argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Creative Industries: Careers — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Culture
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): We are collaborating closely with industry to develop a sector deal for the creative industries. This includes considering how Government and industry can partner to strengthen the pipeline talent to the sector. Following the independent review of the sector by Sir Peter Bazalgette, we are working with the Creative Industries Council and the Creative Industries Federation and discussing measures including ways of improving information about careers in the creative industries and tackling barriers to working in the sector.
Creative Industries: Careers — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Culture
Julian Carlton Knight (Conservative, Centre-right): Nurturing diversity is key to our vibrant creative industries, and access to those industries. Will the Minister join me in urging the new chief executive of Channel 4, Alex Mahon, to adopt a different approach from that of her predecessor by putting diversity and access to the industry at the top of her wish list as she considers relocation to the likes of Birmingham and Solihull?
Knife Crime — House of Commons, 2019-03-04
Topic: Health
Victoria Jane Foxcroft (Labour, Centre-left): Following another tragic wave of violence over the weekend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care dismissed treating it as a public health issue, contradicting the Government’s apparent plans to tackle violence with a public health approach. Has the Home Secretary spoken to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care at all about the Government’s plans to adopt a public health approach?
Cyber Attacks — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Defense
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): The Prime Minister has been clear—as she set out on Monday night, with more details provided by the National Cyber Security Centre on Tuesday—that we know what the Russians are doing and we are not going to let them get away with it.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Culture
Questions: At the same time as the UK Government have been slashing Scotland’s budget, funding for the national lottery fell by 14% in the past financial year, leaving Creative Scotland having to consider 119 closures. Will the Minister implement a recovery plan to offset those further cuts in funding?; With more than 430,000 people having a serious gambling addiction and a further 2 million people possibly developing one, can the Minister say exactly what the Government are doing to tackle this serious problem?; Today’s Pro Bono Economics report shows that full-time volunteering would add up to £119 million per annum to the UK’s economy. What plans does the Minister have to respond to the recommendations of the youth full-time social action review?; In September, the NEC Group agreed to operate the Bradford Odeon as the largest mid-sized venue outside London. This could attract a further quarter of a million visitors to Bradford. Does the Minister agree that this shows a huge confidence in Bradford, and will he look at bridging the funding gap after the local authority has added extra funds? Will he also meet me to look at the restoration of this world-class site?
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I shall be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman. I know about the exciting proposals. We are very strong supporters of music venues in Bradford and across the country. This gives me the opportunity to warmly welcome the decision of the Met to abolish form 696, which has done so much to prevent a diverse range of live music. Significant pressure was brought to bear and, thankfully, the Met has now taken that decision. That is in London, but I also want to work with the hon. Gentleman to deliver music venues in Bradford.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Culture
Questions: At the same time as the UK Government have been slashing Scotland’s budget, funding for the national lottery fell by 14% in the past financial year, leaving Creative Scotland having to consider 119 closures. Will the Minister implement a recovery plan to offset those further cuts in funding?; With more than 430,000 people having a serious gambling addiction and a further 2 million people possibly developing one, can the Minister say exactly what the Government are doing to tackle this serious problem?; Today’s Pro Bono Economics report shows that full-time volunteering would add up to £119 million per annum to the UK’s economy. What plans does the Minister have to respond to the recommendations of the youth full-time social action review?; In September, the NEC Group agreed to operate the Bradford Odeon as the largest mid-sized venue outside London. This could attract a further quarter of a million visitors to Bradford. Does the Minister agree that this shows a huge confidence in Bradford, and will he look at bridging the funding gap after the local authority has added extra funds? Will he also meet me to look at the restoration of this world-class site?; Will Ministers look at the situation whereby the 2018 winter Olympics would in their entirety be a listed event, with the expectation that they would be shown on live free-to-air TV, as before, in their entirety? In fact, most of the live coverage will be on Discovery’s Eurosport without, as yet, any reference to Ofcom.; Fixed odds betting terminals generate social harm of a scale and nature that demands an immediate, bold and radical response. I know that the Government are consulting on the question of a maximum stake, but does the Minister understand that unless they accept the minimum stake at the bottom end of those being consulted on, this problem will simply not go away?
John Philip Glen (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The Government are indeed supporting that sort of work, and we have some internationally renowned institutions doing wonderful work. Digitisation is really important, and the University of Sheffield, for example, is working closely with the Natural History Museum to take advantage of some of the pioneering work it has already undertaken.
Hormone Pregnancy Tests — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): You are, indeed, a friend of the House, Mr Speaker I have the utmost respect for the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), with whom I have served on Select Committees, and I will try to help her out. I have seen some of her public criticisms in the past 24 hours. I know that she has been very consistent about this, but I am not just reading notes put before me; I am citing evidence from an expert working group. It really would come to something if Members suddenly started to second-guess expert, scientific and medical evidence. I am not just quoting what is before me. The review’s conclusions do not take away—I do not pretend for one minute that they do—from the very real suffering experienced by these families. This was a comprehensive, independent, scientific review of all the available evidence carried out by the best experts in a broad range of specialisms. Ministers are confident in the report and the review process, and the focus now must be on implementing the recommendations.
Hormone Pregnancy Tests — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Health
Anna Mary Soubry (Conservative, Centre-right): On Friday, two constituents came to my surgery to speak to me about exactly this. The mother had taken one of these pills and her daughter was born with deformities. This is not the Minister’s report—he is just giving his explanation and doing his job—but may I suggest that we have a proper Back-Bench debate in which we can exercise all these issues? With great respect to the working group, and having had some experience as a former public health Minister and knowing about contaminated blood, I am afraid to say that I smell something like a very large rat in all of this. I think that there have been cover-ups.
Hormone Pregnancy Tests — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend—one of my predecessors in this role—for her question. I appreciate that she will have met constituents who have been affected by this in her surgeries and that that must have been very difficult. The report’s conclusions do not detract from the suffering experienced by the families, and we recognise that the families may find those conclusions hard to accept. Birth defects occur naturally in up to four in every 100 babies, and the existence of a birth defect in a baby exposed to a medicine during pregnancy does not necessarily mean that it was caused by the medicine As for the question of any future parliamentary discussion of this subject, I suspect—in fact, I know—that my right hon. Friend is more than capable of seeking such opportunities.
Hormone Pregnancy Tests — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman referred to a "whitewash". As I have said, this was a comprehensive, independent, scientific review of all available evidence by experts on a broad range of specialisms who, with respect, are far more qualified to consider the subject than either him or me. It was a rigorous, important and impartial review conducted over the best part of two years, and the experts were given access to all the available documents As for the families and issues relating to disclosure, yes, Mrs Lyon was on the panel. However, it is standard procedure for expert working groups to sign such an agreement, as all members of the panel did, in order to keep the process free from external influence and to prevent it from being constantly discussed in the media. The companies did meet the group and gave evidence to it. Having discussed the matter briefly with members of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency this morning, I have to say that I think the families could have been treated a great deal better when they met the group. I thought that the layout of the room was intimidating. Not everyone is like a Minister or a Member of Parliament who can sit in front of a Select Committee and know how to handle it. I think that the process could have been handled better, and I made that very clear As for Ministers and meetings, my noble Friend Lord O'Shaughnessy, who ultimately has responsibility for the MHRA and whom I "shadow" in the House of Commons, has met the all-party group and the families group. He will meet them again on 6 December, now that the report has been published. The APPG is also meeting the chair of the expert working group The hon. Gentleman mentioned other research. He might have been referring to Dr Vargesson, an Aberdeen-based researcher who is, I believe, working on the components of Primodos in fish. He was invited to give evidence to the group, and he did so, but he did not want to leave his work and the evidence, which he said would shortly be published, with the expert working group. As far I am aware, that work has still not been published, but I know that the MHRA will be keen to look at any new work that is published.
Hormone Pregnancy Tests — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Health
Michael Penning (Conservative, Centre-right): I know the Minister very well. He is a passionate and caring Minister, but I am afraid that I disagree with many of the things he said this morning. The families do—I think, rightly—feel that the report is a whitewash. Material has been removed from the draft, and the group looked into matters that were not within its remit. The question of a causal link was not in its remit. The question was whether there was link with a drug that was often given to our constituents with no prescription: a drawer would be opened, and it would be handed out to them so that they could find out whether they were pregnant. An open inquiry was needed, but I am afraid that the families, and many Members who are present today, will not feel that that was what happened. Will the Minister please meet the families again, with members of the all-party group, and try to understand why they are so upset? Will the Minister please also watch last night’s report on Sky News, which exposes much of what has being going on over many Parliaments? No matter who was in government, Governments have ignored these people, and we cannot continue to do so.
Hormone Pregnancy Tests — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend and I do know each other very well, but I am afraid we will have to agree to differ on this; I do not agree that this is a whitewash. At the request of the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests, an expert, Nick Dobrik, who the House and outside world will know well as a respected and well-known thalidomide campaigner, attended all meetings of the expert working group and was invited to give a statement to the Commission on Human Medicines. Mr Dobrik is many things, but the notion that he is some sort of Government yes-man who would have allowed a whitewash to go on does not stand up to much scrutiny, if any at all.
Hormone Pregnancy Tests — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): First, may I correct myself? I might have said that the expert working group met "companies", not "families". If I said "companies", I wish to correct the record I agree with the hon. Lady that the notice the families were given was not good enough. I and my colleague in the other place have made that crystal clear. Some notice was given to Mrs Lyon on Friday last week that there was likely to be an event on Wednesday, but that was not confirmed until Monday, so that was the notice the family got, and I do not think that is good enough; I have made that very clear On the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who chairs the all-party group, being locked out of the press conference, I cannot imagine how that happened, and again I have sympathy on that. I expect the MHRA to look into that and explain that to me, because, while we may disagree, I can see how that merely feeds the conspiracy theory that some have around this subject.
Hormone Pregnancy Tests — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, of course we all want to get to the correct answers. Science and clinical practice have moved on significantly since the 1970s. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there have been far-reaching advances in the regulation of medicines. One of the reasons that the report has been delayed is that it was felt that it needed to contain far more human-speak, rather than official-speak. That is why I said that Ministers now had confidence in the report and the review process and that we are now going to focus on implementing the report’s recommendations.
Hormone Pregnancy Tests — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): I cannot give the hon. Gentleman that information at the Dispatch Box, but he mentions the thalidomide tragedy and I have already said that Nick Dobrik attended all the meetings of the expert working group as an invited expert at the request of the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests. Nick is most certainly not a Government placeman or yes-man.
Hormone Pregnancy Tests — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): The step that we will take is to implement the report’s recommendations. As I have already said, the way the families were handled when they came down to speak to the expert working group could have been a lot better, which is the understatement of the day, and I apologise for that on behalf of the MHRA.
Hormone Pregnancy Tests — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): I repeat that we cannot turn the clock back. The conclusions of any review, no matter how it is done, cannot take away from the suffering of families and constituents. I repeat that the review of the evidence by the expert working group was comprehensive, independent and scientific. We are confident in the report and in the review process, and we will now get on with implementing the recommendations.
Hormone Pregnancy Tests — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Conservative, Centre-right): I could have sworn I heard the hon. Gentleman bring the word "party" into this. That is deeply unfortunate, and I do not think it is helpful to anybody. Last time I checked, there have been Governments of both colours since the 1950s As for bringing Stafford and patient safety into this, the Secretary of State for Health takes many criticisms but he has placed patient safety and getting to the bottom of the issues around Stafford at the heart of his agenda. It is because we do not bury our head in the sand and sweep these things under the carpet—as, I am sorry to say, happened in the past—that we are uncovering this and doing the best for the families with the report’s recommendations. Nothing can turn the clock back and nothing can undo the suffering of these families.
Universal Credit Roll-out — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Defense
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making his point. He knows, of course, that it is not a matter for me, but the Minister is, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, sitting at the Dispatch Box and I am quite sure that he and the Secretary of State will pay attention to the points that the right hon Gentleman and all hon. Members have made this afternoon. We now come to the Back-Bench debate on defence aerospace industrial strategy. Come on: everybody leaving, leave quickly. It is not fair. There is little time left.
Defence Aerospace Industrial Strategy — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Defense
Mark Gino Francois (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady has mentioned Tornado twice, including the valuable role it has played in Op Shader. It remains a potent combat aircraft, even today. Does she agree that when the Tornado retires from service in 2019 we should keep some as a war reserve, and that British industry has the skills and capability to support that?
Defence Aerospace Industrial Strategy — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Defense
Andrew Theakstone Percy (Conservative, Centre-right): The Hawk aircraft is incredibly important to my constituents, many of whom work at BAE Systems in Brough. As well the work the Government are rightly doing to support the Hawk overseas, bringing forward the Red Arrows replacement aircraft would fill part of the gap in the order book, as the hon. Lady has outlined. Could that not also be done in such a way as to support the development of new orders so that what is built now does not necessarily have to be part of the replacement fleet, but can be used as a stopgap?
Defence Aerospace Industrial Strategy — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Defense
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I recall that when I was a young major—I am still young, as I am sure the hon. Lady would agree—we were talking in 1984 about the requirement for a defence aerospace industrial strategy. We sometimes change the name, but we keep talking about the same thing. The truth of the matter, however, is that every time there is a defence review, the defence aerospace industrial strategy goes into the bin. I am afraid that that is the reality of the situation. We all want such a strategy, but it keeps getting scrapped, like so many of our aircraft.
Defence Aerospace Industrial Strategy — House of Commons, 2017-11-16
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): In the run-up to this debate, which was so ably introduced by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth)—a star of the Defence Committee—I and no doubt other members of the Committee were almost inundated with communications from defence companies that wanted to showcase how much they do for industry in this country. For example, Boeing UK wanted to draw attention to its 18,700 workers in the UK. MBDA, the missile specialists, wanted to draw attention to the £1 billion of annual sales that it generates. BAE Systems, however, is in a rather special position. It has over 83,000 employees in 40 countries. It describes itself as a global leader in making and supporting combat aircraft and states: "If we are to sustain this leading position, a government commitment to the development of a next generation of combat aircraft"— precisely as the hon. Lady just said— "would be of immense value to the industry." The Government are committed to an industrial strategy process, with a defence sector deal as a component of that. The question is whether that is sufficient or if we need a separate strategy. It seems rather strange that when we have a separate national shipbuilding strategy—shipbuilding, for all its valuable potential for export, does not even begin to approach the potential and actual magnitude of aerospace industry exports—we should want to subsume a strategy for the aerospace industry under a general industrial strategy In the case of the joint strike fighter—the Lightning II, which has been referred to—we provide parts for all the aircraft that are built, but only sections of the aircraft. As valuable as that may be, it is not enough to sustain our importance as a prime integrator with all the supplying companies that depend on that process The industry is asking the Government to think ahead and to make advance investment so that we will be able to be in the van of future development in aircraft, but I believe that requests for investment have to be a two-way process. For example, it is not just BAE Systems asking for this; Rolls-Royce itself says that the current research and development investment in future combat engine capability ceases at the end of 2017. I would therefore just say this: if these companies want the Government and the country to invest in the future of the industry, we are entitled to say to them, "You need to invest in the future of the workforce." As I pointed out in proceedings on the urgent question about the BAE Systems redundancies on 10 October, BAE Systems is a giant company enjoying a "near monopoly position in many parts of the British defence procurement structure."—[Official Report, 10 October 2017; Vol. 629, c. 169.] It should therefore be working, in the closest possible co-operation, with the Government to see whether job losses can be mitigated. It is a two-way process; we need the companies to invest in the workforce.