argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Thangam Elizabeth Rachel Debbonaire (Labour, Centre-left): Indeed. I find it most puzzling that Conservative Members who argued for a so-called return to parliamentary sovereignty in this country are quite happy to nod through a Bill that wipes away parliamentary scrutiny of the process of negotiating the future relationship. It is quite extraordinary I remind Conservative Members that it was under a Tory-led coalition Government that section 18 of the European Union Act 2011 clarified that limits on sovereignty are at Parliament’s own behest and can, if explicitly provided for, be revoked. The right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who have intervened were presumably here at that time. I was not, but I have read the text and I know what it says. The Government’s own 2017 White Paper said "Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU", and I watch with interest to see whether a Minister will go back on that.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Thangam Elizabeth Rachel Debbonaire (Labour, Centre-left): This is quite extraordinary because, again, the right hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten that there was a referendum in which the British people chose to be in the European Union, and they have voted for Members of the European Parliament over the course of four decades. I have acknowledged that the result of the 2016 European Union referendum is going to happen on 31 January, but we are arguing here about a clause that is in the Bill, and it is entirely proper for the Opposition to propose an amendment to try to probe what on earth it means Did I imagine that we considered the Northern Ireland historical abuse Bill? I checked Hansard this morning and it appears that I was not dreaming—I was actually there. I did not dream the passage of the world’s first Climate Change Act in 2008. Nobody had to ring Brussels to ask, "Can we pass this law?" or if we could equalise marriage. We have been passing our own laws all this time. We have never needed to ask for permission. It is not true that we have no say on EU rules; we have had democratically elected representation in the EU Parliament since 1979.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister accept that our sovereignty is diminished, because we currently have a veto on many votes? Some of them are subject to majority voting, as the former Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee said, but we are one of 27 nations. Now, under World Trade Organisation terms, we will be one of 164 countries and unable to change the rules. Those terms will jack up the cost of drugs and stop us nationalising things, which will constrain our sovereignty much more. The idea that we will have more sovereignty rather than less is wrong, and the clause is therefore misleading.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister agree that if we must have a certain level of equivalence to sustain a reasonable level of trade, we will be obliged to accept the EU’s changes, which will be made without our consent because we will be outside the room, or else take the economic cost? That is not sovereignty; it is just self-harm for the sake of opposing things. If we just agree to the changes, what is the point of it?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure of sorts to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) and the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). On the issue of sovereignty and democracy, it is worth remembering something. The basis of the 2016 referendum was one person, one vote, one issue, and there was a clear majority then to leave. In 2019, we had another vote, a general election, and had that been counted on the same basis—one person, one vote—we would have had 14.5 million voting for the oven-ready Brexit on offer and 16.5 million voting for a people’s vote or remain. Obviously, that vote was on a different basis—on a constituency representation basis and on a number of issues—and the clear decision was for a Conservative Government with a majority of 80. That is clearly understood, but to try to conflate the two is wrong. In fact, there remains a compelling case that the oven-ready Brexit being railroaded through—in my view, a reckless Brexit that would undermine the sovereignty, power and financial and trading credibility of Britain—should go back to the public for a final vote.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): To be clear, I said that the proposition was remain or public vote on the deal. The Labour party position essentially was that the oven-ready Brexit would be bad for Britain—it would make us more divided, weaker, poorer, more isolated and so on—and that we could put together a better Brexit that protected our jobs through trading alignment and our environment and workers’ rights through dynamic alignment of those conditions.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): I apologise for responding to the speech made on this subject by the right hon. Member for Wokingham, but I will not go on about that any more I want to focus on clause 38, on sovereignty, and new clause 28, on whether we should have a confirmatory referendum, which I was just talking about. I was making the argument, which I will stop making, Sir Gary, in support of the proposal in new clause 28, that there was a legitimate case for a confirmatory referendum on the grounds that most people voted for either remain or a second referendum and that the position of the Labour party was to have a second referendum In defining sovereignty, the hon. Member for Stone and others have said that having sovereignty means we can make all our own decisions here and that everything will be all right. I accept that that is an idea in the minds of many voters, and intuitively it sounds very sensible, but in practice is that really what would happen? I contend that this Brexit will reduce our sovereignty and that therefore clause 38 is misleading. At the moment, we have pooled sovereignty in the EU. We are one of 28 countries, but our vote is proportionate to our population. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that things are rammed through without our being consulted—that they just happen to us—but even in majority voting we have a veto, together with others, such as Germany, for example, which is the biggest player and is very worried that when we leave it will not be able to exercise, with us, certain restraints and constraints on the EU Ultimately, if we have a close trading relationship with the EU, to which after all 44% of our trade goes—from a Welsh point of view, more like 60%—we will need some level of equivalence, which will mean our having to accord with standards decided in a closed room without us being in that closed room. Surely, that is less sovereignty, not more. We will have to make the following decision: do we agree with something that has been decided without us rather than our being able to argue and block it, with Germany and others, or do we want to be out of the room deciding whether to accept the rules that are coming over—and if we do not accept them it might hinder our trade? That does not sound like sovereignty improvement to me.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Graham Eric Stringer (Labour, Centre-left): Will my hon. Friend tell me what definition of sovereignty he is using? It is completely confusing me. I have just checked, and the normal definition is "the authority of a state to govern itself", but my hon. Friend is talking about majority voting when we might be in a minority. What is his definition of sovereignty?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Well, that was very helpful Some hon. Members have failed to understand this. I remember the big debate over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, for example, and over these investor-state dispute settlement clauses being used by the Americans on fracking and other issues. Once we are in a situation where, instead of being in the powerful trading bloc of the EU, negotiating head to head with China or the United States from a position of strength to sustain our environmental and workers’ rights and our standards, we will suddenly instead be broken free, semi-detached, and turning our back on our biggest local market—[Interruption.] It is all very well for the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) to chunter, but that is what will happen. It is already being discussed in the trading arrangements with the United States. The United States is saying, "Right, you’re on your own now and we are going to have this relationship and we will enforce it through the international tribunal." That is what is going to happen Let us take as an example the simple European REACH protection—the regulations concerning the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals. If the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green was making chemicals in Europe, he would have to prove they were safe before marketing them. In the United States, he would just be able to market them and an environmental protection organisation would have to prove them harmful. That is why they sell asbestos in America, and that is why there will be pressure for us to have asbestos in our brake pads here. That is why there will be pressure for us to have hormone-impregnated meat from America imposed on our growing children, who could then have premature pubescence. I know that some people think that that is sovereignty, but I do not.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. If there has been any lack of clarity let me make it clear that I am saying that we are in the EU at the moment and obviously do lots of trade with the EU—44% of it—and we do quite a lot of trade through the EU indirectly with America and elsewhere, so we are in a reasonable position. If we come out of the EU and suddenly find that we need to make up for lost trade, we will be under a lot of pressure to do a deal quickly with the US. We will also be in a much weaker position, because we will be standing alone The US is a big player and knows it, so it will try to get what it wants, as has been pointed out on sugar, fracking and other examples. What is more, it has ISDS powers as part of its normal bilateral trading agreements, and that is already recorded in trading relations. The idea suggested by the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), which I respect, is that we could in theory say, "No, we don’t want this. We won’t go ahead with that." but there would be a huge economic cost. There would also be enormous pressure, while doing all these other trade deals, to agree The assumption is that we could just carry on as before with all the other bilateral trading agreements with small countries such as Chile. If you were Chile, Sir Gary, you would think, "Hold on. Instead of negotiating with the big EU, I’m now negotiating with a relatively smaller UK, so I want a better deal." Therefore, our sovereignty, in terms of our power to deliver what our electorate wants, is reduced. Our sovereignty has therefore been intrinsically undermined, rather than enhanced, which is contrary to what is being spun out here.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: Labor
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): As this is my first appearance at the Dispatch Box this year, I would like to thank my constituents for re-electing me and send all hon. and right hon. Members my very best wishes for 2020 I draw attention to my relevant entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests regarding my support from trade unions. We fully accept that, following the general election, we will be leaving the European Union on 31 January, but winning a mandate for that exit, as the Government have, does not give Ministers a free pass to avoid any scrutiny. The Government should be held to account between elections as well as at elections, and that is what the Opposition propose to do. We will continue to make the case in the post-Brexit United Kingdom for jobs and livelihoods, for environmental safeguards, for consumer protections and for employment rights, as we have over recent years New clause 2 is about protecting vital workers’ rights, and subsection (1)(a) would ensure that the Government cannot introduce measures that would, in any way, have the effect of reducing the protections provided on the day the transition period ends. We believe this must go further Subsection (1)(b) confirms that the Government, after our exit from the EU, will ensure that workers’ rights in the United Kingdom are, as a minimum, at the level they are in other EU member states. We also insist that the Government are held to account in Parliament on those objectives. The Government must never be allowed to sell out the workers of this country, and we will not let them off the hook. We will stand with those to whom this Government and the Prime Minister have made promises.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a crucial point. Although I agree with the other parts of the new clause on the customs union and the single market, security is an aspect that was largely lost in many of the debates that we had in the House, yet we members of the Home Affairs Committee regularly heard evidence from experts—from law enforcement agencies, the Metropolitan police and others—of the risks to our security of not getting a comprehensive security arrangement in place. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should listen to those experts and the Government should listen to them, too?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I shall develop that point, because one issue is that the non-binding political declaration contains an aim for a broad, comprehensive and balanced security partnership, but that is currently just words on a piece of paper. We urgently need a plan. When the former Prime Minister spoke at the Munich security conference in February 2018, she spoke about a security treaty with the EU27, but we are still waiting for the planned architecture of that co-operation Let me give some specific examples. Things such as the European arrest warrant, Eurojust and Europol are critical to the successful investigation and extradition of wanted suspects or criminals. National Crime Agency statistics show how important this is. In the period from 2010 to 2016, the UK made 1,773 requests to member states for extradition under the European arrest warrant and received 48,776 requests from member states for extradition. Not only can the UK currently bring people to these shores to face justice, but we can send dangerous people to other countries to face legal proceedings It seems the Government have accepted the importance of the European arrest warrant. Their July 2018 White Paper said that "the UK has arrested more than 12,000 individuals, and for every person arrested on an EAW issued by the UK, the UK arrests eight on EAWs issued by other Member States" That White Paper also showed the challenge that the Government face. It said: "Existing extradition arrangements between the EU and third countries do not provide the same level of capability as the EAW." We cannot allow our capability to be diminished.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the challenges, which are precisely what I wish to come on to and develop Yesterday, I heard the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union respond to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant); my fear is that as yet the Government’s thinking just has not moved beyond the implementation period, which ends at the end of 2020. What happens after that is so important, because it will determine what our law enforcement agencies have in their armoury to deal with pan-European crime. It is an urgent task The issue of data sharing and continued data sharing is crucial. Were the UK ever to lose access to the EU’s security databases, information that today can be retrieved almost instantaneously could take days or weeks to access. That would create a significant hurdle to effective policing, to say the least On Europol, how do the Government see the future? Do they envisage full participation, or only observer status at board meetings? We just do not know. The fact that the situation is critical and the position wholly unsatisfactory is the fault of the Government and not of those who work in our security sector. After all, the UK makes a great contribution to European security. Through the Schengen information system—or SIS II as it is known—the UK is contributing to the sharing of real-time data on wanted criminals, missing persons and suspected terrorists, and that co-operation is beneficial to us all. The data shared in that database are used millions of times each year by UK police, and that surely must illustrate to all Members the profound risk of there being no long-term deal on security In conducting the negotiation, the Government must emphasise the UK’s contribution and the mutually beneficial nature of European co-operation in dealing with the most serious organised crime on our continent. I listened carefully to the new European Commission President today. She said that the threat of terrorism is real, and that we have to share the necessary information to stop terrorists crossing borders and attacking us. She is right. When we are fighting crime, we are better working to eradicate it collectively than working alone, and we need a formal legal basis to continue to do so. That is why new clause 3 is so important, and I commend it and new clause 2 to the House.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Philip James Elmore (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. and learned Lady is making an important contribution, as she often does. This is not just about the withdrawal process. We cannot even get discussions about what is happening with the shared prosperity fund. It is 19 or 20 months since the consultation should have ended. I understand from Welsh Assembly Members and Welsh Government colleagues that they cannot even get a discussion with the Treasury, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Wales Office or the Scottish Office. If we cannot even get what happens to our funding right, there is little hope of genuine consultation with the devolved Administrations on the process of leaving.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: Environment
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): It is lovely to see you in the Chair, Sir George I rise to speak to my new clause 27, which seeks to ensure that there is no regression from EU standards on the environment; food; the substance of REACH regulations, which seek to protect human health and the environment from the use of chemicals; and animal welfare. It addresses the points that have just been made The UK currently enjoys high standards in areas such as habitat protection and product safety. Having developed those standards with our European neighbours, we now benefit from cleaner beaches, safer food and the best chemicals regulation in the world. The Government have committed to legislate to ensure high standards of environmental protection, but they have not yet delivered on that commitment. The 2018 withdrawal agreement contained a legally binding mutual commitment to non-regression in most areas of environmental law, if the transition period did not produce an agreement on the future relationship. That has been removed from the Bill and I wonder whether the Minister can explain why that is the case Climate change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment. The world is now experiencing a climate emergency, and an urgent and rapid global response is now necessary. From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding and the horrendous bush fires we currently see in Australia, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. After more than a century and a half of industrialisation, deforestation and large-scale agriculture, quantities of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have risen to record levels that have not been seen in 3 million years We know that as populations, economies and standards of living grow, so does the cumulative level of greenhouse gas emissions. In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5° C, finding that limiting global warming to 1.5° C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society. The IPCC said we must cut global emissions in half by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The UK should be leading the way both nationally and internationally. The Government must play their role.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): This is not meant to sound trite, but a number of different commitments were made in different manifestos. For example, the Conservatives party’s 2015 manifesto committed to halve the disability employment gap and to introduce new starter homes, neither of which was delivered. This is about backing up commitments. If the Government are seriously committed to this—I understand that the right hon. Gentleman certainly is—what is wrong with including it in the Bill?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: Environment
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): Can the Minister confirm, as the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) mentioned, that the principles of new clause 27 will be included in the environment Bill if they are not to be included in this Bill?
European Union (Withdrawal) Acts — House of Commons, 2020-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): With this we may take the following motion: That this House, for the purposes of section 13(6)(a) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, has considered the statement made by the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union under section 13(4) of that Act on 8 November 2019 titled "Statement under section 13(4) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018".