argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
International Travel Rules — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Robert Alexander Courts (Conservative, Centre-right): After a hugely challenging 16 months for the aviation industry, I am delighted that new rules allowing fully vaccinated people to travel to nearly all amber list countries, without isolating upon return, came into effect this morning, although people will still need to comply with necessary testing requirements. This coincides with a change in our advice, meaning that the do-not-travel rules for amber countries have now been relaxed, which will be a huge boost to our aviation and travel sectors ahead of the vital summer season Also from today, children under the age of 18 will not have to self-isolate when returning to England, making family reunions and holidays far more accessible. Children aged four and under will continue to be exempt from any travel testing, while children aged five to 10 will only need to do a day two PCR. Eleven to 18-year-olds will need to take both a pre-departure test and a day two PCR, as is the case for arrivals from green list countries I must reiterate that public health remains our priority, and with our measures on international travel we are safeguarding the gains made by our successful domestic vaccine programme. That is why, on Friday, the Government took the decision to exempt France from the new arrangements for fully vaccinated people returning to England. This decision was taken after concerns were raised by the Joint Biosecurity Centre over the persistent presence of cases in France of the beta variant, which was first identified in South Africa. I understand that the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), will be able to answer questions on the data and the concerns raised by the JBC in a statement shortly I can also confirm to the House that, since 4 am this morning, there have been changes to the countries in the traffic-light system. Bulgaria, Croatia, Hong Kong and Taiwan have been added to the Government’s green list; Croatia and Taiwan have also been added to the green watchlist, signalling to passengers that these countries are potentially at risk of moving from green to amber at short notice should swift action be required to protect public health in England The Balearic islands and the British Virgin Islands have been added to the amber list and, unfortunately, Cuba, Indonesia, Myanmar and Sierra Leone have been added to the red list We keep all these measures under constant review to ensure that they remain necessary and proportionate. The system we have designed is adaptable to the evolving epidemiological picture, and the UK Government are prepared to take action at any time to protect public health.
International Travel Rules — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Robert Alexander Courts (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the disruption that is undoubtedly being caused to his constituents and others. I entirely recognise that concern, and he is right to raise it. I know he will understand, however, that the action we have taken is to protect public health, which is, of course, the first duty of any Government in these circumstances and is what I think people would expect us to do. All this policy is kept under constant review in any event. As my hon. Friend will know, there is an assessment of the country listing every three weeks, and there is of course the policy listing as well, which comes up at the end of this month. If he was referring to the concern that existed over Malta’s accepting AstraZeneca vaccinations, my understanding is that that confusion has been resolved.
International Travel Rules — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): Apart from a rapid roll-out of vaccines, there are only three ways to control this situation: lockdown, which is unthinkable, the rubbish "pingdemic" test and trace, which we should abolish as soon as possible, or and being tough on foreign travel. May I urge my hon. Friend to be honest with the British people and say, "Our advice is going to change constantly. We cannot foresee this disease. Don’t go abroad this summer, but if you do go abroad, you go entirely at your own risk"?
International Travel Rules — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Sara Alice Britcliffe (Conservative, Centre-right): Constituents across Hyndburn and Haslingden have been in touch with me because they have booked holidays and are due to depart soon, but have unfortunately been "pinged" and forced into isolation after close contacts. Most of these people are double-jabbed. Can the Minister confirm that discussions between his Department and the Department of Health and Social Care are ongoing to resolve this, and to do so before 16 August? It is causing huge numbers of holiday cancellations, and huge disappointment to many families across the country.
International Travel Rules — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Paul Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): I think the Minister is as confused as I am by the Opposition’s position. They spent many weeks criticising a non-existent delay in action on the Indian variant and now they criticise prompt action on France It is absolutely right that we make the most of our fantastic vaccine roll-out to restore the freedoms we have had to sacrifice. Will my hon. Friend join me in encouraging everyone who has not yet had the jab to get it, whether they live in Thornley, Hurworth, Newton Aycliffe or anywhere else in the UK, so that airports like Teesside International airport can take off again?
International Travel Rules — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Robert Alexander Courts (Conservative, Centre-right): The guidance on testing is laid out on the Government website. I know there has been a change as of today, which is worth bearing in mind. I am happy to write to the hon. Member to give her that precise clarity so that she can pass that on to her constituents and indeed to others who may need to refer to it.
International Travel Rules — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Michael Jon Wood (Conservative, Centre-right): Nearly seven in 10 British adults have now received two doses of the vaccine. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should use the long-term protections that the vaccines provide to restore some of the freedoms that we have lost in the past year, including the ability to travel abroad?
International Travel Rules — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Robert Alexander Courts (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is quite right that the vaccines have been a major national success story and we are looking at ways to capitalise on that to restore freedom and the ability to travel. Of course, the measures that come into effect today are a major part of that. We will continue to examine ways in which we can take the next step.
International Travel Rules — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Robert Alexander Courts (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising that point. I recognise that these are challenging times for his constituents who work in the sector. I am also grateful for his acknowledgment that he supports the principle, as the Scottish Government have done; I think that people would expect us always to protect public health, and I know that he accepts that. As I have said to other right hon. and hon. Members, we are very keen to make sure that we restart international travel in a way that is sustainable and robust and protects public health. That is the way to assist his and all our constituents in the travel sector, wherever we are in the UK.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman raises a number of important questions. Pfizer supply remains consistent, and we have every confidence that the manufacturer will continue to deliver, as it has done, according to the delivery schedules. Being able to continue to vaccinate the over-18s with their first dose, and of course their second dose by the end of September is not a question of supply. Equally, as we did a few hours ago, jointly with Minister Humza Yousaf and the Ministers from Northern Ireland and Wales, we can take a decision that we will all follow JCVI advice on vaccinating vulnerable children and those who live with vulnerable adults, as I described in my statement On our capability in the UK to manage this pandemic, I hope, with the booster campaign in September, to transition from pandemic status to endemic status. With the wall of vaccinated adults—I think 87.9% have had a first dose in the United Kingdom, and 68% of all adults have had two doses—it is the right precautionary pragmatic decision to transition, and return our country to as normal a place as possible. We will get those businesses that were almost first in and now last out of the pandemic, back and up and running.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): Thanks to the efforts of the Minister we have one of the best vaccine programmes in the world, so I hope he does not mind me expressing two concerns about our current strategy. First, if we are to introduce covid vaccine passports for nightclubs by the end of September, which I support, why are we waiting until then, and giving more weight to the concerns of people who want to go to nightclubs than to the additional extra cases that waiting two months is likely to cause, at a time when that growth of new cases is such a concern Secondly, on the NHS app, people who have been double jabbed know that if they are pinged they are less likely to have the disease. They are therefore starting to ignore the request to self-isolate, and in some cases to delete the app. Before we lose social consent, should we not replace the requirement to isolate for 10 days with a requirement for someone to isolate until they have had a negative PCR test, thus using that testing capacity that the Minister talked about to keep our national show on the road?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his two excellent questions—rather than one—which I shall try to address in reverse. He will have heard the announcement in my statement about the NHS app and frontline social care or healthcare staff, as well as critical workers. Part of the reason we want to do that is that we want to maintain the ability of that workforce to do what it does best. As my right hon. Friend rightly outlined, they will do that with a negative PCR test and seven days of lateral flow testing. The clear clinical advice from the Chief Medical Officer and the expert team is that 16 August will be the most appropriate time to do that, for the rest of the economy as well. As we open up—we are now at step 4—and are getting more people double jabbed and protected further, especially younger parents, teachers and other professions, this is the appropriate measure to take on 16 August On the issue that my right hon. Friend raises on nightclubs, by the end of September 18-year-olds will have received their second dose. We will work with the industry to ensure that we get the covid pass right—now and in September—while we collate the evidence.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative, Centre-right): We and the devolved Administrations have accepted the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to vaccinate vulnerable children, those children who live with vulnerable adults, and 17-year-olds close to their 18th birthday. The committee is, however, keeping the situation under review and looking at more data emerging from other countries, including the United States of America, on whether we should vaccinate all children. I reassure the hon. Lady that children will have two supervised tests on their return and that testing will continue until the end of September. A combination of that and vaccinating at scale all adults helps us to control transmission. Double-vaccinated people reduce transmission rates by about 50%.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend said at the start of his statement that the disease was still here and that we were not out of the woods yet. The fact is that variants of covid-19 will be with us for many years to come. If we are truly to live with this virus, freedom day must mean what it says; the alternative is utter confusion, with hundreds of thousands of people having to isolate after being pinged by the NHS app. Here in Dorset, the police are beginning to struggle, because of the numbers who have to isolate. Will my hon. Friend tell me that the emergency services to which I think he referred include the police—that if they are double jabbed, they do not have to isolate—before enforcement of law and order becomes a real difficulty here in Dorset, I believe down in Devon and perhaps in other parts of the country?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman attends the Friday briefings that I offer colleagues. He is absolutely right. Last week, Public Health England published some encouraging real-world data that showed that two doses of the vaccines offer around 74% protection for those who are immunosuppressed or immunocompromised. That comes with a caveat that that group of people is not homogenous and we need to unpack some of the data. The JCVI has already recommended in its interim advice on the booster campaign in September that that group goes top of the list for the third dose as a boost. Of course, we have a large clinical trial, which will report imminently on the immunosuppressed and the immunocompromised. We will look at that data with the JCVI. The chief medical officer continues to ask the JCVI to look at what else we can do to protect that group, including through the therapeutics taskforce, which is doing some tremendous work.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is right that there is no such thing as a wrong batch of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in the United Kingdom. Our independent regulator regulates all manufacturing sites for AstraZeneca, Pfizer and the other vaccines. The AstraZeneca vaccine produced in the Serum Institute is the same vaccine—the Vaxzevria vaccine brand that is approved by the MHRA and the European Medicines Agency. There was some confusion in parts of world such as Malta last week, which the MHRA, the EMA and the Commission helped to clear up. I reassure my right hon. Friend that anyone who has had an Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and has the UK app or the letter to demonstrate their vaccination can travel. I think that 33 countries now recognise our vaccine certification.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Anthony Howe Browne (Conservative, Centre-right): As various hon. Members have noted, the number of coronavirus cases is rising very rapidly, but the great success of the vaccination scheme means that the number of deaths remains very low. That means that the fatality rate of coronavirus is now similar to that of other endemic viruses. Does my hon. Friend agree that with coronavirus now in approximately 200 countries around the world—almost every country in the world—the chance of eliminating it is almost zero, so as a society we have to learn to live with it, as we do with other serious infections such as flu and pneumonia?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Member for that thoughtful question. He is absolutely right: there are about 5.3 million people waiting for treatment. He is also right that we have to make sure that the NHS has the resources to do it, which is why two things have happened: the Secretary of State has made it a priority to deal with the pandemic, and he has made it an equal priority to deal with the backlog. He has made £1 billion available for the NHS to do that work.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his statement, but I confess to some disappointment that the daily vaccination rate is not being sustained at a higher level. What is the constraint? Is it supply, is it logistics or is it that the hard-to-reach groups are slower in coming forward? What consideration are the Government giving to what is happening in other countries such as the United States, where people are being offered some kind of reward for coming forward and accepting a vaccination?
Immigration: British Armed Forces Interpreters — House of Commons, 2021-06-07
Topic: Defense
Priti Sushil Patel (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government owe an immense debt of gratitude to the brave interpreters who worked alongside our armed forces overseas. In April we launched the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, under which any current or former staff members in Afghanistan who are at risk are offered priority relocation to the United Kingdom, regardless of their employment status, rank, role, or length of service.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-06-07
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): It is incredibly encouraging that just three out of 12,000 cases of the delta variant were double-jabbed, but is the debate inside Government now about a potential short, temporary extension of the restrictions to allow more people to get both jabs or a more permanent slowing down of the easing of restrictions? That is a massive difference to all our constituents in terms of what may happen following the announcement next week Secondly, could the Secretary of State look at one particular group who have been very hard hit over the last year: the parents of disabled children? He will know about my constituent Laura Wilde, who took her nine-year-old daughter, who has cerebral palsy, to Lanzarote for physio that she was unable to get in England and is looking for flexibility in the quarantine rules when she comes back. Can we show more flexibility in exceptional cases such as that?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-06-07
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): We are explicit about that. I appreciate what the hon. Lady said about the importance of data and data saving lives, and I agree with her about the importance of trust and bringing people with you. In fact, a large majority of those in the NHS are now actively enthusiastic about using data better. I very much hope we can keep it that way, not least because everybody has now seen the importance of using data to manage a crisis. One of the reasons for the vaccine success—why it has been rolled out so effectively—is that the data architecture that underpins the vaccine roll-out is extremely effective, and I pay tribute to the people who built it.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-06-07
Topic: Health
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): In Harrow, because of the delta variant, we have surge testing in our schools: 13,000 young people have been tested at school and 12,000 relatives at home. This weekend, 3,280 vaccinations took place because we had two new pop-up vaccination centres for 18-year-olds and over. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the entire team who have made this massive project, so diligently followed, to enable people to be safe in Harrow, but will he also consider having further pop-up clinics for 18-year-olds so that we can get everyone vaccinated as soon as possible?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-06-07
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We talk about this when the Northern Ireland Health Minister and the Scottish and Welsh Health Secretaries join me on a weekly call. We are acutely aware of the importance of tackling the delta variant, as it is now called, and it is something we work on very closely together across the UK.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-06-07
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): That is an excellent question astutely put. The purpose of the road map, and the purpose of following the data within the road map and therefore having not-before dates, is that we are in a race between the vaccine programme and the virus, and with the delta variant the virus got extra legs. Our goal, sadly, is not a covid-free world, because that is impossible; the goal is to live with covid much as we live with some other unpleasant diseases, including, of course, flu. That does mean that there will be vaccinations long into the future; it means that, especially in winter, in hospitals for instance, we will have to be very careful to prevent infection from spreading; and it means that we will have to live with this virus and manage our way through it, but with the supreme power of science and the vaccine at our hand. That will be so powerful, and it is already proving, including through the data that I announced to the House just now, to be an incredibly powerful ally in getting us through this. However, at the moment, only 76% of people have had the jab and only 52% of people have had both jabs, and unlike with the previous variant, the second jab appears to be even more important this time around.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-06-07
Topic: Health
Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative, Centre-right): The case rate in north Lincolnshire is 19 per 100,000 and we have seen incredibly low levels of hospitalisation since the middle of May. That is due, I am sure, to the vaccination effort and all those people who have had their jab. People in Scunthorpe have done everything they have been asked to do, so does my right hon. Friend agree that unless we meet an incredibly high bar of evidence, we will proceed with the opening on 21 June?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-06-07
Topic: Health
Christopher Stephen Grayling (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend should take great credit, as should his team, for the progress of the vaccination programme, and I congratulate him on it. Is it true that the Joint Biosecurity Centre said that Malta could be put on the green list?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-06-07
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): This incredibly important subject is close to my heart too, and perhaps we can work with the hon. Gentleman, with his personal experience of long covid over such a period, to ensure that we drive that agenda as hard as possible. The NHS has stepped forward and we have put more money into research, but this is an unknown condition as a result of a novel virus. It is a complicated condition and there are many different types of long covid. I would be keen to ensure that the hon. Gentleman engages with the NHS work on this.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-06-07
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Part of the purpose of the international testing regime is to get genetic sequences to spot variants, which we cannot do from a lateral flow test. That is the literal answer to my hon. Friend’s question. More broadly, the approach we are taking instead is to try to drive down the costs of PCR tests. Bringing a private market for PCR tests for travel has led to a significant reduction in cost, and that is another good example of harnessing private markets to improve people’s lives. The companies involved are strongly incentivised to deliver tests for a lower price. That is the approach we have taken for the reason I set out, and that is the decision we have made.