Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

With Amendment 159, schools must maintain a digital record for pupils, updated quarterly, which may include an assessment of grades, effort, behaviour and any work experience completed. Parents need more information—and information that is relevant to them. Paper reports can easily be lost. All information needs to be centralised so that parents can track progress. Many, if not most, schools in the maintained sector have moved to online systems. If anything came out of the pandemic, it was a shift to online recording of student attainment and parental access to the whole spectrum of teaching and learning resources for their child. Notwithstanding that, I put in a cautionary note. I had a discussion with my noble friend Lord Knight earlier today about the confidential use of data and not selling data to commercial companies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I will now respond to this group of amendments, which relates principally to the academy legal framework. Amendment 41, proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Shipley, pertains to the geographical spread of multi-academy trusts. I share the noble Lords’ view that this is an important matter.

The Government’s published guidance on building strong academy trusts states:

“When considering whether to grow, an academy trust will need to consider the geographical fit of schools”.


Many trusts operate successfully only in their local area, but others spread their expertise beyond local boundaries, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Knight, establishing clusters across England. This amendment risks restricting this sort of innovation, which can enable effective school support and improvements in performance, with clear accountability and strong governance. If I understood rightly, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, suggested that it was an either/or choice between regional clusters and national MATs. I do not think it is either/or; it can absolutely be both/and.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, asked why we would not have only one MAT in an area—for example, having a single multi-academy trust in one local authority area. We believe that there should be parental choice. MATs will have different styles. There is obviously a particular risk profile if all schools in an area are in the same MAT. We think it makes for a healthier ecosystem if there are several MATs in an area. I have certainly seen examples in local authority areas where a number of MATs are collaborating extremely constructively to address some of the entrenched issues that they find in those areas.

Amendment 49 from the noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman and Lady Wilcox, and Amendment 50 from the noble Baronesses, Lady Blower and Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, relate to an individual academy leaving its multi-academy trust. As we stated in the schools White Paper, we will consult on the exceptional circumstances in which a good school could request that the regulator agrees to the school moving to a stronger trust, but we do not want to pre-empt the outcome of that consultation by legislating now, not least as we expect the process to be administrative rather than legislative. I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester for his reflections on the risks of destabilising the system through schools moving from one trust to another. I gently reflect back to the noble Baronesses who spoke on this that it is important that this measure works for the individual school, which both of them pointed out, but it also needs to work for the multi-academy trust, which I did not hear either of them refer to directly.

I turn to Amendment 55. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, for her amendment relating to academies without a religious character joining a MAT with a majority of or all academies with a religious character. The process by which an academy joins another trust is a matter for agreement between the two trusts and is subject to the approval of the Secretary of State in the person of the regional director. When considering any application for a stand-alone academy to join a trust, the regional director will consider what stakeholder engagement has taken place and take account of views expressed. It is neither necessary nor appropriate to provide specific consultation requirements in legislation. I again thank the right reverend Prelate for his clarification about church model articles.

I also thank the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, for Amendment 77. As the noble Lords pointed out, academy autonomy is a core principle of the academies programme. For the past decade, such powers and freedoms have been available uniquely to academies, providing them with greater freedom and flexibility in how they operate and promoting innovation and diversity in the system. As set out in the schools White Paper, our intention is that by 2030, all children will benefit from being taught in a strong multi-academy trust or with plans to form one. Therefore, all schools will be able to benefit from academy status and its associated autonomy in the near term.

Amendment 79A concerns the relationship between further education colleges and multi-academy trusts. Further education providers and academies are different types of organisation founded on different legal frameworks. Although that prevents them joining as a single legal entity, FE providers are still able to play a valuable role supporting academies, and this includes forming a multi-academy trust and sitting on academy trust boards. We are committed to considering what more we can do to minimise any existing barriers when further education providers work alongside academies, and we have established a working group with a group of FE providers to explore this in more detail.

Amendment 94, in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman and Lady Wilcox, and Amendment 95, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, relate to financial reporting in academy trusts. The Government hold academies to account for their financial health through the academy trust, which is the accountable body that signs the funding agreement with the Secretary of State. The department publishes a full report and consolidated accounts for the academy sector annually. It is right that academy trusts hold appropriate levels of reserves to enable investment in initiatives that will improve pupils’ educational experience, as well as supporting them to meet challenges.

This year, the Department for Education will collect information from trusts holding reserves equal to 20% or more of their overall income to assure us that there are robust plans in place to use them, as the noble Baronesses suggest. There is a split in reserves between what we might call core reserves, investment reserves and those that academies will need if they take on failing schools with low pupil numbers to manage the lag in their funding as those pupil numbers increase, and we need to understand that picture fully.

I really do not recognise the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, of rural schools feeling that they lose funding. I recognise much more the example that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, gave the Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, may have a specific example that he would like to share. Often, we see exactly the reverse—that small schools are made sustainable through the MAT.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

I can clarify that for the Minister. I simply picked up a view that rural schools may feel that they could lose money and that, as a consequence, such a school may feel that it has become less viable. It was a worry about what might happen as opposed to the case if everybody had to become part of a multi-academy trust; that was the concern. If the Minister could allay those fears, that would be helpful.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. I will endeavour to find some examples that he can share with those who have expressed such concerns of where smaller rural schools have benefited from being part of a trust with the unattractively named GAG pooling, which the noble Baroness opposite will be dreaming about tonight.

Multi-academy trusts must publish their annual audited accounts online, including details of their objectives, achievements and future plans. They must set out what they have done to promote value for money in support of those objectives as part of their accounts. We currently publish funding allocations for each individual academy. School-level income and expenditure information for schools that form part of a MAT is also available online. If noble Lords are not familiar with that information, it is extremely comprehensive and useful. Parents and others are able to see not only what their child’s individual school receives and spends but how this compares to the income and expenditure of other similar schools, whether they are academies or maintained schools. I will put the link to that website in my letter to noble Lords after this debate.

Turning to Amendment 157, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, I am pleased to say that we have launched a new regions group in the Department for Education. It brings together the ESFA and the former regional schools commissioners to address some of the issues that the noble Baroness pointed to. We are confident that this new group will deliver the singular role of scrutiny that is set out in the noble Baroness’s amendment.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for his Amendment 79B, which proposes a regional schools commissioner advisory board. He will be aware that, as he alluded to, regional directors—formerly regional schools commissioners—are currently supported by their own advisory boards. We believe that it is beneficial that those board members are made up of a mixture of head teachers, trust leaders, trustees and business leaders who bring specific expertise and experience to decisions that directly affect academies, in particular approving academy conversions and matching schools to strong trusts. It is important to note that advisory board meetings are transparent: agendas are already published in advance and records of meetings are published. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred to an annual report, but an annual report is already published by region.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

42: Clause 8, page 8, line 28, at end insert—
“(3) Subsection (2) applies to an Academy agreement in respect of a secure 16 to 19 Academy (see section 1B of the Academies Act 2010) as if the reference to the seventh Academy financial year were a reference to the second Academy financial year.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment provides for a two-year notice period for terminating an Academy agreement in respect of a secure 16 to 19 Academy (in contrast to the seven-year notice period which applies to other types of Academy).

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

43: Clause 9, page 8, line 29, at end insert—
“(A1) The Secretary of State may by notice terminate an Academy agreement with the proprietor of an Academy if any of subsections (1) to (1B) applies.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment, and the other amendments to clauses 9 and 14 in Baroness Barran’s name, allow the Secretary of State to terminate an Academy agreement without first issuing a termination warning notice in certain cases where the Academy is failing.

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

47: Clause 11, page 9, line 23, leave out “a” and insert “an Academy agreement or”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment allows the Secretary of State to terminate an Academy agreement as well as a master agreement if there is a change of control or insolvency event (so that an Academy agreement in respect of a single-Academy trust could be terminated on those grounds).

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Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

48: Clause 14, page 12, line 11, leave out subsections (6) and (7)
Member's explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement to the amendment in Baroness Barran’s name at page 8, line 29.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Lords Chamber

There is one thing we need, following King Lear’s “Nothing will come of nothing”: if we are going to have a high-quality state education system, it has to have a decent level of funding. In the modern world, where the demands on education are so great, that must be funding which at least keeps pace with inflation and, in terms of the capital stock, which has been massively underinvested in in our education system, it should go beyond that. The great missed opportunity at the moment is of a Government committed to investing in education and taking successful and proven models and spreading them more widely. The Bill will not do anything to achieve that goal. Hopefully, it will not make anything worse, but it simply postpones the moment when we have to have a new reckoning about the investment we are prepared to make, as a society, in our state education system. It must be significantly more than we are making at the moment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I shall begin by speaking to the first group of amendments, which are mostly amendments to Clause 1 tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman and Lady Wilcox. Clause 1 enables the Secretary of State to make academy standards regulations, subject to the affirmative procedure. I have heard concerns from almost every noble Lord who has spoken this afternoon about the breadth of the power in Clause 1 and the potential for the centralisation of power over academies with the Secretary of State. I genuinely look forward, after today’s debate, to reflecting on the points that have been raised, and I hope I will be able to meet and discuss them further ahead of Report.

If I may, I will just set a little of the context of the Bill and why it should not be seen in isolation. My noble friend Lord Lucas asked how this makes schools better. The Bill needs to be seen in the context also of what was covered in the schools White Paper, with the Government aiming to improve further the quality of education. We plan to do this through our commissioning approach, by creating a system that incentivises school improvement, and by a coherent inspection and regulatory approach. Much of this work to raise standards will be done in the coming months and will involve extensive engagement with the sector. However, we are clear that we need to ensure that no school or trust falls below a clearly articulated minimum standard. The Bill sets out what these standards could include and, in later clauses, how we propose to enforce them. I recognise concerns from noble Lords about the proportionality of our enforcement approach, and I hope to address those concerns in future debates.

The current regulatory regime has enabled the growth of the academy sector over the last decade, and I pay tribute to noble Lords in the Chamber who were instrumental in making that happen, but it was designed for a school system comprising hundreds of academies, rather than a trust-led system comprising all schools. The academy standards regulations will set out the requirements on academy trusts clearly, consistently and subject to parliamentary scrutiny. On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that the Secretary of State can jump out of bed in the morning and change things, that really is not accurate, and I will try to clarify further. They will create a common rulebook for academy trusts that is capable of applying equally to all trusts and types of academy. This is an important step that will provide a level playing field for multi-academy trusts and more effective and proportionate options for enforcement if a trust does not meet those obligations.

We are introducing the new regulatory framework in a phased way to minimise disruption to the sector. To this end, we do not intend to use these regulations to place significant new burdens on academies that would restrict the freedoms that enable them to collaborate, innovate and organise themselves to deliver the best outcomes for their pupils. We will formally consult on every iteration of the academy standards regulations. We expect the first set of regulations will largely consolidate the existing requirements on academy trusts that are found in their funding agreements, the independent school standards regulations and the Academy Trust Handbook.

I reiterate that I recognise the strength of feeling across the Chamber on Clause 1 and fully intend to take whatever time is needed to reflect on the concerns, views and suggestions of noble Lords today.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman and Lady Wilcox, have tabled a number of amendments relating to what the academy standards regulations may or may not cover. To be clear to the House about the Government’s intentions, we had provided examples of what the academy standards regulations may cover in Clause 1(2). However, I accept that the list of examples is lengthy, albeit they describe requirements that largely already apply to academies.

The noble Baronesses, my noble friend Lord Nash and others have suggested that the regulations must set out standards equivalent to those applied to independent schools. I think your Lordships will appreciate, however, the need for additional requirements on matters such as the appropriate management of public funding, fair admissions and other matters covered not by the independent school standards but by, for example, funding agreements. As previously mentioned, we want to consolidate as much as possible the existing requirements into a single set of regulations. We could not achieve that if most requirements were to remain in funding agreements and the Academy Trust Handbook.

The noble Baronesses are also seeking that examples listed in Clause 1(2) be removed, such as curriculum, admissions, governance, teacher pay and pupil assessment, among others. The Government have no desire to intervene in the day-to-day management of individual academies other than in cases of failure, but we must get the basics right. To take only one example, we believe it is important that parents can continue to rely on a fair admissions system when they apply for a school place.

Clause 2 will make void any provisions in existing academy funding agreements that deal with the same matters that will be in the academy standards regulations. I recognise from conversations with my noble friends Lord Baker, Lord Agnew and Lord Nash that they have concerns about existing contracts being overridden. This was also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth. Of course, this is something that Governments would wish to do only very rarely, but the only alternative in this context, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, pointed out, would be to seek to renegotiate individual contracts with individual trusts, which would be a far more complicated, expensive and time-consuming approach.

There is precedent for this approach. For example, the Children and Families Act 2014 made provision requiring academies to provide free school meals to pupils, bringing them into line with requirements on maintained schools. Those provisions overrode funding agreements; as here, that was deemed appropriate in order to enable us to make essential changes and regulate and support schools better. This is an important clause for enabling the current contract-based regulatory regime to move to a simpler, single overarching statutory framework, which will ensure that academy trusts are all subject to the same requirements that will be in the regulations.

Finally, Clause 4 will require academy trusts to have regard to guidance that the department will issue. The guidance will provide a clear and accessible articulation of the requirements in the academy standards, providing greater clarity for the benefit of both academy trusts and wider stakeholders.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, questioned whether the Bill should be a hybrid one. The legal advice we have taken suggests that this is not a hybrid Bill, but I am happy to return to this point in the letter providing more detail.

In closing, I would like to pick up on just two points; one was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, about acknowledging the strengths both in academies and in local authority maintained schools. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who challenged me on that at the Dispatch Box in an earlier debate, but the noble Baroness will know that it is absolutely clear in the schools White Paper and in our move to encourage local authority maintained schools to create their own MATs that we recognise absolutely the strengths in the maintained sector and hope to use that for the benefit of more schools and more pupils in future.

I genuinely thank your Lordships for the very constructive tone of this debate and for the spirit in which you have shared your expertise, experience and advice. As I have said, we will reflect on that with great care. On that basis, I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I think it is only right that I recognise the tone that the Minister has just struck and welcome the fact that she has acknowledged the concerns from across the House—although I do not think she had much choice. She said that she will listen and that there will be consultation on standards. I gently suggest that this should take place before the Bill goes through its future stages. The Minister is managing to unite the noble Lords, Lord Baker and Lord Adonis, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Morris, which is quite something to achieve. It would be far better for school leaders, parents and students to see us proceed with something which, although perhaps not consensus, is short of the level of concern we have heard expressed today. Obviously we will return to this issue at later stages, but I thank the Minister for the way she has engaged with the discussions so far. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I move on to the second group of amendments. As I have spoken at length on the first group on the intention and rationale behind Clause 1, I hope that your Lordships will understand if I do not repeat those arguments. I want to underline that I have noted the very strongly held concerns, particularly from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, as expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and underlined by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. We are considering closely the reports from that committee and from the Constitution Committee, which came out on Monday, and we will look forward to working with all your Lordships to address these issues.

Turning to Amendment 2 from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, I remind the House that our intention is for the initial regulations largely to consolidate and reflect existing requirements on academies. The Government recognise the importance of consulting representatives from the sector on the regulations and I am willing to make a commitment on the Floor of the House to your Lordships that this Government will always undertake a consultation on the regulations, prior to them being laid. I hope that reassures your Lordships, including my noble friend Lord Baker, who suggested otherwise.

I also remind your Lordships that under the current regulatory regime for academies, the Secretary of State can add any new requirements into the model funding agreements or Academy Trust Handbook without any parliamentary oversight. Moving to a statutory set of regulations will provide Parliament with the opportunity to scrutinise, debate and vote upon the exercise of power in Clause 1.

Moving on to Clause 3, we are at the beginning of the process of consolidating existing requirements on academy trusts into a single set of academy standards regulations. Over time, we envisage amending or repealing primary legislation which applies directly to academy trusts and, where necessary or appropriate, moving such provision into a single set of regulations. This clause provides the Secretary of State with the necessary power, subject to the affirmative procedure, to amend primary legislation by regulations, leading to a simpler and more transparent regulatory framework suitable for a system that is fully trust-led.

As the academy system evolves, it also allows the Secretary of State to make necessary changes that will strengthen the regulatory framework in future. The power in this clause is restricted and cannot make provision about the designation of selective academy grammar schools or alter their selective admission arrangements. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, asked for clarification in relation to Clause 1(6). Although the clause as drafted prevents the Secretary of State removing admission arrangements from grammar schools via secondary legislation, it would of course be open to a future Government to change the law on selection via primary legislation; nor can it amend the provisions of this Bill which relate to governance, collective worship and religious education in those academies that have a religious character. I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham for his very kind remarks about working with the department and the Secretary of State.

Clause 3 also introduces Schedule 1, which sets out the primary legislation that is being extended or disapplied in relation to academies through the Bill. This reflects the fact that we wish these requirements to be statutory, rather than in individual funding agreements.

I turn to Amendment 32 from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. I have heard the concerns expressed about the power conferred on the Secretary of State in Clause 3 and am carefully reflecting on what your Lordships have said on this matter. The noble Lord asked for the basis on which we took the powers as drafted in the Bill. My officials studied the reports in great detail and took great care with the delegated powers in the Bill. The noble Lord may be aware that 47 of the 49 powers taken received no comment from the committee.

It is our view that establishing academy trust standards creates improved scrutiny for Parliament, not less, and that was the rationale behind the way in which the measure was drawn together. But that in no way diminishes my earlier comments regarding listening carefully to the House on this point, and I underline that we take the recommendations of the committee seriously. I will be reading the 30-year review, as recommended by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. I also understand and will take away the points that she made regarding our need to bring clarity about the principles which underpin any delegated powers and how they would be used in future. I look forward to working with her and other noble Lords on that.

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[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

This set of amendments is quite close to my heart. I think most of us here will have served as parent or community governors or on governing bodies in some form or another. I do not think any of us has rose-tinted glasses about the experience; it is not always a fulcrum of democratic engagement enabling parents to make change. That is not quite my experience, anyway. However, it is a formalised way of enshrining the power of parents in decision-making. Echoing what my noble friend Lord Hunt said about Parentkind and the initiatives it proposes, which I absolutely support, we need both: a way of having the formalised power of parents alongside the broader engagement initiatives. I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, just said about her Amendment 21A being entirely complementary to these amendments. This is worthy of the Government giving it some thought and coming back with their own suggestions of how it ought to be done. I have a lot of time for what my noble friend Lord Knight said about avoiding being too prescriptive, but perhaps there ought to be some mechanism whereby schools can decide how they want to go about this task of ensuring that parents are properly represented, empowered, engaged and involved in their children’s education.

There is much evidence that parental engagement is better for all children, not just the children of the parents taking part. It is vital for community confidence in schools. When a school has been through a difficult time—perhaps it has been forced to academise or change its name—community confidence is often the first thing to go. That affects admissions and many different things. The more we can encourage schools, and in some cases compel them, to take steps to improve relationships with the wider community, specifically through parents, the better.

We support the idea of parent councils. We are very warm to that idea. Reflecting on what my noble friend Lord Hunt said about trusts in the NHS, I remember an old friend of mine, Alan Milburn, talking to me about this at the time. I thought it sounded fantastic, but now I question just how effective those mechanisms are on a day-to-day basis. They are important to have, but they work well only alongside a raft of other measures around patient involvement, effective complaints procedures and networks in the local community around specific conditions. The two need to go hand in hand.

So we do not look at this with a backward-facing “Let’s recreate something that’s existed in every school historically”. It is about taking the best of what we have perhaps lost in some situations and adding different ways of engaging parents—there are now quite forward-looking, innovative and creative ways, using technology —to make sure that you do not just get the parents who would probably be most engaged anyway but get parental engagement that is representative of the wider community. I think we all want to make sure that we get that right.

I do not think the Minister is about to stand up and say, “Yes, we accept these amendments”; she is probably going to say that she does not think they are necessary or that there are other ways of going about it. But it would be good if she could come back at some point and explain how the Government are going to encourage or compel—however they want to do it—to make sure that all schools, whatever their governance status, can benefit from the value that can be gained from the really effective involvement of parents.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for their amendments relating to trust governance structures, parental representation and engagement, and the definition of “parent” in the Bill.

Amendments 23, 24 and 25, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, seek to secure the position of parental representation in the trust governance structures at both trust board and local level, and to have a strategic plan for parental and stakeholder engagement. Amendment 25, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, also seeks to mandate local governing bodies in all trusts. I would like to cover this point first by saying that the schools White Paper sets out the department’s view that all trusts should have local governance arrangements for their schools. To respond to the query from the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, about how I was going to deal with this point, we have committed in the White Paper to working with the sector over the summer as the best way to implement this.

Moving on to the amendments pertaining to parental involvement, I reassure the House that it is already our position that all trusts should have a minimum of two parents in their governance structure, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, pointed out. Amendment 26 continues with a focus on parental engagement in the form of mandating all trusts and academies to have a parent council and specifying the composition, role and support required. Parental and community engagement serves an extremely important role and can have a large and positive impact on children’s learning, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. An effective scheme of delegation should explain the trust’s parental and community engagement arrangements and how these feed into and inform governance at both trust and local level. The department’s Governance Handbook contains guidance for academy trusts on parental and community engagement.

However, as I said earlier, we believe that trusts are best placed to decide what engagement methods work best in the local context and—to pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight—at different points in the evolution of an individual trust. In addition, the place of parents in the governance of trusts will fall within scope of the planned discussions with the sector about the local tier of governance announced in the schools White Paper, and I am sure that the House would not want to pre-empt the outcome of that discussion at this point.

Amendment 27, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, seeks to ensure that all trusts clearly set out the delegation of powers to their local governing bodies, and that delegation should include ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction of the school, holding executive leaders to account, financial performance and ensuring that local voices are heard.

Some of the responsibilities set out in the noble Lord’s amendment are core functions of the trust board as the accountable body of the trust, which the board may already choose to delegate to local governing bodies or choose to retain at board level. As such, there is a risk of duplication and some confusion.

Amendment 38, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Storey, introduces a clause similar, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, pointed out, to that of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, to mandate local governing bodies, while also including membership and specific powers of the local governing body.

I would like to address both amendments by referring to my previous comments that we will be holding discussions with the sector on local governance arrangements and that we do not want to pre-empt those discussions by introducing requirements concerning local governance arrangements at this point.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, have introduced Amendment 39 to mandate the establishment of an independent scheme of arbitration to resolve disputes between a multi-academy trust and the local governing bodies of individual academies within the trust. It is far from clear that it would be a proportionate and good use of public funds to set up a formal scheme, and we would want to discuss with the sector how local governance arrangements could be effective.

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman and Lady Wilcox, for their Amendment 52, which seeks to ensure that references to “parents” in the Bill also include different kinds of legal guardian. We agree that this is an important point, and I am pleased to say that this is already captured within the Bill. The majority of references to “parent” in the Bill are in Parts 1 and 2. Clauses 31 and 46 state:

“Other words and expressions used in this Part have the same meanings as in the Education Act 1996, unless the context otherwise requires.”


I am therefore pleased to say that all references to “parent” in the Bill already include different kinds of legal guardian.

For the reasons set out above, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very useful debate. Clearly, I agree with my noble friend that, with parental involvement in school governing bodies, there has perhaps not been a nirvana or golden age where it has always worked perfectly. School governance can be quirky; sometimes heads have far too much control and basically appoint their own governing body, and we have seen the problems that arise from that. However, I think there is a general consensus that getting parents involved in schools is a good thing per se. There are various mechanisms under which you can do that. Parent councils is a very good idea, and I would like to see that further encouraged. However, it is important to have statutory representation, if you like, of elected parent governors on the board of a maintained school or of an academy trust.

When it comes to multi-academy trusts, I still fail to see why it should be optional, in that if you have two parent governors on the multi-academy trust board, you do not then have to have the same representation on local governing bodies, and vice versa. That should be changed. Where you have a multi-academy trust, both the multi-academy trust board and the local governing body ought to have parent governors. However, I am sure that we will find a consensus on that on Report.

When it comes to the relationship between multi-academy trusts and local governing bodies where they are the individual trusts within a MAT, that is obviously a much more difficult issue where we do not have complete consensus. Here, the absence of a way forward for MATs is a big problem for us in trying to decide what is the best way through. In her response the noble Baroness said that obviously this is work that is taking place and that we must not pre-empt the outcome of discussions. I could not help thinking that, unfortunately, the Bill pre-empts the outcome of the discussions, which is why we are having this difficulty at the moment.

However, in principle, it is right that every local school has some kind of governance body. My noble friend Lady Blower is absolutely right: the local school needs ownership of the core decisions. I accept what she says about the need for interventions but, harking back to my health experience, I would say that we have boards until the cows come home but quick interventions can be made. It is really important that, when a parent goes to the school, they know that the people in charge are there, and that includes governance, as much as possible.

Also, we have to sort out this problem of what an academy trust does if it wants to leave a MAT. I heard the noble Lord, Lord Nash, arguing that an outstanding academy trust can go into a MAT and gain great advantage from it, but what happens if it is not going well? Can that outstanding trust leave? At the moment the answer is no, because it has no legal entity of its own to make that decision.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I know that it is unusual to intervene this way round, but just to clarify for the noble Lord, in the schools White Paper we said that we will consult on the exceptional circumstances in which a good school could request that the regulator agrees that it moves to a stronger trust.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I know, but I worry about the “exceptional circumstances” because I do not see why an individual school could not simply opt out if it wanted to, giving due notice. Perhaps we will come back to that on one of our later amendments.

Having said that, this has been a really good debate. I welcome the Minister’s constructive response and look forward to further discussions. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, given the lateness of the hour, I will comment but briefly. Notwithstanding that some of us on these Benches have found this a difficult Bill to amend in the way we might have wanted, I hope the Minister can see that, by proposing the super-affirmative procedure, we are seeking a way through so that we can improve the Bill, at least from our perspective, although I hope that, on reflection, the Government might also consider that the Bill will have been improved.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments seeks to apply additional procedural requirements to the use of the powers in Clause 1. I have heard again your Lordships’ concerns about the centralisation of power over academies with the Secretary of State but, again, we want to do this so that we have a regulatory system which is more transparent and accountable to Parliament than the one which we currently have.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, invites me to consider carefully the super-affirmative procedure. The spirit of the regulations is that they will be subject to the affirmative procedure each time they are laid, allowing Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise, debate, and vote on them. We recognise the importance of consulting representatives from the sector on regulations and, as I have said before, the Government will always undertake a consultation on the regulations prior to them being laid.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, referred to the report and impact assessment on the exercise of the powers. The Secretary of State will of course consider very carefully the likely and actual impact on academy trusts of any standards set out in the regulations.

Turning to Amendment 83, I say that Clause 1 is not designed to increase burdens on academy trusts, and that includes burdens associated with regulatory compliance. Clause 1(7) allows the conferral of the Secretary of State’s regulatory functions to another person. It is important that we ensure that the right accountability arrangements are in place. In some cases that will be ensured by Ofsted and Ofqual. It is already the case that the Secretary of State can delegate responsibility for some elements of regulatory compliance, such as in relation to the monitoring of exams and other assessments. The provisions in Clause 1(7) ensure that this can continue to happen under the academy standards framework. I therefore invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

The Minister noted that the Government want a more transparent and accountable way forward, but this whole debate has seen strong arguments from all sides of the House, from former Secretaries of State, in direct opposition to this view. I hope that the Minister has been listening, as I am sure that she has, but the story continues, as do the probing amendments and the demystifying of what on earth is going on here, while wanting the central purpose to remain the raising of standards for young people. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Schools: Biometric Technologies

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the adherence of schools to Chapter 2 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 when implementing biometric technologies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, the decision to use biometric technology rests entirely with individual schools, which must ensure that the use of biometric data complies with all relevant legislation. We provide guidance, making clear that schools must comply with the law when implementing biometric technologies, including the Data Protection Act, the UK GDPR and the Protection of Freedoms Act.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Facial recognition technology is now used in classrooms to monitor children’s mood and engagement, despite some parents objecting. The biometric regulator has no powers to enforce compliance with the law in schools and the department does not even monitor the use of this technology. Why are the Government taking this approach, allowing private companies’ marketing departments to determine the parameters of our children’s civil liberties and privacy in the classroom?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government have extensive legislation in relation to the individual’s rights for their own data, particularly highly sensitive data such as biometric data. The Government have been clear that live facial recognition technology is not appropriate in schools and colleges.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Some 65% of transactions are now cashless in schools, using biometrics, so the idea that we can turn the clock back is unrealistic. However, it is clear that schools must have confidence that these systems work, and there is a complex legal framework around the use of these technologies. Does the Minister think that it would be helpful to schools to have some crisp, clear guidance, so that these systems can be used safely and with parental confidence?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right. The department is working on the guidance and is aware that it needs updating. I am expecting it to be updated very soon. There will be some important changes within it, particularly in relation to the use of live facial recognition technology.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister quite rightly spoke about data protection. Do the Government agree that this is not just about the individual’s data but about their dignity as well? Is this the way we should be softening up our young people for treatment by corporates coming out of China or anywhere else in the future?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are not softening up our children. The use of biometric data in schools requires explicit consent from both parents of a child, and the child themselves can overrule that, should they wish.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, from what the Minister has said today, it is clear that, despite promises, no new guidance has been produced since 2018, the Government have no means of ensuring compliance with that guidance and they have very little information about the use of this technology in schools. From that, can we conclude that this Government are washing their hands of virtually any responsibility for the deployment of this technology?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are clearly not washing their hands; there are very clear procedures which schools must follow if they want to introduce this technology and very clear procedures which must be followed if a breach takes place.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, for what purposes are biometric technologies used in schools?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

There are a range of purposes. One, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, mentioned, is in relation to payment; another is access to libraries, where fingerprinting is often used. They are also used in order that children accessing free school meals do not have a separate payment system and are not stigmatised and their dignity is not affected.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Why will the Government not allow the Biometrics Commissioner to be the regulator of schools? The commissioner has asked for that, and the Government have so far refused. Why are the Government refusing a regulator to ensure that the rules and regulations that the Minister keeps referring to are being adhered to by every school in this country?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

There is already a regulator. The Information Commissioner’s Office regulates this area and, if the noble Lord would let me respond, the key statutory functions of the Biometrics Commissioner are explicitly to keep under review the retention and use of DNA and fingerprints by the police.

Safeguarding of Young Children

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Laming]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve the safeguarding of young children against abuse and death caused by adult members of their household.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, every child should grow up in a stable, loving home but, in rare circumstances, children are harmed by those who should protect them. We have commissioned the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel to make recommendations about how local and national safeguarding practice should change to protect children in future, and the panel reports on Thursday this week. We will carefully consider its recommendations, alongside the reforms in the care review, with an ambitious and detailed implementation strategy later this year.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, who has vast experience in these matters, but does she agree that, in these absolutely awful cases, there are three consistent features? The first is that the child was not hidden away but was known to the services; the second is that the dysfunctional nature of the family was known; and, thirdly, opportunities to protect the child had been missed in each case? In these circumstances, will the Government send a letter to each of the key frontline services, reminding them of their duties in law to safeguard children at risk and to work together, sharing information which is vital to the child’s needs?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. I remember in a former role publishing research on this entitled In Plain Sight, about abuse of children, so I entirely recognise the issues he raises. He will remember that Ministers from the DfE, the Home Office, and the Department of Health and Social Care wrote to all chief constables, local authority chief executives and clinical commissioning groups’ accountable officers at the end of last year, reminding them of their duties in this regard. We are absolutely clear on the importance of this, both locally and in central government.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that one way that safeguarding can be helped is through the family hubs? I seem to keep mentioning family hubs in this Chamber, but I should be interested to know where we are with them. If there are still only the pilot schemes, can we roll them out further throughout the country? They will be a one-stop place where people can go to get help.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is right, and we absolutely intend, through the almost £302 million we are investing in Start4Life and family health services across 75 local authorities in England, to achieve what my noble friend describes. Yesterday, we announced seven local authorities that will be receiving transitional funding. We will also be carrying out a thorough evaluation and have a national centre for sharing best practice.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords, there was a very similar case during my time as the Member of Parliament for Copeland, in which a child, a small boy, was murdered by his stepfather. I know that that is not always the case, but it frequently is. I regret to say that successive Governments—Labour, Conservative and even, I may say, coalition Governments—have not grasped this problem. It may be that from the report to which the noble Baroness just referred, we will have some further recommendations about action but, until this problem is resolved, we might as well say that social services are not doing their duty. They are not protecting children in anything like the necessary way to prevent these terrible events. I hope the Minister will report to the House in due course about the report, and then perhaps we can see some progress.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We will be debating the report in your Lordships’ Chamber later this afternoon, but I would say that social workers have some of the hardest jobs in this country and we thank them for everything they do. We continue to invest in those services to address the terrible cases such as that to which the noble Lord refers.

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords, the safeguarding of young children is yet another important social concern alongside violence against women, racism in the police and youth crime. They are simply surface sores of an underlying social malady. Does the Minister agree that the long-term solution to such problems is a much greater emphasis in schools on the other three Rs; namely, right, wrong and responsibility?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am sure that the noble Lord’s suggestion may be part of the solution, but to expect any single thing to resolve these difficult and complex problems will not be sufficient, hence the more comprehensive approach that we are taking.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, when I became a Minister with some of these responsibilities more than a decade ago, my noble friend Lady Walmsley gave me two pieces of advice. First, she said, “Always remember that social workers do not murder children, although they sometimes get the opprobrium when something wrong happens.” The other piece of advice was that the interest of the child comes first.

With that as a background, last year, Emily Dugan, the social affairs correspondent at the Sunday Times, ran a series of articles about mistakes being made through either misdiagnosis or misinformation where children were taken away from families with traumatic results. Will the report that we are expecting on Thursday cover this element, because it causes problems for the families affected and puts additional burdens on social workers instead of concentrating on the children in real danger?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The report on Thursday will focus on the tragic deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson and the lessons to be learned from them.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

I know that this Minister knows of the importance of voluntary organisations in working with the most disadvantaged, and sometimes the most vulnerable, families. Is she aware, and has she made the review aware, that there are too many examples of the voluntary sector being excluded and not involved in plans for the future of the family and the child once the issue has been referred to safeguarding? This cannot continue. It increases danger for the most vulnerable children.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Obviously I cannot comment on what will be in the review on Thursday, but in the care review led by Josh MacAlister there is a particular focus on independent domestic violence services.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister comment on the shortage of health visitors in many parts of the country and the reduction in investment in them? In the past, they have been absolutely key in identifying at-risk families early and preventing long-term abuse.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right: health visitors play an incredibly important role in identifying families that need support and children at risk. I know that my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care are looking at this as part of the wider workforce strategy.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is absolutely right to say what she just said, so does she regret the closure of 1,300 Sure Start centres?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Our focus is on getting effective multiagency support for children, hence our investment in family hubs and all the support that goes with them.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that both Scotland and Wales have banned parents and carers from hitting their children? Is she interested to know that, when I had a meeting with the Minister responsible for this area in another place to ask why England is not considering doing the same, she told me that she was working incredibly hard and that this was not at the top of her to-do list? In the light of some of the most recent dreadful reports, does the Minister think it might have gone up her list of priorities?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I cannot comment on another Minister’s priorities. What I can say is that this Government are prioritising the safety and well-being of children so that they should all thrive throughout their childhood.

Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we too very much welcome this review and thank all those involved in presenting it to us. I associate my remarks with all those people involved in working with children and families at all sorts of levels; they do an amazing and fantastic job.

The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care provides an opportunity to unlock potential for recognising that loving relationships and supporting kinship networks lead the way to sustainable and ideal solutions for children in social care. Her Majesty’s Government’s response focuses on providing foster carers and social workers with more support but does not address the supporting of children themselves. This review is a wake-up call to Ministers who, after a series of reviews, must finally address the scale and severity of the challenge to provide adequate support to those who rely on us. The report recommends injecting a minimum of £2.6 billion into the care system over the next four years. Will the Minister reassure us that the Government will commit to this kind of important investment?

The Government’s response so far does not address the discrepancy between care-leavers and the continuing success of the individual throughout their life. Every child, no matter where they live or what their circumstances, deserves a great start in life so that they can have the support, relationships, skills and knowledge needed to succeed. We on these Benches believe in young people being allowed to stay in care until the age of 25, as well as increased financial resources through expanding the bursary for those leaving care from £1,000 to £2,000, access to mentors and support networks. We champion bridging the gap between care and a fulfilling adult life in a way that current government policy does not meaningfully address.

Furthermore, Her Majesty’s Government’s proposed policy places the onus of finding care providers for vulnerable young children on the relevant local authority while underfunding those very same councils. The providers in the private sector are charging exorbitant rates—£4,000 a week—for inadequate care, knowing full well that there is a shortage of care providers. The predictable outcome is that the authority finds care from the lowest bidders, often unregistered providers with no quality assurance of care.

Young people are the future of our nation. How can we be content to allow such a situation to continue? Can the Minister give an assurance that the Government will stop these vulnerable children and young people going into inadequate, unregistered care provision? We welcome many of the review’s recommendations, including a renewed emphasis on supporting families, financial allowance to parental and kinship carers at the same rate as foster carers, and providing parental leave to kinship carers. This will support our nation’s most vulnerable young people while allocating funds towards those who are best able to support them.

Without the resources and proper structures of support, children will continue to be placed in unregistered care situations, which can of course be incredibly harmful. It is of paramount importance to use this report as a springboard for sustainable and meaningful change for those who deserve a safe and purposeful upbringing.

We talk about levelling up but, if we are actually to make any meaningful changes, we need to deal with the root causes of what these children and families often find themselves in. It is about making sure that we tackle poverty and provide the best educational opportunities. It is about making sure that families in the most disadvantaged communities are supported.

Finally, I remind the House that we have a Select Committee looking at the Children and Families Act, chaired by my noble friend Lady Tyler. Many of these issues are being discussed in that Select Committee, so I welcome that opportunity as well to highlight these important matters.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their remarks. As a Government, we absolutely acknowledge that the children’s social care system needed a fundamental report. That is why we commissioned this independent, broad and bold review. We will be publishing an ambitious and detailed implementation strategy later this year that will deliver for our most vulnerable children. The noble Baroness asked for a timeline on that; we can be clear that the implementation plan will be published before the end of the year.

Obviously, a lot of work is already ongoing within government but, in response to the review, we have been clear about three key priorities that we want to focus on initially: first, to improve the child protection system so that children are safe; secondly, to support families to raise their children so that they thrive; and finally, for those children who need to be placed in local authority or foster care, to have the right placements in the right places and in a timely way. On Monday we announced plans to establish a national implementation board, which will challenge us to achieve the best for our children. One of the strengths of this review, as I am sure all noble Lords will agree, was the incredible contribution from people with lived experience of the care system. We commit to ensuring that their voices are also represented on that national implementation board.

We are prioritising work with local authorities to recruit more foster carers, which we think can make a real difference in the short term, and to support social workers, particularly early in their career, and give them additional focus on child protection given its key role in their work. We are developing a national children’s social care framework, which will set out a clear direction for the system and provide an evidence base for all those working in the sector. Finally, we are introducing a new digital and data solutions fund, which will help local authorities to improve delivery for children and families through technology.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, commented on the pressures that the social workforce faces. I do not question for a second that those are very real, but I remind the House that the number of social workers has increased by 14% since 2017 to 32,500. One of the points noted in the report was that the average caseload has come down slightly. We are not arguing that every case is the same, but the figures are going in the right direction.

The noble Baroness asked whether we were planning legislation. In response to her question and that of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about our commitment to funding additional services, I say that we need to wait and see what the implementation panel recommends. We will respond to its recommendations but taking real care with implementation is crucial, because your Lordships will all know very well of examples where implementation has not delivered on the aspirations within such reports.

Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord referred to the situation with children’s homes. This Government are absolutely not against companies making a profit, but we are absolutely against profiteering, which I think was the phrase the noble Baroness used. We are putting funding into local authorities now so that they can expand their provision as quickly as possible while we look at some of the longer-term structural issues raised in the Competition and Markets Authority review as well as the care review.

In relation to unregulated provision for children in care, we are investing over £140 million to introduce new standards and Ofsted-led registration inspections for supported education to ensure that young people are safe and have the high-quality living arrangements that they deserve.

The noble Lord also referred to support for care leavers. We are providing £172 million over the next three years to support care leavers as they transition to independence, with better move-on accommodation and practical and emotional support from a personal adviser.

Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord rightly challenged the Government on how we will implement this. There is real commitment and ambition to try to address some of the tragedies which we have heard about all too often in this House, and the systemic issues that we face in the child protection and care system. We look forward to working with all noble Lords across the House in our attempts to do this.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, this is a most important report, and we are grateful for the points the Minister has already made. I commend the Government on commissioning this review. and congratulate Josh MacAlister and his team on producing what I regard as an inspiring report because it focuses so much on the needs of children and families.

By any standards, this is a substantial document, and it will repay very careful study by all of us. The strength of the report is the way in which it focuses unrelentingly on children and families who could and should have been helped through difficult periods in their lives. Too often in recent years, these children and families have had to fit in with the needs of the services—not their needs, yet these very services were created to meet the needs of the children at risk. This is despite the legislation making it clear that the well-being of the child is of paramount importance, and we must hold on to that.

During the last decade, as has already been mentioned, we have witnessed a remarkable reduction in family support and preventive services. I am told that even when a child and family have been identified as being in difficulty and have been referred to the appropriate services, it has sometimes been decided that the crisis is not yet sufficiently serious and therefore they have been denied the opportunity for support and help at that critical time.

Today, we have a crisis-driven set of services. In other words, they wait for the crisis to be apparent before they react. That is contrary to what the legislation and all the practice guidance says. No wonder, therefore, that there has been a large increase in the number of children coming into state care. This report gives us the opportunity to reverse that process. I am very pleased that the decision has been taken to establish a national implementation board and I wish it great success.

I will end with a quote from the report, which I hope will stay with us:

“This moment is a once in a generation opportunity to reset children’s social care”.


I hope the Minister will show the House that she and other Ministers will do everything possible to ensure that this report is fully implemented. I commend the report.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am sure that I am not the only person in this House who has been inspired by the noble Lord’s work over decades, and I thank him deeply for that and for the leadership and hope he brings in this area. I will pass on his remarks to my colleagues in the department.

I would say two things in response to his reflections. First, investment in preventive services is absolutely critical and we will be reviewing that in detail. Secondly, we also need to push ourselves to understand the local authorities prioritising those services, how they are making that work and how we can replicate that across the country. The noble Lord will be familiar with the Hertfordshire family safeguarding model; there are other early intervention models in Leeds and other places around the country. We want to understand those too so that we can act on evidence of what actually works in practice. On the commitment from the Secretary of State and the ministerial team, I cannot underline strongly enough how passionately we aim to address this.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank Josh MacAlister, his team and all the people from within the system he worked with. Josh came to the Public Services Committee, which I chair, as part of giving evidence in our review of vulnerable children.

There are so many things I want to put to the Minister today. Maybe she can help me get a debate on the Floor of the House on our report, and then I will not feel as if I am short-changing the vulnerable children I want to argue for. I will concentrate on one issue only: how do we prevent children having to go into the system? However good it normally is, children suffer when they go into the care system. Our committee uncovered that, since 2010, £1.7 billion a year has been cut from early intervention and prevention services. That was largely for two reasons. First, the overall money going in, particularly to local authorities—whether for children’s centres, youth work or other prevention programmes—was under pressure. Secondly, because they were not statutory responsibilities, authorities shifted the money to the statutory responsibility for looked-after children. Therefore, children have become older as they enter the system. I can tell noble Lords that difficult adolescents are much more difficult to deal with than very young children. Will the Government introduce a system which will ensure that money can go to early intervention and prevention services for the long term and will not be allowed to be switched into crisis work?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right to focus on how we prevent children needing to go into the care system or, indeed, needing a social worker at an earlier stage. I highlighted the Secretary of State’s three priorities in response to this report, the second being supporting families to raise their children effectively, happily and in a way that enables them to thrive. One of the strengths of the report is its emphasis on relationships and whether the immediate family—or the wider family—can provide those stable relationships, and how we can create them. As the report uses the term “relentlessly focused”, we must ask: how do we have a relentless focus on those relationships?

We will follow up on all those issues, but in the meantime—we were pleased that Josh MacAlister acknowledged the value of the programme—as we announced in April, we will back the supporting families programme with an additional £695 million over the next three years, which will support 300,000 families to provide the safe and loving homes their children need, as well as other investments in family hubs and other early intervention.

[The Lord Bishop of Carlisle]

My Lords, as we have already heard, much is to be welcomed in this review, which clearly has the needs of vulnerable children and young people right at its core. The emphasis on boosting early help to prevent children reaching a crisis point is crucial. I am most grateful for the confirmation we have been given that a detailed implementation plan will soon be forthcoming, with the views and voices of children and young people firmly at its centre. I am also grateful for the comments already made by the Minister about investment in the action plan and implementation. Does she agree with me that, should any further encouragement be needed on investing properly in implementation of early intervention, proper investment should also lead to significant savings in the longer term?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate’s final point is right; Josh MacAlister’s review has set out very clearly the scale of the challenge we face and has worked through the financial impact of getting this right. However, none of us is in any doubt that our primary focus is getting it right for children.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, I also welcome this review and its focus on supporting families earlier in the process. To echo an observation made by the author and journalist Polly Curtis, the word “love” was used 42 times in this review and “loving” 50 times. As she says, this is pretty radical for a set of formal proposals. It is most welcome, because is that not what the system is for—making sure that children are loved and cared for when their parents cannot take on that role? As has been mentioned, kinship carers play a fundamental part in this, so will my noble friend reassure us that, as the review proposes, there will be increased legal, practical and financial support for kinship carers to match the scale of what is offered to foster carers and adoptive parents?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is right to pick up on all the “love” and “loving” in the report. Kinship carers are an incredibly important part of providing that to children, and I send them my thanks for everything they do. The department already works with the charity Kinship and supports it in creating more support groups for kinship carers. There are some very important recommendations in the report and I can absolutely say to my noble friend that we will consider each of them and they will be part of our report at the end of the year.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, following on from the question just asked, do the Government recognise the need for a legal definition of kinship care? It should be in legislation, because that will improve the rights of these very important family members who take on the care, often in extremely difficult circumstances, of very traumatised children. Will the Government also consider the recommendation from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health that there is a need for a single unique identifier so that, as the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said, rather than responding to crises, there is an ability to respond to early warning signs? Several yellow flags will add up to a really screaming red flag if they are left to develop.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

In relation to the noble Baroness’s first point, I can only say that all those issues, including whether the definition should be covered in legislation, will be in our implementation report. In relation to the single unique identifier, we have committed to coming to a decision on the best way forward by next summer.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, may I say how much I am comforted by the response of the Government to the excellent report and hope that all that the Minister is saying in good faith will actually take effect? As a family judge over very many years, and as the writer of the Cleveland report, there are two points I would like to raise with her. The first relates to children. My experience is of many children asked to see me. From the age of about six upwards, those children gave me extremely valuable advice as to what should happen to them. I do not think that social workers listen enough to what the children have to say. You cannot necessarily do what the child wants, but at least the child has a right to be heard, however young, if they are sensible enough to give a good example.

The other thing, which I found extremely sad when listening to the evidence of social workers, was that the social worker on the ground knew the family very well, but she or he did not make the decision; the decision was made higher up the ladder by a social worker who no longer had any individual cases to look at. I cannot imagine why they do not still keep a caseload to keep their hand in. They make decisions totally contrary to what the girl on the ground who knows the situation is saying. Can the Minister do anything by way of guidance to deal with that issue?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble and learned Baroness makes very important points, first in terms of a child’s right to be listened to and have their views respected. On the point about caseload, one of the 80 recommendations in the report is that, just as in the medical profession senior doctors will keep a caseload, so in social work senior social workers should keep a caseload and there will be teams with senior and less experienced social workers working together on cases.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, Josh MacAlister’s report demands good practice, which actually exists in many parts of our country—I declare my interest as a social worker who worked with child protection and disability services for many decades. I acknowledge all that good practice; nevertheless, there were 206 serious safeguarding incidents involving child deaths in just one year, 2020, and we have known other very serious cases, so something is going very wrong. Those of us on the front line have always known what Josh MacAlister has argued, which is about early intervention and the serious impact and ramifications of closing Sure Start and other services, so will the Minister ensure that the national implementation board takes on board not just the voices of young people but those of parents, who have had a terrible time at the hands of inexperienced social workers?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

It is not for me to tell the national implementation board what it should or should not look at: it will have the 80 recommendations from the report. We will bring together a group of real experts with a very wide perspective, including experts by experience, and we look forward to their reflections and advice.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, I also welcome the report and endorse many of the comments we have heard about early intervention and children being listened to, and families as well. I think we are all agreed on that. I was a cabinet member for social services and care in Islington Council for some years and dealt with child protection. Islington, like many other boroughs, had a bit of a chequered history but improved dramatically. One thing I found very valuable as a corporate parent was listening to children in care and their experiences.

One thing that struck me was a young man who said, “My corporate parent is one of the wealthiest in the borough and the biggest employer in the borough, yet I’m having difficulty in getting training, education and a job. Why is that?” If we think about it, local authorities are in a very good position to give young people leaving care the adequate support that they need—that is, to set aside training and education opportunities. One thing that worked well for us in setting up a corporate parenting board was requiring all departments in the council to set aside opportunities for apprenticeships that led to jobs. Other local authorities also did it. I do not know whether that still happens, as I have not been part of a council for more than 10 years; I just want to put it to the Minister and say that it could be very positive.

Let us not forget the stigmatisation of young people in care. I heard a girl on the radio speaking about the way they are treated and the experiences they have. The discrimination they face must be recognised. I see that one of the recommendations was that such discrimination should be recognised in equality legislation so that these young people are protected.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

One element focused on in the review is the ambition that we should have for children in the care system in relation to setting up their own businesses and having successful careers. All those things will be considered.

[Lord Walney (CB)]

My Lords, 13 month-old Poppi Worthington died 10 years ago in Barrow, probably at the hands of her father after being sexually abused. Of the myriad ways in which she was failed, one was that there was clearly not enough information sharing to allow professionals to see before she was born that she was being born into a very troubled family. That is one of the weaknesses that has been identified. Is it one of the areas that the Government will now push forward with as they improve data sharing across the system?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right and, yes, that is absolutely an area of focus.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I want to ask a practical but important nuts-and-bolts question. Can my noble friend the Minister assure the House that it will be a cross-government and multiagency effort and not just for the Department for Education to put the review’s findings into effect?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is right to press on this point. This needs to be multiagency at both the local level—it must include the voluntary sector, as the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, highlighted, and statutory partners; we were clear in our guidance on the importance of this—and the central government level. We need to do that across the Department for Education, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Home Office.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Statement has now elapsed. I suggest that we take a moment to shuffle the Benches before we continue.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Barran Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part one
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank those noble Lords who showed an interest in this Bill during the humble Address debate on the Queen’s Speech last week. I welcome the shared interest in delivering high-quality education, and in keeping our children safe, that was witnessed across all sides of the House.

Over the past 12 years, we have seen great improvements to the school system. The proportion of schools rated good or outstanding has increased by 19 percentage points, from 68% in 2010 to 87% in 2019. While my predecessors delivered significant progress, the Government recognise that yet more must be done to level up the school system. We must, therefore, bring forward vital reforms which will support children, schools, teachers and parents. This Government have a vision to create a fairer and stronger school system that works for every child. All children should have a safe and effective education and, as both Houses have consistently argued, we must ensure that no child is left falling through the cracks.

In March, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education published the schools White Paper, setting out the Government’s long-term vision for a school system that helps every child to fulfil their potential by ensuring that they receive the right support, in the right place, and at the right time, founded on achieving world-class literacy and numeracy. This included our ambition that, by 2030, 90% of primary school children will achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, and the percentage of children meeting the expected standard in the worst performing areas of the country will have increased by a third.

The Bill sits within a wider programme of steps that we are taking to deliver this ambition, including a parent pledge for any child who falls behind in English or maths, investment in teacher training, teacher starting salaries set to rise to £30,000, a new arm’s-length curriculum body, and the creation of education investment areas to increase funding and support to areas most need in need, plus extra funding in priority areas facing the most entrenched challenges.

This Bill seeks to level up standards by supporting every school to be part of a family of schools in a strong trust. To achieve this, we must play our role in ensuring system quality by rethinking the way in which we uphold trust standards, so that our legislative framework is fit for purpose for a fully trust-led system. We are seeking the power to deliver, for the first time, a coherent single set of regulations on academy standards. This will set transparent, publicly available standards that academies must meet, replacing a diverse set of contractual and funding arrangements with each individual trust. Alongside this, we are seeking new intervention powers, to ensure that action can be taken to tackle serious failure if it occurs. These measures will lay the foundations for a successful, fully trust-led system.

We must also ensure that all schools can feel comfortable joining a trust without losing their individual characteristics. That is why we are putting clear protections for faith schools and grammar schools into primary legislation to provide confidence that their unique characteristics can be retained within an academy trust. We recognise that local authorities can play an important role in this journey, so we are giving them the ability to request conversion of their schools. Outside the Bill, we also plan to enable local authorities to establish their own trusts.

To build a genuine level playing field for children, we need to ensure an equitable distribution of resources. There remains too much variation in funding between comparable schools in this country. That is not right, and our long-planned reforms for funding will be delivered through the Bill, enabling us to resolve it.

The Government have already made great progress in reforming the school funding system. In 2018 we introduced the national funding formula, a system which meant that local authority areas received consistent funding based on a single formula for the first time. However, the current system still means that the local authority’s own formulae determine how much each school is ultimately allocated.

The Bill takes us to the next step, moving to a direct national funding formula, meaning that each mainstream school is allocated funding on the same basis, wherever it is in the country, and each child can be given the same opportunities, based on a consistent assessment of their needs.

The Bill also introduces new measures on attendance. Clearly, to benefit from a high-quality school education, consistent attendance is vital. We made good progress in the years between 2009-10 and 2018-19, with levels of pupil absence falling from 6% to 4.7%, meaning that students were spending an extra 15 million days in school. That being said, the Government understand that more needs to be done. Pre-pandemic levels of persistent absenteeism were at one in nine pupils, and these figures have risen further during the pandemic. We recognise that these absences greatly enlarge the gap between vulnerable and disadvantaged pupils and their peers. We know that schools are working hard to ensure that pupils are attending lessons, but reforms are needed to provide them with the right support to do this effectively.

The Bill will require schools to publish an attendance policy, as well as putting attendance guidance for schools, trusts, governing bodies and local authorities on a statutory footing, making roles and responsibilities clearer. This will build on their existing work on attendance and deliver greater consistency of support for families across England, and focus better, more targeted multi-agency support on the pupils who need it most.

The Bill also seeks to deliver this Government’s commitment to introduce registers of children not in schools—something that this House has persistently debated and rightly requested. The Government acknowledge the great value that a good home education can bring and support the principle of choice for parents, but we know that some children miss out on high-quality, full-time education because they are missing from the system.

In 2020-21, there was an estimated 34% increase in children whose parents chose to educate them outside the school system at some point during that period. The children not in school registers will provide accurate data and enable local authorities to identify children in their areas who are not receiving efficient, full-time education. We also recognise the need to support families who are home educating, and therefore we will require local authorities to offer support to interested parents of registered home-educated students.

The Bill will protect more children by expanding registration requirements for more educational settings that provide all, or the majority of, a child’s education. We will work closely with Ofsted, enhancing its powers to investigate registered independent educational institutions that are breaching relevant restrictions and unregistered independent educational institutions that are being conducted unlawfully. These additional enforcement powers will provide the ability to suspend registration pending further investigation.

This Bill will also broaden the scope of the current teacher misconduct regime so that it includes more educational settings. This will ensure that children who receive their education at further education colleges, special post-16 institutions, independent training providers, online education providers and some independent educational institutions will be protected and safeguarded by the teacher misconduct regime. It will clarify that teachers who have committed misconduct at any time when not employed to undertake teaching work can be investigated by the Secretary of State, and that misconduct uncovered by departmental officials can be referred without the need for it to be referred by a party external to the department.

I feel hugely optimistic about what we will collectively deliver once this Bill has had the benefit of the minds and experience in this Chamber. The Bill provides the opportunity to continue progress in reforming the school system so that it works for all children, supports teachers and provides parents with the confidence that their child is receiving the best and safest possible education. Reforming the school system is not a quick fix and work will carry on long after we consider the legislation before us today, but this Bill takes essential strides towards creating a stronger, fairer and safer school system that will improve the education of children across this country. I beg to move.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Barran Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part two
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions today. I am deeply grateful for the knowledge and expertise that have been brought to bear on the debate, and I am pleased to hear from so many with great experience in the sector. I echo the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, about the noble Lord, Lord Watson, although I would like her to put herself in my shoes: she has him behind her; I have both of them across the aisle.

Among the many comments offering support, I have also heard the phrases “limited ambition” and “missed opportunity” on a number of occasions, so I would like to clarify our approach a bit better. In developing this Bill, we have looked carefully at the evidence. We have considered what works, and we are putting that into practice. To paraphrase my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education: arguably, the most ambitious thing a Government can try to do is replicate what is working in some places and scale it across the country. That is what we are trying to do.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, referred to a lack of ambition in supporting children, empowering teachers and supporting parents. I would point her to our schools White Paper, where we have set out all those things in detail, supported by a broad range of programmes, including a “Parent Pledge”, which is a promise to every family that

“any child that falls behind in English or maths should receive timely and evidence-based support to enable them to reach their potential.”

I would also point your Lordships who challenged the Government’s position in relation to careers advice and forward-looking qualifications to the achievements in the skills Act and our work on T-levels.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham suggested that we might be selling our children short if we focus so much on numeracy and literacy. My noble friend Lord Nash put it brilliantly as to why this is so important. Without the fundamental skills of literacy and numeracy, all the other subjects and areas of the curriculum that noble Lords have rightly raised this evening cannot be accessed, so I think we are selling them even shorter if we do not focus on those.

We are supporting teachers by providing 500,000 new teacher training opportunities by 2024. We are making sure that teachers have access to evidence-based and world-class training. We are introducing our new professional qualifications, including in relation to early years leadership, which I know is an area that this House rightly cares a great deal about.

Several noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, and the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, asked about funding to address the most entrenched areas of educational underperformance, and I would point your Lordships again to the education investment areas. I really hope the noble Lord does not feel that the Government have a sense of complacency about this. If this was an easy thing to turn around, other Governments would have done it already. We are in no way complacent; we absolutely see the scale of the challenge.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, invited me to acknowledge the excellence among some maintained schools. I am more than happy to do that, but I would ask noble Lords on all sides of the House to be equally generous and equally honest in acknowledging the remarkable work of some multi-academy trusts in turning around schools that have been failing ever since inspections were introduced.

In relation to the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, about the statistics that we published recently, I hope they are both aware that we have already updated the relevant document to ensure greater clarity and transparency. I hope they are also aware that the findings and conclusions were completely unchanged as a result of that; it was purely a point of clarity and transparency. I would not want the House to have any confusion about that.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Blunkett, and my noble friend Lady Berridge, referred to the importance of school capital funding. Well maintained and safe school buildings are an absolute priority for the department; that is why we have allocated over £13 billion since 2015 for keeping schools safe and operational, including £1.8 billion committed this year, informed by consistent data on the school estate. In addition, our school rebuilding programme will transform 500 schools over the next decade, prioritising those in poor condition and with potential safety issues.

The noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Addington, my noble friend Lord Holmes, and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, all talked about the importance of having ambition and the needs of children with special educational needs and disabilities at the heart of our strategy. To enable them to thrive, we want to build an education system where they can get the right support in a timely way and close to where they are. The SEND and alternative provision Green Paper published on 29 March sets out our ambitions in this regard. We are currently engaging in a very broad public consultation on our proposals. That consultation closes on 22 July, and we will then publish a delivery plan setting out how change will be implemented. I hope that the consultation will give an opportunity to the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, to input her questions, views and recommendations in relation to alternative provision and excluded pupils. There are also clear opportunities in that consultation to input on issues around autism, about which the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, spoke so movingly in relation to the experience within her own family.

Turning to the Bill, many of your Lordships talked about the centralising move and questioned whether this was a power grab, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman and Lady Morris, the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett, Lord Davies, Lord Addington and Lord Watson, my noble friends Lord Baker, Lord Eccles and Lord Lingfield, and other noble Lords; I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I have not referred to them all. I really would like to reassure your Lordships about the breadth of matters that could be covered by the academy standards. The examples provided in the standards clauses reflect matters already covered in existing funding agreements, legislation and the Academy Trust Handbook. For example, the model funding agreement includes a clause on the curriculum which states that it must include English, maths and science; the intention is to replicate this freedom in the standards regulations.

My noble friend Lord Eccles talked about a concern around consistency. We are keen on consistency of ambition but very keen not to be prescriptive in how those results and outcomes are to be achieved. Our proposals for a new set of statutory academy standards will provide much more parliamentary and public scrutiny of the requirements placed on academy trusts and the existing regime. We will shortly be publishing expanded fact sheets, setting out significantly more detail on our delegated powers.

My noble friends Lord Nash and Lord Lucas, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, also were concerned about the impact on the fundamental freedoms of academies. These reforms will maintain the central freedoms and autonomy of the academy programme. Our “strong trust” definition and standards will set out clearly what we expect all academy trusts to deliver, but trusts remain free to design, innovate and implement operating models that they believe will deliver the best outcomes for their pupils. I would be delighted to meet my noble friend Lord Nash to discuss this further and benefit from his experience and insight on the matter.

A number of noble Lords questioned the capacity of the department to deliver regulation. It is precisely to ensure that we are properly equipped to oversee a system where all schools are in trusts that we are launching a formal regulatory review. That review will establish the appropriate model and options for how best to regulate the English schools system when all schools are part of a family of schools in strong trusts. The noble Baroness asked if I had looked at clusters and federations. I absolutely have and I am happy to share more detail on those conversations with her if she has time.

Many of your Lordships challenged the sense of a local feel of multi-academy trusts, including the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Garden and Lady Bennett. We recognise absolutely that local schools are at the heart of the communities that they serve and that local governance arrangements also play an important role in enabling trusts to be responsive to parents and local communities. As we set out in the schools White Paper, we want to see all trusts having such arrangements to ensure that they are connected to all their schools and the communities they serve and to make sure that the trusts can make decisions that are well informed by the local context.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford asked specifically about our consideration for small, rural schools. It is an issue of which we are acutely aware and I am very happy again to pick that up in more detail with him if that would be helpful.

The vast majority of trusts already choose to have local governing bodies. We will discuss with the sector the best way to implement these arrangements. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, in particular, I think, cited a sense of dissatisfaction about this. If the noble Lord can share specific examples with me, I would be very happy to explore those further.

Your Lordships also asked a number of questions on admissions. In particular, we are planning to consult on a new statutory framework for pupil movement which ensures that a decision to move a child in year is always in the best interests of that child. As a final safety net there will be a new backstop power for local authorities to direct trusts to admit children, with the right for the trust to appeal to the Schools Adjudicator.

My noble friend Lord Blackwell and the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington—who I should congratulate on King’s Maths School being school of the decade—asked about schools in areas of deprivation offering the maximum opportunity to talented local children. We announced in the levelling-up White Paper that we will be looking at opening new free schools for children aged 16 to 19, targeted in areas where they are most needed.

As my noble friend Lord Blackwell said, grammar schools are among the best-performing schools in the country. They also have an important role to play in a future schools system, but we are committed to supporting all disadvantaged pupils in England to realise their potential.

I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham for his kind words in relation to the work that my colleagues in the department have done with his colleagues in relation to faith protection. We are working on the land and other issues and are happy to continue to explore those.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, raised the issues argued by the Humanist Society and others, but she will know that many faith schools have a really strong track record in delivering excellent education and our experience is that they are popular with parents, whether they belong to that faith or not. Again, I am happy to follow up the points that she raised.

On the attendance measures in the Bill, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, suggested that some of the measures on attendance could appear punitive. My noble friend Lord Lucas also spoke on these issues. Our attendance measures are underpinned by the principle of “support first”. The measures will help school absence from becoming persistent or severe by improving, at a national level, the consistency of support offered to pupils and their parents through an earlier and more targeted approach. I urge noble Lords to look at the evidence in this area, which shows a great inconsistency across the country. We hope that the measures will reduce the need for legal intervention overall, so that the existing legal interventions are primarily used where support has not been successful or families have not engaged with that support.

On the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, of course the intention here is not to punish children with long-term health conditions. Again, I would be happy to follow up with her on some of the examples that she raised. That also applies to the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, regarding autism.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Fox and Lady Jones, and my noble friend Lord Lucas expressed concerns about bringing in a register for children not in school. I just reiterate that the Government respect the right of all families to home-educate, where it is done in the best interests of the child. We want parents and local authorities to be supported in ensuring that that education is suitable. The move to require local authority registration is not intended to undermine privacy, nor will it interfere with a parent’s right to educate their child in a way and with the methods that they think are best. Notification to the local authority that a child is receiving home education will help it to plan and target resources at children who are truly missing education. It will help local authorities to plan their resources for complying with their duties under existing guidance and the new duty to provide support where it is requested. It will also support them in identifying children who would otherwise be considered as children missing education, who could be at a safeguarding risk due to not receiving a suitable education, or indeed any education at all, and at risk of harm.

The consultation response did not feature any proposals for additional powers for local authorities, such as to explicitly monitor education or enforce entry into the home. Our view remains that local authorities’ existing powers are sufficient to determine whether the provision offered is suitable. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, invited me to talk to home-educating parents, and I would be happy to hear their concerns.

Turning to the regulatory regime for independent educational institutions, the regulatory regime that we are proposing is tailored to settings that are intended to provide the whole or the majority of a student’s education. Our view is that it would not be proportionate to apply this regime to part-time or supplementary educational settings. We are going to launch a call for evidence regarding part-time settings shortly, but we have worked hard to try to address the questions raised by both the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, about institutions that try to evade the spirit of these regulations. Again, I would be glad to explore that in more detail with noble Lords.

As ever, we are preparing an increasingly long letter, and I know I have not done justice to all the points raised. In closing, I know that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, talked about his amendment on fundamental British values, and I am looking forward to meeting tomorrow to discuss that further. Similarly, I will follow up on my noble friend Lady Berridge’s points on data regarding children on free school meals and with special educational needs, and with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford on clarifying points around governance and conflicts of interests for local authorities when they have their own MATs. I will also follow up with my noble friend Lord Lexden in relation to the fit and proper persons test, and with the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, on adoption from abroad.

I want to spend one moment on a point to which I cannot do justice. Many noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Altrincham and Lord Sandhurst, the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Watkins, talked about children’s mental health. I am hoping we will have a chance to talk about this more in Committee. We remain absolutely committed, as are all your Lordships, to promoting and supporting children and young people’s mental health and well-being in schools and listening to what more can be done. Counselling is obviously an important part of that.

On the specific points raised by my noble friends on guidance for schools about trans pupils, we recognise that this is a complex and sensitive area for schools to navigate. We believe they are well placed to work with parents, pupils and public services to help decide what is best for individual children and others in the school. We are working with the Equality and Human Rights Commission to make sure that we give the clearest possible guidance to schools on these important issues.

In closing, I echo other noble Lords in thanking teachers, teaching assistants, MAT leaders and all who are involved in our school system for the incredibly important and valuable work that they do. As noble Lords have heard me say several times, I am very committed, as are my colleagues in the department, to meeting your Lordships to discuss the issues raised this evening. I also commit to going through the data that we have put together and the evidence base for the choices that we are making for the school system to make sure that we can reinforce your Lordships’ confidence in how we have arrived at those conclusions.

I invite your Lordships to perhaps meet some of the multi-academy trust leaders in your areas, if you have time—we would also be happy to put together a round table—because the picture painted in many of the speeches tonight is not one that I recognise from the many schools that I have visited and leaders whom I have spoken to. Us all having the clearest and broadest possible understanding will be helpful for making the Bill the best that it can be.

In conclusion, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to the debate and look forward to even more detailed scrutiny and challenge as we move to Committee. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to which the Schools Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 3, Schedule 1, Clauses 4 to 7, Schedule 2, Clauses 8 to 44, Schedule 3, Clauses 45 to 51, Schedule 4, Clause 52 to 62, Schedule 5, Clauses 63 to 69, Title.

Motion agreed.

Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2022

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2022.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, as the Committee will no doubt appreciate, the construction sector is broad and a significant part of the UK economy. It is responsible for delivering infrastructure and large construction, including transport, energy, social infrastructure and commercial buildings. It is also responsible for delivering new housebuilding and for the repair, maintenance and improvement work needed for existing buildings and the built environment.

The traditional image of the industry and its workers is shifting. New technologies are enabling more efficient and modern methods of construction. We recognise the role that construction plays in reaching the UK’s net-zero targets, which the House passed into legislation in 2019.

This is a broad sector, as I said, and it is a large and growing one. It is valuable to our economy, currently contributing £155 billion, which represents 9% of our national gross value added. It is also valuable economically due to the large number and wide range of employment opportunities that it provides, many of them well-paid, highly-skilled roles offering excellent progression opportunities. It is valuable to the individual too; it employs 3.1 million workers, 813,000 of whom are self-employed.

In research conducted by the Construction Industry Training Board, known as the CITB, the Construction Skills Network forecast indicates that the sector will grow at an average rate of 4.4% across 2021-25. Skills interventions will be critical in meeting existing and future construction labour market demands and addressing skills deficits. New and existing workers will require interventions to retain, retrain and upskill as new regulations and technologies are introduced.

It is a broad, growing, and valuable sector, but it is a fragmented one too. Small and medium-sized enterprises make up more than 99% of all businesses, of which the majority are micro-businesses. It relies heavily on subcontracting and self-employment. This fragmentation creates long-held disincentives for employers to train and develop their construction workforce. This goes to the heart of what the CITB was created to do.

Established in 1964, the CITB is, at its core, industry led, and it exists to encourage the provision of construction training. It has a clearly defined role in identifying construction skills needs and plays a part, with others, in addressing them. It provides targeted training spend, as well as grants to employers, to encourage and enable workers to access and operate safely on construction sites, drive up skills levels and incentivise training that would otherwise not take place. It supports strategic initiatives to help to maintain and develop vital skills in the industry and to create a pipeline of skilled workers. It is developing occupational standards and recognised qualifications so that skills are transferable and increase productivity.

In all activity, the CITB is working in ways that will support the construction sector to develop an environmentally sustainable future, supporting the Government’s ambitions towards net zero. Over the coming three-year levy period, the CITB expects to raise around £502.2 million to invest in construction skills.

The recent 2021 levy order was for one year, not the usual three years. That order was more unusual still, as the levy rates that it prescribed were reduced to 50% of those prescribed by the three-year 2018 order. This was to accommodate the CITB’s decision to allow levy payers a payment holiday in response to cash flow pressures the industry was facing during the first Covid lockdown.

I now turn to the details of the draft order, and I thank the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for considering this draft legislation. This three-year 2022 order returns to the levy rates prescribed by the three-year 2018 order—0.35% of the earnings paid by employers to directly employed workers and 1.25% of contract payments for indirectly employed workers—for businesses liable to pay the levy. However, the industry, having been consulted on the CITB’s delivery strategy and levy rate, supported the retention of the higher exemption and reduction thresholds for small employers contained in the 2021 order. Construction employers with an annual wage bill of up to £119,999—previously £79,999 in the 2018 order—will not pay any levy, while still having full access to CITB support.

It is projected that approximately 62% of all employers in scope of the levy will be exempt from paying it. Employers with a wage bill between £120,000—previously £80,000 in the 2018 order—and £399,999 will receive a 50% reduction on their levy liability while also receiving full access to CITB services. Approximately 14% of all employers in scope of the levy will receive a 50% reduction. Maintaining the increased exemption and reduction thresholds seeks to acknowledge and ease the budgetary pressures on SMEs.

The CITB has consulted industry on the levy proposals via the consensus process required under the Industrial Training Act 1982. Consensus is achieved by satisfying two requirements: that both the majority of employers likely to pay the levy, and employers that together are likely to pay more than half the aggregate levy raised, consider that the proposals are necessary to encourage adequate training. Both requirements were satisfied, with 66.5% of likely levy payers in the industry, which between them are likely to pay 63.2% of the aggregate levy, supportive of the CITB’s proposals.

This order will enable the CITB to continue to carry out its vital training responsibilities, and I beg to move.

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her helpful and informative introduction to a welcome order of importance to our national economy and, indeed, to our future. I also acknowledge the ever-present commitment, conscientiousness and insight of my noble friend Lord Watson. I declare my interest in the register as president of the Engineering Education Scheme Wales, the EESW.

Page 2 of the order refers to consultation with Scottish Ministers, and I ask how and when consultations with Welsh Assembly Ministers took place. In the Explanatory Memorandum in paragraph 10.1, reference is made to a small group of employers that advised on the 2022 to 2024 levy orders. Will the Minister name the employers in the small group and describe the process? If the answer is not immediately forthcoming, perhaps she might write. Where in all this was there a place for trade unions? Was the TUC considered in any way?

Will the Minister expand on the role of technical colleges in the training of apprentices? Concerning apprentices, what role does a Minister play in relation to college trusts and boards? Surely these colleges have a huge and beneficial role. I have in mind here paragraphs 7.2 and 7.3 of the very helpful Explanatory Memorandum.

At paragraph 7.4 there is a more serious statement, which I will quote:

“The construction industry contributes 8.6% of the UK’s gross domestic product, employing over 2.5 million people. However, there remains a serious and distinct market failure in the development and maintenance of skills in the construction industry: the trading conditions, incentives and culture do not lead to a sufficient level of investment in skills by employers.”


I thought it was very helpful to see that paragraph in our papers, and surely it is to the credit of the Government that it was put in. It is of huge importance, and I am sure the Minister will respond.

What special and urgent initiatives is the Minister undertaking on the basis of that serious paragraph? What policy stimuli are under way? Are not engineering apprentices of great national importance—for example, in our aerospace industry and the Ministry of Defence? How does a Minister liaise cross-departmentally to seek ever more and ever better apprenticeships?

I note the 21 November impact assessment and its self-evident helpfulness. Look, for example, at the figurative illustrations—figures 5 and 6—at paragraph 36. First, figure 5 shows the estimated CITB levy payable by employers in England, Scotland and Wales in 2018 versus 2022—that is, the changes. In this, general building, civil engineering and housebuilding come out on top, with £20 million for housebuilding. Why are the Government not pushing harder for housebuilding?

Secondly, figure 5 shows the levy paid by nations in 2022: some £149 million in England, £13.6 million in Scotland, but only, I note, £4.8 million in Wales. Will the Minister tell us what is going on in Wales? For certain, the Welsh Assembly and Government have a good record; all my compatriots are good payers, as I am sure the Minister would agree. Will she please comment and explain? Is it simply that the money that Wales pays is based on population only? But why so little?

Thirdly, in figure 6, it is good to see the brickie and the pointer itemised. The pointer puts the icing on the brick cake. Is the Minister prepared to agree? What are the Government doing to get more brickies and pointers? They are absolutely vital in housebuilding and they are in very short supply, which leads to bottlenecks. The Government want, in the most positive way, more housing built, but here is a bottleneck around the brickie and the pointer. We need many more in the industry, so how hard are the Government negotiating with the employers? Do they pressurise the chief executive officer of the CITB for more brickies and pointers?

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Properly resourced, the CITB is positioned to focus on that delivery. I wish both the organisation and the industry it represents well. I hope that we will be presented with further progress in the development of skills and an industry with greater diversity when we are asked to consider the next draft levy order in three years’ time.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. I will attempt to cover the questions asked but I will of course write on any that I cannot answer at the Dispatch Box.

Before I go any further, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, highlighted the difference between the 2.5 million employees cited in the Explanatory Memorandum and the 3.1 million that I referred to in my opening remarks. The figure of 3.1 million comes from the Office for National Statistics and represents a wider definition of construction that includes the built environment and manufacturing. The figure in the Explanatory Memorandum is an estimate of the CITB-relevant part of the total. I hope that clarifies it for the noble Lord.

The noble Lord, Lord Jones, shared his deep expertise in the sector and asked a number of questions in relation to Wales. In line with the requirements of Section 88 of the Scotland Act 1988, we consulted Scottish Ministers—the noble Lord pointed this out—who confirmed that they are content with the levy order. The Welsh Assembly has also confirmed its support for the order.

The noble Lord asked why the contribution for Wales appears to be so small. The levy is charged to in-scope employers based on their wage bill, so it is possible that there are fewer or smaller such employers in Wales and this is reflected in those figures. The noble Lord also asked how much of the levy will be distributed in Scotland and Wales. The split in income and expenditure between England, Scotland and Wales is not something that the CITB generally measures or reports on.

The noble Lord asked about engagement with the unions. Obviously, it is up to the CITB as to who it engages with. It is the legislation that controls who can actually vote on the levy proposals.

The noble Lords, Lord Jones and Lord Storey, challenged whether the Government are doing enough with our investment in training, qualifications and skills in this area. We have already put in place a wide range of opportunities for adults to gain the skills that they need for employment and are ensuring that people have opportunities to study by delivering on the Prime Minister’s lifetime skills guarantee. The provision of skills, in construction in particular, is supported through a number of routes, including courses available through further education colleges and independent learning providers, with funding of more than £1.3 billion from the adult education budget. Noble Lords will be aware that we introduced construction T-levels in 2020, as an alternative vocational route into the sector, and are continuing to develop skills boot camps, which offer free and flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, funded through the national skills fund.

As noble Lords observed, apprenticeships remain a key route into this industry. There are currently over 640 high-quality, industry-designed standards available, and we aim to continue to improve and grow apprenticeships, so that more employers and individuals can benefit from them.

The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, rightly focused on the lack of diversity in the construction workforce. Obviously the CITB is not responsible for the construction workforce, but it has an important role in facilitating skills opportunities to help the industry strive towards a workforce that reflects today’s society. It undertakes a wide range of initiatives and activities; it works with industry and other partners to try to attract a diverse pool of new entrants into the industry and to promote construction careers. I share the hope of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that in three years, when we debate this instrument again, the make-up of the sector will look very different from where it is today.

The CITB is funding the training of industry construction ambassadors on fairness, inclusion and respect, who contribute to a dedicated industry project which creates resources for employers to promote and celebrate best practice across the sector. It is also funding a digital resilience hub, which is a free and accessible tool that brings together mental health resources for those working in the construction industry. Finally, it is funding the on-site hubs that support individuals to become employment-ready and site-ready to take up opportunities in construction. Their target is to support underrepresented groups, including women and those from black, Asian and other minority-ethnic backgrounds, to secure sustainable job outcomes. It is fair to say that representation from those groups remains disproportionately low. The CITB continues to work with partners to try to address that.

The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, questioned the value of the CITB and raised some of the criticisms that have been lodged against it, and asked whether there would be an alternative model for funding skills development in the construction industry. The Government seek to evaluate the rationale for and effectiveness of its arm’s-length bodies through a programme of regular reviews, and that includes the ITBs. In 2017, the review of ITBs confirmed that there remains an ongoing need for a central skills body and recommended that the CITB should make stronger efforts to address the skills gap and market failure within the industry. That included the requirement for the CITB to lead on emerging needs, such as supporting the Government’s ambitions for housing.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I mentioned earlier that the impact assessment shows that 75% of employers, when asked, said that they wanted the current scheme to continue. Is it not unthinkable that, with that kind of backing, the Government might move away from the current model?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Obviously I cannot predict the future. I can only repeat what the review of 2017 said, on which basis the Government are moving forward. The review showed that there is an ongoing need for a central skills body and, as the noble Lord says, employers support it.

Following that review, the CITB’s implementation of its three-year transformation process, Vision 2020, has helped to make it a more focused and more agile partner to industry, and, as a result of the initiative, the CITB has implemented new governance structures so that industry voices are at the heart of decision-making, has launched new funding systems to allow employers to have easier access to support—the noble Lord, Lord Storey, referred to bureaucracy being a barrier to accessing support—and has moved to an investment model based on strategic commissioning. As I noted, the industry has expressed concerns about the performance of the CITB, but we are confident that it has worked hard to increase industry involvement in its strategic planning to address those concerns.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about the funding model and exactly what it pays for. The levy provides an investment in skills through a redistributive and collective fund, and it provides value through strategic initiatives that benefit the whole industry—I have referred to some of them already—such as attracting new entrants, identifying common standards and common training solutions, encouraging the transferability of skills, quality control of training provision, leadership and project management development, and collaborative behavioural training programmes.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about the relationship between the amount of levy that is paid and the grants that an employer might receive. We believe that employers receive value for money, but they do not expect to receive a direct financial return via the training grants that is equal to the levy that is paid. As I mentioned, the levy is an investment in skills through a redistributive and collective fund that benefits all employers.

The noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked about our housebuilding targets. One of the priorities from the DfE to the CITB for 2022-23 is providing support to the industry to meet our ambition to build 300,000 homes each year.

There continues to be the collective view across the sector that training should be funded through a statutory levy system and that that system should be used to contribute to a pool of skilled labour, now and in the future, for this critical sector. There is a firm belief that without the levy there would be a serious deterioration in the quality and quantity of training in the construction industry, leading to a deficiency in skills levels and in capacity. That would create particular challenges in the current economic environment, when skilled workers are needed to deliver the infrastructure projects required to meet the environmental challenge of reducing the UK’s carbon emissions to zero by 2050, as well as all the other ambitions that we have referred to in relation to other infrastructure and housebuilding projects.

Motion agreed.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Thursday 7th April 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 15B, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 15C.

15C: Because the timetable for the rollout of the reform programme for post-16 qualifications should not be delayed further and the additional requirements would introduce unnecessary burdens.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to be back in the Chamber to discuss the Bill as it reaches its conclusion.

After listening to debate from noble Lords a fortnight ago—the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, in particular made a speech that spoke to his own experience, which I profoundly respect—I have come to this House with an announcement and clarifications that I hope will address the main thrust of those concerns. We are taking a pragmatic approach to our reforms as they are implemented and will continue to do so. We have already made important changes after listening to the arguments made in this House.

Last November, the Secretary of State announced an additional year before funding would be withdrawn from qualifications that overlap with T-levels. We have also removed the English and maths exit requirement from T-levels, but we do not think that a further delay will benefit providers, awarding bodies, employers or students. We know that stakeholders need clarity on the timescales for implementation, and we are continuing to support them in the rollout of T-levels. The announcements I am making today should give further assurance that the Government are undertaking their reforms in a measured, evidence-led and sensible manner and that any further delay is not necessary. We want to get on with delivering the Bill and our reforms to technical education qualifications.

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education sent a letter to noble Lords. In that letter, he set out the Government’s position that many applied general qualifications, such as BTECs and other similar qualifications, will have a continuing and important role to play alongside A-levels and T-levels. To be approved for funding in future, qualifications will need to meet new quality and necessity criteria.

I want to make it clear that students will be able to take applied general-style qualifications, including BTECs, alongside A-levels as part of a mixed programme. We are not creating a binary system. Our aim is to ensure that students can choose from a variety of high-quality options, of which A-levels, T-levels, BTECs and other applied general-style qualifications will all play their part.

We have already begun our reform process, having confirmed that around 1,800 qualifications have low or no enrolments and will therefore have funding removed from August 2022. Our next phase of reforms will be to consider qualifications that overlap with T-levels. I know that noble Lords are all interested to see the provisional list of qualifications that overlap with waves 1 and 2 T-levels. I want to be absolutely clear to your Lordships today that through this process we expect to remove public funding approval for just a small proportion of the total level 3 offer, including BTECs. This will be significantly less than half. We expect to publish the provisional list in due course. There will be an opportunity for awarding organisations to appeal a qualification’s inclusion on the list to make sure we have applied our overlap criteria fairly. Our final phase in this process will focus on the quality of the wide range of other qualifications available.

I now turn to the commitment the Government are making in the light of the previous debate on the Bill in this Chamber. We want to ensure that we have the best evidence when considering whether to continue funding qualifications. As such, I can now guarantee that employers will have the opportunity to say if they believe qualifications support entry into occupations not covered by T-levels. This will mean that we have the strongest evidence to support decisions through the overlap process. It is important that there are no gaps in provision and that we retain the qualifications we need to support progression into occupations that are not covered by T-levels.

I was pleased in the previous debate to hear the support across the House for T-levels. Just as T-levels are being introduced in phases, we are also taking a phased approach to removing funding approval from qualifications that overlap. Let me reassure your Lordships that qualifications that overlap with T-levels introduced in 2020 and 2021 will not have funding approval removed until the academic year 2024-25. Similarly, we can guarantee that no qualifications will have funding approval removed because of overlap with T-levels being introduced in 2022 and 2023 until the academic year 2025-26. In this way, we will make sure that no existing qualification has public funding approval withdrawn before the relevant T-level alternative is available. Our reforms will ensure that all students have high-quality options that support progression to employment or further study, including higher education.

As I have said previously, we have put in place significant investment in T-levels, as well as support for the sector, to help providers and employers prepare for them. We are confident of their success and will continue to carefully assess the progress of our reforms to ensure that no student or employer is left without access to the technical qualifications they need. We will also continue to publish regular updates and evidence as part of our annual T-level action plans, which can be found on GOV.UK.

I have also heard loud and clear from noble Lords the concerns about reforms for disadvantaged students. Our impact assessment recognises that students who take qualifications that are more likely to have funding withdrawn have the most to gain from the changes. That is because in future they will take qualifications that are of higher quality and meet the needs of employers, putting them in a stronger position to progress on to further study or skilled employment. But we want to go further and continue to gather evidence to ensure that our reforms across both technical and academic qualifications are working as we intend.

In particular, the unit for future skills, as announced in the levelling-up White Paper, will make sure that across government we are collecting and making available the best possible information to show whether courses are delivering the outcomes that we want—helping to give students the best possible opportunity to get high- skilled jobs in their local areas. Today’s announcement and assurances are a clear statement from the Government that employers will play a valuable role in the process to determine overlap with T-levels and that we have mechanisms in place at all stages of the qualifications review to make sure that our reforms are evidence-driven and employer-led, levelling up opportunities for young people across the country.

 We have come here with an understanding, a sensible compromise, and a decision that I hope noble Lords will support, as this legislation has support across all parties. It will allow us to start transforming the skills system for the economy and people across the country. I beg to move.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister. She is renowned in this House for her courtesy and willingness to listen and on this occasion she has done so in an exemplary manner. I know other Members of your Lordships’ House will, like me, appreciate the fact that she has been prepared to have considerable discussions behind the scenes, to talk with her Secretary of State, to ensure that the all-Peers letter sent out today from him adheres to the understanding that has been reached and that her statement from the Dispatch Box is, as I would expect, complementary to and exactly in line with the letter.

I thank my noble friend Lord Watson for his incredible patience with me over the past weeks. I really appreciate that. I understand that his young son is on the Steps and he is very welcome. I would also like to say how much I personally appreciated the support of noble Lords on Amendment 15B. Throughout the passage of the Bill, from Second Reading, Committee and Report right through to the beginning of ping-pong two weeks ago, we have had all-party consideration and support for high-level, top-quality, vocational and technical provision, including the introduction of T-levels. Concerns expressed have been heard and understood. If I might say so, we have done a good job in this House in making this a better Bill. The phasing in and timetabling of the reform and change are now in a much better place. As the Secretary of State’s letter said and as the Minister reiterated from the Dispatch Box, this is led by evidence, and with agreement of further evidence, which should be gathered to ensure that these reforms are delivered in the right way.

The topping and tailing of the Secretary of State’s letter is a reiteration of the standard lines to take, but the centrepiece of the letter is real progress, as the Minister already indicated. On that basis, it is really important that we accept the consensus that has been agreed, that we understand that when you are winning you give way, and that we continue the agreed programme in a sensible dialogue. All of us will have consideration of what “overlap” really means and how it is handled. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, will have heard very clearly the discussions in this House and the statement from the Minister this afternoon. It is welcome that we are no longer going down a binary route, that we are allowing people to take A-levels as well as advanced qualifications such as BTEC, that we understand the needs of individual learners, that we appreciate that people mature in different ways and learn in different ways, and that pedagogy does not demand that one size fits all. I am appreciative of both the Government and this House for the way in which they have been so supportive. Thank you.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a long and winding road with this Bill, stretching back over 10 months from the position that we find ourselves in today. There is very little to add to what noble Lords have said in the last 20 minutes or so, but of course that does not mean that I will not make an attempt at it.

It is very pleasing that we have reached this position because, when the Bill arrived here, it was skeletal in form and many noble Lords made the point that it would be fleshed out only through secondary legislation. I do not think that many find that an acceptable means of legislating, given the restrictions on scrutiny that it entails. But we have had some fleshing out. We have the lifetime skills guarantee—albeit from only level 3 upwards—which will be introduced in 2024. We have the lifelong loan entitlement, which we know a bit more about and which is out for consultation at the moment; it will not come into play until 2025. There are also other consultations ongoing on level 2 and level 3 qualifications, so there is still quite a lot out in the ether and what will finally emerge is for the future.

I echo the points of noble Lords, particularly my noble friend Lord Blunkett, about the discussions into which the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, and officials entered with us in the last few days. They have been productive.

I was slightly disappointed to get a message this morning from someone in the higher education sector who said that they were disappointed that the fight against BTECs being defunded, had fizzled out. Being a fairly forthright Scot, I replied that this was, shall we say, not quite the case. I have also had messages about the extension to 2024 and the clarity that will be provided in the documents that the Minister referred to—the Secretary of State’s letter and the table. I am not sure whether the table has yet been distributed to noble Lords, but it will be. It sets out the defunding process. The main point, as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, mentioned, is that when this started, it was said that only a small range of BTECs would survive. We have now come not quite full circle but some considerable distance, with only a small range of BTECs facing defunding and in certain circumstances, as the Minister outlined. That is very much progress, and we welcome it.

To echo the noble Lord, Lord Baker, T-levels will ultimately be a success—we want them to be and they will be; it is a question of time. In our discussions earlier in the week, the Government’s target was 100,000 T-level starts in 2024. That is quite ambitious, given that we have only 5,000 at the moment, but I wish them well. Equally, I welcome that for those young and not so young people for whom T-levels are not appropriate for whatever reason—there are many reasons why that might be the case—there are other options remaining open to them, not least the route into higher education, which has been, as many noble Lords have said, very important. I am pleased that we have got to this. As my noble friend Lord Blunkett said, the Minister has been very helpful in that regard.

The noble Lord, Lord Baker, deserves considerable credit. Through his efforts, the clause bearing his name from the 2017 Act has been beefed up and will carry much more weight and be much more effective than it has hitherto been, with the ability of providers to be brought into schools. There will be much less likelihood of head teachers saying, “No, no, we don’t need that actually. Most of our young people are going to university, we don’t really need to hear about apprenticeships or any form of technical education”. That is wrong in any situation and is now much less likely.

The question of careers education is important. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, mentioned it, and I am very proud to say that there is a young man—my son Thomas—sitting on the steps of the Throne who is about to enter senior school. By the time he reaches 16, I hope that these reforms will have bedded in and he will have many options open to him and his cohort, enabling them to make informed decisions on how their lives will pan out, whether through further education, higher education, apprenticeships or whatever. I very much hope that that will be the case.

I do not really have anything else to say, other than that the Bill is in a much better state than it was when it arrived here. Many noble Lords have played an important role in getting us here, and I have to say that the Government have been willing to listen and act. It is important that this Bill is a success. The futures of many young and not so young people depend on it, and the future economy of this country depends on it. I hope it will succeed.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, this Bill has been with us for a while and I know that noble Lords are keen to start their Easter break, I hope with their families. I thank noble Lords for their very generous words on the work that we have done in government, with officials and with many of your Lordships to get the Bill to where it is now. I hope that it will deliver on all our shared aspirations in this area.

I shall try to respond briefly to the questions from my noble friend Lord Johnson regarding parity of esteem. Without wanting to play with words, we are aiming for clarity of esteem—although I am not sure whether that exists. We want to have a range of high-quality options for young people. We want them to be absolutely clear which ones work for them, which are suitable and which offer the right path forward. Of course, that is underpinned by parity, but we need clarity as well, because that has been lacking in the past. In relation to his second point, we also need absolute clarity for providers. There is an enormous job still to be done to communicate the value of all the different options that young people will be offered.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Watson’s correspondent, and the fight against BTECs fizzling out, I think we could agree that the fight for quality is certainly not fizzling out in any way. I am not sure there ever was a fight—but anyway.

Before closing, I thank all noble Lords here today, many of whom have contributed to debates throughout the passage of the Bill. I pay particular tribute to the Front Benches, to the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock, Lady Wilcox and Lady Garden. I say two things to the son of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, who is sitting on the steps of the Throne. I share the aspirations of the noble Lord that our reforms are bedded in, and I hope that his son and all his classmates will have a great range of opportunities. I also remind him that what he sees in this House today is the tip of the iceberg of the work that the noble Lord and his colleagues have being doing over the last few months to get this Bill to where it is.

I also thank the many former Education Ministers and Secretaries of State in this House whose insights we have benefited from—my noble friends Lady Morgan, Lord Willetts, Lord Baker and Lord Johnson, my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. I also say special thanks to my noble friend Lady McGregor-Smith. She has been a great mentor and helped me to understand how this Bill will work in practice.

I also thank my noble friends Lady Penn and Lady Chisholm for their support. I thank the Bill team officials who have worked on the Bill—Kady Billington-Murphy, Ellie-May Morris, Emma Sisk, Lois Clement, Georgia Scoot-Morrissey, Charlotte Rushworth, Katrina Leonard-Johnson, Catherine James and Stephen Wan. I especially thank Jessica Clark in my private office, who has been an exemplar of calmness under pressure.

Motion A agreed.