union only and are not in the single market, which is the Labour party’s policy, that itself will probably mean a hit to GDP of about 4%. If we need about 30 agreements at 6%, then we would need about 20 similar agreements—20-ish such American agreements—to make up for the damage his policy would bring in loss of trade to the European Union.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Agriculture
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman talks about improvement. I just wonder what he means by that. Does he mean expansion and growth? When he talked about having 23,000 sheep, with 50,000 after lambing, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) asked me, "How many do you have?" I said 32—just 32. We are talking about a hugely different scale. Is he talking about farms in the UK getting bigger and amalgamating, and a whole change in the structure of UK farming?
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I start by agreeing with what the Secretary of State said about looking to have trade deals with developing, emerging and growing markets. That is absolutely right, whether the UK or the EU does it. He made big play of Australia and New Zealand, which we just heard about from the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford). Australia takes about 1% of the UK’s exported goods—half of what we sell to Turkey. New Zealand takes 0.1%—about the same as we sell to Algeria—so however important Australia and New Zealand are, they are not developing growth markets. They are mature, established markets The Secretary of State also spoke about being dictated to by the EU—I much prefer the language of "working together with our European partners"—and even that language tells us a great deal about where some of this is driven from. Of course, he made big play of a potential deal with the US. I visited the US last year with the Treasury Committee. We were told in no uncertain terms by anyone who spoke to us about trade that the UK would be required to put everything on the table and that the US would be required to put nothing on the table.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am going to say more about the ISDS component—the arbitration competent—of these things later. I do not want the public sector to be impacted on in any way by trade globalisation with the US. If there is to be some deal cut, there is language that can be used—for example, that used to exempt military and intelligence operations. That should be included rather than the vague protections for the NHS that many of our constituents simply do not believe are robust enough.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): That demonstrates that it can be done and there is nothing to be afraid of. It is vital so that Scotland’s national interests, as well as those of Wales and Northern Ireland—all the devolved nations—are given equal weight to the needs and ambitions of exporting companies in London and the south-east.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): To pursue that point, the increasingly broad scope of modern trade agreements is such that often we will have to deal with a wide range of reserved and devolved policy areas. Does my hon. Friend agree that if the UK Government consider Scotland to be an equal partner in the Union, they must commit to allowing legislative consent in the Scottish Parliament for any deals that affect Scotland?
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who serves with me on the International Trade Committee, for giving way. He has clearly laid out his opposition to the backstop for various reasons, and I respect what he has said on that, but where does he go then: to no deal or to the revocation of article 50?
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am trying to follow what the hon. Gentleman is saying as closely as I can. He talks about working on a tariff-by-tariff basis and making judgments or decisions depending on domestic demand or production, but this would open us up to a retaliatory or mirror action from the European Union. For example, if there were no citrus fruits such as oranges here and we decided to get rid of tariffs on oranges, impacting the Spanish and Portuguese orange producers, they could ask themselves what tariffs had existed only to protect the United Kingdom as part of the EU pot. They could then pluck out those tariffs, and we would find ourselves in an even more disadvantageous trade situation.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. There are 40 such agreements with about 70 countries, and the UK’s hope is that we can stand on the shoulders of the European Union and roll over that work, which of course relies on 70 other countries not seeing a possible advantage in getting better trading terms, as a number of them certainly do. A negotiator who wants to be promoted within their trade negotiating structure will, when the UK appears over the horizon with probably not the most experienced negotiators—they certainly will not have the same track record on international negotiations—see too great an opportunity to resist Interestingly, I note that the countries that have concluded the much-trumpeted trade agreements are ones with a tremendous balance of exports in their favour. Chile’s is about £150 million to £200 million in its favour, but the outstanding winner here has to be the Faroe Islands; I like to blow the Faroes’s trumpet as chair of the all-party group on the Faroe Islands, but my goodness! It exports £229 million-worth into the UK while importing only £16 million-worth back. So not only have the Faroes got themselves up the scales of acknowledgement, but they have done themselves a fantastic piece of business by rolling over what was already a very advantageous trade agreement. So well done the Faroe Islands, and I hope the welcome in Tórshavn will be as good as it always is Let me now look at UK-US trade relations. When we went to the US the farm lobby asked, "Why folks? Why have you done this?" They were just bemused. Ford said that for it, "The UK-US is incremental, but the UK-EU is existential, particularly the interplay with the UK-EU and Turkey. The tariffs that could be accumulated in that direction could be problematic." The International Trade Committee’s key recommendation was that "the Government should undertake detailed work modelling the potential effects of a UK-US agreement on the economy." Evidence to the inquiry regarding the impact on GDP varied, but it was about 0.2%. We also have to make decisions about whether we have some increase in regulatory barriers with the EU in exchange for the removal of barriers with the US, and what the overall benefit of that is. As someone who keeps a few sheep, as I mentioned to the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), I can see a huge problem if we find ourselves putting up barriers to the EU to please some Americans and the American Administration in order to wave a piece of paper and say, "Trade agreements in our time." That huge danger presents itself to a UK Government who might rush into trade agreements for the sake of it.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a point about trade agreements having an impact on sheep farming in the highlands, but if those kinds of conditions are written into these trade agreements, could they not have a massive effect on trade and exports across the whole of the highlands and islands in respect of a range of different goods and services?
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On that idea of keeping Parliament in the dark, if the UK and the EU were to enter into a trade negotiation, European parliamentarians would know more than Members of the House of Commons, and our best way of finding out what was happening would be to ask our friends from Ireland. Far from us taking back control, the European Parliament would actually have more control in that particular trade negotiation, which is a supreme irony of the whole Brexit carry-on.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman has mentioned Japan. Does he think that the lack of concern that has been shown for Japanese interests in this whole Brexit farrago will not serve the UK very well when it comes to negotiating a trade deal with Japan? The list of companies he gave and the concerns that the Japanese have raised have not registered or led to any deviation in UK policy, and it is understandable that the Japanese feel quite slighted, given their interests and that 40% of their EU investments were on island UK.
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I agree with the Minister that it is better to take one’s time to analyse the responses to the consultation, but does he or the Secretary of State intend to go back out for further public negotiation once the negotiating mandate for the deals is agreed?
Future Free Trade Agreements — House of Commons, 2019-02-21
Topic: Macroeconomics
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Other than spending consequentials in this centralised UK state, there are no fiscal transfers from the south to the north of England—for example, when the north of England got damaged by the air transport policy that the UK ran for about 40 years. I just caution the Minister against being too complacent. The UK is not doing what it should to offset the bias of the sterling zone and the UK centralised Government towards the south-east of England.