Lord Lucas

Paying for university places

2011-05-10T10:31:00.003+01:00

The Guardian has an article today at http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/09/universities-extra-places-richest-students?CMP=twt_gu saying that the government intends to float the idea that universities could be allowed to take fee-paying UK students.

For lots of practical reasons, I like the idea. We want the universities to offer better resourced courses to more students. We do not want to charge students more. The government does not want to increase subsidy. And we are in the process of hoofing out thousands of private school kids from the top universities -perhaps 5,000 per annum if I read the draft access agreements right - and thereby creating a cohort of well qualified and well heeled students who could fill the places if we created them.

If we do not create the places, we will see all their money - perhaps £150 million per annum - going abroad, or to new private UK universities to recreate the private/state divide in higher education. If we do allow private places, we might use the extra income to create a couple of liberal arts institutions, offering broad courses with lots of contact time with top scholars, or we could elevate one of our good universities to be a fifth great one. Either way we would be benefitting lots of students beyond those paying fees, and the UK in general.

Why can local authorities keep the proceeds of their crimes?

2011-01-24T12:35:00.002Z

If any other organisation, from the Inland Revenue to a high street bank, takes your money and then finds that it has done so by error, it repays the money. Not so local authorities - particularly when it comes to traffic offences.

Here - a typical example of a common problem -
http://www.prlog.org/11242138-no-to-mob-claim-major-victory-over-westminster-city-council-wcc-over-honeypot-junction.html
Westminster have made a mistake as to their own traffic regulations, have put up misleading signs, have caught and fined motorists, have been told that they were wrong, have admitted that they were wrong, but will keep the money.

I think that this is disgraceful. Theft in fact. Why does a respectable council do this, and why do the government prevent (through their restrictions on the Local Government Ombudsman)prevent us from stopping them?

Trench politics in the House of Lords

2011-01-18T07:44:00.004Z

"The ordinary British citizen is devastated at the prospect of reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 600" - or so we are told, and the Labour party has kept talking all night in that cause. At this rate, working 21 hours a day, we'll finish the committee stage in mid March.

Where this will lead, beyond exhaustion, is beyond me. To the diminution of the House of Lords I suspect - we'll have to guillotine if Labour carry on, which we have never done, and then they will become obstructive and we will cease to be constructive.

And it will raise our wives' expectations: ... 'if you can keep it up all night in the Lords ...

Home Education: Ofsted on free schools

2010-06-17T06:58:00.003+01:00

The Ofsted report on home education is out this morning - not yet on their website. It's more rational about local authorities than Badman (if muted in its criticisms), has a generally supportive tone about home education, but focusses on how to help children stay in school and on how to allow local authorities to fulfil their 'monitoring duties' - Ofsted sets outs its views on these in some detail. In my view a measured exposition of what Home Education is up against with officialdom.

Good news: the current government has no interest in early legislation.

Good news for some: it's looking as if the 'free schools' legislation may allow virtual schools to be funded.

Castrating the Lords

2010-05-26T16:24:00.001+01:00

No, not the final solution for the hereditary peerage, but secret discussions that appear to have been taking place under the last government to curtail backbenchers powers and, in effect, neuter our ability to reform legislation. I've put down a question asking what's been going on.

I bet Labour are glad now that they did not succeed - but why were the cross benches keen on the idea (presuming my sources are accurate)?

Bailiff powers of forced entry

2010-05-14T19:32:00.001+01:00

Before the General Election, David Cameron vowed to repeal a range of 'Big Brother' laws, including the controversial use of force by bailiffs. The repeal should include not just the power of forced entry to premises and to restrain people, contained in the Tribunals, Courts & Enforcement Act 2007, but also the forced entry provisions for fine enforcement slipped into the final stages of the Domestic Violence, Crime & Victims Act 2004.

Although statistics imply that this power is used only about once every two months, it is a power that rarely has to be used. As a matter of 'good' practice, bailiffs daily explain to people that unless they let them in, forced entry will be undertaken with police support. Who could fail to cooperate in the face of such persuasion? It is a stain on our civil liberties.

As the forced entry provision was going through Parliament, Labour Ministers were clear that it would be used only against people convicted of a crime. They didn't mention that they included crimes like truancy and failing to buy a TV licence; they didn't mention that they would be used against the families of those who committed these 'crimes'.

The new Government should turn back the clock so that fines are once again civil debts owed to the State, and restore the principle that all bailiffs must act peacefully against property and people.

Home Education under a coalition government

2010-05-12T10:22:00.002+01:00

We can be sure that the Conservative/Liberal coalition government will not be springing any horrors on us when it comes to home education. Barring accidents, we have five years of peace ahead of us.

As I have said before, I don't think that the motivations behind the attack on home education have gone away, and I do expect it to re-emerge in one form or another should the government fall. I am therefore a proponent of the idea that we should try to legislate in a couple of years time to secure the basis for home education in the way in which we would wish, and to remove the excuse for attack.

In just the same way, I welcome the proposed Lords reform: not that I am convinced that it is necessary, or that it will produce a better house than we have now, but I believe that it is inevitable that it will happen and I had rather that it was done by a government that I am comfortable with, and whose views I can hope to influence.

House of Lords Reform

2010-05-12T10:20:00.001+01:00

The BBC says that we are to have full Lords reform early in the session, with a move to complete proportional representation. Well, if that turns out to be the case, I think that we should welcome it.

We are almost PR in our house as it is. So there's nothing wrong with the proportions of the party representations of the House of Lords being set in that fashion

We will want to make sure that the House of Lords which emerges is at least as good and effective as the House of Lords that we have now, but given that the reform process is taking place under a friendly government over a decent timescale, and that given the views of backbenchers on all sides we have considerable power to make a mess of the legislation, or of legislation generally, I am sure that we will find that our views are listened to and that the reform which emerges preserves the best of what we have now.

This blog will be full of ideas as to how to achieve this, and I will be listeing for your ideas too. Here is one for starters:

There should be 25% appointed independent members. A coalition government would then have to command two thirds of the party seats in the House of Lords in order to have an absolute majority. I suspect that the five years to come will be a lesson in how the effectiveness of the House of Lords is reduced when the governing party/coalition has control.

Children, Schools and Families Bill R.I.P.?

2010-03-09T10:57:00.002Z

No committee days have been scheduled for the bill this month, which now lies helpless in its cradle waiting for its inevitable dismemberment in the "washup". So is this the end of the story?

Not if the election is postponed until June - a faint possibility still.

And not if the issue of home education regulation rumbles on - as I judge it will do - into the next parliament.

I will lay some amendments to set out my views on where next.

Canvassing the Lords - now's the time to get writing

2010-01-23T18:54:00.000Z

It seems likely that the second reading of the Children Schools and Families Bill in the Lords will come soon after we return from our winter half term on 22nd February, and that Clause 26 will still be intact.

To interest peers in supporting HE at second reading, aim to canvass us before 9th February – we rise on the 10th.

Hints on canvassing us:

- keep it short. We have no staff, and too much to do. Make your main points on the first side, even if you say more thereafter;

- understand our limitations. We are most of us more or less ancient, more or less establishment, and conscious that political power rests with the Commons. Liberty plays well – but there are few absolute libertarians here;

- your aim is to find friends, not conquer enemies. You will find plenty;

- do offer to meet in the Lords, if that’s easy for you, or if you are part of one of the HE organisations ask if the peer would like to meet a HE family who lives near their home (peers have no published home addresses by and large, so only organisations are likely to be able to find a good local candidate.

After Second Reading comes Committee, when the whole house (meaning those who take an interest) go through the Bill line by line. What we will need for this stage are suggestions for amendments – different ways of having oversight of HE, different ways of supporting it. I know that the whole concept of oversight is anathema to some of you, but that’s the way we work and our strengths are more in grinding the government down gradually with practical arguments than cutting them down with politics. So do send in your ideas for amendments, as we can put them down straight after Second Reading.

The House of Commons education committee's report on home education

2009-12-16T09:51:00.002Z

I do not see how the home education section of the current Bill can be sensibly modified, in the time that we have, to take account of the committee's report.

There are too many of its recommendations that need careful analysis and discussion - the nature of registration, the definition of suitable education, LA officers' training and code of practice, the way support should be provided for HE - more, doubtless, when I have read the report carefully.

Also, first indications of the outcome of the Ofsted investigation are that it will be more on the side of HE than the Commons committee.

Given all this, I hope that the DCSF will take the opportunity of the committee's report to take a graceful step backwards. I shall not hold my breath, though, but I still expect the HE section of the bill to die when the election is called, if not before.

HE will remain unfinished business for the department and parliament. The conflicts evident in the committee's report, a compromise between strong and opposing views, will need to be resolved, and a strong, quarrel-free (which does not mean united) HE input will be important for the next couple of years at least.

I think that the most likely outcome is voluntary registration, withdrawal of registration subject to a proper court, support for HE from LAs, and training/standards for LAs - but it's clear from the committee's report that there's a strong thread of parliamentary thought that would prefer something that was much harsher on HE.

Home Education and the Childrens Schools and Families Bill

2009-11-25T18:44:00.002Z

I shall speak on the bill in the Queen's speech debate tomorrow. Here's an outline of what I intend to say. Additions, comments and brickbats all welcome.

This (the HE section of the bill) is an ill-thought-out, Ill-defined, illiberal and unjustified, and should be removed from the bill.

Mostly based on innuendo - no proper research. NSPCC assertions. Ofsted cloak and dagger underway now.

The few statistics the impact assessment contains are dodgy, e.g 4x NEET percentage

20% unsatisfactory ed - unspecified and v dodgy basis - compares well with Ofsted's view of state education. Bullying % wd look pretty good too.

Cost £20million pa - £1,000 per HE child - to be spent on monitoring. And this in relation to a community that receives no help with exam costs, no help with text books, no educational support, none of the other benefits school kids receive. £1,000 pa could do a power of good if spent on such things - and LA would get to see education in action.

There is no recognition of autonomous education or alternative curricula - they are to be corralled into QCDA's 'exemplar curricula'

There is to be no proper training of LA officials

There is no provision for a truly independent appeal tribunal.

- true, some of these things are referred to obliquely, or in skeleton form, but so fuzzily that the outcome might be anything from acceptable to horrific.

There is no reference to additional funding for LAs

The right to educate one's own children is to be taken away, and only returned annually on ther LA's sufferance

There may be some measures that ought to be put in place for HEs - e.g. LA training, LA support - but this should be done on the basis that HE parents are doing the state and society a great service.

They are providing for the education of tens of thousands of children who have been failed by the state, and who would cost the state dear if they stayed on in school.

We ought to celebrate them, see how best we can help them, not subject them to rules and intrusions that we would not accept for our own children.

I look to my front bench to confirm that they will kill Schedule 1 in the washup.

Ofsted inspects provision for Home Education

2009-11-01T20:52:00.000Z

Ofsted are setting out to inspect home education in 15 local authorities. As part of this exercise they will be approaching some parents.

I trust Ofsted to keep whatever they are told in confidence, and not to pass it on to the LA ever, at all, in any way.

I am not happy though with the secrecy with which Ofsted is surrounding its investigation - which LAs, which parents will be talked to, etc. I have put down some questions to see if I can open them up. Nor am I confident that Ofsted understands home education - but talking to more HE parents and children should help.

So please send me news when you happen across Ofsted - which LAs, what were they like, etc etc - on this blog or, if you prefer, privately to lucasr@parliament.uk.

Climate Change

2009-10-27T18:34:00.003Z

As a physicist of sorts, I like to burrow into climate change science from time to time. This:

http://www.gao.spb.ru/english/astrometr/abduss_nkj_2009.pdf

from CCNet caught my eye, because it suggests reasons for the current cooling spell and makes near-term predictions that should be verifiable.

It seems to me that actions that have clearly defined benefits outside climate change - energy conservation, diversity of supply - ought to be given priority over those that have only costs (carbon capture, vast subsidies for solar power).

Lobbying the Lords

2009-10-27T18:31:00.002Z

A correspondent writes:

"I have taken on board what you said about keeping MPs aware of the issues, especially when the Bill is published at the end of November. In addition to more lobbying, would it be in order to arrange some kind of showcase event at the Houses of Parliament for particularly gifted home educated people? I can think of a couple of families with children of exceptional musical talent.

Having steered clear of politics in the past, I do not fully understand how the system works in regard to the House of Lords. Should we be approaching members of the Lords, other than yourself, for help? How do we choose who to contact in the light of there being no constituencies."

No, the Lords is reactive not proactive, by and large, so the time to lobby is when the bill has been published or, if it starts in the Commons, when it has had its third reading there. We have no staff, so early lobbying tends to get forgotten before the time arrives when we can affect things.

Reading begins at 6? What have home educators to say?

2009-10-17T12:22:00.002+01:00

A predictable government response to the Cambridge Primary Review prompts me to ask: what are home educators' experiences on when a child is ready to read?

Parking enforcement

2009-10-17T12:17:00.002+01:00

Spoke at a British Parking Association this week - found myself agreeing with Nick Lester, who I have always regarded as an opponent, on almost everything.

Efficient, courteous, reasonable parking enforcement - well, we can all dream.

Home Education - progress with government

2009-07-17T12:13:00.002+01:00

I had a useful meeting this week with civil (very) servants from both the Department of Work and Pensions (to discuss the welfare aspects of home education, the main point of the meeting) and the Department of Children Schools and Families (to bring in the home education review aspects).

Fingers crossed, I'll be able to report some progress on the welfare front - ball is in their court while they check if they really can do what they said they'd like to do. And no, this is not anything earth-shaking, but it would help.

I reiterated to the DCSF why (in particular) the time-alone-with-child proposals were unacceptable, and said that in my view they must keep education and welfare separate, and that proper training in home education should be required for all LEA officials having responsibility for HE. Did not fall on deaf ears, but there's a way to go to say the least in convincing them of our case.

Things will go quiet now as parliament goes into recess until mid October, but with home education due to appear in the Queen's speech in November it's going to be worthwhile educating MPs in the interim - getting to see them, helping them understand home education, and impressing them what a sensible and worthwhile bunch home educators are. If they remain ignorant they'll not take an interest when we need them to. In that context, though I admire the ingenuity of the best of the badmanesque blogs, please avoid personal abuse and vilification: it will not play well with MPs if that's what comes up top on Google, or if a newspaper is able to run a story of direct harassment: they get too much of both themselves.

House of Lords - financial provision for members

2009-06-27T16:38:00.002+01:00

As preparation for the SSRB (senior salaries review body) report on financial arrangements (salary? allowances? expenses?) for members of the House of Lords, we're being asked our views. So I'd like to know yours.

It seems to me that:

Membership of the Lords should not be restricted to the independently wealthy - so peers should receive a (taxable) salary for attending.

Memebership should be possible for peers living a long way from London - so (vouchered) travel expenses should be allowed

Similarly some allowance must be made for overnight accommodation. I am puzzled as to the best way to do this. How do we deal with peers who attend so often that they want to have a permanent place in London?

Then there's the costs of doing the job - how much support should we receive? At present backbenchers get a computer, a desk, a telephone and free postage, plus a per-day allowance for other expenses. I'd like us to be able to afford proper research and secretarial support: perhaps by participating in a pool of people organised by the House. We'd do a better job, but we'd cost more, and so any increase should be couterbalanced by reducing our numbers.

Whatever the outcome I expect it to hasten Lords reform - why should anyone be appointed to a salary for life? But after waiting for ten years for someone to do all the reforms in one go, I'd rather get started, and deal with the financial side, than wait: the rest will follow.

Home Education and Welfare - preparation for a meeting with officials

2009-06-25T11:46:00.001+01:00

We had a short discussion on Home Education and the welfare system in the committee stage of the Welfare bill on Monday. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldhansrd/index/090622.html#start_grand – then look at amendments 74 and 75

My view of the situation is that we cannot hope for any substantial allowances to be made at this time, but that we can try to build on my promised meeting with officials to get some small improvements.

What improvements can you suggest? My thoughts include:

Making it totally clear in guidance that sending a child back to school is not ever an acceptable outcome if against the child’s wishes

Giving guidance on how to conduct interviews when the child is present

Better arrangements for offering homeworking opportunities

Better arrangements for offering help with starting your own business

Offering training as a childminder where this may be an appropriate option

A better understanding on what constitutes acceptable childcare

And – though with no great hope of success – another crack at allowing postal signing on

Jobseekers' allowance and home education

2009-06-17T10:25:00.002+01:00

I have an amendment down to the Welfare bill on home educators, and I'd like your views.

The current arrangement is (am I right) that a lone parent home educator has to make her/himself available for 16 hours a week unless she/he can show that appropriate and affordable childcare is not available.

I don't see - given the government's initial response and its general attitude - scope to change that - but what can be done to make it work appropriately in practice?

How to assess home education

2009-06-15T18:22:00.002+01:00

Thankyou to all those who have send in comments on Badman's report. I agree with much of what you say. I find it outrageous that home educators should be singled out for inspection in ways that the state would never allow for its own charges.

Our government will not be the next government, and will not be able to implement these plans, so it's crucial to focus on Conservative and Liberal websites.

It would also help, I believe (if I'm allowed to use that word in the context of Badman), to get some threads of thought moving in constructive directions. Makes life much easier for your political supporters.

So, for instance, how should Local Authorities assess home education?

Require inspectors to go on an EO training scheme?

Allow parents to have supporters (an organisation, or church, or just a friend who has been through it) during the assessment process?

Have an appeals system?

look backwards not (except at the start) forward?

Ralph

Home education - good man Badman?

2009-06-11T15:53:00.001+01:00

Am ploughing through the review, published today.

I have an amendment on the subject down for the Apprenticeships bill, and all and any comments on the report and on the government's response will be welcome.

Constitutional reform

2009-06-09T14:44:00.003+01:00

Rasputin's continued elevation in the cabinet, and the appearance of ever greater numbers of ministers in the House of Lords, prompts a suggestion for reform.

Why not move the seat of government entirely to the Lords?

We'd elect MPs, as now. They'd choose the PM, as now. But the PM would then receive an immediate earldom and move up to the Lords, forming his ministerial team there.

This would achieve the separation of the legislature and the executive that so many are talking about, leaving the Commons as a true legislature, holding the government to account and controlling the finances - and with no legislation at all required to achieve it (though doubtless Lords reform would follow swiftly).

Wellington takes on the MYP

2009-03-23T17:44:00.002Z

Dr Anthony Seldon of Wellington is giving GCSEs the boot and moving to the Internatioal Bacclaureate Organisation's Middle Years Programme, or MYP. Hurrah.

The first five years of secondary school have become much less exciting and interesting than they should be, constrained by the need to put eveyone though boring, unchallenging, tickbox GCSEs at age 16. At least in a well-run school like Wellington, the change to MYP - much more freedom, undoubted quality - should be a delight for staff and pupils.

At last independent schools are getting back to doing things in new and better ways, after years of toeing the government line. This, much more than charity, is what should define them.

Brown's Lords

2007-07-02T16:02:00.001+01:00

What to make of Brown's appointments to the Lords - that he approves of an appointed house? Certainly that he thinks the Labour backbenches are rubbish - he has promoted none of them, while courting LibDems and Cross-benchers alike. A dispiriting message that for those who have slogged away for the last few years, chorussing approval from the Labour benches or trooping through the lobbies, and in many cases an unfair one, but roll on an Appointments Commission to weed out the dross that we have had inflicted on us in Tony's last few fearful years.

Freedom of Information Amendment) Bill

2007-05-21T15:12:00.000+01:00

Greeted with a hum of discontent from all round the house when it was introduced this afternoon. There's a good chance that timetables and end-of-year congestion will mean that it fails to complete it's passage here, and dies. If it does get through, I'm certain that we'll excise the reference to the Lords.

Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

2007-05-20T11:39:00.000+01:00

So we are going to have to deal with this Bill. I had hoped that the Commons would kill it -- but it clearly has widespread support there.

It seems to me to be corrupt, in the finest sense of that word. For someone to protect themselves from the effect of general legislation merely because they have the power to do so, and to neglect to address the interests of others, seems to me to be profoundly wrong. It is just the sort of behaviour which we have become used to criticising in the European Parliament, and it pains me to see it appearing here.

I cannot see that any attempt was made in the House of Commons to defend what was being done -- they just sat there while their opponents tried to play for time. A measure like this surely needs details justification, and at least our procedures in the Lords will make sure that it requires that to pass.. At the very least, however much we pay respect to the House of Commons, we should insist on the removal of the House of Lords from this legislation.

Grammar Schools

2007-05-20T10:49:00.000+01:00

For all the shouting, I can't seethat David Willetts was wrong in anything that he said -- though I expect that he regrets that he was not more careful about the phrasing of it.

Though Grammar schools used to offer a real hope, perhaps seen as the only hope, for bright kids from poor backgrounds, this is no longer the case. 30 years of practice have honed our ability to work the system: we help with homework, the tutor, we send our children to private prep schools, we take over primary schools and make sure that they focus on getting our children into the Grammar schools. The resulting social selection is quite clear.

We should not for a moment threaten Grammar schools -- pulling down the good because we hope to build the great is a Labour characteristic, not a Conservative one. We need to focus on building schools to suit those communities who have not managed to create good schools for themselves, and to give the school is a great deal of freedom in tackling this problem. The Academy program seems to fit that to a T.

We need to guide against central diktats -- central diktats have failed ever since the last war to produce effective schools in difficult areas. What we need is innovation, and the opportunity for a thousand headmasters and their supporters to show what can make a real difference. Once really good practice starts to emerge, then the centre should, of course, seek ways to support it and to spread it.

And if we are giving this freedom to schools and localities, perhaps some of them will choose to use it to create new grammar schools. So be it. It would not be what I would wish for myself, but again we should not impose central control. New grammar schools may well answer sectional interests in such areas as central London, where the middle classes have been driven to use independent schools because no state schools up to scratch.

Transport for London

2007-05-10T11:41:00.000+01:00

I seem to be making some progress in my discussions with Transport for London.

I don't

mind that they are seeking heavy new powers to enable them to catch up with persistent evaders -- I have always been one of those who hate it when people take advantage of me being law-abiding, and a zoom up bus lanes with impunity while I wait in the traffic. So even though I am all for fare enforcement, I have not got upset about bus lane cameras.

The latest weapons being sought are the right to enter people's cars to make sure that any tagging or tracking devices are intact, and the right to tow away and impound (until all fines are paid) cars with more than three tickets from anywhere in London. In the course of a couple of comfortable meetings, we seemed to have reached agreement that breaking and entering will be done only by a policeman, or in their presence, and that someone whose car is towed away can release it on bail for a couple of hundred pounds or so while they sort out the tickets, or prove that they did not own the vehicle at the time.

And I have at last met Nick Lester, someone who (as the ticketing supremo for the amalgamated London councils) is next to Beelzebub up in the motorist's pantheon. Perhaps even he is coming to see that it is important for councils to have enforcement policies which are acceptable to their citizens.

Buzzing a stone at a wasp's nest

2007-03-28T20:05:00.000+01:00

I was one of 123 peers who were voted to disrupt the government's casino plans, and as they could only muster a meagre 120 votes, we have caused something of an upset, especially since the Commons were 13 votes short of overturning the measure.

The House of Lords does not usually vote down secondary legislation, but we have always had the power to do so. One of the consequences, I think, of the Commons deciding that it wants an elected House of Lords is that we have begun to take our position and powers more seriously, and to think twice before giving in to convention when we think that something is really awry.

We came quite close to doing down the sexual orientation regulations (not that I would have voted against the government on that), and I suspect that we will feel encouraged to look fiercely at similar regulations in the future. This will not please my chief whip, who was keen that we should abstain -- I think that he is content with the status quo (perhaps looking to a time when he is part of the government), and does not wish to revive the debate on the future of the House of Lords just when it seemed to have died down. I think that secondary legislation is now such an important part of government that we, as a revising chamber, must take a more serious and unrestrained attitude to dealing with it.

As an eventual outcome, I would like much more regulation to be amendable when it appears before us. For the present, to send the casino regulations back to the government once seems to me to be sufficient. They know they have to concede something to get it past us, but as long as they go further than they have currently indicated they are willing to do then we should not stand in their way.

Evolution rather than revolution should be the motto, I think.

House of Lords reform

2007-03-14T11:27:00.000Z

The House of Lords of votes on reform this afternoon will not surprise anyone. There will be a massive majority for an all appointed house. I don't expect a hybrid house to attract much support, but it will be interesting to see how much the 100% and 80% elected options receive.

A fully elected house would, I think, have attracted more support if the Commons had been prepared to demonstrate that such a house could be more effective in challenging the executive, and more independent of party control. There is no reason why it should not be -- though this would imply some diminution, perhaps temporary, in the power of the Commons. I think that a powerful House of Lords whould be a strong challenge to the executive, and if we get the terms of election right should produce a spirit of independence too. I shall vote for 100% and 80% in the belief (well, perhaps not belief, more like a speculation) that that is what my colleagues in the Commons meant when they voted for those options, and that all the puff about the eternal supremacy of the Commons comes second, in their minds, to a more effective legislature as a whole.

Beyond the self-satisfaction and self-justification, what the vote for an all appointed house means is a challenge to the Commons: prove to us that your elected house will be more effective than we are at holding the executive to account, and will be at least as independent of party control. If the Commons can rise to these challenges, then how could we (in the end) resist?

An all-elected House of Lords

2007-03-07T19:48:00.000Z

The Lords like being appointed, because we're wonderful and the current way of choosing us must therefore be best. The Commons goes for all-elected for the same reason.

Now that the current composition of the Lords has been declared totally illegitimate, will we be accorded a real voice in deciding how the future Senate is to be elected? I suspect not.

Personally, I think all elected will be a very good thing - if we get the method of selection/election of candidates right. Not that I have a clue as to how to do that. Nor, I suspect, do the Commons.

House of Lords Reform

2007-03-03T20:31:00.000Z

It feels quite strange, sitting here waiting for next Wednesday. I have been 15 years in the House of Lords, courtesy of a 17th-century bugger and a 17th-century bastard and my mother's untimely death. I have enjoyed every minute of it, though especially the time since David Cameron became leader -- it is great to be part of a team that knows how to win.

On Wednesday the Commons will decide whether we are to have an elected element. In principle, I am a supporter of an elected House of Lords if this could be done in a way which did not immediately subjugate it to the domination of the party whips. And it is in that sort of area, I think, that we will have to do battle with the government over the subsequent bill. No major party is going to support an appointed house, and I don't believe that even the most contented Lords backbencher is going to stand up for ever to the will of the Commons on that. But we might well stand firm on such matters as the power of the House of Lords, its political composition, how the appointments commission is to be appointed and its terms of reference decided, but most important of all how peers (or rather, as I hope we will be called - sorry, they will be called - Senators) are to be elected, and what the terms of their election will be.

Jack Straw proposes a party list system. I don't see this as being acceptable -- it is just domination by the whips in another form. , What we need is something which will allow true local participation, with a recognisable community expressing its views as to whom it wants to accord the privilege and comfort of 15 years of unaccountable participation in government. To my mind this ought to be election on the basis of counties of cities -- about six senators per million of population, that is two each election for Hampshire, one every other election for Wandsworth.

We won't carry the Lib Dems with us on this -- they will want proportional representation in whatever form it is offered, and that almost automatically implies a party list and party hack system. If we are to win through, it will be with the support of the crossbenches and of the backbenches of the Labour Party in the Lords. The crossbenches we can win if our arguments are good enough, so that leaves the government's own supporters as the main obstacle to their victory. Just as it should be.

Or should the House of Commons decide that it cannot decide, I hope that we will nonetheless propose reforms to the system of appointment to regularise the size of the house, and the qualities of the people to be appointed to it. We ought to learn the lesson of the Thatcher years -- that it is best to reform when you don't need to so that you don't get reform that you don't need later on. If you see what I mean.

Bye Bye Bailiffs

2007-02-25T20:45:00.000Z

Well, the bill has left the Lords and I feel disappointed. We've not secured proper regulation (though we have a promise of it), and we've allowed a couple of illiberal nasties to remain - automatic breaking and entering for criminal fines, and a licence for bailiffs to use force against debtors.

Well, I doubt that it would have been better if we'd been in government. The minister (Lady Ashton of Upholland) is as good as you get, but little things like this get lost in the machinery until there's a real disaster - at which point it gets proper attention.

Goodbye cruel Word

2007-02-25T20:22:00.000Z

At last I've done it, and it feels wonderful. I've been a faithful Word user since the program first appeared, but I've finally lost patience with Microsoft's FUser attitudes. I don't own, and I can't get, a single disk that installs Office - just upgrade on upgrade on upgrade. And when my machine died, and I tried to reinstall on the new one, some element in the trail was missing. So I've downloaded Open Office, and with luck will never buy Microsoft again.

Data protection

2007-02-08T12:23:00.000Z

If the home office is so deficient, why don't they get on with getting it right rather than flooding us with new legislation?

Yesterday's edition was the latest serious crimes Bill, which (other than allowing the courts to lock people up who they think might create a crime) allows government departments have free access to all the data that government holds on citizens, and allows the Audit Commission (why the Audit Commission?) to trawl through government data and data obtained from outside sources (such as credit card companies, banks etc) in search of criminal patterns of behaviour.

We seen to be totally unconcerned as a nation about this invasion of our privacy -- believing that it will only affect other people. We should learn a lesson from what has happened to motorists -- it isn't the Mr Bigs that get done in, indeed if you have over a hundred outstanding fines they don't bother to pursue you because they reckon they let you know how to avoid pursuit. It's the ordinary motorist who gets done at the slightest excuse, and all our lives are made that little bit more miserable.

I don't believe that we shall be able to make any serious changes to this Bill, my party are too concerned about the public mood, and though the Lib Dems shout imprecations at the government at a local level they want the surveillance the same as everybody else. What I hope to do, though, is to make sure that we have a fully documented record of all the surveillance that is taking place, so that we might at some stage be able to take a long look at what is happening and feel so sick and that we do something about it. Not that these powers couldn't be used well -- but in the hands of the Home Office ...

House of Lords reform

2007-02-08T09:36:00.000Z

Well, at last we have an open debate. My sense is that despite some sturdy opposition reform will go through this time -- and a good thing to, if it removes the constant carping about Lords powers from the agenda for a decade or two.
Not that we are going to vote for anything but an appointed house ourselves -- we sound like a 1920s trades union meeting when our privileges are assaulted -- but if the Commons expresses a settled view then I do not see that in the end we have any option but to go along with it. We will though, I hope, be able to insist on proper supervision of appointments (presuming that there are to be any), proper guarantees as to the political make-up of the house, and an electoral system which does not amount to appointment under another name. Personally, I think we should aim for a fully open list system, with the contents of each list being subject to the appointments commission's scrutiny as to quality and balance.

The fate of the hereditary peers has been left in the balance. Jack Straw weighs the arguments for our expulsion and for our conversion into life peers at some length, and then reaches no conclusion. This seems to me to have been arranged as a dilemma for Cameron -- either he can side with tradition, and let us hang on in there for a few years yet, or he can let us go with a crocodile tear and have the pleasure of appointing 30 or so of his own supporters to the Lords, to balance up the numbers. Interesting - I feel like a defeated gladiator looking up at Caesar.

Interesting weekend too -- interviewing Iain Dale among others for the Conservative candidacy in East Hampshire.

Bailiff regulation in the mush

2007-02-08T09:32:00.000Z

I must confess that the workings of government sometimes distress me. Everybody knows that giving bailiffs a dedicated regulator, at least to begin with, would make for the best possible start. Instead, the government has decided to put bailiff regulation in with the Security Industry A uthority -- a failed Home Office regulator with an appalling track record that looks after bouncers and wheelclampers. Ah well, it just is not within the practice of the House of Lords to refuse half a loaf, and I shall just have to do my best at third reading to make sure that the government promises that the regulator will have the powers and functions that it needs to have. Not at all clear yet, but I have had some very helpful meetings with civil servants.

Bailiffs

2007-01-16T14:05:00.000Z

We are moving towards resolution of Bailiff regulation, I think. I hosted a very constructive meeting of the industry and their critics in the Lords today - full agreement on the main issue of the need to regulate bailiffs, and on some lesser ones such as the right of bailffs to force entry (with a warrant, or to get at controlled goods), methods of taking control of goods (leave to regulations as it's too complicated for the face of the bill), and of bailiffs right to physically restrain debtors (not needed).

Now all we have to do is convince the government, and though they are being tiresomely cagey they are at least talking.

Back in harness

2007-01-09T22:57:00.000Z

Where was I. Ah yes, several pounds lighter in the suit and many pounds heavier in the wallet.

Bailiffs matters make good progress - more at the end of the week.

Pearson of Rannoch has joined UKIP, which sadly means we'll hear more from him.

The government wants to lock up people with personality disorders so they don't commit crimes. If 1 in 100 have schizophrenia, and 50 commit murder each year, that's one in 10,000. About the same ratio as road deaths to motorists. So why not imprison bad drivers too?

A thankyou to PayPal

2006-12-11T11:48:00.000Z

After a long and anxious wait, PayPal has ruled in my favour about a pair of wine glasses that arrived smashed to smithereens. They don't give you any easy way to say thank you -- finding a way to communicate with them rather than their FAQs is a nightmare -- so this is a short appreciation of the process.

Compared with, say, the small claims court, the process is decidedly untransparent. You get sent requests, you get told conclusions, but at no stage do you get given reasons for anything. It has cost me the postage to get the goods back to the seller -- but that is less than a small claims court would have charged me.

The result, though, is the right one. So thank you.

Total disclosure of personal data held by government

2006-12-07T23:24:00.000Z

And should be interested to know your views on something which is currently very obscure to me -- the information provisions of part 4 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill. What? That has not been your bedtime reading? Nor mine until today.

The basic functions of clauses 90 to 95 are to allow a creditor who has obtained a judgment debt against a debtor to apply to the court, and for the court then to apply to the Inland Revenue and indeed any other part of government, seeking information about the debtor, and then to use that information in advising the creditor how the creditor can best go about getting his money back.

For the full text, see: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldbills/

005/07005.54-58.html#j2D01

At first sight, this is quite satisfactory. Some loathesome spivs are going to get their comeuppance when the court helps the creditors batten on to their villa in Marbella. But it is an extraordinary example of what the government and feel able to do with the vast amount of information that they have on each of us, and although the Bill does not precisely say that information on the debtor's tax affairs will be disclosed to the creditor, it strikes me as quite difficult to pursue an action to recover a debt on the basis of government information if you haven't been told the government information.

So, the unsatisfactory aspect is that everything the government knows about your may become public property if you don't pay your judgment debts.

As I have said before, I don't see any useful way of standing in front of this tsunami. It is no good trying to put in clauses to stop government departments passing on information to each other, or to restrict the gathering of that information -- that I'll always good reasons why it should be done. We have to develop ways of protecting the citizens rights on the assumption that the government will know everything about them, and will communicate this information when it suits them.

Bailffs Bill

2006-12-01T18:40:00.000Z

Well, our proposals for regulating bailiffs are published at last - the Bailiffs (Licencing) Bill, see link from the title. And to a good reception: when we discussed the Tribunals bill the next day the minister said:

"The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has very helpfully brought forward his Bill. I had the privilege of talking to him very briefly about that and we will continue the dialogue." - as helpful as ministerial language gets, and

"I will listen to whether noble Lords feel that the Bill adequately deals with the issues raised about the enforcement regime, not only in your Lordships' House but by other organisations. In discussion with noble Lords, I will be looking at whether there are further steps we might consider. I can say no more at this point, but I am open to doing so; as noble Lords have indicated, it is a very important aspect of the Bill, which we will need to consider with great care."

for my speech, see here:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/
pa/ld199697/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds06/text/61129-0005.htm

What's right and wrong with GCSEs.

2006-11-24T11:51:00.000Z

What's wrong is how ridiculously constrained GCSEs are by an over-prescribed curriculum; what is right is how this is now being challenged.

The QCA's defence of its decision not to allow IGCSEs in English state schools shows all the characteristics of an overblown bureaucracy under attack. http://www.qca.org.uk/downloads/qca-06-2974_gcse_igcse_compared.pdf The basic accusation is that the IGCSE is not a GCSE. Hurrah! The QCA ought to be a body which encourages innovation, which looks to all possible ways of improving our examination and qualifications system, and which gives any that come up to the quality mark its imprimatur. To say that IGCSE is inadequate is ridiculous -- it is used and applauded by many of the best schools in this country.

Not that the QCA is incapable. A fascinating article in the Independent: http://education.independent.co.uk/schools/article2005410.ece celebrates the new science GCSE, and the liberating effect that this has had on one girl's imagination. It's just that the QCA does not seem to realise that competition and variety are what spurs innovation and quality, and not direction from the top down.

The current chaos is totally constructive. The more competing examination systems we can have, the more likely it is that the one (or combination) that wins out will suit our schools and suit our pupils. If only the development of the new "specialist diplomas" for vocational education was following this route, rather than development by the cat which (if recent reports are to be believed) is headed swiftly for the rocks.

Standby power usage

2006-11-05T19:32:00.000Z

I used 22kwh of electricity yesterday. My various appliances (2 TVs, DVD, computer, phone, printer, broadband, mobile charger) use a total of 50 watts on standby. So if I left them all on standby for an average of 20 hours per day, they'd consume 365kwh in a year, 4.5% of my electricity usage, costing me £30 a year. So I don't.

That's the trouble with the evidence for this being a problem - it's extremely scarce. Even that linked from the title to this item just surveys the wattage - they didn't monitor actual usage. Nor did they allow for the saving in heating costs in winter. I doubt that there's much of a real saving there. Also it's a real fuss to have to pay attention to - on a par with saving bits of string - and needs a wartime mentality.

More sense perhaps in looking at enegy saving lightbulbs? A 100w lamp used for 4 hours a day consumes 146kw in a year, costing £12. If I can save 75% of that for a cost of £3.50 ... and then the bulbs last another 8 years ... even if the heat is useful for 6 months of a year, it's a clear winner.

Arse and elbow differentiation: the nuclear academy

2006-11-02T07:28:00.000Z

Typical of this benighted government - sell off our nuclear industry to the Americans, then open an academy specially to train workers for it.

Labour new and old

2006-11-02T06:36:00.000Z

Winding down towards the Queen's Speech, and a book deadline too - so this blog will be a bit episodic for a week or two.

Hosted a meeting for George Galloway yesterday - speaking to a couple of dozen kids from Bethnal Green Technology College. Such energy and intensity - took me back to the days when Old Labour really believed in itself. Far too young - he's going to be around for decades yet. Claims that Respect put on 10,000 members at freshers fairs this autumn. Thank goodness UKIP has no-one like him.

Went straight on to question Geoff Hoon about the passarelle (an EU mechanism for moving things from unanimity to majority voting). Heavily minded by a civil servant of extraordinary focus - had almost no presence in the room, all centered on keeping Hoon on track. A wasted hour, as you would expect. And they say he's to be the next Lord Chancellor!

The true economics of recycling glass

2006-10-30T00:07:00.000Z

Can anyone help me find a decent analysis of glass recycling economics - energy and £ - in the UK?

Crushed glass is being used to bed local paving stones, in place of sand. Can it really be benefitting the planet for us to collect, sort, transport, crush and transport glass to substitute a material which can be dug out of the ground in bulk at very low cost?

House of Lords reform - winds in the Straw

2006-10-25T18:33:00.000+01:00

I don't believe that this is about anything other than electing Straw as deputy leader.

We need to start with a clear decision by the Commons as to what the role of the Lords is to be - is it to have a representative function? If so, then it (a) must be substantially elected and (b) will challenge the Commons and (c) will become party political. Personally, this is the route that I favour - we need a much stronger and more active legislature. If the Lords has no representative function, then election has to be justified as the best way of fulfilling the Lords' other functions - and I have yet to be shown how that could work.

In a Lords (Senate would be better) without representative functions, but needing a concentration of expertise and experience, appointment works. Mostly appointment by the elected, though. It keeps the Lords illegitimate, and allows the Commons undoubted primacy. We could then have party strengths in proportion to votes, quality checks on candidates, a proper balance of race, religion, gender and region - and still do a damn good job.

Faith schools - the fog of war

2006-10-25T16:00:00.000+01:00

Lots of smoke being made by the Roman Catholic church over the government's proposals for new faith schools to admit 25% of other creeds or none. Mostly, I feel, to hide the fact that they will not address the real issues:

- are RC schools divisive? Saying that RCs have within themselves a wide variety of racial origins and economic status is not an answer.

- why should paying 10% of the cost give them total control over admissions?

- either allowing the irreligious in is a disaster - and then why do they allow this in so many RC schools - or it's OK - and why are they so upset about making this the rule for new schools?

EU law and divorce

2006-10-18T18:13:00.000+01:00

One of my lesser delights is sitting on subcommittee E of the European Union committee in the Lords - European law. The Commission is proposing to harmonise the law on divorce - at least in so far as choice of court and law is concerned - which could mean, for instance, that UK courts find themselves applying fault-based rules, or refusing a divorce under any circumstances, depending on the law they have to apply.

Civil servants gave evidence - very civil-servantish it was too. They agreed that the Commission had produced no evidence whatsoever that there was a wrong that needed righting. They agreed that the whole area was probably beyond EU competence. They agreed that there was no benefit to us. But they made the case for going along with the proposal on the grounds that (a) subsidiarity is meaningless, because the European Court only requires that the Commission take it into account and pay no attention to whether there is any substance to the case for subsidiarity, and (b) we must not upset others by standing out from the crowd.

Sometimes I feel as if I am watching a slow-growing cancer that no-one will treat, because we're still alive and the medicine might be nasty.

Female genital mutilation and asylum

2006-10-18T10:30:00.000+01:00

Guardian story today on a young girl who fled from Sierra Leone for fear of genital mutilation, on last gasp appeal to the House of Lords. Came up in the lift with Lord Brown, fresh from giving judgements - they've let her stay.

Oh I do love the law lords. Wonderful civilised people. What a contrast to the ghastly succession of knee-jerk populists we've had as home secretaries for the last ten years.

The House of Lords debate Faith Schools

2006-10-17T21:10:00.000+01:00

We have just finished three hours of discussion on faith schools.Mostly pretty unsatisfactory, to be honest -- long speeches outlining preprepared positions, very little of listening to each other.

Anyway, we are (or probably are) to have a set of government amendments allowing local education authorities as guardians of "community cohesion" to insist on new faith schools offering up to 25% of their places to none-faith applicants. We are all used in the house of lords to accepting half a loaf rather than none, and this looks a pretty good half loaf to us. We have movement in the right direction on all sides, and even if we have not got where we would like to be, we are on the way on a typical lords timescale of a few decades.

To me the underlying principle is clear. A person can purchase a private good (say by paying a quarter of £1 million for a house) and expect to enjoy the benefits of that purchase. But if that person purchases a public good (say by contributing a quarter of £1 million to the funds of an Oxford college) he should not expect to enjoy any rights over a place at Oxford as a result. So I part company with Lord Alton of Liverpool when he says that Catholics who collect money to fund a new Catholic school would be upset if they did not as a result have exclusive access to the resulting school places. What about the rest of us, who will have stumped up 85% of the cost?Indeed I find the whole Catholic position pretty weird -- at one moment they are boasting about having 20% non-Catholic pupils, the next it is unacceptable to have any. They boast about the quality of Catholic schools, and ignore the horrors like St George's Maida Vale.

Nice little speeches from Baroness Richardson (a Methodist minister ), pointing out that their church schools are always completely open; Baroness Blood on the Northern Ireland integrated schools she has championed and on the horrors of church schools there; Lord Taverne in one of his antireligious rants telling the story of St Lucy, plucking out her eyes so that she should not be tempted by men.

What we really missed was a contribution from one of the Muslim peers. Why did they stay away? A black mark for the Lords that they felt unable to participate.

Deceived by Jamie Oliver

2006-10-17T14:39:00.000+01:00

I am feeling furious with myself. I bought a book on Amazon that I thought was by Jamie Oliver, and it turned out to be by Jamie Oliver.

Take a look at the link from the title. Don't you agree that it's in the Jamie Oliver style? That the wording might be Jamie Oliver? That's the "perfect partner" chosen by Amazon is a Jamie Oliver cookbook? That it might just be a subject that Jamie Oliver had decided to turn his hand to? So did I.

But it's nothing of the sort. The Jamie Oliver is another Jamie Oliver -- not that the book tells you this directly, as there is no information on the author whatsoever anywhere in the book that I can see. But can you imagine Jamie Oliver -- the real Jamie Oliver, St Jamie Oliver -- publishing a book that doesn't feature his photograph anywhere? And can you imagine him writing in the pedestrian style of this book? Of course not.

So I have been comprehensively had. Not that the book will be thrown away -- it's one of those mildly amusing volumes which can be consigned to the gents for the comfort of the constipated -- but I am feeling ashamed of myself, and angry.

Angry with the publishers -- it seems to me that in the way this book has been presented it is deliberately designed to deceive. More angry with Amazon, who despite my having immediately submitted a review of the book several days ago, have declined (as of the moment that this blog was published) either to publish it or to desist from linking the book to St Jamie's other titles.

Writing a blog is a great way of calming down.

Science education

2006-10-16T14:48:00.000+01:00

Simon Jenkins has filed this (http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/comment/story/
0,,1921286,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=8) counterblast to Sir Richard Sykes and others over the new science GCSE. We have all the scientists we need, he says.

In some ways he's quite wrong. I'm plagued by innumerable innumerate journalists who can't see a story for the figures, and we're all plagued by the same journalists who seem incapable of understanding a statistical truth (only the truth that it can be bent to their ends).

He's right, though, that the new GCSE at last starts at the right point - 'what are the answers to the questions we're all asking', rather than 'name the parts of a flower'. It does the job of engaging interest, which the former GCSE was extremely bad at. Where it misses, I feel, is in linking that back to the science. An argument about creationism between pupils who have no scientific understanding is so much hot air - it has to be pushed back to the underlying understandings and methods. That's where Sykes is right - the disassociation of entrancement and hard graft does not work. Let us be rid of hard graft with no entrancement - and of entrancement with no hard graft - and get them working together again.

Would have posted this on the Guardian site - but they've banned me from contributing.

Faith schools - progress?

2006-10-16T13:01:00.000+01:00

It seems that Alan Johnson has been seduced by Kenneth Baker. Hurrah.

Debate is tomorrow afternoon - I'll report on it the instant after.

Please send us bailiff stories

2006-10-10T06:45:00.000+01:00

Very encouraging meeting of the London Motorists Action Group - LMAG - yesterday. If you've had a brush with a bailiff, log on to www.lmag.org.uk and tell us about it - evidence is piling up, and the police, OFT and the courts all showing strong interest.

More importantly, if you're about to have a brush with a bailiff, log on and gather one of LMAG's garlic necklaces - abuses by bailiffs (often just uncertified people claimimg to be bailiffs) are so widespread that, if you know the rules, you may well be able to catch them out and send them packing (or at least take a chunk off the bill).

apomorphine and alcoholism

2006-10-08T20:30:00.000+01:00

Picking up another forgotten therapy, John Yerbury Dent's use of apomorphine to cure alcoholism.

Well described in Alan Maclean's autobiography "No, I Tell a Lie, it was the Tuesday…", pages 138 to 150, and much misdecribed in Alan's obituaries, which kept calling it an "aversion therapy" when it says quite clearly on page 141 "it's not an aversion treatment".

Apomorphine, discovered in the 1860s (so no nice patents for pharmaceutical companies to make a mint from) has a range of interesting effects. No-one seems to have bothered to try Dent's therapy again, can't imagine why. Various papers (paid-for access, sadly) describe the use of apomorphine with alcoholics - but none of them using it (as far as I can see) in Dent's fashion (to the extent he is discussed, it is to dismiss him as a magician).

The Guardian tells a lie

2006-10-06T18:17:00.000+01:00

The Guardian does not often tell a deliberate lie on its front page - that's why I read it in preference to more right-wing rags. I remember one - a story about US pollution illustrated by a factory chimney belching black smoke - except that it was, in reality, condensing steam against a dawn sky. Today - and probably for the same reason of wanting to sell newspapers - they lie again.

"Take off the veil, says Straw" shouts the headline. He said nothing of the sort - as well they know, as they print the truth later on (and I am glad to see that their website sees no need to lie).

I line up alongside Jack Straw on this one. People should within reason be free to wear what they want, but they should understand the effect that their decision has on others. None of us feel comfortable having a one-way conversation, whether it's the veil, dark glasses or 'my webcam's broken'. The "Muslim anger" seems to be mostly rent-an-extremist - blame the media and this government's preference for 'people who can deliver' for their prominence.

One exam system for all?

2006-10-05T14:59:00.000+01:00

The Independent today runs a leading article bemoaning the fragmentation of the English examination system, with schools threatening to break away from GCSE and A level. Andrew Boggis, chairman of the HMC, seems to be much distressed. To which I have replied:

"One exam system for all? Oh please no. Uniformity always comes at a cost, and has to be justified. What benefits would a uniform exam system bring? Universities don't need it -- they already deal with a plethora of examination systems worldwide. Employers don't need it -- they are used to evaluating a wide range of technical qualifications. If we need some common metric to enable us to understand how diverse qualifications relate to each other, then this is well provided for by both the UCAS and the QCA. Anyway, the examination system is irretrievably fragmented -- the International Baccalaureate and the Scottish system are well established here, other systems of education such as Steiner and Montessori are growing apace, and when it comes to our flourishing overseas education business it is the IGCSE that the British Council promotes. And then there is the whole vocational and quasi-vocational system.

Let us rather celebrate the enormous advantages that a diverse system of qualifications will bring to us. Parents and schools will be able to choose the qualifications that are best suited to their children and to their objectives -- control will pass from a central bureaucracy to the people who are really capable of taking the decisions. Competition between systems will result in continuing improvements in quality and fitness for purpose -- characteristics which have become steadily degraded in our moribund monolithic GCSE and A level system. Schools rather than panicking politicians will control the pace of change -- they will move from one examination to another when they are ready to do so, rather than having to live with a single system in constant turmoil.

Don't shackle the Independent -- free the state."

What's the point of having someone running the independent schools' organisation who does not like independence?

Faith schools - momentum gathers

2006-10-04T15:40:00.000+01:00

Cameron's final speech - heartlifting - included a firm commitment to all faith schools following the Church of England's lead and admitting 25% of non-faith members. I'll be putting this to the test when we return to the education bill, and with luck we'll push the government into going along with the policy.

No link, as no speech on the party website yet - perhaps it's stuck in the queue.

Bailiffs on the run

2006-10-04T10:50:00.000+01:00

Excellent news on the bailiff front --the Whistleblower programme has broken the stalemate, the police are looking into its allegations, and the "Association of Civil Enforcement Agents" have opened their own inquiry into the allegations:

"BBC Whistleblower Programme - Independent Enquiry
October 03, 2006
The Association of Civil Enforcement Agencies has invited Philip Evans to chair an independent enquiry into issues arising from the BBC Whistleblower programme about bailiffs broadcast on 26 September 2006. Mr Evans is a former civil servant with the Lord Chancellor’s Department who worked on bailiff law and policy. Since he left LCD in 1997, Mr Evans has worked with the UK's professional bodies representing enforcement agents; he is a founder member of the Enforcement Raw Reform Group and has chaired the Group since 2002. The Group brings together representatives of the enforcement industry, the credit industry, creditor groups and the advice sector to promote comprehensive bailiff law reform.The rest of the review panel and its terms of reference will be announced shortly. ACEA hopes the panel will be able to report before the end of October 2006.Mr Evans can be contacted on 020 8319 8888 and at pip@moneyabuse.org . His website is www.moneyabuse.org ."

A truly amazing website, the bailiffs have -- pictures of happy smiling civilised people. You wouldn't know what business they were in.

If this all runs well, then I am going to have to learn to be nice about bailiffs, as we shall be working together on a way of regulating their activities.

Faith schools

2006-10-03T11:15:00.000+01:00

Ah, government movement at last.

The title of links to the recent Department of Education press announcement "JOHNSON WELCOMES ACTION BY FAITH LEADERS TO EXTEND CHOICE AND SUPPORT COMMUNITY COHESION".

The Church of England, bless its cotton socks, has committed itself to making available at least a quarter of the places in its new schools to non-church families. I find this a most welcome step away from the religious ghettoisation which otherwise threatenes our schools if the proposed expansion of faith schools takes place. The current situation is bad enough -- almost all the Church of England schools round me are totally exclusive, the Catholics of course ditto, making for severe social exclusion because, as ever, the middle classes have learnt how to work the system.

I am going to do my best to support moves to take this further when we get back to the Education Bill the week after next. Firstly, I see no reason why this 25% principle should not apply to all faith schools -- the great Catholic independent schools already have at least that percentage of other denominations and faiths, and suffer not a whit from that. Secondly, we need to make sure that the rules can't be got round -- my local Church of England primary School, for instance, nominally allows 25% of non-church members but, in fact, you also have to qualify as being a child in care or with special educational needs, so the school ends up totally Anglican because none do.

The Catholics will squeak, not least because the shortage of good non-Catholic secondary schools in central London is a marvellous recruiting sergeant for them, but I am determined that we should not end up looking like Glasgow or Northern Ireland when it comes to religious segregation, and that Muslim state schools (to whom the rules should also apply) should be outward looking and welcoming of non Muslims, rather than turned inwards.

A cheering Conservative conference

2006-10-02T18:07:00.000+01:00

Just back from Bournemouth. It's been a cheerful event.

The moment which impressed me most was in the first fringe I attended -- John Gummer's quality of life group presentation. Nick Hurd, rather nervously I thought, asked three quick questions of his audience -- had we seen Al Gore's film? (30% yes), do we believe that climate change is a serious problem? (80% yes), do we know how much carbon emission we are each responsible for in a year? (5% said they knew). Not that the answers have great intrinsic interest, but I felt, and I think that others felt too, that this was a process of discovery for us. We are told we have moved as a party, but of course this has been a personal experience for each of us -- what we are discovering at the conference is whether the rest of us have moved too.

The answer, I am very glad to realise, is that we have (by and large) moved in the same direction, and that as we all listened to Cameron in a hall packed to the rafters, we felt confident of the move that we had made.

It showed in other fringes that I attended too. John Hayes and Nick Gibb displaying their talent, commitment, energy and determination -- completely unshackled by any requirement to produce a policy rabbit out of the hat. As someone who is enthusiastically taking part in the policy review process, I am delighted to see this determination to take policy formation slowly.

Reading that back to myself, I can see that "cheerful" is a serious understatement of the mood that this conference has left me in.

Apart from waiting for a pass, and getting soaked in the rain today, the only bad moments have been running into UKIP outside and the Scientologists inside (they have for reasons which entirely baffle me been allowed a stand in the conference centre. Who next? The Moonies? ) I reacted like Mrs Tittlemouse encountering Babbitty Bumble: "this is an intrusion!'' "I will have them turned out -- '' "Buzz! Buzz! Buzzz!'' -- "I wonder who would help me?'' "Bizz, Wizz, Wizzz!'' Sadly, no Mr Jackson appeared.

Happy to say sorry

2006-09-27T22:20:00.000+01:00

I'm feeling pleased with myself.

It doesn't take much to please a lord. You can't really survive in the house of lords if you need recognition, praise or the noise of great battles. Most days the press gallery is empty, most days our proceedings go unreported, most days our proceedings are so detailed and obscure that it is just as well for the mental health of the rest of us that they do go unreported.

So I take pleasure in little things, Little victories, little parts played in changing something small. Something that happened to someone else today took my mind back to clause 2 of the compensation act 2006, which reads:

"An apology, an offer of treatment or other redress, shall not of itself amount to an admission of negligence or breach of statutory duty."

which was my suggestion. So I am pleased to take credit for it, though in truth nothing would have come of it if it had not been for the support of my frontbench colleague Lord Hunt, for the interest taken in the suggestion by the minister Lady Ashton of Upholland, for the support and help of a host of unnamed civil servants, for the support too I expect of the lord chancellor Lord Falconer and of a minister or two in the Commons.

Perhaps that's why the Lords is such a nice place to be. None of us can achieve much without the help of our colleagues and our opponents, so we spend our time being pleasant to them. And being quite unreasonably pleased when one suggestion in a thousand is taken up.

Water Music - preventing infection from urinary catheters

2006-09-24T11:00:00.000+01:00

From time to time medics have steam coming out of my ears - condemning alternative medicine and ignoring their own fallible practices for instance. They seem to have a particular blindspot when it comes to supporting solutions that don't involve expensive drugs or high-tech equipment.

Sticking a catheter into the bladder is a dangerous business - it carries bugs with it that can be very hard to eradicate. See title link for the general state of alarm.

30 years ago Dr Reese Alsop at the Huntingdon Hospital, NY wrote up a method for avoiding these risks. He played the patients a tape of water sounds!

In summary, he wrote: "A 30 minute tape of splashing, gurgling, lapping, running, roaring, dripping and flushing watery sounds was made available to post-operative patients who were still unable to pee following conventional non-invasive treatment. 60 of 80 patients responded, often requiring 20+ minutes to do so - but that's 75% of catheterisation avoided.". He concluded: "A word of warning: earphones are de rigeur. On several occasions the tape was inadvertently broadcast, with unfortunate results for other patients and nursing staff."

Obvious when you think of it - it's one of our most ingrained responses. Has it been taken up - or even tried again - by the medical profession? Fat chance.

More on "Junk culture is poisoning our children"

2006-09-23T17:19:00.000+01:00

The Shayler paper arrived today. Not yet published, so no link except to a report of the preliminary results.

It's really surprising stuff - but does not of course support the conclusions of the green ink brigade.

The Piagetian (i.e. based on Piaget's observations of childhood developement) test "volume & heaviness" explores 11-year-old pupils' appreciations of these two concepts. For instance, pupils are shown a 5x4x3 block of plasticine, which is lowered into a beaker full of water until it is just under water: the pupils see the water overflow. The plasticine is removed, the beaker is refilled, and pupils are asked whether more, less or the same amount of water would overflow if the plasticine was lowered down to (a) the middle and (b) the bottom of the beaker. There are 13 other tests exploring other aspects of volume and heaviness.

What Shayler found was that scores were steady from 1976 to 1995, and then declined rapidly. Boys, who had been better at these tests, are now the same level as girls.

Shayler speculates that this is due to the lack of experiential play in school, and the rise of the video game culture.

But does it matter? Life has changed. Doubtless today's kids are better a some things than kids of 30 years ago, due to their gaming and tech skills. Claiming that this points to a destroyed childhood or a dumbing down of Britain is wildly overstating the case. Perhaps, though, it points to one reason why take-up in science education is falling - kids don't get the basic concepts the way they used to. There's other evidence that points that way too - and it should be easy enough to remedy in school if that's really what's happening.

Energy realities

2006-09-21T10:10:00.000+01:00

Chris Rhodes has drawn my attention to his blog, linked above.

I would be extremely grateful if other bloggers who cover the question of the realities underlying our future energy supplies would do the same.

If we politicians are going to make sensible decisions, we need to have a grip on the total implications of the energy policies which are being touted around, and not allow ourselves to be seduced by the latest rabbit out of a hat. I find it very difficult to locate information sources which even approximate the truth: so much of industry, and so many pressure groups, seem addicted to lies and distortions.

Claims are made about the energy efficiency of different models of cars, based only on their fuel consumption rather than on their lifetime energy cost. Wind turbines are hymned as the solution to our problems, on the basis of a 15 year payback! Fuel cells (with which I was commercially involved for a while) are promoted as 60% efficient without taking into account the inefficiencies that flow from creating and storing and transporting their fuel.

Chris Rhodes's latest posts address the mathematics of biofuels. Good Stuff.

In love with Shakespeare

2006-09-18T11:06:00.000+01:00

Hear! Hear!

It's wonderful to see the Royal Shakespeare Company arguing that boring Shakespeare lessons are putting children off the bard for life.

What on earth is the point, for most children, of examining Shakespeare? Why teach it as a piece of literary criticism, dissecting it and analysing it? I can see that this is a useful skill for those who are going on to an academic study of English, but for most of us it merely means that we miss the joy of the thing until, if we're lucky, we rediscover it later in life.

My wife (www.safeground.org.uk) has used Shakespeare (and indeed Milton and the Greeks)with prisoners with the lowest possible levels of educational entertainment. They find it inspiring and immediately accessible and entertaining -- and this should be no surprise at all, as people like them who were in Shakespeare's earliest audiences. He seems to go down particularly well with black prisoners, because the blank verse raps.

The BBC article above ends with the usual your fatuous comments from the Department for Education etc. The curriculum is in a mess, and those in charge of steering it have let go of the tiller. More later.

Why do environmental pressure groups lie?

2006-09-13T20:22:00.000+01:00

One of my obsessions is truth, or rather untruth. It may be hard to know what the truth is, but you jolly well know when you're telling a lie.

I particularly dislike causes I support resorting to lies to support their arguments - it damages them so much in the long term.

Take this from the linked post from Greenpeace:

"Known uranium reserves will last for roughly 50 years at present consumption rates, but the 438 plants operating world-wide produce only 16% of global requirements. If the world's entire electricity needs were to be met by nuclear power, then reserves of high-grade uranium ore would be used up within three to four years..... So as a serious long-term energy source, nuclear power is a non-starter. "

Total and obvious rubbish. No-one has been looking for uranium for a while, and there'll be more easily found. Plus there's thorium to find too - approximately 3 times as abundant. So multiply reserves by ten. Then, of course, we'd move to a breeder fuel cycle which if 50 to 100 times as efficient in its use of ore as current reactor systems - and the truth is, we've got enough around to last us for at least a thousands years.

http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/ is a useful link.

The real dangers of relying on nuclear power, on which I suspect I and Greenpeace agree, are accidents, radioactive waste and the spread of nuclear weapons. But to be found out in such a silly lie devalues all their arguments, the good with the bad. Why do they do it?

Anonymous has pointed out the counter-arguments to my concerns - The Nuclear Option by Bernard Cohen, online at http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/index.html Have not yet had time to try to pick holes in it.

More on Bailiffs

2006-09-13T20:06:00.000+01:00

BBC joins battle

Whistleblower exposes the criminal world of bailiffs.

In a nine-month-long investigation, BBC reporter Jim Wheble went undercover, working for two of Britain's largest bailiff companies. He saw first hand how the public are ripped off, conned and lied to by people who are supposed to be official court representatives.

Bailiffs are entrusted to collect unpaid parking tickets, court fines and other debts but Whistleblower reveals why some describe themselves as "legalised thieves" and how they collect millions of pounds a week.

The reporters in the programme expose some unscrupulous debt collectors who cheat members of the public out of hundreds of pounds for a single unpaid parking fine. It also highlights the plight of people who are tricked into paying debts and fines which aren't even theirs.

In constant fear for his own safety, Jim filmed bailiffs as they lied about their legal powers, threatened to take people's belongings illegally and clamped cars without authority. During his time undercover, one fellow bailiff (and ex-policeman) even took Jim under his wing, teaching him how to break into people's homes.

Jim Wheble comments: "Our investigation highlights how this is an issue that could affect us all, as any one of us could get a knock on the door from these people. The public should ensure they know their legal rights, so they are not strong-armed into overpaying or shelling out for debts which aren't theirs."

With the use of bailiffs throughout the UK booming due to the rise in debt levels and an increase in the number of unpaid traffic and parking fines, the need to highlight their criminal behaviour has never been greater.

Junk culture "is poisoning our children"

2006-09-12T09:45:00.000+01:00

Letter to the Telegraph today (see link above): "A sinister cocktail of junk food, marketing, over-competitive schooling and electronic entertainment is poisoning childhood, a powerful lobby of academics and children's experts says today."

This is the academic equivalent of a green ink letter -- a confusion of outrage and opinions without visible means of support. I suspect that there is some truth in there somewhere: my own experiences with the Good Schools Guide suggest that the trend that they are talking about might be a real one. And, like the 110 signatories to the letter, I have my own views on what the causes might be. It is no good, though, letting our educational system being driven by one fashionable opinion after another: we need research.

Research in this area is pretty thin: the article refers to "research by Prof Michael Shayer at King's College, London, which showed that 11-year-olds measured in cognitive tests were "on average between two and three years behind where they were 15 years ago". I will dig up a copy of this paper through the House of Lords library, and see what it says: previous experience suggests that there is a fair chance that the headlines don't match the contents.

We don't have a proper system for commissioning and evaluating educational research. There's so much going on in schools that we could learn from, if only it was documented and tested properly. Lord Adonis (the education minister in the Lords) has hinted that there is something going on in this direction: it can't come too soon.

There's a good BBC comments page on this at http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=3752&&&edition=1&ttl=20060912104507

Bailiffs become Enforcement Agents

2006-09-11T22:27:00.000+01:00

Give us the money, or the dog gets it!

One delight which is helping while away the weeks of the long recess is the 544 pages of the draft Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill - http://www.dca.gov.uk/legist/tribenforce.htm - , published by the Department of Constitutional affairs on the 25th of July this year. Heavy going, and I find that I’m only able to tackle it in small chunks.

I am getting seriously worked up about the behaviour of bailiffs. Not that they have troubled me, yet, but I see a lot of them and their activities through my involvement with the London Motorists Action Group. It’s a particularly unpleasant effect of fining people for minor infringements, and allowing the people doing the fining to keep the fine, that defaulters are pursued as if they were malodorous foxes. And the huntsmen who are set upon them are bailiffs.

Just like foxhunting, it’s the weak that perish. Bullying, trickery, outright deception – nothing is too low for some bailiffs. Being two minutes late in collecting your car from a parking space, and being unequal to the rapacity of the system which will then track you down, can leave your facing two large and unhelpful young men demanding a mysteriously concocted £1000 with implied menaces. And now we have a bill that aims to make them even more powerful.

To celebrate the continued New Labour transition from the comfortable world we thought we knew to red in tooth and claw modernity, the quaint word “bailiff” is to be replaced by “enforcement agent”, and they will I expect be just as cold and ruthless as this phrase implies. Gone is the last pretence that an Englishman’s home is his castle: you will no longer be able to deny a bailiff entrance – an enforcement agent will be able to smash down the door and take what they want. Including the dog.

Powers like these ought to be very carefully controlled. And an enforcement agent who misbehaves ought to be in fear for his livelihood. People who just aren’t up to dealing with the system should find that it has a helpful and considerate face. The government knows that this is necessary – they admit as much in their introduction – they just have not got around to putting it into law, and seem content with a cobbling together of bits of the old system. It won’t do.