argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Women’s Health Strategy for England — House of Lords, 2022-07-21
Topic: Health
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, the Minister referred to the Government’s work developing a reproductive health plan, particularly in the context of what she said was the commitment to safe abortion. I hope that she is aware of the letter that was sent to the DPP by 66 organisations, including the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and Southall Black Sisters, which was calling for an end to prosecutions for accessing abortion in the UK. Recent research has demonstrated that over the past eight years, at least 17 women have been investigated by the police for allegedly ending their own pregnancies under illegal circumstances, although the actual figure is likely to be higher I am sorry that this is very disturbing. In one case, a 15 year-old suffered what was seen as an unexplained stillbirth at 28 weeks’ gestation. She had her phone and laptop confiscated in the middle of her GCSE exams. She was driven to self-harm. A coroner concluded that this stillbirth had occurred through natural causes. Are the Government seriously looking at what can be done about not inflicting similar ordeals on girls and women, and are they considering the obvious step of decriminalising abortion?
Vaccination Strategy — House of Lords, 2022-01-13
Topic: Health
Rachel Treweek (Bishops, Unknown): Can the Minister update us on global statistics on vaccination? This is not only about justice, equality and dignity; it is also about the fact that new variants will arise unless we address the issue of international vaccination. What are the Government doing to ensure that everyone across our world is offered full vaccination? What focus is being given to the international situation, beyond ourselves?
NHS: Accident and Emergency Services — House of Lords, 2015-01-07
Topic: Health
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): I recognise that issue. Having said that, we currently have a record number of A&E doctors in the NHS, which is good, and across the system we have 1,800 more doctors and 4,700 more hospital nurses than we had a year ago. However, being an A&E doctor is a stressful occupation, and doctors are sometimes tempted to go overseas. We are concerned about the loss of any A&E doctor, and that is being looked at in conjunction with the royal colleges and the BMA.
Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-01-20
Topic: Defense
Amirali Bhatia (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, the conduct of parties during armed conflict has traditionally been regulated by international humanitarian law, and the law of conduct of the UK’s Armed Forces has traditionally been, in armed conflict, UK domestic law. Over the past two decades, a number of rulings have expanded the territorial application of the European Convention on Human Rights. There has also been an increase in the number of legal proceedings brought against the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence relating to the conduct of military personnel on operations overseas The Government have argued that action needs to be taken to provide greater certainty for service personnel and veterans involving what are described as vexatious claims concerning the prosecution of historical events. Part 1 of the Bill establishes new restrictions to bringing proceedings against current and former members of the Armed Forces, including the presumption against prosecution after five years and the requirement to take into consideration the conditions that members of the Armed Forces are in during overseas operations. Part 2 introduces time limits on some civil claims and claims made under the Human Rights Act The Bill has been criticised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which has argued that it could undermine the UK’s obligations under international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international criminal law. Several amendments to the Bill were tabled during Committee and on Report by Members of the Opposition and other parties and some Conservative MPs. MPs voted on several of them, but they were all defeated Our Armed Forces are considered to be very disciplined. They put their lives in front of enemies who breach international law. Our soldiers have taken split-second decisions. Therefore, the Bill should rightly have cross-party support.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Health
Molly Christine Meacher (Crossbench, Unknown): The Minister referred to testing centres possibly having the opposite effect to that intended. In the Netherlands, where such centres have been in operation for some time, they are actually rather successful. For example, there have been, I believe, no deaths resulting from psychoactive substances. Rather than worry about whether they might have the opposite effect to that intended, I suggest that the Government check with the Netherlands how those centres are working, because they would find that they were working well.
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-07-15
Topic: Health
Margaret Ritchie (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, the Statement from the Minister says that the Government will "expand … capacity for genomic sequencing", which would help in the detection of any new variants. Could the Minister define how and when that expansion will take place?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Manzila Pola Uddin (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the Statement. Given the warnings of millions of infections and millions suffering from the serious impact of long Covid, are we not opening up too soon without planning, as was well stated by my noble friend Lady Donaghy? Worryingly, we apparently do not have data on the numbers of infections and those with long Covid among those who have been fully vaccinated, as I have—why? Like others, my grandchildren are among the millions of children affected by many school absences, with many finding the regular testing extremely difficult. Is the Minister aware of Abu Dhabi’s Biogenix Labs’ non-invasive saliva testing, which is being used widely and effectively? Are the Government considering a rollout among our own school population? Finally, I add my voice to calls for the Government to publish an equality impact assessment, specifically with the differential effect on diverse and vulnerable communities.
NHS: Accident and Emergency Services — House of Lords, 2015-01-07
Topic: Health
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his endorsement of the model which my noble friend proposed for GP presence in or alongside A&E departments. I fully agree with him on that. It works well. As regards local authority funding, social care expenditure, in particular, has decreased over the past three years. Obviously that has had an effect on the NHS. It would be idle to pretend that it has not. However he will know the very constrained funding environment in which we stand, and I understand that the party opposite has not undertaken to reverse the reductions in funding to local authorities for understandable reasons. That means that we have got to think clever, and one of the initiatives that we are launching next year is the better care fund which will bring together the NHS and social services in a meaningful way. By far the lion’s share of the funding in the better care fund will go to social services.
Jimmy Savile: NHS Investigations — House of Lords, 2015-02-26
Topic: Health
Susan Lilian Primrose Cunliffe-Lister (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I declare an interest as I have been a patient at the Stoke Mandeville spinal unit since 1958, when I broke my back. I knew Jimmy Savile to some extent over the years. He was very autocratic and very clever, but I never saw his dark side. Many of the people working at Stoke Mandeville did not see that side of him because he was so clever There is a problem with hospitals. They do not like bad publicity and there can be cover-ups. We need openness and honesty. I should like to ask the Minister about the present procedure for patients, who need an easy and quick way of raising their concerns. That is very important because many patients are at risk of having bad things done to them. Sometimes those bad things may be done by people on the ward, so patients need to bypass the ward but they cannot just be told that they have to go to the health ombudsman. That takes too long. Therefore, I hope that the procedure for patients will be given great consideration in the future.
Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Risk of Being Drawn into Terrorism) (Amendment and Guidance) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-03-23
Topic: Health
Michael Bates (Conservative, Centre-right): That is a good point. Procedures need to be set out to ensure that the nursery has guidance in place detailing how it will implement Prevent and what it would do if a three year-old said, "My sister is going off to Syria", or something of that nature. What would it do if a child made such a comment? Does it have a procedure for dealing with that? To whom would it report that and what action would it take? That is probably not the best example as I have just thought of it and I am sure that the officials will probably send me 10 far better examples. However, I am just trying to appeal to the common-sense elements of this. If such an incident should happen, do nursery staff have a procedure in place to deal with it? I think that is all that would be required of nurseries. The noble Baroness raised a very fair point about Ofsted. I am afraid that I do not have the answer at this stage but it is a good point and I will ensure that I write to her on it. I have tried to address as many of the points as possible—
European Council — House of Lords, 2015-03-23
Topic: Defense
Tina Stowell (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord raises an important question, but in the time available I will not be able to do it justice. Clearly we want to prevent the extension of nuclear arms wherever there may be a risk of that happening.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-30
Topic: Health
Molly Christine Meacher (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support this amendment because of the enormity of the importance of the UNGASS to global drug policy. I will take less than two minutes of the House’s time but I plead with your Lordships to bear with me The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform has provided a document which we hope will be of interest to the Government. We worked for about 18 months on the document, called Guidance on Interpreting the UN Drug Conventions. We have worked closely with senior Mexican officials and experts from around the world on the document and we have had discussions with I cannot even say how many country representatives. I spoke at the Vienna CND on it As we speak, the President of a very significant Latin American country has his office and Ministers discussing the proposal that he would like to adopt to present the essentials from this guidance document to the UNGASS next year. This week a Latin American ambassador said he very much hoped that the UK Government would support the President’s initiative. The former president of the Organization of American States supports our work. The European Commission wants to work with us on an EU document to go to UNGASS because it is so impressed with our document Very briefly, the guidance urges UN member states across the globe to begin a process to develop evidence-based policy. The UN conventions upon which we all base our policies were not developed on the basis of evidence of which policies would achieve the overarching objective of the UN conventions to advance, "the health and welfare of mankind" Rather, global drug policy has been based upon a wrong-headed psychological theory of motivation. Punish everyone involved with drugs and we will achieve a drug-free world: so said President Nixon all those years ago in 1971. The opposite has of course occurred in the last 50 years.
Afghanistan — House of Lords, 2021-09-07
Topic: Defense
Gisela Stuart (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I fully commend the Government on the action that they took to support those who served with our forces and supported our people in Afghanistan. However, I have a question, although I do not expect the Lord Privy Seal to have an answer to it now. I want to put on her radar the fact that a question now arises in relation to Commonwealth servicemen, who served with the British forces and are still waiting for indefinite leave to remain. Will the Government address this issue with a sense of urgency because there is a feeling that we are not acting fairly?
Barts Health NHS Trust — House of Lords, 2015-03-19
Topic: Health
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am sure that the House is grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for repeating that. It is a worrying report about the largest trust in England, which is directly managed by his department through the NHS Trust Development Authority. Why have these problems been allowed to get worse over the past two years? Does he agree that the report has identified that the root cause of the problem was the reorganisation of the trust in 2013? Can he say why Ministers overruled the Co-operation and Competition Panel, which advised against the proposed merger and warned of the adverse consequences for patients?
Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-18
Topic: Health
Leslie Turnberg (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I hope your Lordships will allow me just one minute. I do not intend to oppose this Bill, but in Committee I expressed some concerns about the possible unintended consequences of Clause 1. In fact, I have withdrawn an amendment I had intended to move that would have tried to mitigate some of these consequences by pointing to a rather better way of avoiding harm to patients by proper education, training and supervision within hospitals and care homes which would lead to a continuing, progressive reduction in harm but without stifling innovation. I withdrew my amendment because I was told that I would cause the Bill to fall and I have no intention of doing that. But I do hope, at least, that the noble Earl will be able to offer some reassurances on the points that I have raised.
Covid-19: Economy — House of Lords, 2020-06-04
Topic: Culture
Christopher Smith (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I should remind the House of my interests as set out in the register. I want to make two brief points. First, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, touched on. One of the most important parts of our economy and our national life is the cultural sector and the creative arts, but they have been hit fiercely by the pandemic and the lockdown. This is especially true for the performing arts—theatre, music, dance and opera—which rely on large audiences for their income. It will be months before they can open up again. They are, quite simply, bleeding to death, yet they are vital to our well-being, to our intellectual and emotional life, to our standing in the world and to our economy. The Arts Council has provided some emergency relief. Furloughing has assisted, but there is a desperate need for further help. I urge the Government to bring forward a package of emergency support, because it is so urgently needed My second point is simple and echoes what the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, said in his excellent opening remarks. As we begin to recover from the pandemic and we look at the state of the economy and the deficit that will have been incurred, austerity is not the answer. It was not the answer in 2010 either, but it happened and it delayed our recovery for years. Growth will be what lifts us up again and the Government should remember that in every waking moment as we confront the recession that this pandemic has brought.
Enterprise Act 2002 (Specification of Additional Section 58 Consideration) Order 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-15
Topic: Health
Manzila Pola Uddin (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, taking part in the Business and Planning Bill has pushed me to venture into this debate, and I add my small voice of support for the Motion of Regret in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, that we should remain mindful of our international obligations towards developing countries with regard to potential vaccine development I also agree with the sentiment that the Government must ensure that they have the capacity and confidence to guard against future threats. I understand their wish to be self-reliant when dealing with current and future public health crises in order to safeguard the welfare of the British people and intervene on grounds of public interest. The new categories of businesses to be subject to the share of supply test are justified—although I would like to see the list widened—given the terrible complications and supply shortfalls that we have experienced during the pandemic. As a nation, we must be more alert and prepared for any potential second wave and other detrimental advances arising from external hostile forces that might be a peril to our national interest I also welcome the lowering of the thresholds, but I agree with noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, about not having any. Indeed, this might have been a factor that led to companies in the UK producing PPE and other medical instruments and making them available abroad while our capacity was drastically low I accept that, under these extenuating circumstances, for matters related to the availability of vaccines, essential food products, pharmaceuticals, and internet and communication infrastructures, we should intervene to protect our public interest. At the same time, any interventions must be transparent and beyond retrospective reproach, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Liddle, unless it is a matter of defence and state security Finally, a question arises about the financial impact of government intervention and how we safeguard parliamentary scrutiny and democratic oversight. Should the Government need to assist or rescue companies and intervene in merger processes, they should do so with thorough consultation with relevant trade organisations—
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Health
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, perhaps I may clarify what exactly is being devolved. Greater Manchester will have the powers necessary to participate in a collaborative partnership which will develop health strategies for the place and commission health services. It would be a partnership arrangement. If within that partnership the Secretary of State thought that all of them collectively were making the wrong decision, I am sure that he would have something to say about it.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-23
Topic: Health
Jonathan Toby Harris (Labour, Centre-left): For the avoidance of doubt, I think that something should be done in this area and I am concerned that the Government’s proposals may not work I understood what the Minister read to us, in terms of the guidance on how you would test. It seems to me that the case rests on this: you have a substance that you think is psychoactive and you need to test it, because you need to establish whether it raises or depresses someone’s mental state. Does this mean that it has to be tested on a human being? If so, what are the arrangements for doing it? What are the safety provisions, given that some of these substances are extremely dangerous? Is there, therefore, a process that we can use when we think something is a psychoactive substance but the only way to find out is by finding a human being and testing it on them If that is not the case and the intention is to look at whether a substance is chemically similar to something else, you are back in the same routine of demonstrating that this is a small variant on something seen before. That is what I am trying to establish—the practicalities. Here is something. We have found it. We think it is psychoactive. Can we do something about it? Most Members of this House—there are a number of exceptions —think that something should be done. How do we know that something is psychoactive?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Health
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I know that we will return to it, and I look forward to that The noble Lord, Lord Warner, asked what legal advice had been received about the relationship between the MOU and the 2012 Act. NHS England and Greater Manchester have developed the MOU, and any draft order that the Government bring before the House to implement any arrangements agreed will of course be compliant with the relevant primary legislation. The noble Lord also asked about further change to the terms of agreement with Greater Manchester. We can envisage that, with the agreement of all concerned, devolution in Greater Manchester will develop The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked what the statutory roles of health scrutiny committees are in the context of devolution. Health and well-being boards will continue to exercise their statutory functions.
Penrose Inquiry — House of Lords, 2015-03-26
Topic: Health
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for repeating that Answer. Clearly the Penrose report is a detailed factual account of what happened, and I pay tribute to Lord Penrose for the work that he and his team have completed I noted the noble Earl’s comments this afternoon that we have the initial response, but that the full response is to be left to the next Government. It is clear that the report needs very careful reading in order to come to a substantive view. Certainly, as a Minister, I dealt with this issue in my time at the Department of Health—I see the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and other former Ministers here—and Dr David Owen has on a number of occasions drawn attention to some issues about the way this was handled by the Department of Health. On the face of it, does the noble Earl think that at the very least this warrants some discussion about whether his own department needs to establish some kind of view on the Penrose report Lord Penrose made a single recommendation: that all people in Scotland who had a blood transfusion before 1991 should be tested for hepatitis C. Again, is that to be left to the substantive response after the election, or can he give an initial view on the implications of that recommendation for people affected in England The noble Earl referred to relief. Can he say anything about the Skipton Fund payments and progress made on that fund since its establishment in 2004, and about decisions that I believe were made by the Government in January 2011 with regard to payments to the estates of people who died prior to the announcement of the scheme in August 2003 One of the stark conclusions from reading the report is about what could be described as the paternalistic view taken by doctors on information to be given to patients. He says that the expert evidence available to the inquiry indicated the withholding of information from patients on the absence of treatment for the condition, which from a contemporary ethical perspective was not acceptable. Does the noble Earl agree with that, and does he consider that circumstances have moved on such that today such information would not be withheld?
G7 — House of Lords, 2015-06-10
Topic: Defense
Tina Stowell (Conservative, Centre-right): Unfortunately, I do not get to be a fly on the wall in these meetings, but the point that I am sure the Prime Minister would have made on defence is the one that he makes continually: this year we are spending 2% of our GDP on defence, and future defence spending will be decided in the review. We must not forget that it is clear in the Government’s manifesto, and we are clear, that there will be no reduction in the regular forces, we will replace Trident, and we are committed and able to spend some £160 billion on defence equipment over the next 10 years.