argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
NHS: Shared Business Services — House of Lords, 2017-06-27
Topic: Health
James O’Shaughnessy (Conservative, Centre-right): I will answer the noble Lord’s four questions. The first was on taking advice from officials. I think the noble Lord would probably be alarmed if the Secretary of State was not taking advice from officials. That should be welcomed. It is clearly the case that he was thinking on his own, because he took the decision to follow that advice in the first instance in March, but was of the view by July that enough was known and that it was important to update Parliament before recess The second question was about the timing of the Statement. The noble Lord will remember that summer 2016 was a reasonably busy period after the EU referendum. The main point here is that the Statement was made before recess and was not held back until the autumn. As regards NHS Shared Business Services and the consequences for it, those consequences have been severe: it no longer has this contract and will, as my right honourable friend confirmed in another place just now, pay its share of the costs Finally, as my right honourable friend said, it could appear that there was a potential for conflict of interest, but in his view there was not one, because at all times—as confirmed in the NAO report—patient safety was the driving force behind the actions of the department and NHS England. It will always be the case, whatever arrangements the department has with an ALB—whether a standard agency, a joint company or whatever it is—that patient safety must come first. That was confirmed in the NAO report today.
NHS: Shared Business Services — House of Lords, 2017-06-27
Topic: Health
James O’Shaughnessy (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness will know that I was not in post at the end of last summer, so I cannot explain why there were the number of Statements that there were. I know that Governments of perhaps different hues have also tended to put out Written Statements, so I do not think any political party is entirely innocent in this regard. The point is that the information was made available to Parliament On the point about cost settlement, there are interested parties here and the costs need to be settled once we have got to the bottom of exactly what has happened and once those inquiries and indeed the investigations into the potential for patient harm have been settled. I underline that as yet no instances of patient harm have been discovered Finally, the point about privatisation is quite an important one. The noble Baroness will know that the private sector is involved in the delivery of all parts of the NHS. Breach of contract, which is what this is, and the covering up of mistakes happen in all parts of the health service—public, private, shared and all the rest of it. It is not a case of "private sector bad, public sector good": we know that from instances like Mid Staffs and so on. The core point is that we need very strong data security standards, and that is why the Government will be responding in due course to the Caldicott review and the review of these issues by the CQC.
NHS: Shared Business Services — House of Lords, 2017-06-27
Topic: Health
Christopher Samuel Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): Could I press the Minister further on shared costs? Why is the company paying only some of the costs? Is the NHS paying the rest of the costs or is there some other body, public or private, that is going to put up some of the money? It is difficult to understand why the company is not paying the whole of the costs.
NHS: Shared Business Services — House of Lords, 2017-06-27
Topic: Health
James O’Shaughnessy (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, this specific case was a joint venture between a private company and the Department of Health, which has a share and director places on the board. The department had a director on the board of this joint venture throughout. Part of the problem was that the issue of this unacceptable practice was not brought to the attention of the board until far too late in the process. That is obvious from the timeline that has been set out. The particular issue about redirection is no longer the case. Mail is now returned to sender if it is not delivered, rather than creating opportunities for the things going wrong that happened through this redirection service.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-06
Topic: Health
Alexander Scrymgeour (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern has just implied, in performing its functions clearly the OfS should not just have regard to current and known needs as they may now be identified. It should also have regard to such needs as may come to light later on. By referring to the latter as "emerging needs" my noble and learned friend has produced a useful amendment, which I hope will be adopted.
Grenfell Tower: Rehousing Update — House of Lords, 2017-07-05
Topic: Defense
John Attlee (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, following the question from my noble friend Lord King, what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that there are no other local authorities that are equally weak in disaster planning and response? Although this was a terrible tragedy, in terms of managing the disaster, it was not particularly difficult. It was very concentrated geographically. What would have happened if a wide-bodied jet had landed somewhere in west London?
Inshore Fisheries — House of Lords, 2017-07-03
Topic: Defense
John Eric Gardiner (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, what the noble Lord said is precisely what so many people are reflecting on: that unity in the United Kingdom is a force for good. I very much endorse the importance of vessels being built for the Royal Navy in Scotland—and in other shipyards, but I am delighted if they are being constructed in those excellent shipyards, which have so much expertise in their workforce, over many generations.
Schools Update — House of Lords, 2017-07-17
Topic: Health
John Nash (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not think that I can confirm that, but we are investing £1.4 billion in child and adolescent mental health. We will produce a Green Paper on mental health later this year, and we have worked closely on a number of pilot projects between mental health and schools. I shall look at this and write to the noble Baroness.
NHS: Contaminated Blood — House of Lords, 2017-07-20
Topic: Health
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as a Member of Parliament around 30 years ago, I was approached on this very tragic issue and became involved. Will my noble friend listen very carefully and talk to the Secretary of State about the point just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher? We cannot have a department that is judge and jury. The Department of Health is being investigated. We need an inquiry presided over by a judge, answerable perhaps to the Cabinet Office, as has been mentioned, or perhaps to the Ministry of Justice, but it cannot be to the Department of Health. I urge my noble friend to take that message, which I rather infer is supported throughout your Lordships’ House, to the Secretary of State.
Defence and Security — House of Lords, 2017-03-21
Topic: Defense
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): That this House takes note of the current challenges to the international rules-based order; the preparedness of the United Kingdom’s Armed Forces and of the NATO Alliance; and the levers available to Her Majesty’s Government to promote this country’s defence and security interests.
Personal Independence Payments — House of Lords, 2017-02-28
Topic: Health
Oliver Michael Robert Eden (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I can give that assurance. As I made quite clear in my earlier remarks, we have seen a growth in the support for people with disabilities and for those with mental health problems. As I said, we spend something in the region of £50 billion a year supporting people with disabilities and health conditions, and we are investing more in mental health than ever before.
Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-02-24
Topic: Health
Philippa Stroud (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Winston, for the time he has given me to understand fully his amendment, and I put on the record my deep admiration and respect for so much of the work he has done Of all people, the noble Lord, Lord Winston, will be only too aware of the extraordinary medical progress that is being made in perinatal and neonatal care. In this Bill we should be advocating for the best treatment of children with disabilities. The provision of holistic care, including perinatal and neonatal hospice care at the end of life, can help to ensure that these babies are treated with dignity, care and love. While the life expectancy of these babies may well be brief, they do have a life and are significant family members who will be valued, remembered and treasured The Northern Ireland Executive have recently set out a commitment to provide such hospice care in the Department of Health’s 10-year plan on palliative care for children. I hope that we will see such care being provided elsewhere in the UK. Perhaps the Minister can comment on that Amendment 1, aside from being antithetical to the spirit of the Bill, is fraught with difficulties, as we have heard in the debate. Taking the amendment in the order of its wording, what would be judged to be a "high probability?". We have heard that question repeatedly in the debate. Is that more than 90%, more than 50%, or 65%? How would the decision about likely death be made? Would that be with or without treatment, since conditions may be classified as the same but manifest varying symptoms, from those which may be lethal to those which may in fact be treatable or not immediately lethal? In my meeting earlier with the noble Lord, Lord Winston, we discussed cleft palate, which can be very severe or quite minor and correctable. How long would "shortly after" need to be to qualify? Would it be a matter of hours or days or months? What would count as a "serious fetal anomaly", since that is not even a medical term? Amendment 1 does not bring any certainty; rather, it raises more questions than answers These questions demonstrate how the law would treat these children differently from those without disabilities. It would again enshrine the discrimination that my noble friend Lord Shinkwin is seeking to eliminate, and I encourage noble Lords not to support the amendment.
Children: Gambling Advertisements — House of Lords, 2017-09-14
Topic: Health
Peter Gummer (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank all noble Lords for their excellent contributions to this debate, which I have greatly enjoyed and from which I have learned a great deal. My noble friend Lady Bloomfield referred to my time as chair of Action on Addiction. That experience convinced me that I have the addiction gene, if there is such a thing, and workaholism is my preferred addiction. I never fell foul of a gambling addiction, mainly because I was brought up in a small Welsh family and my parenting was remarkably good. In the Government’s proposals, I shall look for what they are doing to help parents in today’s families to deal with the mixed methods of gambling and manage their children with the same success as my parents managed me.
National Shipbuilding Strategy — House of Lords, 2017-09-06
Topic: Defense
Thomas Jeremy King (Conservative, Centre-right): I had the privilege of working closely with Sir John Parker during his leadership of Harland & Wolff, and I was not surprised to see the quality of the report that he produced. I was particularly interested, given the seemingly inevitable increase in the cost of frigates, which is more and more prohibitive, in the proposal for the Type 31e as a utility, general purpose frigate, which might have some export potential I add one point, which the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, raised: there is a reference in, I think, paragraph 55 about the steel supply. I thought that I might not be the only one of your Lordships who, having admired enormously the opening by Her Majesty of the new Forth bridge, saw with some disappointment that all the steel for that bridge was Chinese. I hope that, certainly in the shipbuilding policy in the years that lie ahead, we can see a much greater contribution from British suppliers for British ships.
National Shipbuilding Strategy — House of Lords, 2017-09-06
Topic: Defense
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for his question. I am probably even less familiar with quarterdecks than I am with the design and construction of ships. On the question of frigates, my understanding of the position is that, at the moment, we have 13 Type 23 frigates and that there will be eight Type 26 and five Type 31e frigates—that is 13 frigates if my arithmetic is correct. These will be supported by six Type 45 destroyers. I hope that answers the fundamental question about what is replacing what On the other aspect of the noble Lord’s question about how do we know that we can grow the Navy, I point out that if we take the total of eight Type 26 frigates, five Type 31e frigates and six Type 45 destroyers, it is 19 ships. We are committed to maintaining 19 destroyers and frigates—that is a government commitment and it brings balance to the Royal Navy. The Secretary of State is very clear that we want not only to energise the whole process of shipbuilding but to energise what we are doing with defence and to look to enlarge our defence facility. What we have today, with the pledges and commitments made by the Government and the explanation given as to how it proposes to develop and implement the strategy, will, I hope, reassure the noble Lord that there will be many quarterdecks to pound in the medium-term future.
National Shipbuilding Strategy — House of Lords, 2017-09-06
Topic: Defense
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): On the back of Sir John Parker’s report, a very careful assessment has been made of what he recommends. His recommendations carry considerable authority and are based on profound experience and a great degree of expertise. What the Secretary of State for Defence announced earlier goes a long way towards putting flesh on these proposals, not just announcing the text of a strategy, but also making clear what we are already doing to begin delivering it For example, as regards the three Type 26 frigates—in which I have a personal interest as they are being built on the Clyde—the steel has been cut for the first frigate, HMS "Glasgow", and the contracts have been signed for another two of these Type 26 frigates. The other five, which will make up the aggregate total of eight, will be built in the Govan and Scotstoun yards. There is 20 years of work in that. That is great news for the Clyde, but there are also huge opportunities for those yards that want to tender for the Type 31e frigates. It seems to me that very much provides substance to the aspirations and the text of the strategy. There is actually stuff happening in our yards as we speak, and that is down to the Government’s commitment to make that happen and the desire of our shipbuilding industry to play a part in this and respond imaginatively to it. That is a very positive development.
National Shipbuilding Strategy — House of Lords, 2017-09-06
Topic: Defense
Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I, too, welcome my noble friend to what she may find is the somewhat vexed subject of defence. In 2010, we reduced the cost of the Type 26 global combat ship to, we thought, something below £350 million. The eight of them will now cost £8 billion, which, by my maths, works out at about £1 billion each. What guarantees will the Government put in place to ensure that these new Type 31 frigates do not come in at a similarly inflated cost?
National Shipbuilding Strategy — House of Lords, 2017-09-06
Topic: Defense
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my noble friend for his kind words. On the specific question he raises, it is down, I suppose, to the law of contract. The Government are very clear that, building on what Sir John Parker has said, there now has to be much greater clarity about both design and specification, what we seek and what we ask the shipbuilders to indicate in their tenders that they can produce. At the end of the day, we need a price tag attached to that. Contracts have been signed for three of the Type 26 ships at a price of £3.7 billion. We anticipate that very rigorous and careful assessment will be made of any future contracts for the Type 31e ships, because at the heart of what Sir John Parker recommends is that we not only have to have a modern facility suited to the needs of the modern age and the threats posed by it, but we have to have an efficient means of procuring these ships, paying for them and ensuring that we also ask our shipyards to contemplate sustainable futures by being able to diversify, and seek in many cases to tender for other vessels that may not necessarily be of the warship type.
National Shipbuilding Strategy — House of Lords, 2017-09-06
Topic: Defense
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, raises two interesting points. On the back of the defence reviews, there is more clarity about budget. No one is pretending that budget is an easy subject—it is not—but, equally, there is a responsibility to take seriously, with regard to one of our primary services, the Royal Navy, the recommendations of Sir John Parker, and that is what the Government are endeavouring to do. The whole point about having a naval facility is that we cannot have a kind of naval facility; we have to have one that is relevant to the needs of the current age. Sir John Parker has greatly assisted in identifying not only what that should be but how we do it The Type 31e will be a different kind of vessel and will have an innovatory, modular type of design. It will be specifically built to introduce a flexibility that we hope will be attractive to potential export customers. The expectation in the industry is that that is a reasonable assessment, and it will be rigorously prosecuted by both the Government and the shipbuilding industry.
National Shipbuilding Strategy — House of Lords, 2017-09-06
Topic: Defense
Jeffrey Sterling (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I very much welcome this announcement. As some of your Lordships will be aware, I had a project done by King’s College London on the advantages of sovereign purchases in this country. It will give a huge amount of business to a large number of small suppliers, apart from the major companies we are talking about. From the point of view of how successful it will be, taking into consideration the points made by noble Lords, Sir John and I worked together for many years, building ships all over the world. I will make two points. First, if you are going to deliver well, you cannot have interference—too many cooks in the kitchen—as regards what you should or should not be doing. Secondly, can we do it? Do we have expertise in this country to do it? Unquestionably, yes, we do. A great deal of that expertise today is in design firms. One of the biggest problems we have had in the past in this country is that we have "prototypitis"—we go on trying to do it. That has happened, and I am afraid that, frankly, Type 26 is an extremely good example of it On the points which have been made by other noble Peers here, will it be enough? Many of us have said in previous debates on defence that, unquestionably, it will not. Following Brexit, the Queen’s Speech and the Prime Minister’s speeches, we are going global again—we are going back to our old responsibilities worldwide. That means presence; you need presence if you are to be seen to have hard power. I do not believe that the number of those frigates or workhorses—call them whatever you want—will be enough. When we are talking about the time it will take, we need many more. I would like to see us coming up to at least 25 of those frigates in years to come Finally, if you are really going to get an industry going in this country, the only way it happens from a business point of view and everything else we are involved in is that you have to have continuity. They have to know that shipping orders will be given for the next five, 10, 15, 20 or 30 years. That is how you build up the expertise, knowledge and resources to be able to do it. However, having said that, I very much welcome this announcement. If we can get our act together to get more moneys for the armed services, which are absolutely vital, and if we can get the people to join us—this will be key in the future—that will be marvellous.
National Health Service (Mandate Requirements) Regulations 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-09-06
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Redfern (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I rise to speak on this regret Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who I am sure, like me, together with all users of the NHS, will acknowledge that the NHS has a unique place at the heart of our society and is by some distance the institution that makes us most proud to be British. However, it is regrettable that the NHS has become a bit of a political football year-in, year-out I would like to talk about the many positive areas in the NHS and about how people are working very hard to move towards these targets. Yes, pressures, including seasonal pressures, are all in the mix, yet despite these pressures the NHS approaches its 70th year delivering outstanding care, and it is important today to acknowledge and thank all staff who work in the health service, as well as encourage and support a healthy morale for our future workforce. As we all know, the NHS depends on a strong economy. A strong NHS can contribute to the growth of that strong economy, especially in health and life sciences, not just now but in the future We see plenty of pluses. We are getting healthier but we are using the NHS more, with life expectancy rising by five hours a day, as the noble Lord, Lord Reid, alluded to. The need for care in a modern NHS continues to grow apace. The number of people aged over 85 has increased by 40%, and the number of patients receiving elective treatment grew from around 14.2 million in 2012-13 to 15.7 million in 2016-17—an increase of 11%. That is a fantastic result. Calculations indicate that over the next 20 years we shall see the percentage of people over the age of 85 double. I note also that the total number of people on the elective waiting list in April 2012 was 2.5 million. By March 2017 this had increased to 3.7 million—an increase of 51% and another fantastic result. I note also that when Labour left office, including Members on the Benches opposite, more than 18,000 people were waiting more than 52 weeks to start treatment. Now, the figure is under 1,700 Only last year, the CQC in-patient survey showed continuous improvement over the past five years, with 62% of respondents saying that they were satisfied with the running of the NHS. NHS funding is being increased and we will see over £0.5 trillion being injected from 2015 to 2020, but with more cash injection the NHS must show that it can spend that cash wisely and efficiently. Therefore, I look forward to a strong and sustainable NHS fit for purpose and fit for the future, where all parties can work together, so that we have a safe, patient-focused health service that is the best in the world.