argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Defense
Ruth Smeeth (Labour, Centre-left): I could not agree more. We need to be careful about how we roll out flexible working to ensure that the whole workforce is covered from day one in 2019. We now have about a year until that date in which to recruit in order to ensure that staff are not increasingly overstretched. It has to be a whole-force approach. As with any business that implements flexible working options, a full complement will be needed to deliver flexible working, otherwise it will not work I will briefly mention women in the armed forces. The number of women currently serving is a key issue; 10.2% of our armed forces are women, which is a significant development from the situation 20 years ago, but it is simply not good enough. I think that many colleagues on both sides of the House—especially after debates earlier today—would suggest that more women everywhere would be a very good thing. But the reality is that there will not be senior female personnel, such as a female Chief of the Defence Staff, until women have progressed through the ranks. To do that, we need to ensure that they and their families, whether serving or not, have support around them The fact that only three women are at two-star rank is simply not acceptable. We need to look at the additional support they need, which is why this has to be the beginning, not the end—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) is correcting me. There are, in fact, four women at two-star rank. The right hon. Gentleman will have to tell me who has been promoted; I celebrate and welcome all promotions. There are additional strains on family life for all women who serve, but there are also clear moments where career breaks are necessary. Women should not have to leave the forces to have a family or to look after ageing relatives.
Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Defense
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): At the heart of the Bill and at the heart of what my hon. Friend is saying is that the Government’s proposed legislative change will require a cultural change in the armed forces. Is that not what is needed for the very fine and good aspiration of this legislation to be delivered in practice?
Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Defense
Ruth Smeeth (Labour, Centre-left): We are talking about a cultural change and a legislative change, but it is also a financial change. In order to ensure that our armed forces can protect us when we need them to, we need to deliver for them and look after them. That is the least we owe them. To get past these challenges and deliver for our armed forces, this legislation must be the beginning of reviewing their terms and conditions, not the end I wholeheartedly welcome the Bill, but—there is always a but—we need to look at the armed forces’ overall broader package of terms and conditions, and at how much they earn. We need to look at the 1% pay cap because, as the shadow Secretary of State said, there is no trade union that can advocate for our armed forces. It is down to us in this House to ensure that they are well paid, and it is down to us to fight their corner because no one else is going to do it for them. While our service personnel are protecting our national security at home and abroad, we must ensure that we are looking after them and their families.
Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Defense
Paul John Sweeney (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about skills, particularly in critical areas such as nuclear engineering. It is worth noting that generally during the build of a large complex programme, such as the Astute-class submarine, there are large-scale secondments of personnel from the Royal Navy, working alongside engineering staff with defence contractors such as Rolls-Royce or BAE Systems. Essentially, they are on a job-share initiative between the defence contractor and their normal service location. Might the Bill be an opportunity to formalise that arrangement, increase their compensation and build their industry experience as well as their service experience?
Improving Lives: Green Paper — House of Lords, 2016-10-31
Topic: Health
David Blunkett (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it would be unfair to use the old joke, "This is déjà vu all over again", because this is a welcome initiative. I have just two quick points to make. The Minister knows a great deal about this. Perhaps he will accept that trashing the past rather than learning from it is not helpful. This is not an entirely new era. In 2005, as he well knows, the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions jointly appointed Professor Carol Black. All the things that came out in the report he has mentioned flowed from that initiative. While it takes a great deal of time to implement good policy, as we are all painfully aware, there has been a great deal of it; for instance, the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion has 2,500 employers already engaged. A new business leaders’ group is not required. What is required is to build on what is there, to build on the experience of the pathways and the talking therapies, and to ensure that what we all say—and we do all say it—about joined-up policy is put into practice.
Medicines and Medical Devices Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-02
Topic: Health
Ian McColl (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Cumberlege and her committee on producing such a thorough and important report I draw attention to a practice that many of us clinicians used for years. It detected clinical problems in treatment, equipment and management early on. We had weekly meetings for an hour or so to discuss any complications that had occurred in the previous week. It was attended by consultants, junior staff, medical students, nurses and a manager or two. It was always an interesting and very instructive meeting, and it brought problems to light early on. People were very honest about their mistakes; it became rather like the general confession. Of course, it was essential to have as a chairman of these meetings somebody who was friendly and encouraged people to adopt the attitude of "There but for the grace of God go I". It was a very inexpensive and successful kind of quality assurance I have a few questions to put to the Minister. First, do the Government plan to mandate the tracking of all medical devices used in the UK and not just those selected at random? Secondly, will the use of medical device registries be extended to patient outcomes? Thirdly, will the Government go ahead and establish the post of a patient safety commissioner, as strongly recommended by my noble friend Lady Cumberlege and many of your Lordships? Some years ago, I used to carry out transplant operations and became very familiar with the problems involved I emphasise that in Committee I shall fully support the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, dealing with forced organ harvesting. As mentioned before, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC stated in his report that forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China. [Inaudible.]
NHS Funding Trends — House of Commons, 2017-12-19
Topic: Health
Benjamin Peter James Bradshaw (Labour, Centre-left): With patients in Exeter now waiting more than a year, in pain, for vital surgery—well beyond the 18-week maximum guaranteed in the NHS constitution—can the Secretary of State explain the contradictory statements of the Chancellor, who said at the time of the Budget that he expected significant "inroads" to be made into growing waiting time lists, and the NHS England board, which met the following week and said that NHS waiting time standards "will not be fully funded and met next year"?
Covid-19 Lockdown: Homelessness and Rough Sleepers — House of Lords, 2020-11-12
Topic: Defense
Stephen Greenhalgh (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, we want to build on what works. I will take away this idea, make sure we give it due consideration and find out how we can support the Salvation Army in its policy ideas—and potentially scale them up, if they are working well.
NHS Funding (Autumn Budget) — House of Commons, 2017-12-19
Topic: Health
John Robert Cryer (Labour, Centre-left): Bed occupancy rates across London last winter were running very near to 100%, including at Whipps Cross University Hospital in my constituency. With the much-vaunted extra funding, what will the bed occupancy rate have been by the end of this winter?
UK's Nuclear Deterrent — House of Commons, 2016-07-18
Topic: Defense
Thomas Sheppard (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): He has already intervened I want to say to colleagues on the Labour Benches who have spoken in favour of the Conservative Government’s position that I very much regret that they seem to be hiding behind the defence trade unions in justifying how they will vote tonight. Surely they do not have to be very smart to understand that if we do not start this rearmament and do not commit this £200 billion, we will have enough money to give a financial guarantee to every worker in that industry and to redeploy their ingenuity, skills and experience into construction and engineering projects that would be for the benefit of humankind rather than for its destruction. I would have thought that the Labour party argued for that, but it has lost its moral compass on this and many other issues, which is why it is in its present situation I was elected to this Chamber on a manifesto, but this issue was not buried somewhere on page 13. Every leaflet that I put out during that campaign had the words "No Trident" in 24-point type. In every election address that I made, I told the electors that I would vote against this proposed rearmament at every opportunity. I was elected with 49.2% of the vote.
Daesh — House of Commons, 2017-10-17
Topic: Defense
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): The UK is leading the global coalition’s efforts to disrupt and counter Daesh’s communications. Can the Minister broadly say what we are now doing differently, as a result of our learning against this fast-moving and fluid organisation, from what we were doing a couple of years ago?
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions on Gatherings) (North of England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-09-25
Topic: Health
Nicholas Bourne (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, and to hear her speaking up for her community I thank the Minister for bringing forward these regulations, which I strongly support. Like others, I recognise the incredible workload that he is carrying at the moment. He really should be protected by a Geneva convention I very much approve of the partnership between localities and central government but, as I said yesterday, I wonder whether we have the balance right. Experience in other countries tends to suggest that more local action within a national framework is likely to be more successful than the experience we have seen to date I strongly support these regulations but I regret the retrospective nature of these debates, some seven weeks after the regulations have been made. I regret it not just because of the lack of parliamentary scrutiny that there should of course be, but because I want to give support to my Government, which is what I, with many others, would be doing across the party. That is to be regretted Yesterday, I raised the issue of BAME communities in Leicester, and I do so again in relation to many of the areas that we are protecting today. Because this disease has a disproportionate effect on those communities, I ask whether lessons have been learned from what has been happening Perhaps I may ask the Minister about the experience of test and trace locally. Is there spare capacity? What is the situation on the ground in these communities? Perhaps he could extend that to the national picture. Do we publish the daily figure for testing throughout the country and at different centres? If not, why are we not doing it? I think that we should, so that people can see what the spare capacity is and take heart from the fact that more people are being tested day by day.
Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-11-04
Topic: Health
Benjamin Lloyd Stormont Mancroft (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, while in February and March there was a paucity of data on which anyone could base an opinion or construct a strategy, there is now almost a tsunami of facts and figures, along with as much commentary as anyone could want. We therefore all know just about as much as the Prime Minister does. One result of that is that the case for this lockdown, as set out by the Prime Minister and his advisers on Saturday, and my noble friend the Minister today, has since been largely debunked by enough reputable scientists and commentators to the point where the Government’s case for this lockdown is simply no longer credible. In particular, Monday’s report by King’s College, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, set out that the R rate is significantly lower than the Government’s advisers reported on Saturday. As my noble friend Lord Lilley told us, the number of new cases in the north west has plateaued and is now falling No one doubts the seriousness of coronavirus, but the reality is that, while this is a very nasty, frightening illness, it is really only fatal to specific vulnerable people. More than 90% of the population get over the virus within a few days or weeks at worse. In these circumstances, it is difficult to understand the case for locking down the whole community. The chaos surrounding the Prime Minister’s announcement on Saturday and the delay in tabling this statutory instrument has simply added to the uncertainty surrounding this measure and the general lack of confidence in the Government’s handling of what is undoubtedly a difficult situation. There is a large and growing body of opinion, based on the enormous amount of data now available to all of us, that believes that the cure—in the form of a lockdown—may well be more damaging than the pandemic itself In order to address these concerns, will the Minister share with this House the work that the Government have presumably done which convinced them that there will be fewer job losses, less economic damage, fewer long-term physical and mental health problems in the population as a result of the lockdown than there would be without it? We all recognise the need to protect the NHS, and we have been told how many lives could be saved by lockdown, but this has been based only on projections. We now also need to be told how many lives will be ruined by the economic fallout of lockdown. The heavy price of lockdown will be paid by working people, and we need to know what that price is going to be. I shall, of course, listen carefully to everything that noble Lords say tonight, but as it stands, if my noble friends divide the House, I will support them.
Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-11-04
Topic: Health
Daniel Moylan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I shall be voting with the Government tonight, conscious of the many concerns expressed by noble Lords, not least those recently expressed by my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lady Altmann about the complete absence of evidence that the Government can produce for the ban on collective worship. We are at a point where something must be done and this is the only option in front of us, but I will make two points First, this has now ceased to be a matter fit for legislation. If you want a law to close pubs or restaurants, that is fine; it is nice and simple. However, when you come to micromanaging the lives of individuals and families, as Part 2 seeks to do, with 10 principal exemptions and numerous sub-paragraphs, it is simply absurd. It will be incomprehensible to families, police and enforcement authorities alike Many of these exemptions are common sense, but you cannot legislate for common sense; you can only ask people to exercise it. If any of these measures are to be continued after 2 December, they cannot be in this form; they need to be based on trusting people. That sounds like Sweden—I have never been a vocal advocate, or any advocate at all, for Sweden or its approach, but that is clearly where these regulations are pointing. My second point is that Covid is a medical problem, requiring medical solutions. However, we have made it the prisoner of statisticians and geeks with models. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, pointed out, they are geeks who cannot agree on anything significant, except that a line pointing upwards will continue to do so if nothing prevents it. We have no choice, in practice, but to rely on improvements in treatment and care to reduce mortality, as is already happening, as the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, pointed out We cannot rely on a silver bullet: a vaccine that may be only partially effective—who knows?—or a test, trace and isolate system, which, even if it tested and traced effectively, cannot persuade people to isolate. Today is the day, and November is a write-off, but we cannot find ourselves in this position again. I urge the Government to use this month to consider a reset in their approach and lead us forward on the basis of trusting people and improving treatment and care.
Register of Arms Brokers Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-18
Topic: Defense
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I must also apologise for not having been able to participate at Second Reading. However, I am glad to say that I cannot think of a Bill that is more pressing or important in the highly dangerous world in which we live Weapons are lethal. I have always held the view that the export of arms is so dangerous that it should be only to recognised allies, in the context of alliances to which we belong, or in the case of very specific arrangements that further defence interests as we see them and which can be monitored. The ethos has to be changed from one of exporting arms unless there is a reason not to, to seeing arms as very dangerous, hazardous and unwise things to export unless there is a very good reason for doing so. I believe that that underlying ethos is crucial. In the context of what I have just said, the amendment speaks for itself. As far as I am concerned, I warmly applaud it, as I do the Bill, and hope that it succeeds.
Register of Arms Brokers Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-18
Topic: Defense
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the amendment is critically needed. It relates to my previous point. Ideally, we should export arms only when they are furthering our defence policies or our strategic alliances for specific purposes. If they are exported outside that context, it should be in a very carefully considered way that contributes towards world peace and stability. Of course all the huge issues of end use and the rest are critically important for context. From that point of view, I can imagine that only the most responsible citizens are qualified to be involved in this trade. The amendment is very important if we are to take the whole purpose of the Bill as seriously as we should.
Register of Arms Brokers Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-18
Topic: Defense
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for responding to my intervention, but I do not believe she has quite taken the point. My concern is that weapons are so dangerous and potentially negative in their effect that they should be exported only in situations in which peace and stability are at risk, or an agreed necessary military action, in the context of an alliance, is undertaken. I cannot see really, logically, why anyone else would come in with a desire to export arms if it did not fit into that context. If it did fit into that context, why would somebody else have to apply? It therefore seems to me that if we are going to have these free-standing individuals operating in the market, they need to be incredibly responsible citizens who fully understand what the purposes of foreign defence policy, stability policy and all the rest really are. Otherwise, we are in a situation in which the conveyed message is that it is okay to export arms, unless we establish through our very effective controls systems that there is a very good reason for not doing it, whereas I think there has to be a very good reason for doing it. From that standpoint, this amendment moves in the right direction.
Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-11-04
Topic: Health
Sheila Masters (Conservative, Centre-right): At end insert "but that this House regrets that the modelling used to support the claims that (1) the National Health Service would be overwhelmed, and (2) daily deaths from COVID-19 would be 4,000 or more, has not been subjected to independent review and challenge."
Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-11-04
Topic: Health
Kevin Shinkwin (Conservative, Centre-right): At end insert "but that this House regrets that a further national lockdown to address the COVID-19 pandemic signals to totalitarian regimes that Her Majesty’s Government have failed to address the pandemic effectively, and that the United Kingdom’s parliamentary democracy is weak."
Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-11-04
Topic: Health
Peter Lilley (Conservative, Centre-right): At end insert "but that this House regrets that the Regulations have been laid under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, which does not give specific powers to Her Majesty’s Government to impose restrictions on uninfected persons, and not the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which does."
Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-21
Topic: Health
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): This is a very interesting exposition, but could the noble Lord clarify that there is a difference between the notional list price, which is used as a marker for many other countries, and the actual price paid by the NHS? Secondly, does he agree that, if the Treasury had not purloined the rebate, we would have had the money and patients would have had access to new drugs?
Valproate and Foetal Anticonvulsant Syndrome — House of Commons, 2017-10-19
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Anne McInnes (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is absolutely right. She and I are well aware of the yellow card system, because we have both worked in the NHS, but how many people out there know that they can report side-effects of drugs, or even suspected side-effects? We really have a job to do in conveying that message to the general public, and we also need people to collate the information and act on it A definitive paper stating that there was a clear link between valproate taken during pregnancy and birth defects was published in 1995. It was entitled "Foetal Valproate Syndrome", and was written by geneticists at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester. It is clear that the evidence has been building up for a long time, so why does it appear that women were not warned about the potential dangers of taking the drug in pregnancy?