Queen’s Speech

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, many Members will have heard of the Watoto children’s village in Kampala. It is a village of about 1,600 orphans whose parents have died of AIDS. They have come from the most dismal circumstances. They have choirs that go around the world promoting and advocating the work done by the Watoto community. They were singing here in Parliament about two years ago and I hope that they will be singing here again in July.

After they sang last time, I asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up. “I want to be a nurse.” “I want to be a vet.” “I want to be an airline pilot.” I came to the last little lad, a sturdy 10 year-old, and asked him what he wanted to be. “I want to be President of Uganda.” I thought that was a wonderful ambition. He had a dream—children have dreams, they have aspirations, they have talents. One of the great needs of this time is for people to share their dreams and to be helped to find the necessary ladders to achieve their ambitions.

Of course, this is true overseas, and I am so grateful that in the Queen’s Speech we had a commitment of 0.7% of GDP for overseas development. I am also glad that we have made another significant contribution for Christian Aid Week. We are helping those overseas to achieve their dreams. It is not just overseas; there is a need in our own country to share the dreams of children everywhere and give them the resources necessary so the world might benefit from their contribution, to remove the barriers that so often prevent children from aiming high and achieving their potential.

We all know that the background children come from is often very difficult and can stifle their ambitions right from the early years. Somehow we have to overcome this and find some way of transforming the problem areas to make them areas of opportunity. This can be done. There are exciting projects already and in other places we must encourage co-operation and discussion between churches, voluntary organisations, youth organisations, local councils and even the police to find a better way forward for these children.

The best thing of all is if these projects are led by people of the children’s own communities. We are often looked upon by people outside with great suspicion as comfortable people living in comfortable circumstances earning a comfortable income—and that is true. Somehow it is so difficult, especially once you come here, to be able really to empathise, to share the concerns and the struggles of people outside here. We need to encourage people from the children’s own communities. If I go into a community and I am a stranger, they will say, “Look at him. He knows nothing about our struggles”. People should be encouraged in different ways to go into their own communities to work with the young people—and the older people. In my part of the world, new arrivals are often looked upon with some suspicion: “This family have only been here for 34 years. They have not settled down. They have not become part of us”. People should be encouraged to take the lead in their own communities, helping people over the cultural hurdles that they face.

The Queen’s Speech also contained promises to improve parenting and support family life. It is often said that education is the key to so much of this—the key to tackling youth unemployment and boosting the hopes of young people. I speak to teachers frequently, and they are wonderful people, but the morale is so low. The mountain of bureaucracy that they have to tackle is preventing them being the inspirational teachers that they could be. I dream that every child will be treated as an individual, with different strengths and different needs. “Same size fits all” does not work here. We should look at every child and see how the teachers, as champions of the rights of each individual pupil, are able to exert their inspiration, talent and skills in the best way possible.

I am very sad at the standard of some career guidance. Perhaps Miss Jones—or Roberts—has a free lesson on Thursday at 2 pm and is told, “You do careers”. Especially in a time of high youth unemployment when there are not as many opportunities as there used to be, we need the most skilled teachers in personal relationships with the children to direct them to the most suitable opportunities. We must put career guidance at the very top of our agenda.

Finally, as a Chamber, as a Parliament, we must be prepared to be far more united in the way we tackle these problems, willing to work as one, to overcome the blight of unemployment and hopelessness. That would show real maturity, that we are not just politicians with eyes on the next election, and that this is a Chamber of statespeople, aware of our responsibilities not just to the next election but to the next generation.