argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend refers to the fact that the Government now say that there will be a vote on the eventual deal. I presume that what they mean is that, under the provisions of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, there will be a single vote on an unamendable motion in relation to a treaty. I do not think that that is good enough. If the European Parliament—and, for that matter, the Irish Dáil and the French Assemblée Nationale—will have the right to consider such a treaty line by line, this House should have that right as well.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with my hon. Friend, but the House must have a proper plan and, in the words of my Front-Bench colleague, a "meaningful" opportunity to scrutinise the agreement in draft, rather than being presented with a fait accompli at the end of the process. This is one example of how the Government have had to be pushed, cajoled and prodded at every stage into giving Parliament its proper role I say to the Secretary of State—this may not be his fault—that it is extraordinary that we meet here today, and are being asked to vote on this Bill tomorrow, when not a single Government document setting out the consequences has been published. Seven months after the British people reached their decision, there has been no economic assessment, no analysis of the options, and no White Paper. That is not the way to do things and that attitude must change. The Government need to recognise that Parliament should be not a bystander but a participant in what is probably the most complex and significant negotiation that this country has ever faced. We have to unwind and recast 43 years of relationships with our neighbours. It affects every area of our national life, every part of the country, every person, community and business, and the jobs and incomes on which they depend. It is therefore essential that we have unity of purpose in trying to get the best deal for Britain, despite the inevitable uncertainty of the outcome We will come to the issues of substance in Committee and subsequently. What does special access to the single market mean now that the Prime Minister has decided that we are leaving it? How exactly will seeking to remain and leave the customs union at the same time work? If ensuring a continuation of tariff and barrier-free trade is a priority for Ministers, but Europe comes back and says, "You can’t have your cake and eat it. You have to choose," I trust that the Government will choose to remain in the customs union. The world is more uncertain now than at any time over the past 60 years, so how will we continue to co-operate with our neighbours on foreign policy, defence, security and the fight against terrorism Finally, the referendum result revealed something else: two great political forces in the western world are now reflected in our politics. On the one hand, people desire greater devolution and control in a world in which many believe that we barely have any control at all owing to the pace of change in our lives. On the other hand, every single Member of the House, whether we voted leave or remain, understands that in the modern world we have to co-operate with our neighbours to deal with the great challenges that we will face in the years and centuries ahead. Leaving the European Union may change the balance between the two, but it will not change the necessity to embrace both as we look to the future.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: Government Operations
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and for his thoughts on democracy. Does he accept that Members in this House have less information about this crucial decision than the average local ward councillor has about their annual budget?
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Margaret Mary Beckett (Labour, Centre-left): May I say at once that although I deeply regret the decision made by the British people, including in my constituency, to leave the EU, I do not seek to challenge it? I regret the opening remark made by the Secretary of State—I am sorry he is not here to hear me say this—that this debate is about whether or not we trust the British people. It is not about that; it is about whether we commence the process of implementing their decision, a process that will not be simple, easy or fast. It does no one any favours to pretend otherwise Although I accept that decision and I will vote for the Bill, I fear that its consequences, both for our economy and our society, are potentially catastrophic. I therefore hope that the practice of dismissing any calls, queries and concerns, however serious and well founded, as merely demonstrating opposition to the will of the British people will now cease, along with the notion that they would merely obstruct the process. Once we commence this process, there are serious and profound questions to address, and it helps nobody to cheapen it in that way A second practice I deplore is that of pretending that the question the public actually answered—whether to leave the European Union or to remain—is instead the question some leave campaigners would prefer them to have answered. I hear many claiming that the people voted to leave the single market—that they voted to leave the customs union. First, those were not the words on the ballot paper. Secondly, although we all have our own recollections of the debate, mine is that whenever we who campaigned to remain raised the concerns that if we were to leave the EU to end the free movement of people, we might, in consequence, find that we have to leave the single market, with massive implications for jobs and our economy, some leave campaigner would immediately pop up to assure the people that no such complications or problems were likely to arise and that we could have—
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Margaret Mary Beckett (Labour, Centre-left): I am looking at one of them now. They would suggest that we could have our cake and eat it—that we could leave the EU not only without jeopardy to our economy, but even with advantage, because we could negotiate other trading relationships without any such uncomfortable ties.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: Foreign Trade
Margaret Mary Beckett (Labour, Centre-left): No, honestly I do not particularly recall that. I recall those in the leave campaign saying that we could have trading arrangements with a whole lot of other countries, and I am going to turn to that now. India was cited as one example, but I have the distinct impression that when the Prime Minister discussed these issues with the President of India she may have been advised that far from closing the immigration door, he would like to see it opened wider. Nor do I think a trade deal with China will be without any quid pro quo.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Margaret Mary Beckett (Labour, Centre-left): I am extraordinarily grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, because not only do I recall it, but I originally had it in my speech, only to take it out on the grounds of time As for the United States, I am sure that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, who, like me has had a degree of experience in complex international negotiations, is as conscious as I am that one of the first prerequisites is to listen to the words. It was not the President of the United States who said that Britain would be at the front of the queue, it was British politicians. What the President said was, "You’re doing great." I do not take much comfort from that, especially coming as it does from a President whose motto is "America first." I wholly share the fears that have been expressed, and that probably will be again in this debate, about the possibility of America’s companies wishing to exploit the healthcare market here or weaken our regulations on, for example, food safety The negotiations we will trigger with this Bill will be extraordinarily difficult and very time-consuming. I do not think for a second that they can be concluded within two years, and I do not think anybody who has ever negotiated anything would. It will therefore be vital to make allowance and preparations for possible transitional arrangements I am conscious of the time, so I shall make my final point. It is not clear whether the Prime Minister frightened the European Commission with her threat to devastate our tax base and, in consequence, all our public services, but she successfully frightened me. I do not believe—not for one second—that that is what the British people thought they were voting for. When this process is concluded, the European Parliament will have the right to vote on the outcome. If taking back control means anything, it must mean that this House enjoys the same right.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Catharine Letitia Hoey (Labour, Centre-left): I will, not surprisingly, be wholeheartedly voting to trigger article 50 tomorrow evening. I have also used my judgment. I accept that Lambeth voted overwhelmingly for remain but, as I have made very, very clear, this was a United Kingdom referendum, not a constituency or borough-based referendum. I welcome the many letters that I have received from my constituents—a lot were very pleasant—regretting that I will vote to trigger article 50. I have also had many nasty, venomous letters, not necessarily from my constituents, but from across the country. I resent and deplore the language that has been thrown around over the past few months. It comes not just from one side. There is a tendency to think that it is only the remainers who have had some pretty awful things said about them. Pretty dreadful things have been said by some who voted to remain against people such as me who stood out against our own party. None of it is acceptable. Members all need to do their bit to ensure that we seek to improve the level of political discourse, especially over the years when we are involved in our negotiations Like the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), I remember the Maastricht treaty debate, when I was a relatively new Member of Parliament. Time after time, the Labour party made us come along to vote against all the amendments but then, when it came to the final vote, we were ordered to abstain I welcome the speech made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). I welcome his tone, the graveness of the way in which he put his argument, and his honesty about the difficulty that Labour faces on this issue. I am very pleased that my party has decided not to block the referendum decision; it would be a travesty if we did I wish to raise a couple of annoying things that people keep saying. One is that people did not know what they were voting for. It is said that those who voted to leave did not understand what that meant. That really is patronising, and it shows part of the reason why so many people voted to leave—they were fed up being treated as if they knew nothing and as if those in power knew more than them.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Catharine Letitia Hoey (Labour, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. At the many meetings I spoke at all over the country, there was a fervent interest in the issue. People wanted to know more. I remember hearing the former Prime Minister and the former Chancellor of the Exchequer very clearly warning—not just warning, but threatening—people that if they dared to vote to leave, the consequences would be our leaving the single market. Let us not call it the single market; it is an internal market. If we are leaving the EU, of course we have to leave the internal market. I am sure that, like any other country outside the EU, we will be able to get a deal that allows us to have access to that market.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Catharine Letitia Hoey (Labour, Centre-left): Mr Speaker, my maths are not as good as yours The other matter I want to raise is this idea that if someone voted to leave, they are, if not an outright racist, an indirect racist. It is ridiculous and appalling that the 17 million people who voted to leave are being treated in that way. We know that those people were against not immigrants, but the idea that people from 27 other countries—26 excluding the Republic of Ireland —could come into our country for no other reason than that they could do so. That did not apply to people outside the European Union. We betrayed the people from the Commonwealth so badly back in 1973, yet they had no right to come here. It is all about getting back control. I know that that sounds like a cliché, but it is what we are doing—taking back control of our own country Once we have left the European Union, we will probably have sharp disagreements in the House and not so many cross-party views on a lot of the issues. We want to build—I certainly want to build—a post-Brexit UK that looks at spending priorities that might be very different from those proposed by Members on the other side of the House. I want to look at how we can use new freedoms on state aid in our country, and in order to do that, we must trigger article 50 and get into the negotiations. Our businesses and the country generally want us to get on with it. We have left ourselves in a situation in which we are spending two days of debate on a very simple Bill. The amendments will be considered next week, one or two of which I hope the Government will accept, but the reality is that this is a process that needs to be triggered. We need to do it soon, and the public expect us to do that. I have hope that we can look forward to negotiations that will take this country not to the forbidding place that the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) mentioned—I have no foreboding about our future outside the European Union—but to a bright future. That will happen tomorrow night when we vote to trigger article 50.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Gisela Stuart (Labour, Centre-left): There is a rational case for what the hon. Gentleman says, but as we enter negotiations that is the one area where a unilateral decision on our part would set a tone for those negotiations that would serve EU citizens and UK citizens living in the EU I want to finish with one basic observation. I take a different view. I do not think it is economic success and peace that deliver us liberal democracies. I will not trade liberal democratic structures for anything else. I believe that it is liberal democratic structures that deliver economic success and peace. Therefore, a new modern 21st-century economic liberal democratic structure would give us that democracy and that peace. That is why I hope everyone in this House will vote to trigger article 50.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): It took the Supreme Court to remind us that we live in a parliamentary democracy. It is true that Parliament decided that we should have a referendum, and I find it difficult not to respect the outcome of the vote, but Parliament did not cut itself out of the issue altogether. It did not divest itself of involvement in determining what should happen when the UK withdraws from the EU, which is what the Bill enables. We are discussing the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, not the Maastricht treaty—which, by the way, had 23 days of debate in Committee—or the Lisbon treaty, the Amsterdam treaty or the Single European Act. This Bill is more important than all those Bills wrapped together and multiplied by a large factor.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment That is why we should look carefully at what this Bill says. This Bill says, grudgingly, that Ministers will come and get permission from Parliament for the notification, but then they try to yank it right back to the Prime Minister, so that it is entirely, 100% back in the hands of Ministers alone to determine our fate outside the European Union. That is why I just cannot bring myself to vote in favour of this Bill: there are so many issues, so many ramifications and so many questions surrounding our withdrawal from the European Union that it is our duty—it is what the Supreme Court insisted we should do—to ensure due diligence and look at all the issues surrounding this question That is why I have decided to table a few, very judicious amendments to the Bill, to try to cover off a few corners of the questions that I think it needs to address. What will happen, for example, in our relationship with the single market? What are we doing for potentially tariff-free access or frictionless trade across the rest of Europe? Will we be able to have such advantages again? These are the questions that were not on the ballot paper, which simply asked whether we should remain in or leave the European Union. The ballot paper did not go into all those details, which are for Parliament to determine. It is for us as Members of Parliament to do our duty by performing scrutiny and ensuring that we give a steer to Ministers—that we give them their instructions on how we should be negotiating our withdrawal from the European Union I personally do not have faith in the Prime Minister’s vision for a hard Brexit—because it is a hard Brexit. We may currently be falling very gently through the air, like the skydiver who has jumped out of the aeroplane—"What seems to be the problem? We’re floating around"—but I worry about the impact. I worry about hitting the ground and the effect not just on our democracy, but on our constituents and their jobs and on the growth that we ought to be enjoying in the economy to keep pace with our competitors worldwide.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Angela Christine Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is giving an excellent speech. Will he confirm the view, which is held quite widely on the Opposition Benches, that absolutely critical to a successful Brexit will be membership of the single market?
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely, and it beggars belief that we will not even be given the opportunity to debate that in this legislative process—a process, by the way, that the Government are so afraid to go into that they have given it a measly three days in Committee, an eighth of the time given to scrutinise the provisions of the Maastricht treaty. If they were not so frightened of debate, they would allow the House to go through all these questions. What happens to EU nationals? Will they have rights to stay? It should be for Parliament to determine these things. Are we going to have a transitional arrangement, so that we do not fall off that cliff edge when we get to 1 April 2019? What about visa-free travel? What happens to the financial services trade? It may not face tariffs; it may face a ban on trading altogether in various different areas For the Prime Minister to have already accepted the red lines of the other European Union 27 countries—for her to have thrown in the towel on single market membership without even trying to adapt free movement and find a consensus, which I think would be available—is a failure of her approach at the outset. For her to accept the red line that we are not allowed to have parallel discussions and negotiations—that we can only do the divorce proceedings in these two years and then maybe talk about the new relationship—is a failure of the negotiations.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Emma Elizabeth Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): I certainly remember the Vote Leave campaign bus that promised £350 million a week for the NHS, which we unfortunately saw on our TV screens night in, night out, but I digress in following the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) I campaigned to remain in the EU, but I accept the result of the referendum and will vote for this Bill tomorrow. The leader of the Liberal Democrats calls that cowardly; I call it democracy. We held a national referendum. Those of us on the remain side might not like the result, but we have to accept it. It was close, but it was clear—and it was clear in my constituency. However, that does not mean that the Government get a free pass, and it does not mean that if I strive to hold them to account, I am an enemy of the people. After all, the Government are accountable to this place and have already made some major errors not just on the substance of these negotiations, but on the tone. For example, it is the height of irresponsibility for the Foreign Secretary to choose to pick needless fights with our EU counterparts when we are about to embark on one of the most complicated and sensitive negotiations in our history. His focus, like ours, should be on securing the best deal for the UK and the rest of the EU For me, today’s debate is not about whether we leave the EU, but about how this House holds the Government to account at every stage of the process and makes sure that they secure the best deal for the UK. After all, a bad deal or no deal could have catastrophic results for our economy, for jobs, for investment and for the living standards of the people we represent.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: International Affairs
Angela Eagle (Labour, Centre-left): I quite enjoyed the speech by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) until the last bit Today we debate not just this shortest of short Bills but our intention to set in train enormous constitutional, legal, political, social and economic changes for our country. Yet this was a debate the Government did not want us to have. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the highest court in the land and ordered to give this sovereign Parliament a say, taken there by a brave woman who is now receiving death threats for her trouble. The Government tried to claim that taking back control meant the revival of government by diktat using the royal prerogative—an abuse that the civil war was fought to eliminate Literally everything we have legislated for in the past 40 years through the EU is now up for grabs: rights at work, health and safety, environmental standards, regulation, consumer rights, food standards, and trading rules.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-31
Topic: Foreign Trade
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): Does the hon. Gentleman recognise, however, that if we do not get a deal—the Prime Minister has said that that is a possibility —we could end up with a 10% tariff on cars being exported from the UK? That would be very damaging to the west midlands car industry.