argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Martin John Vickers (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not listing the countries. I am saying that the main growth in world trade is outside the European Union, and that should be our focus. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has travelled to the far east, South America or some of the African nations that are expanding. By dealing with the developing nations, we are supporting the poorer parts of the world. As a Liberal Democrat, surely she should be behind such proposals.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: International Affairs
Martin John Vickers (Conservative, Centre-right): No. I have given way twice already and I recognise that time is running out As I said, the Government have made clear their intentions and how they intend to improve things. They have been very clear that we will leave the customs union in March 2019. Any attempt to thwart that is an attack on the democratic process and the clearly defined will of the British people. Some 70% of people in my constituency voted for leave. They did not vote for half-leave, which is what Opposition Members who want to remain in the single market or a customs union are trying to achieve. They wanted to leave full stop—absolutely and completely There are many mechanisms that can be used at the border. We can use pre-notification schemes such as that of the World Customs Organisation and the EU’s authorised economic operator scheme. Those mechanisms are operating and have been tested. The border between Switzerland and the EU is crossed by many more people and vehicles than the Irish border. It is not beyond the wit of this Government and this Parliament to come up with a solution. I am confident that a solution can be found. We voted to leave, not to half leave. The motion would undermine our negotiating position and should be rejected out of hand.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Ross Thomson (Conservative, Centre-right): When the UK voted to leave the EU, the UK voted to rejoin the rest of the world. The great Brexit prize will be our regaining our ability to strike new free trade deals across the globe, leading the world as a free trading nation, championing trade liberalisation, and directly taking on those who advocate protectionism. If we were to take the advice of some of our colleagues in the Lords or even right here in the Commons, we would find ourselves a vassal state, shackled to the rules of the customs union and unable to set our own trade policy, while not only being absent from the table, but out of the room when decisions affecting us are taken, which is the very worst of all worlds The Prime Minister has been clear that we are leaving the customs union, but what has been astonishing is the hokey-cokey approach to the customs union adopted by Labour Members: in out, in out, shake the shadow Cabinet all about. They are now taking a position that means that the UK will not be able to set its own independent trade policy. Labour peers have tried to frustrate the Brexit process, while Labour would keep us following EU rules with no say. Some Labour MPs want to keep us in the single market permanently.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Ross Thomson (Conservative, Centre-right): No, thank you To return to the Brexit prize of being able to set our own trade policy, it was on 9 March 1776 that a great Scot, Adam Smith, published "The Wealth of Nations", in which he outlined a vision of how trade produced prosperity and opportunity. Post Brexit, we can revitalise that vision. After we leave the EU, we can become a global leader in free trade, using trade to spread prosperity and political stability. I was pleased to welcome the Secretary of State for International Trade to my constituency last week, where he heard about the opportunities for fish processing and for oil and gas in trade across the world to increase exports and promote prosperity not just at home, but abroad.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): To cut through all this debate about whether we should stay in the customs union, I seem to remember that our manifesto was quite clear that we were leaving the EU, the single market and the customs union, and that we were going to negotiate a free trade agreement. Surely the whole party and the whole House can unite around that. That is why we are having the implementation Bill and ensuring that all these existing laws are in our law. What could be more simple than a free trade deal? Let us stick to it.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Ross Thomson (Conservative, Centre-right): I could not agree more with my colleague. Not only was that in our manifesto, but I believe it was in those of other parties so that we would enact the wishes of the British people. I am not surprised that the only party not listening to those wishes is the SNP, because it puts its fingers in its ears to the results of all and any referendums I am delighted that the new Department for International trade has undertaken 167 visits overseas. It is clear from the trips that Ministers have taken that a British label on goods is regarded as a sign of quality, as it is for services, and the demand for British is huge. International demand for British goods is growing, and Aberdeen, which I represent—
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: International Affairs
Ross Thomson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention, but I believe that I have already answered those points. There does not need to be infrastructure at the border. From GPS to mobile tracking to trusted traders, I think I have answered all those points I am running out of time, so I will end by saying that there are huge opportunities for Aberdeen, the north-east and Scotland to use our competitive advantage to seize the benefits of Brexit. We must set our sights on the future—a new and global future.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Simon Richard Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): Today’s motion shows definitively that the Opposition are unfit to be a party of Government. It is quite simply the height of irresponsibility for the Labour party to demand that the Government should publish confidential Cabinet papers about our future customs arrangements at a time of such crucial negotiations. That would inevitably expose every detail to our negotiating partners in Europe and destroy every inch of leverage that we have with them. No Government could assent to that, and no Opposition worthy of being a Government should ask for it.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: International Affairs
Simon Richard Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree, and I would draw another historical analogy: it is 60 years ago this year that Nye Bevan issued his famous warning to the Labour party not to send a British Foreign Secretary into the negotiating chamber naked, and that is precisely what this motion would do. It runs directly contrary to our national interest, and the whole country will see how profoundly misguided it is. There is no way of overstating this: every Member who votes for this motion—every one—will be damaging the principles of Cabinet government in the hope of inflicting partisan advantage. It is unforgivable. Coming a week after north-east Labour MPs called for a second referendum—or, as they now euphemistically call it, a people’s vote, as if a referendum were not exactly that—this shows the Opposition in the worst possible light.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Simon Richard Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): This is the same "Project Fear" prognosis that we heard in 2016, which has been comprehensively rubbished and which nearly 70% of the hon. Lady’s own constituents rejected—and she continues to lecture me about listening to my constituents and acting in their interests The Labour party is unreconciled to Brexit, unwilling to deliver it and unfit to run our country, but the Leader of the Opposition should be thanked for giving us another opportunity to point out the many reasons why Labour’s policy on the customs union and Brexit is so absurd. First, depending on who we ask and on which day, Labour has committed to staying in "a" or "the" customs union, but at the same time says it wants the UK to have a say over future trade deals and arrangements. The whole point is that if we are in the customs union but out of the EU, the UK will have no formal role or veto in trade negotiations, and the EU will have no incentive, let alone legal obligation, to negotiate deals that are in the UK’s interests Secondly, Labour’s U-turn towards stay in "a" or "the" customs union clearly breaks a manifesto commitment on which its Members all stood. That manifesto said: "Labour will set out our priorities in an International Trade White Paper…on the future of Britain’s trade policy" We now discover that that White Paper would simply read: "Priority No. 1: give trade policy back to Brussels" Thirdly, the EU’s customs tariffs hit the poorest in this country the hardest. The highest EU tariffs are concentrated on food, clothing and footwear, which account for 37% of total tariff revenue, so the poorest British consumers are paying to prop up European industries Fourthly, the customs union not only hurts the poorest in our own country; it also supresses the economic growth of the developing world, because EU trade policy encourages cheap imports of raw materials from developing countries, such as coffee, but heavily taxes imports of processed versions of the same good. This means that poorer countries are stuck in a relationship of dependency, whereby there is no incentive to invest in processing technologies, which could lift them from their status as agrarian economies Finally, the House should be reminded that during negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, about which Opposition Members made so much fuss in 2015 and 2016, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) gave an impassioned speech to the House in which he concluded that, in negotiating TTIP, we were "engaging in a race to the bottom".—[Official Report, 15 January 2015; Vol. 590, c. 1108.] As Leader of the Opposition, he is now proposing a policy that would completely abrogate the UK’s ability to veto such arrangements in the future, let alone influence their negotiation.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: International Affairs
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that it is utterly two-faced that Labour MPs in this House are asking our Government to publish all their negotiating positions but that their friends in the European Parliament are not asking the European Commission to publish theirs?
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Simon Richard Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): I cannot improve on that point, other than to say that it goes to the heart of the matter, which is that this is not about our national interest; it is about the Labour party’s domestic political interest. It is shameful and wrong The Labour Party, in supporting a customs union, has gone back on the principles of a lifetime, broken a manifesto pledge and sided with corporations over consumers. It would punish the poorest in this country and abroad and subject the UK, one of the largest economies in the world, to a Turkey-style relationship of dependency in which the EU has complete control over our trade and customs. It is desperate for any opportunity to bring down the Government and has chosen to put power before principles and party before country. Millions of its own voters will be watching very closely indeed.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher James Green (Conservative, Centre-right): My constituents would be aghast at the behaviour of the Labour party. I represent parts of the Wigan and Bolton boroughs, and those who live there would hardly believe that Labour Members are yet again trying to undermine the British people and give every advantage to the Brussels bureaucrats. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to reject subversive Labour and deliver an honest Brexit.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): But this motion is the ultimate procedural motion. Why have the Opposition not done their job and tabled a motion about the customs union or custom arrangement instead of this— I have to say it—Mickey Mouse motion that does not deserve any support?
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Campbell Bowie (Conservative, Centre-right): I am terribly sorry; I do respect the hon. Gentleman, but I heartily disagree with him on this point. Releasing these documents would set a very dangerous precedent for how Cabinet Government and indeed the government of this country would proceed in the future I was heartened by the response of the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) in neglecting to answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) about Scottish Government papers. He clearly agrees with us on the importance of confidentiality when it comes to Government papers. However, when my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) raised the image of Scottish Cabinet meetings, I could not shake the memory of Margaret Thatcher and her vegetables on "Spitting Image" a few years ago I simply do not understand the negativity shown by Opposition Members regarding our country’s future. They are constantly looking at the glass as though it were half empty. They are negative and downcast. They are too busy looking back in anger, rather than looking forward with optimism. I am convinced that this Government will succeed in the negotiations. They will succeed in building a country that is fit for the future, a country that we can all be proud of: a free, prosperous and open country humming with commerce and creativity and trading with countries all across the world. Unlike the party opposite, I actually want our Government to succeed in the negotiations. If we voted for the motion here today, we would be undermining their ability to do that. That is why I support the Government, and that is why I will be voting against the motion this evening.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: International Affairs
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): Our negotiations with Europe are the most complex for a generation. I support transparency, scrutiny and democratic decision making, but it is utterly ludicrous to expect one side at the negotiating table to have a higher level of disclosure on its negotiating position than is expected of those on the other side—the EU. That is why I will not be supporting the motion tonight. It ties our hands It is utterly normal in international negotiations for parties to consider more than one option. When the EU wanted to reform the common agricultural policy, there were four options; when it published its recent paper on the future of Europe, there were five options We should not somehow blame the Government for being slow in deciding their future option. The Government laid out their options last August, and I was in Ireland discussing it with businesses on both sides of the border within a fortnight, but it was only last Sunday that the Irish Foreign Minister suggested he is open to having more exploratory talks I do not blame the Irish for taking time. I grew up on the border in Northern Ireland. I was born and raised in Omagh, where 29 people lost their lives after the Good Friday agreement. I will not jeopardise the Good Friday agreement; I will not jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland; and I will not jeopardise the Union that holds our country united We have to find a solution that works. Neither of the two solutions is perfect.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: International Affairs
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): We have to find a solution that meets the Prime Minister’s criterion of no hard border in Northern Ireland, which is why I want to continue the discussions on the partnership agreement. The partnership agreement is not perfect, and it has never been done before, but we should let the Government continue negotiating and not close down options. The "max fac" solution is not perfect, either. Some 145,000 businesses that trade with Europe would have to start doing customs declarations for the first time, and it relies on the small business exemption on the border in Ireland, which puts our relationship with Ireland into permanent potential conflict because Ireland would end up having to be the policeman of our door with Europe We need to continue looking, but we also need to remember that resolving customs is only part of this discussion. It does not even solve the goods issue. We still need to deal with rules of origin. Incidentally, will the Minister please make sure we look at pan-Euro-Mediterranean cumulation of origin as a sensible option?
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Campbell Bowie (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree it is the height of hypocrisy for Labour Members of Parliament to come to the House demanding that the Government disclose confidential papers on our negotiations when Labour MEPs refuse to demand the same of the European Commission in Brussels?
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: Foreign Trade
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree, and that brings me on to my next point because, actually, there has been a huge amount of disclosure on the direction of the negotiations. When I say that customs union is not a full deal, it is because many other areas, such as services, digital and medicines regulation, have to be addressed both for us and for people on the other side of our borders. That was in the Mansion House speech, but, more importantly, it was laid down just last week in a joint document published by the UK and the EU on the discussion topics for the future partnership Businesses need clarity—I understand that—and they will probably need a lot more time to implement whatever decisions are reached. I am sure many businesses will need more time for implementation than we previously thought, but let us take the time to get this right and let us let the Government get on with their negotiations and with focusing on finding the end solution.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: International Affairs
Rachel Helen Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). However, people outside the Chamber watching the debate could be forgiven for wondering what month and what year we are in. Being in here, listening to the arguments that we heard during the referendum campaign, is like groundhog day The hon. Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna) questioned our voters’ ability to make up their minds about the referendum, but I will take no lectures from him. I say to him and to all hon. Members that people in Redditch—my constituents—knew exactly what they were voting for in the referendum and, on that day, 62% of them voted to leave the European Union. It is therefore my job to come here and deliver a sensible Brexit—yes, I use the words "sensible Brexit"—that protects their livelihoods We hear the argument rehearsed time and again that a catastrophe—an economic disaster—is about to hit us all. Yet week after week, our economy confounds that. Since we voted to leave the European Union, British businesses and British entrepreneurs are doing what they have always done and what they do best: creating jobs, innovating, and starting new businesses that provide jobs for my constituents and others throughout the country. We have record high employment in this country. Growing foreign direct investment is coming into our country, creating jobs and benefiting all our constituents It is astonishing to hear accusations that members of our Cabinet do not have the same opinions. Is it any surprise? There are highly respected Conservative Members who have made their views on the EU clear for decades. Our party does not take the approach that those who enter the Cabinet become clones. Discussions go on in Cabinet—that is a healthy way of finding the best method to address the biggest challenge facing our country. I will not vote for the motion and I support the Government’s approach.
Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: International Affairs
Lee Benjamin Rowley (Conservative, Centre-right): Well, well, well, it is Wednesday, it is an Opposition day, and we are doing the Humble Address again. That rarely used instrument of parliamentary procedure, which has not been seen much over the past 200 years, has suddenly been used half a dozen times in less than six months. I accept that, effectively, there are two groups within the main Opposition party. Those in the more sensible group—they usually sit towards the back of the Chamber —feel very heartfelt about leaving the European Union and disagree with the principle of doing so. They make it quite clear, through this kind of proposal, that they do not wish that to happen. I respectfully disagree with them and gently ask individuals such as the hon. Members for Streatham (Chuka Umunna) and for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty)—neither of them are in their place, although they were here for much of this debate—to reflect on some of the words that they use. There is a genuine view on the Government Benches—and in constituencies such as mine, which voted 63% to leave—that we should leave the European Union, the single market and the customs union, and that there are options and opportunities when we do. To suggest that we are extremists or that we are being overly partisan because of that does nothing for my constituents or for the reputation of this House and how we are debating this issue. Therefore, although I understand hon. Members’ concerns, I ask them to consider their language separately My respect, however, does not extend to the Opposition Front Benchers, who are being deeply disingenuous in pursuing this proposal and the suggestions in it. It was heartening to hear my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), accept that the Labour party’s proposals would mean that it would have no control over customs or future trading arrangements—one of the key reasons why 63% of my constituents voted to leave in the referendum two years ago. If that is the case, that is fine, but we should not draw an artificial distinction between having a trade deal and not having trade. The North American Free Trade Agreement quadrupled the amount of trade in that region when it was introduced in the 1990s. We can go out and seek to strike independent free trade deals that will be positive and beneficial to our country It is deeply disingenuous of the Opposition to suggest, three quarters of the way through negotiations—three quarters of the way through the Government trying to understand how we are going to strike a new set of deals with the European Union—that we should just throw open the books and show the European Union exactly what we are doing and thinking. The Opposition’s motion misunderstands trading policy, misrepresents the negotiations—probably wilfully—and misjudges the public mood. I will happily vote against it.