argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Leaving the EU: Creative Industries — House of Commons, 2019-04-11
Topic: Culture
Margot Cathleen James (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a very good point indeed. She would be well advised to raise those issues with the Treasury. We are in discussions with the Treasury on those matters, but we are doing a great many other things to support grassroots music venues, including through agent of change proposals and scrapping form 696, all of which have had a beneficial effect, certainly in the London area.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-04-11
Topic: Culture
Questions: I recall, in bygone years, the fun my father had completing his pools coupon. That stands in stark contrast with the sinister attempts of corporatist, globalist gambling firms to bypass the new restrictions on fixed odds betting terminals. Will the Minister meet me and others to discuss how we can revitalise the football pools, perhaps by cutting duty on this family fun?; Does the Secretary of State agree with the Foreign Secretary when he said last week: “Democracy and freedom of expression means nothing unless journalists are able to expose the truth”? How does that square with the arrest of two members of the National Union of Journalists, Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey, for their role in making the award-winning documentary “No Stone Unturned” which exposes the truth about the police’s protection of the killers involved in the Loughinisland massacre towards the end of the troubles in Northern Ireland?; Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that we must protect our children and young people from the wicked and dark side of social media? The online harms White Paper must, without fail, lead to legislation that is wide-ranging, robust and effective.; The Minister will, I am sure, be aware of the work done by the Industrial Communities Alliance and my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) to demonstrate the disproportionate nature of areas that play the national lottery and areas that subsequently receive lottery funding for community projects. What work is he doing with Camelot to ensure that small towns, small cities and industrial communities feel the benefit of the lottery that they play?
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend will know that in relation to the cultural development fund, five local areas will receive a share of £20 million. We believe that that is hugely important for the reasons that she gives. We expect it to create more than 1,300 new jobs across the country and, as she rightly says, to boost tourism and inward investment.
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2019-12-19
Topic: Health
Edmund Francis Hughes (Conservative, Centre-right): I will look at the camera to see who said that. That is not what you were thinking, Mr Speaker. I know you. You were thinking, "What about the NHS? Is it safe in this Conservative Government’s hands?" Let me tell you, it certainly is in Walsall North, because thanks to the Health Secretary my constituency has got £36 million for a new A&E department, which is going to increase capacity and improve conditions for staff and patients alike What about the rest of the country, though? I do not know where to begin: 50,000 extra nurses; 50 million extra GP practice appointments a year; and 40 new hospitals. And what about the future of our great nation? Well, I am delighted to read that this Conservative Government will be investing a stonking £3.2 billion a year in research and development by the end of this Parliament, although I completely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), who said that we simply cannot continue to spend half that money in just three cities—London, Oxford and Cambridge—but that we need to spread it throughout the country From my point of view, it certainly looks like the future of the whole United Kingdom is incredibly bright with this Conservative Government. As we look to 2020 with a new-found spirit of optimism and ambition, it is my privilege, on behalf of the great people of the Black Country, to commend this Gracious Speech to the House.
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2019-12-19
Topic: Health
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that comparing a health service that is completely free to the user with one where there are payments through insurance schemes and collections of money is not a fair comparison? He should add in all the costs of the Inland Revenue in the UK, because that is the way we collect the revenue. And in relation to a previous point that he made, I think Brexit is good for the economy, not bad—I have always said that.
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2019-12-19
Topic: Health
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): No, I promise that it is not made up, but it would be fair to say that a great deal of work needs to be delivered to make it happen, and it may well cost more than the Government expect. We have to deliver it, and I hope the hon. Gentleman supports the objective, even if he criticises how it will be achieved Although the Health Service Safety Investigations Bill, which had its Second Reading in the House of Lords at the end of the previous Parliament, was not specifically mentioned in the Gracious Speech, I have had it confirmed that the Bill is in the Government’s programme for a later date. The Bill would introduce a new healthcare investigations body to establish the causes of clinical incidents in the NHS without blame by using a safe space so that people can speak freely without fear of prosecution or attack, in the same manner as the air accidents investigation branch of the Department for Transport. An independent body is required, and it requires legislation. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which I chaired, made that proposal, which the Government accepted. I chaired a pre-legislative Committee in the last Parliament, and we have the draft legislation we want. All we are waiting for is for the Government to introduce the Bill, and I hope it comes quickly Our greatest challenge in this Parliament is to restore faith in our House of Commons, our Parliament and our democracy. I hope the Gracious Speech will contribute to addressing that, but it depends on our attitudes and our behaviour with each other. I hope we move past previous animosities and rediscover some of the consensus that makes this place work. I look forward to working with colleagues on both sides of the House to that end.
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2019-12-19
Topic: Health
Crispin Jeremy Rupert Blunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I would be delighted to take up that invitation. There are a number of issues on which the hon. Gentleman and I work together, and I look forward to discussing those issues in Scotland as well as the whole issue of drug policy. It is clear that Scotland faces the same scale of challenge on drug policy as Portugal did in the late 1990s that led to a radical change of policy in Portugal. On the basis of the evidence, many would argue that the change Portugal has made has been of huge benefit to its people. One only has to examine the figures—this will obviously be very close to the heart of the hon. Member for Glasgow North East—to see that deaths from heroin overdose in Portugal, which were at a catastrophic level in the late 1990s, have dropped in the most astonishing manner. However, the position in Scotland—a country of comparable size—is that the figures remain of a horrifying scale, as the hon. Lady said.
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2019-12-19
Topic: Health
Crispin Jeremy Rupert Blunt (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is correct that drugs policy is not in the Queen’s Speech, but I would say to her and to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) that only one manifesto mentioned the issue of drug deaths, and that was the Conservative party’s manifesto.
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2019-12-19
Topic: Health
Crispin Jeremy Rupert Blunt (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During the course of my remarks, I was drawn into a discussion about drugs policy, which was initiated by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin). I did not make a reference then to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which does involve the consideration of drug policy in an unremunerated way.
Product Safety — House of Commons, 2019-07-16
Topic: Health
Kelly Jane Tolhurst (Conservative, Centre-right): I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s concern in this regard. He is absolutely correct to say that we issued a notice of intent to recall on Whirlpool. It submitted its proposal, which we assessed. We also took advice from an expert panel, comprising an independent QC and chief scientific officers from the Health and Safety Executive, the Home Office and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. We decided not only to accept the proposal, which has been published, but to issue a regulation 28 notice with regard to further information that needs to be shared with the OPSS, so that we can review the recall process.
Recycling Nuclear Submarines — House of Commons, 2019-07-16
Topic: Defense
Questions: What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on extending the provisions of the Energy Act 2004 to include recycling nuclear submarines.
Andrew George Stephenson (Conservative, Centre-right): The disposal of nuclear submarines is a complex and challenging undertaking that I last discussed with the Minister for defence procurement, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), yesterday. As the hon. Gentleman will know from the meeting he had earlier this year, the Government have an established programme of work in place and are committed to the safe, secure and cost-effective defuelling and dismantling of all decommissioned nuclear submarines as soon as practically possible. I am more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the matter further.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-07-16
Topic: Culture
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are evaluating the responses we have had from the creative industries and others on that issue. I fully recognise that it is an unresolved matter that we will address during the months ahead.
Early Years Family Support — House of Commons, 2019-07-16
Topic: Health
Andrea Jacqueline Leadsom (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman and I have worked together on this subject for many long years. I pay tribute to him for his amazing contribution in recognising the importance of secure early interventions and everything we can do to make people’s lives more successful and secure. I am sure that some of his ideas will be, and are being, taken forward by Government.
Early Years Family Support — House of Commons, 2019-07-16
Topic: Health
Andrea Jacqueline Leadsom (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course on one level the hon. Lady is right: having a safe place for families to meet and receive particular interventions is important. But it is not the whole picture. I will expand on that in my remarks Let us look briefly at some of the facts we know. First, 67% of the UK population has had at least one adverse childhood experience—one in eight people have had four or more. Secondly, this predicts certain risks for those one in eight, such as a three times greater risk of lung disease through smoking; an 11 times greater likelihood of intravenous drug use; 14 times the number of suicide attempts; and a four and a half times greater chance of developing depression. Thirdly, people with six or more adverse childhood experiences can die as much as 20 years earlier than those who have none Fourthly, where domestic violence is present in the home, there is an increased risk of child maltreatment. In one study, families where domestic violence takes place were shown to be 23 times more likely to abuse their under-five-year-olds than families without. Research shows that about 30% of domestic violence begins during pregnancy. Fifthly, it is understood that conduct disorder in young children leads to adult antisocial personality disorder in about 50% of cases, and is associated with a wide range of adverse long-term outcomes, particularly criminality Of course, we are all aware, every day, of growing levels of mental ill health among young people, as well as the self-harming and eating disorders that are blighting too many young lives. So it is pretty obvious to all those with a passion for the earliest years why this issue matters—not just to the individual, but to society as a whole. For all the good that a free education can do, for all the good of quitting smoking, for all the benefits of rehabilitation programmes, we will never truly turn society around and break the cycle of deprivation until we prevent those acute problems that begin in the 1,001 critical days I should give a "health warning" about all this. Let me say that I am in no way suggesting that insecure attachment always leads to disastrous outcomes. It is possible for a baby who was insecurely attached in infancy to grow up to lead a perfectly normal and happy life, but there is also significant evidence that a troubled early life makes that so very much harder.
Early Years Family Support — House of Commons, 2019-07-16
Topic: Health
Timothy Paul Loughton (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western). I, too, worship at the altar of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). She is the great authority on this subject and I pay tribute to her. I also pay limited tribute to the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), given I am no longer her favourite ex-Children’s Minister—but there we go. [Laughter.] You can go off people It is interesting that at the same time as we started this debate there was a debate in Westminster Hall on children’s mental health. In the many years I have been in this place, subjects such as children’s mental health rarely got on to the Order Paper. It is a sign of huge progress that it is now much more common for us to talk about them—and with a great deal of experience and consensus. It is long overdue. We are starting to appreciate the huge strategic importance of doing much more, much better, much earlier for our children. Some of us have been banging on about that for many years in this place, and it is great to see many other headbangers joining us. It is becoming almost common parlance.
Early Years Family Support — House of Commons, 2019-07-16
Topic: Health
Timothy Paul Loughton (Conservative, Centre-right): I think that the hon. Lady is right. I shall come on to the way in which it is all joined up. "Adverse childhood experience" has become more common parlance now. Essentially, it goes back to attachment and all the stuff that Bowlby was talking about, often as a lone voice, many decades ago. However, it is true that we can now relate it to many of the challenges that we see as individual MPs and the Government see, in relation to antisocial behaviour, mental health conditions, and all the issues that have been referred to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire and others I will now give way, very enthusiastically, to the hon. Member for Manchester Central.
Early Years Family Support — House of Commons, 2019-07-16
Topic: Health
Maria Frances Lewis Miller (Conservative, Centre-right): I well remember working with my hon. Friend and I remember his huge commitment in this area. If there are now more debates and discussions about child mental health, a lot of that is down to him. I should like to highlight a report that the Select Committee is doing on men’s mental health. Does he agree that the NHS needs to think long and hard about the way in which men can access mental health services? We are receiving evidence that the way in which these services are delivered is almost highly feminised, making it difficult for men to access them.
Early Years Family Support — House of Commons, 2019-07-16
Topic: Health
Andrea Jacqueline Leadsom (Conservative, Centre-right): It is fantastic to see you in your place for the final bit of the debate, Mr Speaker. I can paraphrase what it has been about as "all you need is love", and I know that you would subscribe to that yourself. It has been an incredibly positive and optimistic debate The hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton)l and I have worked on this for years. Members throughout the House are determined to see every baby get the best possible start in life, and ultimately that is all about love. It is about attachment, about good early-years services, and about the Government working in a joined-up way. My hon. Friend the Minister has made huge strides in showing his personal commitment to progress in that regard, but I urge him, and the Government, to demonstrate that final commitment to getting the excellent work done by the inter-ministerial group over the line, so that we really do give every baby the best possible start in life Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House believes there is now overwhelming evidence of the importance of the first 1001 critical days of a new baby’s life in determining his or her lifelong physical and emotional wellbeing; notes the work of the Inter-Ministerial Group led by the Rt. hon. Member for South Northamptonshire, the Thirteenth Report of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, HC 1496, on First 1000 days of life and the Eleventh Report of the Science and Technology Committee, HC 506 on Evidence-based early years intervention; and calls on the Government to take strong and decisive action immediately to ensure that every baby gets the best start in life.
Batten Disease: Access to Drugs — House of Commons, 2019-07-16
Topic: Health
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree with my hon. Friend Generally, I recognise the need for public expenditure constraint. Money always has to come from somewhere; it has to be either taxed or borrowed. However, in a country that spends over £800 billion a year, and £120 billion or whatever it is a year on the national health service, can we not find just over £6 million a year for this small number of children who have a terrible disease that can be held at bay?
Batten Disease: Access to Drugs — House of Commons, 2019-07-16
Topic: Health
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The terrible thing is that in the month that has passed since I first raised this matter in the House, Max’s condition will have slightly deteriorated, and in every month that goes on while we are debating this, not just Max but all the children with this condition will go downhill. That is what happens with this disease. There are questions to be asked about the structure of policy on rare diseases, and about the Government’s response and what powers they have. As I said at the beginning, accountability through this House is of fundamental importance. By law, the Secretary of State still maintains overall responsibility for the provision of healthcare in this country. It is the Secretary of State who is accountable. We cannot make NICE accountable; it has not been structured to be accountable. It does not appear in the Chamber to tell us what it is doing—that is done by second degree, through Ministers. We really need to know what, if any, reserve powers Ministers may have to be able to do something about the situation Can something be done? Can a budget exception be provided, so that funds may be made available for these rare diseases? Can something be done, as has been done for cancer treatments, to provide money where exceptionality can be seen? Of course these drugs are expensive: they affect so few people, and the drugs companies will not develop them if they cannot at least make their money back. Can something be done as in other areas, particularly cancer, to ensure that the drugs can be provided? Can the rule changes in 2017 that made it harder to fund rare disease drugs be reviewed and possibly reversed? Since 2017, the financial aspect has become much more significant than it was before Although I accept, of course, that there is a need to look at costs, when we are talking about eight-year-old children, we are not talking about a cost for people who only have weeks or months to live, but about a child who could have years of a high quality of life ahead of him. That must be where most of us as taxpayers think it is right to spend money and where we think that the moral case for spending money is extraordinarily strong.
Batten Disease: Access to Drugs — House of Commons, 2019-07-16
Topic: Health
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (Conservative, Centre-right): I so agree with the hon. Lady. I am of course primarily talking about Max, my constituent, but to take the drug away from children who are already getting it would be unconscionable. I simply do not believe that any reasonable person—any politician or any administrator—would think that the right thing to do. It is bad enough not to give the drug to a child who could benefit; to withdraw it would be so utterly wrong that I cannot believe that that could happen When something can be done, it is hard for it not to be done and for us to allow it not to be done. It is frustrating that it is so hard to change and that there seems to be nobody who can decide it. Everyone one talks to says it is not up to them. NICE is bound by its guidelines, NHS England is bound by NICE, and the Secretary of State is bound by the legal interpretation of what the Health and Social Care Act 2012 provides, but none of that is good enough. We need action. Ultimately, it is Ministers, through Parliament, who are able to act Let me finish with what Max’s father, Simon Sewart, who has been doing so much to look after his son, wrote: "I have always understood that life is no fairy tale with a happy ending, but when you learn that your beautiful child has a disease, as horrific as Batten Disease, your world changes forever and your heart is broken NICE announced, just 24 hours after Max’s diagnosis, that the first ever treatment for CLN2 Batten Disease will not be funded At a time when you should be taking care of your child, your other children, and enjoying precious time together as a family, you instead find yourself spending all of your time writing emails and letters, speaking to journalists and TV news programmes, communicating with your MP and with doctors in other countries where the ERT is available Expending all of your energy in fighting the extraordinary decision by NICE and NHSE. And all the time, you see your child decline, day by day. And all the time, you just want to expend your energy on them, on holding them, on playing with them, on laughing and smiling with them, on running with them, on walking with them, on talking with them, on looking around at the world with them; on all these things. With them This double-whammy is almost too much to bear. Reverse your decision NICE and let my family be." Is that not what we all want for Max and his family? He has this terrible disease. It is not a disease that he can ever be cured of, but if he gets this treatment, he could have a higher-quality life and his family would be peacefully with him, enjoying his company for the years that remain to him. Please can the Minister do something about this?