Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow that excellent maiden speech from my noble friend Lady Blake. There is no doubt that the House will benefit from her rich experience of local government and I look forward to debating the merits of Leeds United with her in the years to come. Let me also start by reminding noble Lords of my interests as entered in the register, in particular my...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consultation they have undertaken with providers about the market review of initial teacher training.
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer and welcome the latter part of it in particular. I also remind the House of my education interests in the register. I hope that this review is truly independent, unlike the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. So far, it appears to have alienated virtually every provider of teacher training in the country, with the likes of our top...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, first I want to thank and congratulate my noble friend Lady Jones on ensuring we have this important opportunity to question the Minister on these flawed regulations. We have already heard that the main problems with this SI, beyond its drafting, are that it is limited in scope to only 40% of upland peat in England and that it is also undermined by loosely worded exemptions, so that...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, I have recently been in touch with my friend Ronnie Norquoy, who operates boats from Orkney. He tells me that this ban is only the latest in a series of crises: first, the restriction of the China market; secondly, Covid closing the hospitality sector market; thirdly, the wave of red tape and export chaos caused by Brexit; and, now, the Seafood Producers Resilience Fund, which...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, I am an enthusiastic supporter of this cross-party amendment to the Trade Bill. The Government do not have that much to be proud of right now, but they should be rightly proud of their moves to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online, especially for children. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has done great work, both through the 5Rights Foundation and in this House on...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, the summer exams were cancelled in Wales on 10 November, allowing time for schools and exam boards to develop robust alternative assessments. In Scotland, they followed suit on 8 December, yet Ministers in England dogmatically held out until Monday. They have catastrophically mishandled the impact of the pandemic on schools, on the digital divide, on free school meals, on last...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, with regard to the Minister’s news regarding us being able to have up to three households together at Christmas, does the rule of six still apply and, if not, what will be the limit on people celebrating together? I spoke in the debate on the regulations to put us into lockdown, and asked the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, about the nonsense of children being able to play with their...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, let me say clearly at the outset that I am reluctantly in favour of the national lockdown. The pandemic is serious and we need to protect the lives of vulnerable people by following the advice to stay at home when we can, and otherwise to follow the advice on safe distancing, clean hands and face masks. However, that is at a huge cost. It will take years to recover economically, and...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, the way in which the owners of the big six clubs are behaving is, frankly, a disgrace. They are exploiting the catastrophic impact of the pandemic on the Football League clubs to make a massive power grab. At no point have they consulted fans during this shocking episode, despite these proposals being three years in the making. The Government’s proposed supporter-led review of...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, this announcement is welcome—as far as it goes. It is logical to start with the unqualified, but what of the many with middle and higher-level skills who are being squeezed by technology and finding that universal credit is catastrophic for them and their families? They cannot fund their reskilling. Has the Government’s National Skills Fund got anything to offer the squeezed middle?
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, back in April my noble friend Lord Darzi told the BBC in respect of Covid-19 that “AI remains one of our strongest paths to achieve a perceptible solution but there is a fundamental need for high quality, large and clean data sets.” Much of this data gets siloed in individual companies and universities, so what are the Government doing to unify these data sources to allow...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, I remind noble Lords of my educational interests. The Education Select Committee warned Ministers in May that the model used for exam gradings may be biased against young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The former director-general for schools, Sir Jon Coles, warned them again in July, and so did Tim Oates from one of the exam boards, also in July. What happened in Scotland...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: I remind noble Lords of my interests in the register. The initial focus for school leaders in September must be the well-being of children. Studying music is known to improve health and well-being as well as attainment. Given the restrictions currently in place on choirs and instrument lessons, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked, when will the Government renew the national plan for music...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: I remind your Lordships of my entry in the register. Grandparents are losing their lives, parents their livelihoods, and now children are losing their life chances. The absence of a credible plan for schools opening in September is a disgrace. By then, we need to end the digital divide in education, deliver training and teaching using technology through an additional inset day, map a coherent...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as set out in the register. Last week, the Minister said in Oral Questions that the Secretary of State has made it clear that schools will not be expected to open throughout the summer holidays, and she has just said something similar. Given that, what exactly are the Government planning? Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that there will be a...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: I refer your Lordships to my interests in the register. We certainly need action to tackle the widening of the attainment gap during the crisis, and summer schools can work if the targeted pupils attend, but those same children also need well-qualified teachers. How is the department planning to ensure that newly qualified teachers, who have been denied classroom practice this year due to...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, I praise my noble friend Lady Morris for her inspiring speech and for the debate, and I remind the House of my interests as the chief officer at TES Global and as chair of Whole Education. I believe that education is failing working-class communities in this country. Many of those places were formed to serve an industrial economy that has since moved on. Our education system emerged...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, I noted what the Minister said about schools and I support his position. However, I also note that the Chief Medical Officer for Wales is today reported as saying that the peak in infection may be in May and June, coinciding with the time when up to a million young people will be taking public examinations in large sports halls. Can he reassure me that Ofqual is having conversations...
Lord Knight of Weymouth: My Lords, I congratulate my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on securing the debate and her introduction to it. I must begin by reminding your Lordships that I am also a member of the Select Committee on Democracy and Digital Technologies, and of my entry in the register as a chief officer of Tes Global, which publishes the TES magazine, a specialist education publication. At Tes, we...