argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Joan Mary Ruddock (Labour, Centre-left): I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman does not know his history. There have been hundreds of wars since that time and hundreds of thousands of people have died. Many of the wars were proxy wars between the superpowers, so his argument is completely invalid. If he argues that deterrence is so wonderful because the weapons are never used, then he has to ask: why have them at all? Let us get rid of them rather than posture and spend vast fortunes and create a situation in which, at the very least, accidents and misjudgments could happen. The point about luck is that eventually it runs out, and that could happen It is instructive to inquire how other countries and institutions view the nuclear weapon states. I had an opportunity to find that out last December when I attended a conference organised by the Austrian Government on the humanitarian effects of the use of nuclear weapons, to which the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) has already referred. Building on two previous meetings hosted by Norway and Mexico, this conference was attended by representatives of no fewer than 157 Governments. Most telling were the contributions of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, the bodies on which the whole world depends, regardless of politics, in cases of natural disaster. Let me quote from their statement: "Even though only a few states currently possess nuclear weapons, they are a concern to all states…They can only bring us to a catastrophic and irreversible scenario that no one wishes and to which no one can respond in any meaningful way." Their statement continues: "All other weapons of mass destruction, namely chemical and biological weapons, have been banned. Nuclear weapons—which have far worse consequences than those weapons—must now be specifically prohibited and eliminated as a matter of urgency." I do not think that there is anyone who could not respect a statement from the Red Cross and the Red Crescent.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Roger Duncan Godsiff (Labour, Centre-left): May I say at the outset that I have never been a member of CND, and am never likely to be a member? I have always supported NATO, and I did so at a time when there was great controversy about NATO and its role in the cold war. I have always believed that NATO is the most successful mutual defence pact in history. It kept the peace in Europe for 50 years until the end of the cold war, and it gave rise to the American nuclear umbrella, which I support, because I have no ethical objection to nuclear weapons. Of course, I would prefer a world without them.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Roger Duncan Godsiff (Labour, Centre-left): I have not had the pleasure of being asked to be a Labour spokesperson, so I cannot answer that question. What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that I will go into the same Lobby as him, and I shall explain why I have no ethical objections to nuclear capability or to nuclear weapons. As I said, NATO is the most successful mutual defence pact the world has ever seen. It has never attacked anyone, unlike the Warsaw pact, and it kept the peace in Europe for 50 years. I am one of the people who regret the change in strategy that resulted in NATO becoming the world’s policeman. That was dangerous, and it has put enormous strains on NATO, but it is still an effective mutual defence pact. I shall argue that that is how we get our security, rather than with the mythical idea that we have an independent nuclear deterrent. There are two myths.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Roger Duncan Godsiff (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is knowledgeable about defence issues, but he will recognise that one of NATO’s founding beliefs was, and still is, that an attack on one is an attack on all. The view that the country could be subject to a nuclear attack without the response of the American nuclear umbrella is, in my opinion, inconceivable, and is completely contrary to what NATO is and why it has been successful.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Roger Duncan Godsiff (Labour, Centre-left): I have consistently said throughout this speech that I believe our security is based on our membership of NATO. I strongly support NATO and always have, and I strongly support the basis on which NATO was set up, which is that an attack on one is an attack on all. The idea that just because one country, America, which provides the nuclear umbrella, has far, far more nuclear capability than our 40 missiles or than the French nuclear capability—
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Roger Duncan Godsiff (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman says that we are freeloading on the United States. In fact, NATO has taken part, I think wrongly, in actions to be the world’s policeman where its component forces, not just Americans but British and other participants, have gone into theatres of operations as part of the collective NATO force. I would argue that we would be far better off maintaining and developing our conventional forces. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there have been incidents where British troops have been killed in the middle east because of a lack of body armour and because some of our machinery has not been fit for purpose. If it is a choice between modernising and maintaining good conventional forces, properly equipped to do the job, and the mythology of an independent nuclear deterrent, I would most certainly go for the conventional forces.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Madeleine Moon (Labour, Centre-left): There is at the moment quite a debate across the United States about freeloading, with a high degree of concern that about 70% of the costs of NATO are paid for by the US. Is my hon. Friend seriously suggesting that we should front-load further costs and renege on our own responsibilities in relation to the nuclear deterrent? I honestly do not think we can say that and hold our heads high in the world. In relation to the body armour, that was an issue of slow procurement, not cost.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Roger Duncan Godsiff (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman has made his point, and we are where we are. I can only say again that I believe that committing £100 billion to renewing our nuclear capability is not money well spent. I have sat here with my hon. Friends watching Defence Ministers come to the Dispatch Box to announce the cutting of this regiment, the cutting of that regiment, the abolition of the other regiment. Those are massive cuts in a defence capability that should have far greater priority than our so-called independent nuclear deterrent The need for our security is of course absolute. We have to ensure that we are protected from attack from without or within. I believe that our security is best achieved through collective action through NATO with other countries, and I believe very strongly in our membership. I also believe that the greatest threat to this country comes not from other countries but from groups, some of which operate outside this country but some of which operate within this country. In a choice between spending money on conventional weapons and improving our internal security or committing £100 billion to a mythical so-called independent deterrent, I know which I would choose. That is why I will be voting against my party and in favour of the motion.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Madeleine Moon (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is very kind to give way. He was a Minister at the time of the strategic defence and security review, and he signed up to it. I did not agree with many parts of that review, but it made it very plain that this country has nuclear opponents and that there is a nuclear threat. Has his opinion therefore changed not just since the 1980s but since 2010, because that is what he is saying?
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): It is a treat to follow the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), and the House should take a moment to appreciate his tenacity. This is a man who at the last election spearheaded his party’s drive not to have deterrent successor submarines at all, but to have an entirely new form—a mini-deterrent, with adapted Astute submarines and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. The Liberal Democrats were so sure of that policy that they put it before the electorate. It was not successful, but they retained it. As Minister, the hon. Gentleman was so determined that he persuaded the Government to fund the Trident alternatives review. That review took 18 months or two years to examine that option exhaustively, finally to conclude what we had been saying all along, which is that the policy was complete nonsense and would cost even more than the current system and be far less efficient The hon. Gentleman is not deterred by that. In the manner of a child jumping from sandcastle to sandcastle as the tide comes in, he seeks to find new ways to differentiate himself from the Opposition while never saying the words, after his exhaustive speech, that he is a unilateralist and his party is a unilateralist party. There is an absurdity—I think I have it right—to having not a part-time deterrent, but a no-time, or IKEA, deterrent that he could put together at some point. IKEA furniture can be difficult to assemble, but it does not take the months or years that his proposal would take. In the meantime, would we put glass in the submarines so they can become public viewing vessels? Could they carry grain, so that they could become underwater famine relief vessels, which is one of the more famous suggestions from the unilateralist CND members in my constituency? What is it? Tell the House, or is he going to leave this policy until the election to reveal it?
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): Was my hon. Friend not surprised to hear the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) say that his strategy is to try to acquire a nuclear weapon if it turned out we might need one? If someone fired on us it would be pointless responding by then. Potential adversaries of Britain would know that if they fired at a Liberal Democrat Government our response would be too late.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): I will not. I have given way once, and I want others to speak With money so tight, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) understandably ordered his defence team to re-examine the case for renewal and the most cost-effective way of maintaining the minimum credible deterrent, to which we have always been committed, and it concluded that the submarine- based, strategic, continuously at-sea system remained overwhelmingly the most appropriate system for the UK, and that the most cost-effective way to deliver it was to continue with the successor submarine-building programme, which we began in government and will be voted on in the next Parliament It is for the nationalists to explain why they are seeking to prioritise unilateral disarmament by making it, as far as I understand it, their one red line in any future coalition talks—they would prioritise it over all the pressing issues of health, jobs, education and the economy that matter to the people of Scotland and Wales. It is also for them to say how their stance fits with their desire to remain a member of NATO. But Labour’s view is settled. The Leader of the Opposition will never accept an irresponsible deal that trades the nuclear security of future generations in a deeply uncertain world for nationalist support to enter Downing street. We will carry on campaigning for a Labour majority. Plaid Cymru and the SNP can dream on.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Paul Phillip Flynn (Labour, Centre-left): Is not the question: what will America do if there is an attack on the Baltic states from Russia? Our involvement in this is peripheral. We do not provide a deterrent; America does. We are clinging to this virility symbol as a gesture of our old national pride when it is not relevant. The whole point of multilateral disarmament is to reduce the number of nations with nuclear weapons down to two. By possessing them we are encouraging other nations to acquire them.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
James Sheridan (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there are powerful arguments on both sides of the Trident debate, particularly in Scotland, which generates certain strains. Nowhere is that more true than in the hon. Gentleman’s party, which recently voted on whether or not an independent Scotland would join NATO. Some members of his party who are genuinely opposed to nuclear weapons voted against joining, and so left the SNP; others voted for an independent Scotland to join NATO as long as the nuclear weapons were somewhere else—the nimby proposals. How did the hon. Gentleman vote on that issue?
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Brian Harold Donohoe (Labour, Centre-left): I cannot believe what the hon. Gentleman has just said. At a time when submarines from Russia are going up the Clyde and tankers from the same place are at the top of Scotland, he is trying to tell us that we should not have a deterrent. That is absolutely unreal. The idea that we should find ourselves defenceless in those circumstances is a crazy notion.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) for the contribution he has made, and often makes, in his speeches on this issue in the House of Commons. I do not mean to question the other parts of his speech, but may I tell him that its last couple of minutes encapsulated what the debate is about in a nutshell I do not believe that anybody in the House would not prefer a world without nuclear weapons or would not wish to see the end of nuclear weapons as soon as possible. No matter what party we belong to or how big or small it is, we are all united in trying to secure a world that is safe and secure, and rid of nuclear weapons. As hon. Members have said, this debate is about how we go about achieving that. I congratulate the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) on holding this debate. We disagree with each other, but I do not doubt that we all want to achieve the same end.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): I will make some progress first. I have only just started my speech, so let me have a minute or two I am grateful for the opportunity to outline clearly our position on nuclear deterrence and multilateral disarmament. The Labour party is an internationalist, multilateralist party, and proud to be so. We are firmly committed to working with our allies and partners around the world to advance our ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and we are proud of our strong record in office on multilateral nuclear disarmament The previous Labour Government abolished the UK’s free-fall bombs, reduced the number of deployed warheads from 96 to 48, and almost halved the UK’s nuclear warhead stockpile to 160. Today, a written statement in response to the hon. Member for Moray states that the current Government have continued that policy with further reductions from 48 to 40 warheads, and that available operational warheads have reduced from 160 to 120—something we all commend. However, we believe that the Government could be doing more to advance that agenda. That is why, as the Defence Secretary said, the shadow Foreign Secretary and I wrote to the Prime Minister in November, urging the Government to ensure UK representation at the recent Vienna conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons—a conference they did attend in the end Multilateralism is making progress and the UK took the lead in achieving global reductions and international bans on landmines, chemical and biological weapons and cluster munitions. A strong and consistent voice for nuclear disarmament on the world stage means that the UK has played its part in reducing the global nuclear stockpile by more than 70% since the end of the cold war.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): To try to be fair to the hon. Gentleman, this is about replacement and maintenance of our deterrent. He does not believe in us having a nuclear deterrent. Labour’s position is the policy I have espoused, which is that we must look at replacing our deterrent. He disagrees and that is fine; that is his point of view and he will articulate it in his own remarks, but Labour does not agree with it.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman tempts me to respond. We will vote for the policy we believe in. That is the policy I am laying out before the House, and we will vote accordingly Multilateral disarmament works only if all parties feel more secure. Were the UK to abandon its nuclear deterrent on its own, and not in conjunction with other nuclear states, then neither the British people nor our NATO allies would feel safer.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): I very much agree on the need for us to recognise our international obligations On the subject of NATO, I would like to return to a point that others have made. Is it not time for the Scottish Nationalists to be frank and open with us all? NATO is a nuclear alliance. The Scottish National party wants to be a part of that nuclear alliance. It has to recognise—I say this with respect—that membership of NATO comes with membership of the nuclear umbrella group and the nuclear planning group. Every single nation that the SNP points to as not having nuclear weapons is a member of that nuclear planning group, and is therefore involved in nuclear possession. The SNP position appears to be: no to nuclear weapons unless they belong to NATO. I understand that the motion has been moved not only by the Scottish National party, which is in favour of being in NATO, but by Plaid Cymru and the Green party, which are against being in NATO. Clearly, the smaller parties need to talk to each other Labour is clear. Let me say this unequivocally: our position, in an increasingly uncertain and unstable world, is that it is right for the UK to maintain a credible, minimum independent nuclear deterrent based on a continuous at-sea posture. It is right to want to deliver that deterrent in the most capable and cost-effective way, and in a way that best contributes to global security. It is right, therefore, to want to examine all the UK’s military capabilities, including nuclear, as part of the next strategic defence and security review, and to state that we would require a clear body of evidence for us to change our view that continuous at-sea deterrence provides the most credible and cost-efficient form of deterrent. That is why, as the hon. Member for New Forest East mentioned, in 2007 Parliament voted to maintain the deterrent and to authorise spending on the concept phase and initial gate. It is why MPs will be asked again to vote on constructing a new class of Vanguard submarines in 2016. As the Defence Secretary said, no single successor submarine will be built until approval is guaranteed by this sovereign Parliament. We should not forget that this is a programme that would create thousands of high-quality jobs and apprenticeships in Scottish docks, Barrow construction yards and throughout a multibillion pound supply chain that will benefit about 850 companies, the overwhelming majority of which are based right here in the UK.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman said that he had a principled position to rid Scotland of nuclear weapons, but he is prepared to join NATO, which is a nuclear alliance. Would he, as an SNP member in an independent Scotland, join the nuclear planning group and allow nuclear-armed submarines to visit Scotland?
Inquests into Deaths of Military Personnel — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Michael McCann (Labour, Centre-left): I wish to present a petition initiated by my constituents Charles and Susan Fleeting, as well as by other constituents of mine and across the United Kingdom, following the death of their son, Robert, at RAF Benson in September 2011. The related petition has more than 3,700 signatories The petition states: The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to enact a legislative requirement for an inquest to be held before a jury when serving military personnel die on a military base in a non-combat role Following is the full text of the petition: [The Petition of Susan Fleeting, Declares that the Ministry of Defence should come under the same rules and regulations as other government departments; further that inquests relating to serving military personnel who die on a military base in a non-combat role should be heard by a jury; further that the investigation of sudden deaths in military service must be subject to the same protection as that which is available for similar investigations into deaths in a prison or police station; and further that an e-petition on this subject has been signed by 3072 individuals. The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to enact a legislative requirement for an inquest to be held before a jury when serving military personnel die on a military base in a non-combat role. And the Petitioners remain, etc.] [P001420]
Cadet Units — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Defense
Questions: Will the Minister proactively promote youth cadets, particularly in our state schools, for which it is not such a natural course to follow? Will she also talk to her Cabinet Office colleagues responsible for the National Citizen Service as a way of getting more recruits into the uniformed youth services and of recruiting more youth leaders to help run them?
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): The House will know from the previous Question Time that I was in the combined cadet force when I was at Hampton school many years ago, but I understand that I will never be gallant. May I draw the Minister’s attention to the concerns of the recently retired children’s commissioner that people as young as 17 could serve in combat duties on the front line?
UK Military Personnel (Afghanistan) — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Defense
Hugh Bayley (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his kind remarks. The benefits that our service personnel, as well as our diplomats and development workers, have brought to Afghanistan at such cost over the past 13 years could be swept away in part or all of that country, as has happened in Iraq, if the new Resolute Support mission to support the Afghan national security forces does not provide the support that is necessary. Can he reassure the House that Resolute Support will be maintained for as long as is necessary to guarantee the gains that have been made over the past decade?
Army Reserve — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Defense
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): Ministers raised the age limit for Army reservists from 43 to 52 after recruiting, as I understand it, only 20 new reservists—somewhat short of the 30,000 they were aiming for to cover the cutting of 20,000 personnel from the Regular Army. Recently in east Yorkshire, there has been filming for the new "Dad’s Army", so I wondered whether Ministers thought it might be appropriate for the cast to keep their uniforms on.