Sex and Gender: Official Data

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

This is my first opportunity to answer a Question on this issue in this House, but I certainly take the noble Baroness’s point that it is important that we have accurate and respected statistics, but that we are also providing services to people on the basis of their needs, particularly for LGBT+ people, and that they are safe, included and protected from discrimination. That, along with protection of sex-based rights where necessary, is what this Government will focus on.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister may have noticed that in every questionnaire one comes across these days—applying for jobs and filling in a questionnaire online—the final question is always about sex, gender, identity, binary: there are umpteen choices. How can someone filling in the form know what they are supposed to be if they do not have a gender recognition certificate? What is the accurate answer? How does one get people whose first language is not English to understand, in particular, NHS forms, where the question is crucial?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I should point out that the most recent census was the first time this question was asked, and it is important that a range of questions is asked in the census, on a voluntary basis in this case. However, I also think it important that the questions are designed in an accessible way and that people understand the terms used in them. That is precisely why the Government Statistical Service will be undertaking the work I outlined in my initial Answer.

Free Childcare Scheme

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

Has the Minister looked at comparative data which shows that childcare is so much more expensive and the requirements so much more stringent here than in other countries around the world? It is also the case that calculations have been done in the States to show that, if all childcare was absolutely free, it would eventually be covered by the tax returns from women and other parents who would be freed up to go back to work.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

That is exactly what the Government are delivering, and exactly those calculations were behind the Government’s decision to make such an increase. In 2027-28, we will be spending in excess of £8 billion on free childcare hours and early education. To make sure that the noble Baroness is aware, from September 2025 there will be 30 hours of free childcare from when a child is nine months old until they start school.

Prison: Support for Dependent Children

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

A lot of women in prison have substance use issues. That is why we are doing work in those settings to make sure that they get the therapeutic and, if necessary, addiction services they need.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, there was a one-minute delay to the clocks starting, and the 10 minutes have elapsed.

Archbishops’ Commission on Families and Households: Love Matters Report

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 13th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

In terms of which recommendations we plan to implement, I refer the noble Baroness to my original Answer, which is that we will be responding as part of our response to the Family Review by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and will reflect at that point on the recommendations in this excellent report. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness about compassion, and I agree with her about hard cash. That is why we are making such a significant investment in the children’s social care system, in our support for early years and in children with special educational needs so every child in this country has the best start in life.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, one of the transition points in a family is divorce and, predictably, no-fault divorce has pushed the rate up. At a seminar yesterday we heard evidence not only on how acrimony over money on divorce depletes children’s assets but on how the bitterness in that process has a lasting effect on their lives. When will the Government set out a timetable for reforming financial provision on divorce and will they ensure that child maintenance is paid? It is shamefully neglected at the moment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

On the noble Baroness’s last point, I know that my colleagues in DWP are making important progress in terms of the payment of child maintenance and I think they would share the noble Baroness’s sentiments when it is not paid. In terms of financial provision on divorce, in April this year the Government asked the Law Commission to carry out a review of the law in this area. It will look at whether the current law on financial provision provides a cohesive framework in which parties can expect fair and sufficiently certain outcomes.

Children’s Private Information: Data Protection Law

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely understand why the noble Baroness probes hard on this Question. The Government have made significant changes to their learner registration system, and those were noted by the Information Commissioner’s Office in its letter to the department in November this year. We previously did not have a centralised data protection function in the department. We were in the process of setting it up when we discovered this breach, and it is now in place.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister fully aware of the damaging effect of data protection law on universities? It has been used, rightly or wrongly, to prevent universities getting in touch with students’ parents when they are in distress; it has been used to prevent the full publication of degree results, which opens the door to fraud. Does she agree that it is time to review the Data Protection Act and its damaging effect in those circumstances?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness will be aware that the Government have brought forward the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, which was introduced in the Commons in July this year. We are committed to making sure that our data protection systems are fit for purpose, including in relation to the issues raised by the noble Baroness.

Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I want to say how much I welcome the new guidance and regulations. In fact, the drafting of the guidance is brilliant; I compliment whoever drafted such nuanced and sensitive guidance for schools.

My main fear is that teachers will need protection. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, some of the objections to these regulations are so blinkered and bigoted that one fears very much for the children and the teachers who may be subjected to this sort of unfortunate propaganda. In fact, the children in the care of such people may be the ones most at risk of female genital mutilation and abuse. For their sakes, as well as everybody else’s, the facts must be taught.

At my girls’ public school, the chapters in the biology textbook on the reproductive habits of the frog—the frog, my Lords—were removed in case we got the wrong idea. This did not hold me back until I became the chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, when this gap in my knowledge caused some concern, at least temporarily. However, I managed to catch up.

The new regulations are welcome because they say that misogyny and homophobia must not be tolerated. They are not saying that any particular way of life must be promoted or forced on children—far from it. In fact, as I read it, the guidance strongly supports marriage and parental guidance. Parents should not fear because, if they have a different viewpoint to whatever is taught in school, they can point out to their children at home that they do not approve of it. However, that does not mean that the existence of different lifestyles and sexualities should not be taught in school. Indeed, children will probably get something far worse from watching things online or from their classmates than they will ever be taught at school. It is a matter of regret that primary and secondary schoolchildren could be withdrawn from sex education. The ones who are withdrawn will probably get a much worse representation of what is going on when they ask their classmates what they have missed.

Put simply, I very much welcome the regulations. What steps can the Minister and his department take to protect teachers from ill-intentioned members of governing bodies and hostile parents, who might make the lives of those teachers—who are only doing their job—very difficult?

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for arriving a bit late. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I think that a lot of things in the regulations are really good. I am a bit more conservative; I fear that I consider sex education something that is rather more private. However, it is necessary. I started life in a Catholic school. In those days, of course, we were taught nothing. Then, at the age of 12, I arrived at the French lycée, where I had to face boys and had no idea how to behave.

Anyway, that is the past and today I want only to be sure of one thing and to ask two questions. First, can the Government assure this House that the regulations are fully consistent with the obligations to parents’ rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the Human Rights Act 1998? I ask this question in particular: is it consistent to downgrade parents’ current right to choose whether to enrol their children in sex education classes? Is it right to demote that right to a right to request the withdrawal of their children from such classes?

Further, on another subject, in her report Preventing Child Sexual Abuse, the Children’s Commissioner noted that 90% of primary schools still use Stranger Danger as a PSHE subject. Action against Abduction, the charity I founded and of which I remain president—I hereby declare my interest—has shown that Stranger Danger is out of date and ineffective in keeping children safe. One of the main reasons for that is that, obviously, most predators, especially sexual predators, are family members or friends of the family, not strangers. The charity that I founded came up with a new, much more effective, initiative, Clever Never Goes, which means that children learn how to behave when they feel that they are in an uncomfortable position. The regulations note that children can now go and tell their teachers that they were in an uncomfortable situation. Five hundred schools have already adopted our programme. Will the Government refer to Clever Never Goes in the guidance so that schools can give children the best advice on how to stay safe from sexual predators?

Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL]

Baroness Deech Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 24th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, this Bill is the mildest possible remedy for what has long been recognised as a risk—a situation that is not good for children or society. I have supported the noble Lord, Lord Soley, on this before and I am very happy to do so again. If I had my way, school education would be compulsory unless parents could prove that they had good reason to avoid it. Then there would be compulsory inspection and assessment of the home-schooled child’s results in national exams. I am aware that there is an almost hysterical reaction from home educators to any proposal that might be seen as protecting their children. That reaction is in itself good reason to want to keep an eye on the situation.

There are, however, even more reasons today to want to pursue this Bill, which provides for nothing more drastic than registration and assessment. Ofsted has raised concerns about radicalisation and has pointed out that the right to home educate may be exploited to avoid registration of schools—that is, that the children being educated at home may actually be attending unregistered schools, quite likely orthodox religious ones, which may well not provide either a comprehensive education or one in accord with British standards and the rule of law or in line with children’s rights and welfare.

The Wood review, in 2010, pointed out that some directors of children’s services have raised the question of the lack of effective statutory provision about children in unregistered schools and home education. There is no way of assessing the level of risk that those children face. As far back as 2009, the Commons Select Committee review of home education found it unacceptable that local authorities did not know how many children were kept out of school.

The right to educate a child at home is not absolute. In 1983, the case of Family H, in the European Court of Human Rights, established that requiring a parent to co-operate in the assessment of the child’s education is not incompatible with the parent’s rights. Throughout English child law, the welfare of the child is paramount: courts can consent to medical treatment of a child even though the parents will not and children can be taken away from their parents on grounds of welfare. The home is not sacrosanct either. Planning officers can enter without consent, and a whole host of other officials can enter with the proper authorisation.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has reported on the UK and the right of the child to be listened to. A home-educated child who is never inspected or spoken to by an outsider is muffled and unable to say that they would prefer to be elsewhere. In the recent Supreme Court case of Platt—the father who took his daughter out of school term time for a holiday—the judgment emphasised the importance of constant school attendance and how absence, even for a few days, can adversely impact teachers and other children. How much worse then is the total absence from school of a child?

There has been centuries-long progress towards free and compulsory school attendance in this country, not without struggle. In 1870, state-funded primary education was provided and was made compulsory in 1880. We can hardly imagine otherwise. Section 444 of the Education Act 1996 provides:

“If a child of compulsory school age who is a registered pupil at a school fails to attend regularly at the school, his parent is guilty of an offence”.


How can the right of the child to express her views or how can social mobility be advanced, if children are below the radar and not at school? How do we know how well they do at national exams, or whether they even take those examinations or progress into higher education?

The number of home-schooled children has allegedly doubled. Many parents no doubt have good and well-meaning reasons for avoiding school, but it has been suggested by education authorities that more parents are removing children to avoid prosecution for poor attendance or because the child is at risk of exclusion. The worst gap is to be found among children who have never attended school. We cannot count whether they have been removed or what has happened to them. Parents who have good reasons for home schooling ought not to be afraid of explaining and justifying them.

If it makes it into law, which I profoundly hope it will, this Bill will provide the first reference to home education in a statute. It mostly reinforces existing law, the new element being the requirement for parents to register. Where a parent fails to register a child and this is discovered, there should be a sanction, and where a parent is required to provide information, it should be within a reasonable time period and should also be reinforced by sanction. Inspections should take place at least once a year and it should be noted that there may be a referral to social welfare services where local authority officials have not seen the child and have not had any response to a request for information about the child. This was established in an unreported case a few years ago. Section 175 of the Education Act 2002 provides that the local authority has safeguarding duties, which must be upheld. It is also not possible to see how Prevent principles can be applied, and there are many accounts of out-of-school activities that inculcate in children hatred and extremism.

This is a much overdue and very welcome Bill, which needs only strengthening but is a start. The Government should not be deterred, as they have been in the past, by the vocal protests of home-educator parents. Their children are silent, and that is what must change.

Fire Safety: Schools

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We have had conversations on this, particularly in relation to recent events and to universities, but I will look more closely to see whether there is more we can learn.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, closer to home, given the long delay to the refurbishment of this building, is the Minister satisfied about fire precautions in the Palace of Westminster?

[Lord Nash]

I do not think that I am qualified to answer that question.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 27th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I share some of the disappointment expressed by my noble friend Lady Brown about the definition of a university, but I take great comfort from a significant step forward which may have escaped the attention of some members of the public. I am extremely grateful to both the Minister in the other place, Jo Johnson, and the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, for having listened to those who have expressed significant concern about the inroads into freedom of speech in our universities and the growth of the most unpleasant racism expressed in the widespread extent of anti-Semitic activity.

I am sure that all Members of the House will support me in expressing gratitude to the two Ministers for having understood that and addressed it, albeit off the face of the Bill. Universities’ obligations relating to freedom of speech have been extended and all universities have been reminded by Jo Johnson of the definition of anti-Semitism that has been adopted internationally. That is a great step forward towards repairing the reputation of our universities, which has suffered internally if not internationally.

I also take some comfort from the fact that the last president of the National Union of Students, Malia Bouattia, has not been re-elected—in part, I believe, because some consider that some of her remarks have been racist. I believe that we are moving into a new era as far as that is concerned.

I also take this opportunity to salute Sir Eric Pickles, the Government’s envoy for post-Holocaust issues, who joined in the fight to preserve freedom of speech and to stop anti-Semitism. This is very good news. We will miss him sorely.

Finally, it has been evident in the discussions about this Bill just how much expertise there is in this House, especially on these Benches, on higher education. Chancellors, vice-chancellors, administrators and professors have all joined in and we have eventually been listened to. That goes to establish the value of the expertise accumulated in this House. Some of it may be very elderly, but there is a great deal of expertise in higher education, and it has in the end shone through.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my declaration of interests in the register. It is not my intention to repeat the excellent contributions that have already been made, but I want to put on record my commendation for Chris Husbands, the vice-chancellor of what some unwisely call the university in which I am involved “the other university in Sheffield”. Chris Husbands’ work is of an excellent quality and I hope that we will be able to build on it in the years to come.

However, I will repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, said in relation to what happens after the general election and ensuring that nothing is done, particularly in relation to the evaluation and the ratings, that damages in any way the enormous contribution of the higher education sector in this country both to the well-being of students and to our economy and our standing in the world. There can be no doubt after the considerable debates that we have had that there is a deep commitment on the part of the Minister in this House to improving teaching and to recognising the critical role of the teaching excellence framework in ensuring that comparator with the research excellence framework.

It is worth putting on the record at this very late stage that there is still a major tendency to value what will pull in major grants for research, even when the research may be of doubtful value, rather than to balance the commitment to high-quality teaching and learning with the REF. That is why I have expressed to Jo Johnson, the Minister in the Commons, what I repeat today, which is my support for the endeavour to put teaching very much at the top of the agenda.

I commend the Government on having listened. This Bill has been an exemplar of how we can work across the political divide both in this House and beyond. I will refer now to speculation in the more reliable media. I hope that no one will be punished in any way for having been prepared to listen and to debate. The idea that a Minister should not be able to express a view internally within the Government is a disgrace. I do not wish to bring in party-political matters, but I know that some MPs are thought to call the Prime Minister “Mummy”. I remember Mummy telling me that she had heard me once, heard me twice and did not want to hear me again—but you cannot conduct government on that basis. Therefore, whatever happens on 8 June, I hope that we will move forward on the understanding that a spirit of co-operation creates better legislation that is more easily implementable and receives a wider welcome than would otherwise be the case, and thus achieves its objective.

I thank the noble Viscount the Minister for repeating the words of Jo Johnson in relation to the move as rapidly as possible to subject rather than institutional comparators. This is an important part of what we were debating on what was Amendment 72, which morphed into Amendment 23 and is back with us in a different form today.

I also want to say, as a new Member of this House, how impressed I have been by the Cross-Bench contributions. I will echo the commendations made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, rather than go through them again. Ministers and civil servants on this Bill have shown that they are of the highest possible calibre by being prepared to listen and respond, and I thank them for that.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I respect the noble Lord’s experience. We have had discussions outside the Chamber about the data aspect and I will be coming on to speak about the data and about how the assessments are made. I would argue that this is not just looking at the high levels—the gold, silver and bronze—

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Perhaps I may make some progress, but I would like to say again that the lessons-learned exercise is one that we take seriously, having listened to noble Lords both today and in Committee. I hope that the House will respect the fact that we will be looking at this a great deal over the next two years.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I might have misunderstood him, but would the Minister kindly clarify that he is now proposing a fourth category so that we will have gold, silver, bronze and ineligible? That is a bit like a gentleman’s fourth at Oxford years ago, which was a badge of shame. Is that the case?