Parliament and Central Government: Relocation

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords—

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The right reverend Prelate has a very good point; if they have any sense, they will not.

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

My Lords, what I know is certain is that the people of the north of England would appreciate Civil Service jobs there. Before being so dismissive, would the Government be prepared to have discussions with the BBC, which took an inspired and successful decision to move so much of its activity to MediaCity, on the border of Salford and Manchester?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

Yes, that was certainly a very good decision by the BBC. That is why the Government Property Unit, which is in charge of seeing how the departments work with their civil servants, is indeed trying to drive this radical reshaping of the Civil Service estate, and so encouraging departments to move their civil servants out of London, as I said earlier. That could well be to the north and it would certainly encourage people from the north to take those jobs.

Historical Sexual Abuse in Football

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

That is so important. We need to have appropriate, robust safeguards in place to make sure that, as parents and grandparents, we can feel safe that, when our children go and play sport, they are properly protected. But equally, as the Secretary of State said in her Statement, all across the country, every day, there are volunteers who are doing magnificent work with children. Of course, we hope that this is a minority—we do not know until we look into it—but the majority of volunteers are doing a marvellous job with children, encouraging them to take part in sport, get involved with other children and take exercise. Those people must not be forgotten.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

I declare an interest as a non-executive director of Carlisle Football Club. Like most football clubs at the lower level, we think that we are clear, but none of us is complacent, and the Football League has been very helpful in providing information. We tend to know the youngsters who play for us, but it is important that any inquiry looks at the Premier League, which has tens of thousands of young people going for training six days a week. I suspect that those are the people who are most susceptible today, and I hope that we look at the activity of the Premier League.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. I understand that it will be looked into as well.