Europe: Youth Mobility

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for securing this debate; it is clearly a popular subject. There have been Questions and other debates on it, but in this Chamber people have managed to provide many different answers to a similar question. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Moraes, on his interesting maiden speech. It showed humour and was, I think, a view of what we may come to expect from him in the future—insight and modesty—but he knows what he is talking about.

I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes. I am grateful to her for her advice on how to pronounce Llanfaes—so if I get it wrong, it is not my fault. Her point about widening the age range is one that I think many of us in this Chamber would take to heart. It is probably not quite the age she has in mind, but raising it at least to the mid-40s would be reasonable because, apart from anything else, it seems that the current younger generation seem to grow up rather more slowly than our generation had to.

It may have escaped the notice of some here, but earlier this month the Government launched the soft power council; it was so soft that nobody took much notice. Nevertheless, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Lisa Nandy from DCMS got together to announce this new council because they believe that soft power is the one thing that is going to be incredibly important in making Britain great again. Of course, they are right.

As David Lammy put it:

“Soft power is fundamental to the UK’s impact and reputation around the world … But we have not taken a sufficiently strategic approach … Harnessing soft power effectively can help to build relationships, deepen trust, enhance our security and drive”—


you guessed it—“economic growth”. Well, nobody is going to disagree with that.

We all agree that soft power is delivered in massive quantities by youth mobility. Getting young people to see and experience this country, and getting our young people to experience life abroad, is all about delivering soft power. Tomorrow’s young people include tomorrow’s leaders. Previous leaders of the States, for instance, have been students in the UK and have reflected favourably on that experience once in office. So a youth mobility scheme should be an important part of any soft power initiative. Surely that will be a contributor to the growth that we are in search of and that is proving so elusive.

Yesterday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she wants a Government who remove barriers to growth “one by one”. She said she is intent on making it

“easier for businesses to trade”.

What happened just five years ago has not made it easier for businesses to trade. The right reverend Prelate said he hoped that in this debate we would not rehearse the arguments over Brexit, and I think we have all tried not to disappoint him. The latest poll from YouGov, published this week, shows that just 30% of people think that we were right to leave the EU—but let us not debate that now.

The UK is not going back into the EU, the single market or the customs union; we have heard that often enough to actually believe it. Instead, we are resetting the relationship—and we need to. In the interests of growth, we certainly need to reset that relationship as quickly as possible. Exports by small businesses are down by 30% since Brexit. Some 20,000 small businesses have stopped exporting altogether. The noble Lord, Lord Frost—I see him returning to his place—sees no need for this reset. He told us that he believes the relationship is working well, even though those small firms have stopped exporting altogether.

The noble Lord was at least a little more positive—just a little—on the subject of a youth mobility scheme. I confess that I share his view that the EU’s original proposal that we read about had flaws—not least the idea that we should be able to send people from the UK to only one EU country but then they would have Schengen rights to travel, which limits things somewhat and seems a little unnecessary. Nevertheless, it is a serious starting point for negotiations that the EU wanted to open. The majority of people in this country would be perfectly prepared to open those negotiations, and they would want them to lead somewhere.

In this debate we have heard much about the advantages for individuals of the opportunity to live and work abroad. The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, would not even be in this Chamber, she tells us, had it not been for taking advantage of that opportunity. The advantage is not just in soft power but in young workers coming to the UK. Our young people get experience that is useful to bring back here. The hospitality industry and ABTA have been very clear that, without that experience, the pipeline of people to work in the travel industry in this country is very badly hit. In the more short-term rush for growth, those young workers—who work not for a great deal of money but with much enthusiasm, particularly in our hospitality industry and probably in our care industries as well—are much missed.

The choice of existing schemes is, to say the least, somewhat idiosyncratic. It is all very well to have a youth mobility scheme with Andorra or Monaco. South Korea and Uruguay may have young people who look fondly on the UK, but I have not come across many of them recently. Perhaps they find places closer to home that they wish to visit and that they can afford to visit.

Since we started these specific youth mobility schemes, some of which date back to 2008, half the visitors who have taken advantage of them have come from Australia. Much as we all welcome the Australians who come and work in this country, we need to broaden our horizons and encourage people from our nearest neighbours in Europe. Our estrangement from the EU— from Europe—has been hard on this country, not just for trade, but from an emotional point of view for many people. As other noble Lords have said, it is time for us to really start rebuilding those bridges.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has said, school trips have been decimated. That has had a terrible effect on the language schools in this country. There are grave fears that this situation could get even worse and that short-term tourists will be deterred too by the prospect of the ETA coming into force—not next year, nor the year after, but in April 2025. The ETA scheme is already operating for further flung countries. If it is to come into effect for European countries in April, can the Minister reassure us that everything is up and running to cope with it; that Operation Brock will not be needed again; that coaches will continue to flow through the port of Dover, and that there is nothing to fear? Can she reassure us that businesses, particularly in Kent, will not be hit, because they are fearful that they will suffer terrible disruption?

I will finish on a more positive note, as the right reverend Prelate asked us to do. We should take the concept of town twinning as far as we can and encourage towns to build close relationships in Europe; to get together and travel to Europe. Again, I fear that the ETA may be an obstacle in the way of this happening.

Covid-19 Inquiry

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a really important point about this being something that everybody has to contribute to. On his point about potential need for changes to the legislative framework, the current basis of legislation is the Civil Contingencies Act, and the next formal statutory review should be completed by 2027. However, in light of the recent inquiries around Covid and Grenfell, it is right that we look at the legislative framework and ensure that it meets the need of the evolving risk landscape and the growing expectations on the local tier in particular. We are considering the legislative framework as part of the resilience review, which, as noble Lords will be aware, will conclude in spring 2025.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, one of the most notable successes during the whole Covid pandemic was that of the Vaccine Taskforce, which achieved extraordinary things. Yet, in October 2022, it was effectively abandoned and its work absorbed into two different agencies. Does the Minister think that the Government would consider reinstituting it, as the need for vaccines appears to be still very pressing?

Live Events Ticketing: Resale and Pricing Practices

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My noble friend raises a critical issue. This is about major ticket touting, which is incredibly well organised and heavily financed. The issues that have been raised are ones we will want to explore through the consultation, because there is no point in our having stronger laws unless they have an effect. We are clear that we need to act on ticket pricing, and that cannot just be words; there has to be action.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome this initiative. Can the Minister assure the House that the consultation and eventual legislation will stretch to cases where it is the seats that are owned rather than the tickets, and the seat holders are putting the seats up for resale? At the moment it is impossible to get tickets through the Albert Hall for the Last Night of the Proms because the programme has not yet been devised, but online you can pay £13,000 for a single ticket. But don’t worry: if you cannot run to £13,000 then for £450, if you move fast, you can get a restricted-view ticket. I ask the Minister to reassure me that this sort of resale will be included.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

Mindful that your Lordships’ House is going to be debating the Royal Albert Hall Private Member’s Bill, if not next week, then the week after, I raised this issue myself. On debentures, we are consulting on a range of measures, including a price cap on the resale of tickets for live events. We will consider all views in determining the best route forward once the consultation is concluded.

Civil Servants: Compulsory Office Attendance

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this debate on what is a very interesting and valuable subject, but I fear that, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, pointed out, he is fighting the last war. For most of my career, being in the office was seen as essential—and not merely Monday to Friday. Sunday newspapers required Saturday working, just as Mondays required a team to be in the office on Sunday, but when I embarked on a career in journalism, we used typewriters and carbon paper. Technology has moved on, and so have working practices. Indeed, one weekly newspaper to which I contribute does not even have an office, but it succeeds in coming out on time every week and is making a profit. We have to accept that what was seen as essential for us may not be appropriate for today. That is why I cannot support an insistence that most civil servants should be in the office 60% of the time.

Surely what is important is getting the job done as effectively as possible. There is not yet conclusive evidence—as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, pointed out—as to whether the job is done more effectively with home working or less effectively. The noble Lord asked: if people are not in the office, how can one tell if they are working? Well, if he cannot tell whether the work is being done, there is something wrong, and it is not with the way that people are working; it is with what is being measured. What is surely important is not the hours spent but what is delivered in those hours.

What we know is that many people place huge value on the flexibilities that modern working practices—many introduced because of Covid—have brought them. They have made major life decisions on the basis of that flexibility that working from home has permitted. Whether they are civil servants or other workers, they should not be asked to sacrifice that at the whim of their employer. Some jobs simply cannot be done remotely. I understand why some of those who have no choice but to leave their homes and head to work may feel a degree of resentment, but that might be a reason for employers to examine their pay and conditions, not to penalise those who are able to work more flexibly.

People differ just as jobs differ and I can see no reason why modern workplace practices cannot take some account of this. If employers, including the Government, share my belief that a strong team culture is important in building success, they should insist on a minimum presence in the office, but does it need to be for more than 20% of the working week? If that was, as far as possible, the same day for every member of a specific team, a degree of bonding and shared culture could be achieved.

Some people will want, and may need, to spend much more time in the office—for instance, those who live in cramped circumstances or wish to escape from loud children. When people were confined to their homes because of Covid, there were some individuals who had to struggle to turn an ironing board into an office; that does not work well and no doubt they would leap at the chance of spending every day in their working week in the office. But we should surely strive to avoid the cult of presenteeism that so bedevilled workplaces for so long and is still present in some of the investment banks, among other institutions. The jacket left on the back of the chair to signify that the owner was definitely in the workplace but had merely slipped away from the desk for a moment was symptomatic of a culture of silly competition to try to indicate a devotion to the job—certainly not a recipe for a healthy working environment. Of course, it penalised many women who wanted to work but wanted the flexibility to do so in their own time. Just being present in the workplace is no indication of effectiveness.

Too many people seem to go to work to have a social life. A poll by YouGov for the TUC found that one in three people had had a relationship with a colleague, and 22% were married to, or in a civil partnership with, someone whom they met at work. The basic question is whether or not they were doing everything effectively for their job while they were there. I do not think that the Government should legislate to insist that everybody is present in the workplace even 60% of the time, or 40% of the time. Let us look at what is produced.

Social Cohesion and Community during Periods of Change

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Friday 6th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, in the wake of the summer riots, the Prime Minister said:

“This is a problem that has deep roots in our society, and it’s a job for all of our society to help fix it”.


That was in the summer of 2011, and the Prime Minister in question was the one to whom the noble Baroness, Lady Porter of Fulwood, just referred: the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, who, at that stage, was talking about the broken society and the need to fix it. If it was broken then, my goodness, it is broken now.

In the meantime, we have had commissions and reports. The Library briefing gave us an indication of just how many bits of paper have been produced on the issue of social cohesion. Last year, the Church of England produced its report, Love Matters—of course it does; I have no doubt that Richard Curtis will make a film about it at some stage. The point is that society is still broken. From the relative comfort of these Benches, we are producing many more thoughts and ideas about what the problems are, but what we really need to start getting to grips with is what needs to be done.

We know the root of much of the problem. As the most reverend Primate indicated in introducing the debate, this year’s riots were concentrated largely in areas of sustained deprivation. Years of talk of levelling up have done absolutely nothing to improve their situation—indeed, in many cases, it has simply got worse. There are different problems, and various aspects of them have been spoken of today. It is not all to do with finance, although there is no doubt that more money for local authorities would make a difference. Properly used, it could lift living standards and bolster communities. But, rather than dwelling more on the problems, I will try to limit my remarks to a couple of groups of people where there are particular issues and I have small thoughts as to how we might begin to improve things.

The first group I will concentrate on are white working-class boys. They feel deeply underprivileged, and in many cases unloved. They do not know where they are going and they are fearful. How do they respond? Many of them look for leadership. Unfortunately, the leader many of them seem to have found is Andrew Tate. I do not want to dwell too much on Andrew Tate, but that appalling perpetrator of misogyny, and many other things besides, has a huge following, and many of them are young British men and boys. He is clearly not doing them any good, but nobody appears to have been able to take his place—and unfortunately, Nigel Farage says that Mr Tate is somebody we should all listen to.

If your Lordships do not think this is an important problem now, politicians soon will. A poll earlier this year showed that among 16 to 17 year-old boys, if they were given a vote—which of course they will soon have—35% of them would vote for Reform, and 35% of them would vote for Labour. Very few of them would vote for the Conservatives, but of course that may change. As it happens, the young ladies were rather more sensible: only 12% of them would vote for Reform. That 35% figure should frighten us. It is not Nigel Farage they particularly warm to; they warm to something different from what is being offered normally—to what has been the traditional politics of this country. They want change.

When there was a riot outside a hotel for asylum seekers in Manchester, a boy who was taken to court, a 12 year-old, had to wait while the judge summoned back his mother, who had gone on holiday to Ibiza the day before the boy was due in court. In one microcosm your Lordships have an example of this boy’s problems. He was a child of a single parent who thought it appropriate to go on holiday the day before he was due to be sentenced in court. No wonder he was described by the judge as showing

“the worst type of feral behaviour”

because what had he been shown? He knew little better.

What people such as that need is of course the six-month parenting course his mother was going to get, although I do not think that will change things. I suggest that sport may have the ability to do that, so I would like to see the Government doing more to get these disaffected youngsters into sport, which can be a force for good, showing them how to engage in teams and become a useful part of society.

The other group I would like to talk about is elderly people. Much has been said already about loneliness, but 2 million people aged over 75 live alone. More than a million of those, according to Age UK, go over a month without speaking to a friend, neighbour or family member. It does not need to be like this. These are people who could be a useful resource. We saw examples after Covid of “granny friends”: elderly women and men being paired up with little children to try to get them to be sociable and to learn what they need to know—and they need to know quite a lot. One of the Government’s latest milestones is that 75% of five year-olds should be school-ready when they are going to school. The fact that 75% is the target tells you all you need to know. These children need help, and we have an army of elderly people sitting at home alone who could provide that help. Again, I ask the Minister whether he has a plan to mobilise the capacity that is there to help these children, to build families and to help rebuild our communities.

Public Sector Productivity

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for securing this debate and introducing it so effectively. With her experience of both the public and private sectors, she is well-qualified to point to where there might be scope for improvement. The figures she quoted for public sector productivity are indeed dire, but as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has pointed out, it is not simple to measure public sector productivity.

I will not dwell on how notoriously difficult this task can be in the diverse sectors that we are looking at this evening—even within the health service, as we have heard, it is very difficult, and in the private sector, where the profit motive is a simple one in relative terms, there is still dispute over how effectively productivity can best be measured. Instead, I want to highlight two areas in which I think relatively simple changes could secure significant improvements in productivity for this country.

The first area is education, where I feel that an emphasis on traditional outputs—exam results in particular—is not producing the workforce that we require. That is not simply because the system is not producing enough computer scientists or engineers. The dramatic cutback in arts education, and particularly music, fails to acknowledge the need for a modern workforce to be creative and flexible in its thinking. We know of the close link between mathematics and music, for instance, and playing in an orchestra or band is a great education in being a team player, which is what is required in the modern workplace.

It is physical flexibility which causes me even more concern, however. A report from NHS England published late last month showed that 19% of 11 to 15 year-olds were obese. The problem, like the children, grows as they progress through school. Between two and 10, the average for obesity is 12% but by the final year in primary school it hits a horrifying 22.7%. These figures are based on 2022 research and had barely changed since 2019.

Childhood obesity leads to adult obesity and, as we know, obesity is a massive cause of ill health and thus a major contributor to keeping people either out of the workplace or not at their most effective. It seems to me that an important measure of productivity for the education system should be its effectiveness in producing healthy children—those who are physically fit and ready to join the workforce. This does not mean every child having to do dreaded cross-country runs or team sports, but maybe being physically active by dancing, swimming or doing yoga would be an important start. Physically healthy pupils will be more receptive to education. Does the Minister agree that schools would improve their productivity and the eventual ability of the workforce if they provided more exercise for pupils?

Also, I want to suggest a way in which productivity might be enhanced across much of the public sector, empowering individuals within it. Only today, I was talking to a staff nurse at a major London hospital. He was struggling to cope with an appointments system which had changed for the umpteenth time. “They are always changing things and we are always the last to find out,” he said. It is a refrain that I have heard repeatedly, particularly in dealings with the NHS but also from local council employees and civil servants.

The private sector acknowledges the importance of empowering employees—although sometimes more in theory than in practice. Nevertheless, empowerment is a proven way of motivating a workforce, and a motivated workforce is inherently a more effective one. The “us and them” of British culture persists far more in the public sector than in the private sector. There is undoubtedly a need for investment in technology but, as we heard repeatedly this afternoon, there is not a great deal of cash to be handed out. I am hopeful that the fiscal rules will be changed for investment purposes but, even without that, empowering the staff in the public sector would deliver cheaply and effectively.