argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Government Operations
Justine Greening (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The House is about to start a debate that is vital for our country’s future national interest, yet we have just a few hours to debate the principles of the Bill and, after that, just a few more hours in a matter of a couple of days in this House to table and debate amendments to the Bill. The Bill itself is not just a few clauses, but 115 pages long, with a long explanatory text. This House has a duty of care to the people of our country to make sure that we scrutinise and amend legislation and to hold the Government to account as appropriate. It is simply not possible to do that under the current programme motion, yet there is no chance even to debate the issue of what an appropriate amount of time for the programme motion would be; we will simply have a vote on it. Can you therefore give the House some advice about an appropriate amount of time to take on this Bill and, perhaps more importantly, your reflections on the importance of the duty of care this House holds to the British people to make sure that the legislation we will have to live under is scrutinised properly?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I inform the House that I have now considered advice on the certifiability of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill under Standing Order No. 83J, with which I am sure colleagues are all closely familiar—Certification of bills etc. as relating exclusively to England or England and Wales and being within devolved legislative competence—and I have concluded that the Bill does not meet the criteria for certification I inform the House that I have not selected either of the reasoned amendments.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time We come together now, in the very best traditions of this House, to scrutinise this Bill and then take the decision that this country expects: to make the verdict of the British people the law of the land so that we can leave the European Union with our new deal on 31 October I of course wish that this decision on our national future had been taken through a meaningful vote on Saturday, but I respect perfectly the motives of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), although I disagree with the effects of his amendment I regret, too, that after Saturday’s vote the Government have been forced to act on the advice of the Cabinet Secretary and to take the only responsible course, which is to accelerate our preparations for a no-deal outcome Today, we have the opportunity to put all that right, because if this House backs this Bill and if we ratify this new deal, which I believe is profoundly in the interests of our whole United Kingdom and of our European friends, we can get Brexit done and move our country on—and we can de-escalate those no-deal preparations immediately and turn them off next week, and instead concentrate on the great enterprise of building a new relationship of the closest co-operation and friendship, as I said on Saturday, with our European neighbours and on addressing our people’s priorities at home.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I can of course give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance that not only will this country maintain the highest standards both for environmental protection and of course for workers’ rights, but in the event that this House wishes to have higher standards than those proposed by the EU or if this House wishes to adopt standards proposed by the EU and the Government disagree, there will of course be an amendable motion to give this House the opportunity to have its say. We will ensure that that is the case If we pass this Bill tonight, we will have the opportunity to address not just the priorities of our relations with the EU but people’s priorities at home. I believe that if we do this deal—if we pass this deal and the legislation that enables it—we can turn the page and allow this Parliament and this country to begin to heal and unite For those, like me, who believe our interests are best served by leaving the European Union and taking back control, this deal delivers the biggest restoration of sovereignty in our parliamentary history and the biggest devolution of power to UK democratic institutions.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): If I may, I say to the hon. Lady that I understand the point she makes, but she has had an answer, I believe, from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor yesterday. I think it will be clear to everybody that the best way to avoid any disruption from a no-deal Brexit is to vote for this deal today—to vote for this deal to get it done. I think that will unleash a great tide of investment into this country and be a demonstration of confidence in the UK economy. By voting for this deal tonight, we will deliver a powerful, positive shot in the arm for the UK economy, and I hope very much that she will do so Once more, under this agreement, British people will be able to live under laws made by representatives whom they alone elect and can remove—laws enforced by British judges in British courts.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): The Prime Minister must recognise that the arrangements that he has come to for Northern Ireland precisely do not deliver that for the people of Northern Ireland. Of course, opinion may be divided in Northern Ireland as to whether they want that or not, but the reality is that the vassalage clauses—as they have been described by the Leader of the House in the past—will continue to apply to Northern Ireland after the transition has ended for the rest of Great Britain. How does the Prime Minister square that with the recovery of sovereignty promised to the entirety of the British people?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): We can square that very simply by pointing out that, yes, of course, there are transitory arrangements for some aspects of the Northern Ireland economy, but they automatically dissolve and are terminated after four years unless it is the majority decision of the Assembly of Northern Ireland to remain in alignment with those arrangements either in whole or in part. The principle of consent is therefore at the heart of the arrangements. Under the Bill, British farmers will escape the frequently perverse effects of the common agricultural policy; British fishermen, liberated from arcane quotas, will be free to fish in a way that is both more sensible and sustainable; and this House will be free to legislate for the highest possible standards.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Owen William Paterson (Conservative, Centre-right): Will the Prime Minister give the House a categorical assurance that we will not make the mistake of the 1970s and use our marine resources and fish stocks as a bargaining chip to be traded during the upcoming negotiations? Will he guarantee that we will take total, 100% control of all our waters and resources within the exclusive economic zone and, like any other independent marine nation, will then annually engage in common- sense negotiations of a reciprocal nature with our marine neighbours?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Environment
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady raises an important point. People will need reassurance about that. There can be no regression. The UK will maintain the highest possible standards. Let me make the point more clearly. If the EU decides that it wishes to introduce new legislation on social protection, it will be automatic that the House will consider that. As I say, there will be an amendable motion by which the Government will give parliamentary time for the implementation of that measure. That is the opportunity that the Bill gives us. In essence, it takes back to the House the powers to decide such matters. I do not believe that we should shy away from those responsibilities or lack confidence in our collective ability to use those powers for the public good It is thanks to the efforts of Labour and Conservative Members that the House is already ensuring that this country does more to tackle climate change than almost any other country in the EU. Our Environment Bill will enshrine the highest standards possible.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Environment
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): We have already said that we will set out how we propose to address the concerns of hon. Members on unfair dismissals and TUPE. I understand the hon. Lady’s desire to get cracking—my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary will write to Members with more details—but I can certainly commit to her now across the Floor of the House that we will indeed commit to a date for the implementation of those measures Our Environment Bill enshrines the highest standards in law: far-reaching and legally binding targets to reduce plastics, restore biodiversity, and clean up our air and water.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Environment
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): Because it is absolutely clear on the face of the Bill and from what I have said that this country will maintain the highest possible standards and will give this House the collective ability to keep pace with Brussels and, indeed, to do better As I say, we have the highest possible environmental standards. We will match the environmental standards that Brussels brings forward. Indeed, we now have the opportunity to do better. I have stressed for four years—[Interruption.] No, that is not true. It is said from a sedentary position that we have always had the opportunity to do better. I am afraid that that is mistaken. There are plenty of ways in which we are currently prohibited from going forward with higher standards. Under the Bill, we will have the power in this House to do something for which I think the people of this country have yearned for years, which is to strengthen controls on the live transport of animals. I hope we will do that now. That is currently forbidden under EU law On fiscal measures, we will now have the power to cut VAT on sanitary products. As for the protection of workers, we will now be able, under the Bill, to take action against employers and agencies who undercut our laws, including where agencies bring in overseas labour from the EU so that local people do not get a look in. That is currently impossible within the EU Clause 34 and the accompanying provisions in schedule 5 include a duty on any Minister—to get to the point that has been raised—who introduces relevant legislation to make clear that workers’ rights will not be weakened in any way. Whether it is tackling air pollution or enhancing biodiversity, this country can do better than simply sticking with EU norms. We can achieve our vision of a dynamic, high-wage, low-tax market economy precisely because we champion high skills and high standards.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful to the hon. Lady. It is very, very important that we stress—I must make myself absolutely clear—that Northern Ireland is leaving the EU with the rest of the UK, whole and entire. We have achieved with this deal what I think few people thought was possible: Northern Ireland is leaving the EU as part of a single customs territory with the rest of the UK. On her specific point, there will be no checks between NI and GB, nor would she expect there to be. It is made absolutely clear in article 6 of the protocol. It is up to the UK Government to insist on unfettered access for trade NI-GB. I give way with pleasure and with respect to the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds).
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): For the clarification of the right hon. Gentleman—I know he realises this already—there are no checks GB-NI. There will be some light touch measures to ensure there is no illegal trade—[Laughter.]—in endangered animal species and banned firearms, which I think he would agree was sensible. The most important point is that even these measures evaporate and are terminated automatically. They automatically dissolve unless a majority of the Northern Ireland Assembly in Stormont votes to keep them Furthermore, to get to the right hon. Gentleman’s point, there is a further sense in which these measures are transitory. They all may be replaced in the great work of beginning the free trade agreement and the new partnership that we intend to build between the UK and the EU—a work in which I devoutly hope Northern Irish Members will be involved in building a whole UK-whole world free trade policy. That is the prize before us. The UK, and the UK alone, will control these vital standards as we leave For those who share my belief in the transformative power of free trade, perhaps the single greatest engine of global prosperity, a new deal, enabled by this Bill, will allow us to sign free trade agreements around the world.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Environment
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I can indeed make that commitment, and I thank the right hon. Lady for the work she is doing to champion the environment. I remind her and the House that our Environment Bill will set up, for the first time, legally binding targets and an office for environmental protection to enforce those targets in this country. The crucial thing that will reassure her is that in the event of the EU bringing forward new legislation, we in this Government will bring forward an amendable motion so that the House may choose to match those standards.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I must make some progress. This new deal will allow us to sign free trade agreements around the world, encouraging innovation, lowering prices, maximising opportunities for world-beating British companies to find new markets and bringing good new jobs to communities who, for too long, have been left behind. Let me repeat: in any future trade negotiations with our country, our national health service will never be on the table I wish to say something not just to those who think that Brexit is a great opportunity, as I of course do, but to the 16 million who voted to remain.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Labor
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): On workers’ rights, the EU requires employers to offer 14 weeks of maternity pay. In the UK, we offer 39 weeks of maternity pay. If we wanted to reduce workers’ rights, why would this Government not have done that already?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
George Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is being characteristically generous in giving way. So that we are absolutely clear, going back to the Northern Ireland issue, I ask him again: is it his and the Government’s intention—as I understood and still understand it to be—that in the phase in which we negotiate a free trade agreement, we would negotiate it on the basis that Northern Ireland would form a whole and singular part of that agreement and therefore be treated exactly the same as Kent?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I can confirm that we will be doing that, but it is probably best done in the course of the Bill, and we should get on with the debate as fast as possible Let me come to our compatriots in Northern Ireland. This Bill upholds in full the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, as Lord Trimble has attested, and our unwavering commitment to Northern Ireland’s place in the Union.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I thank him and his party for the work they have done to help us to change this deal very, very much for the better, and he played an instrumental role in that On the point that the right hon. Gentleman raises, he knows that this is a reserved issue, and I simply return to my point: the salient feature of these arrangements is that they evaporate. They disintegrate. They vanish, unless a majority of the Northern Ireland Assembly elects to keep them. I think that it is up to Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to assemble that majority if they so choose. Further, there is an opportunity to vary those arrangements in the course of the free trade agreement and the new partnership that I hope he will join us in building together.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): This new deal explicitly respects the territorial integrity of the UK. It takes the United Kingdom, whole and entire, out of the EU, and, of course, there is a set of special provisions applying to Northern Ireland—
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): There is absolutely no provision for the EU to have a say. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are special provisions in the agreement that apply to Northern Ireland in respect of trade in goods, sanitary and phytosanitary measures and the single electricity market. The benefit of that temporary four-year alignment is that it allows us to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland—that is its great benefit—and to respect the Good Friday process, but those arrangements are automatically terminated after—
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): Is not the fundamental point that, in order to deliver the UK whole, secure and prosperous out of the EU, Members of this House need to vote for Second Reading and, yes, vote for the programme motion so that it can all be done on time, and then stand firm behind the Prime Minister and his negotiating team, so that he has the power to deliver just the relationship that is being urged upon him to put before the House in due course?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you for your good offices, Mr Speaker. Trying to square the difficult circle of delivering Brexit under the umbrella of the Good Friday agreement and maintaining peace on the island of Ireland was always going to be a big ask. Not everybody will be happy with what the Prime Minister’s is bringing forward, but all communities should be happy that nobody is talking about a coach and horses being driven through the Good Friday agreement and that there are no communities, particularly on the border, that now fear a resurrection of violence, bloodshed and hatred. He is to be congratulated.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I can indeed assure the hon. Lady that there will be no crashing out, because we will negotiate a great new friendship and partnership within the timescale. I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House have every confidence in the Government to do that. They said we could not change the withdrawal agreement in the 90 days we had, that we would never get rid of the backstop and that we would not get a new deal, but we did get a new deal—we got a great deal—for this House and this country, and we will get a great new free trade agreement and a new partnership for our country Before us lies the great project of building a new friendship with our closest neighbours across the channel. That is the common endeavour of our whole nation, and that will begin with clause 31, which will give Parliament a clear role, including the hon. Lady.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Foreign Trade
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): Obviously I have a vision of this country having a very close friendship and partnership with the EU, but also being able to engage in free trade deals around the world. I think that those objectives are compatible, and I think that the way in which they can be made compatible is evident in this great new deal that we have done, but it is of course open to the hon. Lady to work with us to take it forward.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: Technology
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the Prime Minister on securing a deal. I never doubted it for a minute. [Laughter.] Can he reassure me that the moment the Bill receives Royal Assent—hopefully sooner rather than later—he will work tirelessly, along with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to secure the closest possible relationship with European science and research funding programmes?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): By your leave, Mr Speaker, I shall make some progress Let us pause for a second and reflect on the scale of the choices before us. If we rejected this new deal, what would the House be saying to the country and to the world? What alternative course of action is open to us? Is it to undo Brexit and cancel the greatest democratic exercise in the country’s history? Even now, I find it impossible to believe that any democrat would contemplate such a course. Time and again the House has promised to honour the referendum, and the fact that the Leader of the Opposition is now proposing a rerun shows a regrettable contempt for the verdict of the British people. The House has repeatedly rejected a second referendum, and, in my view, must emphatically do so again.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate our Prime Minister on achieving this deal. I had always thought that it would be enormously challenging to get all the other 27 leaders to agree to change the existing deal. However, this deal needs to be voted through not only by us but by the European Parliament, and it needs to be ratified across Europe. Does the Prime Minister agree that if we do not support the programme motion tonight, we will add great, great uncertainty, and will push up the risk of no deal?