Lords
Proceedings
2 July 2026
Children’s and Young People’s Mental Health Services
My Lords, I join my noble friend in welcoming the excellent report from the Children’s Commissioner this week. In her answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, my noble friend spoke of the need for early intervention and joined-up support. That is one of the issues mentioned in the Children’s Commis…
Lords
Proceedings
8 June 2026
School Admissions: Selective Inclusion
I thank my noble friend for that response. She mentioned the existing requirements on school admissions, but as the Sutton Trust report revealed, 36% fewer pupils with SEND from disadvantaged backgrounds are accepted in the higher-performing schools. The current rules are simply not doing the job th…
Lords
Committee Stage
4 June 2026
AI Regulation Bill
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has done us all a favour by facilitating this discourse, but it should not be necessary. In the 2024 King’s Speech, the Government committed to placing binding regulations on the developers of the most powerful AI models. Almost two years later, we still await …
Lords
Proceedings
18 May 2026
King’s Speech
My Lords, the immigration and asylum Bill includes welcome provisions to change the modern slavery system, including better tools for law enforcement to tackle exploitation and stronger processes to identify children. However, the Bill continues to emphasise alleged abuse of the system, despite no d…
Lords
Proceedings
23 April 2026
Procedure and Privileges Committee
My Lords, I rise to express some concern about paragraph 16 of the report, under “Proposals relating to Delegated Legislation”, on time-limiting debates to 60, or possibly 90, minutes. For the sake of clarity, I wish to know whether that also applies when there is a regret or fatal Motion—I am getti…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 March 2026
Curriculum and Assessment Review
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, for securing this important debate. I will focus briefly on two areas: financial education and physical education.
On financial education, I welcome the review’s recognition of financial literacy, budgeting and wider life skills in the curriculum. Wi…
Lords
Debate
12 March 2026
Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
My Lords, before I begin my substantive contribution to this debate, I want to pay tribute to those who have made their maiden speeches this afternoon. It has been wonderful to learn so much more about each of them and inspiring to hear them.
This Bill represents one of the clearest and most immedi…
Lords
Oral Questions
24 February 2026
2 contributions
Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper
My Lords, the post-16 White Paper sets out our plan for giving people of all ages the skills and knowledge that they need to succeed and we need in order to develop a workforce that supports growth and national renewal. Through a range of policies and reforms across government, including the introdu…
I strongly agree with my noble friend’s comments. I recognise the enormous contribution that a previous Labour Government made through Jennie Lee with the establishment of the Open University—and the contribution that the Open University has made in the last 60 years to enable people to learn in a w…
Lords
Oral Questions
12 February 2026
Donations to Political Parties
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, on securing this debate. I will highlight what I regard as an unacceptable anomaly in the current laws on donations to political parties seeking election throughout the United Kingdom.
Noble Lords will be aware of the list of permissible funding …
Lords
Debate
3 February 2026
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, nine months after Second Reading, in which I spoke, it falls to me to speak to the last of the, by my tally, 254 amendments on Report, on top of 725 amendments tabled in Committee, so we certainly had maximum scrutiny of this Bill in your Lordships’ House.
I shall speak to my Amendment 24…
Lords
Debate
19 January 2026
3 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I am introducing this group as Amendments 37 and 38 are in my name and I have added my name to Amendment 59 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. I will not steal the thunder of the noble Baroness on Amendment 59 so will merely say that the arguments I advanced when a very similar…
I thank my noble friend the Minister for those remarks. I will just start on the point that she finished on: that the Government are totally committed to ensuring that all young people have the support that they need. I do not question that. It is unfortunate that there seems to be a cohort of young…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Proceedings
30 October 2025
Protection of Children Codes of Practice
My Lords, not much we debate in your Lordships’ House unites us so thoroughly as our shared recognition that children must be protected from harmful online content and behaviours. I am delighted that we are as one when it comes to the importance of shielding young people from extreme pornography, co…
Lords
Debate
18 September 2025
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, if my Amendment 505C appears something of an outlier, it is only because it is. It would have been more appropriate for it to have been introduced in Part 1 of the Bill, but I have to be honest and say that, at the time, I was unaware of it as an issue. Being even more honest, I have to sa…
I thank my noble friend for that very full response to Amendment 505C. I am not a lawyer, so I cannot say at this stage whether I accept the reassurance. I would like the opportunity to discuss it with her before Report, perhaps with some legal support on those points. She and her team have clearly …
Lords
Debate
16 September 2025
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Amendment 456 in my name would require new state schools opened after this Bill enters the statute book to have a limit on faith-based selection for admissions of 50% when the school is oversubscribed. This has been a requirement since 2011, but, as it stands, the Bill would end that requirement. We…
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 479 in my name. Before doing so, I offer an apology to noble Lords, in particular the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Holmes of Richmond. I added my name to their amendments in the previous group and fully intended to speak in support of them, but I got my t…
Lords
Debate
10 September 2025
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I will speak in favour of Amendment 435, to which I have added my name. I am also happy to signify support for Amendment 436ZZB. I am less enthusiastic about Amendment 436ZZA, because it is prolix and bureaucratic —but, if the opportunity came, I would not vote against it.
What is noticea…
Lords
Debate
8 September 2025
2 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
I simply want to ask the noble Baroness whether she can explain what the very detailed description she is giving has to do with border security, immigration or asylum.
My Lords, I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord German, for mentioning the very unfortunate accident that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, suffered. I was not aware of that. Many noble Lords will be well aware of the fearless campaigning on humanitarian issues over many years by the noble Lord, Lord Alto…
Lords
Debate
3 July 2025
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I am pleased to speak to Amendment 209 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young, to which I have added my name, and I thank him for introducing it so effectively. A young carer is defined as someone who is under the age of 18 and is looking after a family member or close friend. Often bei…
Lords
Debate
3 July 2025
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I am in favour of Amendment 196, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. That may surprise my colleagues on the Front Bench—to some extent, it surprises me—but I will speak from personal, recently lived experience.
My son is in year 9 at an academy in London. In the Easter break, he …
I have listened with interest to what the noble Lord said, as I always do. I prefer the politics of his father, the author of the 1945 Labour manifesto, rather more than his own, but that is something else.
The point he is making about the Combined Cadet Force is interesting. Earlier, I mentioned m…
Lords
Oral Questions
30 June 2025
2 contributions
School Libraries
My Lords, no authors, books or genres have been banned by the Government. Schools make their own choices about which specific books or other resources they use within the framework of the national curriculum. We trust the judgment of schools and teachers in their choice of books, and it is for indiv…
My noble friend makes an important point about the power of books and reading to enable children—in fact, all of us—not only to recognise the world in which we live but to have our horizons expanded. The Index on Censorship survey was an important but relatively small survey. I understand my noble f…
Lords
Debate
19 June 2025
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I have Amendments 183D, 186A and 187A in this group. I am delighted that the Bill will deliver on Labour’s manifesto commitment to offer universal breakfast clubs for all primary-age children, which will be a significant step towards ending morning hunger in schools across England. But the…
Lords
Debate
17 June 2025
3 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
The noble Lord was too quick for all of us. I want to speak on the same subject as he did, that of unregistered accommodation— I have been caught unawares and have the wrong notes in front of me.
I felt it was appropriate to make this point in Amendment 144, in my name, because it really is nothing…
Regarding cross-party support, I am willing to indicate support, but I want to clarify a point the noble Lord makes in his amendment about a boarding school place
“in a state secondary school in their local authority area”.
Can he tell us that such schools exist in every local authority area? If t…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
12 June 2025
5 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I am pleased to introduce this group of amendments, half of which are in my name. Before I go on to them, I will say a word about yesterday’s spending review. I apologise that I could not be here for my noble friend Lord Livermore’s session, just before we started the Bill.
There was sign…
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate on this group, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, both of whom spoke forcefully in support of the amendments—which may not be surprising, since they added their names to them, for which …
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
9 June 2025
4 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 107B, which is in my name. The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the same legal rights would apply to a child in care as those which apply to children living with their families. In that sense, it is linked to Amendment 69AB, which I shall move later …
I thank my noble friend for the points that she has made. She referenced the update that came out in April, but that does not go far enough to meet recommendation 6 of IICSA, which talks about access to courts. It seems to me that there is an inconsistency between that and what the Home Secretary sa…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
3 June 2025
2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of my noble friend Lady Warwick on an issue that, as far as I am aware, has not appeared anywhere else but is of some importance. There is growing unease in the higher education sector about the potential implications of Clause 30. Universities UK has said …
My Lords, I rise to express a view that I did not think I would be expressing in your Lordships’ House. I am utterly appalled by this proposition and the speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, who, lest there were any doubt, has given the clearest possible indication of her political journey from…
Lords
Debate
13 May 2025
2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 77 on foster carers’ leave, and Amendments 78 and 79 on kinship carers’ leave. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, on bringing them forward.
Both types of carers, as the noble Lord said in tabling his amendments, provide a huge service by allowing chil…
I appreciate what the Minister has said. If I heard him correctly, he said it would not be appropriate to introduce this leave without undertaking an assessment of how it would be applied. Will such an assessment be undertaken? I think it is important.