Lord Storey: My Lords, I said at Second Reading, putting the register aside for a moment, that we as a society have a responsibility to ensure that all our children are safe, secure and educated. If that is not happening, we need to ask why and what we can simply do to make sure that every child is safe and educated. Over the last seven or eight years, I have put down a whole series of Written Questions...
Lord Storey: My Lords, briefly, I do not know whether the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, taught in a primary school, but social engineering is not a phrase I would associate with them; I would associate imagination, sponges sucking up knowledge and getting excited about things, but not social engineering. I want to raise another issue on mandatory work experience. The UK shared prosperity fund is a fund of...
Lord Storey: My Lords, I wish to test the opinion of the House. Ayes 51, Noes 108.
Lord Storey: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for reminding me that I should declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I have three amendments in this group. I think Amendment 59 is pretty self-explanatory: it would increase the pupil premium in 2023-24 by £160 per primary pupil and £127 per secondary pupil from 2022-23 levels, before pegging it to...
Lord Storey: My Lords, I ought to declare an interest as a former head teacher of a Church of England school. We live in a multicultural, multifaith community, and we make that successful by respecting each and every one of us. I shall come back to that in a moment. We on these Benches support Amendment 30. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, that you do not have to be a Christian to believe in...
Lord Storey: I thank the Minister for her response. It is refreshing to have a Minister who listens and who is open-minded about issues and tries to resolve them. I had intended to push Amendment 10 to a vote, but that would be churlish given the Minister’s offer. I respect her for making it; it is the best way forward. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham said, it is important to get...
Lord Storey: My Lords, I shall move Amendment 10 in my name and speak to my Amendment 43 in this group. I preface my remarks by commenting on the important points that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, made about schooling. He is absolutely right that it is the role of school to motivate children. It can do that with the best possible teachers and resources. As the noble Lord rightly said, children get only...
Lord Storey: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of 12 pages of the AQA Chemistry A-Level examination being leaked on the social media app Snapchat before that examination took place.
Lord Storey: To ask Her Majesty's Government why Wirral Council only received 25 per cent of the finance that was awarded to Birkenhead under the Town Deals fund in July 2021.
Lord Storey: My Lords, this debate started with the noble Earl, Lord Howe, talking to us about the importance of free speech at our universities; he used the word “discourse”. He told us briefly what the Bill was about—first, putting further duties on higher education, which would be done by a code of practice. The Government are very good at developing codes of practice; they are just not very good...
Lord Storey: These amendments are hugely important. There is a rhyme, is there not? “Sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words can never harm me.” But how wrong that is. Words are very harmful and are often used by bullies. However, it is not just the person being bullied who needs support; it is also the bully themselves. Many of the bullies have real problems, and we must not forget that....
Lord Storey: My Lords, we support all three amendments in this group. I declare my interest as vice-president of the Local Government Association. I start by telling the Committee that every single school on Merseyside has a defibrillator. Why? As we have heard, at the school that my daughter attended at the time, a young boy called Oliver King had a tragic sudden cardiac arrest in the swimming pool and...
Lord Storey: That is a very fair answer but between Committee and Report, will the Minister just make sure that Ofsted is completely content and there are no further loopholes?
Lord Storey: I shall speak to my own Amendment 149, and also speak to Amendment 152 and 171C. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for the amendments and congratulate the Government for, for the first time, trying to sort this problem out. I do not want to repeat everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, because she has painted the situation as it...
Lord Storey: For the first time, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, in many of the things that she said. This is a first. One thing I want to add is that the Covid lockdown certainly created real problems. However, you can go further back and say that the recession created a situation whereby local authorities had massive cuts to their budgets. For example, my local authority in Liverpool lost a...
Lord Storey: I am learning all the time, after 10 years. Some 80% of all learning is visual. A child who has undiagnosed, uncorrected vision problems faces academic disadvantages, particularly in literacy and numeracy. This affects their safety, social and cultural development, and physical agility, and disadvantages them for life. The current child screening programme recommended by the National...
Lord Storey: The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, sort of said “all home educators” and I briefly want to say that that is not the case. Some home educators feel threatened by a number of people in their organisation, particularly a number of ex-home educators who are running and providing services. I am happy to show the noble Baroness the evidence for that privately.
Lord Storey: The noble Baroness said “home educators”. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, corrected by saying “some home educators”, but the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said “home educators”. When she said that, it indicated to me that she was talking about all home educators.
Lord Storey: Let us agree to differ until we see Hansard.
Lord Storey: If I am wrong, I am wrong and will apologise, but I make the point quite strongly that a large number of home educators are getting on with home educating. Within the home education movement, there are home educators who are behaving in an unacceptable way. In the first debate we had—I do not think the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, was with us—we all agreed, or the feeling of the debate...
