argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Cosmetic Surgery — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Health
Benedict Gummer (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones)for securing this debate on what is clearly an extremely distressing case for his constituent and an unfortunate one more generally. I want to pick up on the specific issues he raised to do with his constituent’s case before talking about the generality of the regulation of cosmetic surgery The hon. Gentleman pointed out the failure of his constituent’s doctor to have insurance and he will be pleased to know that, as of July 2014, new legislation required all surgeons providing cosmetic interventions to provide insurance and proper cover. A failure to do so would render them liable to undergo the fitness to practise tests conducted by the GMC. Those doctors operating outside the UK but in the EU who would have a temporary ability to operate in this country under the directive on mutual recognition of professional qualifications would still, under GMC regulations, be required to provide evidence of insurance cover. That legislation was brought into effect in August, which was clearly too late in the case of his constituent.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-02
Topic: Defense
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I was trained in how to deal with these sorts of situations before Tasers were invented. Batons and firearms are not the only alternatives. Using shields, either those specially produced in order to deal with these situations or even NATO-type shields, particularly in the confined space you find on a mental health ward, is an alternative to the batons and guns which the noble Lord seems to suggest are the only alternatives to a Taser.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-02
Topic: Health
Joan Walmsley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply and the noble Lords, Lord Ouseley and Lord Rosser, and my noble friend Lord Paddick for their support. I am sorry that I have been unable to take the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, or the noble Lords, Lord Dear and Lord Harris, along with me. I must say that I felt that in his enthusiasm in making his case, the noble Lord used somewhat unparliamentary language. In 16 years in your Lordships’ House, I have never been called silly before. The amendment was certainly not regarded as silly by the mental health patients who have approached us about the issue The noble Baroness mentioned that use should be appropriate, but we have had to move the amendment to highlight the issue today because it seems that "appropriate" has become a lot more frequent. We have heard some figures about the number of times that the police have been called in. At least the noble Lord, Lord Harris, was able at the end of his remarks to agree with me that part of the problem is undoubtedly the lack of sufficient properly trained staff in mental health wards, which needs to be addressed We will think carefully about what has been said on all sides of the argument between now and Report, but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-09-15
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I absolutely reassure the noble Baroness that teachers will not be involved in the vaccination programme. I pay tribute to the work that teachers have done in organising pupils and, on occasion, administering the swabs themselves. It has been an impactful programme and we are enormously grateful. There is an established vaccination programme that, as I mentioned, makes use of professional nurses. That is the route we will take in this instance When it comes to the MQS programme, the bottom line is that hotel quarantine is extremely effective. It really does stop the spread of the disease as it comes into the country. That is absolutely relevant when we have the threat of variants of concern. We keep the question of tagging in sight. It is a very intrusive measure and we are not convinced that it will necessarily be, in current terms, as effective as hotels, but I take the point the noble Baroness made and will continue to look into it further.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-02
Topic: Health
Joan Walmsley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister, though I hardly know where to start. I know that I want to keep my remarks short, as those here for the dinner-hour debate are waiting The Minister suggested that not all young people who have been abused require therapeutic help. Bearing in mind the figures that I gave at the beginning of my speech, we will not really know which 10% will not develop mental health problems unless we get them properly assessed. I may have used the wrong word—"refer"—in my amendment, but the point I am trying to make is that the police must ensure that the appropriate mental health commissioners in the area are made aware that a child may need therapeutic help and that an assessment should be done by a qualified person to find out whether they do. That is absolutely essential The fact is, we know that it is not always happening and that is why, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, accepted, I felt it necessary to raise this, and I am not the only one. As I say, ChildLine also very much feels that this would be helpful Given the effect on the rest of the lives of these children, as my noble friend Lady Benjamin mentioned, a little bit of over-referral would not necessarily be a bad thing, because it will soon come out in the wash. If they do not need any help, it will soon be found out and the help will stop if it is not needed. The National Health Service is not going to give a whole lot of help to people who do not need it—it does not have the money. But the fact is that most of them do need it and it is not happening. After 16 years, I cannot believe that we are still here I will of course consider what the Minister has said and make further inquiries between now and Report stage in case it is not necessary, although I think it is. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-09-15
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I absolutely applaud the sentiments that the noble Baroness articulated: her sense of responsibility and commitment to the community are generally exactly what we are trying to inculcate in a lot of people. But I just do not agree with her or with the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, that having a state-mandated direction—accompanied, presumably, by fines and, therefore, court appearances for some—could possibly be described as light touch. It is the most intrusive and intimate of measures. If the circumstances require it, we are prepared to do it. We have done it, and, if necessary, we will do it again. But noble Lords really are missing the mood of the nation if they think that the vast majority of the country is in the same place I am afraid to say that this is a question of personal choice at the end of the day. The public health judgment—these decisions were made in participation with public health officials—does not support mandatory mask-wearing for the entire country. I agree that visiting Scotland is a completely different experience; there, policymakers have made a different decision, as they have in some other countries. But when we lifted mandatory mask-wearing on 19 July we saw a very large change in the public’s habit. Why? Because some people find it extremely intrusive and not comfortable at all, and they do not like it or are not prepared to do it. Therefore, at this stage of the pandemic it feels proportionate and right to rely on guidance and inspiration and on the leadership of both our national and civic leaders. If necessary, in plan B we will come back to the mandating of those kinds of measures. At this stage it really does not feel proportionate.
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-09-15
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): It is an interesting and creative idea, and certainly one that would be worth looking at On day 2 testing, I recognise that it is inconvenient to do the follow-up testing if you are travelling but, for the protection of this country, it is an important part of our border public health measures The pre-flight testing regime is helpful; it catches some disease, but in no way could it be thought of as a reliable barrier to infection into the country. I am afraid that there is simply, as I am sure noble Lords know, too much variance in the quality of that testing regime, to put it politely. Our estimate is that it catches between 10% and 20% of disease, but we know from our own testing in this country that it certainly does not catch all of it. In fact, most people will not travel if they are blazingly ill, so almost all travel infection is asymptomatic. That is why we look to day 2 testing, because it has the benefit of catching those people who might either have asymptomatic disease or are incubating the disease and would not be caught even by a PCR test The day 2 test is an effective way of catching those with the disease; it is an essential part of our surveillance. We would not know how much disease was coming into the country, what VOCs were coming into the country or which countries had disease, because so few have sophisticated testing, let alone genomic sequencing. It is literally the only way we know what is coming into this country and where the threats are from around the world. That is why it has played such an important part in our testing regime to date. The Secretary of State for Transport will be making announcements tomorrow and I look forward to his update on that On mixing and matching, one of a great many surprising medical outcomes from this disease is the idea that you might have one vaccine one day and another one three months later. When that was first posited to me, and when I first made that suggestion in this House, it was greeted with surprise and with some concern, but actually they somehow provoke different parts of the immune system, they somehow complement each other and there is strong and growing evidence that this is a very effective and complementary way of administering programmes. They work for different types of people in different ways, and different mixes and matches complement each other in a strange Rubik’s cube of complicated arithmetic. I would have to leave it to JVT, the deputy CMO, to explain it in more detail if noble Lords would like more information on that.
Defence Expenditure (NATO Target) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-23
Topic: Defense
Cheryl Elise Kendall Gillan (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this Bill for discussion in the House today. Does he agree that the situation is even more alarming when we look at the size of Chinese defence spending, which was recently announced to be $144.2 billion—a 10% year-on-year increase, approximately?
Defence Expenditure (NATO Target) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-23
Topic: Defense
James Gerald Douglas Howarth (Conservative, Centre-right): I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for independently adding to the case on what we face around the world. Russia is engaged in about the same ramping up of its defence spending and, accordingly, its capability. I am very grateful to her for making that point. Significantly, the message for those engaged in drawing up defence planning assumptions is that in the space of barely three years the assumptions on which we worked in 2010 were blown apart. None of the events I listed earlier was remotely foreseen. For those of us brought up in the shadow of the iron curtain, over which two massive superpowers pivoted in an uneasy equilibrium—I was brought up in Germany—today’s outlook seems decidedly more complex and more dangerous. It is against that backdrop of a seriously turbulent world that we need to judge the priority we accord to defence of the realm There is no doubt that Europe’s security and peace for the past 70 years has been largely delivered by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation—NATO. The north Atlantic treaty was signed on 4 April 1949 as a means of establishing enduring stability and peace in Europe. Under article 5, the new allies agreed "that an armed attack against one or more of them…shall be considered an attack against them all" and that were such an attack to take place, each ally would take "such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force" in response. Understandably, much has been made of article 5 as the foundation stone of north Atlantic peace, and the onus it places on all alliance members, but it is also worth considering article 3, which states that "the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack." Arguably, this set the precedent for the 2% target long before it was first mooted in 2006, and it has subsequently become the target for alliance members.
Defence Expenditure (NATO Target) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-23
Topic: Defense
John Philip Glen (Conservative, Centre-right): One of the issues that concerns me is the inherent flexibility in the definition of what NATO says is acceptable as constituting part of the 2%. If for the first time this year war pensions, pensions of retired civilian MOD personnel and contributions to UN peacekeeping missions are deemed acceptable, is there not a risk that there will be flexibility in what is included in the 2% and that underlying expenditure on defence capabilities will be unclear?
Defence Expenditure (NATO Target) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-23
Topic: Defense
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Does he agree that the two budgets are not mutually exclusive? As things such as Operation Gritrock have shown, military capability gives us choices to deliver humanitarian goals.
Defence Expenditure (NATO Target) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-23
Topic: Defense
James Gerald Douglas Howarth (Conservative, Centre-right): I could not agree more. There is an argument that we should combine all such budgets. I am not in favour of that, because it might turn out to be an excuse for reducing our defence budget. I am not opposed to overseas aid, which has a role to play. We are talking about priorities or quantum. In trying to establish our priorities, I am pointing out that soft power— overseas aid is a massive implement of soft power—has limited value in terms of the threats we face around the world.
Defence Estate — House of Lords, 2016-11-07
Topic: Defense
Judith Anne Jolly (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. The MoD’s aim is to reduce waste from overcapacity or inefficient use of facilities. That has to be welcomed, but as yet we have not seen the list of estates—if it has been released, I have not yet seen it. We welcome the general thrust of what the MoD wishes to achieve, but, as with all things, the devil is in the detail. The opportunity to improve accommodation for service personnel is long overdue, and their families will welcome that investment Times have changed. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, referred to golf courses and pitch and putts, and I have to confess that over 40 years ago, the father of our best man was known as SHAGO—Security, Horse and Golf Officer—for one of the golf courses and Navy bases near Portsmouth. But several serious issues arise from the Statement There are the revenues from the sales, the impact on local communities and the opportunity to rationalise the functions of our Armed Forces geographically. Is this just a short-term attempt to plug the gap in defence accounts? We get capital from this money only once, so why is now the time to sell? Are there buyers for these sites? Will the income from the sales go into MoD or Treasury coffers In the Statement the Minister said: "I can confirm MoD has firm plans to achieve its target to release sufficient land to build up to 55,000 houses in this Parliament" This makes no mention of whether the houses are affordable homes, for which there is a very clear need; whether it is housing that will benefit the local communities, meeting their needs; or whether the houses will be expected to have green standards—all of which is the least that a community should expect, given that it will feel it is losing quite a lot. Has any impact assessment been done of the effect on local communities of losing jobs? There is no point in building houses in these places if there are no jobs to attract people I ask the House to excuse me: I am not going to refer to the Army or RAF issues as I have not had time to do the research. I know rather more about the Navy, so I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify some issues surrounding the Devonport naval base and the area around it. Would he confirm that the Trafalgar class submarine will move from Devonport to Faslane? Will he comment on whether the rehousing of the Royal Marines from Royal Marines Stonehouse to Royal Marines Tamar is a possibility? The closure and sale of Stonehouse was announced in the previous Statement amid much local sorrow and anguish but it was not clear, and I do not think it is clear yet, where the Marines and their capability and functions will move.
Defence Estate — House of Lords, 2016-11-07
Topic: Defense
Julie Smith (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, we have already heard about the National Audit Office and questions about value for money for the taxpayer. That has so far been on the receipts side, but can the noble Earl tell us what work is being done to ensure that the defence procurement contracts to deliver the better estate for service families, which will be most welcome, and the maintenance contracts for accommodation for services will also deliver value for money for the taxpayer and the best possible outcome for service families?
Defence Estate — House of Lords, 2016-11-07
Topic: Defense
Alan Beith (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, will the vital monitoring of our skies against hostile incursions continue to be carried out from RAF Boulmer in Northumberland, bearing in mind that, the last time there was a proposal to move it, the proposal got short shrift from the National Audit Office?
Defence Expenditure (NATO Target) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-23
Topic: Defense
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not know whether my hon. and gallant Friend had the same experience as I did during the election in May, but many of my constituents expressed to me their concern about defence spending and the fact that the 0.7% had been enshrined in law. They wanted the 2% to be enshrined in law too, because they wanted to see that commitment.
Defence Expenditure (NATO Target) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-23
Topic: Defense
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): In which case I take back the word "fallacious"; I trust everything that my hon. Friend says It was our Prime Minister who convinced fellow NATO members to commit to a target of 2% of GNP at last year’s NATO summit. He was absolutely right. We have now committed ourselves to keeping to that figure, at least for the immediate future. Personally, particularly in the current very dangerous international climate, I would prefer us to spend far more than that on defence. Everyone in this House knows our first and primary duty as Members of Parliament: the defence of our country.
Defence Expenditure (NATO Target) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-23
Topic: Defense
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my very hon. Friend for that point. My view is that there should be no ring-fencing whatever: Governments should govern and decide what is right. What is right for defence is probably more than we are paying at the moment. The fact is that we have ring-fenced other Departments and international aid, but we have not ring-fenced the first duty of government. That is why the 2% minimum target is so important That is a good way to end, actually. I will shut up and sit down.
Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-02-21
Topic: Health
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Why, then, are the Welsh Health Minister and the Welsh Government still so concerned about this Bill? I am encouraged that these consultations took place, but why is there this evident concern?
Defence Expenditure (NATO Target) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-23
Topic: Defense
Cheryl Elise Kendall Gillan (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that NATO has had to adapt, and that we are looking for NATO responses to be more mobile and agile? It also needs to respond on shorter timelines, particularly in countering irregular operations and other new forms of threat, some of which were well laid out in the TalkTalk cyber-attack earlier this week.
Defence Expenditure (NATO Target) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-23
Topic: Defense
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making a great speech outlining the existing threats to this country. We regularly talk about a nuclear deterrent, but does he agree that NATO must also provide a conventional deterrent and keep a minimum capability that can be expanded in a crisis if necessary to deter an attack by another industrialised nation on one of its members?
Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-02-21
Topic: Health
Margaret Eileen Joyce Wheeler (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I listened carefully to the strong arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, on this issue, and I await the Minister’s response. We have every sympathy with the intention behind the amendment, and the noble Lord’s frustration that the House can either accept or reject a statutory instrument but cannot amend it, while parliamentarians can and often do take note of or reject Motions. However, Parliament is ultimately at the mercy of the Government to withdraw regulations and bring forward a revised draft, which may or may not adequately address the concerns that have been expressed. Fatal Motions are quite rightly used rarely, in exceptional circumstances. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, says this is a probing amendment. However, I fear that, in this circumstance, it would be counterintuitive to the Bill’s primary objective of implementing reciprocal health agreements after Brexit. As my noble friend Lady Thornton said on Amendment 33 in an earlier group, time is not on our side, and I fear that the approach contained in this amendment would lead to delays in implementing reciprocal health agreements. In the event of no deal, when millions of British citizens will lose their current access to healthcare treatment overnight, any delay while Parliament debates and considers draft regulations would be catastrophic. Obviously the delay that would occur from the proposals that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, suggests would have to be taken into consideration in any future changes, and would certainly need to be discussed.
Health and Social Care — House of Lords, 2021-09-09
Topic: Health
Andrew Lansley (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I very much welcome the additional resources for the NHS and social care, but will the Government increase and accelerate the resources for social care? Everyone in the NHS knows that only by increasing the capacity in local authority-funded social care can they relieve the pressures on the NHS. The House will recall that we legislated in the Care Act 2014 for a Dilnot-style plan. It is now more than 10 years since he submitted that plan to me as Secretary of State. We should bring it into force, and we can and should do so by April 2022.