argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
ISIL in Syria — House of Commons, 2015-12-02
Topic: Defense
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): That resolution calls on us to use "all means". I want to make sure that we are using all of the means short of military action. [Interruption.] I do not believe that we are doing that and I do not believe that we should use military action unless there is evidence that it would make things better. There is laughter on the Government Benches at the idea that we might not want to take military action if there is no evidence that it will work One reason I do not want to use military action is that there are no ground forces. We have heard again and again that air strikes will not work without ground forces, yet when we ask where the ground forces will come from, it turns out that they are mythical—they are "bogus battalions", as the Chair of the Defence Committee said Let us not suggest that those of us who do not think that there is an instant military answer are not just as committed to seeing an end to ISIS as those on the other side of the House who seem to think that there is a military answer. All of us are committed to getting rid of ISIS. Some of us are more committed than others to looking at the full range of measures in front of us and to looking at the evidence that suggests that bombing, to date, has not been successful I was talking about the other measures that I would like to see taken forward. I talked about the diplomatic efforts, building on the Vienna peace talks. The diplomatic effort must extend to Iraq, where the Abadi Government must be encouraged to reach out to the neglected Sunni minority, especially in those parts of the country where ISIS is recruiting Why are we not applying sanctions to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that have turned a blind eye and allowed the flow of finance to ISIS and, potentially, other terrorist groups? Why are we still selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, when they are then used in a vicious and destabilising war in Yemen that has killed thousands and made millions homeless, and that is creating yet more chaos in which al-Qaeda can thrive? Why are we not putting pressure on Turkey over the oil sales and the transit of fighters across its border Why are we not doing more on refugees? We should have more refugees here in the UK—of course we should—but we should also put more pressure on our allies to put more resources into the refugee camps in the region. I appreciate that the Prime Minister has done a lot on that. This country has been good on that issue. Let us make sure that our allies do the same, because those refugee camps are becoming absolutely desperate. It is cold, there is more poverty and desperation, and we can be sure that ISIS will be recruiting in those refugee camps too.
Trident: Test Firing — House of Commons, 2017-01-23
Topic: Defense
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): Following on from that, the Government continually refer to Trident as the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent, yet the missile involved in the malfunction was designed, manufactured and owned by the US, with a US guidance system and leasing arrangements. It is not an operational issue to tell us whether the Secretary of State has known that the malfunction last year was reported at the time to the US President, nor whether the new President has been briefed about it, and nor who decided to cover it up—the UK Government or the US.
Health and Social Care — House of Commons, 2017-02-27
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): The seriousness of what we are talking about is demonstrated by how, as the hon. Lady will know, over the past five decades there was a downward trend, with falling death rates, yet new research shows that that trend has reversed since 2011, and that approximately 30,000 more people died in 2015 than in 2014. With such deaths occurring in the context of a massive disinvestment in health and social care, does she agree that the financial cuts are likely to have been implicated in that unprecedented rise in death rates?
Public Sector Pay Cap — House of Commons, 2017-07-05
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): No Opposition Member is talking down our public services in the way that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury claims. We are talking up the incredible commitment of the people who work in them, despite the contempt with which her Government treat them. She talks about job satisfaction. Does she accept that what contributes to job satisfaction for nurses is having the time they need to spend with patients? When the NHS is under such strain, nurses simply do not have the time to spend with patients because there are so many staff vacancies. The NHS is in crisis. Lifting the pay cap is a crucial way of addressing it. Why will she not do it?
Drugs Policy — House of Commons, 2017-07-18
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, because he is making such a powerful case about the importance of evidence-based policy. Is it not the case that drug consumption rooms allow us to reach people who would otherwise be very hard to reach and, over time, build up trust and bring them into recovery? The purpose of drug consumption rooms is not simply to go on handing out drugs to people, day after day. It is to reach those hard-to-reach people and bring them into recovery, over time.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-19
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): I was listening carefully to the Prime Minister’s statement. I do not think he mentioned long covid once, yet according to the Office for National Statistics, over a million people are living with this debilitating condition. Yesterday, the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus heard heartbreaking testimony from frontline NHS workers who are living with long covid, many of whom cannot return to work because of this condition. Will the Prime Minister now commit to formally recognising long covid as an occupational disease and launch a compensation scheme for frontline workers who are left unable to work after catching covid while on the frontline of our pandemic response?
Living with Covid-19 — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): Living with covid does not mean ignoring it, and the Prime Minister will be aware that lifting restrictions today flies in the face of advice from many NHS leaders and health experts, including the British Medical Association and the World Health Organisation. Saying that everyone should take personal responsibility, while at the same time taking away their means of taking that personal responsibility, is utterly perverse. What would he say to those of my constituents who are clinically extremely vulnerable, for whom his freedom day is a day of profound fear and loss of freedom? Will he clarify his response to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), because the issue is free testing for not just people in care homes, but, at the very least, the almost 7 million carers up and down the country?
Public Health — House of Commons, 2022-03-01
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): I was also at the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus evidence session this morning and the health experts were unanimous in saying that to remove the restrictions around self-isolation right now is premature. They were all concerned about the impact it would have on the 3.7 million clinically vulnerable people. If people cannot test and they are not self-isolating, they may well sit next to somebody in a train carriage who is extremely vulnerable. They will not know that that person is extremely vulnerable and they will not be taking any precautions We ought to ensure that we retain the requirement to self-isolate. It is one of the most basic measures we have to protect other people. When it comes to personal responsibility, we do not say that, for example, speed limits are a question of personal responsibility or that smoking in crowded places is a personal responsibility, because they affect other people. That is exactly the point with these regulations. Self-isolation is to protect others and therefore simply relying on self-responsibility is not enough.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2022-02-23
Topic: Defense
Questions:   Following last week’s Q&A at the Shepley Village Association, and after receiving a huge number of complaints from constituents, it is clear to me that speeding is a major problem not just in Shepley, but across all parts of Dewsbury, Mirfield, Kirkburton and Denby Dale. Does my right hon. Friend agree that rather than action being taken after people have been killed or seriously injured in collisions, prevention is better than cure and the Department for Transport circular 2007 needs a long overdue review?; The River Wye, pollution, flooding, house building and the wider environment are all important to my right hon. Friend, so will he meet me to discuss the future of the Environment Agency?
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): Given that, as his Defence Secretary said earlier this week, information is as powerful as any tank, can he explain why he is turning a blind eye to allegations of Russian disruption? Why is he playing fast and loose with our national security—
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-02-09
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): Projections show that some countries in the global south will have to wait until 2023 to achieve widespread vaccination because pharmaceutical monopolies are creating artificial restrictions. Given that no one is safe until everyone is safe, will the Secretary of State use his influence with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that the Government change their position and back proposals from India and South Africa to address pharmaceutical monopolies and help ensure that the world can produce enough vaccines for every country as soon as possible?
Covid-19: Road Map — House of Commons, 2021-02-22
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): As well as welcoming the success of the vaccination programme, I want to emphasise that there is a lack of sufficient financial support for self-isolation. There is, in the words of one of the Government’s own advisers, a "huge gaping hole" in the Prime Minister’s covid strategy. The payments are not enough and they are not reaching the right people. So as well as fixing that once and for all, will he also take this opportunity to respond, with the seriousness it deserves, to the High Court’s ruling on Friday that the Secretary of State acted unlawfully by failing to publish covid contracts? No one has ever suggested that Ministers did not need to act fast to procure PPE and other covid-related contracts, but transparency matters, even in a crisis, so if the Government have nothing to hide, will the Prime Minister now publish details of who benefited from the VIP lane, who lifted the velvet ropes for those favoured companies, what price they were paid and why they were chosen? Parliament and the country have a right to know.
Covid-19 — House of Commons, 2021-01-06
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): It is extraordinary that, yet again, the Prime Minister did not say a word about the Government’s test, trace, isolate and support system. Vaccination and lockdown are essential tools but they do not replace the need to trace infections and isolate cases to help break the chain of transmission. It is an enduring scandal that we still do not have an effective contact tracing system, despite a whopping £22 billion being thrown at private companies and consultants, so will the Prime Minister fix it, including by ensuring that people can afford to self-isolate if they have to? Will he increase statutory sick pay and widen the eligibility criteria so that the nearly 2 million people locked out of it can finally benefit? Will he increase the value of support payments and offer hotel accommodation if people need it?
Covid Contracts: Judicial Review — House of Commons, 2021-02-24
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): Both the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister have repeatedly claimed that all the information relating to PPE and other covid contracts is published online, so will the Minister tell us specifically where to find details about the VIP lane, including who the entrants were, what they were paid and who introduced them? On behalf of the Government, will he apologise to the numerous NHS and care staff who have been deeply upset by comments made by the Health Secretary yesterday—echoed by himself today—that there was not a shortage of PPE? Does he understand why that is so insulting to the doctors who were forced to wear bin bags in the absence of gowns and to the nurses who were wearing goggles from Screwfix?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-05
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): Can the Secretary of State explain why, when other public health and safety measures are not left up to individuals to decide, he thinks that that is an appropriate approach to covid? Failing to mandate mask-wearing in stuffy crowded places such as public transport, where people are often pressed together for much longer than 15 minutes, risks high costs, and allowing people to choose whether or not to put others at risk is both reckless and unfair. If the freedom to pelt down the motorway at 100 mph is restricted because it poses risks to others, why, with millions still unvaccinated, with some immunosuppressed and with the risk of long covid rising, does the Health Secretary not apply the same logic to mask-wearing?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-12
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): I join the Secretary of State and other colleagues in deploring the appalling racism shown against a football team who have shown the absolute best of our country The Secretary of State says that caution is absolutely vital, given the soaring infection rates. I agree, but if caution is absolutely vital, why is he weakening the measures to deliver it? The message around face masks on public transport, for example, has been downgraded from being a clear legal requirement to being an optional personal choice. As more than 100 scientists and medics said last week in a letter to The Lancet, this is reckless and risks driving up infections. He asks, "If we do not open up now, then when?". The answer has to be: when a far higher percentage of the total population is vaccinated; when basic public health protection such as test, trace and isolate is properly functioning; when people can afford to self-isolate; and when measures such as air filtration systems are in our classrooms. Frankly, the Government seem to be pursuing a Darwinian strategy, relying on immunity by natural infection. Does he realise how dangerous that is?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-19
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): As Ministers recklessly lift almost all restrictions in England, despite the UK now having the third-highest number of cases of any country in the world—only Indonesia and Brazil have more—the efforts of public health leaders to keep cases down are being hampered by delays in accessing and processing PCR tests, with reports that the national booking system is being regularly switched off for hours at a time and that turnaround times for tests are lengthening. And that is before the even greater surge in case numbers that Ministers freely admit we face now that they have offloaded responsibility for managing the pandemic on to individuals and businesses. Can the Minister clarify whether the 600,000 PCR test capacity he referred to earlier is per day? How many tests will we need per day if we get to 200,000 daily cases? Can he really guarantee that we have sufficient capacity, in terms of PCR tests, to cope with the rising tide of covid infections that this Government are responsible for?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-06-07
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): The Government’s former chief scientific adviser and the chair of Independent SAGE, Sir David King, warned today that current covid figures are "evidence of another wave appearing", while the Office for National Statistics estimates a 76% increase in cases in England in the week ending 29 May. Given that the delta variant is more transmissible, has a higher risk of hospitalisation and has more vaccine escape the Kent variant, can the Secretary of State explain why he is not ruling out now any further lifting of restrictions on 21 June, so that we can get more adults double vaccinated first? Given that he acknowledges greater transmissibility among secondary pupils, will he look again at reversing the decision to end mask wearing in classrooms and at funding schools to enable them to increase ventilation? He says that he wants to keep schools open, and so do I, so why not take all the necessary steps to ensure that we can, and follow the advice of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, Indie SAGE and many experts?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-06-14
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): Does the Secretary of State feel any shame that the reason we need to delay the easing of restrictions is entirely down to the incompetence of his Government—not only the three-week delay in putting India on the red list, but the utter failure to supress the virus through basic infection control, tracing and effective isolation? This is the fourth time the Government have let the virus spread. That might be great news for Serco, whose profits are up today, but it is a disaster for everyone else Does the Secretary of State recognise that, to protect people at home, we also have to do much more to vaccinate people in poorer countries, both because it is a moral imperative but also so that we reduce the chance of new variants being imported here? Will he therefore adopt a jab-matching policy so that, for every single dose administered in the UK from now on, we donate another dose to COVAX, as well as scaling up the UK’s vaccine production? The UK’s pledge of 100 million doses includes only 5 million by the end of September, and that is too little, too late.
Covid-19: Government Handling and Preparedness — House of Commons, 2021-05-27
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): The families of the bereaved deserve better than the grotesque pantomime of the Cummings evidence session yesterday. At the very least, they deserve the publication of the internal lessons learned review. A constituent of mine whose father died from covid acquired in hospital wrote to me to say that the refusal to release it is "an insult to bereaved family members, who, in the midst of our own suffering, are determined to prevent other families from experiencing the loss we have" She is right because the big question is not just about mistakes the Government made last March, but why Ministers never learn from those errors and continue on a path that risks lives and livelihoods. The Secretary of State says he is being straight with the public and this House, so as continued Government negligence risks a third wave of the pandemic, will he finally publish that review urgently, not least so that it can be scrutinised before restrictions are due to be lifted next month?
Covid-19 Vaccinations: 12 to 15-year-olds — House of Commons, 2021-09-13
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): The Minister mentioned the booster programme. Will he publish all the scientific evidence on which any wider booster plan is based? Will he consider the message that a population-wide booster programme might risk sending to other countries: the sense that everyone has to do it? We know that supplies of the vaccine are not limitless, so that could be an absolute disaster for countries in Africa, for example, where only 2% of people are fully vaccinated. Will he consider prioritising vaccines that are within their shelf life, for example, and giving them to COVAX? As he and others have said many times, none of us is safe until we all are.
Public Health — House of Commons, 2021-12-14
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): The Secretary of State is making a strong point about exactly why we need to do far more to address the threat of omicron, but does he accept that the Government’s mixed messaging has been incredibly unhelpful? Telling people that a tsunami of omicron is on the way but at the same time saying we can go on partying absolutely undermines that message. Will he have the moral courage to say that we actually do need to reduce our social contacts, and will he make it possible for people to do that both with the sick pay we have already talked about and by ensuring businesses get the financial support they need if fewer people are going into their premises?
Public Health — House of Commons, 2021-12-14
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): I have just come from a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus. We were given a shocking set of presentations, about which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) will say more shortly I want to bring three key messages from that meeting of scientists and NHS professionals. The NHS is already beyond full stretch, and some said that it was at breaking point. They pointed out that we are not South Africa, which started its omicron wave from a low level of cases. We are starting it on top of a rising number of delta cases, so we have to get transmission rates down now. The focus on vaccinations alone, although they are vital, will not be enough. We have to focus on a range of other measures such as ventilation in schools, as other hon. Members have mentioned, and the big issue of limiting social contact We need to be honest and to have consistent and clear messaging about the need to reduce social contact. There is a direct relationship between the number of contacts that we have and the spread of infection. Giving guidance to work from home while still giving the green light to Christmas parties is, as the professor of primary care in Oxford suggests, akin to giving people advice to wash their hands after a meal but not after going to the toilet. We are all dreading the prospect of not seeing loved ones again at Christmas, but that is exactly the direction in which we are heading unless the Government show some leadership and tell us the unwelcome truth that we might not like to hear.
Wuhan Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-02-11
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): In Brighton and Hove, our thoughts are with those who have tested positive in our city and those linked to them who are in isolation. The Secretary of State will know that there are real concerns locally, with another health centre closing today. People need and want more timely and accurate information—not just about washing hands and tissue use, vital though that is, but about such things as what self-isolation actually looks like. I think we need a much higher-profile public health campaign, so what steps is he taking to work across Departments—including with the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and so on—to proactively disseminate key public health messages without causing panic or compromising patient confidentiality? Will he also assure me that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office consular department is proactively offering support and assistance to people who are isolated in countries such as France?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-05-05
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): Can the Secretary of State confirm that directors of public health and environmental health officers will not just be consulted but will be leading the delivery of community tracking and tracing efforts, given that that is what they have been trained to do? Can he reassure us that the Government will not repeat the mistakes they have made with drive-through testing centres and PPE supplies by outsourcing those critical tasks to private companies such as Serco, Sodexo and Deloitte, which, frankly, have proved that they are not up to the job?