argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill — House of Lords, 2021-04-28
Topic: Defense
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, again, after another overwhelming majority in this House, the Government have rejected a duty of care standard for personnel and veterans who face investigations and litigations. This legislation is still very far from doing what it says on the tin: protecting British forces personnel serving overseas from vexatious litigation and shoddy investigations. It still fails to incorporate a duty of care for forces personnel who are faced with allegations, investigations, and litigation The gap was identified by veterans faced with investigation or litigation consistently saying that they are cut adrift by their chain of command and abandoned entirely by the MoD, with no legal, pastoral, or mental health support. Major Bob Campbell made that point so powerfully, from his own dreadful experience, in evidence to the Public Bill Committee in the other place. As the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, has said, "when this new Bill passes into law it will singularly fail to provide the protection that serving and veteran members of the Armed Forces believe it should provide."—[Official Report, 26/4/21; col. 2109.] The Government’s arguments have been weak against this amendment. They argued that they already provide this support, yet a gap has been clearly highlighted time and again. They also argued that it could lead to more troops being caught up in litigation—when all the Government need to do to avoid this is to fulfil their responsibilities—and that the duty of care amendment has drafting issues, when the Government have failed to produce their own version, as with the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Robertson With prorogation fast approaching, I accept that we should not divide on this amendment tonight. I will be entirely happy if the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, withdraws his amendment for now, but I urge the Minister to think hard about this, as we will return to this issue in the Armed Forces Bill.
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-07-15
Topic: Health
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): I wonder if the Minister could help me a little with the Government’s logic. Care home workers on zero-hour contracts are to be forced to get vaccinated without even a single guaranteed paid day off to recover from side-effects. A significant step change on domestic Covid passports is to be decided on by businesses themselves and regulated by them, despite all the problems with testing and tracing. Yet something as light touch and common sense as wearing a mask in shops and on public transport is not to be a legal requirement. What is behind this mask aversion and confusion—scientific evidence or Trumpian culture wars?
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-07-15
Topic: Health
John Lawrence Whitty (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I return to the confusing advice on masks. In the early weeks of the pandemic, some of the worst levels of deaths occurred among transport workers. They were inevitably faced with potential infection for several hours a day. It was particularly true of bus drivers, including a very good friend and neighbour of mine who died from Covid a few months before his retirement. With the advent of compulsory mask-wearing on public transport, driver hospitalisation and deaths fell dramatically. With rising infections and more unpredictable variants, what on earth is the rationale for not making masks mandatory on public transport and in other situations where staff are dealing with an increasingly maskless public?
Afghanistan: FCDO Update — House of Lords, 2021-09-07
Topic: Defense
Desmond Browne (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I was appointed Secretary of State for Defence at a very difficult time for our engagement in Afghanistan. I visited Afghanistan numerous times, in horrible circumstances sometimes, and I worked there with people who were devoted to the future of that country, both in our military and our diplomatic and development services. They know that I have the highest regard for all of them, because I told them so in these circumstances where they were doing the job. I shared those dangers with them, and sometimes was criticised for speaking in Parliament in glowing terms about them and what they were doing. I know what the military, the Diplomatic Service and others have done in the past few weeks, but they would think less of me—because I have many friends among them, and I lost friends among them—if I did not hold the Government to account, and those beyond the Government who have gotten them into this situation when it was a choice and not an inevitability The question in relation to this Statement is what, exactly, does its last page mean? It talks about using the "levers at our disposal—political, economic and diplomatic" to deliver our four strategic objectives, which are very bland in one sense but also very challenging. They are set out in the other part of it. What exactly do we think our options are? We are powerless The Taliban have their international recognition; they are strutting the streets of cities in Afghanistan after 20 years of war with the most powerful armies in the world, wearing their uniforms and carrying their kit, flying their aircraft and driving their vehicles. The people of Afghanistan are terrified of them, because many of them have been alive long enough to know when they last ruled that country, and they know what they are capable of. They are masters of public relations and have given us the impression that we can engage with them and somehow, with options, lever them into being a civilised Government. That is what we are saying that we are doing, but we cannot do it—and we certainly cannot unless our Ministers can come to the Dispatch Box and tell us what those levers are, how they think they will deploy them and why we as the Parliament to which they are accountable should support them to do it The first question is not, "What is the one lever that they provide to us?", which is their desire for recognition, but what levers do we actually control and which they do not pull, to get them not to deliver the sort of horrible, terrible, oppressive and dangerous Government that they were once before? Secondly, we have just had an integrated review in which the Government told us—and it should have terrified us—that their assessment was that we were going to suffer a successful CBRN terrorist attack by 2030 on these islands. Can we be assured that the Government are recalibrating that, because the situation is now much worse?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, to return to my noble friend Lady Thornton’s first question, given the continued rise of the variant mutations and increasing infections, can the Minister report on a simple biological issue? What rapid mathematical calculations are in the Government’s possession to assess and predict the increasing risk of further new variants evolving that may escape the current vaccines or are more virulent? If he is unable to answer this question now, perhaps he will be kind enough to write to me.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, following calls from the BMA, the RCM and Cambridge University Hospitals, can we have an assurance that in every setting where health workers are caring for patients with suspected or confirmed coronavirus, the health worker will be wearing at least a close-fitting FFP3 mask, thereby maximising personal protection? Can we be assured that the wearing of regular masks in such conditions will not be permitted? Mask specification is critical in healthcare settings.
Women’s Health Outcomes — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Pauline Bryan (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, for enabling this important debate. Unlike other health comparisons, the gap between men’s and women’s health is wider in some developed countries than in some less-developed ones. The UK ranks 87th in the world for men’s health, while it ranks 125th for women’s health—38 places lower. This gap puts it 12th in the international list of women’s health inequality. How can this be One of the reasons appears to be the misdiagnosis of women’s symptoms, which I will come to later. A second reason is that women are more likely to live in poverty than men. Whether as single parents, unemployed, on low pay, disabled or as pensioners, women are likely to be poorer than their male counterparts Not all inequalities in health relate to gender. Better-off women can expect 20 additional years of healthy life than those who are worse off. Even before the pandemic, progress on healthy life expectancy had stalled and begun to go backwards. The latest figures show that less than a third of women are still in work by the time they reach retirement age. For many, this is not through choice but because they cannot find work or are actually too ill to work. We are condemning many of these women to spend the remainder of their lives in poverty As we have heard from several speakers, women have to shout louder to get their concerns listened to. Some of the women who have had to shout the loudest are those affected by mesh implants. The independent review chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, produced its report First Do No Harm one year ago today. It found that women describing their excruciating chronic pain were dismissed as imagining it or told it was their "time of life". The report argued that anything and everything that women suffer is perceived as a natural precursor to, part of or a post-symptomatic phase of the menopause. What do the Government intend to do to prevent so many women spending their later years in ill health and poverty? When can we expect the establishment of a redress agency, as proposed in First Do No Harm?
Women’s Health Outcomes — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Anthony Young (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, for this debate and for her thoughtful and informative intro. She pulled no punches—rightly so—in her description of the often painful lifelong journey of women and girls. I welcome the statement by Nadine Dorries, the Minister for Patient Safety, on the government-led women’s health strategy—the first one In May 2020, in response to a Written Question on whether hospitals were required to provide single-sex services, including spaces for patients, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said that the revised guidance on delivering same-sex accommodation published by NHS England and NHS Improvement stated that "providers of National Health Service-funded care are expected to have a zero-tolerance approach to mixed-sex accommodation, except where it is in the overall best interest of all patients" Many NHS trusts interpret that in a number of ways that are not always conducive to the health and treatment of women and girls as patients. As many noble Lords have said, we should be listening to patients and seeking examples of best practice. Women often favour single-sex wards for good reason. Rates of sexual assault are far higher in mixed-sex wards. In 2009, Channel 4 discovered that almost two-thirds of sexual assaults by patients occurred in mixed-sex wards. The Minister stated that there were "no plans to withdraw the guidance." Can I suggest to the Minister that he reconsider this whole issue? He also stated: "NHS trusts have not been asked to provide the information required to make an assessment of the impact of allowing patients to self-identify their gender and there are no plans to ask them to do so." There are many examples of assaults on women in mental hospitals and other areas. Surely we recognise that, when women enter hospital, they do so to experience a calm, safe and non-threatening environment. I ask the Minister to meet Peers concerned about this issue.
Covid Precautions — House of Lords, 2021-09-06
Topic: Health
John McFall (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, before we begin the business for the day, I would like to note that this is the first day in 18 months that we will be operating under our normal procedures, with a few innovations from the hybrid House which your Lordships decided to keep in July That does not mean that the pandemic is over, and Members will have read my message last week summarising actions we can all take to lessen the risk of Covid to ourselves and to the staff of the House. I particularly emphasise the position agreed by the commission that all Members should wear face coverings in the Chamber, Grand Committee and Select Committees unless they are speaking. This is an important thing we can each do to protect other people. I also remind Members to remain socially distanced from staff working in the Chamber.
Covid-19 — House of Lords, 2021-09-15
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Andrews (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, if I may pursue this with the noble Lord, he has used the term "proportionate" on several occasions and has now said that the Government will be prepared to come back to this if they feel that the circumstances require it. It is worth reminding the House that the term "light touch" was not used by my noble friend Lady Thornton but by Sir Patrick Vallance I have several questions for the Minister. First, when will the circumstances be such that the Government will agree that "proportionate" is no longer the key and that action will need to be taken to require masks to be mandatory and people to stay at home? That is what the SAGE advice is suggesting. Secondly, exactly why have the Government not taken the advice of their own advisers in this respect, given the circumstances, which have been well described across the Chamber, of increases in the number of hospitalisations and the number of infections? Thirdly, what does the Minister think is likely to be the worst-case scenario this winter and the key risks, given that the Government have, on two or three occasions over the last 18 months, not followed the advice to act swiftly and urgently and according to the advice that they have been given? Why is it so difficult to take that advice and act on it now? It appears that we have not learned the lessons about the necessity for early intervention to stop things getting worse.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-09-09
Topic: Health
Rita Donaghy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, perhaps I could ask the Minister two questions. My first question is the question I asked on the day we broke up in July, about whether there are plans to do booster jabs combined with flu jabs. The Minister was not certain and said he would try to let us know. Has he got more information on that My second question is slightly more speculative, but it is something I am very concerned about. BBC news has been extremely conscientious about keeping everybody informed about the Covid rate, the death rate and the number in hospital. Can we have an assurance that no pressure will be put on the BBC by the Government in order to bury the worrying developments that are taking place?
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-25
Topic: Health
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I do not disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, but I none the less think that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and her colleagues are on to something. There is no question but that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is right that, under common law, doctor-patient confidentiality is not and has never been absolute. The question is when it is trumped by other considerations, and who decides It is always dangerous to suspect what the Minister will say in her eventual reply, but I suspect that she will say reassuring things, and her colleagues will have given her reassuring things to say, about the intention. I am sure that the intention is not for the wholesale trumping of doctor-patient confidentiality. There is no public interest in that and the Government would not want people to take that as the case, because it would be completely counterproductive not just to the effective functioning of public health but to law and order. To give an obvious example, if everyone involved in knife crime feels that there will be no confidentiality whatever in the emergency room or elsewhere, one runs the danger of people not going to get the vital help and emergency care that they need. I know that the Minister will understand that Going back to the detail—as this is Committee—when should there be a trumping and who decides? That is a worthwhile, detailed conversation to be explored between organisations such as the General Medical Council and the Minister and her team. Because, while it may not be the Government’s intention to trump common-law principles of ethics and confidentiality en masse, we have to remember of course that statute displaces the common law. If the statute is unclear and people think or perceive that the common law has been trumped and that the decision has been taken completely out of the hands of an individual practitioner on the advice of ethical bodies or ultimately taken out of the hands of a judge and that the principles of confidentially have been totally trumped, we have a problem—and that means the Government have a problem as well So I hope that, when the Minister eventually replies to this debate, she will not reject these concerns out of hand and will take on board the possibility of a bit more detailed discussion about when the duties to collaborate and so on should trump confidentiality, when not and, crucially, who is to decide. For my part, I would favour practitioners, properly advised, perhaps by more and further guidance from their professional bodies, and, if necessary in individual cases, by the order of a judge, possibly sought on an ex parte basis, as opposed to anything too wholesale or administrative. That is just my suggestion. I am sure that the Minister and her team will be able to come back with something that meets the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and her colleagues before the next scrutiny stage of the Bill.
Elderly Social Care (Insurance) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-16
Topic: Health
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, for creating this opportunity for such an important debate this morning, but I am afraid that I cannot recommend a rather convoluted homemade attempt at a sticking plaster for the gaping wound that is our national care crisis The regressive conceptual contortions that some will go to to avoid the logic of paying for essential public goods by taxing the wealthiest corporations and individuals in our society are almost as ingenious as attempts to privatise such public goods—whether our health data or the desire to care for our vulnerable people—or indeed the highly successful attempts of the wealthiest 1% to avoid paying their fair share of tax Our National Health Service is probably the greatest communitarian experiment in world history, and it is so easy to be truly patriotic about it. Given the working people from all over the world who have contributed to it, it encapsulates a positive patriotism that is not remotely xenophobic, yet years of underfunding and its current limits have been cruelly exposed in recent times. Last year, many of our elderly were tipped out of hospitals, untested, into private care homes with inadequate PPE provision, social distancing and testing arrangements, constituting one of the biggest scandals of the Government’s pandemic management—about which the future inquiry will no doubt have much to say But this fault-line between health and social care is a more permanent design flaw in a model that cares for the terminal cancer patient at public expense but puts caps, charges and all sorts of constraints on our provision for the patient of identical age and means who is suffering instead from dementia. Such anomalies are only increased with the ageing profile of our population. It is simply unacceptable to leave our older people, or indeed many much younger vulnerable people, isolated, destitute or at the mercy of profiteers who pay too many carers minimum wage on zero-hours contracts I look forward to seeing the details of the Government’s plans suggested in the press today, but nothing short of a publicly funded national care service providing rewarding work and dignified care will fit the Bill.
AUKUS — House of Lords, 2021-09-16
Topic: Defense
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too welcome this Statement, as long as it is not just an elaborate cover-up for snatching the contract away from France and is a genuine defence co-operation, which is much needed. However, if it is a genuine defensive co-operation—the noble Baroness spoke about our long-standing defence and security co-operation—why are New Zealand and Canada, the two other members of the Five Eyes, not included? I understand that Jacinda Ardern said that she was not approached in relation to it. Why were neither New Zealand nor Canada approached if it is a genuine defence co-operation?
Assisted Dying Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-10-22
Topic: Health
Peter Richard Grenville Layard (Labour, Centre-left): I want to make just three points. The main argument that we have heard against the Bill is the fear that relatives will exert undue pressure. For many years, I was persuaded by that argument. However, we now have evidence on these matters. We should look at the evidence, not just the fear. The evidence that we have comes from the places that have done this, including Oregon and Australia, and everywhere it has been tried there is clear evidence that there is no problem of that kind. So unless British people are more sinful than people in other countries, I do not think we should accept the argument from fear because we have evidence of the outcome. In my experience, the more that one knows about assisted dying—this is also true of my friends—the more one is inclined to support it Second is the argument we have recently heard: that palliative care can prevent extreme suffering. I have had a letter from a senior oncologist, Richard Osborne, who says he has managed 10,000 dying cancer patients. He says that recent public criticism of assisted dying has been unbalanced, melodramatic and misleading, stating that the argument that "advances in pain medicine mean no one needs to die in physical agony" cannot go unchallenged. In his experience, despite the best efforts, a significant minority of patients die after a period of great, unrelieved distress. In future, the refusal to allow assisted dying will be considered as inhumane as the policy of forced adoption, which was similarly based on outdated social mores. That is a strong statement The Bill offers a solution that is hedged with safeguards. By comparison, the present situation is far from safe. There is only one legal alternative to continuing to suffer, which of course is unassisted suicide. From nine different surveys, it is estimated that, currently, between 3,000 and 6,000 dying people—a large number—attempt to commit suicide. Only one in 10 succeeds I had a friend who starved herself to death. What a terrible way to end your life—alone, because no one is allowed to help you; you are helpless. How awful that is for the family left behind. Surely for the sake of the patient and the family, we should let those who wish to do so die in dignity, at a planned moment, with family and friends around them.