BBC and Public Service Broadcasting

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome this initiative by my noble friend Lord Young. I hope that he is pleased with the calibre of the response in this debate. For a thriving, open, free democratic society there is a high dependence on the information, the quality of analysis and the stimulus that comes from the media. There is a historic tension between the high calling of the media in a democracy and the commercial pressures that inevitably operate.

I am sad that so much of the media has succumbed to commercial pressures, and also to the political and vested interests bias of the ownership to which it is subjected. Public service broadcasting has always risen above that. In making that point I am thinking very much of Channel 4, not least its news, and ITV. But the guarantor of that standard has always been the BBC. Long may it remain so.

The BBC has become part of the fabric of British society. When I think of the profile of the Britain in which I want to live, the BBC is salient as a leader of what that society should be about. I think of the years of Lord Reith, the standards he set, the integrity he brought, and the influence that has lasted ever since. I think of the war years, when I was growing up—sitting with my father during an air raid and listening when, at the end of broadcasting for the day, the national anthem of every occupied country was played by the BBC. This is the significance: it was emotional, but what it said about the BBC and its role in society was real.

The overseas service has been very important in my life. I think of myself overseas, sometimes in quite difficult situations, waiting to hear the news, and the authority that it brought. I think of all those people, in too much of the world, where oppression, cruel warfare and tyranny are the order of the day. The BBC is a vital link to keep the idea—the ideal—of freedom, and of a future, alive.

We should never underestimate that. It literally has been the saving of many people in desperate situations, because they can cling to that vision of what society could be. What is it that has been central to the BBC’s standards? The courageous integrity of its journalists, no doubt, and its representation of cultural diversity—but above all, its relentless and total commitment to truth.

Tourism: Regulation

Lord Judd Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I am informed by my noble friend sitting next to me, whose responsibility this is, that the department is looking at that precise question.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former president of Friends of the Lake District and currently as a vice-president of the Campaign for National Parks. I assure the Minister that many of us feel that the parks should play a crucial role in tourist development—but tourist development to ensure that people have access to national parks. The Minister says that the Government are trying to maintain a balance between different interests, but will he agree that until recently it was specifically spelled out in legislation that scenic beauty and character were to take precedence in all decisions affecting development in national parks? They are not there as theme parks.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I cannot completely agree with the noble Lord, although I sympathise with his general approach. For example, if a village or town in a national park needs mobile signal, a mast may be necessary. I am afraid that the natural environment and natural beauty do not always take precedence.

Armistice Day: Centenary

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, amen to that. I want to say at the outset of my remarks how grateful I was, how encouraged and impressed, by the speech of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. He brought challenge and vision and reminded us that our real tribute to the fallen will be what we make of the future. Our determination must be to move forward positively and practically in building an international community.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, who very strongly reminded us of the contribution in the First World War of the Indians. It is a shameful story: we expected them to come here and then they were treated, to be honest, as fourth-rate participants. There is a tremendous wrong to be put right still, and if we fail to do it in this celebration of ours, it will be very amiss. It was not just the Indians—people from Africa and from the Commonwealth came and made a huge contribution. I also think we ought to remember the young people and their families of the United States, who played such a vital part in the last part of the war.

My noble friend Lord Clark is also someone to whom I am grateful. If I were to look for some way in which we have progressed in our understanding and our civilised behaviour as a nation, it is in the recognition of conscientious objection. The way conscientious objectors were treated in the First World War is a terrible story.

In my study at home, I keep on the wall a citation to my maternal uncle John, a captain in the Scottish Rifles who was badly wounded and awarded a Military Cross for his part in that episode. He had to be invalided back to the UK, where he was patched up, after a sort—most people said he was not fully patched up—and sent back to the front, where he was killed on the third day of the German spring offensive in 1918. I should just mention that his younger brother was killed on the North-West Frontier in the early 1930s, and he too was a captain, but a captain in the Indian Army. Why do I keep that citation on my wall? Because it is a constant reminder to me, as I go about my own activities, that my uncle was killed at 22. I think again and again about what a young man with the character and pluck that he obviously had might have made of his life. I ask myself: have I begun to equal what he might have contributed?

The point is that it was not just him, or indeed his younger brother later; hundreds of thousands of people went through this kind of experience. When we think of the slaughter, in appalling circumstances sometimes—people suffocating in mud—what are we doing to build a better future? The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, was absolutely right: the question we should have in our minds all the time is how we prevent this happening again. My father served on the north-west front in Italy, together with the Italians, in the First World War. He was so affected by what he saw that he dedicated his life—and I really mean that word—to working for peace and international under- standing. He was convinced that internationalism was essential to the future of civilisation. I am sure he would be cheering every word that the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, uttered. He also believed, of course, that the European Union was indispensable, because it was people coming together with practical arrangements to build a community in which war would become impossible. The words I heard again and again in my upbringing were “collective security”.

If I have anxiety at the moment, it is that we are losing that searing experience that our fathers brought back from the First World War, and indeed that our more close relatives brought back from the Second World War, of what war really means, of what it involves in suffering for civilians. We perhaps have not talked enough about civilians in this debate. It now sometimes seems that war is about civilians, and we find convenient language for dealing with an emotionally distressing situation: we talk about collateral damage. But think what that means to the families and the people who are that collateral damage. We move into a phase where war is done by remote control; pushing buttons, sending highly targeted drones, and the rest. Are we slithering towards a situation in which war is just another management option in our handling of international relations? That would be a disaster, and would certainly be the ultimate betrayal of those who fell in the First World War.

I would like to end with a quotation, because it has a profound effect on me. I love the hymns of Fred Kaan, a United Reformed Church minister of Dutch origin, who suffered under German occupation. I will quote one of his verses:

“God! As with silent hearts we bring to mind

how hate and war diminish humankind,

we pause, and seek in worship to increase

our knowledge of the things that make for peace.

Hallow our will as humbly we recall

the lives of those who gave and give their all”.

Youth Services

Lord Judd Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure we all want to thank the noble Baroness for those remarks. It was great to hear that she is not content just to talk about the issues, but gets dug in in her local community. I have to declare an interest at the outset because I was—for nine years at one time—president of the YMCA. That organisation is deeply involved in all this. It is so deeply involved that when it speaks, it speaks with the authority of engagement and therefore it is terribly important for what it says to be taken seriously.

The way the noble Lord, Lord Storey, introduced the debate was very challenging—not for the first time, coming from him. Criminal gangs are where some young people find that they make their homes, because they have no other home experience to speak of. Then there is knife crime and mental health, and there are zero-hour contracts and all the other employment pressures. I shared with the House before how a retired chief constable, who was working as a volunteer for the YMCA in a young offender institution, told me about encountering a young man who burst into tears. He said, “Why are you crying?”, and the young man said, “Because I’m about to be released, and I’m fearful of what will be waiting for me when I get out of this place”.

The YMCA has recently produced an analysis entitled Youth & Consequences. I hope the Government have studied it, and I would be very interested to hear their comments this evening. The YMCA underlines:

“In 2010/11, Local Authorities in England reported spending £1.18bn on youth services, with this work accounting for an estimated 13% of total local spend on all children and young people’s services”.


It tells us:

“By 2016/17, spend on youth services in England had reduced by £737m, with Local Authorities spending in this area reported to be £448m last year. This reduction in Local Authority spend in England is equivalent to a 62% cut since 2010/11”.


The analysis also tells us:

“Local Authorities in the West Midlands have cut spend on youth services by 71% since 2010/11, while in the North West cuts over the same period amount to 68%. Young people living in the East of England and South West have fared best. However, even in these areas, the annual spend on youth services has more than halved since 2010/11”.


The report goes on to say that in Wales—my noble friend Lord Griffiths is responding to this debate—

“it is young people in Mid Wales who have faced the biggest cuts to their youth services. Local Authorities in Mid Wales have almost halved (48%) their spending on youth services since 2010/11. Those young people in South West Wales have been more fortunate, with cuts to youth services in this region totalling 23% since 2010/11”.

Very fairly, the analysis asks:

“Do new funding sources offer hope? While Local Authorities remain the primary source of funding for youth services, it is important to acknowledge that providers access funding from a range of sources. The most prominent new funding source that has emerged since 2010/11 is for the National Citizen Service … Between 2010/11 and 2016/17, an estimated £630m was spent on the NCS, and as a local provider, YMCA”,


wants to put on record that it,

“recognises the positive impact that NCS can have on young people’s lives”.

However, the services and the work of the NCS do not cover the whole of England and Wales, and we ought to remember that.

I ask the leave of the House before I finish to quote rather extensively from the conclusions of the YMCA survey. The report re-emphasises:

“In just six years, Local Authorities have cut their expenditure on youth services in England and Wales by more than £750m. As this research demonstrates, the long-term benefits of youth services are far too often overlooked by Local Authorities, as they seek to meet more immediate financial and statutory pressures, even within services for children and young people. It is as a result of these cuts, many young people are now missing out on opportunities outside the school setting to engage in positive activities that support their learning and development, opportunities previous generations took for granted.


It is difficult to imagine any other services in England and Wales that could be on the receiving end of cuts of more three fifths of their total budget over such a short period of time, with little or no scrutiny to the long-term impact this would have on our communities and the individuals missing out. Unfortunately it is not until news of young people being isolated or incidents like the recent knife crimes in London hit the headlines, attention seems to go to the role of youth services … To halt and redress these continued cuts which are seeing increasing numbers of young people miss out, it is critical the importance of youth services are recognised in statute”—


I emphasise “in statute”—

“nationally, and in funding locally. Linked to this, it is critical that Local Authorities are better accountable on how spending on youth services is allocated, particularly in England where existing reporting requirements are extremely limited. YMCA is calling on the Government to: protect youth services from further cuts by committing to maintain spending at current levels of expenditure; improve accountability by reclassifying youth services as a statutory service and requiring better reporting of local expenditure and delivery”.

I want to put on record that there is an immense amount of voluntary work being done by the YMCA, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, and this cannot receive enough praise. However, at a time when the young face so many challenges, hazards and difficulties, and when it becomes clear from the press every day what appalling consequences there can be—not least suicide—it is absolutely essential that this is underlined as a national priority.