argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Children and Social Work Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-23
Topic: Health
Claire Tyler (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Nash, for his response, which I thought was very positive and constructive. I know that he has listened very carefully to the arguments that have been put forward, both inside this Chamber and outside it—there have been, as others have said, a lot of people in the sector campaigning hard for further progress in this area. I was encouraged by quite a few of the things that the noble Lord said. I will not run through them all, but I noted in particular what he said about the further work to be done to guidance and regulations to more fully underline the importance of integrated assessments and of giving really good consideration to mental health and emotional well-being issues I am very encouraged by and was grateful to hear the commitment that he made today at the Dispatch Box, announcing that there will be, I think he said, between six and 10 pilots starting in April or May next year, to test out new approaches to mental health assessments for children in care. As he said, this will happen in parallel to the valuable and important work of the expert working group. I consider this to be a really important step forward, so I am very grateful to him and I look forward to making any contribution that I can to the development and implementation of these pilots. I thank him and all noble Lords who have participated in this discussion and I will say again how pleased I am by this progress. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Register of Arms Brokers Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-18
Topic: Defense
Judith Anne Jolly (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I start by thanking the Minister and her officials for a really useful meeting last week. Amendments 1 and 2 are technical and would rectify shortcomings in the original Bill debated at Second Reading, as highlighted by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report of 25 October this year With the leave of the Committee, I should like to outline briefly the purpose of the Bill. It is a small Bill to meet an obvious need. Its purpose is to require British arms brokers to register before they can trade. It brings arms brokers into line with those of other countries, such as the US—a country not recognised as being in favour of unnecessary regulation. Here, I should point out that a strong regulatory regime is already in place to ensure that licences are granted to export appropriate goods to states which we trust to act responsibly with the arms that are purchased At Second Reading the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby summed up the issues really well. He said that the Bill, "builds upon existing legislation about licensing and export control, so we have a set of criteria and an assessment process in place so that all companies involved are scrutinised and licensed. We are doing the work that would provide the register. So the principle of identifying and monitoring arms brokers is established Secondly, there has been a recommendation from the House of Commons Committees on Arms Export Controls that the Government establish a register of UK arms brokers. So besides have a principle of identifying and licensing brokers, even in our own parliamentary system there has been some expert scrutiny of that principle and a recommendation that it is taken forward to a formal system of registration" Finally, I refer to the right reverend Prelate’s recent experience of being involved in the crafting and implementation of the Modern Slavery Act. He said: "In the language of that world, which is analogous, there is the issue of … supply-chain transparency: how people trade and make it transparent for the benefit of all concerned, pushing back against temptations towards corruption".—[Official Report, 10/6/16; col. 958-59.] As I said, these are two technical amendments, which were prompted by the DPRRC. I beg to move.
Inquiries into Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths etc. (Scotland) Act 2016 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-11-22
Topic: Defense
James Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I add my condolences to those of the Minister and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope I welcome the proposed changes and the opportunity taken in the Section 104 order to extend the categories where a mandatory fatal accident inquiry is carried out. The Minister will be aware that there has been concern for some time because the bodies of service personnel who are killed not in the circumstances he described but in foreign parts are generally repatriated to England, and therefore the jurisdiction has been an English jurisdiction, albeit that the families of the servicemen involved may well be in Scotland. Concern has been expressed about this and I know that efforts have been made to resolve it. I have lost track of whether any progress has been made. Will the Minister take this opportunity to indicate what the position is?
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-07
Topic: Culture
Timothy Francis Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the Minister for her response and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for his contribution. One of the key points that he made, and which we are making with this amendment, is that of course local authorities have to make judgments currently. That runs, to use phraseology used by the Minister herself, directly counter to the arguments that are being made by the Government. She talks about evidence of harm, as if somehow under the current objectives it is all cut and dried and the evidence is absolutely clear-cut, but the fact is that judgments are made by local authorities. I am sure that when the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, was a councillor in Southwark, he had a very enlightened approach to these matters, but these things are a matter of interpretation, and how you treat the evidence of harm is a subjective matter. In many cases, strong concerns might be disregarded because there are other, supervening objectives that a local authority thinks are important, or it may give more time for remedy There are all sorts of aspects, so to regard the current set of objectives as somehow pristine and able to be interpreted with huge clarity by local authorities, in contrast to this confused, woolly cultural objective, is only to confuse the issue. It is really a way of saying that the status quo is fine. But the status quo is not fine, and local authorities need some further guidance on these matters. I am not going to push this amendment further at this stage, but I hope there is a way in which further guidance or some other nudge towards a better solution for our night-time and grass-roots music venues is achievable. I am sure from the nods that I am receiving from the Government Front Bench that there is some sympathy for that approach. Now I am getting completely the reverse—clearly I had lulled myself into a false sense of security, which is always a big mistake in this House I hope the drip-drip of the fairly incessant rhythm—perhaps that is the right phraseology to use in connection with live music venues—of the campaign to ensure that we keep our live music venues has some effect. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that the night-time tsar in London is a fantastic new development, and I hope that other combined authorities will follow what London is doing in that respect. I believe the Home Office also has responsibility in this area to help to preserve our venues, rather than simply stonewalling and saying, "We’ve got a very fine Licensing Act as it is and we don’t need any further objectives". When we come to our next debate, I am sure the Government will make the same argument but they may find a rather different response when it comes to a vote. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-02
Topic: Health
Joan Walmsley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I beg the Minister’s pardon. I should have said that there are care homes in every local authority where staff are specially trained to deal with people with mental health problems If Merseyside and Hertfordshire can do it, why not everywhere? Do they not have any patients who are in exceptional circumstances? I am sure they do On funding, the Minister suggested that the LGA was incorrect in briefing us that none of the money was going to local authorities. That is where my statement came from, and it should know On Amendment 191, about use of the home, it is important that somebody in a mental health crisis be able to see someone who is trained to assess and treat them as soon as possible, and as soon as would happen if they had a physical problem. They will not get that in their home. I do not believe that those choosing to take them home would be in a position to assess whether that home was really safe. Even members of the family would not know whether the home was safe, so getting their agreement is no guarantee that the home is a real place of safety. Many mental health patients have said that they would find it a serious intrusion on their privacy if the police brought them home and stood guard over them while they were there. I accept that it would be for only a short period, but to have a policeman outside the door would have a great effect on how they felt they were seen. As the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, said, they already feel stigmatised by a link being made between mental health and criminality, which there really is not. We should therefore pursue these issues on Report. Of course, this is Committee stage, so for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-02
Topic: Health
Joan Walmsley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the amendment would ensure that people are really only detained under the Mental Health Act for up to 24 hours. To achieve that, the clock needs to start when the decision is made to detain someone and not when they arrive at the place of safety. If the Government want people to be detained only for up to 24 hours, Amendment 192 is needed. This is the only way to ensure that we are not detaining people for longer than 24 hours during what is often a distressing and alienating experience for people in crisis. They may be detained on the street in one of the special vehicles that have been mentioned or in another public place. They may be kept in a police car until a suitable destination is found. Wherever it is, distress will ensue for the person concerned We need to look at the position in parallel with that of a person with a physical illness who calls an ambulance. When ambulance services are assessed, the clock starts ticking from the moment the ambulance is called and not from the moment the patient is picked up. This is a matter of parity between physical and mental health When discussing these parts of the Bill, it is crucial that we remember that people detained under the Mental Health Act have not committed any crime. They are unwell and require health support. That is why I beg to move.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-02
Topic: Health
Joan Walmsley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I agree with my noble friend on that point and on all the points she made. I thank the Minister for her comments, which I will of course consider between now and Report. I do not agree with her that the person formally doing the mental health assessment can be regarded as the appropriate adult, for the reason that I gave in my opening remarks; that is, that person is in control of what happens next to the person being assessed. It is important that the person has a right—they may not choose to use it—to consult somebody else about whether that is the right thing for them and how they feel about it Of course, the Minister is right that the number of people detained in police stations in these circumstances is going down very rapidly. If my Amendment 189 was accepted, it would become zero very quickly. In those few cases—many fewer now—where a person is in that situation, I still think that they should have a right to choose if they feel the need to have somebody else there to advise them. However, this is Committee so I will withdraw the amendment.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Health
Joan Walmsley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for their support. I reassure the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, that there is nothing coercive about this. I think there is a misunderstanding because a health issue is being debated in a criminal justice Bill. The reason there is no need to mention anything to do with consent in the amendment is that it is quite unnecessary. Any professional who would be doing the assessment has a professional duty to engage with any patient only with that patient’s consent. Indeed, it would be self-defeating even to try to do an assessment because it would not be effective, so it is totally unnecessary to mention consent in that situation. It is perfectly normal that consent is an absolute given in health issues among all health professionals I say to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that it is not inflexible either because it should not be for a policeman to decide whether a young person has been affected mentally by the situation. It is coercive if you count coercing the police to do the right thing and share the information, but it is not coercive in relation to the children. The police have to share the information, and it is then for the qualified person doing the assessment to decide what level of help—or no help at all—is needed by that child. That is perfectly straightforward and I see no reason why it should not be done The fact is that the police sometimes refer children for mental health assessments, but very rarely. Sometimes children go through a lot of barriers before they get to the assessment, and they disengage. They say, "I can’t do with having to tell my story over and over again to a whole series of people". What should happen is a referral from a police officer directly to the people who can assess—with the child’s consent, of course—as their professional duty, whether that child needs any help at whatever level Clearly, I am not going to convince the Minister, but I should like to keep talking to her about this. Indeed, we have a meeting in the diary for next Monday about this very thing, so I would like to do that. Because of that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2022-01-06
Topic: Health
John Woodcock (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, do the Government recognise that the scale of the NHS backlog means that what is required is not only a great deal of extra investment but a focus on NHS reform beyond the ambition of the current Health and Care Bill—indeed, on a scale last seen under the leadership and Government of the newly knighted Sir Tony Blair?
Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-16
Topic: Health
Claire Fox (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): I was coming on to that point. I would really appreciate a dose of honesty in this House. If those people who are so hostile to smoking a legal product believe that it is the killer they allege, they should call for smoking to be made illegal and be done with it. At the moment, tobacco companies are legal companies. People talk about them with such distaste, as though they should be abolished. It would be better and more heartfelt if they argued that tobacco should be illegal; then we would have a different debate. Public health is not always neutral when you talk about public health lobbyists, in my opinion. The freedom to choose to do something that is bad for your health is still allowed in a free society, despite some people wishing it was not.
Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-16
Topic: Health
Claire Fox (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, made the accusation that lots of the amendments to the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, were a sort of Machiavellian plot to subvert the democratic process. I want to point out that I had tabled one of those amendments, about mental health, partly because I thought that that was our job here, that when a Bill was before Parliament, we followed it through—to every Bill that I have followed through here, there have been myriad, endless amendments. I thought that our role was to scrutinise proposed laws, to debate the merits and demerits and so on. I was therefore disappointed that there was no Committee stage of that Private Member’s Bill. So I do not accept the suggestion that those who put down amendments did so somehow to avoid debate; in fact, it was the opposite My general view on the problems of parliamentary and democratic process was best summed up by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I also feel queasy that there is a kind of subverting of the parliamentary process by an amendment on assisted dying or assisted suicide being put down on the Health and Care Bill. It is totally inappropriate. It is hijacking a Bill. Whatever else assisted dying and assisted suicide is, it does not contribute to improving anyone’s health. It requires ending a life; it is not a healthcare matter, and it will require a major change in the criminal law, so this is the wrong Bill. However, I have every sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and feel his frustration. I feel all the time that there are lots of laws I want to change; there are lots of things I want to change about the country; there are lots of times when I feel as though the public think one thing and the Government ignore them. What one therefore needs to do is to lobby the Government—the noble Lord probably has closer access to them than a lot of us—or, as maybe I would do, to organise a demonstration or a protest, unless the Government had got away with banning that by the time we got there. In other words, in a democracy, there are lots of frustrations that need to be expressed if you want to change the law. Using our position as unelected legislators to add an amendment to an inappropriate Bill seems to be completely wrong on a matter of such huge importance.
Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-16
Topic: Health
Tina Stowell (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, it is always a great privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton. I too have added my name to Amendment 172 and commend the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for the way in which she introduced it. This debate could risk sounding technical and legalistic, but it is really about redressing an imbalance of power between doctors and parents when their child is desperately sick and at risk of dying and decisions are being made about how best to care for them I will not repeat all that I said in Committee, but my attention was drawn to this issue just over a year ago by listening to Connie Yates describe the ordeal that she and her partner Chris endured through the courts when the Great Ormond Street Hospital doctors disagreed with their decision as parents to seek alternative treatment for their baby. Theirs may be an extreme example of what it means not to be listened to or taken seriously by highly qualified professionals who, because they know more, believe they know best, but it is all the more profound because, as parents, what they experienced was not right, and it certainly was not what they deserved While this kind of ordeal might be rare, the wider principle—ensuring that we are all taken seriously when we deserve to be—needs promoting with vigour by those of us who enjoy great power and privilege. We need to go out of our way to redress imbalances where we see them, because the inequalities and unfairnesses that people feel, which have driven the political realignment we have seen in recent years, will not be fixed by infrastructure projects or economic decisions alone.
Living with Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2022-02-22
Topic: Health
Claire Fox (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, good riddance to the draconian Coronavirus Act, but could the Government commit to reviewing public health laws which have been used so damagingly to attack civil liberties? Secondly, beyond rolling back laws, how are the Government planning to counter disproportionate fears and risk aversion? The nudging seems to have been rather too successful in frightening people. For example, so many in care homes are still not allowing family members to see relatives and there are miserable rules in place which are the opposite of homely and welcoming. This matter is beyond laws—there is a lot of encouraging to do.
Education Return and Awarding Qualifications in 2021 — House of Lords, 2021-03-01
Topic: Health
David Maxim Triesman (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register as a member of the board of Bounce Forward, a charity concerned with children’s resilience. I agree with the Minister that we all want to see our children back in school. We all want to know that it is a safe process, that children will not be taking the virus home and that we will not be wholly reliant on flow tests that have been hardly reliable We have learned that any ambiguity in the advice given can be very counterproductive. The Statement says that with specific medical exceptions, school pupils will wear face masks in school at all times. But apparently, and confusingly, the Government have also issued advice that allows parents to opt their children out of this requirement. We know that many people and communities are sceptical about vaccines and are declining them, which I greatly regret. They may be likely to opt their children out of mask wearing. Will the Minister make it absolutely clear today that wearing masks in schools is mandatory, except where there is a medical reason not to do so?