argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Onshore Wind Subsidies — House of Commons, 2015-06-22
Topic: Energy
Philip John Boswell (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The strike price agreed for nuclear power is £92.50 per MWh at Hinkley Point, which is more expensive than the £82.50 per MWh for onshore renewables. Onshore renewables do not leave future generations with the cost of decommissioning nuclear facilities and waste. Why are the UK Government proceeding with such an irrational decision?
Onshore Wind Subsidies — House of Commons, 2015-06-22
Topic: Macroeconomics
Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Notwithstanding anything the Secretary of State has said this afternoon, the pipeline of projects in Scotland is now at risk, as are the jobs of 5,400 people employed in the sector. Will she look again at the impact these proposals will have on Scotland and the wider UK economy, and think again?
Onshore Wind Subsidies — House of Commons, 2015-06-22
Topic: Agriculture
Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Given the Prime Minister’s respect agenda, may I ask what cognisance, if any, the Minister took of the impact of her decision on Scotland, particularly on my constituency of Argyll and Bute? Is she aware of, and does she care about, the damage that this decision will have on the fragile rural economies of Scotland and the inevitable job losses that will follow?
Onshore Wind Subsidies — House of Commons, 2015-06-22
Topic: Energy
Christopher Murray Alexander Law (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Given the consultations and discussions with the Scottish Energy Minister that the Secretary of State has outlined, what have the Scottish Government been advised will be the impact of the proposals on Scotland’s target of generating the equivalent of 100% of electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2020?
Onshore Wind Subsidies — House of Commons, 2015-06-22
Topic: Energy
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Is the Minister aware that another of the "best of both worlds" offers to the Scottish electorate was the onshore subsidies? Given the effect of the proposals on investment in Scotland, that is a challenge, as pulling investment was not part of her party’s manifesto. Does the Minister agree with me that this announcement is the equivalent of another broken promise to the Scottish electorate?
Onshore Wind Subsidies — House of Commons, 2015-06-22
Topic: Energy
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I associate myself with some of the comments of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). The Secretary of State will be aware that the position of the Scottish Government is that technology such as tidal power and wave power, which were prevented from being properly developed by a former Conservative Government, are where the long-term future of our energy lies. Can she therefore confirm that the entire value of the subsidy that is going to be clawed back from wind farms will be reinvested in the accelerated development of these long-term permanent technologies, or are we simply seeing a repeat of what her party did to Scotland in the 1980s, when a flourishing and potentially world-leading renewables energy sector was deliberately sacrificed to get it out of the way of the nuclear power lobby?
Prisoner Rehabilitation Services — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: Lord Laming is inquiring into looked-after children and the criminal justice system. As well as rehabilitation, what is the Justice Secretary doing to help youngsters who have been in care to avoid a life in crime?
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does the Secretary of State agree that an important part of rehabilitation is the nature of the custodial arrangements we make for our prisoners? He will have seen yesterday’s announcement by the Scottish Government on their plans to reform the custodial arrangements for female offenders in Scotland. Will he commit to considering a similar approach as he reforms the prison estate in England and Wales?
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The various agreements have been described as a considerable achievement. Under pillar two and the rural development payments, Scotland’s payments will work out at about €12 per hectare. The EU average is €76 per hectare. Would the Minister care to define "considerable achievement" in that light?
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am pleased to say that I have drawn level with the Chancellor on this morning’s assessment I admire the dead bat that the Minister is showing to his Back Benchers, but can he answer this point: is it the Prime Minister’s objective in the European renegotiations to lower the UK’s budget contribution, and if so by how much?
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Given that many people who represent fishing constituencies would agree with the hon. Lady on that point, does she not find it passing strange that in all of the possible treaty amendments that have been listed as possibilities for the Prime Minister’s soon-to-be-considered renegotiation stance, not once have I heard from the Government Front Bench that a treaty renegotiation on the common fisheries policy is any part of the Conservative party’s priorities?
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is a great pleasure to follow what must be the briefest speech I have ever heard from the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) on this subject—it is wonderful to see him able once again to stand in his place today Let me turn to the question of EU finance and agriculture. I know that agriculture is not a subject that much concerns the Conservative party; the Tory party these days is much more likely to be concerned with asset stripping, rather than agricultural production, and with financial derivatives, rather than agricultural crops—that is what gets its pulse moving I was concerned when the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) said that far too much of the European Union budget was consumed by the common agricultural policy. The fundamental reason for that—we did not hear this simple point from the Government Benches—is that the common agricultural policy is one of the few policies that financially is effectively under the competence of the European Union. If the European Union had competence over health, for example—I doubt that there is much support for that, from me or anyone else in the House—its agricultural budget would be totally dwarfed by what it spent on health. The dominance of the agricultural budget is a factor of its being one of the European Union’s relatively few common policies Of course, it is possible to argue that there should not be direct farm payments. Indeed, that was the argument that the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) took into the CAP negotiations. He started from the position that the UK Government, without much opposition from Members from rural constituencies in the Conservative interest, thought that there should not be direct farm payments, and he found himself in a minority of one in the negotiations; his position was not supported by any other member state. It was therefore decided that we were to continue with farm payments. Therefore, if we have a common agricultural policy, and it is a substantial part of the European Union’s budget, it is reasonably important to ensure that our share of the agricultural budget as component nations in these islands is fair and competitive, because our agricultural production has to compete in that common market with that in other member states Does the Minister really think that the share allocated to UK agriculture, and to Scottish agriculture in particular, can be counted as a considerable achievement, as he claimed in his opening remarks? Let us remind ourselves of some of the facts. Under pillar one of the CAP budget, it was agreed that the lowest that any member state should receive in support was €196 per hectare. It was agreed in negotiations that each country in the original 15 would work to that minimum. Scotland receives substantially less than that—just over half of that payment per hectare. That is going to cost Scottish agriculture about £1 billion in the period to 2019.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I was going to move on to that very point, because the Minister’s reply to my intervention inspired me to go to the Library in search of some figures. I will answer that point in a moment Let me move on to pillar two, the second major aspect of agricultural support. I have been doing some comparisons and looked at what would have happened if in negotiations Scotland had achieved from pillar two the same amount of agricultural support as the Republic of Ireland, which in many ways is a comparable country with regard to land area and agriculture as a share of the overall economy. The answer is that Ireland has achieved a budget four times the size of Scotland’s budget under pillar two—€2.19 billion compared with €478 million—in the years to 2019 Given that it has been decided that the common agricultural policy should continue and that farm payments should continue to be made, how will it be possible for Scottish agriculture to compete effectively when it gets such a dramatically lower share than the minimum allocated to any other EU country? Far from getting an excellent deal on pillar two to compensate for the poor deal on pillar one, Scotland gets a miserable share in comparison with comparable countries.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): One of the reasons we do so incredibly badly in many European programmes as regards funding is that the Treasury’s interest, when looking at additionality, as it calls it, is always to minimise EU expenditure. Although it is perfectly acceptable for the Government to defend the rebate, it is less acceptable to look at every European programme and try to minimise expenditure on it, because in doing so, we lose some of the alternative opportunities that the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South talked about. If the Treasury looks at every European programme and says, "How do we minimise spending?", what follows as a natural consequence is that our share of that spending is also diminished. In the case of the common agricultural policy, it is possible to make a direct connection with the negotiating stance of the right hon. Member for North Shropshire, who was trying to abolish farm payments altogether and got the miserable, unfair and inequitable distribution of support that has been the end result of the CAP negotiations The Minister—I am not sure if it was a dead bat, a glorious drive through covers, or a catch at slips—rather evaded the direct question of what is the Prime Minister’s negotiating stance on the budget. The Minister said, after being passed a note, that the Prime Minister’s stance was to cut the whole budget and to protect the UK rebate. Let me point out that that has been the Government’s stance and policy since they took office in 2010; it is not a particular stance for these renegotiations. What the Minister is being asked—we really would like an answer—is whether the Prime Minister has a specific target in mind in renegotiations for changes in the EU budget or the UK contribution to it, and if so, what it is. Failure to answer that question throughout the debate adds to the no doubt unworthy, but considerable, suspicion shared across this Chamber that the Prime Minister is adopting this nebulous approach to what are his negotiating aims so that whatever he comes back with can be announced as a fundamental achievement. That does not stand scrutiny in this Committee, but even more importantly, it is a particularly poor campaigning argument in favour of the European cause I hope that the Minister—the last man in—will rise to the occasion by confirming that he is in favour of more equitable distribution of land ownership in Scotland and by giving us an insight into the Prime Minister’s true negotiating hand in the coming arguments and discussions in the European Union.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): That is why the protection built into the agricultural settlement of €196 per hectare is so important, and why it is so disadvantageous that it is almost half that figure in Scotland. That is why the minimum per hectare is so important.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Is the hon. Gentleman telling us that consolidation and enlargement always equal efficiency? Does he not recognise that, especially in agriculture, there are significant community and social benefits to allowing small, family owned farms to continue in existence?
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has ever been to Iceland, Norway, the Faroe Islands or places further north of Scotland, but he would see greater use of land there than in the highlands and islands of Scotland, because the agricultural support is so much better. On repatriation, would there not be a danger to some countries that the Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-American model of economics would suck out the little money that is there and give it to London, which does not put it around its own state? At least with Europe we have some sort of guarantee that we will get the money, even though we are among the least favoured areas of the land.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): To pursue my point, is it not strange that the Government never mention treaty amendment to the common fisheries policy as an objective, even though it would certainly be within the competence of this financial Bill? Everything else is mentioned as an objective in the renegotiation, but to my knowledge the Prime Minister has never identified the common fisheries policy as something that he is even trying to get change on, far less a treaty amendment.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The glib answer that has often been given to me in the House in years past as to why we should maintain the common fisheries policy is that fish do not have passports. Of course that neglects the reality that there are three types of stocks: migratory stocks, non-migratory stocks and straddling stocks. We can look at what happens in countries that control their own fisheries, such as Iceland. Jóhann Sigurjónsson, the chief fishing scientist of Iceland, tells me that its fishing has so improved, and trawlers are catching the cod stocks so much more quickly, that fishermen are actually getting frustrated. They are being so successful and doing their work in so little time that they want to go and catch more. That is a sign of their success, having managed their own stocks for a number of decades.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Is not the great danger that the high priest of the austerity cult, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, would drive austerity further and we would not see the spending that we currently see in areas of Wales and in the highlands and islands of Scotland?
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Tapadh leibh—thank you, Mr Williams. I apologise for not being able to say that in Welsh despite your attempts at tuition last night. I will keep practising It struck me after hearing the first two speakers in the debate that we had spent an hour and 45 minutes discussing the Bill and the only point of contention appeared to be whether the Government should write letters, and, if so, how many. If we are serious about sorting out great European institutions that are inefficient and have a lot of waste, I suspect that many of the audience of millions watching live on television will ask us to hold a mirror up to our own face. A debate such as this surely cannot be what this place was designed for.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes an interesting point about the likely outcome of Scottish negotiations in Europe, but it is highly unlikely that any Scottish negotiator would come back with less agriculture support than the minimum awarded to every other European nation.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Rather than bemoaning the £2 billion the Labour party lost in respect of the budget rebate, will the Minister revisit the €220 million of convergence money that the Government chose not to distribute by hectare, which is the basis on which we got it in the first place? Does he realise how much bitterness that decision caused in the rural communities of Scotland? It no doubt contributed to the Conservative party’s worst election result in Scotland for a century last month.
European Union (Finance) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Minister would probably get more information from The Scottish Farmer than he is getting from his civil service briefs. There was €220 million of convergence money to take account of the fact that per hectare, particularly in Scotland, we were receiving so much less than the minimum that was allocated to other countries. The question is quite a simple one. The vast majority of people think that it would have been fair to distribute that convergence funding per hectare, because that was why we were getting it. Why was that not done, and will he revisit that bad decision?
High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill: Instruction (No. 3) — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As we have heard from the Minister, high-speed rail will have a great economic impact along the route between London and the west midlands. An infrastructure project of such a size and scale will also have the knock-on effect of changing communities. There are many people and many views on route choices to consider, and we have heard today about some of the impacts Changes will also happen through the creation of jobs both during and after construction, leaving a long-lasting legacy for future years and for the generations to follow. Indeed, as the Minister said, they will transform the economy. If it is true that the Secretary of State’s report on additional provisions has taken people’s views on board, we shall be able to see where the views of the public and petitioners have been considered and where amendments have been made. I feel sure that hon. Members have also made their views clear on behalf of their constituents, and I have heard some of them this afternoon. We have heard praise for the Minister for putting constituents at ease Views on the alignment of the route have been taken on board in Chesham and Amersham, as they have in constituencies such as Birmingham, Ladywood. The changes to the routing of HS2 appear to have been made to accommodate the local voices of the public and those who represent them. Taking into account the view of the public, and their representations, is always to be commended, particularly when there is likely to be a positive economic impact that creates and supports employment, speeds journey times and increases connectivity to those who need it on the periphery and to those who have suffered a paucity of investment over the decades.
High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill: Instruction (No. 3) — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Transportation
Neil Charles Gray (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend rightly mentions the economic benefits in terms of jobs and communities. Does he agree that on the route there could be benefits in terms of greater opportunities for business growth of all types, including expanded tourism and faster links with partners in Europe? That being the case, should Scotland not also benefit from a guaranteed connection with HS2 and be formally included in the forthcoming development of the route?
High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill: Instruction (No. 3) — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Notwithstanding that, I think there are points—especially in local and national economies—that have to be developed through participation. We heard earlier that projects that have been designed can be improved, and the Minister said we need to avoid minor errors; he covered that earlier in terms of the report. We also need to avoid major errors, so I ask him to put more constituents at ease, to go a little further with additional provisions and to listen to the demands of the people of Scotland. He should ensure there is another alignment much further north of the west midlands and make sure that Scotland is connected.
BUTEC Facility (North-West Scotland) — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): May I get clarification on something? The Minister said that this would lead to £1 million of savings for the MOD, but the knock-on effect to the local economy will be that the fishing boats will be cleared out of the new extended range. There will therefore be a devastating effect on the local economy while the MOD is saving £1 million per annum.
BUTEC Facility (North-West Scotland) — House of Commons, 2015-06-23
Topic: Agriculture
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am interested to hear what the Minister is saying. The reason there is so much concern is that some of the information that came from QinetiQ, which ended up in the public domain, referred to a much larger exclusion zone than he is expressing in his statement today. The map, which I am sure the Minister has seen, indicates a potential doubling of the area. I wish to hear some clarification on what was talked about. The information that was in the public domain is therefore not correct. My constituents and I would welcome an early consultation on that and to hear what it means for the fishing community.