argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
NHS: Reform — House of Lords, 2015-07-16
Topic: Health
Tessa Blackstone (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare an interest as the chairman of the Great Ormond Street Hospital Foundation Trust. Before I put my questions to the Minister, I will just make one brief comment on his remarks about the Opposition. I have no idea what the shadow Secretary of State for Health said in another place, but I will defend what my noble friend Lord Hunt has just said. He said that he agreed in principle with a great deal of the Statement, but it is legitimate for the Opposition to ask questions about how a Statement of this sort might be implemented, which is what he was doing I have two questions, the first about bureaucracy. The Minister said that he wished to see a reduction in bureaucracy. As a chairman of a trust, I entirely identify with that. However, some of the bureaucracy is in the regulators, and I hope that his attack on bureaucracy will cover the regulators. The Government are about to set up another outside agency, which will put further bureaucratic pressure on those who are delivering services upfront. Anything he can do to try to reduce that would be helpful My other question concerns seven-day services. Again, I entirely endorse what the Government wish to do with respect to seven-day services—if anything, they are overdue—but there are questions to be asked. What is the timetable for this, if it is only going to apply to new consultants? It will take a very long time to introduce seven-day services if only new consultants are going to go on to the new contract requiring them to work at weekends. I understand why the Government are doing that, but it will make for a very long delay. What steps will the Government take to try to encourage existing consultants, who will be far greater in number than the flow of new consultants, to adjust to a new approach where seven-day services are introduced in the interests of patients?
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-14
Topic: Health
Alan Thomas Howarth (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it is remarkable that the international community, having been increasingly aware of and alarmed by the dangers of new psychoactive substances, has none the less not so far succeeded in establishing a definition that is watertight in legal terms and available to the Government to use in their legislation as they seek to fulfil their manifesto pledge. The expert panel, on page 38 of its report, advised that the definitions in use in legislation would need to be robust. This group of amendments seeks to specify more closely the generic problem that we are seeking to address through this legislation In seeking to tighten and, in a sense, limit the scope of the Bill in this way, let me not give the impression—I know that other noble Lords who have supported these amendments would not want the impression to be given—that we in any way minimise the dangers from new psychoactive substances. This is a serious and challenging social problem.
National Shipbuilding Strategy — House of Lords, 2017-09-06
Topic: Defense
Judith Anne Jolly (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, in welcoming the Minister to the Front Bench on her first defence Statement. As a general rule, we welcome the shipbuilding strategy, which is all to do with the delivery of the 2015 SDSR. We welcome the boost that it is likely to give to British engineering and the use of the distributed build model, which was so successfully used with the carriers. We welcome the opportunity that should come from this to spread enterprise and employment to shipbuilding yards across the UK, and the opportunities to export I should welcome some clarity from the Minister about the opportunity to open the market. I have not read the detail in the strategy, but can she indicate how this might work? As she outlined, the timescale is really tight if we are to have our first Type 31e frigate by 2023, so how long is the procurement process expected to last, and how long the build? Here, I echo concerns about efficiency savings. We clearly need to be effective and efficient, but if we start cutting corners, we will rue the day What gives the Government confidence that there will be men and women available to build the ships and, once built, to man them, given that unemployment is pretty much at an all-time low at the moment and the Royal Navy is not attracting recruits or retaining young men and women? Finally, what mechanism is envisaged to report to Parliament on the progress of the strategy outlined in the document?
Mesothelioma (Amendment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Michael Wills (Labour, Centre-left): What the Minister has just said is so profoundly important that I want to ask him to clarify it a little further. I moved an amendment to the then Mesothelioma Bill precisely to that effect: if there was this gap between the 3% that the insurers were prepared to pay and the 2.25% that the government actuaries thought would be needed, that would be devoted not to the insurance industry’s profits but to the relief to this terrible illness. At the time, the Minister in this House was quite resistant, but when it was debated in the other place the Minister there was quite clear. We heard the quote from the noble Lord, Lord Alton. Some months ago, when I asked a Parliamentary Question for Written Answer about this point, I recall that the Government said that they were not yet in a position to say whether there was a shortfall. I think I heard the Minister say that he believes there may be such a shortfall. If he said that, this is profoundly important as a way forward, as he suggests, so I would be grateful if he would clarify that.
Mesothelioma (Amendment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston (Labour, Centre-left): Before the Minister sits down, and I apologise for prolonging this debate for longer than necessary, does he agree that medical advances in every field are often very serendipitous? The classic example would be the completely unfunded discovery of penicillin when it was first produced, and it was subsequently only mediocrely funded until we had a wartime crisis In about an hour’s time the Minister will be answering a Question about doctors’ overtime. One of the critical issues that has not been discussed in that debate has been raised by Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust, who points out that one of the real issues is the problem with young doctors being able to do research in a very generic way, which has all sorts of benefits, including clinical mesothelioma research. That is a fundamental problem. We in this country are very good at medical research and on the whole we fund it quite well, although obviously we would like to have more funding, but providing the environment for continuing research is essential for what we are discussing in this Second Reading debate.
Mesothelioma (Amendment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Anthony Giddens (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry to give the Minister such a torrid time, but I hope he recognises that he should look internationally. There are important models in other countries, such as the Pacific Lung Health Centre, which is integrated with the wider lung foundation and has produced significant research. We should not just think nationally; we should look at other models and see how they could be adopted here to deal with the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Winston, rightly raises. As I tried to stress, mesothelioma shares things in common with other cancers and, now that we have got to a deep enough genetic level to be able to understand why some of these processes happen, I think it would be worth while to get some information on what exists elsewhere to see how far it could be applied here.
Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament — House of Lords, 2015-09-14
Topic: Defense
Jonathan Toby Harris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Intelligence and Security Committee is an extremely important committee and is made up of Members of both Houses of Parliament. Perhaps the Lord Privy Seal can correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that it is funded by both Houses of Parliament, yet this House, which I think contributes a very significant proportion of the funding—it would be helpful if the Lord Privy Seal told us what proportion it funds—has only two of the committee’s members. Will the noble Baroness explain the rationale for that? Will she tell us what recommendations or representations she made to the Prime Minister about the Lords representation on this important committee?
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-11
Topic: Health
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the noble Lord. That is very helpful and extremely interesting if we are talking about giving somebody within the structure of the OfS the capacity to engender among people a much better sense of engagement with an institution once admitted, whatever their background—that is the point. The noble Lord knows what I am going to say next. Those are the ends of the policy, but where are the means by which it is going to happen? I am sure that it would involve cost because we are looking for a change from where we are, and there may be additional responsibilities. I do not see those mentioned anywhere in the Bill. We may want to come back to this point but I agree with the noble Lord that it changes the whole nature of what we are talking about, and we should reflect on that. In the interim, I beg leave to withdraw.
Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-01-31
Topic: Health
Lindsay Granshaw (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendments 260, 261 and 262 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on water fluoridation The NHS rightly prides itself on being evidence-based. Nevertheless, when Ara Darzi became health Minister, he was concerned that, in a number of areas such as the treatment of diabetes, there was not a full assessment of regular outcomes, as opposed to the fantastic clinical trials on new treatments for specific diseases. Hence, he introduced his atlas of outcomes. It showed, for example, absolutely unacceptable different outcomes for diabetes if you lived in Cornwall—where you were more likely to lose a leg—compared with Essex. There were serious lessons to be drawn from that, which needed to be applied in other areas, too.
Armed Forces: Capability — House of Lords, 2017-01-12
Topic: Defense
Paul Murphy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I congratulate and pay tribute to my noble friend, Lord Robertson, on a masterly introduction to and analysis of the current situation. It was a fitting beginning to a very interesting debate. The noble Lord, Lord Sterling, and I were both founding members of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. A few months ago that Committee reported and said that the Armed Forces, "will not be able to fulfil the wide-ranging tasks described in the NSS & SDSR 2015 … with the capabilities, manpower and funding", allocated. Doubtless, in half an hour’s time, the Minister will tell this House that the Government spend so much money that we are the fifth largest defence spender on the planet and that we are one of only five NATO members that spend at least 2% of GDP on defence. Both of course are true; but a number of Members of this House, over the last hour, have indicated that the 2% figure is not really what it seems. As we know, it includes £820 million on war pensions, £400 million on our United Nations peacekeeping missions and £200 million for pensions for retired Ministry of Defence civilian staff. For the very first time, it includes spending on the single intelligence account and on one-off items that cannot be counted towards the 2% in years to come On top of that, it should be seen in the context of so-called efficiency savings, which the noble Lords, Lord King and Lord Reid, both referred to earlier, which are the most nebulous things in government accounting. It is not surprising to me that the Defence Committee of the House of Commons said that this was "shifting the goalposts", my honourable friend Nia Griffith, the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, called it a "sleight of hand" and my noble friend Lord Reid today has called it "creative accountancy". It is fiddling the figures a little, I suppose, and I would be interested in the Minister’s response on those points The 2% figure should not be a target: it should be a minimum. That is the importance of it. In The House magazine back in the autumn, this was written: "It was a Labour Government who committed to the 2%, and a Labour Government who were a founding member of NATO—every time Labour have been in government, they have taken a responsible view of defence". Those words were written by the current Conservative Secretary of State for Defence. He was of course right and, despite the rather daft musings of people in my leader’s office, I am sure that my noble friend Lord Touhig will also confirm that this responsible view of defence is the view of the Labour Party.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-30
Topic: Culture
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, because of the invitation to reflect, I will take a slight liberty and make two points. The worst time of my life was when I occupied a post in the British film industry and was involved in trying to get decisions for funding for films. We were often engaged in trying to deal with larger, richer and often foreign bodies, which were prepared to tantalise us with the thought that they might invest in our films. It became well known in that process that the worst decision you could get was the slow maybe. I am afraid we are in that situation. The Minister has said that he is reflecting and thinking, but we have not been able to get clarity. It is easier to have a straight, "No, we are not taking this forward", than it is to have variations on "thinking hard about" or reflecting. I appreciate the gesture that he has made, but it has been a bit of a frustrating period, and I am sure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, will also say that sometimes it has been very hard to understand where the Minister has wanted to get to with a particular issue because we did not get clarity about it However, that is all past. We are now into a period of calm waters, and perhaps we can pick up the threads of some of what we are doing and try to take forward the ideas for Report and possibly onwards from then. I hope that that will be a fruitful time, and I look forward to it.
Trident Missile Test — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Defense
Alan William John West (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in naval parlance, this is a complete pot mess. A very successful DASO, which proved that "Vengeance" and her crew are well capable of being part of the CASD rotation, was carried out, but because of the way it was handled it has failed to reassure us all. I have spent my life fighting for Trident and I understand all the complexities and all the security issues. For 20 years, we have shot and sent out films of every single DASO and made an announcement about it. We did not do it this time, and consequently we are in a position where we have embarrassed our own Prime Minister—which is not very clever—and have given succour to those people who do not like the deterrent, do not understand why we need it and want to find some way of attacking it. That is what we have achieved. Does the Minister not agree that our failure to handle this openly has caused huge problems? It has given succour to those who do not like the deterrent, which our nation needs, and has embarrassed our Prime Minister. It has made a complete mess and was handled badly.
Personal Independence Payment Regulations — House of Lords, 2017-03-15
Topic: Health
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Answer. The Social Security Advisory Committee expressed the view that outside the DWP there is indeed some confusion regarding the original policy intent of the measures, and that the department had made errors about its intent in submission to an Upper Tribunal. The committee further expressed concern about unintended operational and legal consequences arising from the changes to the mobility descriptors in the regulations that have been made. It drew attention to circumstances where multiple factors make it impossible for someone to follow a journey without help, and where it would be difficult to strip out and exclude psychological distress from other factors How does the Minister respond to this issue and to the recommendation that these proposed changes and those relating to managing therapy should be tested with healthcare professionals and decision-makers? Will he commit to doing this before implementation of the regulations that have been laid? Further, can the Minister explain how regarding the consequences of psychological distress is consistent with fostering parity of esteem between those with physical and mental health conditions?
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-01
Topic: Health
David George Clark (Labour, Centre-left): I am very grateful for that intervention and I am sure that the Minister will be as well I have two points. The advantage of this amendment is that it is a win-win situation, because it is practically right for us to do so, and it is morally right to do so I was struck by the argument of the most reverend Primate. I understood it but does he not understand the pain, suffering and uncertainty of individuals working in our health service who feel hurt that they put in so much effort and give their time trying to help the people of Britain? They and their families feel very hurt and I think we owe them something in that respect.
Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-05
Topic: Health
Claire Tyler (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I wish to comment extremely briefly on Motion E, in relation to unpaid carers and hospital discharge, and to ask the Minister one question. I want first to pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for her unstinting leadership on this issue. I very much welcome the amendment in lieu which the Government have brought forward to ensure that carers and patients are properly involved in discharge decisions My one point is that the cost of living crisis is a reality and life is getting tougher for many people. Involving carers at the point of discharge gives them the opportunity to say that they are unable to care, or unable to get the support they need for caring because they are juggling work and care—for example, if it is impossible for them to give up work fully because they need to feed the family or pay the bills. Can the Minister give me assurance that carers’ needs to juggle work and care will be both properly covered and explored in the guidance which I know that the Government are committed to producing, and which I am very much looking forward to seeing?
Personal Independence Payments — House of Lords, 2017-02-28
Topic: Health
Maeve Christina Mary Sherlock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement to the House. I want to concentrate on the judgment on the mobility component of PIP. Despite what the newspapers may have reported, the tribunal ruling does not mean that anyone with mental health problems can get the higher rate of PIP. What it does mean is that assessors cannot arbitrarily ignore all mental health problems when working out whether someone is entitled to the higher rate of PIP to deal with the higher costs that they face. Despite the Minister’s comments, MIND has pointed out that the Explanatory Memorandum for the original Act said that the higher rate was right if someone’s mobility was, "severely limited by the person’s physical or mental condition" If these regulations go through, it seems that someone who is blind and needs help to plan or navigate a journey could get the higher rate of PIP but someone who, for example, has autism or early-onset dementia and could not manage to plan or navigate a journey without help would not be able to get the higher rate of PIP. My question is very simple: how does that sit with the Government’s commitment to parity of esteem between physical and mental health and to the Prime Minister’s promise to tackle the stigma associated with mental health problems?
Nursing and Midwifery (Amendment) Order 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-02-28
Topic: Health
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention. I fully accept the point he raises. The noble Lord knows a very great deal about nursing and midwifery, and has done some very valuable work in this area, but he mentioned the word "nursing". He will know that there is an issue about how midwifery leadership is undertaken under the banner of nurses. That is really what I want to come to, but I think his point is very valid I am not suggesting that the Government—essentially, we are talking about four government departments—have not looked into this issue, but there are some issues about the visibility of professional leadership of the midwifery profession which I worry about. We know that midwives are subsumed under nursing leadership, and that has some consequences when it comes to priorities and resources. It is also worth saying to the noble Lord that, of course, often these directors can be described as directors of nursing and midwifery, but to get to a director level in the NHS, even at NHS trust level, midwives have to become directors of nursing and therefore they need a nursing qualification. My understanding is that only 30% of midwives are also nurses, so there is almost a glass ceiling for many members of the midwifery profession.
European Council — House of Lords, 2017-03-14
Topic: Defense
Alan William John West (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the United States and the United Kingdom have ensured the safety and security of Europe for decades now. Indeed, 25% of European spending on defence within NATO comes from the UK. Our agencies are the best in Europe and are crucial to the internal security of Europeans. Will the Minister confirm that these factors will play a full part in any negotiations? We must continue to make sure that the countries of Europe remain safe.
National Shipbuilding Strategy — House of Lords, 2017-09-06
Topic: Defense
Alan William John West (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, any day that the Government say they intend to order new warships is, by definition, a very good day, but my 52 years in the Navy have made me realise that, until you stand on the actual quarterdeck of the ship, you do not have it. My noble friend Lord Touhig has come up with a number of uncertainties and concerns. I am rather worried, and I would love to have the Minister’s answer on this. If we order these five, we have orders in place for eight frigates. We are going to lose 13 Type 23 frigates at the rate of one a year—they are already old—and we have not got the orders for the other ships to make up that 13. It is commonly accepted that 13 frigates is not enough for our nation. Within the Statement it was said, at least three if not four times, that the Navy will grow in size by the 2030s. I cannot see how that can happen with the orders as they are at the moment. It will grow in weight, because the new carriers are so heavy, but the numbers of ships will not grow. If we intend to increase the number of ships, then I ask the Minister: what is the number of frigates that we will be aiming at, in terms of increasing the numbers within the Royal Navy?