argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: International Affairs
Mair Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we have had a long and comprehensive debate. The decision in front of the country will have a huge effect on its future. If members of the public are to have a say, it is absolutely right that they should have information available to them in order to make an informed decision. The Electoral Commission suggests that people want this information. They do not feel equipped to make the decision at the moment. That is why we are requesting these reports The Government’s silence on some of these matters is extremely concerning. It could be interpreted in two ways. Either the Government do not know the answers or they have not understood the question. I want to explain what is at stake because it is very important that we prepare now to inform our fellow citizens. When I talk about our fellow citizens, I mean citizens of the United Kingdom, but there are also implications for EU citizens. We have to understand that a decision to leave the EU would have an impact not just on UK citizens but on EU citizens as well First, it is vital that we do not underestimate the complexity of the legal situation that would arise if we were to leave. EU law is part of UK law and its adoption over more than 40 years has given UK citizens, companies and public authorities a vast array of rights and duties. We need to know what those rights and duties are and what being an EU citizen gives you. We need the public to understand that. Many thousands of EU provisions have become part of UK law, not just at central government level but in the devolved Administrations and at local government level. So repealing or amending EU laws would necessarily be a very complex and demanding process. How would the Government manage this process? What would they do? What would they retain? Would they repeal certain amendments or would they just take the whole lot, lock, stock and barrel and accept them into UK law? Would we have one Bill, as was suggested earlier, or would we have to change every single Bill that has been passed over the past 40 years that has any reference to the EU?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: International Affairs
Mair Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): We will not need to do anything on day one, but we will certainly have to disentangle our relationship with the EU at some point in the future. That will take an army of administrators and legislators to sort that out at a time when the Government want to cut the number of civil servants. We need to confront this practical issue We are interested in providing and getting the public to see objective information. Regarding the practical consequences for individuals in the UK in the event of withdrawal, I have already asked the Government questions in relation to maintaining EU employment rights. I am still awaiting a reply. The questions concern social legislation in a huge number of areas including maternity, paternity, parental leave, annual rights, the rights of agency workers, protection of employees on the transfer of a business and anti-discrimination legislation. Will these be retained or will they go? Is there a risk element here or not? It is fair to ask these questions.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: International Affairs
Mair Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Lord is absolutely right that we can take decisions; I am concerned about what those decisions will be. I have no clarity whatever that the money will go back into the UK coffers and then straight back to the farmers in the UK or the structural funds in the poorest areas of Britain. We have no clarity on that and it is absolutely right that we raise the question, particularly for those who are directly affected Turning to the amendment in my name, I ask what will happen to the citizens of Gibraltar. Spain would love to take the opportunity to leverage the whole situation of British exit to push its case for sovereignty over the island. What is the Government’s contingency plan if we were to leave? What would happen if Spain were to close the border? Would we send a fleet? Would we mount a Berlin-style airlift to support the island? The people of Gibraltar are very concerned with these questions Few would deny that membership of the EU and the single market brings huge advantages to the UK economy and to British businesses. Many other aspects of our national life have also benefited. Will the Government provide a precise and comprehensive report on the possible consequences of withdrawal? We are pleased that the Minister has said that she is in listening mode and that there may be a possibility of producing some kind of White Paper on the impact of withdrawal—and of remaining in the EU as well; I do not object to that. We would like to hear today a commitment that the Government will produce a White Paper and we would like to hear the timescale in which the Minister believes it will be possible to produce it. Much of the work has been done. The balance of competences review has done a lot of the spadework. It needs to be updated into a comprehensive look at the consequences. We believe that the failure to provide such information before a decision of this magnitude would be letting down the British people and shirking an essential responsibility of government.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
David Edward Lea (Labour, Centre-left): The bear trap metaphor is getting in the way of the thread of the noble Lord’s own logic. He has got lost in trying to demonstrate that this is either a job that no one should do or it is a job that should possibly be done, but not by the Office for Budget Responsibility. If it is the former, is it not the case that many people in the debate about the referendum are desperate for some sort of guidance on the two scenarios? Indeed the governor’s speech and what happened last week in Iceland are very relevant. Is the noble Lord saying that no one should do this job to the best of their ability, however difficult, or simply that the Office for Budget Responsibility should not do it?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: International Affairs
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): I do not know who the noble Lord has been listening to about threats. It seems to me that the pro-European people are making a very modern argument for our membership of the European Union—a case which is far stronger than it was when we originally joined—that in this really dangerous world with chaos in Africa, fanaticism in the Middle East and rising nationalism in Russia, what we should be doing is sticking with our friends and acting as a united Europe.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: International Affairs
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): There is a very simple reason for that which is that most of the anti-European case that is put forward suggests that it is cost-free to come out of the European Union. That is why these arguments are being pressed; if you listen to the way a lot of people talk who favour withdrawal, they think it is cost-free. They assume we can negotiate anything we want. It is they who are not facing up to the realities of the world.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: International Affairs
David Edward Lea (Labour, Centre-left): It is quite often possible to summarise the general opinion of politics in this country, as a default position, as: "They just shout at each other and they don’t try to find the truth in the public interest". This will be an historic decision for Britain, and the idea that we will not do our best to find any independent ground to give to the British people is quite extraordinary I was the person who, at Second Reading, first made this proposal and started this hare, or bear, running. That was done to meet the argument put forward by noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that we must find out what the consequences would be of being out, because they on their side—and it is true that I am on one side, just as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is on the other side—were saying that there will be absolutely no problem with being out, without any of the downsides; for example, that we will have all the benefits of EFTA. Of course, this weekend we now hear from the Prime Ministers of Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and wherever that this is not the case. We have now got into the position where, this bear trap or whatever it is having been opened up, the noble Lord seems to be running away from the argument that his side started about a month ago, which is very interesting The only other way in which I guess we could have an independent analysis without it being done by the Office for Budget Responsibility would be to set up some new academic/ex-Whitehall or Civil Service commission, or something like that. It would not be easy to get agreement—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, said at the beginning—in that rather heated atmosphere on what such a body should be like. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has doubted that the credentials of the OBR as regards its degree of dispassionate analysis could be bettered. It now has a reputation, with some ex-Treasury officials in it, as a body which does not kowtow to the Treasury, which some people feared. However, it established its own independence and credibility at the same time, not like a parliamentary Select Committee with an eye for newspaper headlines wanting to find something extravagantly newsworthy to say. This is therefore about as good an attempt as will be made Finally, we do hear a red herring from time to time, which is of course that after the referendum, if it leads to exit, another negotiation would follow whereby tariffs would not go up against Britain, and that otherwise they would. All these existing problems would suddenly be revealed for analysis when we are out, not before we are out—before we have voted—but when we are going to go out they would have another negotiation. That particular fox, to change the animal metaphor, has been shot dead three times, and I should think it is pretty dead now.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Raymond Collins (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will try to be very brief. I will start by saying that in the previous debate and at Second Reading my noble friend Lady Morgan made our position of support for the principle of reports and information quite clear. This comes back to the Electoral Commission’s submission that people want more information and informed debate. Clearly, we know that the debate will be focused on those who are committed to remaining in and those committed to leaving. However, the debate today highlights a problem we have with people who take a fixed position. I am one of those who believe that the Prime Minister is intent on negotiating progress within the European Union. I also believe that the European Union is open to constant reform. I do not see the date of the referendum as the date when everything stops, with it simply being a question of deciding, "It’s good now" or "It’s bad now". The debate on reform is really important, which is why the Office for Budget Responsibility can have an important role to play The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, asked, "Who are these reports for?". I could not agree with him more in asking that, but I think that they will make an important contribution and stop the debate deteriorating into one between those who simply want out at any cost and those who simply want in at any cost. The reform agenda must be very much at the forefront of the debate that we will have I think that the Office for Budget Responsibility is capable of doing the job. It produces reports on the Budget and is capable of producing a longer-term fiscal sustainability report on future trends and pressures. It is ideally suited to the job and I think that people will want to hear from it. There were debates in the other place about whether the Bank of England should or should not express an opinion. We support the independence of the Bank and it has been doing a good job. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, thinks that the Bank has got it wrong many times and asks, "Why should we listen to it now?". However, I am also aware that when even a body like the Bank of England reports, the Guardian says that its report shows that the EU provides a dynamic environment for economic growth, whereas the Daily Telegraph said that the report has nothing to do with EU membership. So whatever the OBR produces, I have every confidence that the campaign to remain in the EU will say one thing and that the campaign to take Britain out will say something else. However, the British people deserve to understand the source of the information, which is why we will support both amendments.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: International Affairs
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Amendment 26, in my name, is of similar import to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. Mine, of course, is a political adviser’s amendment. It is sloppily drafted and not the expert amendment that you would expect of a senior Eurocrat; therefore, I am happy not to move my amendment in favour of that moved by the noble Lord. In my view if we wanted to educate the public about alternatives to EU membership we could do a lot worse than to ask the Government to send a printed copy, suitably amended, of the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, to every household in the country—I thought it was brilliantly argued. We are going to hear a lot of these arguments in the coming year, and I shall not reiterate them now I want to make a couple of observations which I think are relevant. First, on the arguments about Britain’s strength to negotiate its own arrangements, I used to think in the same way as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. When I was a young man I am afraid I rather bought into the line of the German Social Democrat leader of the time, who described the Common Market as a conservative, cartelist, capitalist, clerical conspiracy. I was rather of that view but when I learned about it and read its history I realised that the Macmillan Government tried very hard in the 1950s to negotiate the kind of free trade agreement which the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, thinks is the solution to all our problems, but they came to the conclusion that it could not be done. The only possible alternative for Britain was to become a full member alongside the original six. I think that that judgment, which was made around 1959-60, is still sound, even though the European Union has transformed itself. So, too, has our economy. When I listen to some of the arguments of the anti-Europeans here, I think they still think in terms of British companies exporting to Europe.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: International Affairs
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): I take the point. The noble Lord has thrown me off my path. I was saying that the nature of our economy has changed and that sometimes when I listen to these debates I do not get an appreciation of that. The fact is that Britain has benefited more from European Union membership than virtually any other member, and has done so through attracting inward investment to the United Kingdom from all parts of the world. This has been a tremendous boost; it has been the only successful industrial policy we have had since the era of Margaret Thatcher; she was the one who first started it, and it has worked. That has meant that many British businesses are part of European and global supply chains, and we as a country benefit from hosting many foreign companies here. I often think, when I listen to the arguments, that people just do not appreciate that. Yet, that is clearly the major economic issue in the debate on membership. If that inward investment, that ability to organise your supply chains across Europe, were to be interrupted as a result of withdrawal and badly damaged, that could seriously deter future inward investment in the UK Most of us in this Chamber are pretty passionate in our views about the European Union, for and against. However, we also have to remember that most of the great British public are not very passionate about it; in fact, the great majority do not regard it as the most important issue in the world at all. Most opinion polling suggests that only about 10% of the voters are worked up about our membership of the European Union. That does not mean that they are pro—I am not trying to argue that. They are genuinely sceptic about the whole issue in a way in which a lot of the people who are anti-European Union in this Chamber, who claim to be sceptics, are not—they are passionate ideologues. However, most of the voters are sceptics, who want to weigh the evidence and be convinced one way or another by the argument.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: International Affairs
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Lord is right about that, but it is the result of dissent in an elite and a particular part of the British political elite. People will get worked up about this because of a vigorous argument on one side of the political spectrum; it is not as a result of massive popular demand from below. However, that is not my point, which is that a lot of people are genuinely sceptic and probably dislike the Brussels bureaucracy a great deal but worry about our future outside the EU. That is where I think that the need for objectivity is very important. Clearly, I am not the right person to make an objective case about the European Union but I still believe that we have a public service in Britain which is independent and can be objective and which can help to frame a rational debate about our membership. That is why I think that the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is so important I hope that the Minister, for whom I have the greatest respect, and the Government will look favourably on the argument regarding the need for objectivity in this debate and on the argument that the public service can help to bring that to the debate. That is what the public are looking for. I would hate to think that our politics had got to the state of that of the United States, where everything is so polarised that it is impossible to have any kind of meeting of minds or objectivity and rationality in discussions. I think that the senior members of the Government are coming round to a certain view about Britain’s future which I favour, so I hope that they will be prepared to support this call for independent, objective analysis, which is so important for the quality of our politics.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: Government Operations
David Edward Lea (Labour, Centre-left): Taking the analogy of Ministers and the UK Civil Service, is the noble Lord saying that if you do not like the word "autonomy" there must be some other word that is not going to be suborned by politicians? With regard to the Office for Budget Responsibility, no one doubts that we are looking for some degree of independence. If the noble Lord does not like the word "autonomy", how will he handle the problem of not wanting self-interested politicians to give advice—it is people who, in the analogy with Britain, are not politicians?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: International Affairs
Mair Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): These are the figures from the IMF. My understanding is that they refer to the EU. I will check them, but I have not heard the noble Lord’s point made before. We will look at that, but I think these figures make a lot more sense. We will examine that Let me talk now about the winning side. How well do we do within the Council? As it happens, an article in today’s Guardian states that, "the UK voted on the winning side 97.4% of the time in 2004-09 and 86.7% of the time in 2009-15" That tells me that this Government are not such good negotiators as the Labour Government were We have heard about several models tonight, but I should like to dwell a little on what Article 50 means and on what its implications are. There is a strong likelihood that, were we to vote to leave, we would need transitional measures to cover the period between the notification of the European Council by the UK of its decision to withdraw and the conclusion of the withdrawal treaty that sets out what our future relationship would look like. If that is not concluded within two years, it may be possible to extend it for a short period if both sides so decide. However, if we could not come to a conclusion—and, let us face it, it would be an incredibly complicated negotiation—then we would be out, with no formal relationship whatever. So this is very serious, and we have to understand that we should be discussing it now. We are having the referendum pretty soon and we need some idea of what the alternative might look like There a few other things that I should like to touch on. First, we know that the Prime Minister does not like the Norwegian model—
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-02
Topic: Foreign Trade
Mair Morgan (Labour, Centre-left): These are the kind of questions to which we need answers from the Government. That is precisely what we are asking: what would it look like and what would we need to do? What would the administrative consequences be? Does the Foreign Office have the capacity to deal with this Let us look at the Swiss model, where each negotiation is done bilaterally and on a piece-by-piece basis. You would need an army to start renegotiating that model if we were interested in pursuing that kind of thing. Let us not forget that the Swiss model does not allow access to financial services, which is something that should concern the City of London. The fact is that the City would be locked out. I am absolutely sure of that because if the Swiss financial services sector is locked out, I am quite sure that the Germans would be eyeing up the financial services sector very happily in terms of the opportunities for them. The City of London commissioned a report by the University of Kent looking specifically at the Swiss relationship and financial services. It found that Swiss financial services do not have unfettered access to the EU and that Switzerland—listen to this—currently uses London as a staging post to get access to the EU. We need to take note of that We could rely on WTO rules, of course, but again let us be clear that services, particularly financial services, would not be covered. Let us face it, the WTO is not an organisation that exactly moves fast. I think the last massive deal was done in 1994. When we are pressing the button and knowing that we need to get a negotiation done within two years, that is not something we could rely on. We also have to understand that if we wanted access to EU markets, WTO rules mean that British car manufacturers would face a 9.8% tariff on the export of cars, 5% on car components, 15% on food and 11% on clothing. Those are the rules of the WTO. If you want a loose relationship, that is what you would be looking at.