argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Transpeople (Prisons) — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): My thoughts are with the family and friends of Vicky Thompson. We debated the issue of the serious shortage of prison officers and mental health specialists in prisons back in the summer. Will the Minister work specifically with the trans community on the needs and risks assessments for specialists in prisons?
Transpeople (Prisons) — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Nicely linking the previous points of order, may I point out that, in the Minister’s response on junior doctors contracts, he said, as the Secretary of State normally says, that there is an excess of death at the weekend and that that is linked to the current junior doctors contracts? It is a matter of record that there are fewer deaths in hospital at the weekend. It is wrong that that is continually repeated in the House. I seek your guidance, Mr Speaker, on how the record can be corrected so that that is not repeated, as it is not assisting the process of negotiation and trust.
Thomas Cook: Christi and Bobby Shepherd — House of Commons, 2015-07-14
Topic: Health
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for her response to the debate. I want to leave her in no doubt that people across the country—medics, campaigners and all sorts of people—have come forward to Members from across the House as a result of this case, and this is an issue that really will not go away. Just like in my long campaign for scalding valves to be fitted, in the end the moral arc will tend towards justice for these children. As I said at the end of my speech, there are many people in the House who, having heard this story, will not rest until we see a minimum European safety standard across all EU member states to ensure that we protect—
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2015-10-29
Topic: Defense
Paul Phillip Flynn (Labour, Centre-left): Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. The Committee that set up the Chilcot inquiry was the old Public Administration Committee under Tony Wright. At that time, there were misgivings about the form of the inquiry, and the suggestion was made that the inquiry should be run by Parliament directly, which would have been an entirely new form of inquiry. Would it not have been better if parliamentarians had had control of it? Furthermore, as we have had no explanation for the terrible loss of 179 lives in Iraq and for the Helmand incursion that resulted in 454 lives being lost when we believed that we would be going there without a shot being fired, can we have an assurance from Government that we will have no more talk about military interventions in the four-sided war in Syria before all those matters are reported on?
Cities and Local Government Devolution [Lords] Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-21
Topic: Health
John Mann (Labour, Centre-left): Is there anything in the Government’s proposal that would impact on a district such as Bassetlaw —the hospital trust crosses the border into south Yorkshire, but the clinical commissioning group money remains entirely within the district—electing to join Sheffield city region, in another region, where other decisions will be needed? Are there any hidden nasties we should be aware of?
Cities and Local Government Devolution [Lords] Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-21
Topic: Health
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): I would press for further clarity. I understand what the Minister says. The point I am trying to make is that if a local area says, "We think we are best able to provide particular services and responsibilities in a particular way" and NHS England, for example, says that it is not prepared to relinquish those responsibilities, we need a means of mediating that clearly and unambiguously. The assumption should be that the powers will go down to the local area if it wants them—subject to standards.
Cities and Local Government Devolution [Lords] Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-21
Topic: Health
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): I apologise for the fact that I have only just come into the Chamber for this part of the debate. I have been on Front Bench duty in Westminster Hall I am interested in what the Minister is saying about the Secretary of State’s oversight of devolved health in Greater Manchester, which is clarifying one of the issues about which I know a number of Greater Manchester MPs are concerned. May I ask, however, whether any thought has been given to coterminosity? In the case of most of the functions that have been devolved to Greater Manchester, there are coterminous boundaries with the 10 metropolitan boroughs. The NHS is slightly different, in that one of the CCGs—one of my own CCGs, Tameside and Glossop—extends to Derbyshire as well, because Glossop is not part of Greater Manchester.
Cities and Local Government Devolution [Lords] Bill — House of Commons, 2015-10-21
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Anne McInnes (Labour, Centre-left): First, let me echo the words of the Minister and pay my own tribute to my colleague, Michael Meacher, who sadly died today. I was born and bred in his constituency, so he was my MP for a long number of years. He was greatly respected in the constituency and will be very, very sadly missed I wish to start by echoing the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) who said that we need to get this Bill right. The proposals for health devolution raise a great number of questions, which I hope we will deal with in a constructive manner, as we need positive outcomes. Labour Members are concerned about overlapping areas, coterminosity, and cross-border responsibilities, and they have been highlighted by my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw (John Mann), for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) and for Bristol South (Karin Smyth). We need some clarity about how the devolved responsibilities will work in practice.
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Prime Minister for giving way. I would have preferred to hear an apology, but I want to discuss the facts. The fact is that we are proposing to target very different things from those that we are targeting in northern Iraq and I would like to ask the Prime Minister two questions. First, what practical steps will be used to reduce civilian casualties? Secondly, what sorts of targets will we be going against that will reduce the terrorist threat to the UK in terms of operations directed against our citizens?
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Prime Minister, who is presenting his case well. Had he come to the House and asked for a very narrow licence to take out ISIL’s external planning capability, I think that would have commanded widespread consent, but he is asking for a wider authority. I want to draw him on the difference between Iraq and Syria. In Iraq there are ground forces in place, but in Syria there are not. I invite him to say a little more at the very least about what ground forces he envisages joining us in the seizure of Raqqa.
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): The whole House recognises that decisions to send British forces to war are the most serious, solemn and morally challenging of any that we have to take as Members of Parliament. The motion brought before the House by the Government, authorising military action in Syria against ISIL, faces us with exactly that decision. It is a decision with potentially far-reaching consequences for us all here in Britain, as well as for the people of Syria and the wider middle east For all Members, taking a decision that will put British servicemen and women in harm’s way, and almost inevitably lead to the deaths of innocents, is a heavy responsibility. It must be treated with the utmost seriousness, with respect given to those who make a different judgment about the right course of action to take. That is why the Prime Minister’s attempt to brand those who plan to vote against the Government as "terrorist sympathisers", both demeans the office of the Prime Minister and, I believe, undermines the seriousness of the deliberations we are having today. If he now wants to apologise for those remarks, I would be happy to give way to him Since the Prime Minister is unmoved, we will have to move on with the debate. I hope that he will be stronger later and recognise that, yes, he made an unfortunate remark last night, and that apologising for it would be very helpful and improve the atmosphere of this debate.
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is not part of the motion today, so we move on with this debate It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Prime Minister understands that public opinion is moving increasingly against what I believe to be an ill-thought-out rush to war. He wants to hold this vote before opinion against it grows even further. Whether it is a lack of strategy worth the name, the absence of credible ground troops, the missing diplomatic plan for a Syrian settlement, the failure to address the impact of the terrorist threat or the refugee crisis and civilian casualties, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Prime Minister’s proposals for military action simply do not stack up.
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): All of our efforts should instead go into bringing the Syrian civil war to an end. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya: I ask Members to think very carefully about the previous decisions we have made. [Interruption.] What we are proposing to do today is send British bombers—
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
Madeleine Moon (Labour, Centre-left): I absolutely agree that what we need are facts and greater clarity about our capability to take on the task that is ahead of us. Yesterday we were told there were between 20,000 and 30,000 Daesh across Syria and Iraq, but I could not be given a number as to how many Taliban we were fighting in Afghanistan, to get a comparator, when we had 10,000 of our troops and 30,000 Americans fighting them. I could not get that, and I could not get an answer as to how often we had used our Brimstone missiles and how many more planes we would be flying. Don’t we need those questions answered?
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
Margaret Mary Beckett (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry, no These are genuinely extremely difficult as well as extremely serious decisions, but it is the urgings of the United Nations and of the socialist Government in France that, for me, have been the tipping point in my decision to support military action.
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
John Derek Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): There is a group of us on the Labour Benches who are caught between two points: we are not opposed to taking action—indeed, we want to take action—but we do not feel that the strategy is in place We are making a decision today based not just on airstrikes, but on an overall strategy. Let me say from the outset that I am under no illusion that there is a perfect strategy, given the complex circumstances of the civil war and insurgency in Syria. There is no certainty in the middle east. We all want to protect our citizens and reduce the threat of Daesh, but I am afraid that a few more airstrikes will not do that. Some of its actions may not even be planned from Syria. We lack an overall strategy to confront ISIS/Daesh, which is established in other countries such as Libya. I want to make it clear again that I am not opposed to military action, but I will support it only if I believe that there is a reasonable chance of success I do not believe the argument that bombing Daesh in Syria will somehow greatly increase the chances of a terrorist attack in the UK, nor the argument that the Government are proposing the indiscriminate bombing of Syrians. Those arguments are both wrong I understand the argument that we are currently restricted to Iraq, but we were clearly invited into that country by an elected Government and we have forces on the ground. That is not the situation in Syria, which is much more uncertain and complex. We do not have the ground forces in Syria that I believe we should have.
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
Catharine Letitia Hoey (Labour, Centre-left): I apologise for my voice, Mr Speaker, which is hurting me, but I wanted to speak today. Some 12 years ago, I sat over there listening to a very eloquent and emotional speech from the then Prime Minister. We Back Benchers had a lot of pressure on us in that debate, even more than there has been today. I listened to another eloquent speech from a Prime Minister today. Last time I felt an instinct that what we were doing in Iraq was wrong, and I feel that same instinct today I am certainly not a pacifist. I was one of the few people, along with Paddy Ashdown, who called for the bombing in Bosnia long before it was Government policy, and I am certainly not a supporter of terrorism, coming as I do from Northern Ireland. I hope the Prime Minister will apologise to me personally, in private, for accusing people such as me, who might be going to vote against this motion, of being in some way in support of terrorism. I take that very personally Lots of Members have cited generals and all sorts of important people, but I wish to mention a constituent of mine who was a soldier for nearly 20 years in the regular Army. He wrote to me to say: "I view with dismay the current clamour to re-engage" in this war. He says that when we went into Iraq "I was assured that we had a superb plan that could not fail", that when we went to Afghanistan "I was told, ‘this is nothing like Iraq’, and when the RAF were sent to bomb Libya they were told ‘this is nothing like Afghanistan.’" They always get it wrong I would not be against bombing to remove Daesh if I really believed it would work, but so many questions need to be answered convincingly and if they cannot be, I believe the action is futile. Do we know who our enemy really is? Is it just Daesh or is it all or many of the multiple jihadi groups? Do we know who our allies are? Is Russia our ally? Is Assad perhaps one now? Is our ally anyone who is against Daesh? Do our allies share our objectives and those of all our other allies? We do not and cannot know that, as it is at least a five-sided war. Can we trust our allies? That shows the trouble with alliances of convenience. What happens when our allies’ interests conflict with ours, as they will? Do we then bomb our allies? Will they bomb us? Are Daesh sufficiently concentrated for us to bomb them without an unacceptable loss of civilian life? Is Daesh under a centralised command structure that can be destroyed through bombing? When Daesh is removed from an area, who will come in to rebuild, repopulate and keep the peace? That issue has been raised by so many people.
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
Richard Haines Burden (Labour, Centre-left): I am afraid that there is no time, because there are many others who wish to contribute That is not what these airstrikes are about. We have been told that they are about degrading Daesh capabilities and communications, which is certainly an important objective. We have also been told that that means not a generalised bombing campaign, but the use by the RAF of sophisticated weapons to minimise civilian casualties. I have asked the Prime Minister to give more information about the rules of engagement, but I have yet to receive a reply. However, I am prepared to believe that the RAF will target its strikes very closely on military targets. The point is that it is not simply RAF planes that will be hitting Raqqa. The town is already being bombed and, as far as I can tell, with a lot less selectivity than it has been suggested the RAF would use Recently, I read an article by a reporter in Raqqa who said that there has been a massive escalation in activity since 14 November. The reporter said that civilian casualties were dramatically on the rise and, proportionately, Daesh casualties were going down. Members may or may not like this, but we will be seen as part of that general coalition activity, and we have to ask ourselves whether that will increase or decrease the likelihood of indigenous forces joining us further down the line. Will it build support for Daesh or will it reduce it? The risk is very, very real that we will be handing Daesh a propaganda victory on a plate, and we will allow impressionable people to be won over to their murderous brand of jihadism Therefore in the absence of evidence that these airstrikes will achieve their military objective, and in the absence of evidence about what that objective is, I have concluded that I shall not vote today for direct UK participation in those strikes on Raqqa.
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), who spoke well. I, too, share many of the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), but like the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich I have come to a different conclusion. I have long argued—since the Government tabled a motion 14 months ago to begin airstrikes in Iraq—that it was illogical to stop at the Syrian border, which pinned down our forces. We were satisfied then, even before the recent UN Security Council resolution, of the legality of conflict, and we were prepared to provide extensive logistical support I share the concerns expressed so well by many of my colleagues about our ability to bring together ground forces, and in what number; about the viability of the Vienna peace process; about the need to stop the creation of a vacuum into which more extremists can flow; and about the need to recognise that this is not simply a struggle for a year or a couple of years. To defeat this evil ideology may take generations, and it may take far, far more than military ventures. It requires rethinking the way we have engaged on the international stage. We and all our allies need to do much better than we have done Setting such concerns as hurdles to be overcome before we allow an existing capability in the region to refocus—not to go to war, as has so often been evocatively stated in the media and in this House today—seems to fly in the face of military logic and common sense. I am concerned that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield feels that he has not been given the information that he wants about the level of precision and the rules of engagement that our RAF forces will bring to the campaign. I feel that I have been given that information. My sense is that our forces are far more precise and our rules of engagement are far tighter. We can therefore bring a great deal of effectiveness, above and beyond what is already there, and it makes sense to do that, rather than keep our forces in an area which is away from the headquarters, particularly as we have been given clear information that that command centre is even now planning missions that would strike at the UK and other countries Finally, I have been proud today to sit on the Labour Benches next to my right hon. Friend the Members for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who made superb speeches. Although there are deeply held views on either side, I will do everything I can to stop my party becoming the vanguard of an angry, intolerant pacifism which sets myriad preconditions that it knows will never be met, and which will ultimately say no to any military intervention. [Interruption.] Some of those on the Front Bench and those heckling behind me need to think carefully about the way in which they have conducted themselves over recent weeks. We need to do better than this to be a credible official Opposition.
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
Ruth Smeeth (Labour, Centre-left): There is no more solemn or important duty of this House than the decision to authorise military action, and it has weighed heavily on me in recent days. To risk putting our servicemen and women in harm’s way is a great and heavy burden, as indeed it should be In recent months, we have seen the horror of the attacks in Paris, Tunisia, Lebanon and Turkey committed by Daesh. Even those acts of terror fail to tell the story of the full scale of the threat that faces us and the fact that it is growing. In 2014, there were 15 global attacks perpetuated by Daesh. This year, we have seen 150 so far.
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): I have held the Prime Minister’s proposal to the fire with experts, academics, people from the region, and military personnel. I have read more than 2,000 communications, and on Monday night I had a meeting in my constituency with more than 400 people present. More than 99% of those said no to the Prime Minister’s plans Daesh exhibits the most heinous and murderous ideology, but how will precision weapons find their target without co-ordination on the ground? We have heard how important ground forces are, but Daesh integrates into local populations. Local people work for Daesh to avoid being murdered—they do not share its ideology, but they do so to save their lives. Without a concrete military force, people will be put at risk and there will be serious casualties We have heard about the Free Syrian Army. On 20 October the Foreign Secretary came to the House and said that it was 80,000 strong, and on 26 November the Prime Minister said it was 70,000 strong. Yesterday I heard that there are 40,000 moderates, and today I hear that there are 15,000 people with whom we can work. In reality, those fighters are a disparate group. We have heard about the shifting sands, and many groups are co-ordinated under an umbrella. We do not know whether they will jump to western orders. They are fighting another, more conventional war, and will they move to fighting a more difficult conflict and a different enemy? People have fought against Assad to protect land. Will they be willing to move across the country to fight in a different area and give up the land that they have protected or tried to gain? We must ask such questions before we proceed. To take more time is not to admit defeat. It is about us being politicians and scrutinising what is before us. There is no loss of face in stepping back in order to step forward We must also listen to the people living on the ground who have said no to this action. No one in this place has the wisdom of Solomon, but it is clear that this strategy is weak and the sequencing is wrong. I will be voting to reject the motion. I ask the Government to come back with a more comprehensive ground plan, which we would be able to scrutinise. Hopefully, we can move forward to deal with Daesh and its evil plot.