Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Leigh of Hurley

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly, because we had much the same debate in the Employment Rights Bill. In the Employment Rights Bill debate on this subject, the noble Lord, Lord Katz, explained the Government’s position. I made the point that, in my experience, when people—particularly young people—are in disciplinary procedures and meetings, their preferred choice of person to accompany them is invariably a parent, for obvious reasons. I tried to table an amendment to suggest that relatives, whether or not they are professionally qualified, should be allowed to accompany people in such circumstances. That got lost in the heat of the Employment Rights Bill, but I invite the Minister to consider whether a relative might be included as a professionally qualified person for this purpose.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak to Amendment 448 in my name and to support Amendment 448A in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Hampton, to which I have added my name.

Amendment 448 would extend to maintained schools the freedoms that academies enjoy in relation to their staff’s pay and conditions. I cannot see a strong reason not to do this. Again, this is about trusting school leaders to make the right judgments for their team. My amendment is clear that the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document should act as a floor and not a ceiling in relation to teacher pay. I acknowledge and thank the Government for the important amendment they tabled in the other place that established this final point in relation to academies.

Amendment 448A has already been ably and nobly spoken to by the noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Storey, and my noble friend Lord Ashcombe. As other noble Lords have said, the amendment aims at the fundamental fairness that all teachers have the right to be accompanied by a certified companion. Teachers who are members of a trade union should feel well served by the representation that they pay for, and that is something that we welcome. It is also fair and reasonable to say that there would be some teachers who would choose not to join a union for a whole range of reasons, including disagreeing with strike action or a union’s political objectives. The Minister will be very familiar with some of the recent demands from unions—we heard some of them tonight, including abolishing Ofsted and returning academies to local authority control. It is fair to say that some people could reasonably disagree with these. This amendment seeks to ensure that teachers who, for whatever reason, are not union members can be accompanied by a trained and certified professional companion.

The amendment would tidy up the existing situation where trained companions from organisations such as Edapt are routinely admitted to hearings in schools but lack a legal right to do so, and on occasion are refused by employers. This amendment would provide a mechanism to regularise the good practice that is already seen in the sector and ensure that it is spread equally.

The amendment has another spin-off benefit. The Minister will be aware—I think my noble friend Lord Nash talked about this—that schools are seeing an increasing number of complaints being generated by AI. Complaints might be generated using an LLM, but they cannot be resolved in the same way. It is therefore important to ensure that workplace hearings are efficient and effective and keep pace with that very regrettable trend.

I cannot support Amendment 447A—I see that the Minister is smiling in surprise. In the good tradition set by my noble friend Lord Agnew, I also spent some time writing to chairs about CEO and senior leadership team pay. I disagree with the Minister that this should be resolved through the STRB.

Education: Philosophy

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Leigh of Hurley

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

In a serious vein, we know that our schools have tremendous responsibilities in terms of catching up and supporting children, particularly disadvantaged children, following the pandemic’s impact on them. The Government have made a commitment not to change the national curriculum. We need to make sure that the curriculum works for our children.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that my daughter is studying philosophy at university. Much as I welcome the thrust of the Question, philosophy is of course open to all students who seek to read it at university. I note that the Philosophy Foundation says that students, by studying philosophy, develop analytical, critical and problem-solving capabilities, so are we not lucky to have a Prime Minister who studied philosophy at university rather than, say, law?

Amazon

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Leigh of Hurley

Monday 12th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leigh of Hurley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are planning to take (1) to protect third party sellers from the dominance of Amazon, and (2) to ensure that Amazon does not benefit from passing on the costs of the Digital Services Tax to sellers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to ensuring that digital markets work for all—businesses, consumers and society as a whole. Promoting dynamic and competitive digital markets will be key to maintaining a world-leading digital economy in the UK. That is why we accepted the six strategic recommendations of the Furman review and established the digital markets task force to advise on the potential design and implementation of pro-competitive measures in digital platform markets.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I appreciate that the DST was always intended as a stopgap while the OECD comes up with a more global solution, possibly imminently. But it was brought in with the background of Amazon paying just £4.6 million in corporation tax in 2017. The DST does not achieve its objective of yielding more revenue from the likes of Amazon, as it is simply passed on to its suppliers in the marketplace, which have to absorb this tax in their margin. Would the Minister be prepared to set up a meeting with me, some interested parties and HM Treasury to consider this much more carefully?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government expect the digital services tax to raise about £2 billion over the next five years, which will go some way to addressing the issues that my noble friend raises, but I am delighted to commit to meeting him and other interested parties.