argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
National Health Service (Cross-Border Healthcare and Miscellaneous Amendments etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-27
Topic: Health
Dorothea Glenys Thornton (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the noble Baroness for that extensive explanation, her answers to questions, and the detail and attention she has given this statutory instrument I was struck by a couple of things the noble Baroness said. The fact that all those countries have had to pass no-deal legislation is perhaps not the best way to make friends and influence people as we move forward in our new relationships. That is just a comment on the uncertain world we are now entering Dozens of the SIs before us have not been criticised by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, but this one was. That is why it merited particular attention in your Lordships’ House. A regret amendment will not stop its progress; it is actually just that: it regrets that the Government needed that criticism and attention from the statutory instrument committee I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who asked some extremely pertinent questions. Indeed, through his persistence, the noble Lord got the right answer to the question—I was sitting here waiting to hear the Minister say that, yes, the list would have to be issued on that date. I agree with the noble Lord that the need for speed if we crash out will be absolutely paramount. I thank my noble friend Lord Foulkes for his commendation and for the support he has given during the course of the recent Act I thank the Minister for her reassurance and of course I accept that we need this statutory instrument on the statute book. It underlines the fact that we are going yet one more step further down the road of uncertainty. The people who need our National Health Service have been badly served by the Brexiteers in this whole argument. That lie on the side of the bus was such a big lie—and here we are discussing the welfare of millions of our fellow citizens. We should really not be here having to do that based on those lies. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Hospitals: Listeria — House of Lords, 2019-06-17
Topic: Health
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Answer to this Urgent Question. Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the families of those who have tragically died as a result of the outbreak and those who have fallen sick Professor Jose Vazquez-Boland, chair of infectious diseases at the University of Edinburgh, warned in the media over the weekend that: "Pre-packed sandwiches are recurrently incriminated in the UK in listeriosis episodes" This is a concerning revelation, with potentially widespread implications for food packaging, storage and distribution Over the weekend the Health Secretary announced that he had ordered a "root-and-branch" review of hospital food. Can the Minister outline exactly what this review will entail and when it is expected to report back? Does the Minister believe the review should be industry-wide, given that the supplier, the Good Food Chain, also supplies sporting venues, businesses and universities nationwide?
NATO — House of Lords, 2019-04-02
Topic: Defense
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): As usual, the noble Lord is making an interesting and challenging speech, to which I relate in many respects. Perhaps he could underline the point he made about the immediate situation, and how important it is to hear from the Minister in his reply, regarding the current doubt as to whether several of our battalions could fight effectively because of the lack of manpower.
NATO — House of Lords, 2019-04-02
Topic: Defense
Alan William John West (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister not think there are real dangers in the route the EU is going down, with PESCO, the European Defence Fund and the fact that, in our negotiations with it, on a couple of occasions now we have been stonewalled when it comes to UK industry being involved in things—and one can think separately of Galileo? Is it doing the best for the defence of us all in a European or NATO context?
Huawei — House of Lords, 2019-04-25
Topic: Defense
Alan William John West (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I apologise for leaping in earlier; it is not like Radio 4. It is an absolute disgrace that things discussed at the National Security Council are leaked. I hope the Minister can tell us exactly what is to be done about this and how it will be looked into. It is really disgraceful On the work that is going on, does the Minister not agree that it is really important to complete that full survey? This is such a complex subject. Many of the firms referred to have exactly the same sort of problems as Huawei does. We have used Huawei since 2009. We know there are risks. We must never forget that China is a very real risk—let us face it: it has, on an industrial scale, stolen IP from us—but that does not mean that we cannot use its equipment in certain ways, as long as our experts are able to modify that risk.
Healthcare (European Economic Area and Switzerland Arrangements) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-19
Topic: Health
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, on a point of clarification, the Minister said—in an impeccable way—exactly what changes have been made by the Government. She also said that the amendments we have put forward have, understandably, to be approved by the other place. However, does not the change of the title to the Healthcare (European Economic Area and Switzerland Arrangements) Bill, which is very welcome, imply that the Government are accepting the amendments that this House has made? That is my understanding; is it also the Minister’s?
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
David George Clark (Labour, Centre-left): We are very keen that the Government’s attempt to have a proper plan should work. The Minister knows that the staff are working under shortages of numbers and terrible shortages of finance. The Government go on and on about promised increased finance. According to the Health Foundation, funding for the wider health budget, which includes public health, will in real terms be £1 billion less in the next financial year. Are they right?
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Frank Ashcroft Judd (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, with longevity still at record levels, is the Minister satisfied that in the plan for the future new doctors coming into the service get sufficient support in their training on dealing with the dying and their families, or is it often just left to them to pick it up in their professional work? The same sorts of issues arise in mental health. If you are treating mental health, of course there is often a great deal of stress within families. How far do these plans take into account family support, at the same time as the treatment of those with mental illness?
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Peter Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership. There is much to welcome in this White Paper’s implementation—after all, a lot of the ideas were taken from Greater Manchester in the first place so we are pleased about that. We are particularly pleased about population health being a major factor now within government. I want to raise again two of the main issues that noble Lords have already raised. First, in deciding on local needs, if we think about only health we are missing a lot. Many times when people present with health symptoms, other social and economic issues are causing them to present. It could be loneliness or unemployment, but all these things create ill health in people and we need to think of things in the round rather than just about health. Secondly, I have a local government background, as Members know, but I must emphasise that unless we get social care right the NHS will grind to a halt. There is a real crisis in social care at the moment; it needs more money and there is no flexibility. We cannot solve the issues in the NHS unless we resolve care as well.
Older Persons: Provision of Public Services — House of Lords, 2019-06-13
Topic: Culture
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving me a couple of minutes. It has been an exceptional debate. My only regret is that it has not been at prime time, when more Members would have been here to hear the wonderful eloquence of the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern; the plea for art and culture from my noble friend Lord Howarth; the speech of my noble friend Lord O’Neill, who I welcome back from his hospital bed; and the contributions of all those noble Lords I have not mentioned. It has been a tremendous debate However, the Minister answered many questions on loneliness—he was helpful on that and other matters—but he has not answered the crucial question even though my noble friend Lord Browne put him under tremendous pressure. There were questions about the practicability of the BBC running this scheme—it will be impractical—and, on enforceability, whether the Government have the ability to make the BBC do what it apparently promised. I can assure the Minister that, as far as the TV licence issue is concerned, we will return to it again and again until we get a proper answer and action These older people, who have given so much to society, depend on TV for contact, news, entertainment and information. They deserve more from us and more from the Government, and we will return to this issue again and again until we get proper answers from the Government.
Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2019-10-22
Topic: Health
William Manuel Morris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too pay tribute to the gracious Speech. I declare an interest: I have family members who have worked in the NHS for many years In the gracious Speech we were told: "Measures will be brought forward to support and strengthen the National Health Service, its workforce and resources"— so, a promise of new hospitals to replace leaking, creaking, not fit for purpose buildings. But why were they allowed to get into that state in the first place? While some 34 hospitals will receive £100 million in initial funding for development projects, the money will not be available for some years Over recent weeks, my attention has been caught by a number of reports on the NHS. Rachel Clarke, a palliative care doctor working in the NHS, wrote in the Guardian about staff trying to care for their patients amid collapsing ceilings, broken boilers and unsafe fire cladding. But she says that it is people, not bricks and mortar, that the NHS is really crying out for. The Care Quality Commission reported that more than half of the A&E units in England are providing sub-standard care because they are understaffed and cannot cope with the continuing surge in patient numbers. Sally Warren of the King’s Fund reports: "Staff are working under enormous strain as services struggle to recruit, train and retain enough staff with the necessary skills" Nick Scriven from the Society for Acute Medicine told of an inadequate workforce that is haemorrhaging senior staff. He warns that the NHS is reaching a vital tipping point where care will be compromised. But as well as an urgent need for more trained staff, the Government need to act on ways to reduce waiting lists and bed-blocking Dame Sally Davies, the retiring Chief Medical Officer, recently called on politicians to put children’s health before company profits. She demanded tough action against the tide of junk food, which is causing obesity and shortening lives. Ten primary school children in every 30 are overweight, which in later life will lead to heart disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes In April 2018, the Government put a tax on sugary drinks, which has resulted in manufacturers cutting sugar content by nearly 29%. It is reckoned to have taken 90 million kilos of sugar out of the nation’s diet. But, during the Tory leadership campaign, Boris Johnson, not yet Prime Minister, pledged to halt any new "sin tax"—his words—on sugary drinks. That same day, obesity was named by Cancer Research UK as causing more cases of four common cancers than smoking. The Government was urged to put a tax on sugar and calories in everyday foods consumed by children. Instead, in March 2017, they challenged companies to reduce sugar and calories in those foods by 20% by 2020. So far, companies have managed a less than 5% reduction. How much healthier might the nation be if it had been a tax rather than a challenge? The Prime Minister apparently prefers to listen to the manufacturers and sellers of junk food in dealing with a health crisis—one assumes for company profits rather than the health of the nation.
Intelligence and Security Committee Report — House of Lords, 2019-11-05
Topic: Defense
Alan William John West (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare an interest, having been the deputy chairman of the JIC for three years, director of naval intelligence for three years, chief of defence intelligence for three years and Security Minister for three years. It seems that usual procedures are for the obedience of fools. This seems a slightly different report. While I would be the first to say that we must never give away any of our country’s secrets, I do not believe that in this case there is any likelihood of that. This has a nuance of something else. By holding it back, we are creating an area of uncertainty and a feeling that something is being hidden. Will the Minister go back and ask again whether the Prime Minister could read the report—I do not believe he has from what the Minister has said—and then, having read it, perhaps make a rapid decision to have it released?
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-07-17
Topic: Health
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): In thanking the Minister, I also thank his official, Chris Atkinson. I also place on record what is, I am sure, the view of the whole House that the WAVE Trauma Centre, which has campaigned for this for 10 years, deserves to be acknowledged for what has been magnificent persistence: I think we should pay tribute to it.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Lords, 2019-10-07
Topic: Health
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Answer. The family of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe continues to raise concerns over her mental health, and reports emerging today suggest that this may be exacerbated by solitary confinement and being deprived of medicine. Nazanin is awaiting the outcome of her appeal to an Iranian health commission, in which she is seeking release from jail on the grounds of ill health. Can the Minister confirm when the FCO expects the judgment and what exact support is being offered in relation to the appeal?
The Situation in the Gulf — House of Lords, 2019-07-22
Topic: Defense
John Davies (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the noble Lord has just listed a series of diplomatic initiatives taken with Iran over the last few days and the last few years and said that Iran had behaved in an unacceptable fashion. Is it not the case that not a single one of those initiatives had any success whatever? It has been a complete and utter blank. To say, "Well, we needed to exhaust diplomatic initiatives before we did anything else", is simply absurd in the light of the record we are facing today The Minister has also made the most momentous revelation today in the House, which is that we have only one frigate in the Gulf and will be able to maintain only one frigate in the Gulf, because when "Montrose" is relieved she will not be replaced. That is an absolutely devastating indictment of this Government’s record in defending our shipping interests around the world. When I was in the MoD we had 17 escorts: I think we now have 13 and the number is going down. It is a quite disgraceful record. My noble friend Lord West is absolutely right about this and it is about time that the Government did something about it This is a very troubling, alarming situation. We find ourselves, quite extraordinarily, in a military confrontation with Iran into which we have walked without any idea at all what we were doing. There was no planning at all, no one seems to have given any thought to what the consequences might be of an aggressive enforcement of Syrian sanctions on Syria’s trading partners—not least Iran—and we find ourselves in a shambles. The Government are good at running a shambles, we know that, and this is a particularly dangerous one. In my view, the only thing we can do in these difficult circumstances is to concentrate our naval resources, as far as we can, through the use of the convoy system, but we must urgently build, and not just build, but buy, more escorts for the Royal Navy, with a full range of capability—anti-submarine, surface-to-air and surface-to-surface, because the Minister has revealed today that gunboats were responsible for this latest incident. The surface-to-air must include a ballistic capability, because the Iranians have ballistics. It is a very worrying situation, and we need to respond with great urgency to deal with it.
Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-07-22
Topic: Culture
Elizabeth Andrews (Labour, Centre-left): No, my Lords, I did not say that. I was making a hypothetical case that, were such a grant to be considered—I am not saying that it would be—it would have to satisfy different conditions. Of course I agree that this is a public project for national Treasury funding I have now lost my thread completely. This is the second time that my noble friend has interrupted me when I was developing my strategic thinking. I return to the principle. It is extremely important, for all the reasons we know, that this change is owned by the people we are here to serve. It is absurd not to recognise them in the Bill or to give them a voice We know how to do this, although it is complicated. At what point do you start involving people? How do you structure it? How do you reach out? How do you collect the voices, as it were? But we do it every day in major and minor projects around the country. It is not a miracle; it is a science To take just one example before I close, the National Museum Wales has, I am delighted to say, just won a national museum of the year award. In its redevelopment, which involved a great deal of new building, it involved thousands of people from all manner of excluded groups in the local and national community. The result has been transformational in their and our understanding of what people expect from a national museum This is not a museum. We have a much greater duty. But those principles and methodologies can certainly be adopted and followed.
Spending Round 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-09-25
Topic: Health
John Davies (Labour, Centre-left): I am listening to my noble friend with great attention—he is a great expert on these matters. As an alternative to increasing tax, would it not be possible to consider some compulsory universal insurance system, such as happens on the continent?
Northern Syria: Turkish Incursion — House of Lords, 2019-10-15
Topic: Defense
John Morris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, rather a long time ago, I had ministerial responsibility for all arms exports. In view of the immense concern about the situation, would it not be better to stop all arms exports temporarily, pending the review? Then, if the review is satisfactory, the situation can be considered in that light.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-07-15
Topic: Health
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, that is an extremely constructive response on the part of the Minister, and I welcome it. It is a significant step forward and gives us the opportunity, on the basis of a good, factual account of the situation, to debate the future in autumn in the event that there is not an Assembly and Executive. If there is, that report will no doubt be useful for them too. However, may I just clarify a point of some significance? In the event that there is not an Executive or Assembly in the autumn, under this Bill and the continuation of these powers do the Government have the power to proceed with the establishment of the medical campus in Derry on their own account?
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Lords, 2018-01-08
Topic: Health
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I understand there is a new strain of flu in circulation this year, for which the flu jab was not designed. Does that mean that elderly people, who are particularly vulnerable to this new strain of flu, should have a second inoculation?
Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-03-06
Topic: Health
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the noble Lord for that response. I am happy to withdraw the amendment—I am not going to push it to a vote today—but this is a really important issue. I accept that the Minister’s department is not responsible, but it is just wrong. It is a minority, although a pretty large one, who will charge for these letters. It is unacceptable that that happens in today’s world The issue about the medical records—what is the point of a medical record? Is it being able to use it for other things or is it accurately recording the treatment that has been given? I do not think it is as simple as the record itself will necessarily be helpful enough. People may be reluctant to do that anyway. I do not know what the Department of Health intends to do I am happy to withdraw the amendment today but I am certainly going to keep raising this issue. If I get a Question later in the week I will raise it then. We have to get this changed. I accept that that involves the GP contract. At this stage, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill — House of Lords, 2018-02-22
Topic: Health
Martin O'Neill (Labour, Centre-left): Before the noble Viscount sits down, will he clarify something? He sought to give us reassurance on medical isotopes and made the point that 40% of them come from South Africa and 60% from the Netherlands and France. Can he tell us whether they are all the same, because the logistical implications of transportation from South Africa are rather different than coming from the Low Countries and north-west France? Are all isotopes the same? I do not think that they are. Which ones come from which places? Is the reassurance that he is giving us quite as robust as he would like it to be?
Tributes: Lord Richard — House of Lords, 2018-03-20
Topic: Defense
John Morris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Ivor was one of my oldest friends. We served together as Ministers in the Ministry of Defence in the 1960s. It seems a long time ago. I looked after equipment and he looked after the Army. After his distinguished diplomatic career, he returned to the Bar and again distinguished himself as a very impressive advocate. We both turned up from time to time and appeared at the Old Bailey—professionally of course. My last recollection of him was his comment a few weeks ago that he went to the same elementary school in Carmarthenshire as Jim Griffiths, formerly deputy leader of my party and the first Welsh Secretary. Ivor was a proud Welshman who rendered very great service, particularly to future constitutional development. He will be missed.
Syria — House of Lords, 2018-04-16
Topic: Defense
John Morris (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I broadly support the legal advice of the Attorney-General on armed intervention on humanitarian grounds. As Attorney-General, I developed this doctrine in Kosovo, which is an important parallel, again in circumstances in which it was hopeless to expect United Nations action. Legal advice cannot always be certain but will the Government accept that there is an arguable case—a respectable legal argument—which is enough to satisfy our Armed Forces that they have acted legally, on the same basis as they did in Kosovo, as mentioned by the Prime Minister?