Public Sector: Working From Home

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not brave enough to answer the final point. As for my performance in the Division Lobby, I think most noble Lords have now experienced that. I can either apologise or be grateful for it. In terms of online working and how we use technology, personally, I benefit from sitting in the same room during meetings; I definitely absorb more. But noble Lords will be aware that I also do a great deal of work with the Northern Ireland Office and all our meetings have to be hybrid because of where people are. That is the case for most of us who are operating in government. Our officials are spread, so to make sure that we hear voices from our nations and regions, it is important that we operate a variety of different technologies.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, returning to the earlier question about skills and training, will my noble friend talk to her noble friend on the Front Bench and to Pat McFadden and Georgia Gould in the Commons about re-establishing a new form of civil service college, which could be done with a confederation of universities at a fraction of the price that was going to be charged by EY until this Government stopped it back in July?