Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My noble friend makes a very powerful point. I followed on from her at the Cabinet Office, where we had the v programme in place. I was reminded of that only last week when I had an email from a young man who became a volunteer in my office and is now a mental health worker. He would never have taken that step had it not been for the opportunity to volunteer and the support to do so. She makes a powerful point around linking government together, and I was interested in her comment about mental health as well. Talking to a number of young people, it seems to me that one thing that has quite a significant impact on young people’s mental health is the insecurity of their housing. If we can address some of that to ensure good-quality, secure housing for young people—and that young people are part of the solution in building those homes as well—that goes a long way. The opportunities for young people and the expectations of young people about their future concern us enormously. She is right that the only way to tackle that is across government.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the Government’s milestones are very much to be welcomed as steps towards progress in the broader strategy over the years ahead. It is somewhat depressing to find—maybe not surprisingly from the Conservatives but more so from the Liberal Democrats—the dismissive tone saying, “You’ll never achieve those aims. They are quite unrealistic”. Surely it is far better to be overambitious than underambitious. The previous Government set targets—I cannot remember what they were called—in a number of areas. They were going to be met anyway and were not stretching. These are stretching milestones and that is important, particularly in the housebuilding programme—albeit there is a need to change the planning system—and in getting three-quarters of five year-olds school-ready, which is not the case at the moment.
My final point is one I am less happy about. The 13,000 new police officers, special constables and PCSOs, with an emphasis on community policing, are very much to be welcomed, but does my noble friend agree that the comments immediately afterwards by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that he was set to cut police jobs were at best unhelpful—perhaps they were a bargaining chip—and could undermine that process? Can she assure me that Home Office Ministers will meet the commissioner to make sure that this does not undermine the Government’s aims in this area?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My noble friend is right; I suspect the comments may have been perhaps to influence an upcoming spending review. We are absolutely committed to seeing more police officers. I remember when the last Labour Government introduced police and community support officers—named officers in communities—and going to a public meeting in my constituency where they were dismissed by so many as “plastic policemen”, which was quite an insult. One year later, the praise for those officers was off the scale, because they were known to the local communities and their presence was reassuring and had a real impact. We remain committed to that and will seek to deliver it.
My noble friend is right about being ambitious. One thing that worries me about the last Government—or Governments, in a sense, because we had several Prime Ministers—is that people became disillusioned with politics and are now very cynical about seeing politics and political decisions being a force for good. We will do everything we can to meet the ambitions that the country had for us and we have for the people of this country. We know that that these targets are ambitious; they are not targets that will be easy to meet—there would be no point in saying that—but we are determined to meet them, because it is what the country deserves.
Early Years Interventions
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)
That was very succinct. This is a very important area and the whole point about the family hubs we are setting up across the country is that we are bringing everybody together—families, professional services and providers—and putting relationships at the heart of family help, making sure that family hubs bring together services for children of all ages, who all need help. Family hubs can include both physical locations and virtual offices to help parents.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the additional funding announced in the spending review to support children and families, including, as the Minister said, the creation of family hubs, is very welcome, but organisations working with disabled children and parent carers, such as the Disabled Children’s Partnership, remain unclear as to how these new hubs will deliver the care that disabled children and their families require, particularly given the backlog in the delivery of those services from existing hubs. Can the Minister outline how that will be delivered once the new hubs are in place?
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)
As the noble Lord said, it is very important that no one is left behind. The SEND review is looking at ways to improve the outcomes for children and young people with SEND. There has been a consultation and proposals will be published in the first three months of next year, when I hope we will know more.
Careers Education
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I hope very much that this is part of the responsibility of the Careers & Enterprise Company—and I am sure that it is—which we funded to inspire young people and help them to prepare for the world of work. But I accept and understand the point that the noble Lord makes about ensuring that families and young people understand the range of opportunities open to them. In my maiden speech in your Lordships’ House, I talked about how it is important and vital that people understand that there are a range of routes to success, and it is not just about going through to university—as important as that is, and as important as it is that we make that available to as wide a group of people as we can. For me personally, this is a mission that I feel very strongly about.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of House and hope she will assume this role at some time in the future, given the clarity of the answers that we have had from her thus far. The Social Mobility Committee of your Lordships’ House said in April that the quality of vocational education in schools is sadly lacking and that not enough emphasis is placed on that. Its report made a recommendation to the effect that a new 14 to 19 transition stage should be established to delineate clearly between technical and academic lines. I understand that the noble Baroness will not be familiar with this but, when she has time, will she speak to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and ask him whether he intends to accept that recommendation to demonstrate clearly to schoolchildren that post-school life involves much more than university?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
On the noble Lord’s first point about vocational education, when the coalition Government in the previous Parliament were first elected we took significant steps to improve the quality of vocational education. It is something that we continue to give priority to, because it is important that vocational education has great status for it to be of value to people when they are in the world of work. I point out to the noble Lord that one of the new measures that have been introduced in the school regime in recent years is UTCs, which were championed by my noble friend Lord Baker as well as by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I feel strongly that all young people who are ambitious and want to get on should be clear in their teens that there are more routes to success than just through university. I hope very much that they feel very inspired to succeed through other routes because there are many people who have been able to go through a vocational route and have made it to places which they might not have thought they were able to get to when they started off in life.
Young People: Mentoring
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
My noble friend is absolutely right. We want to help tailor the support that young people get, so the exact support given and the length of the mentoring contract will vary depending on a student’s needs. The support will also be provided in different ways—for example, as one-to-one sessions, group working and work experience. The time over which a young person will need support will vary, and the mentors will work with young people in a whole range of ways so that the support can be properly tailored to what can best help them.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware of the excellent report published earlier this month by your Lordships’ Select Committee on Social Mobility, ably chaired by my noble friend Lady Corston. One of its recommendations was that teenagers should be offered face-to-face careers advice, with responsibility for that taken away from schools. Given that, to protect their budgets, some schools have been promoting their own sixth-forms over other routes into employment, and have been criticised for that by the chief inspector of Ofsted, will the Minister tell noble Lords whether her department intends to act on that recommendation?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I too pay tribute to the extremely thoughtful report from the Select Committee. Of course, we have already strengthened statutory guidance to ensure that the independent careers advice provided is presented in an impartial manner and includes information about a range of education and training options. However, I agree with the noble Lord: we need to go further. That is why the Government intend to bring forward legislation to require schools to allow other education and training providers the opportunity to talk to pupils in their premises, so that young people get the range of advice they need to make the right choice for themselves in where they want to take their future careers.