Primary Schools: Swimming Lessons
Debate between Earl of Effingham and Baroness Smith of Malvern(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is right. I have already identified the decrease in the number of public pools, as others have. He also makes an important point about ensuring that there is access to public leisure facilities on a fair basis. The responsibility for that lies at the local authority level. We are continuing to encourage local authorities to invest in leisure facilities, notwithstanding the considerable pressures on their funding that they have faced over recent years.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, unfortunately, sport in schools has been described as in “crisis”, with a “Covid cohort” of children not returning to physical activity. The neglect of sport is leading to catastrophic effects on childhood obesity and mental health, and evidence suggests that many children are now addicted to their phones. Can the Minister please deliver on what her Prime Minister said, which was that children are being
“locked out of emulating their heroes”
because of a lack of PE provision? Will she commit to focusing on there being no mobile phones in schools and more physical education in the curriculum?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I am trying not to be grumpy in answering this Question today, as I was a bit grumpy yesterday. However, the noble Earl has a bit of a cheek talking about the crisis in PE provision in our schools. This Government have acted quickly, but have been in government for only six months. The 6.7 percentage point decrease in those able to swim 25 metres unaided, compared with 2017-18, cannot be laid at the feet of this Government.
Having said that, there is a range of ways in which we want to reinvigorate sport, PE and other opportunities for children in our schools, whether by increasing the number or teachers, by increasing the funding that we have provided or by ensuring that the capital funding is there for provision. We take seriously the responsibility to ensure that every child has access to the sporting activities that are so important for both their health and their future opportunity.
Higher Education Reform
Debate between Earl of Effingham and Baroness Smith of Malvern(3 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is right in his demand and his expectation that universities need to improve the information that they provide for students about the course and about potential progression. That is an important area that we will want to work with the sector on improving.
On international students, I would strongly support anything that enables international students to maintain their contact with the university and with the country. One of the big benefits of our ability to attract international students is precisely that, for example, nearly 60 world leaders are former students at UK universities. That is an enormous amount of soft power, as well as very strong relationships that have been built up, and I would support any initiative that ensures that continues.
On the noble Lord’s final point, one of the first things that we did in government was to ask the Office for Students to focus more clearly on identifying the financial situation of universities. I cannot say that, at this point, we have the metrics around the value for money that the noble Lord is asking for, but that is one of the areas where, in terms of the efficiency work, we need to have much better transparency within the sector about how money is being spent, how it is being allocated, for example, between research and teaching and how that then results in student experience. That will be one of the things we expect to see.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, the Statement said:
“We have paused the commencement of the last Government’s freedom of speech legislation”.
It also said that
“universities must be home to robust discussion and rigorous challenge”.
How will the Minister guarantee appropriate freedom of speech, robust discussion and rigorous challenge in those universities?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Yesterday’s Statement was less about freedom of speech than about the funding of universities but, to reiterate the point I made when we covered this issue previously, I and the Government are absolutely committed to ensuring freedom of speech and academic freedom within our universities. That is why we continue to consider the way forward, to ensure that this can happen without some of the disproportionate burdens and impact on minority groups that the Act in its totality would have brought to our higher education sector. I will return to the House with a way forward on that in the near future.