argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Gambling and Lotteries — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Technology
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Government are considering action on the broader issue of online harms and the role that social media companies play in that. That work will be undertaken alongside this review, as well, and we will certainly work together. I will work with colleagues in the rest of the Department to make sure that we are very much aligned.
Gambling and Lotteries — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is very knowledgeable about this area as well, and I thank him for his comments. Let me be clear: the call for evidence relating to loot boxes is separate from this review; it is a separate activity being undertaken by the Department. I should also be clear that any advertising that is deliberately targeting children or vulnerable groups should not be happening, and therefore it is a major concern. The questions raised in this review and the call for evidence seek to ask how effective the current rules are, and those will be major considerations as part of the call for evidence.
Gambling and Lotteries — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Technology
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that the online harms legislation was a commitment. It is absolutely a commitment. I know that it gets support on both sides of the Chamber, and we will be hearing more in due course.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move, That provision (including provision imposing and regulating new duties of customs) may be made in connection with goods in Northern Ireland and their movement into and out of Northern Ireland (whether the movement begins or ends in Great Britain or elsewhere) It is a delight to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker In less than a month’s time, the UK will reach the end of the transition period and resume its place as a fully sovereign trading nation. As colleagues across the House will be aware, our negotiations with our counterparts in the EU continue. The Government remain cautiously optimistic about the conclusion of those talks. However, there is no doubt that we have a responsibility to the people of the United Kingdom to be ready for every outcome. The measures contained in the Taxation (Post-transition Period) Bill, which will be introduced and published following this debate, will play an important part in those preparations. The Bill will help to give confidence and certainty to the owners of businesses small and large throughout the United Kingdom after the end of the transition period.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): Will my right hon. Friend explain exactly how this matter we are dealing with now will be affected by the statement made by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster about an hour ago, which also deals with the question of goods to be considered not at risk, and with questions relating to customs and tariffs, and the decision that appears to have been taken that the Government have agreed in the Joint Committee with Mr Šefčovič on a number of matters of which at the moment we only have an outline? I know the Chancellor will make a statement tomorrow, but perhaps my right hon. Friend could assist us in this matter, because it quite clearly has relevance to what he is saying now.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: International Affairs
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): As my right hon. Friend knows extremely well, all these matters relating to the Northern Ireland protocol and the withdrawal agreement have direct relevance to the question of sovereignty. A statement was made by the Paymaster General yesterday relating to the question of negotiations, but the matters that have just been raised by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in his statement to the press and to the public, but not to this House so far, have not been dealt with properly, because that statement has not yet been made to the House of Commons, although it has been published in general The point that I wish to make is simple and I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend addressed it. In withdrawing the "notwithstanding" provisions—clauses 45, 46 and 47 of the internal market Bill—which have a direct relevance to the question of sovereignty, does he have any comment to make and could he please help the House to understand, if these provisions are being withdrawn from the internal market Bill and will not be introduced in the taxation Bill, for which he does have responsibility, what are the implications for sovereignty with respect to what has been announced? I understand that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will make further comment tomorrow.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): I think the hon. Gentleman knows that the work that we are doing in terms of legislation very much has as its counterpart a great effort to put in place all the procedures that may be required. Significant work has been done. He will be aware that there is a trader support service that works directly with people who will be importing into Northern Ireland to make it as close to a one-stop-shop arrangement as possible. What we are discussing today is the framework for the law under which those movements will operate.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): The Minister has not yet reassured me about the sovereignty issue. Is it not the case that when any good in commercial quantity comes into the UK across any border—Northern Ireland or one of our marine borders—there are usually VAT and excise adjustments to be made and those take place by computer, not actually at the port of entry? Why do we need special arrangements here?
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend will be aware that under the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol, we have agreed arrangements for Northern Ireland with the European Union. The goal of the legislation is to make sure that, as far as possible, it is a completely seamless and straightforward process for those who are trading and that it is unfettered in regards to trade from Northern Ireland into Great Britain. That seems to me to be a very important technical fact.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): We do not expect the vast majority of any trade into Northern Ireland to be subject to any dual VAT arrangements. The whole purpose of these rules is to put in place the simplest and most straightforward arrangements that can be put in place and that replicate in so far as possible the current experience that people will have when they trade with the EU.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): I am afraid that inadvertently the right hon. Gentleman has misrepresented my position, or misdescribed my position. I am saying that we are following the Northern Ireland protocol and, therefore, following any provisions that he refers to, but what we are doing is putting in place mechanisms that make them as easy and as facilitated as possible, so that the experience of someone trading in Northern Ireland should be as close as possible to that which they would have today The Bill will allow us to amend or modify certain provisions in relation to VAT and excise, including mechanisms to ensure that, in so far as possible, VAT will be accounted for in the same way as it is today, as I have said. In addition, it will make provision for amending current legislation for excise duty. Most of these changes are necessary to ensure that there is comprehensive VAT and excise legislation in place in relation to Northern Ireland at the end of the transition period In addition to those steps, there is also a small number of other taxation measures that need to be in place before the end of the transition period. They include provision for an increase in the rate of duty on aviation gasoline, which will apply across the UK. Otherwise known as avgas, the fuel is a form of leaded petrol predominantly used in private aviation.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): I admire the hon. Gentleman’s ingenuity in bringing this matter into a debate that has no direct relevance to that issue at all. I, like him, would like to see as green and sustainable a world as we can arrange. This is a measure that does not relate to kerosene; it relates to avgas, and it has to do with the need to harmonise—or rather, to manage—the relationship between Northern Ireland and the UK, and that is what we are seeking to do. The requirement for an increase is set out in the Northern Ireland protocol—again, it relates only to Northern Ireland—but we are expanding it to the whole of the UK to ensure consistency, to avoid burdens on business, and to reduce compliance risks for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. It is extremely small in its magnitude The Bill will also make provision for the introduction of a new system for collecting VAT on goods entering the UK. This includes moving the VAT collection on certain imported goods away from the border, and removing the VAT relief on low-value consignments. Together, these provisions will help to level the playing field for UK businesses, and they will protect the UK high street from VAT-free imports. The Bill will also take forward measures to ensure that the Government retain their ability to prevent insurance-premium tax avoidance after the end of the transition period. This will provide Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs with access to the same tools to prevent insurance- premium tax evasion—sorry, I should have said "evasion" rather than "avoidance" earlier—regardless of whether or not an insurer is based in an EU member state. Finally, the Bill will make provision for new powers that will enable HMRC to raise tax charges under the controlled foreign companies legislation for the period from 2013 to 2018. This technical provision will deal effectively and efficiently with the legacy state aid decision relating to the period before the UK left the European Union.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): I salute my hon. Friend’s astonishing indefatigability, but I am afraid his memory plays him false. I have already said that the notwithstanding provisions will not feature in this Bill. I said that earlier in my speech, but I am sorry that that was not as clear as it should have been, because that is the state of affairs This Bill will help the UK to cement its position as an independent trading nation at the end of the transition period. It will give businesses throughout the UK certainty about the arrangements that will apply from 1 January next year, and it will play a part in safeguarding the unity and integrity of this country, both in the months ahead and long into the future. I therefore commend these resolutions to the House.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: International Affairs
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Up to this point, Labour has always backed the EU position and not the UK position. Will the hon. Lady now use the Opposition’s voice to say that we should not give away our fish and our independent lawmaking?
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): I have already made a number of comments to the Minister in charge of this motion, also in respect of the Bill that we have not yet seen. It seems quite extraordinary, if I may say so, that we are being asked to give such blanket agreement to the Ways and Means resolution, which is the manner in which the money is raised to deal with the questions that arise in respect of the Bill, when we have not actually seen a copy of the Bill itself and therefore do not know what the provisions refer to I see, for example, that the motion includes reference to amending section 9A of the Value Added Tax Act 1994, part 3 of the Value Added Tax (Place of Supply of Goods) Order 2004, schedule 4B to that Act, which relates to call-off stock arrangements, section 18A of that Act, which affects fiscal warehousing, and paragraph 114(2) of schedule 8 to the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018. It also includes proposals relating to the rate of fuel duty on aviation gasoline, amending section 6(1A)(aa) of the Hydrocarbon Oil Duties Act 1979. It also deals with value added tax questions relating to such matters, and makes provision regarding value added tax in cases involving "supplies of goods by persons established outside the United Kingdom that are facilitated by online marketplaces", or "the importation into the United Kingdom of goods of a low value." There are also provisions relating to the insurance premium tax in respect of the liability of the insured, amending section 65 of the Finance Act 1994, and matters relating to the recovery of unlawful state aid in respect of controlled foreign companies, in particular dealing with the Commission decision of 2019 relating to state aid "concerning the CFC Group Financing Exemption." That gives some indication of the breadth, and also the depth, of these matters. It is very difficult, to put it bluntly, to dissect, comment on and make what I would describe as a full analysis of a provision that we have not yet seen, and as I had not actually seen these—nor did I know that they were going to be included until I got notice of them just now—I am not in a position to be able to do more than to say that I regard the whole question of these provisions as something that will obviously have to be dealt with when we actually see the Bill. What we have not seen, we cannot really comment on. It is really almost Alice in Wonderland, isn’t it? The fact remains that there are important issues of principle in relation to all this, and the notes that I have received raise some interesting questions. I do not know whether those notes have been made generally available.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: International Affairs
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Will my hon. Friend comment on the sovereignty issue, which is at the heart of all this? I was not satisfied by the Minister’s reply, when my hon. Friend was asking very good questions. Does he share my worry that we have not solved the sovereignty issue over Northern Ireland in this provision, and that we are making it worse?
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: International Affairs
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend might have anticipated that I would raise this very question with the Minister, as I did when he was in mid-flow at the beginning of these proceedings. That was the question I asked, and my right hon. Friend has now referred to it. I am extremely supportive of the Government in relation to Brexit and to the statements that have repeatedly been made not only by the Prime Minister but by other members of the Cabinet, including the Paymaster General in the statement that she made yesterday, in which the word "sovereignty" was completely reaffirmed and stated over and over again, and I take the Government at their word. But of course issues of the kind that we are dealing with do get somewhat obscured sometimes by provisions of legislation, particularly when we have not seen the legislation but are asked to comment on it. That makes life quite difficult in being able to identify with precision exactly what effect this would have on the sovereignty of the United Kingdom, save only to say that yesterday the House of Commons, by a majority of something like 90, passed provisions in the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, and one would therefore have expected the Bill that is under consideration now—which must have been prepared yesterday when we were debating the other one, because otherwise it could not have been printed—to have contained similar provisions I am left in a bit of quandary until we can see that this Bill does not contain the notwithstanding provisions that were put in yesterday, which the House decided on, in principle, in the interests of sovereignty. I know a bit about that. I was also responsible for section 38 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, which was passed by a majority of 120 with notwithstanding provisions in it at the beginning of the year. So for practical purposes, the principle of whether notwithstanding provisions are needed has already been established. I repeat that I am very supportive of the Government and very supportive of the Prime Minister, and I make that absolutely crystal clear, but that makes it absolutely essential for us to have a very clear understanding about the reasons for withdrawing the provisions that were passed in respect of this Bill and were passed in respect of the other Bill yesterday, on the same principles of sovereignty as would need to be put forward under section 38 of the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act, which, by the way, is still in statute and can still be used —and will be, I hope, as we move forward The Government are withdrawing these provisions of the Bill, which is presumably done for some reason that I cannot quite get but is to do with managing to assuage some of the hostility in the House of the Lords and the hostility that has led the European Union and the Commission to threaten legal proceedings unless we withdraw them. No doubt all this is being done in an attempt to arrive at some sensible or other kind of conclusion and settlement.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: International Affairs
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Will my hon. Friend confirm that when his admirable clause 38 was tried on the previous Prime Minister, she rejected it on the grounds that it would mean that Parliament could unilaterally override the withdrawal agreement if it wished, and she did not want that?
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony Howe Browne (Conservative, Centre-right): I wonder whether the hon. Member would like to join me in making it clear to the British public that the phrase "oven ready" was used about the withdrawal agreement, which we did indeed vote into law one week after the general election, not about the trade deal. The Prime Minister never described the trade deal as "oven ready". Would the hon. Member like to join me in making it clear to the British public that that is the case?
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): Every business person would ideally like to have seen the deal done and dusted some months before, but on the basis that the European Union made a commitment to an ambitious free trade agreement, are there no words of criticism that the hon. Lady is willing to use regarding its part in these negotiations that are taking so long?
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: International Affairs
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to know why the hon. Lady supports the EU position on everything. On the question of fish, does she support the general EU smash-and-grab raid for most of the fish, or does she prefer the French version, which is to take practically the whole lot?
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: International Affairs
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): On the question of bad faith, I do not know whether the hon. Lady heard what I said yesterday, but I will say this: there has never been a more egregious example of bad faith than the manner in which the EU sought to bounce the Government in the middle, and indeed at the end, of the negotiations. It is quite outrageous and in itself warrants the use of article 46, which is there to terminate the agreement if the Government cannot get what they need to preserve our sovereignty.
Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means) — House of Commons, 2020-12-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I declare my business interests in the register I came to this debate expecting to hear the Minister set out a vision of post-Brexit Britain, how the taxation system will be transformed and how VAT will be changed to encourage our businesses and give our consumers a better time. Instead, we have six resolutions that are mainly about trying to make sure that the Government can get even more VAT out of people after we have left than before. The Government could have done that at any time. Where is the vision that we will have a much better tax system after Brexit We are taking back control of VAT, which was almost entirely under EU control. The Government say, for example, they wish to be a green Government, but these measures will not even take VAT off a whole series of green products, which should not have VAT on them if the Government are trying to encourage people to insulate their homes, change their boiler controls or put in more fuel-efficient ways of heating their homes. The Minister has failed this very simple test We have six resolutions about a piece of legislation which we are not allowed to see until after the debate. It is a piece of legislation that will be very complex, because it is mainly about the techniques of raising revenue and making sure that no revenue escapes. However, the Brexit voters out there—the majority in the country—have had to vote three times now for Brexit to make it clear to the House of Commons that they want even this House of Commons to be in charge, even though there are still too many MPs on the Opposition Benches who hate the idea of this country legislating for and governing itself and think that every law that comes from Europe is wise and necessary and every law that is made here is somehow inappropriate We want our Ministers to say, "No, we are the people’s representatives. We had the majority in the election and we are going to transform our country’s economy, recover the economy from covid-19 and level up the country." That requires bold and visionary leadership and it certainly requires pretty fundamental tax changes. VAT rates on some things are too high. VAT should not be imposed on some things at all. We need to remodel that tax. We need to look again at our corporate taxes, where a series of judgments by the European Court of Justice prevented this country levying all the corporate taxes that it wished to raise.