Lords
Proceedings
2 July 2026
Post-16 Education and Skills: Funding
My Lords, one way for schools and colleges to get the funding they need is through the pupil premium, and one way to ensure that they get the pupil premium funding to which they are entitled is through automatic enrolment for free school meals. Can the Minister confirm that local authorities wishing…
Lords
Proceedings
2 July 2026
Higher Education: Affordability and Quality
My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for initiating this debate. It is good to have the opportunity to contribute to thinking about the future affordability and quality of higher education. I do so as the Bishop of Leicester, but also with a close interest in the Cathedrals…
Lords
Debate
1 July 2026
Draft Conversion Practices Bill
My Lords, I welcome the intentions behind the draft Bill. Indeed, in 2017, the General Synod of the Church of England passed a Motion, in fact by a large majority, which called on the Government to outlaw conversion therapy. However, I want to mention today that I have a number of concerns about the…
Lords
Proceedings
25 June 2026
Democratic Institutions: Threats
My Lords, I too am hugely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for securing this debate, and it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner. Our belief systems may differ, but we share much in common still.
I speak as chair of a new Church of England working group on promoting uni…
Lords
Proceedings
23 June 2026
Artificial Intelligence: Global Governance
My Lords, a deepfake or AI-generated social media post manufactured in one country can inflame communities in another country within hours. Ahead of the UN global dialogue in Geneva next month, can the Minister give us a reassurance that the Government are pressing international partners for common …
Lords
Proceedings
22 June 2026
Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office
My Lords, while I am not aware that there was any religious element to the incidents referred to, we know that many Hong Kongers have come to this country seeking religious freedom and, indeed, many thousands have joined our churches. Can the Minister give reassurance to those people that the freedo…
Lords
Proceedings
18 June 2026
Child Poverty
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on securing the debate and thank her for her tireless work in addressing child poverty. Like many others, I welcomed the publication of the Government’s child poverty strategy and was delighted by the Government’s decision to abolish the two-…
Lords
Proceedings
11 June 2026
Welfare Reforms and Youth Unemployment
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, for securing this debate and to all taking part. Noble Lords may differ on the diagnosis but I think the whole House shares the same concern for the young people behind these figures.
I begin by noting that none of us likes to be labe…
Lords
Proceedings
3 June 2026
Murder of Henry Nowak
My Lords, my thoughts and prayers are also with the family and friends of Henry Nowak in their grief and suffering. Like many others, I echo the courageous words of Henry’s father in his powerful call that his son’s death should not,
“be used to create further division, hatred or tension”.
Sadly, …
Lords
Debate
18 March 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I shall speak to the amendment in my name, Amendment 426D. I start by thanking the Minister for meeting me a couple of weeks ago to discuss this matter—and I want to be direct at the outset about what the amendment would do and would not do.
The amendment is distinct from Amendment 425, w…
I am very aware that there are risks to all forms of consultation. My argument is simply that the risks are minimised by in-person consultation.
The considered view of safeguarding professionals in the NNDHP is that the current guidance put in place by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Hea…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
12 March 2026
Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
My Lords, I thank you for the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this important debate on this universal credit Bill and the removal of the two-child benefit limit. This matter is personal to me. When I was 11 years old, state help in the form of child benefit became incredibly important to my …
Lords
Oral Questions
5 March 2026
Access to Work Fund
The right reverend Prelate raises a very important point. The Government hope there will be more demand for support. In reviewing Access to Work, we also have to review the whole landscape to look at how well supported employers are to be able to do the things they can do, which was the point raised…
Lords
Oral Questions
2 March 2026
Child Poverty Strategy
My Lords, I am happy to raise that with colleagues in the DfE, but I reassure the right reverend Prelate that a lot of work has been and is going on in relation to free school meals for children on universal credit, making sure—whether it ends up being auto-enrolment or whether it is about communica…
Lords
Oral Questions
5 February 2026
Youth Unemployment
The right reverend Prelate raises an important issue. That is why, first of all, our work to reduce the numbers of young people not earning or learning needs to start in schools. It needs to start with the better “risk of NEET” indicators that we are developing. It needs to start with a responsibili…
Lords
Proceedings
11 December 2025
The UK’s Demographic Future
My Lords, I deeply regret being here today and participating in this debate. I regret it because it involves the valedictory speech of a great parliamentarian who should not be stepping down, as a mere boy of 83 in House of Lords terms. Just look at him. He is still as sharp as a tack and gives top-…
Lords
Proceedings
12 November 2025
BBC Leadership
My Lords, I have just returned from a visit to a country in west Africa that I know very well, and which has sadly suffered a number of coups in recent years. However, I can testify first-hand that the role of the BBC in such situations is highly regarded. In a situation where people do not know whe…
Lords
Debate
24 October 2025
Secure 16 to 19 Academies Bill
My Lords, this Bill is a decent addition to the statute book. The principal thing is the two-years as opposed to seven, because your client base is going to be there for only a couple of years, rather than the seven years that would be expected if you actually had an ordinary academy. It makes sense…
Lords
Debate
23 October 2025
Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill
My Lords, Ministers have noted in many of our exchanges that the Bill which we have discussed was a great improvement on the original Bill put forward by the previous Government. That is true, but it did not make it a perfect Bill. In fact, all sides of the House have constructively improved the con…
Lords
Oral Questions
23 October 2025
2 contributions
Jobcentres: Staffing Levels
My Lords, DWP monitors demand for jobcentre support on an ongoing basis and has well-established workforce planning systems to make sure that we have the right people in the right place at the right time. These systems help us to prioritise jobcentre activities where needed, protecting our most effe…
My Lords, our jobcentres provide a professional, targeted service. DWP recently conducted a thorough review of jobcentre activity, to look at ways in which we can respond to demand without having a negative impact on outcomes for claimants, or indeed on benefit expenditure or fraud and error. After …
Lords
Proceedings
22 October 2025
Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry
My Lords, the Church of England has in recent years been forced to face up to our own, significant failures in the areas of safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults. We were far too slow to realise the devastating impact of safeguarding when it goes wrong, and we are even now struggling to put…
Lords
Debate
21 October 2025
Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill
My Lords, I am pleased to have added my name to this amendment. As this is the first time that I have spoken at this stage, I want to thank the Ministers for their careful consideration of the concerns raised by noble Lords, as well as all those who have engaged with such diligence on this matter. F…
Lords
Oral Questions
10 September 2025
Child Poverty Strategy
I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate. The task force has engaged astonishingly widely. The Children’s Commissioner was commissioned to do listening events directly with children, to hear their voices. A lot of work has gone on listening to organisations, families and parents, but listening to…
Lords
Oral Questions
17 July 2025
Tackling Unsustainable Debt
My noble friend Lady Chapman tells me that we are doing exactly as the right reverend Prelate seeks. I completely agree with him on the history of the Jubilee movement. The UK wants to see effective solutions to those debt challenges. We strongly support the IMF’s three-pillar approach to providing …
Lords
Oral Questions
9 July 2025
Universal Credit: Two-child Limit
I thank the right reverend Prelate for that, and, indeed, for the work that he and his colleagues do in this area. Like him, one of the reasons I was so glad to see the report, even though it is hard reading for the Government and for everyone, is that it talks about individual stories and the exper…
Lords
Oral Questions
8 May 2025
Care Quality Commission: Mental Health Care Waiting Times
What the right reverend Prelate raises is absolutely key: tackling inequalities in mental ill-health is so important. We know that some groups are more excluded than others, and this is taken into account in the preparation of the 10-year plan, which will be published over the next few months. I hop…