Children’s Rights

Debate between Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen and Lord Agnew of Oulton

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we do not agree with the substantial machinery of government changes recommended by the UNCRC but we work across government all the time. I have to draw on many government departments for most of the answers that I give to noble Lords in this House. We are well joined up and we continue to emphasise that through initiatives such as the Civil Service learning programme which we introduced last year.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

Perhaps I may ask my noble friend for some specifics about the actions he mentioned in his first Answer. What exactly is happening and what concrete actions are being taken?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the civil servants’ guidance that we issued at the end of last year was specifically aimed at supporting civil servants to join up. We created a template for civil servants to enable them to understand the children’s rights impact. We have revised the statutory guidance for working together to safeguard children and we have co-chaired a new action group with the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, CRAE, which brings together all of these issues.

National Autism and Education Strategy

Debate between Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen and Lord Agnew of Oulton

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the approach has very much been to include autistic children in mainstream education, and 72% of autistic children are. As I mentioned a moment ago, we are rolling out the training to staff to ensure that awareness of the condition is more widespread. That is certainly the intention. We have also invested substantially in the creation of special schools. Some 600 local authority maintained schools have a specialism for autistic children.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

I welcome the fact that all teachers are going to be given autism awareness training when the new teacher training starts in September. Can this also include classroom assistants, who are often the first to see children who may have problems? They too need to have training to know how to deal with this.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, as I mentioned in an earlier reply, the great work that the Autism Education Trust is doing extends not just to teachers but to all those involved in schools. I reassure my noble friend that that is very much part of our strategy.