Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, it is truly with joy and pleasure that I follow the speech of my noble friend Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, someone whom I have known for over half a century and whom I am proud to call not just a political colleague but a personal friend. It is not often that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and I find ourselves in agreement—in fact, it usually signals that something truly extraordinary has happened in Sheffield. So I say to my noble friend, “You have really raised the bar on who you can bring together in your first speech, so I look forward to you solving the Ukraine crisis in your second”.

I met my noble friend back in the early 2000s, when he was standing for what can only be described—I am being generous here—as a no-hope council seat. I was dispatched to give him a bit of morale boosting, which is always a delicate task when you know full well that the poor soul is likely to come a very distant runner-up. Even then, his spark was obvious—his passion, persistence and, most of all, the principles that have stayed with him throughout his remarkable career.

As it turned out, our political journeys have continued in tandem. My noble friend was eventually elected as a councillor for Broomhill—the same ward I represented. He later served as a vital member of my cabinet in Sheffield and, if we are claiming for political sides the university technical college of Sheffield, I am pleased to say that that was during our administration. When he was in my cabinet, he was always driven by a fierce commitment to tackling inequality, and was endlessly constructive and an immensely valued colleague.

My noble friend’s journey from unloading lorries for £27.50 a week to his youth work—I point out with a sense of irony that we now have within your Lordships’ House our own resident youth worker, who I am sure we can use at our disposal if we require his diversionary tactics and services—to representing Yorkshire in the European Parliament, and now to these red Benches, reminds us of the very best of Britain: a country where opportunity, public service and determination can take someone from the YTS scheme to the House of Lords.

If there were ever a voice needed in this Chamber to speak for youth, fairness and equal opportunity with that no-nonsense, straight-talking Sheffield spirit, it is his. I, for one, am really glad that he now sits behind me, or rather beside me—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I am used to having him behind me, heckling, but now he sits beside me in your Lordships’ House. I wish him well in his endeavours and I am sure he will add to our work here in this Parliament.

Turning to the Bill, I want to talk about the provisions that address the issue of illegal, unregistered schools. A liberal society can and must accommodate a wide range of educational settings, including independent schools and properly regulated home education as well as, of course, state schools. However, in accommodating such education, the wishes of parents and religious groups need to be balanced against the rights of the child. I therefore broadly welcome the measures within the Bill that are aimed at ensuring that all children can have their right to a broad education, adequately protected.

Although no precise figures are known for the number of children currently in unregistered schools, the former chief inspector of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman, estimated it was likely to be in the “tens of thousands”. She described conditions in some that

“you wouldn’t want to put a dog in, let alone a child”.

Earlier this year, a report from the Jewish Policy Research Institute found that over 6,600 children in ultra-orthodox Jewish communities were not attending registered schools, suggesting that many are being sent to unregistered faith schools, which represents the same pattern in other religious faith groups. These are concerning figures, given the repeated findings that many unregistered religious schools fail to deliver tuition in subjects outside religious instruction, denying students skills vital to a successful and fulfilling life, with some pupils even left unable to write English. Moreover, the existence of unregistered schools poses a significant safeguarding risk. Evidence has documented children being taught in deplorable conditions, alongside instances of physical and sexual abuse and an alarming absence of safeguarding procedures.

The kind of religious education offered in these settings typically lacks a broad and balanced perspective on a range of beliefs. Instead, it tends to indoctrinate children and young people with a narrow religious worldview. These limited perspectives undermine the ability of pupils to engage with communities outside those in which they are being educated—an important aspect of life in modern Britain. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of the National Secular Society—I refer to my interests in the register—which was one of the first organisations to raise awareness of the plight of pupils languishing in such unregistered schools.

Every child, irrespective of their parents’ religious outlook, deserves access to a safe and nurturing learning environment that fosters critical thinking and respect for a diverse set of beliefs. Every child, regardless of their background, should have their independent right to a safe, broad and balanced education respected.

Finally, I note that the Bill removes the existing presumption that a new school will automatically be an academy. This change means that new faith-based schools will not necessarily be subject to the 50% cap that limits religious selection in newly established, faith-based free schools’ admissions arrangements—a measure introduced to promote diversity, inclusion and fairness. It is my sincere hope that this House will ensure that a Bill intended to eliminate barriers to educational opportunities does not inadvertently create new barriers in the form of more faith schools applying 100% religious selection. Such an outcome would undermine equality and freedoms, and the choice of families within communities that do not share the same religious beliefs as the school.

Planned Deportation Flight to Jamaica

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend asks a very valuable question. Most of the people we deport go to the EU. He is also right to point out that it is very difficult to deport people to some countries. We would, of course, not deport people to places where they would suffer human rights abuses.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, new guidance came out in May 2019 from the Home Office on Article 8 being applied to such cases. How does a child who came over here aged five, committed a crime at 17, possibly through being recruited by a gang, has all his family in the UK and is on the plane to be deported meet with that guidance?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, as I said, human rights considerations are in play for anyone we decide to deport. These people are not British citizens. The Labour Government laid out in 2007 what would happen when such people committed such crimes. The Home Secretary is obliged to abide by the law that they have to be deported.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord outlines the point that I have just made about information being seen by people who are entitled to see it for the purposes for which it should be seen.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

The Data Protection Act protects all data whether written or digital. Therefore the argument is nonsensical.

[Baroness Ludford]

I think my noble friend is forgetting that immigration data is not protected under the Data Protection Act put through last year or the year before. I think there is litigation going on about that.

Civil Partnership (Opposite-sex Couples) Regulations 2019

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, it appears that on the issue of equality, we are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Like other noble Lords who have spoken, I do not want to hold back these regulations, because they are not just a step but a huge leap forward for opposite-sex couples’ equality. However, I despair a little that the Government have not been able at this point to bring about true equality.

I wear this lanyard, as others do, not because I am proud to be LGBT or an LGBT ally, but because I believe in fundamental equality before the law and in human rights. I have spoken in this House before about not being able to marry in a religious institution, which is a form of discrimination. I would not want somebody who is part of an opposite-sex couple to feel that sense of joy being deflated by not being able to convert their civil partnership into a marriage. There is no legal reason why that cannot happen but just a bureaucratic one, based on “some consultation is taking place”.

I know the Minister and her personal passion for equality, which is beyond doubt. However, she kept saying “short term”. How short is short term? The one thing she cannot give is any certainty. We are going into a general election, so short term may be longer than the noble Baroness feels. In addition, it may be short term to the Government, but for somebody who is in an opposite-sex civil partnership and wants to convert, it may take much longer than the short term, particularly if that person has a terminal illness. People make decisions because of life-changing events, so we may be denying somebody the equality that they want based on where they are in their life.

I therefore ask the Minister and the whole House, to ensure that, whoever is returned after the general election, short term must mean a matter of weeks or months. This cannot go on for years because of some bureaucratic government view about consultation.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened to important comments from the noble Lords, Lord Collins, Lord Cashman and Lord Scriven, with whom I agree so much on matters relating to civil partnerships and same-sex marriage. However, I would like to return briefly to a deep injustice which the extension of civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples has made even more glaring.

Civil partnerships were introduced for the express purpose of conferring legal rights on couples who were ineligible to marry. Through these regulations, civil partnerships will be extended to all couples who now possess the right to marry. They will be withheld from people who cannot marry—in defiance of the very principle on which they were established in the first place.

I have brought up on a number of occasions in this House the question of why the Government feel it is acceptable to continue to withhold from long-term cohabiting siblings who choose to live together for companionship and mutual support all the legal rights and fiscal safeguards they offer, through civil partnerships, to couples they presume to be in sexual relationships.

Do the Government think that two siblings who live together in mutually supportive and financially independent relationships are less in need of the legal protection and fiscal safeguards afforded by civil partnerships than sexual couples? If not, why do they continue to reject both the argument that they should extend civil partnerships to long-term cohabiting couples and the suggestion that they should address that discrimination through other means—for a start, by reforming the rules governing inheritance tax so that bereaved survivors of a sibling couple are at least spared losing the joint home to inheritance tax on the death of the first sibling? I am in touch with a large number of elderly siblings who have lived together, often all their lives, in committed and caring relationships. They simply cannot understand why the Government refuse to recognise them as a single legal unit or give them any help whatever by other means.

Take Beatrice and Mary, sisters whose mother was widowed in their teens and whom they looked after throughout their adult lives in their jointly owned home until her death at the age of 100. The sisters are now 91 and 87. When one of them dies, the survivor will face an inheritance tax bill so hefty on her sister’s share of the estate that there will be nothing left of their joint savings for her own care. If they were civil partners who had known each other for just a few weeks, they would be spared.

A responsible Conservative Government must recognise the value of arrangements such as that of Beatrice and Mary, bring an end to this injustice and finally put the family, in all its manifestations, back where it belongs: at the heart of Conservative social policy. The regulations advance the principle of equality in human affairs—although perhaps not as fully as many would wish—and that is very important, but Conservatives should be no less concerned with the welfare of families in all their forms.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my interest in the register as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I also join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, for the great work he did as a Minister and his co-operative way of working on local government and inclusion, which was welcomed across the House.

This debate is taking place at a time of great strain for the fabric of the areas and regions of the United Kingdom, but I suggest that Brexit is a symptom, not the cause, of these strains. It is not the European Union that causes some of us in parts of the United Kingdom to take Pacer trains that are more like garden sheds on wheels; that has over many years created the imbalance in regional investment across the country—in fact, the EU has actually helped at times with regional funds—that has seen a lack of investment in helping businesses equally in this country in terms of IT and other infrastructure; that has been responsible for lack of skills or focus on skills in certain parts of the country; or that has been responsible for the lack or imbalance of regional productivity across the country.

The cause of all this has been a lack of effective—or any—regional policy over the last 30 to 40 years, and Governments of all colours have to take some responsibility for this. When it comes to investment, life chances, life expectancy, job opportunities and a lack of hope, the real causes, as I have said, are the divided country, divided nations and divided regions. If you want to “get on with it” and bring this country together, I suggest that we need to focus on devolution and regional policy. If the Government spend a 10th of the time on this that they do on preparing for a no-deal Brexit, we could start to deal with the real causes of the divides and strains in our nation.

Welcome as the Government’s lines on devolution in the Queen’s Speech are, they are scant on detail. Devolution is not a slogan such as “northern powerhouse”; it is not one person such as a metro mayor; it is not decentralisation from an out-of-date way of doing governance from a central Victorian Government. It is fundamental and systematic change of how our country is governed, where power lies and how power and responsibilities can be used—a much more federal model, pulling down the pillars of a bureaucratic, London-centric model.

It starts here in London. Devolution never talks about what needs to change at the central level. It talks about how you give crumbs or parts of decentralisation from here down to the regions or areas, all of which are predetermined by Government and importantly—and we need to get away from this—the shadow and heavy hand of the Treasury, which blocks based on what it thinks is right from its economically London-centric view of what is needed for the regions, areas and countries of the UK.

We need to talk about a different way of governing centrally. We need a Cabinet member for regional vibrancy and economic performance and a real ministry for devolution and economic policy, pulling in powers from different ministries so that they are not arguing in silos about who is responsible. We must also do away with them being responsible to the Treasury. The Treasury stops and stalls. We need to start here, before we start talking about what I call “devolution by default”. Unless there is a national security or strategic reason for keeping them central, the models and powers of devolution should be decided by the area. It does not have to be a metro mayor or a pick-and-mix approach to what is needed on devolution. It should be down to each region.

Can the Minister therefore say what central changes will be made in government to make devolution work? Will we move away from a pick-and-mix model of devolution where you can pick and mix only certain things that have been predetermined by the centre, which would not bring around the true approach to dealing with this? What new funding models will be available for devolution? Local taxation and finance-raising powers are needed. It should be down to local people to decide through the ballot box whether something is right or wrong, not someone at the Dispatch Box here to say that it is not in the interest of local regions.

If we are serious about bringing our country together and dealing with the strains and issues that have caused Brexit, we need a different and more devolved way and better regional and local policies to do so. That has to start with a very different and radical approach to what we wish to do.

Knife Crime

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I want to read out a list of names: Gavin Singleton, 31, Kavan Brissett, 21, Jarvin Blake, 22, Glenn Boardman, 59, Fahim Hersi, 22, Samuel Baker, 15, Ryan Jowle, 19 and Alan Grayson, 85. These are eight lives that ended early in my city of Sheffield last year: eight lives that ended early due to knife crime in a city that is dubbed the safest in England.

I do not congratulate my noble friend Lord Paddick on the debate today. It is a national shame that we are having to have this debate. I could go through statistics about how Sheffield and South Yorkshire have looked at those carrying knives aged between five and 89. I could go through the statistics as others have regarding deprivation and other issues. But I want to talk about my time as leader of Sheffield City Council; I declare my interest in the register as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The most harrowing time was when we started to have a spike in knife crime. I talked to a victim, a parent, a perpetrator and an ex-offender. The victim was now scared to go out, and if he did, he was going to carry a knife. The parent had lost a child, and I have to tell you that when I spoke to them I had never experienced anything like that in my life. There are no words; it is harrowing. The perpetrator felt as though he had no other option. The thing that bound those people together was a lack of hope, a sense of helplessness and despair that they had no power to control how they got themselves out of this mess. Then I met an ex-offender. He was the one with hope, the one who had power and felt that there was a future for him.

I came away and reflected. The Government and the statutory sector do not own this issue in terms of solving the problem. We have to wrap around communities rather than communities wrapping around us; that is the lesson that I have learned. We cannot have a top-down approach. I am appalled that one of the approaches by the Government is a bidding process to save lives. That is unacceptable. I find it despicable that we are saying that the only way to fund communities is to bid to save your children. As my noble friend Lady Pinnock said, the funding has to be sustainable. One of the issues that government and local authorities should be judged on is how much of the third sector is involved and how it, along with parents, children and ex-offenders, is empowered to deliver solutions, not on tick-box exercises for how statutory organisations spend money.

In my professional life I work across the world, looking at government reform. The Government are not dealing with this in a systematically joined-up way, nor have previous Governments. A task force is not good enough. It has to be something akin to what was called the troubled families programme, which was a much more systematic and joined-up approach. In that approach, the Government should not judge the process. They should allow innovation at local level and judge communities and the statutory sector only on outcomes, not getting involved in how, why or what. I trust parents and ex-offenders to have a far greater understanding of what is needed in the communities of this country than some official or Minister sat here in Whitehall. We must empower them and allow them the freedom to deliver solutions.

Another learning point that I came away with from my time as a councillor and as leader of Sheffield City Council was about some of the people who get drawn into this. The youngest person carrying a knife in Sheffield recently was five years old. Over one-quarter of reported knife crimes were in schools, some of them primary schools, so our intervention has to start at a very early age. It is about wrapping around families so that parents can get support, not related to knife crime but support for nurturing, love and hope, and for giving them practical skills.

School exclusions are the breeding ground of gangs and dysfunctional families. Local authorities need power to deal with academies and free schools that more or less have free rein to exclude. There needs to be legislation for local authorities to have a role in making sure that exclusions do not happen; if one thing comes from this, it is that. If we need police to deal with knife crime, we have failed as a society.

There needs to be a much more systematic and bottom-up approach. It needs to allow innovation in communities, it needs to be a whole-family approach, and it needs to listen to the voices of those without hope who feel disempowered and who feel that the only option is to pick up a knife, to give them some form of safety in future.

Homophobic Attacks

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Scriven]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of reports of a rise in the number of homophobic attacks.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the latest official data indicates an increase in police-recorded hate crime across all strands, including sexual orientation. The increase is mostly due to improved police recording. The latest Crime Survey for England and Wales indicates a downward trend in hate crime incidents overall over the past decade. However, any instance is one too many and the Government stand alongside all victims of this abhorrent crime.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I am sure that the Minister agrees that it is normal and natural for some people to be born gay but that it is not normal and natural to be born homophobic—that is a learned prejudice. That being the case, what more will the Government do to support schools teaching inclusive relationship education that face demonstrations outside their gates? These do nothing to help eliminate homophobic prejudice and violence.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I totally agree with the noble Lord that nobody is born with prejudice in their heart: these things are learned only from the external environment. In terms of what the Government are doing to get this message over to children, who are not themselves yet full of prejudice, the Home Office has funded multiple projects aimed at tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic hate crime. These include the Kick It Out campaign, which is a football project; the Barnardo’s project, which works with schools in East Riding—I have visited the project and it is wonderful—and Galop, which produced and distributed a series of fact sheets and carried out research to understand and tackle online homophobic, biphobic and transphobic abuse. He will also have seen some of the campaigns that we have had recently on public transport.

Immigration and Asylum Applications

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Scriven]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they intend to take to address decision-making on initial immigration and asylum applications, following the publication of Home Office data that 52 per cent of immigration and asylum appeals were allowed in the year to March 2019.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the Home Office recognises that there are improvements to be made to the initial decision-making process, but there are various reasons why appeals are allowed, not all of which necessarily relate to the quality of decisions. However, we are not complacent; we continue to focus on improving the quality of decision-making and the customer experience, including learning from the tribunal.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that reply. It is quite clear that there is a systematic and fundamental problem in the Home Office with the initial decision-making process on asylum and immigration. Issues such as basic information not being collected or used, medical reports being ignored and staff feeling a culture of bullying and intimidation have come to light. If that is the case, how do we in six months’ time judge success and whether an improvement has been made so that this House and the public can determine whether this systematic failure is improving?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I do not agree with the noble Lord that there is systematic failing. He will appreciate that many of these cases are complex and involve human rights considerations. I agree that we should focus on timeliness but the quality of decision-making, which the noble Lord also points out, is absolutely crucial. We have created a UKVI caseworking unit and caseworker lead; I hope that the quality of initial decision-making will improve—I do not doubt it—but I accept that the longer a decision-making or appeals process goes on, the greater the chance of more information coming to light or fresh appeals ensuing.

Asylum Seekers

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Scriven]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they identify, support and track the applications of people seeking asylum on the grounds of gender identity or sexual orientation.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, while the Government do not specifically track applications from asylum seekers based on their gender identity or sexual orientation, we remain focused on supporting all asylum seekers, including LGBT people and those who are vulnerable.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, as has just been said, the Home Office does not collate or collect central data on the journey of LGBT+ individuals seeking asylum on issues such as the accommodation they are granted, the length of time taken for each case or, if held in detention, how long they are there. So how can the Home Office, with any certainty or credibility, say that LGBT+ individuals seeking asylum do not suffer discrimination, either directly or indirectly, if it does not have the data to evidence that?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, it is important to consider that, for all people claiming asylum, if that claim is not granted, they are sent back to their country of origin. I understand the vulnerabilities of LGBT people in some countries. For that reason, we provide support in this country when people return to their country of origin. We give them various types of support, including long-term accommodation, legal and medical support, and family tracing, which is incredibly important for someone returning to their own country.

Places of Worship: Protective Security Funding

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord precisely lays out some of the training being done and that will be offered over the next three years. It is not just putting CCTV on buildings. He is absolutely right that intelligence is vital and that in the Church of England, the Muslim community and the Jewish community, which all rely on volunteers—some of their institutions would close without them—those volunteers should be trained and safeguarding measures should be put in place.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, can I come back to the point that my noble friend Lady Hamwee made regarding the bureaucratic nature of the application process? If you are local, whether somewhere is hidden or not you will know about it. Whether it is in a conservation area is irrelevant; it is that particular conservation area, for example, which will determine what will need to be put up and whether it will be granted by the planning authorities. It is not national. I therefore ask the Minister in a spirit of friendliness to go away and look at this, because it is bureaucratic. Can she look at making it a little more light touch, and work out which questions are needed centrally and which are local?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I was trying to be helpful to the noble Baroness but the noble Lord makes a perfectly reasonable point. The funding has taken slightly longer to come on-stream than we anticipated for precisely that reason. We wanted to cut down on some of the bureaucracy that holds people back from making these applications, so that point is well made.