School Curriculum: Creative Subjects

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am sure the noble Lord will agree that what is absolutely key for all young people is to have a solid grounding in the basic academic subjects of English and maths. That is something that this Government have been focusing on, and we make no apology for that. But as I said, we believe that children should have a high-quality creative education. We have put a lot of funding into encouraging programmes and, as I have said, we believe the new Progress 8 measure will help to raise the status of creative arts subjects.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

Would the noble Baroness acknowledge the research that shows that there is a key relationship between academic subjects and creative arts? The link between maths and music is well known, and many schools now use creative ways of teaching financial management that links into maths. All this will help with the academic subjects. Should good schools not be linking all these things together?

Young People: Mentoring

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said, mentoring and providing advice and support for young people is clearly a priority as we are putting £20 million into mentoring. We are trying to make sure that excellent schemes that have been proven to have a real impact on young people’s lives are able to access new funding so that young people can fulfil their potential and get the support, help and guidance from inspirational mentors that we know can make a significant difference.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

I welcome all that the Government are doing on mentoring, but what are they doing to ensure that the quality is monitored? The expansion is large and rapid, which can sometimes cause serious problems with quality. How is it to be measured?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said, this new fund will be about scaling up proven mentoring schemes, so quality will be at the very heart of ensuring that young people get access to the kind of schemes that make the most difference for them. However, we also need to make sure that these schemes are available in areas where provision is patchiest. The analysis that I talked about earlier, identifying areas of the country where real support is needed—and needs to be improved—means that we can encourage proven schemes to expand into those areas, so that all young people have access to that kind of support.

Housing Associations: Right to Buy

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we have significantly dealt with the issue of empty properties. I shall get my noble friend the exact figures on the number of empty properties that have been brought back into use, but I can confirm to him that it is significant.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, many of the houses developed through specialist housing associations have very expensive adaptations, many of them paid for by charitable donations and donors. Does the Minister not think that this is an area where there might be some protection to ensure that these houses move on to other severely disabled people when they are vacated?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I am sure the intention in this area will be set out in due course.

Living Wage

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder if the—

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I do not think any of the Minister’s replies have explained how his strategy will take out of poverty the millions of children who have just been illustrated in the report of one of the Government’s own commissions. It recognises that many families where there is childhood poverty, even though someone in the household is employed, are not being helped. What strategy do the Government therefore have to reach the jointly agreed target to take children out of poverty in the next decade?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Several strategies are in place, but above all the main point is to encourage more jobs. We have created many millions of jobs and encouraged apprenticeships over the past few years since 2010. That is the way forward: to increase employment and job security for all in the UK.

Procedure of the House

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, with due respect to the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, and as someone who does not usually speak on these issues, as a very ordinary Back- Bencher, I should like to make my views known. I fundamentally disagree with the previous speaker, because why should I, as an ordinary Back-Bencher, not be allowed to challenge the report by the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, or any other report? I expect to agree or disagree. Why should a group of Members from the Back-Benches select certain topics when we know that we all have our internal prejudices? It would be very difficult for some topics to get through those prejudices. What procedure would the Leader of the House put in place to ensure that, if we had this committee, no Member was open to lobbying by any external group to make sure that Members are free from any prejudice in the list? It is for those reasons that I felt that I had to get up to speak to, very unusually, disagree with my colleagues and very firmly—and this is not usual—agree with the Leader.

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords, I support the proposal for a Back-Bench committee. Indeed, I was one of those who put the suggestion to the Procedure Committee. I start by paying tribute to the former Leader of the House for establishing the working group on our working practices. He was sometimes accused of dragging his feet and not getting on, but we have made a number of improvements, although a number remain to be made, of which this is one, and I hope that we can make progress on it today. Secondly, I express appreciation to the present Leader of the House for the extra time that he is proposing we should have for Back-Bench debates, which is very important.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, asked why we should go along with the Goodlad report. The answer is very simple: we should or should not go along with it on the basis of the arguments that were put forward on this issue. The letter that the noble Lord the Leader of the House has circulated strongly stresses that we should look at the situation and read the report of the Procedure Committee. I am sure that we should read the Procedure Committee report, but the report that we should be reading on this issue is the Goodlad report. The recommendations in this regard run to a full page and are supported by a number of paragraphs arguing in favour of such a committee.

The noble Lord, Lord Butler, set forward the case comprehensively. I do not wish to delay the House for long, but I shall refer to one personal experience of these matters. At the height of the first outbreak of the eurozone crisis, I sought to obtain a debate on the Floor of the House. It proved extremely difficult. I tried for week after week on a matter of major importance; meanwhile ballots were taking place on issues of relative unimportance. Eventually I managed to secure a debate in the Moses Room. The Motion was immediately hijacked by the Opposition, who added a second part to it, which was entirely partisan. The debate broke up completely in both directions and the real issue of the eurozone was barely debated. Had we had such a committee at the beginning of the crisis, we could have had what would have been, as always in your Lordships’ House, an expert debate. This is not going to happen with a ballot.

The reality is that the odds on the chance of getting a debate on a major issue as against some particular enthusiasm are not good. A large number of Members may have put in for the ballot and the odds are getting worse because there are more Members. Therefore, the chances of getting relevant, topical, important debates would be improved if we had someone, and a group of the kind suggested, who would be effective in bringing that about.

My noble friend asked a moment ago how the group would be selected. I am strongly in favour of its members being elected. That seems to me the obvious way of proceeding rather than by appointment or any other method. That should ensure that they are appropriately members of the committee and can then act in our interests as far as the overall picture is concerned.

Reference has been made to the situation in the House of Commons. Its Members are enthusiastic about the change that was made to their proceedings. Matters are never on all fours between one House and the other but I had the chance last night of speaking to Mr Bernard Jenkin, who happened to be involved in procedures in the other place and who is wildly enthusiastic about what has happened there. Perhaps that is overstating it; I am not sure that one is ever wildly enthusiastic about such matters. But he has not the slightest doubt that the change has meant that Back-Benchers have a greater influence on the matters that are debated and the priority given to them. That is what we ought to secure by this proposal and I hope very much indeed that we do, because I am frankly rather puzzled by the position that the Leader of the House has taken. I do not think that the present arrangement is working well and we ought to reform it.