Contributions
793 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDLooked-after and Adopted ChildrenThe noble Lord is right that 73% of children in care are with foster families and that such families are indeed heroes of the system; in most cases they provide stable, loving…28 Jan 2020HANSARDLooked-after and Adopted ChildrenMy Lords, this has been a particular passion of mine. We have created a unit called Boarding School Partnerships, which is encouraging local authorities to engage far more with…28 Jan 2020HANSARDLooked-after and Adopted ChildrenMy Lords, we certainly do not tolerate the failure of children’s services and local authorities. We have made a great deal of progress over the last five or six years. For…28 Jan 2020HANSARDLooked-after and Adopted ChildrenMy Lords, we have created a large number of initiatives over the last few years. For example, the adoption support fund has provided £136 million since 2015 and has helped some…28 Jan 2020HANSARDLooked-after and Adopted ChildrenMy Lords, as I mentioned, we have provided interventions when local authorities have failed, and have seen 47 local authorities improve in their Ofsted inspections over the last…28 Jan 2020HANSARDSchools: Excluded ChildrenI acknowledge the great work that my noble friend is doing with UTCs, and he is right that they have attracted an excessive number of children who are more broadly off-rolled…27 Jan 2020HANSARDSchools: Excluded ChildrenThe noble Lord raises a very good point and is correct that the Timpson review made a number of recommendations that we accepted. Work is ongoing to look at the feasibility of its…27 Jan 2020HANSARDSchools: Excluded ChildrenMy Lords, to put things in perspective, the level of exclusion has remained broadly stable over the last 15 years at 0.1%. However, I take on board the noble Baroness’s comments.…27 Jan 2020HANSARDSchools: Excluded ChildrenMy Lords, every child in this country should have the opportunity to receive a decent education. This includes children in alternative provision, many of whom are vulnerable or…27 Jan 2020HANSARDSchools: Excluded ChildrenThe noble and learned Baroness is right that mental health is a more prevalent issue among these vulnerable children. In our Green Paper Transforming Children and Young People’s…27 Jan 2020HANSARDSchools: Excluded ChildrenMy Lords, the noble Lord raises a good point on the link-up between the Local Government Association and Ofsted. I certainly recommend that the Local Government Association write…27 Jan 2020HANSARDEuropean Union (Withdrawal Agreement) BillI am certainly very happy to share with the noble Lord any information that I get on the spending review when it is available, but I suspect that I will not be privy to that any…20 Jan 2020HANSARDEuropean Union (Withdrawal Agreement) BillI am sure that noble Lords will not be surprised to hear me say that that is a matter for the spending review, which will take place in the summer. However, I would be very…20 Jan 2020HANSARDEuropean Union (Withdrawal Agreement) BillMy Lords, I am pleased to respond to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. Amendment 16 seeks to introduce parliamentary oversight requirements that the Government…20 Jan 2020HANSARDEuropean Union (Withdrawal Agreement) BillI entirely accept what the noble Baroness says but the key principle here is that we cannot offer a blank cheque in the withdrawal Bill to say that we will automatically join a…16 Jan 2020HANSARDEuropean Union (Withdrawal Agreement) BillI can answer that. The point is that nearly every Peer who joined the debate on this amendment was mourning the leaving of Europe. Many of them just said, “We are very sad to be…16 Jan 2020HANSARDEuropean Union (Withdrawal Agreement) BillMy Lords, I am pleased to respond to this amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and I will try to respond to the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, the…16 Jan 2020HANSARDEuropean Union (Withdrawal Agreement) BillThe reassurance that I can give the noble Earl is that we support the value of Erasmus. We are not signalling that we are going to come out of the next version of it, but we…16 Jan 2020HANSARDChildren: Rights and Well-beingMy Lords, we are confident that we comply with all the main conventions of the UNCRC. A recent CRAE report praised the work that we are doing in government. I quote from its…09 Jan 2020HANSARDChildren: Rights and Well-beingMy Lords, we are committed to social care; it is one of our top priorities. In the settlement for 2020-21, we see the largest rise in core spending since 2015; a real-terms…09 Jan 2020