Relationships, Sex and Health Education: Statutory Guidance

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

In relation to the very disturbing case that my noble friend cited, of course, primary school children are taught from a very young age about their personal safety, the safety of their bodies and the boundaries that should be respected. That is perhaps the age-appropriate way for such issues, we believe, to give a child like the one my noble friend mentioned a chance to talk to an adult safely and for the abuse that she suffers to be addressed. In relation to sex education in primary schools, parents cannot veto the curriculum. What we are saying is that parents have a right to see the curriculum and, of course, in primary parents also have a right to withdraw their children from sex education, if they so wish.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, the Statement says that this is about teaching children facts, not pushing the agendas of campaign groups. With that in mind, will the Minister provide details of the groups which lobbied for this change? The Government will of course have done due diligence, so she can give us details of their ideology and funding? Can she say what meetings Ministers and their advisers had with the representatives of those groups? Could she also give details of contact between Ministers and advisers and the EHRC on this matter?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I may need to follow up in writing. I think it is important to put on record that this guidance was pulled together by an independent panel. I am sure the noble Baroness is not questioning the integrity of that panel. I would like to reiterate that they have brought great expertise to this, and we have followed their advice. There is nothing ideological in this. It is dealing with facts rather than ideology.

Gender Recognition (Approved Countries and Territories and Saving Provision) Order 2023

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Henley (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for trying to get in to speak before her. I want to make only a brief intervention in this debate, merely because I am intrigued to know about the list of approved countries and territories and what is included. We have in the Explanatory Note a list of the countries that were included in 2011. It includes quite a lot of Australian states and territories, some of which have, I think, been added to this list. It then goes on to include others, including—as one would expect—countries of a progressive sort, such as Sweden.

What I find particularly peculiar is that it then includes countries such as Iran. What is the Iranian legislation on this matter? Are we allowed to see it? Is it appropriate? Is Iranian legislation really fit for purpose on a matter of this sort? I appreciate that, as my noble friend put it, only 4% of applicants are using the overseas route, so we are talking about tiny numbers, but the inclusion of countries such as Iran and one or two others—I shall not mention them, but Iran is probably the most obvious—requires some proper explanation from the Government about why they are there and what is the Iranian legislation behind it.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction of this SI. As she said, last December the Minister for Women and Equalities, Kemi Badenoch MP, announced that she was planning to update the approved list of countries and territories and remove countries that do not require a medical diagnosis in order to gain legal gender recognition. Her statement was based on a belief that checks and balances and a medical diagnosis are required. There is no evidence of higher crime rates or higher risks to women in those jurisdictions which use self-declaration of gender, so Minister Badenoch’s belief is unsupported by the evidence.

According to the Government’s statistics, fewer than 50 gender recognition certifications were granted through the overseas path in 2022-23 and the average number granted each year in the period from 2009 to 2020 was approximately 17. There is no breakdown of the countries where the original legal gender recognition was granted and there is no data about whether any of the individuals who gained legal gender recognition in the UK using this route have been prosecuted or convicted of any criminal offence. The actual impact of removing various countries is minimal according to the number of GRCs issued, but it may have important repercussions for those who are currently eligible but will not be under this proposed order, and there is no evidence that these individuals should have their current right removed. There is no reason to do so.

The impact of these proposals is unknown, due to the lack of statistics around the countries of origin and crime, but we should not assume that it is negligible. The Council of Europe’s Resolution 2048, which was passed in 2015, says that states should

“develop quick, transparent and accessible procedures, based on self-determination, for changing the name and registered sex of transgender people on birth certificates, identity cards, passports, educational certificates and other similar documents; make these procedures available for all people who seek to use them, irrespective of age, medical status, financial situation or police record”.

The UK remains a member of the Council of Europe, which is not the same organisation as the European Union.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said, Germany remains on the list of approved countries despite introducing legal gender recognition by self-declaration in August 2023. Ireland is not on the current list, and it is not on the proposed list. It is proposed to remove recognition by parts of Australia, the entirety of New Zealand, certain states in the USA and lots of European Union countries. India and China have been added. India allows hijra to be recognised as a third gender, as well as allowing transition between male and female. It places surgical requirements for recognition as male or female, but the recognition is granted by a district magistrate. However, very few people are able to access the law due to difficulties in getting appropriate healthcare and fighting discrimination. In short, there is no consistency in the application process for the proposed countries.

However, there is one thing in common: they do not follow either the UN’s or the Council of Europe’s recommendations—that is the only thing. We are getting to the real reason why this Government, and Minister Badenoch in particular, chose to do this. This is the Government who could not find time to ban conversion therapy and the harm that that does to our community, and this is the Government who are seeking to remove a lot of protections from the LGBT community. Yet they found time to do this, which is likely to affect 20 people at most—people for whom there is absolutely no evidence that they pose any threat to anybody at all.

This is part of this Government’s ongoing war on human rights and the protections that human rights afford to minorities. It is part of their ongoing campaign to destroy human rights and the organisations set up to protect the rights of people who are, and should continue to be, protected under equalities legislation. The message from this legislation to the LGBT community is clear: you are no longer safe while this Government are in office. It is high time that they should go.

Life Skills and Citizenship

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I was lucky enough to be a member of the committee that looked at this issue, so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. In our report, The Ties That Bind, we found that citizenship education, which should be the first great opportunity for instilling our values and encouraging social cohesion, was often being subsumed into individual development. This is undoubtedly important, but it is not the same as learning about the political and social structure of the country, how it is governed, how laws are made and how they are enforced by an independent judiciary. It also does not offer an opportunity for practising civic engagement in schools, local communities and beyond. We said then that the Government should reprioritise the subject by enabling a target for every secondary school in the country to have a dedicated, qualified teacher.

The Government’s main instrument for delivering citizenship programmes is the National Citizen Service. I am a long-standing critic of this organisation. It was born with a huge endowment of political will from the Conservative Party, and it was given the status of a royal charter body, which it neither needed nor merited. It receives £63 million—the lion’s share of government funding for youth services. Its website lists eight things that it does: everything from health and well-being to working together for success and employability. Deep down, in the middle of that list, is citizenship and British values. There is no detail about any of the work it does with schools, other than statistics about the number of people and places that have been engaged on short programmes that last for six weeks in the summer. It has a new chair and a new strategy for the next five years. Will the Minister agree that now is the time to have a proper comparative analysis of the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of the National Citizen Service, as opposed to that of other organisations that have a long history of working in this field?

The Ties that Bind: Citizenship and Civic Engagement in the 21st Century Follow-Up Report

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, not least for his tenacity in bringing these reports again and again to the attention of Ministers. I say that because it is particularly galling to see the evident indifference of successive Ministers to these reports, which have been the subject of a great deal of work, thought and consideration. It is really important. Citizenship is becoming increasingly fragile. We have a Government at the moment who, remarkably, in the wake of Windrush, seem to spend more energy and time devising innovative means to deny or deprive individuals of citizenship. I truly believe that citizenship, the ties that bind us, is a crucially important part of a healthy society which lives at peace with itself in all its diversity.

I just want to take my time to pick up on a couple of things. The first is the National Citizen Service. Since its inception, I have been sceptical about the organisation. I have never disagreed with its basic premise: that young people can and should be encouraged to develop their personal skills by taking part in projects or short programmes which benefit communities. Every Government for the last 30 years have had programmes which have tried to mitigate the effects of unemployment and bring about community benefit through volunteering. My objection has always been that the NCS, despite having no intrinsic unique value, just high-profile political endorsement, was awarded royal charter body status, which it neither needed nor deserved, and that in an area where resources are really scarce, it continues to devour the lion’s share of what is available. That is despite a lack of evidence that it either delivers better tangible results than other organisations or is the most cost-effective option.

In both of our reports, we talked to the representatives of the NCS and also to Ministers to try and understand what it was doing and where it fitted in with everything else. We were so alarmed about the lack of resources for training and for schools. We particularly talked to both about the role of the NCS. We got a reply from the Ministers that said that the

“National Citizen Service Trust’s primary function is to provide and arrange for the provision of programmes for 16 and 17 year olds in England. National Citizen Service Trust works closely with hundreds of schools through the Skills Booster initiative to deliver, or help deliver, curriculum resources to support young people’s personal development, volunteering and social action”.

I spend a lot of time looking at the NCS’s reports; I recommend that people do that. If you look at the latest available report, the NCS says that it facilitated the return to education of 60,000 young people in 400 institutions. As far as I can see, that was about support to young people trying to return to it after all the difficulties of lockdown. It cites itself as working on issues such as communication, teamwork, goal setting and planning. Well, that is fine, but quite why the NCS should do this, as opposed to any other educational support services, is really not clear to me. I really have to question the work of the NCS.

A point that I have made before is that the NCS commissions its own evaluation, and the evaluations which it has had are not comparative in any way, so it marks its own homework. You get lots and lots of statistics which, in and of themselves, are very interesting, but they really do not prove that this body is the best way to deliver outcomes. So I yet again ask the Minister when there will be a review of the NCS which is undertaken independently and which places it within the context of the two reports that we have produced. Its reports talk about it being part of a sort of ecosystem of youth support, local government and all of that, but it really does come across when you go to see it as much more of a lone ranger pursuing its own objectives.

The second thing that I, too, want to talk about is the Life in the UK test. I commend the work of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, under the chairmanship of my formidable colleague, my noble friend Lady Hamwee. On 28 June last year, it wrote Kevin Foster MP a letter which I would say was polite but firm. In it, it was very clear; it said that the stakes for anybody taking a Life in the UK test are “very high”; if you fail that test, you may find yourself being deported, losing your income, and failing to get your indefinite leave to remain, so it is a really important and profound thing. It also said that it was really important that

“social cohesion, education, active participation, and the celebration of prospective citizens and permanent residents”

should all be at the heart of demonstrating sufficient knowledge about life in the UK. But it has said, and members of the committee have endorsed this, is that frankly, to people sitting that test, it is baffling. They are asked questions which they simply do not understand, and they do not understand why they are being asked these questions and what they will do to help them be any more fully engaged in society.

The committee of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, suggested that yet again we were having a promise of a review. It has been years since this review has been promised but what we really need and I am glad the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, has had an email, I do not think I have—

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

I am sorry, I think I may have imagined or misread an email from earlier in the day, so I am sorry if I have sent hares running. I apologise.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

Okay, I am not going to go chasing hares. We need a timetable for the start of this review and for its completion because it has been dragging on for so long, it is an embarrassment.

I was particularly taken by the description that said that the history section of the Life in the UK test is insensitive and embarrassing. It truly is. It is so full of subjective views of our history. As the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern said, all sorts of practical information that every individual might need to live life in this country is not there.

One other thing that nobody has yet talked about is the lack of availability of centres to take the test and the not inconsiderable cost of sitting the test. By the time you have bought the book and booked everything up it can be in excess of £300 to do this test on which your future rests.

All roads round, I think it is quite clear that the Government have for far too long just dragged their heels on this. I think it is an initiative that was started by a Labour Government. It was always going to be contentious but everybody accepts it could be an enormously valuable contribution to citizenship for communities. I do not know whether Members have gone along to a local citizenship ceremony but it is a lovely thing to watch communities celebrating and welcoming people to come and live.

I simply say to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that she is on a very unfortunate wicket this afternoon but I hope that she will not be, like a long line of her predecessors, somebody who bats us off with very little detail and no commitments because we do ourselves an injustice if we let this go any further.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

My Lords, I now invite the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, to take part remotely.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group: Amendment 137D and 143IB. Amendment 137D replicates Amendment 171V that I had in an earlier group, for children who are home educated or out of school long-term for other reasons.

Amendment 137D sets out that a local authority must take account of the advice of a doctor, social worker or youth offending officer when considering school attendance orders. This comes back to the issue that I have talked about often in these groups, where some parents have their children out of school not because they want to but because their child is not safe in school, whether that is for medical, psychological or other reasons. For the reasons I said earlier, and I will not go through them again, many parents say that the officer at their local authority refused to acknowledge the reasons why the pupil was out of school. This amendment ensures that the advice of the relevant independent expert must be taken into account when considering orders and school nomination notice for a school attendance order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I oppose Clause 49, and the other clauses and the schedule set out in the group, standing part of the Bill. I do so partly because the Bill is such a mess. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, pointed out that a lot more discussion is needed on it, but we also need to facilitate a debate on the rights of home-schooling families. That is not clear to the families themselves, nor to me because of the Bill.

We have already had extensive debates on this on previous groups, so I will not go on, but I will briefly reflect the worry that many home-schooling families have expressed to me and to other noble Lords. The Minister said on Monday that the Government are not criminalising anything and that it is dangerous to talk in these terms, but that is the sort of language that we have heard from home educators; that is how they feel. If that is not right, they need to be told, and told clearly. They are genuinely fearful that their way of life will be trammelled by this legislation and that the state will use the legal system against them.

Can the Minister please take this opportunity to make a clear statement to home-schooling families about what the legislation means for them, what safeguards will be in place to protect their way of life and what work the Government will do to ensure that positive support, rather than coercion, is provided by local authorities? There are some points from Monday’s debate that might be worth reiterating, but I am aware that it is getting on and it would be wonderful to get through the Bill today.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely on this group. I therefore invite her to speak now.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has already expressed the worries from home educators and why she is opposing the clause standing part. My queries are more probing as to whether these clauses and the schedule should stand part.

On Clause 49 on school attendance orders, many Peers have already raised a surfeit of problems during the debate. Unlike the current system on the government website that I described, there is no sense of a ladder of penalties, of support between each stage before progressing on, or how local authorities will work as constructively as they can with parents and pupils before the process for school attendance orders kicks in. I know that the Minister said before the break that the guidance will talk about support. The problem is that, if that guidance is not in the Bill or referred to in the Bill, it might easily be missed and ignored.

On Clause 50 and failure to comply with the school attendance order, I want to come back to something the Minister said at the end of the debate on the first group. I am sorry, and I appreciate that the Minister is probably getting frustrated by this, but I have frustrations myself. She said in response to my question that prison terms were increasing from three months to 51 weeks because magistrates’ powers were now being increased from three months to 51 weeks. In fact, the current maximum is six months. It is going up to 51 weeks, but it is not currently three months. I was slightly bemused by that.

Usually, a maximum prison sentence is defined by the level of the offence, not the sentencing power of the court that is going to hear it. That is exactly why I quoted examples of crimes that would receive sentences of up to six months—threatening someone with a weapon or a second offence of possession of a gun. The example that I gave of a 12-month sentence—I appreciate that 51 weeks is not quite 12 months—was of very serious harassment and stalking, over an extended period, which involved a large team of police investigating over many months, not to mention the distress it caused to the 30 people who were the targets.

I am hearing from the Minister’s response that the drafters decided that, because magistrates will have the opportunity to sentence a convicted criminal to up to 51 weeks, that should be in the Bill. There are three worries and three groups of people involved in this. First and most importantly, what is the impact on children of a parent, especially if it is a single parent, going to prison? For three months, a temporary foster placement or possibly a short-term placement with kinship carers might be possible, but social services view a 51-week sentence very differently, even if the parent comes out after half the sentence has been served.

The second is the impact on prisons. We already know that our prisons are overcrowded. I have no idea of the numbers the Minister thinks are likely to be involved, but it might be useful to have an indication. The third is the impact on the parent who is themselves imprisoned. I ask the Minister if the Ministry of Justice has said that it is content with lines 18 to 20 in Clause 50 and this new, much-increased maximum sentence of 51 weeks.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will be taking part remotely in this group. I invite the noble Baroness to take part.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, especially today when the Anti-Bullying Alliance is asking all of us to encourage children to talk to someone if they are isolated, depressed or bullied. We know that they are not alone, but of course they feel fearfully alone.

Amendment 145 returns us to the issue of mental health in children in schools, which I raised in earlier parts of the Bill. It looks specifically at school attendance policy and ensuring that any mental health illness that has contributed to truancy is taken into account. That is helpful and fits neatly with my other amendments about following the advice of a doctor.

Amendment 170 is more general, and asks for Ofsted to assess the mental health of a student body—the overall health of all children in a school. We know that children and young people, their parents, their families, Ministers and parliamentarians are all too aware of the effect of the pandemic on their mental health. It is really important that we learn from that.

That is why I am particularly pleased to see Amendment 171M placing a duty on the Secretary of State to report each year on the physical health and mental health of children at school in England. This is particularly helpful, especially with all the concerns expressed recently. I particularly like the physical side: we all talk all the time about how important it is that children take exercise and that they eat properly. On all sides of the House, we discuss it often. But I do not think we actually assess what is happening in schools. For the Secretary of State to have to prepare an annual report on this will be extraordinarily helpful. I particularly like, in the amendment, proposed new paragraph (b)(iii) and (iv), which specifies

“the length of time spent by pupils waiting for mental health support provided through their school”

and

“the adequacy of provision of mental health support in and through schools.”

That is because at the moment there is no focus. We keep saying that schools are the front line of mental health problems; indeed, we know that money has been put in by the NHS to provide counselling services, but we need to be able to see how long children are waiting and whether that money is sufficient. I have to say, wearing my health portfolio hat, that we know that mental health is still really underfunded, so we need to understand if delays continue even after some of this money has reached the front line.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, is absolutely right: the NHS cannot do this on its own. But I would go further: managing children’s mental health problems must be a joint venture between the child’s school and their access to mental health services. By cataloguing this in a report, the Secretary of State can be held accountable, alongside the Secretary of State for Health, for making sure that the Government deliver on their promises for mental health for our children.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

Amendment 68 agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

My Lords, I cannot call Amendment 71 due to pre-emption.

Amendments 72 to 74 not moved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I acknowledge the good manners of my noble friend Lord Hunt in not finding it too cheeky that we seek to amend his amendment. Our aim is pretty clear: we want to make sure that, on occasions when the governing body wants to see flexibility when a school joins a MAT, it is able to have that. We think it is important to recognise that that can sometimes occur. It may want to address a particular priority, and that may be one of the driving forces for its desire to join a MAT. We very much support my noble friend’s desire to protect pupils if their school joins a MAT; we are just keen to make sure there is a bit of flexibility. We agree completely that there must be transparency and financial safeguards when a school joins a MAT and I echo everything that my noble friend said.

Moving on, our Amendment 79C draws Ministers’ attention to our concerns about the fundamental inequality in educational outcomes between regions. We are deeply concerned about regional disparities that are growing in education and we think they have worsened since the pandemic. In its recent report, the Education Select Committee in the other place found that disadvantaged pupils could be

“five, six, seven—in the worst-case scenarios eight—months behind”,

according to regional data. By the second half of the autumn term 2020, the average learning loss for maths for primary pupils was 5.3 months in Yorkshire, compared with 0.5 months in the south-west—I think 0.5 months probably means a fortnight. By March 2021, the National Tutoring Programme had reached 100% of its target number of schools in the south-west, 96.1% in the south-east, but just 58.8% in the north-east and 59.3% in the north-west.

More broadly, children in Yorkshire and the Humber are 12 times more likely to be attending an underperforming school than their counterparts in other areas of England. Perhaps it is no surprise that schools across the north have lost out on funding, despite having a higher proportion of poorer pupils. Research by the House of Commons Library found that schools in London got more money per pupil last year, despite having fewer children on free school meals, than in areas further north. Schools in London, where 22.6% of children are eligible for free school meals, received an average of £5,647 per pupil in cash terms in 2021. The figure in the north-east was £4,919, even though it has the highest proportion of pupils qualifying for free school meals, at 27.5%. In the north-west, according to the House of Commons Library, where 23.8% of children are eligible for free school meals, schools got £4,925 per pupil. This is not about doing down children in London, but about highlighting inequality of funding and of outcomes. We believe there is a connection.

We should remind ourselves that the funding of schools since 2010 has been shameful. Cuts to education over the past decade were without precedent in post-war history, according to the IFS, but the pain has not been felt equally across the system. The most deprived one-fifth of secondary schools had a 14% real-terms fall in spending per pupil between 2009 and 2019, compared with a 9% drop in the least deprived schools. So our Amendment 79C asks the Secretary of State to report on outcomes and the financial health of schools by region. We are asking for this because we want MPs and Peers to be able to challenge Ministers on their success or otherwise in addressing regional inequalities in education.

We understand that it is possible now to tease out the information we are looking for from various data, from commissioning, from the House of Commons Library, the House of Lords Library and reports from research organisations, trade unions and others who make a point of looking for this information in a way that enables us to see the full picture. At the moment, the Government do not have an obligation to do it in that way. We think that if we do not collect and present the information in a standardised, regular way, it is too easy to take our eye off the ball. We want to be able to see what is happening in different regions over time, because at the moment we are at a bit of a disadvantage. The truth about what the Government are doing to entrench—or, I hope, address—the relative performance of schools across regions is not shown in the way we think it could be.

All these amendments stem from the lack of information in the Bill on the funding formula. We are very worried about the removal of local authorities from the process. The Explanatory Notes say explicitly that local authorities have the most detailed knowledge about the needs of their local schools, so why are they being treated in this way? There are a number of reasons a local authority might wish to have a role in funding allocations, including those referred to by my noble friends in Amendment 97, which looks at specialist services.

Amendment 86A emphasises the need to take the index of multiple deprivation into account. The reason we are so concerned about this is because the National Audit Office’s recent report into schools funding says that the government should

“evaluate the impact of the national funding formula”.

It is quite explicit in its recommendation:

“In particular, the Department should review whether the shift in the balance of funding from more deprived areas to less deprived areas, and from more deprived schools to less deprived schools, means it is adequately meeting its objective of matching resources to need.”


We feel that currently it is not; hence our amendment asking the Government to be more explicit in the way they look at deprivation. I accept that the amendment could probably be better worded, but I wanted to raise the issue with the Minister now and explore whether there is something we can do through the Bill to enable our concerns to be dealt with.

We think Amendment 92 is sensible and encourages partnership. I am very sympathetic to Amendment 94, referring to transport for 16 to 18 year-olds. Obviously, we would need a full understanding of the cost of that, but I understand completely why that is something we should aspire to deliver. In a local authority area near me, Redcar and Cleveland, there is nowhere to do A-levels. It is not like living in a city, where you can choose between colleges and access them all easily; it is very hard for young people who find themselves living somewhere where a choice of post-16 education is not available. Amendment 85 asks for impact assessments on the national funding formula in rural areas. We have no issue with that at all: it is looking for transparency and understanding of the way the funding formula is impacting different areas of the country in different ways, and we do not have that currently. I beg to move Amendment 79ZA.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is participating remotely. I invite her to speak now.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am a signatory to Amendment 86 in this group, tabled by my noble friend Lord Storey, who unfortunately cannot be in his place today. Our amendment requires the funding formula to be accompanied by an assessment of the funding to support pupils disrupted by Covid and the ability of schools to support such pupils. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, for going into a lot more detail than I propose to do this evening.

I want to make two points. The first is a broader one. The extra funding for post-Covid catch-up is welcome, but how much of it is essentially baseline budget, and what is the impact of that on small rural schools, versus the highly targeted catch-up funding for those pupils who need it? I will discuss one particular group of pupils in a minute.

I note that the notification on all schools and colleges that will receive the extra funding for catch-up, published by the Government recently, talks about the additional investment also supporting the delivery of a £30,000 starting salary for teachers, alongside a further £1.8 billion dedicated to supporting young people to catch up.

Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Lords Chamber

I ask the Government to think again.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, the process by which we have arrived at the document before us has been very lengthy. There has been a very extensive consultation, and Members of all parties in both Houses who took part in it and have brought the matter to this point should feel proud of what they have done. Two people who have not been mentioned today deserve a degree of recognition. As Ministers in the department in the early stages, Justine Greening and Nick Gibb started this process and saw it through. Today, we have arrived at a very well-considered set of proposals, which are a compromise. Inevitably, a compromise is open to attack from both sides; none the less, this one is rather important.

I, like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, believe utterly in the welfare of children being paramount. I noticed that in referring to certain cases he went back to 1977, but he will know that one of the opening statements of the Children Act 1989 is that the welfare of children is paramount. I happen to believe that that means that no child should be withdrawn from education designed to protect their welfare, but I am prepared to concede that parents should have a right to withdraw their children up to a point. I believe the Government have been right to set the age limit to the point where a child is within three terms of reaching 16 because we know that children at that point are extremely vulnerable, particularly if they have not had education about what represents safe relationships and sex.

I took part in two meetings that were part of the wide consultation that brought us to this point. One was a meeting with Nick Gibb. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, was there giving us the benefit of her years of wisdom and experience. Nick Gibb made the point, which was also eloquently put by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, that some people are ideologically opposed while some have genuine concerns about what might be taught to their children; we should not equate the two.

I wish we could trust every parent to do the right thing—we cannot. I wish we could trust every teacher to do the right thing—we cannot. But teachers are subject to inspection and regulation of what they do so, ultimately, if a child is missing out in school, it will be found in that way. It is important therefore that, on balance, we give educators a greater role in this than perhaps some people would like.

I want to address the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham about why it should be important to teach relationship education in primary schools. The education of small children—children in primary schools—is about educating them to understand the world. They learn from the world around them. They learn from the relationships that they know and understand. It is a process of explaining to children what good relationships are, which may not be the relationships they know. This is important. It is about educating them as individuals to know what a good relationship is like and what should be happening to them. It is not about encouraging them to develop sexual relationships inappropriately at a young age; it is the opposite. It is about protecting them from relationships that are inappropriate.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

If the noble Baroness heard me say that I do not believe relationship education should be given in primary schools, she completely misheard me. What I raised was the question of whether parents should have the right to withdraw their children if they so wish. I agree with everything the noble Baroness has just said about why we teach about relationships in primary school.

[Baroness Barker]

In that case I hope that, when the right reverend Prelate looks at some of the materials from the Catholic Education Service and from the NSPCC—its PANTS materials, for example—he will understand that it is possible to arrive at an education in primary school that should be acceptable to a parent who wishes the best for their child.

In view of all this, I have two points to raise with the Minister. First, it is laid out in these regulations that all schools must teach relationships and sex education, and they will have to teach what the law says in this country. They are at liberty to do this within an overall framework that is compatible with their beliefs, but they cannot choose not to educate children about the law. So where parents or pupils find themselves subject to education built upon materials that do not fulfil that part of the guidance, what would be the route through which they can seek a remedy?

Finally, I want to talk about a subject that has not received much attention at all: that is, disabled children. I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health. While the consultation was going on, we had a meeting and brought into Parliament people who are disabled and people who are specialists in talking to children with disabilities as part of sex education. It is an incredibly difficult and embarrassing thing to do. Bear in mind that some of those children will be cared for in institutions by some of the same people are who are doing the educating. It is very highly skilled work.

Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I reassure the noble Lord that FGM is absolutely in the new guidance. It has been added as an extra subject. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said in the other place today, this is not just about educating young girls for their own protection but about changing the attitude to this in the long term so that those who go on to become nurses, doctors and health workers will understand the pure evil it represents.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to good tools and materials such as those made available by the Sex Education Forum, but he will know that there are a lot of tools and materials produced by groups that have a particular perspective that they wish to push that would not comply with the objectives of these regulations. What guidance could he offer to pupils, staff or parents in a school who find themselves forced to use materials that do not fulfil the objectives set out in these regulations?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I reassure the noble Baroness that we will provide further advice to support schools to improve the practice and training that could be delivered using the latest technology, including opportunities for face-to-face training for teachers. We intend to produce supporting information by September for schools on how to teach all aspects of internet safety, not just those relating to relationships, sex and health, and to help schools deliver this in a co-ordinated and coherent way across the curriculum. They will of course be free to seek advice from the department on whether the various forums that are out there are considered good. I mentioned that forum because I did not get to my notes quickly enough, but there are several others, such as the PSHE Association; the Royal Foundation, set up by the two Dukes, which focuses on mental health; and the Catholic Education Service, which has also created a model curriculum for primary and secondary schools.

Relationships and Sex Education

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point. The key point that I would like to make is that this is the first change to this part of education for 18 years, which is extraordinary when you think that 18 years ago very few children owned a mobile phone, and Facebook did not even exist—so this is a major step forward to bring us into the 21st century. The Secretary of State said today that this would be kept under review every three years or so, to make sure that we were keeping on top of any further developments that occur in the online world. I gave the noble Lord, Lord Storey, a taste of some of the things that we are including, although I did not give the whole list. To give the noble Baroness some reassurance, it includes strengthened content around areas such as relationship focus and bullying, including cyberbullying. We are very alert to this—it is so important.

I can tell you a terrible story in my own life as an academy sponsor. Last year, in one of our schools a young girl of 16 went on a date with a boy. They ended up in bed together, and the next day the boy boasted on Facebook, and the girl was so mortified that she hanged herself—dead. That is the reality. That boy will have to carry that for the rest of his life, and a young girl lost her life. So there is no one more passionate about this than me.

[Baroness Barker]

My Lords, I declare my interest as the chair of the All-Party Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health. I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, and I too think that Justine Greening deserves great commendation for having started this, and that Nick Gibb deserves credit for taking it through. This is clearly a very carefully worded document and I very much welcome its main intention.

There are just two things that I take the opportunity to pick up. The first is about pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. There are very few people who are expert in the field of developing materials and delivering training for talking to people with disabilities, including learning disabilities or disabilities such as deafness. Can the Minister say whether the Government will make sure that, during this consultation, young people with disabilities and the people who work with them are included? They are often very isolated; it is difficult enough to talk about some of these matters if you are in full command of your communication, and sometimes teachers find it intensely difficult to speak to people with disabilities about these matters. There is a lot of evidence that these young people end up relying on the internet and coming away with really strange ideas, because they have been looking at the wrong sort of stuff. It is an area that has to be handled with great sensitivity and care.

Secondly, I welcome paragraph 33 of the draft guidance, which is about the inclusion of LGBT, and I note the way in which it has been drafted. It is my understanding—and I ask the Minister to correct me if I am wrong—that there is no general guidance for schools about transgender issues, including what happens when you have trans teachers or trans pupils. There are bits and pieces of guidance that individual schools and authorities have developed—most notably Cornwall County Council—but I do not think that there is any general guidance for schools. Am I right that this is the first time that any kind of guidance on trans will be in schools? Will the Minister consider that in a bit more depth?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Baroness raises two important questions. First, on SEND, just to reassure the House, the whole thrust of these changes is for the teaching of all pupils, including those with special needs. In the debate in the other place today, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State made particular reference to reaching out in the consultation to special schools, SENCOs and others on how we can support the needs of pupils with SEND to ensure that we have the correct materials available for them. Likewise, on the LGBT question, I do not know what the existing materials are, but one reason for not bringing this in sooner, as some people would like, is to give us the time to start developing best practice, particularly across these sensitive areas. As I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, earlier, we expect quite a few schools to be starting this in September 2019, which will give us time to develop good practice and make it available across the whole system.

Children: Maternal Care

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for securing this debate today and for introducing it in such eloquent fashion. Early years, the early start in life and maternal support were a key priority for the coalition Government. It is good to have the opportunity to return to this issue. We do so in the week that a new all-party group has been set up. I am not really a fan of new all-party groups because there are thousands of them already, but this is the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Conception to Age Two—The First 1,001 Days. That shows the consensus which now exists around the importance of the first 1,000 days of a child’s existence. Throughout the mother’s pregnancy and up until the age of two, approximately, is the key formative stage in any person’s life, physically, mentally and socially. I am glad that we now have that consensus about the importance of interventions during that time to make sure children grow up happy, healthy and well adjusted.

Needless to say, midwives have a key role in assisting mothers. This House, under the repeated instruction of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, has over the years come to understand the continuing importance of midwives, not just in the support and information that they give to women during pregnancy but also in their ability to prioritise post-natal care plans with women so that they, once they come out of hospital, have in place a way to see them through what is sometimes the most demanding not to say frightening time in a parent’s life.

It is recognised by all parties that continuity in midwifery is extremely important. Quite often, one hears women talking not about the fact that they could not see a midwife but that they had to see different midwives. On each occasion they had to start from scratch and go through all sorts of details, so that by the time they got to the end of a short consultation they had had very little time in which to have a proper discussion about the issues bothering them. In the light of the recent report by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, what impact does the Minister believe that the introduction of personal budgets, as she proposed, would have on the availability of midwives? What is his assessment of the impact that it might have on the training—and access to that training—of midwifery students, who are so important for the future?

On 1 October 2015, services for children aged under five were transferred from the NHS to local authorities, which are now required to make provision for maintaining the universal health visitor reviews as part of the healthy child programme—specifically, the antenatal promotion review; new baby review; six to eight week assessment; one year assessment; and two to two and a half year review. We know, because there is a lot of evidence now both from this country and abroad, that early intervention with disadvantaged families can have a profound effect on the life chances of a child. We know that the public health interventions that are needed have to be integrated at a local level with the NHS to ensure that the healthy child programme and family nurse partnerships can identify and work with those families who are most in need. We know that investment in health visitor programmes pays off in terms of the benefits that they bring to families and the way in which they enable children to thrive and not to need far more expensive interventions later on. The transfer of powers to local authorities is well founded in evidence. How will the programme’s implementation be monitored and evaluated in practice and when can we expect to see the initial results? When will we be able to see figures, particularly in relation to the eradication of child poverty, which is a target by which this and all previous Governments are judged?

I touch briefly on mothers, work and childcare, which the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, alluded to. According to the Department for Education survey of parents in 2014-15, two-thirds of mothers—about 66%—were in employment and one-third of mothers were not working. About half of those non-working mothers agreed that they would prefer to go out to work if they could arrange good-quality childcare that was convenient, reliable and affordable. Among the mothers who had returned to work in the previous two years, the most commonly reported factor that had influenced their return to work was finding a job that enabled them to combine work and childcare. The availability of not just childcare but of suitable childcare is the single biggest problem for working parents. It is quite often the case that it is impossible to find childcare for half a day. Yet, when children start at nursery schools, sometimes they go for only half a day, which leaves parents desperately trying to juggle work around the time they have to get back to pick up the kids. Equally, some parents have to work part time but can only arrange with their employers to work for, say, two full days. If they cannot find childcare to fit around that, their chances of moving back into work—as the majority wish to do—are severely hampered.

We in the Liberal Democrats supported the extension of free childcare, particularly to parents who were not in work: free childcare is a very early-stage intervention and makes a big difference to children in deprived communities. We also recognise the importance of the role of fathers and believe that shared parental leave should be the aim of all Governments, so that individual families can arrive at solutions that work best for them and their children. Will the present Government continue the work of the coalition in trying to work with employers to improve the availability of affordable high-quality childcare, so that those parents who wish to can continue to work while giving their children the best start in life, which is what the vast majority of parents in this country want?