argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-29
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Barker (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, why did Public Health England take until 20 July to start supplying test data to local authorities on a daily, rather than weekly, basis? Why were local authorities told only then which households contained people who had tested positive On track and trace, when will the Government stop wasting resources on national call centres and—as we on the Liberal Democrat Benches have been advocating since March—put resources into local resilience forums working with directors of public health, health and safety officers and local police Matt Hancock stated in mid-May that he had "tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes" right from the start of the outbreak. Today, the Public Accounts Committee stated that discharging 25,000 patients in order to free up beds was an example of "the Government’s slow, inconsistent and, at times, negligent approach" to social care. The committee also said that advising hospitals to discharge thousands of patients into care homes without knowing if they had coronavirus was a "reckless" and "appalling" policy error. Will the Minister tell the House who was responsible for that decision There was no protection from central government. Will directors of social services now be empowered to challenge any similar decisions by NHS Providers and central government which jeopardise social care? Will local authorities currently in lockdown, such as Leicester, be resourced to share their experience and good practice with colleagues in areas at risk, such as Oldham? As the demographic profile of areas most likely to experience second waves becomes clearer, will local authorities be identified and given additional resources now to put prevention plans in place?
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-29
Topic: Health
George Willis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, no doubt these regulations are technically competent, and no doubt they will be used as other communities—perhaps Oldham or Peterborough—become the latest virus hotspots. What they do not do is to put into legislation the tools that would give local health authorities and local councils the data to act more confidently and effectively to minimise disruption to lives, businesses and social structures in some of our poorest communities On 6 June, the Covid-19 Clinical Information Network recommended the co-ordination of all clinical and health records of patients admitted to hospital with suspected Covid. Has this happened in Leicester, and has it been published? Is this data available to those who require it, and why is there not a requirement to do so via this SI? On 22 June, the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling recommended linking health with clinical data and data from other systems, including employment and social security. Why has this recommendation not appeared in the SI? It would enable a much more vigorous examination of outbreaks, something Leicester has urgently needed, yet nothing has appeared in these regulations. Why is there no requirement for all healthcare workers, patients and care home residents in Leicester to be repeat-tested for Covid-19 during the lockdown? Why has universal serological testing not taken place to seek out antibody carriers in Leicester Research data will increasingly play a vital role in managing future outbreaks of Covid, and these regulations were an opportunity to grasp that. Sadly, we have missed that glorious opportunity.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-29
Topic: Health
Floella Benjamin (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the coronavirus pandemic has exposed deep inequalities in our society. It has caused so much pain, death and suffering in areas across the country. This is evident in Leicester, where many families are from minority communities with low-level incomes and are reportedly working in unacceptable sweatshop conditions. Many are also living in cramped housing conditions, which is having a huge impact on their children’s mental and physical well-being. The report from Public Health England in June stated that the Government must: "Ensure that COVID-19 recovery strategies actively reduce inequalities caused by the wider determinants of health to create long-term sustainable change. Fully funded, sustained and meaningful approaches to tackling ethnic inequalities must be prioritised." When Ministers placed new restrictions on Leicester a few weeks ago, it came after weeks of warning from local authorities of major gaps in the Government’s Covid-19 policy. One of the gaps was the pillar 2 testing system. The data from these tests was received very late by Leicester authorities. Local authorities and communities need much clearer information and answers, because by not knowing they cannot prepare Leicester has a high number of diverse communities, so why was more not done in anticipation of a second outbreak of Covid-19? Worryingly, that situation could be replicated in other areas and is a huge cause for concern. If long-term sustainable preventive measures are not put in place to avoid major problems in the future, further outbreaks are likely to occur in other parts of the country. So what long-term action do the Government propose to counteract these threats, ensuring that people are better paid, have improved working conditions and better access to housing and healthcare? What short-term measures are being used to communicate public health messages such as social distancing, in Leicester and other communities such as Oldham, to ensure that people are aware of the Covid regulations imposed? Prevention is better than cure, and never before has that been so important to deal with this pandemic.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-07-29
Topic: Health
Christopher Rennard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I lived in the great city of Leicester for four years in the 1980s, and I am now seriously worried about the situation there, and how long these restrictions may apply without the serious risk of them being breached on a regular basis and even civil unrest breaking out. Can the Minister confirm that tomorrow’s review will provide hope and further reassurance to people there that these restrictions will not be applied for any longer than necessary Part of the reason why areas such as Leicester are disproportionately affected by Covid-19 is that they are areas with high BME populations and higher levels of diabetes. The issues are related. I have therefore asked a number of Written Questions today about support for people with diabetes; I will not repeat them here but I look forward to the Minister’s answers. The Prime Minister’s own Covid experience may have had a beneficial effect in persuading him of the need for proactive measures to support people struggling with obesity and those seeking to maintain good diabetic control. However, will the Minister tell us that decisions on issues such as calorie labelling will be evidence-based in the interests of public health, and not determined as a result of big business lobbying efforts Finally, if the lockdown continues, can I ask the Minister to help potential holidaymakers who are outside the lockdown area but have Leicester postcodes? The leader of Hinckley & Bosworth Council, Councillor Stuart Bray, tells me that some travel companies are cancelling people’s holidays because of their Leicester postcodes, even though they live outside the lockdown area. If necessary, can steps now be taken to properly advise travel companies as to exactly which postcodes are relevant for lockdown restrictions?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2020-09-14
Topic: Health
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the noble Lord has previously congratulated people in my part of Lancashire on how well we are doing, which I do not quite agree with; we are working hard. Why are people, whether in our borough or the surrounding ones, still not able to book tests locally when we usually have three testing stations going? Some are being told to ration the number of tests they do each day, which involves gaps of perhaps two hours when they will not accept any bookings, even though the testing kit and the people are there, and the tests could be carried out. However, people are not being allowed to use them.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2020-11-12
Topic: Health
Judith Anne Jolly (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the Minister. I am going to address testing and tracing. He may not have answers but I should be grateful if he could write to me. There have been more than 10 million downloads of the NHS Covid-19 contact tracing app. There have also been many complaints of Bluetooth draining batteries. I second those. Will he confirm whether there is a solution in the pipeline for that issue? If people do as I do and just switch off Bluetooth, the system will not work. How many of these app users are active? If 10 million people are actively telling the world where they are and are checking in and out of where they have been, that is wonderful. But if they do not do so, it is not terribly helpful Critically, how many people have been triggered via the app to isolate? Of those, what proportion have had their isolation checked and by whom? Testing is quick and easy but the delay in response time is unhelpful. Swab processing time is not reducing due to the increase in the number of swabs, and labs are taking longer. Is there yet sufficient capacity, and how many staff are being trained weekly to take on the extra capacity? Can the Minister indicate the cost of taking a swab and getting the results back to the individual? Finally, will he confirm when he expects to move to lateral flow tests, which are much quicker and would transform the lives of the staff of care homes, their residents and visiting families?
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions on Gatherings) (North of England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-09-25
Topic: Health
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, yesterday I said quite a lot about a similar set of regulations which I will not repeat, but what I did do in the evening yesterday after our long discussions was attend a meeting of Pendle Borough Council. I was able to do that from my room in this building. I am obviously a member and I shall give a flavour of two resolutions that the council passed, which might be helpful. The first was to express the council’s thanks and gratitude to the staff of Pendle Council and all the other local agencies whose staff have "shown such fortitude in the face of unprecedented peacetime impacts on the daily lives of themselves and their citizens" and gone beyond the call of duty in what has been happening The council then passed a motion on test, trace and isolate, which in a sense was a little less positive. "The council notes with alarm that the chaos in the nation’s test, trace and isolate systems for Covid-19 is contributing to the disease accelerating." The failures of the Government system have created a situation where they are locking us into lockdown in Pendle. These are things that I have said previously in the Chamber. The council believes that "oppressive" regulations—not all regulations, but oppressive regulations—are counter- productive to the fight against Covid-19 and are generating mental health issues and undermining social cohesion across the borough. I also talked about that to a degree yesterday The council requested that the Government should issue a simple set of principles setting out the steps that individuals should take. The Government think that they have got that, but we are asking that people understand it. The emphasis should be on supporting people to live their lives in accordance with the guidance, rather than a reliance on virtually unenforceable regulations and "Covid marshals" and—this is a point I have been making on behalf of all the councils in the hotspot areas—the Government should provide sufficient resources for Pendle Council and its partners to have an effective test, trace and isolate programme involving screening, targeting individual testing, a local end-to-end tracing programme and adequate support for individuals who are required to self-isolate, together with the monitoring of such isolation to ensure its effectiveness. The Government have been moving towards this, but I thought that this might be helpful.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Local COVID-19 Alert Level) (Very High) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-10-14
Topic: Health
Michael John Storey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I speak on this statutory instrument as a Liverpool city resident and, for eight years, the leader of its city council. Liverpool’s people have a strong sense of community and justice, and what is fair and right. If there is a wrong against the city and its people, they will always join together to fight that wrong— as our Prime Minister has found, to his cost. The agreement hammered out by Boris Johnson and the city’s regional mayor to put Liverpool in tier 3 was tough and has major consequences for the economy of the city region and the jobs of its people. Liverpool has seen cases of Covid-19 rise and rise, although not to the highest in the country. Intensive care units at Liverpool’s main hospitals are now at 95% capacity The deal hammered out by the Prime Minister and Labour’s mayor Rotheram is certainly tough; it has put Liverpool City Region as the only region in tier 3, with all the restrictions that entails. This puts a real strain on the whole community and its cohesion, with families separated, people’s jobs and livelihoods lost or put at risk and the city’s economy in danger of going back to the 1980s. Given the severity of the situation, the people of Liverpool are entitled to ask questions and expect straight, honest replies Why was Liverpool put in tier 3 when areas of the country with a higher rate of infection were not? What does the Chief Medical Officer mean when he says that these tough restrictions will not be sufficient without tougher local action? Will we get the resources to have a proper test and trace system in place, as the current system has badly let us down? Does the Minister not agree that it would be sensible for all the schools to have a two-week half-term now? Liverpool has 70,000 university students, the majority living in residential communities. Does the Minister consider there is a case for students to study online from home? How many so-called Covid marshals have been recruited in the region? Finally, travel restrictions are tough: they advise not travelling out of the city region and certainly not staying overnight. Are the Government making arrangements so that the city region’s MPs can work and vote from home?
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Local COVID-19 Alert Level) (Very High) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-10-14
Topic: Health
Christopher Rennard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, there is possibly nowhere else in the country more lacking in confidence and trust in Boris Johnson’s Government than Liverpool. Previous Conservative Governments spoke about "managing Liverpool’s decline"—but Liverpool fought back, and what the city needs now is a managed recovery from the Covid pandemic. Almost everyone in Liverpool recognises that, with intensive care units at 95% capacity in the main hospitals, saving lives is paramount. The question is how best to do this, and people know that saving livelihoods is vital for the long term, too. As the Echo said yesterday: "Many of us will feel frightened, isolated and lost amidst the tangle of seemingly contradictory rules and support packages—barely providing a sticking plaster to cover the deep wounds to our region’s economy." The problem is that there is simply no confidence that Boris Johnson’s policies are soundly based on science or that there is a proper plan for making sure that lockdown measures do more than just postpone the spread of the virus and ensure that people’s livelihoods are protected. The Government expect to be trusted but they have not trusted local authority leaders or local public health services, which could have done a much better job with test and trace People see Boris Johnson’s Government as incompetent and uncaring. They sense a whiff of corruption as contracts are inexplicably awarded to friends of those in government without normal transparency rules. They hear from journalists about briefings from a "senior government source" and assume that this must mean the man who goes to Barnard Castle for an eye test. There should be an end to such anonymous briefings People in Liverpool feel singled out. They feel that they are being told to walk alone, but the people in Liverpool never will.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Local COVID-19 Alert Level) (High) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-10-14
Topic: Health
Joan Walmsley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am not one of those who want zero restrictions, but I want scientifically based timely restrictions with transparency. I am sure that Mr Johnson hoped that his three-tier system would bring clarity for people to follow; indeed, public compliance depends on it. I, too, hoped that replacing the multiple sets of rules would bring that about. Unfortunately, that is not the case and the complexity of these regulations proves it The Liberal Democrats believe that we should follow the science. The big question asked by many noble Lords is: why did the Government implement this week only one of the five recommendations made by the chief scientist three weeks ago? How on earth can the Government claim that they are following the science when the minutes of meetings make it clear that they are not? What is the science behind the 10 pm curfew? We have never been told and it has rapidly become clear that it may be having the opposite effect to that intended, as people stream out of socially distanced pubs and mingle out on crowded streets without appropriate space or masks As usual the Government made an announcement before they had all their ducks in a row. We hear that discussions with local leaders are ongoing about which tier their areas should be in. One cannot blame them for holding out for more financial support. If the Government had passed on to local authorities even half the money that they have been bunging into profitable contracts with their friends, councils could have used the money to do what they do best—tracing cases and supporting them to isolate, which is best done locally. Yet, the Government insist on allowing the national system to fail before sending many of the cases to local teams, thereby losing a valuable 24 hours. When time is of the essence, this is crazy You cannot blame local leaders for seeking to protect their local economy by resisting going into too high a tier. What percentage of cases or growth rates divides one tier from another? We and the local leaders are not told. We now know that many positive student cases are being wrongly assigned to their home area, because that is where they are registered with a GP, instead of at their university. That is skewing the figures. Will the Minister ensure that that factor, like many others, is taken into account when assigning a tier? It is that kind of issue that makes local government highly suspicious of the criteria being used. Councils and their residents also want to know what they have to achieve to have restrictions loosened We support the scientists’ alternative proposal of a circuit-breaker.
British Overseas Troops: Civil Liability Claims — House of Lords, 2020-07-20
Topic: Defense
Julie Smith (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, building on the question from the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, I want to press the Minister a little further. This is not about vexatious claims; it is about claims that service personnel, veterans and their families may be able to bring. What assessment have the Government made of the changes to cap it at a six-year long-stop?
Business and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-20
Topic: Health
Lindsay Granshaw (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 15 in my name and that of my colleagues, the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Faulkner of Worcester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. There has been an anti-smoking cross-party coalition in the Lords for almost two decades. That cross-party approach reflects the House at its best. Since Sir Richard Doll’s report all those years ago, we have known that smoking kills, and in an appalling fashion. Nevertheless, as we know, it has been an uphill battle to set in place anti-smoking measures. The noble Earl, Lord Howe—I am glad to see that he is in his place, even if he is not on the Front Bench—has long been part of that coalition. This issue does and should arch over mere party concerns, though that is not always the case. It is extremely disappointing when that manifests, because our opponents are funded and united However, I was very glad that when we raised this as the sole amendment on this issue in Committee the Government responded. I was in the Chamber, and I admit that I directed much of what I said to the noble Earl, given his track record on this issue. I hugely commend those of other parties who have had the determination to stand against the pressure on them for the sake of public health.
Business and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-20
Topic: Health
Kishwer Falkner (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I understand the need to follow the exhortation of the Chief Whip to be as brief as possible in today’s debate, and I will try to do my bit in that regard by speaking very briefly I can see the need for a speedy passage of the Bill in order that businesses, and, most importantly, the hospitality and retail sector can attempt to salvage whatever they can from this health and economic catastrophe. I also see the importance and understand the aims of Amendment 15, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. It is entirely sensible, particularly in the light of what I have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and others in this debate. I have absolutely no issue with their aims However, although I agree with all their motives, in my view the noble Baroness’s measures should be complemented by a more considerate and deliberative conversation about public health messages on addictive behaviour, given that the single biggest long-term public health crisis in this country is obesity and people who are overweight. This conversation needs to be part of a wider strategy on healthy living and education. Having now seen the Government’s amendment, which seems to be a sensible compromise, I will support that today.