argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Variant CJD and Surgery — House of Commons, 2016-11-29
Topic: Health
Alexander Paul Beresford (Conservative, Centre-right): I accept everything that my hon. Friend says. However, a test solution is on the market and waiting to come through. The prion unit test has reached the point at which it just needs a final run to ensure that it does come through. I hope that I can count on the Minister to back me in persuading the MRC to support that last round of testing. If we could test blood, we would not have to import blood products from overseas. We could separate out the one in 2,000 or whatever the figure is and cut down on the costs of instrument storage.
Variant CJD and Surgery — House of Commons, 2016-11-29
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): That is one reason why the Department has continued in difficult financial times to ring-fence £5.5 million a year for CJD-related research. We are keen to see safe, evidence-based, cost-effective measures to reduce the risk of vCJD. At the moment, however, there is no validated diagnostic blood test that can be used before the onset of CJD symptoms to diagnose whether someone is infected or incubating the disease. We will of course take advice from the ACDP and the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs on the use of any potential test in any proposed Department of Health-funded research study or deployment by UK blood services, but there are established systems for applying for research funds. We have put such funds out there, and any applications for those funds must go through the standard processes. To do otherwise would be to undermine the reputation for research excellence that the UK scientific community has fought hard to establish To that end, we recently launched an open competition, inviting proposals for research to further inform our risk-management and health-protection measures, including our understanding of vCJD infection in the UK population, the development of a test able to detect pre-clinical levels of infection in blood, and the development of decontamination technologies for reusable medical instruments. I understand that Professor Collinge’s RelyOn is one application that is currently going though that process, so it would be inappropriate for me to intervene I assure the House that the Department recognises the fatal consequences of all forms of clinical CJD and the devastating cost to individual patients, their families and carers, which my hon. Friend described movingly. That is why we set up the vCJD Trust in 2001 in recognition of their wholly exceptional situation and the fact that the Government are their last resort for help. The trust provides a no-fault compensation scheme for vCJD patients and their families, providing payments to be made in respect of 250 cases from a trust fund of £67.5 million. Over £41 million has been paid out by the trust to date.
Variant CJD and Surgery — House of Commons, 2016-11-29
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): The scheme is considered to be particularly effective. I shall look at it in the light of the hon. Gentleman’s comments, but it seems to be meeting current concerns. It is also important not to overstate the risks of CJD compared with other disease threats we face. The incidence is now low, with only two new cases in the UK since 2012. While every death is an individual tragedy and we must be alert, we need to ensure that finite resources—research funding, policy development or committee activities—are applied proportionately and are appropriately evidence based The ACDP continues to provide independent risk assessment advice on prion disease, informing both research priorities and public health measures to mitigate against risks from healthcare interventions, including the surgical, medical and dental procedures issues that were raised today. The ACDP is clear that risk to both patients and the general public is extremely low. Nevertheless, the current robust systems of active surveillance for CJD continue, and our experts maintain a close watch on new evidence, reviewing it as it becomes available. I assure the House that neither the Government nor the NHS has drawn back from our responsibilities to ensure that precautionary and proportionate measures are in place to protect patients from the risk of acquiring infection with prion agents during their healthcare. We have put in place robust research investment to ensure that the situation can only improve Question put and agreed to.
Leaving the EU — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with his Cabinet colleagues on the potential effect on the Welsh economy of the UK leaving the EU.
Alun Hugh Cairns (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman shows a close interest in the Mersey Dee area and has shown particular interest in the north Wales growth deal, which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor mentioned in the autumn statement. We are keen to progress it and are waiting for details of the bid. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recognise the major success of that part of the world being chosen for the global F-35 repair centre, which will inject billions of pounds over decades into north-east Wales and MOD Sealand. We should recognise and celebrate that.
Inward Investment — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
Guto ap Owain Bebb (Conservative, Centre-right): I could not agree more. Such investment is welcome, and I pay tribute to the Secretary of State for Defence for his part in ensuring that that investment came to north Wales. North-east Wales is an engineering powerhouse in the UK economy, and the investment in the F-35 project is welcome and further enhances engineering opportunities for young people in north-east Wales.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Health
Questions: I welcome last week’s autumn statement announcement of £556 million for infrastructure in the north of England, but despite that and years of hard work, the M55 Lytham St Annes link road is still not assured. Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister do everything she can to ensure that this vital local project for jobs and employment in my constituency is delivered without further delay?
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman talks about funding social care and funding the national health service: £3.8 billion extra is going into the national health service this year. Under Labour’s plans, we would have seen £1.3 billion less going into the national health service. Social care funding is going up under this Government. At the last election, the shadow Chancellor—lately of "Strictly" fame—said local authorities would get not a penny more. Conservatives are putting money into the NHS and social care—Labour would deny it.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Health
Questions: I welcome last week’s autumn statement announcement of £556 million for infrastructure in the north of England, but despite that and years of hard work, the M55 Lytham St Annes link road is still not assured. Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister do everything she can to ensure that this vital local project for jobs and employment in my constituency is delivered without further delay?; On a cross-party basis, Jo Cox and I were establishing the National Commission on Loneliness when she was brutally murdered. This work is now being continued by the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and me. Does my right hon. Friend agree that loneliness is an issue for all our communities, and will she urge her Ministers to engage with the commission as it carries out its work and reports next year?
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): First of all, may I just say that I am sure the whole House would want to join me in commending Jo’s family for the very dignified way in which they dealt with matters as the court case was going through. It must have been very harrowing for them I am very pleased that my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) are taking forward the work of the commission on loneliness. Earlier this week I was able to support the "Good Morning Britain" 1 Million Minutes campaign, which is encouraging individuals to give 30 minutes of their time to help—to be with—somebody who is lonely. We have, over the years, I think, failed to understand the impact that loneliness has on people’s psychological health but also their physical health. Ministers will look forward to receiving the results from the commission and to working with my hon. Friend and others.
Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, I agree with his description regarding the catastrophic nature of the invasion of Iraq. I agree with him that the former Prime Minister has a lot to answer for. He will no doubt continue to do so, although he was cleared by Chilcot of deliberate misbehaviour. Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that if we turn post-Chilcot debates into an attempt to pursue and hound Tony Blair, the whole thing turns into a party political argument, with Labour Members trying to defend the position of their Government Will the right hon. Gentleman go on to address—he is entitled to go on for a bit—the most important matter: how do we ensure that the system of Cabinet government, handling intelligence, and taking on board and properly communicating defence advice to all members of the Cabinet and to Parliament, cannot be repeated, so we do not have another catastrophic foreign policy decision? By personalising the issue we will, if we are not careful, lose the point, which is whether we are satisfied that everything possible is being done to ensure that cannot happen again.
Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman is making a fascinating case, but I do not think he does himself a favour when he refers to this communication with President Bush and says that it was a commitment to military action come what may. There were in fact specific areas where the Prime Minister said that progress would need to be made before he could commit to military action, and he also said that there was a need to commit to Iraq for the long term. I simply say that because, if we are going draw appropriate lessons from history, yes, absolutely, draw critical lessons, but please put them in context.
Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
James Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman is right to talk about prime ministerial accountability to this House, and he is making a powerful case, but is not the real lesson from Chilcot the need for a policy response from the Government to ensure that this kind of thing does not happen again? For example, the creation of the National Security Council was a policy response from the Government to ensure that we have better information sharing and that decision making in Government is improved. Is that not the critical point in this debate?
Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
Christopher James Skidmore (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman has put his comments on the record. I understand that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will formally respond to the Committee’s recommendations, so I will leave it at that The National Security Council is a dedicated, standing Cabinet Committee that meets regularly at both ministerial and senior official level and has the right range of information to take forward informed decisions and to hold collective responsibility at the highest level. It provides collective strategic leadership on national security and crisis situations, with a built-in challenge function, making clear recommendations to Cabinet on military interventions, and formally recording both decisions and operational actions. The Attorney General attended the NSC regularly until April 2016, when he became a full member, and formal written legal advice is now provided and discussed at relevant NSC meetings and presented to Cabinet before any decisions on military intervention are taken The Government have integrated their overarching strategic approach with pragmatic, costed delivery mechanisms, including for military equipment, in a national security strategy, and strategic defence and security review, which is refreshed and adjusted in the light of developments every parliamentary term. The SDSR and refreshment of the national security strategy in 2015 brought this work together in a single integrated document. Cross-Whitehall working continues to improve, with creative policy making designed and delivered collectively across national security Departments and agencies to ensure that we understand, as far as is possible in dynamic and evolving threatening situations, what we want to achieve, and the implications for and impacts on ourselves and others. In support of this work, we set up joint units and taskforces where issues cut across several departmental responsibilities The Government are committed to understanding and acting on the important lessons drawn by Sir John Chilcot and his colleagues, but we recognise the need to continue to improve, whether working across the national security community or the wider civil service, hence the importance being given by the collective senior leadership to civil service reform and learning.
Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful for the Minister’s remarks about the improvements being made, and the Cameron Government did make improvements by introducing the NSC, but—I say this with hindsight—we still invaded Libya after too cursory a discussion in Cabinet, and somehow we did not look properly at what the consequences would be. We talked only about the imminent threat of a massacre in Benghazi, which took everybody in to the intervention The Minister says the Government are considering further improvements, so will he invite my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to consider setting out some principles: about the amount of notice the NSC has of such decisions, the length and fullness of discussions—that applies to Cabinet, too—and the right of individual members of the Cabinet to have access before a meeting to security advice and defence advice if they wish to prepare themselves for the discussion?
Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
Christopher James Skidmore (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his recommendations. I am sure the National Security Adviser will be listening closely to this debate, and the fact they have been put on the record means it will be important for him to have regard to them. I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend will understand that at the time he mentions we were facing a bloodbath in Benghazi, that intervention was vital and that we would not now row back on that intervention.
Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not wish to add to any difficulties in this respect, but one problem is insufficient military input to the NSC; it all comes in through the voice of one man, the Chief of the Defence Staff. The Defence Committee has suggested that one way to strengthen the NSC would be to constitute the Chiefs of Staff Committee as a sub-committee of the NSC. In that way, a Prime Minister with a bee in his bonnet would not be able so easily to sweep away military concerns.
Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
Christopher James Skidmore (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for his separate recommendation and note that the Minister for the Armed Forces is in his place and listening carefully. That is not a new recommendation, but we will consider closely all recommendations from this debate Although it is right to learn the lessons identified by the Chilcot report, we should ensure that we avoid learning the wrong lessons. As the then Prime Minister said on the day the report was published, "it would be wrong to conclude that we should not stand with our American allies when our common…interests are threatened" and that "it would be wrong to conclude that we cannot rely on the judgments of our brilliant and hard-working intelligence agencies" He said that it is "wrong" to question the capability of our military, who "remain the envy of the world" Perhaps most crucially, he said that it is wrong to "conclude that intervention is always wrong."—[Official Report, 6 July 2016; Vol. 612, c. 888.] This has been a long and exhaustive inquiry. Sir John and his colleagues have had access to thousands of official documents and reached their conclusions—
Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): I believe that that is the most serious charge against Tony Blair. It was not that he did not believe that there were weapons of mass destruction, but that he knew—better than did those of us who did not have the advice of experts to give us a wiser steer—that if we removed the dictator the result would be internecine, deadly, lethal chaos, exactly as we saw it. I am not reassured when I hear from Members on the Front Bench that the National Security Council will prevent the same thing from happening again. When the same prospect came up over Libya, and when the Chief of the Defence Staff put it to Prime Minister Cameron that there would be the same consequences in Libya as there had been in Iraq, he was brushed aside. Until the Chiefs of Staff are properly integrated into the National Security Council, we can have no assurance that those deadly errors will not be replicated.
Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
Roger James Gale (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is doing the House no service. This is a very serious issue. Those of us on the Government Benches who have lent our names to the motion did so in the interests of our armed forces. That is what we are here to discuss.
Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Defense
David Anthony Andrew Amess (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a wise point. It is yet another lesson to be learned On 13 July, there was an exchange between my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe. My right hon. Friend said: "It seems from the Chilcot report that, at some point between December 2001 and possibly March 2002 but certainly by July 2002, Mr Blair effectively signed Britain up to the American military effort… Under American law, to go to war on the basis of regime change is entirely legal. They do not recognise the international laws that render it otherwise, so for them regime change is a perfectly legitimate casus belli."—[Official Report, 13 July 2016; Vol. 613, c. 360.] My right hon. and learned Friend intervened and said that "with hindsight…given that Hans Blix was perfectly willing to carry on with inspections, if the Americans could have been persuaded to delay for another month, all this could have been avoided… The Americans dismissed Blix, however, and regarded him as a waste of time; they were trying to get him out of the way." My right hon. Friend replied: "That is exactly right. That should have been the stance that Mr Blair took, but he did not. He chose instead to come to Parliament to misrepresent the case… Finally, Mr Blair was asked by Tam Dalyell"— a great parliamentarian— "about the risks of terrorism arising from the war, but the Prime Minister did not give him an answer—despite having been told by the JIC and by MI5 that it would increase both the international and domestic risk of terrorism and would destabilise the states in the area."—[Official Report, 13 July 2016; Vol. 613, c. 362.] I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex has said that whatever the result of today’s debate his Committee will look at this issue again. In six years, the former Prime Minister involved us in wars in Iraq, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. I am very concerned about that record. With hindsight, I should not have been partisan. Instead, I should have listened more carefully to the wise words of Robin Cook and Clare Short. We owe this to all those British servicemen and women who lost their lives as a result of the Iraq war. The world has been completely destabilised by the disastrous decision that Parliament took, and the general public will not understand if, after spending all that time and money on the Chilcot report, we do not put in place a mechanism by which lessons can be learned. I also think that the former Prime Minister should be brought before a Select Committee.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Health
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. We are in the early stages of this change, and it will be increasingly important for future generations, assuming that we continue to live longer and be healthier for longer.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2016-11-30
Topic: Health
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): I am delighted to be called. Like many Government Members, I have the greatest of sympathy for constituents who have been left incredibly frustrated by the changes. Indeed, this group of people have held an expectation for many decades but have then found themselves, without notification in some cases, with little time to make things up. However, the ultimate point is that if reversing the changes will cost up to £39 billion, it is wrong of this House to raise expectations and suggest that the problem can be solved without any intelligent rationale for where the money will come from. Others will always have to pay. It will be a question of having to reduce spending on essential services that are listed in our manifestos. Health is a huge issue in my constituency, and I would like more money for social care, but I am realistic about what we can afford.
Regional Infrastructure Development — House of Commons, 2016-10-25
Topic: Culture
David Anthony Andrew Amess (Conservative, Centre-right): Conservative-controlled Southend-on-Sea Borough Council was very disappointed that it was unsuccessful in its bid to the coastal communities fund. Will my right hon. Friend agree to meet me, the leader of the council John Lamb and others, so we may share with him why we need investment in infrastructure, particularly as Southend is the alternative city of culture next year?