Queen’s Speech

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows: “Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of your Lordships’ House, I thank Her Majesty for her gracious Speech and am grateful for the privilege of opening today’s debate on the Motion for a humble Address. Today I shall outline the Government’s plans to support the economy, business, education and health to build back better from the Covid-19 pandemic. However, it is important to stop and recognise those 127,629 people who have died with Covid, those who are bereaved and those who have long Covid, and the tireless work of our NHS, businesses, charities and key workers, who still had to work even during the lockdowns. It is due only to their efforts that we find ourselves in the position to build back better, for which I am sure your Lordships are also truly grateful.

Vaccines are the way out of the pandemic, and the rollout has been a huge national effort. As someone who had their vaccine in Westminster Abbey, I can testify that we are working with faith leaders and grass-roots organisations across our diverse communities, as well as charities, and have listened to their ideas to get vaccines to as many people as possible. Over 35.5 million people have now received their first dose of a vaccine, and over 18 million have received their second dose. All those 50 and over, clinically vulnerable, or who are health and social care workers have been offered a vaccine, so we can confidently say we are ensuring that the most vulnerable have protection from the virus.

We will bring forward a landmark health and care Bill this Session. This will promote collaboration, ensuring that every part of England is covered by an integrated care system, and it will reduce bureaucracy by simplifying the provider selection regime and ensure that NHS England remains accountable, while maintaining its clinical and day-to-day operational independence. We will also enhance patient safety, delivering a new independent body to investigate healthcare incidents, which I know is legislation that your Lordships have seen before.

Throughout the pandemic, the NHS has worked incredibly hard to keep services going, going truly above and beyond. Today marks International Nurses Day. This year more than ever we must thank nurses for their incredible work in fighting a global pandemic—and sadly, of course, some have paid the ultimate price.

We now face the challenge of NHS catch-up and recovery, with over 4.7 million people currently waiting for care. The Government will support the NHS, as throughout the pandemic, and will ensure it has what it needs. We have confirmed an additional £3 billion for the NHS for this financial year, on top of the long-term settlement, to support recovery, including around £1 billion to begin tackling the elective backlog and around £1.5 billion to help ease existing pressures in the NHS caused by Covid-19.

The pandemic has also taken its toll on people’s mental health. We have published our mental health recovery action plan, and will provide around £500 million for mental health services and investment in the NHS workforce, to ensure that we have the right support in place over the coming year. We are also working towards reform of the Mental Health Act to give people more say over their own care.

Experiences during this time could have an impact on the health, well-being and opportunity of our youngest children throughout their life, even though they may not have been conscious of living through a pandemic. As demonstrated by the Leadsom review, the care given during the first 1,001 critical days from conception to age two has a significant impact on a child’s future. Attending early years education lays the foundation for lifelong learning and positive outcomes, which is why we prioritised keeping early years settings open as much as possible, in line with health and safety requirements, during the pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, even when early years settings had to close, we continued to fund entitlements, which are currently around £3.6 billion a year.

The Government are committed to ensuring that no child is left behind because of learning lost over the past year. We will put in place a long-term recovery plan to allow us to build a better and fairer education system. We have already provided £1.7 billion in the past year to enable education settings to support children. The package includes significant funding aimed at addressing the needs of disadvantaged pupils. The recovery premium will be allocated to schools based on disadvantage funding eligibility and the expansion of our tutoring programmes will provide targeted support to children and young people hardest hit by disruption to their education.

The Government’s vision is for every school to benefit from being part of a strong family of schools, because multi-academy trusts are the best structure to enable schools and teachers to deliver consistently good outcomes. Seventy-five per cent of sponsored primary and secondary academies that have been inspected are good or outstanding, up from their previous grade of inadequate, compared to around one in 10 of their predecessor schools. We plan to release up to £24 million through the next phase of the trust capacity fund to help trusts grow, and we have recently launched a “try before you buy” trust partnerships model for schools to experience the benefits of being part of a strong trust. Following its autumn visits, Ofsted reported that many schools in trusts had found the support they received invaluable. What it found further cements our belief in the unique strength of the academy trust model. We are also clear on the need to improve schools where there is long-term underperformance by bringing them in to strong academy trusts—a key manifesto commitment. These include schools which have been judged “requires improvement” or worse by Ofsted in their last three consecutive full inspections. This will ensure that these schools also have access to the support of a multi-academy trust.

I turn now to HE and FE. Our universities have a long and proud history of being institutions where views may be freely expressed and debated. However, there are growing concerns that fear of repercussions is preventing open and robust intellectual debate. Over the course of this Parliament, with legislation introduced today, in the other place, we will strengthen freedom of speech and academic freedom in higher education in England. Duties on higher education providers and students’ unions will be strengthened, with clear consequences introduced for any breach. We will ensure that higher education providers in England are places where freedom of speech can thrive and that academic staff, students and visiting speakers feel safe to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions. In addition, UK students will be able to study and do work placements across the world through the Turing scheme, a new international educational exchange scheme. The scheme is backed by £110 million and provides funding for around 35,000 UK students in schools, colleges, and universities to go on placements and exchanges overseas, from September.

Skills are one of the Prime Minister’s key priorities and, in this Session, we will bring forward legislation to reform the post-16 education and skills sector. I am grateful for the exceptional effort of the further education sector, which adapted so quickly to remote education during the pandemic. The skills and post-16 education Bill will form the foundation for the reforms set out in the Skills for Jobs White Paper laid before the House earlier this year. I thank noble Lords for their thoughtful welcome for the White Paper. As part of the Bill, we will introduce a lifelong loan entitlement, giving people the opportunity to study flexibly at colleges and universities across their lifetime. We will improve the training available by making sure that providers are better run, qualifications better regulated, and providers’ performance effectively assessed. As this Government are focused on improving communities, rather than just providing a ladder out of them, we will put employers at the heart of the skills system to ensure that local provision meets local needs so that people can thrive where they live. Together, these reforms will ensure that people can get the skills they need to succeed.

Supporting our highly skilled, regulated professions to deliver vital services is key. Our regulators must have the autonomy to set the standard required to practise in the UK. The Professional Qualifications Bill, introduced into this House just now, will establish an effective regulatory system for professional qualifications. It will facilitate the recognition of professional qualifications that meet the needs of all parts of the United Kingdom and support our professionals to deliver their services in overseas markets.

The Government are also committed to our role as a global science superpower. To complement UKRI as the steward of our R&D system, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill will create a new agency focused specifically on funding high-risk, high-reward research. With £800 million invested in ARIA by 2024-25, it will diversify the R&D funding system. The agency’s leaders will be able to experiment with innovative funding mechanisms and push the boundaries of science at speed. To also ensure that we have the skilled workforce to deliver net zero and our 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, we launched the green jobs task force, in partnership with skills providers, unions and business. We are also providing over £1 billion for public sector buildings, including schools, to install heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency measures. This will upgrade school buildings and reduce carbon emissions.

The UK is taking advantage of its new-found freedoms as an independent trading nation. The subsidy control Bill will create a new domestic subsidy control system, to provide certainty and confidence to businesses investing in the UK. It will protect against subsidies that risk causing distortive or harmful economic impacts and ensure a consistent approach throughout the UK. It will ensure that the UK meets its international commitments on subsidy control and provide a legal framework that reflects our strategic interests and national circumstances. The Bill will enable public authorities and devolved Governments to design subsidies that deliver strong benefits for the UK taxpayer.

This Session we will also introduce legislation to support workers. The national insurance contributions Bill will introduce NI relief for employers in freeports, employers of veterans and the self-employed receiving self-isolation support payments. This Bill supports the delivery of the 2019 manifesto commitment to create 10 freeports across the UK to promote job creation, by providing a relief from NI contributions for eligible new employees for three years, up to earnings of £25,000 a year. The Government are also supporting veterans to secure stable and fulfilling employment as they transition to civilian life by encouraging employers to hire veterans. There will be NI relief of up to £5,500 per year for each hired veteran. We also want to ensure that self-isolation payments will not attract NI contributions. The Bill will also clamp down on the tax avoidance market, enabling action to be taken against promoters of tax avoidance schemes.

Public service pension reforms were introduced in 2015, and the Government agreed to allow those closest to retirement to stay in their legacy schemes. This was later judicially challenged, where it was found, inter alia, to be unfair to younger members. We will now be giving all eligible members a choice between legacy and reform scheme benefits for the period from the date the reforms were made to April 2022. We will continue to reward public servants with pensions that are among the very best available, in a way that ensures they are fair, affordable and sustainable. We will also bring forward reforms to help recruitment and retention in the judiciary, continuing to attract and retain high-calibre judges.

As we now exit the pandemic, I hope noble Lords will be assured that we will support the NHS, plan the education recovery carefully, upskill adults and drive innovation. My noble friend Lord Callanan and I look forward to hearing the valuable insights of many noble Lords today, especially the maiden speeches from the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, and the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev, and—sadly—the valedictory speech from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth.