Covid-19: Schools

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer the House to my entry in the register of interests in relation to the National Education Union. Speaking in another place on 13 May, the Secretary of State said he was happy to share all advice received from SAGE. The National Education Union has analysed the SAGE evidence and papers available on GOV.UK. Most of the evidence explicitly relating to children and education—80% of it; nine out of 11 papers—is unpublished. SAGE has not published any evidence for over a week, at a time when critical decisions are being taken, and there is no record of SAGE papers for the last month, published or unpublished. Will the Minister urge the Government to expedite the publication of all scientific advice and evidence, in particular relating to “test, track, trace and isolate”, to try to build confidence among the public, parents and the education workforce in how schools could open to more children and students safely, bearing in mind that, as she said, schools are generally open for vulnerable children and the children of key workers and that teachers not in schools are at present teaching their pupils both online and through a variety of means?

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, the Secretary of State outlined that the evidence will be published. As I have said, the latest updates from SAGE have been published; the latest was on 5 May. We are committed to transparency and enabling access to the evidence on which we rely. On that evidence, Public Health England’s guidance to us is that there can be a hierarchy of controls in schools, beginning with nobody symptomatic being in schools. Once those controls are in place, we can substantially reduce the risk of transmission in education settings.