Foreign Languages: Economic Value

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare my interests as co-chair of the All-Party Group on Modern Languages and as vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.

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

My Lords, the Government believe in the importance of languages and welcome the report’s findings on removing language barriers to benefit the economy. We support language teaching through the recent modern foreign languages GCSE review, the MFL hub programme and the Mandarin Excellence Programme, among other initiatives. We are considering the report alongside other available research and exploring other ways in which we can expand the pipeline of fluent speakers to meet the country’s future needs.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, the Mandarin Excellence Programme has shown that high standards can be achieved in state schools without impinging on other priority subjects, so will the Government launch an equivalent programme in one or more of the other three languages which could result in economic benefits? Secondly, given the finding that in specific sectors such as energy, services and mining other languages matter at least as much as English in reducing trade barriers, will the Minister undertake to speak with colleagues in the Department for International Trade and the Treasury to identify how language skills can be improved and funded in these sectors?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government welcome the results of the report, which do indeed highlight the notable achievements of the programme to date. We continue to explore how we can provide greater support for the study of other languages. Regarding the Department for International Trade, the noble Baroness will be aware that we recently announced a refreshed export strategy, Made in the UK, Sold to the World, giving UK exporters support services to seize the opportunities secured through our trade agreements. This is focused on market barriers such as language. I am happy to talk to colleagues there and at the Treasury, as the noble Baroness suggests.

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

Has my noble friend seen the evidence given just a few days ago by a former British ambassador to Moscow to a Lords committee, in which he lamented the decline of foreign language skills in the Foreign Office, especially Russian? Does she agree that it is quite important that diplomats who represent the United Kingdom in and promote exports to foreign countries should be able to understand and speak a foreign language? Can she therefore tell the House what progress has been made to improve foreign language skills in the Foreign Office?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend. The FCDO has some 800 specially trained linguists qualified in 46 languages, operating in 111 posts around the world. This figure includes almost 80 heads of mission.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, speaking other languages is very good for warding off Alzheimer’s, as well as playing a significant part in international trade, which is the point of this Question, so it is a win-win. Are the Government still serious about ensuring that the UK can compete on a global stage post Brexit? If so, how will they measure the success of the measures they are taking to ensure that the woeful decline in modern language learning stops and is turned around?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not have time to answer the noble Baroness’s question in full, but I remind her that the uptake of French GSCE is slightly up between 2017 and 2021, Spanish is up very substantially from 85,000 students to 109,000, and 41,000 participants in the Turing scheme, 48% from disadvantaged backgrounds, have been allocated funding this year.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that a diplomat or business person trying to negotiate in a foreign language which they have not mastered can be dangerous, but nevertheless a basic knowledge of the language can ease the path to good negotiation?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely agree with the noble Lord. Indeed, returning to diplomats, more than 70% of FCDO staff in speaker slots, which require language skills, now have a valid exam pass in their target language compared to 39% in 2015.

[Lord McDonald of Salford (CB)]

My Lords, Willy Brandt put it best when he said “If I am selling to you, I will speak your language, but if you are selling to me dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen.” Clearly, German manufacturers got the point because this century Germany has been one of the two most successful manufacturing exporting countries in the world. Why is this fundamental truth so elusive to British exporters?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think it is not elusive to British exporters. There are a number of mechanisms for improving our competitiveness on the world stage; language is one of them. However, English is a global language in the way that Deutsch ist nicht.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, developing the point just raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, in the European Union two-thirds of adults of working age can speak more than one language, yet two-thirds of Britons cannot hold a conversation in a language other than their mother tongue, so I am sure the Minister will be as concerned as I was to see the latest figures on A-levels in modern languages decline by a further 5% between 2017 and 2021. Yesterday, the schools White Paper pledged a network, I think it was called, of modern language hubs with CPD for teachers of those languages, yet the numbers of those teachers are falling. Will the cuts made last year by the Government in bursaries for language students, from £26,000 to £10,000, be reversed to support the development of those modern language hubs?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We were very pleased to announce in the schools White Paper the network of modern foreign language hubs. We are also increasing the languages bursary to £15,000 for 2023 to incentivise candidates. In 2020-21, the number of postgraduate modern foreign language trainees increased by 300 to 16,087.

[Lord Morgan (Lab)]

My noble friend’s reference to native languages stirs me to point out that, while I of course totally agree with the Question and with the Minister’s replies, there is far more to modern languages than simply improving the terms of trade. There is the question of deep cultural enrichment and, in these islands, understanding the culture of these islands more deeply. As someone who was brought up bilingually in Britain, I think that is important.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolute agree with the noble Lord and that is why I referred to the Turing scheme, which we hope will be part of creating that richer picture of the world we live in.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister cited a statistic for the success with French and Spanish, but they are languages of the EU, with whom our trade has fallen, according to the Dutch Government, by 14% in the three months to January compared with two years previously. I wonder whether the Minister can say something about our success in teaching the languages of those new markets in which we are going to succeed.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, referred to the Mandarin Excellence Programme, but I point out that, as the noble Baroness understands, French and Spanish are very widely spoken outside the EU.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, the Erasmus programme was reciprocal, so tuition fees were not paid. In my noble friend’s experience, how many European universities have waived tuition fees under the Turing programme to enable UK students to apply without paying tuition fees?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not have that data to hand and I am not sure whether it is yet available, given the newness of the Turing scheme, but I will write to my noble friend to clarify that.

Schools: Creative Subjects and the English Baccalaureate

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the teaching of creative subjects in schools since the introduction of the English Baccalaureate.

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

My Lords, the Government remain committed to ensuring that all pupils receive a high-quality cultural education as part of a broad curriculum. This starts during the early years and continues in school, with art and design, design and technology and music all forming part of the national curriculum from age five to 14. The percentage of young people entering at least one arts GCSE between 2010 and 2021 has remained broadly stable.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

The Minister will be aware that since the introduction of the EBacc in schools, there has been and is a creativity crisis—for example, in music there has been a 16.83% fall in A-levels—and there has been a 31.47% fall in students taking those subjects. Obviously, that has a pipeline into universities and only one university now has an English professor. I want to ask the Minister a direct question—no ands, ifs or buts. If it is not the English baccalaureate that is causing the crisis in creative subjects, what is the reason?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We simply do not accept that there is a crisis in creative subjects. The noble Lord rightly quoted some data, but I point out that the percentage of students taking art and design at GCSE is up from 26.5% to 30.4%. He is right that there have been declines in some other subjects, but he will also be aware that the numbers taking vocational and technical qualifications have gone up very substantially, particularly in media: since 2018 the figures for media have risen from 4,500 to 55,000 students.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, despite what the Minister says, the message clearly being sent out via EBacc to teachers, parents and children is that creative subjects are of lesser worth, a message independent schools are ignoring. Is the Minister aware that there is five times greater spend on music in independent schools than in state schools, including academies? Does the Minister agree that this is bad for levelling up, bad for education and bad for our future economy, a key aspect of which will be the creative industries, as independent schools know full well?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The department does not track the expenditure on these subjects in independent schools. What the department is committed to, and restated in the schools White Paper yesterday, is that every child should have a rich cultural education, and we will be publishing a new cultural education plan jointly with DCMS next year.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness’s credentials regarding personal commitment to these issues are impeccable, both in this role and the role she held previously at the DCMS; however, the evidence is against her. As the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, has just said, there is an impact not only on students in schools but on the workforce both within education and in the creative industries more widely, as there is a decline in the numbers of people prepared to take forward qualifications in music, drama and other creative subjects, Does she worry at all that the much-vaunted creative industries, of which she and her colleagues frequently speak with pride, will be suffering over the coming years as a result of these policies?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question and her kind remarks but I just cannot accept what she suggests. As she points out, we have thriving cultural and creative industries in this country. We have enough teachers entering initial teacher training for art and design and drama, well above our recruitment targets. We are committing more funding in T-levels, in media, broadcast and production, and in craft and design, so I think we are building the platform for our creative industries and our children to thrive.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, are the Government not deeply concerned that their own official data shows that the number of hours of music taught in years 7 to 13 has fallen sharply in the last 12 years? In view of this and of comments of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and others, is it not all the more important that independent schools work closely with their maintained sector colleagues to increase still further the 655 music partnership schemes from which students in both sectors benefit so greatly?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We very much welcome the partnerships from the independent sector in music and many other areas, and my noble friend is right to highlight them. However, we also have a responsibility and an ambition to make sure that our children have a strong music education, which is why we will be publishing our updated national plan shortly.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that, if we are to create a world of resilient workers in the next generation, we need to look at how we create these people through a resilient education system? We are in a bigger crisis than we believe. We need to reinvent a holistic form of education, because that is how the world’s businesses are going.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord raises a large, broad and important issue. Of course we need a resilient education system and resilient children, and in the announcements in our schools White Paper and the special educational needs and disability Green Paper published this morning, we have set out exactly how we plan to do that.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I taught creative subjects for over 30 years and, as principal examiner for A-level theatre studies for much of that time, I saw a wealth of talent studying this subject across the UK. It is essential that we promote the creative arts in our schools. They nurture well-rounded students and bring a breadth and depth to their learning. In hard cash terms, according to DCMS analysis, the creative industries contribute almost £116 billion a year to the UK. If, for example, the current decline in A-level music that many noble Lords have mentioned continues, this subject could have zero entrants in 10 years’ time. What, if anything, are the Government doing to reverse this appalling decline?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

At the risk of repeating myself, we have announced that we will publish a cultural education plan together with DCMS, working jointly across government, which is the right way to approach it. We will shortly announce our national plan for music education. We are doing a lot of work and continue to invest around £115 million per year in cultural education.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has told us on numerous occasions that the Government like to listen to employers. When Netflix representatives came to speak to my group, I asked them what they wanted in trainees and whether they wanted people with more English and maths. They looked blankly at me and said, “No, that’s not what we are looking for. We want more rounded people.” Will the Government follow their own mantra and make sure they talk to the big employers, who do not seem to want what the Government are offering?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government work extremely closely with employers. Our T-level programme was developed with over 250 employers. I would ask the noble Lord why we are seeing such huge international investment in our film and creative industries if we are not providing the talented people they need.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, would my noble friend care to reflect on the importance of citizenship education in levelling up and creating a country at ease with itself? Will she join me in regretting that yesterday’s White Paper said nothing about citizenship education at all?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Citizenship education is absolutely a core part of what we deliver. In defence of the White Paper, we were setting out the major new elements of our plan for the next several years, but citizenship remains a core part of it.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, first-hand experience of the arts can be life enhancing and life changing. Therefore, will the Minister encourage her department to do all it can to ensure that background and income levels are not a barrier to physically accessing the arts?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

To the extent that it is within my gift, I will do my best.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, last week, the Incorporated Society of Musicians published a report entitled Music: A Subject in Peril?, based on a survey of more than 500 music teachers. Some 93% of respondents said that the EBacc and/or Progress 8 had caused huge damage to music in schools, resulting in courses not running and music departments shrinking. What reassurance can the Minister give that the refreshed national plan for music education will address these issues and that teachers will be consulted on it before it is published?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The national plan has been developed with an expert panel, of which the noble Lord is aware, and that panel consulted extensively during its work—through forums, surveys and other mechanisms—with teachers, students, parents and other experts. We very much look forward to its publication.

Schools White Paper

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for being a few minutes late; I hope that I shall not be sent to the back of the class.

I thank the Minister for the Statement. I like the tone of it; I like the fact that we are celebrating schools and the hard work that teachers do. I detect a real change in the way that we look at our education system.

All the research shows that parents are not interested in structures. We go on about academies, academy chains and LEA schools, but parents want good teachers, good leadership of a school and a curriculum which excites, motivates and enthuses pupils. I am afraid that we get hung up far too often on structures. I think I detect the glimmer of hope that we will again move away from the notion that structures are the way forward—they are not; it has to be about the quality of the education provision and of the teacher.

Turning to academy trusts—we have long debated this in the past—I have a number of observations resulting from the Statement. First, we hear that the voice of the parent should be heard. Perhaps the Minister could assure us that those academy trusts—few, thank goodness—which have done away with governing bodies for each school will be a thing of the past. Schools, even in multi-academy trusts, need to have a governing body, particularly so the parent voice can be heard.

My second observation, which I raised time and again with the Minister in the Lords before this Minister, is about chief executives of academy trusts and how their salaries have got completely out of control—some are getting up to £300,000. Over the last two or three years the number of chief executives of even small academy trusts earning more than £100,000 has grown. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, assuring us that he was going to tackle this issue, but his tackling of the issue has seen the problem escalate rather than get better.

As was mentioned in Oral Questions, academies can choose the curriculum they want. There are certain things which are crucial for all children. Again, when we discuss the White Paper, we need to look at giving all schools the same freedoms and opportunities, but with those freedoms come responsibilities. There are areas of the education curriculum where we should ensure that every school, whether a local authority academy—there is a new thing—a free school, or, if they still exist, any local authority schools not in academy trusts, must teach.

One thing that slightly jarred with me in the Statement was that only one school was mentioned. It was not that anything this school—Oak National Academy—had done was wrong, just that only one was picked out. A teacher would not pick out one clever pupil in the class, they would celebrate the whole class. There are lots of examples of schools which have done just as much, if not more, innovative things than the Oak National Academy. That jarred slightly.

This afternoon we talked about creative subjects and the EBacc. I challenged the Minister to give a direct reply, which she was not able to do, and I understand why. The White Paper will give us all an opportunity to explore the effect the EBacc has had on certain subjects in the curriculum. It might well be—it is not my particular wish, but I got this sense from the Minister’s reply—that she sees T-levels as providing the less academic, more vocational route, hence they would not be part of the EBacc. That would be a grave mistake and the EBacc should encourage creative subjects as well.

I am pleased the Government have listened to the issue of a national school register, but there are a number of other matters, as the Minister well knows, such as unregistered schools. One of the reasons we are not able to take action against unregistered schools, as Ofsted will tell you, is that they can morph into very small units. Unless we are prepared to see home education treated in a different way, it will be very difficult to deal with unregistered schools. That is an area where we need to focus.

We are told that Ofsted will inspect all schools. That is right, but let us remember that schools have been through a terrible time just keeping the doors open and keeping children educated. I would hope that Ofsted would be more about an opportunity to work with schools and would offer a supportive inspection. Rather than waving a big stick where perhaps the wheels have wobbled during the pandemic or things have gone wrong, I hope that Ofsted might proverbially put its arm around the school and say, “Look, these are the issues that need sorting out.”

I have a few questions. First, we know that children from deprived communities have suffered the most for all the reasons that we have debated and discussed in the past. I was a bit disappointed that that issue was not particularly addressed in the comments. Secondly, children have missed out on extra-curricular social and academic experiences—opportunities to develop the skills that they will need for the future. Why have the Government not used the first White Paper in six years to change and expand the range of opportunities that are given to children? Where is the ambition?

The White Paper has so far had quite surprisingly mixed reviews. Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that, although the paper outlined promising measures, it lacked ambition or “big ideas”. The Education Policy Institute think tank said that pushing all schools to become academies was “no silver bullet”, and that, although the White Paper contained “some bold aims”, it seemed

“unlikely that many of these bold pledges will … be met.”

My party looks forward to the opportunity that this White Paper gives to address not just the questions that I have raised or those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, but issues such as children being permanently excluded from school, how they are treated, and how we need to make sure that we give them a much better opportunity and a much better education. I look forward to working with the Government on the White Paper.

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

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their remarks. I will do my best to respond to them now, but I look forward to further opportunities to discuss the White Paper in more detail.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked where all this comes from and criticised the thinness of the document. The White Paper stems from a very clear ambition for our children at every stage of their schooling and beyond. We have approached this by trying to understand what is already working well in our school system and scaling that up. The gap between what the best schools and trusts achieve for our children at key stage 2 and key stage 4, and what that means for their future prospects, is very sizeable, particularly for disadvantaged children. Our focus is on scaling up what works and has been shown to work over the last 12 years.

The big idea is to make that work on a national scale. I understand why the noble Lord questions where the sparkly new policies are. There are, of course, new elements within the White Paper but the big, difficult idea and the hardest thing to do will be to scale up that quality. Our ambition is crystal clear: it is about quality for all our children. We have approached it in a spirit of looking at the evidence and being very transparent about that evidence. I hope that the noble Lord will have a moment to look at the data annexe that sits with the White Paper; it is not in the hard copy but is available online. I hope he will feel that it is anything but cherry picked. We have made every effort to be as transparent as possible, including both data that supports our arguments and data that does not, so that we can show how we have reached our conclusions. Most importantly, we have approached this in a spirit of fairness—it should feel fair to all of the actors in the system as we move forward.

The noble Lord asks why we have a fixation on academic standards, particularly in English and maths. Of children who did not reach the expected standard at key stage 2, just 21% achieved grade 4 or above in English language at GCSE and only 14% achieved that at key stage 4 in 2019. Of those with five or more GSCEs, 55% completed a degree, compared to 6% of those with fewer; post GCSE, they are 16 percentage points more likely to be employed, and they earn on average £9,000 more a year. I could go on. The impact on the economy is massive—these are huge and important markers at the start of a child’s life which translate to their future prospects, their future social mobility and the future health and wealth of them, their families and our nation.

I did not follow the noble Lord’s argument on the funding formula. It is clearly not at the expense of disadvantaged areas—quite the reverse. We currently have an outdated mechanism for funding our schools. We now have a national funding formula, and we will be working progressively and incrementally to make sure that funding goes to schools directly in response to the need and nature of the cohort that they serve.

The noble Lord also asked about compulsion and requiring schools to become academies. We are keen and have worked very hard in this White Paper to try to make sure everyone involved in the schools system feels they are part of this journey. We are considering all options, and we will engage with the sector to deliver a fully trust-led system.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, talked about the importance of local governing bodies. In preparing the White Paper, we—and I personally—spent a great deal of time with local authority-maintained school heads, particularly primary school heads. One of the things they talked about that was almost universal was a sense of being local and part of their local community. Therefore, in the governance plank of the five planks of our “strong trusts” framework, we are clear that schools need to feel local, have a sense of local identity and have a role in their local community.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, talked about families of schools and families being strung out across the country. I will not take the analogy too far, but we will be working hard on commissioning to make sure we have geographically coherent trusts, so they can benefit from all that that offers.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, talked about CEO salaries. We take that seriously and are continuing to follow on from the good work of my noble friend Lord Agnew. The Oak National Academy is not an individual school; it was the platform that was created during the pandemic that delivered all the digital lessons for children across the country. I apologise if the name was confusing.

To finish, the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Watson, said we would need a number of measures to turn things around for our children. That is what is in this White Paper—it is about great teachers, a great curriculum, good attendance, good behaviour, a pledge to parents if their children fall behind, and creating a system that delivers the strongest, fairest and most ambitious school system for our children.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not doubt the commitment of the Minister to equality for all children. However, in responding to the White Paper, the National Children’s Bureau comments that too many children still live in poverty. That must be addressed for education success to follow. The White Paper has left many in education underwhelmed and, as my noble friend Lord Watson said, it has left our schools underfunded.

In all the years that academisation has been an option, only 44% of schools have taken it, some voluntarily, often with inducements, and some not. No solid evidence can be adduced that academy status per se equates to better outcomes for young people. School leaders have declared that total forced academisation would be a distraction, so why does the Minister think that politicians know better than school leaders?

With one in six children reporting mental health difficulties, an opportunity to reassess assessment and the curriculum should have been taken. The potential for centralisation of pedagogy through Oak Academy is a problem. It looks like deskilling our teachers, with talk of “delivering” lessons. While the White Paper is about England, will the Government take the opportunity to learn from the very good practice in evidence in Scotland and Wales, including on school governance, curriculum and assessment?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her remarks. On academisation, she will be aware that the picture is very different in secondary and primary education. About 78% of secondary schools are now academies compared to about 38% of primaries. She questions their performance. Our emphasis has been very clear. We are talking about creating strong trusts and we are building on the experience of the existing strong trusts. If all children did as well as pupils in the top-performing 10% of trusts at key stage 2, our results nationally would be 14 percentage points higher, going from 65% to 79%, and would be 19 percentage points higher for disadvantaged pupils. I know the noble Baroness shares my passion and the passion of my colleagues in the department for supporting particularly those disadvantaged children.

On Oak Academy, far from deskilling teachers, we are going to make the most enormous investment in teachers in terms of teacher training opportunities and continuing professional development at all stages of a teacher’s career. We are aware that, particularly in primary, individual teachers are writing lesson plans from scratch. Oak Academy is by teachers, for teachers and of teachers. It is there as an option for teachers. Again, I know the noble Baroness shares our concerns about teacher workload. One way we can support teachers is by providing them with the best-quality curriculum to draw from.

[The Lord Bishop of Worcester]

My Lords, I echo the noble Lord, Lord Storey, in his thanks for the White Paper. In doing so, I declare my interest as president of the Woodard Corporation. In expressing gratitude, I appreciate in particular how the White Paper recognises the vital role the Churches have played in the educational landscape of this country for more than 200 years and that it sets out how the role needs to continue to be enabled in the future development of the school system. I will focus on two questions regarding the move towards the fully academised educational landscape set out in the White Paper and invite the Minister to agree that it requires two key things.

First, it requires significant investment of resource to make that transition possible. The Church of England is the largest provider of academies, with over 1,500 of our schools having already converted, but that still leaves two-thirds of our schools waiting to become academies. This will require time and resource for the conversion process, as well as strong, new trusts to be formed to enable that transition. Recognition that MATs must grow to a sustainable level of about 7,500 pupils means thinking carefully and strategically about small rural schools and how a funding model can work for them, to enable their vital education to remain at the heart of communities, particularly rural communities, across our land.

Secondly, I hope the noble Baroness can give assurance that legislation will be introduced to ensure that the statutory basis on which the dual system of Church and state as partners in education, which has been in operation since 1944, securely translates into the contractual context in which academies are based, so that the sites on which schools are situated can continue to be used for the charitable purposes for which they were given. So, in expressing thanks, I ask the noble Baroness to assure us that these things will be addressed and secured in order to ensure that Church schools can approach this new future with confidence.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his questions. I also extend my thanks to Church schools but also to all schools that have been working in the most difficult circumstances, particularly in the second half of this term, with the pressures that Covid has placed, once again, on their staff. I can, I hope, reassure the right reverend Prelate that we will be protecting the faith designation of diocesan schools on a statutory basis as we move forward with our plans. We are providing funding to support academisation and to make sure that schools, particularly schools in the most entrenched areas of educational underperformance, are funded to join strong trusts.

On small rural schools—to go back to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about feeling local—perhaps there are no schools more local than small rural primaries, which often play a really important part in their community. We will be putting a great deal of thought into this and look forward to working with the right reverend Prelate’s colleagues at the diocesan education board in thinking through how we can deliver this in a way that supports small rural primaries.

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

My Lords, the Secretary of State deserves the warmest congratulations, with the ministerial team and all those officials and others who have been involved in Opportunity for All: Strong Schools with Great Teachers for your Child. I suggest that anyone who thinks there is excessive focus on English and maths should consult parents. Parents want their children to read and write; parents know the world is difficult; they know that numeracy and now digital skills are critical. They know that a good education is the passport for the future, and the most disadvantaged parents know that quite as much as the most affluent. I really like this White Paper for its coherence, its ambition, its relative simplicity and its evidence base. How many times have we all heard head teachers saying, “I’ve had so many documents come through that I have to read—I’ve got to teach my school and do everything else”? Somebody once said to me, “I’ve given the documents to my husband to read because I just don’t have time to read it all.” This is accessible and approachable.

Children spend around 15,000 hours at school; the same amount of time as they spend at home. Professor Sir Michael Rutter, the architect of child psychiatry, wrote a book, Fifteen Thousand Hours, with the team at the Maudsley, comparing the output of 12 secondary schools in Southwark. They found that the brightest children at some schools were doing worse than the least able children at another school. This is about teachers, about expectations and about rigour. For those of us who want to see what can be achieved, we can only celebrate again the extraordinary results at the Brampton Manor Academy. This year, 89 young people got Oxbridge offers—ethnic minorities, school meals, first generation university.

I have so much to say, I had better be quick. I have two questions I want to ask. Will the Minister say a little more about the Education Endowment Foundation; and will she say just a bit more about excluded pupils? They are a really vexed problem. They can be disruptive in a class aiming for high standards, but we do not want them to fall out of the system, so I very much hope she will address that.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will pass on my noble friend’s very warm words to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. I am glad that she appreciates the White Paper. I agree with her wholeheartedly about what parents want. I was lucky enough to spend some time with a group of parents yesterday while visiting a school in Newham, where 94% of the children have English as an additional language. The mothers and fathers to whom I spoke were all crystal clear about how important it was for their children to achieve.

In relation to my noble friend’s specific questions, the Education Endowment Foundation, which we fully endowed through, and announced in, the White Paper, provides us with the academic rigour in terms of evaluating different interventions across the education system, so that teachers, school leaders and MAT leaders can feel confident in the interventions that they use. All that we have suggested in the White Paper has been supported and recommended by the EEF. In relation to excluded children, if my noble friend will bear with me for another day, we are taking the Statement about the special educational needs and alternative provision Green Paper in this House tomorrow, when I will be delighted to talk about that in more detail.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, there is a great deal in this White Paper on special educational needs and teacher training. Indeed, teacher training is the main thrust of it. Then we talk about 90% literacy. Some 15%—or 10% if you are being conservative—of the population are dyslexic. Another 5% are dyscalculic. If you put the other “disses” in there, you have a great pot of people who are going to struggle in the classroom. How, unless you have a major investment in special educational needs, are you going to hit that target? Or are we going to do something very sensible such as saying that if somebody communicates through a computer coherently—every computer that you buy now has a built-in voice-operated section and read-back facility—we will count that as being literate? If we are, we can achieve it. If not, we are basically going to break the back of people achieving an unrealistic target if it is still with a pen and paper. If the Minister can give me an answer now, it will help the rest of the debate today, and the debate on the Statement tomorrow.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I hope I can give the noble Lord a fuller answer tomorrow, when we talk about the SEND Green Paper. But in terms of this document talking a lot about children with special educational needs and disabilities, that is intentional. We are absolutely clear that the best place for the majority of children with special educational needs is in mainstream education close to their home and their friends. We need to make sure that mainstream schools are a safe, welcoming, supportive and effective environment for those children. We have looked at and tried to model the interventions that are set out in the White Paper to see how we can reach the targets that we have set out. As the noble Lord knows, however, currently only 22% of children with special educational needs reach the expected standard, compared with an average at key stage 2 of 65%—so it is well below what we need to get to.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, one of the themes that the White Paper majors on is listening to the voices of parents and making sure that they are heard. However, More Than a Score and Parentkind today put out a survey from YouGov, showing that 80% of parents think that SATs do not provide useful information about a child’s progress; 95% say SATs have a negative impact on their child’s well-being; and 85% do not consider SATs results when choosing a school. Only 1% of the members of the National Association of Head Teachers thought that key stage 1 SATs should go ahead this year; 3% thought that key stage 2 should go ahead. The White Paper is on the bigger, longer-term issues, but are we not seeing, both in terms of the Government’s determination to push ahead with SATs and in terms of the focus on academic targets and testing in this White Paper, a push to schools to more and more teach to the test in a narrow range of subjects? Are we yet again not listening to parents and not listening to pupils? I take the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, about pupils spending 15,000 hours in school. We have the unhappiest children in Europe. We are failing our children, and focusing just on tests in a narrow range of subjects is a big part of that. Will the Government think about the happiness of our children?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government think a lot about the happiness of our children. We worry a lot about the children who are in underperforming schools, and where their life chances are being held back because of the nature of the education they receive. This is why we are focusing our education investment on areas of really entrenched under-performance. The noble Baroness shakes her head, but 54% of children in secondary schools in Knowsley today are in schools which have been judged more than twice as requiring more improvement. That is what will turn around our children’s life chances, and that is where we are focusing.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for the answers she has given. I welcome the ambition of the Government’s policies as set out in the White Paper. I will look at the statistics they have provided with some care. Are such statistics in a White Paper run past the UK Statistics Authority—not just the figures, but the conclusions drawn from them? It would be useful if we could be told.

I hope I will be forgiven if I suggest, for those with long enough memories, that the support expressed in the White Paper for well-managed families of schools delivering high-quality and inclusive education, coupled with the encouragement in the White Paper for LEAs to establish their own strong trusts, might be taken as an attempt to recreate the achievements of the Inner London Education Authority after many years. Of course, the fear of many people is that academies—particularly when we have multi-academy trusts—lead, in effect, to the privatisation of the education service. The distinction between an MAT and a commercial organisation is often hard to discern.

My first question for the Minister is, what are the Government going to do to ensure that all academies, whether SAT or MAT, operate with a social purpose? My second question, given the emphasis on what parents want from education in the previous question, is, what role do the Government want for parents in the governance of academies? There is a reference in the White Paper to a review of the governance of the system, but it is notable that in the document, The Case for a Fully Trust-Led System, there is only one reference to parents, and then only as passive observers. Should the Government not do more to enable the participation of parents in school governance?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am really puzzled by the image the noble Lord paints of multi-academy trusts representing privatisation. They receive exactly the same funding as any other state-maintained school, and they are inspected in exactly the same way. The majority of them are charities. I am not sure quite where privatisation comes in. What we see in the best trusts—and perhaps this is behind the noble Lord’s question—is that they use the resources from the taxpayer intelligently, in the interests of the child. I will give an example from the north-east of England. I recently visited a trust which, through better procurement, was able to reinvest those savings in dedicated tutoring for all their students. I do not know where the noble Lord’s concern comes from, but I genuinely think it is misplaced.

I turn to the noble Lord’s second point, about trust standards. We will be working with this sector. There is not a lot of detail in the White Paper because we want to co-create those standards together with the sector, and we look forward to reporting back more on that in the future. This would, of course, include the role of parents.

Schools: Extremism and Intolerance

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Godson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the reporting in “The Trojan Horse Affair” podcast, published by the New York Times on 4 February; and what steps they are taking to prevent extremism and intolerance from gaining a foothold in schools in England.

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

My Lords, we remain absolutely committed to keeping children safe from extremism. We provide online resources and fund networks of practitioners to support schools to promote shared values and build resilience to extremism. We also take action against those in the sector who express extremist views. The Government’s response at the time of “Trojan horse” rightly focused on whether the alleged events and behaviours actually happened. A number of independent reports confirmed that they did.

[Lord Godson (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer and pay tribute to her great diligence in having subjected herself to listening to all eight hours of the New York Times podcast on this subject. I did not intend to subject her to a cruel and unusual punishment when I originally decided to ask the Question. Will she join me in paying tribute to the whistleblowers of all communities in Birmingham who played their part in bringing these most important allegations to public attention? Many of these people have been harassed by the New York Times in the years since the revelation of these allegations. Connected to that, will she give some sense to the House of the progress made on the independent report undertaken by Peter Clarke, former head of the counterterrorism command on the Trojan horse affair at the time, and the progress made on his 15 recommendations in this regard?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government recognise the very important contribution that whistleblowers make. We have had anonymous reporting lines since 2015 and established an online reporting system in 2021, which is available to those working in the sector and to the general public. I hope I can reassure my noble friend that we have made good progress on implementing Peter Clarke’s recommendations. To give the House some examples, we have strengthened the Ofsted inspection framework so that its inspectors are now required to assess how well schools protect pupils from the risks of extremism and radicalisation, and to promote fundamental British values. We have pursued action against those who may have breached teacher standards and taken action against those involved in the management of schools. We continue to assess whether other areas of the country could be similarly vulnerable, and we have a dedicated counterextremism function in the department to consider allegations.

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that extremism arises from claims that the one God of us all has human prejudices and is more favourably disposed to our particular faith, as opposed to others’, no matter how we behave towards others? Does she further agree that the teaching of RE in schools should emphasise ethical commonalities, which are much greater than the smaller area of conflict-producing differences?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord asks a rather profound first question, which I might need a bit more time to think about. On his second point, the principles that underpin fundamental British values, which are now taught in every school, include diversity, tolerance, mutual respect and the rule of law.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, the report by the independent review of the Prevent extremism strategy was due to be submitted to the Home Office in September. It was then put back to 31 December, and it still has not been published. Will the Government tell us whether they have received the report and whether they will commit to releasing the strategy before the summer Recess to ensure that the UK’s counterterrorism strategy is fit for purpose?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My understanding is that the independent review of Prevent is ongoing, and we will consider its findings in due course.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, at least 6,000 children are being educated in unregistered illegal schools where they are exposed to extremist, intolerant, homophobic and sexist literature. As the Government indicated, can the Minister confirm that legislation will be included in the May Queen’s Speech to increase powers for Ofsted to bring illegal schools into registration, and to introduce a register of home-educated children, so many of whom attend illegal schools? If not in May, then when?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness will understand that I cannot anticipate the Queen’s Speech, but I absolutely share her deep concern about the risks faced by children who are in unregistered schools. The Government have said that at the next legislative opportunity, we will seek to address some of those weaknesses. I can confirm that the Government are committed to a register for home-educated children.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, do the Government recall that one of the schools in the Trojan horse scandal is actually called the Al-Hijrah School, thus extolling not only Muhammad’s journey from Mecca to his takeover of Medina, but his massacre there of 600 Jews in one afternoon, after which his religion went on to conquer most of the known world. Does not the name say it all?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I really cannot comment on that; I will leave it to the noble Lord to decide for himself.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the safety of children is paramount and whistleblowers often provide a very important service, but it is known that the then Secretary of State for Education had been informed that counterterrorism police had determined that the Trojan horse letter was bogus. None the less, he went ahead by citing the letter when instituting major reforms in Birmingham, through which teachers lost their jobs and schools were closed, and changes in national education policy resulted as well. Can the Minister say whether the Minister in question—who is now, of course, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up—has faced any consequences of those actions and whether the changes he instituted as a result will be revisited?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not think that the then Secretary of State or any subsequent Secretary of State should in any way apologise for their relentless focus on safeguarding children and the safety of those children. The alleged events and behaviours were confirmed in a number of independent reviews and an independent tribunal.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm that what was subsequently uncovered by several Ofsted reports, two separate inquiries by the Department for Education, Birmingham council and multiple court judgments was that there was no organised plot but that a small cluster of Birmingham schools, including three run by an academy trust, suffered from a range of issues—poor governance, a lack of child protection safeguards and a failure of leadership? Does the Minister agree that what millions of Muslim families in this country want most of all is for their children to have a good education, to be integrated and not to suffer the consequences of this incident?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness that the vast majority of Muslim families in this country want exactly what she described. I have had the pleasure of visiting a number of excellent faith schools of all faiths, including Muslim schools, which comply with promoting fundamental British values, as all in your Lordships’ House would agree.

[The Lord Bishop of Birmingham]

My Lords, will the Minister commend the people of Birmingham for their extraordinary efforts since 2014 on cohesion and attempting to learn lessons from this very complicated event, as we have heard in your Lordships’ House today? Will she particularly commend them for the United Nations rights reporting school award, which has been applied for every year and is now awarded to 51% of primary and secondary schools in Birmingham, compared with only 18% across the country? Will she commend these actions and others, and ask for them to be replicated around the country so that we might live as one people?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the right revered Prelate for his question and for pointing out the success of integration in primary schools; I am happy to share in his welcome of that.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

As the right reverend Prelate said, it is a complicated situation, but the podcast itself—the reporting as per the original Question—was at times quite worryingly skewed. Does my noble friend think that schools are doing enough to challenge extremism, or, as a result of this podcast, are they afraid of being labelled racist?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is right that these are very sensitive issues, but challenging intolerant, racist or discriminatory views should be seen as part of a school’s wider anti-bullying and safeguarding duties. Actively promoting British values means that any opinions or behaviours that contradict them need to be challenged. I hope my noble friend will be reassured that a survey in 2021 showed that 87% of school leaders reported feeling confident that their school could facilitate conversations around extremism and radicalisation.

Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 25th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we welcome the Bill and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on continuing the good work of the honourable Member for Workington. I particularly welcome the fact that the Bill includes academies, which is an important aspect of increasing its chances of reaching the maximum number of children to begin their preparations for a career and the world of work. For so long we have been told that academies are often literally a law unto themselves, and the terms of their funding agreements mean that in many aspects of their provision they cannot be told what to do. The Bill demonstrates that in fact they can and that all that is required is a stroke of the Secretary of State’s pen. A precedent has thus been created.

I will not rehearse the powerful arguments advanced by my noble friend Lady Wilcox at Second Reading on the need for effective, regular, independent careers guidance. However, I feel that I have to draw something to the attention of the Minister—if her eyes roll as I start this, frankly, I would not be surprised, because it is about the consistency of government policy again. Yesterday I raised with her the fact that the Levelling Up White Paper talked up mayoral combined authorities at the same time as she was advancing a government position that effectively talked them down in terms of local skills improvement plans. We had the Chancellor talking up the need for an apprenticeship levy review just a month after the Government had voted down a Labour amendment in another place asking for just that. This Bill talks about year 7; it lowers the start of career guidance from year 8 to year 7. Yesterday the Minister said:

“We question the value of provider encounters in year 7, before those students can act on them”.—[Official Report, 24/3/22; col. 1139.]


That is what this Bill does. I may not be alone in being not just perplexed but slightly irritated at the Government’s apparent inability to present consistent policy. It is absolutely right that year 7 should be where it starts, but it was right yesterday in our discussions on the skills improvement Bill as well and I very much regret that that was not accepted.

Finally, the concession on the skills Bill that the Minister made this week in respect of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and his clause, shows that the Government have finally determined that they will make careers guidance more effective and meaningful and they are supporting it further in this Bill. That is why we welcome the Bill and look forward to it becoming law.

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

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for bringing forward the Bill and I thank all noble Lords who have participated in its passage through your Lordships’ House.

If I may, I will clarify the reference to Hansard that the noble Lord opposite made. When I said that students were not able to act on those encounters, that was not encounters in relation to careers advice but provider encounters with colleagues from further education colleges—UTCs. That is an important distinction to make.

This simple but effective Bill will ensure that all pupils in all types of state-funded secondary schools in England are legally entitled to independent careers guidance throughout their secondary education. That means high-quality support for every single child in every single state secondary school in every single local authority in England, without exception. It will fulfil a commitment in the Skills for Jobs White Paper, reaching over 600,000 year 7 pupils each year.

I am enormously grateful to my honourable friend the Member for Workington for his work on this important Bill and I congratulate him on ensuring that it passed through the other place. I know that the whole House will be grateful for this move to extend access to independent careers guidance, which will be widely welcomed. The Government are committed to supporting schools across the country to develop and improve their careers provision. The Bill is one step forward in ensuring that our young people receive high-quality careers guidance from an earlier age.

Bill passed.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Thursday 24th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 1 and 2.

1: Clause1, page 2, line 21, leave out “subsection (6)” and insert “subsections (6) and (6A)”

2: Clause1, page 2, line 32, at end insert—
“(6A) Where a specified area covers any of the area of a relevant authority, the Secretary of State may approve and publish a local skills improvement plan for the specified area only if satisfied that in the development of the plan due consideration was given to the views of the relevant authority.
For this purpose “relevant authority” means—
(a) a mayoral combined authority within the meaning of Part 6 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 (see section 107A(8) of that Act), or
(b) the Greater London Authority.”

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

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 1 and 2 en bloc. I will speak also to Amendments 3 to 6, 15 and 16 and associated Motions.

I am delighted to be back in the Chamber to discuss the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill. It is the Government’s belief—which I know is shared by your Lordships—that the skills sector has been forgotten for too long. This Bill represents a landmark moment for skills, bringing greater parity between further and higher education. Noble Lords will have seen the letter from my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education outlining the Lords amendments tabled, the key issues raised throughout the Bill’s passage and our position on each. I ask noble Lords to consider their positions alongside the concessionary amendments and policy changes that the Government have already announced since the Bill was in this House. These include delaying the removal of funding for technical educational qualifications that overlap with T-levels by a year and putting the role of mayoral combined authorities in the development of LSIPs into the Bill.

Furthermore, we tabled a number of amendments on Report in the Lords in response to issues raised by your Lordships in this House, including the criminalisation of cheating services and the requirement for LSIPs to consider skills needed for jobs relating to climate change and other environmental targets. I am delighted also to announce that we have tabled a further concession relating to the number of encounters for years 8 to 13 students with a range of providers of technical education, which I will come to in the third grouping.

First, I address Commons Amendments 1 to 6 and the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Watson: Amendments 3A, 4A and 4B. We have been clear that local skills improvement plans should be developed by designated employer representative bodies working closely with employers, relevant providers, mayoral combined authorities, the Greater London Authority, local authorities and other local stakeholders.

The Bill already places duties on relevant providers to co-operate with employer representative bodies to ensure that their valuable knowledge and experience directly inform the development of the plans. This includes independent training providers, which are referred to in Amendment 4B, that provide English-funded post-16 technical education or training. Let me reassure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that the views of independent training providers will be taken into consideration in the development of the plan.

The Government also recognise the importance of mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority and their work as commissioners and convenors in their areas with devolved adult education functions. That is why, in the Commons, the Government brought forward Amendments 1 and 2, which place a duty on the Secretary of State to approve and publish a local skills improvement plan only if satisfied that, during the development of the plan, due consideration has been given to the views of the mayoral combined authority or Greater London Authority where it covers the specified area.

Further details will be set out in statutory guidance, informed by ongoing engagement with key stakeholders and evidence from the trailblazer pilots. Guidance can be updated regularly to reflect evolving needs and priorities, as well as best practice. We will ensure that the views of key stakeholders including mayoral combined authorities, the Local Government Association and the Association of Colleges are considered in the development of the statutory guidance.

Furthermore, relevant providers and key local stakeholders are already playing an important role in the local skills improvement plan trailblazers running this spring, which are spurring new collaborative working. I therefore hope that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, will not insist on his amendments.

I now turn to Commons Amendment 15, Amendments 15A and 15B from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friend Lord Baker’s Amendment 16A. Many of your Lordships have spoken passionately about our reforms to post-16 qualifications, both now and when the Bill was last in this House. We listened carefully to these issues and have made some significant changes as a result.

At Second Reading in the other place, the Secretary of State announced that we are allowing an extra year before public funding is withdrawn from qualifications that overlap with T-levels, and before reformed qualifications are introduced that will sit alongside T-levels and A-levels.

Our reform programme is rightly ambitious, but we understand that it would be wrong to push too hard and risk compromising quality. The additional year strikes the crucial balance between giving providers, awarding organisations, students and other stakeholders enough time to prepare and moving ahead with our important reforms. That is why we cannot accept a three-year delay, as the amendments to this Motion propose.

These changes are part of our reforms to our technical education system that will be over a decade in the making from their inception, building on the recommendations in the Sainsbury review, published in 2016, which itself built on the findings of the Wolf review of 2011.

T-levels are a critical step change in the quality of the technical offer. They have been co-designed with more than 250 leading employers and are based on the best international examples of technical education. We have already put in place significant investment and support to help providers and employers prepare for T-levels. By 2023, all T-levels will be available to thousands of young people across the country. The change to our reform timetable means that all schools and colleges will be able to teach T-levels for at least a year before overlapping qualifications have their funding removed.

Last November, the Secretary of State also announced the removal of the English and maths exit requirement from T-levels. This is about making the landscape fairer, so that talented students with more diverse strengths are not prevented from accessing and successfully completing a T-level. The change brings T-levels in line with other level 3 study programmes, such as A-levels, which do not have such a requirement.

In addition, Amendment 15B would also require consultation and consent from employer representative bodies before the withdrawal of funding approval from qualifications. As your Lordships will be aware, we have twice consulted on our intention to withdraw funding from qualifications that overlap with T-levels. T-levels were designed by employers to give young people the skills they need to progress into skilled employment or to go on to further study, including higher education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, coming from up north I do not really understand about the Central line and Crossrail. What I do remember was the Liverpool overhead railway, commonly known as the dockers’ umbrella. It was scrapped before the new transport system had proved its worth and chaos resulted.

I preface my remarks by thanking the Minister. I do not think I have come across a Minister so prepared to listen and engage—I am sucking up here—and to consider changes. That is the way it should work in the House of Lords and I pay tribute to her. I also want to pay tribute to the Government because we have talked about the importance of further education and vocational education for a long time but, frankly, successive Governments have done nothing about it. They have done little bits at the edges and margins but not actually done real, radical change. We now see something which is going to be really important to not only the skills agenda but young people particularly.

My comments from our Benches are not being made from a stance of party dogma. They are being made from a stance that it is important to get this right, as the noble Lords, Lord Baker, Lord Blunkett and Lord Adonis, have said. We want the Government to be successful. We want them to be able to triumph in this legislation, so the areas we are finally down to are just small changes which would make sure this really happens. I want to talk about two important areas, in the order that we have discussed them.

First, on the local skills improvement plans, yes, it is now important to have a plan in each locality and for all the partners to be joined up to it. Those plans will vary from area to area—of course they will. I have never quite understood why we should exclude the further education providers or local combined authorities, or whatever they are. They have not only budgets; they have influence and expertise. I take the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, made about us not wanting it to be bureaucratic but we want to make it successful so, as I have just said, it is important that those stakeholders are there.

Colleges bring a wealth of experience. You cannot expect them to provide the courses and skills needed unless they are truly involved. This notion of the combined authorities just ensuring that the plan is not signed off until they raise the white smoke is not good enough. They should be working alongside by influencing, empowering and suggesting, not as some huge bureaucratic body but through some simple opportunity to work side by side. Actually, the employers need to be in a position to tell the colleges where they have got it wrong and how they can improve by doing things to step up to the game. We feel strongly about that and if it goes to a vote, we will support it.

We have heard the talk about the BTECs. Again, I do not really understand it. It was interesting to see what Pearson said, which was that the introduction of T-levels need not lead to a requirement to defund other qualifications. Why? Because there is a clear distinction between T-levels and career focused BTECs, which have different structures and different purposes.

It seems to us that we have long advocated this, as far back as the Sainsbury reform of vocational qualifications; again, it is a bit like the local skills plan. It is important to get it right and we are not convinced that you can rush at this. The two qualifications have to work alongside each other. This is not an area I have any expertise in but listening again to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, who has expertise in this matter, the Government would be wise to take on board his suggestions. We are saying that we clearly want to see BTECs not being defunded for at least four years, and we want to support the very important amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for the contributions they have made to this important debate and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for acknowledging the importance of the Government’s work in this area. I also thank my noble friend Lady Wolf for her descriptions of how local skills improvement plans should work in practice. I attempted to write something down but she put it very well.

We are trying to balance having a clear focus on the needs of employers, for all the reasons that your Lordships are well aware of—given the feedback we have from employers that students do not come to them with all the skills and experience that they need—with drawing on the valuable local insight and intelligence to which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and others of your Lordships referred. We are trying to strike a balance between those two things.

In relation to the role of local authorities in this, particularly those which have a devolved adult education budget, the Secretary of State will have the ability through regulations to add local authorities in England to those relevant providers already subject to the duties in the legislation. These regulations will be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution in Parliament.

Those independent training providers that deliver English post-16 education or training will also have duties on them where that training is material to a specified area. There is already a duty on them to co-operate and engage in the development of the local skills improvement plans.

Turning to the vexed issue of defunding BTECs, I am concerned about my communication skills. I am not sure how many times I have stood at the Dispatch Box—I know colleagues at the other end have done the same—trying to reassure the House that we are not defunding most BTECs, as the noble Lord, Lordusb Watson, said, deploying a scorched earth policy, which the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, suggested, or leaving them as a niche qualification, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, suggested. We see them as an absolutely core part of the offer in giving young people choice, diversity and quality, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, described. We agree absolutely and think that the suite of qualifications we will have in future will do those three things.

To my noble friend Lord Johnson’s point about blighting and—these were not my noble friend’s words—besmirching the quality of BTECs, it is absolutely the reverse. Once we get through this and we are clear which BTECs are remaining, they will have absolute endorsement from the Government that they meet the standards of quality and future employability which are so critical for our young people, particularly those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. All will be on a level playing field and have that endorsement.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

On that last point, once we get through this, as the Minister says, we can make judgments, but as things stand we are talking about 2024. As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and others have said, by 2024 we will not have a clear view of how well T-levels have proceeded, so that is not the time to make the judgment. It surely has to be further down the line.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

If I may, I will respond to that very valid point about the scale-up of T-levels when I come to it in just a second.

I am tempted to expand on the Crossrail/Central line analogy, but I think time does not permit.

On timing, and my noble friend Lord Willett’s question about giving a greater sense of which technical qualifications will be recommended for defunding, I am not in a position to be able to say that today. We intend to publish a provisional list of overlaps with waves 1 and 2 of T-levels shortly. We want to provide as much notice as possible about the qualifications that will have public funding approval withdrawn from 2024.

On the definition of “overlap”, which a number of noble Lords raised—

[Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but I wonder whether she can give some indication of the proportion of BTEC qualifications that the Government are intent on keeping and the proportion that are likely to be dropped because of the so-called overlap. How many of the 250,000 students currently taking BTECs will be able to continue to do so?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am afraid that I am not in a position to be able to confirm that today, but I can confirm that “scorched earth”, “niche” and “most” are not a reflection of where we are on this policy.

On the definition of “overlap”, in our policy statement in July last year we published the three tests that would be used to determine overlap: first, is the qualification in question a technical qualification; secondly, are the outcomes that must be obtained by a person taking that qualification similar to those set out in a standard covered by a T-level; and, thirdly, does the qualification aim to support entry to the same occupation as the T-level?

Turning to the number of people and the scale-up of T-levels, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, suggested that 230,000 students start a BTEC each year. In fact, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, clarified just now, there are 230,000 students taking BTECs or similar qualifications at any one time, rather than as initial starters.

My noble friend Lord Baker suggested that the number of people starting BTECs is in the hundreds. Around 5,450 students started their T-level last September, at just over 100 providers across the country. That was up from 1,300 students, who were the pioneers and are now in their second year. We now have more than 400 providers, all over the country, signed up to deliver T-levels. All the current T-levels will be available by 2023, and of course those providers include FE colleges and UTCs, which deliver significant numbers of those qualifications.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 3.

3: Clause1, page 2, line 35, leave out from “body” to “for” in line 37

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 4.

4: Clause 1, page 2, line 40, leave out from beginning to “and” in line 6 on page 3

--- Later in debate ---

Motion on Amendments 5 and 6

[Baroness Barran]

Moved by

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 5 and 6.

5: Clause 1, page 3, line 8, leave out “by people resident”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 7 to 14.

7: Clause 1, page 3, line 10, after “any” insert “English-funded”

--- Later in debate ---

14: Clause 4, page 6, line 11, after “made” insert “by the Secretary of State”

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I now turn to the Motion on the amendments in the second group, which relate to technical government amendments, the lifelong loan entitlement, the level 3 entitlement and apprenticeships, and the Office for Students.

Commons Amendments 7 to 14 provide further clarification of the definition of relevant providers in scope of the duties relating to local skills improvement plans, and which education and training is treated as English-funded. The duties will apply only to institutions within the further education sector in England, English higher education providers and independent training providers who carry on their post-16 technical education or training in England, either partly or fully. Relevant providers will be subject to the duties relating to local skills improvement plans only if they provide English-funded post-16 technical education or training material to a specified area in England. This includes distance or online learning.

This will help to ensure that English-funded technical education and training provision material to an area in England is better aligned to labour market skills needs and leads to good jobs for learners and improved productivity. These are technical amendments that the Welsh Senedd has confirmed it is happy with. It has confirmed as such through agreeing that this measure would not be part of the legislative consent Motion required and granted in January.

I turn next to Commons Amendment 20. A key aim for the lifelong loan entitlement is to ensure that people can reskill flexibly across their lifetime in response to changing skills needs and employment patterns. We also need to consider the importance of creating a sustainable student finance system, alongside what will be necessary to ensure that eligible students have the opportunity to study, upskill and retrain.

I am pleased to confirm that in our current consultation on the LLE, which we have published since the House last discussed the Bill, we seek to understand better the barriers that learners might face in accessing the LLE. This includes whether restrictions on previous study should be amended to facilitate retraining and stimulate high-quality provision.

I was delighted to host a round table with Peers to listen to your Lordships’ advice on the consultation and where officials noted comments for submission into the consultation. This was a productive and thoughtful session which will help inform policy decisions moving forward. If any of your Lordships would like to discuss the details and scope of the lifelong loan entitlement with me, or with officials, I would be delighted to meet them. Given that the consultation is the appropriate vehicle to examine the issue of the LLE, I hope your Lordships will agree to this Commons amendment.

Commons Amendment 22 is a minor and technical amendment which clarifies that advanced learner loan funding, routed through the Student Loans Company, is in scope of Clause 22 of the Bill. This has always been the intention of Clause 22(9), and this amendment is merely a technical adjustment to the drafting. It ensures that advanced learner loan funding arrangements are captured by the funding arrangements definition in Clause 22. Without this amendment, the clause may not be adequately applied in relation to providers that receive advanced learner loan funding.

Commons Amendment 23 removes Clause 25, which sought to place the level 3 entitlement on a statutory footing and require at least two-thirds of apprenticeship funding to be spent on people who begin apprenticeships at levels 2 and 3 before the age of 25. The Government agree with the ambition to ensure that people in England have access to education at any age. That is why we launched the free courses for jobs offer in April 2021 as part of the lifetime skills guarantee. This gives all adults in England the opportunity to take their first level 3 qualification for free, regardless of their age. But it is not right to put the free courses for jobs offer into legislation, as my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke’s amendment would have done. Doing so would constrain how the Government allocate resources in future and make it more difficult to adapt the policy to changing circumstances and for adults most in need.

The Secretary of State announced last November that from April 2022 we will expand the offer to include any adult in England who earns below the national living wage annually—which will be £18,525 from April this year—or is unemployed, regardless of their prior qualification level. Funding for the free courses for jobs offer will be available throughout the three-year SR period, giving FE providers the certainty they need to invest in the delivery of this offer. Full funding is also available through the adult education budget for adults aged 19 and over to access English, maths and digital skills qualifications. There is also a legal entitlement for 19 to 23 year-olds to access their first full level 2 and level 3 qualifications for free. In areas where adult education is not devolved, the adult education budget can fully fund eligible learners studying up to level 2, where they are unemployed or earning below the national living wage.

I turn now to the apprenticeship proposal in the clause. From August to November 2021, nearly 100,000 people under the age of 25 started an apprenticeship, with under-25s accounting for 61% of all apprenticeships. Some 71% of apprenticeship starts were at level 2 and level 3. We want to bring more young people into apprenticeships. This is why the Minister for Skills wrote to all year 11, 12 and 13 pupils and their parents during National Apprenticeship Week to tell them about the great opportunities that apprenticeships provide. The Department for Education is looking at how we support young people in the application process and is working with employers to help them understand the benefits of hiring young apprentices. The department is also looking at how we can better support providers and employers to advertise to this group and is working with UCAS to capitalise on the work it does to connect young people to opportunities after school or college. We believe that measures focused on raising awareness of apprenticeships, helping young people to navigate the recruitment process and encouraging more attractive and accessible vacancies constitute a much better approach to supporting young people into apprenticeships than an amendment that could restrict opportunities. I remind your Lordships that this clause would have created significant costs and altered arrangements for public spending, which I do not believe this House should amend when the Commons has disagreed to this measure.

I will now turn to Commons Amendments 24 and 25. These new measures will give the Office for Students, the OfS, an explicit power to publish information about its compliance and enforcement activity in relation to higher education providers. It is important that the Government act now to ensure transparency of the OfS’s regulatory work, as in recent cases it has become clear that the OfS does not have the explicit powers that other regulators have to publish such information. As part of this, we believe that it is important, and in the public interest, that the OfS is able to publish such information in the form of “notices, decisions and reports”, as this amendment will enable—for example, where it is investigating providers for potential breaches of the registration conditions placed upon them by the regulator. Publication by the OfS regarding its compliance and enforcement functions will demonstrate that appropriate actions are being taken by the regulator, ensuring that the reputation of higher education in England is maintained, and bearing down on poor provision.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 15.

15: Clause 7, page 10, leave out lines 38 to 40

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 16.

16: Clause 7, page 10, leave out lines 41 and 42

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 17 and 18 and do propose Amendments 17B and 17C to Commons Amendment 17—

17: Insert the following new Clause—
“Information about technical education and training: access to English schools
(1) Section 42B of the Education Act 1997 (information about technical education: access to English schools) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1), for “is an opportunity” substitute “are opportunities”.
(3) After subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) In complying with subsection (1), the proprietor must give access to registered pupils on at least one occasion during each of the first, second and third key phase of their education.”
(4) After subsection (2) insert—
“(2A) The proprietor of a school in England within subsection (2) must— (a) ensure that each registered pupil meets, during each of the first and second key phases of their education, at least one provider to whom access is given (or any other number of such providers that may be specified for the purposes of that key phase by regulations under subsection (8)), and
(b) ask providers to whom access is given to provide information that includes the following—
(i) information about the provider and the approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships that the provider offers,
(ii) information about the careers to which those technical education qualifications or apprenticeships might lead,
(iii) a description of what learning or training with the provider is like, and
(iv) responses to questions from the pupils about the provider or approved technical education qualifications and apprenticeships.
(2B) Access given under subsection (1) must be for a reasonable period of time during the standard school day.”
(5) In subsection (5)—
(a) in paragraph (c), at the end insert “and the times at which the access is to be given;”;
(b) after paragraph (c) insert—
“(d) an explanation of how the proprietor proposes to comply with the obligations imposed under subsection (2A).”
(6) In subsection (8), after “subsection (1)” insert “or (2A)”.
(7) After subsection (9) insert—
“(9A) For the purposes of this section—
(a) the first key phase of a pupil’s education is the period—
(i) beginning at the same time as the school year in which the majority of pupils in the pupil’s class attain the age of 13, and
(ii) ending with 28 February in the following school year;
(b) the second key phase of a pupil’s education is the period—
(i) beginning at the same time as the school year in which the majority of pupils in the pupil’s class attain the age of 15, and
(ii) ending with 28 February in the following school year;
(c) the third key phase of a pupil’s education is the period—
(i) beginning at the same time as the school year in which the majority of pupils in the pupil’s class attain the age of 17, and
(ii) ending with 28 February in the following school year.””

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the Motions in this group relate to provider access, universal credit, and SEND and further education teacher training. I will start with Commons Amendments 17 and 18, on strengthening the present provider access legislation, and Amendments 17A, B and C to the Motion in my name.

The Government have listened to and carefully considered the views expressed and concerns raised in this House and the other place. We agree that it is important that the number of mandatory provider encounters is balanced with the need for pupils to hear from a diverse range of people during each key phase of their education. That is why I am delighted to be able to propose a compromise amendment that offers young people that choice, related to students meeting providers of technical education and apprenticeships.

Our amendment would require schools to put on six provider encounters for pupils in years 8 to 13: two in each key phase, or an average of one per year over the course of a pupil’s secondary education. This should help to ensure that young people meet a greater breadth of providers and, crucially, should prevent schools simply arranging one provider meeting and turning down all other providers. The underpinning statutory guidance will include details of the full range of providers that we would expect all pupils to have the opportunity to meet during their time at secondary school. The Government intend to consult on this statutory guidance to ensure that the legislation works for schools, providers and, most importantly, young people.

I also want to take this opportunity to clarify that, although this amendment does not make specific reference to university technical colleges, the reference to “providers” in the amendment does cover UTCs. Strong UTCs are succeeding in equipping young people with vital skills, getting them into employment and supporting social mobility. It is right that, when there is a UTC in reasonable distance, it should be one of the providers that schools consider inviting to speak to their pupils.

I thank my noble friend Lord Baker for his work on this issue. In particular, I recognise the extraordinary work done by the right honourable Robert Halfon MP, chair of the Education Select Committee, and thank him for his tireless campaigning. I hope noble Lords will agree that this is a sensible compromise, with a middle ground of six provider encounters that will help to give every pupil information about what FE colleges, independent training providers, university technical colleges and other alternative providers can offer.

Amendments 17D and 17E in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, would require that provider encounters are in person and, further, that they begin in year 7 and that access is given over at least two weeks on each occasion. We agree that all young people need work experience and engagement with a range of employers to gain insights into the workplace. We also want young people to have access to personal guidance whenever they are making significant choices about the next step in their education or training. That is why we expect schools to follow the Gatsby benchmarks, which incorporate these activities as part of a high-quality careers programme for young people.

We are committed to ensuring that every provider encounter is of a high quality and meaningful for the student. We agree that it is sensible that provider encounters should be given in person where possible. However, writing this requirement into primary legislation is unnecessary. We have seen throughout the pandemic that there are times when it is not always appropriate for provision to be given in person. Technology may also have a role to play in bringing pupils a wider range of perspectives; for example, as part of the provider’s in-person presentation at school, it could incorporate a live link-up with some students at the provider or deliver a virtual tour. However, we agree that encounters should be in person where possible, and we propose making that expectation clear in the statutory guidance.

Secondly, we agree that “the earlier, the better” on careers guidance. That is why the Government support the Private Member’s Bill currently making its way through this House that sets out that career guidance begins at year 7. Pupils will get introduced to careers education in year 7 and will start learning about technical education options via the provider encounters from year 8. There is little demonstrable benefit in bringing the provider access clause forward to year 7, because pupils cannot act on this information then, whereas from year 8 onwards, there are clear choices for them to make in terms of the subsequent stages following their secondary education.

Finally, I cannot agree with the amendment that would require schools to provide access to pupils over a two-week period. This would be extremely burdensome on schools, which would struggle to accommodate that amount of time for providers in an already busy curriculum. We think the clause as it stands, saying schools should ensure a reasonable period of time during the school day, is sufficient and proportionate.

I turn to Commons Amendment 19 and Motions 19A and 19B. My noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott and I had productive conversations—

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

I just want to refer to the earlier amendment, for which I thank my noble friend very warmly. The original Baker clause had three meetings for each year group—13, 15 and 17—and the Government wanted one. It was a loophole. I had discussions with her and I thank her very much for the way in which she responded, moving to two meetings. It is a very good example of give and take. She is a member of a Ministry that likes to take but very seldom gives, but here the Government did listen to representations from this House. I thank her for agreeing to that and being sympathetic to it.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his very kind words.

Returning to Amendment 19 and Motions 19A and 19B, as I was saying, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott and I had productive conversations with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, on these matters. I shall highlight some of the points raised in these discussions, although I am aware that the letters we wrote to the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord are in the Library of the House.

First, I note that Clause 17, removed by Amendment 19, would be significantly costly to implement. Initial estimates from DWP suggest the cost of ensuring that such claimants retain entitlement to universal credit could be between £250 million and £300 million per annum. While this House has rightly asked the Commons to consider this point, it is right that we do not continue to insist on policy that would increase public spending. It may help if I remind noble Lords that the core objective of universal credit is to support claimants to enter work, earn more or prepare for work in the future. Indeed, it is an important principle that universal credit does not duplicate the support provided by the student support system.

However, I reassure your Lordships that universal credit claimants are able to take on part-time training for any level of course, as long as they can meet their work requirements and their work coach is satisfied that it will help their employment chances. Furthermore, the Government understand that there should be some circumstances in which people are allowed to continue to claim universal credit while doing full-time training. That is why universal credit claimants may undertake a full-time course of non-advanced study or training for up to eight weeks in order to support their employment and career goals. Additionally, as part of DWP Train and Progress, there is a further extension in the flexibility offered by universal credit conditionality. This extension means that, with the agreement of their work coach, adults who claim universal credit can undertake non-advanced work-related full-time training for up to 16 weeks without losing their entitlement to universal credit. The flexibility will last until at least April 2023.

Finally, exceptions for full-time study or training at any level are also made for students with additional needs that are not met through the student support system, such as those responsible for a child or claimants who have been assessed as having limited capability for work due to disability or ill health. This additional flexibility has been introduced in recognition of the benefit a course of study or training could have in enabling claimants with disabilities to improve their prospects of obtaining work. Officials at the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions will also continue to work closely together to help address and mitigate the barriers to unemployed adults taking advantage of our skills offers. For example, both departments are working to ensure that local jobcentre leads are actively involved in and help inform the design of local skills provision through skills advisory panels and the local skills improvement plans.

Moreover, the recently announced employment and skills pathfinders are a joint DWP/DfE initiative, working in collaboration with local partners, to examine how our national interventions could be improved by aligning the delivery of employment and skills at a local level. The employment and skills advisory pathfinders will share all their learnings with the LSIPs, as I mentioned, but also with the mayoral combined authorities and other local programmes, so they have an opportunity to learn from them too. More broadly, in relation to how we are learning from these programmes, the Department for Education is setting up a new unit for future skills which will work with BEIS and DWP to bring together the skills, data and information we hold across government to enable us to use central and local government, as well as providers and the general public. The unit will produce information on local skills demand, the future skills needs of business, the skills available in an area and the pathways between training and jobs. This will obviously also be relevant to those looking for work.

Turning to Commons Amendment 21 and Motion 21B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, we all agree that it is vital for our teachers across all stages, from early years to school and further education, to be trained to identify and respond to the needs of all their learners, including those with special educational needs and disabilities. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, who has been a voice for learners with special educational needs and disabilities throughout the debates on this Bill, and more broadly in the House. However, as indicated by Commons Amendment 21, we do not believe it is helpful to prescribe requirements relating to the content of further education initial teacher training in primary legislation, and we do not agree, in response to the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, that the content of occupational standards should be cemented into legislation.

I want first to address our shared commitment to ensuring that all learners, including learners with special educational needs and disabilities, have access to a world-class education that sets them up for life and supports them to achieve positive outcomes. This starts from the earliest stages, which is why, as part of the early years recovery programme, we are establishing a training contract to increase the number of qualified SENCOs working in early years settings by up to 5,000 between September 2022 and August 2024.

In addition, we recently announced a package of over £45 million for SEND, to be delivered over the next three financial years. This includes direct support to schools and colleges to support the workforce in meeting the needs of learners with special educational needs and disabilities. The forthcoming SEND review will aim to ensure that children and young people with SEND get the educational, health and care support they need, identified early, delivered promptly and in settings that are best suited to their needs.

On the content of FE initial teacher training programmes, it is right that teaching professionals in the sector decide how teacher training should be designed and delivered. We supported a group of experts who employ teachers in the FE sector—from colleges and training providers, whose staff have real insight into the needs of their learners—to develop the new occupational standard for learning and skills teachers, which was published in September 2021.

--- Later in debate ---

All I am saying is that there should be some level of basic training guaranteed for those most commonly occurring conditions. If we do not have that, it is not about how we will fail but the magnitude of the failure. If the Minister cannot accept that, really the only option I have would be to ask the House to give its opinion on this matter.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken today, particularly on the amendments and Motions we have just debated. I will touch very briefly on the points raised.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, for her explanation of the Labour Party’s vision for curriculum extension, but, as I set out in my opening remarks, we have very real concerns in relation to this amendment about the impact that a two-week work experience slot would have on schools. We question the value of provider encounters in year 7, before those students can act on them, as I set out in my earlier remarks.

On the very eloquent explanation of the disability benefits system from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, as he knows, we are very concerned about disability unemployment. We published a national disability strategy last July that set out how the Government will help level up opportunity and improve the experience of disabled people. Critically, that includes greater inclusion in the workplace to tackle the disability gap. As the noble Lord remarked, a great deal of work and many initiatives are going on in this area. I am more than happy to accept, on my behalf and that of my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott, any further conversations the noble Lord would find useful, and I will take back his thoughts to the department.

I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds and his colleague the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, and similarly reassure them, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott, that we would be delighted to continue to work with all noble Lords on these issues, which I know she takes extremely seriously.

On the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, I would be glad to write to him to try to reassure him about the quality of the advice we have received and the experience of those giving us that advice. I reiterate our concerns about inflexibility in relation to a measure that is in the Bill, particularly since we introduced this standard only in September 2021. The noble Lord will understand that, much as I would like to, I cannot pre-announce anything from the SEND review, but I very much hope he will find much that interests him within it.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her reply, and I offer in all sincerity that, if she ever wants to discuss the Labour Party’s policy on education and future strategy, I am always available. However, we continue to believe that the amendment is a necessary addition to the Bill. Therefore, I ask the House to agree with it and I wish to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 19.

19: Clause 17, page 21, line 28, leave out Clause 17

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion on Amendment 19

Tabled by

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 20.

20: Clause 18, page 22, line 1, leave out Clause 18

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 21.

21: Clause 19, page 22, line 34, leave out subsection (3)

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion on Amendment 21

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 22 to 27.

22: Clause 22, page 28, line 15, leave out from first “to” to “paid” in line 16 and insert “an agreement for the funding authority to provide funding to the provider includes a reference to an agreement or arrangements between the funding authority and the provider by virtue of which amounts can or must be”

Education (Environment and Sustainable Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Baroness Barran Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 4th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we are all indebted to my noble friend Lord Knight for bringing this Bill forward and, in doing so, drawing on his long-established commitment to and campaigning on sustainability and environmental education.

At earlier stages of the Bill, both the Minister and her predecessor said the Bill was unnecessary as schools could be trusted to teach pupils about the issues that combine to create the climate emergency as part of citizenship education. But young people themselves tell us that that is not enough. The Government should—and, I believe, could—support it as one way of reinforcing the messages they sent out at COP 26. I know that is not going to happen, but we on these Benches support my noble friend’s Bill and wish it well in another place.

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

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, for highlighting this very important issue. While the Government agree with the sentiment of the Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, just suggested, they do not believe that amending the curriculum is the right way to encourage pupils to learn about a sustainable environment. The subjects of citizenship, science and geography all include content on sustainability and the environment, and schools have the autonomy to go into as much depth on these subjects as they see fit.

We are taking action to support schools to develop further pupil knowledge and skills in relation to these very important issues. Our draft sustainability and climate change strategy, which we announced at COP 26, set out two new initiatives: the national education nature park and the climate leaders award. Together, these schemes will build on knowledge gained in the classroom to provide practical opportunities for all pupils to learn more about nature and biodiversity, develop key digital skills that are essential components to solving climate change and be empowered to take positive action. Alongside this, teachers will have access to improved training in climate education, including a primary science module curriculum, science CPD and free access to high-quality resources. We have engaged widely and plan to publish the final strategy in April.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Blunkett and Lord Watson—particularly my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who is the father of citizenship in our schools. I think my noble friend Lord Watson’s comments about the views of young people that autonomy is not delivering are shared by teachers. If the Minister, or her colleague Robin Walker, had the appetite and the time to meet with me and Darren Jones before the Bill goes to the other place, we would be very grateful.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Either I or, even better, my honourable friend in the other place would be delighted to meet with the noble Lord.

Bill passed and sent to the Commons.

Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill

Baroness Barran Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 4th March 2022 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I join your Lordships in thanking my noble friend Lord Lucas for bringing forward this Bill, and I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. I am also grateful to my honourable friend the Member for Workington for his work on this important Bill, and I congratulate him on ensuring that it passed through the other place.

High-quality careers guidance prepares young people for what comes next. It connects young people from all backgrounds to education and training opportunities that lead to great jobs—as my noble friend Lady Altmann said, not just one great job but several over a career. Furthermore, careers guidance is an essential underpinning to the Government’s skills reform, and that is why I am happy to lend my support, and that of the Government, to this Bill.

The cross-party support apparent in the other place shows that there is agreement in both Houses that careers guidance in secondary schools is vital and, in particular, on the benefits of inspiring our young people about a range of great careers, raising aspirations and encouraging them to maximise their talent and skills. The Government support the Bill because we want to level up the country, give access to opportunity and allow talent to flourish—as my noble friend Lord Lucas said, whether that be in the locality you grew up or outside it.

As we emerge from this pandemic, good-quality careers advice is essential to build a workforce that is dynamic and flexible. It is critical that young people are provided with guidance on future labour market opportunities and growth sectors, so that they can learn the skills they need to be successful in our fast-paced and ever-evolving jobs market—a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, mentioned.

My noble friend challenged me on whether the Government would stick with the programme, and I am pleased to reassure him that in the Skills for Jobs White Paper, we committed to extending careers hubs, career leader training, digital support and the enterprise adviser networks—the employer volunteers—to all secondary schools and colleges in England. Your Lordships will remember that that recommendation was in the Augar review, and we accepted it. My noble friend explained the Bill very ably. It is a simple but effective Bill, and I will not repeat what it aims to achieve, but I shall attempt to address some of the points raised by your Lordships today.

I know that my noble friend Lord Baker and I do not agree on absolutely every aspect of widening pupil access to alternative providers, but we agree on the principle of it, and we agree that there are still too many schools failing to comply with provider access legislation. Your Lordships will be aware that, through the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, we aim to strengthen the law so that all schools must offer at least three encounters with providers of approved technical education qualifications and apprenticeships for pupils in years 8 to 13. For the first time, we will introduce parameters around the content of these encounters to safeguard their quality.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, and my noble friend Lord Holmes raised the important issue of careers provision for those students with special educational needs and disabilities. The Bill extends careers provision to all pupils in state secondary education, including those in mainstream schools with special educational needs provision, and in special schools. The Careers & Enterprise Company works with career leaders to design and deliver career education programmes tailored to the needs of young people with special educational needs and disabilities. All mainstream and special schools have been invited to be involved in the Careers & Enterprise Company’s inclusion community of practice, which operates out of 32 career hubs and currently reaches 628 educational establishments. This national community of best practice sharing was established to enable young people with special educational needs to be much better supported in their careers education, and this will be rolled out to all careers hubs in the next academic year.

I do not want to dwell on the minimum education requirements raised by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, but I remind him that we are consulting on them; this is not a decision.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Wilcox and Lady Morris of Yardley, rightly talked about the importance of work experience. The careers statutory guidance makes it clear that schools and colleges should follow the Gatsby benchmarks. They are evidence-based, as the noble Baroness opposite rightly challenged, and offer both personal guidance and experience of work as part of their career strategy for pupils.

The noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Aberdare, mentioned the value of engaging children in primary schools. Of course, they are right that this has the potential to broaden horizons and raise aspirations. The Careers & Enterprise Company has produced a suite of resources to support the delivery of these activities in primary schools, and we support programmes such as Primary Futures that help to broaden students’ aspirations at an earlier stage.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, asked for a clearer careers strategy. He may be aware that the Government have appointed Professor Sir John Holman as the independent strategic adviser on careers guidance. He is currently advising us on greater local and national alignment between the National Careers Service and the Careers & Enterprise Company. He will also advise on the development of a cohesive and coherent careers system for the long term; we expect to receive his recommendations this summer.

As we have heard from your Lordships, we cannot underestimate how important careers advice is. The Bill will help to make sure that every young person in a state secondary school, whatever their background and wherever they live in the country, can get on in life. I thank your Lordships for their contributions, which the Government are pleased to support; I urge the House to do the same.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister has made no reference to my concern about whether careers professionals will be available in sufficient number and quality to deliver the ambitious plans that the Government have outlined.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We are confident. We are working in a number of ways, which I am happy to set out for the noble Lord in writing.

Music Education in State Schools

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I declare interests as chairman of the Royal College of Music and a governor of Brentwood School.

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

My Lords, the Government are committed to high-quality education for all pupils and music is integral to this. We are working with experts to refresh the national plan for music education for publication later this year. This follows the publication of the Model Music Curriculum last year. We will also invest around £115 million a year, for the next three years, in music, arts and heritage education, including the network of music hubs working across England.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. The sad, blunt truth is that music education in state schools is on life support. The number of pupils taking A-level music is down by a third since 2014—sadly, often because it is simply not available as a subject. GCSE applicants have come down by 17% over the same period and 29% of state schools have seen a reduction in the number of qualified music teachers, while the number of trainees is falling inexorably. Is my noble friend aware that while 50% of pupils in private schools get sustained music education, just 15% of state school pupils do so? Should this not be at the top of the levelling-up agenda? We need a national plan soon, so can she tell us more precisely when that is coming? Can we also be assured that practitioners and musicians will be able to have their say before it is implemented?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government share my noble friend’s concern about the importance of music education in all of our schools. We see it, along with other arts subjects, as integral to a good, strong curriculum. In relation to the numbers that my noble friend quoted on the music GCSE, I point out that while he is right that uptake of the GCSE has declined, uptake of the VTQ—the vocational qualification—has increased, so actually there are almost 53,000 children today taking either the GCSE or the VTQ, compared to almost 50,000 in 2016. On the timing of the announcement of the plan, as I said, it will be later this year. I will take his recommendations on further consultation back to the department.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I will follow directly from the question of the noble Lord, Lord Black. The Minister may be interested to know that my daughter is a professional musician who spends part of her working life, like so many of her colleagues, teaching in an independent school where the list of peripatetic and full-time music education staff takes up half a page on the school’s website. This shows that parents value music education and, in that case, are prepared and able to pay for it. Does the Minister think that parents of state school pupils care any less about music education? I am sure that she does not. None the less, she will be aware that my daughter’s own children, who attend state schools, do not have access to anything like the provision which my daughter is part of providing in an independent school.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I agree with the noble Baroness that parents in every school care about the richness and breadth of the curriculum which their children undertake. The music education hubs that were created in 2012 now work with around 91.4% of primary schools in this country and almost 88% of secondary schools. Since 2018, there has been a sharp increase in both music tuition and whole-class ensembles.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, the effect of the accountability measures on the arts is becoming increasingly clear as the years pass by. The narrowing of the curriculum at key stage 3 has led to a reduced uptake in music courses at key stages 4 and 5. In some cases, courses are not even being offered. If the Government truly believe in a broad and balanced education, then the EBacc and Progress 8 measures will need to be fundamentally reassessed.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I cannot agree with the noble Earl. The EBacc was designed to be limited, absolutely to allow for the study of other subjects—many of which I know the noble Earl rightly cares a great deal about.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister have any figures on the number of schools without qualified, musically trained teachers attached to them? I declare my interests as a former chair of the Voces8 Foundation, which has been going into primary schools, particularly where there is no teacher present with any musical training, to introduce some basic singing.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not have that specific figure to hand, but I am happy to write to the noble Lord with it.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Would my noble friend agree to receive a small group from the Royal School of Church Music, which reaches out to children in all parts of the country, many of whom go to state schools where they are not properly tutored in music? It does enormous work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would be delighted to meet the group.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, could the Minister join me in congratulating Nicola Benedetti on becoming director of the Edinburgh International Festival? Bear in mind that she is on record as saying that

“Music teaching is vital to a child’s education.”


Moreover, is the Minister aware of the concerns of musicians, such as Julian Lloyd Webber, that music is being squeezed out of state school syllabuses and is increasingly coming to be seen as the preserve of only the rich? Music has the ability to enrich all children’s lives, throughout their lives.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I remind the noble Viscount, as I am sure he knows, that music is compulsory in all maintained schools from the ages of five to 14. After the age of 14, all pupils in maintained schools must be offered the opportunity to study at least one subject in the arts.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, my grand- daughter went to a splendid primary school, Eleanor Palmer, in Camden, where every child aged nine had to learn a musical instrument—whatever it might be; the recorder or anything else—for a year. Does the Minister think that is something that could be pushed in primary schools?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We believe that the network of music hubs we have set up gives children choice, including specialist individual music tuition in an individual subject, and for other children perhaps group singing or other activities.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Black, has had the same answers in the same kinds of debates for many years, since he has been asking this really important question. It is very clear that music education enhances memory, improves dexterity, includes collaboration and is a major part of learning. Indeed, it has been shown repeatedly that it improves and facilitates learning in other subjects. However, not even sufficient instruments are available in primary schools, despite what the noble Baroness asserts. There should be far more done to ensure music is an essential part of the curriculum. Does the noble Baroness agree?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely agree that it is an essential part of the curriculum: that is why it is compulsory in all maintained schools. I go back to the work of the music education hubs, which have had fantastic outreach into schools but have also linked schools and the children in those schools with music groups in their communities, so they can expand their interests.

[Lord Lingfield (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware, following my noble friend Lord Black’s point, that whereas 85% of independent schools have school orchestras, only 12% of state schools do? While the music hubs she has mentioned indeed do a good job in providing individual instrumental tuition, the best way of encouraging young people to love music is to give them the opportunity to play in school-based orchestras and ensembles. Will the new national plan please take this into account?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The new national plan is being led by my noble friend Lady Fleet, leading a team of experts from the industry, education and other relevant fields, with a focus on making sure that music education is available to all those children noble Lords have referred to, both regionally and in terms of disadvantage and diversity.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the figures enunciated by the noble Lord, Lord Black, are indeed compelling. They are very largely the result of the English baccalaureate being introduced and will not be offset by the updated national music plan, to which the Minister referred. In the 2019 Tory manifesto, there was a pledge to introduce an arts premium in all secondary schools, with the aim of “enriching” the experience of all pupils. That was reinforced in 2020 in the Budget by the Chancellor, offering a £90 million arts premium. Both of these promises have been reneged on. Should we be concerned that the man who, as Education Secretary, introduced the English baccalaureate is now the man entrusted with delivering the so-called levelling-up agenda?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think we should be extremely comforted that the man who introduced the English baccalaureate and has been one of the leading energetic forces of reform is leading the levelling-up agenda.

Higher Education Reform

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is a very odd Statement because it suggests one or two nice things but does not really give us much detail. As the noble Baroness has just pointed out, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is missed on this one. His intellectually honest toe-caps have gone into the ribs of many of us here and the Government Front Bench has actually felt them on many an occasion. A student finance system that celebrates going from 23% repayment to maybe half is a weird thing. Why do we still persist with this loan system? It is seen to be financially failing—unless creating a form of junk bond at the end of it is the aim. There will be not quite so much junk; that would seem to be about the essence of it.

If we are looking at how we get further education better into the system by giving better bonuses for lifelong learning—a suggestion of something that might be better in the future—we have to get people to go on the courses. What are we doing about careers guidance that would improve what people know about this? The first thing you will have to do is to train teachers, who are, let us face it, predominantly graduates, and we all know that what we did is right—if you do not come from that group, then you are very much in a minority—as we “stick to nurse”. Where is the training to make sure teachers are giving the right information to people or at least stand half a chance of so doing?

This has not got any easier with the introduction of T-levels and the removal of BTECs, which provided a series of fairly established ways of finding your way into higher education and the level 4 and 5 qualifications which are mentioned. We need some clear guidance to get this through and see how they are going to all tag in together. At the moment, I would say that it is an optimistic mess. We are not quite sure what the Government are expecting. It is going to be better, and it just might be that, after my entire lifetime, in relation to people at levels 4 and 5—I think it is technician-level qualification—we might be starting to address that, but we are doing it in a very chaotic way. The paths into education have fundamentally changed over the last couple of years, and they have changed in an incoherent manner.

To come to the last point, which the noble Baroness also touched on, if we have a special educational needs review taking place, why are we putting in a requirement for English and maths, which are the things that certainly the group I come from—that is, dyslexics—find difficult? It is 10% of the population; stick in dyscalculia, and that is another 3%, and those are conservative figures. Why are we making it so much more difficult for this group to get on to that pathway? When it comes to adult entrants into education, we are getting rid of BTECs, which were the way in, and we are saying that people have to have two A-levels. If you want later entrants—if you want entrants after having done, say, a level 4 course—why are we putting this in? It does not make any sense. Can we have some coherence about this?

Reading this as it stands, the Equality Act might have quite a lot to say about it. I have mentioned only two groups; others are available. Can we get some coherence around this? At the moment, the Government have waved a few ideas at us. The repayment structure may be slightly better for the Treasury, but I do not think it makes much difference to anybody else. Can we please hear what the Government are really about? If they are going to limit the amount of money we waste on the repayment structure, they have set themselves a very unambitious target.

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

I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their remarks and their questions. The noble Baroness rightly focuses on issues of fairness and access to higher education. The Government have tried to balance fairness to students with fairness to the taxpayer. Currently, a great proportion of the subsidy that the taxpayer makes towards higher education is funded by those who did not have the benefits of that higher education themselves. Students going to university have the advantages of their degree throughout their working lives.

Our estimate is that, over the course of their degree, the average graduate will borrow £39,300 from next year. Today, the average graduate would repay £19,500, and under the new proposed system, they would repay £25,300, so there is still a tremendous subsidy for the average graduate. The noble Baroness focuses on those who are more marginalised and are lower-earners, and she will be well aware that below £25,000 there is no repayment at all.

The noble Baroness also talked about the consultation around limitations on student numbers and minimum-entry requirements. This is, as she well understands, very much part of our drive towards having higher-quality courses. The numbers affected by the consultation—and I would stress it is a genuine consultation; we genuinely want to understand how stakeholders feel about this—and affected by proposed GCSE requirements would be less than 1% of students, and around 1% for the suggested entry requirement at A-level.

The noble Lord focuses on the barrier that that may present to those with special educational needs, but I would respectfully suggest it is also a tremendous barrier for everybody not to have English and maths at a basic level, since they are such an important entry requirement for almost every job. There are not many jobs in this country that you can do if you cannot read, write and add up. That is why the Government have extended their support, so that students can retake English and maths for whatever reason that might be.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, will the noble Baroness give way for a moment? If you have got a disability, it means you have trouble doing it. You have legal requirements that say you are not supposed to discriminate and there are other ways around it. For instance, voice operation—which is available as a standard item on every computer for English. If you are not going to bring that into the system—which would have been a perfectly valid answer—why are you excluding them?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

There is absolutely no intention to exclude at all. The department is heavily focused on trying to improve outcomes for pupils with special educational needs and the noble Lord will be aware of the enormous range of outcomes depending on which school a child with the same disability or special need goes to. We want to equalise those, so it should make no difference where a child goes to school in terms of their outcomes.

If I may continue, the noble Baroness questioned what we were doing in relation to foundation years. I did not quite follow her argument. We are consulting on reducing the maximum fee and loan limits for foundation years, from the current just over £9,000 to £5,197, and that is to bring it in line to be the same amount as an access to a higher education diploma. We hope it will make those foundation years—which are an important access route for those who may be more disadvantaged to get into higher education or potentially for mature students—more accessible.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

The Minister did not follow my argument. Maybe when she reads Hansard, she will see that all I did was to quote from the equality analysis that her own department produced to accompany the proposals, to show that it could have a differential effect on different groups.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Hopefully there will be a less differential effect than there is currently.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

No, I am sorry—I do not want to delay the House—but if she could actually read the equality analysis, it said that, as a direct result of the reduction in the foundation years loan, if providers found they could no longer fund and provide those courses at the lower rate, it could reduce access to higher education. It is there in the equality analysis.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for clarifying that.

Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord questioned whether there was a strategy and a plan behind this. I am impressed, but not surprised, that the noble Baroness can do a PhD in 1,000 days. I will, if I may, try to set out the wider context a little. Our clear ambition is that students should succeed and achieve their potential. We are doing that in a number of ways. The first is by expanding the choices that we are offering them—for example, by expanding the higher technical qualifications, offering modular learning options and introducing T-levels, as well as the existing qualifications. We are expanding choice.

We are investing very substantially in higher education: £900 million pounds in the next three years, in addition to the £2.8 million that we have announced for further education, and the recent settlement for schools, as well as introducing a specific scholarship option for high-achieving disadvantaged students, so that they too can realise their potential. A great deal of work is going on, led by the Office for Students, on the quality of degrees.

On the noble Baroness’s point on student number caps, these approaches have been used in the past. I think our real aim is to identify those courses with very high drop-out rates or very poor graduate progression outcomes, and make sure that those are limited, but in no way to try to affect the more successful and higher-quality courses.

Our bottom line is that we want to maximise and continue to build on the successes in offering opportunity to students. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are 82% more likely to go to university today than in 2010. We want to build on that and on the increase in students from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities going to university, in making sure that this country offers opportunity to all.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the lifelong learning and other measures that will improve social mobility, but the higher education sector needs a root-and-branch review of the business model of our universities. Perhaps I need to declare that I have a family member who works in higher education and I have been associated with several universities in the past.

We are in another week when UCU members are on strike because of a broken system, where their pensions and working conditions are under attack, while managers pay themselves such astonishing amounts as to make even the private sector blush. USS administrators are using valuation scenarios so risk-averse as to lack any credibility, and the world-class system that the Government rightly applaud is in real danger of being depleted of future academic talent as rewards fall further behind, and the taxpayer’s interests are ignored under the pretext of university autonomy. When will the Government address these blatant anomalies in a sector that seems to have lost its sense of purpose? I associate myself with the remarks of the Labour Front Bench about vision.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness asks a number of important questions about the funding model for our universities but, as she acknowledged, they are incredibly successful in attracting international students, with over 605,000 of those students coming to our universities. In the other place the other day, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State quoted the figure that of every four international students, two go to the US, one comes to the UK and the rest of the world shares the last one.

We are aiming to build on that success; the investment that we announced along with this package aims to focus on both teaching and facilities to make sure that the highest-quality future-facing education is offered in our universities. My right honourable friend the Minister for Universities and Higher Education has been extremely active in stressing her concerns about how students’ experience has suffered over Covid and the responsibility of universities to respond, get back to face-to-face teaching and meet their needs, but I am happy to pick up in writing some of the wider points that the noble Baroness raised.

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support the Government’s student finance reforms, which strengthen what I think is the least bad system of funding higher education, but I have to say that I am puzzled by why the Government appear to be disavowing what in my view has been the standout levelling-up policy of the last decade: the removal of student number controls, which have allowed disadvantaged young people to go to university in far greater numbers—they are 80% more likely to do so in 2021 than they were in 2010. I would be very grateful if the Minister could reassure me that any student number controls will be imposed only in the most egregious cases of poor outcomes identified by the OfS and will not be used as a back-door means of reimposing sweeping caps or quotas on aspiration across the entire system.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am delighted to reassure my noble friend that we will not be introducing the sweeping caps to which he alludes. As he said, universities have been extremely successful in terms of social mobility. By consulting on student number controls, we are not taking a position on what the correct proportion of people going to university should be, but we want to tilt provision towards the best outcomes for students and, as I said, make sure that our further education system also offers fantastic pathways to success.

[Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)]

My Lords, I admire a great deal of what the Government are trying to do in relation to the future of higher education but I suspect that there is a bit of a muddle going on: the Government’s right hand does not seem to be doing the same as their left; that was just very ably put by the noble Lord, Lord Johnson. I start by asking why it has taken so long—it is two and a half years since the Augar report was published. If the Government are so concerned about having a high-class higher education system, with large numbers of international students, to reach out to the most disadvantaged and to ensure better outcomes, there is some urgency in this. Of course it is complex but perhaps the Minister can say why it has taken so long to reach any kind of conclusions on this report. Moreover, we are going to have a lot more consultation. I am not against consultation, but this one could have started two years ago, in which case we would be rather nearer to getting some kind of conclusion on where we are going next.

I also want to pick up what my noble friend on the Front Bench said about the effects of the proposed changes in student finance. How can the Government justify the much higher repayments that the least well off will pay because of the many years of interest charges—a lower rate of interest than now but, nevertheless, a much longer period for which they will be paying interest—whereas the wealthier students will pay off their loans very quickly and not incur all this interest? Is it not time to introduce a truly progressive graduate tax, rather than the regressive system of repayments being put forward today?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness partly answered her first question herself. She understands it very well. This is hugely complex and sensitive. The issues around repayment rates and the relative burden on the taxpayer versus the student all need careful consideration. Obviously, there are huge financial implications. The noble Baroness will have seen the figures on the projected size of the student loan book in 2043 if we did not do anything about this, which is half a trillion pounds—I was about to say dollars, because “trillion” always sounds like dollars, but it is pounds.

On the consultation, I feel slightly that as a Government we are damned if we do and damned if we do not. If we had not consulted, I am sure we would have been criticised. I know that the noble Baroness was asking about the timing of the consultation; that also had to align with the work done on the policy. We hope that the consultation will help to answer some of the disadvantage questions to which the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, on the Front Bench and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, referred. We really do want to understand how those groups that might feel the most difficulty in accessing higher education, particularly this new modular approach that will be offered, will be impacted so that we can structure the policy in a way that makes it most accessible.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the National Society. I thank the Minister for what is a very significant Statement, with wide-ranging implications for higher and further education, social mobility and the economy, current and potential students, and the future of many communities. A number of the policy ambitions are welcome, such as the higher technical qualifications. My concern, and hence my question, is about the unintended potential consequences of some of the proposals. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that these proposed reforms actively increase opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds who aim at professional careers in our vital public and community services, or in fields such as the creative industries, which seem to fall outside the high-quality and high-cost criteria for intended increases in strategic investment described in the consultation documents?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I may have touched on some of the points that I hope can address the right reverend Prelate’s question. To go back to the consultations, they are explicitly to help us avoid unintended consequences and to get input from as wide a circle of stakeholders as possible. Obviously, we believe, as Philip Augar did in his review, that a modular, lifelong education system with the funding to back it up will be accessible, lead to greater career development over somebody’s lifetime and meet the skills needed in the economy. Specific elements, such as the scholarship I mentioned, can be used not just for higher education but for further education and apprenticeships. Lastly, these changes must also be taken in the context of the major investment in and major reforms we have made to further education and the bringing together of the funding approach between higher technical qualifications at level 4 and 5 and degrees.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister talks about fairness in access and increasing the options for young people. But we know how the EBacc has reduced the options for young people in our schools, particularly those who want to do a creative subject. By doing that, the pipeline into universities, and indeed FE colleges, has become less, so we are seeing low numbers following creative subjects in higher education. Indeed, in the whole university sector there is only one professor of music. Surely if we want to increase options, we have to ensure that those options are available at our secondary schools.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am certainly aware from the many schools I visit that some of the best of them offer a great deal of choice, both within and outside their curriculum. I understand and hear the noble Lord’s concerns, but if we look at the success of our creative industries—which are world beating, in that well-known phrase—we see that we are clearly providing our children, through school and through further and higher education, the skills they need to be very successful within them.

[Lord Willetts (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her Statement and very much agree with the points made by my noble friend Lord Johnson. The changes to the financing of higher education make sense, because the system was always envisaged as one in which the majority of graduates would pay back the cost of their education. An arrangement in which we ended up with more than half of all student loans being written off was not the kind of balanced system originally envisaged.

I ask the Minister to agree that one of the reasons why the English higher education system stands out as one of the better systems in the world is the autonomy enjoyed by universities. We already have a consultation from the OfS on minimum thresholds to measure university performance, we will now have a consultation on number controls and we have another consultation on minimum educational requirements. Does she accept that if all these different, highly intrusive and detailed interventions are piled up on top of each other, the Government will be not boosting the quality of universities but eroding their ability to run their own affairs and therefore threatening the quality of our universities? I invite her to agree that if all those measures are imposed in total on universities, it would be hard to describe our system as one of university autonomy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend about the importance of autonomy, but I hope he agrees with me that there is also a real responsibility to have transparency and for students to be really clear on the impact of this major decision and financial commitment they are making and what their future career and further education prospects are, based on the choice of course. We are not aiming to restrict university autonomy. We are aiming to improve transparency and, through transparency, to see that autonomy translate into even higher quality than we have today.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome HE reform and have no objection to, for example, introducing minimum academic eligibility requirements to go to university, although linking access to student finance seems a cheap avoidance of winning the arguments for the virtues of the academic purpose of university. Is linking the value of a course’s quality to good jobs not a philistine undermining of knowledge for its own sake, turning universities into glorified job training centres? Is there a danger of a technocratic version of social mobility that instrumentalises the purpose of university, confirming that the only way to improve your social standing is to get a degree or go to university—the very opposite of what I assume the Government intend?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I apologise to the House if I was not completely clear in my earlier answer. I hoped and intended to refer to both the quality of jobs and the further education opportunities. Absolutely, our R&D is critical for the future of the country, and the quality of our thinking and debate, which I know the noble Baroness supports profoundly, is also really important. This is not just about jobs. But equally, I was made aware of six computing courses where the dropout rate is over 40%. Is that not something we should look at, compared with other courses where the dropout rate is much lower?

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

I understand why the Government want to make sure that students have the skills they need to manage the course, but there has been a lot of concern caused by the minimum eligibility requirements. Can the Minister confirm that the important thing is that the students have the skills they need to do the course, not that they have GCSE English or maths at level 4? The two things are not the same.

Secondly, successive policy papers from this Government have undermined the creative sector within universities. They have very much encouraged, and I agree with it, maths, science and engineering. I notice that humanities get a mention in this Statement; that is the first time for a long time. But in this policy document, what is there that will nurture and help to progress the creative industries in our universities, which are very much wanted by the economy and employers?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

In relation to the point about skills, on one level, of course, I cannot disagree—I never enjoy disagreeing with the noble Baroness. Of course, people should have the skills they need to access their degree. However, in the majority of cases, if not the vast majority, English and/or maths at GCSE level may well be necessary for the course that they are aiming to do. I stress that this is a consultation; we genuinely have not taken a view on it. There has been a great deal of focus in the media, in the other place and in your Lordships’ House tonight on the GCSE requirement. We will also be consulting on whether one should reintroduce a minimum A-level requirement. But our focus on foundation degrees and on additional opportunities to achieve the levels in English and maths are also part of how we will make sure that this happens.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, on the new lifelong learning entitlement, are the Government not simply loading even more debt on to a generation already carrying an enormous weight of debt, and extending that debt for even longer? It is a great privatisation of the cost of education, which used to be borne by the public purse collectively, by an entire society that benefited from it, and by employers who benefited from those skills. Instead, what we are seeing is an individualisation and a privatisation. For the 40 years when people would expect normally, in many cases, to be settling down, having a family and buying a house, they are going to have this weight of debt settling on their shoulders, and it will be even a higher percentage of this generation.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely do not recognise the description that the noble Baroness paints of the lifelong learning entitlement. If she does not agree with the Government’s decisions on this, she might want to, if she has not already, look at the Augar report’s recommendations. There is a clear need expressed: 24% of people when surveyed said that they had considered continuing and part-time education. We do not know how many students who go straight from school to university would rather do a more modular approach. Nobody is imposing this on the student body; this is a choice for people to build their careers and their skills, to seize opportunities and to build our economy.