argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Business and Planning Act 2020 (Pavement Licences) (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 — House of Lords, 2021-07-14
Topic: Health
Judith Blake (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Faulkner for bringing this really important issue into the Chamber. His very well-informed and passionate speech does not need too much adding to I want to bring in a slightly different dimension. My noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, both referenced the speeches in Grand Committee, which were really well put together; I recommend that everyone have a look at them in Hansard. We should also look at what we have learned over the last 18 months of the devastating impact of the coronavirus. We have been on an incredibly steep learning curve in understanding how the virus has impacted on the people who live in our communities. We have a duty, surely, to look at all the evidence before us Covid-19 is often described as a cruel virus and it has exposed health inequalities in the most vicious way. Surely we must learn from the knowledge that those suffering from underlying health conditions have been disproportionately affected by the virus. Smoking is a major contributory factor to those health conditions. Do we not have a responsibility to do everything in our power to reduce exposure to the impact of smoke inhalation? I am referring to both the customers and the staff in the premises we are talking about I would also like to emphasise the points that the noble Lord, Lord Young, made in Grand Committee about the lack of evidence and the lack of consultation with local authorities, which would have demonstrated that there has just not been the evidence that we should be concerned about the impact on the businesses we are talking about We have an opportunity to make an improvement to the provisions in the Building and Planning Act 2020. Of course, the irony is that the Act was brought in specifically to deal with the impact of coronavirus. I hope we will recognise the public health improvement outlined in my noble friend Lord Faulkner’s amendment and that we will all come together to show our support accordingly.
Business and Planning Act 2020 (Pavement Licences) (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 — House of Lords, 2021-07-14
Topic: Health
Richard Oliver Faulkner (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall be very brief. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and my noble friend Lady Blake for their splendid speeches and strong support for my amendment The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, reminded us of the transformation that smoke-free legislation has brought about in our society. There is no need for us to go into detail about that now because that is no longer an issue between the parties or, indeed, with the British people; it is accepted. That is one of the reasons why I find it so inexplicable that the Government did not take advantage of the pavement licences provision to extend that smoke-free regime to cover the outside areas. As the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said, the pavement outside a pub or a café is essentially an extension of the indoor rooms of those premises, and the people who go there, particularly those with children, are entitled to enjoy a smoke-free environment My noble friend Lady Blake referred—very tellingly, I think—to the impact of smoking on people with severe health conditions, perhaps brought on by Covid. Limiting the exposure of those people to second-hand smoke is particularly important and we should be doing all in our power, including making pavement licence areas smoke free, to achieve this I thank the Minister for his speech and the considered way in which he has approached this issue, and I recognise that he has repeated the Government’s commitment to a smoke-free Britain by 2030. That is good news. But I ask him and other noble Lords to reflect on whether the adoption of smoking as part of the pavement licence helps that process or makes it more difficult. I think most people would argue that it is making it more difficult. It is an unnecessary obstacle I am pleased that the Minister also referred to passive smoking concerns and the fact that the Government now accept them. Again, this is another reason why pavement licences should be smoke free Interestingly, the Minister did not answer the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, about consultation with the Department of Health over these regulations. We did not get an answer to that question a year ago or last week in Grand Committee, and we have not had one today. It is fair to say that the Department of Health takes a rather different view of these matters from that of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government The Minister also did not refer to the extraordinary letter that the Secretary of State in his department wrote to Manchester City Council last August attempting to talk it out of its proposals with a series of arguments that, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, demonstrated last week in Grand Committee, were completely spurious The House should have an opportunity to express a view on the regulations and on my amendment. I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.
Assisted Dying Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-10-22
Topic: Health
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, with over 100 speakers down, the Bill has had a good airing. I supported the Bill on its previous outings and do so again today. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, not only on her approach to the issue but on how it is encapsulated in the Bill We look forward to understanding the issues the noble Baroness is looking to raise in Committee. For those who doubt the intentions of the noble Baroness so far as disabled people are concerned, I invite them to look at her record and the welfare reform discussions with the previous Labour Government I will refer to one personal issue as an illustration. Some 18 months ago I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis—I think the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, referred to that. It is a respiratory disease with no current cure and, for most, no known cause. What I am very clear about is that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has given us a choice as to how we proceed, protected by a range of stipulations. I hope yet to live to an old age and to confound my pension providers. I also hope that medical science will continue to flourish and produce new solutions to changing problems so that we no longer focus just on death, but on life afterwards.
Ajax Programme — House of Lords, 2021-06-09
Topic: Defense
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this is my first time at the Dispatch Box as Labour’s defence spokesperson, and I look forward to debating these important matters with the Minister Ajax was set to be delivered in 2017 but, despite £3.2 billion being paid out, only 14 vehicles have been delivered—light tanks that cannot fire while moving—and personnel have been made so sick that the testing has been paused. The Defence Committee called this "another example of chronic mismanagement by the Ministry of Defence" As the problem cannot be fixed before it has been identified, as we heard in the other place yesterday, when does the Minister expect to know exactly what is causing the problems of noise and vibration? How many personnel have been adversely affected? When will the reversing restrictions placed on Ajax be lifted? Given that the total fixed cost for the whole project is £5.5 billion and that £3.2 billion has already been spent, is the Minister confident that Ajax can and will be delivered to that total? If so, when?
Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-09
Topic: Health
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, as we are at the start of the Committee stage, I declare my interest as a board member of the GMC, although I am speaking on the Bill in a personal capacity I support Amendment 1. We have a real problem with the skeletal nature of the Bill and the extensive use of Henry VIII clauses. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, whose powerful intervention illustrated some of the problems. The power in Clause 1 could be used to make provision about a huge range of matters relating to applications to practise a profession. Extensive powers are delegated to Ministers. As the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has pointed out, neither the Explanatory Memorandum nor the Explanatory Note gives adequate reasons for the extensive use of Executive power. I will come back to this during Committee, but the Minister should at least have a shot at explaining why Executive powers are needed to this extent. So far, we have not heard a reason The Delegated Powers Committee illustrated the example of the dentistry profession. Dentistry is one of the professions for which regulation is provided in primary legislation. The Dentists Act 1984 includes a provision to recognise overseas qualifications. Holders of overseas qualifications who wish to qualify for registration as dentists in the UK must not only have a recognised overseas diploma but, as a starting point, they must sit an examination to satisfy the regulator that they have the requisite knowledge and skill. They must also satisfy the regulator as to their identity, good character, good health and knowledge of English. The committee says that Clause 1 appears to allow such requirements and other comparable requirements in primary legislation relating to other professions to be watered down by statutory instrument, if Ministers considered this necessary to enable demand for the service of the profession in question to be met without unreasonable delay. I do not need to remind the Minister that the dentistry profession is under acute pressure My reading of the Minister’s amendments in Clause 1, which are welcome, is that some protection is provided, because regulations can specify additional conditions for a professional’s overseas qualifications to be met. But, of course, that depends on the Minister taking the necessary action. It also appears that Clause 3 could be used to implement an international agreement that encompassed an override in respect of the actions of a regulator. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, referred to this, and, again, we will come back to Clause 3 later today So there is a need to safeguard and protect the integrity of the regulators and uphold the public interest in high standards among the professions covered by the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, has attempted to draft such protection, and I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic. If not, he needs to realise that the current construct of the Bill will simply not do, and the House would be right to insist on further protections.
Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-09
Topic: Health
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I refer to my interest as a member of the GMC board for the sake of this group of amendments. Like the noble Lord, Lord Patel, I welcome the government amendments and thank the Minister for his discussions with the regulator. I listened with great interest to the comments and queries of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, about the amendments. In a sense, they reflect the generic and skeletal nature of this Bill, which means that each clause has to relate to many different professions. Frankly, I think it argues for a more detailed Bill, which would meet her issues as well as mine The argument that the GMC and others have put is very simple. Clause 1 currently gives power to the appropriate national authority—in the case of health regulators, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care—to draft regulations to introduce a process that will require them to assess whether someone has a particular overseas qualification that is substantially the same as a UK qualification. In the case of the GMC, a person so deemed would then be eligible to practise as a doctor in the UK. That is because the GMC does not require those with UK qualifications to do anything further to demonstrate that they have the necessary knowledge and skills for registration. This could give an automatic entitlement to practise, under the current provision of Clause 1, for international medical graduates on the same basis as UK graduates. Currently, GMC has a very rigorous process for assessing whether the international medical graduate is safe and fit to practise. Without these amendments, it would be almost impossible for the GMC to manage operationally, with 10,000 international medical graduates applying for registration each year. It would be virtually impossible to assess this number of qualifications from countries as diverse as India, Pakistan, Nigeria, UAE and many others, with hundreds of different medical schools. The concern was that the Bill as drafted could force health profession regulators to accept professionals into UK practice in a way that compromised patient safety The Minister was sympathetic, and I am very grateful to him. However, there remains the issue of the relationship of Clause 3 to Clause 1, which we will come on to debate. In relation to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, he clearly has a point. I hope the Minister might take this away and give it further thought.
Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-09
Topic: Health
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the requirement to speak Welsh in Wales is rather important I have some sympathy with the Minister. Later, we will get to our proposed new schedule—it is on pages 18 and 19 of the Marshalled List—to specify the regulators, again referring to the letter sent to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. The range of regulators covered by the Bill—and if they are covered they should be in the Bill—includes farriers, who may never have gone to university and for whom none of this might apply One has to be careful. Part of the problem is that we are trying to write a Bill for an enormous range of professionals. It does not include the Church—the right reverend Prelate will be very pleased—and their qualifications are probably recognised across different jurisdictions, but it includes all sorts of others, such as driving instructors. I used to call their body the DVLC, but I think it is now called the DVSA. It may well be that, in order to be able to instruct people, a driving instructor has to have five years post their own driving licence in one country but six in another. There may well be bits that are substantially the same, but I understand why we would want to include them. We are not just talking about the health service. I see the problems with that, but as a patient I would want the qualifications to be the same if not higher if we are recognising someone here Part of the problem is that, in writing what looks like a simple piece of law to cover the Security Industry Authority, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Highways Agency—presumably the people who check that the roads are safe; I do not know what they do but they are in here—we have ended up with a Bill that tries to ensure that both doctors and farriers, for whatever reason the latter are regulated, are of high quality. I have some sympathy, but nevertheless I see a substantial problem in allowing too much flexibility, which would not be in the interests of patients in particular and maybe of other clients in sensitive areas. I look forward, as they say, to the Minister’s response.
Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-09
Topic: Health
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that. On letters, I know that he is backed by many civil servants and colleagues. He is looking at the whole of my office at the moment—me—so could he not expect us to go to the Library and find things? When he is writing to one person who has asked a question, can he automatically circulate the letter to us because I am afraid otherwise we have no way of seeing it? That would be very kind I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate, which I have found really useful. The Minister is not going to like what I say, but there you are. The comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, will help in the redrafting, but I think it is only fair to say to the Minister, nice try, but he can be fairly sure that three groups will be brought back on Report. One will be about the autonomy of regulators. They should not be forced to something. It has to be said somewhere that no trade agreement can underpin them. We can take advice on where it goes On the second one on skills, we will want some assurances that other things are going to be done and this will not be the immediate device for filling skills. I think that is in Amendments 20 and 21. We definitely want to look at this again. On skills, I very much welcome the clarification about granular. If I understood what the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said earlier, specialists —be they specialist registrars or consultants or members or fellows of the royal colleges—are awarded the specialisms by the medical royal colleges. I get a nod from across the Committee. The colleges are not the regulator, that is the GMC. I am going to keep out of that and leave it for the specialists. I am sure the Minister will need to discuss that with the medics. It is welcome that he says it will be granular, but then it will not be a regulator which is able to do that because, I think I am right in saying, the medical royal colleges are not regulators in this sense The third element was international agreement, which was covered by Amendment 22. Although we may want to look at the detail of that, I think that putting the Grimstone rules into this piece of legislation will be important. For the moment though, having said thank you for the answers but we will be still back, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Ajax Armoured Cavalry Programme — House of Lords, 2021-09-13
Topic: Defense
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Ajax is now a programme on an end-of-life watch. Clearly things have gone from bad to worse, with the Public Accounts Committee pursuing an inquiry, the National Audit Office accepting the need for an urgent investigation, and the Government’s own Major Projects Authority saying that delivery appears to be unachievable. Now the Government themselves in their own Statement say that it is not possible to determine a realistic timetable for the introduction of Ajax vehicles into operational service. Some £3.5 billion of money has been spent so far, for the delivery of just 14 Ajax vehicles My first question to the Minister is: what is actually going on? Can the Minister now guarantee that the problems of noise, instability, inability to fire if moving—among others—will be fixed, and tell us what the timescale is, or is it just trials, trials, and more trials followed by evaluation with no end? If all of this goes wrong, who picks up the bill—the taxpayer or General Dynamics? With noise and vibration issues still not resolved, despite the Government being warned in 2018, the number of personnel needing assessment has doubled to 310. Can the Minister tell us how many of the 248 Army personnel tested so far needed medical treatment, and for what? Will the Minister commit to the health and safety director’s report being published this year With the chair of the Defence Select Committee himself recently describing in the other place the Ajax procurement plan as a "dog’s dinner," can the Minister tell us what alternatives to Ajax are being looked at, since Warrior is being scrapped and replaced with Boxer, which has no turret? Is it the CV-90, or an upgraded Warrior, or a Boxer with a turret? It must have a gun, as the Minister will know, to protect dismounted troops on the battlefield. What is it going to be The reality is stark, with jobs at risk in South Wales as the Government will know, troop numbers being cut—the decision partly based on the delivery of all Ajax vehicles—but 575 out of the 589 have yet to be delivered. And yet the £5.5 billion ceiling, which the Government tell us is an absolute maximum, is fast approaching. The £3.5 billion was spent for 14, with 575 outstanding, but not a significant amount of the budget is left In closing, I ask the Minister: the Government’s plan A for our armoured fighting vehicles looks like failing, so where is the plan B, and when will we get it?
Arrangement of Business — House of Lords, 2021-12-02
Topic: Defense
John McFall (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I should like to say a few words about the sub-judice resolution. Later today, the House will debate a Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, on the detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Noble Lords may be aware that there are active legal proceedings in the High Court between International Military Services Ltd and Iran’s Ministry of Defence. I have exercised the discretion given to me in respect of the resolution on matters sub judice to allow full reference to those proceedings, as they concern issues of national importance.
Terrorist Incident at Liverpool Women’s Hospital — House of Lords, 2021-11-17
Topic: Defense
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My noble friend Lord Rosser asked about this report about the constituent parts of a homemade bomb. From my experience in the construction industry long ago, some of those bits and pieces are easily obtainable in the construction and agricultural industries. Could the Minister make sure that a copy of this report is put in the Library and sent to noble Lords who have spoken? It seems very important that there should be some control over these materials.
HIV and AIDS — House of Lords, 2021-12-01
Topic: Health
Questions: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the progress that has been made in the UK and globally in reducing HIV and AIDS, since World AIDS Day in 2020.
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, generic drugs were crucial to the global response to HIV/AIDS; I see the Minister nodding. In that case, will we learn that lesson for this pandemic and stop blocking the TRIPS waiver so that we can better vaccinate the global south and protect ourselves from new variants?
HIV and AIDS — House of Lords, 2021-12-01
Topic: Health
Questions: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the progress that has been made in the UK and globally in reducing HIV and AIDS, since World AIDS Day in 2020.
Genista Mary McIntosh (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, there has been a huge amount of progress in the last 30 years since—I think I may say my noble friend—my noble friend Lord Fowler did his good work. But there is still work to do in this country. I noted that the Minister proudly referred to there being perhaps less stigma in this country than elsewhere. It is true that we have no room for complacency in this regard and that this is still one of the main reasons why people who should be tested are not being tested. Can the Minister tell the House the Government’s current assessment of the infected but untested rate of HIV/AIDS in this country?