argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Local COVID-19 Alert Level) (High) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-10-14
Topic: Health
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, on Monday our local MP—I declare my local interests—told us all that we were in tier 2, so I signed up for this debate. Yesterday afternoon, we discovered that we might be going into tier 3 and everybody is arguing about it. What a shambles Whichever it is, the testing, tracing, tracking and isolating system is crucial. What do I mean? I mean maximum testing, whether people are symptomatic or not, and then rapid, quick contact of the positives. In many cases, local knowledge is needed to find these people and track them down. It has to be local people doing it, giving others advice on what to do and collecting information on their recent close contacts. That is the forward tracing, where the existing system is attempting to do it. You have to get to those contacts quickly. There is no point going to them a week later, which is often what happens. You have to give them the advice and follow up leads. Some of the contacts have leads to take you to more contacts. That, too, can only be done efficiently by local organisations and people The second sort of contact tracing that you have to do is backward tracing. The forward tracing is vital, but the backward tracing—investigating the source of infection—is, by and large, not being done. The amount of data that we have on it is entirely inadequate. The Minister said that 73% are household contacts. I am not sure what he means by that and I dispute what he said from the statistics that I have seen, but it depends what you mean, I suppose. It is necessary to find out where the primary contact in a household got it and to follow up workplaces, schools, streets, family leisure facilities, hospitality, shops and all the rest. Only local people with local knowledge can possibly begin to do this vital work and, unless you do that, you do not find out the primary sources of infection and you are not going to be able to stamp it out I think that schools are a time bomb waiting to explode. My view is that staff in schools should be tested weekly. Secondary school and sixth-form students should be tested in the same way, and the parents of children at primary school should all be offered tests. It is my belief, looking at the Lancashire statistics in great detail, that schools are an important source of the recent huge increases I do not think that the Government understand the systems of local government in two-tier areas. I have asked these questions before but have not had proper answers. The districts as well as the counties need the money and the powers to work with the counties to tackle this problem.
Domestic Abuse Bill — House of Lords, 2021-01-25
Topic: Health
Clive Brooke (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am rather surprised to see that I am down to speak on Amendment 15. As far as I was aware, I was not scheduled to speak, and there is not a great deal that I can add, but I have listened with great care to the debate so far and can speak from a little bit of experience My mother had me during the Second World War. My father was away. She had three teenage boys aged 11, 12 and 13 and she was working in a mill as a weaver. Going to work in the early hours one morning during a blackout, she walked into a parked wagon that she had been unable to see. She lay on the floor unattended to for an hour and a half, while she was carrying me. She was quite ill afterwards but managed to recover. I was told that this was possibly a reason why I have not been what you might call a straightforward individual. I had other issues later in my childhood, during a formative stage, which had quite an influence on me I was not scheduled to speak, but that is a little confession. It is true and it is about a life that was affected by what happened in the womb and then later, during my early childhood, so I speak with experience, so the psychiatrists and doctors tell me. That is my contribution. More work needs to be done in this area. What happens to a child in the womb and in the first two years are of vital importance, and more work needs to be done on that.
Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2021-05-12
Topic: Health
Doreen Lawrence (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate the two maiden speakers and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth on his retirement. I bring the House’s attention to my interests in the register There have been loads of speeches today, and I congratulate all those noble Lords who made them. I always see myself as somebody who has come to this House without the experience of the majority of noble Lords here. As I sit here listening to the speeches today, I note that much has been said about the Government and the lack of impact within the Queen’s Speech In the last 12 months and more, the country has been in the worst pandemic it has seen since the Second World War. The gracious Speech of the Government was short of impact in addressing the Covid-19 disease, which has taken so many lives. I understand that, in the gracious Speech, the Government needed to address the overall health and care of the nation—but, on issues such as the pandemic, I would have expected there to be mention of an inquiry into the loss of so many lives and the disproportionate impact that it has had on certain ethnic groups The disproportionality in the deaths is caused by the structural racism that has existed in the NHS for decades. Moving forward, this will need to be addressed by a public inquiry, which would lay it bare to the nation for all to see. I know that yesterday the Prime Minister did mention in the House of Commons that there will be an inquiry. Not much was said about the date this would take place—no date was mentioned. The Government may not want to look back, but by doing so they will help to prepare for future generations On the issue of the take-up of the vaccine, there is a background reason for the vaccine hesitancy in the black, Asian and minority ethnic group. Its mistrust of vaccinations is historic, and the Government need to do more to reassure people from this group that the vaccine is safe and will save lives—and they must not, like before, blame this group for spreading the virus The percentages for take-up of the vaccine are 98% for white British, 71% for Indian, 87% for Bangladeshi, 71% for black African and 67% for black Caribbean. The take-up has increased. I believe the local community is best placed to support the Government in going forward with the vaccine rollout The work of NHS nurses and doctors, before and during the pandemic, is to be commended, as is their dedication and commitment to the profession. I finish by thanking the scientists for their sterling work in developing the vaccine, which has saved lives and given us a future, so that we can move forward.
Arrangement of Business — House of Lords, 2021-03-01
Topic: Health
Simon Haskel (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now resume. I ask all Members to respect social distancing. For the debate on the Motion to approve the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers and Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021, the time limit is one and a half hours.
Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2021 — House of Lords, 2021-02-11
Topic: Defense
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): As my noble friend Lord Reid of Cardowan and noble Lords have said, we are discussing this order a few days after a national newspaper leaked what it said was a Ministry of Defence report revealing that 32 out of 33 infantry battalions are seriously "short of battle-ready troops". The chair of the Commons Defence Committee was reported as saying: "Britain's role on the world stage is at stake and our relationship with the US." We need a proper defence strategy without further delay I also want to thank all the men and women of our Armed Forces, including, but not only, those deployed to standing commitments in Cyprus or the Falklands, those serving as part of our NATO defences in Estonia or the UN peacekeeping in Mali and those helping this country through the Covid crisis British forces are respected worldwide for their professionalism and for their values which we most admire: integrity, loyalty, discipline and service. Therefore, we welcome the order to extend the present Armed Forces Act 2006 from the end of May until the end of December, not only because expiry of that Act would end the provisions that are necessary to maintain the Armed Forces as disciplined bodies but also so that Parliament has the time to give the proper scrutiny to the new Armed Forces Bill, which has just had its Second Reading in the other place—and to have the time for cross-party work to improve the legislation. We support the Armed Forces Bill and stand firmly behind our Armed Forces. We recognise their ongoing efforts to make our country and the world safer The Bill presents a real opportunity to make meaningful improvements to the day-to-day lives of our Armed Forces personnel, veterans and families. However, the Government’s focus appears too narrow, and, as currently drafted, the Bill is a missed opportunity that fails to develop a future framework for our Armed Forces, veterans and their families—or to deliver on the laudable promises made in the Armed Forces covenant. We believe that the covenant represents a binding moral commitment between the Government and service communities, guaranteeing them and their families the respect and fair treatment that their service has earned. From substandard housing to veterans’ mental health and social care, the promises made in the covenant often do not match the reality experienced by our service communities. However, the Bill does little to tackle these issues head-on The Bill also looks at the service justice system, and we welcome the new service police complaints commissioner—but we want to improve the confidence in, and results in, cases of murder, manslaughter and rape and to solve the problem of reinvestigations With the extension of the Armed Forces Act 2006 under this order, I hope that the Government will use the time provided to work constructively and cross-party to get the best for our Armed Forces.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings in a Relevant Place) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-09-18
Topic: Health
Sharon Bowles (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, debating these instruments after the event and after the earlier messaging against masks is a sorry state of affairs. I wish that there had been encouragement of voluntary wearing of cloth coverings at an earlier stage I am not a medical expert, although I am a physicist and mathematician with some experience in the spreading computations that are relevant for viruses. I also practised for over 25 years as a patent attorney, where I learned that it is often necessary to deal with and protect inventions at a stage well before the high level of academic proof is reached—indeed, adherence to academic levels of proof has held back until too late some commercial exploitation of university research. Against that background, I cannot help but think that the need for academic levels of evidence, prevailing over a precautionary principle, in the matter of masks did not serve us well There is a reason we have the adage "Coughs and sneezes spread diseases". The science is pretty clear that Covid is spread by droplets that come out of infected people’s mouths or noses when coughing, sneezing, talking and even breathing. If coughing into your elbow or a tissue is a safeguard against spreading, it seems logical that so is a mask. What was wrong with a precautionary principle? I have no evidence that my young grandchildren will run into a road and get hurt, but I hold their hands just in case The Government followed the line taken by the WHO about there being mixed evidence and there was panic about using up supplies of PPE, but it is astonishing how little face coverings were discussed in NERVTAG and SAGE, with minutes recording reasons to oppose masks rather than any precautionary principle. The reasons were that they would create fear and anxiety but also a false sense of security; that they would lead to the abandonment of hand washing and social distancing, although there was no suggestion that they might be a visual reminder; and that they would lead to more touching of faces, although in my own case I found them quite good at reminding me to do it less. The "not to mask" reasons were not tested to levels of academic rigour and confused the message just in time for the U-turn and compulsion, with, most probably, lower levels of adherence as a result.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-06
Topic: Health
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I will be very brief because I know that we are all looking forward to a break. I will not go into any detail about individual contributions, but I thank everyone who has spoken in support of my amendments—it is very much appreciated, and it has demonstrated that there is a lot of very strong feeling in the House about the concerns that we have raised I come to the points that the Minister made. Having met Defra officials on a number of occasions, I do not doubt at all that they are working extremely hard on this issue—for example, the planned exposure targets are extremely important—but that does not alter my frustration, and that of many others, that the urgent action that we need now is simply not happening and is being put off yet again. We have heard time and again that this is a health emergency, and I do not believe that the Government are treating it as an emergency. If that was the case, these amendments would be accepted, in my opinion We believe that our amendment is critical to drive the progress that we need. We also believe that a lot of existing evidence and information is already available in order for the Government to start taking action. On that basis, I would like to test the opinion of the House on my Amendment 4.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Rita Donaghy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, although the Statement is upbeat, it does say that hospitalisation has doubled since May. This will not be solved in three weeks. What would it take to extend beyond 19 July on safety grounds and is the Minister ruling out restrictions this winter? Also, will the proposed top-down reorganisation of the NHS be abandoned?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I have no doubt about the Minister’s personal integrity but he will recognise that he is part of a Government who are not exactly renowned for their probity or truthfulness. I want to ask him about lateral flow tests. There have been reports that the accuracy of this test, which has been less than 100% in any case, is less still when it comes to the delta variant. Can he say a little more about that, and what discussions are taking place with UK companies, who appear to have developed better models which may be more accurate?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Jeffrey Rooker (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Minister’s openness and transparency about his conduct. I also support what he said about the attacks on Dr Whitty. If there are no arrests before the end of the day, it will just show how useless the Metropolitan Police is under its current leadership. In his Statement, the Secretary of State talked about keeping the NHS safe. What I have not really connected, both from the previous Question and this Statement, is that keeping the NHS safe cannot be done in isolation. The issue of social care and its reform is inexorably linked to keeping the NHS safe, and that point does not seem to be used by Ministers as a serious connection. Finally, without abuse, if this country starts boosters or third jabs later this year when people in countries such as Nepal are still going without vaccinations, it will be a thundering international disgrace.
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-09-15
Topic: Health
Richard Oliver Faulkner (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, there is a great deal in the Minister’s answers and the initial Statements with which I totally agree, particularly his statement about the threats to leading medical figures and leaders of the vaccine movement. Anti-vaxxers are a vile section of our community and I hope everything can be done to stop their activities. I also strongly welcome, as the grandfather of a teenage girl, the decision to vaccinate schoolchildren. She is delighted by that. It means she can go on holiday properly with her parents. It will make a great deal of difference to her and I know she will support it However, the aspect of the Minister’s answer with which I was not happy—he will know what I am going to say because I have raised this before, although not for a while in the Chamber—is the wearing of face coverings. The message is confused and the advice being given to the public is not clear. It is not made easier by photographs appearing in the press of the Cabinet sitting around a table close together with not a single face covering in sight, and pictures of at least half the Chamber in the House of Commons where virtually all the Members are unmasked. It is not the same in this House: face coverings are being worn by the great majority on all sides of the Chamber when we are not speaking. We do this not just for our own benefit and that of our immediate neighbours but for the benefit of the staff who work here. That perhaps deserves rather higher consideration in the House of Commons The advice being given to travellers is very difficult. Again, I would have liked earlier, much stronger advice. At present, it is mandatory if you are travelling on a Transport for London conveyance—a Tube, tram or bus—to wear a mask, but on other forms of transport, it is advisory. There is great confusion, and it gives rise to resentment among people following what they think is government advice to wear a face covering. Can we have from the Government a bit more clarity on when they believe face coverings should be worn, because I think the public are not clear about it at all?
Health and Social Care — House of Lords, 2021-09-09
Topic: Health
Judith Blake (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. As the leader of the second-largest metropolitan local authority in the country until earlier this year, I ask the Leader of the House what direct conversations she has had with leaders in the sector, particularly from a local government perspective. If she is not able to tell me directly who she has spoken to, I offer my services to arrange for her to come and visit the leaders in the sector, so that she can fully understand the pressures they have been under over the last several years—before Covid—and what they have gone through during the pandemic to protect the most vulnerable in our society. I concur that without the necessary investment in local government, the National Health Service will fall over; it will be on its knees. It is just not good enough to ignore the needs of local government to provide the services that the most vulnerable people deserve. It is not just older people but all age groups.
Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-02-05
Topic: Health
Jonathan Marks (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I accept the noble Lord’s point that I should not have said "or". My point is that outside the context of the withdrawal agreement, which would have been fully debated, any new agreement is a new healthcare agreement, so the limitation of the lack of an "or" does not make a great deal of difference.
Employment Rights — House of Lords, 2021-06-10
Topic: Health
Christine Blower (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, for three bodies to become one, legislation will indeed be required, but there is none. Neither is there any commitment to adequate funding, as my noble friend Lord Lennie said. Specifically, why are the HSE and local authority health and safety inspectors not included in the plan for a single enforcement body? Why is there no commitment to increase the existing pathetically low number of inspectors and, regrettably, the equally pathetically low number of notices and prosecutions?
Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-22
Topic: Health
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, in her request for a round table with regulators between Committee and Report. That would be very helpful indeed I just want to ask the Minister about Clause 9. I remind the House of my membership of the GMC board. The Minister will know that, particularly in the health sector, there are regulators that currently regulate for the whole of the United Kingdom, but the devolved Administrations could decide to take over regulatory authority if they wished under the legislation that led to the devolved Administrations; that is particularly the case in relation to Scotland. That being so, will this clause apply to the interrelationship between the regulators in both countries? If the answer is yes, that makes the case for this clause because, clearly, one of the issues relates particularly to the National Health Service. Although it is run by four different government departments, none the less it has some UK-wide characteristics. The key one I believe is an ethos, but secondly there is the ability of staff in the NHS from the different countries to cross the border without any problem in relation to qualifications.
Covid-19: Government Handling and Preparedness — House of Lords, 2021-06-08
Topic: Health
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, does the Minister recall the independent review by Dame Deirdre Hine, presented to the coalition Government in 2011, which said: "The planning for a pandemic was well developed, the personnel involved were fully prepared, the scientific advice provided was expert, communication was excellent" She reported on the exceptional level of preparedness the UK had attained. Why, by 2020, had all that careful preparation by our Labour Government been so catastrophically eroded, despite the fact that the pandemic remained top of HMG’s risk register?
NHS Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-22
Topic: Health
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Minister made that point very well. I declare an interest as a member of the board of the GMC because I want to ask him about workforce strategy. Clause 33 of the Health and Care Bill sets out a duty on the Secretary of State to publish "at least once every five years … a report describing the system in place for assessing and meeting the workforce needs of the health service" The Minister will be aware that a number of NHS organisations say that this is not going far enough and that what is needed is the development of regular, public, annually updated long-term workforce projections so that the health service can meet the undoubted challenges that lie ahead. Is the Minister prepared to consider this?