argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Local Tennis Courts — House of Commons, 2022-02-10
Topic: Culture
Questions: Broadcast news has a long-standing duty of balance, which moderates public debate, tests opposing views and helps forge consensus across our country, but today’s digital world means that more and more of us get our news through social media platforms, where individual filter bubbles can feed us more of one side without ever showing an alternative view, driving extremism, radicalisation and division instead. Is it now time to extend that duty of balance to include social media platforms?
Jeffrey Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I am afraid that the Minister’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) was far too vague. Musicians and orchestras are facing a touring crisis. We need an EU-wide cultural touring agreement that includes allowances for cabotage, carnets and customs rules. That needs to happen now, so what are Ministers doing to sort the problem as a matter of urgency?
Government Contracts: Randox Laboratories — House of Commons, 2022-02-10
Topic: Health
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make a statement on the process for awarding Government contracts to Randox Laboratories Ltd, following the release of documents in response to the Humble Address of 17 November 2021.
Government Contracts: Randox Laboratories — House of Commons, 2022-02-10
Topic: Health
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): The Randox files published last week, later than the Government said they would be—that was not acknowledged by the Minister—paint a picture of a Conservative Government who are simply unfit for office. That Conservative Government played fast and loose with public money. They handed Randox a £133 million contract without competition. The Minister talked about every possible step being taken in testing infrastructure, but let us remember what happened. Randox tried to requisition equipment from universities that, because of the files that were released, we now know had to be stopped. Vital tests in care homes were voided, and 750,000 tests were recalled. The Government’s response was to hand it a second contract worth £350 million, again without competition. We now know that both the civil service chief operating officer and the Minister, Lord Agnew, sounded a warning alarm. That Minister said that the Department was paying "dramatically over the odds" for Randox’s services, but the Government ploughed on. Why was he ignored, and did the Department do what he asked, and introduce a competitive tender process by March 2021? There does not seem to have been the operation of robust rules that the Minister referred to, or an impartial evaluation. Was that put into place or not Secondly, there are still no minutes of that crucial meeting on 9 April, just a rough draft email sent seven months later. Two years on, the Department cannot even explain who was there. We now know that Health Ministers held another four meetings that were never declared in the Register. How many more secret meetings were there That brings us to Owen Paterson who, as we now know from these papers, is called "O-Patz"—really, Mr Speaker, is there any clearer sign that we are in the twilight days of this Government? The files show that this former MP, a paid advocate for Randox, was arranging meetings with the Health Secretary in the Division Lobby, a place to which only MPs have access, and where it is impossible for civil servants to join them—hardly the appropriate management of commercial interests that the Minister referred to. Will she explain what was agreed in those discussions, and will she correct her Department’s claim that there is no evidence of any breach of the rules?
Government Contracts: Randox Laboratories — House of Commons, 2022-02-10
Topic: Health
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): The documents seem to show that there was a meeting with the former Member for North Shropshire and the former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in the Division Lobby. Will the Minister respond to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds)? Did that meeting take place?
Dementia Research in the UK — House of Commons, 2022-02-10
Topic: Health
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): I beg to move, That this House has considered dementia research in the UK I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this important debate, the all-party parliamentary group on dementia, of which I am the co-chair with the wonderful Baroness Sally Greengross, and the Alzheimer’s Society for all its work to support the APPG. I also thank the many Members who agreed to sponsor the debate, although being just before recess it is obviously a difficult slot to fill Dementia is one of the biggest health challenges that we face today. It is the UK’s biggest killer and, with an ever-aging population, the number of people living with dementia in the UK and around the world is set to grow. Indeed, figures from the Alzheimer’s Society show that around 900,000 people are currently living with the condition in the UK, and that number is set to grow to 1.3 million by 2030. There will be few of us who do not know somebody who is either living with dementia or affected by it That includes me. My mum was 64 when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and unfortunately she died 10 years later. The work I do on the APPG is in her memory, and in recognition that there are millions of families affected by dementia and who are currently caring for people they love who have one of the many degenerative brain diseases that cause dementia. We frequently talk about dementia as though it was just one disease, but it is not. Dementia is a set of symptoms, but there is an array of degenerative brain diseases that make up dementia, of which Alzheimer’s disease is probably the best known.
Dementia Research in the UK — House of Commons, 2022-02-10
Topic: Health
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend, who makes a powerful point about her own experience with her mum’s frontotemporal dementia and the importance of ensuring that we understand, from different cultural perspectives and different ethnicities, the impact of dementia and how we care for our loved ones who have it I want this debate to be about hope. That is so important. My hon. Friend has just spoken about her mum, and it was very hard for my mum. She could not speak and could barely move. She could not feed herself. It was a very sad state. However, there is huge optimism and reasons for hope, and that is what I want this debate to be about. I firmly believe that, as with many other conditions, research will find a cure for dementia We have one of the best life sciences sectors in the world, as we have seen over the past few years with the work that the University of Oxford and others have undertaken with the covid vaccination programme. Our researchers are rarely talked about, but they are our unsung heroes and we should be immensely proud of the work they do and the significant contribution they make to the economy. I believe it is a matter of when, not if, we will see the breakthroughs that are desperately needed for therapies in dementia research However, that is fundamentally dependent on adequate investment. Despite the ever-increasing prevalence of dementia, research into it is consistently and disproportionately underfunded. There is news from the United States of treatments such as aducanumab, which has just been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is expected to help people when they are diagnosed with dementia. This is a great and exciting opportunity for the Government to support the field and cement the UK’s place as a world leader in dementia research As my hon. Friend has just mentioned, we know that during the 2019 general election the Conservative party promised to double dementia research funding from £83 million to £166 million a year over a 10-year period—the "dementia moonshot". Similarly, the Labour party has committed to that. We have cross-party consensus, but we are still waiting for the Government to bring forward any of that additional funding. Last year, in fact, there was a 10% fall in the amount of funding provided to dementia research, so it received only £75 million instead of £83 million. That is a huge missed opportunity to expand our research capabilities in that area, to support the inspiring academics working in the field and to provide hope to the millions of people affected by dementia across the UK. It also does not make economic sense, as I will move on to later.
Dementia Research in the UK — House of Commons, 2022-02-10
Topic: Health
Lyn Carol Brown (Labour, Centre-left): One of my constituents, in asking me to attend today’s debate and talk about dementia, mentioned that they did not feel that dementia is a sexy enough subject to get the funding for research. It is almost as if it is expected that most of us, at the end of our lives, will not be as sharp tacks in the box as we once were, and may therefore find it hard to attract the funding. Does the hon. Lady agree with my constituent?
Dementia Research in the UK — House of Commons, 2022-02-10
Topic: Health
Lilian Rachel Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that the reduction in Government funding is particularly concerning, because the pandemic has had a devastating impact on the ability of charities to fundraise? Medical research charities, which fund 51% of all medical research in the UK, have seen their ability to fundraise reduced drastically.
Dementia Research in the UK — House of Commons, 2022-02-10
Topic: Health
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes a crucial point. There has been a perfect storm. As we have heard, there is a growing list of people waiting to be diagnosed properly with dementia as a consequence of the covid pandemic, and, as she rightly says, the very research groups doing in-depth analysis and research into this disease are largely reliant on charitable sources of funding, which have almost completely dried up over the course of the pandemic.
Dementia Research in the UK — House of Commons, 2022-02-10
Topic: Health
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): I was going to mention this when I wind up, but I could not agree more. Funds to medical research charities, such as Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Alzheimer’s Society, have more or less halved—an awful impact.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Review — House of Commons, 2022-03-29
Topic: Health
Kim Michele Leadbeater (Labour, Centre-left): Following a number of emotional meetings with desperate families in Batley and Spen, I can confirm that the Secretary of State was absolutely right to say that people have lost faith in the system. Demand for EHCPs has soared, rising by 480% in the past five years, and almost half of all plans are issued outside the statutory 20-week period, which in my view is too long in itself. Why has increasing capacity and ending delays not been a focus of the review?
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Review — House of Commons, 2022-03-29
Topic: Health
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): I appreciate the Government’s honesty when they talk about the vicious cycle of late intervention, low confidence and inefficient resource allocation. Sadly, that is very much the experience of my constituents who have needed to access these services, so I appreciate the ambition to try to get away from that. My concern is similar to that expressed by a couple of Conservative Back Benchers about the lack of detail on the interaction with the health service, particularly when it comes to tier 4 CAMHS children who are in real crisis. What reassurance can the Secretary of State give us that those children will be helped as part of this initiative?
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Review — House of Commons, 2022-03-29
Topic: Health
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): Parents are battling and children are struggling every day in York, in that tug of war between the services, the available funding and the available practitioners. I was disappointed that the proposals do not contain a workforce plan covering the comprehensive range of services needed, including speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychological services and CAMHS. In the consultation, can the Secretary of State put a focus on workforce planning and ensure that at the end of that consultation, a workforce plan is published alongside the Government response?
Civil Proceedings — House of Commons, 2022-03-29
Topic: Health
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister comment on the figures released by the Office for National Statistics today, which state that men and women living in the most deprived parts of the country were five and six times more likely to die from covid than those in the least deprived areas? What can she say about the adequacy of the regulations for those people?
Civil Proceedings — House of Commons, 2022-03-29
Topic: Health
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): Following on from the point that was just made by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), the Minister must be aware of the massive effect of the whole coronavirus process on mental health, particularly among young people—even among children in primary school. Are the Government committed to putting the necessary resources into the hardest-hit communities where the mental health crisis is at its worst?
Civil Proceedings — House of Commons, 2022-03-29
Topic: Health
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): I start by echoing the Minister’s thanks to healthcare and frontline public service workers and, indeed, the public for all they have done to get us to this point after two years of the pandemic. I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to the two motions before the House today on behalf of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition Clearly, as the shadow public health Minister, I will be focusing primarily on elements of the motions that relate to public health, but I will also touch on the extension of the justice provisions relating to coroners’ inquests and remote hearings. I know my colleagues on the Bill Committees for the Judicial Review and Courts Bill and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill have already engaged constructively with the Government on those provisions and supported their being moved on to statute However, we have called for the Government to provide further evidence on the impact that those measures, particularly remote hearings, may have on people with disabilities and those who are digitally excluded. I would be grateful if the Minister reiterated those concerns to her colleagues in the Ministry of Justice—I notice the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) sitting alongside her—and urge them to put the appropriate safeguards in place. With a Crown court backlog already at 60,000—caused, I may add, by the Government’s short-sightedness and incompetence—we must ensure that inequality is not further entrenched in our justice system Moving on to public health, the Coronavirus Act 2020 was an unprecedented Act for unprecedented times. It enabled the Government to take rapid and wide-ranging steps to limit the spread of covid-19, and in turn to protect lives, livelihoods and our national health service. Correctly, it was never intended to last forever. Vaccination, as the Minister has said, has proved an invaluable tool in our fight against coronavirus, and it is thanks to our incredible scientists, our NHS staff and the British public that we are able to be here today to debate the end of many of the Act’s provisions It is important to note, however, that covid has not gone anywhere—it is still very much here. It has certainly not gone anywhere for the 1.5 million people who are living with the symptoms of long covid, or the 800,000 clinically vulnerable and immunosuppressed people who continue to call on the Government for better clarity and access to antiviral and retroviral treatment. I would be grateful if, in her closing remarks, the Minister outlined what steps the Government will be taking to better support those communities, and when full guidance will be given on free testing provision. In three days’ time, the general public will be unable to access free lateral flow tests, yet there is still no guidance on which groups will remain eligible for free testing.
Civil Proceedings — House of Commons, 2022-03-29
Topic: Health
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): On behalf of the numerous immuno-suppressed people in Chesterfield and their families who have contacted me, I thank my hon. Friend for what he has just said. He is absolutely right that many of them still feel prisoners in their own home and feel utterly ignored, and the Government’s failure on sick pay has only added to their sense of being forgotten. Will he reinforce the message to the Government that those people are not being properly catered for?
Civil Proceedings — House of Commons, 2022-03-29
Topic: Health
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. I have met numerous groups representing the clinically vulnerable, the clinically extremely vulnerable and the immunosuppressed communities, and the level of anxiety and worry in those communities is clear. While we have all, to some extent, been able to get back to as near a normal life as possible, those communities still feel isolated, under pressure and incredibly concerned about what mixing and social interaction would mean for them, were they to get coronavirus.
Civil Proceedings — House of Commons, 2022-03-29
Topic: Health
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): On top of those groups, which my hon. Friend is right to mention, there are also family carers, who are concerned that they may be prevented from having access to their family members in care homes without adequate testing, which they will be forced to pay for if it is not clear that they are included in the free testing.
Civil Proceedings — House of Commons, 2022-03-29
Topic: Health
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many of the people who are classed as clinically vulnerable, clinically extremely vulnerable or immunosuppressed are looked after by members of the family or friends who will come into the house to look after them, rather than by paid carers. Were free lateral flow testing to be extended at least to the CV, CEV and IS communities—not for those people themselves, but for the people coming in to communicate and interact with them—it would at least give them some degree of confidence that coronavirus is not being brought through the front door.
Syria: Idlib Attacks — House of Lords, 2019-06-18
Topic: Defense
Elizabeth Sugg (Conservative, Centre-right): I join with the noble Lord in paying tribute to the people who are working on the ground in such a difficult situation, and he is quite right to say that it is important that we find out who is responsible and hold them to account. At the moment, we do not have clear evidence, but at least some of the attacks have obviously been organised by people with access to sophisticated weapons, including a modern air force, and we are investing in the investigation into that through organisations such as the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism in order to gather that evidence and hold these people to account.
Civil Proceedings — House of Commons, 2022-03-29
Topic: Health
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend hits on an important point for debate at some stage in the near future. There is a concern that the cohort that has been drawn up for access to antivirals is not as wide as it could be, and certainly not as wide as in other European countries. We must also think about how we provide the maximum level of confidence to those communities For me, an ideal package to protect the immunosuppressed and clinically vulnerable would be the availability of free lateral flow tests for people coming to visit those who are clinically vulnerable or immunosuppressed, a drug such as Evusheld that would give at least 70% confidence—similar to the efficacy of the vaccine—to those people who are not able to be protected by the vaccine, and then access to antivirals if they become symptomatic I have asked the Minister on a number of occasions when we can expect information on the eligibility for free testing and have not even received an approximate date for when it will be published. That is totally unacceptable. We urgently need that clarity, given that we are three days away I draw colleagues’ attention to the provisions in the motions relating to sick pay that are set to expire. Here in the United Kingdom, we have one of the worst levels of sick pay in the OECD. Statutory sick pay currently sits at just £96.35; that, I am afraid, is shameful. I could not live on that and feed my family, and I am not sure the Minister could either. The 2 million low-paid workers who earn less than the lower earnings limit of £120 receive nothing. That is before we consider self-employed people, who continue to remain ineligible for statutory sick pay. Self-employed people were badly let down over the course of the pandemic. A recent study by the Community trade union shows that a majority of self-employed people were rejected from vital covid isolation support payments. In suspending the temporary provision that allowed workers to receive statutory sick pay from the first day of their illness, the Government are stubbornly sticking to their regressive attitude to sick pay, which will continue to have a lasting negative impact on public health In recent remarks, the Prime Minister urged the public to exercise "restraint and responsibility" to avoid spreading the virus. This Government love to lecture us on personal responsibility while also pricing people out of making the right decisions. We should not be forcing people to choose between putting food on the table or infecting their colleagues. As well as being morally reprehensible, the sorry state of sick pay in this country will lead to more workers getting sick, leading to worse public health outcomes and, in the long term, costing the country far more in reduced productivity.