argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: We now know that the cold war is back with a vengeance. We regularly spent between 4.5% and 5% of GDP on defence in the closing stages of the cold war. Has the time come to set a higher target than a bare 2%? Surely 3% should be a minimum.; Following the cyber-attacks in Ukraine last week, how are the Government strengthening cyber security at home in response to growing threats and Russian aggression?; [R] As the proud mum of a Royal Navy officer, I have an interest in defence matters. In Cornwall, we are very proud of Spaceport Cornwall. Does my right hon. Friend see it having a role to play as part of the defence space strategy?; Further to the question from the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) on the Government’s response on the immigration cost for armed forces personnel, it is good to hear that the consultation response will be published, but will the Minister confirm that he is working to lower the proposed 12-year threshold so that the foreign and Commonwealth community can actually benefit?; The UK is now the only atomic nation with no official recognition of or compensation for nuclear test veterans and their families. Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the first British nuclear test later this year, will Ministers now do the right thing and give these veterans the recognition they deserve?
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): I hear what the hon. Gentleman says and I absolutely recognise that we are now the only country in this regard. The last internal review was in December, and I have asked officials to go back and look at that again.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: We now know that the cold war is back with a vengeance. We regularly spent between 4.5% and 5% of GDP on defence in the closing stages of the cold war. Has the time come to set a higher target than a bare 2%? Surely 3% should be a minimum.; Following the cyber-attacks in Ukraine last week, how are the Government strengthening cyber security at home in response to growing threats and Russian aggression?; [R] As the proud mum of a Royal Navy officer, I have an interest in defence matters. In Cornwall, we are very proud of Spaceport Cornwall. Does my right hon. Friend see it having a role to play as part of the defence space strategy?; Further to the question from the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) on the Government’s response on the immigration cost for armed forces personnel, it is good to hear that the consultation response will be published, but will the Minister confirm that he is working to lower the proposed 12-year threshold so that the foreign and Commonwealth community can actually benefit?; The UK is now the only atomic nation with no official recognition of or compensation for nuclear test veterans and their families. Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the first British nuclear test later this year, will Ministers now do the right thing and give these veterans the recognition they deserve?
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): This year, the SNP is in favour of NATO membership, but who knows where it will be at the end of it? If SNP Members want to be part of NATO, they will have to spend 2% of GDP. Given that they will be almost bankrupt, I doubt they will be able to spend anything.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: We now know that the cold war is back with a vengeance. We regularly spent between 4.5% and 5% of GDP on defence in the closing stages of the cold war. Has the time come to set a higher target than a bare 2%? Surely 3% should be a minimum.; Following the cyber-attacks in Ukraine last week, how are the Government strengthening cyber security at home in response to growing threats and Russian aggression?; [R] As the proud mum of a Royal Navy officer, I have an interest in defence matters. In Cornwall, we are very proud of Spaceport Cornwall. Does my right hon. Friend see it having a role to play as part of the defence space strategy?; Further to the question from the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) on the Government’s response on the immigration cost for armed forces personnel, it is good to hear that the consultation response will be published, but will the Minister confirm that he is working to lower the proposed 12-year threshold so that the foreign and Commonwealth community can actually benefit?; The UK is now the only atomic nation with no official recognition of or compensation for nuclear test veterans and their families. Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the first British nuclear test later this year, will Ministers now do the right thing and give these veterans the recognition they deserve?
James Whiteside Gray (Conservative, Centre-right): Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton), I very much welcome the fact that the MOD is taking the Arctic and the threat from Russia along its 20,000-mile border in the Arctic very seriously indeed, as is NATO. It has long been promised that the MOD will produce a policy paper; when is it due to be printed, published or produced?
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): May I commend my right hon. Friend and the Government for the robust stance they have taken alongside our American and European allies in the face of Russia’s threats against Ukraine? President Putin wants to weaken NATO and the western alliance, but does my right hon. Friend agree that any further action by the Russians to invade Ukrainian territory can only strengthen the determination of the UK, NATO and the western alliance to defend the rights of sovereign states and to defend democracy?
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and the leader of the Alba party may like to reflect on his celebrity status on some of those channels The Government already have some considerable powers, and Magnitsky sanctions have been used against a number of Russian individuals after Salisbury. In fact, some of the people I met in the Russian Ministry of Defence were sanctioned under such measures. We continue to deliver on that More widely, the whole of Government will produce a response for this House in due course. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about using sanctions now rather than waiting for something to happen. The key point here is that we must be in a position to threaten to deliver sanctions against Russia if it does something. Were we to unilaterally deliver them now, but America and the European Union did not, there is a danger that would play into President Putin’s attempted divide and rule narrative. There are plenty of measures that we could take, and we are planning a serious set of sanctions. The question to President Putin is: "Do you actually care what is going to happen to your people, because it will be they who suffer the most as a result of the sanctions?" It will be interesting, as a responsible leader, whether he will listen to that.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Tobias Martin Ellwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome this statement. The penny was dropping at the Munich security conference that this is about not just Ukraine, but a wider realignment of global power with the formation of a new Russia-China alliance that is fuelling Putin’s adventurism and, indeed, perhaps taking us towards another cold war. The money laundering issues aside, which absolutely must be addressed, I ask the Secretary of State to consider the sanctions. There is a concern that we are actually helping Putin with his intention of turning Russia away from the west and towards a new alliance with China in the long term.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): If Russia wants to be dependent on China, I think it will recognise that that will be the wrong decision. China and Russia are in direct competition over the high north and the route through the Arctic, and Russia will surely not want to depend entirely on China, in the same way that many European states are regretting being entirely dependent on Russian gas. It is important, however, that we impose a range of sanctions that are directed not only at the Russian Government, but at some of Russia’s bankers and those who help the regime carry on as normal.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): Unexplained wealth orders are not a matter for politicians; they are for economic crime investigators and the National Crime Agency. I can no more direct an unexplained wealth order than the right hon. Gentleman can. However, when I was Security Minister I was the victim of a Russian fraud that tried to suggest that I had a conversation with and tried to direct the Russian Prosecutor General I am disappointed that there have not been as many unexplained wealth orders as I had hoped, but the legislation was taken through and they represent a powerful model. They have been used against some pretty unsavoury people—I am delighted with that—but the right hon. Gentleman is right that not enough have been used. We are quite unique in having them—not many other countries do—and we should use them more, but we should understand why the NCA has not delivered as many as we would have hoped There are other tools to be considered. I welcome the long-term commitment on beneficial ownership, and I think we will soon see the Companies House legislation. I remember being horrified to discover that a sanctioned individual could start a company because, in those days, I do not think that there was even an identity check. That has to stop. There has been some tightening up, but it will take legislation, and I hope the whole House will support it.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
George Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I commend my right hon. Friend’s calm and straightforward posture during the course of this, and I think he has done incredibly well. However, I say to him that, in all of our debates and even on TV, we behave as though Russia is threatening to invade Ukraine. Russia has already invaded Ukraine: it took Crimea, and right now it is furnishing the Donbas region with munitions to create even further trouble. When we look at it like this, what worries me slightly is that, with lots of foreign leaders going over to see Mr Putin, which is what he wants, we may just get a position where there is a little scintilla of a question of saying, "Well, maybe—maybe—we won’t let Ukraine into NATO, if it wanted to come in, and maybe we will make it clear that is not something it could get." Can I get an absolute assurance from my right hon. Friend that the UK Government believe that if the democratically elected Government of Ukraine wish to do anything and ask to do it, they will be entertained no worse than any other country would be?
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and we should be true to our values. The Prime Minister was very clear at Munich that the point my right hon. Friend raises is absolutely the case. It is also the case that the NATO response to Russia—all 30 members—was very clear on that. We shall hold each other to that commitment, and I think it is absolutely right that now is the time to stand up and say, "These are our values and they are not up for compromise. We are not going to give a single inch and, fundamentally, we are not going to reward a bully."
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the right hon. Member. First, let me make it clear that, as he knows, lots of sanctions are already in place, so these are additional sanctions on top of the raft of sanctions that the Government brought in after the illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea and, indeed, of Donbas. I think he is absolutely right that many of these aggressive moves, such as a no-fly zone—in other words, threatening the integrity of that sovereign state—or a blockade to free trade would absolutely warrant a response ranging from sanctions to other actions. I think we would look at that at the time, but I absolutely agree that Russia should be under no illusion that threatening the integrity of a sovereign nation in the air or at sea is exactly the same as threatening it on land.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government have taken the position, as has NATO, that this is about deterrence and diplomacy, and deterrence does involve upholding the shoring up of NATO members with resilience and containment measures to make sure that Russia is contained should it make the foolish mistake of an invasion of Ukraine. That is done by our forces, and it is why we have made even more available, including 1,000 members of the Army currently on stand-by in the UK to send elsewhere. My right hon. Friend is right that the heart of this is about defending Ukraine’s right to choose—not what it does with that right, but, fundamentally, that if a democratic nation has chosen something, we should respect that. We are on the cusp of an invasion of a democratic country in Europe, and that should worry us all.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): President Putin’s publicly stated view is that by potentially dealing with Ukraine, or preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, he is in fact saving us all from a future war; he wrongly asserts that if Ukraine joined NATO, Ukraine would then attack Crimea and Donbas, and that would trigger a NATO response. My right hon. Friend is an expert on NATO and knows that is a fantasy scenario, but it could potentially be used as a justification. It is therefore important that we demonstrate that although Ukraine is not in NATO, we can do our best to protect its right to choose; and it is also important that we make it crystal clear to the President of Russia that if he tries this with NATO partners, no matter how big or small, article 5 is a reality.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): I have been very consistent on this. Like the hon. Gentleman, a number of colleagues on the Government Front Bench, and indeed some on the hon. Gentleman’s side of the House, were born in a second world war environment, or have seen either people at the wrong end of a terrorist attack or death and destruction. No one comes here glowing with warmongering in their heart; they come here to do their very best to avoid it. However, freedom comes at a cost—freedom is not free, as the South Koreans know and put on their war memorials. We have to stand up to this. We did not stand up in 2014 as an international community; we did not stand up as an international community enough. We did send a very successful and strong message after the Salisbury poisoning—153 intelligence officers were expelled—but if Putin is successful in this, the ripples will not end; they will go through us all, and we will all regret it in the long run. Sometimes we must take a stand, and now is the time.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand that the Duma has passed a resolution saying that Donbas and the Crimea should be incorporated into Russia. That in some way would give Putin’s plans some sort of legality, if he were to think of invading. If Putin was to replace the so-called little green men in Donbas with regular Russian soldiers, could we expect NATO and the west to respond with just as much severity, in terms of sanctions, as if he had invaded the remainder of Ukraine?
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): We have already put a raft of sanctions in place. Russian regulars have come and gone in Donbas, and they are already based in Crimea, which they take as their own, in significant numbers The Duma’s latest resolution about Donbas is worrying. The resolution is about a sovereign state over which the Duma has no legal authority, and we should not recognise it. The Prime Minister has been clear that an incursion one inch over the border—whether that is one boot, one tank or one vehicle—will lead to the sanctions. We would not accept that as being anything other than an invasion; it would not be an interversion or an incursion. We will stick to that line.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman raises a point about Minsk. I was clear in my press conference in Moscow and elsewhere that both Russia and Ukraine signed Minsk. As he will know, and as we have found with the Good Friday agreement, treaties are one thing, but the big challenge is in rolling up our sleeves and delivering the sequences in the right way. We all remember that from decommissioning in Northern Ireland, which was easy to write into the Good Friday agreement but hard to deliver, and it is the same for the Minsk agreement. However, we all recognise that the Minsk agreement is one of the ways out, and we should do our best to support its implementation On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about pulling back NATO, we did not put 165,000 combat troops on the edge of a sovereign country and hold a gun to the head of a democratically elected Government; Russia did. We have nothing to de-escalate from; Russia does. I hope that he will condemn the Stop the War Coalition, which always seems to paint us as the aggressor. Perhaps he would like to ask the people of Ukraine who they think the aggressor is.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale (Conservative, Centre-right): Has increased military action been detected in other Russian-controlled areas, such as Transnistria, as well as in Crimea and Kaliningrad? What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the possible threat—if not now, then in the future—against other former Soviet states that are outside of NATO, such as Moldova?
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): Russia’s malign activity—we have packaged it up and called it that—has been a long-running challenge that we have seen in the likes of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In all of this, we should not forget that Bosnia and Herzegovina is in a fragile position, because it is in an impoverished state, the minorities are already starting to agitate, and Russia’s influence on some of the separatists could send us all back to the early ’90s. Russia’s malign activity does no good. It challenges not only our European values, but the wealth of those states, seemingly for no reason other than to weaken people who think differently.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is right on his last point; the reaction absolutely has to be harder, and unified; and we need to stick to it. Often, the calculation in Russia is that we will all get bored, and that six months later, everything will go back to normal. Minister Shoigu said to my face that sanctions cannot harm the Russians; they will just go elsewhere, and are resilient. Unfortunately, that is the view of some of the leadership in the Russian Government. I doubt it is the view of the Russian people, who have to suffer the consequences We should also recognise the consequence for the wider world of this invasion. Yemen gets about 20% of its food from Ukrainian grain; for Libya, the figure is 44%. What would happen to those countries if there were rising food prices? A shortage of food is a horrible consequence that we must do everything to avoid. This is a global problem. Ukraine matters. Our strength of resolve matters, because, as the hon. Gentleman and I know, there are other, bigger countries looking at how much resolve we have to stand by our values.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Alicia Alexandra Martha Kearns (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Government and civil society organisations for all they are doing to expose false flag and disinformation efforts from the Kremlin. Putin has just finished his extraordinary meeting of Russia’s national security council, at which, again, overwhelming support has been given for recognising the independence of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics. Before Putin announces his plans tonight, will my right hon. Friend please call that out for what it is: a dangerous precursor to the illegal annexation of those lands? Will he also confirm that, despite our focus on preventing further invasion, we do not tacitly accept that those territories that are currently illegally held are Russian?
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): We all accept that the 2014 invasion of Donbas and Crimea was an invasion of sovereign territory. Nothing changes that. All our NATO allies agree on that entirely, and have recognised not one inch of those lands. China, by the way, has still not recognised Donbas; that is an important message to President Putin. For all our issues with China, I do not think that it wants an economic schism at the heart of Europe at this moment. Hopefully, that is something President Putin will rely on. All these plans—the annexation of part of Ukraine, the false flags of people having to be evacuated, Ukrainian "attacks"—are false. They are all designed to be excuses, or to cause friction. The worrying thing is that we can all see it. One does not have to be an expert in Europe to spot what is going on. The worry for us is that President Putin thinks that it does not matter, or thinks that he can get away with it.
Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): We certainly have the capability, and we do everything we can, both internationally and unilaterally, to ensure that messages get across not only to our audiences but, importantly, to the Ukrainian and indeed Russian audience. We could start closer to home: we could ask the leader of Alba, on his next Russia Today programme, to do an in-depth analysis of some of those false claims and broadcast it. I am sure he is open to the highest bidder, and so will be very happy to do that. It is important to recognise that in this era, information is as powerful as any tank. We have to ensure that the ordinary people of Russia and Ukraine are not denied a free and fair press, and can get across the message of what is going on in their country in their name.