Lords
Proceedings
10 June 2026
Best Start Family Hubs
My Lords, when in office, the party opposite oversaw an exponential rise in child poverty. It abolished Sure Start, the most successful programme which improved children’s physical and mental health, boosted their educational attainment and reduced serious youth crime. It imposed a two-child benefit…
Lords
Oral Questions
9 March 2026
2 contributions
Iran and the Middle East
My Lords—
Of course, we are talking to our partners in the United States about this and very many other issues. We have all heard these reports and, of course, when situations such as this occur, any loss of civilian life is deeply regrettable, whether they be Israeli, Iranian or anybody else.
Lords
Debate
3 February 2026
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I shall speak against Amendment 199, and I am following the very wise words of my noble friend Lady Morris in doing so. I just do not understand how this amendment would allow the management of school places and the good use of taxpayers’ money. Year 7 places in the capital, London, are ex…
If that was the case, let me apologise for saying that. They have got better at inclusion, and the noble Baroness is quite right to upbraid me on that.
However, it is really important that there is a power to direct schools to take pupils in order that they get an education. Secondly, we need a way…
Lords
Debate
2 February 2026
5 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
Would the noble and learned Baroness, with her outstanding history in the law, recognise that women and men are not treated equally in the criminal justice system, nor in police investigations; that it is the case that women, when they are convicted of an offence, are often sent to prison for offenc…
We have to ask the question of why there are these inequities. Other noble Lords have made longer interventions; I do not know why I am being barracked in this way.
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
28 January 2026
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
It is really late, but I tabled a similar amendment to this in Committee. Unregulated CEO pay is becoming an ever greater problem in the sector. Last year the policy think tank EDSK called for mandatory CEO pay scales capped at £263,000, with fines for those who did not follow that. The National Gov…
Lords
Oral Questions
12 January 2026
Sexual Harassment in Educational Settings
I agree with my noble friend. There are unacceptable levels of sexual harassment and abuse of girls within our schools and universities. That is why, as part of the violence against women and girls strategy published in December 2025, specific resources are made available in our schools—in particula…
Lords
Oral Questions
5 January 2026
Toilet-training: Support for Parents
My noble friend is right to highlight this. A situation where 4.5 million children in this country live in poverty and over a million children are reliant on food banks is a terrible indictment of what has happened to families and their children over the past decade or so. I am delighted that tackli…
Lords
Oral Questions
17 November 2025
Teachers: Music, Drama, Art and Design, and Dance
My noble friend is absolutely right, and I thank her for the work she has done to support teachers throughout her career and continues to do now with the work to which she alluded. We need not only to get teachers into the classroom but to keep them there. I am pleased that this Government’s investm…
Lords
Proceedings
10 November 2025
Curriculum and Assessment Review
My Lords, I very much welcome this new curriculum and its emphasis on widening the scope to engage more pupils. Does the Minister agree with me that when the Opposition talk about dumbing down and powerful knowledge, the fact is that the current curriculum fails to engage far too many pupils? There …
Lords
Oral Questions
10 November 2025
2 contributions
Office for National Statistics
My Lords, access to trustworthy, accurate and timely statistics lies at the heart of a thriving democracy. In June the Government published the Devereux review on the performance and culture of the Office for National Statistics. The Government accepted all the recommendations and are now working cl…
My Lords, the drop in the response rate is of deep concern, and I thank my noble friend for asking. Concern about the Labour Force Survey and our economic statistics more widely was a key reason for the Devereux review, which was commissioned earlier this year. As I said, since then the ONS has publ…
Lords
Oral Questions
16 October 2025
Youth Unemployment
My noble friend is absolutely right that the opportunities that young people have throughout their lives are dependent on the standards, quality and success that they experience in schools. That is why we have already taken action to ensure that new routes are available for young people post-16—for …
Lords
Debate
18 September 2025
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
I am sorry, but I have to interject here to say that the narrowing of the curriculum and the teacher supply crisis was a direct result of austerity, teacher pay falling by 12% in real terms and chronic underfunding of schools, all of which were initiated during the coalition and continued until 2024…
Lords
Debate
16 September 2025
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I oppose Amendment 452, which has just been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, which would limit local authorities’ interventions in admissions to situations where the admissions authority had failed to meet its admissions obligations or had behaved improperly.
Local authorities h…
Lords
Oral Questions
16 September 2025
Economic Growth
My noble friend is absolutely right. The last Conservative Government saw historic mistakes made over austerity, the Brexit deal and the Liz Truss mini-Budget. The consequences of those for working people were very real. Living standards are forecast to grow, as I have said, over four times faster d…
Lords
Debate
10 September 2025
3 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I do not want to prolong the debate, but I have to answer the charge that it is simply the academies that are improving standards in education, and maintained schools are not. Research in the area does not show that to be the case. Since 2017, I think, the Education Policy Institute has ha…
My Lords, I am aware that it is very late at night indeed. I have waited a long time to bring the amendment but, anyhow, it is not a long speech. The amendment is very simple. It makes one addition to the Bill, and that is to bring chief executive officer pay, usually of a multi-academy trust, but i…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
10 September 2025
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I will speak in particular to Amendments 436B, 436C, 437 and 437A. Before I became a union leader, doing the work of the devil, according to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, I was a teacher. I worked in university departments of education for over 10 years in York, Liverpool and London, and a bi…
Lords
Proceedings
7 July 2025
Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life
My Lords, I thank the Minister for an excellent Statement, which I really welcome. Best start, it seems to me, builds on the legacy of Sure Start. I noticed the telling research from EPI in 2016, which found that 40% of the attainment gap by 16 is created before children start school. I am glad that…
Lords
Debate
23 June 2025
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
The noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, was not here at the beginning of this debate, so she has asked me to say that it is really important that there is good liaison between education and health.
I really feel that I am in a bit of a parallel universe. We are being told about the importance of integr…
I absolutely acknowledge that, but it is important to note that such a provision was available and was defunded. The number of centres was decimated, which has had long-term consequences that noble Lords have been so clear about: the effect on the poorest children of that poverty of provision. I thi…
Lords
Oral Questions
11 June 2025
Police Service
I am grateful to my noble friend, who has done an excellent job in the report the Police Federation commissioned her to produce on its governance structure and future direction. I was pleased to meet my noble friend to discuss the recommendations of that report. I know that the Government are giving…
Lords
Debate
10 June 2025
3 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
I can inform the noble Lord that unions have to produce an executive report for the membership every year. That is available to all the membership; it is on the union’s website. In most unions, by the rulebook, the executive report is the first thing debated at conference. All the union’s activities…
It was true pre-2016.
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
5 June 2025
Employment Rights Bill
This is the second time the noble Lord has taken on my noble friend Lady O’Grady, who made perfectly reasonable comments. I do not think it is a good idea to be patronising in the House.
Lords
Debate
22 May 2025
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Boldly go?
My Lords, I was not going to speak to this amendment, but I have to say that the idea that schools have not been at the centre of child protection and safeguarding over the last 20 years is just ludicrous. Under the last Government, the central grant to local authorities decreased by 40%. Real-terms…
Lords
Oral Questions
22 May 2025
Young People’s Media Literacy
I thank my noble friend and absolutely agree: high-quality teaching will make such a difference in this particular area. This is why the Government are committed to recruiting 6,500 new expert teachers, especially into shortage subjects, and this can fall into this area. What we understand is that t…
Lords
Debate
8 May 2025
2 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, Amendment 65A refers to
“any other sector where the core duties require in-person collaboration, physical presence, or real-time operational responsiveness”.
That could well be argued to be teaching, of course.
As my noble friend Lord Katz said, flexible working is not just working at h…
I am chairing a commission that will be very clear about what it means and how it can be employed in schools. I hope that will enlighten lots of people.