National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th November 2016 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

9: Clause 1, page 1, line 18, at end insert—
“( ) to secure the provision to participants of online, authenticatable evidence of the programme that they have participated in and of the experiences that it offered.”

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, the Careers & Enterprise Company announced in May that it was in negotiations with the National Citizen Service to develop together my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham’s enterprise passport. This is not evidently absolutely central to what the National Citizen Service does but to my mind sits extremely well with it, and is something of immense importance to England and English education. This amendment is merely intended to give that agreement and proposal a place in the Bill, or at least, if the Minister will say it, a clear place in the intentions of the Government when it comes to funding the National Citizen Service, so that we can all be sure that these negotiations can go ahead and not be derailed by someone saying, “We have just had a Bill through Parliament and no one ever mentioned it”. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for that reply and to the department for allowing my noble friend Lord Young to write his speaking notes. There could not have been anything more positive in the response. I, too, support very much what the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, is seeking to achieve with her amendment. This is going to be a big player. It is very important that it maintains good relations and sees that as part of its purpose. I fully understand why that does not get stuck in the Bill, but it absolutely has to be there in its actions. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 9 withdrawn.