Education and Training (Welfare of Children) Bill

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

2nd reading
Friday 19th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have contributed to this debate today and pay particular tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, for sponsoring the Bill, and to the honourable Member for the City of Durham. It was a pleasure to meet the noble Baroness and I thank her for her efforts in developing the Bill and leading it successfully through this place. The importance we all place on safeguarding is underlined by the cross-party support and collaboration which has characterised, and I hope will continue to characterise, the passage of the Bill so far.

I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for raising the importance of protective measures for young people in a sports context. The distressing reports we have seen this week highlight yet again how vital it is to have an effective, transparent and relevant safeguarding regime. As the Minister responsible for out-of-school settings, I will look at these matters in detail. The noble Lord also raised the issue of children in supported accommodation. Where a child cannot live at home, it is one of the state’s most important responsibilities to ensure that they are kept safe and flourish. That is why local authorities have a duty to provide services to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their area. The situations he refers to concern accommodation, rather than education, but I am sure he is aware that we are banning, as of this September, the use of that accommodation for under-16s, and there will be a consultation on national minimum standards for those over 16 accommodated in that way.

The Bill will help streamline and simplify the current safeguarding system. It will give clarity on safeguarding to providers, students, apprentices and parents, making it easier to understand the protections that are in place. It will make the Secretary of State for Education directly accountable for ensuring that the terms of funding for post-16 education and training providers include safeguarding duties, further demonstrating the Government’s commitment to safeguarding. The Bill will ensure that safeguarding duties on providers of post-16 education or training will in future come from one of two sources: from the statute or the funding agreement with the Secretary of State. All providers must have regard to the statutory guidance, Keeping Children Safe in Education.

Our post-16 education and training landscape is diverse. It has evolved over time, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, outlined, to respond to our diverse education and training needs, but within this diversity a potential anomaly has been identified which might give rise to some confusion over safeguarding duties. It is important that I take this opportunity to reassure the House that all children in post-16 education and training are currently protected by safeguarding arrangements; I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, in particular. However, there has been complexity over the origin of those duties and, in safeguarding, it should be simple and clear. So, for example, the safeguarding duties at the moment for providers of T-levels or training to apprentices aged 17 and below are determined by the statutory regime applicable to that provider type and through funding agreements. In contrast, safeguarding arrangements in 16 to 19 academies are a condition of funding agreements.

The specific obligations in these funding agreements will differ according to when the agreements were entered into. Inconsistencies in these obligations make safeguarding more complex for providers than it needs to be, and this will increase the risk of things going wrong. The origin of the safeguarding duties was raised by those providers. It is an attempt to future-proof: if it is the Secretary of State’s obligation to put it in a funding agreement, it matters not what kind of provider evolves in the future; it must be within the funding agreement.

On the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, there is no change here to the funding of special educational needs placements; we have just brought into scope the specialist 16 to 19 providers. It will apply to any provider in the 16 to 19 sector where there is a contract and it is funded through the ESFA, which is basically public funding. The Bill will also ensure that the same safeguarding obligations that currently apply to schools are clearly placed on academy trusts in the 16 to 19 sector.

The Bill makes clear that all providers should have regard to the statutory guidance. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Young, there are annual updates to the guidance, but one year they will be technical updates and the following year substantive updates. It is unfortunate that, during Covid, we were in the process of doing the round of substantive updates, because the threats for children in education evolve and develop at pace. We now include specific sections on peer-to-peer abuse, on child exploitation, on county lines and so on. Unfortunately, the guidance needs to be looked at annually but, as I said, it is substantive one year and technical the next. However, having one set of guidance will make it simpler for providers to know what their duties are.

On the question raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady D’Souza and Lady Massey, the Secretary of State for Education is responsible for driving forward the policy on families and has appointed a specific adviser. We recognise that there is more to do on cross-government co-ordination but, to answer the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, in the Department for Education we have a mental health strategy task force group that is led by the Minister for Children and the Minister for Universities, Ministers Ford and Donelan.

The post-16 education and training provider landscape is diverse, but the safeguarding duty should be clear and universal. The changes in this Bill are important but technical. A provider which is already fulfilling its safeguarding duty would not need to make any practical changes. This Bill should not lead to any additional costs or burdens on education or training providers—in fact, quite the opposite.

The Government are pleased to be able to support this Bill. It simplifies the current system and clarifies the duties and obligations on education and training providers. Ultimately, its overwhelming purpose is to keep children safe in education.