Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I urge my noble friend the Minister to look at the amendment and think carefully about what the Government could conceivably do. I honestly think that anyone who has met Ceri, Frances or both of them could do nothing other than to say that we really need this, urgently. I will speak only briefly. When I met Ceri this week, he was delighted to say that Brentford Football Club, as an employer, is already taking this on and doing something about it. Clearly, there are people who feel that this is not just urgent but a matter of decency and humanity. We should find a way of doing something about it.

[Baroness Cass (CB)]

My Lords, I was not intending to speak to the amendment, but I also met Ceri this week, and it was a privilege to talk to him. I had not heard that part of his story until my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson told us about it.

I recently stepped down as a trustee of the children’s hospice Noah’s Ark, in Barnet. When I think about the support that families get there—not just during the course of their child’s illness and while they pass away but support for siblings, and the ability, through the Butterfly Suite, to be with the child they have recently lost for a number of days thereafter, through to follow-up and bereavement support that hospice staff provide, as well as advice on benefits and access, which might be crucial to the well-being of those parents —I am struck by the stark difference. That support is provided by charitable funds. It should not be that way. This is a postcode lottery. We have responsibilities to this group of families, who fight so bravely by themselves but who need our support and that holistic wraparound care.