argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Exiting the European Union (Food and Agriculture) — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Agriculture
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): It is good to see my hon. Friend here, but not so good to see her there. She knows what I mean Along with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), I chaired the all-party parliamentary group on breast cancer for many years. There is definitely talk in the lobbying community about plastics and their impact, and, as the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West knows, pieces of academic work make claims in that respect. Those claims are certainly not proven, and there is a wide range of scientific debate about them I take my hon. Friend’s point about biodegradable plastics, but it is not specifically a matter for me. The instruments deal with food standards and food safety. They do not make any degradations in our food safety, but neither do they make any improvements; they are housekeeping measures The second SI, the Genetically Modified Food and Feed (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, is also crucial to meeting our objective of ensuring that the current high standards are maintained. It was made under the powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to make necessary amendments to retained EU genetically modified food and feed law. It will ensure that regulatory controls for GM food and feed continue to function effectively after exit day, and that public and animal health and, crucially public confidence are protected. The EU law governing GM food and feed provides a harmonised regulatory framework, including transparent and time-limited procedures for robust risk assessment and authorisation before these products can be placed on the market, and we believe that those strict controls must be maintained.
Exiting the European Union (Food and Agriculture) — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Agriculture
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): Food safety is a critical element in the fight against antimicrobial resistance and the tackling of superbugs. Will my hon. Friend do all that he can to ensure that the UK remains a world leader in this area after we have left the European Union?
Exiting the European Union (Food and Agriculture) — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Agriculture
Rebecca Faye Clark (Pow) (Conservative, Centre-right): We have received assurances from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that in no way will any of our food standards be lowered as we leave the EU. That is very important to all our constituents, not least the people of Taunton Deane. Will the Minister assure me that we will stick to that, and, indeed, that there might be opportunities to raise our standards so that we are effectively a leader in many areas of the food, farming and animal feed sector?
Exiting the European Union (Food and Agriculture) — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Agriculture
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a trade question, but ultimately if we want to trade with our biggest trading partner and our neighbours in the EU, we have to maintain those standards. We would not want to do anything to hobble our world famous potteries industry. I know that he agrees with that sentiment A lot has been said about GM food and feed. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) made that the kernel of her remarks. The laws around genetic modification were very high profile, perhaps due to Prince Charles’s interventions, back when I was at school.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Government Operations
William David Wiggin (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move, That Ian Austin and Mike Gapes be discharged from the Foreign Affairs Committee and Conor McGinn and Catherine West be added I am moving this motion on behalf of the Selection Committee. As Chairman of that Committee, it is my responsibility to ensure that it operates in accordance with the rules of the House. That is the case with this motion. I am moving it in the usual way, following its agreement by the Selection Committee last Wednesday. It is up to the House to decide on its merits There is no Standing Order requirement that Select Committees, unlike general Committees, be kept exactly in proportion to the House at large. It is through mutual agreement that membership of Select Committees is appointed in rough proportion to the House. That is why the Selection Committee has discretion in proposing changes to Select Committee membership Across all Select Committees, neither of the main parties is over-represented. If the Independent Group is treated as a party, it is very over-represented on Select Committees, given the number of members of the group in the House. Although that over-representation does not compel the Selection Committee to take action, reducing that representation is in accordance with the practices of the House.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: International Affairs
Mark Andrew Pritchard (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman and I may disagree on many domestic policy issues, but for years we have worked together on many foreign policy issues, some of which he is touching on. He mentioned that the Leader of the Opposition is behind this move. Is that because the hon. Gentleman is now an independent Member of Parliament, or because of his views on antisemitism and some of the other foreign policy issues that he has just raised?
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Government Operations
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin). Probably seared on to all our memories—I would be surprised if hon. and right hon. Members have not seen this—is the moving interview that the hon. Gentleman gave to the television news in which he talked about being able to look his father in the eye. One can understand entirely the passion with which he has spoken, and I am grateful to him for it. My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), as Chairman of the Committee of Selection, said very helpfully that it is up to the House to decide on the merits of the motion. He moved the motion as, effectively, the servant of that Committee in a way that has come to typify the approach that he adopts in these matters, and the House should be grateful for that I very much echo the closing point made by the hon. Member for Dudley North about the role of Select Committees. We all get ourselves frightfully hot under the collar when people are badgering us in the Tea Room saying, "Will you support us on this?", "We’re going for that," and so on. But when the Select Committees get up and running, the epithets of party political allegiance seem to disappear. I have served on only two Select Committees, the Procedure Committee and the Welsh Affairs Committee, but I never really felt that I went into meetings as a Conservative member of the Committee. I went in as a Member with an interest in the subject. Each Committee is almost a mini House of Lords, if you will—a receptacle of expertise where people motivate themselves to sit on the Committee because they have an interest in, or experience of, that particular area. It is of course the job of Select Committees to hold the Executive to account, and sometime the Executive get a bit of a clobbering. It is always worthwhile remembering that it was a Conservative Government who brought in Select Committees as we know them, through the Thatcher/St John-Stevas reforms Nobody could doubt the record of the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes): he was Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee between 2005 and 2010 and a member of the Committee from 1992 to 1997, and of course he also sits on the Committee now. I have only been in this place since 2015.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: International Affairs
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend should try looking at it from where I am standing; it seems like 40 years, rather than four I hope that the hon. Member for Ilford South will take it in the spirit in which it is intended when I say that I watched the TV news and the proceedings in this place long before coming into the House, and when the hon. Gentleman spoke on foreign affairs, I did not say to myself, "Oh, there goes the Labour Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee." I said to myself, "Here is somebody who speaks with authority, interest, passion and a breadth of experience that the House is well advised to listen to and take heed of." I agree with the assessment of the hon. Member for Dudley North. When I read the Order Paper initially—of course, this is the Labour party’s second stab at this—I thought to myself that this was one of the most mealy-mouthed, vindictive and small-minded motions.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: International Affairs
Mark Andrew Pritchard (Conservative, Centre-right): More widely, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) has brought to bear his wonderful knowledge and wisdom on foreign affairs at the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and other international bodies such as the Council of Europe. The Committee would be missing out on all that knowledge should he be removed today.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Government Operations
Charles Ashley Rupert Walker (Conservative, Centre-right): Since in what feels like the dying days of this Parliament we live in a political free-for-all, with Ministers not voting on three-line Whips and colleagues not voting in the Division Lobby for the motions that they move, is it really such a big deal if we allow these two Opposition Members to continue on their Select Committee? After all, all the existing rules of politics have now been broken, so let us just break a few more.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick McLoughlin (Conservative, Centre-right): I think that my hon. Friend is missing an important point that has to be addressed. As much respect as I have for the two hon. Members concerned, and I do, the simple fact is that we will be in a position where nominations for the official Opposition on the Foreign Affairs Committee go down from half of the Committee to two members of the Committee. That does not reflect the make-up of this House as Select Committees are supposed to. One does have to bear that in mind.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Government Operations
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): I take what my right hon. Friend says with great seriousness. He is a former member of the Cabinet and, more importantly, a former Government Chief Whip. I concur with him up to a point. If this motion sought to tilt the balance of a Select Committee’s membership in favour of the Government and against the Opposition, I would be with him entirely, but it does not do that. This motion maintains the balance between, for want of a better phrase, Executive Members and Opposition Members, and that is entirely as it should be. However, if I am correct in my assessment—I am perfectly prepared to accept that I am not—in practical, political terms, the badges and colours of separate parties are left at the door of a Select Committee meeting and picked up again when Members leave. I am not sure that this motion does anything other than pursue an agenda of vindictiveness.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: International Affairs
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope the right hon. Lady will forgive me; I was chairing a sitting of the Committee just now, hence I missed the beginning of the debate. I echo her words, because she is absolutely speaking the truth. More than that, to a new Member who has had the good fortune to chair one of these great Committees very early on, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) has been an amazing rock to lean on. His wisdom, his courtesy and his judgment have been of great value to me and, I hope, the whole House and the whole Committee, as he has helped to guide not just me but us all through some complex moments of foreign policy, where there have been very few more important subjects for our House, so I echo completely the right hon. Lady’s words.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Labor
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Lady has mentioned the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who, to the best of my knowledge, resigned the Labour Whip. Is she aware of any moves by his previous party to remove him from the chairmanship of the Work and Pensions Committee? That question plays into the argument that she and I, and others, have been making that this is a very partial and personal attack.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: International Affairs
Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative, Centre-right): I will speak to the motion, which starts by saying that "Ian Austin and Mike Gapes be discharged from the Foreign Affairs Committee" I will explain why I think that is wrong There is no doubt that, on almost every domestic issue, the hon. Members for Dudley North (Ian Austin) and for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) and I completely disagree. I would be shocked if there were many domestic issues we saw eye to eye on.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: International Affairs
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) has shown exemplary personal courage on many occasions, most often when I argue in the Conservative interest and he argues in the Labour interest. It is really quite something that someone who is as dyed in the wool—if he will forgive that expression—to his party as he is should find themselves choosing between their father and their party What a time it is to find that we are so divided in this House that we have people who cannot reconcile their conscience and their family in one party! As Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, on which the hon. Gentleman serves, I pay tribute to him for the exemplary way in which he conducts himself, to his intelligence and subtlety of thought, and to the diligence he brings to reports and inquisitions.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: International Affairs
Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend summarises why I believe that the hon. Member for Dudley North should remain on the Foreign Affairs Committee under my hon. Friend’s chairmanship I turn to the hon. Member for Ilford South. This is not just about his membership of the Foreign Affairs Committee, because moves are also afoot to remove him from the delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I am a member of that delegation and have been on the same sub-committees as the hon. Gentleman. For those unaware of the work of the NATO PA, I should say that it is divided into committees, and we meet with delegations from the other 28 member nations to discuss pertinent matters The hon. Gentleman and I are members of the Political Committee, which discusses the threats facing the world, and it is obvious at any meeting that the hon. Gentleman is almost a go-to man for the other nations. When we socialise outside of those meetings, we are not talking about the football—well, the hon. Gentleman and I may be talking about the football—because we and plenty of other people discuss further the issues of the day Other delegates go to the hon. Gentleman because he has 30, 40 and perhaps even—I do not want to be presumptuous—50 years of foreign affairs experience, and he brings that experience to this Parliament and projects the experience of this Parliament to other partner nations. At a time when our standing in the world is being questioned and when people are wondering where we are going next, we should be using those who are respected around the world to give the British perspective on issues of foreign affairs and defence.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Richard Rosindell (Conservative, Centre-right): I have had the privilege of serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee for nine years with the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). Both he and the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) play an enormously important role in the Committee’s work and, frankly, I would not want to lose them—I want them to stay on the Committee. If a Member is selected to be a member of a Select Committee, they should be a member for the duration of the Parliament, just as we are elected to this House for the duration of a Parliament. If we change party, we do not have to give up our seat and, therefore, surely the Members concerned should continue to serve on the Committee for this Parliament.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: International Affairs
Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative, Centre-right): I echo and reinforce what my hon. Friend says about being selected to serve, and I am grateful for his intervention. The number of Opposition MPs on this Committee has not changed, and the balance between Government MPs and Opposition MPs is still the same If this motion is passed, we will have decided that if a Member stands up for their values and the things I am sure we would all value as the principles of being a British parliamentarian, they are out—"It doesn’t fit in with the views we want, so you are out." How are we then supposed to do soft power around the world? It is up to the Executive and the Prime Minister to go around the world doing the hard power of this nation, but we do the soft power. We make this country relevant, whether we do it through the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe or the Foreign Affairs Committee, which does valuable work feeding in to Government on the direction of events. We would be saying that, because a Member has stood up for their principles, we are not interested I cast no aspersions on the Members who have been put forward in this motion; I am sure they are intelligent and capable Members of this House who would bring something to the Committee. But they would not bring the years of experience and the global respect that the hon. Members for Ilford South and for Dudley North have. How must we look to the public viewing us today?
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Government Operations
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman and I represent opposite ends of the country, so I ask him this question: has he ever heard in the community he represents that what people really want is more political party control?
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Government Operations
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I appreciate the point that he is making about choosing who should serve on Committees—which party they come from and how they should be selected—but surely the question before us today is a fundamental one about whether those who are elected to serve on a Select Committee are delegates of the whole House or representatives of their party. That is a fundamental question that we should be considering. The truth is that the Select Committee system was established so that the whole House could look into matters at greater depth than is possible for the Chamber as a whole. That is the question that we should be asking ourselves today. Therefore, once the House has made a decision as to who should represent it, should it be up to the Whips Office from one party or another to make a difference?
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Government Operations
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. In relation to Committee Chairs, he is absolutely right that we select as the whole House. They are appointed by the whole House, and I would be reticent to set a precedent, if Chairs of the Committees were to change their political affiliation—there has been one such change—that they were delegates of one party or another. At the start of the Parliament, we makes the allocations. If there comes a vacancy, that would potentially make a difference For me, there is a challenge in this. This matter is being debated on the Floor of the House. Members are appointed by the whole House to be Chairs and members of Committees, but we are talking about the Opposition’s spaces, and I do have a view on that. Although I suspect that, in this Parliament, things will be handled quite maturely—in fact I suspect that, under a number of Labour Governments, things would be handled well—we could be setting quite a precedent if Government Members, particularly Government payroll Members, started choosing the Opposition members on a Committee, regardless of what I might think on this particular occasion. It is different for those who are not on the Government payroll.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: Government Operations
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend—and I mean that—for her intervention. She is right that the Select Committees are at their best when a member of the public attending a sitting would not be able to tell which party label applied to which Member of Parliament. I remember the time that I spent on the Public Accounts Committee, and the questions there were as fearless from Government Members as from Opposition Members. That is the strength of Select Committees. The fact that we work by consensus in most instances gives strength to our reports. If an inquiry was just an attack by an Opposition motivated by party politics, it would not get the support of Government Members. And ditto—if a report were trying to praise the Government too much, funnily enough Opposition Members would probably not sign up to it It is right that people do not take their party labels into Select Committees, but the conflict for me is the issue of the Opposition having certain protections in this place. In a situation where a Government had a significant majority, they could in theory start playing a game with these sorts of motion. I think it is safe to say that a game is being played this afternoon, but it is quite clear to me that there is a difference between Members on the Government payroll and other Members. Each Member can take their own view; I just feel a slight difficulty in choosing the Opposition Members on a Select Committee from my position.
Foreign Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-03-19
Topic: International Affairs
Julian Murray Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): This is the first time that I have ever had to disagree with anything my hon. Friend has ever said on the Floor of the House. I still hope that he will think again, listen to the rest of the debate and perhaps be persuaded. I must say that if any move is made to remove the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) from the chairmanship of the Liaison Committee, I shall certainly vote against that. As someone who disagrees with the stance taken on Europe by all the Independent Group Members, which has led them to find themselves cast into the wilderness, I would certainly say to my hon. Friend that it is not about him choosing who should be the Opposition Members to go on a Committee; it is about him deciding whether a witch hunt should allow Opposition Members to be driven off a Committee.