Cultural Education Plan

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Bird

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bird (CB)]

I do not understand.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, let me explain to the noble Lord. Again, could the noble Lords in question come to a gentlemen’s agreement on who speaks first?

[Lord Bird (CB)]

Do the Government agree with me that one of the best ways of emptying our prisons is by investing in our youngsters who go wrong and using art and culture to bring about social transformation in their lives? I am a living embodiment of that: if it was not for culture in my early years, I would not be here.

Minoritised Women: Pay Inequality

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Bird

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My noble friend might be interested to know that the ethnicity pay gap between white and ethnic minority employees in England and Wales is actually only 2.3%. It goes back to the point raised by the Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, which is that it does not show the full picture. We have done a lot but there is further to go.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

We always leave class out of this issue. I hate this idea of turning white against black by talking about doing something for black people when there are so many white people who are also left behind because of the nature of their class and where they come from.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am not sure whether that was a statement or a question, but actually I agree with the noble Lord.

Inequality

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Bird

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I was a nutritionist before I went into politics. Some people on low incomes might find the suggestion that their children were necessarily malnourished to be insulting—in fact, rich people may well be malnourished. Malnutrition and undernutrition are two different things. Malnutrition obviously correlates with inadequate diet, but not necessarily with poverty.

The 4 million figure to which the noble Lord refers is for the number of children living in low-income households, relative to the population as a whole. There is no evidence to suggest that there are 4 million children in food-insecure households. However, I accept his point about food banks. As he will know, the reasons for that are many and varied. I also accept that the initial rollout of UC led to some of the proliferation of food banks.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, is it possible to accept the fact that we would be able to ride a coach and horses through those figures over the next five or 10 years if we did something about the 35% of children who we fail at school? Let us put education first. When you look at that 35%, they are the people who have all the cheap jobs and are the long-term unemployed, as well as filling up our A&Es.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I could not agree more with the noble Lord that education is absolutely key to good nutritional status and prospects for employment in future life.

Affordable Housing

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Bird

Monday 7th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, it is not just starter homes. Through the spending review there will be a range of homes of different types of tenures that will be available at each price point to suit a number of different types of first-time buyer or renter.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, is it not interesting to consider that this is how Britain spends 87% of the money that banks lend? That is one reason the market is so overheated. What are we going to do to reduce the heat? In Germany, only 20% of the money lent by banks goes on housing. This is a ridiculous situation and we have to address it.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we have had lots of differences in this House over housing and the different types of housing we are going to provide, but one thing that all noble Lords agree on is that we need to increase the supply of housing in order to make it affordable. That is the way forward for the future. This Government are committed to delivering one million homes by 2021.