"My Lords, like other noble Lords, I express my gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for initiating and instigating this debate. I congratulate her on the number of name-checks for her Lib Dem colleagues she managed to achieve in the early part of her speech. This is not a …..." Lord Bassam of Brighton - View Speech
"My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for repeating this important Statement, and I join him in thanking Edward Timpson and all those who contributed to this report.
It is a fact that too many children are being written off as failures, with tragic consequences. Permanent exclusions have …..." Lord Bassam of Brighton - View Speech
"I am grateful that the Minister has said that off-rolling is illegal, but have the Government actually challenged any of the schools that have off-rolled? Is there any data on that?..." Lord Bassam of Brighton - View Speech
"My Lords, with Ofqual figures showing a drop of 7.3% in students taking foreign languages at GCSE and A-level, I invite the Minister to join me in congratulating our European partners, whose Governments are directly funding the teaching of Italian, German, French and Spanish in our primary schools. Will he …..." Lord Bassam of Brighton - View Speech
"To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to reconsider recent changes to access to free school meals following their decision to delay the roll out of Universal Credit...." Lord Bassam of Brighton - View Speech
"My Lords, it is estimated that there are 5 million children now living in poverty in the UK, so is it not time for the Government to consider using the pause in the rollout of universal credit to reconsider their mean-spirited free school meals policy? What assessments have they made …..." Lord Bassam of Brighton - View Speech
"My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Morris on her excellent plea for education and on phrasing the debate in the terms she did. She is right to say that our education service is at a crisis point, and that the Government have to make their mind up about …..." Lord Bassam of Brighton - View Speech
"The noble Lord is being extremely courteous and helpful to the House, but what he does not seem to be doing is explaining why it is that all these schools, in experiencing what he is saying are increases in budgets, are also experiencing reductions and losing the ability to provide …..." Lord Bassam of Brighton - View Speech
"To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the findings of Professor John Jerrim in his paper The association between attending a grammar school and children’s socio-emotional outcomes, published in May, that grammar schools do not promote social mobility; and what continuing benefit they anticipate from the …..." Lord Bassam of Brighton - View Speech
"My Lords, the £50 million extra for selective schools comes at a time when cash-strapped schools are asking parents for donations to make up funding shortfalls. Given that the noble Lord conceded in a written reply to me that there were no set numbers of places reserved for pupils from …..." Lord Bassam of Brighton - View Speech