argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
Kenny Wright MacAskill (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Absolutely. It is well known—and I have experienced it myself—that where children have been taken to, for example, some north African nations, it can be extremely problematic, if not impossible, for parents seeking their return. Although they had the right to that child, their ability to enforce it was often not recognised. If that is to be the situation we find ourselves in with countries with which we have had greater movement in recent years and greater involvement in terms of trade, the complexities will be extremely difficult indeed In the political context, this is the reality. It is not the delusion that we have been given about the sunny uplands of Brexit, or in the defence review about aircraft carriers steaming towards warmer climes, dispensing all sorts of social dividend. I always thought that the people who should be doing the soft diplomacy should be the British Council, as opposed to military forces. I recognise and welcome any work that they can do in that sphere, but it is not what they are trained to do, nor is it their trained function This is not the sunny uplands of Brexit. It is the harsh reality of what we face on rights that we have had for more than a generation, on the security of an understanding that lawyers have had about what they could do and where they could go, and the arrangements that have built up. I myself in legal practice had relationships with lawyers in London and Northern Ireland, or wherever else—it was passed around. If all that breaks down, the difficulty for individuals is damaging All the emphasis in the public eye has been, perhaps, on the dangers and difficulties we face with access to Europol—there are huge difficulties there—and the difficulties that we may face in terms of sharing information about criminals. We all know that more individuals in this country appear before a tribunal than before a court. We all know, in this Chamber, that more people will be affected by the civil aspects in private international law than will be affected by the far too many, but still far fewer, aspects of criminal offending by those who come here and would require those provisions This is the harsh reality of Brexit. We are signing up for something that is acceptable but not as good as what we had. It carries numerous risks. It leaves the danger of deficiencies—sometimes through error, perhaps, but sometimes through a failure to negotiate—that will leave each and every citizen of this country in a worse place. This is not what we were promised. We vote for these measures, but we do so with a heavy heart. It is the harsh reality of Brexit coming home. I hope that many families do not suffer as a consequence.
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: Government Operations
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I asked the Minister a specific question about consent and the devolved Administration and the Minister said that she would come on to that in her speech. Can you advise me on how I can get that answer from the Minister?
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Lady and her colleagues are making important points. She mentioned the levelling-up agenda. Is it ironic that although the UK Government talk about levelling up across the regions and nations of the UK, the areas that will be hit hardest by no deal and by a lack of preparation are the very areas that the Government pretend they are trying to level up? They speak with a forked tongue every time. Should not the Minister be giving us more information from the Dispatch Box?
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank you for that, Madam Deputy Speaker. The way things are just now, I worry about why so many people are withdrawing. Hopefully, everything is all in order. We know that the Whips usually try to force people to speak in debates, especially debates that might be short or dry, so it is certainly unusual that the Whips have been pressuring their colleagues to withdraw from today’s debate I hope that you can show some forbearance, Madam Deputy Speaker, because as I thought there were so many speakers in the previous debate, I did not expect to be called so early in this one, so my notes are a wee bit haphazard; hopefully, you can bear with me on that. I must commend the shadow Minister for her speech and for the amount of information that she covered. She highlighted the deficiencies that the Minister did not cover. She said that, in actual fact, when we talk about the movement of goods, one of the key issues is what it means for businesses and whether they are ready for this. We can talk about divergence in standards of the EU, but are businesses ready for what will happen on 1 January 2021? Have the Government given enough support to businesses? When we turn on the radio just now, it tells us all, "Get ready for Brexit". That is all very well, but it does not actually tell us what we need to do. What is the point telling us to get ready, when there is no information that is clearly accessible to businesses about what they need to do? Are IT systems up and running? The companies need to know what they have to do to be able to export, and that is before we even get to divergence Just today, ironically, my office got a letter from the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which is supposed to be aimed at all businesses, but I can assure the Minister that although that letter might be a bit of propaganda, it does not clear up what businesses need to do going forwards.
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I hear that from businesses across my constituency as well. A lot of them do not know exactly what they are supposed to do or how they are supposed to prepare. The simple solution to this surely is to extend the transition period, as we called for in our Opposition day debate before the summer. There would be no shame in the Government taking a little bit more time to get the negotiations right and to give people time. If they do not want to call it the transition period any more, they can come up with a different name for it—call it the implementation period or the adaptation period, or something like that. There would be no shame in it; we are in the middle of a global pandemic—no one foresaw this coming. It would do nobody any harm, and then one day they would get the glorious Brexit they are looking for, rather than the cliff edge that we seem to be barrelling towards.
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I suppose we should commend the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) for turning up and contributing to this debate. Taking back control was supposed to be what it was all about, and where are they? Where are the Tories—the European Research Group, the Maastricht rebels and all the rest of them We had the same last night with the statutory instrument that directly amended primary legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament. Fair enough, it was relatively technical in nature, as is this measure, but it goes to the point of respect for the devolution settlement, and it goes to the point of democratic accountability that Brexit was supposed to bring forward Was the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson not right when she said that when the Government force through relatively technical stuff such as this statutory instrument what they are doing is driving a coach and horses through the devolution settlement, and they are doing our work for us, because they are undermining the case for the Union?
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I will need to catch up with the hon. Gentleman in better surroundings, and we can share a sausage and Talisker, but of course he makes a serious point. In actual fact, the devolved nations want a common framework for agreeing how goods move about. To be honest, if we get our wish of independence, we are going to operate that way as well. We want to work with the other nations, and that is really important. But the way this UK Government are going about it, they want to impose their will on the different devolved nations, and it is like it or lump it. Hopefully, we can toast a wee dram to independence and we will discover we will still be friends after that as well, even though we do not share the same aims at the moment.
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Yes, so we all share the same good taste in food then. I agree with the point my hon. Friend made. Following up his earlier point about the contribution from the other Benches, I actually thought, "Oh my goodness, I’m going to have to listen to another 15 Conservative MPs tell me how great Brexit is going to be, how they are taking back control, how this is just another step in the way of taking back control and there’ll be wonderful trade deals." So in one way there is a blessing: I do not have to listen to 15 speeches the same. But in another way, it is disappointing that they have not turned up here to actually do their job and actually say what they wanted to say. That is disappointing.
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I agree absolutely 100%. Again, if Parliament was taking back control, we would expect parliamentarians in here doing their job debating it. But not only have the Executive taken more power, but we know there is more power invested in unelected bureaucrats who were advising the Prime Minister. I am sure nobody is shedding a tear that Dominic Cummings has actually left, but there is too much power in unelected bureaucrats behind the scene. It is double ironic when Brexiteers come here and talk about taking back control, and the Government were in hock to unelected officials We do have to wonder what divergences are planned by the UK Government, but also how these divergences are going to be managed. What is the process going to be? Will there be proper impact assessments undertaken, and will there be complete transparency on divergences that are proposed and what that means for businesses? How will we ensure that there are no unintended consequences by diverging in one area, which might affect more businesses adversely by stopping the export of their goods or preventing vital imports coming in? Those vital imports might prop up the supply chain of the key industries mentioned earlier, such as aerospace and automotive, because we rely on an EU-wide supply chain, with goods in the supply chain going backwards and forwards two or three times sometimes to create a finished product.
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: Agriculture
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I agree wholeheartedly. That is the problem with the silo approach that the UK Government have taken sometimes. They talk about the fishing industry and fishing quotas and, sure, the fishing quotas are important, but for the Government they have become the symbol of Brexit, so fishing quotas seem to be getting looked at at the expense of everything else and that includes shellfish. We also rely on the free movement of people at the moment coming from the EU to do the processing of the fish and different things, so we might end up with bigger fishing quotas without the ability to process the fish and then export them. It is hugely ironic, and that is why the Government need to always have their eye on the big picture and to join up the dots, rather than making headline announcements, looking for the headline in The Daily Telegraph. They need to understand what this means for ordinary people up and down the UK.
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: Government Operations
David Melvyn Linden (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I would be so bold as to put on the record that this Government have been guilty of cronyism. But that is not just in the context of Brexit or the pandemic. For example, there is also the cronyism in terms of Richard Desmond and the Westferry scandal. So I would caution my hon. Friend. It is not just in terms of the pandemic that the Government have been guilty of cronyism; it goes much wider than that.
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Hopefully, I will not be too much longer—these notes might be deceiving A key point, as I said, is divergences and this is all about the movement of goods. Where are we with regards to the movement of goods in terms of a no deal? Are we still reliant on the EU making concessions, just because the UK is not in a position to check in common goods? If we are going to look at diverging, we have to be able to manage what we have got just now, never mind changing things going forward. This was raised yesterday. The Minister at the Dispatch Box was not able to answer it but, on checking goods and the movement of goods, how many custom agents will be required? How many have been trained? Yesterday, the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) highlighted that the Cabinet Secretary estimated that 50,000 customs agents are needed, but that it is also estimated that only 10,000 have been trained to date. The Minister could not clear that up. This Minister has been taking lots of notes, so although she has not intervened, I am expecting a lengthy response. I hope that she can tell us where we are with training and employing customs agents and whether there will be enough in place on 1 January 2021.
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
David Melvyn Linden (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend has been incredibly generous in giving way. On the point about customs agents, Brexit was sold on the premise of us taking back control. Does he share my concern that "taking back control" was just something on the side of a bus and that when we look at the greater detail, we find that the Government have done very little preparation, which is worrying?
Exiting the European Union — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Yes, it is very worrying. There has been very little preparation—all last-minute stuff. That is also why the Government are unable to engage with the devolved Administrations and businesses. They have not planned or done enough to get us to where they want to be—not where I or my hon. Friend want to be—in time for 1 January 2021 The reality of Brexit preparations, as described by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), was illustrated yesterday by the passing of the Kent borders regulations, which allow the police to stop lorry drivers entering Kent because of the fear of the utter chaos at the border in January. That shows how the UK Government have not done enough and that more work needs to be done. Clearly, all those issues matter in the immediate short term and need addressing in the long term before we start looking at divergences of standards Is there any planned divergence for agricultural standards? That has been touched on and is important. The UK Government resisted protecting those standards for future trade deals in the Agriculture Act 2020. What does the SI mean regarding the UK’s ability to diverge from the EU? While the UK wants to avoid challenge, what does that mean for the devolved nations in terms of the UK Government protecting themselves? Will they impose their will on the devolved nations? I mentioned the point earlier, but on divergences, will the internal market Bill become the kicker through the back door by allowing divergences to be forced on the devolved nations against their will We do not accept that the UK Government have any legitimacy in imposing divergence from the EU acquis on Scotland’s behalf as a member of the UK. On democratic principles, we do not consent to allow any withdrawal of Scotland from the EU. That applies to the withdrawal agreement and any subsequent legislation used to enforce the unwanted and undemocratic divergence from the EU, which Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain a member of We do not accept the economic impact of diverging from EU rules, and that also applies to leaving the transition period, particularly because, as we discussed, the economy faces unprecedented challenges as we try to recover from the covid pandemic. We do not support or accept the need for the UK internal market Bill, which potentially allows divergences to be forced on the devolved Administrations against their wishes. We really need better co-operative working from the UK Government It would be ironic, when there seemed to be consensus from the Opposition that they would not oppose the SI, if, unless we start to hear decent responses from the Minister, there was a vote on it after all.
Virtual Participation in Debate — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: Government Operations
David Melvyn Linden (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Has the right hon. Lady reflected, as I have, on the fact that for so long the Government have spoken about the importance of Parliament and taking back control, yet today a number of Conservative MPs have withdrawn from debates, and the Leader of the House has not moved motions? Does she share my concern that this Government are rather running out of control, and that the actions we have seen this afternoon are those of a Government who are perhaps panicking?
Virtual Participation in Debate — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: Transportation
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does the shadow Leader of the House agree that it is not just the arriving in this place that makes people vulnerable? Members from Scotland have much further to travel and multiple public transport journeys, if they can get public transport that is appropriate. The Caledonian Sleeper would have allowed someone to travel and meet very few people while doing so, but the Caledonian Sleeper to Aberdeen and Glasgow is currently not running. Does she agree that Members are made vulnerable by travelling on public transport in the way that we have to?
Virtual Participation in Debate — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: Government Operations
David Melvyn Linden (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I have very much enjoyed the first hour of the right hon. Lady’s remarks and look forward to the next. I was reflecting on something said from the Conservative Benches a little earlier about reasonable adjustments being made. I was reflecting that pre-pandemic one of the greatest strengths that we had as Members of Parliament was the ability to come here and put things on the record; indeed, the Leader of the House tells us regularly that people have been able to come here and put things on the record since 1300. But of course, one of the difficulties for some our colleagues who do not have the ability to speak here is that they cannot get things on the record quickly with a point of order—something that many of us did at the beginning of the pandemic to call out bad practices from employers. Given that points of order are a good way of getting things on the record, does the right hon. Lady agree that getting some form of virtual participation in that regard might help some of our colleagues to call out bad employment practices?
Virtual Participation in Debate — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
Owen George Thompson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I know that the right hon. Lady did a session with the Canadian Parliament, but when Committee members took part in a session with members of the Japanese Parliament, it was very frustrating that they were there asking us questions about how we were implementing this world-leading solution, only for us to have to tell them, "Yes, we were; unfortunately, the Government have now stopped that."
Virtual Participation in Debate — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: Government Operations
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On Bill Committees, clearly it is a matter of the business managers working to find appropriate space in the House, but has not part of the solution been found by the Government themselves, considering that they now put so many statutory instruments through the main Chamber, including SIs that should never be coming to the Floor of the House? They are actually finding ways to free up space and make a hybrid solution work anyway.
Virtual Participation in Debate — House of Commons, 2020-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The point is exactly as the hon. Gentleman makes it, because the Government continue to put a rocket up the case for independence by refusing to accommodate the requirements of all Members of Parliament for Scotland. We are specifically exempt from legislation that now prevents people from Scotland from travelling to England. We have to be happy to be specifically exempt from that because the Leader of the House is intransigent.
UK Internal Market Bill: Northern Ireland — House of Commons, 2020-09-24
Topic: Government Operations
Stuart Campbell McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Attorney General has just clearly illustrated that she is in office because, unlike Jonathan Jones and Lord Keen, she is putting her political loyalties—her Brexit fanaticism—ahead of her loyalty to the rule of law, when it should be the other way around. That is why she should resign. But does not this whole episode also illustrate why future Attorneys General should be lawyers and not party politicians? It is all right for her to trash her own reputation, but not the reputation of the office of Attorney General.
Domestic and International Law Compliance — House of Commons, 2020-09-24
Topic: International Affairs
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Attorney General has justified her support for the Bill by reference to the domestic legal principle of parliamentary supremacy and the judgment of the UK Supreme Court in Miller. But in that case, the UK Supreme Court also said, at paragraph 55, that "treaties between sovereign states", such as the withdrawal agreement, "have effect in international law and are not governed by the domestic law of any state." The Supreme Court was quite clear that such treaties "are binding on the United Kingdom in international law" Why did the Attorney General omit reference to that part of the Supreme Court’s judgment? Did she not learn the rule against selective citation when she was at law school?
The Economy — House of Commons, 2020-09-24
Topic: Energy
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): We talk about a green industrial revolution and the Chancellor talks about job protection, yet just last week, Scottish yards missed out on the procurement contracts for the Seagreen offshore wind project. In terms of real job creation, will he consider the Scottish Government’s plea for an £80 billion UK stimulus? Will he also confirm when the national infrastructure strategy and the energy White Paper will be published and, crucially, will he instruct officials to look at how the contracts for difference process works and change it so that it incentivises the use of UK supply chains?