argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Trade Bill — House of Commons, 2021-01-19
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Independent, Unknown): I am tempted by my right hon. Friend’s amendment and I am listening to him very carefully, as I always do. At the moment we have a form of public health activism, where experts make decisions and it is then very difficult for politicians to disagree with those determinations. What does he say to that form of judicial activism? What would be the likelihood of this House disagreeing with such a determination? That is the concern some of us have with his amendment.
Covid-19: Ethnic Minority Disparities — House of Commons, 2021-03-01
Topic: Health
Caroline Fiona Ellen Nokes (Independent, Unknown): My hon. Friend is right to point out that we need to have trusted voices and community champions promoting the roll-out of the vaccine and vaccine uptake. We know that there is a higher excess mortality risk for south Asian women, so can I ask my hon. Friend whether she is making sure that we also reach out to female voices in communities, including organisations such as the Muslim Women’s Network UK, to make sure that they are playing a part in increasing the uptake of vaccines?
Covid-19 Vaccination — House of Commons, 2021-01-13
Topic: Health
Caroline Fiona Ellen Nokes (Independent, Unknown): It is crucial that the vaccine confidence campaign is accessible to those with learning difficulties, those with hearing impairment, those with visual impairment, and those without English as their first language. Will my hon. Friend outline what the Government are doing across all Departments to make sure that the campaign is as accessible as possible to those who are among the least advantaged in our society?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-02-09
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Independent, Unknown): The Secretary of State said earlier that the virus treats us all the same, which is of course quite right. Sadly, it does not go easy on those who do not take up the offer of a vaccine, so can I ask my right hon. Friend what his thinking will be if, despite all the excellent work going on to support the vaccine hesitant, and there is lots of it, we have fellow citizens not protected? Will he confirm that such a personal decision cannot impact on the ultimate release of our society and our economy?
Covid-19: Road Map — House of Commons, 2021-02-22
Topic: Health
Julian Murray Lewis (Independent, Unknown): Thankfully, my right hon. Friend has clearly stated today that an extreme zero-covid approach is impracticable. Can he confirm that most, if not all, of his key scientific advisers now accept that our strategic goal must be and is a practical, vaccine-based method of controlling covid like any other serious respiratory virus, such as influenza?
Covid-19 — House of Commons, 2021-02-22
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Independent, Unknown): One of the great differences between the start of this nightmare and where we are now is on personal protective equipment for health and care staff, which was a big issue at the start. There were a lot of stories over the weekend about the procurement of PPE. I know from my time as a Minister in the Department that sometimes government is not elegant, but surely what we did was to make sure that we did not run out of PPE. We should congratulate many of the officials in the Department on making sure that that did not happen, as history records it did not. For my constituents who are concerned about the process that went on, will the Minister reassure me that everything was above where it should be?
Covid-19 — House of Commons, 2021-02-22
Topic: Health
Gregory David Clark (Independent, Unknown): The fact that the Prime Minister was able to make his statement today is principally down to the extraordinary achievement of having multiple vaccines being rolled out right across the country to the whole adult population by the summer. It is a scientific landmark, but also an historic achievement by the NHS, by pharmacists, by volunteers and not least by Ministers and their officials and the vaccine taskforce. We are immensely grateful to them The Prime Minister is absolutely right to be, as he put it, "driven by the data rather than by dates", so I was a little surprised that dates featured very prominently in his statement today. These dates were described as "not before dates": not before, for example, 29 March will it be possible to play outdoor sports; shops and hairdressers and gyms will be open not before 12 April; restaurants and hotels will not be open before the date of 17 May; and full wedding ceremonies will not be allowed before the date of 21 June. I understand that everyone in the industries affected craves certainty, but it may just be that pubs, restaurant owners, hairdressers and the travel industry would be perfectly willing to accept an earlier ability to trade if the data allowed it The evidence that the Science and Technology Committee took from leading scientists just last week, the same scientists who are advising the Government, was that the data are all pointing in the right direction. Professor Woolhouse of Edinburgh said that "if you are driven by the data and not by dates, right now you should be looking at earlier unlocking because the data are so good." Just this lunchtime, Professor Andrew Hayward, professor of infectious disease and epidemiology at University College London, said that if we are driven by the data, then we need to be prepared, if things are better than expected, that we may be able to release faster than we expect. I therefore say to the Minister that I hope the Government, in adopting this plan, will not be inadvertently a prisoner of the plan During the weeks ahead, vast amounts of data will be available to the Government and to their advisers. Following the data is the right policy, and I hope that that is exactly what they will do.
Covid-19 — House of Commons, 2021-02-22
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Independent, Unknown): I was more content with today’s statement than I feared I might be. As I said to the Prime Minister earlier, the return of schools is a hallelujah moment for me and for many parents; the Government have done the right thing there. Primary for me in the Prime Minister’s statement was the line: "There is no credible route to a zero-covid Britain or indeed a zero-covid world." This is what I do not get. We hear people say all the time, "It must be the last covid-19 lockdown. We don’t want to go back." Well, of course we do not want to go back. Nobody wants to do that, but what am I missing here? In its analysis of covid deaths, the plan, on page 14, talks about 88% of cohorts 1 to 4. Then it mentions a further 11%, which means that 99% of deaths are in cohorts 1 to 9, so how could we go back? We have heard today about the efficacy of the vaccines, which is awesome. Compared with the flu vaccine, it is incredibly good. We have heard about the impact on transmissibility, which seems to be good as well. When the Paymaster General sums up, can she please explain what I am missing here On the 99% figure, how can I justify to my constituents what it says on page 39 of today’s road map, which is that there will be no legal limits on social contact, but that will happen no earlier than 21 June? We will have vaccinated cohorts 1 to 9, the 99%, by the middle of April, so by the end of April that will have taken effect and they will be protected. Look, I am open to the argument. I think I am a reasonable fellow, but surely the onus is on the Government to justify their restrictions—those in law anyway—after the end of April Finally, I agree with Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, when he said that covid will be with us for ever. The truth, therefore, is that so will infections and so will hospitalisations, and that, sadly, it will take people before their time—it may take me. We have to accept that the human condition includes mortality. That is really hard. When I was Public Health Minister, I found it hard that 22,000 people lost their lives to influenza. It was really hard when my own father passed away from pancreatic cancer three days after the last general election, but it was true. Let us be driven by the data, absolutely, let us be cautious, yes, and let us produce a release that is irreversible, but let us produce one that is irreversible because we are being honest with the British public, not because we are chasing a world without covid, which, as the Prime Minister rightly said, can never be.
ODA Budget — House of Commons, 2021-04-26
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Independent, Unknown): The awful scenes we are seeing in India are obviously having a deeply personal and human impact there, but they are for many here too. People are dying right now and, as we know from our experience, rising case numbers can mean only one thing. They cannot breathe. The UK may have committed £330 million per year to Gavi through to 2025, which is good, but it is a drop in the ocean. What more can we do, through the Minister’s good offices, to export our vaccine miracle to our historical good friends in India who really need us right now?
Carrier Strike Group Deployment — House of Commons, 2021-04-26
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Independent, Unknown): If we want the United States to help defend our interests in Europe, it is only right that we should help it defend common interests in the far east. Does the Secretary of State accept that having Americans intimately involved in this whole process adds to the deterrent effect of a carrier strike force? We do not want to get, in the digital age, into a situation where a surface ship, no matter how powerful, up against a peer enemy armed with hypersonic missiles, might find itself at a fatal disadvantage, but for the deterrent effect of our joint activity with our strategic allies.
National Security and Investment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-26
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Independent, Unknown): I will give way in a moment, because I would like my right hon. Friend to hear this next bit, as I think there was a bit he was missing in his earlier intervention These words were used in Committee in my presence by the then Security Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), when introducing the 2013 Act. He said: "I want to be clear that the Government intend that, through the provisions of the MOU, substantively all of central Government’s intelligence and security activities will be subject to ISC oversight."––[Official Report, Justice and Security Public Bill Committee, 31 January 2013; c. 97.] As if that were not clear enough, he went on to say, and this is the bit that matters: "Things change over time. Departments reorganise. The functions undertaken by a Department one year may be undertaken by another the following year… An MOU is flexible: it can be changed much more easily than primary legislation. It will enable the intention of the Government that the ISC should have oversight of substantively all of central Government’s intelligence and security activities to be realised now and in the future." ––[Official Report, Justice and Security Public Bill Committee, 31 January 2013; c. 98.] The setting up of the new Investment Security Unit in BEIS is therefore precisely the situation that the Government assured the House that the MOU was designed to address, and the unit can easily be added to the MOU by a simple exchange of letters. Indeed, if the Government were willing to give an undertaking here and now to add the new unit to those listed in the MOU, the need for these amendments would disappear.
National Security and Investment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-26
Topic: Defense
Gregory David Clark (Independent, Unknown): My right hon. Friend will know that the call-in power and the power to refuse permission for mergers to proceed on national security grounds is long standing. It is vested in the Business Secretary and sometimes in the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. During all this time, scrutiny has been available to the ISC on those decisions. Has my right hon. Friend found that deficient in some way?
National Security and Investment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-26
Topic: Defense
Gregory David Clark (Independent, Unknown): Perhaps I did not explain myself well. What is proposed in the Bill is an amendment of the current powers. There is a long-standing power for mergers to be blocked on national security grounds. It is one of three grounds on which an intervention can take place, so this is not a new power or a novel departure. The ISC is able to scrutinise the security services’ input into that now, as it will be in the future.
National Security and Investment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-26
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Independent, Unknown): The ISC, on behalf of Parliament, is able to scrutinise the input of the intelligence agencies into these processes. It would not be able to scrutinise how that input is then handled, and the trouble is that because that input is top secret, the BEIS Committee would not be able to scrutinise it either. That means that there would be a scrutiny gap between what was being scrutinised by us as it went into the process of the new unit and what was being scrutinised by BEIS minus that sensitive material, so there would be no effective parliamentary scrutiny of the process whereby, as I said earlier, the highly sensitive security requirements were being balanced and offset against the commercial imperatives. Indeed, that may be the very reason why the Government are so reluctant to let the ISC see what is going on.
Public Health — House of Commons, 2021-04-26
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Independent, Unknown): May I probe a bit further the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) about the regime the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) is proposing? The right hon. Gentleman said he would like to see our domestic vaccine programme a little further advanced and mentioned the figure of 99%. Let me give him another 99% figure: groups 1 to 9 on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation list account for 99% of those who are hospitalised and then die from covid. Given that we have already vaccinated those groups and that by the end of July we will have offered a vaccination to the whole adult population, what more does he want?
Afghanistan — House of Commons, 2021-04-20
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Independent, Unknown): I know that the Minister will take back the very strong feelings expressed on both sides of the House that interpreters and other locally employed civilians must not be abandoned to a terrible fate at the hands of our enemies When the Minister says that the military process is over, does he not realise that the only thing that will prevent the Taliban from going back to the position they were in before we intervened 20 years will be the threat that if they try to overthrow the Government, they themselves will face a military consequence—if necessary, from outside the borders of the country? If he rules that out, he is basically giving them carte blanche.
His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh — House of Commons, 2021-04-12
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Independent, Unknown): Combining his royal role with a very long life meant that Prince Philip met vast numbers of people in widely differing circumstances. One of his more unusual encounters was with two late friends of mine who were Fleet Air Arm veterans of the second world war On 29 January 1945, pilot Roy "Gus" Halliday and telegraphist air gunner Norman "Dickie" Richardson, together with their observer, were coaxing their crippled Grumman Avenger back to the safety of the British fleet. They had just completed the second stage of Operation Meridian, the destruction by dive-bombing of two heavily defended oil refineries at Palembang in Japanese-occupied Sumatra. The raids were extremely hazardous, but despite grievous losses they massively reduced the output of both refineries and scored a major strategic success. Prince Philip was the first lieutenant—the executive officer—of HMS Whelp, a brand-new destroyer and key component in the protective screen of the British Pacific fleet and its four carriers, from which the airstrikes had been launched As the Avenger ditched and went under, the Whelp raced to the rescue. In the nick of time, all three aircrew were plucked from their leaking life raft in heaving waters, freshly kitted out and given every support after their perilous ordeal. It was only gradually, on the return journey, that they realised the special status of their principal saviour In 2006, the BBC’s Siân Price reunited Gus Halliday DSC and Dickie Richardson DSM with the officer who saved their lives and who, after doing so, introduced himself simply as "Lieutenant Philip". The programme, entitled "A Right Royal Rescue", is still accessible online; I commend it to colleagues and to the public as a touching memento of three very brave men and as a reminder of the spirit of a great generation Like countless other parliamentarians, I saw Prince Philip in action on visits to my constituency and to other constituencies close to the New Forest. Such visits were greatly valued, but I felt rather underqualified to add to what has so ably been reported in the media by royal correspondents and by others who really knew him. However, my doubts were dispelled by someone fully qualified to comment on the royal family: our splendid former colleague Sir Nicholas Soames, who served both as armed forces Minister and as shadow Defence Secretary at the head of a happy team that included me. He explained that "the whole nature of Prince Philip’s career and his devotion to Queen and Country was fashioned in his wartime training and service in the Royal Navy" Because of that, it seemed fitting to share with the House today this cameo of Prince Philip’s gallantry and humanity in combat, as well as expressing the sympathy of the people of New Forest East and of New Forest West with Her Majesty the Queen and all members of her family.
Covid-19 Response: Defence Support — House of Commons, 2021-01-12
Topic: Health
Julian Murray Lewis (Independent, Unknown): Although our service personnel are already making a fine contribution, has my right hon. Friend examined which aspects of Israel’s efficient and highly successful vaccination programme involving her armed forces might be applicable to our own use of military medical resources?
Covid-19 — House of Commons, 2021-01-12
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Independent, Unknown): We are back in lockdown again and 2021 is looking a lot like 2020. The difference, and the reason I supported it last week, is that we finally have the ultimate release from lockdown in the form of the vaccine I warmly welcome the vaccine delivery plan published yesterday. It seems that we are off to a good start, with 2.3 million people having been vaccinated. That is great. There is no doubt that we will see problems. Supply, to quote the vaccines Minister, is going to be "lumpy". That is creating difficulties. We have begun well in my constituency, but it is hugely frustrating to see the postponing today of a raft of appointments for this week because of problems of supply. We cannot duck the fact that that has hurt public confidence, and I ask the Minister responding today to set out for the House exactly, because I keep being asked this, where the supply falls down at an early stage. Is it the manufacturing? Is it the settling process? What exactly is it? I am told that the deliveries for next week look much better. We have a lot of AstraZeneca vaccine coming into the county, so I hope the Minister can help us to correct this problem, to get those appointments made and carried out as soon as possible It remains my belief that these horrible restrictions on our lives cannot be in place a day longer than required —and, to be clear, they are currently required. Alongside the published vaccine delivery plan and daily figures on how we are getting covid done, we must give the public some hope. As the Secretary of State said last night at the press conference, over 88% of those likely to get seriously unwell, and sadly die, reside within the top four priority vaccine groups. Given that the only metric that really counts, and the reason public support for the lockdown is so high, is the desire to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed, logic would dictate that once that threat has gone away, we can start to lift restrictions We need clear heads if we are going to do this. Covid is not a conspiracy and it is not a hoax. We were right to take it seriously last spring, and since, but we are equally right to demand a plan that dismantles the most draconian of laws on our constituents in lockstep with the vaccination programme. When we have vaccinated the highest-risk groups, what will we do? When we have completed phase one by vaccinating all those with above-average risk by late March, what will we then do? Put another way, how does success in vaccine delivery translate into a return to normal? What is the exit strategy? The public have put up with an awful lot. The vast majority of them have done exactly what we asked. They need hope, they need to see a path out of this, and then we can attempt to make sure that 2021 really is not the new 2020.
Leaseholders: Fire Safety Costs — House of Commons, 2021-01-11
Topic: Health
Caroline Fiona Ellen Nokes (Independent, Unknown): Sleep deprivation is recognised as a form of torture. People living in buildings with unsafe cladding are being tortured: physically, due to a lack of sleep, as they live in fear; financially, as they cannot sell their homes and are forced to pay for waking watches; and mentally, as they live in limbo. When does my right hon. Friend expect that torture to end?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Health
Stephen William Hammond (Independent, Unknown): I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and for the extraordinary roll-out, which is still continuing, and I thank all the health workers across Wimbledon and south-west London In his statement, my right hon. Friend was right to identify the risk of new variants and to mention genomic sequencing and boosters. Will he confirm that there will be availability of rapid testing, with tests that provide results quickly and identify new variants, and that the booster programme will be rolled out on a similar basis to the vaccine programme, which has been so successfully rolled out?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Health
Caroline Fiona Ellen Nokes (Independent, Unknown): I was really pleased to hear my right hon. Friend reference the appointment of Professor Lucy Chappell and the work on vaccines in pregnancy. Will he please update the House on what is being done to reassure young women that there is no plausible way that vaccination can affect fertility? Will he also let us know how quickly he expects pregnant women, who we know might be immunosuppressed, to be called forward for their vaccination, or will they have to wait for the age band that is appropriate?
Public Health — House of Commons, 2021-01-06
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Independent, Unknown): I do not like it one bit, but I will support the Health Secretary tonight. The reason I will do it, and I suspect the reason why there is such high public support for these measures, is the position in which the NHS finds itself and the level 5 ruling. If we have, by the middle of February, vaccinated the top four groups, who are the ones likely to overwhelm the NHS, does the logic not follow that at that point we will be able to lift the restrictions on our constituents’ lives?