Free Schools and Academies

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we all expected a very high-quality debate this afternoon, and we certainly had the deep experience of many years reflected in your Lordships’ speeches. I thank my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park for securing the debate and for her work in this field. As my noble friend said, we have had some transformational successes over the past 25 years, some brilliant innovations and, of course, some things that did not work, which either have been or should be learnt from and addressed—I would argue that the vast majority have been.

As we have heard, this debate is taking place against the backdrop of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which was considered in Committee in the other place today. I am not going to dwell on that Bill today—the Minister smiles—as there will be time for that when it comes to this place. However, I wanted to share with the Minister some genuine reflections that I hope she and her ministerial colleagues might consider, with an aim of looking to the challenges of the future in our schools system.

I shall start with the variation in results across our schools, both maintained and academies. In the same local authority, SATs results at the end of primary vary between individual schools by at least 20 percentage points in pretty much every local authority area, and in the most extreme cases by 40 percentage points. Some of this can be explained by differences in deprivation, but even adjusting for this there are huge differences in any given area. We know what we need to drive this down and narrow the gap, but I think that the job for the DfE is to try to unlock more of that best practice in our schools.

We tried to do some of this work when I was in government, and I know that my predecessors did the same. At the risk of losing the good will of the House, I will quote from the work we did on high-quality trust descriptions—I think officials in the Box may be running for the door at this point. When I joined the department, I asked colleagues what our definition of a good trust was. There was a long pause and the answer came, “This is not a Soviet model, Minister”. Of course it is not a Soviet model, but we should be clear what we think good looks like, so we worked with a number of the most successful trusts in the country and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and built on that best practice that delivers for disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs.

So, here goes. I appreciate that prose crafted by a committee is rarely elegant, but I will try to be brief. The first principle is that trusts should focus on a high-quality and inclusive education. They should create a culture in all schools that is motivating and ambitious for all, including disadvantaged children and children with SEND, so students can achieve their full potential. The second is a focus on school improvement, not just in cases of intervention but in all schools. The third relates to the workforce. The highest-performing trusts create a high-performing working culture for all their staff that promotes collaboration, aspiration and support, uses the flexibilities of the trust structure to create opportunities for staff, recognises the critical value of high-quality teaching and champions the profession.

We then went on to finance, looking at the effective use of resources, and finally, governance and leadership, where the trust’s strategy should be grounded in the needs of its schools, the communities they serve and the wider educational system. I was struck when I reread those—I used to know them off by heart—by how important a strong culture is in delivering great outcomes for our children. That is true in a maintained school and in our trust schools. So, since this is a schools debate, the first exam question for the Government is how they can encourage strong, positive cultures in our schools. Because, if we get that right, as trusts such as those we have heard about this afternoon have done at scale and in our most deprived communities, everything else follows. I really urge the Minister to press the schools she speaks to, to talk about what makes or breaks their culture.

The second exam question is how we build resilient schools for the future. All of us have met individual head teachers who are extraordinary and, luckily, those head teachers continue to exist. But we need resilience; we need to be confident that we have the capacity across the system to maintain the highest standards for every child, even when those head teachers retire. My noble friend Lord Nash was the first person who said to me that we really underestimate the potential benefits for the workforce if a trust is able to offer its staff a more conventional career path than is typically the case.

We need resilience in turnaround capacity, which, with a couple of specific exceptions, sits almost entirely in the trust sector. We also need resilience in future leadership, which is why we created the trust CEO leadership programme, which I think saw literally the single highest return on money that any Government could spend to drive good standards in our trusts. I hope the Minister can reassure me that it will be continued.

The third and final question that needs careful thought is that of choice for parents. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, was too modest to say that Mossbourne Academy is 11 times oversubscribed. Parents are voting with their feet. We need choice for parents about the school that is best for their child, because we are not having a Soviet model in this country, and choice for teachers about where they want to teach. I understand very well the fiscal pressures if a school is not full, but there is a real risk that the Government’s narrative of consistency removes that choice and that inadvertently we do end up with a Soviet model that will be good for no one—not for children, not for staff and not for parents.

There is so much more that I could cover, including my concerns about the pressure that the Government risk placing on our schools with the combination of changes to Ofsted and to the curriculum, and now the changes proposed in the Bill. Honestly, if I was in the Minister’s shoes, time spent reflecting on what we have learned from academies and free schools and what the best maintained schools and trusts do in practice—and how to encourage a culture that drives those outcomes—would be time well spent. Academies and free schools do not have a monopoly on good ideas, but they have had the flexibility to implement them and room to innovate. I urge the Minister, along with other noble Lords, to think on how we can offer those flexibilities to every school, not just trusts and academies.

A school leader said to me this week that tone matters and that the tone he was hearing did not trust the sector, or our school and trust leaders, but rather focused on consistency. It genuinely does not help that such hostile comments about academies were made by the Prime Minister and across the Cabinet during the Labour election campaign. I know the Government say they want to keep schools innovating, but that is not what they are hearing. All schools need to hear that they are trusted to have the flexibility to do the right thing for the children in their care. If we want to recruit teachers and allow our schools to flourish, we have to focus on that. As the brilliant head teacher of Harris Westminster wrote recently on X, in a long thread that I commend to your Lordships about conditions for teachers, “Let’s talk less about making it easy and more about making it meaningful. That is why teachers go to work in the morning”.

Yesterday I was with the wonderful Denton Community College just outside Manchester, which has recently become part of the Northern Education Trust. The pupils are living proof of the difference that a great trust can make to a school and its community. I am really worried that, as many noble Lords have said, we will lose the progress that we have seen in recent years. My simple message to the Minister is: let us build on what is working, spread the freedoms that have driven such improvements in performance for our children across all our schools and think again about the Bill.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, on securing this important debate and thank noble Lords for the excellent contributions we have heard from across your Lordships’ House, drawing on a wide and long experience in education. Several noble Lords have suggested that I will find it difficult or unpleasant to respond to this debate, or that I may even become grumpy about my requirement to do so. Far from it—there is nothing I like to do more than to recognise and champion the achievements of great schools and trusts, as we have been doing this afternoon.

Many of your Lordships have referred to the reforms the Government are introducing through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. I am looking forward to debating the specifics of the Bill when it reaches us from the other place, not least because it will give us the opportunity to set right some of the misconceptions that I have heard during this afternoon’s debate. I am confident that we will get further with this Bill than the 2022 Schools Bill, in which the first clause contained so many restrictions on academies that they nearly ran out of the alphabet for the subsections, and the Government Benches, let alone the education system, could not reach a consensus. So let us move away from some of the more extreme comments that have been made about this Bill and on to a serious and informed consideration of what we can all do to ensure the highest standards in schools that will enable all children to achieve and thrive.

Let me be clear on this Government’s mission, which is to drive high and rising standards in all schools. Over the past few decades, before the pandemic, attainment improved in some areas. There is also a wide consensus on evidence-based approaches that have been proven effective, which some noble Lords referenced, including phonics, a knowledge-rich approach to the curriculum and ordered classrooms where children learn and thrive, as was identified by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. We are committed to building on what has worked, including the excellence and innovation from our best schools and trusts.

I agreed with almost all of the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which was very measured. I do not think there is much difference between us, even if there is with some of the other comments in the debate. Part of that is because, before addressing further points made by noble Lords, I would like to be crystal clear that multi-academy trusts and free schools are partners and often leaders in delivering our mission. As many noble Lords have said, trusts and free schools have contributed, and continue to contribute, much to the richness of our school system. Labour is the proud parent of the academy movement, and I was there at, and soon after, the birth.

Since then, there have been some remarkable examples of existing schools being transformed and new free schools flourishing. The federation founded by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is just one example of how the academies movement has made a real difference, and I commend him for the passion that he has shown today and for the work he has done to transform schools and the lives of children within them. Before Christmas, I was able to visit the Arrow Vale school, an academy in my former constituency of Redditch—a school where I started my teaching career—that had gone through tough times and is now part of a strong academy trust and is outstanding. Similarly, many free schools have achieved strong attainment, progress and Ofsted results.

Far from one of the charges that has been made, I am pleased that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will be meeting with Katharine Birbalsingh to talk about the success of the Michaela school. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, knows how impressed I was by the UTC in Aston, when I was able to visit. We want this to continue; academies and free schools are here to stay. We want high-quality trusts to grow— in fact, we need only look at recent statistics, which show that this Government are currently supporting 781 conversions, a higher number than at any point since 2018.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, rightly argues that it is not the time to rest on our laurels and say that the job is done. Our system is not working well enough: a third of children leave primary school without fundamental reading, writing and maths skills. Dis-advantaged children are too often being failed and children with special educational needs and disabilities are left without the support they need to excel at school. Since the pandemic, average attainment is down, the gap for disadvantaged children has opened up and we have an absence crisis, with more than one in five children missing a day of school each fortnight, fuelled by fewer and fewer children feeling they belong at school. This needs to change.

High and rising standards must be the right of every child, delivered, as noble Lords have said, through excellent teaching and leadership, a high-quality curriculum and a system that removes the barriers to learning that hold too many children back, all underpinned by strong and clear accountability.

As many noble Lords have said, part of the success of high-quality trusts and free schools has been the flexibility to innovate, to change long-standing practices and to try something new—but these have been available only to academies. When the academies movement began, much of this innovation was experimental, even disruptive by design. But now, 20-plus years later, 60% of our schoolchildren are enrolled in academies, most in multi-academy trusts. We need to build a school system that builds on those successes—a system with a floor but no ceiling, enabling healthy competition for all schools, for the new disruptors and for the new innovators, so that we can promote and support innovation.

This is why we have introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill: to give every family the certainty that they will be able to access a good local school for their child where they can achieve and thrive, regardless of where they live. It is also why, through our wider reforms, we are designing a school system that supports and challenges all schools to deliver high standards for every child.

The national curriculum will benefit all children, based on high standards and shared knowledge. This will be a starting point for the innovation I mentioned, which will allow brilliant teachers to inspire their pupils. We will restore the principles established by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, who, when the national curriculum was introduced 35 years ago, expected almost every state school, including grant-maintained schools, to deliver it—and I do not believe the noble Lord, Lord Baker, has ever been accused of being a proponent of classic socialism.

This national curriculum will be delivered by expert teachers, with all new teachers with or working towards qualified teacher status on a journey that allows them to grow, develop and transfer their qualifications as they move between schools. We hear the passionate and informed comments of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and others, about the range of people working within our schools. I would like to reassure the noble Lord that the requirement for qualified teacher status will not apply to any teacher who was recruited and commenced employment with a school or trust prior to the implementation of this measure. We want to work with trusts, such as Harris, to ensure that we are not undermining the excellent staff who are doing some of the specific and particular roles he talked about. We will work more on ensuring that this is the case.

We will deliver a minimum core pay offer for all teachers, while also enabling all state schools to create an attractive pay and conditions offer that attracts and retains the staff our children need. We will create a floor but no ceiling there as well. We know the challenges that schools face regarding recruitment and retention, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, outlined, and we want the innovation, excellence and flexibility that we have seen in the academy system to be available to all schools.

Pay and conditions are a crucial component of ensuring that teaching becomes a more attractive place for graduates and those seeking to combine work and family life. That is why my colleague the Schools Minister announced earlier this week that we have heard feedback from the sector that what this means for teachers’ pay and conditions could be clearer. That is why we are tabling an amendment to clarify the clauses on pay and conditions, which will set a floor on pay for all teachers in state schools. Academies will have to have due regard to the rest of the terms and conditions in the STPCD, but we will remit the School Teachers’ Review Body to build more flexibility, so that there is no ceiling on pay and conditions and so that all schools can benefit from flexibilities in that core role of recruiting and retaining the very best people into our teaching profession.

We have also heard noble Lords rightly identify the work that has been done across the system as schools collaborate, work with others and take control of those that are failing in order to drive improvement in our system. As I suggested earlier, we need to go further in terms of that improvement, and we are doing so to make that improvement better and faster, because we know that too many pupils are in schools which have not improved or improved enough in their current structure.

I am afraid that the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, is wrong: we are not scrapping sponsored conversion. We will continue to move schools that do not have the capacity to improve to strong trusts. However, under the previous Government, schools did not always get the support to improve when they needed it. Between September 2022 and September 2025, 40% of all schools in a category of concern took over a year to convert into sponsored academies, and 10% took more than two years. The previous Government attempted to address this problem by funding turnaround trusts, but the model was ineffective and those trusts took on only very small numbers of schools. We need more tools to ensure that improvement.

We are strengthening the tools that we have to give support and tackle failure with our new RISE teams. For schools which require more intensive support, we will draw on strong multi-academy trusts and other sources of capacity in the maintained sector to deploy those new RISE teams, which are led by experienced and successful senior school leaders who know how to improve schools and who have done it. They will work alongside struggling schools, including those stuck in a long-standing cycle of underperformance, to share their knowledge and bring the best of school improvement capacity to bear. They will have funds to help the schools implement the improvements they need. The names of the first tranche of these advisers will be announced shortly, but I can inform noble Lords that many of them come from the academies system that we are rightly celebrating today. We are confident that RISE will be effective, but we will not shy away from changing a school’s governance if there is no improvement.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, rightly raised the issue of those vulnerable children who are let down by our system. We need schools to collaborate in the wider community to ensure that the system delivers for every child across an area. That is why we are introducing new duties for schools and local authorities to co-operate on admissions and place planning to ensure that decisions reflect the needs of the community, especially in the placement of vulnerable children, and why we are providing in the Bill for local authorities to be able to direct that a pupil out of school who has a nominated school properly allocated to them is duly admitted. They already have that power with respect to local authority-maintained schools, and it does not make sense for local authorities to continue to need to ask the Secretary of State to make such a direction for academies; every day lost in a child’s education is one that they cannot get back. But that power will rightly come with appropriate protections to guard against misuse, which will include a clear and transparent route for academy trusts to appeal to the independent schools adjudicator where they disagree with a local authority direction notice.

Just as we are committed to growing strong trusts, we will continue to open pipeline free schools where they meet local need for places and offer value for money. But although we celebrate the good schools that have been created through the free schools programme, substantial funding has been allocated to new free schools, which has often created surplus capacity. This can result in poor value for money and can divert resources from much-needed work to improve the condition of existing schools and colleges. An NAO report in 2017 found that half the 113,500 places planned up to 2021 would create spare capacity. That is why my right honourable friend announced a review into mainstream free schools last October. We have engaged closely with trusts and other key partners to gather the latest evidence, and we will also take into account whether projects would provide a distinctive curriculum, for example at post-16 level, and any impact on existing local providers.

In thanking noble Lords for this debate, I also recognise that many noble Lords have paid tribute to the achievements of high-quality academies and free schools over many years. I am and the Government are happy to join them in that and want to build on that success.

This Government will build on what works and fix what does not, so that the system works for all children—levelling up, not down—with a core offer for all parents, with no ceiling on what staff and pupils can achieve and with higher and broader expectations for children. We are taking action to ensure that parents, wherever they live, will have a good school for their child and be confident, as all of us would wish, that they will achieve and thrive.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I listened very carefully to the Minister’s remarks and welcome many of them. We all violently agree on having the highest possible aspiration for our children; the question is how we get there. I will give one example of where we do not agree, after listening to other noble Lords with so much experience across the House in delivering education for our children. When we talk about flexibility, the Minister gives the example of giving the STRB more scope to offer flexibility. That is a centralisation of flexibility. Everything that we have heard is about centralising, whereas everything that we look at which is working is about trusting leaders in our schools and in our trusts to make those decisions about the flexibilities that they need for their children. I urge the Minister to listen not to me but to those behind me and across the House.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I do not believe that the noble Baroness is arguing for the end of the STRB. The STRB is responsible for setting that framework for pay and conditions and can be instructed in its remit to consider how to remove some of the inflexibilities that exist currently for academies but not for other schools. That is the intention of these proposals.

Children and Young People: Literacy

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As a fellow teacher, although from quite a long time ago, I can say that the noble Lord makes a very good point. It builds on the earlier point about how we can work alongside the National Literacy Trust and others, along with the Government’s reading framework, to make sure that schools know and have the information and best practice available to them to develop libraries if they do not have them, and to make the most of them if they do.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, some of the findings from the National Literary Trust report are particularly striking in relation to reading. Only half as many boys as girls in secondary schools say they enjoy reading, but the trust also has interesting findings on the drop in the enjoyment of writing. We know from many experts in the field how important writing is for a child’s development. Can the Minister reassure the House that writing will retain at least the same importance in the curriculum and assessment review, and is she able to update the House on when we will see that interim report?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that there is a lot of important information in the National Literacy Trust’s annual literacy survey. She is also right about writing, which is why the terms of reference for the curriculum and assessment review are clear that it should seek to deliver an excellent foundation in the core subjects of reading, writing and maths, as well as the broader curriculum that readies young people for life and work. I believe that the interim report will be available in the early spring and I know that many people will be looking forward to it.

Higher Education Regulatory Approach

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, on this side of the House we very much welcome the decision of Government to commence the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, but we deeply regret the delay, the changes the Government propose to make and the extent of the continuing uncertainty and delay over several parts of the Act.

One of the areas of inconsistency and confusion that the Government have introduced relates to complaints. The Government have chosen to create two different routes for complaint: via the Office for Students for academics and via the OIA for students. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain the rationale for separating them. Would it not be simpler to abandon the jurisdiction of the OIA and give all its powers to the newly empowered OfS? Can the Minister explain what the Government think will happen if—as is perfectly possible—standards of protection diverge in some way and one group is given stronger protection than another? What happens if a member of staff complains to the OfS and a student complains to the OIA on the same case?

Sticking with complaints, the Government have said that they will amend the law governing the operation of the OfS complaints scheme so that it is not obliged to consider every complaint. However, the Act already says that the OfS can dismiss a complaint on the basis that it is either frivolous or vexatious. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why this is necessary. What will be the threshold for the complaints the OfS will consider? Will there be an appeals mechanism if the OfS does not judge that a complaint meets its threshold?

The Government have also created a specific gap in relation to student unions. The Secretary of State said that she fully expects

“student unions to protect lawful free speech, whether they agree with the views expressed or not”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/1/25; col. 380.]

But the Government have said that they want to remove the provisions about student unions. Many of the worst and most egregious cases of cancellation, affecting a number of Members of your Lordships’ House, have involved student unions.

Given that the Government both accept the existence of a free-speech problem on campuses and the need for increased standards of protection, does exempting student unions from the scope of the Act not leave a serious gap in effective protection? Going forward, how do they expect to deal with cases where a cancellation, which would have been unlawful if done by a university or college, is done by a student union?

We are also in the dark about timing. The Government have said that they intend to bring into force various parts of the Act and seek to amend and then bring into force others. Can the Minister set out for the House the timescale for both processes? When will the statutory instrument bringing into force those sections which the Government will not seek to amend be laid before Parliament? When will the commencement date of those sections be? When will the Government seek to make the amendments they have proposed and when will they seek to bring those new sections into force? The start of the 2025-26 academic year seems a natural implementation point, but everyone involved in this area needs maximum certainty, so it would be helpful if the Minister could commit now, or commit to making a statement as soon as possible, setting out that timeline.

In the other place, the Secretary of State said that her decision to seek to repeal the tort clause was made to save universities and colleges expense by avoiding the risk of litigation. Can the Minister confirm that such a risk necessarily exists, even if the form of that risk takes the threat of actions for judicial review rather than civil litigation? Will she agree that, along with action under the complaints scheme, universities and colleges that disregard their duties under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act could face public law legal action, and that they must not see the removal of the tort clause as an excuse to drag their feet or ignore their legal responsibilities?

On foreign influence registration, we were very disappointed to see the removal of the monitoring of overseas funding changed, not only with what felt like very unfortunate timing but when the documents from the Free Speech Union judicial review have been revealed, which indicate that the potential impacts on English higher education institutions operating in China played a role in that decision. Can the Minister reassure the House that those decisions were not made with the Chancellor’s recent trip to China in mind?

I acknowledge the courage and energy of those academics who have campaigned to get this law enacted, including Dr Edward Skidelsky, who co-ordinated the letter of over 650 academics, Professor David Abulafia, Professor Alice Sullivan and Professor Abhishek Saha, as well as the women’s rights groups, including Sex Matters, led by the tireless Helen Joyce, the powerful legal interventions, including from Akua Reindorf KC and Dr Julius Grower, and the many groups that have campaigned on this issue.

At the end of this, we are left with more questions. If you were the governor of a university or responsible for managing these issues, what would you be doing now? How long are you going to have to wait until the position is clear? As so often has been the case since the election, why are the Government undoing something that had received full parliamentary scrutiny without a plan for what to put in its place? I suspect that I shall receive a long letter with answers from the Minister, but I live in hope for some answers now.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, Liberal Democrats welcome this Statement, but for entirely different reasons from those that noble Lords have just heard from the Conservative Front Bench. This provision removes parts of the Act that we opposed during its passage through Parliament, and we welcome that; we were not persuaded that the Act as such was necessary. It was driven by the right-wing culture war against the “liberal elite”, with the Conservatives taking their cue from the Republican right and Fox News as, sadly, they so often have done in recent years.

The Act contradicted Conservative and Liberal principles of respect for autonomous bodies and limits to government regulation and state interference. The costs of litigation imposed on cash-strapped universities threatened to be heavy. The burdens on student unions were likely to be beyond their capacity to manage. The proposed duplication of complaints schemes was badly designed. The requirements for accepting outside speakers virtually unconditionally potentially opened the door to Holocaust deniers, as well as to extremists of the right and left.

A number of universities clearly made mistakes in responding to student attempts to cancel academics and visiting speakers with whom they disagreed. I recall at least one vice-chancellor admitting in a private conversation the mistakes that he had made in responding to conflicting pressures. But it is not the first time that university administrations have made mistakes in responding to student protests—this is not new. I have been on both sides of student protests and staff responses since the 1960s, with changing political crises and student generations protesting on South African apartheid, Vietnam, civil rights and race inequalities, fossil fuel investments and tuition fees.

Previous British Governments had wisely left it largely to universities as autonomous bodies to moderate intolerant demands and teach their students—and some of their staff—to disagree well and respect those with different opinions. Some of today’s student radicals have been determinedly intolerant in defending identity politics, but many on the right have also become determinedly intolerant in their anti-woke crusade.

The question of foreign funding is also difficult and delicate—but also not new. During my time at the London School of Economics, we had an embarrassing controversy over a large Middle East donation, but we later accepted a larger donation from another Middle Eastern ruler, after whom one of the LSE’s buildings is now named. There are potential problems about undue financial dependence on funding from any foreign state, especially if it is a non-democratic state. Can the Minister explain further what the reference in the Statement means when it refers to taking

“more time to consider implementation of the overseas funding measures”?

What sort of consultation with the HE sector is intended, and how long might it take?

The Act as passed was disproportionate in responding to incidents that had failed to respect freedom of speech. It was also disproportionate in the regulatory and financial burdens that it imposed on universities and student unions. I hope that the Minister will reassert that freedom of speech is a principle to be cherished, recognising how difficult that can sometimes be—and it is not a weapon to be used in a Trumpian “war against woke”.

Erasmus Programme

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I understand that, and I understand the benefits that come, for example, to our higher education sector from international students coming to the UK. That is why the Government have set out the valuable contribution that international students make to our universities, our communities and our country—and, of course to our economy in terms of the £12.1 billion fee income that comes from those students. I wholly understand the noble Baroness’s point. That is why I hope that, in future, we will be able to build on that to ensure that people can come to the UK to benefit from our education system.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I can give the Minister a little relief from talking about Erasmus by talking about the Turing scheme itself. Yesterday, the DfE published the updated guidelines for Turing applicants for 2025-26, which appear pretty much identical to those published under the previous Government. Can she confirm that the funding will be maintained for this year? Given how oversubscribed Turing is, will there be any shift in priorities between schools, colleges and universities?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am pleased that we are able to continue the Turing scheme for the coming year, with £105 million allocated this year. I will come back to the noble Baroness on the allocation for next year. My wish is that we make even further progress than has been the case this year on ensuring that those who can benefit from it are participants from disadvantaged backgrounds, who would not otherwise have that opportunity.

State Schools: Creative Education

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

He flits. I have no doubt that my noble friend has also heard what the noble Lord has to say. He is a strong advocate to me and other Ministers of the need to ensure that, in everything we provide, those in custody can also benefit, because of what it means for them as individuals and for their future ability not to reoffend.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I know that His Majesty’s Government are particularly concerned about opportunities for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Can the Minister update the House on how those children are able to access these trips, particularly bearing in mind the correspondence that I am sure she will have seen from the special educational needs and disabilities transport operators? They have concerns about the impact of the increase in national insurance contributions on their ability to take 200,000 children to school every day.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right to identify that, if we believe that these opportunities are important for children, they must be perhaps even doubly important for children with special educational needs and disabilities. That is why, in trying to mend the special educational needs system we have inherited, we will focus on ensuring that it is inclusive and enables all children—whether in mainstream schools or special schools—to benefit from the things that will support them. We will also find ways—for example, through the music opportunities pilot, launched last autumn—to offer disadvantaged and special educational needs pupils across primary and secondary schools the opportunity to learn to play an instrument of their choice or to learn to sing, with free lessons. We are committed to this, and we will continue to develop it.

Qualifications Reform Review

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement, which, she will be aware, has been broadly welcomed by the sector. There has been considerable uncertainty while the Government put the previous Government’s decisions on hold, particularly as the terms of reference of the review have not been published. The decisions bring some short-term certainty to the sector, but they raise longer-term questions.

A significant number of qualifications have been extended to 2027, so before very long there will be more hesitancy among providers about what happens beyond that. The Minister understands far better than I how much the sector needs certainty. I would be grateful if she could set out the Government’s vision for the technical education landscape. If she is not able to do that today, perhaps she can give a sense of when the Government will be ready to do that.

The Statement talks about keeping a mix of T-levels and other qualifications, but it is not clear—if I have missed something, maybe the Minister can clarify for the benefit of the House—what the Government see as the end point in their aspirations. It would be really helpful to have a sense of that. The Minister is acutely aware of the concerns across the House regarding the IfATE Bill and the risk that momentum is lost on delivering the skills strategy, which the Government rightly talks about as a key priority. I hope very much that, in considering this issue, she will take seriously the concerns raised all around the House, including on her own Benches.

In the Statement, the Secretary of State talks about keeping funding for engineering and manufacturing qualifications that had previously been identified for defunding, and keeping those qualifications until 2027. Can the Minister add anything more about the Government’s plans for new qualifications in these areas, which are obviously critical for our economic growth?

Finally, there are real concerns among providers about the recent increase in employers’ national insurance and the negative impact that that may have on colleges, which risks negating the very welcome £300 million uplift in funding which the Government announced. Can the Minister give the House an estimate of the impact of those changes?

[Lord Storey (LD)]

On these Benches, we very much welcome this Statement. We got a flavour of what was to come when the Minister, in a recent opinion piece in Further Education Week, struck a more conciliatory tone and indicated that the Labour Government now see a bigger role for applied general and other qualifications, alongside A-levels and T-levels.

We on these Benches have consistently opposed the scrapping of BTECs. While there is always some value in rationalising qualifications from time to time, forcing students into a choice between A-levels and T-levels will narrow the choices of the students at a time when we need a range of ways for them to gain the transferable skills needed in future careers. BTECs are popular with students, respected by employers and provide a well-established route to higher education or employment, so it is hard to understand why the Government wanted to scrap most of them and force young people to choose between studying A-levels or T-levels from the age of 16. We are concerned that removing the option of BTEC qualifications will adversely affect poorer students in particular.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, a particular difficulty for schools and colleges has been uncertainty. It is impossible to plan for a course, have the right staff on hand and have timetables planned if you are unsure whether a course will actually run. For many students, this is very unsettling. Will the Government undertake to provide certainty for colleges, schools and pupils? Secondly, we can all recognise the teething problems that T-levels have had, with low student satisfaction, complex assessments and major work experience requirements. What will the Government be doing to tackle these issues moving forward?

State-funded Schools: Special Educational Needs

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate is exactly right that, where you see an assessment of special educational needs alongside other areas of disadvantage, there is, if you like, an additional concern and an additional difficulty for those children to succeed. That is why we need to make our schools more inclusive, we need to make sure that we have the specialist workforce in place—some of which I have talked about today—and we need to make sure that investment is available in local authorities for those higher needs, and we need to make sure that we are intervening earlier. For example, as more children are able to get early years education alongside the trained support that we are providing in early years education, I hope that we will be able to identify those children earlier and start them off, at least, on a better chance of succeeding in our schools.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, last week Ministers and the Department for Education rightly noted on social media the very poor results for children with special educational needs in the recent SATs tests at the end of primary school. However, in the same week, there was a spooky silence from the department and its Ministers when the analysis of the 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study was published. Our year 9 students are now fifth in the world in maths and sixth in science and are beaten only by the East Asian countries. I could find no word of acknowledgement to celebrate the success of English students from a single Minister in the department on social media. Can I invite the Minister to take this opportunity to congratulate our students, thank our teachers and acknowledge that the Conservative educational reforms had a massive impact?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I was around in 1999 when the focus of the previous Labour Government was on literacy and numeracy in a way that has undoubtedly led to continued improvements in our children’s literacy and numeracy, and I am more than happy to thank and give credit to the teachers and the students who have performed so well in English and maths international assessments. However, there is a level of complacency—which I am sure I cannot accuse the noble Baroness of—and it is not right to feel that our job is done when we have a special educational needs and disability system that has been widely described, by the NAO and others including members of the noble Baroness’s party, as a lose-lose situation for our children and a failure to enable all children to benefit from the excellent teaching, which I am more than happy to praise.

Vocational Training

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that we need to improve the careers advice available to young people in our schools. That is why this Government are investing in it and in the expert advisers who deliver it. He is right about construction skills; we need the excellent contribution of our FE colleges. For example, the £140 million that we announced two or three weeks ago will, through the Construction Industry Training Board and the National House Building Council, contribute to the development of skills hubs that link to large housing developments. This is precisely to ensure that we have the skilled tradespeople we need to deliver the Government’s important target to build 1.5 million new homes during this Parliament.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the combination of the Government’s IfATE Bill, which dilutes the role of employers in developing qualifications and standards, and the proposal for the growth and skills levy points to more change, and new delay and uncertainty, in a system that desperately needs stability if employers are really to have confidence in it. The noble Baroness talked about the powers that will be used by Skills England. She knows, from debates in Committee, that the whole House wants Skills England to succeed, even though it is not mentioned in the IfATE Bill. I wonder whether the noble Baroness would make my day by announcing what government amendments might come forward on Report to address the House’s concerns?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

At this time of year in particular, I am always keen to make the noble Baroness’s day. I assure her that I am reflecting hard on the good debates that we have had in Committee and thinking about how I can provide some assurance to noble Lords about the role of Skills England. As I described, it will be enormously important to ensure the development of our skills system, which noble Lords have identified that it needs. I assure the noble Baroness, as I did on several occasions during debates on the Bill, that there will be continuity of the occupational standards and assessment plans that have been or are currently being developed, during the transfer of those functions. I will come back to noble Lords on the other issues before Report, in a way that I hope reassures them about the significance that this Government place on Skills England and this House’s ability to monitor it and to hold us to account for its delivery.

Maintained Schools: Term Dates

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: if children are not in school, they cannot learn. Although levels of absenteeism are marginally better this year than last, they are still considerably worse than before the pandemic, with around 1.6 million children—more than one in five—missing at least one day per fortnight. This is why we need a wide-ranging approach to tackling absenteeism. We need to build on the detailed data we now have available to us. We need to expect schools to focus, before a child becomes persistently absent, on the reasons why they are absent and what intervention may be necessary. We need schools to learn from those who are tacking this issue much more effectively. We are investing £15 million in expanding the specialist attendance mentoring programme for persistently absent pupils. We need to make sure that the new guidance issued in August is being followed appropriately, because this is a fundamental issue on which we need to make progress. Children need to be in school in order to learn, and in order to prevent the disruption to others in class that happens when children are absent.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we on these Benches support the flexibility that academies enjoy, and we trust the discretion of trust and school leaders in how they make their decisions. With that in mind, we are extremely concerned that the Employment Rights Bill will cut across those freedoms and potentially create a ceiling, rather than a floor, in terms and conditions of employment for teaching assistants and support staff more widely. Can the Minister reassure the House that this will not happen?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Some enormously good work has been done by academies and maintained schools on using teaching and non-teaching staff to ensure that children are getting a good education. None of it, as far as I can see, depends on them having in place inadequate, discriminatory or undermining employment conditions for their support staff. I do not see why providing a suitable and appropriate basis for people’s employment should in any way undermine the excellent work being done by our schools.

Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Fraser for securing this debate, bringing her expertise to your Lordships’ House, and making sure that the issues affecting children with special educational needs and disabilities stay on the agenda, with a real focus on ambition.

This is clearly a very long-standing issue. The Green Paper from 2011 identified many of the issues that your Lordships have raised this evening, and clearly it gives me no pleasure to recognise that. Despite everyone’s best efforts—those in schools, parents and children—the system is not working, and there is real inconsistency in the identification of SEND geographically, by school within regions, and by characteristic. For example, 50% of summer-born boys will be given a SEND identification during their time at primary. I do not think any of us can really believe that to be an accurate reflection of the situation.

Most importantly, the system is not working for children, whether that is in the classroom, where they have been described as being in it but not of it, or in relation to the results that they achieve. There is the risk that expectations are lowered for children with a label, and research suggests strongly that this is exactly what plays out in practice: parents fight for a label and then it backfires on their child.

We have seen an explosion in the identification of autism, ADHD, social, emotional and mental health problems, and speech and language issues. I would like to spend just a moment on those. Nearly every parent tries to make sure that their children are ready for school, but it seems that we need to do more to make sure that everyone understands the importance of early emotional development and language acquisition.

The Minister will be aware of the research showing the link between a family’s screen use and a child’s language environment, with the average toddler missing out on hearing more than 1,000 words a day due to screen time. Given the incredible rise in speech and language delays identified at school, surely the Government need to act on this. Similarly, in the other areas of rapid increase in identification, the evidence is growing about the harmful effects of screens on children with symptoms of ADHD and social, emotional and mental health problems in potentially both creating and exacerbating their symptoms. Will the Government look seriously at the impact of having smartphones in schools on the well-being of our children, particularly those with special educational needs?

The previous Government’s SEND and AP implementation plan recommended the introduction of national standards. I would be grateful if the Minister could update the House on the Government’s plan for those. This Government recently announced that they were not continuing with the Safety Valve programme, which provided funding to create local capacity. I wonder if she could expand on what will happen instead. Earlier today, I mentioned the Employment Rights Bill. Given the importance of teaching assistants and other support staff for children with special educational needs, I hope the Minister will ensure that it will not represent a ceiling on what trusts are able to offer their staff.

I end where my noble friend started: we must make sure that we ask children with disabilities what their dreams are and that we all work to help fulfil them.