King’s Speech

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I have managed to listen to every Member’s contribution during this part of the King’s Speech debate—with a couple of toilet visits. The contributions show a real depth of knowledge and understanding of the issues, which I doubt would be found in any other chamber in the country; “breadth of experience” was the phrase of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan.

As has been said, this is likely to be the last King’s Speech before the general election and a new Government are formed. This government programme sees 21 Bills, and we are told by the commentariat that they are designed to create dividing lines between the Government and opposition. Really? The King’s gracious Speech is against the backdrop of a Cabinet reshuffle and the Autumn Statement.

What strikes me about the 21 Bills and the topics assigned to our five days of consideration is that there is no mention of children and families, of education and schooling or of the day-to-day issues that struggling families face. Only today the Children’s Society produced a survey that shows that 82% of parents are very or quite concerned about the cost of living on their families. There is no mention of the NHS.

I turn to science, technology, media and culture. If we are to be a science and technological superpower or a leader in automated vehicles, if we are to develop AI and green technologies, we need a first-class education service that values and rewards its teachers and lecturers and provides our schools, colleges and universities with the resources they need. Universities that have more students from China doing engineering than UK students—is that the way to be a first-class technological superpower? In our schools we are seeing the highest ever number of teacher vacancies and shortages in specialist subjects. For example, more than 400 schools do not have a qualified physics teacher. We have the lowest ever number of people applying for teaching jobs, and more and more pupils having to be taught by a daily rate supply teacher. Added to this, teachers are leaving the profession in their droves; there is the lowest ever retention rate for teachers. At the same time, we are seeing class sizes rising. In our universities we are seeing more and more lecturing staff employed on fixed-term contracts—is that the way to encourage their enthusiasm for the subject? We are also seeing more and more financial dependency on overseas students and their fees.

In many high-tech industries, such as commercial quantum computing, semiconductors or the green technologies of the future, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, physics is crucial. Why have we allowed a shortage of 3,500 physics teachers in England and Wales? Why have we allowed 40% of our physics teachers to drop out of physics teaching in their first five years? Physics, remember, brings £220 billion to our economy, 11% of our GDP. As my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones reminded us in his tour de force of a speech, this week is Maths Week England. We know that the Prime Minister is committed to the teaching of mathematics. If that is the case, the Government must take on the sustainability of maths at university level and signal to universities the importance of protecting and investing in mathematics. Without this commitment to support them, mathematical skills in the UK will be undermined, because we are seeing maths departments in our universities being closed down.

Talking of undermining, we have seen how the dreadful EBacc has, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, told us, undermined creative subjects in our schools. It beggars belief that for the creative industries—a truly amazing UK success story that before Covid was worth £116 billion in GVA and created 2.3 million jobs—the very pipe steam that should be providing those talented and creative students of the future is stymied. If other countries had that jewel in their creative crown they would be pouring in opportunities and resources to develop it further in schools, colleges and universities. I hope Peers get a chance to read the report on the curriculum that will be published at the end of November by the Lords Select Committee on Education for 11-16 Year Olds.

Let me now put my positive hat on and say that I very much welcome the Media Bill. Our terrestrial TV channels are too important to our sense of belonging as a nation to be allowed to slowly wither away to the margins. As many noble Peers have said—and I did not realise that, as my noble friend Lord Foster said, it is two decades since the last media Bill—this Bill should be used to ensure that we can easily find public service content that we value and enjoy. PSBs should be given significant, not “appropriate”, prominence. The Media Bill also enables us to modernise the listed events regime and close the streamer loophole so that TV-like services that provide live content to UK audiences via the internet are within the scope of listed events legislation. Why are no women’s events listed? Why, for example, if you are cricket fan, do you have to pay to watch test matches?

I very much welcome the tobacco and vaping Bill. Just as tobacco enticed our generation and our grandparents’ generation into addiction, if we are not careful we will see the same happening to our children with vaping. Go around any urban area at school home time and you will see children vaping—school pupils as young as 11 and even younger. They are certainly enticed by group peer pressure, but also enticed by the candy man’s offer of wonderful flavours to enjoy, such as bubblegum, strawberry ice cream, cherry cola, raspberry slush and vanilla custard—all made to look like sweets. No wonder there has been a threefold increase in the number of children using vapes. The health risk to children is frightening. Nicotine can harm developing adolescent brains and lungs. Other health risks are that it can lead to anxiety and depression, becoming a smoker, impotence, sleep problems, exposure to cancer-causing chemicals, chronic bronchitis and lung damage—all so easy with disposable vapes.

I want to talk about the pedicabs Bill. Six years ago, a taxi driver complained to me about what, in those days, were called rickshaws. I constantly asked Written Questions, only to be told in reply that it was not a government matter but for the London Assembly. Clearly, that was not the case. Pedicabs have put passengers at risk with no health and safety standards and fleeced tourists with no proper listing prices; there need to be criminal record checks and safeguarding checks.

I thank the maiden speakers for their amazing speeches—our House is in safe hands, if I may say that. The winding-up person is meant to reference various people—I need to go on a training course to do this, because I always struggle. I enjoyed the important contributions on gambling from my noble friend Lord Foster and the noble Lord, Lord Butler. The comments on football from my noble friend Lord Addington made me think about the need for it to be community engaged.

There were two other contributions that I did not see coming and really made me think. The first was by the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev. I thought that was a very brave speech; freedom of expression and speech are important. Obviously it has to hold up to the law of the land and cannot be racist, homophobic or misogynistic. I remember a little rhyme as a child—sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never harm me. Words can really harm you, and that is why we have to think for our ourselves and teach children the importance of not hurting people’s feelings. I hope we might have a debate at some stage in our House on that contribution. Finally, my noble friend Lady Featherstone was absolutely right; journalists were also not allowed to go on one of the campaign buses because of their political views. I thank colleagues for their excellent contributions.

There are clearly some important Bills, but the Government have failed to use the opportunity to deal with the big issues and real concerns of the day. What I am sure of is that this House will be rigorous and fair-minded in its scrutiny of these 21 Bills.