Gender Pay Gap

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, since we have made such progress in dealing with the gender pay gap, might we also turn our attention to trying to persuade employers of the importance of helping parents, most of them women, who have taken time out from their careers to bring up children, to get back into the workforce with the same status at which they left it?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Part of that is about the time it takes for working parents to get back into the workforce. Our commitments—starting this April and building up, so that there will be 30 hours of free childcare for every family with a child nine months old and above—will be crucial for achieving that.

Education: Advanced British Standard

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Government’s interest in broadening the curriculum at age 18. Has the Minister had indications from universities that they are willing to broaden their admittance criteria too, so that students who follow a varied programme across the subjects are not disadvantaged relative to those who have followed a much narrower curriculum? Will she also ensure that, where children have to learn maths or English to 18, which they might naturally not wish to do, it is maths and English for which they will find a use in their lives and not maths and English which is directed towards getting into university?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The way we are thinking about this programme—I stress again that we need to consult extensively on the detail of it—is that it will offer children much more breadth and time, including a third more teaching time. That means that we can keep around 90% of the content of the current A-level for those going down an academic route and follow the occupational standards for those going down a technical or vocational route. The aim of the programme is to give children much greater choice so that they will still be able to access the same three-year degrees if university is their preferred option but also be well equipped for further technical education or the workplace.

Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We have made significant investments in our schools—£15 billion since 2015, and £19 billion in this spending review period. I mentioned that we have added 1 million school places since 2010. We have rebuilt over 500 schools, we have committed to another 400 and we have another 100 in the pipeline. The noble Lord will have heard my right honourable friend the Minister for School Standards saying that we always ask for as much money as we can get from the Treasury. I say again that where there are urgent needs we always deal with them, but we have difficult prioritisation choices to make.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend and her department on a crisis well handled and on dealing with the rather innovative interpretation of the Civil Service Code that she will have encountered this morning, which I hope the next Government will not have to suffer from, given the importance of confidentiality in running a Government. Does she think there is a longer-term learning to come from the whole episode of RAAC? Where we innovate substantially in building methods, particularly in situations like schools, we should, at the beginning, install monitoring programmes to understand how these materials are working out in practice. We are looking at big changes to do with decarbonising construction, and we risk repeating this whole cycle over again if we are not careful.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend makes a good point. More broadly, making sure that we have a deep technical understanding about how these building materials develop over time is critical.

With the leave of the House, I have an answer to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett: the school was surveyed on Friday. We are getting in touch with them as we speak.

T-levels

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Tuesday 25th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

There are relatively few T-levels where students have completed both years, given the timing of their introduction. Currently, 136 higher education providers have indicated that they will accept T-levels, including the vast majority of Russell group universities.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on introducing T-levels, which are, to judge from local reaction, a very successful, solidly academic qualification. We have considerable worry that there will be many students who will not be up to taking them who are currently served by BTECs. I urge my noble friend to revisit that, because these are students who we should not be letting down.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We are absolutely committed to those students. I remind the House that the current applied general qualifications produce very mixed outcomes indeed. The point my noble friend makes is valid, and, of course, by increasing the quality of the offer at level 3 we also need to reform qualifications at level 2, level 1 and entry level, to make sure that we equip students to progress to the highest level to which they aspire. With that, I also wish the House a very happy and peaceful recess.

Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Report stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 18th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

That was in relation to illegal settings, and we hope that is straightforward. Alternative provision education is delivered in other settings—as the noble Lord has rightly drawn attention to—which do not receive state funding, are not required to register as an independent school, and do not meet, currently, the requirements for registration. The noble Lord is aware, I think, that in the special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision Green Paper, we made a commitment to strengthening protections for children and young people in unregistered alternative provision settings, so that every placement is safe, offers good-quality education and has clear oversight. If I understand correctly, that is exactly what the noble Lord also aspires to.

I am pleased to report that on 11 July the department issued a call for evidence on the use of unregistered alternative provision settings. Again, I place on record my thanks to the noble Lord for his insistence and persistence on this very important issue, which is important, as he pointed out, for children whose parents may not have the confidence to challenge the system. The information collected will help us find the right solution that addresses these concerns effectively and proportionately.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, for his Amendments 97A, 118J and 118K, and for the very constructive way that we have been able to work together. I hope we can continue to work together to address the points that he has raised. We have worked with Ofsted to develop the package of measures to investigate illegal schools, to ensure that we can take effective action against unlawful behaviour. Since Ofsted started investigating unregistered schools in 2016, we have gained a much better understanding of how to tackle this sector. There have been six successful prosecutions. The number of cases investigated reflects an increase in efforts to investigate. The actual number of unregistered schools, as the noble Lord knows, is unknown, sadly, but the measures in this Bill have been developed—working together with Ofsted—to address the key issues in the sector, which the noble Lord has rightly drawn attention to.

We believe that Amendment 97A is not necessary as we can already prosecute companies and charities which are operating schools unlawfully. We already inform the Charity Commission when charities are prosecuted. Education and childcare behaviour orders will allow courts to prevent individuals from continuing to operate from buildings that have been used for illegal schools. When we were developing the measures, we also looked at whether it would be appropriate to create measures which would allow action against landlords, in the way that the noble Lord’s amendment has set out. This is a very complex area, and we concluded that education and childcare behaviour orders, which could prevent those convicted of an offence from continuing to operate from a given site, were the more appropriate mechanism.

Amendment 118J replicates powers that Ofsted already has. Genuine part-time settings are not under a statutory obligation to register, so would not be caught by the proposed amendment. There is ongoing engagement between the department, Ofsted and other stakeholders on the effectiveness of measures to tackle unregistered schools. The effectiveness of the legislation will be kept under review. The need for accountability suggested by Amendment 118K is, we believe, best secured through the annual report that Ofsted presents to Parliament.

Finally, I turn to Amendment 110, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas. We believe that this amendment is unnecessary as existing provisions—specifically in Section 136 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 and in Clause 65 of the Bill—already ensure that new local authority education functions under the Bill will be within scope of Ofsted’s inspection powers. I therefore ask my noble friend Lord Lucas to withdraw Amendment 87 and hope that other noble Lords will not move theirs.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that extensive explanation and her many good answers. I am delighted, too, that she is being so supportive of the campaign of the noble Lord, Lord Storey.

With regard to her last answer in relation to Amendment 110, I look forward to sharing with her the correspondence I have had with the chief inspector, who takes a different view, but this can be remedied later in the passage of the Bill if the chief inspector is right. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, for explaining her amendment to us. I am liberal rather than post-modern; I believe in the objective being one united society where we are all equal, rather than in the fractured values which her amendment proposes. It is really important that what we teach in schools covers all our experiences and all the threads that make up the UK. The English ought to learn a great deal more about the Welsh and Scots, for a start.

One of the fundamental problems, illustrated in the dispute with OCR over its poetry curriculum, is that we have allowed our examination system to become far too narrow. Yes, a thread of the undisputed greats in literature ought to run through things, as well as the thread of our history that used to consist of learning the names and dates of kings but is actually rather more interesting. Within them are the stories of us all—and that really ought to be us all.

To manage that within a school curriculum, you need a lot more freedom than we allow people at the moment, not less. We should not have a national curriculum that says, “These are the five things that you must teach”, but one with the ability to stretch broadly, bring things in and illustrate them and, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, enrich people’s local experience with things that mean something to them. I support the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, in his endeavours.

My noble friend Lord Sandhurst will know that I am very much with him on his amendments, and I am delighted to find myself with the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, in what he is asking for. The noble Lord says that he is surprised to discover that the Lords is cool. For those of us who come from the west, we walk in every day past a notice that says, “Peers entrance”. Indeed they do. The problems he outlines remind me a lot of what goes on with sexual abuse in schools. The answer is to face it, look at it and really be interested in, not afraid of, what is going on. We should be confident that we do not want it to be that way. We should not expect quick solutions so that we can forget about it, but know that this will take us a good long while to sort out and that it has some deep roots. I would really like to see the Government take some steps in the sort of direction the noble Lord proposes.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for Amendment 101. As he knows, we support the principles at the heart of this amendment and agree that teaching staff and leadership in schools need to understand the important role that fundamental British values play in our society and beyond.

I think he is making two points: one about curriculum content and one about the quality of the delivery of that curriculum. The Government believe our current arrangements provide a sound basis for this. As your Lordships know, schools have a duty, as part of providing a broad and balanced curriculum, to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development. Those principles are embedded in the Independent School Standards, teacher standards and Ofsted inspections.

As to the comments on the environment, our ambitious sustainability and climate change strategy publicly addresses the importance of teaching about the environment. This includes teaching topics related to climate change, covered within the citizenship, science and geography national curriculum.

We have prioritised helping schools to remain focused on recovery from the pandemic. This is why we undertook in the schools White Paper not to make any curriculum changes during this Parliament. The noble and right reverend Lord referred to the comments of the Chief Inspector of Schools about what she and her colleagues had seen in schools on the teaching of these subjects. We expect schools to take those comments very seriously and respond to them.

Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Report stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Tuesday 12th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, that is a really good suggestion, and I sense that the House is at one on what we are doing here.

I did my work experience down a coal mine—I think that broadened my experience a good deal, as a boy from Eton. One of my work shadows from Yorkshire was, until recently, a government Minister, so respect to him for getting there and also for not being there.

Work experience is a real mind-opener for people. When, under the guidance of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, we did the report on seaside towns, one of the things we noticed all the way round the country was not a poverty of ambition in young people in seaside towns but a poverty of belief. All they saw was what was around them, and they did not believe that anything else was possible. To give them work experience outside that, and to bring in at primary level people who represent careers that are not obviously open to them, would be wonderful.

It is wonderful to do work experience with primary school children; they are so open. They are interested, chatty and fascinated. There is none of the, “Oh, whatever” that you get at secondary schools. Children’s minds are so open at primary school. I am delighted that we are moving in this direction, and I encourage my noble friend to carry this forward to whoever is in charge of things in a month’s time.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Garden, Lady Chapman and Lady Wilcox, for Amendments 64, 112 and 113, which raise the important topic of careers education in both primary and secondary schools.

I turn first to Amendments 64 and 112 regarding careers education in primary schools. The Government believe that careers education is essential to ensure that young people can make informed choices about their future learning and careers. To reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, she will be aware that the Government have long stressed the need for a broad and balanced curriculum, so I hope that some of the breadth she described is recognised in the curriculum, as set out today.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for his warm welcome of the new grant funding that is now open for applications to deliver a programme of careers provision in disadvantaged primary schools. Having attempted to win round the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, I now know that I am going to lose her, because the programme will focus on three of the eight Gatsby benchmarks. I think one is exactly what the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, was talking about, in linking curriculum learning to careers. But here is where I think it might go downhill: we are facilitating meaningful age-appropriate employer encounters—I feel the ground giving way beneath my feet—and providing opportunities to experience a variety of workplaces. It will be a chance to encourage children to raise their hope and belief, as my noble friend Lord Lucas described, and, we hope, help them overcome any lack of confidence that might hold them back. The programme will target support for schools in the 55 education investment areas announced in the levelling-up White Paper, where educational outcomes are currently weakest.

In addition, Amendment 112 requires every secondary school to provide professional, in-person careers advice. From September this year we will commence the Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Act 2022, which extends the duty to provide independent careers guidance to all pupils in all types of state-funded secondary schools throughout their secondary education.

It is also the case that our statutory guidance makes clear that schools should deliver their careers programmes in line with the Gatsby benchmarks. Benchmark 8 is focused on the delivery of personal guidance and makes it clear that every pupil should have opportunities for guidance interviews with a careers adviser. In addition, we are funding the Careers & Enterprise Company with £29 million during 2022-23 to help support schools and colleges to drive continuous improvement in the delivery of careers services for young people and to support it to deliver the Gatsby benchmarks.

Turning to Amendment 113, again I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman and Lady Wilcox. Our careers statutory guidance for secondary schools has a clear framework, based on meeting the expectations in the Gatsby benchmarks. It requires that schools offer work placement, work experience and other employer-based activities as part of their career strategy, and it makes clear that secondary schools should also offer every young person at least seven encounters with employers during their secondary education. Through the Careers & Enterprise Company, more than 300 cornerstone employers are working with career hubs to bring businesses together with local schools and colleges. In addition, the enterprise adviser network of about 3,750 business professionals is working with schools and colleges to help ensure young people are offered quality interactions with employers throughout their secondary education.

For looked-after children specifically, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, referred, each school and local authority’s virtual school head has an important role to play in raising the aspirations of this group of young people, supporting them to think about their careers and prepare for adulthood. As the noble Baroness knows, each looked-after child should have a personal education plan, and local authorities have clear guidance that this should set out how a child’s aspirations and self-confidence are being nurtured, especially considering long-term goals, such as work experience and career plans. I should be delighted to discuss that further with the noble Baroness; I very much share her aspiration, and I hope we can work together to support and create the best opportunities for looked-after children, in particular. With that, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, to withdraw his amendment.

Disabled Children: Support Services

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I will have to write to the noble Lord setting that out, together with my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on the respite innovation fund, which is an excellent example of the right way of tackling the challenges faced by families with disabilities. Can she reassure me that it will be evaluated to high standards, that families will not be allowed on to the scheme unless they understand that evaluation is an important part of it, and that a comprehensive survey will be conducted by a reputable organisation at the beginning, at the end of the intervention and six months later, so that we can learn from this and build on it?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As my noble friend knows, my right honourable friend is a great fan of data and transparency. We have commissioned an independent process and an early outcome evaluation of the first year of delivery to assess the impact of the scheme. It will obviously seek the views of parents and children who are in receipt of the support, as well as those of local authorities and other delivery partners. The evaluation will assess the feasibility of conducting a robust impact assessment of the type my noble friend outlined, for years two and three of delivery.

Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I apologise. I referred to my noble friend’s amendment right at the beginning of my remarks and reflected that we will consider what options there are to make sure that there is a system that feels fair to parents and in which parents have trust and confidence. With that, I ask my noble friend Lord Lucas to withdraw his Amendment 112A and hope that other noble Lords will not move theirs.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for those replies. I shall read them in Hansard and return to her if I have any points of detail to make. I very much agree with my noble friend Lord Wei that we need an appeal system that feels fair and builds trust. There are different ways of doing it. It clearly should not be by internal local authority appeals, the Local Government Ombudsmen have not proved helpful in elective home education cases to date and the Secretary of State system is a bit on the impenetrable side, so I very much hope this is an area where we will make improvements.

My noble friend’s remarks put a lot of weight on the forthcoming guidance. If at any stage a draft of that can be shared, I would be most grateful to have a look at it. It would shortcut a lot of debate if we had a clear feeling of where the Government are heading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not know the answer to the noble Baroness’s specific question, but I will get an answer and respond to her.

In closing, I ask my noble friend Lord Lucas to withdraw Amendment 114A and other noble Lords not to move the amendments in their names.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, yet again, I am very grateful to my noble friend for her replies. I assume that the Government have all the powers they need to create this guidance that we are all placing so much reliance on. I hope my noble friend will tell me if that is not the case, but I assume that it is. I look forward to reading her replies in more detail in Hansard and picking up any issues I have with them in correspondence. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for her answers to my amendment. By and large, she has answered extremely well, and I thank her for that.

I would like to press her a bit further on the business of identifying people who identify themselves as elective home education. There is a real importance in making that distinction, because elective home educators are taking responsibility for educating their children and the local authority has only a supervisory duty. If a child is not in education and is not being electively home educated, the local authority needs to take a very different kind of action. It is therefore very important that, in this register, we should differentiate between the two so that we can focus on what local authorities need to be doing. I am delighted to see my noble friend shaking her head on that.

I have been a user of the national pupil database for a very long time and, in the annual school census, I have never found information on independent schools. The pupils appear for the first time in the data when they take GCSEs—if they take GCSEs. I am puzzled by my noble friend’s response that the data is there. I will write to her, if I may, to see if we can solve that problem.

I am grateful for what my noble friend has said about Section 19. At the moment, some children under Section 19 get five hours of education a week. My understanding is that those children would have to be on the register because that would not qualify as full-time. If I am wrong about that, I would be grateful if my noble friend could let me know, because I am comforted that, where a child is not being provided with full-time education, it must get noticed, and that there are no circumstances under which five hours of education counts as full-time for the purposes of the conversation that we have just had.

I am attracted by the idea from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, of a unique children’s number—a crossover between the medical and teaching professions—and getting some integration there. It really helps to know where and how children are, particularly when it comes to supporting children well. Knowing that the information is available to professionals when appropriate and required in an integrated way seems sensible. But then I am very much a data person so perhaps I am pushing further there than the noble Lord, Lord Knight, would do.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

In the interests of time, I will be brief. My noble friend may be aware that the recent Health and Social Care Act commits the department to report to Parliament in the summer of 2023 on the feasibility of using a consistent child identifier. I will of course include more information on that in my letter to your Lordships.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that. Perhaps we will get to the stage when there is a single identifier for a school. At least three different numbers are used by the Department for Education, as far as I know. It would be nice to have consistency. There is a fourth number, too—universities—so it all gets extremely confusing when one is trying to understand which school the data is talking about. I am all in favour of identifiable numbers. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Soley, for saying that he sees this proposal as a supportive measure. That is good and is, I hope, absolutely the basis on which we are all going forward on this.

When we come to later groups, my focus will be on: how do we make this a Bill whereby it is advantageous to be a supportive local authority and harder to be one that is not supportive? At the moment, I have big worries about the Bill making things easy for an abusive local authority, without giving any incentives to supportive local authorities. There are some wonderfully supportive local authorities. I come back to what the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said. There are local authorities that are just hymned by the home educators in their patch, who say what a wonderful experience they have had and how supported they feel, how good the relationship is and how good the authority is at picking up cases where home education is not working because everyone feels like telling the local authority about it and because they know that the parent will be treated well and the child will be looked after.

I therefore approach the rest of the discussion on this part of the Bill with optimism—but possibly after supper. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We plan for the review to be launched in the coming weeks. I cannot give the noble Baroness an exact date, but I think I am allowed to say “shortly”. I have probably said more than I am allowed to.

I will go back, because this is important. The noble Baroness is right to raise the regulatory review; we see it as very important. As part of that, we will look at how we provide for the scrutiny of how these powers are exercised. Critically, we will do that in a way that wins the confidence of the sector.

I have reflected on my noble friends’ concerns, but I believe that, taken together, these clauses create a sound framework for robust but proportionate intervention as we move to a fully trust-led system.

Amendments 39A and 39B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, envisage a new role for Ofsted in inspecting multi-academy trusts, and make the decision to issue a compliance direction and a notice to improve contingent on the outcome of such an inspection. Currently, the department relies on a range of evidence from a variety of sources to build up a joined-up picture of each multi-academy trust, to inform decisions about intervention. This includes evidence on finance and governance, as well as Ofsted’s school inspection judgments on educational performance.

Through the regulatory review, the department will consider the evolving role of inspection in a fully trust-led system. This will include consideration of how inspection of multi-academy trusts would be co-ordinated with our wider regulatory arrangements, as well as how it would interact with school-level inspection. I hope the noble Lord will agree that it is important that the review runs its course before we make any decisions in this area. He also asked a number of quite specific questions. If I may, I will write in response.

I commend Clauses 5 to 18 standing part of the Bill. I also ask the noble Lord, Lord Knight, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, is right about getting Ofsted into multi-academy trusts. It would make a great difference to how parents are able to interact with the eventual system. Parents need the level of information and reassurance that will come from an Ofsted report, and I hope it would be done in a way that, as others have suggested, is very much focused on the educational aspects, which is where Ofsted’s expertise lies.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Report stage
Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I shall be delighted to write.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for my noble friend’s answer, which included just the words that I was after—that the Government are sure that the Office for Students has the powers that it needs to make progress in this area. I am very happy to leave it at that, given the record of the Office for Students to date.

I share with the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, the determination that disadvantaged students should not be disadvantaged further by the systems that we put in place. I think that is entirely possible. I hope that we will see from the OfS a system of better admissions, so that universities put some real effort into understanding how best to detect and attract those disadvantaged students who will do well at university; that this is a collaborative effort, a proper national research effort to solve this national problem; and that they will similarly collaborate on how best to look after those students once they reach university. They should expect them to need additional support because, after all, they are disadvantaged. In both those areas, I feel that the Office for Students is determined to see progress. I am confident that with that determination over the next few years we will see it.

I also hope to see some real diversity of thought as well as intake in our universities. I will know that we have achieved it when an Oxford college asks the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, to be its next master.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Report stage
Tuesday 12th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to proceed.

Amendment 30 from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, seeks to confirm that the decision to withdraw approval from a technical qualification may be subject to judicial review. I assure your Lordships that the institute is a public authority and its decisions can be reviewed by the courts in the same way as the decisions of any other public authority.

Amendment 32 from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, would require the institute to publish in advance the criteria which must be met before withdrawing approval of a technical education qualification. It is absolutely right that the institute should publish information so that awarding bodies know in advance the matters the institute will take into account. The Bill already provides for this in new Section A2D6(4).

As I said, approval will be withdrawn when a qualification no longer meets the criteria against which it was approved; for example, where it fails to keep pace with the relevant occupational standard, which will evolve with industrial advances. Specifying criteria that must be met for withdrawal—in addition to criteria that must continue to be met for a qualification to retain approval—would result in duplication and will remove the flexibility the institute requires to meet employer needs.

A number of questions were asked regarding the impact of T-levels on social mobility. Again, if I may, I will set out our position in more detail. However, I would like to be clear that the Government are absolutely committed to levelling up. Social mobility is clearly an integral part of this and education, skills and careers are vital to making a success of those efforts. We believe that T-levels represent a much-needed step change in the quality of the technical offer. As we have heard, they have the endorsement of employers, and alongside T-levels we have introduced the T-level transition programme to support students who are not yet ready to start a T-level at 16 but who have the potential to progress to one. We have also introduced flexibility for SEND learners across all elements of the T-level programme.

In conclusion, our reforms to post-16 qualifications aim to ensure that we will have a system where the choices are clear and learners can be assured that every option is of high quality, whether it supports progression to higher education or to skilled employment. Extending the role of the institute will make certain that the majority of technical qualifications available in England are based on employer-led occupational standards and deliver the skills outcomes that employers need. Given this, I hope that my noble friend Lord Lucas will feel comfortable in withdrawing his amendment, and that other noble Lords will not feel it necessary to move theirs.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that comprehensive reply. I will start by agreeing with her final words. Let us have qualifications that are clear, where every option is high quality, with employer-led standards and the skills outcomes that employers need. However, whatever language my noble friend dresses this up in, she is saying that the Government intend to abolish BTECs well in advance of having any information to show that T-levels deliver what we all hope they will deliver. Given in particular the effects that my noble friend Lord Baker has outlined on the children we ought to be having most care for—so ought the Government—I very much hope that one of my noble friends, or more of my noble friends than the noble Lord opposite, will choose to move their amendments. As far as my amendment is concerned, I prefer that in the name of my noble friend Lord Baker, so I hope he will consider moving it. However, I will certainly vote for some of the amendments in this group if they are moved to a Division. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Data Protection Act 2018: Children

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Thursday 4th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and that is why we focused, and will publish later this year, our media literacy strategy. This was absolutely underlined by the responses from parents.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware of just how time-consuming it is for a young person to go through a complaint under the ICO rules, which is something I personally have done and have helped children with? Does she not consider it worth making it very clear to children that the civil society organisations representing them can do the bulk of the work, without constantly having to refer back to the child?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend makes a fair point about the complexity in this area, but the ICO has been very clear that it will investigate companies that do not comply with the GDPR concerns reported to it—and that it will accept referrals and complaints from civil society organisations, which can play an important role.

Public Service Broadcasting Online

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I apologise for missing the beginning of the noble Baroness’s question, but I think I got the gist of it. The Government take the importance of impartial and reliable information very seriously and, conversely, are clamping down on both misinformation and disinformation. We have made good progress with social media platforms in this regard.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am absolutely delighted by the Minister’s answers. Does she share with me a sense that us all having access to a truthful public service broadcaster is an essential component of keeping a coherent and happier society?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is right to raise these points. Indeed, it is vital also for practical reasons. Given that just over half of the country have access to a video-on-demand service, the role of public service broadcasting continues to be crucial.

Amazon

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Monday 12th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government remain determined to create the most innovative pro-growth economy that we can. That is dependent on effective competitions in all markets, particularly digital markets, so that is where our focus remains.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to hear the replies of my noble friend, and that the Government now recognise that the likes of Amazon and Google are not our friends. They are entities that we need to extend ourselves to control to make sure that we create, in this country, an environment that is supportive for our own businesses. In that context, does she recognise how important it is for HMRC to ensure that all entities pay a proper level of tax? Failure to do so, as has been the case with VAT for many years, leads to great suffering by UK businesses.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I know that my colleagues in HMRC spend every day trying to make sure that businesses pay a proper level of tax, but I hope that my noble friend agrees that that is one side of the equation. The other is to promote pro-competitive policies, on which we are also working hard.

Seaside Resorts

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Monday 22nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

The right reverend Prelate is right. I was lucky enough to visit some of the coastline in her diocese before Covid, and it is absolutely stunning. The Government have been committed since 2012 to supporting coastal communities and have spent £229 million through the Coastal Communities Fund. She will be aware of the focus that this Government put in their manifesto on levelling up some of the communities that are perceived as left behind, covering all sorts of job creation, infrastructure and, importantly, tourism.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, Covid-19 has been a huge blow to Eastbourne and surrounding south coast resorts—the area where I live. Responding to the renaissance of demand will require substantial, imaginative and fast investment. Will my noble friend tell our local authorities that they should bring forward their proposals now, and will she support them by providing them with a single point of contact rather than making them—their very overworked selves—fight round the myriad government departments?

[Baroness Barran]

My noble friend makes an important point. I am not sure that it is our style to tell local authorities what they should do, because each local authority will face a slightly different set of issues. However, we are looking at a series of regulatory easements that would potentially extend the holiday season and therefore address some of the critical pressures that seaside resorts and other tourist destinations are facing.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 4th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I shall speak at the same time to Amendment 90. I am very grateful to the Home Office for bringing a large and intelligent team to listen to representations concerning in particular the use of weapons in film and antique weapons. I am grateful for the time that we were given. I have not received any feedback since those meetings so I have tabled these amendments as a way of receiving that feedback.

There are three sections here. The first concerns an exemption for the Crown Forces. The Government have said they do not think it is required, but as a matter of routine overseas forces issue their personnel with gravity knives and flick-knives and it is said that our own Special Forces use them from time to time. Some members of our Armed Forces are being picked up and persecuted for crimes when they thought that they were acting in the line of duty, and we should not expose them to attack for having a weapon that was required and legal at the time. We should give them some protection.

Secondly, there is the question of film. We make a lot of money out of making films in this country. By and large, film directors want their close-up shots to be authentic in terms of the look, sound and heft of real weapons. Clearly, these things have to be used in secure conditions, but we allow heavy machine guns, assault rifles and similar items to be used in films made in this country under conditions of strict control. There are licensed armourers who supply such weapons for dramatic performances and films. It does not seem to me that people who are trusted with such weapons should not be trusted with the weapons prohibited under the Bill. To have a film of “Mack the Knife” without a flick-knife would seem a bit odd. I cannot see that by allowing an exemption for film and performance, we are doing anything more dangerous than we allow for other weapons at the moment. This is a direction in which we should feel comfortable about moving.

Thirdly, the same applies to antique weapons. At least in this House, many of our parents were heavily involved in the Second World War. There are many items used in that war that were issued to members of civil defence or captured from German troops that are very properly considered collectible and part of our national history, but are not so unique that the British Museum would want to end up with a large collection of them. We ought to allow these items, as we allow other weapons, to be part of collections. We allow old swords and other very dangerous weapons to be collected. Why not the weapons that we are prohibiting under the Bill, as long as they are antique?

I think 1945 is a convenient time to end the definition of “antique”, mostly because shortly thereafter steel became contaminated with radioactive elements from the aerial atom bomb tests, so you can distinguish old steel from new. Also, designs changed a good deal after the war, and there was a long period when some countries did not produce. So 1945 is a convenient cut-off: you can tell what is pre-1945 and what is later, and that is also where the intense history ends. It would be sensible to allow us all to possess the mementos from the last great war and to prohibit weapons produced after it. Apart from anything else, these antique weapons go for a considerable price and are very unlikely to be bought by someone who just wants to use them in a crime and then throw them away.

I very much hope that my noble friends will be bearing me at least a semblance of an olive branch on this amendment, and that we will be able to look in a constructive way at these three potential exemptions. I am not holding out for any of the detailed wording in the amendments, but I hope this is an area that my noble friends will feel able to smile on. I beg to move.

[Baroness Barran]

I am grateful to my noble friend, Lord Lucas, for these amendments. As he mentioned, we had a very useful discussion on the issues covered by them on 13 February that went through in detail the concerns of collectors and theatrical suppliers.

These amendments would create new defences for the supply and possession of weapons covered by Section 1 of the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959, namely flick-knives and gravity knives. The amendments would provide defences for Crown functions and visiting armed forces, for theatrical, film and television production purposes, and for flick-knives and gravity knives made before 1945. As I set out in Committee, Section 1 of the 1959 Act makes it a criminal offence to manufacture, sell, hire or lend a flick-knife or gravity knife and prohibits their importation. Clause 23 extends that prohibition to cover the possession of flick-knives and gravity knives.

I turn first to the proposed defence for Crown functions and visiting armed forces. I am afraid we are not persuaded that a defence is needed in this area. The supply, including importation, of flick-knives and gravity knives has been prohibited for a long time and the Ministry of Defence has advised that there is no need to provide defences for this purpose. We are also not aware of any Crown function that would use flick-knives or gravity knives, unlike under Section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act where curved swords may be an issue. In any event, the general principle in law is that statutes do not bind the Crown unless by express provision or necessary implication. Where acting as agents or servants of the Crown, the military will benefit from the Crown exemption. The Government are therefore not persuaded that any defence for the Crown or visiting armed forces is needed.

On a defence for the purpose of theatrical performance or filming, it was clear at the meeting that the supply of flick-knives and gravity knives for such purposes has not been an issue in the past 60 years, despite their supply being banned. The supplier at the meeting suggested that most of the items used for these purposes are blunt, so it is doubtful they meet the knife definition in the 1959 Act. Given this, again, we are not persuaded that any defence is needed for flick-knives and gravity knives for theatre and film purposes.

I have more sympathy for the proposed defence for flick-knives and gravity knives made before 1945. We are aware that there are collectors of these weapons and we also know that families sometimes inherit them from relatives who fought in the war. Possession of the weapons will be banned under the Bill, so collectors and families will need to surrender any weapons they own and claim compensation, or gift them to a museum where they are of historic importance.

Our concern in accepting a defence for pre-1945 weapons is that it will be difficult to operate on the ground. In contrast to what my noble friend suggested, the police will not know with any certainty which knives had been made before 1945 and which are more modern. I appreciate this is not the answer that my noble friend would like to hear, but given that the supply of the weapons has been banned in this country since 1959 we remain of the view that there is no good reason why anyone should possess them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran]

I can reassure the noble Lord on both questions, and I will write to him to clarify the details.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, naturally I am very saddened to hear my noble friend’s answers, but I see no point in trying to pursue this further, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th February 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend say how many offences are committed annually on further education premises, which are the subject of Clause 29? Further education premises are a place where perhaps a majority of the people have an offensive weapon, as defined in the Bill, as part of what they need to do their training. If someone is spending their day with a screwdriver because they are on an electronics course and someone comes up and kicks them in the butt, and they turn round with the screwdriver in their hand, under the amended provision, they will be in chokey for it. We do not seem to have incorporated in it any defence which says that the person had the weapon for perfectly good reasons and was using it for perfectly good reasons when somebody else did something which caused the threatening situation. In public, one does not come across this often, but in an FE college it is a routine occurrence. I cannot see that we should criminalise arguments in FE colleges without there being some reasonable defence.

[Baroness Barran]

I thank my noble friend for his question. As we are including FE colleges for the first time in the legislation, we do not have the data as yet, but that will be captured in future. We have the data on schools and public places, which I am happy to share with my noble friend. On his last comment, there is no intention of criminalising arguments. We are talking about people in possession of an offensive weapon and threatening someone else with it in such a way that any one of us—assuming that we are all reasonable people—would assume that there was a risk of physical harm.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, if you are waving a screwdriver about, there is a risk of physical harm, which is the point of the old wording of “serious physical harm”: to rule out such a random occurrence. In public places, in schools, by and large people do not handle physical, offensive weapons openly. In a further education college, a lot of people will be, because it will be part of what they are required to do. Nobody doing anything serious with a knife uses a blade that does not lock. Anybody using a screwdriver or other pointed implement will be using something that will be classified, or is capable of being classified, as an offensive weapon. We should make sure that somebody reasonably having in their hands an offensive weapon because they are using it at the moment when the flash of an argument starts does not become the cause for a mandatory prison sentence. There has to be the scope for a court to take a sensible view of what is going on. It is not like a school; it is an environment where offensive weapons are routine and where a lot effort goes into making sure that people use them safely. Common sense needs to be applied when considering whether it is an offence with a bladed weapon or just an argument taking place when one or both of the parties happen to be holding an offensive weapon, because that is what they were supposed to be doing at the time the argument started.

[Baroness Barran]

I hope that I can reassure my noble friend on two points: first, the spirit of the legislation is not to criminalise people in the way that he has described; secondly, the sentencing guidelines were updated relatively recently, in June last year, and give multiple scenarios for the courts to consider in sentencing—which I think would allay my noble friend’s fears.

[Lord Lucas]

I would be grateful if my noble friend could share that.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister remind us of the youngest age to which these provisions apply? I remind her that it is the effect of the legislation, not the intention, that matters.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Barran]

The advice I am getting is that it is necessary because they are subject to different legislation. If that is not entirely clear I am happy to write to my noble friend.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I hope that I will have the opportunity to pursue some details of this with my noble friend afterwards. I am particularly interested in what the Government propose to do about the major item to be prohibited under this legislation, which is World War II German paratroopers’ knives. Since these are of no conceivable use—they are gravity knives but without a point—they are not something that can sensibly be used in knife crime. I do not know whether the Government intend to compensate people who are currently legal owners of these objects and let themselves in for a large bill or whether they are to be turned in without compensation, but I am happy to cover those matters in conversations between Committee and Report. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 28th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, Amendment 10 simply asks why not just list all these substances, since we know what they are and the list will not change. Substances have been left off, such as slaked lime, which are seriously corrosive to skin, might be used and are very easy to obtain, and there are others on the list that would be very difficult to obtain. None the less, if we are going to have a list, since the list is not going to grow over time but is a small collection of basic inorganic chemicals, why not have the lot? It really does not add a lot of weight to the Bill to complete the list.

[Baroness Barran]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and my noble friend, Lord Lucas, for explaining their amendments, which relate to the list of corrosive substances in Schedule 1. I can deal quickly with Amendment 9. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that we would consult with affected persons before making regulations amending Schedule 1. Whether we need to specify this in the Bill is a moot point, but I am happy to consider her amendment further ahead of Report.

Turning to Amendment 10, I know that my noble friend expressed concerns at Second Reading about the list of corrosive substances set out in Schedule 1 and felt that it did not go far enough and that we needed to have a more comprehensive list. It might be helpful if I set out how we arrived at the corrosive substances and concentration limits in Schedule 1. We based it on the advice from our scientific advisers at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory as well as from the police.

The substances that we want to prohibit sales and delivery to under-18s and to residential premises are those which we know have been used in attacks to harm and cause permanent injury and those that are the most harmful. Furthermore, the concentration limits are at those thresholds where, if the product was misused, it would cause permanent injury and damage. This seems a proportionate approach when talking about prohibiting the sale and delivery of corrosive products. It is important to remember that we are talking about products that have legitimate uses in our homes or for businesses. Consequently, we should not be criminalising the sale or delivery of particular corrosive substances without good cause.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Lucas

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 5.55 pm.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, may I oppose the Motion? We have got to a point in the debate on the Bill where we should just finish it.

[Baroness Barran]

The reason for the delay is that the start of the health Statement in the other place has been delayed. The adjournment has been agreed through the usual channels.

[Lord Lucas]

So let us just finish the Bill. We have merely the Front Benches to hear from; we can then go on to the Statements. Why keep us here for an extra couple of hours? There seems to be no reason for it.

[Noble Lords]

Let us hear from Baroness Hamwee.

[Baroness Barran]

The adjournment has been agreed through the usual channels.

[Lord Lucas]

The usual channels do not rule this House; we do. It is our decision. If the Minister wishes to call a vote, that is fine.