Speeches by Anderson.

“That is very concerning. In your experience, who are the main actors responsible for the transnational repression of journalism in the UK, and what are their tactics?”

“I will come on to talk more about the effect of this in the UK, but first, could you outline what the threats are? With Russia spending so much money on this, what is in it for them? What are they hoping to achieve? What is the problem with all of this? I can understand it, but maybe you can just outline it a bit more.…”

“Nina, the G7 established the rapid response mechanism in 2018 to detect and respond to threats to democracy, including hostile foreign information manipulation and interference attacks. How would you assess its effectiveness? Has it improved resilience against such threats?”

“That is extremely worrying to hear, and I am sorry for all that you have endured. For a US citizen, or for our constituents here in the UK—perhaps this question is for Jon and for Nina—why do you think people should be concerned about foreign information manipulation and interference? What is the impact on the ordinary…”

“That would be very helpful. You talked at the beginning about the 20 donors that have come together in a coalition. Is that in response to these cuts, bringing together other countries prepared to do that funding to bridge some of the gap? What will be the remaining gaps? You have highlighted eastern Europe as where yo…”

“Do you have any further breakdown of the $30 million of cuts? Which were the main countries that the UK was focusing its support on, in terms of media freedom?”

“How will the proposed cuts to the UK overseas development grants impact media freedoms globally? We have talked about the US cuts; what is your assessment of the UK reduction?”

“Yes. What are the best things we can do here in the UK?”

“The Committee has received evidence calling for the UK to place China on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme. Do you think that is necessary in the context of combating the transnational repression of journalism?”

“Could more be done? What other advice would you give?”

“Russia, China and Iran are the three that were mentioned in the previous panels. Who would you say is operating in the UK?”

“Who is doing that? Is it the state actors we have been talking about?”

“That is very concerning. In your experience, who are the main actors responsible for the transnational repression of journalism in the UK, and what are their tactics?”

“I will come on to talk more about the effect of this in the UK, but first, could you outline what the threats are? With Russia spending so much money on this, what is in it for them? What are they hoping to achieve? What is the problem with all of this? I can understand it, but maybe you can just outline it a bit more.…”

“Just to follow up on that, is there a unit in the Brazilian Government that deals with this and, from your experience, what makes that effective in identifying foreign disinformation. We heard from the previous panel about foreign malign actors masquerading as local citizens. We were talking about America and the UK an…”

“Thank you. That is depressing, but helpful.”

“Nina, the G7 established the rapid response mechanism in 2018 to detect and respond to threats to democracy, including hostile foreign information manipulation and interference attacks. How would you assess its effectiveness? Has it improved resilience against such threats?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell, in this very important debate. I thank Parkinson’s UK, Parkinson’s Care and especially the “Movers and Shakers” podcast, whose dedication and campaigning led to the huge number of people signing the petition. I am sure the Minister has seen how many MPs are in …”

“Four years ago I introduced a private Member’s Bill to ban the sale of wet wipes with plastic in them. The previous Government dragged their feet, but these wet wipes cause fatbergs in our sewers, put millions of pounds on our water bills for all our constituents and pollute rivers and seas. This Government promised to…”

“As a Wandsworth MP, my constituents are very concerned about these releases. They have seen years of underfunding of Wandsworth prison. They have also seen more investment by this Government since coming into power than for years and years before that. From visiting Wandsworth prison, I have every confidence in its new…”