"My Lords, this amendment aims to remedy one of the greatest injustices in our whole education system: the acute shortage of apprenticeships for young people not going to university.
If you qualify for university and want it, you can expect to find a place. However, if you qualify for an …..." Lord Layard - View Speech
"My Lords, I am most grateful to everyone who spoke in this excellent debate. The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, got us off to a good start on the economics, which is, of course, a central part of this—but economics can appear to look just at the whole economy rather than …..." Lord Layard - View Speech
"My Lords, children’s well-being is referenced in the title of this Bill, and so it should be. Obviously, children’s well-being matters, but it is also the best predictor of how happy the child will be in their subsequent life, predicting it far better than the qualifications which they obtain. However, …..." Lord Layard - View Speech
"My Lords, there have been two main criticisms of the Bill. The first is that it expands the size of the state and is therefore bad, and the second is that it destroys jobs. Both arguments are misconceived. I will take them in turn.
"My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Beamish. I warmly welcome this Bill for two reasons. The first is economic growth. That is obvious, but equally importantly—I want to stress this perspective—skills are crucial for people and their individual ability to earn a living. For those two reasons, it …..." Lord Layard - View Speech
"My Lords, how wonderful that we have two such excellent new Ministers. We are talking about growth, and growth depends on only two things: productivity and employment.
Higher productivity depends hugely, of course, on higher skills. Higher skills are not only more productive in themselves, but they also raise the …..." Lord Layard - View Speech
"My Lords, I am delighted to follow our chairman, who does such a wonderful job in leading our work.
This report is timely because everybody wants to see more economic growth. The most obvious way to achieve that is to increase employment. The central issue is how we can raise …..." Lord Layard - View Speech
"My Lords, we all know the problem facing our country: as a nation, we have become poorer. Our import prices have risen more than our export prices and, on that account, we are 5% poorer than we were a year or so ago. That is a lot of money—over £100 …..." Lord Layard - View Speech
"My Lords, I had the honour of being a member of this committee. It was beautifully chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Grade, and had a brilliant secretary. It is an outstanding report.
I will talk about the problem of addiction. As we know, there are many forms of addiction—tobacco, …..." Lord Layard - View Speech