My Lords, it is a profound honour to address noble Lords and Baronesses across this House for the first time. I begin with gratitude to Black Rod, Garter, the Clerk of the Parliaments, the security teams and all those who serve this great institution. I thank them for their kindness, patience and gu…
My Lords, I shall not detain the House long, but on behalf of these Benches I echo the appreciative comments that we have just heard from the Front Benches about all those who have retired, or are about to retire, as colleagues, working alongside us here. It is a real privilege to have the final opp…
I am somewhat disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, is not in his place because he would, I am sure, stand up to talk about university technical colleges. The work they are doing is a real template, and it just proves that, given the right opportunities, the right background and the right cu…
I thank the right reverend Prelate. She raises a very important point, especially at this time of year when many people are considering their charitable donations. The UK has a proud tradition of charitable giving and philanthropy and I take this opportunity to thank our country’s faith communities …
Two pieces of work are going on here around the homelessness strategy and the child poverty strategy. Having set up a Housing First scheme in my local authority when I was a council leader, I know it is very important that you do not tackle just one issue. The roof over the head is key but so is sup…
Learning from best practice is a critical part of our approach, as is taking test and learn pilots out so that we can see what works on the ground, particularly in collaboration with local government, businesses and civil society. It is an approach that we take across many different parts of the pub…
My Lords, yet again we are being asked to digest a lengthy criminal justice Bill which covers far too many diverse areas of conduct. Churchill might have said that this Bill has no theme. Before the Bill began its progress through the other place, the Government proclaimed that it contained 35 headl…
My Lords, 15 years ago, almost to the day, I had the privilege of standing at that Dispatch Box to introduce the then Academies Bill. I thought it might be helpful, as we think about this new Bill and what it will mean for academies in future, to set out what we were trying to achieve back in 2010.
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The right reverend Prelate makes a key point about supporting young people leaving prison. We have provided an uplift of £192.9 million to the homelessness prevention grant, which brings the total funding up to £633 million, the largest investment in that grant since it began. We are also setting ou…