argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Petitions — House of Commons, 2017-01-11
Topic: Health
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to present a petition of 2,000 residents of Wakefield on the future of the King Street health centre in my constituency, whose GP service is under threat of being withdrawn—a very important issue for my constituents The petition states that the petitioners request the House of Commons to urge the Government and Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group to take all necessary steps to ensure that King Street Health Centre remains open and has the current contract for GP-led services extended to allow Wakefield residents continued access to health care Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of Wakefield, Declares that King Street Health Centre is a vital service for Wakefield, and helps to ease the pressures on local GP surgeries, pharmacies, and Pinderfields Hospital; further that Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group is reviewing the future of the GP-led services at King Street Health Centre, as the contract is up for renewal in March 2017; further that the petitioners are concerned that closure or removal of services from King Street Health Centre would put at risk the future of the King Street Walk-in Service, which shares the same facilities, staff and building; and further that 1955 persons have signed an online petition in similar terms. The petitioners therefore request the House of Commons to urge the Government and Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group to take all necessary steps to ensure that King Street Health Centre remains open and has the current contract for GP-led services extended to allow Wakefield residents continued access to health care. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P002001]
Taxation — House of Commons, 2017-01-18
Topic: Health
Questions: The SNP wants to levy the highest level of income tax anywhere in the United Kingdom. It already receives more per capita funding than England, yet Scotland’s schools are conspicuously worse than those in the rest of the United Kingdom. Does the Minister put that down to the incompetence of the Scottish Government or their prioritisation of nationalist posturing over proper administration?
David Anderson (Labour, Centre-left): In a week when the chairman of the British Medical Association in Scotland has warned that the NHS in Scotland is "at breaking point", is the Minister as surprised as I am that the so-called progressive SNP Government in Holyrood consistently refuse to use the powers afforded them to protect the NHS in Scotland?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2017-01-18
Topic: Health
Kelvin Peter Hopkins (Labour, Centre-left): Thousands of babies who are born each year are damaged for life by alcohol consumed in pregnancy. Patients affected by alcohol put immense pressure on the national health service, and alcohol is a primary factor in domestic violence and attacks on women. Does the Prime Minister recognise the seriousness of the country’s alcohol problems—the damage to lives and the billions in costs to the public purse—and will she instruct her Government now to address these problems effectively and as a matter of urgency?
Fire and Rescue Response Times — House of Commons, 2017-01-23
Topic: Defense
Paula Michelle Sherriff (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his response, but continued cuts are having a profound impact on firefighter and public safety. Response times have increased, there are unsafe numbers of staff on appliances and those appliances are having to travel further afield, which means that they are reaching more serious fires. Does the Minister agree that these cuts have gone far too far?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-01-23
Topic: Health
Questions: Although the current police funding formula has not been fully applied to Leicestershire police, meaning a loss of £5.6 million annually even under that unfair funding formula, Chief Constable Simon Cole and his excellent team of officers have continued to drive down crime locally, but can my right hon. Friend reassure me, and them, that they and Leicestershire will secure a fair funding deal very soon?; Waffle, Mr Speaker—waffle is all that we get in answer to questions about dealing with hate crime on Facebook and Twitter and on the internet. If Germany can fine these companies half a million pounds every time they fail to take down hate speech posts within 24 hours, why can we not also take practical action to hold them to account for their failure to deal with hate speech?; Cheshire constabulary is currently rolling out Operation Shield, which allows people to mark their valuables with a unique DNA liquid to prove their ownership of stolen items in the event of their recovery. What is the Department doing to support similar crime-fighting initiatives?; In the light of recent terrorist threats across the globe, will my hon. Friend the Minister update the House on what steps the Government are taking to ensure that we are not vulnerable to similar attacks?; In 2016 Bradford university, which is in my constituency, was listed by The Times among the top 200 most international universities, but has seen its international student numbers fall by nearly 45% since 2010. As my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) has outlined, the benefit that international students bring to cities such as Bradford cannot be overstated. What will the Minister do to reverse this trend and ensure that one of our greatest assets can continue to attract students?; We in this place have referred before now to the good work of the police officers, men and women, and police community support officers in the St Ives constituency. It is only right that they receive their fair share of the money in the policing budget. What measures is the Department taking to ensure that Devon and Cornwall police receive a fair funding settlement?
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): Violence against doctors, nurses, paramedics and other health workers has been on the rise in England and Wales over the last few years. Scotland has a specific criminal offence for such violence; is it not time that we had the same in England and Wales?
Trident: Test Firing — House of Commons, 2017-01-23
Topic: Defense
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. He will know that I am a strong believer in this country’s independent nuclear deterrent. Major inroads have been made in recent decades in public transparency on nuclear issues, on which is important to maintain a consensus and support for our nuclear deterrent. That has included openness and publicity about test launches in Florida The Secretary of State will have seen claims in the press at the weekend that in the latest test the missile veered towards the United States. Will he confirm whether that was the case? Will he tell the House when he was first informed that there was a problem with the test and when his Department informed the then Prime Minister, David Cameron? Was it the Secretary of State or the then Prime Minister who decided to shelve the Department’s customary practice of publicising test launches and ordered a news blackout What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the present Prime Minister about the test, and why news of it was not relayed to Parliament before the debate on the Successor submarine programme last July Finally, I pay tribute to the members of our armed forces who for the past 48 years have maintained Operation Relentless and the UK’s continuous at-sea deterrent.
Trident: Test Firing — House of Commons, 2017-01-23
Topic: Defense
John Francis Spellar (Labour, Centre-left): I certainly withdraw any implication that the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) was worried about embarrassment to the Minister Will the Minister confirm that in Lord Hennessy’s book "The Silent Deep" there is a full description of a previous firing? How is it an operational matter or a security threat merely to ask when the Minister and Prime Minister were made aware of the problem and why they decided to keep it quiet?
Trident: Test Firing — House of Commons, 2017-01-23
Topic: Defense
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): The essence of deterrence is uncertainty—about when, whether or if missiles will be fired. Can I take it that the purpose of the Secretary of State’s statement today is that he wishes to add to the uncertainty and therefore increase deterrence?
Trident: Test Firing — House of Commons, 2017-01-23
Topic: Defense
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): The replacement of the Trident submarine system enjoys the support of not only the majority of Members of Parliament but, so polls tell us, the majority of people in every one of the four nations of the United Kingdom. Does the Secretary of State recognise that the way in which information is coming out—more has been revealed by the US Defence Department than in this Parliament in the past hour—massively undermines confidence in the system, which we need all the public to have?
Trident: Test Firing — House of Commons, 2017-01-23
Topic: Defense
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): Many Opposition Members share the Defence Secretary’s commitment to the deterrent and, for that matter, his concern about national security, but the logic of what he is saying is that there was a security breach, and it happened this weekend, as American officials are now briefing CNN and British officials are secretly briefing The Guardian and The Sunday Times. Surely, according to his own logic, there must now be a full investigation.
Local Government Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-23
Topic: Health
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister accept that the Bill will significantly increase the rates demand on hospitals at a time when the health service is extremely hard pressed? For example, the rates demand on Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham will rise to £7 million. If the Minister is willing to look at discretionary relief on public toilets, is he willing to look again at discretionary relief for hospitals?
Local Government Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-23
Topic: Health
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): On social care, I met the chief executive of University hospital Coventry a couple of weeks ago. One of the big dilemmas is that people with mental illnesses are turning up at the hospital and looking for treatment when they should be going elsewhere. There is a real difficulty, certainly in the midlands, in looking after the carers in that situation. Does my hon. Friend agree that something should be done about that?
Local Government Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-23
Topic: Health
James McMahon (Labour, Centre-left): I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, but his point goes beyond adult social care and the acute sector. Over this parliamentary Session, we have been discussing the cuts to community pharmacies and the impact that they are going to have. A lot of Greater Manchester’s Healthier Together programme is based on the preventive work of our community pharmacies, but 16 community pharmacies in my own town face closure. That is not part of the health devolution programme to Greater Manchester, but it is being held up as a place that has health devolution. That is because it is very tightly defined and the Government, with the best will in the world, just will not let go, for different reasons Members should not just take my word for it. During my years in local government, I had the pleasure of working with some fantastic people. I should be careful not to overstate this, given that he is one of the mayoral candidates in the race for Greater Manchester, but the Conservative leader of Trafford Council, who is also a vice-chair of the LGA, is very clear that this is not fiscal devolution, but a retention of rates that will be set centrally. If we mean it, we should all learn to let go, trust our local councils and trust local people to hold them to account.
NATO Spending Target — House of Commons, 2017-03-13
Topic: Defense
Questions: Germany currently spends 1.23% of GDP—€36 billion —on defence and to spend 2% it would need almost to double that, to €60 billion. Does the Minister appreciate that a rearmed Germany would give concern not only to some of its neighbours, but to Russia, thus potentially increasing the difficulties we face with tensions on the Russian border?; I dissociate myself from the remarks made by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon); that was an extraordinary statement about Germany.Since you have been here, Mr Speaker, how many Ministers have come to the Dispatch Box to say exactly the same thing—that we are encouraging other NATO members to meet the target? Some of our European partners take the whole thing for granted in the knowledge that we and the Americans pick up the bill. What are we actually going to do about it to get them to pay what they should pay?
Fabian Hamilton (Labour, Centre-left): Last month, the International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded that the Government have in fact missed the 2% NATO defence spending target, and that they would have missed it by even more had they not included budgetary headings such as pensions, which do not contribute to our defence capabilities and were not included when Labour was in government. Is it not time that we went back to the criteria used for defence spending when the Labour party was in power so that we may give our armed forces the resources they need?
Daesh — House of Commons, 2017-03-13
Topic: Defense
Questions: Independent monitors report that this month, in the space of one week, the international coalition killed as many as 370 civilians in air strikes in Mosul. Has the Secretary of State investigated those claims, and what assurances can he give us that UK air strikes will not involve civilian deaths in Mosul?
Nia Rhiannon Griffith (Labour, Centre-left): On my recent visit to Cyprus, I was privileged to meet the dedicated RAF crews who work night and day to keep up the fight against Daesh in Iraq and Syria. I am concerned that there is currently no specific medal to recognise the dedication and bravery of the servicemen and women on Operation Shader. In doing their duty, these men and women are protecting UK citizens from the threat posed by Daesh as well as defending civilians in the region. Will the Secretary of State now commit to recognising their service with a specific Operation Shader medal?
Daesh — House of Commons, 2017-03-13
Topic: Defense
Questions: Independent monitors report that this month, in the space of one week, the international coalition killed as many as 370 civilians in air strikes in Mosul. Has the Secretary of State investigated those claims, and what assurances can he give us that UK air strikes will not involve civilian deaths in Mosul?
Nia Rhiannon Griffith (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. It is heartening to see the real progress that is being made to liberate Mosul and the role that our forces are playing in that, and yet we know that it is only part of a wider campaign to eradicate Daesh in the region. As the focus will soon turn to Syria, where there are considerably greater challenges, will he tell us in greater detail what role he expects the RAF to play in the battle for Raqqa and other Daesh strongholds?
Departmental Funding — House of Commons, 2017-03-13
Topic: Defense
Nicholas Desmond John Smith (Labour, Centre-left): Why does the Government’s defence spending return to NATO include more than £1 billion of war and civilian pensions? These do not contribute to our defence and were not included under a Labour Government. Concern over these accounting tricks undermines confidence in our defence spending targets.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-03-13
Topic: Defense
Nia Rhiannon Griffith (Labour, Centre-left): The outsourcing of public services frequently results in lower levels of staffing, less continuity, less training and less vetting. Given that the MOD Guard Service was set up in the wake of the 1989 bombing of the Royal Marines building at Deal, when 11 marines died, and that failures by a private security firm were identified, will the Government recognise the sensitivity of the work done by the MOD guards and abandon plans to privatise the service?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-03-13
Topic: Defense
Questions: Can my right hon. Friend recall a time when the deployment of British forces to a NATO ally has not had the support of the whole House?; The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment headquarters and museum, Fulwood barracks, is to be sold off, while its 2nd battalion will lose over half its complement of soldiers and move to Aldershot. That will leave just one regular infantry battalion in the north-west by 2020 in that regiment, which as it stands has no headquarters identified after 2022. What message do the Government think that sends to serving personnel in St Helens and to the young men and women who want to follow in their footsteps and join Merseyside’s county regiment?; Thirty-five years on, our armed forces still play a vital role in safeguarding the security of the Falkland Islands and other British overseas territories in the south Atlantic. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that this Government are committed to maintaining a strong armed forces presence in the Falklands?; Toolmakers in my constituency such as J. Adams Ltd have made high-quality military knives for the defence sector for six generations. The UK’s manufacturing industry is more than capable of supplying the sector, but new Royal Navy Trident submarines and offshore patrol vessels are being built using foreign steel. When is the Ministry of Defence going to publish a proper defence industrial strategy so that we can start supporting UK steel and manufacturing instead of buying off the shelf from abroad?; Last week the Royal United Services Institute published a report demonstrating that the Royal Navy is no longer designed for sea control in the north Atlantic. Indeed, there is not one major surface vessel based in Scotland. Can the Minister confirm that the lesser spotted national shipbuilding strategy, if and when we eventually see it, will redress this strategic imbalance?; The latest UK armed forces monthly figures show that while 6,690 people joined the reservists in the past 12 months, over 5,000 left. What more is being done to encourage the retention of reservists?; Following on from the answer that the Minister gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss), can she name the projects in which British steel is actually being used to safeguard British steelworkers jobs?; We continue to hear stories of our service personnel being forced to live without heating and sometimes without being able to take a shower for days, as detailed in recent reports about the Wellington and Baker barracks. Do the Government really think it is acceptable to leave our brave servicemen and women in such squalid conditions?
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): What discussions has the Defence Secretary had with the US Government about the announcement over the weekend of the deployment of hundreds of US marines to northern Syria, what their purpose is and what co-operation will take place between us and the Americans with respect to that deployment?
Dermatologists — House of Commons, 2017-07-04
Topic: Health
Benjamin Peter James Bradshaw (Labour, Centre-left): Dermatology is one of the specialisms that is particularly dependent on doctors from other EU countries. Is it not becoming clearer by the day, whether on the staffing crisis in the NHS or the threat to our pharmaceutical industry highlighted by the Health Secretary in his letter today, that the extreme hard Brexit being pursued by the Prime Minister is disastrous for our NHS? What are the Minister and the Secretary of State doing to pull the Prime Minister back from that damaging course?
Accident and Emergency Departments — House of Commons, 2017-07-04
Topic: Health
Justin Piers Richard Madders (Labour, Centre-left): Another threat to A&E units is the capped expenditure process, which will mean hundreds of millions of pounds cut from NHS budgets. That was sneaked out during the election, but so far we have had nothing but silence from this Government. It is time that we had the truth: when did the Secretary of State sign off these plans and when is he going to publish them?
Healthcare: CCG Guidance — House of Commons, 2017-07-04
Topic: Health
Lucy Maria Powell (Labour, Centre-left): Patients at the Manchester Royal infirmary with serious congenital heart problems found out last week that the services will now no longer be provided in Manchester, or in fact anywhere in the north-west, due to a Government review of services which means that staff cannot be retained and recruited. What has the Minister got to say to those patients who now have to go to Leeds or Newcastle to get the lifesaving surgery that they need?
Tobacco Control Plan — House of Commons, 2017-07-04
Topic: Health
Alexander Gordon Martin (Labour, Centre-left): I need to declare an interest as a Suffolk county councillor. Given the health responsibilities of local government, will the Minister tell the House what can be done to deal with the situation in which the actuarial advice from local government and other public sector pension schemes is that they are not at liberty to disinvest from tobacco stocks?
Tobacco Control Plan — House of Commons, 2017-07-04
Topic: Health
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): Last week marked the 10th anniversary of the smoking ban across the UK, but sadly the celebration was dampened by the fact that we have yet to see the Government’s new tobacco control plan, which was promised in December 2015. The previous two Health Ministers I have shadowed repeatedly said that we would see the plan shortly, but they failed to set out an updated strategy for working towards a smoke-free society. I welcome the Minister to his new post—we have worked well together in the past on the all-party parliamentary group on breast cancer—and I am hoping that, although he has not yet given us a date for the plan, he will be able to give us an indication. Is it going to be published before Christmas?
Dental Surgery: Children — House of Commons, 2017-07-04
Topic: Health
Paula Michelle Sherriff (Labour, Centre-left): Prevention and early intervention are crucial, but no NHS dentists are accepting new patients in Dewsbury, which has the second-worst provision in the country. Children in Dewsbury have five times the national average level of tooth decay. I have asked for help on this for two years, but absolutely nothing has been done. Can you tell me why the dental health of children in Dewsbury is so unimportant to this Government?
General Practitioners: Newcastle — House of Commons, 2017-07-04
Topic: Health
Chinyelu Susan Onwurah (Labour, Centre-left): Newcastle has fantastic GPs, but many of my poorest and most vulnerable constituents suffer from GP unavailability and a constant change of providers due to the requirement to re-tender every couple of years to a market that, quite frankly, does not want them because they are too poor or too marginalised to make money from. Will the Minister meet me and my local CCG to find out how we can ensure that those people get the quality and consistency of GP services that they deserve?
Mental Health Services — House of Commons, 2017-07-04
Topic: Health
Luke Pollard (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that answer. There is a growing crisis in young people’s mental health in Plymouth and the far south-west. Despite 75% of mental health problems starting before the age of 18, only 8% of funding is allocated to young people. Will the Minister consider ring-fencing that young people’s mental health spending so that the funding gets to where it is needed?
NHS Improvement — House of Commons, 2017-07-04
Topic: Health
Nicholas Dakin (Labour, Centre-left): Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust is in special measures for both financial and quality reasons, but the support given to date by NHSI has been neither timely nor effective. What are the Government going to do about that?