argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-15
Topic: Education
Ralph Matthew Palmer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I very much share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friends Lord Willetts and Lord Baker in particular The last legislation that we had in this area was the Technical and Further Education Act. There was a belief then in the perfection of the new—almost a post-modern belief that destruction was the necessary precursor to success. The Government had just destroyed the sector skills councils and they have not yet managed to recreate the complex relations and understandings that led to their successes. In the run-up to the technical education Bill, the Bill team said they thought that this would probably result in the destruction of City and Guilds, as if that institution and all its reputation and quality had no value for the future in the face of their newly-created ideas. Now we seem to be destroying the local enterprise partnerships, which in many areas have established a pattern of understanding and reputation that has enabled projects to be undertaken that would have been very hard otherwise I do not share this disdain for the old; I think that it is best to work with it where we can. As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, pointed out, the reputation that qualifications have built up with employers is a thing of great value. It means that employers know what they are getting but it also means that, when a young person gets that qualification, it is something with strong currency. People know exactly what to expect. It has a high reputation and is a highly tradeable asset. This is not yet true of T-levels. As noble Lords may know, I have run the Good Schools Guide for many years. I cannot yet imagine advising a parent to let their child do a T-level. It still seems a misconception that you should have to spend the whole of your sixth form years doing this one qualification to the exclusion of everything else. If one is aiming for parity of esteem then it ought to be through the route of being able to mix academic and other qualifications. As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said, that would allow the technical qualifications to be heavily technical to carry the sorts of skills an employer is looking for, rather than being overly general and not directed towards making someone instantly employable when they come out of school Doubtless we are all going to put a lot of effort into making things succeed. We are where we are; we have to make the best of where we have got to. But to give powers to IfATE and others to continue on a path of destruction without consultation and care, and in particular to give them the direction of this Bill without the permission of employers seems wrongheaded. I very much hope that, between those who have proposed amendments to this Bill, we will get something on Report that will help change the Bill’s direction.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-15
Topic: Education
Joanna Penn (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for this amendment. It highlights the importance of equipping teachers to identify and support learners with special educational needs. Further education teachers must be trained to identify and support the needs of all learners, enabling them to overcome barriers to their learning and allowing them to meet their full potential I concur with the noble Lord’s intention and I understand that he intends it as a probing amendment. He may be unsurprised to hear that I do not believe it is necessary to specify such a requirement in the Bill. Other mechanisms for achieving the same aim are more appropriate, and steps are already being taken Our reforms to teacher training are founded on a new occupational standard for FE teaching, which will specify the knowledge, skills and behaviours expected of FE teachers. This standard is being developed by a group of employers—colleges and other providers, so organisations which employ teachers—from across the sector, who bring a wealth of experience and expertise and are well placed to determine the right content for teacher training that will meet the needs of all their learners. We fully expect that the new standard will be explicit in its requirement for further education teachers to meet the needs of all learners, including those with a wide variety of special needs as well as learners from diverse backgrounds. We anticipate that the standard will be in place in time for the next academic year. It will form the basis of a new FE teaching apprenticeship, and we will support the reform of FE teaching qualifications so that they are also based on the standard. If, in future, the content of FE teacher training was considered of insufficient quality to meet the needs of all learners, this clause would give the Secretary of State the power to take appropriate steps. To address the point I think I have understood from the noble Lord, Lord Watson: the reason we do not believe this amendment to be necessary is that we do not intend to use the powers in this Bill to take greater control or gain more centralisation of FE teacher training. We believe that the sector is doing the work needed to set out that standard and that steps will be taken within it to make the right provision for the training with regards to special educational needs. To allay his fears in relation to initial teacher training reforms for schools, I undertake to write to the noble Lord to further clarify that point I hope that with those brief remarks the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is assured that we are already taking steps to ensure that teaching in the FE sector meets the needs of all learners, including those with a wide range of special educational needs. On that basis, I hope he will be content to withdraw his amendment.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-15
Topic: Education
Joanna Penn (Conservative, Centre-right): I will briefly respond to the noble Lord, because I do not think I will get the opportunity to take this conversation forward with him ahead of Report, although I am sure that others will be happy to continue that conversation The point of differentiation here is specifically about the approach to regulating teacher training in FE colleges versus the regulation of teacher training in schools. The latter is subject to a regulatory regime that allows the Secretary of State to set conditions for its content and delivery, but we do not have that equivalent provision for FE teacher training as the content is determined by the sector itself, working with organisations. Although this clause as drafted would enable the Secretary of State to prescribe course content if desired, with a view to improving the quality of FE initial teacher training courses, the initial intention is for the sector to do that work itself. The points that the noble Lord makes about how important it is that SEND is properly accounted for in this and the widest understanding—and not just those with education, health and care plans but the broadest spectrum, and those who may not have been identified before—are an integral part of that. With regard to specifying that as part of the reforms to the initial teacher training, we would hope not to use the powers of the Secretary of State to intervene in this area at the moment and would rather do it through collaboration with the sector I thought it might be useful to say just one or two words. That is not the end of the conversation, but someone else will take it forward with the noble Lord.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-15
Topic: Education
David Willetts (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I wish to speak to my Amendment 69 very much in the spirit of the powerful speech that we just heard from my noble friend Lord Lucas. We definitely need more information about student outcomes. One way in which that information can be presented is the absolute information on the absolute outcomes. I am sure that the Minister will be eloquent on that. There is nothing in my amendment that tries to suppress any of that sort of information—far from it. However, the way in which the legislation is currently drafted means that it goes out of its way to exclude a different sort of equally valuable and relevant information: how our higher education institution is doing relative to the types of students that it has. That is a measure of distance travelled; it is a measure of how a university is performing, given the students that it recruits We have heard several important interventions in the course of our debate about students with special educational needs. A university that recruits an unusually high proportion of students with special educational needs, within the approach set out by Ministers, will not be able to signal that it does that; it may just appear to be a less well-performing institution. To offer a second example, which I know is a source of deep frustration and shame to us all, we should look at the performance of students from ethnic minority backgrounds. For any given level of academic qualification, a graduate from an ethnic minority background may do less well in the labour market than a graduate of similar academic achievement but not from a minority ethnic background. That is shocking; it is also a description of the British labour market as it is today. This would mean that, on the approach set out by Ministers, a university that had a disproportionately high number of graduates from ethnic minority backgrounds would do less well on labour market outcomes without the university being able to display its commitment and what it was doing.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-15
Topic: Education
Ralph Matthew Palmer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful for the support of those who have spoken. The question of supporting students and getting their mental health needs looked after is one for which I—and, I suspect, a very large number of other parents—absolutely have a minimum expected level. I therefore find my noble friend’s statements of government policy in this area uncomfortably flabby. The Government support UUK—good. They back the mental health charter—good. However, universities have been subject to this sort of pressure for a long time and have not moved In the spirit of the Bill and of a minimum expected level, I really hope that the Government will consider what else they might do. It absolutely does not need to be measurement under Clause 17; it would work very well if, to pick up on the spirit of the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, someone with character and reputation set out as an individual to work with the universities to get them to the place they should be. Such people are not impossible to find. However, we need something to make universities focus, and which says, "This isn’t just one of the other things that the Government find important but one of the things which we must do, and we know that, even if it can’t be expressed as a number, there is a standard which we have to reach" Not surprisingly, I listened with interest to my noble friend Lord Willetts’s explanation of his interest in this area. The question "How are people like me doing at this university?" absolutely ought to be something that interests the university just as much as the student. They should be looking at, for instance, students they have recruited with high and low qualifications relative to the average of a class and asking, "How do they do? Why are students dropping out? Is there stuff here we should be feeding back to their schools because perhaps they have not had the advice that they ought to have had there? Do we really understand the needs of particular types of children, whoever they might be? Are we seeing effects that might reflect something we could improve in this university?" There are lots of different ways of cutting that cake. The self-improving university comes from an attachment to data and a care for its students, rather than just a care for process; that is what we must strive to inculcate, improve and increase in our universities. That human side of the interaction is the foundation of making sure that the physical university survives in a virtual world As I said, I am grateful for all the support that I have received. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Events Research Programme — House of Lords, 2021-06-23
Topic: Government Operations
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I hear my noble friend’s frustration on this, but there really is no lack of transparency. This is a very rigorous set of pilots. The complex data needs to be analysed, and I am sure my noble friend agrees with me that it would be really unhelpful to put it in the public domain until that has been completed.
Events Research Programme — House of Lords, 2021-06-23
Topic: Technology
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for his question. One of the things that we are seeking to understand better in the third phase of the events research pilots will be the use of testing and certification and how that may or may not be applied in future, although I stress that no decision has been taken on that.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-06-23
Topic: Environment
Malcolm Sinclair (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I start by repeating something I said in the first day of Committee. This is a hangover from Monday, but the batting order is not satisfactory, because I want to speak to Amendment 28 and none of its proposers has spoken yet, so I cannot follow them. However, I am delighted to see the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, in her place and hope she can come in after the Minister, because few in this House know as much about the problem as she does The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, covered the problem comprehensively. I was going to raise the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, which is that we must take this opportunity not only to reduce the amount of plastic, but to curb the problem of plastic litter, which is spoiling the countryside in a way it never has before. This is particularly apparent with Covid and the pressures now on farmers, landowners and councils, because of the total disregard that a lot of people have for the countryside. They are happy just to dump their rubbish anywhere. This Bill must be used for that I would like to say a lot more about Amendment 28. I like that it does not attack all plastics, as they can be the right solution for the right good in the right place, but they are not great overall. We must find a way to reduce and recycle them better.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-06-23
Topic: Environment
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): As always, it is a great pleasure to follow my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I do not always agree with her, but she speaks a great deal of common sense—as well as a few other things. I am delighted to see her putting on a mask. She will be glad to know that I took my blue mask off—I am waiting for the one from the haberdasher’s The noble Baroness made a very good point about asbestos, but of course that is a specific substance. "Plastic" is a bit of a generic term that covers a great deal. We have to recognise that in its beginning it often brought hygiene where there was squalor and safe packaging where there was danger, but it has now got completely out of hand. No one could have watched programmes like "The Blue Planet" without being completely nauseated by some of the scenes we saw on our screens of animals choked or strangled to death. It causes an enormous problem even in our own countryside and in our towns and cities My noble friend Lord Caithness referred to litter. In many ways, litter is the curse of the age. I have been horrified when I have watched "Look North" on our local television station and seen that after the end of various phases of the lockdown people have gone out in their hundreds and thousands and desecrated, and defecated in, our countryside. I say to the Minister that it is crucial, as others have referred to, that we have targets and deadlines. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, made a particular point of that and she is right. We keep coming back to the phrase "a landmark Bill" but if this is indeed going to be a landmark Bill then there have to be deadlines for elimination. Of course one has to give manufacturers a degree of notice but we cannot carry on as we are or we will smother ourselves in our own detritus—it is as simple and alarming as that.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-06-23
Topic: Environment
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Baroness for her comments, and I echo those of many others. She is a person of great knowledge and expertise on this issue. I have a note on my phone to contact her tomorrow to talk about something that I assume is connected to what she was just saying—I very much look forward to that. I completely agree with her that we can go further on single-use plastics. We have the power to do so, and I am absolutely committed that we will. This is not a niche concern on my part, or even one that is limited to me; it is shared by all of my colleagues in Defra, without exception The noble Baroness said that supermarkets are "getting away with murder", and that is certainly true of some of them. But it is worth acknowledging when they get it right; it is important that people recognise best practice. Since I am not constrained by BBC rules on impartiality, I can say that Iceland has done extraordinary things on plastic. So far, I have seen that it is delivering on its commitments—for example, getting rid of every single one of those plastic trays beneath its frozen food, and so much more besides. It is worth celebrating that—it shows us what can be done. If its best practice today becomes the norm for everyone tomorrow, we will see real progress On the issue of the OECD, Turkey is bringing in restrictions, but I am not sure that it is a full ban—that may be wrong, but it is my understanding. Nevertheless, we are committed to banning the export of waste to non-OECD countries, and obviously Turkey is an OECD country. We have the power within the legislation to extend that ban, should the case be made. Of course, we are looking very closely at the information that Greenpeace has collected in relation to very bad waste treatment in Turkey, but this is not something that I am able to comment on in detail at the moment because I do not know enough about it—I do not think that any of us do.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-06-23
Topic: Environment
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, one of our priority areas for targets is waste, so we are committed to introducing at least one target, but, as I said, we can introduce targets on other issues as well. We are looking very closely at where targets are likely to have the best and biggest impact, and Defra is currently looking very closely at the issue that the noble Baroness has raised. I am not sure whether it was in the noble Baroness’s speech, but we heard from a few people, including in the opening speech, about the negative impacts of throw-away face wipes that contain plastic. We in the department are looking very closely at this as well; we are gathering information to see where we can have the biggest impact. I do not want to prejudge that process, but we are clearly committed to moving to a zero-waste economy, which will be reflected in the targets and is reflected in the Bill.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-06-23
Topic: Environment
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Baroness for that final comment. As I have said many times, extended producer responsibility provides us with the apparatus that would, if used correctly, lead to a dramatic reduction in waste. But of course there is an "if": we have to set the incentives, or disincentives, at a level that will have the desired impact. This is not an exact science, so there will no doubt be trial and error The fundamental point is that, whatever the cost, it has to reflect at least the cost to society of the generation of that waste in the first place. The problem at the moment is that there are companies generating waste but leaving the cost of dealing with it to society. In effect, this is an indirect subsidy. In answer to the noble Baroness’s question, this very much hinges upon getting those incentives right—of course, it is my intention, and the Government’s, that we will get those incentives right.
Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-06-23
Topic: Environment
Ralph Matthew Palmer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 15. The targets the Government intend to set will impose substantial costs and obligations on us, one way or another. Any costs imposed on a business ends up with the consumer. These may well require substantial changes in our behaviour. I would like the Government to commit to empowering us, to taking us along with the process they have followed in arriving at those targets, and to telling us why they have chosen those targets and accompanying dates. I would also like them to set out in full and make accessible to us the evidence on which those targets are based If we empower people in this way, they become fellows—people who are with us in setting out to tackle the problem, rather than being compelled, often unwillingly, to go along with government diktats. The more we can persuade people, the more we can take them with us, the easier it will be and the further we can go. I would like a system which would clearly incentivise the production of evidence. Where it is weak—regarding the harm done by microplastics, for example—there should be a clear incentive for the Government to sponsor research and investigation to underpin any target they may wish to put in place We have a history of legislating in this area based on inadequate evidence. For instance, the original decision to ban tungsten lightbulbs in favour of other systems was based on the idea that the heat they create is wasted. In this country, this is only true during four months of the year; during the other eight months, the heat is extremely useful. The decision to allow only low-powered vacuum cleaners was based on extremely thin evidence and may well have resulted in people expending a lot more energy and time than would have been necessary, had they had higher-powered vacuum cleaners. If we are to use resources effectively in dealing with pollution and other problems, we absolutely must base it on evidence. This evidence, and our thinking, must be shared with the people we want to take along with that decision.