argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): I do recognise the desire to see the system clarified. I went to some lengths in my opening remarks to explain that we have some issues that we need to resolve, including what the JCVI is going to recommend when it finishes opining over whether children should be vaccinated, and, without knowing the answer to that, what alternative system would be in place. As Members have mentioned, we have already seen Malta, for example, putting in place its own restrictions on children at the particular age of 12. There are complexities to deal with. However, I hear what my hon. Friend and others have said about the desire for clarity. I will return to this House once we have made progress and make sure that he is here to hear it first.
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): That is absolutely the case. I want to reassure my hon. Friend and the whole House that I wish to see travel reopened—I am the Secretary of State for Transport; I want to see transport operating. No one comes into this job to try to close down travel. We have to be realistic about the pandemic, which is global in nature and is still running at record rates around the world beyond our shores. It is tempting to think it is over because we have managed to vaccinate such a high proportion of our own population, but no other major economy has done the same thing. However, I can provide my hon. Friend with the reassurance that we are moving on this as fast as we possibly can. Subject to the expert advice, I am looking forward to working with my right hon. Friend the new Health Secretary to move things along.
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): I hear the calls for clarity, and I appreciate what the hon. Lady is saying, but is she suggesting that we should leave children behind this summer? Should people who have not been vaccinated be able to travel? How would she know whether an inward traveller coming here from another country had been vaccinated if we do not have a digital certificate from them? These are not abstract questions; they are real questions that have to be added to what the scientists know or do not know about the ability of somebody with coronavirus to get it again and/or carry it—just ask Nick Robinson what happened to him. Make no mistake: I want to get things opened up as quickly as possible—that is my intention and desire—but we cannot throw caution to the wind and risk going backwards by bringing in a new variant of concern because of all the calls to simply ignore the facts.
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for that last answer, and I accept it. However, I went to Gibraltar for the weekend of 11 to 14 June and was astonished by the hoops I had to go through on return from the green Rock. I had to take three tests and fill out a very complex passenger locator form to come home. Given that nearly 49% of our population have now been double vaccinated, will my right hon. Friend have a look at reducing the cost, the bureaucracy and the time wasting that occurs when people return to the UK from even the safest countries, such as the Rock of Gibraltar, which is a green area?
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Suzanne Webb (Conservative, Centre-right): Our historic vaccine programme has meant that we have been able to begin safely reopening international travel, and I must add that my constituency has truly led the way on the vaccination programme lately, and I must thank all those involved for that. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is right, however, that we take a cautious approach, so that we do not jeopardise the enormous sacrifices and gains made by the British people in the past year? Of course, that will mean that next year we can travel safely for the World cup, as, I hope, the rightful winners of the euros this year.
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): I think it is true to say, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, that people are fed up with the restrictions. The good news is that the evidence clearly shows divergence between the number of cases, the number of people going into hospital and—thank goodness—the number of deaths, so I have high confidence that 19 July will be the date. I look forward to people being able to regain some of the freedoms that have been too sadly lost over the past year and a half.
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Businesses across the travel industry have been drawing on the £350 billion-worth of grants and loans, VAT deferrals, the furlough scheme and much else besides. The best thing we can do is get the country flying again and get people moving again. Our exemplary progress with the vaccination roll-out gives us the best opportunity of that happening sooner rather than later.
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Lady is absolutely right about the need to prevent the variants. Our surveillance system, which involves our sequencing the genome more than any other country in the world, as I know she appreciates, is a big part of that. We frequently find that we know about overseas variants before the host country and consequently we often tell them about it first I want to ensure that the record of the House is entirely accurate. I talked about the risk assessment methodology that is already published online. The methodology includes variant assessment, triage, risk assessment and outcomes, which inform ministerial decisions. Under each heading, there is tremendous detail. For example, triage includes testing rates per 100,000, weekly instances, test positivity, evidence of overseas variants under investigation and much else. Then we publish the data on both the Public Health England and the JBC websites. I invite the right hon. Lady to look at that data. I think she will also appreciate that there are times when, for diplomatic reasons, it would be difficult to publish other countries’ data before they have done so. However, she will find a wealth of information, which we are already publishing, on the JBC and PHE websites.
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That follows from the last question, really. It is no longer about just looking at what the infection rate is in a particular country; we need to understand who travels through that country. That can change a country’s rating, even though otherwise it would be perhaps a green list country. I refer him to the JBC’s advice, which sets out in considerable detail the various factors it is looking at. I extend the offer to countries and territories across the world to be in touch with us to better understand how we assess their data. Much of the time, a good hint for them is to be entirely transparent with the data and upload it to GISAID for sequencing so that we know that they know their level of variants of concern.
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
James Michael Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My constituent Tom Williams kindly agreed to participate in the Novavax trial. He was promised that that would not disadvantage him in any way. He is now fully vaccinated with Novavax and, restrictions willing, is hoping to go to France this summer with his family. As the European Medicines Agency has not yet certified the Novavax vaccine, the trip is now at risk. Will my right hon. Friend investigate this case as a priority and do all he can to ensure that Mr Williams can travel with his family?
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): One thing I know for sure is that it is very difficult to give guarantees about any countries staying on the green list forever. That is how I ended up going to Spain and coming back two or three days later, after I had myself put it in the no-fly category, as it was at the time. However, I can tell my hon. Friend for sure that both the Canaries and the Greek islands were looked at in the last review. The fact that they did not qualify, as my hon. Friend rightly identifies, is a matter not simply of their infection rates, but the other criteria clearly set out by the JBC and available to him and others on the website. It is more likely to be to do, for example, with their ability to sequence the genome. We are working hard with countries across the world, particularly holiday destinations, to let them know what would be required, and we welcome further contact from them for them to be able to understand the system we are applying.
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): The reality of the situation is that this virus just does not give us those answers. I wish it would. I hope the hon. Gentleman can see that, through the combination of the traffic light system and the forthcoming double-vaccination system—so that it is not only the place but the individual that can be looked at—we will get to a position where people are able to travel more freely than they have been up to this point. However, I have to remind the House that we are still living through a global pandemic, and things are not quite so straightforward as has been suggested in one or two of the interventions, although not that of the hon. Gentleman.
Education Recovery — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Andrea Jacqueline Leadsom (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is exactly right: it all begins in the very earliest period of life. The later we leave it, all that happens is that we compound the problem more. Then we end up firefighting instead of preventing. Prevention is so much kinder and cheaper than cure To help every family give their baby the best start in life, we need family hub networks that bring together physical, virtual and home visiting services that put the baby’s needs at the centre of everything that we do. The babies born in lockdown and the toddlers who have had so little company and variety in their young lives need our support for their development. We all want them to be school-ready at four years old, able to learn and concentrate, as well as to play, share, and communicate clearly When my right hon. Friend the Minister is considering his Department for Education’s priorities for covid recovery, I urge him to be ambitious for these excellent new family hubs, encouraging every local area to adopt best practice in joining up their start-for-life services between health bodies, local authorities, and DFE policies. Let us bring it all together, putting the baby at the heart of everything that we do. Let us make sure that there is a real focus in Government on the 1,001 critical days—the period from conception to the age of two, when the building blocks for lifelong physical and emotional health are laid down for every human being.
NHS Integrated Care System Boundaries — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sorry that this debate is unlikely to be the penalty shoot-out that some people may have been looking for We know that the Government are about to publish a new Bill on the NHS, but it is not widely known or understood that the NHS in England is being prepared for a major reorganisation. The clinical commissioning groups established by the Lansley reforms have gradually been subsumed into groups called integrated care systems. These ICSs are not legal entities, but single executive teams that have effectively merged the CCGs. Their boundaries are established according to the local health economies. For example, the North East Essex CCG has been merged with two Suffolk CCGs to form the Suffolk and North East Essex ICS, which commissions all NHS services across the whole area. This enabled Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust and Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust to be merged. I have to say that this is highly effective. In my nearly 30 years as a Member of Parliament, I can honestly say that the NHS in our area has never been better led.
NHS Integrated Care System Boundaries — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
David Anthony Andrew Amess (Conservative, Centre-right): I know that my hon. Friend will agree that we have had a fabulous football result this evening Going back to the days when my hon. Friend’s father was a Health Minister, when the noble Lord Fowler was Secretary of State and when the late Lord Moore was Secretary of State, would he agree that we have had far, far too many of these reorganisations, and that we need to halt the process in our area at the moment?
NHS Integrated Care System Boundaries — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): I was anxious to give way to the hon. Gentleman to show that there is cross-party concern about this matter; I am sure that his point will be enlarged upon by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) All this is being put at risk at a time when the NHS is still reeling from the impact of covid-19. The new Bill will place ICSs on a statutory footing, which is a good thing, but there is also a proposal that the ICS boundaries should be redrawn to be coterminous with upper-tier local authority social care boundaries, and that is what we are questioning. I am most grateful for the way my right hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box has listened recently to MPs affected by these proposed changes and has consulted us. He therefore already understands why I and others remain so concerned, but I must put it on the record that the rest of the consultation process has been not just inadequate but in defiance of proper transparency and accountability.
NHS Integrated Care System Boundaries — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend anticipates what I might say later The foundation trust for the Ipswich and Colchester hospitals will have two different commissioners, or Suffolk will have to take over the commissioning role for Colchester Hospital, leaving north-east Essex GPs, mental health services and so on with a different commissioning authority from that of the local hospital. NHS England told the MPs: "We still do not know how the funds will flow" We certainly will not have all the partners sitting around a single table. The constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) will be reabsorbed into Suffolk, even though it is half of the wider Great Yarmouth and Waveney place.
NHS Integrated Care System Boundaries — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Peter James Guy Aldous (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making a very good point. The Waveney area of Suffolk has been in a health administrative area with neighbouring Great Yarmouth for a very long time, and with the rest of Norfolk for a reasonable time as well. Any change would be highly disruptive, a distraction and demotivating for hard-working staff. I have written three long letters to the Department of Health and Social Care and have had a meeting with the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), but does my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex share my concern that there is a perception among those working in health and care in the local area and East Anglia that changing the boundaries is a done deal? Can the Minister confirm in his response that that is not the case?
NHS Integrated Care System Boundaries — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): What my hon. Friend has said does not address how Suffolk would be funded to commission services for Essex patients at an Essex hospital, and it does not address what will happen to the distribution of deficits, which is uneven across the existing ICSs.
Civil Service: Skills and Training — House of Commons, 2021-07-08
Topic: Defense
Julia Louise Lopez (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his important and incisive question. The civil service, as he acknowledges, has historically used contractors to provide specialist skills and to manage short-term requirements. We really want to drive that down by improving our own capability. We are developing a pipeline of secondments into major organisations through a new secondments unit. We are building an in-house consultancy, we are creating a civilian reserve, and we are working with the Civil Service Commission to review how we attract entrants with specific high-demand skills, particularly scientists and engineers.
Levelling Up Agenda — House of Commons, 2021-07-08
Topic: Culture
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely will. There is nothing left behind about Clacton and Frinton and the communities that my hon. Friend so ably represents, and I look forward to visiting them. I understand that there is a fantastic local community theatre that he has played a part in championing, among many other local endeavours. Levelling up is about culture as well as connectivity. I look forward to coming to Clacton and making sure that it is firmly on the map and at the centre of our levelling up plans.
CCTV Cameras: Ministerial Offices — House of Commons, 2021-07-08
Topic: Defense
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman raises an important and serious issue. The permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office and the head of the Government Security Group are looking at precisely this question because, as the hon. Gentleman quite rightly points out, it has a bearing on the security of Government business, and indeed on the possibility of malicious actors, abroad or elsewhere, who may wish to use information garnered in that way to work against the interests of all our citizens.
Civil Contingency Plans: Preparedness for a Future Pandemic — House of Commons, 2021-07-08
Topic: Defense
Penelope Mary Mordaunt (Conservative, Centre-right): We regularly assess contingency plans and preparedness for major risks, including pandemics. In December 2020, we updated the national risk register to include new risks. We are currently reviewing the Government’s national risk assessment methodology with external partners ahead of refreshing the internal national security risk assessment early next year.
Road Map out of Lockdown: the Immunosuppressed — House of Commons, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Penelope Mary Mordaunt (Conservative, Centre-right): The Department continues to work with the Health Secretary on these issues. When we set out the details of step 4 regarding those who are immunosuppressed, there will be new guidance that GPs will be able to use when working with those patients.
Road Map out of Lockdown: the Immunosuppressed — House of Commons, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Duncan Charles Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): My constituent Sue Gresham is a tireless campaigner for all those who are immunosuppressed, and she has raised this many times. It was highlighted just last week that those with blood cancer feel there is little information being given about the efficacy of the vaccine being lower for the immunosuppressed. It would be very reassuring if my right hon. Friend could tell me that the Government will write urgently to everyone in the UK whose medical condition requires immuno-suppression to advise that they may not be protected and what precautions they can take themselves as we unlock.
Road Map out of Lockdown: the Immunosuppressed — House of Commons, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Penelope Mary Mordaunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend’s constituent for all the work she has done on these matters. I can say to my hon. Friend that we are in a much better position because of the work that we have previously done on shielding and gathering data on people who might need further protections. In addition to the new guidance I announced for GPs, there is obviously work going on with the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, particularly focused on that group to ensure that they are a priority for receiving booster injections.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): There were lots of interesting questions there. The first thing that I should say is that Lord Bethell is doing a fantastic job in the Department of Health and Social Care. I think that it is quite wrong for the right hon. Lady to cast aspersions on his dedicated public service and the work that he has done as Minister for Innovation The second thing that I should say is that every single procurement decision went through an eight-stage process in order to ensure that every single piece of personal protective equipment, or everything—[Interruption.] Useful commentary there from the Alan Hansen of politics, but the truth is that actually we have always been in compliance with the rules, unlike the Scottish Government. Audit Scotland has pointed out to the Scottish Government that they need to do better, and indeed they must.
International Travel — House of Commons, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): I should point out that the change of pace is because we now have a situation in which the majority of adults in the UK are fully vaccinated. That was not the case a month ago, when we postponed step 4; it is the case now. I can confirm to the hon. Gentleman that I was in fact already discussing the changes with the previous Health Secretary The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that I omitted to mention masks; I should bring the House up to speed. We will still provide, in guidance, information about mask wearing. We know that it is sensible in more enclosed spaces, and personally I will wear a mask where it is appropriate to do so. The airlines have already said that mask wearing is a condition of carriage in, I think, all the cases that I have seen, and where it is a condition of carriage, I will of course always wear one. On the other hand, if we are talking about being in an empty carriage on a long-distance train for many hours, people will use their common sense, which is something that we on the Government Benches absolutely applaud and agree with. We are pleased to be able to get back to a guidance situation The hon. Gentleman is a doughty campaigner for Glasgow airport and often challenges me on these matters; I have to say to him that he might want to look a little bit closer to home. It is only very recently—in June—that the Scottish Government banned Scots from travelling to Manchester. As a direct result, easyJet cancelled new routes that would have connected a whole bunch of Scottish airports. No wonder the Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association has said that the Scottish Government’s approach to aviation is sacrificing the industry. I am afraid a lot of the answers the hon. Gentleman is looking for are closer to home. Meanwhile, the UK Government have provided £7 billion of support to the sector. I notice that the opening up announced today has so far yet to be reflected by Scottish Government announcements as well. If the hon. Gentleman really wants to help, he can help to move along the policy in Scotland.