argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Health and Social Care — House of Lords, 2021-09-09
Topic: Health
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, historically, no Government have imposed a percentage increase on national insurance contributions because it hits the very people—the NHS and local government—who are delivering health and social care. For what reason have the Government changed the position on this?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-05-18
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I pay tribute to the bus industry. Many noble Lords will remember those terrible stories at the beginning of the pandemic about bus drivers having an extremely high incidence of severe disease and even death. But the noble Lord should have hope as there is a really good reason why the buses will one day be full, and that is the vaccine. The vaccine gives us all hope that the kind of life we once had can be revisited, although we have to take some time to ensure that the vaccines are working as well as they should. We have to ensure that booster shots, if needed, are delivered. We have to ensure that the vaccine cuts through to all communities and that hygiene—the social distancing, handwashing and other personal hygiene disciplines which are going to be a long-term commitment by the entire nation—is truly imbedded in everyone’s habits.
G7 and NATO Summits — House of Lords, 2021-06-17
Topic: Defense
Natalie Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): At the NATO summit, leaders did indeed recommit to NATO’s defence investment pledge target of investing 2% of GDP in defence—10 allies meet that target now, and 20 are on track to meet it by 2024. Since 2014, defence investment by non-US allies has increased for seven consecutive years, with a real increase of 4.1% in 2021. So there is still work to do, but we are getting there.
G7 and NATO Summits — House of Lords, 2021-06-17
Topic: Health
Natalie Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for his comments. He is right that this is a huge global challenge and we all need to work together to deliver on it. However, I point out that the Oxford vaccine is a very important way of helping tackle this pandemic. Of course, we part-funded it, and it is being produced at cost to low and middle-income countries and at scale through manufacturing partnerships across the world. This is already ensuring that more than half a billion doses of the vaccine are available across the world. Of course, we have to ensure that we continue to roll it out, but it is also worth remembering the huge contribution that we have already made through the Oxford vaccine.
Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-14
Topic: Health
Sheila Masters (Conservative, Centre-right): Could my noble friend the Minister explain why, in Clause 1, which we know will be applied largely to the medical professions—we are therefore dealing with patient safety—it is adequate for medical professions if "a specified regulator of the specified regulated profession has made a determination that the overseas qualifications … demonstrate substantially the same knowledge and skills", but, somehow, a different standard is implied when the much more mundane activity of auditing is involved? I do not quite understand how the Minister can have one view of the medical professions and another of what happens in the accounting profession. Can she explain that contradiction?
Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-14
Topic: Health
Andrew Lansley (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this group has three amendments in it, two of which are in my name. The other amendment, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, strictly speaking, is not really related. Her amendment makes a perfectly good point, it seems to me; I will not dwell on it, as I am sure she will introduce it very effectively. It simply asks for language requirements to be something that the assistance centre provides information and assistance on, so it sounds perfectly reasonable Amendment 34A in my name is somewhat prompted by the Government’s amendments to Clause 1 that we debated last Wednesday. If noble Lords will recall, those looked at the risk that the Government acknowledged in their supplementary memorandum to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. In paragraph 6, they said their amendments were "to avoid the risk that clause 1 could allow an overseas-qualified individual to circumvent additional requirements that other legislation imposes, or allows a regulator to impose, on overseas-qualified individuals." That is, indeed, exactly the risk that was referred to, quite properly, at Second Reading and to which the Government responded What was added into Clause 1 was "and any other specified condition". In its response to the supplementary memorandum, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform said that, while it welcomed the amendment since it was intended to mitigate that risk, the appropriate conditions that were going to be added in were not specified. In part, Amendment 34A is part of a process of trying to tease out from my noble friend what is going to be in those conditions under Clause 1 that are in addition to the requirement for an overseas qualification or overseas experience to be substantially the same as UK qualifications and experience One of the things that I felt it was helpful to illustrate that is the question of indemnity insurance. That is what Amendment 34A relates to. For a number of regulators—especially of course, those that I am aware of, in the medical professions—there is a requirement on practitioners as part of their professional standards to have professional indemnity. Would this, for example, be one of the conditions that my noble friend would anticipate would be specified under Clause 1? That is by way of probing that situation Amendment 60A, however, is both to probe this issue rather more but also perhaps to make a suggestion to my noble friend when they are considering what might give further reassurance. Given the debates we have had last week and today, time and again noble Lords are saying that they remain concerned, notwithstanding the Government’s intentions and statements, that regulators will find that a consequence of the regulations under Clause 1 or as a consequence of Clause 3, which we have just been talking about, will be that they cannot impose or exercise the same control on overseas applicants to practise in the United Kingdom as would be the case for a UK applicant.
Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-14
Topic: Health
Stephanie Fraser (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I rather hope that the Minister will—to use the word of the Bill—assuage my fears that these amendments are not required. If noble Lords will bear with me, I must say I really struggled to understand, when reading these amendments and looking at the Bill, how it could possibly be that we would put any barriers, hurdles or anything in the way of people whose qualifications have been recognised under previous EU regulations. It is really concerning to me To turn to my regulator of choice, the Health and Care Professions Council registered 551 new registrants from the EEA and Switzerland last year—the year of Covid—and 951 the year before. That is around 22% and 26%, respectively, of the total number of new registrants each year. It would be a tragedy if there were any barriers to those who have been registered as fit to practice and they were not able to do so Let us not kid ourselves that it is a simple path to registration for professionals from the EEA and Switzerland even with the previous EU regulations in place. These professionals have already experienced uncertainty in their status due to the UK’s exit from the EU. Hopefully, most will have applied for settled status, but let us, as I say, not put any more barriers in their way. Even a whiff that their qualifications might no longer be recognised or that they may have to go through other processes could be enough to send these valued people back to their own countries I am also not clear whether it is proposed that there will be a transitional period between the existing and the proposed routes to registration for overseas registrants. If so, can further light be shone on this? I plead that any transition from one system to the other is as smooth and painless for professionals and regulators as possible. I look forward to being assuaged.
Professional Qualifications Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-14
Topic: Health
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): I support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, in moving his Amendment 37 and echo many of the remarks made previously on this My starting point is this: we now face a potential shortage in many professions, particularly among veterinary surgeons and many categories of medical staff, including doctors, nurses and other clinicians. It therefore seems odd that we have two amendments in this small group on the need for this to be in the Bill. Can my noble friend explain, as he has said many times during the passage of this Bill, at Second Reading and in earlier debates, that the Bill is deemed to be a tool to address potential shortages in the professions, such as veterinary surgeons and medical staff at every level? If that is the case, is it his view—bearing in mind the two probing amendments in this group—that it should perhaps be explicitly stated in the Bill, for the avoidance of doubt?
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-05-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Baroness asks two very pertinent questions which slightly answer themselves, in a way—but let me try to update the House on our plans in that area. She is right that we have powers on local lockdowns, but that is not the focus of our thinking at the moment. Local lockdowns are an important tool, but not one that we think is a priority right at this moment. We are focused on the vaccines. It is beyond doubt that this Indian 2 variant particularly hits those who are not properly vaccinated—and by "properly" I mean "have had two doses and two weeks". Those who have forgone either their first or second dose are particularly vulnerable, and you have only to look at the infection data and, particularly, the hospitalisation data to understand that That is why we have rolled out surge vaccination in those areas. What that means is a huge amount of communication, a huge amount of engagement with the communities and the presence of various mobile vaccination units sent directly into the heart of the communities to provide different channels and mediums by which people can step up for their vaccine. The response has been extremely strong and I am touched, as I have said, by the videos of people in some of those communities, particularly in Bolton, where people have queued up for their vaccines. I pay tribute to the DPHs and local authorities that have facilitated that programme.
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-05-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Baroness alludes to a dilemma that we face. It is not possible to organise surge testing and have pinpoint outbreak management in 120 different areas. That is just too many and our resources do not stretch to that. Many of the outbreaks are substantial clusters. Sorry—let me phrase that better. There is a small number of very substantial clusters in the towns and cities of which noble Lords will be aware. That is where we are focusing the surge testing and surge vaccination. In the other areas, we are working with DPHs to ensure that they know the best way to target the particular behaviours of the India 2. That means that it has very high transmissibility, which requires an extremely quick reaction to school and workplace outbreaks, and within specific communities. That kind of briefing and guidance has been channelled through the Chief Medical Officer’s department and the kinds of infrastructure that I described in my answers to previous questions. The response has been extremely strong and I hope we are making some impact on the spread of the India virus, but we remain extremely vigilant.
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-05-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I must admit that I am not aware of a large number of people having to repeat their 10-day isolation, so let me look into that and I should be glad to write to the noble Baroness.
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-05-26
Topic: Health
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, in the light of the extraordinary personal vendetta that Dominic Cummings is pursuing against the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister, is it not obvious that the Government must now bring forward the official inquiry into the handling of the pandemic promised by the Government so that the public do not have to rely on a partial, self-serving account, fortified by hindsight?
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-05-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): I am extremely grateful for my noble friend’s remarks. The inquiry will, as he says, provide an important moment to look at the lessons that we can learn from the response to the pandemic. The Prime Minister has given extremely clear reasons why the timetable is as he described and we should stick to the timetable that he has suggested.
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Health
James Peter Hymers Mackay (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I find it somewhat difficult to follow the noble Lord, but I support his Bill. I believe that it is necessary for us to consider the future when looking at the present, but one difficulty that I have is that the future is rather difficult to predict. We have to expect the unexpected. How you plan for the unexpected is something that I have not quite grasped from the Bill, although I believe that the Bill requires a mode of thought that is an improvement on the present situation. It puts a legal duty on government that resembles the duty that parents have for their offspring. I am now at the great-grandchild generation. We all have a responsibility to do our best for them, but what the best is varies very much from time to time. That has certainly been my experience. I also want to say that, when someone tells me off, I try to take account of that, because I believe that it is a good lesson for the future. The difficulty is that this is a mode of thought that does not seem to me easy to formulate in detail. We must consider carefully in Committee the system put in place in the Bill What is well-being? It is a very difficult concept, and I want to mention one important aspect of it. Those of us who heard the national parliamentary prayer breakfast this morning will have heard statements of the spirit that enables people to have hope in the face of adversity, and I believe that this should form part of well-being. We must do our best to provide our offspring with a spirit that enables them to have hope, which is the best protection against despair and the consequences of despair.
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Health
Colin Moynihan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I also welcome the Bill and congratulate the inimitable noble Lord, Lord Bird, on securing time for the House to consider this measure I would like to concentrate my brief remarks on the importance of health, an active lifestyle and recreation in the context of the well-being of future generations. In so doing, I note that there is only implicit passing reference to these essential building blocks to be laid at the foundation of the Bill before the House today, which seeks to ensure that UK policy-making needs to take future generations into account. It is a civic society build and subsequent bolt-on measure, requiring collaborative thinking and action between civic society and lawmakers, which is why a call for public consultation in the first place is right While the Bill does not seek to define "wellbeing goals", I believe that, following public consultation on the issue, they should ideally be placed in the Bill. Alternatively—albeit sub-optimally—they should be brought before the House under secondary legislation for further annual debate. That is a nuanced approach to the principle that government should be required to set measurable national well-being objectives and publish an annual report on progress towards meeting them I draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, to the proposal by the Department of Health to launch an office for health promotion this autumn. It wisely has set out the objective as leading national efforts to look to the future to improve and level up public health, setting action across government to improve the nation’s health by tackling obesity, improving mental health and promoting physical activity. Since well-being policies cover educational opportunity, no well-being measures can avoid placing the interests of children at the epicentre of the Bill, for they are the future. Issues around poverty, levelling up, education and, above all, mental and physical health and well-being are critical for children—not least access, with responsibility, to the countryside, which we have been working on in Committee on the Environment Bill this week My noble friend Lord True, representing the Cabinet Office, is the right man to respond to this debate today because that is exactly where ministerial responsibility for well-being should lie. Once established, the well-being goals will require more co-ordinated action across government departments than ever seen before. We will need to move away from the silo approach which has characterised Whitehall departments for far too long and work toward a series of national well-being goals capable of being judged against definable outputs across government. I hope the Prime Minister will consider creating the office of a Secretary of State for well-being and children in the Cabinet Office.
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-06-25
Topic: Health
Nicholas Bourne (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, who is always committed and who I know has done massive work in the intergenerational policy area. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, who as always showed himself to be passionate, committed and dedicated. It takes no small effort to bring a measure such as this to your Lordships’ House. There has been a lot of work behind it, so I congratulate him on that I believe that this Bill is important and very timely. As the noble Lord, Lord Bird, said, it owes much to the Welsh example. It places improving well-being and intergenerational concerns centre stage. That is not to say that there are not laws now that do just that, or that we would have difficulty with this new principle being brought in, but it is certainly not true of all measures and policies This week the Public Services Select Committee, on which I sit, met two very senior civil servants—high flyers, the brightest and the best, well intentioned, sincere and hard-working. They told the committee that this Government, and indeed successive Governments, have always been committed to preventive measures, early intervention and long-term planning. One has to ask, then: why are we in the situation we are in? There is no doubting the good intentions of successive Governments, but they are far from the reality, alas, in fields as diverse as health, social care, social policy, home policy, justice policy and so on We need to take account of the long term—a problem that has beset UK Governments for a long time. I believe that this legislation will certainly help. Two very current crises highlight the importance of this Bill—first, the pandemic. In October 2016 the UK Government held a national pandemic flu exercise. So far, so good. One consequence was that the exercise found there were not enough ventilators. No action was taken; short-termism triumphed. As we emerge from the shadow of the pandemic, we will need careful, clear forward planning Secondly, the climate crisis and the drive to net zero demand imaginative global thinking to deal with this very serious issue. I recall meeting the Prime Minister of Tuvalu before the Paris conference. He told me his nation would cease to exist because it would be overwhelmed by the oceans. Oblivion beckoned. The climate crisis clearly demands action too The current generation of youngsters, teenagers and twentysomethings will carry forward the mistakes and inactions of our generation and earlier generations. Let us take the action that helps to alleviate that burden and help plan for the future with this legislation.
Health and Social Care Levy Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-11
Topic: Health
Theodore Agnew (Conservative, Centre-right): I cannot give the noble Baroness a clear answer on that now. More detail will be available in the Budget and the spending review. If it does not transpire in those documents in the next couple of weeks, the noble Baroness can write to me and I will investigate further On the adult social care workforce, our investment is at least £500 million across the three years to deliver new qualifications, progression pathways and mental health support. This workforce package is unprecedented investment: it is something like a fivefold increase in public spending on skills and training for this sector The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, asked about vaccines for NHS staff. He is correct that at the moment there is no requirement for NHS staff to be vaccinated. However, we have a consultation under way to try to find the best way through on that sensitive issue. I have probably answered the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, as much as I can on the compensating of NICs. Just to confirm, I say that the Government will compensate public sector bodies such as the NHS for the increased cost of employer NICs. If they did not, they would simply reduce the amount available. The Chancellor will set out more details in his spending review My noble friend Lord Bethell asked about NHSX funding. We remain absolutely committed to all aspects of technological improvement. Again, I am more optimistic over the long term because I believe we will find new ways of treating this sector more efficiently, and NHSX will play a part in that My noble friend Lord Naseby made a point about the structure of GPs’ surgeries. We will have to see some dramatic changes in that area. In my view, we cannot sustain surgeries in which five-sixths of the doctors are working only part-time, but again I think this will throw up opportunities. The two sectors will have to work much more closely together—
Armed Forces Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-20
Topic: Defense
James Stopford (Conservative, Centre-right): That it be an instruction to the Grand Committee to which the Armed Forces Bill has been committed that they consider the bill in the following order: Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clauses 3 to 9, Schedule 2, Clause 10, Schedule 3, Clause 11, Schedule 4, Clauses 12 to 15, Schedule 5, Clauses 16 to 26, Title.