Steven Bonnar: ...from asking their employees to be vaccinated before starting employment, a hugely impactful decision with consequences that stretch across many sectors and industries. Enforcing the vaccination of employees, according to the petition and the petitioners, violates the concept of informed consent. I find that hard to disagree with. We do not live in a totalitarian society, and we should not...
Robin Walker: Schools and colleges have a critical role to play in protecting children and keeping them safe. ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ (KCSIE) is statutory guidance that schools and colleges must have regard to when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The guidance is clear on the actions a school or college should take if there are any concerns about...
Baroness Morris of Yardley: ...amendments that have been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and supported by other speakers. I do not want to make a long speech, but I want to add weight to the argument by standing up and offering support. I will not repeat his arguments, but I want to pay tribute to the work that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, has done in this regard. He chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group...
Lord Farmer: My Lords, my Amendment 57, which the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, has mentioned, is also supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I declare my interest as a director and controlling shareholder of the Family Hubs Network Ltd, which advocates for family hubs and advises local authorities on how to establish them. I am also a vice-president of the LGA. In speaking to my Amendment 57, I...
Baroness Walmsley: ...will be able to consider this matter and see whether there is anything that he can do about it. I have Amendment 142 in this group. New Section 14Z57 in Clause 20 is about performance assessment of the integrated care boards; it contains several important measures, but one is one missing. This amendment would mandate that, two years after the Bill is implemented, a child impact assessment...
Christopher Chope: Let me put the amendment in context, for colleagues who have not looked at the text of section 42A of the Education Act 1997. Under section 42A(4)(c), the Act states: “The responsible authorities must secure that careers guidance provided under subsection (1)…is guidance that the person giving it considers will promote the best interests of the pupils to whom it is given.” In other...
Michelle Donelan: I can confirm that. Ofsted is now playing a much more active role in looking at the careers support and guidance that is available to schools, including their utilisation of the Baker clause, so that we do not have the postcode lottery to which the hon. Member for Portsmouth South referred. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton spoke in support of the Education (Careers Guidance in...
Michelle Donelan: The Uni Connect programme, operated by the Office for Students (OfS), is a 4 year investment programme established to support the creation of a strong and versatile network of local partnerships with cross-England coverage and aims to provide sustained outreach to young people in schools and colleges in areas with low or unexplained gaps in higher education (HE) participation. The...
Robin Walker: Which is clearly far too many. I was going to say that while I welcome the fact that the CST found that the vast majority of Jewish students have a strongly positive experience at university, it is deeply troubling to hear that there were about 111 antisemitic incidents in the sector in the 2020-21 academic year. To see a number of high-profile universities, including Bristol, named by the...
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: ...introduction. I refer noble Lords to my interests in the register, and I must apologise to the House for omitting to make this reference when I asked a Question on 16 November. The numbers cited are vast and shameful. Each number is a human being, like you and me, with the same physical and emotional needs. They are, however, far more resilient than most of us, cut off from their country...
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay: In May 2021 HM Government published the draft Online Safety Bill. The strongest protections in this legislation are for children. Companies in scope whose sites are likely to be accessed by children will have to ensure that only users who are old enough are able to access services which have age restrictions or which risk causing them harm. The regulator, Ofcom, will be able to take...
Nicola Sturgeon: ...confirm the Cabinet’s decision to propose some additional protections in relation to large-scale live events and indoor public places. We judge those to be necessary to further slow the spread of the virus, so that we can protect health, the national health service and the economy as we work to complete booster vaccinations. I will also set out further support for the many businesses...
Priti Patel: Today I am updating Parliament on Home Office delivery over the last twelve months. Dealing with the effects of Covid-19 has been a challenge for the entire country, but it has also brought out the best of us as communities stepped up to deal with those challenges. Few have played a more important role than our emergency service workers and I put on record my particular thanks to the police...
Nicola Sturgeon: I am very grateful for the opportunity to update Parliament on today’s Covid cases and to repeat my assessment of what we must do in response to the current situation. Yesterday, 5,951 cases were reported, and 45.4 per cent of cases now show the S-gene dropout that is indicative of omicron. It therefore seems likely that, by tomorrow, omicron will be the dominant strain circulating in...
the Bishop of Gloucester: My Lords, in moving Amendment 85 I will speak also to the other amendments in my name in the group. I am very grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Ponsonby and Lord German. I am very grateful for the briefing and expertise provided to me by the organisation Women in Prison and I declare my interest as Anglican Bishop for Her Majesty’s Prisons. In Committee I highlighted the...
Wes Streeting: I agree with the hon. Lady. I appreciate that she is a newer Member of the House but I dare say she watched our proceedings before being elected, and we cannot have spent so much time talking about parliamentary sovereignty only to then throw it out of the window in the next Parliament, so her point is well made. The shadow public health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and...
Nicola Sturgeon: I will give a general update on Covid and share the latest information that we have on the omicron variant. I will also set out the further protective measures that we consider necessary to help to slow its spread while we accelerate the pace of booster vaccines. First, I will give today’s overall statistics. Yesterday, 3,177 positive cases were reported. That was 11.3 per cent of all tests...
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay: ...important and, if I may say so, enjoyable debate. As he said, this is a return to tradition for your Lordships’ House—a tradition which, as a relative newcomer, I have not had the privilege of participating in before. This debate is on a fundamental issue. Without freedom of speech and open debate, no other question can be adequately settled. It is a debate that is both ancient and...
Rob Roberts: ..., which is in my name, and has been kindly supported by Members from eight different parties, including immigration and NHS subject experts, for which I am exceedingly grateful. I would like to declare an interest: my partner is an NHS clinician from overseas, but this new clause would not benefit him as he already has his permanent residency status confirmed. In this country, we typically...
Alex Burghart: I rise to speak to this monster group of amendments: 60, 57, 56, 58, 55 and 59. Amendment 60 would add to the power in clause 20 an obligation on the Office for Students to assess and consider mitigating circumstances such as the pandemic. The OfS is already required to take into account wider factors when assessing the performance of providers. It has a general duty to have regard to the...
