argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Belarus — House of Commons, 2020-09-08
Topic: Defense
James Neale Hanvey (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My constituents in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath do not view the suspension of military training to Belarusian forces as a cause for celebration. That the UK was supporting the last dictator in Europe does not square with the UK’s espoused role as a beacon of hope. Between 2018 and ’20, UK armed forces provided training to 17 of the 30 countries where the FCO is particularly concerned about human rights issues. Will the Minister urgently provide me with comprehensive detail on the specific training provided to the Belarusian armed forces and full details of police and military training being provided to Turkey, Bahrain and the Philippines?
Integrated Review of Policy — House of Commons, 2020-09-08
Topic: Defense
Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On the integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy, I would like to understand what specific steps the Secretary of State is taking to establish an atrocity prevention strategy to avert further identity-based violence worldwide.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-09-08
Topic: Health
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I agree that it is indeed critical that everyone recognises the importance of our own personal actions in controlling covid, but we also need an efficient test, trace and isolate system, the first step of which is for people to get access to a test. With UK cases having trebled over the past fortnight, demand has increased and there have been many reports of people being sent hundreds of miles to get a covid test. One of the most extreme examples was somebody in Plymouth being sent by the booking system to the test centre in Inverness I understand that demand varies depending on local incidence, but surely it is dangerous to have possibly infectious people travelling long distances when they are unwell and may need to use motor-services facilities on the way. Would it not make more sense to allow covid tests still to be taken locally, and just shift the samples around the UK to the labs with the greatest capacity While the commercial pillar 2 testing has increased dramatically since April, the laboratories are very centralised, whereas NHS hospital laboratories are far more numerous and based within easier reach of communities. To meet the high demand that is likely this coming winter, will the Secretary of State consider additional funding to the NHS to allow the expansion of its PCR facilities and to maximise pillar 1 testing capacity?
Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-10-15
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Barker (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I do not want to get up the hopes of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, too strongly. She is a medic and therefore her go-to place is medical qualifications. There are some excellent best interests assessors who are not engaged in the care of the person. I wish to make that point. I shall keep coming back to the valid point of the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, about the need to wind up with an affordable and manageable system. Noble Lords who have been involved in discussions with stakeholders will not be surprised to know that some of us think there is a way in which that could be done but it would involve reliance on advocates and assessors. Having said that, I agree with the noble Baroness.
Covid-19: Winter Plan — House of Commons, 2020-11-23
Topic: Health
Carol Frances Monaghan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Household mixing in a major vector for covid, so unless the Prime Minister has negotiated a ceasefire with the virus, the only mixing we should be considering over the next six weeks is our Christmas drinks. Does the Prime Minister have an exit strategy, or is he content to accept a certain level of risk through household mixing?
EU Exit: Negotiations and the Joint Committee — House of Commons, 2020-10-19
Topic: Health
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The UK imports 37 million packets of medicines from the EU every single month. The pharmaceutical industry has highlighted the difficulty in rebuilding full stockpiles for the end of transition due to the impact of covid, so, with just 74 days to go, how will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that there are no drug shortages, particularly of insulin, which the UK does not produce, and radioisotopes, which cannot be stockpiled?
Domestic Abuse and Hidden Harms during Lockdown — House of Lords, 2021-01-19
Topic: Health
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the noble Baroness. I would like not to just promote it to all pharmacies but—as in the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy—to see how it could be rolled out more widely to more premises. She says that fewer than a quarter of pharmacies are registered. I do not know whether that is the case at all, but it has just been launched and I assume that the take-up will improve as time goes on. We will certainly promote it to more than just pharmacies as time goes on.
Intelligence and Security Committee: Russia Report — House of Commons, 2020-07-22
Topic: Defense
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Unlike the Minister, I will at least have the grace to congratulate the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) on his election to the chairmanship of the Intelligence and Security Committee, and he will have our backing in making sure he stays there because he is an independent-minded person and the right person to chair that Committee. Like him, I thank the Committee for publication of the report. There is a lot of stuff in the report; this is a cow that is going to give us a lot of milk for quite some time, and it deserves to be taken seriously and considered objectively. The issues it raises in relation to actively looking the other way on interference in the Brexit referendum needs to be addressed objectively by both Government and the Opposition That also applies to what the report has to say about the Scottish referendum. I have banged on more about this than any other MP or politician in Scotland; in fact in Scotland, my party has a stronger record on this than any other political party. So let us have the inquiry into Brexit and the 2014 referendum campaign; let us bring that forward, and be clear that that is something only the United Kingdom Government can do—and if they do, the Minister will have my support in that When do the Government intend to bring forward the legislation that the Minister mentioned, for example on foreign agents, and can he clarify that there will be ample time to debate the rather confused and obscure effort across Government to counter this threat seriously?
Counter-Daesh Update — House of Commons, 2020-07-22
Topic: Defense
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I, too, am grateful to the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Like him, I would like to put on record our condolences to the family, friends and colleagues in uniform of the late Lance Corporal Brodie Gillon. He is right to say that she was identified as having had a stunning career so far, and it is sad that her best days in that career will no longer be realised Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to ask a few questions, if I may. First, is it the Government’s intention, at some point after the recess, to lay before the House an updated threat assessment, following the statement that the Secretary of State came to give in January, after the drone strike by the United States that killed General Qasem Soleimani On cyber-recruitment, which has affected my own constituency, and Daesh funding, I appreciate that this setting is not the place for it, but, similarly, can we get a bit more information for the House—I am not sure, but perhaps through the Defence Committee—on exactly what the Government are doing to tackle online recruitment and to strangle off the funding mechanisms that keep them going? The whole House will be concerned to hear what the Secretary of State had to say about attacks on diplomatic personnel and diplomatic infrastructure. Again, at some point, it would be useful to get more information on that More broadly, on Syria, which of course continues to break all our hearts when we see the ongoing war there, I have asked the Government previously why they have not taken action to remove British citizenship from the first lady of Syria and members of the Assad family, some of whom are living here in the city of London. I know the Secretary of the State will get up at the Dispatch Box and say he cannot discuss individual cases—that is entirely right—but can he at least tell us if, within the Government, serious consideration has been given to removing their British citizenship? I appreciate that that is not always simple, because sometimes having that citizenship can give us a judicial angle to pursue them in the courts Lastly—this is a more broad question—are we to take it that the integrated review is now fully back up and running, and when can we expect its publication?
Counter-Daesh Update — House of Commons, 2020-07-22
Topic: Defense
Alyn Edward Smith (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am glad of today’s statement as well. I revisit a point that has been made, but not answered. Daesh is an evil that we must unite against, but the last statement to the House on these matters was in July 2019. There was a commitment in 2016 for a quarterly update on these matters. I urge the Secretary of State, given the gravity of our ongoing commitment, to make good on that commitment to provide a quarterly update to the House.
Covid-19: Parliamentary Estate — House of Commons, 2020-10-15
Topic: Health
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The House of Commons Commission does not hold data on the proportion of people with permanent passes to the Parliamentary estate who have tested positive for covid-19. Where data is recorded in relation to the House of Commons, a total of 11 positive test results have been recorded for the period March to October 2020.
Covid-19: Parliamentary Estate — House of Commons, 2020-10-15
Topic: Health
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hope is that as many Members as possible will take the opportunity to have the flu jab this year. The House of Commons does not collate any particular information on that, but I think all of us in the House would encourage all our constituents and all Members of Parliament to do what they can to secure the flu jab to keep everybody safe.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-10-15
Topic: Health
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I recognise the need for this action, but it is critical that those called on to isolate, whether as individuals or through a lockdown, receive the financial support to do so. Avoiding the social and economic impact of repeated local lockdowns depends on driving down community transmission through testing and tracing every single case and finding and isolating their contacts in the short window before they, too, become infectious Tracing systems based on local public health teams, such as in Scotland, Wales and now in some parts of England, have all outperformed the centralised Serco system, which has barely reached three quarters of cases and well under two thirds of contacts. I welcome that local public health teams will now be directly involved in contact tracing in areas of high covid spread, but will the Secretary of State now have them lead contact tracing in all areas across England to help to get the test, trace and isolate system working effectively? Will he ensure that appropriate financial resources are moved to local authorities to fund this Unfortunately, the hospitality industry is being hit particularly hard, both by the virus itself and the restrictions to control it. As we now know, covid is spread by airborne particles as well as droplets, and it has become clear that ventilation is key to reducing viral spread indoors. Will the Secretary of State ask the Chancellor to promote the installation of filtered ventilation units by removing VAT and making them tax deductible? In that way, the Government could help the hospitality industry to make its premises more covid secure, rather than having repeatedly to shut it down every time cases surge.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-11-12
Topic: Defense
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): The noble Lord reminds us about the draft code of conduct. It spells out considerations that relate to the threat of hostile activity and lists a number of factors, one of which, in the context of the stop not being arbitrary, is to have consideration of "possible current, emerging … hostile activity", which is understandable, and "future hostile activity". Can the Minister explain the distinction between emerging and future hostile activity?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-10-15
Topic: Health
Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Scotland made use of a summer of lower cases to get its public health-based contact tracing system up and running. It is reaching over 90% of cases and contacts. Can the Secretary of State tell us by when the UK Government hope their Serco track and trace will reach even 70% of community contacts?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-10-15
Topic: Health
David Michael Doogan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Operation Moonshot was the UK Government’s latest world-beating covid intervention, but it seems that it has perhaps missed its target and is heading off into deep space. The public did not ask for world-beating; they asked for competent, and they deserve availability. Can the Secretary of State advise us on whether there are any positive signals from Operation Moonshot? When will it be rolled out nationally, or is it another testing failure?
Covid-19: Care Homes — House of Lords, 2020-05-20
Topic: Health
Margaret Eileen Joyce Wheeler (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this Urgent Question taken yesterday in the Commons on coronavirus and care homes covered much of the ground in the Statement taken by us last night. Sadly, it is clear that Ministers’ claims to have thrown a protective ring around care homes ring hollow in the light of the latest ONS figures on deaths in care homes: 9,495 residents in England and 480 in Wales. These figures are still ringing alarm bells, as the number of deaths involving Covid-19 as a percentage of all care home deaths continues to rise this week. As Martin Green of Care England told MPs yesterday, most care home residents should have been prioritised from the start. He also stressed that there are still huge issues with testing, with results lost and staff waiting eight to 10 days to find out whether they have coronavirus I ask the Minister about reports on the PHE study on genome tracking to investigate outbreaks in care homes, which last month found that bank and temporary agency care workers, often employed on zero-hours contracts, had unwittingly transmitted Covid-19 between care homes as cases surged and they were moved from home to home to cover staff vacancies. Does this not raise even further doubts and questions about this ring of protection? Why was this issue not recognised early on as a crucial factor in any infection-control strategy?
Covid-19: Care Homes — House of Lords, 2020-05-20
Topic: Health
Leslie Turnberg (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, among the many reasons why we have done so badly in protecting our care home residents from this dreadful illness is the almost complete lack of adequate public health services at the local level. A few years ago, when I was chairman of the then Public Health Laboratory Service, we had a robust network of public health expertise in every locality which did all the testing and tracing of infectious diseases across the country. All that has been eroded over very many years, and I fear we have lost that local expertise—the doctors and the other staff that could have done the job that we are now left struggling to fulfil far too late. I ask the noble Lord whether he will make it a priority now, as a matter of urgency, to begin to fill that huge gap in our network of local public health services.
Covid-19: Care Homes — House of Lords, 2020-05-20
Topic: Health
Alfred Dubs (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in answer to an earlier question, the Minister said that it was not appropriate to compare us with what happened in Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore, which had no deaths in care homes at all. He preferred to compare us with Europe. Is the truth not that we took our eye off the ball and that as a country we failed to learn from what was happening elsewhere? We failed to learn good practice and we actually lost two months, where we did nothing very much until we tried to catch up just now. Surely we failed pretty badly.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-09-17
Topic: Health
James Neale Hanvey (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On 21 July, during this summer’s nadir of new covid cases, I pressed the Government’s chief medical officer on the need to expand testing capacity. In that meeting of the Health and Social Care Committee, he stated that he would not consider that until there was evidence of a new surge in cases. Now we are in the grip of a second wave, with mounting chaos in testing capacity. Who should resign? The Secretary of State? The chief medical officer? Or do Ministers in this Government resign only when they refuse to break international law?
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-01-28
Topic: Health
Nick Herbert (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I draw attention to the relevant interest in the register, which I have declared. I welcome the Prime Minister’s Statement yesterday and, in particular, the remarkable rollout of the vaccine which has, rightly, impressed so many. Would my noble friend accept, however, that, despite fully recognising what she said about the advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation—and of course we all accept the view that the most vulnerable people should be vaccinated first—there are particular claims from groups of people for priority for the vaccine that we should listen to? In particular, the police—although I accept there are many others—are on the front line, very often putting their own lives at risk. A view has been expressed by the Police Federation and others that the police service and in particular front-line officers should be recognised when it comes to decisions about who should be vaccinated next. Can my noble friend take that view to the relevant authorities?
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-01-28
Topic: Health
Natalie Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my noble friend for setting out an eloquent case for the police, as indeed many others do for teachers and many of the other keyworkers who we have been so relying on, and we are so grateful for all their help and work during the pandemic. As he alluded to, I set out the fact that we are following the advice from the JCVI, and I am sure that it hears the strong cases that people put forward. I reassure my noble friend that the JCVI has considered evidence on the risk of exposure and mortality by occupation. Under the priority group’s advice, those over 50 years of age and all adults in a risk group would be eligible for a vaccination in the first phase of the programme. This prioritisation catches almost all preventable deaths from Covid, including those associated with occupational exposure to infection.
Proceedings During the Pandemic (No. 4) — House of Commons, 2020-09-02
Topic: Health
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): That is the whole point: if we get into a second wave in the winter, and there are more local lockdowns and more people who are ill or have to stay at home and shield, that is all the more for reason for people to be able to participate virtually.
Coronavirus Act 2020: Temporary Provisions — House of Lords, 2020-09-28
Topic: Health
David Blunkett (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall do my best to adhere to the stricture about four minutes. I reiterate the accolades placed on the shoulders of the Minister on Friday; he has an impossible task On 24 March, I was surprised to find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, at Second Reading of the emergency Bill—it was probably as surprising to him as it was to me. For once in my life, I advocated caution and proportionality, and expressed concern not just about the nature of the emergency Bill but about the increasing use of the public health Act of 1984 to which the Minister referred. It is the two Acts together that I want in my short time to deal with, and the use by fiat and diktat of the 1984 Act—which was obviously intended to provide powers to tackle the pandemic and the control of diseases—without recourse to democratic accountability and the ability to hold the Government properly to account. It is not the individual measures that I want to deal with but the overall direction We need confidence, clarity and consistency. We are lacking in confidence, which is undermined almost daily, particularly by the broadcast media and some irresponsible people on social media. We have a total lack of clarity about exactly what works, when it works and how it should work, and we have been completely lacking in consistency On what the Minister said about the Act, it is commendable that more than 60,000 people were brought back into the health service and many reregistered, but we have a 30% shortfall in the use of capacity in the NHS, because following the decanting of people from beds and the clearing of facilities we have got nowhere near back to normal. As a consequence, diagnoses are delayed, treatment is deferred and people who should not be dying are dying of serious illnesses. Where are the 60,000-odd people to ensure that that can be dealt with, either through primary care or the reopening of wards These are crucial questions that need to be answered, but I have one final point to make to the Minister. Can we persuade the Government to reshape and refresh the scientific advisory group on the emergency? Many of them have done a fantastic job, but they are tired. They reinforce one another, and we have silly statements coming from some people who ought to know better about locking down the over-45s. It is time to let students get on with learning and to stop pretending that universities can provide both research and teaching without the money to do so. It is time to ensure that young people can get on with their lives. While the rest of us should take greater measures to protect ourselves, we as a nation need to ensure that we protect our democratic procedures, our legitimacy and consent within government. We have the power to ask the difficult questions that other people would rather not hear.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2020-10-12
Topic: Health
Richard Gordon Thomson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Last week, prompted by data and scientific advice, the Scottish Government acted to introduce new restrictions to halt the spread of the virus. The measures, which were criticised at the time by Scottish Conservative politicians, have been largely followed by the Prime Minister this afternoon. It is vital that businesses and individuals get the financial support that they need through this crisis. In that case, why will the Prime Minister not match the public health powers that the devolved Governments already have with the financial powers which would allow them to do whatever it takes, whenever it is necessary, to support businesses and individuals, instead of always having to hope that eventually his Government will catch up?