Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Baroness Whitaker

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

As it is late, I shall just register my support for Amendments 465 and 471. I agree that a large number of young people and their parents do not adhere to a religious faith. It is clearly valuable and important for them to learn about the central faiths that influence our culture, but they are also entitled to have access to moral and ethical frameworks which do not depend on a religious faith so that they may arrive at their own moral compass. These amendments would enable that positive development.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I offer Green support for all three of these amendments, but in the interests of time I shall make two brief remarks about Amendments 463 and 465.

On Amendment 463, I agree with all the contributions made thus far, but with a focus particularly on the relationship and sex education part of it. I think that it is also important that we focus on the PSHE element of that. This is education about the financial sector and managing personal finances, something that it is generally agreed there is a real shortage of. This is education about physical and mental health—and I cross-reference the earlier amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, about the importance of physical literacy in particular. It is also about rights and responsibilities. We have to note that, with votes at 16 now being government policy and coming in this direction, it is surely important that we provide education about voting and our political system to young people in our further education system.

When I say that we need that kind of education, people sometimes say that that is an argument against votes at 16. I think that 16 year-olds are as well informed about our political system as 60 year-olds, and they all need more information and more education. Educating 16 and 17 year-olds will also provide information that will disseminate out into the general community through their family, friends and colleagues in the workplace.

On Amendment 465, I want to respond directly to the noble Lord, Lord Weir, who, I think, suggested that there was something odd about the idea that the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, had previously brought two Private Members’ Bills—I have spoken in support of both—and that their subject was now being put forward as an amendment to a government Bill. There is a very well-trodden path for—

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Baroness Whitaker

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to open the sixth day of Committee on this hugely important Bill with a set of amendments which may appear rather niche to some, but which I suggest are fundamental to our national values.

I speak to Amendments 145, 173, 174, 175 and 176 in my name and those of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, who regrets he cannot be here, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for Amendment 145, together with the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, who have joined me for the others. I am very grateful for their support. I am also very grateful to Friends, Families and Travellers for its advice, and to the Public Bill Office for its heroic efforts to get our requirements within the scope of this Bill.

All these amendments address a gap in our understanding of the population of the United Kingdom: the centuries-old existence of a small number of fellow citizens, some Gypsies and Travellers, whose traditional way of life and culture is to live in their communities on caravan sites. The fact that they may reside in a different pattern from the majority does not lessen the validity of their citizenship, as the law has attested. Their rentals of caravans and associated amenities on a site as their permanent residence thus means that they should be entitled to standards of provision just as much as those who live in bricks and mortar on a street. But the omission of general acknowledgment of their way of life has meant that there is a significant shortage of sites and that the conditions that they are obliged to live in can easily be—and are—markedly inferior, insecure, dangerous, polluted and the cause of multiple disadvantage, to say nothing of the damage all this does to social cohesion.

These amendments are the way to close that gap. Amendment 145 would make it clear that Gypsy and Traveller sites must be considered within the strategically important housing sites identified in spatial development strategies. Amendment 173 would firm up the current obligation on local authorities to assess the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers so that plans and planning strategies, including the all-important new spatial development strategies, never omit the need for sites again. Thus, local authorities could not ignore the excellent guidance so far produced by this Government and must observe any further guidance. It is of particular importance to put an end to the inconsistent approaches and methodologies of assessment of need which have resulted in such marked inequality of provision. Amendment 174 would clarify the role of government in revising or developing guidance, so that Parliament has a proper opportunity to debate what is best.

Amendment 175 would create a similar framework for local authorities to ensure that they meet the assessed need for sites in their area in their role in planning, development and infrastructure. Here it is essential that needs for both private and socially rented pitches, transit as well as permanent, are taken account of.

Finally, Amendment 176 addresses the failure to date of many local authorities to meet the assessed need for Gypsy and Traveller sites by giving the Secretary of State the power to make them do it when they are carrying out their functions in relation to planning, development and infrastructure.

In conclusion, these amendments together would at last recognise the validity of that small Gypsy and Traveller population that follow their traditional way of life as full citizens. They would go far to eliminate the neighbourhood friction that comes of their having to live on unauthorised sites. Perhaps most poignantly of all, they would enable proper education for the children who suffer so markedly and in so many ways from the insecurity of constantly being evicted. It would remove a very long-standing injustice to adopt these amendments. I very much hope that my noble friend will do that, or devise amendments that would achieve the same end.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who has long been the House’s champion in these areas and provides us with great leadership. I was pleased to attach my name to Amendment 145, also supported by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. I would have attached my name to all the others if there had been time.

I will put the context of this issue. Noble Lords who follow the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography will know that, at the weekend, the biography it focused on was a woman called Elizabeth Canning who was one of the most celebrated criminal cases of the 18th century. She was a maidservant who disappeared for a month and said that she had been kidnapped. A woman identified at that time as an “Egyptian”—what we would now describe as a Gypsy—was then convicted of being responsible for that. if you read the account now, it is very obvious that this was simply a case of 18th-century prejudice.

I reference that case because it focuses on how long Gypsies in particular, but also Traveller people generally, have been part of our communities and lives, and how long the prejudice has gone on. In the 21st century, these amendments seek to make sure that we end some of that prejudice, at least in the structure of our law. We cannot always in your Lordships’ House address people’s attitudes, but we can address the law and make sure that there is provision for the housing needs that are so crucial.

The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has set out most of the technical points. I will make one additional point. This aims to ensure that we have a level of accommodation needs provision for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people across the country that is to the same standards. Some noble Lords might suggest that I am often talking about the need for local devolution and decision-making, but we also want a basic level of standard across the country, which these amendments would provide. That does not mean that a local authority could not do better than the basic standard; this is saying that there have to be standards and there has to be provision. That has to be the crucial starting point.