Women in Sport
Debate between Lord Storey and Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I certainly wish them extremely well. The women’s cricket team are currently ranked second; they won the last two Ashes, so they are a great team. Increasing sponsorship is also an important part of how we raise the profile of women’s sport. Kia Motors has sponsored women’s cricket, which is an example of what we need to do. Newton Investment Management is going to sponsor the women’s boat race. Some very important innovations are coming forward.
Lord Storey (LD)
My noble friend the Minister will know that the English women’s football team beat Finland 3-1 last night, yet if you look at the sports pages of our national newspapers, you will find no mention of it in the Times, the Telegraph, the Mail, the Express or the Mirror. There was a tiny piece in the Guardian and a tiny piece in the Independent. If you look at the sports pages on a daily basis, hardly ever will you find a mention of women’s sport. For women to be empowered in sport, they need to have coverage. Will the Minister agree perhaps either to write to or meet our newspaper editors to suggest that they cover women’s sports?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My noble friend makes a very important point. Improving the media profile of women’s sports is one of the five key goals of the Women and Sport Advisory Board, set up by the Government. The broadcasting companies—BT Sport, BBC Sport and Sky Sport—are getting much better, but I certainly think that the broadsheet newspapers need to up their game.
Schools: Reforms
Debate between Lord Storey and Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, for giving us this opportunity. It is almost like an end of term report. I feel that I should write a comment saying, “Satisfactory—could make progress”. I feel very conscious that I am standing behind, in my view, one of the greatest educational reformists we have had: the noble Lord, Lord Baker. As a young teacher, realising how important a national curriculum was, and how important training and training days were for teachers, I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be here.
I want to reflect on a number of issues. First, we are talking here about the English education provision. We are not talking about Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. I also want us to remind ourselves that every parent wants the best for their child—the best type of education, the best school—and presumably politicians want to reflect what parents want. We talk a lot about social mobility, yet the plain fact is that as the children who are the most disadvantaged, as perhaps measured by eligibility for free school meals, move through the school system, they achieve less and less in terms of academic performance. That is a fact. Despite all our schemes and all the policies, the most disadvantaged children, as they move to key stages 1 and 2, secondary school and GCSEs—and then even to universities—remain disadvantaged.
What do we do about that? Surely that is the hub of what we should be about. I think we had the answer in the debate we had a couple of weeks ago: it must be about the early years and early years provision. If we can get it right at a young age, if we can get those young children reading and sharing a book with their parents, if we can get them recognising letters and numbers at an early age, all the research shows that they are away.
Yes, we can be proud that this Government have brought in 15 hours of free early years provision, and extra for the 40% who are most disadvantaged. Hallelujah, there will probably be a bidding war between the political parties in their manifestos as to who can offer the next stage of more free provision. That is great. Early years education is important, and this Government have recognised its importance—not just the provision but the quality. That is why I welcome the creation of the new leadership roles in early years and the new qualification for early years providers.
We spent a lot of time discussing the Education Act 2011. I do not think that it really moved us on. The most progressive legislation in this Parliament must have been the Children and Families Act, which was a real game-changer, particularly for children. The introduction of education, health and care plans showed a real joined-up approach. My noble friend Lord Addington has, rightly, spent most of his career talking about special educational needs, particularly dyslexia. He was very pleased that that moved us forward. That was an important piece of progressive legislation. Perhaps when my noble friend replies, she will tell us how we are going to review how the provision of those plans worked in practice.
One thing that has helped the most disadvantaged is the pupil premium, which has had a positive effect on schools identifying children from disadvantaged backgrounds and giving schools money to spend in a whole variety of ways—not straitjacketing them by saying, “You will spend it on this”, or, “It must be on that”, but allowing schools and school leaderships the freedom to say, “This is how the money will be spent in our circumstances”. It could be booster classes, mentoring, and so on and so forth.
It is encouraging that the DfE has published statistics showing that the proportion of disadvantaged pupils achieving the expected level in literacy and numeracy has risen from 61% to 67%. Perhaps the pupil premium is having a real effect. Again, I would be interested to hear from the Minister how we can continue to monitor the impact of the pupil premium. There is also an opportunity to take the good practice of the pupil premium into early years. My party believes that we should develop a pupil premium for early years provision.
Of course, the money for the pupil premium is based on free school meals, which brings me to a particular reform by the current Government that hardly gets a mention, but which is really important. It is the provision of meals free of charge to all infants. Never mind the saving to a family with two children—about £900 a year—it is the other impacts that are hugely important. As a head teacher, I always sought to make the school an environment of peace, respect and camaraderie. Free school meals helped children to eat a healthy, hot meal while socialising with each other—an incredibly understated aspect of a child’s cognitive and behavioural development.
The third focus of free school meals is the possibility of expanding the policy to ensure that all young people throughout their years in the education system receive that support. In accordance with that, disadvantaged students at sixth-form colleges and further education colleges in England are guaranteed free school meals. Additional funding is being provided for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland—but, as I said, education is a devolved issue, and it will be up to those running schools within the different nations to decide whether to spend the money on free lunches.
Nevertheless, the evidence is promising. In summer last year, an Ofsted inspection report highlighted that of 171 schools sampled, the attainment gap between free school meal children and their peers was closing in all 86 schools judged by Ofsted to be good or outstanding in overall effectiveness. In 12 of those schools, the gap had narrowed to virtually nothing. Of course, those schools where standards could be improved continue to need support. I hope that that will follow.
I mentioned the Children and Families Act. In my last couple of minutes, I do not want to talk about academisation programmes; I do not want to talk about free schools, which have mushroomed—
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)
I apologise for interrupting, but there is absolutely no slack in this debate. The moment that the clock shows eight, the Minister starts to lose time. I apologise, but it is very important. I hope that the noble Lord will conclude.
Ticket Reselling
Debate between Lord Storey and Lord Gardiner of Kimble(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Storey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to tackle the issue of ticket re-selling in the sport, music and entertainment industries.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)
My Lords, the Government discuss issues of ticket resale with the sport, music and entertainment industries on a regular basis. While the Government have no plans to introduce new regulations on the ticketing and events market, we continue to encourage improvements so that all customers have an opportunity to purchase tickets and can do so in a secure environment. The Government believe that it is for event organisers, together with the professional ticketing organisations, to determine suitable arrangements for ticket sales to their events.
Lord Storey (LD)
I thank the Minister for his reply. He will be aware that Operation Podium ensured that tickets to the Paralympic and Olympic Games were fairly distributed, and were prevented from falling into the hands of touts and criminals. He will also be aware that the Met’s operational report concluded that the lack of regulation in this area enables fraud and places the public at risk of economic crime. What action will the Government take to provide an open, transparent and above all fair market for consumers? Will the Minister host a round-table discussion to consider how to put an end to this crime?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, as the previous Government made clear, ticketing regulations for the London 2012 Games were exceptional and indeed a mandated requirement of winning the bid. It is a matter for the police to address cases of fraud and criminal activity while it is for event organisers, promoters and their ticket agents to find ticketing solutions; indeed, I think that Glastonbury is a very successful example of that. Of course I would be happy to arrange a meeting with the noble Lord to discuss these matters further.
British Board of Film Classification
Debate between Lord Storey and Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Lord Storey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to re-examine the status of those films, videos and DVDs currently exempt from classification by the British Board of Film Classification.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, under the Video Recordings Act 1984, videos on recordable media, such as DVDs, are classified by the British Board of Film Classification. However, to date many products about sports, music, religion and education have been exempt from this requirement. Following a public consultation, the Government announced last month that they will bring forward legislation to tighten up the exemptions and to ensure that, in future, any products in these genres will be classified if they contain material deemed to be unsuitable for younger children.
Lord Storey
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I am sure that he is not aware of Cannibal Corpse’s “Live Cannibalism” DVD being legally supplied to British children or, indeed, the double-disc set “His Name was Jason: Thirty Years of Friday the 13th”, so the change in the law for such content to be brought within the regulatory scope of the BBFC cannot come too soon.
I note that the Government’s announcement also mentioned another potential loophole in the current regime, that being online music videos. Does my noble friend believe that the music industry should consider following the example of the home entertainment industry by adopting BBFC classifications for online music videos?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I think we are agreed that the number one priority in all we are seeking to do is to protect children. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have been rightly robust about this, as have many noble Lords. The Government are taking action to protect children from inappropriate content, and there are strong intentions in the online area as well because it is clearly the case that children are viewing content online. We are therefore going to do more in the area of online video labelling, and we are working with many organisations and parents to deal with music or anything that could be potentially harmful to younger children.