argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Grammar Schools — House of Lords, 2016-10-13
Topic: Education
David Terence Puttnam (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I not only thank the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, but warmly congratulate her on what was one of the most coherent speeches I have heard in my 20 years in this House. She set out the case magnificently I also declare one or two interests as set out in the register, particularly that of chairman of the advisory board of the Times Educational Supplement. I mention this in particular because one great asset of that role is that we probably have more data and more up-to-date information than the department itself. In that sense we are in an extremely privileged position One of the great roles of this House is its ability to detect and warn against unintended consequences, so I shall take my few moments to talk precisely about the unintended consequences of what could be a quite dangerous policy shift I have not been as regular an attender in the House in the past few months as I would have liked and for a very simple reason: I have been making a documentary. It is a four-part documentary on the impact of digital, on Europe in particular. One part of the series is specifically on education. This took me in April to an inner-city school in Dublin, where I interviewed a headmistress. It was a terrific school with a terrific principal In a break in the filming, I wandered around and looked at the noticeboards. My attention was drawn to one particular notice, which I photographed—I have the picture here. It set out the 10 top-performing kids at that inner city Dublin school; they were 13 year-olds and it was the Easter term. I shall not read out all the names, partly because I would probably mispronounce them. Suffice it to say that seven were from eastern Europe and three were from Asia; there was not one single Irish kid I think that that Dublin school will be typical of almost any inner city school in this country. The very notion that, by reintroducing selection, the people whom the policy is intended to attract—the traditional white working class—will suddenly find their children surging into new and better grammar schools is a fantasy. What will actually happen, which I admire and salute, is that migrant and first-generation kids from Asia—we know already that the highest-performing children in Britain are Bangladeshi girls—and eastern Europe will sweep into those schools, and God bless them. The small problem will be that the disgruntled and now disconnected white working class, who believed that they were going to get better schools, will not get in. I can think of no more dangerous tinderbox that you could strike under hard-pressed and already divided communities This is a potentially lethal policy. It is ill thought through and ill considered, and it could do far more damage than I think anyone fully understands.
Grammar Schools — House of Lords, 2016-10-13
Topic: Education
Josephine Farrington (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Andrews for this fascinating debate, which gave the opportunity for the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, to make her very interesting maiden speech I will follow on from my noble friend Lady Taylor. What issues face the education of children in our country? One major issue is underattainment by children, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, and disadvantage, as my noble friend said, can come in many forms. It can be poverty, or poverty of aspiration, or people not believing that the system is for them. The underattainment and failure, particularly of children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, is matched by disadvantage for children who have grown up in households where education is seen as "not for us" I will talk about increasing the attainment of children who come from backgrounds where we are concerned that they do not do well in the education system. My noble friend referred to nurseries; there is also Sure Start, which involves parents. I recall the Midwinter experiment in Liverpool many years ago, where parents—particularly, but not solely, mothers—were asked to go into the primary school, which was a very gentle, friendly and non-threatening environment. I met a young woman, a single parent with young children, who told me that she had come into the school on Valium—she could not cope with life. The school encouraged her to listen to children learning to read even though she herself was barely literate, so she took adult education classes. She then took a welfare rights course. She said to me, "As a result of that, I now want to go on a course to find out how to get some blankety blank rights". This is about families like that. Sure Start should be expanded everywhere to help children who this policy will do little or nothing for Lancashire County Council was proud to be the first authority in the country to provide means-tested education maintenance allowances for all over the age of 15 who qualified, and we allowed adults who left school to come back. We are not tackling the huge pool of talent that is out there, which would benefit both children and the community. I am not the sort of person who believes that the sole function of education is employment. I know that employment is important, but everyone is entitled to a good education. People say that in many places 25% got in, but my own grammar school education taught me that it was far fewer than that. Interestingly, for what was then about 15% of the population, a third of the girls were told that they could go to university, a third were told, "My dear, you can become a domestic science teacher", and a third were told to consider secretarial work. That was the ethos. The world is not like that any more We ought to offer everybody the chance to improve their education. If we want to help the most disadvantaged children, we will provide the services for them, but more importantly, for their parents and their families, who were rejected and told that they were failures the first time round.
Grammar Schools — House of Lords, 2016-10-13
Topic: Education
Genista Mary McIntosh (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but could he just explain how it could possibly be, were a selective school to set up in an area that has a successful comprehensive school and therefore take away from that school the most able pupils it has been able to attract up until then, that the character of that comprehensive school will not be affected? I do not see, and I do not think anyone else sees, how that would be possible.
Grammar Schools — House of Lords, 2016-10-13
Topic: Education
Melvyn Bragg (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister seems to take for granted that grammar schools will raise the standards at comprehensive schools when again and again pupils from comprehensive schools are outgunning those from grammar schools wherever you look. He is just wrong about that. I am awfully sorry to say that—no, I am not all that sorry: he is wrong about that.
Grammar Schools — House of Lords, 2016-10-13
Topic: Education
Elizabeth Andrews (Labour, Centre-left): I am very sorry to interrupt the Minister. I would not dispute what he said: I said that grammar schools get good results, better results, because of the demography and the support parents give children to pass the exams. That is why it is social, rather than educational, selection.
Grammar Schools — House of Lords, 2016-10-13
Topic: Education
Elizabeth Andrews (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful for a little extra time. It has been a splendid debate and I am grateful to all noble Lords on all sides of the House for their contributions. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, on her maiden speech. She managed to be non-controversial on a controversial subject—we look forward to more of that. We are all in stages of recovery in many ways, but we will go on trying to do our best It has been a challenging debate for the Minister and I completely understand why. I began by making a plea for greater clarity in this policy and in educational policy as a whole. I say with the greatest respect to him that we have not had it. What we have done in the House today is to do a service to the Government, because we have provided a wealth of evidence about the impact of grammar schools not only on the children who attend them but on the whole ecology of education and the life chances of children who do not go. The evidence—I think, counterfactual evidence—that he cited in relation to London was hollow in the extreme. I will read his speech with care, but I hope that he will read this debate with care and draw it to the attention of the Minister for Education in this House It is imperative that we get the right evidence in the right place at the right time to tackle inequalities in education. That is what this debate has been about. We have heard moving stories about the personal impacts and evidence from my noble friend Lord Giddens about the true nature of meritocracy and how it can be galvanised in a highly complex and highly competitive society. From the problems of failed expectations to which my noble friend Lord Puttnam drew attention to the many issues raised, not least by my noble friend Lord Knight, about the future, and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, about "standards not structures", it is clear that there is a wealth of hard information here. I really hope that it will be taken advantage of.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Government Operations
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support these amendments and am grateful to my noble friend Lady Jones for setting out the arguments so clearly as to why we do not need the Secretary of State’s approval for any authority that does not have a mayor. Let us be clear about Cornwall. It is not mentioned by name in the Bill, but we have heard lots of statements from Ministers that this one authority—which does not have a mayor and probably never will—will be allowed to have a franchising service. This is quite surprising. Devolution for Cornwall has involved a lot of proposed changes in health and social security. There is no money there, but they are going along with it. However, as I mentioned on the first day in Committee, they are going ahead now as if they had a franchise, but on a voluntary basis. The bus companies concerned are fully supportive—I talked about integrated ticketing, timetabling, routes and so on—but they are doing it without the need to apply for franchising because it is going to happen anyway. That is the impression I get. So why do the Government believe that they have to impose this ridiculous approval process, as the noble Lord, Lord True, outlined, for authorities that do not have mayors? It seems a complete waste of time. Since it is being done on a voluntary basis, at least in one county, to achieve what I believe will be a very successful outcome, I will be interested to hear the Minister’s explanation of why mayors are good and everybody else is bad. It is a bit like Animal Farm in the early days but I will not go on about that.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I have been listening to my noble friend’s rant, and I have to say that he is completely misrepresenting the point that I was making. I am not advocating a return to the old days, and he is rehearsing the history of things that were probably before my time. First, municipal services, as it happens, now have some of the highest satisfaction levels, so I am not saying that there is anything wrong with municipal services. That is a debate for another day, and we will return to it. Secondly, we are here today because, having allowed the free market that he is advocating to thrive, passenger numbers and satisfaction levels are going down. That is why the Government brought this Bill forward in the first place. To be absolutely honest, I am not sure that my noble friend has addressed that. We are considering options such as franchising because it is considered that it will drive standards up again, which is what we all need.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Peter Snape (Labour, Centre-left): Passenger numbers are indeed going down—they are going down in London, as a matter of fact—as is passenger satisfaction. I do wish that my noble friend, instead of relying entirely on the Local Government Association and what used to be called the Passenger Transport Executive Group, would actually look at the facts. Passenger satisfaction in London, according to the most accurate survey, by Passenger Focus, is currently less than that in Birmingham, for example. Passenger numbers are also going down in London, and they are going down for one simple reason: it is nothing to do with franchising, private ownership or whatever but because of congestion. We all know how bad congestion is in London, and it is getting worse, which is impacting on passenger carryings at present I have been trying to find out how many staff are employed in Transport for London exclusively on franchising matters. I am told that it is some hundreds, but I cannot get anything more accurate than that. This is not going to be a cheap operation if the noble Lord, Lord True, and his colleagues are going to run the buses in his part of the world. Despite his talent, he is not going to do it on his own; presumably there will be a director of franchising, perhaps a couple of assistant directors and other staff. Lots of money that perhaps could and should be spent on improving bus services will be spent on the bureaucracy that is necessary—I am not complaining; it is a fact—to run a franchising operation. I have to say to my noble friend that it is not just in London where the operation is run like that; Belfast has a franchising system, and, of course, due to congestion in Belfast, passenger carryings are falling there too If my noble friend had stood at that Dispatch Box and advocated the rest of the London experience such as sensible traffic control, the proper maintenance and policing of bus lanes, and perhaps even a congestion charge—or car park charges, as introduced in Nottingham—there would be some sense in that, but we are getting none of that. We are told that if we go to franchising, somehow the situation for the bus passenger, who rarely gets a mention when we discuss these matters, will magically improve. I do not believe a word of it.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will respond to one of the points made by my noble friend Lord Snape, who implied—I think my noble friend Lord Woolmer of Leeds also pointed it out—that the big bus companies do not like franchises because they involve competition. However, I think that most of us think that competition is quite a good thing. Apart from anything else, if you have a free-for-all in London like there used to be in Manchester, you have even worse traffic jams and probably less investment, although that is a different issue. However, I again point out that in Cornwall one of the bus companies, which is without competition, is voluntarily introducing a new set of double-deck buses on the main spine route. They are very smart buses, as they even have tables on the top deck, so that you can get your laptop out, as well as chargers for your laptop and wi-fi. The bus company sees this as a good investment which will attract more passengers. If this can be done voluntarily, I suggest that it could also be done in a franchise, if franchise terms are set out to encourage quality as well as the most important thing of the lot, which is the timetable to link with other services—trains, ferries, planes and whatever—which you will not get in a free-for-all around the country. Sometimes the bus companies seem to do it on purpose so that you do not make a connection.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Government Operations
Kenneth Woolmer (Labour, Centre-left): Let me give a specific example. If West Yorkshire Combined Authority agreed tomorrow to have a mayoral structure, presumably that would immediately parachute it from one part of this Bill into another. I agree with the noble Lord in his remarks that that is bizarre. It would be very welcome, but as I say it is bizarre. That is not transport policy, it is a political policy on mayoral authorities.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Government Operations
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his response and I thank noble Lords around the Chamber for their support, particularly that of the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Horam, which I welcome. The noble Lord, Lord True, has done half of my summing up of the debate for me which I would otherwise have done. I want to look carefully at the Hansard report of this debate because I am still not clear about what is so special about mayors. I was really hoping that the Minister would explain what is so unique about that particular model. My noble friend Lord Woolmer made the point that you could have two adjoining authorities with the same geography, the same population and income, but one of them would have a fast track to automatic franchising purely because of the fact that it has a mayoral system rather than another one while the other would have to go through a very convoluted process I do not understand what it is about the mayoral model that is so important. It is not just about the geography and economics or even the strategic role, as the Minister has suggested; there is something much more singular about a particular local government structure. The fact is that we trust local authorities with making very serious decisions already. We entrust social services issues to them where they make life-or-death decisions about child protection. We trust them to take serious decisions in the commissioning of all sorts of services. It is not as if they do not already commission services and of course they have the expertise to do so. Running a bus service does not require particularly special skills which authorities do not already have. Some might not choose a franchising model, which is perfectly understandable, while others may want to have it. I do not quite understand what is so special about having a mayor in charge that would qualify them in this way.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Peter Snape (Labour, Centre-left): My noble friend mentioned the special skills of local authorities, which certainly exist. But, with respect, they do not have any franchising skills because that is not the way we operate bus services at present. Does she agree that setting up franchising in a big-city area would be an expensive and bureaucratic process? I have no idea how many people it would take, but it could not be done by one person or even a small department, could it?
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Of course, the provisions in the Bill allow for all that, and that is one factor that needs to be taken into account. But the local authority would not do it unless it thought that the outcome would be better than the current provision. If the authority did a cost-benefit analysis and decided that the cost outweighed the benefits, it simply would not do it. All that we are asking for is for authorities to have the flexibility to do that analysis and then decide whether it is in their interest to go ahead Another thing that I was going to pick up on was what the noble Lord said about providing certainty to the bus operators. Franchising also provides some certainty; the operators’ profits may not be as high but they would certainly have a guaranteed long-term contract. That outweighs the higher-risk, more market-driven decisions that the operators would otherwise take I think that everyone in the Committee knows that the Minister cannot make a decision on this today. We have all talked about the current political uncertainty. We all know where this is coming from and I do not expect for one minute that the noble Lord will say today that he will overturn the decisions of the higher authorities in the Conservative Party on this. But perhaps at some point before Report he could take back a message to whoever is calling the shots and say that there is a strong feeling in the Committee on this and that there should be an opportunity for a rethink. On that basis, I do not wish to say any more and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Peter Snape (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Committee will be relieved to know that I will spend considerably less time on this group of amendments than I did on the previous one. These amendments are designed simply to ensure that any franchising arrangement is brought in only after other avenues have been explored and that it would be for the benefit of passengers in a particular area In the debate on the previous group of amendments, my noble friend on the Front Bench said that she did not know why big companies were against franchising. I declare a non-interest—I have no shares in any bus company, nor am I paid by any. I base my prejudices entirely on my own experiences, rightly or wrongly. But I have to say to my noble friend that what she said was not quite true, was it? It is all very well to say that a franchise operation would mean continuity. Of course it would, for the length of time laid down in the franchise, for the company chosen as the franchisee, but there would be no guarantee. Let us take Birmingham, the area where I worked in the bus industry and where, incidentally, it has been made plain by the local authority that it is not interested in franchising because it has a good partnership arrangement. But suppose that Stagecoach won the franchise in Birmingham. From memory, it does not have any garages nearer than Coventry. Would Travel West Midlands be expected to hand over the keys to one of its garages, take its bus fleet elsewhere and bid for another franchise? The issue is not as simple as my noble friend makes out. She said in her previous speech that local authorities would not seek franchising arrangements if they were happy with the current standard of service—and that is true as far as Birmingham is concerned. But who judges the happiness One of the problems of local government being offered services is that it finds it very difficult to turn them down. In my 40 years in local and national politics, I have known few democratic organisations that would refuse powers offered to them. If they are offered the opportunity of franchising, I should think that many local authorities would say, "That sounds like a good idea. Let’s give it a try". It would be understandable if they did, but to suggest that we could move towards a system of franchising comparatively painlessly and that it would be in the interests of the franchisee is a mistake.
Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Kenneth Woolmer (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, my noble friend yet again sets up a straw man. I am simply in favour of local authorities having the power to have franchising, not that they must use it. It should be an option available to them. My noble friends talks as if I am saying that they must. That would be silly. If bus services can be adequately provided in the way in which a local area wants without franchising, I am sure that no one would disturb it. I am certainly in favour of having that option, but not that it would be compulsory to use it.