International Women’s Day
Baroness Hazarika Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Baroness Hazarika (Lab)
My Lords—and Ladies; come on, it is International Women’s Day—it is my great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Alexander and welcome her to this House along with so many other great women, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Bousted, Lady Hunter and Lady Rafferty, who are also making their maiden speeches today. I do not want to forget the noble Lord, Lord Jones, even though he is a man. He is taking part in the International Women’s Day debate, so he is now an honorary member of the sisterhood. In the rather alarming era of the global strong man, it is heartening to see the arrival of so many strong women to this Chamber, and I look forward to them all standing up, questing for change, causing a wee bit of trouble and speaking much sense.
As a fellow Scot, I am a long-time admirer of my noble friend Lady Alexander. She played a key role in the Scottish Parliament from its creation in 1999 until 2011, and she is a woman who gets things done. Her achievements include the first social justice report, tackling homelessness, fighting the pernicious Section 28 and announcing the first Scotland-wide fund to tackle violence against women. She also helped shape a more modern and more equal Scottish Labour Party when she was an adviser to Donald Dewar, and she was instrumental in making it more inclusive of women and less of a boys’ club. It is fitting that she went on to become the party’s first female leader in Scotland and paved the way for so many others. I look forward to the rich contributions she will make to this House and wish her well.
I also warmly congratulate my noble friend Lady Smith on her new role as Minister for Women and Equalities. Podcasting and Iain Dale’s loss—he is still bereft—is very much our gain. I know that she cares deeply about these subjects and will do an excellent job for the many.
This is such an important debate. Technology has shaped so many aspects of our lives for the better, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, said, we have to be honest: there are winners and losers. The winners seem to be the very rich, powerful tech bros, now some of the most important people on the planet, and women often seem to be the losers. Women and girls are often at the mercy of a savage, rapacious thirst for online pornography, which is getting ever more violent, dark and dangerous. The online world is becoming a harder place and making our tech bro friends a lot of money, but I think we are all losing out. Young women are being told to just be cool with a bit of sexual violence such as strangulation or choking during sex. Young men are being taught that what they see on their phones is normal and necessary to be a man. It is not, and it is harming them too. We are numbing a generation. I pay great tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, for her review into online pornography, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, for her important work on deepfakes. I hope the Government can work with them to make the online space a wee bit safer for women and girls.
What happens online is not abstract; it shapes what happens in real life. Violence against women and girls is at a terrifying level. It is just four years since the murder of Sarah Everard. Do we honestly think that things have changed that much? The landmark Femicide report delves into the epidemic of violence against women. The latest report, just out, has found that it is not just young women who are the victims of male violence. One in eight women killed by men in the last 15 years was over the age of 70. Can the Minister update us on what is being done to better protect older women, often ignored in the media and wider society?
I used to feel very optimistic about International Women’s Day. I used to look forward to all the celebrations, parties and gatherings, but like many women right now I feel pretty depressed about how things are going. Things are going backwards, with a rise in misogyny here and all around the world, the anti-abortion laws in America, women being erased in Afghanistan, and the effects of war on women and girls all over the world. It feels as if there is very little female representation in the room when these new global powers meet.
We have to be honest: the power structures in the world right now are once again very male, and technology is playing a huge role. So I make this plea to the Minister: we understand that technology and AI are here to stay, and that they are important to growth and the evolution of society. However, as we heard so eloquently from the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, this is a sector dominated by men, from the new global overlords who can make or break Presidents and leaders, right down to the engineers and the coders. So, yes, let us harness the power of this exciting technical revolution, but please let us not worship at the altar of the tech bros at the expense of women and girls. We must not be the sacrificial lambs at this pivotal moment.
Relationship, Sex and Health Education
Baroness Hazarika Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Precisely as I suggested, it is particularly because of the stakeholder engagement that commenced in December 2024 that we have not got to the point of publishing this guidance yet. That stakeholder engagement is still ongoing; it has included LGBT round tables, a round table for parents and events both online and in person for key stakeholders, teachers and local authorities. There are also plans to convene a round table for children and young people. The broadest range of voices will help us to come to the right place on this. In relation to the advisory panel that the noble Baroness mentioned, I will perhaps come back to her in writing.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
We will hear first from my noble friend and then from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox.
Baroness Hazarika (Lab)
My Lords, as we have heard, we know that pornography is poisoning the minds of our young women and men. It is so important to teach men and women at a young age what healthy relationships look like, as they are often not seen at home. They are seeing the most violent, misogynistic and dangerous images. We know this hurts women, but it also hurts men who are drawn to people such as Andrew Tate. Will the Minister give us an assurance that the Government will make this education a priority?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right, which is why healthy relationships are a key part of RSHE and contribute to the Government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls in the next decade. That is why yesterday, or earlier this week, the Government also responded positively to the important work in the review of the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, on online pornography.
Special Needs Schools
Baroness Hazarika Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Hazarika (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, for organising this important debate. She is clearly such a passionate and moving advocate for her cause. In fact, a very dear friend—my best friend—who is a parent of two children with special educational needs has just messaged me to say that, watching the noble Baroness’s opening comments, she feels tearful that this is being debated in such a serious, sensitive and meaningful way.
The debate is also very timely. As has just been mentioned, the National Audit Office has just published a report which says that the special educational needs system is simply not delivering for children and their families, and very importantly, nor is it
“preventing local authorities from facing significant financial risks”.
I begin by paying tribute to the many excellent specialist schools and colleges across the country and their staff. They do such vital work for children and young people of all ages and backgrounds, many of whom have complex needs. As we have just heard so eloquently from the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, they provide a safe, compassionate, respectful, and—we forget this word—fun environment for the individual to develop and learn. They are often a lifeline for parents and families. Many also have a real focus on practical, vocational skills, to help equip a young adult for future life, to get into the workplace and get a job. That is so important.
When we have these discussions about children and young people with special educational needs, we often talk about them as though they are a different species from a different planet. I say this as a journalist, and I think my profession can be very guilty of this. We often use negative, hostile language, calling them a “problem” or a “ticking time bomb”—but they are human beings, just like anyone else, and they are someone’s precious and much-loved child or grandchild.
We should also want every child to have the best chance to make the most of themselves. Not only is it the right thing to do but it is the right thing for wider society. We want people to find suitable and sustainable work and to make a contribution. On a very basic human level, we want people to be able to build a good life.
Many children and young people just cannot access all these specialist facilities. That is why, like many others, I will move the debate on to what is happening in mainstream education. Many children with special educational needs who end up in a specialist institution will have often started out in mainstream education, so that part of the jigsaw cannot be ignored.
There are around 1.9 million children who have special educational needs, although this figure is probably much higher in real life. Whether you like that figure or not, we have to accept that there is real demand for special educational needs and that we all have a stake in improving the situation, because the current system is not working.
It is also unhelpful is to make comments such as those made by one of the contenders vying to be the next leader of the Opposition, who endorsed a pamphlet that argued:
“If you have a neurodiversity diagnosis”
and if
“you are a child, you may well get better treatment or equipment at school”.
I am afraid that idea is woefully out of touch with the lived reality and experience that so many parents face. Most parents in this situation are absolutely exhausted; they have been ground down and are tearing their hair out, trying to navigate and battle their way through this punishing, broken system. As we have heard, trying to get an education, health and care plan can become a full-time job. I know so many friends who are parents—most of whom are mums—who have had to stop working to battle away on behalf of their children. That is a loss of income for that family, a loss of a job for that parent and a loss for the economy. What about the parents who do not have the time, stomach or ability to take on the system? Do their kids simply get left behind? That cannot be right.
Having spoken to some parents and excellent teachers in preparation for this debate, I have a few ideas that they have put forward and that I hope my noble friend the Minister will consider. So many people have said that transport is absolutely critical. It sounds like a small thing, but it makes all the difference; it is something that can really help to get children to school. Yesterday in this Chamber, we discussed absenteeism and we all agreed, across the House, that it is so important to get children into school.
Teaching assistants also came up in my conversations. Again, they can make a massive difference to support teachers and pupils in schools. Perhaps now is the time to start treating teaching assistants with greater status and make the role more like a graduate job—giving them greater respect and maybe paying them a bit more—so that they can specialise in special educational needs, such as speech and language therapy.
We also need more resources in mainstream schools. Some very good work has been done on secondary schools, but we must also focus on primary schools. Early detection and intervention are vital, particularly at key stages 1 and 2, to help with identification, which will help children and their parents.
We also know that better mental health provision is important here and that waiting lists have soared post Covid. Getting mental health services into schools, and making them hubs, is important. This new Government are keen to do that, and I am sure that we will all welcome it.
The fiscal climate is incredibly difficult right now and we are of course waiting for the much-anticipated Budget, but we simply cannot afford not to fix the system. It is not all about throwing more money at the issue; it is about how it is used. As one excellent SEN teacher told me, money alone will not fix this; having the right people in place is what will make a difference. This is an important debate, and I hope that there will be agreement across the House that the hallmark of a good society is the welfare and education of all our children.