Business of the House

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The current state of affairs regarding Dungavel is that the planning application for the new facility that would replace it was refused by Renfrewshire planning committee in November last year. Dungavel will remain open. Its future is dependent on a successful planning application for the new short-term holding facility.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

Can we have a statement from the Foreign Secretary on his assessment of the credibility of the allegations made in the dossier about President-elect Trump? It is clear that the UK Government have a great deal of knowledge about these things. The dossier was written in the UK, and the UK Government have placed and lifted a D notice on the former MI6 officer who wrote the allegations. We had a warning before Christmas from the head of MI6 about hostile states attempting to subvert western democratic processes. Can we have a statement from the Foreign Secretary on what action he is taking to prevent us and our NATO allies from being subject to cyber-attacks and propaganda attacks from hostile states?

[Mr Lidington]

The Foreign Secretary and, indeed, the Prime Minister have repeatedly made clear their concerns about the cyber-capacity and cyber-tactics of Russia and other countries with regard to the interests of the United Kingdom. The hon. Lady will understand that I cannot go into details about these matters, but the issues are considered regularly by the National Security Council.