argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not give way, because I need to make progress and to keep my remarks to some form of limit Amendments 15 and 16, tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, seek to narrow the categories of deficiencies arising from our withdrawal from the EU. The removal of clause 7(8), as amendment 16 proposes, would restrict our ability to keep the law functioning as it does now. Subsection (8) is about deficiencies arising not only from withdrawal, but from how the Bill works. For example, the Bill does not preserve directives themselves, as we have already debated, but instead preserves the UK law, which implements them. In some instances, there are provisions in directives, giving powers or placing restrictions on Government or on EU institutions or agencies, which it would not have made sense to transpose in UK law, but which then need to be incorporated in order for the law to continue to function as it did before exit. For example, the Commission currently holds a power to restrict the disclosure of confidential information in the financial services sector, which is referenced by UK implementation of the capital requirements directive 2013, but which will need to be transferred to the UK. We might also want to transfer powers that the Commission currently has to define what counts as hazardous waste, which is currently in the waste framework directive Subsection (8) allows the clause 7 power to correct deficiencies that arise from that withdrawal together with the operation of the Bill. For example, it might be appropriate to lift a relevant part of a directive and insert it into UK law in order to keep the law functioning as close as possible to how it does presently.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand my hon. Friend’s point. Just to reassure him: it is our firm intention to carry through the agreement, which he can read in the joint report of the negotiators, into legislation so that citizens can rely on it in the United Kingdom through that withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill, which I hope we can put before the House in due course Amendments 31, 32 and 57 seek to remove so-called Henry VIII powers. I can confirm that amendment 32 is not necessary because the power in clause 7 cannot be used to amend the Act itself. It would be outside the scope of the power—ultra vires. Neither can the power in clause 8 be used for this purpose. Let me be clear: only the power in clause 9 states that it can amend the Bill. None of the other powers in the Bill make that statement. As I said earlier in an intervention, in the event that the use of a clause 9 power is proposed to amend the Act, it would be subject to the affirmative procedure.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Government Operations
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend touches on an important issue. Might it not be the case that any such power done by regulation ought to be done by affirmative resolution? I just suggest that that might be the solution to dealing with tertiary powers, because of their unusual nature. In view of the list he has given us, it seems to me that, in all likelihood, these things would be done by affirmative resolution, but that is something the Government might like to consider between now and Report.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I just draw my right hon. and learned Friend’s attention to paragraph 1(2)(c) of part 1 of schedule 7, which would require that the affirmative procedure be used if a provision "provides for any function of an EU entity or public authority in a member State of making an instrument of a legislative character to be exercisable instead by a public authority in the United Kingdom" So instruments of a legislative character coming across would trigger the affirmative.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Government Operations
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): There are also some matters in relation to fees and charges, which we discussed earlier in the debate. What I would say to my right hon. and learned Friend is that, where he has doubts, we have agreed to the sifting committee, and if he is concerned, I hope he will consider membership of that committee so that he can play his part in seeing through this set of measures.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): The committee will be busy, and that is why I am so grateful for the fact that several hon. Members—presumably including the hon. Gentleman—seem to be volunteering to do the important duty of serving on it, which no one should take lightly. I say to my hon. Friend that we have been extremely clear that any major change will come through primary legislation, but I cannot say that there will be no policy changes at all, however minor. The reality is that if a function comes back to the UK and we have to make a choice about whether it is allocated to the PRA or the FCA, that could be described as a policy choice I want to be clear with the Committee. I cannot say that there will be no policy changes whatever, but I can say that the Bill is about certainty, continuity and control. It is about making sure that the law works the day after we exit in substantially the same way as it worked the day before, from the point of view of those who are subjected to it. I can see that my hon. Friend brings great insight to the matter.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend I move on to consent from the devolved Administrations. Amendments 73, 233, 239 and 240 were tabled by the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber and the hon. Members for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) and for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins). Taking the right hon. Gentleman’s amendments together, we are committed to continuing to respect the devolution settlement fully. We will work closely with the devolved Administrations as we develop fisheries and agricultural legislation, which will be brought through by separate Bills to deliver an approach that works for the whole United Kingdom At this point, I hope that the Committee will not mind if I refer to points raised in our previous debate on devolution. Amendments were tabled about a restriction on the power relating to national security. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, we are proposing a bold new strategic agreement that provides a comprehensive framework for future security, law enforcement and criminal justice co-operation—a treaty between the UK and the EU—that would complement our existing extensive and mature bilateral relationships with our European friends to promote our common security. That is just one outworking of the Government’s commitment to national security. I now turn—I think, finally—to amendment 385 and new clause 77. Amendment 385, tabled by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), seeks to replicate the protections in part 3 of the Criminal Justice (European Protection Order) (England and Wales) Regulations 2014 in relation to protected persons. As I understand it, the amendment seeks to provide that the relevant authorities in England and Wales would continue to recognise and act on the orders made under the EU directive by the remaining member states, whether or not they act on ours I congratulate the hon. Lady on her powerful speech, but we cannot accept the amendment at this time because our continued co-operation with other EU member states’ courts is a matter to be negotiated. The outcome of the negotiations is not yet certain, and it would therefore be premature to seek to replicate in our law one side of a reciprocal arrangement that may not continue. However, I am happy to make it clear that if the forthcoming negotiations produce an agreement to continue access to the regime established under the directive, or something like it, appropriate steps in legislation will be brought forward to implement it at that time. I therefore urge her not to press her amendment.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman enjoys a jest, but I hope that the Committee will understand that, as I set out at the beginning of my speech—I have now been on my feet for an hour and 20 minutes, compared with an indication that I would take an hour, so I needed to pare down my remarks—it is not the Government’s policy, as he knows, to remain in the single market and the customs union In the interests of allowing other hon. Members to contribute to the debate, I will conclude my remarks. We face an unprecedented legislative challenge, to which the power in clause 7 is the only practical solution. The power is only a temporary solution to achieving our key objective: a functioning statute book in time for exit day. The Government believe that we have made significant concessions on the issue, both with the sifting committee and by putting into statute the requirement to include certain information in the explanatory memorandums. I hope that those concessions have tackled the concerns expressed throughout our consideration of these amendments. I am conscious of the commitment I gave to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield in relation to the scope of the powers, and I look forward to working with him. I will finish by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne for all that he has done, with the unanimous support of the Procedure Committee, to ensure that the House has the proposal for a sifting committee.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Macroeconomics
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I will have to check the record—I was just flicking through my speaking notes—but I am sure that when I said that there were no policy decisions, that was about a 10,000 page document about how institutions were to comply with regulations. On the particular point about tertiary legislation and the financial regulation system, I feel sure that when the hon. Lady and I served together on the Treasury Committee she would have been as indefatigable a defender of the independence of the Bank of England as I would have been. Surely she does not want to undermine that.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Government Operations
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): I sympathise instinctively with an awful lot of fears and analyses expressed by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe); I speak as a former constitution Minister. I am the No. 2 signatory on six of the amendments tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve)—not quite the total number that he has tabled. I was persuaded and inspired to do that because I was equally concerned that, under the guise of taking back control, we were going to fail to take back control—that Parliament would unintentionally but none the less effectively be an end run if we were not careful I have been focusing on two areas. The first is the sifting committee. The second is the scope of the ministerial powers to introduce statutory instruments not only under clause 7 but under clauses 8 and 9, which are obviously linked and which will be discussed and voted on today and tomorrow. For me, and I think for my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, the sifting committee has been largely put to bed by the excellent cross-party work of the Procedure Committee, to which I pay tribute This might not be to everybody’s taste, but because it is a cross-party Committee, because the matter has been carefully debated and thought through, and because this is a significant step in the right direction, I am certainly willing to back the Committee’s proposal. My right hon. and learned Friend has put his name to the Committee’s amendment: he and I are not minded to press our version, which was based on proposals from the Hansard Society. We are happy not to press that to a vote, and instead to support the proposals from the Procedure Committee Incidentally, I must gently and respectfully disagree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, because I think that the Government’s behaviour over the sifting committee amendments shows that they have given ground. They have accepted some amendments—[Interruption.] He is suggesting that they have given only a small amount of ground, but I think it could be larger than he is giving them credit for. That is because we would otherwise have faced two big problems One problem would have been that it is impossible for the Government to predict at this stage precisely what SIs will be introduced. We all know that there will be a large number of them, and we can probably guess what 95% of them are going to be, but we will not be able to guess 5% of them simply because we do not know what is going to be in the final agreements. There will obviously also be other things that are consequential on that that we will discover much nearer the day. Therefore, having a sifting committee of parliamentarians that can be flexible and make proper, balanced judgments of what is important and what needs a higher level of scrutiny is no small thing.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Government Operations
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely accept that. Another important thing about the sifting committee will be that many of the other bits of Brexit-related legislation that are starting their journey through this House may contain large numbers of statutory instruments—potentially primary legislation-amending statutory instruments. What we agree for this particular Bill may well be an important template for how we treat those similar powers in subsequent pieces of legislation. We are doing important work here and it is crucial that we do it. I also urge my hon. Friend to broaden out the Procedure Committee’s approach to look more broadly at SI scrutiny powers after all this is done; many of us would encourage him to do that. However, such an approach is perhaps too wide for this Bill right now.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Government Operations
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely. Those commitments will be important and consequential, but we also need to ensure that everything gets baked properly into the Standing Orders and that the relevant votes are passed correctly Moving on to scope, I think still we have further to travel. A whole slew of amendments—not just the three or four tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield that I have put my name to, but those of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and others—are trying to address the scope of the powers that Ministers will be given. In fact, Ministers themselves have accepted the principle, saying that they are sympathetic to the idea of trying to limit the scope of the powers. The Minister said that both he and the Secretary of State would like to do that if they could; it seemed to be a question of how, not whether it was desirable in principle When I tempted the Minister in an intervention, he also said that the view in the Department is that Ministers want to try to take just enough powers to successfully translate EU laws into British laws and no more. We all accept that there must be no less than the minimum required, but he was clear that Ministers only want to take the minimum. The question is not about the principle of necessity and sufficiency; it is about how that is translated into a legal wording that will allow the principle to be clearly expressed. I gently, but I hope forcefully, say to Ministers that the words in the Bill at the moment do not pass the sniff test for an awful lot of us in the Chamber I am extremely pleased, therefore, with the open, positive and constructive way in which Ministers have approached the issue and with the commitment from the Dispatch Box this afternoon to go back and have a further look. I could not tempt the Minister into a firm promise to introduce an amendment, but I think that that is going to be necessary by the time we get to Report if the Bill is to be amended in a way that becomes acceptable and passes the sniff test for most of us here The Minister was saying—I paraphrase him—that Ministers accept the principle that the minimum necessary, the necessity test, is the right one in principle, but they cannot find the right words because if they use the word "necessary", and they have multiple necessities, the courts will interpret that in a way that is unhelpful and does not deliver what everyone wants. The problem Ministers have is that the word that they have chosen instead of "necessary" is too broad and brings in all sorts of other possibilities that give a great deal of concern around the House that Ministers will unintentionally but in practice introduce other powers that they have said this afternoon they do not desire, need or want to give themselves in principle.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Government Operations
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): What my right hon. Friend has just demonstrated is the point that I was just about to come on to. We are going to need different words—in the plural—than we have at the moment and the discussions that have been promised from the Dispatch Box, even if an amendment has not yet been promised, will be essential to get the issue right. It is not right at the moment During the debate this afternoon, three or four options have already been proposed from the Back Benches, by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) just now and by a couple of others. It is clear that there is no shortage of solutions; it will not be acceptable for Ministers to say, "This problem is too hard so we are going to stick with what we have." There are enough brains in the room for us to get this right—there are certainly enough on the ministerial Benches and among advisers. So it ain’t going to be good enough for Ministers to say, "We understand the principle and have already accepted it in our remarks today, but it is all too hard and we can’t possibly manage it." That will not fly I have discussed this response with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield. We are content, based on what we have heard, not to press the amendments on scope that we have tabled here this evening. However, it will be essential before we get to Report to see some creative alternatives that solve the problems that hon. Members on both sides of the House have alluded to. People on both sides of the House can propose lots of possible solutions. We need to find some that work and make sure that Ministers are content to introduce them in the impressively constructive tone with which they have already addressed the issue of the sifting committee. That needs to be done before Report.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: International Affairs
Hugo Swire (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the hon. Lady believe that the British electorate were better protected when these powers resided in Brussels, as they indeed still do? Does she think the people making these decisions in Brussels were more accountable than Ministers will be in this House after we leave?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Government Operations
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend agree that the proposed changes to the standing orders are particularly welcome in that they provide specifically for the new committee, as I understand it—I am looking for approval from the Chair of the Procedure Committee —to use the Select Committees that deal with each Department to look in detail at the departmental statutory instruments, so we will have real expertise available?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Macroeconomics
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): That is an excellent point and a very good idea. There has always been a wider call for the Treasury Committee, which I am privileged to chair, to look more broadly at finance legislation The Minister had a difficult job this afternoon. There were a lot of amendments for him to deal with, many of which were very detailed and some of which were clearly not within his departmental remit. This proves the point that we do need Members of Parliament who have an expertise in their background, sit on a Select Committee or have held a particular ministerial brief. This is the time for them to offer their expertise to the House and the country in order to ensure that we get the law that we are bringing back from the EU correct.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: International Affairs
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that those listening get the impression that, whatever our views about the wisdom or otherwise of leaving the European Union, the fact is that the decision has been made. We need to make it work in order to set things up for the next generation of people in this country and for the next generation of Members of Parliament, who at some point we will hand the batons on to in our constituencies. If we are to do that, we have to ensure that the legal system we put in place works, the details are right and adequate scrutiny has been given The appetite of Members to debate this Bill—I am sure that this will happen on other consequential Bills needed to implement our withdrawal from the EU—shows that we are prepared to put in the hours and want to help. It also helps to build a consensus in this House. I hope that that will show the country a leadership that is about Members of Parliament taking responsibility for getting it right for the country and acting in the national interest. On this critical issue of EU withdrawal, which will affect the country for decades to come, we must absolutely show that leadership as a House My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) talked about Parliament being here to improve legislation. Amendments should not be an affront to the Government. They will obviously disagree with some. They might agree with the principle of others, but would want to reword them in a way that finds approval with the parliamentary draftsmen. There will also be some that they will initially want to resist, but if they test the will of the House, they will find that Members want to make those amendments. In fact, such amendments may very well improve legislation and help with parliamentary handling. As the Minister said, we are dealing with 40 years of law and there are hundreds of issues, but there is an opportunity to do things in the UK’s way I am very persuaded by amendment 49, which talks about the limitation of powers and having no concentration of powers. There are perhaps improvements that can be made to it, and the amendment the Government have said they will accept on the work of the new sifting committee is very welcome. However, the amendment sends an important signal about the way the constitution in this country works, and for that reason, if the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford presses it, I will support it this evening.