argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): The Prime Minister appears to be saying that President Tusk’s suggestion of a Canada deal is not acceptable because it would result in some kind of hard border. That is not something I accept, but perhaps my hon. Friend can comment on it. If we have the facilitated customs arrangement, will we not need some tracking device and, if we have a tracking device, could that not be used to alleviate any hard border in Northern Ireland?
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): Mr Speaker, I am conscious that I am going beyond the guidance that you gave us, and I am very grateful to you for allowing that What I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) is that I believe that the problems of the Irish border are first and foremost to do with political and administrative will. A great deal has been said about technology, which is in fact a distraction from the reality that there is already a border, particularly in relation to excise. It is necessary to have an element of political and administrative fudge on the border, if I may say so, but to do it in a way that works for both sides. I believe that it really is political and administrative will that stands in the way, and that there are no insurmountable problems on the border. I also believe that there are no insurmountable problems with customs declarations or rules of origin. I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) might touch on that, as I know that he is an expert on the subject The second point is to table legal text to stand ready in good faith to negotiate the landing zone set out by the President and Council and to be ready to deliver in the spirit of article 8 The third thing we must do is that thing which the Cabinet resolved collectively at Chequers. We must accelerate the delivery of our plans to leave the European Union in the unwanted eventuality that nothing can be agreed. We must be ready. We cannot allow ourselves to be in a position where complacency means that the Government machine goes forward thinking that any deal will go through Parliament, when I feel confident that deals that are, for want of a better term, too soft will be rejected by this House. We cannot allow ourselves to be put in a position in which we are perhaps not as ready as we should be and a deal is unexpectedly voted down.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to wrap up. The right hon. Gentleman intervened on me so many times when I was in another role that I hope that he will forgive me for not giving way now I am sure that our country is on the cusp of delivering a catalysing transformation both of global free trade and corresponding political institutions in delivering democratic self-government that can deliver on the aspirations of the British people. There is a greater future ahead for the UK, Europe and the world if we do it, but if those who set the climate of opinion and decide what we shall do persist in turning their face against accepting the democratic decision and the red lines that people expect us to fulfil, and thus rejecting President Tusk’s vision of where we should land together, it will be their fault if we end up exiting this European Union with nothing agreed.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Luke Patrick Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is talking about minorities. The SNP is in a minority Administration in Edinburgh. It does not own Scotland and it cannot speak for all of Scotland. We are here—Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative MPs—speaking for our constituencies in Scotland. We want to remain part of the United Kingdom and my constituents will respect the votes of the United Kingdom.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Hugo Swire (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have very little time for this important debate, and I suspect that at any stage you might limit our speeches, yet the debate seems to be turning into an internal, navel-gazing exercise by the SNP about what it has and has not achieved at Holyrood. Can we get back to the subject of the debate, which is the future relationship between the UK and the EU?
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew John Bower Mitchell (Conservative, Centre-right): I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests I want to extend the warmest possible congratulations to the new Secretary of State on joining the Cabinet—I know he has had to pop out for a short while—and to salute the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker). Whether one agrees or disagrees with him, he is clearly a man of integrity and principle. He worked incredibly hard in his Department This is the first contribution that I have made to any of the Brexit debates. It was 25 years ago that I was a Government Whip engaged in securing support for the Maastricht treaty, with Britain’s two opt-outs, so brilliantly negotiated by John Major. I learned from that experience the deep and fierce passions on Europe that are held by so many of my friends and colleagues across the House, and in particular on the Conservative Benches I have to say, in all honesty, that the position today is far worse in terms of internal conflict and disagreement than ever it was during the Maastricht era. Of course the divisions are not just within this side of the House; they run throughout our constituencies—mine was divided almost exactly 50:50—and between friends and family. They have led to a breakdown in collective responsibility in the Cabinet, with a consequent breakdown in normal party discipline far worse than anything we remotely saw during the parliamentary stages of Maastricht. This breakdown in relationships, these deep divisions in this place and outside, are going to be very difficult indeed to heal I come now to the White Paper. I was dismayed, although not surprised, that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) resigned; dismayed because, despite some of the ludicrous, and at times mischievous, briefings he was subjected to, he was so clearly the right negotiator for Britain, with his business and European experience making him uniquely qualified for the task I have always felt throughout this process, as a Back-Bench Member of Parliament, that the best interests of my constituents are served by supporting the Executive in these very difficult negotiations: that the legislature—that is us—should give the Executive some leeway and the benefit of the doubt. That is not an enormously dissimilar approach to the way the 27 other stakeholders in the EU are more or less rowing in behind Monsieur Barnier. But in the end, particularly in a Parliament where there is no majority, and where therefore power has so self-evidently passed from the Cabinet room to the Floor of the House of Commons, it is we, the legislature, who will decide, and the House of Commons that will reach its verdict on the deal that the Executive negotiates. It is for that reason that the arguments for a meaningful vote are so essential and have had to prevail, as they have done, in the House.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew John Bower Mitchell (Conservative, Centre-right): That is a very true maxim, and one that is engraved on the walls of the Government Whips Office It seems to me that there are now really only two possible outcomes. The first is a deal based very largely on the Chequers settlement. Both my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) have honourably and eloquently voiced reservations and no one is going to be entirely satisfied with what has been produced, but the current Administration have basically bet the farm on the Chequers formula and will now have to repel all boarders, if I may mix my metaphors, whether from Brussels or from Somerset Many of us regret the Government’s decision to give in at the first whiff of grapeshot emanating from the west country earlier this week, precisely because giving in will make it more difficult to resist counter-pressure from other directions for change. It is extraordinarily unlikely that we will do better than the plan set out in the White Paper, but there ought to be enough in the broad Chequers outline for people of good will to work with and coalesce around.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew John Bower Mitchell (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a wise and sensible point I have just set out the first option. The alternative option, I believe, is no deal, and I fear it is as simple as that. If there is no deal, I am sure we will survive and all will be fine in 10 years’ time, but it will not be fine at the outset. No deal—at least at first—will threaten our levels of growth and risk the living standards and prospects of those we are sent here to represent. It risks endangering the opportunities we want to see for our constituents, not least the younger ones leaving education and entering the world of work. And it will be this Administration who will be blamed: whether people voted leave or remain, the Conservative party owns this process and will be held to account for no deal. In any event, the Government need now to increase massively their planning for this eventuality and, in my submission, to report to Parliament in detail on it when we return in the autumn I have one final point to make. There are those who, with great eloquence, advance the case for a second referendum, but I have come to the conclusion that while it is just possible that Parliament might wish to seek public endorsement of the deal itself, it is most unlikely. That is because if we held another referendum with a different result, why not have the best of three? We see ourselves as a serious country, we have settled the matter in a significant referendum, and for better or worse we are leaving.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Hugo Swire (Conservative, Centre-right): Could not my right hon. Friend cite as an example what happened over the Lisbon treaty and the Republic of Ireland, when its voters were invited to have a second referendum, but not until the EU had made it worth their while to vote in a different way? Does my right hon. Friend fear that that could happen here if we had a second referendum, and be very divisive?
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew John Bower Mitchell (Conservative, Centre-right): For the reasons I have set out, I think another referendum would be profoundly divisive, and actually it might not advance agreement in our country and bring people back together again The Government must now use the summer to advance the case that they all agreed at Chequers and move towards some specific agreement with the EU. It will then be for the Government to propose, but for this House to dispose.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I did not mean to blame civil servants. I mean to blame the broadest governing class, the establishment, which is well represented in here and which clearly does not believe in leaving the European Union. I have paid tribute to civil servants over and over again. The people I have worked with have been the most outstanding professionals and I am proud to have worked with them.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Masterton (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns about the White Paper, and I share some of them, but I think that it is a deal worth fighting for. If the Prime Minister succeeds in getting the European Union to agree to this, is he seriously saying that the Labour party would vote down a deal that was good but not perfect, and walk through the Lobby with some of my hard-line Eurosceptic colleagues so that we would end up with no deal at all, given that we both know the economic consequences that that would have for this country? Will he accept the deal or not?
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that in order to move the negotiations along it would be helpful if those on the other side of the negotiating table understood whether Labour Members were prepared to vote for a deal along the lines of the White Paper? By not answering the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton), the right hon. Gentleman creates greater uncertainty for the negotiators.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): I am glad to follow the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) because he talked about sovereignty, although he rather distorted the focus of it, to put it bluntly, and I will explain why in a moment Brexit is ultimately about our democracy, our sovereignty and our self-government. All the other issues, including our right to free trade with the rest of the world, are subsidiary to the questions of sovereignty, self-government and democracy because they flow from them. This is the ultimate test. To get our sovereignty and our democracy, and to get it right, we must govern ourselves. I am deeply concerned about the White Paper and the Chequers settlement for that reason, and I will set out what I believe will be the practical outcome We have managed to achieve something quite remarkable, which is to turn the gold of democracy into the base metal of subservience—a new kind of alchemy. In other words, we have effectively turned leaving into not leaving in a whole range of areas, despite the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 and despite the EU withdrawal Act itself, the promises made in the Conservative party manifesto and, of course, the result of the 2016 referendum The European Scrutiny Committee, of which I have the honour to be Chairman, unanimously criticised the Government a few months ago. We argued that they are supplicating themselves to the EU and accepting its guidelines, contrary to our lawful departure under article 50, which gives us the legal authority to leave under the treaties. That is a massive strategic mistake. We have summoned Mr Olly Robbins to appear before our Committee and, although the Prime Minister originally was not prepared to allow him to come, he will be appearing before the Committee—that was resolved this morning.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): I hear what my hon. Friend says, but is it not the case that, whenever we enter into a free trade agreement with another country, we will abide by the rules and regulations that it seeks to apply to imported goods? The fact that we choose to do so is our choice, as made either by the Executive or by Parliament. Whether we do a free trade agreement with the EU, New Zealand or Japan is immaterial. We will always have to follow the third party’s guidelines and meet its requirements in order to export to that country.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
John Charles Baron (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to address my remarks to the two core tenets of the EU: the customs union and the single market. I think there is a danger in this place, and perhaps in certain sections of the community outside, of taking the view that people did not know what they voted for when they voted to leave. Not only is that incorrect, but it can come across as very patronising and condescending I think we know what people voted for. The twin tenets of the EU are the single market and the customs union. If that point needs to be reinforced, we have only to look at the two manifestos of the two main political parties at the last general election. They confirmed that we would be leaving the customs union and the single market, and 80% of the electorate voted knowing that to be the case. I take exception to the view that somehow the British electorate did not know what they were voting for. It is particularly important to say that, because I believe that if this Parliament does not accept the will of the British people, we risk pushing the mainstream to the edges of the political spectrum. That would not be a healthy development for democracy in this country.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Charles Baron (Conservative, Centre-right): I think it is quite straightforward. We had a referendum on the question of whether people wanted to stay or leave. The decision was to leave, and the political parties woke up to that fact and put that decision at the heart of their manifestos, on which we then went to the country. I remind the House that it is there in black and white in both manifestos: we will leave the customs union, and we will leave the single market. My concern about the Chequers agreement is that having gone to the country on that basis, there seems to be a bit of a fudge that needs explaining by the Government Let us take the common rulebook and the customs union. It is no accident that the EU has had a problem negotiating free trade deals with countries outside the EU. It does not have a free trade deal with the US, with Australia or with New Zealand. It struggles on emerging markets—big economies like Brazil, India and China. The reason for that, in large part, is that it has protectionist non-tariff barriers that a lot of countries cannot abide. If we incorporate those protectionist non-tariff barriers into our own regulations, that will make our task of negotiating trade deals that much more difficult. It will therefore take away from us one of the key upsides of Brexit, which is to negotiate our own trade deals We all have our own views of President Trump, but one thing that he was very direct about, stating the blindingly obvious, was that if one incorporates protectionist non-tariff barriers as part of one’s own regulations, it will—surprise, surprise—be more difficult to negotiate trade deals. That is why there is concern among Conservative Members about the common rulebook. If we incorporate those rules, it makes trade deals more difficult.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Charles Baron (Conservative, Centre-right): No, I have taken one intervention from the hon. Lady and I am not going to take another. I have taken my two There are these arrangements right across the globe, and they are not a hindrance to trade. We trade profitably with many countries outside the EU on such terms, and that trade is prospering. Those countries are often faster growing than the EU The idea that we must protect the supply chains and that leaving on WTO terms would disrupt them is utter nonsense. Look around the world and at the far east in particular, where a number of complex supply chains cross customs arrangements without any friction. A particular example of that is Japan, which has outsourced much of its manufacturing capability to countries such as China because of the strength of its yen. The bottom line is that that has made for good trade and actually it has helped to lower costs. If we ignore the wishes of the British electorate as expressed at the referendum, I really do worry that we will push the mainstream in this country towards the extremes of the political spectrum, because people will have lost faith in this place to deliver what they clearly believe they voted for, which is to leave the EU, and that meant leaving the customs union and the single market. Anything less than that will be seen as a betrayal by the British electorate.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would like to consider this: at least virtually the totality of the Conservative party was here to take part in the debate, which cannot be said about other parties. Will he also bear in mind that what matters to both his constituents and mine, in areas heavily dependent on the City and financial services, is that we ensure security of access to the best available talent and, above all, a form of regulatory alignment that goes beyond the proposals in the White Paper? They are a starting point, and I support the White Paper, but we need to go further to give the City the ability to bring in the billions of pounds of tax revenue that subsidise the public services of everyone in this country, including leave voters as well as remain voters.
Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU — House of Commons, 2018-07-18
Topic: International Affairs
Hugo Swire (Conservative, Centre-right): We can all quibble about how this whole process has been handled, from the perhaps premature triggering of article 50 through to the backstop arrangements and how much we will pay the EU. Indeed, some of us have continuing concerns about the continuing reach of the European Court of Justice—