Baroness Morgan of Huyton: To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has to intervene in the ongoing negotiations between Vertex pharmaceuticals, NICE and NHS England on the price of the cystic fibrosis drug Orkambi to ensure that it is made available to patients as soon as possible.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen for her excellent introduction to the debate today. Her experience of and commitment to the subject is well known and widely admired around the House. I draw attention to my educational interests in the register, specifically as an adviser to ARC, chair of Ambition School Leadership and a trustee of the Educational Policy...
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: My Lords, I am pleased to be taking part in this important debate. I too was a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee which produced the report we are talking about, under the able chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. It was a fascinating but very worrying inquiry. I draw attention to my interests in the register, particularly as chair of the Royal Brompton and Harefield...
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: My Lords, widening the conversation, when the NHS settlement is detailed in full, will the well-being of schoolchildren be looked at very carefully, particularly in relation to school nurses and the support that a lot of young people, particularly teenagers, need in schools and possibly are not getting sufficiently at the moment?
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: Personally, my Lords, I think we need to be a bit careful with this. Given the conversation on Amendment 1, when we were talking about one of the problems being large numbers of pupils who are now excluded from schools in a way that most of us feel very uneasy about, I would hate us to end up producing something in this Bill that said it was okay because there was a fund that did a little bit...
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: My Lords, those of us who were present at Second Reading were clear about the importance of keeping things simple in the Bill. When there has not been an education Bill for a long time, there is always a tendency for all sorts of things to be raised. Those of us who have taken part in this debate over months, if not years, are clear that there is a precise need to start to move forward on...
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: To ask Her Majesty's Government to whom schools report if a pupil is taken off-roll to be home-schooled.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether Ofsted asks schools about pupils who have been removed from the school roll to be home-schooled.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the number of children who are excluded and subsequently home-schooled.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the number of pupils who were taken out of school to visit families abroad, in (1) Pakistan, and (2) elsewhere, and who are subsequently home-schooled following their return in the last five years; and what proportion of those students were teenage girls.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: To ask Her Majesty's Government how many pupils in the last academic year were taken out of school to be home-schooled.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the number of children in unregistered schools who are notionally home-schooled.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Solely in his aim to introduce a register, which I think would be a significant and relatively straightforward step forward. This is an emotive and emotional subject, probably because, as we have already heard, there is a minority of vociferous parents who undertake home schooling perfectly well—in fact, very well, in many...
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: With respect to the noble Viscount, can he explain more clearly why we should “rest assured”, as he said? In this debate there has been strong support from all sides of the House for a simple clarification and change to the law that will deliver what we are all seeking, which is the differentiation between work experience and an unpaid internship. However, nothing that the Government have...
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for bringing forward the Bill and for his brilliant speech. Frankly, I think he said it all for us. I draw attention to my interests on the register. I should probably add a personal interest too: I have somewhat lived this subject since my son set up the campaign group Intern Aware—to which Lord Holmes referred—with a friend at university. My son is...
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: My Lords, I echo the thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for his excellent introduction to this debate. I am fortunate to serve as a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee under his leadership, which followed the able leadership of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, who initiated this area of scrutiny for the committee. I draw attention to my entries in the register. This House...
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: The way the Minister is replying suggests that the decision has already been taken. I thought we were having a consultation and there is then going to be a decision.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: My Lords, I am proud to declare my interest in this debate as chairman of the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust. I am also immensely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, for obtaining this debate and introducing it so brilliantly. I hope that the Minister realises what a formidable force she is and, importantly, that she understands that she stands at the head of a large,...
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: My Lords, I am pleased to take part in this important debate and particularly pleased to be a member of the Select Committee under the able chairmanship of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne. We are served by a strong team, and particularly by a specialist adviser whom we regard highly, who puts up with a great deal of trouble from some of us at times. He is truly an asset to us. I also draw...
Baroness Morgan of Huyton: My Lords, like others I have still not had the opportunity to read the whole report and have relied to a large extent on the executive summary. I suspect that over the coming weeks and months new insights will emerge that will be useful to us all. However, let us try today to draw the right conclusions and lessons from the Chilcot inquiry. That means we should not regurgitate the oft-repeated...
