My noble friend is absolutely right on the importance of capital for start-ups and how we can enable them to scale up. It is why in the industrial strategy and the spending review we significantly increased the funding available to the British Business Bank to help innovative small companies to do e…
My Lords, it is my great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who is a person on those Benches I have the most respect for when he speaks about these subjects, which he does without cant and with a great deal of knowledge and credibility.
It is important to remember that although ille…
My Lords, we have heard some highly respected voices this afternoon, and I want to put two or three things on the record.
The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, rightly draws attention to the fact that this kind of clause is now becoming commonplace at the beginning of Committees on Bills. I unders…
As my noble friend is aware, the BBC is operationally independent of the Government. Decisions of this nature are rightly for the BBC. However, I welcome the BBC’s commitment to keep BBC Sounds available internationally until access arrangements to other BBC stations for international listeners are …
As I made clear to my noble friend, DCMS is having ongoing conversations with the BBC to better understand the timing and implications of the proposed changes. Accessibility is clearly important. As somebody who, like many other Members of your Lordships’ House, listens using BBC Sounds when abroad,…
My noble friend—despite what he just said about me—is absolutely right. This is where that personalised plan around an individual child—using, where necessary, early help provision, family support and challenge to parents—is absolutely fundamental for those children, who have sometimes completely lo…
My Lords, I am delighted to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. He was an outstanding Education Secretary who enormously improved literacy and numeracy in primary schools, but what endears him to me is that his two grandsons are going to the University Technical College that I establish…