Erasmus Programme
Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Smith of Malvern(3 days, 19 hours ago)
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Lord Balfe
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to fulfil demand for the revival or replacement of the Erasmus programme.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, following the UK’s departure from the EU, the Government introduced the Turing scheme in 2021, which provides grants for students to study and work anywhere in the world and has supported tens of thousands of UK students since its launch. In addition, we are working with the higher education sector to ensure that our world-leading universities continue to attract the brightest and best. However, we have no plans for rejoining the Erasmus programme.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, the EU clearly wants a new EU mobility scheme for youth, and there is a great demand for that among young people in Britain. It would strengthen our society, labour market and economy, so why do the Government—as did, in fairness, the previous Government—seem so hell-bent on avoiding any commitment to a European solution?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
We are, of course, already engaged in defining the important reset of our relationship with the EU. That is why the Prime Minister and the European Commission President met in the autumn to agree to strengthen our relationship. My right honourable friend, Minister Thomas-Symonds, has been taking discussions forward with his counterpart. We will look at EU proposals on a range of issues, but there are no plans for a youth mobility scheme and we will not return to freedom of movement.
Children’s Social Care
Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Smith of Malvern(2 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes an important point, taking us even further back in the process to the situations that families find themselves in that put them under the sort of pressure that sometimes—not always—brings potential harm to their children. Of course it is important that we think about child poverty in a holistic manner, which is what the task force with my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Education and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is working on now. It is also important that we support local government in providing some of those broader services. At the moment, we are seeing enormous increases in spending on children’s social care but relatively small increases in benefits for children. That is why we need to reform the system, alongside ensuring that the money is there.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I first declare an interest: I grew up in a children’s home, so I have a bit of knowledge about it. The system is broken. Not by the last Government: it has gradually been broken over 50 years since we got rid of children’s departments. My one criticism of this document, which is a very good step forward, is that it mentions virtually everything except talking to the children about what they want.
Secondly, as I have said before, you cannot devolve compassion. You have to get the private sector out of this business. There is no other way forward. When we had children’s departments, we had university departments backing them up; we had a profession devoted to children, not profit. Will the Minister go back to the department to see how she can get this service back into the public, municipal care that it thrived quite well under from the Curtis report of the 1940s to the Seebohm Rowntree changes in the early 1970s, which undid it because the Treasury got greedy?