argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Huawei: UK’s 5G Network — House of Lords, 2020-01-27
Topic: Technology
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement an Answer given earlier today in the other place by my honourable friend the Minister for Digital and Broadband on the security of the telecoms supply chain. The Statement is as follows: "New telecoms technologies and next generation networks such as 5G and full fibre can change our lives for the better. They can give us the freedom to live and work more freely; they can help rural communities to develop thriving digital economies; and they can help the socially isolated maintain relationships. So the security and resilience of the UK’s telecoms networks is of paramount importance The UK has one of the world’s most dynamic digital economies, and we welcome open trade and inward investment. However, our economy can prosper and unleash Britain’s potential only when we, and our international partners, are assured that our critical national infrastructure remains safe and secure As part of our mission to provide world-class digital connectivity, including 5G, my department carried out a cross-Whitehall evidence-based review of the telecoms supply chain to ensure a diverse and secure supply base. That review’s findings were published in July 2019 and set out the Government’s priorities for the future of our telecommunications. These priorities are strong cybersecurity across the entire telecommunications sector, greater resilience in telecommunications networks and diversity across the entire 5G supply chain The review considered the entire UK market position, including economic prosperity, the industry and consumer effects, and the quality, resilience and security of equipment. However, in July 2019 it did not take a decision on the controls to be placed on high-risk vendors in the UK’s telecoms networks. Despite the inevitable focus on Huawei, this review was not about one company, or even one country, and we would never take a decision that threatens our national security or the security of our allies. The Government’s telecoms supply chain review is a thorough review into a complex area and it has made use of the best available expert advice and evidence. Its conclusions on high-risk vendors will be reported once ministerial decisions have been taken. The National Security Council will meet tomorrow to discuss these issues. This work is an important step in strengthening the UK’s security framework for telecoms and ensuring the rollout of 5G and full-fibre networks. I know that honourable Members on all sides of the House feel strongly about this issue, and this Government will make a Statement to this House to communicate final decisions on high-risk vendors at the appropriate time. We will always put national security at the top of our agenda." My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Huawei: UK’s 5G Network — House of Lords, 2020-01-27
Topic: Technology
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord very much for his measured response on this issue. Obviously I cannot assure him that everything he hopes for tomorrow will be answered, but I certainly expect to come back to this place with an update for this House, and my colleagues will do that in the other place as well. I join the noble Lord in saying that I think a decision on this matter, should a decision be taken tomorrow—I am sure that noble Lords who have been in government or worked with government will understand that I do not want to get ahead of myself in saying that the decision will be taken—will be welcomed The noble Lord is right to say, and I think Members of this House will agree, that improving connectivity across the UK is very important for all residents. He is right to say that the rollout of 5G is already taking place and that those involved in that rollout obviously need guidance and a government view on who to involve in it. While I made it very clear in the Answer that this is not just about one company, Huawei is of course already involved in the 4G rollout. I am hesitant to say as a new Member of this House "Watch this space", but I am afraid that that is probably going to be the basis of my answers today.
Huawei: UK’s 5G Network — House of Lords, 2020-01-27
Topic: International Affairs
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord. In the interests of time, I will say briefly that I am having to give this Answer today because an Urgent Question was asked in the other place so quite rightly we are answering that in both Houses. I agree with him that it is quite correct that it is the UK Government who are taking this decision. There are a number of factors in making such a decision. We will rely on the best expert advice from our services that we have, but we will make the decision as a Government in the interests of this country.
Huawei: UK’s 5G Network — House of Lords, 2020-01-27
Topic: Foreign Trade
David Arthur Russell Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I know the final decision is due to come tomorrow but my noble friend’s Statement speaks about diversity, as indeed did the telecoms review in the summer. Can she reassure us that diversity really can be maintained and dependence on a vendor, particularly a high-risk vendor, avoided? If an integrated system can be assured technically, there seems to be not much of a problem to worry about and some of the American threats seem rather empty, particularly because, while we need a trade deal eventually, getting one is not of high urgency because we already have vast trade with the US under the present system.
Huawei: UK’s 5G Network — House of Lords, 2020-01-27
Topic: Technology
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness is right to highlight this. Some of the points she raises are part of the discussions between Ministers. I give her and the whole House the absolute assurance that high-risk vendors never have been and never will be involved in our most sensitive networks.
Facial Recognition Surveillance — House of Lords, 2020-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my honourable friend the Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service in another place on facial recognition surveillance. The Statement is as follows: "Mr Speaker, this Government are backing our outstanding police to keep our streets safe. We are delivering on the people’s priorities by cutting the crime blighting our communities. That means supporting the police and empowering them with the tools they need. We have already pledged 20,000 more officers, new powers and the biggest funding increase in a decade Embracing new technology is also vital, and we fully support the use of live facial recognition. This can help identify, locate and arrest violent and dangerous criminals who might otherwise evade justice. Live facial recognition compares the images of people passing a camera to a specific and pre-determined list of those sought by police. It is then up to officers to decide whether to stop and speak to those flagged as a possible match. This replicates traditional police methods, such as a spotter at a football match. The technology can make the search for suspects quicker and more effective, but it must be used strictly within the law The High Court has found there is an appropriate legal framework for the police use of live facial recognition. This includes police common-law powers, data protection and human rights legislation, and the surveillance camera code. These restrictions mean that sensitive personal data must be used appropriately for policing purposes and only where necessary and proportionate. There are strict controls on the data gathered. If a person’s face does not match any on the watchlist, the record is deleted immediately. The innocent should have nothing to fear. All alerts against the watchlist are deleted within 31 days, including the raw footage, and the police do not share the data with third parties The Metropolitan Police Service told me about its plans in advance. It will deploy the technology where intelligence indicates it is most likely to locate serious offenders. Each deployment will have a bespoke watchlist made up of images of wanted people, predominantly those wanted for serious and violent offences. It will also help the police tackle child sexual exploitation and protect the vulnerable Live facial recognition is an important addition to the tools available to the police to protect us all and to keep murderers, drug barons and terrorists off our streets."
Facial Recognition Surveillance — House of Lords, 2020-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this was recently tested in court and the High Court found that the police were operating within the law, so we do not feel that there is any need for further legislation at this point. However, I understand that the decision is being appealed, so that is probably about as far as I can go today.
Facial Recognition Surveillance — House of Lords, 2020-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Mark Schreiber (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the lamentable decline in security on our streets and elsewhere makes it essential that every modern technique to increase security is used. Will the Minister agree to a seminar or something so that those noble Lords who are particularly interested in this subject may be given a briefing in some depth?
Facial Recognition Surveillance — House of Lords, 2020-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness will understand if I do not discuss her ongoing JR against the Home Office. I do not know where the noble Baroness got her accuracy figures from. On the point about bias, the Met’s original trials found no statistically significant differences in identifying different demo- graphics, and Cardiff University’s independent review of South Wales Police’s trials found no overt discrimination effects. I repeat the figures I gave earlier: there is a one in 4,500 chance of triggering a false alert and over an 80% chance of a correct one, but I would be interested to see where the noble Baroness got her figures.
Facial Recognition Surveillance — House of Lords, 2020-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I like the way the noble Lord got the identity card in; I was wondering when he was going to deploy it. The Question is on AFR, which we can use to identify criminals because it is a unique biometric, which an identity card may not necessarily be. I am not going to get drawn on identity cards today, but I congratulate the noble Lord on managing to get them in.
Facial Recognition Surveillance — House of Lords, 2020-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the noble Lord that the ICO criticised some areas. However, last Friday it acknowledged a number of improvements. LFR is used for a policing purpose; it is used to detect serious criminals and might be used to find missing people. The framework in which it operates includes common-law powers, data protection, human rights legislation and the surveillance camera code.
Facial Recognition Surveillance — House of Lords, 2020-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord makes a very good point and I think I know to which cases he is referring. The police must be able to use the technology available for policing purposes, but within the framework I have just discussed.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-21
Topic: International Affairs
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, put her finger on the nub of all this when she talked about trade-offs. Any agreement that we reach with the EU will be a series of compromises. If we have individual delegated bodies taking hard stands on one position or another, or indeed one industry doing that, we are never going to get the compromises that we need to get our deal through. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, is right: we cannot bind the Government’s hands on this issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, acknowledges that the union is very important to this Government; indeed, it is to all of us in this House, I think. Are we really going to sacrifice the union by reaching arbitrary decisions that discriminate against one part of the union or another? No, of course we are not, but we need to make compromises and the Government should not have their hands tied by individual bodies or regions of this country taking a hard line on one position or another.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-21
Topic: International Affairs
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and indeed all noble Lords who have spoken on the amendment. I feel that it is appropriate for me to start by saying something with a degree of emphasis about the Joint Ministerial Committee, which, I have to say, has received an undeservedly negative press from some noble Lords, both in Committee and today The Government have a high regard for the Joint Ministerial Committee structure and have engaged with the devolved Administrations through it, and indeed through numerous other means, throughout the EU exit process. The Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations, which I will call the JMC (EN), was established in the months following the UK’s decision to leave the EU, and it has met 21 times since November 2016. From the Government’s point of view—and, I hope, from everyone’s—it has proved an invaluable forum for the exchange of information and views between the UK and the devolved Administrations Proposals for intergovernmental engagement on the next stage of negotiations formed a large part of the most recent meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations earlier this month, and are due to be discussed again at the next meeting of the JMC (EN) next week—chaired, if my memory serves me right, by the Welsh Government I hope that I can give a sense of how effective a forum the JMC (EN) has been for discussions on the Bill. The Bill was first discussed at the JMC (EN) in the summer of 2018, when we gave the devolved Administrations the opportunity to feed into the White Paper. We then used the forum to share our thinking on policy development through the autumn and winter of 2018, sharing iterative drafting on the Bill. It was through these discussions that we made changes to the Bill to address the concerns of the devolved Administrations. This included providing them with an important role in appointments to the board of the IMA, both in the Bill itself and through ministerial commitments I therefore do not accept that the JMC (EN) has been either inactive or ineffectual. On the contrary, it has contributed significantly to both ministerial and official engagement between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations, and that is exactly the way we mean to continue The amendment seeks essentially to set the joint ministerial arrangements in concrete. It remains the Government’s firm view that it is not in the interests of the UK Government or the devolved Administrations to place the terms of reference of the JMC (EN), or the memorandum of understanding on devolution, on a statutory footing. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom were absolutely right in what they said.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-21
Topic: International Affairs
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I say again that it is our absolute wish and intention to engage constructively with the devolved Administrations over the negotiations ahead of us Intergovernmental relations have always operated by the agreement of the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. We wish that pattern to continue. The existing terms of reference of the JMC (EN) were agreed jointly in October 2016. In my view, and indeed in others’, those terms of reference have served us well, but to set the terms of reference in legislation would inhibit this joint process. Apart from anything else, to legislate for this would anticipate the outcome of the review of intergovernmental relations, due to be discussed with the devolved Administrations next week at the JMC (EN). Putting the terms of reference of the JMC (EN) in legislation would pre-empt those conversations and restrict the ability of the various Administrations to develop future intergovernmental structures, such as the JMC (EN), to reflect the constitutional relationship between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations once the UK leaves the EU I hope noble Lords will appreciate how important it is for the JMC (EN) to have flexibility in its role to develop and adapt as the negotiations progress. Indeed, the terms of reference proposed in this amendment seem to be narrower than the existing agreed terms of reference, which refer to "issues stemming from the negotiation process which may impact upon or have consequences for the UK Government, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government or the Northern Ireland Executive." This amendment would restrict the focus to economic and security matters. In fact, I believe that, if one reads the current terms of reference in full, one will find that they are miles better than those suggested in the amendment The essential point remains that a fixed statutory basis would not support the flexibility required to ensure that the JMC (EN) can operate as effectively as possible, which is what we want it to do. I hope I have provided noble Lords with assurances of the Government’s commitment to work collaboratively with the devolved Administrations to discuss their requirements of the future relationship with the EU. In the light of those assurances, I respectfully ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-21
Topic: International Affairs
John Taylor (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the Government are not seeking to put in this Bill instructions as to the sort of negotiations they will undertake. That is not the purpose of this Bill. The agreement that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, forced on the Government created that situation.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-21
Topic: Agriculture
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I support in principle, as I did in previous European Union withdrawal Bill debates, the sentiments that underlie this amendment. I ask the Minister to clarify in his summing up a point about animal welfare. Does he recall when we diverged from the rest of the European Union—I think it was in the early 1990s—by introducing a unilateral sow stall and tether ban, which we believed would pander to the animal welfare lobby and ensure overnight that the Conservatives appealed to a group that was not in the habit of voting Conservative? The outcome at that time was not what we had hoped: it was to push many of our pig producers out of business and to encourage more imports from countries such as Denmark and Poland. That was because the consumer tended to buy their meat not from local butchers but from supermarkets, on the basis of price. While it may therefore be appealing to introduce food into this country from countries that do not meet our high standards, it is highly undesirable for a number of reasons In this regard, will the Minister clarify the Government’s position on the introduction of a standards commission? Great progress was made in the last Parliament between the National Farmers’ Union, other farm organisations and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It was generally understood that a standards commission would be introduced to ensure that our home-produced foods and farm products would not meet unfair competition. The usual examples, with which we are all too familiar, are hormone-produced beef and chlorinated chicken, but there is also poultry and other products from Brazil, Argentina and other countries. Will my noble friend confirm that the Government are minded to introduce such a standards commission before the end of December I do not see it on today’s list, but I understand that potential problems are looming with the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, which I am not familiar with, but, having attended a conference this morning, I am more familiar with than I was yesterday. The Commission is due to introduce guidelines that we will be obliged to follow, although it has not yet done so. We will not have a regulator in place immediately, although I understand that the Government are going to announce an interim regulator imminently. Will the Minister confirm what the status of this directive will be as part of retained EU law, as it has already been adopted but not yet implemented? It would be very helpful if he could outline to the House today what that will be The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, who so eloquently introduced this amendment, referred among other things to chemical safety, biodiversity, the environment, animal welfare and food safety. What is the situation regarding new chemicals that will be introduced in this country and that we would hope to export to the European market in the run-up to December this year, given that we will have an office for environmental protection fully in place only by 1 January 2021?
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-21
Topic: International Affairs
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): If it becomes part of retained EU law before the end of the implementation period, it will be transferred into British law by snapshotting the procedure. I do not know the details of that directive, so I undertake to write to the noble Baroness about it.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-21
Topic: Government Operations
James Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I try to follow all the arguments that are put forward about devolution and where it all stands. The puzzle to me is that the logic of the people supporting this amendment seems to be that the Parliament here at Westminster is not entirely sovereign. That may be an issue that we wish to take up at some point in the future, but it is not something that we should be dealing with in the withdrawal Bill. I am not a lawyer, but the way the amendment is phrased seems to make justiciable anything that comes up between the devolved Administrations and Westminster. At this point, I think I would oppose the amendment on the ground that it would detract from the sovereignty of Westminster without all the implications having been thought through.