argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Defense
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Lord asked me three questions. The first was about the rapid deployment strike capability. The Army is able to deploy a division now with sufficient notice and has been able to for some while. During the time of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, as Defence Secretary, he was instrumental in ensuring that capability. This division could consist of an armoured infantry brigade, 3 Commando brigade and 16 Air Assault Brigade as well as forces from other nations. This SDR is investing in improving the readiness level and upgrading the capabilities of the division, so that by 2025 we will be able to deploy a division comprising two armoured infantry brigades and a strike brigade, in addition to our high-readiness forces of 3 Commando Brigade and 16 Air Assault Brigade The noble Lord, Lord Reid, also mentioned intelligence and expressed a fear that this capability might be off-set by reductions in numbers in community policing. The SDSR document does not cover community policing, which is a matter for local forces, as he knows. We will no doubt be hearing news of that as the effects of the SR are made known. I cannot comment on that today but I can say that we will protect absolutely the counterterrorist police we need to ensure national security and that the funding for that will be ring-fenced. He also said that innovation was not mentioned. I will just refer him to part B of chapter 6 of the document, which is entitled "Innovation", and is on page 73 and the following.
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Defense
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Baroness should not read anything in particular into what she perceives as a paucity of mention of the European Union in this document. There is no doubt that our membership of the European Union adds value to our defence capability. We have only to look at the operation in the Mediterranean to rescue migrants earlier this year to see how the European Union came together. I was in Brussels last week at a meeting of the European Defence Agency, which is another means whereby member states can collaborate to ensure that we have such things as common standards in air-to-air refuelling, aircraft safety and a range of other areas. The European Union is a vehicle for co-operation, in parallel to our membership of NATO, and I would be the first to pay tribute to the work of its member states in protecting the security of Europe.
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Defense
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I think the noble and gallant Lord meant the 2030s. This has been a matter of very deep consideration in the SDSR process. The commitment to maintaining our fleet of 19 frigates and destroyers is still there, as I have said. The Navy needs eight Type 26 frigates to undertake the core anti-submarine warfare role and we remain committed to building those ships. We are taking more time to mature the design and drive down the costs before we cut steel on the first Type 26. Meanwhile, we will build two more offshore patrol vessels to ensure continuity of work on the Clyde and to provide more capability to the Royal Navy The concept of designing and building a new class of lighter, flexible, general-purpose frigate is, I hope, interesting to noble Lords. We are clear that behind that lies an aspiration to increase the total number of frigates and destroyers available to the Royal Navy. If we can produce something that is more generic—that is less high-spec when it does not need to be state-of-the-art high-spec—that should benefit the reach and capability of the Royal Navy in the round. It should also benefit shipbuilders in Scotland and the rest of the UK. We will publish a new shipbuilding strategy in 2016 setting out the detail of that.
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Defense
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, is, I am sure, in complete harmony with his leader in the other place. But he does, of course, have one advantage over his colleague in that he has been a Defence Minister and has a deep knowledge of these matters.
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Defense
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as regards the last points that the noble Lord made in his speech, we will have to wait for the spending review announcement. However, I take on board all that he says, particularly about the Foreign Office. We are clear that we must maintain the global representation that we have at the moment, if we are to support this country’s interests The noble Lord began by making some very welcome remarks, for which I thank him, about the strategic nature of the review. It is indeed strategic. It has been a two-year exercise. It included the lessons that we learned from the last SDSR. More importantly, it involved a deep analysis of the evidence base and wide consultation across diverse stakeholders both at home and abroad. We have tried to be truly strategic in identifying what we wanted to achieve in the national security arena, as outlined clearly in the national security strategy, and how we will achieve that in the SDSR Further details will emerge over the coming days, which will flesh out some of the high-level aspirations set out in the document. Unfortunately, I cannot release those at the moment We still have a global power projection capability second only in NATO to the United States. We should remember that. We have among the most capable troops and aircraft ships and submarines in the world. The Joint Force 2025 that we have designed is genuinely better equipped, more capable, more deployable and more sustainable than ever before As regards the deterrent, I welcome the noble Lord’s comments. The nuclear deterrent exists to deter the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life. Other states have nuclear arsenals. There is a risk of further proliferation of nuclear weapons. There is a risk that states might use their nuclear capability to threaten us or to try to constrain our decision-making in a crisis, or to sponsor nuclear terrorism. We cannot rule out further shifts in the international order that would put us or our NATO allies under grave threat. That is the rationale and the context for the substantial investment that we are making in the successor programme The document tries to make and refresh the case for the deterrent. We thought it important to do that, to go back to first principles and to demonstrate why this was something that we felt it absolutely right to include in the forthcoming defence programme.
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Defense
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the figure of £178 billion is £12 billion more than we previously announced and is over 10 years, as the noble Lord rightly said. It will embrace a whole range of equipment, including equipment needed for the Army. It is not possible for me to define some of that equipment at this juncture, because we wish to leave our options open. But I hope he will take heart from the section in the report about equipping the Army with, for example, the new Ajax vehicle and the new MIV, as it is called. These highly flexible, speedy and capable vehicles will ensure that the strike brigades are supported, as they need to be, with the right equipment so that they can be deployed swiftly and effectively—sometimes, if necessary, at long range.
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Defense
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am sure that many of us would wish that the Royal Navy was larger than it is, but we have had to look very carefully at what the Royal Navy’s tasks are and are likely to be and to configure the Navy accordingly. As regards the sufficiency of ships, we are advised by the Chief of Naval Staff that a 19-ship destroyer and frigate fleet, capable of co-operating on a global scale, is what is required. That fleet will, incidentally, be supported by a very capable and renewed tanker fleet, with two fast fleet tankers, four new Tide class tankers in the short term and three new fleet solid support ships in the longer term. A fleet of up to six patrol vessels will support our destroyers and frigates in delivering routine tasks and enhance our contribution to maritime security and fisheries protection. All this will mean not only that our fleet will have as many assets as it does today but that there will be high-end technological capabilities to provide a better contribution and to retain a world-class Navy up to 2040 and beyond As regards the Trident fleet, the advice we have received is that it will be both possible and safe to continue with the current Vanguard class submarines in service. However, as regards a successor, we need to get on with it. There is no doubt that we cannot countenance a delay in the construction of a successor, which is why we intend to move ahead with all possible speed on that front.
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Defense
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the intention is that the carriers will be able to operate in three configurations: first, carrier strike for mainly air operations, obviously; secondly, amphibious assault, with helicopters and Royal Marines on board; and, thirdly, what one might call a hybrid type of configuration, involving aircraft, helicopters and Royal Marines. These will be very versatile ships. They will be some of the most capable ships—if not the most capable ships—the Royal Navy has ever had. We need to make sure that the very large investment that we are making in them is deployed to best effect, and I think those varying ways in which we can use the carriers demonstrate that this will be a good investment.
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Defense
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): I think we must all be mindful of that precept. I hope we have been mindful of it in this document. It sets out what we see as the tier-one risks over the next five years. Clearly, were there to be such a major change in this country’s place in Europe or, indeed, such a major change in what this country consists of, there would be an obvious need to look again at some of the planning encapsulated here. However, I put it to the noble Lord that neither of the events that he has postulated invalidates the key strands of thinking in the SDSR set out here Terrorism is going to remain the most direct and immediate threat to our domestic security and overseas interests. Cyber threats to the UK are significant whether we are in or out of the EU. The risk of international military conflict is growing. Although it is unlikely there will be a direct military threat to the UK itself, there is a greater possibility, I put it to him, of international military crises that may draw us in. There is instability overseas. Since 2010, that has spread significantly to the south and the Middle East and northern Africa, as the noble Lord knows. The public health threats and the major natural hazards that the report identifies will still be there regardless. Therefore, I hope that the House will agree that we have looked in the round here not at a crystal ball but at an analysis of the threats that face us, analysing in turn what resources we need to address those threats.
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Defense
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): I can give the noble Lord that assurance. We wish to see maximum collaboration with our friends and allies on the intelligence front. In the wake of the Paris attack, the question that we have asked ourselves is obvious: what are the capabilities that we need to counter such an event? We need the means to protect our transport systems, borders, critical national infrastructure and crowded places. We need systems that give us data in advance about people intending to come to this country so that they can be checked against our records. We need emergency services to respond to such incidents were they, God forbid, to occur. We need Armed Forces who are ready to provide support at very short notice in the event of a terrorist attack. Those are the questions we have asked ourselves over the past few months. The answers are contained in the report and I hope they will be reassuring to the House.
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Health
Andrew Lansley (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that in the national security strategy one of the greatest risks we face is from pandemic influenza or, indeed now, the spread of global organisms with antibiotic resistance. What he said about the availability of resources to support research in areas of infectious disease is extremely welcome. Can he confirm that will include support for that research in the United Kingdom at centres of world-leading excellence such as Porton Down and the research facilities being created at the Francis Crick Institute? Can he also say, in decisions yet to come and to be announced, that the public health capability in Public Health England and through local authorities will also be given, due regard in its ability to combat this particular great threat?
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-11-23
Topic: Health
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend, with his tremendous experience on this, knows that Public Health England will have to remain centre stage in the effort on major public health risks. However, I welcome his comments on the announcement around infectious diseases We are clear that the new £1 billion fund which will be rolled out over the next five years for R&D in products for infectious diseases—the Ross fund, which was mentioned in the Statement—will address the development and testing of vaccines, drugs, diagnostics, treatments and other technologies to combat the world’s most serious diseases in developing countries in particular. The Ross fund will more broadly target infectious diseases, diseases of epidemic potential, such as Ebola, neglected tropical diseases, which affect more than 1 billion people globally, and drug-resistant infections, which clearly pose a substantial and growing risk to global health. We look forward as a country to joining organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has been so effective in tackling those issues around the world.
NHS: Reform — House of Lords, 2015-07-16
Topic: Health
David Prior (Conservative, Centre-right): I can only agree with the noble Baroness on bureaucracy. The new body that we are setting up to look at incident reporting, as recommended by the PAC, will only look at big incidents so will not be an added bureaucracy for the day-to-day running of a trust. I am always struck by the figure that nurses spend only between 70% and 80% of their time dealing directly with patients because they are dealing with bureaucracy. The bureaucracy argument falls into two parts: it is partly about the way hospitals run their affairs and partly about external regulators. We believe fundamentally in intelligent transparency. I see the CQC, for example, as less a regulator and more a means of providing intelligent information to boards of hospitals and to patients. But I take on board what the noble Baroness says. We will do everything we can to reduce the level of bureaucracy As far as the timetable is concerned, junior doctors will switch over much more quickly than consultants, because they turn over much more quickly. It will take time for consultants to move over to the new contract, but we hope that we can make it more attractive to consultants and that it will be more of what I would call a professional contract, so that existing consultants will switch over to it as well as new consultants. We will have to watch that very carefully.
NHS: Reform — House of Lords, 2015-07-16
Topic: Health
David Prior (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness raises a number of points. Of course, she is right that it is no good just having senior doctors in a hospital without the right back-up, particularly diagnostic specialist nursing. She has just mentioned OTs and physios, and I agree with her completely there The noble Baroness mentioned the NHS pay review. There is not an opt-out clause in the Agenda for Change contract. Discussions will be taking place with the RCN and other trade unions later this year. I will have to write to her about the timing of the response on the end-of-life care point that she raised; I do not know it offhand. Digital information will be rolling out progressively over the next five years. I certainly hope that we will have electronic patient record in place for the vast majority of patients over the lifetime of this Government.
NHS: Reform — House of Lords, 2015-07-16
Topic: Health
Angela Frances Browning (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome my noble friend’s announcement—I hope that he will take some cheer from that. I have too often been an emergency admission at a weekend and know only too well that if you have to wait to see the consultant on Monday you simply end up bed-and-breakfasting for two or three nights in hospitals. I hope that my noble friend will take into account how having a consultant available for those sorts of patient would save a lot of money, free up a lot of beds and achieve what he is describing I know that Ministers do not like to micromanage what goes on in hospitals, but with the transition to new contracts for new consultants, I hope that my noble friend will find a way to identify those particular disciplines in hospitals where there are more deaths—he mentioned this—so that attention can be given to consultants with new contracts in those disciplines. An aortic aneurysm needs a consultant standing by the patient, but with other easily identifiable conditions it would be good if the Government could make sure that hospitals proactively recruit consultants on new contracts to ensure that the 6,000 deaths that he mentioned come down as rapidly as possible.
NHS: Reform — House of Lords, 2015-07-16
Topic: Health
David Prior (Conservative, Centre-right): I was interested by my noble friend’s comments about waiting until the following Monday when she has been in hospital. That is a good illustration of why we want to bring in seven-day services. My noble friend might be interested to read the report in Future Hospital, written by the Royal College of Physicians, that came out a year ago. I think that we will see over the next few years a significant change in the way that our hospital consultants are trained and deployed, and more generally what is called in America hospitalists, who can have a broader range of disciplines When it comes in, the new contract will enable us to differentiate payment for those consultants who are working more anti-social hours, such as A&E consultants who will have to work much more regularly out of hours than others. It will enable us to identify those consultants who may be on call but are more likely to be summoned in, like those that my noble friend just mentioned, at short notice. Depending on the surgical specialty, the on-call requirements can be much more demanding than others. For example, this is more the case if you are a vascular surgeon than if you are a dermatologist, who do most of their work in normal time. I take on board what my noble friend says.
NHS: Reform — House of Lords, 2015-07-16
Topic: Health
David Prior (Conservative, Centre-right): Interestingly, the number of consultants has increased very significantly over the past 15 years across not all but most specialities. The noble Lord refers to dreadful weekends, and how he dreaded them, particularly bank holidays. That is really why we are here today, so that in future patients like him do not dread them If I indicated earlier on that I blame the 2003 contract for the difference between five days’ and seven days’ working, and if that was the implication of what I said, I withdraw it. What I meant to say was that I felt that that contract to some extent de-professionalised the profession.
NHS: Reform — House of Lords, 2015-07-16
Topic: Health
David Prior (Conservative, Centre-right): There is no doubt that, looking forward over the next five years, the resource to be put into primary care will be greater, relatively, than it has been in the past. We wish to deliver more care outside hospital. That is why we are committed to training and having in place 5,000 more doctors in general practice by the end of this Parliament—not just GPs, but others who will support GPs The model of primary care will change significantly over the next five years, and it is fundamental to the five-year forward view that we reduce the number of people going into acute hospitals and that we discharge people at the other end of their journey through an acute hospital much quicker.
NHS: Reform — House of Lords, 2015-07-16
Topic: Health
David Prior (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government are committed to parity of esteem, and if we are truly committed to parity of esteem the answer to both the noble Baroness’s questions must be yes. We must have the same standards for physical health as we have for mental health. If someone has a psychotic crisis on a Friday afternoon and they cannot get access to any help until the following Monday, that is clearly extremely poor care. If they end up in an A&E department being looked after by people who have no experience of dealing with mental health problems, it is a very poor environment to be in, so I agree entirely with the noble Baroness.
BBC Charter Review — House of Lords, 2015-07-16
Topic: Culture
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, we want the BBC to support the UK creative industries. As I have already said, they are a proving ground for those industries, and this will be studied in the charter review. More than half of PSB investment in original content is BBC expenditure.