Lords
Proceedings
1 July 2026
Drink-Driving
My Lords, alcolocks take an hour to fit, they cost £200 to fit, paid for by the user and, as the noble Lord said, they work while they are being used. Why are we not using them to save lives?
Lords
Debate
20 April 2026
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I will speak briefly to my noble friend’s Motion A2 and my Motion D1. My noble friend has once again laid out the arguments in favour of his Motion A2 most eloquently and elegantly and the Minister in her opening remarks talked about it being
“not whether but how and what action will be t…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 March 2026
Curriculum and Assessment Review
My Lords, last night I went to see my 17 year-old daughter perform in her final show at the BRIT School in Croydon. There were tears aplenty as a hugely talented bunch of students took their final curtain call. The good news for them is that the world of entertainment is a major employer: the Govern…
Lords
Debate
25 March 2026
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has just said. As a family judge, I had a number of cases where children had been on protection orders—and, in particular, supervision orders—and I vividly recall an appalling case in Liverpool where there was a continuing supervision order that…
I beg to move Motion L1.
Lords
Committee Stage
16 March 2026
Media Literacy (Communications and Digital Committee Report)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. In doing so, I declare my interests as set out in the register: as an adviser on emerging technologies, not least AI, to Endava plc, the Crown Estate, Submer Ltd and Simmons and Simmons LLP. It is a pleasure and an honour to take part in this d…
Lords
Oral Questions
10 March 2026
Special Educational Needs: Dyscalculia
I think it fair to say that the Government do not have immediate plans to change this. We want to make sure that all special needs are recognised and given the same exposure and understanding, so that the needs of the whole child can be considered. Obviously, certain conditions run alongside others,…
Lords
Committee Stage
5 March 2026
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 235BA, 235CB and 235CC, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, to which I have added my name. I associate myself with all the amendments in this group. I must also apologise that this is my first intervention in this Bill. A mixture of the Children’s Wellbei…
Lords
Proceedings
24 February 2026
Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
My Lords, I congratulate the Government. As a teacher, I think this is an amazing document and I look forward to talking about it a lot more. Something I particularly love about it is the high expectation of families. A question that comes to me—one of many—is that it talks about experts at hand, wr…
Lords
Oral Questions
23 February 2026
V-levels
As a former head of department, I am not sure that I completely agree with the noble Lord that all the important decisions are made by heads of department, but it is certainly the case that quite a lot of them are. That is why it is important for us to provide clarity for schools about the responsib…
Lords
Oral Questions
10 February 2026
Under-16s Energy Drinks Ban
I understand the noble Lord’s point. We are focusing on those energy drinks that contain 150 milligrams of caffeine per litre as the way of making the greatest impact to children aged under 16. When I think that over 100,000 children aged 11 to 15 consume at least one high caffeine energy drink per …
Lords
Debate
3 February 2026
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I have spoken on this issue so many times in this House that I am not going to repeat myself—really—except to say that I have never taught in a school that allows mobile phones either in school or on the way to school. I have taught in some of the highest-performing schools—non-selective s…
I will speak very briefly to Amendment 217. I know from my own teaching experience—and anyone who has seen the film documentary “Idris Elba: Our Knife Crime Crisis” will know—exactly how important it is that permanently excluded children are folded into some support system before they are lost to cr…
Lords
Debate
3 February 2026
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 199, to which I have added my name. In this, I am channelling my inner Baroness Wolf of Dulwich—the noble Baroness sends her apologies that she cannot be in her place. This amendment attempts to rectify another example in the Bill in which a well-intentioned idea…
My Lords, I shall speak mainly to Amendment 206, but, as somebody who has taught more PSHE days than he cares to remember, I think I might make a few comments on this one. I have spoken many times about how I think we need to bring PSHE and citizenship much more into the regular curriculum on a week…
Lords
Oral Questions
29 January 2026
2 contributions
Erasmus+ Eligibility: Asylum Seekers
My Lords—
The noble Lord is right. We have a job, as I was just suggesting, to make sure that schools around the country understand the potential of Erasmus. That is why we will soon be in a position to announce the national agency that will be co-ordinating this. As my noble friend Lord Stansgate said, infor…
Lords
Debate
28 January 2026
7 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I will speak very briefly to add my name and voice to the force of nature that is my noble friend Lord Bird. We have heard points made forcefully by all noble Lords around the House. I think noble Lords all know what I do for a living; I am sorry to be boring about this.
I am indeed a schoolteacher. Every day in Hackney I see the effects of poverty. We still have 55% free school meals in our school. Schoolteachers are very used to targets. Every pupil has target grades and if they do not hit their target grades, we have to explain why. It really does focus the mind.…
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
20 January 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I rise to speak briefly to Amendments 476, 477 and 478 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, to which I have added my name. I am also sympathetic to the other amendments in this group and declare, as ever, that I am a schoolteacher in Hackney. I would also like to acknowledge the help o…
Lords
Debate
19 January 2026
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 62, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and to which I have added my name. I declare, as ever, that I am a teacher and I thank the National Children’s Bureau for its help on this.
Children do not come into care because they have won the lottery of l…
I have added my name to Amendment 53. It is vital that children who are deprived of liberty can access quality education. Otherwise, we really are depriving them of hope and a future. I too quote the Children’s Commissioner:
“For the very small number of children where controls on their freedom are…
Lords
Debate
14 January 2026
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I will speak very briefly to Amendment 48. As an ex-kinship carer, I know that there are times when it is incredibly stressful, such as when you are dealing with bereavements and all sorts of issues. You will be dealing children who have gone through this and might well have issues, all th…
Lords
Debate
14 January 2026
4 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and particularly Amendment 5, to which I added my name. I declare my interests as a teacher in a state school in Hackney and someone who has also been a kinship carer.
I can speak from personal ex…
My Lords, will speak briefly, having added my name to Amendment 19 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. As teachers, we had it drummed into us that information is key—it is the new gold—but, as the noble Baroness said, that is no good without action. We need to have a frictionless system …
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
13 January 2026
Youth Guarantee Scheme: Evaluation
I suspect that all those people working in charity shops do not think their work is meaningless. I think the noble Lord is making a point about how we ensure that, when we provide, for example, the two weeks’ work experience that the Government are committed to providing for all young people, we do …
Lords
Proceedings
8 January 2026
Schools and Universities: Language Learning
My Lords, it is conventional in this House to congratulate the sponsor of a debate, and I will certainly not miss that out on the present occasion because it is high time that the plight of modern language learning and training in the UK was drawn to public attention and remedied. But I will go furt…
Lords
Proceedings
8 January 2026
Broadcasting: Recent Developments
My Lords, I add my thanks and congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, to those of other Lords, with the added reason that I have spent the past 12 years trying to fill the noble Lord’s giant shoes as chair of the Thomson Foundation, which trains journalists and promotes sustainable media thr…
Lords
Oral Questions
8 January 2026
New Homes: Target
I do not know whether the noble Lord has yet had a chance to look at the new National Planning Policy Framework. We are, rightly, focusing attention on how we use the resource of historic and heritage buildings to deliver the kind of homes that we need. The National Planning Policy Framework is unde…
Lords
Oral Questions
5 January 2026
3 contributions
Sudden Cardiac Death: Screening for Young People
My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name, I declare my interest as a state secondary school teacher in Hackney.
Every sudden cardiac death of a young person is a tragedy. The UK National Screening Committee—UK NSC—is currently re-examining the evidence for sudden cardiac death screening in young people and will open a public consultation on this in the spring. The Government welcome the UK NSC’s robust and ri…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
18 December 2025
Girls: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
I completely agree. The DfE funds the Careers & Enterprise Company, which works with 20 sector bodies and much wider. I emphasise the need for every school to take up the requirement for a qualified careers adviser to speak to every child in their school. One of the most heartbreaking experience…
Lords
Debate
17 December 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 353 and 355, which were so powerfully introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg. I express due deference to the thought-provoking input from my noble friend Lady Gohir.
I am a teacher and, before one is accepted as a teacher, one has to do five days of…