argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) (Amendment) (No. 5) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-10-20
Topic: Health
Meghnad Desai (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, to your Lordships’ House. She will remember that we have known each other since before either of us got into the public eye—I will keep all her secrets if she keeps all mine. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said many important things in this debate. What are we trying to minimise? Are we trying to minimise infections or deaths? Again and again, the infection numbers are published. The Prime Minister long ago said he wanted to flatten the sombrero, which is all about the rate of infections, whereas the real number that we are, I hope, trying to minimise is the mortality rate. Because a lot of our strategy has been based on the rate of infection, there has been neglect of other morbidities. As many people have pointed out, hospitals cannot cope with the non-Covid morbidities and we are losing people on that score So it would be very good if the Government specified whether the objective is to reduce infections or reduce mortality. If it is to reduce infections, of course the whole thing about 10 pm is very important—but the 10 pm measure actually increases crowding at closing time, which is a very bad thing. Since the elderly are more subject to mortality than younger people, let us see that older people do not get infected in any of the activities that they undertake, indoors or outdoors.
NHS and Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2017-01-11
Topic: Health
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The four-hour target led to much better diagnoses and much improved provision of the type of treatment that people needed, as well as better interaction with communities. And I want to come on to that point because the Secretary of State has been trying—perhaps the hon. Gentleman is guilty of this as well—to separate the target for A&E departments from what happens outside, whereas I see the importance of putting the two together. Providing alternative treatment, which is perhaps part of what the hon. Gentleman was getting at, means having proper support in the community. It was bringing those two things together that made it possible to achieve the target, so it was a driver.
Domestic Abuse Bill — House of Lords, 2021-01-25
Topic: Health
Helen Margaret Newlove (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, we have had many speakers on this amendment from my noble friend Lady Stroud, whom I support wholeheartedly, not just because of what the amendment says but because of my past work talking about foetal alcohol syndrome. If you look at what happens in domestic abuse situations, this could be an example of what we are talking about today. It is so important that we recognise and name babies and the unborn in the Bill, because we are encouraging parents to come forward so that they can get the help they want and need for themselves and their baby at this crucial time. I thank the First 1001 Days Movement for its fantastic report Working for Babies, and the For Baby’s Sake Trust. It is a common-sense report that explains that children aged nought to two have been deprived of services and forgotten I greatly admire what has been said by other speakers on this amendment. I would like to reflect on pregnancy and childbirth: as a mother of three daughters, I know that it is a major milestone in their lives—or for any woman, and especially for fathers and mothers coming together as a family. That surely must be a motivation to change. Domestic abuse is prevalent in health service contacts, and I would like to have more discussions on health visitors, which is not in this Bill, and antenatal services. We really need to look at nought to two years and ensure that these vulnerable families get the support they need. More importantly, we hear many reports about there being no father in a family There are incalculable costs of domestic abuse as a baby that occur in later life, such as crime, poor academic attainment, adverse mental health experiences, depression, suicide, and the inability to stay in healthy relationships It is very late, and we have more to get through, but I wish the Government would look at this and have further discussions with my noble friend Lady Stroud and the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, because it is so important that these babies are never forgotten. We must try and nurture them as we do seeds in the ground, to make sure they look healthy and have healthy lives.
NHS and Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2017-01-11
Topic: Health
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): I do not know the collective noun for Government Chief Whips and Opposition Chief Whips, but I believe it is a crop of Whips. Anyway, it is an honour to follow two esteemed former Chief Whips I begin on a slightly less happy note by quoting from an educational psychologist who wrote to me this week: "I and my colleagues are frequently overwhelmed, frustrated and in disbelief about the amount of work we need to manage, the difficulties in working across services because of cuts and changes to policy. Everyone is perpetually exhausted and burnt out. When we’re not at work because of training, illness or leave we feel simultaneously guilty and relieved." Her email went on to describe how she is the only clinical psychologist on duty in the whole of a very busy inner-London constituency I wish to comment briefly on the juncture between primary and secondary care, and on acute care. In the past 18 months, many of us have had the experience of fighting for a general practitioner’s service. The Westbury clinic, which lies just between my constituency and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), has been quite a battleground in the past 12 months. He and I have had to really fight for basic GP services for our constituents. I believe this situation is replicated across the country, and it is obviously what is leading to the build-up of individuals; as the Secretary of State has said, we have so many people turning up to A&E who probably could be seen by a GP but simply cannot get an appointment.
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2020-10-20
Topic: Health
Alfred Dubs (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I have two brief questions. Somebody I know received the following message on their mobile phone: "Possible COVID-19 exposure. Verifying exposure info. The app has accessed the date, duration and signal strength of this exposure." Can the Minister say what this means? Is the recipient supposed to do anything about it or is this some maverick message? My second question is on a different point. Does the Minister agree that there are people in this country who are too apprehensive about the possible quarantine to go abroad and so have to quarantine on their return to this country? Could we not adopt the system, which certainly seems to be working in Germany, that we offer testing for people arriving from areas where they are liable to be quarantined, possibly testing them two or three days later? That means they would not have to be in quarantine for two weeks and risk losing their job, and so on. Could we not adopt that simple expedient?
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-09-14
Topic: Defense
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I always relish advice to the Committee that an amendment that we know has no hope of being agreed today may pre-empt a government amendment. Amendments 17 and 19 relate to the provision for the delegation of functions of the fire and rescue authorities and the two new subsections which deal with further delegation. My question—again probing—is why further delegation is required, as distinct from a chief simply arranging for functions to be carried out by his or her officers or staff. Later, new Section 4I(4), I think, seems to envisage arranging for functions to be carried out, and that is very different from delegation. I am sorry that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is not here, because he might agree with me about the principle that someone to whom something is delegated cannot himself delegate that thing. Will the Minister also confirm that subsections (4) and (5) of new Section 4H apply to further delegation The other amendments in the group are consequential, and I am sure that if my amendment were agreed, other consequentials would be required—but there is a limit. I beg to move.
Covid-19: South Yorkshire — House of Lords, 2020-10-22
Topic: Health
David Blunkett (Labour, Centre-left): I have a similar declaration to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and agree with his comments on tests, where the 24-hour turnaround for tests has now dropped to 15% of the total. Perhaps the Minister could comment on the fact that, given the announcement this morning by the Chancellor, including the £2,000 retrospective contribution per month for those businesses not legally locked down and closed but which are being devastated by what is happening around them, it would have been perfectly reasonable to have reached a settlement with the Mayor of Greater Manchester, and it would be perfectly reasonable to expect the Sheffield City Region now to have its resource topped up from the £30 million that has been allocated to take account of that announcement this morning.
Covid-19: South Yorkshire — House of Lords, 2020-10-22
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Andrews (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, scientific evidence now suggests that one of the reasons for the spike in cases in the northern regions is due to the fact that Covid has been more virulent and persistent there, and that restrictions were lifted too soon. What have the Government learned from that? Returning to the questions asked by my noble friend Lady Thornton, what will be the criteria in determining when it will be safe to move from the latest restrictions? The Minister spoke movingly of how fearful he was that they would not work. Difficult though it is, the question is: when will we know whether they are working? What will be the elements and criteria of the exit strategy?
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-10-22
Topic: Health
Jeffrey Rooker (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the message was "clarity"; that is a joke. There are no less than five ways to calculate the period of time for self-isolation in the regulations: at Regulation 3(3)(a), Regulation 3(3)(b), Regulation 3(4)(a)i, Regulation 3(4)(a)ii and Regulation 3(4)(b). Who makes the calculation? If you slip up, potentially more than once, as the Minister indicated, there could be a fine of up to £10,000. This is completely unacceptable Why is there no mention of exercise as a reason for leaving the place of self-isolation? Exercise is a requirement to maintain physical and mental health. You cannot just isolate away if there is no prospect of exercise at all. Are the BMA and SAGE fully on board with this aspect of the regulations I do not accept that the police should be involved in the first place. Environmental health officers are perfectly capable and would have more trust in the locality if they were tasked with this role. In effect, the Government are starting to lose the trust of the people. I repeat: who makes the calculation of the time period for self-isolation?
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-10-22
Topic: Health
Doreen Massey (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, individuals will be required to isolate for specified periods in specified places. This implies that such periods will vary. On what does that depend? Failure to isolate will incur a fine ranging from £1,000 to £10,000. That is quite a range. What criteria will determine the amount of a fine? It is not clear, even among professionals, such as the police The virus is now evident among younger people, such as students. They may be asymptomatic but infectious. How will any proposed system of isolation work for them? Handing out massive fines to students having parties may be a deterrent, but would it not be better to persuade and involve young people in behaving differently than to deal out punishment? We have powerful examples of working with young people to change health behaviour, perhaps the most striking being the highly successful teenage pregnancy strategy, introduced in 2000. Why do the Government not build on good practice I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. Mental health charities and services warn of serious and expensive consequences if mental health in isolation is not given more attention. Will the Minister say whether mental health services, which were underequipped before Covid, will be expanded, with more staffing and resources, including helplines, which are already dealing with huge increases in demand What about older people in isolation? They may be suffering loneliness and stress. I recognise and admire the efforts made by local communities through phone calls and practical help. Will local authorities have the resources to check that elderly people do not fall through the net? Most importantly, if the Government continue to hand out confusing information without strategies to involve individuals and communities—strategies best funded to be carried out at local level—the objective of defeating Covid will be more difficult.
NHS and Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2017-01-11
Topic: Health
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): On those options, the use of A&E in my area of Cumbria is entirely down to the lack of GPs. With so many GPs reaching retirement age, the situation is only going to become more acute. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to tackle this matter urgently?
Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee — House of Lords, 2020-11-16
Topic: Culture
Elizabeth Andrews (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I very much welcome the Statement and the prospect of celebrating Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee. Does the Minister agree that the best jubilee legacy will be not monuments or memorials but, as he said, the opportunity for the whole country to put Covid behind us and to celebrate the identity and the diversity that we see in the heritage of every place and every community every day? Heritage has suffered badly over the past year, as have the heritage organisations, and yet they will—as I hope he will agree—have a great place in the celebrations themselves. Can he tell us what opportunities there will be for heritage organisations to make their mark on the jubilee? They are, after all, the foundations of our future as well as our past.
Public Health Restrictions: Government Economic Support — House of Lords, 2020-10-15
Topic: Health
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it was disappointing that the Chancellor once again sent his deputy to respond to this important Urgent Question. The Chief Secretary was either unable or unwilling to answer the supplementary questions put to him by the shadow Chancellor. Now the Government have had 48 hours to prepare, I shall try again. Why will local areas be provided with support for test and trace only once they are subject to tier 3 measures? Why will the Government not allow £1.3 billion of unspent local grants to be used to support businesses in affected areas? Why are workers in closed businesses expected to face poverty as a result of their employer doing the right thing?
Public Health Restrictions: Government Economic Support — House of Lords, 2020-10-15
Topic: Culture
Genista Mary McIntosh (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my interests in the register. I remind the Minister of the plight of performing arts organisations and practitioners in the areas newly affected by restrictions, and indeed, all over the UK. Has she seen the evidence on this subject, given last week to the Economic Affairs Committee? The Culture Recovery Fund, welcome as it has been, is not enough. When will the Government bring forward further targeted support for this very hard-hit sector?
Covid Contracts: Judicial Review — House of Lords, 2021-03-01
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Lord puts it extremely well, and he takes me right back to those days. I remember making a public call for help with diagnostics, and an NHSBSA call centre was overwhelmed by 5,500 calls in a week—triaging them took nearly a month. The noble Lord is entirely right: getting through all of those who sought to help was an enormously difficult task, and those who proved to be effective assistants were not always the obvious ones. I could share anecdotes of surprising people who came forward and gave tremendous help, while those who you would think could help simply did not have what we needed. Those were extremely complicated times, and I pay enormous tribute to the officials who saw us through them.
Covid Contracts: Judicial Review — House of Lords, 2021-03-01
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): That is a reasonable question, and, in fact, that was our starting point: the noble Lord will remember that, at the beginning of all of this, we supplied PPE to 252 NHS trusts and no one else—everyone else sorted out their own PPE. The reason we had to change was that this was a global crisis: borders were shut, factories closed down and every country in the world was desperate for PPE. There was no facility for a procurement manager at an NHS trust, let alone a small social care home in the West Country; those avenues were all shut. That is why it took a massive national effort to secure PPE. We now have a portal that supplies more than 50,000 different NHS and social care units; as I explained earlier, we have an enormous stockpile to secure that. This has been one of the big learnings of the pandemic: in order to have resilient supply chains, there needs to be some national muscle to make sure that it works properly.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-01-19
Topic: Health
Questions: May I endorse what the Secretary of State has said about the superb work done by the emergency services and other voluntary groups along the east coast? What are she and her Department doing to support community interest companies, which can harness both the public and private sectors in finding additional funds for coastal and other defences?
John Derek Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): I was originally told that the study by the Small Area Health Statistics Unit investigating the potential link between emissions from municipal waste incinerators and health outcomes would be published in 2014, then 2015. In October last year, through a parliamentary question, I was told that it would be published this year. Is the Minister confident that it will at last be published this year?
Covid-19: Vaccinations — House of Lords, 2021-01-13
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the SIREN study is an important study on antibody protection. My understanding is that it is due to be published very soon indeed, and when it is, I will be glad to share the insight with my noble friend.
Covid-19: Vaccinations — House of Lords, 2021-01-13
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to the role of dispensing GPs, who will play an incredibly important role in the rollout. However, I reject the suggestion that any spike in care homes is in any way related to decisions on the second dose. The new variant has spread throughout society, including care homes, and that is the explanation for the spike.
Defence: Continuous At-Sea Deterrent — House of Lords, 2016-07-13
Topic: Defense
Julie Smith (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am most grateful for the opportunity to clarify the non-continuous at-sea deterrence policy. It was outlined clearly in 2013 during the debate following the Trident alternatives review. We will have fewer than four boats, which is understood to be two or three boats. Since the Trident alternatives review did not explore a two-boat solution, I believe that must mean a three-boat solution, but, technically, our policy is for fewer than four boats. Not having a continuous at-sea deterrent means that the boats can be in or out of operation according to a timetable decided by whoever runs our defence policy at the time My final point goes back to the issue of costs. On Monday, after the Minister repeated the then Prime Minister’s Statement following the NATO summit, I asked a question about defence expenditure and some of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and other Members this evening. My understanding, from reading the report of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, is that it shares the concern I raised on Monday. It was outlined on Monday—this was repeated by the noble Lord—that there has been a 0.5% increase in real terms in defence expenditure, but that was predicated on a budgetary forecast made before the decision to leave the European Union, which may mean that the defence budget is smaller than initially assumed. In that case, will the Minister reflect on what the implications are for the defence budget of taking this decision and ensuring that our defence capabilities are secure?
Trident: Test Firing — House of Commons, 2017-01-23
Topic: Defense
Nia Rhiannon Griffith (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his answers; I am just sorry that it has taken allegations in a Sunday paper and an urgent question to bring him to Parliament this afternoon. Let me be clear: we are not asking him to disclose any sensitive or inappropriate detail. All we want is clarity and transparency, because yesterday the Prime Minister refused four times on live television to say when she became aware of the details of this missile test Today, No. 10 admitted that the Prime Minister was told about this incident as soon as she took office, yet when she came to this House on 18 July 2016 to call on Members to back the renewal of Britain’s nuclear submarines she did not say a word—not a single word. This is just not good enough. The British public deserve the facts on a matter as important as Britain’s nuclear deterrent, and they deserve to hear those facts from their Prime Minister, not in allegations sprawled across a Sunday paper May I ask the Secretary of State a simple question? Why was this information deliberately kept from Parliament and the British public? Who made the decision to keep this incident quiet? Was it his Department, or was it No. 10? While respecting the limits of what he can disclose, can he at least set out what investigation his Department has carried out into what happened in June? What assurances can he give that there will be no future cover-ups on important matters such as this At the heart of this issue is a worrying lack of transparency and a Prime Minister who has chosen to cover up a serious incident, rather than coming clean with the British public. This House and, more importantly, the British public deserve better.