Month: May 2018

Lord Puttnam contributes to Education Regulations Debate

Lord Puttnam made the following contribution to the Education (Student Support) Regulations 2018 Debate at the House of Lords, Monday 21st May:

My Lords, I support the Motion of my noble friend Lord Hunt. I hope to help the Minister with some experiences from the past, which I think are very germane.

My noble friend Lord Hunt and I entered this House on exactly the same day: 5 November 1997. He came as someone with great authority and experience in the National Health Service; I came from a terribly different world, with the specific job of working for Lord Blunkett, then the Secretary of State for Education. We had a crisis in teaching and with teachers. I commend to the House the front page of the Times Educational Supplement from 6 April 2018. It states:

“Missing: 47,000 secondary teachers. In a system already struggling to fill the gaps, some are thinking the unthinkable: is it time for teaching without teachers?”

I would add this: is it time for nursing without nurses?

The situation is very serious because any possibility that the Minister and his department have of resolving the problem depends entirely on the pipeline supplied by the teaching profession. That has a time factor attached to it, which is very important. It took the Blair Government—I worked constantly at the department for education—six years to get back to equilibrium after the teaching crisis. We were desperately short of teachers —close to the same number we are short of today.

Here is the problem: a demographic bulge will hit us in 2024. At that point, we will be short of something close to 50,000 secondary teachers. It is totally predictable; we can see it coming. It happens to be coming at a time when the number of graduates entering the profession are, necessarily, quite light because of an inverted demographic. We had an enormous problem. This Government have an enormous problem, and unless they solve their educational pipeline problem, by ensuring that there are enough teachers in the system, the worse the nursing problem will get.

I commend the past to the Minister. We learned a powerful lesson between 1997 and 2003. Unless the Minister wants to revisit a similar lesson in the National Health Service, he must address this issue now.

The full debate is available on the Hansard website.

Activities Media

Lord Puttnam contributes to Data Protection Bill Debate

Lord Puttnam made the following contribution to the Data Protection Bill debate at the House of Lords, Monday 14th May:

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, made the point that there were few journalists here. As far as I know, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and I are the only remaining film-makers—and I think that we do know how to edit. I would very much like to support the amendment perfectly set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. It should not be necessary to say this in your Lordships’ House but, once again, I reiterate that I am the proud son of a journalist and would die in a ditch to protect a responsible and fearless free press. But freedom of any sort brings its own responsibilities, and the greatest of these is the sustaining of trust. This short debate is all about trust.

The Minister in another place said he was being “forward-looking”. I am sure that I speak for many in this House when I suggest that the most forward-looking ambition that we share is the possibility that we might, over time, regain the trust of the people of this country in the quality and integrity of Parliament. As I see it, this ambition trumps all others—and to judge by recent coverage in our national press we are not coming from a particularly good place in that respect.

On the evidence of the past 20 years or so, much of the national press takes the position that its role in society is so important that Parliament needs to get over itself, and understand that in the real world you cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs. The view that it appears to advance is that, to remain sustainable, injustice, distortion, deception, abuse and even at times criminality are the price that society is required to pay for a robust, unfettered press. What if the Church took a similar position with regard to misconduct in its own ranks, or our judges argued that an acceptance of illegal practice in the collection of evidence was a necessary price to pay in the pursuit of justice? At the height of the financial crisis we came close to being persuaded by the banks that their reckless behaviour was justified by the pressures placed on them by their shareholders. I would argue, as has been very well put many times during the passage of this Bill, that society cannot afford the luxury of entirely unconstrained freedoms—not in the law, the Church, the financial sector, social media and even the press.

The reasons why Leveson 2 is necessary were well explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, in setting out her amendment. Personally, I have not the slightest doubt that such a review would reveal an extensive and entirely improper set of relationships between the press, politicians and the police, with the very real possibility that significant cases of actual obstruction of justice would come to light. It seems just possible that, in that making that suggestion, I have stumbled across the real reason for the Government’s desire to scrap this second and, to my mind, more important inquiry.

I have just two specific questions to put to the Minister. First, having checked, I can find no record of the former Prime Minister having expressed a view on the unprecedented repudiation of his commitment to Parliament, let alone the breach of his well-publicised personal promises to the victims of press abuse. Has he been asked about, and has he indeed endorsed, the recent decision by the Secretary of State? Is Mr Cameron prepared to meet the victims to explain what factors or new revelations encouraged him to change his mind on this matter—if he has? Possibly the Minister, or even the media, might choose to inquire. Further, does Minister feel that the precedent set by the decision to scrap Leveson 2 is likely to enhance or diminish the likelihood of overcoming the challenge I referred to at the outset—the ambition of all responsible politicians to develop greater public belief in the honesty and integrity of Parliament in general and of the Government that he serves in particular?

The debate can be found in full on the Hansard website.

Activities Education

Academy Award winner joins RMIT as Adjunct Professor

Source: RMIT Australia Website, Story by Karen Phelan

Lord Puttnam is joining RMIT University as an Adjunct Professor.

Recently announced as an Ambassador for RMIT’s Capitol Theatre Appeal, Lord Puttnam will now take up the role of Adjunct Professor in an appointment that combines his two passions; film and education.

As Adjunct Professor, he will advance RMIT’s relationship with global film and television industries, and provide high level advice to the University’s screen based programs.

Dean of the School of Media and Communication Professor Lisa French said it was a prestigious appointment for the University.

“We are delighted that Lord David Puttnam will join us as an Adjunct Professor. He holds the highest status in his field of film and television and he has made an enormous contribution to screen education and the community,” she said.

“He has a global profile having been Chairman and Chief Executive of Columbia Pictures in the 1980s.

“His passionate advocacy for film and screen education makes him ideally placed to take up this role and he will make a significant contribution to our screen based activities.”

Lord Puttnam joins a number of significant Australian Adjuncts at RMIT, including Sue Maslin (The Dressmaker), Robert Connolly (Balibo) and Fiona Eagger (Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries).

On a recent trip to Melbourne, Lord Puttnam reminisced about the Capitol Theatre’s influence on the Australian film industry and was enthusiastic about RMIT’s vision to reactivate it as a cultural landmark, a centre for cutting-edge tertiary education and a creative space for the community.

“What will happen here is the recreation of something quite extraordinary, a magnificent building, which at the same time will become a wonderful learning resource, for students at RMIT, and for the people of Melbourne," he said.

Lord Puttnam’s appointment has been welcomed by key figures in the industry, including Mark Poole, Victorian Chair of the Australian Directors Guild.

"Lord David Puttnam is an outstanding filmmaker of global importance. Beginning in the late 1970s, he achieved world-wide recognition,” he said.

“His many awards testify to the standing of his films and his significance on the global stage. RMIT is very fortunate that he has agreed to work take up the position as Adjunct Professor".

Lord Puttnam’s significant and well known films include Chariots of Fire and Midnight Express.

He is one of a number of influential RMIT Capitol Theatre Appeal Ambassadors including Academy Award-winning animation writer, director and producer Adam Elliot, John Kirby AM, Deputy Chairman at Village Roadshow; RMIT alumnus and British Film Institute (BFI) Head of Festivals Clare Stewart; and RMIT Adjunct Professor Sue Maslin, Producer of The Dressmaker.

RMIT’s vision to restore the RMIT Capitol Theatre will transform the theatre into a centre for cutting-edge tertiary education, as well as a cultural landmark and creative space for Melbourne. RMIT has committed to match every donation to the appeal dollar for dollar, and we’ll be acknowledging the names of all donors (or their nominated family member) who give $250 or more in a special feature within the building.

For more information and to make your valued contribution to the RMIT Capitol Theatre Appeal, visit rmit.edu.au/capitol.

Activities Recent Activities

Lord Puttnam & EU Withdrawal Bill Debate

On Monday, the House of Lords voted through an amendment to the EU withdrawal bill to give parliament a “genuinely meaningful” vote at the end of Brexit negotiations. During the debate, Lord Puttnam made an intervention on behalf of young people and their feelings towards Brexit:

“My Lords, I would like to speak briefly making a single point. The word “overwhelming” has tortured this House over the past many months — the notion that somehow or other the 52:48 majority was ‘overwhelming’. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, overwhelming equates to massive; it was not massive—it was narrow or marginal. What is overwhelming is the support for ‘remain’ from young people generally in this country, amounting to around 70% of all young people and 80% in the case of young people with a degree.

The point that I would like to make to the Minister is that those 80% of young people are the ones we will rely upon to drive this country post-Brexit to any form of economic success. We are going to be wholly dependent on them; so do not diminish their belief in their European future by pretending that the result of the referendum represents the views or wishes of the overwhelming majority of young people in this country.”

The full debate and Lord Puttnam's intervention can be found on the Hansard website: https://goo.gl/7uc7Rz

Subscribe to our Newsletter