Sports Participation in Schools

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

The noble Baroness is correct that 39% of sports and recreation facilities in England are on school premises. That is why, over the last two years, we have invested over £11 million to enable those facilities to be used for extra-curricular activities for pupils and by communities. We have seen nearly 100,000 community users benefit from that, as well as nearly a quarter of a million pupils in extra-curricular formats.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the athletes of Team GB and ParalympicsGB. Beyond sports participation, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the stories of Olympic and Paralympic athletes, and their ability to act as role models, should, alongside the Olympic and Paralympic values, run through our education system like a golden thread of possibility? Would she also agree to further consider how we can make even more use of our Olympic and Paralympic athletes and their stories, to drive potential right through our education system?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My noble friend is correct; these stories are inspirational, and your Lordships’ House benefits from the presence and participation of people like my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. I am pleased that, on Monday, the Youth Sport Trust announced precisely this: it will have a programme of events, to make sure that Olympians and Paralympians can tell their stories in our schools.

Children’s Rights: Digital Environment

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, we are consulting on those matters and will report back. It is clear that in the online safety Bill one of the sanctions available to Ofcom, if providers have inappropriate content that children are gaining access to, is to disconnect payment services such as that from their websites and social media services.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that right-set standards and rightly considered regulation of legislation need be neither a drain on our economy nor a strain on our society? Rather, they can be part of enabling us to have the economy we need and the society we want, with all the individual and collective well-being that goes with that.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, this is entirely what we are seeking to do through the national online media strategy that we will launch later this year, to empower citizens to use the internet safely and to make wise choices. It is why the draft Bill not only includes protections for children but proposes to entrench in legislation freedom of speech and the right of appeal, should content be removed.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this adjourned debate on the gracious Speech. In doing so, I declare my interests in technology as set out in the register. I congratulate our two maiden speakers and the valedictory speaker, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth. I sat behind him when he came in and I sit behind him as he departs. What I have learned, not least from the right reverend Prelate, is that we all do well when we put on our armour of light.

Three words in the gracious Speech: “Build back better”. Three words, one alliteration, but it must be the alliteration that underpins our economic recovery. Right now, rightly, our economic strategy is our vaccine strategy; likewise, our vaccine strategy is our economic strategy. But “Build back better” must be the bedrock as we move forward. I shall touch on just three points to this end—digital ID, fintech and digital payments.

When it comes to digital ID, does my noble friend agree that we have to have a system of distributed digital ID—my credentials in my hand to manage, to deal with, to choose how to deploy? What is happening inside DCMS? What greater acceleration can be put on our digital ID strategy as a nation? Because it is not just about security, being safe in cyberspace, important though that is; there is a real economic opportunity to be had if, as a nation, we nail it when it comes to distributed digital ID.

Similarly, for fintech, does my noble friend agree that we have a unique opportunity in the United Kingdom, not just in London, great though the fintech sector is, but right across the nations and regions, with the 10 identified flourishing fintech clusters? Similarly, we need the UK to be the best place to start up, scale up, build and, yes, potentially sell a fintech business. Does he also agree that there is a key role for fintech when it comes to financial inclusion? Exclusion has dogged our nation for decades; fintech offers the opportunity to reconsider risk, lines of credit and all elements of financial services in a way that can deliver for individuals and businesses alike.

That takes me to payments. Much great work has been done on access to cash, not least Natalie Ceeney’s perfect review on the matter. I was also delighted that my noble friend the Minister Lord True helped with the passage of an amendment to the Financial Services Bill on cashback without requiring a purchase. Does the Minister agree that the next logical step is to look at digital payments and ensure that these are accessible and inclusive for all, and that more analysis, research and review is required in this area?

Distributed digital ID, fintech and digital payments are but three stars in the constellation of new technologies we have in our well-washed, Covid-recovering hands as we move forward. Does my noble friend agree that, if we get it right, it will be about human-led talent and technology, human-delivered inclusion and innovation, and that, yes, if we get it right, we will not just build back better, but we must, we absolutely must, build back better together?

Education: The Holocaust

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to Holocaust Memorial Day, what steps they are taking to improve education in schools about the Holocaust in order (1) to promote tolerance, and (2) to combat racism.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, with respect and sombre reflection, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are fully committed to Holocaust education and believe that every young person should learn the lessons it teaches us today. That is why it is the only compulsory topic in the history curriculum. It is important that pupils understand the appalling events of the Holocaust and the possible consequences of anti-Semitism and extremism in order to understand how society can prevent the repeat of such a catastrophe. I am grateful to my noble friend for laying this Question on Holocaust Memorial Day.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, survivors play such a profound role in our education programmes. As they become fewer in number, what steps are Her Majesty’s Government taking to ensure that all their testimony is taken down and transformed through all modern means, not least AI, AR and VR, to ensure that all that testimony is available to future generations for ever? There are six million reasons.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have funded several initiatives of the nature my noble friend outlines. The new national memorial will ensure that the voices of survivors and witnesses are retained. We have included support for initiatives such as the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in Newark, which uses AI to capture survivors’ testimony.

Schools and Colleges: Qualification Results and Full Opening

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, it is wonderful that we are all in agreement that it is great to know that, as we stand here, so many children are back in school today, where they belong. It is the expectation that exams will be taken in 2021. In relation to the delivery of catch-up support, the majority of the £1 billion has gone out through the normal system of core funding for schools, because it is the schools on the front line that know which of their students have fallen furthest behind during the lockdown period. They have been given information from the Education Endowment Foundation on how best to use that money to support students. We trust the professionals to make those judgments and we are aiding them to do that.

Tutoring support will be offered with about a 25% cost reduction. We have given guidance that some of the £650 million will be spent on buying in the tutoring that we are providing at this heavily subsidised cost. We have confidence in the head teachers who, today and tomorrow, will know how their pupils have fared—some of whom they, sadly, will not had any contact with for many months.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Does the Minister agree that education is one of the few means by which we can go beyond our circumstances and achieve our potential? To this end, is the department considering an equality impact assessment into what happened this summer, not least the impact on white working-class young men and indeed all other protected characteristics?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure I am not alone in saying that education has enabled me to go way beyond my circumstances. It is vitally important that we know the impact that policies have on different communities. Ofqual published an equality impact assessment when it launched its consultation on the 2020 exams and it will publish a similar document in relation to the examinations next year.

Education Settings: Autumn Opening

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker]

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, has withdrawn his name, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, will my noble friend join me in sincerely thanking all those teachers who have worked, many of them solidly since the February half-term, through the Easter holidays, not least to teach the children of front-line workers and those with special needs? On the subject of laptops, of those 230,000 how many have actually been delivered and how many are being effectively used right now by students?

[Baroness Berridge]

Of course I join the noble Lord in paying tribute to the extraordinary effort by teachers, support staff and school business leaders at the moment in offering education. Over 200,000 of the laptops were delivered on target by the end of June, so the commitment that we made has been delivered. As I say, we have a slight surplus so that we can deal with any further orders that we get and can have a certain degree of flexibility in future. However, we have to trust the schools. The department cannot issue these laptops to individual children; we have given them to local authorities and therefore to schools and multi-academy trusts. They know the students who need them, and we trust them as professionals to have distributed them properly.