argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
NHS (Government Spending) — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Emily Thornberry (Labour, Centre-left): Let me begin by thanking the Minister for his contribution today—particularly as he is a doctor. I also thank him for helping those of us with our Tory NHS debate bingo cards to show that he has used all the words we were expecting—"weaponise", "Wales", "long-term economic plan"—and for the additional benefit of sharing his understanding of the international banking crash, which is that it was Mr Brown shovelling money out of the back windows at Lehman Brothers that caused the entire world economy to crash Let me move on to perhaps a much more important point. How are we going to fund the national health service in the future? What the Minister did not address—which is a grave disappointment—were some of the matters in the motion that we are supposed to be debating. My constituents prioritise the NHS probably over everything else. For them, it is all about our working together as one community and looking after everyone: no one is more important than anyone else; we all stick together; we pay our taxes and support the weakest; and all of us should be able to get world-class health care. We are very proud of the national health service, which has delivered that. However, my constituents are profoundly concerned about what is going to happen in the future. Can the national health service survive another five years of a Tory Government? The answer they come to very rapidly is no The question is a simple one. How can the Prime Minister stand up at the Tory party conference and say, "We’re going to make £7 billion worth of tax cuts," and not tell us where the money is coming from? How can the Prime Minister or the Chancellor of the Exchequer say that state spending is going to decline to the level it was in the 1930s, when in the 1930s we did not have a national health service? How does that work? How do we square that circle? Without answers to profoundly important questions such as those, the public simply say, "We don’t trust you with the most precious thing we have as part of our British identity. We want to be able to have a national health service that will hold us together." How can the NHS be safe in the hands of this Government?
NHS (Government Spending) — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): Let me return to my earlier point. Would the hon. Gentleman be comfortable if his constituents with cancer or those at the end of their lives had to contend with a totally privatised service? That is what we might have to contend with, because we might be faced with a 10-year contract to privatise all those services. It has never been done before, and it is highly risky—and the oncologists were not even consulted about it. We are not talking about supplementing; we are talking about private services replacing the NHS.
NHS (Government Spending) — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Anne McInnes (Labour, Centre-left): I have the real-life experience of having worked for the NHS for 33 years, and I am not a doctor I have seen the NHS go through many changes, but I have never seen such industrial unrest and poor staff morale as have developed under this Government. This Government claim to have employed more doctors and more nurses, yet they are not talking about the cuts to other services and other staff, and the redundancies and the outsourcing of work to the private sector This Government like to claim that all is wonderful in today’s NHS, but those of us who work, or have worked, within it know that that is not the case. The NHS still operates to a large extent on the good will of the staff. This Government have been withholding a pay review body-recommended rise of just 1% to all NHS staff. Only now that an election is looming has the Secretary of State finally agreed to meet the trade unions, and now that meaningful negotiation appears to have finally commenced and the strike that was planned for tomorrow has been suspended the Government are claiming that as some kind of victory. There is no victory, and this Government need to remember that they have presided over a series of strikes and industrial unrest on their watch and only now that there is an election on the horizon do they see fit to address these issues I welcome this motion which proposes to invest £2.5 billion into our NHS. Staff have seen £3 billion being wasted on a costly reorganisation which nobody wanted, which was not necessary and which was in neither the Tory nor the Lib Dem manifestos. NHS departments such as the one I used to work in, pathology, have been making so-called efficiency savings for the last four and a half years, to the extent that if someone resigns from a post a business case has to be made for them to be replaced. In today’s NHS, decisions are being made not on clinical grounds, but on financial ones It is an absolute disgrace that this Government’s spending plans will return our public spending as a share of national income to levels last seen in the 1930s, before we had an NHS. The Tories assert that they will protect the NHS yet propose to cut spending on services to levels seen in countries where almost half the health service is privately funded The Government even deny that the NHS is being privatised on their watch, yet the evidence is of piecemeal privatisation of services. In my own area of the north-west, ambulance services have been privatised and are now run by Arriva transport, a bus company. This service is a source of constant complaints from my constituents, with patients being left to wait and being unable to get hospital for important medical tests. Medical staff tell me they struggle to get through Arriva’s complicated system of questions and answers—to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who is no longer present, has already referred—in order to secure patient transport.
NHS (Government Spending) — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Anne McInnes (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and yes I am aware of that shocking fact. This contract needs to be looked at as a matter of urgency. The private sector is not providing the service that was commissioned Medical staff have trouble getting the Arriva ambulance service to come out. If medical staff have difficulty getting through the question and answer system, imagine how patients must feel, and how they manage when they try to get patient transport from home to take them to hospital for urgent tests that need to be done in order to secure the treatment they need My constituents also complain to me about GP appointments. A lot of them are unable to get GP appointments within a week, and this is supported by the results of the GP patient survey. If this Government are allowed to carry on as they have been, more and more people will end up waiting a week or more to see a GP or even be unable to get to see one at all. Labour will guarantee a GP appointment within 48 hours, and on the same day for those who need it, funded by our time to care fund, as opposed to suggestions made from the Opposition Benches such as "People with chronic illnesses like diabetes and thyroid disorders should be charged for their drugs", or "Patients should be issued with receipts for the costs of GP and A and E appointments." The NHS is not safe under this Government, and most NHS staff are aware of that. Only Labour can reverse the damage currently being done to our NHS.
NHS (Government Spending) — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Grahame Mark Morris (Labour, Centre-left): I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke). I wish to make it clear that I have chosen to be here in the Chamber today to participate in this important debate rather than attend the Health Committee, which is also considering important matters, because I feel that we need to set out our view of the direction of the health service I was very interested in some of the hon. Gentleman’s views about fair funding. Having experienced NHS funding under the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, I must say that my view is rather different. After the general election in 2010, the funding for a brand-new hospital that would have served my constituency—it was to be funded not through the private finance initiative scheme but by NHS capital—was cancelled by the present Government. It is an absolute disgrace that we still do not have modern facilities to serve my constituents and those of neighbouring constituencies. It prompts us to ask whether fair funding or some kind of gerrymandering is being applied The hon. Gentleman was talking about opening urgent treatment centres. That is a revelation to me because the two centres that opened in my constituency under the previous Labour Government are now threatened with closure. We have neither a modern hospital nor modern facilities I am proud to say that, although I am not a doctor, I did work in the health service. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), I worked in a pathology laboratory, doing some important diagnostic work. I am proud of the people who deliver that service; I think they deserve enormous credit The creation of the NHS is Labour’s proudest achievement. More than anything else—more than football or cricket—it is what binds us together as a nation. The principle of a free national health service, which is free at the point of use, has huge popular support among the general public When the Prime Minister said that his priorities could be summarised in three letters—NHS—we might have been forgiven for thinking that the Conservatives had been transformed and had come to cherish the NHS as much as the British people do. But, with fewer than 100 days to the general election, it is apparent that his words were nothing more than a smokescreen. It is clear that the Government knew that they could never go into a general election stating their true intentions. Now, we have been accused of weaponising the NHS.
NHS (Government Spending) — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Grahame Mark Morris (Labour, Centre-left): I would rather weaponise it than privatise it, which is what I accuse the Government of doing. That would not have been possible without the active support of the Liberal Democrat party—talking of which, the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) has just taken his place in the Chamber. I feel bitter about what has happened. The hon. Gentleman and I both served on the Health and Social Care Bill, which has now been enacted. The lead advocates were the right hon. Members for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) and for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow). That Act was a really dangerous move, because part 3 opened up our national health service to the full force of competition. Conservatives may say that the difference is only marginal, but the truth is that that Act allows hospital trusts to have up to 49% of their income come from private patients I know that we are desperately short of time, but I want to set out some political dividing lines. Labour and the Conservatives are making very different offerings for the NHS. Labour’s offering is that it will provide more nurses and GPs, and I think it will find favour. In the next general election—
NHS (Government Spending) — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Lilian Rachel Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): It is interesting that the hon. Lady was talking about the costs of an ageing population. Is she aware of Monday’s report by Action on Hearing Loss, which showed that as a result of budget cuts and rising demand two out of five audiology departments offer patients a reduced service? The chief executive of Action on Hearing Loss described that as having a cruel and senseless impact on people with hearing loss. Should the Government not respond to that?
NHS (Government Spending) — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister mentioned an increase in the number of nurses, but there is no increase in the number of district nurses, of whom we have lost thousands. Week in, week out, the Health Committee keeps being told how serious that is for all aspects of care in the community.
Sustainable Development Goals — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that. I certainly remember one of the more hair-raising car rides of my life up to the mountains there and seeing the fantastic work that was being done in those areas I want to talk more generally now about our priorities. Universal health coverage would reduce inequality and would stop 100 million people a year falling into poverty. Figures from the House of Commons Library show that, unfortunately, this Government have cut bilateral spending on health in Sierra Leone and Liberia from £26 million in 2010 to £16 million this year. Four months ago the International Development Committee criticised DFID, saying: "The planned termination of further UK funding to the Liberian health sector is especially unwise." Lasting health care systems are about more than the delivery of commodities such as vaccines and bed-nets, vital though they are. Despite the progress made over the last decade, HIV and AIDS continue to blight the lives of millions of people. Between 2008 and 2013, Britain gave £40 million to support the work done by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, yet Ministers have slashed that support to £5 million for 2013-18— a massive 87% cut.
Sustainable Development Goals — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Fiona O'Donnell (Labour, Centre-left): I am not taking any interventions; I do not want to take time away from other contributors—I am practically a saint, Madam Deputy Speaker I would like to see both Front-Bench teams—I am treating them fairly and equally sceptically—making a commitment to at least maintain the investment for dealing with malaria. We know that the minute we take our foot off the gas, as the Americans say, we see a resurgence of the disease. We have seen with Ebola the knock-on effects of people not seeking treatment. That would be desperately sad. As Bill Gates said, when we had the honour of him coming to speak in the Palace of Westminster recently, we are now at the point of developing a toolkit that would allow us to eradicate malaria. That is the language I would like us to start using when we talk about malaria. I would like the UK to take the lead and say that the world’s ambition should be to eradicate malaria. We need to look at the progress made as a great story, with both UK Governments taking a lead in investment and contributing to halving the number of children who die of malaria That is the leadership I want to see on malaria because, as Bill Gates said, we have eradicated smallpox and are close to eradicating polio. We need to raise our ambition on malaria. This is not just about health; it is about the well-being of children and access to education. The World Health Organisation recently showed that 198 million people are currently missing out on either education or employment because of malaria. We need to think about the futures of these children. Departments should be pursuing economic growth for all these agendas. That is my plea to both Front-Bench teams today. I am grateful for the House’s attention
Sustainable Development Goals — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Pamela Nash (Labour, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech, and I agree with what he is saying, but is he as disappointed as I am that the Government have not committed themselves to the widely supported target of ending AIDS, TB and malaria by 2030?
Firefighters’ Pensions — House of Commons, 2015-02-02
Topic: Defense
Grahame Mark Morris (Labour, Centre-left): On 15 December, the fire Minister gave hon. Members assurances that firefighters who failed a fitness test would receive unreduced pensions, and that was confirmed by the Secretary of State the following day. Subsequently, fire authorities, in response to a survey by the Fire Brigades Union, have said that they cannot provide a guarantee of an unreduced pension. Can the Minister confirm that the guarantee is 100%, or is it not a guarantee when it is given by a Tory Minister?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-02-02
Topic: Defense
Questions: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins) have both kindly visited the largest redundant mill complex in Lancashire, Brierfield mill in my constituency. Following the fantastic news of Government funding for the project in last week’s growth deal, will Ministers commit themselves to continuing to work with Pendle borough council and myself to move forward this massive regeneration project?
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): I want to return to the very serious matter of what the House was told in December about firefighters’ pensions. As we have just heard, firefighters are clear that the Minister gave them a guarantee that if they could not meet the fitness standard and could not be found another job, they would go on an unreduced pension. The Secretary of State—my question is to him—told the Communities and Local Government Select Committee the following day that if firefighters "cannot be redeployed, the effect of yesterday’s decision is that they will get a full pension." However, the statutory instrument makes it clear that the fire and rescue authorities only have to "have regard" to the guidance in carrying out their duties. If that is the case, can the Secretary of State please explain how on earth that constitutes a guarantee?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-02-02
Topic: Defense
Questions: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins) have both kindly visited the largest redundant mill complex in Lancashire, Brierfield mill in my constituency. Following the fantastic news of Government funding for the project in last week’s growth deal, will Ministers commit themselves to continuing to work with Pendle borough council and myself to move forward this massive regeneration project?
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): I note that the Secretary of State did not want to respond in respect of his own words. But I say to the hon. Lady that the reason there is no confidence is that she and the Secretary of State have failed to give effect to the promise that they made. If she is looking for proof of that, may I quote to her what the London Fire Brigade said in correspondence to the Fire Brigades Union? She says that she has seen no evidence so she should really keep up. The FBU had written to the London Fire Brigade after the debate in December and asked whether there would be a guarantee. The London Fire Brigade said that it had taken legal advice, which "confirms the position previously notified to DCLG by the Authority, most recently on 9 December 2014, that if DCLG wished to offer such a guarantee then it would need to change the regulations to enable that to happen." It then went on to say that "the Authority is unable to give any guarantee." Firefighters are understandably angry because it turns out that the guarantee that they were promised in December on the basis of that was not a guarantee. Will the Minister do what she promised and apologise?
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services — House of Commons, 2015-02-02
Topic: Health
Luciana Clare Goldsmith (Berger) (Labour, Centre-left): (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the availability of child and adolescent mental health in-patient beds, and on child and adolescent mental health services more generally.
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services — House of Commons, 2015-02-02
Topic: Health
Luciana Clare Goldsmith (Berger) (Labour, Centre-left): All over England, our child and adolescent mental health services are increasingly under pressure. Despite the best efforts of NHS staff, the system is now in crisis. Children are being sent hundreds of miles for treatment or detained in police cells because there is nowhere else for them to go. We are also hearing of young people getting no treatment at all. I was appalled to see the copy of the e-mail that NHS England commissioners sent on Friday night, warning mental health trusts of a national shortage of in-patient beds for children. It was almost one year ago that the chief executive of YoungMinds said that the increase in the number of children placed on adult wards was entirely predictable following cuts to mental health services. Why did the Minister not act on that warning and do something to prevent it from happening The e-mail from NHS England said that the shortage would make it likely that 16 to 18-year-olds would need to be admitted to adult wards. Senior inspectors at the Care Quality Commission say that under-18s should not be put on adult wards, so why is NHS England issuing guidance that contravenes that advice? Adult mental health wards are no place for young people, but how can the Minister be sure that even in emergencies adult wards can accommodate children and teenagers? Adult mental health wards are operating at well over their recommended capacity, and today the Royal College of Psychiatrists has warned that the lack of acute beds available to mental health patients has left the system at breaking point. If adult mental health wards are full, where will these children go? What assessment was used to determine how many beds were needed? Clearly, it is not working. Does the Minister now plan to reassess the situation Why are so many of our children and young people needing in-patient mental health care in the first place? Could it have anything to do with the £50 million of cuts to child and adolescent mental health services? The Minister talked about early intervention, but we have seen cuts to early intervention in psychosis services, cuts to crisis services in the community, and the decimation of the early intervention grant, putting a lot of pressure on in-patient services. Could the problem be the fragmentation of commissioning we have seen across the health service since the Government’s reorganisation of the NHS The Government have paid lip service to parity of esteem and brought cuts and crisis in reality. Our children deserve better, and that is why Labour is committed to working to reverse the damage done to child and adolescent mental health services by this Government and why we have pledged to end the scandal of the neglect of child mental health.
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services — House of Commons, 2015-02-02
Topic: Health
Alan Arthur Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): The excellent in-patient facility in Hull and East Yorkshire closed under this Government in 2013 with no consultation whatever. Despite an excellent report by the Health Committee, despite criticism by the CQC and despite NHS England identifying a problem, we have waited two years. Does the Minister believe that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 has made him powerless to act in such cases? If not, why does he not do something?