argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Transpeople (Prisons) — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Vicky Thompson’s death is a tragedy. Leeds is my local prison, and a number of my constituents work there. I strongly endorse what was said by both my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and the Minister about the work of prison officers. Can the Minister tell us what counselling they will receive as a result of having to deal with terrible incidents such as this, which are also tragedies for them I should inform the House, for the record, that Vicky Thompson was a constituent of my hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), and I have spoken to him about the case. I know that he would like it to be made clear that if Vicky Thompson’s family need any assistance at this time, they should contact him, and he would be very happy to offer it.
Transpeople (Prisons) — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Edmund Armstrong Selous (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful for what my hon. Friend has said about our hon. Friend the Member for Keighley. I discussed this matter with him earlier, having noted his constituency interest We take seriously our obligation to provide the right level of emotional support for prison officers after events such as this. Help and counselling will be available to any who need assistance after this or similar events.
Transpeople (Prisons) — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Law and Crime
David Nuttall (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that the reasons why anyone decides to end his or her own life are often very complex, and that that applies just as much to prisoners—and just as much to transgender prisoners—as to those outside prisons? Should we not all be wary of reaching conclusions without being in possession of all the facts?
Transpeople (Prisons) — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Edmund Armstrong Selous (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with my hon. Friend. I note that the Samaritans has said that the media should avoid speculation about "triggers" for suicide, and I think we should be guided by what they say. As for my hon. Friend’s main point, he is absolutely right: our duty in prisons is to give everyone a hope and a future in their rehabilitation, and that is what we are determined to do.
Transpeople (Prisons) — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Edmund Armstrong Selous (Conservative, Centre-right): We are increasing the length of prison officer training, and we have embedded our equalities duties at the heart of what we do. During the time for which I have been prisons Minister—a little over a year—I have been hugely impressed by the essential decency of everyone in the National Offender Management Service, which runs throughout the heart of the organisation.
Transpeople (Prisons) — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Edmund Armstrong Selous (Conservative, Centre-right): I know Frances Crook well, and I listen to what she says. We try very hard to provide appropriate and decent care for every prisoner. We are reviewing the policy, but, as I said earlier, we are prepared to learn. We want to get this right, and we will take on board all that Members have said today.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not delay the House for too long, lest I be perceived as the Mini-Me to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I was arguing that the Bill puts those of us who feel passionately about first aid and its importance to all of us as citizens, parents and Members of Parliament in an invidious position. The heart agrees that this must be taken forward and given greater prominence, and those engaged in it given greater support, whether by Government, councils, school or any voluntary groups involved, but I am not at all convinced that the current Bill is the answer As I said before the urgent questions, I have consulted my local headteachers. I will not reprise what I said earlier, other than to say that in each of those conversations a range of interesting and valuable ways in which first aid and CPR can be furthered was put forward. One school has a first aid-themed day and asks pupils to go in voluntarily on a Saturday to do first aid training. Teachers nobly agree to come in and man the school for that day. St John Ambulance comes in and assists.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making an important point. What people do voluntarily they do with more enthusiasm than that which they are ordered to do by the state. Is it not right therefore that that is a better model?
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree wholeheartedly. Not only do the people who engage in these activities when inspired to do that voluntarily do so with greater appetite than if they were compulsory, but when it is not mandated in a prescriptive manner in the national curriculum, there is far more opportunity for teachers and community groups to blossom and come up with interesting and innovative ideas, rather than following tired templates.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I quite agree. My hon. Friend makes another valuable point. Quality is at the heart of the argument, too. That is the final argument I want to come on to. In all walks of life, doing something voluntarily is usually better than being forced to do it. Quality and diversity are important in this argument. If we inspire and encourage our schools, any other group and workplace to take this forward themselves, hopefully, they will come up with all manner of interesting ways in which to do that. The light-touch approach may result in better outcomes than the compulsory approach.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): As we have heard, if 84% of teachers believe such training is important, I am surprised that the statistics suggest that only a quarter of their schools take that up. In my experience, teachers are passionate about the matter and the majority of schools in my constituency are doing the training anyway, in their own way. None of the schools I spoke to—no one has answered this point—wanted that to be put in the national curriculum. We must understand that, if Members vote for the measure, they may be voting against the professional judgment of head teachers and many of the staff involved in providing the training.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope that one thing that will come out of the Bill is that more parents and teachers will take this forward voluntarily, for all the reasons I have mentioned. I will not reprise them because other Members want to speak, but diversity and innovation come through doing something voluntarily, rather than through forcing people to do such things on the national curriculum.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend may be better informed than I, but I believe that that is done in Germany and some other countries around the world. Such policies may be good ones. They may be things to consider. However, I do not think that the national curriculum is necessarily the lever to use to pursue this because, as I say, none of the headteachers wants that. They want to continue to do the training in their own—in my experience—innovative and local manner. They also want to work with local groups. As I said earlier, there are some superb ones in my constituency. I am sure that every hon. Member has such groups in their constituency. It is those groups I want to see given greater support, whether by councils, the Government or any other organisation, so that they can continue to blossom and flourish.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): Following on from what my hon. Friend has been saying, does he agree that this is actually a very bureaucratic response requiring lots of guidance from the Secretary of State? It is back to the bad old days of schools being lumbered with endless instructions and directives from Whitehall.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I quite agree. I wonder whether some of those positive and innovative examples that I mentioned earlier, such as the school in Sutton Coldfield that offers such training on a voluntary basis and sees vast numbers of students take it up, the prefect programme and the weekend activity programme, would have happened if there were a simple prescriptive national curriculum approach to the problem The final issue I want to discuss is the fear of the tick-box culture, and this crosses over to other issues. It is one of the most corrosive aspects of our society, whether it is in education, financial services or any other form of regulation. So many professionals, when faced with a box to be ticked, do the bare minimum, rather than seeking to do the best or to offer the most innovative answer. I fear that the vague nature of this Bill, which allows maximum flexibility to our schools—which may appear ostensibly positive—in fact will not ensure that quality prevails. If those groups that I have seen in my constituency provide extremely high-quality CPR and first aid, and I am sure they do, I want to see that continue and be made available to young people, not eroded by the need of some schools—although I am certain it would be a minority—to pursue a tick-box culture.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Christopher Robert Chope (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the important elements of first aid education is that the people who undertake it can receive a certificate at the end of it, which they and their parents can have pride in? Nothing in this Bill indicates anything other than a reduction in the quality of any certificates that may be given.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure some schools will do this in an extremely high-quality manner and may well produce certificates, but the Bill does not prescribe that, so there will inevitably be a variance in quality between schools such as some of the ones I have spoken to, which will do this to the absolute best of their ability, and those which will do it in a pretty meagre fashion The last point I want to make is that we must not completely override the opinions of headteachers who take the view that the ultimate priority for their schools has to be maintaining academic standards and discipline and tackling the other challenges they face. Sadly, not every school in my constituency is a high-performing one. In fact, two have been in and out of special measures and have great difficulties. I would love first aid and CPR to be taught in those schools, but I caution Members who would override the view of a headteacher that the immediate priority for their school is to use school time, such as it is, to pursue academic standards, discipline and literacy and numeracy In conclusion, I reiterate my point that the Bill, while hugely important in many respects, suffers from the fatal flaw that it does not represent the views of many of our headteachers—those at the coal face who will have to implement this.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I justify it in that we are all constituency Members of Parliament. If every one of us in this House asked all of our headteachers and teachers and then came to this debate—sadly, not many have come today, however—we would have a poll we could all rely on far more than an opinion poll.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): Many headteachers were well informed about the Bill and what was available, but what they are offering is in some cases already in excess of that 30 minutes. The point they come back to time and again is that they want this to be left to their own professional judgment and to be able to work productively with local community groups such as the superb Newark Community First Aid, St John Ambulance, the scouts, the guides and the sea scouts.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Sheryll Murray (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not think anybody is against teaching first aid to communities and making people aware, but how can we teach in 30 minutes the difference between burns, for example? A burn and a scald have to be treated initially differently, and it is not fair to say 30 minutes is all that is necessary to address the whole first aid ethos of the Bill, because it will take a lot more time than that to teach these skills.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am not a medical professional so I will not pretend to be an expert in what knowledge can be gained in 30 minutes—others clearly have more experience than I do The point remains that there will be a great variance in quality between schools that give the kind of training I have been lucky enough to receive myself and to view in my constituency, which can take hours or even days and can include regular updates, and those schools and institutions which choose to do it in 30 minutes. The Bill does not protect the standard or quality, and some parents may be left disappointed that their children receive only quite modest training in this area when— if this was left to the choice of our headteachers, hopefully encouraged by the Government and Members of Parliament—we could instil a culture of high-quality training pursued by strong community groups, rooted in their communities and finding solutions that work for them. We must not undermine those wonderful community efforts that could produce quality education and training far surpassing that provided by a 30-minute course forced by legal mandate on our headteachers, and against the will of many of them.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making the crucial point that people might have had first aid training at school, but many of them will have left school quite a long time ago. What efforts does he think could be made, without resorting to heavy-handed legislation, to encourage people to renew those skills?
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Craig Whittaker (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I recall that when I was at school—that very short time ago—Latin was not my most favourite of subjects. Some people would say neither was English, but there we go The Government have been called on to include many similar subjects in the national curriculum. Simply having this long and overly prescriptive list of compulsory subjects that must be taught could easily lead to a tick-box exercise, as has been said, and to schools being prevented from focusing on what is important for their pupils and their communities. Schools should be encouraged to, and supported in, teaching vital skills such as first aid, but forcing them to do so in law may not be the best way to achieve the outcomes we all desire, unless we have a serious think about extending the school day.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is saying, and I agree with him, that it should be for schools to decide. Does he think that it should be a voluntary activity for the pupils, or is he suggesting that they should be compelled to participate?
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): It absolutely should be a voluntary thing. I was struck by my hon. Friend’s earlier intervention when he said that people who volunteer for things tend to enter into them with much more gusto than if they are compelled to be there. That is self-evidently the case. I do not see why that should not be the case for the teaching of first aid as well. I should say that when the Government were pressed on this matter by Bob Russell, the former Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, the Secretary of State made it clear that her Department was prepared to help schools teach life-saving skills more generally if that was what schools wanted—again, that is very laudable. She also made it clear that the Government had negotiated a contract so that schools could obtain defibrillators at reasonable rates and train their pupils in the use of them.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I do not intend to focus on the work of St John’s Ambulance in my speech. Obviously, I cannot cover everything. Perhaps he might be able to do so, Mr Deputy Speaker, if he is lucky enough to catch your eye later on What is also important is the time factor. We have heard different times bandied about as to how much training would be needed to fulfil the obligations in the Bill. I am still not entirely sure about it. Half an hour was the minimum that I have heard. It is important to note that my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), who did an awful lot of work in this area before he was deservedly promoted to ministerial ranks, asked a question about the 30,000 cardiac arrests that occur outside hospitals where only one in 10 people survives. He wanted to meet the Minister to discuss the fact that when countries give two-hour sessions of emergency life-saving skills, survival rates often increase by up to 50%. That suggests to me that, for this to be worthwhile, 30 minutes will never be enough. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), who has knowledge of the subject, made that point in an earlier intervention. It strikes me that, in order to get a Bill through Parliament, we will be told that a session needs to be only half an hour, but the moment the Bill becomes enacted, the schools will be told that half an hour is not good enough and that they will need to do an hour. When an hour is not good enough, they will be told to do two hours, and then four hours. Schools will never know where the time commitment will end Under the provisions of the Bill, as I understand it, the Secretary of State can make regulations in this area, so they will be free to say to schools, "Well, we have looked at this, and half an hour is not enough. You need to do more." We are not giving schools a commitment to teach as they see fit, but potentially lining up for them much longer times they will have to spend teaching these skills if the half an hour that we have been told about proves to be as insufficient and inadequate as my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall has suggested As I said, teachers are best placed to decide on these matters. We should not force them to do anything that is not right for them or their school. We are constantly moving towards an overly prescribed curriculum. That is unhelpful to teachers, who must teach these lessons, and to students, who have to try to juggle more subjects in a limited time. This happens time and again in Parliament. When I was on the Opposition Benches— some might argue that I always sit on the opposition Benches, but when I was on the other side of the House —I remember the Labour Government’s proposal that all schools should be obliged to teach about healthy eating, among other things.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): No, absolutely not, and I assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I am not getting sidetracked. My point, which is very relevant to the Bill, is that all these things, very worthy in themselves, are like a salami slicer. We are talking about half an hour here for this, and half an hour there for that. Each half-hour may not in itself seem like a great deal of time out of the school curriculum, but when we put together all the things that a school is obliged to do, we are talking about a serious amount of time—perhaps a full day out of the weekly curriculum. That is what I fear will happen. We cannot take this provision in isolation; we have to look at all the other things piled on schools, and should ask them whether they really have enough time to have yet another thing imposed on them I should ask what I often ask on these occasions: if, as we keep being told, this is such a wonderful thing, and there are no downsides, why was the provision never introduced in the 13 years of the Labour Government? The shadow Minister did not explain this very well. I have to wonder whether Labour Members actually have the commitment to this that they would like us to believe. Not only did they not introduce the measure in their 13 years in government, although they had the perfect opportunity to do so, but they spent about an hour and 15 minutes today on two urgent questions and some pointless points of order to delay progress on this debate.