House of Commons
Parliament

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The SNP's justice and home affairs spokesperson Joanna Cherry says she shares the congratulations for the fire and rescue services in the area.

She asks if the government will step in to provide all the resources they need, as there were reports at the weekend that firefighters were appealing for suncream and socks while on the ground.

Mr Hurd says that the firefighters have the resources that they need.

Select Committee
Parliament

For the NHS's 70th anniversary in June, Theresa May announced a new five year funding plan that would see the health service receive an additional £20bn a year by 2023.

The NHS's £114bn budget will rise by an average of 3.4% annually, less than the average 3.7% annual rise since 1948.

Mrs May's plan has been criticised for relying on a "Brexit dividend" of money coming back from the EU, which the IFS thinktank has said will not materialise.

The prime minister did not lay out how the rest of the money will be raised.

Labour also said the money would not be enough as demands on the NHS continue to grow.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Shadow Home Office minister Karen Lee says the tireless work demonstrated from the fire service "shows their dedicated commitment to public service", adding that she could "spend my whole speech" talking about her "admiration for the emergency services".

She says that the government have been squeezing budgets since 2010, saying that there are "serious questions" on whether the fire and rescue services can deliver a "fully resourced service".

Between Staffordshire and Lancashire, these fire services have lost 1,000 firefighters, she states.

Mr Hurd says "this is not a day to try and make political points" when the country wants to hear "cross-party support" for the emergency services.

He adds that spending power for emergency services has risen by 1.2% this year, and the fire service in question has £650m in reserves.

Select Committee
Parliament

A second panel of experts have taken their seats.

They are also asked about where priorities should lie.

Chris Hopson, Chief Executive, NHS Providers, says plugging providers' gaps would take up the whole £6bn extra funding for 2019-2020, without fulfilling any of the quality or service pledges made by the government when it announced the funding.

The panel repeats the earlier experts' point that the additional funding will be taken up by solving existing problems and not go towards transformation.

Niall Dickson, chief executive, NHS Confederation, says transformation needs to happen, and so "hard choices" will have to be made about which problems must be left unaddressed.

He says transformation, if done well, will lead to better patient outcomes.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Jonathan Reynolds says that "words alone" cannot describe the "scale of the challenge" faced by services in Greater Manchester.

He asks if the government is "fully engaged" considering that the UK has two major fires 25 miles away, and close to communications infrastructure on Winter Hill.

He asks if things get worse, will more resources will be granted, and he asks if there is any truth to the rumour that military helicopters cannot be used to put out the fire as they do not have the right equipment.

Mr Hurd says the government is "fully engaged" and he has spoken personally to fire services to say that if they don't have what they need then government "will provide".

The teams will have the support they need, he finishes.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Labour's Jonathan Reynolds is asking his urgent question on the Staffordshire Moorlands.

The fire has been burning since 24 June, and a separate fire started on Winter Hill on Thursday. The two have now merged.

The fire service have announced that the fires, for now, continue to burn.

You can read more from the BBC on this story.

Home Office Minister Nick Hurd says the fires remain "major incidents", adding that the number of firefighters and police officers on the scene depend each day "on need".

Support is being provided by other fire services across the north and as far as the West Midlands, he adds.

A hundred military personnel have been on a three day deployment and there has been a request to keep them there until Friday, he states.

The Home Office remains in "regular contact" with those on the ground dealing with the problem, he says.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Chair of the Defence Committee Julian Lewis says it is "not just bleeding heart liberals" who oppose torture techniques, but also "senior counterinsurgency professionals" who reject this.

He says it is not just "morally wrong" but will also produce even more "practical difficulties" for a government.

Sir Alan says everything the government does is from "much enhanced rules and practices" and in the standards of law and decency that MPs expect.

House of Lords
Parliament

The Lib Dem Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws is asking the government what steps it is taking to ensure that the United Kingdom's democratic system is resilient against Russian interference.

Baroness Kennedy says there is increasing evidence that there has been interference in 19 different elections across Europe and the United States.

The government's spokesperson Lord Young of Cookham says "the government is committed to protecting the UK from all forms of malign foreign state interference from Russia or any other state".

The minister says there are systems to defend the electoral system, and there is no evidence of interference in elections.

Baroness Kennedy asks whether the government will use sanctions against supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin who live in this country and whether the Magnitsky Act, which was introduced to deal with money laundering and sanctions will be used.

Lord Young says: "The House recently debated the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act and that does give us the power to sanction individuals or entities to promote compliance with International Human Rights Law."

Last year, the prime minister accused Russia of meddling in elections and carrying out cyber-espionage.

Theresa May said Moscow planted "fake stories" and aimed to "sow discord in the West".

Facebook recently said it had not found evidence of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 Brexit vote through its site.

House of Commons
Parliament

ISC chair Dominic Grieve says the committee was disappointed not to be able to question some witnesses it wished to, and says there are Libyan cases the committee would want to consider.

He reminds the government that the committee was not sitting for 12 months, which, he says, was too long.

Select Committee
Parliament

Dr Sarah Wollaston, chair of the committee, asks where hard choices should be made in relation to funding priorities.

Prof Ham says a focus on social care and mental health is right, but money also needs to go on new care pathways.

He says there is not enough money to allow the government to make new pledges on health while sustaining existing services.

Anita Charlesworth, Director of Research and Economics, Health Foundation, says "we will be back here again" if the new funding only goes to solve current issues such as waiting times and not on structural reforms.

House of Commons
Parliament

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The SNP's Patrick Grady says this "damning report" confirms what many MPs suspected and could be "criminal".

He asks if the minister understands that justice "must be seen to be done" which means a judge-led inquiry must take place as soon as possible.

Sir Alan says "there is now a very different system" for rendition and on flights landing in or passing through the UK. The police would attend the plane on arrival to investigate in such cases, he says.

The Foreign Office has full records of such rendition flights in the UK, he states.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry says that this report "vindicates those who for years sought to expose these facts" on torture.

"We will not have the full truth until we have a full independent judicial inquiry," she says, adding that in similar inquiries for the police, answers are sought from all members of a police force, even those who were junior.

The inquiry is needed to ensure that the UK is never again involved in "illegal and barbaric acts".

Sir Alan says he would like to challenge Ms Thornberry's speech in which she said that the UK agencies were "involved in torture".

He adds that there was "inevitably going to be a very strong and strict response" to the 9/11 terror attacks, the response led to officers doing things which "they had never encountered before" and not been trained in.

He says it is a credit to the UK that officers reviewed and revised their practices were necessary.

Select Committee
Parliament

The committee raises the potential impact of Brexit on the NHS.

Prof Ham says he agrees with the committee's chair, Sarah Wollaston, that the idea of a Brexit dividend is "absolute tosh".

He raises concerns that Brexit could affect the NHS's ability to recruit staff, especially social care staff, and its ability to source medicines and other supplies.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Mr Clarke says he welcomes the minister's opposition to torture.

He asks why the Intelligence and Security Committee , externalwas "stopped" in their work when it uncovered lots of evidence from the British government in sending people to Guantanamo Bay and Libya.

He says the committee were keen to speak to people sent to these places, but the government denied this request. The committee felt there was no alternative but to stop its work, he states. He asks why the government is covering up what was done during the Blair government.

The committee "has not finished its work" he says.

Sir Alan says it "remains the case" that the government will consider if a judge-led inquiry will continue to be necessary after these publications.

He says to say that the UK was "complicit" with the US was a "notch too strong".

It is senior people who should take responsibility for their actions in the inquiry, he says, and not people who were junior officers in 2001.

Select Committee
Parliament

The first expert to give evidence is Professor Chris Ham, chief executive of the King's Fund, a leading health charity.

He says he welcomes the new funding settlement but says there was no commitment to expanding funding for public health or social care.

He says money cannot improve care if there are no qualified staff to hire.

Sally Gainsbury, Senior Policy Analyst, Nuffield Trust, says the part of the new funding will have to fill existing funding gaps.

House of Commons
Parliament

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The former justice secretary and father of the House, Tory MP Ken Clarke is asking a question on detainee mistreatment and rendition.

This follows revelations last week that the UK was aware that the US was mistreating detainees after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan says the government is grateful for the work the committee has done on this investigation.

"It is right that these reports and as much information as possible from this period are put in the public domain," he states.

The UK was doing everything it could in the immediate aftermath of 11 September attacks in 2001 to prevent further loss of human life, he says.

Improvements have been made to "operational processes," he adds, that the UK is now the only country which has "consolidated guidance" on how intelligence should be gathered.

The government will give further consideration to a new inquiry, he adds. The government does not solicit, encourage or condone the usage of torture, he says.

Select Committee
Parliament

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The Health and Social Care Committee is hearing from a variety of experts on funding for the NHS.

The session comes after the government announced a new five-year funding plan for the health service.

It also follows the announcement by Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, that the NHS is planning extensively for a no-deal Brexit, despite ministers' insistence that they will secure a deal. Mr Stevens is one of those giving evidence today.

House of Lords
Parliament

Lib Dem Lord Wallace of Saltaire is asking the government what the strategic rationale is for the deployment of Royal Navy Ships east of the Malacca Straits.

Defence Minister Earl Howe says that the "presence of the ships in the region, is to provide a clear and substantive demonstration of the UK's commitment to the peace, security and prosperity of the region as a whole".

Lord Wallace asks: "Is this a short term demonstration?"

The minister responds "that the judgment of ministers was that these deployments would fulfill multiple important objectives" for the United Kingdom.

The Malacca Straits are a narrow stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra.

They are one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, an estimated one third of seaborne crude oil shipments pass through it.

The Malacca Straits have long been a target for armed pirates, who raid the tankers for oil and fuel.