argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: Labor
Patrick Bosco McFadden (Labour, Centre-left): When Labour was in government, we legislated to go beyond European minimums many times, which included granting 6 million workers an extra eight days’ paid leave. For much of the time we were doing that, it was being vociferously opposed by the Conservative Opposition, and particularly by the present Prime Minister, who built his journalistic career on attacking measures of that kind The point that my right hon. and learned Friend is making is correct. This is not just about the legislation that we pass here; it is about the common rule book that gives us market access across the European Union. The Prime Minister cannot promise a deregulatory future to the European Research Group and a regulatory future to the Labour party.
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: Foreign Trade
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I have given way many, many times. I am going to make some progress, and then I will give way again Of the two possible outcomes, one is this deregulated free trade agreement which in the end, whatever people say, will drive us away from the European economic model towards a different economic model. We will look back on this as a turning point in our history of much greater significance than whether this deal technically gets over the line tonight. The other possible outcome, which has been put to me in interventions, is that there is no deal at the end of the transition period, and that has to be significantly addressed. I know that some colleagues are tempted to vote for the deal because they believe that it prevents or removes the possibility of crashing out on World Trade Organisation terms. It does not. Under the previous deal, if the future relationship was not ready by the end of the transition, the backstop kicked in, which prevented WTO terms. That has gone. This is a trapdoor to no deal Let me quote the words of the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). I hope that I do so accurately, but if I do not, he will correct me. What I understood him to say was this: "The reason I am inclined to vote for this one" —this deal— "is very simple… if the trade talks are not successful…then we could leave on no-deal terms."
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: Labor
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I am going to make a little more progress, then I will give way Today, the Prime Minister dangles prospects of workers’ rights and indicates amendments he might be inclined to take down the line—promises, promises. I know these are really important issues for—
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: Labor
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I was one of those who worked in industry in Coventry during the period of the Thatcher Government when, as my right hon. and learned Friend, like his father, will know, every week we saw thousands of jobs lost in the motor car industry. Big companies such as Jaguar Land Rover are very worried about the industry’s future, bearing in mind that they will have certain things to prove and that if they cannot, they will have to pay tariffs, which could affect jobs and so on. If anyone wants to know why the Opposition are suspicious of any Government in relation to trade union rights, they have only to look at the Government’s Trade Union Act 2016, under a previous Prime Minister. They will see exactly what the Government have in mind.
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for that intervention, which reinforces the point. Manufacturing, which had been on its knees, has now revived, at least in part. Why would anybody, whichever way they voted, want to take an axe to it? I will never understand that.
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: Foreign Trade
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I will make some progress and then give way again. [Interruption.] I have given way so much. I will give way again. I do need to make some progress so that others can get in I turn briefly to amendment (a) in the name of the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin). I thank him and colleagues across the House for the cross-party work they have done in recent months. The amendment, which is genuinely cross-party, is in that spirit. It makes it clear that this House will not be bounced into supporting what is a very bad deal without a proper chance to scrutinise it. It would allow the House to ensure that the legal text is acceptable and provide time to seek changes in the passage of implementing legislation. It would ensure that the Benn Act can be applied May I say this? The amendment does not cause delay, because that exercise will have to be gone through anyway. It is not a vote to delay; it is a vote to get on with looking at the next stage, which will have to be looked at. What it does provide is an insurance policy against signing up to a deal that is not what it seems, with the risk of a no-deal Brexit to boot The deal before the House is a thoroughly bad deal. It is a bad deal for jobs, rights and living standards. It is a bad deal for the future direction of the country. It will put us on a path to an entirely different economy and society: one of deregulation and divergence. It will end in either a bare bones free trade agreement or no deal in eight months. It stands against everything that the labour and trade movement stands for—[Interruption.]
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: Foreign Trade
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Although I agree with amendment (a) and the idea that it will stop a no deal, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, in this deal, we have no guarantee from the Prime Minister that he will avoid crashing out after the transition period? Any trade deal will take longer than a year to put together, as we know, so is this not really a death row deal? We will be crashing out in a year, which is why it is our duty to vote against it.
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: Labor
Caroline Louise Flint (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I wondered whether he had taken sections of his speech from Jon Lansman Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, when it comes to workers’ rights, the EU is not God? The fact is that local authorities up and down the UK have to outsource contracts to the European Union to the detriment of workers in their local communities. We have seen a rise in zero-hour contracts and poor conditions, partly because of that outsourcing. Does he agree with me?
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Peter John Kyle (Labour, Centre-left): I say with all respect and humility to the former Prime Minister that a lot of people watching who have listened to her words will feel strongly that the only con trick was a Prime Minister making a solemn promise to the public that under no circumstances would there be a border down the Irish sea, and then traipsing through the Lobby to vote for precisely that. I would have expected a little more humility from her All of us who participated in the referendum debate noticed one thing: in the prospectus for Brexit, it was very poorly defined. It was difficult to gauge precisely what Brexit would mean for our country. However, when the former Prime Minister signed the article 50 treaty, she had the legal right to define Brexit. She came to the House with her deal, which had over 500 pages defining Brexit. For almost a year, she and the Government said that the deal respected the will of the people Now we have a separate deal, brought back by a separate Government, who say that this fundamentally different deal, with different customs arrangements, different regulatory systems, and a different order for the United Kingdom, represents the will of the people. Both deals cannot represent the will of the people. I say this with all humility: if we want to know what the will of the people is—what they were voting for—we can ask them. Their response will be based not on promises, but on facts, because we have the facts now My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) and I have been working on a compromise—and it is a compromise, because it means we could become the remainers who open the door to Brexit. Fundamentally, it is about breaking the gridlock in Parliament. It is based around a deal.
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Peter John Kyle (Labour, Centre-left): I am extremely grateful for a thoughtful intervention. Of course I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I speak as someone who has voted for three separate versions of Brexit. I have not opposed it; I have voted for Brexit in this place more often than most members of the ERG. The key question is: how do we break the gridlock? How do we get past this impasse? The idea of a referendum based on a deal is that it would be a confirmatory referendum. We would put the prospectus to the people and ask, "Is this good enough for you?", in exactly the same way we did in Northern Ireland with the Good Friday peace agreement.
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Peter John Kyle (Labour, Centre-left): I was here in the House, working constructively with Members from across the House. I voted for three separate versions of Brexit; I have done my bit to try to get it across the line, but because the prospectus for Brexit was defined not at the start, but only at the end, of the process, many people in this House have a different version of it, and that is why we are irreconcilably divided We propose a compromise whereby we allow the deal to pass through Parliament in return for inviting the public to have the definitive, final say on whether the deal should pass. The public can decide whether the deal is good enough for them, their family, their community, their job and our country. If they decide that it is, we can leave directly on those terms, without any need to return to the matter in this place. If they do not, we can remain with the deal we have. Those are two propositions, based in international treaty and law, that are implementable straight away We gained growing support for this across the House when we pushed it last time. People repeatedly said to us that, if the deal of the Prime Minister at the time was defeated, they would want to come and consider this, but they would not want to consider it before any defeat. The problem was that we did not get the opportunity to press for a vote straight afterwards, but now we do have such an opportunity. Because the Government are pushing two motions tonight—one on their deal, one on no deal—we will have an opportunity to vote after the House has spoken on the main deal To all the people who want to support the deal, I say this: focus on the deal and support the deal, but accept one thing. If the deal does not succeed in the first vote tonight, we have to make a choice, and there is a choice on the table that keeps the deal alive and keeps the deal intact. It is the only way, in those circumstances, that the deal can proceed. In those circumstances, I hope that people from across the House will decide that the country needs resolution, and an option remains standing that will break the gridlock, that will get Brexit out of Westminster and back into our communities for one definitive final say, and we can bring this nightmare to an end.
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Elizabeth Louise Kendall (Labour, Centre-left): The decision that we make today will shape the future of our country for years to come. In making that decision, three issues weight most heavily on my mind The first is the potential risks that this deal poses to the future of the Union of the United Kingdom. We have heard many times that the deal explicitly separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, with a border down the Irish sea and with Northern Ireland remaining part of the EU’s trading system—something that the Prime Minister promised he would never allow. I fear that these proposals would have knock-on implications for Scotland’s future relationship with the UK, too. I fear that the deal is an open goal for the Scottish National party in its bid for independence. We have heard the argument that Northern Ireland voted to remain and that they are still part of the EU, with frictionless trade, so why should Scotland not have that, too? I have always believed in the importance of unions—that we are stronger and have more power and control when we work together. I do not expect all Government Members to share that most fundamental of Labour beliefs, but, as members of the Conservative and Unionist party, I find it very hard to believe that they would vote for a deal that could put the future of our Union at risk The deal would also have potentially profound consequences for the future shape of our economy and public services, paving the way for the Government to take England, Scotland and Wales out of the single market and customs union—the hardest of all hard Brexits, short of no deal, with all the risks that that brings for manufacturing and services. Whatever the Prime Minister claims, there are no legal guarantees for workers’ and consumers’ rights and environmental standards. They can deny it until they are blue in the face, but we remember that it was precisely in order to cut those rights and standards that Brexiteers argued for years that we should leave the EU, so they cannot convince us otherwise now. I wish Government Members would just be honest and say, "We believe that the future of the country is as a low-tax, small-state, deregulated country." They have a perfect right to think that, but they should have the guts to put that vision of Britain to the British people Finally, on the implications for our democracy, I know that colleagues on both sides of the House understand the risks that this deal poses to the Union and to our economy, but believe that the risks to our democracy are even worse. However, the truth is that the deal is not what people were promised during the referendum, nor will it get Brexit done. Far from it: we will have years more of negotiations, with another cliff edge at the end of the transition. I do not doubt that many people will be angry if the deal is voted down tonight, but we must put it back to the British people so that they can decide whether this is the future for the country that they want.
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): I will vote for the amendment moved by the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) because it is an insurance policy against no deal, by accident or by design. It is very clear from the debate so far that the deal that the Prime Minister has brought back will give us less good access to the biggest, nearest and most important market that we enjoy today and less good access than the deal negotiated by the former Prime Minister would have given. I cannot understand why anyone should regard that as something to be celebrated, cheered or recommended No wonder the Government do not want to do an economic assessment, because it would show the same thing as their last economic assessment. It was very striking how my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) told the House, in his typically forensic and eloquent way, what it would mean in practice to watch the euphoria evident on the Government Benches earlier give way to a cold realisation of what the deal will mean for the businesses and industries that we represent in our constituencies. I simply ask this: why would we want to undermine our future economy, investment, opportunity and potential in that way The second point I want to make is about consent. The Prime Minister is right to ask us how we will heal the rift that Brexit has created. If this deal is defeated, it will be the fourth time the House has been unable to agree a way forward. I am the first to admit that we cannot carry on like this. We need to find a way forward, and a way of doing so was offered, in a very prescient intervention a year ago, by my hon. Friends the Members for Hove (Peter Kyle) and for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) with their compromise proposal—and it is a compromise. There is in politics a division between those who advocate leaving with no deal if we cannot get a deal and those who say, "Let’s just cancel the result of the referendum and pretend it never happened." I do not subscribe to either of those views There is compromise: we can get this done and make a decision by asking the British people. At the heart of that question is this: do the British people have the right to change their minds? I fear that some who reject a referendum would cry, "No, they don’t. We had the one vote, and that’s it." I disagree with that view because it is fundamental to our democracy that, when the facts change, events change or time passes, we should have an opportunity to change our minds if we wish. I do not know the answer to that question. The only people who know are the British people, which is why I will vote for my hon. Friends’ amendment. We should ask the people what they now want.
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): I want to say some words about the nature of the deal before us. This is all a question of trust: whether we should support the deal depends on trust. We have heard that from their representatives today that the people of Northern Ireland cannot trust this deal. This could take us backwards, not forwards, in Northern Ireland We are learning that, before long, the Conservative and Unionist party will be the party only of England. They are putting our Union at risk. The people on the Great Britain-Northern Ireland border, whether that is in Birkenhead, Holyhead or Stranraer, cannot trust this deal. The Conservative party is becoming the party only of the south of England. As has been said by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) and by Frances O’Grady of the Trades Union Congress, we know the damage that this deal will do to the people of our manufacturing towns. The Conservative party is becoming the party only of the south-east home counties. As for the Conservatives who want a soft Brexit, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) gave it away: the ERG has decided. The Conservative party is becoming the party of only the ERG, and this is the ERG’s deal The next generation cannot trust this deal when it comes to environmental protections. We have seen the protests about climate change, but those voices are not heard. When it comes to freedom of movement and our rights at work, generations of trade unionists cannot trust this deal. We on the Labour Benches are representatives, not delegates, but I challenge any Labour MP to disagree with the delegates of any trade union branch in the country. We cannot trust this deal The Conservative party is making itself untrustworthy. Instead of advancing rational policies, it has made itself into a historical re-enactment society, seeking to undo 40 years of progress in which it played a part. However, the Conservatives’ interpretation of our country’s history is untrustworthy. Let me mention one lesson from our history: at the time of the fall of France, the Polish pilots who came to Britain to fight alongside us called Britain "last hope island". Then as now, solidarity in Europe, not a Britain that stands alone, should be the source of our hope. That was true then, and it is true now. This deal is bad for Britain, and we should vote it down.
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: Labor
Rebecca Long-Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): I thank all Members of this House for their passionate contributions. I thank the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for sharing his mints with the shadow Front-Bench team earlier. However, that is where my joviality ends Today is a historic day. It is a day on which the fewer than 650 people sat here now will agonise over whether they are about to make the right choice for their communities, industries and future generations. Today, they ask themselves, "Is what is before us today truly a deal that protects and enhances our communities?" Sadly, the simple and irreconcilable truth is that it does not. As the shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, I want to make it clear to the House that this deal, if agreed to, would be a disaster for this country. We must reject it On workers’ rights, we simply cannot trust what the Prime Minister is saying. The Government say that this deal protects workers, but instead of strengthening protections they have specifically changed the legally binding withdrawal agreement to remove any commitments on workers’ rights. It tells us something that no trade union in this country—not a single one—backs this deal. The TUC says that the deal "would be a disaster for working people" Unison says that "it would risk every workplace right and leave public services exposed and vulnerable." Unite says that "by further diluting the legal protections for labour and environmental standards, the prime minister has made the laws that underpin workers’ rights and public safety extremely vulnerable in future trade deals." I could go on, but we should also look at the business case.
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2019-10-19
Topic: Foreign Trade
Rebecca Long-Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): Please forgive me for not giving way; we are extremely pushed for time What does this deal mean for business? I will put it simply; for business, for our industries and for our manufacturing, it reduces access to the market of our biggest trading partner, threatening jobs up and down our country at a time when more investment is needed, not less. There is no economic impact assessment and no accompanying legal advice—funny that; I wonder why. According to The Guardian, Britain is on course to sacrifice as much as £130 billion in lost GDP growth over the next 15 years if the Brexit deal goes ahead Industry has been clear that it needs market access. It needs a customs union to keep vital supply chains flowing, but this deal sells them out. With no barrier-free access and no customs union, it puts the fantasy of chasing damaging trade deals with Donald Trump over the needs of our country. Again, the House does not have to take my word for it. Make UK, which represents British manufacturing, is clear that "commitments to the closest possible trading relationship in goods have gone" and that the deal "will add cost and bureaucracy and our companies will face a lack of clarity inhibiting investment and planning." Even the CBI added that the "deal remains inadequate on services" and that it has "serious concerns about the direction of the future UK-EU relationship." This is a bad deal for industry, a bad deal for manufacturing and, more importantly, a bad deal for jobs Let us look at what the deal will mean for the environment. Let us see what green groups are saying about it. Greener UK, for example, has raised—[Interruption.]