Education Recovery

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab) [V]]

The Secretary of State has laid great emphasis on a tutoring revolution. He seemed to link the review of school hours with the spending round, almost as though he was planning a battle with teachers instead of working with them. I hope the Minister can assure us that that is not the case. Surely it would be more productive to concentrate on core funding of a whole school environment, including exercise, extra tutoring and socialisation, instead of the current unhealthy relationship, where limited conditional funding is doled out as if in a master/servant relationship. How will we know what success looks like in the tutoring programme? What measure of independence will there be in that judgment?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I assure the noble Baroness that there is absolutely no intention to have a battle with teachers at all. It is children first and foremost who we all need to focus on at the moment, as well as the well-being of the workforce in schools. As I outlined, much of the money has been given to schools so that it is part of their core schools budget, such as the £650 million we have given and the second tranche of £302 million, which was recovery premium money. They have the flexibility to spend on the array of activities.

On the tutoring programme, through the Renaissance Learning work we are monitoring where students are at in their learning. The contract was properly procured, and it is a sign of good management that we put it out to the market and have saved substantial money on that section of the contract. As the noble Baroness will be aware, there will be no school performance data, but that data will be available to the department and to Ofsted. We will of course track very carefully what the outcome of the tutoring programme is in relation to how much schools buy and the impact it has. I will ensure that the noble Baroness is aware of any publicly distributed data in that regard.

Education Recovery

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

The noble Baroness is correct that family hubs have delivered well. The Government are investing £14 million and we have just finished a procurement for the National Centre for Family Hubs to ensure that best practice is spread across local authorities. These hubs should bring together charitable as well as statutory services, ranging from birth through to 18 or 19 years old, so they should provide the support that families need.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab) [V]]

The Minister knows that this is a mess. When Conservative MPs met the Prime Minister’s PPS and two Education Ministers, they were told that

“there has been a big mess-up over the last few days for no reason.”

So there is a revolt in the Conservative ranks. What process took place that made the choice of Randstad preferable to the National Tutoring Foundation, which was set up by the Education Endowment Foundation? Sir Kevan Collins himself was briefly CEO of that foundation. If the Government are not prepared to pay up or trust schools, how will they ensure that the children most disadvantaged by lockdown will be helped?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, as is required, the department ran a commercial procurement for the next years of the national tutoring programme. Randstad won that procurement, so a contract has been signed. But schools are trusted; that is why, as a development of the tutoring fund, £579 million will be going to schools themselves. Schools might want to employ a local tutor or use existing staff; particularly for those with special educational needs, using staff that pupils have an existing relationship with is often of great benefit to those students as well as others.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the maiden speeches of my noble friend Lady Blake and the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev, and I join in saying farewell to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth. He will be much missed.

Despite the Government’s pledge to support the National Health Service, I do not see how it will succeed. An announcement that there will be an announcement about social care will do nothing to help the NHS. There is no indication that NHS staff will be supported with improved pay and conditions, or that their exhaustion will be addressed and their morale improved.

I have spent the last couple of days rereading the debate from 2011-12 on the then Health and Social Care Bill. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, promised streamlining, integration and an improved health service. Only the noble Earl could have steered that ghastly Bill through. I should be delighted to see the back of it—but now we hear the noble Baroness the Minister promise a “landmark” health and social care Bill. Guess what? It will reduce bureaucracy and improve the safety of patients. I will be reminding the Government of what they said during that 2012 debate.

A four-year commission of inquiry by the London School of Economics and the Lancet medical journal has identified that an extra £102 billion is needed to catch up with many high-income countries, and they have a detailed blueprint for paying for it. The report also says that the Prime Minister should drop his planned reorganisation of the NHS in England because it will be “disruptive” and bring no benefits. I agree with everything that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said in his powerful speech: drop this Bill and concentrate on staff morale and job security.

Turning to the general employment situation, the TUC has pointed out that the Prime Minister has repeatedly promised to protect and enhance workplace rights after our departure from the EU. The Government have rowed back on their promise to boost workers’ rights in not bringing forward their long-overdue employment Bill. Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, has said:

“We need action now to deal with the scourge of insecure work … We can’t build back better from this crisis unless we improve pay and conditions”.


One in five employees experienced depression this year, and the ONS finds that the lowest earners have the worst mental health. Businesses should be prioritising the training of line managers in supporting employee well-being.

ACAS commissioned some independent research backed by the CIPD estimating the costs of conflict in the workplace. Sue Clews, the chief executive of ACAS, said that

“conflict was suppressed during the height of the pandemic … But as working life returns to some form of new normality in 2021, it is likely that insecurity, rapid change and continuing economic pressures will lead to a re-surfacing of conflict between individuals”.

This can be an opportunity, but it can also lead to increased resignations, sickness absence and presenteeism, which leads to lower productivity. An essential ingredient in good management is to be conflict-competent. This saves time and money. The ACAS analysis estimates the overall total annual cost of conflict to employers at £28.5 billion. It points to a clear link between the well-being of employees and organisational effectiveness.

Finally, the use of mini umbrella companies allows employers to avoid their national insurance contributions and costs the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds a year. We have seen unusual payroll patterns in the test and trace workforce, with workers shunted from one company to another every few months, given P45s and new job contracts despite no change to the work. At least 30 different payroll companies in test and trace fit the mini umbrella company definition. HMRC must get to grips with these scandalous loopholes and protect vulnerable workers. I look forward to the continuing debate.

International Women’s Day

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased that the noble Baronesses, Lady Berridge and Lady Sugg, are topping and tailing this debate. They have the respect of the House, and they always give thoughtful and intelligent replies to our questions. We know that they have important work to do.

I thought I would go back to basics. I drew up a shortlist of the three things that might impact on the largest number of women. I thought about reopening Sure Start centres, because I thought that would help a lot of women, and that we should improve pain management in childbirth, because too many women have a shattering experience, which should not happen in this day and age. However, my final three things are the menopause, women as carers and the importance of having a social care policy. I think they would improve the lives of hundreds of thousands, not just tens of thousands, of women because they would help them not only as carers but as care home workers—if they were better paid, that is—and care home residents.

On the menopause, my thanks are due to Dorothy Byrne, head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, who helped to introduce a policy on supporting women through the menopause at work; Diane Danzebrink, the founder of the not-for-profit organisation menopausesupport.co.uk; Helen Carroll, who wrote the centrepiece spread on the menopause in the Daily Mail last month; and one man, consultant gynaecologist Haitham Hamoda, chair of the British Menopause Society.

Between the ages of 45 and 55, one-quarter of women consider leaving the workforce because of exhaustion, hot flushes—I hate that phrase and wish there was a better one; I suggest “loss of personal central heating control”, but I am sure there is a better phrase—mood swings, aching bones and what some people call brain fog, when someone is unable to recall facts they have known for years. One woman’s symptoms were so severe that she thought she had early-onset dementia. It was only when she left her job as a result of her fear of not being in control and her GP diagnosed her symptoms and prescribed HRT that she realised that she was not suffering from dementia. She had experienced an early menopause, which was not picked up because she was on the contraceptive pill. That can often happen.

Some women consider suicide. Suicide is most common in women in the decade between the ages of 45 and 55. Eight in every 100,000 women take their own life between those ages. HRT can help, but it is estimated that only 1 million women are on HRT, although there are 4.3 million women aged 50 and over in the workforce. HRT was much more readily available until research in 2003 linked its use with an increased risk of breast cancer. Trainee doctors are given minimal training about the menopause and are more likely to consider the risks of HRT than the benefits. If women are to have a better experience during the menopause, it is vital that doctors are trained to understand the full picture, to advise accordingly and to involve women in decision-making.

Employers should ensure that they have adequate polices to recognise that some women need support, not just to stay in work but to get promotion. Women going through the menopause often lose their confidence at the very time in their career when they need it most. My advice to employers, and not just because they want to retain the best talent, is that there could be consequences at employment tribunals. In 2018, a tribunal ruled that a woman had been unfairly dismissed and that her employer discriminated against her due to her protected characteristic of the menopause. Supportive policies at work, better training for doctors and the ability to have a conversation with employers without fear of losing one’s job would all help 18 million women.

My second point concerns recognising the role of carers in society. This has been championed over many years by my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley and I can do no better than refer the noble Lords to her excellent contributions. My noble friend Lady Drake has championed kinship carers and the importance of incorporating pension rights for carers. Only last week, in Committee on the Pensions Schemes Bill, she outlined the history of government failure to support consistently the pension rights of carers. First, they are in, then they are out. It is time this hokey-cokey came to an end. If anyone has not had the chance to read my noble friend Lady Drake’s speech from last week, I urge them to do so. It is from 4 March 2020, cols. 329-33.

Finally, the Government announced that they were going to get social care done. This would help women who care for elderly relatives, women in care homes and women who work in care homes, who earn shocking levels of pay while displaying the humanity, skills and emotional support that should gain them immediate entry under the Government’s proposed immigration system. Now we hear that the Government are going out to consultation in May to get some cross-party support. We have been here before. The ideas are there, the research is there and the reports are there. I can practically feel my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley and the noble Lord, Lord Warner, hovering over the Chamber. Social care is in crisis and too many women are living in quiet desperation. Actually delivering on this promise would be a real act for women’s liberation.

Trade Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Swiss Confederation

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on his authoritative introduction to his Motion. I am not competent to comment on the detail, but I agree very much with the general points on which he ended, about how we should be scrutinising trade agreements. I should like to strongly support that.

When Speaker Pelosi was in London and issued her warning about the effect on the American body politic if we were to mess up the Irish frontier, and the effect on the possibility of getting Congress to agree to any trade agreement with the UK, she was not threatening us. She was telling us a plain fact: that is the case. The power of the US Congress in matters of trade does not mean that it negotiates the agreement, but it strengthens the hand of US negotiators no end. They are able to say, “You have a point and I understand your point, but I have to tell you that I could never get that through on the Hill”. Probably, they are sometimes telling the truth, and sometimes they are not. It would strengthen the Government’s hand in trade negotiations if there was a kind of powerful joint committee of the two Houses, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, recommends. I must say that I very much agree with him.

I shall make two other points. One follows on precisely from where the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, ended and is a point of detail. The second is a sad, bittersweet point.

The last document in the edition of the treaty that we have been shown is the Joint Declaration Concerning a Trilateral Approach to Rules of Origin. In this joint declaration, the British and the Swiss agree that the preferred outcome on cumulation would be a trilateral approach with the European Union. That is clearly the case; I understand that. The excellent report from the EU Select Committee says that, after three years, the cumulation arrangements set out in the treaty will be up for review. To quote the report:

“DIT officials did not foresee difficulties in securing basic cooperation arrangements with the EU in a ‘no deal’ scenario”.


The committee then comments,

“this does not seem unrealistic, as the rules on cumulation also benefit European suppliers”.

Everything there is true, except the word “unrealistic”. The European Union has told us what would happen in the event of no deal. In that event, there will be no deals on anything until we have addressed the questions of finance, citizens’ rights and the Irish frontier. It has been quite open on that. If we were to be landed with a Prime Minister who was happy with no deal, or perhaps even a Prime Minister who thought that we should not pay what we owe, there is no possibility of European business and industry overruling their Governments and ensuring that their interest in trilateral cumulation wins. Politics will win.

Think of the history of the City of London’s rather clever ideas on mutual recognition and dynamic equivalence in financial services. These were very impressive, with complex architecture being worked out in and with the Bank of England. These ideas are dead. The political declaration attached to the withdrawal treaty makes it clear that they are all dead; there will not be mutual recognition or dynamic equivalence. That is in a situation in which the European Union expects a deal. In the event of no deal, I am afraid it is unrealistic to think that trilateral cumulation on rules of origin would happen. Therefore, although this is an extremely helpful report, and I agree with nearly everything in it, I disagree with two letters: the “un” in “unrealistic”.

My third point is the bittersweet point. On this date 15 years ago, 10 countries joined the European Union: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, the three Baltic states, Cyprus and Malta. Many joined feeling very grateful to the United Kingdom, going back to the inspiration of Mrs Thatcher’s Bruges speech—the bit that none of us remembers, about how the great cities of central and eastern Europe should also be brought into the comity and community of the European Union. That was inspirational to many behind the Iron Curtain at the time. John Major’s Edinburgh European Council text, which produced the Copenhagen criteria, which produced the drive, strongly supported and led by the United Kingdom with the Danes and the Dutch to bring in the countries of eastern Europe as soon as possible, is remembered in eastern Europe. Tony Blair’s generosity, with the pre-accession aid being unrebated by our choice, is remembered in eastern Europe. We might have forgotten all that; they do not forget it and they wish we still felt now as we did then. So do I.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Whitty. This is not so much an umbrella agreement as a safety vehicle—an ambulance, if you like—designed to ensure that at least eight existing trade-related treaties between the UK through the EU and Switzerland can continue. Any matter that does not require EU consent, approval or agreement in future is simply rolled over. Where EU authority would still apply, those matters are disapplied from this agreement, with a promise of future discussions.

As many noble Lords will know, my trade is as a negotiator. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall with these particular sets of negotiations. I do not know whether there is an off-the-shelf negotiating skills kit in existence, but the basics should include: agree where you can agree; identify where third-party agreement is required and the timetable for achieving it; set out a plan for future consultations on the remaining issues, no matter how vague; and then sell the deal to one’s constituents.

Plans for future consultations will be a priority, in the form of enhanced mutual recognition agreements, as set out in this deal, memorandums of understanding or exploratory discussions, with the aim of modernising and developing existing provisions. That is the sweetener. This trade agreement breaks no new ground, so I would like to ask the Minister whether this is a holding operation just to keep the show on the road, or whether there are elements that take it above an administrative exercise.

I appreciate that, until we achieve a deal or no deal—if we can call that an achievement—there will be areas that require EU involvement, so I accept that little progress can be made at the moment. Equally—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, who is not in his place—this exercise shows considerable good will between the parties, which it is important to build on, especially with the intention to modernise or develop provisions. However, it does not give much confidence when the parliamentary report states that, in respect of the EU, cumulative provisions will be revised three years from the point of the UK’s exit from the EU—and subsequently DIT officials say that this was a mistake. The review period apparently will start when the trade agreement takes effect.

My noble friend Lord Whitty has already said how important trade is with Switzerland, so I will not deal with that, but although important areas of trade are covered, large proportions depend on any future arrangements with the EU. There is a memorandum of understanding to continue discussions on the disapplied customs security agreement, chapters on the agricultural agreement and an enhanced mutual recognition agreement between the EU and Switzerland covering the recognition of manufacturing goods. As the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, only three of the 20 have so far been agreed. Of the other 17, the major one outstanding would be on machinery. So it would be useful if the Minister could update us on any progress in the negotiations in those 17 outstanding areas.