argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady raises an important point. It is clear from the European Council that, within the EU, we will be looking at the whole question of enhancing our ability to deal with potential CBRN attacks. Regarding the wider group of countries to which she refers, I understand that the NATO summit this summer will be looking at the question of sharing capabilities. We recognise that certain countries hold certain capabilities and expertise, and it is important that they can be put to the use of others when necessary.
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Andrew William Murrison (Conservative, Centre-right): Although the improvements at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory Porton Down are very welcome, does the Prime Minister agree that the abolition of the CBRN Joint Regiment in 2011 appears, in the light of current events, to have been premature? As part of the defence review, will she consider rebuilding that facility?
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is right that the British Council did extremely good work. As she will know, the Russians have taken action against the British Council. In a few minutes, I will mention one or two other things that might be of interest to her We are building up our defences against Russia’s cyber-threat more broadly, investing almost £2 billion in our national cyber-security strategy, and have opened a new National Cyber Security Centre, which is actively working with international partners, industry and civil society to tackle this threat. We are also working with our European partners to support the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, in Helsinki. We are calling out Russia’s malign behaviour in cyber-space, as we did last month, when, together with the US and other allies, we attributed the NotPetya cyber-attack to the Russian military We are investing millions of pounds in countering Russian disinformation efforts, including more investment in public service and independent media operating in the Russian language through projects in the Baltic states, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, and through reinvigorating the BBC Russia service as an independent source of news for Russian speakers.
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): We do, of course, look at the resources that are provided to the BBC World Service; obviously, the BBC World Service television is on a slightly different basis. It is important that we reinvigorate the BBC Russia service, as it can provide an important independent source of news for Russian speakers. As the House knows, we already have the largest defence budget in Europe and second largest in NATO, meeting the 2% standard and set to increase every year of this Parliament. As I mentioned previously, we have also commissioned the national security capability review, which will report shortly, and the modernising defence programme, to ensure that our defence and security capabilities are optimised to address the threats that we face, including those from Russia Following the incident in Salisbury, we have of course taken further measures. We are dismantling the Russian espionage network in our country and will not allow it to be rebuilt. We are urgently developing proposals for new legislative powers to harden our defences against all forms of hostile state activity—this will include the addition of a targeted power to detain those suspected of such activity at the UK border—and considering whether there is a need for new counter-espionage powers to clamp down on the full spectrum of hostile activities of foreign agents in our country We are making full use of existing powers to enhance our efforts to monitor and track the intentions of those travelling to the UK who could be engaged in activity that threatens the security of the UK and our allies. This includes increasing checks on private flights, customs and freight and freezing Russian state assets wherever we have the evidence that they may be used to threaten the life or property of UK nationals or residents.
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): Madam Deputy Speaker, what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, particularly when we have had such a demonstration of moral relativism—such an apologia, in many ways, for a regime that has really done nothing to justify the explanations that have been permitted it May I welcome the clarity that you have brought to this debate, when all that we have had from some parties is very much the opposite? We have had obfuscation, deception and dissimulation. We have had all the tricks and all the terms that we are used to when we talk about a regime that has institutionalised lies, deception and dishonesty not, as Churchill put it, as vanguards for the truth, but instead of the truth. These are attempts not to build a better world, but to destroy one that is trying to serve the people of these islands and our allies and friends I am privileged to be speaking today about security. We have heard—and no doubt we will hear more—about how security is built on military hardware, and Members will not, quite understandably, hear me resile from that point. However, security is, of course, not built just on military hardware. It is not built just on the training teams that, even now, are helping the Ukrainians to defend themselves against the Russian tanks that are in Donetsk and in the Donbass, and that care about the overflights over Ukraine. It is not just about the British battalion that is, even now, in Estonia, demonstrating to the Russians that the NATO commitment is real. Those British troops are not there just because they are capable, but to demonstrate that an attack on one is an attack on all.
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but he is slightly limited in what he said. He should have said, quite accurately, that it sends a deep signal of alarm across this House, and I look here even at friends in the Scottish National party and at many on the Labour Benches, who will remember, of course, who it was who built NATO: Clement Attlee. Who was it who built the independent nuclear deterrent? It was the Attlee Government, who recognised that the United Kingdom had a role to play as a force for good in the world. That was an era when socialism loved Britain and did not hate it. That was an era when socialism respected the west and did not hate it. That was an era when socialism stood for something and did not stand for nothing.
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Simon Richard Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): Had I had the opportunity to ask the Leader of the Opposition a question in an intervention I would have asked him whether he supported the continuation of our nuclear deterrent. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is absolutely critical and the lynchpin of western security?
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Michael Fallon (Conservative, Centre-right): That is precisely the point that I am about to address. Russia is spending 5% of its GDP on conventional weapons, nuclear weapons, cyber and hybrids, and, as we now know, on a completely illegal chemical weapons programme. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, the NATO 2% is a minimum and not a ceiling. I think the House should consider this—and I do not make the point in a party political way. In the last year of the last century, the Blair Government were spending 2.7% of GDP on defence. That was before 9/11, before Daesh terrorism, before Kim had his nuclear weapons, before cyber-attacks on our own Parliament, and before Russia became more malignant again. I was in the House in 1999, and I do not recall anyone suggesting that our armed forces were overfunded then If we want to continue to lead in NATO, on the ground in the Baltics, in the air over the Black sea, and in the North sea and the north Atlantic in anti-submarine warfare, if we want to go on playing our part in the counter-Daesh coalition, if we want to prop up fragile democracies in Afghanistan, Ukraine and Nigeria, if we want to go on contributing to United Nations peacekeeping in sub-Saharan Africa, and if we want to maintain a presence in the Gulf and recommit ourselves to protecting international trade routes in Asia-Pacific, we must will the means to do so. That means that, along with the modernisation programme that I know my right hon. Friends are now considering, we must now set our minds—and this is the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh)—to a higher defence target. I have said publicly that I think we should commit ourselves, under the next spending review, to meeting a target of at least 2.5% of GDP by the end of the current Parliament If there is one thing that Salisbury has taught us and we have learnt all over again, it is that what Russia really understands is weakness—countries that will not stand up for themselves, will not protect their people, and will not protect their values and the freedoms that they enjoy. We have never been such a country, and Salisbury should remind us all that we never should be.
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Defence Committee think that the way to defeat a modern Russia is the same as the way in which we defeated the USSR? Reagan crushed the USSR’s economy through what was in effect an arms race between a strong and vibrant American economy and a weak Russian one. Does my right hon. Friend think that that could be a way forward?
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): I would certainly say that it is part of a way forward I will use the generous extra minute that I have been given to say that I am a little concerned about the fact that while the Government are right to recognise the existence of new threats, such as cyber threats, digital threats and intensified propaganda threats, including through the abuse of social media, and that we will need to devote resources to meet those new threats, that does not mean that the old threats or the old remedies to them have gone away. I do not like the conflation of national security budgets with defence budgets because that means that if we add more to the national security budget, we have to take more away from the defence budget, unless we listen to the warning from my right hon. Friend the former Defence Secretary, among others, that spending 2% of GDP on defence is not enough In my last few seconds, I cannot resist appealing once again to the Foreign Secretary—I am pleased to see him back on the Front Bench to hear my speech—to save the BBC Monitoring service at Caversham, which we are supposed to be going to visit. It costs £25 million a year to keep it going, but it is going to be decimated and absorbed into a wider system that will not be as effective as the dedicated teams at Caversham. If it was true before that we need to save it, it is even more true now, after all that has happened in recent days.
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): There is one gentleman—one Russian speaker —who mans that centre. I occasionally see him when he comes down from Scotland, and he is still going through the archives, which are effectively nothing more than a hugely understaffed glorified library. I agree that it is a great shame that ARAG was done away with just a couple of years after its most useful report into the Georgian war.
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): I must finish now There is a very sizable minority of people in those states who are not that well treated. Many Russians believe fervently in their soul that those minorities are not well treated and that President Putin has the right to interfere. We have NATO. The Baltic states are not Ukraine. We must not allow what happened in 1940 to happen to the Baltic states. Therefore, words are not enough. We must will the means. We must spend more on defence and put the troops into the Baltic states.
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the hon. Gentleman that now is not the time or place to renew the old debate about nuclear weapons, particularly as the issue has been settled by a vote in this House, but can we not agree on a cross-party basis with the proposition that 2% spent on defence is not enough?
National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: Defense
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): We will be doing more to tackle disinformation in all sorts of ways, including by making sure that we monitor the output of the Russians properly. We will be hardening our defences, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) rightly recommended. We will be going after the money, as the hon. Member for Rhondda, the right hon. Member for Exeter and many others recommended. As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has said, we are unconditionally committed to the defence of our Baltic friends and, yes, we will continue to spend more than any other major European country on defence. Tomorrow all that work goes on, but tonight we mark what I hope will be a watershed moment and a turning point when after all the lies, all the clouds of deceit and all the deployment of Russia’s wearying and sarcastic intercontinental ballistic whoppers—after all the outrage and the provocation that we have had from it—the countries of the world have come together, in numbers far greater than Putin can possibly have imagined, to say that enough is enough We want to be friends with Russia and we want to be friends with the Russian people, but it is up to the Russian Government to change, and to change now. I am proud that it is the British Government who have been in the lead, and I thank Members on both sides of the House, including those on the Opposition Front Bench, for the clarity and moral certainty with which they have spoken today Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered national security and Russia.
Tier 2 Visas — House of Commons, 2018-02-26
Topic: Health
Caroline Fiona Ellen Nokes (Conservative, Centre-right): I reassure the hon. Gentleman that no medical professionals on the shortage occupation list have been refused a visa. It is important that we keep things under review and ensure that we recruit more doctors and nurses from within the UK, and my right hon. Friend the Health and Social Care Secretary is committed to ensuring that the number of training places for both nurses and doctors increases.
Fire Services: Funding and Pay — House of Commons, 2018-02-26
Topic: Defense
Nicholas Richard Hurd (Conservative, Centre-right): What I say to the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] I do apologise—man flu. What I say to the hon. Lady is that the Government are determined to make sure that firefighters, who do difficult, dangerous work—as we have seen today in Leicester—get fair pay for their work. It is also very true, as she suggested, that over recent years they have been asked to make sacrifices as part of the contribution to getting on top of the deficit we inherited from Labour Active pay negotiations are going on between the employer and employees at the moment, which we are watching closely. It is for them to sort out. We believe that fire authorities have the resources to make an appropriate offer, but we are watching the situation closely and engaging with them. If we can help, we will, but we need to see a business case for that.
Fire Services: Funding and Pay — House of Commons, 2018-02-26
Topic: Defense
Nicholas Richard Hurd (Conservative, Centre-right): No one disputes the courageous work that firefighters do: we saw it at Grenfell and we saw it yesterday in Leicestershire. The point is that active negotiations are going on between those who are responsible—employer and employee. Central Government do not have a role in that process, unless we are called in for additional support The hon. Lady mentions reserves. Labour is in denial on this. The fact is that the fire system, which claims to be short of cash, has increased its reserves by £288 million since 2011. Reserves can only be increased by not using the money received, so our question to the fire service is, "Tell us what you’re going to do with the public’s money."
Alcohol Abuse — House of Commons, 2018-02-26
Topic: Health
Sarah James (Wollaston) (Conservative, Centre-right): It has just been confirmed that all alcoholic drinks in Scotland must cost at least 50p per unit from May this year. Will the Minister now review our alcohol strategy to allow us to take up this evidence-based policy that will do so much to tackle the scourge of cheap, high-strength alcohol and reduce pressure on our emergency services?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2018-02-26
Topic: Health
Questions: What progress is being made in bringing together the work of the police service and the fire service as emergency services? Is there not a case also for looking at whether the ambulance service should come under the same jurisdiction?; As soon as the Government’s best-value inspection of Northamptonshire County Council is concluded at the end of March, will the Policing and Fire Minister facilitate the transfer of the fire and rescue service to the police and crime commissioner?; Many constituents have contacted me about the limited provisions on refugee family reunion. Will the Minister undertake to expand those provisions, in line with my constituents’ concerns?; Will the Minister join me in congratulating Kent police, which has been rated outstanding for the third year in a row by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary? It is the only police force to get such a rating and is doing a fantastic job in keeping the residents of Kent and Medway safe.; In Rotherham, 1,510 adult survivors of child sexual exploitation have now been identified by the National Crime Agency. Both the Minister and the Home Secretary know that unless there is a package of support around those adults, the cases will start to falter. Will the Minister support Rotherham’s funding application to get a package of care around those adult survivors?; Will my right hon. Friend confirm that although we are leaving the European Union, the Government remain committed to very close security and counter-terrorism co-operation with our European friends to keep our constituents safe?; I understand that the Minister met the family of Alfie Dingley this morning. Following statements in the House last week that the Minister wants to help to find a solution within the existing regulations, will he update the House on when Alfie and others in a similar position will receive the medicines they need?
Douglas Gordon Ross (Conservative, Centre-right): I have been contacted by a local optician in Elgin. He is a tier 2 sponsor, but because optometry is not listed as a priority profession, he has been affected by the tier 2 cap being reached in recent months. Will the Minister and colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care consider including optometrists as priority professionals for tier 2 visas?
Syria: De-escalation Zones — House of Commons, 2018-02-26
Topic: Defense
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) for bringing this urgent question to the House. As far back as 2017, the United Nations said that the Syrian regime had used chemical weapons on more than two dozen occasions. Would my right hon. Friend now concede that, sadly, due to their regular use over the past few years, chemical munitions are now an accepted weapon of war in the modern era?
Syria: De-escalation Zones — House of Commons, 2018-02-26
Topic: Defense
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): No, I do not think that anybody in this House would want to concede that. We do not concede that chemical weapons are an acceptable weapon of war, and we want those who use them to be held properly to account.
Ministry of Defence — House of Commons, 2018-02-26
Topic: Defense
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I should inform colleagues that, following recommendations by the Procedure Committee, this year the subjects for the estimates debate have been chosen by the Backbench Business Committee based on bids from Members. The subjects chosen by the Backbench Business Committee were then recommended to the Liaison Committee, which in turn, under Standing Order No. 145, recommended them to the House, which agreed to them on 22 February. Needless to say, I am sure that all colleagues present are intimately conscious of this chronology of events, of which I am merely serving to remind them. We will start with the motion on the supplementary estimate for the Ministry of Defence and the debate on the spending of the Ministry of Defence. This debate will be led by a notable knight of the Lincolnshire shires, namely Sir Edward Leigh Motion made, and Question proposed, That, for the year ending with 31 March 2018, for expenditure by the Ministry of Defence: (1) further resources, not exceeding £8,852,638,000, be authorised for use for current purposes as set out in HC 808, (2) further resources, not exceeding £1,363,500,000, be authorised for use for capital purposes as so set out, and (3) a further sum, not exceeding £1,703,385,000, be granted to Her Majesty to be issued by the Treasury out of the Consolidated Fund and applied for expenditure on the use of resources authorised by Parliament.—(Mr Ellwood.)
Ministry of Defence — House of Commons, 2018-02-26
Topic: Defense
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): Well, I think it is very nice that we have such an impressive Minister as the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), sitting in front of us.
Ministry of Defence — House of Commons, 2018-02-26
Topic: Defense
Tobias Martin Ellwood (Conservative, Centre-right): On that introduction, how could I fail to get to my feet? The Defence Secretary sends his apologies. He is with the Prime Minister, telling her what he is doing, which I think is appropriate, given the challenges on finances that we face.
Ministry of Defence — House of Commons, 2018-02-26
Topic: Defense
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful for that Given our commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence, as is required of NATO members, which most NATO countries ignore, we will have to spend more on defence regardless, in order to keep with up that target. That is the challenge we face.