Children: Temporary Accommodation

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Baroness Brinton

Monday 11th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, all of us are concerned to protect children and, thankfully, in this country we have a strong homelessness safety net, which is protected in law and ensures that families with children at risk of being homeless always have a roof over their head. As I said in my original Answer to the noble Lord, we have invested £470 million in preventing homelessness. Our effort is very much around preventing and avoiding people being put at risk in the first instance, but we are also working very closely with councils to ensure that they are properly equipped to provide the support that is necessary to anyone who is at risk at any time, never mind whether it is at Christmas or not.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, given that there is considerable anecdotal evidence of the health and education problems faced by young children in temporary accommodation, especially bed-and-breakfast accommodation, is any data collected to show the exact effect on children, specifically where they have to change GPs? Is there a requirement on local authorities to collect that data, particularly where children are in single-room accommodation for more than the maximum six weeks?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am grateful to my noble friend. As I have just said, Ministers are working very hard with local authorities to ensure that those families who are housed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation are not housed there for longer than six weeks. Yes, data will be collected and I am sure that I will be able to provide more information to my noble friend, but I emphasise the huge amount of effort that is being made in this area to minimise any of the effects on children.

Women: Board Membership

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Baroness Brinton

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that we want more women on boards. We do so because they make up more than half of the nation’s talent and we cannot afford for the best and brightest not to be there. The statistics on black and minority ethnic women are not available because the statistics for women on boards are not broken down in that way, but I know anecdotally that they are not great. What I can say to the noble Baroness is that, through a range of measures that the Government are taking, we are ensuring that our effort expands to cover all women. She may like to know that the Women’s Business Council, which we set up to make sure that we address the pipeline so that more women come forward, is chaired by Ruby McGregor-Smith, who is chief executive of MITIE and the only Asian woman chief executive in the FTSE 250. She is chairing that council for the Government because she is so committed to diversity in all its forms.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, 17.5% of FTSE 100 boards are made of up of women. I prefer to use that figure rather than the number of companies that have one token woman on the board. I know that it is below the target set by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, but it is a step forward from the 1990s. Given this very low figure, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that sufficient mentoring and counselling are available to women below board level who have ambitions of rising within companies and breaking through the glass ceiling?