Free School Meals
Debate between Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway and Baroness Smith of Malvern(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
One of the things about devolving responsibilities is that it enables in this case mayors to make decisions about how they want to spend their resources. As I said, at the moment we are focused on ensuring that all those who are entitled to free school meals under the current criteria are able to get them. Decisions about how and whether to extend that entitlement more broadly will of course be dependent on much wider decisions about the resources that are available and where as a Government we think we need to focus them to get the best possible results for children.
Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, unlike other young students from poor backgrounds in further education who can qualify for a free meal, apprentices from poor backgrounds do not. Given that we want to encourage every young person from every background to go for an apprenticeship, will my noble friend the Minister consider looking again at the eligibility criteria for further education institutions to allow more young people from poor backgrounds to get and stay in apprenticeships?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I certainly want to ensure that we right the decline in young people starting apprenticeships that has happened over the last few years. As my noble friend knows, if you are in an apprenticeship, you are essentially in a job with training, spending perhaps one day a week in a further education college, so I am not sure that free school meals would be the best way of encouraging people on to those apprenticeships. But I certainly want to consider how we can enable more young people to get the benefits of an apprenticeship, particularly at that early age, where we have seen such a fall-off in the numbers.
Equality Act 2010: Diversity of Political Candidates
Debate between Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway and Baroness Smith of Malvern(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes a very important point. Some of that, of course, is the responsibility of political parties themselves, but particularly in areas where she and I have previously shared views and work—such as the abuse and intimidation that impact all elected politicians but disproportionately impact women—there is work that the Government can do, building on work done outside this place on this issue; for example, by the Jo Cox commission. The Government are working with the Electoral Commission to take this forward in terms of practical actions that will help overcome some of these barriers, which, as the noble Baroness says, might put people off coming into democratically elected life, and, in doing that, make us all poorer.
Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
How long does my noble friend the Minister think it will take before we achieve 50:50 representation of men and women in the House of Lords?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend the Leader assures me that the Front Bench on this side is pretty good. I am afraid it is not within my power, but I see in the other place that considerable progress has been made since 1997, when I was elected, which was equally a big jump in women’s representation. Then, however, it was just over 18% women—it now stands at 40%, which is the sort of progress that we would all like to see.
Vocational Training
Debate between Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway and Baroness Smith of Malvern(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
As we have discussed at some length as the Bill has gone through this House, the intention in shifting the functions is to enable them to be used by Skills England, which will be very much driven by the needs of employers, working alongside trade unions and bringing in the necessary regional and local co-ordination. I hope I provided some reassurance in Committee. There is no intention that we should move away from a system where the occupational standards and assessment plans are determined by employer groups. It is fundamentally important, to build confidence in apprenticeships and other technical qualifications, that they fulfil the requirements of employers. That is the intention for when Skills England takes on that role.
Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the legacy of the last Government was nearly 7 million people of working age with little or no qualifications, one in five workers lacking even basic computer skills and the number of apprenticeships falling off a cliff? Does she agree that the remedy, to revitalise vocational training in this country, is in part to have an active industrial strategy involving both employers and unions, and investing in our FE colleges—in kit and equipment but also in staff?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right; we have a skills shortage, and it has worsened over recent years in the way she describes. That means we need the industrial strategy this Government are developing, but we need it linked closely to a much more coherent skills system, led by Skills England, which will identify, with the partnership I outlined previously, current and future skills gaps. Those gaps will then be met by improved opportunities for technical education and apprenticeships. She is also right that a key partner in delivering that will be our FE colleges, for which this Government were of course able to find an additional £300 million of revenue and £300 million of capital in the recent Budget Statement.