King’s Speech

Lord Isaac Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Isaac (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness and to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hobby, on an excellent and very moving speech. I intend to focus my remarks on education. Before I do, I declare a number of interests: as the provost of Worcester College, Oxford; as the chair of governors of the University of the Arts London; and, as will become obvious in a second, as the former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

If this country is to remain globally competitive, economically successful and socially cohesive, a strong education system is indispensable. Investment in education should never be regarded merely as a cost, nor as a luxury. It is an investment in the future prosperity, resilience and fairness of our country. A good education equips young people not only for employment but for citizenship. It enables them to think critically, engage confidently and participate fully in our democracy.

At present, we are facing a troubling combination with declining levels of reading, as we have heard, and analytical thought, alongside an increasing dependence on social media and fragmented sources of information. The consequence, I fear, is that it becomes even more difficult for people to distinguish fact from falsehood. This creates fertile ground for simplistic populism and division.

During my time as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, I was deeply concerned by the extent to which children and young people with SEND were too often treated as second-class citizens. The 2021 census showed that disabled people are three times more likely to have no formal qualifications than non-disabled people. It is against that background that I welcome the Government’s commitment to education for all in its Bill to improve provision for children and young people with SEND. I recognise that some families fear that this will have a negative impact on their access to care plans, but overall I am persuaded that the proposed investment of more than £4 billion, as I understand it, with greater inclusion in mainstream settings, will absolutely move us forward and address these long-overdue improvements.

I also welcome the commitments in the Government’s Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper to strengthen support for further education, its staff and its students. Employers urgently require more skilled young people, and the FE sector educates and trains at least half of those who do not pursue a university route. We also know that FE funding has declined substantially over the last two decades. We cannot neglect a sector that is so essential to national productivity and social mobility.

As noble Lords will readily acknowledge, further education is often described as a Cinderella sector in comparison with higher education, but I fear that the higher education sector now faces profound challenges itself. I see at first hand the pressures confronting universities: the long-term erosion in the real value of tuition fees, rising pension liabilities and increasing operational costs. Across the country, especially in the humanities, I see the closure of departments, wholesale redundancies, restructuring and institutional mergers. I therefore welcome elements of the White Paper that seek to support the HE sector, including increased research funding, improvements to governance and measures to enhance the student experience. They are fundamental to driving change in the sector. Greater collaboration between institutions may help to strengthen resilience, but we must not overlook the huge dependence on international students. The proposed international levy creates additional uncertainty for institutions that are already financially fragile.

We cannot ignore the importance of the arts in education. I welcome that the Government are now committed to restoring art subjects more fully within the school curriculum from 2028. If the United Kingdom and its citizens are truly to flourish, we must be willing to invest seriously in education, skills, culture and the arts. To neglect them is not simply short-sighted; it is to diminish our collective future.