United Kingdom Declining Birth Rate
Baroness Walmsley Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Lord Livermore (Lab)
I sympathise with my noble friend’s point, but I find it hard to sympathise with that man on anything.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Lib Dem Benches.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, in providing additional childcare places, will the Government ensure that the additional staff are well trained and highly skilled? Perhaps we should be replacing the word “childcare” with the phrase “early education”, to make sure that children develop well and to give parents going back to work the confidence that their children will be properly looked after.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes an absolutely central point. All the evidence shows that the first months and years of a child’s life are fundamental to the opportunities that they have throughout their life, so I agree wholeheartedly with everything that she said. Skills England, the new body that we have established, is there to make sure that exactly what the noble Baroness said about the skills available to that sector happens.