argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Defense
Questions: Prince Harry has done tireless work to improve mental health support for our armed forces and veterans. Will the Minister update the House on what the Department is doing in that respect? Like all colleagues, I congratulate Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on their great news today.; The Secretary of State might be aware that in 2009 the terms of business agreement signed between the MOD and BAE Systems secured the future of complex naval shipbuilding in this country by ensuring a commitment to invest to create a shipbuilding infrastructure in the top quarter of all shipbuilding capabilities world wide. In the recently published national shipbuilding strategy, that commitment is no longer given. Will he confirm that the commitment in the terms of business agreement to creating a world-class shipbuilding industry remains?; I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his appointment. Will he confirm that he is committed to the development of the Dreadnought style of submarines, and reaffirm his commitment to ensuring that we retain our independent nuclear deterrent?; Britain’s defence industry supports hundreds of jobs in the South Wales valleys. Will the Government support our armoured fighting vehicle industry and allow it to compete for the prime contract for the Boxer armoured vehicle?; I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State express his steadfast support for NATO. What further steps will we be taking to support our NATO allies in Estonia in the face of increased Russian aggression?; Will the new Secretary of State get off to a better start than his predecessor by confirming that the new Royal Fleet Auxiliary orders will come to the Clyde, and that those vessels will not be built abroad?; Does the Secretary of State agree that as we leave the EU we must remain committed to all our European allies, and will he update the House on what we are doing through NATO to support our allies in Romania?; Last year it was announced that Royal Marines Base Chivenor, in my constituency, would be closing. The previous Secretary of State visited it subsequently, at my invitation, and announced a review of the decision. Will the Minister please update me on the progress of the review, and indicate when a final decision might be made?; Will my right hon. Friend provide an update on the work being done by British servicemen and women to train local forces in Afghanistan?
Gavin Alexander Williamson (Conservative, Centre-right): We have already seen the announcement of an uplift of 85 personnel, who will be going to Afghanistan to support the work of the Afghan army. We will be supplementing that with an additional 60 service personnel, in order to continue the training and support that the Afghan army needs. While we have seen substantial progress made in Afghanistan, we cannot take that for granted. We must continue to support the Afghan Government as they continue to root out extremism.
Public Health — House of Commons, 2020-12-01
Topic: Health
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): We accept the case for restrictions. We want a plan that is going to work, we are on plan 5 and this one is full of holes; we have been there so many times. So many times the Prime Minister has stood there and said, "This is the plan, this will solve the problem." This is the fifth time around and we still have a plan with holes that have been there for months. Why is track and trace still not working? Why are the gaps in the support still there? Why are those we are excluding not included? Why are those who have to self-isolate not given the support to do so? Those are huge gaps in the system and to simply vote through a plan without recognising those problems is not going to help I accept the case for restrictions—we will not stand in the way of these regulations; we do not want the restrictions to come off—but I am not going to stand here and pretend, as the Prime Minister does: "This is the plan that will solve it all. Vote for this and it will all be fine through to Easter." That is not going to happen and nobody should vote on that basis today.
Public Health — House of Commons, 2020-12-01
Topic: Health
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): Well, there might be a different interpretation of the events just passed, might there not, which is that a lot of us are very concerned that the Prime Minister does not give the full story to the House and to the nation. The truth is that we are almost certainly going to see another lockdown in January—a full lockdown across the whole of the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] I hear the Prime Minister say, "It is not what we want." Nobody wants any of this—of course we do not—but we have to be honest and straightforward with the British people, and these measures today are not sufficient to the day.
Public Health — House of Commons, 2020-12-01
Topic: Health
Graham Eric Stringer (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I agree with him, and I will be voting against these regulations. He has persuaded me to change what I was going to say by the power of his speech. We do not have to look to Germany and Vietnam to see what it is necessary to do. We have to look at 200 years of public health in this country, which has always been done at a local level One of the problems with the systems that the Government have followed is that, like all Governments, they want to centralise things—they want to take control. It is not just the fact that people suffer financially and will not isolate. It is that the central system is so slow at getting the information out to people that they need to isolate that, by the time it gets there, the £22 billion or whatever we have spent on it has been wasted, and the information is useless. We have also seen evidence that Public Health England has withheld information from local public health authorities. If we want to get this right when we come back to it in two months’ time, we must decentralise the expenditure and get it into local public health systems What I was going to say, before the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden spoke, was that there is not a way forward where people do not die in this situation. That is tragic, and everybody in this House wants to minimise the number of deaths, but we sometimes speak as though if we have the most restrictive measures, which will undoubtedly stop people contracting covid, it will be fine. It is not. The first lockdown led to people dying from cancer as cancer services were withdrawn. People did not go to hospitals, and if they did, they often did not get treatment. The number of people dying at home increased dramatically over that period. The proposals before us will lead to more of that withdrawal of health services from some people. They will be extraordinarily damaging to the economy of Greater Manchester and other parts of the United Kingdom. We must remember that poverty kills. It is not just cancer and covid that kill—poverty kills. People commit suicide. Children have had their education withdrawn, and suicide rates among children are up by 40%. There is huge damage done across the board People say that these decisions have been informed by the science. I cannot see that. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care appeared before the Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Committees on 24 November for our joint inquiry. When we asked him what criteria he was going to use to determine which areas went into which tier or whether there had been a cost-benefit analysis, he could not tell us. He could tell us that, because Greater Manchester leaders told him that he had got his figures wrong, in effect—he did not use the word "punish"—Greater Manchester was going to be punished for taking time to put him right on the science and the detail of what was happening there.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Defense
Questions: Prince Harry has done tireless work to improve mental health support for our armed forces and veterans. Will the Minister update the House on what the Department is doing in that respect? Like all colleagues, I congratulate Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on their great news today.; The Secretary of State might be aware that in 2009 the terms of business agreement signed between the MOD and BAE Systems secured the future of complex naval shipbuilding in this country by ensuring a commitment to invest to create a shipbuilding infrastructure in the top quarter of all shipbuilding capabilities world wide. In the recently published national shipbuilding strategy, that commitment is no longer given. Will he confirm that the commitment in the terms of business agreement to creating a world-class shipbuilding industry remains?; I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his appointment. Will he confirm that he is committed to the development of the Dreadnought style of submarines, and reaffirm his commitment to ensuring that we retain our independent nuclear deterrent?; Britain’s defence industry supports hundreds of jobs in the South Wales valleys. Will the Government support our armoured fighting vehicle industry and allow it to compete for the prime contract for the Boxer armoured vehicle?; I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State express his steadfast support for NATO. What further steps will we be taking to support our NATO allies in Estonia in the face of increased Russian aggression?; Will the new Secretary of State get off to a better start than his predecessor by confirming that the new Royal Fleet Auxiliary orders will come to the Clyde, and that those vessels will not be built abroad?; Does the Secretary of State agree that as we leave the EU we must remain committed to all our European allies, and will he update the House on what we are doing through NATO to support our allies in Romania?; Last year it was announced that Royal Marines Base Chivenor, in my constituency, would be closing. The previous Secretary of State visited it subsequently, at my invitation, and announced a review of the decision. Will the Minister please update me on the progress of the review, and indicate when a final decision might be made?; Will my right hon. Friend provide an update on the work being done by British servicemen and women to train local forces in Afghanistan?
Gavin Alexander Williamson (Conservative, Centre-right): Everything that my right hon. Friend has raised will be part of the review. He has raised the important question of nuclear capability being part of the defence budget. It has traditionally not sat as part of the defence budget; that changed only post-2010. It is vital to look at all options as part of the national security and capability review, and I look forward to speaking to him and seeking his advice and thoughts on the issues that he has raised.
Public Health — House of Commons, 2020-12-01
Topic: Health
Mary Kelly Foy (Labour, Centre-left): My constituency has been placed in tier 3 restrictions along with the rest of the north-east. Although I was disappointed by that decision, I can accept the need for the measures to protect public health. However, I cannot accept the lack of support from the Government, the regional inequality of the restrictions and the complete lack of an exit plan The support currently offered to businesses is simply nowhere near enough to protect our local economies: £20 a head in business support for the duration of tier 3 will be of little comfort to businesses in the north-east which have been under increased measures longer than most other areas. Without genuine support, businesses will go under, jobs will be lost and people will be pushed further into poverty. Covid-19 is a great threat to public health, but there is no greater cause of illness than poverty. To place the north-east in tier 3 without genuine support for workers and businesses is to condemn thousands to poorer health and worse life chances. To support that would be to abandon my responsibility to my constituents In addition, the Government have repeatedly refused to fund local contact tracing properly. It is far more successful and cost-effective than the Government’s shambolic centralised system, which has mainly served to help to line the pockets of the Government’s friends in the City. Without a functioning test and trace system, a cycle of lockdowns is inevitable until a vaccine can be properly rolled out. The Government have had eight months to sort that and they have failed. They desperately need to step up The Government advocate a regionalised approach to covid-19 restrictions, yet insist on dictating restrictions to local authorities, ignoring their advice on contact tracing and withholding the necessary funding. If the Prime Minister wants a regionalised system, he needs actually to support our regions My constituents want to know how we can reach tier 2. Local authorities need to know what the infection rate targets are and how the Government will support them to bring them down. Currently, that is as clear as mud. Unfortunately, as the Government do not have a plan B, hon. Members must choose between inadequate restrictions and no restrictions at all. These measures will hurt our communities, yet we also know the damage that the virus will cause if left unchecked. In their current state, the restrictions would be deeply damaging to Durham, and the financial support is not there to mitigate that If the Prime Minister had wanted Labour Members to vote for the measures, he should have presented something that we could actually vote for. It is not the Opposition’s job to vote for bad legislation or to pass the Government’s business. I urge the Government to give businesses and workers the support that they desperately need, to fix track and trace, and to start treating the north fairly.
Industrial Strategy — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Health
Gregory David Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Making new discoveries is something that we have a deserved reputation for, and we must not take that for granted. We must reinforce that success. Where we have been less successful, however, is in translating those discoveries into practice and, in particular, in creating manufacturing jobs here. That is why medical manufacturing has an important role to play in the life sciences sector deal, and I am thrilled that on the basis of that industrial strategy, major investments have been announced today from the American company MSD and the German company Qiagen, to reinforce the success of that important sector.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will recall that I raised a point of order on 23 October about the fact that the new National Security Adviser, Mark Sedwill, had declined to give evidence to the Select Committee on Defence about the ongoing capability review, saying that that was a matter for the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. Mr Speaker, you will have seen from Defence questions—others may have seen this from a major article in The Daily Telegraph today—how crucial the capability review is for defence, even though Mark Sedwill said in his letter declining to come to the Defence Committee: "Because the main decisions on defence were taken during the 2015 SDSR, this review is not defence-focused." I beg to differ. Given that the then National Security Adviser, Kim Darroch, and his deputy, Julian Miller, gave oral evidence to the Defence Committee on 11 September 2013, what powers does the Committee have to instruct relevant witnesses to appear before us when both the substance of the matter and the precedent are in favour of our wishing to take evidence from a witness such as the National Security Adviser?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-12-17
Topic: Health
Judith Mary Cummins (Labour, Centre-left): Happy Christmas to you and yours, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State will know the significant effect that the pandemic has had on NHS dentistry. There is a backlog of more than 19 million appointments. It is therefore shocking and unacceptable that NHS England has just decided to impose a new activity target on dentists in England, which many simply will not be able to meet under new covid restrictions. NHS England’s own data show that nearly 60% of dental practices will be hit by severe financial penalties. Dentists will now need to prioritise check-ups rather than dealing with the backlog of patients needing treatment while others may be forced to close entirely—a straight choice between staying financially liable or treating those in pain with more complex problems. Will the Secretary of State reverse this decision, which threatens patient safety and access and could lead to the demise of NHS dentistry as we know it?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-12-17
Topic: Health
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State will remember that he has agreed to meet me and my constituent Kellie Shiers to discuss the issues that she has had accessing cancer services during the pandemic. During the pandemic, Kelly worked on the frontline with her ambulance service in Greater Manchester, despite her history of breast cancer, but she could not have her check-up and mammogram when it was due. When she did have it, the cancer had returned and spread to her bones. She is now having chemotherapy and may need surgery. I understand that the Secretary of State has many demands on his time, but can he ensure that this meeting is able to go ahead in early January as these matters are time-sensitive?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-12-17
Topic: Health
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): People across Chesterfield will be very disappointed that, with all the work that they have done and with Chesterfield having lower transmission rates than some of the areas in tier 2, they remain in tier 3. They will be especially disappointed by the Health Secretary’s suggestion that the communities that have worked hardest and been the most disciplined are the ones that are in tier 2. We know that that is not the case. Does he not realise that, if the Government could offer a support package that supported our hospitality sector, and if they were not, at the very last minute, announcing changes to our schools just two days before they break up, there would be more credibility to the sense that it is personal responsibility that is the problem here, rather than the ineptitude of this Government?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-12-17
Topic: Health
John Eugene Joseph Dromey (Labour, Centre-left): Jane Roche is a great champion of her community of Castle Vale. Her dad, Vincent, died of covid. Her sister Jocelyn died five days later of covid. They are two of the nearly 10,000 in the west midlands who have died of covid. Jane and her family are devastated. They grieve for the loss of their loved ones who will not be with them this Christmas. She asks the Secretary of State this: why have we had the largest number of deaths in Europe? Can we be confident that lessons are being learnt and that the mistakes made will not be repeated? She also asks: when will the inquiry into what happened over covid be established and, crucially, will the Secretary of State meet her and other relatives of those who have sadly died from across Birmingham?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-12-17
Topic: Health
Feryal Demirci Clark (Labour, Centre-left): Madam Deputy Speaker, can I take this opportunity to wish you and the House staff a merry Christmas and a very happy new year I have had numerous emails from unpaid carers in Enfield North concerned about access to the vaccine. Can the Secretary of State set out exactly when unpaid carers will be given the covid-19 vaccine, given that they spend their time caring for extremely vulnerable people and could pass on the virus? Any guidance would be a huge comfort to residents and their unpaid carers in Enfield North.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-12-17
Topic: Health
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): Mr James Canning became our first octogenarian in Brent to receive the vaccine earlier this week. While congratulating him and the Wembley Practice team who delivered it, does the Secretary of State share my concern that care homes in Brent have been advised that the 970 doses that are in the vaccine packs cannot be split because of the licensing conditions, meaning that those in our care homes who are over 80 may have to wait until February or for the Oxford vaccine before they get vaccinated? Is that the case? If so, why? That is hardly the "protective ring" around care homes that he promised.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): In the past, it has been possible to make common cause between the Government and Labour Benches on the need to secure the future of the nuclear deterrent. Can we now make common cause on a recognition that the bare minimum of 2% of GDP is simply not enough, bearing in mind the fact that for several years after the cold war, in 1995-96, after we had taken the peace dividend, we were still spending 3%, not 2%, of GDP on defence?
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Defense
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend—I do consider him a friend—will know extremely well that I think the UK’s generous position towards the defence of Europe is not only important, but a matter of our own self-interest. Our frontier should start not at Dover, but at the furthest extents of our allies and ships. In ensuring that we have a continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent and that our submarines and ships are under way across the globe, we ensure that we push our borders out from our own shores and that our people are safer.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend mentions the continuous at-sea deterrent. Given the necessary upfront investment in new submarines, what does he make of the idea put about on the Government Benches that perhaps this major investment should be met from the Treasury reserve?
Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement — House of Commons, 2020-12-17
Topic: Defense
Florence Eshalomi (Labour, Centre-left): I want to ask the Secretary of State about funding for our hard-working firefighters, including the London Fire Brigade. They have seen a 38% cut in central Government funding since 2010 and 11,200 fewer firefighters during the same period. The workload for our firefighters continues to increase as they are now expected to monitor and keep safe a built environment with previously unidentified risk, inspecting over 8,000 high rises, including many in my Vauxhall constituency. So is it fair that the Government are forcing the LFB and other fire authorities to shoulder these costs?