argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Christmas Adjournment — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: International Affairs
Karin Marguerite Smyth (Labour, Centre-left): I did promise the House brevity, as I am aware that colleagues will want to return to their constituencies and families for Christmas and, indeed, to start some Christmas shopping—those of us who have not managed it. I spotted some Ministers in the House of Commons shop this morning, so I know we are all a little behind With the Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the Trade Secretary and the Business Secretary all in Poland, and with the First Secretary resigning, I wonder whether my opposite number, the Deputy Leader of the House, feels that he is here starring in the remake of "Home Alone" this Christmas. I enjoy working opposite him; he has been very supportive. I wish him well in his endeavours. I think the Government are in safe hands with him in the coming weeks Brexit is the biggest issue of our time, and it is right that we have concentrated so much of our time in this place on that subject. We have had over 64 hours of debate on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. Over 300 amendments have been tabled and there have been 14 reports by 10 different Committees. There have been 43 votes in total, and we have won one—but a very important one. As many colleagues have said previously—you have endorsed this, Mr Speaker—it is crucial to the functioning of our parliamentary democracy that all Members vote according to their judgment of the best interests of their constituents. The outcome on amendment 7 has therefore been reassuring for all democrats I would never have thought that I would be pleased to be surrounded by so many eminent lawyers and scholars of "Erskine May" in the past few weeks, but it has been very interesting. I have found it quite a treat to witness colleagues pursue so ingeniously every legislative avenue to take back control to this place. I have learned a lot. I have learned about Humble Addresses, and I am now almost clear on the difference between a sectoral analysis and an impact assessment.
Cycling Fatalities: Ian Winterburn — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Transportation
Fabian Hamilton (Labour, Centre-left): This debate is the last parliamentary business before the recess and, indeed, the last business of the year, but it nevertheless deals with an issue that is of great seriousness and grave concern to my constituents and to many others, given the number of people who have been injured or killed when cycling on our roads On 12 December last year, 58-year-old Ian Winterburn was cycling to work at 7.30 am, as he did every day. Ian was a keen and regular cyclist. As usual, he was wearing his cyclist’s high-visibility jacket, and all his bike lights were on. He always wore a cycling helmet. As he was passing the junction of Whitkirk Lane on the A6120 ring road in Halton, Leeds, a silver Skoda Fabia was signalling to turn right, but instead of waiting for Ian to cycle past, the driver went straight into him, knocking him off his bike and fatally injuring him. She claimed that she had not seen him. After 10 days in a coma, Ian died from his injuries on 22 December Cyclist Charlie Alliston was famously sentenced to 18 months in prison recently for fatally injuring pedestrian Mrs Briggs in one of two such fatal accidents last year, yet any more cyclists have been killed or badly injured by cars during the same period. Alliston’s case justifiably received plenty of media coverage, but shocking deaths such as that of Ian Winterburn scarcely receive any, and public anger towards cyclists is now at an all-time high The 51-year-old driver of the Skoda that killed Ian was sentenced on 20 October by Leeds magistrates court for causing death by careless driving.
Cycling Fatalities: Ian Winterburn — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Transportation
Ruth Margaret Cadbury (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend on initiating the debate. I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on cycling, and I commend to him one of the recommendations of our report on justice for cyclists. We asked the Government to address "Confusion and overlap between ‘careless’ and ‘dangerous’ driving" in such cases.
Cycling Fatalities: Ian Winterburn — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Ruth Margaret Cadbury (Labour, Centre-left): I am a member of the Justice Committee, and one of the issues that we have heard about—which applies not only to cases such as this one—is that the cutbacks in the Courts Service and the Ministry of Justice mean that there are fewer people to carry out these important administrative tasks. In too many cases, administrative failures mean that justice is not being served, either for the victims or for their families, because there are not enough people to make the kind of contact that is, as my hon. Friend says, so important at times like these.
Leaving the EU: Alignment — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: What assessment he has made of the potential economic benefits to Northern Ireland of maintaining full alignment with the rules of the customs union and single market after the UK leaves the EU.; What assessment he has made of the potential economic benefits to Northern Ireland of maintaining full alignment with the rules of the customs union and single market after the UK leaves the EU.
Preet Kaur Gill (Labour, Centre-left): If, at the end of this process, Northern Ireland remains aligned with the single market and customs union while the rest of the UK is not, what impact do the Government believe that will have on the Northern Irish economy?
Leaving the EU: Alignment — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: What assessment he has made of the potential economic benefits to Northern Ireland of maintaining full alignment with the rules of the customs union and single market after the UK leaves the EU.; What assessment he has made of the potential economic benefits to Northern Ireland of maintaining full alignment with the rules of the customs union and single market after the UK leaves the EU.
Gerald Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Has the Secretary of State’s office shown more diligence than the Department for Exiting the European Union in producing impact assessments on the effects to the Northern Ireland economy of all eventualities of leaving the European Union—and if not, why not?
Leaving the EU: Alignment — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: What assessment he has made of the potential economic benefits to Northern Ireland of maintaining full alignment with the rules of the customs union and single market after the UK leaves the EU.; What assessment he has made of the potential economic benefits to Northern Ireland of maintaining full alignment with the rules of the customs union and single market after the UK leaves the EU.
Owen Smith (Labour, Centre-left): As you know, Mr Speaker, agriculture is more important in Northern Ireland than in any other part of the UK, and Northern Ireland is more reliant on EU farm payments than any other part of the UK, so 30,000 Ulster farmers need certainty about what Brexit is going to mean for them. In her Florence speech, the Prime Minister reassured them that transition would occur under "the existing structure of EU rules and regulations"— including, I presume, the common agricultural policy—but on Monday she said the opposite. She said that on 29 March 2019, we will be leaving the common agricultural policy. Which one is right?
Leaving the EU: Alignment — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: What assessment he has made of the potential economic benefits to Northern Ireland of maintaining full alignment with the rules of the customs union and single market after the UK leaves the EU.; What assessment he has made of the potential economic benefits to Northern Ireland of maintaining full alignment with the rules of the customs union and single market after the UK leaves the EU.
Owen Smith (Labour, Centre-left): That cannot be correct. It cannot be right both that we will be under exactly the same EU rules and regulations, which is what the Prime Minister said in Florence, and that we will be leaving the common agricultural policy. If it is true that we are leaving the common agricultural policy, those 30,000 Ulster farmers and their families need to know how they are going to pay their mortgages and meet their other commitments in just 15 months’ time. This is a complete shambles. The Prime Minister is going to be here in a minute—can the Secretary of State tell her to sort this out?
Leaving the EU: Border Discussions — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with the Irish Government on a frictionless border on the island of Ireland to inform the UK’s negotiations with the EU.
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful both to the Secretary of State and to the Minister for making it very clear that there will be no hard borders within the island of Ireland and no hard borders between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. Will she make it very clear that a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom would be incompatible with the statement that she has just made? It is important that we have that clarity.
Leaving the EU: Free Trade Agreement — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: If his Department will provide the evidential basis that a free trade deal similar to the one that Canada negotiated with the EU will maintain the border on the island of Ireland under its current terms after the UK leaves the EU.
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): At the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs this morning, the Environment Secretary made it clear that the plus-plus-plus in a Canada-plus-plus-plus agreement ought to include agri-foods, which is obviously really important to Northern Ireland. What steps is the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland taking to try to ensure that that is included in any future deal?
The Economy — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stephen Pelham Pound (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you very much indeed, Mr Speaker Well, this is all very well, but the Secretary of State referred to yesterday’s statement by the Northern Ireland civil service that is casting a dark pall over Northern Ireland. Will the Minister take this opportunity to say that, when the Government suggest ways of balancing the books by February, they will rule out scrapping the free bus pass, scrapping education maintenance allowance or even—heaven forfend—reintroducing prescription charges?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Rosena Chantelle Allin-Khan (Labour, Centre-left): In 2009, the Prime Minister said it was "a tragedy that the number of children falling into the poverty cycle" was "continuing to rise." Every child deserves to have a roof over their head and food on the table, yet on her watch, in Wandsworth alone, the number of families forced to survive on food banks is continuing to rise, and 2,500 children—yes, children—will wake up homeless on Christmas day. So my question is simple: when will this austerity-driven Government say enough is enough and put an end to this tragedy?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Labor
Nicholas Desmond John Smith (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the Budget debate, I raised the issue of steelworkers transferring out their pensions. Some financial advisers are fleecing steelworkers, and the regulators have been unco-ordinated and complacent. The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury promised me a response to my speech, but none has been forthcoming. Mr Speaker, do you know whether the Government will be making a statement on this urgent matter?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 77, in clause 13, page 9, line 9, at end insert— "(3) A Minister of the Crown may by regulations— (a) make provision enabling or requiring judicial notice to be taken of a relevant matter, or (b) provide for the admissibility in any legal proceedings of specified evidence of— (i) a relevant matter, or (ii) instruments or documents issued by or in the custody of an EU entity." Clause 13 stand part Amendment 348, in schedule 5, page 36, line 9, at end insert— "(c) any impact assessment conducted by Her Majesty’s Government that in any way concerns the economic and financial impact of in anyway altering, modifying or abolishing any relevant instrument." This amendment would require the Government to publish its economic impact assessments of the policy options for withdrawal from the EU. Amendment 76, in schedule 5, page 37, leave out paragraph 4 That schedule 5 be the Fifth schedule to the Bill.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): Merry Christmas to you, Dame Rosie, and to all hon. and right hon. Members Under the peculiar vagaries of the Government’s programme motion, we have ended up with a peculiar day 8 in Committee, with a potential four-hour chunk to debate amendments to schedule 5, which is quite a narrow area of concern—the publication of retained EU legislation and rules of evidence—and, in theory, only four hours in the second half to debate the massive number of remaining amendments. The Committee will understand why I probably do not want to spend too much time on this first group, because I suspect a large number of hon. Members will want to speak on the second group Nevertheless, I will have a crack at new clause 21 because it is always worth probing the Government on every part of a Bill. This new clause would ensure that, when Her Majesty’s Government publish EU retained legislation, they accompany it with a summarising explanatory document setting out, in terms that are readily understandable, its purpose and effect This might seem an obvious point, and someone might say, "Of course Ministers intend to do this. Surely, if we have all the legal gobbledegook we normally get in statute and in primary and secondary legislation, there will be a summary not just for Members of Parliament but for the public to read and understand so they know what they are talking about." But that practice has only been in effect for a small number of years and, although it started with the good intention of providing explanatory statements and explanatory notes, it has slipped back a bit from the original intention. When hon. Members pick up a dense and complex proposal, they will often find that the explanatory notes basically say the same thing, perhaps with a few dots and commas changed here and there, and feel that the proposal is as impenetrable as it ever was The point is that clarity is needed if we are to transfer a great set of EU legislation into UK law. Such clarity is an important principle that Parliament should underline and establish, which is what new clause 21 seeks to do. More than that, when we legislate we should make it clear not just for the lawyers but for everyone so that all our constituents know and understand the consequences of the laws we are putting in place Such clarity was not always evident in the referendum campaign in the run-up to June 2016. In fact, many would still say that there was a lot of obfuscation and opacity, and that the consequences of Brexit were not clear at all. In my view, as much clarity and plain English as possible should be obtainable.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend takes the words out of my mouth. He has spotted that the famous paragraph 49 of the phase 1 agreement between the negotiators on the EU side and the negotiators on the UK side talks about maintaining regulatory alignment, which is a phrase that manages to span all sorts of different interpretations. The EU and Republic of Ireland side believes "full alignment" to mean full alignment and that we will essentially have the same arrangements as we have now. But when the Prime Minister returned to the House of Commons, she sort of said, "Oh, no, it is a very narrow meaning in the terms set out in particular paragraphs of the Belfast agreement." It is amazing how words can mean one thing to one listener and another thing to an entirely different listener.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): Governments would normally be expected to have information and facts, with evidence being collected and presented and with an assessment made based on information that has been analysed and digested in a professional way, but it appears that, although we were told they exist, the impact assessments do not actually exist but are sectoral analyses. What is the difference between an impact assessment and a sectoral analysis? Well, we have been discussing that for quite some time Returning to EU retained legislation, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield rightly pointed out that we have lived with important legal understandings, such as on equalities law and environmental law, for a number of decades. Those understandings have been tenets of our expectations of the civilised society in which we live. Of course, they will now be transferred from European law into UK law. If they had originated in this House, they would have been enacted in primary legislation and any changes would have had to be made through primary legislation. But the Government’s proposal is to take this new category of EU retained law and bring it into UK law, and it will not have the same status as primary legislation. In many ways, it will be repealable or amendable, often by secondary legislation—by statutory instrument. This is not a point about Brexit; it is about the process of transposition. It is important that the public know what is going on when we are doing this. If a transfer is taking place, information should be set out in the explanatory notes, not just about the technical details, but about the weight that those legal rights will have once they come back into UK law There are a number of other aspects to this—
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): Yes. Although we disagree on many things, I think we can agree that if we are going to do this exercise, it needs to be done thoroughly and robustly, making sure that the intent of Parliament and the laws we are transposing are robust enough to withstand the test of time. Having explanatory statements to accompany those is an important development that has helped us in our legislative process recently. If we are going to have a sifting committee—it is not really a sifting committee; the procedures committee will be doing this—looking through all these statutory instruments and picking out which ones it thinks should not be passed through the negative procedure, this explanatory process ought to be in place to help hon. Members figure out which of these hundreds or even thousands of aspects of legislation are important enough to flag up to hon. Members more widely. That is a small point but it needs making. Other issues arise relating to "tertiary" legislation and the powers the Bill is giving to agencies and regulators to make, or to amend or remedy, laws. Again, I would like these things to be flagged up in plain English, wherever possible, so that parliamentarians can know about them. In essence, new clause 21 is about transparency, clarity and shining a light on this complicated bandwidth of activity that is about to hit all hon. Members, and that is important The only other point I wanted to make on this group—
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): We are doing our duty by at least trying to comb over these issues now I wish to commend the Labour Front-Bench team on their amendment 348, which seeks to ensure that impact assessments are made properly and thoroughly before we take many of the decisions in this whole Brexit process. We already know enough about what has happened with the Brexit Secretary promising impact assessments and their turning out to be sectoral analyses. Many of us will have gone to the reading room and looked at the hastily written 50-odd documents, which would be good if someone was writing a master’s degree dissertation on the aviation sector—they are full of facts and information—but do not really provide much more analysis than people can already get off Google Where we did get an insight, although it may have been a slip of the tongue, was when the Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared before the Treasury Committee on 6 December and said that he has "modelled and analysed a wide range of potential alternative structures between the European Union and the United Kingdom" and that "it informs…our negotiating position" So obviously there does exist within government some level of impact assessment and analysis that has not yet been placed in the public domain. It might be that the Brexit Committee wishes to explore that further or that the Treasury Committee wishes to do so, but it is important that we know whether this is simply a reference to the pre-referendum work that was done under the former Chancellor George Osborne or whether further assessments have taken place, independently undertaken by the Treasury. We need to know what analysis the different Departments have undertaken and what sort of modelling on the different sectors of our economy has been done.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that the Government produce assessments, whether or not they are "sectoral assessments", on issues that are a lot more trivial than such an important thing befalling our country as Brexit? It is therefore imperative that we have detailed assessments on how this will affect our country.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Foreign Trade
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): Yes. That again gets to this question: are we accidentally bumbling our way through, where nobody has thought about doing an assessment, or, worse, is this work being done but then hidden, covered up and held back from Members of Parliament and from the public at large? I suspect that any serious analysis worth its salt will show that there are some damning consequences of exiting the single market and customs union, and I think that needs to be shared with the wider public.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): I wanted to give my hon. Friend an example before he concludes. Last week, the Prime Minister claimed that the UK would make "significant savings" as a result of our leaving the EU, but I have asked questions and Treasury Ministers have not been able to explain what those savings will be or to put a figure on them. Yet Financial Times analysis suggests that we will lose £350 million per week, which contrasts with what was on the side of that red bus.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): That is right. That Financial Times analysis was worth sharing and should be shared, but we should not rely on journalism alone to do the job. We have a professional civil service; let us not gag it or try to lock it under the stairs somewhere. We should let that expertise come out so that we can all see and hear it.