Schools: Financial Education

Debate between Lord Young of Norwood Green and Baroness Barran

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government have introduced a number of very specific measures to support care leavers in exactly the areas the noble Baroness refers to. If I may, I will set those out in detail in a letter.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

I want to return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, about children, even in primary schools, being subjected to scams and fraud, including money laundering. The list that the Minister read out made no reference to that. I think there is a gap and I ask the Minister to take this away and think about the risks and the value of advising young people of these risks.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

On the specific issue of money laundering, it might be helpful if the noble Lord could give me an example of what he is thinking about. Some of the risks that we know young people face—and which I know your Lordships’ House is very concerned about—relate to gaming and gambling. I hope your Lordships will be pleased to know that a new subject in the health education curriculum on the risks associated with gambling and the accumulation of debt will be compulsory in all state-funded schools, primary and secondary.

Education: Return in January

Debate between Lord Young of Norwood Green and Baroness Barran

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to raise the importance of keeping all staff in schools. That requires vaccinations to be readily available for not just teachers but cleaning and catering staff. From my contact with somebody who runs a significant number of primary academies, that is still a significant problem. If you want to keep the maximum number of children in school, you need to ensure that there is no problem with teachers getting vaccinated. Also, there is bound to be some learning online but there is still a problem with some children, especially in low-income houses, having a lack of available laptops or iPads—or, perhaps even more challenging, a decent broadband connection. Those are some of the issues that I hope the Minister will address.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. He will have seen the same figures that I saw about the extraordinary efforts over Christmas on the vaccination booster campaign, with remarkable numbers—900,000 people a day—being vaccinated. I know that he was talking about staff but it is also really important for pupils. Almost half of 12 to 15 year-olds have now had their first vaccination, so extraordinary progress is being made but he makes a valid point: we need everybody to be vaccinated who is able to be. In relation to the availability of devices and data, he will be aware that we distributed more than 1.3 million devices and, where needed, data dongles so that children working from home were able to do so if they did not have access to them. We keep that closely under review.

Safety of Chemicals, Medicines and Vaccines

Debate between Lord Young of Norwood Green and Baroness Barran

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

As the noble Baroness knows very well, our medicines are currently regulated as part of the European Medicines Agency. As many of my colleagues on the Front Bench have often said, we are aiming for an orderly and smooth withdrawal from the European Union. Noble Lords will know that it is very clear in the political declaration that we are exploring further co-operation between the EU and the UK after exit. In the event of no deal, we believe that we have put in place the processes and procedures and have the highest regulatory expertise in this area to ensure continued safety for our citizens.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, the challenge we face is that although MMR is probably the safest, most tested vaccine ever, in the light of the disgraceful linking of that vaccine with autism by Wakefield, which has been substantially discredited, in parts of this country vaccination falls below herd immunity. I am glad that the Minister apologised, because the challenge is to reassure people that the best thing they can do for their children and the community as a whole is to ensure that their children are vaccinated with MMR.

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Lord is quite right, and he will be aware that the department, clinicians and health professionals all around the country are working every day, if not day and night, to make that happen. There has been a slight decline in the level of uptake, but he is right to point out that in certain regions there is cause for concern, and we are absolutely focused on addressing that.