Schools: Creative Subjects and the English Baccalaureate

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government work extremely closely with employers. Our T-level programme was developed with over 250 employers. I would ask the noble Lord why we are seeing such huge international investment in our film and creative industries if we are not providing the talented people they need.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, would my noble friend care to reflect on the importance of citizenship education in levelling up and creating a country at ease with itself? Will she join me in regretting that yesterday’s White Paper said nothing about citizenship education at all?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Citizenship education is absolutely a core part of what we deliver. In defence of the White Paper, we were setting out the major new elements of our plan for the next several years, but citizenship remains a core part of it.

Dormant Assets Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his remarks. I absolutely do not deny in any way the importance of financial education, but the issue here is not the importance of any individual cause. The challenge we are faced with—or the privilege that we will all have—is to contribute to a conversation about the right cause for this particular stream of money, with its unique features, and that includes the existing causes that are funded. We will be putting the cart before the horse if we focus too much on causes to go into the Bill; rather, we should put the combined intellect of your Lordships and others into making sure that we spend future moneys in the best way possible.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I had better begin with an apology to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for not having name-checked her as a member of the committee. The truth is that I saw who signed their name to the amendment, but I did not see who was going to speak to it. That is an explanation, not an excuse. I know her as a doughty fighter, and I hope that she will accept this apology for not expressing my thanks to her.

She rightly drew attention to concerns about duplication and what we discussed in our committee about what we call “new initiative-itis”, where ideas are started by a Minister wishing to make a mark but they are abandoned after six months, whether they are good or bad is not followed through with and the institutional memory is never properly adjusted. I accept that. Indeed, I accept the caution from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, about future funds flow. She pointed out that this is not an endowment fund but a flow that stops flowing when the money is spent.

I share the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that we need continuity. There is sufficient visibility over the next five or 10 years to be able to provide the financial continuity that both she and I see as an important part of the community wealth fund concept.

In response to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, about duplication, some of the plan methodologies that we have seen from the Community Wealth Fund Alliance are distinctive and will provide a different approach that is not duplicated elsewhere. However, I accept the strictures of both noble Baronesses.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, for his support. His suggestion of pilot studies as a means of beginning to build institutional memory was interesting.

I am also grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. Of course I accept his remarks about financial education. He and I have discussed many times the narrowness of the national curriculum, which fails to provide education in many of the most important parts of what makes a citizen an effective and worthwhile person knowing their rights and their responsibilities. Financial education surely must be a part of that.

Finally, the response of the Minister was, as ever, smooth and beguiling, and I am trying hard not to be beguiled. I think she said that the current drafting already implies what is made explicit by Amendment 54. Well, if the amendment makes it explicit, let us have the amendment, so that that is explicit, as opposed to relying on the interpretation of the words “at some date in the future”. I hope that my noble friend will come back to that and think a bit more about it, and also about the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, made.

On Amendment 55, the Minister said that consultation would begin as soon as the Bill becomes law. She referred later to the cart and the horse, and I have to say that that sounds like cart and horse to me because, essentially, Clause 29 throws all the cards up in the air, they will come down where they may, and the only way that your Lordships’ House, or indeed Parliament, will have to influence what happens after that will be by means of regulations. I fully accept that we will have a chance to look at them, but as has been said this afternoon, and as Members of the Committee know, they represent a lower level of scrutiny and of being able to amend what is proposed.

I understand the Minister’s reluctance to accept the amendment, and the weaknesses of the community wealth fund concept at this point in its history, but I hope that she will find time to reassure the people who are working hard in the Community Wealth Fund Alliance that the fact that the Government are reluctant to accept the amendments does not mean that they do not think it is a worthwhile concept. It is a worthwhile concept, and the Government ought to be finding ways—pilot schemes, as the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, suggested, and other ways—to encourage institutional memory and practice to develop in this area. Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, I think that the idea is distinctive, offers something that no other groups will offer and will be able to do so over a sufficiently long time to make it an attractive prospect in helping to rebuild our social capital. I hope that the Minister will think again about her remarks on Amendment 54. Let us make sure that we have absolute clarity about what can and cannot happen. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.