Exercise Pegasus 2025
Debate between Baroness Pitkeathley and Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
The noble Lord raises an important point. Additional funding has been allocated for health, to make sure we have the long-term investment of £460 million in place. The noble Lord will be aware that we currently have the LRF trailblazer scheme in place and are in the process of developing the protocol, which is due for testing in March. I hope that any further issues around funding will follow at that point.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Harris mentioned the community and voluntary sectors in his question. It was clear during the pandemic how very reliant we are on the community and voluntary sectors to step up to the plate quickly in times of emergency. They do, however, often feel that they are consulted and involved a bit late. Can my noble friend the Minister assure me that this will not happen in future epidemics?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My noble friend is right. Many of us volunteered during that period, through our faith communities and the community groups with which we are associated. As we saw during the pandemic, voluntary and community groups are at the heart of our communities and faith groups. The reality is that during Exercise Pegasus we ensured that their voices were heard. Phase 4 of Pegasus is about how we recover from a pandemic. Those voices, and stakeholder engagement with that sector specifically, are key elements of these conversations.
Home Schooling
Debate between Baroness Pitkeathley and Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I personally agree very much with the noble Baroness but, in terms of what we are doing, this Government does not condone violence or abuse of children in any form, and there are laws in place to protect children from this. We are looking closely at what is happening in Wales and Scotland and will continue to build our evidence base but have no plans to legislate specifically for smacking at this stage, which I believe the noble Baroness was alluding to. We want to consider further evidence carefully ahead of deciding whether a change in law is required. We want to make sure that the voices of children, parents and trusted stakeholders are fundamentally at the heart of this discussion, and that will feed into any amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, would the Minister agree that part of the difficulties of this tragic case were the inadequacies of the social work supervision? Would she therefore support much more emphasis on the recruitment of adequate numbers of social workers with sufficient experience and on support for them thereafter in the very difficult work that they do?