argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): The good news is that, thanks in part to the work that my right hon. Friend did when he was in my shoes, we now have a record number of doctors in the NHS and he will have been as pleased as I was to see the record number of applicants to nursing places as well, because we need both more doctors and more nurses. I am delighted that, during the pandemic, we have increased numbers very substantially. On nurses, we are on track to meet our manifesto commitment to 50,000 more nurses, and we have seen a significant increase—just under 10,000—in the number of doctors too, so there is significant progress. Of course there is more to be done, and of course we will need to set out the route to that, as he suggests. The time is not quite right now, because right now there are still very urgent needs and pressures, thanks to the pandemic—I am sure that he and the Select Committee understand that—but this is undoubtedly a question that we will return to.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Well, I am going to start by congratulating the hon. Gentleman—the right hon. Gentleman—on his appointment to the Privy Council. I appreciate the work that he has done in support of the Government and in support of the nation during this pandemic. Although occasionally he turns to rhetoric and narrow questions that he knows there are perfectly adequate answers to, he has generally during this pandemic, in the face of temptation—I mean this very genuinely—done the right thing and supported the right messages to people where they need to be made across party lines. So I congratulate him and thank him for that On the specifics of the question the right hon. Gentleman raised, of course, where a contract is not delivered against, we do not intend to pay taxpayers’ money, but of course, also, we wanted to make sure that we got as much PPE as we could into the country. While of course there were individual instances that we all know about and that highlight how important it was to buy PPE, there was, as the National Audit Office has confirmed, no national level shortage, and that was because of the incredible work of my team and the amount of effort they put into securing the PPE and doing the right thing.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): On the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, such a reasonable and sensible man is, of course, always welcome on these Benches, and I might ask, since his wife is taking the Labour party to court: why doesn’t the whole Ashworth family come and join us on this side On the substantive point the right hon. Gentleman raises, of course what matters for patients is the quality of patient care. We have seen again and again, especially throughout the pandemic, that what matters to people is the quality of care. That is what we should look out for, and that is, I know, what doctors, nurses and other staff, in primary care and right across the board, are working so hard to deliver on.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Robert Peter Moore (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Airedale hospital in my constituency is now over 50 years old and 83% of the building is constructed from aerated concrete, which is known for its structural deficiencies. It is great news that this Conservative Government will commit to funding eight new hospitals in addition to the 40, but may I make an urgent plea to my right hon. Friend that the Airedale hospital, given its high-risk profile, is considered as one of the final eight?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I think my hon. Friend has just made his heartfelt plea and it has certainly landed with me, but I am not surprised because he has made this case to me on behalf of his constituents over and over again and he is quite right to. We are in the process of considering which hospitals will be in the eight additional, on top of the 40 that we committed to in our manifesto. I am grateful for his representations and we will certainly consider Airedale and its full needs for the local community.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): We will need to draw many lessons from the pandemic. For instance, my brilliant team who have done all this procurement of PPE have also built an onshore PPE manufacturing capability. With regard to almost all items of PPE, 70% of it is now made onshore in the UK, up from about 2% before the pandemic—likewise for vaccines, where we did not have large-scale vaccine manufacture and we now do, and for a host of other areas, including some of those that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Joy Inboden Morrissey (Conservative, Centre-right): With regard to the recent court ruling on the issuing of PPE contracts, will my right hon. Friend confirm that, as a result of the action taken by Health Department officials, NHS trusts did receive vital PPE, despite there being a global shortage?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): As we have repeatedly explained, supply is the rate-limiting factor. The hon. Member will no doubt have seen that there have been international discussions on the rate of supply, and countries around the world are finding supply the rate-limiting factor. Thankfully, thanks to the decisions that this Government took early, we have some of the best access to the supply of vaccine in the world. That is why we have one of the best vaccine delivery programmes in the world.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Christopher Stephen Grayling (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my right hon. Friend again on the progress of the vaccination process. He should be proud of what he has achieved. The documents published yesterday about the road map did not appear to contain any assessment of the infection risk in individual settings, which could have demonstrated that there had been carefully informed decisions about the reasons for each individual restriction. Has that work been carried out? If so, will my right hon. Friend commit to publishing those assessments immediately?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course we assess this, but it is challenging to get to a statistical answer to the question that my right hon. Friend raises. When we have taken action to restrict access to areas where there is evidence of significant transmission, such as the hospitality industry, that confounds the statistical analysis because people cannot go into that environment and therefore the passing on of infection there reduces. This is a matter of evidence and judgment. It is a significant challenge, but the road map is based on our best assessment of the situation, which is based on clinical advice, including the focus on the fact that we know that outdoors is safer than indoors. Hence the early steps, after schools, are focused on opening things up outdoors.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course long covid is an incredibly serious condition for some and is part of our considerations and deliberations, but I want to correct something the hon. Member said. The road map sets out indicative dates before which we will not move, but we will be guided by the data, hence the five-week gaps between each step to make sure we have four weeks to see the impact of the step and one week of advance notice for the go/no-go decision. That is based on clinical advice, which I know is shared across the UK.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work in making sure that all carers, who are properly in priority group 6, get the opportunity to be vaccinated, including those who may be unregistered with the system, but nevertheless are carers. It is very important and I pay tribute to the work of Norfolk County Council. I know that my hon. Friend the Care Minister will be happy to meet my hon. Friend and the county council to discuss what further can be done.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very happy to take up that proposal. Nobody should be harassed when accessing any medical treatment. There are agreed rules around abortion and people should be able to access abortion properly, according to those rules.
Death of PC Yvonne Fletcher — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Defense
Mark Gino Francois (Conservative, Centre-right): In view of my right hon. Friend’s elevation to the Privy Council, on which I congratulate him, I believe his recommendation carries even more weight. Some years ago, I was Veterans Minister at the Ministry of Defence. I was never a Minister in the Home Office; nevertheless, I pay tribute to Keith Palmer, and also to Yvonne Fletcher. For what it is worth, may I wholeheartedly endorse my right hon. Friend’s recommendation that her valour and conduct is wholly worthy of the award of the George Medal?
Covid-19: Remote Education — House of Commons, 2021-01-18
Topic: Health
Gavin Alexander Williamson (Conservative, Centre-right): I know that my right hon. Friend speaks for many in the House who have particular concerns about children’s mental health, and about making sure that, as we work through this pandemic, this is not something that is forgotten and on which no action is taken. We have already undertaken work on helping schools to train staff to support not just pupils, but staff. I would be very happy to sit down with my right hon. Friend to discuss the work that many charities and voluntary organisations undertake, and how they can properly and fully support all children and all those who work in the education sector when it comes to their mental health.
Covid-19 Lockdown: Safety of Staff — House of Commons, 2021-01-18
Topic: Health
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): Ensuring the safety of children, the workforce and families is our overriding priority. The early years and schools workforce are classed as essential workers for the purposes of accessing testing, and we continue to update our guidance to help specific settings provide a safe and secure environment for children and staff.
Covid-19 Lockdown: Safety of Staff — House of Commons, 2021-01-18
Topic: Health
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): We have added NHS Test and Trace and Public Health England, and we have asked them to provide rapid updated public health advice on daily contact covid testing in schools. This is in the context of the current prevalence of the virus and the high transmission rates. The Department, NHS Test and Trace and Public Health England encourage the weekly testing of all staff, although this remains a voluntary matter for individual staff members. As I said earlier, early years staff will be prioritised through community testing.
Covid-19 Lockdown: Safety of Staff — House of Commons, 2021-01-18
Topic: Health
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): All the advice that we have been given has been made public. There are three reasons why we have kept early years settings open and they are all important. Early education gives the child communication and social skills that set them up for life. You cannot teach a small child online, and they cannot get those months back. Our public health advice remains that younger children play a lower role in community transmission, and the evidence at the moment is that the confirmed cases of covid among the very youngest children are the lowest of all age groups.
Wales Bill — House of Commons, 2016-07-11
Topic: Health
Susan Elan Jones (Labour, Centre-left): One could talk about a lot of aspects in the Bill, as we know, because at one time or another most of us have done so. I will therefore concentrate on one particular amendment: amendment 123, which has been signed by my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State and others, which concerns the devolution of licensing of the provision of entertainment and late-night refreshments, and the sale and supply of alcohol My hon. Friend is a great scholar of Welsh history, so I am surprised that he did not mention that the first Wales-only legislation came with the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act 1881. That means that there is real sense of history behind this amendment. Most of us would agree that it makes perfect sense to devolve such provisions to the Assembly’s legislative competence so I, for one, strongly support the amendment. We must recognise that there needs to be a greater debate about this whole subject, because alcohol abuse has relevance to health services as well as local government services. We are not living in the days of the 1881 Act, following which areas voted on whether to be wet or dry. People from dry areas would often travel a little further along the lanes to get to a wet area. However, we are now dealing with problems of alcohol abuse and of pre-loading in many of our communities. Years ago, the mudiad dirwest—the Welsh temperance movement—would often decry other cultures and say, "Fancy the French—they give wine to their children!" In reality, alcohol and food have always gone together naturally in many continental cultures, but that is not the case with pre-loading. We need to think about that very seriously indeed We also need to consider our rural areas. I am sure that all of us take very seriously issues relating to drink or drug-driving. Those of us who represent rural and semi-rural areas will know from talking to our constituents and others that some people still take chances on country roads and drive when they are above the legal limit. I appreciate that the culture has changed for the better in many ways and that fewer people do that, but it is still a problem in many of our rural communities. Frankly, if someone in a car finds themselves on a narrow single lane faced by a drink-driver, their chances of survival are fairly low Devolving the relevant powers would affect how we consider health, social care and local government provision. Great problems are connected to alcohol and drug abuse. I do not wish to sound like a member of the Committee that considered the 1881 Act, because I think that many of us welcome wine, real ale and the conviviality provided by food and drink, but we do not welcome alcohol or drug abuse. We would, however, welcome sensible devolved provisions to make tackling those problems easier.
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2021-05-11
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): In a matter of five months this country has inoculated more than 35 million people—two thirds of the adult population—with the biggest and fastest programme of mass vaccination in British history, which has helped us to take step after decisive step on our road map to freedom. As life comes back to our great towns and cities, like some speeded-up Walt Disney film about the return of spring to the tundra, we can feel the pent-up energy of the UK economy —the suppressed fizz, like a pressurised keg of beer about to be cautiously broached in an indoor setting on Monday I know how hard pubs, restaurants and other businesses have worked to get ready and about everything they have been through, and I thank them, as I thank the whole British people. I can tell them that the Government have been using this time to work flat out to ensure that we can not just bounce back but bounce forward, because this Government will not settle for going back to the way things were. The people of this country have shown, by their amazing response to covid, that we can do better than that, and the people of this country deserve better than that The purpose of the Queen’s Speech is to take this country forward with superb infrastructure—worth £640 billion, I can tell the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer)—and with a new focus on skills, technology and gigabit broadband. By fighting crime and being tough on crime, by investing in our great public services, above all our NHS, and by helping millions of people to realise the dream of home ownership, we intend to unite and level up across the whole of our United Kingdom, because we one nation Conservatives understand—
Debate on the Address — House of Commons, 2021-05-11
Topic: Defense
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my very good friend for allowing me to intercede. I take it that the right hon. Member will fully support the cessation of vexatious claims against veteran soldiers, veteran policemen and veteran security personnel in Northern Ireland. What he was referring to is terrorism, which is entirely different.
Dame Vera Lynn: National Memorial — House of Commons, 2021-05-11
Topic: Defense
Mark Gino Francois (Conservative, Centre-right): As the son of a D-day veteran, I wish to wholeheartedly endorse my hon. Friend’s suggestion of creating a memorial to Dame Vera Lynn. During this country’s darkest hour—darker even than the wicked pandemic that we have had to endure—she helped to maintain our nation’s morale as we fought, alone for a period, in a battle for national survival against Nazi tyranny. She kept up the country’s spirits and those of all those who were fighting in the armed forces, including my own father. He cannot be here, but if he were, he would be thoroughly encouraging my hon. Friend in everything he is doing. This is an incredibly fitting tribute to a remarkable woman and, as my hon. Friend’s parliamentary friend and neighbour, I wish him Godspeed.
Dame Vera Lynn: National Memorial — House of Commons, 2021-05-11
Topic: Culture
Natalie Cecilia Elphicke (Conservative, Centre-right): Dame Vera’s daughter and son-in-law, Virginia and Tom, have asked me to do something: they want me to put on record their gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) for everything he has done, and for his enthusiasm and dedication. We know that he is going to bring this to fruition, and I am sure that the whole House will join them in thanking him for everything that he is doing Dame Vera Lynn was a truly remarkable woman in so many ways: in her war work and her bravery going to the frontline; as a top entertainer; in her charity and community work; and, in recent years, as a true friend to Dover. It was a pleasure to meet her in person when we campaigned to prevent our port from being sold off. She was there, side by side with us. She also supported national fundraising campaigns for our white cliffs heritage, so where better to commemorate Dame Vera’s wonderful life than on the white cliffs of Dover that she immortalised in that moving song and in her later life This will form part of our levelling-up bid, and I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), and his Department will support the importance that this could bring to Dover. Dover Council fully supports everything that is being done. We see this as an opportunity for live performance, for growth, for tourism and for bringing to life the excitement of everything Dame Vera represented in her life in entertainment, in the arts and in her service to our country.
Ballymurphy Inquest Findings — House of Commons, 2021-05-13
Topic: Defense
Tobias Martin Ellwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I declare an interest, as one of a number of Members of Parliament who served in Northern Ireland prior to the Good Friday agreement. I very much welcome the statement and the apology today. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to our armed forces, whom we place in harm’s way, where they face incredibly difficult circumstances, often at great personal risk. The majority of service personnel follow the law of armed conflict, but if standards ever fall, they must be swiftly and fairly investigated I welcome the Government’s fresh approach to securing lasting change by fairly drawing a line under the pre-Good Friday troubles. There is a real danger of fuelling current tensions and potentially creating new victims because we have not reconciled past events. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Good Friday agreement proved that the troubles require a political, not military, solution, but it hesitated in mopping up a series of difficult, unresolved incidents, for which those on all sides still seek closure? Will he consider introducing a wider statute of limitations, along with a truth recovery mechanism that applies not just to veterans but on all sides, so that Northern Ireland can finally draw a line and look forwards, not backwards?
Ballymurphy Inquest Findings — House of Commons, 2021-05-13
Topic: Defense
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend makes a really important point about the complexity of the issues and the dreadful range of situations in the troubles, with a number of unresolved injuries, murders and deaths. We need to get to the bottom of that. He is also right that we need to find a way forward that can be delivered on and that works for families. The current situation is simply not working for anybody. It is not working for Northern Ireland, and it is not delivering in a timely fashion and getting to the heart of the truth for families It is right that we respect our commitments to our veterans as well. As I said in my statement, obviously the vast majority acted with honour and probity throughout the troubles, but we must have a system that gets to the heart of things. We are open to looking at a wide range of options. I have made commitments to the House about bringing forward legislation, which I still have the ambition to deliver on, but we want to do that by working with our partners across Northern Ireland and with the Irish Government to find a solution that will work, cause stability and have sustainability.
Ballymurphy Inquest Findings — House of Commons, 2021-05-13
Topic: Defense
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I served in Northern Ireland from the early 1970s onwards. I did not serve in Ballymurphy but all I can say is that those of us who were serving in Northern Ireland when incidents such as Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday were happening—and the vast majority of the Army—were in deep shock about what happened. It did not reflect what we felt; we were in deep shock. In order to try to help the families, if they so wish it, may I ask my right hon. Friend that a full and frank report about what happened to their loved ones be sent to them in each individual case—if, of course, they wish to receive it?