Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Thursday 18th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 492, 502H and 502J, to which I have added my name.

Amendment 502H calls for a national strategy for physical education and sport in schools. I was fortunate to work alongside colleagues with significant experience in sport on the House of Lords’ national plan for sport, health and well-being Select Committee in 2023. This amendment is strongly underpinned by many of the recommendations from that committee. The report called for a long-term cross-government plan to embed physical activity and well-being into our educational system, for PE to be made a core subject, for teacher training to be improved, and for access to school sport to be widened to tackle the inequalities in participation. The committee also recommended that we gather better data through a national physical activity observatory. These are all the kinds of reforms that a national strategy as proposed in this amendment would deliver.

At present, fewer than half of children meet the Chief Medical Officer’s physical activity guidelines. According to the latest Sport England’s Active Lives children and young people survey, only 45% of children meet the target during school hours and 56% meet it outside of school, with levels varying significantly across different demographic groups.

This is one of the main reasons why we need a national strategy. The amendment comes with a list of recommendations, but it is not an exclusive one. The scope needs to be broad enough to obtain the right data and evidence to be able to create effective guidance and consistent delivery for all schools so that we can reach all children and better support their physical and mental development.

Without a coherent national strategy, we risk leaving physical education fragmented and underresourced. This amendment provides a clear framework to embed sport and physical activity as essential to children’s education, well-being and lifelong healthy lifestyle, through a truly holistic approach that supports physical, mental and social development.

Amendments 502J and 492 call for curriculum reviews to investigate how physical education programmes of study and recommended levels of physical activity can best be delivered in our schools. These reviews would provide a deep dive into the current delivery of PE and school sport, giving us crucial insights into the programmes of study being implemented and how they might improve the sport and physical activity offer in our schools. Without this insight, we risk continuing with fragmented and inconsistent provision that fails to meet the needs of all schoolchildren.

In 2019, I was delighted to serve on the Association for Physical Education’s task force on the future of physical education. It produced The Heart of School Life report, which looked closely at the future of physical education in schools. It was clear then, and it remains true now, that physical activity is about so much more than fitness or competitive sport.

These amendments responded to a growing consensus from a wide-ranging review of how PE is currently implemented and interpreted in our schools. The report The Heart of School Life highlighted the need to emphasise the unique role that physical education plays, distinct from general sport and physical activity, and to forge stronger links with health and well-being. It supported making PE a core subject, ensuring that it is valued and resourced accordingly. The report also highlighted how PE should develop a wide range of skills beyond competition, including leadership, teamwork, resilience and personal development.

Those broader benefits can be realised only through a curriculum that offers a diverse and inclusive programme. A national curriculum review would clarify what was delivered and how and where. It could also explore how PE might better integrate with other subjects such as maths, English and outdoor environmental learning, making it a more accessible and holistic part of school life, to the benefit of improved academic outcomes. If we are truly serious about improving sport and physical education in schools, we must consider whether there might be better ways to achieve our goals.

We all recognise that teachers and schools are under immense pressure, and the health and well-being of our children are not improving—in fact, we see worrying trends. It is a bit of a perfect storm. It is time to treat physical education and sport as an essential part of the curriculum, not an optional extra or an afterthought. The amendments would provide a clearer vision and a direction for the future of school sport and physical activity, and, hopefully, they would improve the health and well-being of our children.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group. I declare my interest as a board member of the London Marathon Foundation.

The amendments in this group call for a curriculum review and a national strategy to embed physical activity and sport firmly within the school day. They are timely and urgently needed because the evidence is overwhelming that physical activity is not an optional extra for young people; it is crucial to their health, learning and life chances. The statistics tell a worrying story. One-third of British children aged five to nine are projected to be overweight or obese by 2050. As we have heard, according to the Chief Medical Officer, children and young people aged five to 18 should be active for at least 60 minutes a day, yet around 2 million children manage fewer than 30 minutes of daily activity, including walking. We are also seeing a worrying trend of young people’s mental health deteriorating alongside their physical health. These are not just numbers. They represent millions of young people whose physical and emotional well-being is compromised before their adulthood begins.

Sport and daily physical activity are among the most powerful tools we have to reverse these trends. Regular exercise improves cardiovascular health, brings muscle and bone strength and helps to maintain a healthy weight, but its benefits go far beyond the body. Evidence consistently shows that physically active children perform better academically, have higher levels of concentration and better behaviour in class, and can develop social and emotional skills such as teamwork, resilience and respect. Sport is also a proven protector of mental health, reducing anxiety and depression, along with fostering friendships and a sense of belonging.

Yet, despite the acknowledged importance and benefits of having young people engage in physical activity, as my noble friend Lord Moynihan highlighted, Britain has 7,000 fewer PE teachers now than at the time of the 2012 Olympics. Together, these amendments would create a framework for a coherent evidence-based approach, a curriculum that guaranteed daily activity, a programme of study that developed lifelong skills and habits, and a national strategy that ensures accountability and investment.

But schools cannot achieve this step change alone. Nationally, there are many sporting organisations that can and already do work collaboratively with schools to encourage young people to be more active. Among them are the London Marathon Foundation and London Marathon Events, which are demonstrating how imaginative partnerships with local schools can reach children who might otherwise miss out. Take the Daily Mile: that simple idea—getting children to run, jog or wheel for 15 minutes a day—has spread rapidly because it works. The London Marathon Foundation and London Marathon Events have now become official implementation partners of the Daily Mile in England and will be funding three new regional development roles and creating 33 active playgrounds in areas of high deprivation. The aim is to engage more than half a million children in regular physical activity.

Junior parkrun offers free weekly timed runs for four to 14 year-olds, and a £1.2 million investment has already increased weekly participation from 13,500 to over 19,000, with more than 1 million junior parkruns completed in the first year of funding. Early pilots linking schools to junior parkrun have shown a 25% to 30% increase in participation by students of the linked schools, demonstrating the power of such joined-up initiatives. Importantly, almost a quarter of new registrations came from children who were previously inactive, showing that these initiatives reach those who need them the most.

There are many projects across the country that demonstrate what can be achieved when ambition, evidence and partnership come together, and they highlight how much more could be achieved if government policy were able to match the scale of the challenge. That is why these amendments are so important—to ensure that every child, wherever they live and whatever their background, has the chance to be active every day, enjoy sport and reap the lifelong benefits of a healthy body and mind.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Peckham (Con)]

My Lords, I am very disappointed that we have over 50 schools from which we are still waiting to hear the results. We started taking free schools back in 2012. We have 16 free schools today, all handed to us under the Conservatives. We have got great results from these 16 schools: 12 are outstanding, four are good, and there are 15,000 children. This year, in those schools, the difference between the ordinary children and the disadvantaged children was only 1%; that proves that they are working. We want more of these schools. I want to see everyone get a good education.

The other point is that we want more schools because we have teachers whom we have trained. We have nearly 200 teachers trained to go into new schools. We are paying for them privately from investors to make this happen, but we cannot get the schools. We cannot get schools that are failing because they will have another two years of failing. That is very disappointing.

Look at the results in the free schools and the county schools. With primaries, looking at every school in the country, the results are 68% for free schools, at local council schools it is 62%, and I am proud to say that Harris is at 76%. At secondary level, which is finished for this year, our Progress 8 scores are at 0.24 while the council scores are at 0.001. A-level results at academies are fantastic: 29% of the children get A*s and As from our free schools against the country average of 26%. This makes a big difference. We are giving children a better education. We want to make sure they get a better education; I think that is a fantastic thing.

We have two schools that we have been working on for two years and three years respectively. One of them is at Bow, in an old mill, at the top of Tesco and in a building down the road. We were promised that we would get a new free school in Bow, where they are building 4,008 new houses, but at the moment we cannot get an answer. We have got the staff for it. Before, this school was always inadequate. It was inspected in the last month before the year’s end. The primary got “outstanding”, the secondary got “outstanding”, and the sixth form got “good”. The sixth form was over the top of the Tesco. It used to have only 40 students. Now we have 220. So in that poor area, in those poor conditions, we are giving good people a good education. That is what we need to do. We need a school where we can have 1,500 students, and it works.

I have heard people saying today that some primary schools are too big; I do agree, to a degree, but we have a primary school with 300 students and one with just under 1,000 students that are both outstanding. These schools are both in Thurrock, by the way. So we know it can happen, but you need motivated staff and motivated people. Motivated children want to come to school, but some of them are not.

When we take over a school, we set three years to make it outstanding, and 95% of the schools we have taken over are outstanding in three years. We talk to them. We put more people in them. We cut the cost, because the costs are very strong. They have got too many staff not doing things. We take them out, put good staff in and make sure it happens. Remember that a child gets only one chance of a good education. We have to make sure every child in this country, wherever they come from, gets a good education.

Then there is the school in Greenwich. This is very disappointing. We spent three years and nearly £1 million pounds of our budget to get it approved. I know the department spent a lot of money as well. We got it approved about six weeks before the election. It was in the press. Before it opened—it does not open for two years—it was oversubscribed in year 7. People want these good schools—not only our Harris schools—all over the country. We have to make sure we give them good schools, but we cannot have those schools that have been failing for two years failing for another two years, because that is nearly the lifetime of a child in education.

I am a great believer in education. I know everyone here is. We have got to make sure it works; we have got to make sure it happens; and we have got to make sure we give them a good education. I hope the Government look at these free schools and make it happen, because they are very successful.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I too speak in support of the free schools programme, Amendment 480 and the clause stand part notice in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran.

As we have just heard so powerfully, free schools have been a significant driver of education improvement in this country over the past decade and a half, and their impact has been felt most powerfully in the communities that needed the benefits they have brought the most. Today there are 741 free schools educating hundreds of thousands of children and their results speak for themselves. Of those free schools that have been inspected, 93% are rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. As my noble friend Lord Harris just said, this summer’s exam results have confirmed their impact. Free schools once again outperformed other non-selective state schools in both GCSEs and A-levels, helping to drive up standards, particularly in areas of high deprivation and traditionally poor educational achievement.

Some 31.3% of A-levels taken by pupils at free schools achieved grade A or A*, compared with 25.2% of pupils in all state-funded schools; 23.7% of GCSEs taken by pupils at free schools were graded 7 or above, compared with 20.6% studied by pupils in all state-funded schools; and provisional results for 2025 key stage 2 showed that 70% of pupils at free schools met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, compared with 63% of pupils at all mainstream primary schools.

These are not isolated success stories. They are systemic proof that autonomy, innovation and freedom work. The success of free schools has been especially striking in disadvantaged communities. The New Schools Network report on the impact of free schools highlights that they have been disproportionately located in the most deprived parts of the country and played a key role in improving access to high-quality places where they are most needed. Many of the strongest performers, such as Reach Academy Feltham, Dixons Trinity Academy, Newham Collegiate Sixth Form and the Star Academies, all serve communities that have historically struggled with low attainment.

Giving school leaders the freedom to innovate, as we have heard, whether through a longer school day, a more stretching curriculum or developing closer links with businesses and universities, has a measurable impact on pupil outcomes, helping to close the disadvantage gap. Given this record, it is disappointing that the Government now seek, through Clause 57, to weaken the very mechanism that has allowed free schools to flourish by removing the requirement on local authorities to seek academy proposals first when a new school is needed. As Sir David Carter, a former National Schools Commissioner, observed:

“Free schools are an excellent way of filling gaps in provision that aren’t always obvious in Whitehall or in Local Authorities, and we should back school leaders and others to decide what their area needs”.


Finally, Amendment 480 tabled by my noble friend Lady Barran would require the Secretary of State to proceed with the opening of the 44 mainstream-approved free school projects that were paused in October 2024. As we have heard, many of these proposed new schools will offer incredible opportunities for the young people in the areas where they are due to be set up, from ensuring that every English region has a 16 to 19 university-backed maths school to proposals for new state sixth forms to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds through a collaboration between a leading private school and a multi-academy trust in Oldham, Middlesbrough and Dudley.

Since the pause, however, there has been a lack of information and progress. The 44 schools under review have not been publicly named and there has been a lack of transparency from the department about the review process being followed or indeed when it is due to conclude, with officials saying only that updates will be sent to trusts and local authorities in due course. Projects provided information to the department before Christmas but have heard little since. Can the Minister please update the House on when the review will conclude to provide certainty to these projects? She will know they will have put a huge amount of work and effort into submitting their applications but have been in limbo for almost a year.

Furthermore, at Education Oral Questions in the other place on 21 July in response to a question on capital resources to help expand Exeter Maths School, the former DfE Minister Stephen Morgan said that the department hopes

“to replicate the success of these settings across the country”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/7/25; col. 534.]

There are two maths free schools in the pipeline—Nottingham and Durham—and a number of other 16 to 19 projects proposed for outside London by trusts with a track record of exceptional results. The Government have at their fingertips the means to replicate the previous success we have seen across the country, so why not approve the two maths free schools and all the 44 schools in the pipeline?

Free schools have delivered exceptional outcomes, expanded opportunity and brought high-quality education to communities that for too long were left behind. Clause 57 risks turning back the clock while Amendment 480 would give certainty to 44 much-needed projects and ensure that the next generation of free schools can continue this record of success. I hope the Minister will reflect on the positive contribution the free school programme has made and is making to hundreds of thousands of pupils’ lives and ensure it is able to continue to grow to further improve our education system, particularly in areas that need it the most.

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to speak after the last two speakers and I will speak in support of the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lady Barran and Lord Agnew. The speech from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and the passion with which he spoke were a tribute to him and his team, who have done a most remarkable job. It is also a tribute to the previous Labour Government, who had the foresight to bring in people such as him to help turn around failing schools. That is why it is such a shame, as I have said before, to see this Labour Government appearing to row back on many of those proposals; I hope that is not really the case.

I will not begin to try to compete with my noble friend Lady Evans, who so ably ran the free schools programme and understands so much more about it than I do. My own experience of free schools is limited to my group opening one primary school in the grounds of Pimlico Academy because we believe strongly in an all-through education, a broad education and a subject-specific education even for primary school pupils where that can be delivered efficiently. We teach Latin in our primary schools, a subject which some believe is too exclusive for children in state schools.

The noble Baroness will be aware that my group, Future Academies, was appointed by the previous Government to run the Latin excellence programme, a £4 million contract to bring Latin to 40 state schools across the country which were not previously teaching it, something we were doing. Sadly, this Government binned that programme, which was a great pity, because the students love Latin; it helps them greatly with their grammar, their vocabulary and their thinking skills. I offer just one statistic. Noble Lords may be interested to know that this summer 48% of pupils at Pimlico Academy who took Latin GCSE, a subject which is thought to be very difficult, got a grade 9.

I understand that there are over 50 special and AP free schools in pre-opening, or which were approved prior to October last year. We desperately need more special schools and AP schools in this country. I ask the Minister kindly to tell me how many of those are now planned to open and how many are not. If she cannot do that today, and I understand why she may not be able to do so, perhaps she would write to me with the answer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, this third group of amendments relates to the opening of new schools, including new maintained schools, academies and free schools, and the financial governance of maintained schools—but not to the noble Lord’s amendment about local elections, so I will not respond to that.

Clause 57 relates to how new schools are opened, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, opposes it standing part of the Bill. The clause ends the legal presumption that new schools should be academy schools. It requires local authorities to invite proposals for academies and other types of school when they think a new school should be established and gives them the option to put forward their own proposals for new schools. The current system allows local authorities to propose new schools only as a last resort or in very limited circumstances. Local authorities hold the statutory responsibility to secure sufficient school places in their area, and it is right that we give them greater ability to fulfil that duty effectively. These changes will enable consideration of any local offer that meets the needs of children and families.

Amendment 480, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, relates to the opening of projects in the free schools pipeline. I understand the noble Baroness’s desire—and the passion and enthusiasm of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who, as others have said, has played an enormously important role in improving the quality of schools for many of the children who need it the most—to ensure that the approved free school projects open as planned. I know that trusts and local authorities commit significant time and energy to supporting these projects.

However, noble Lords will also understand the need to consider carefully the use of a limited amount of school capital. Agreeing the amendment would commit the Secretary of State to opening all projects in the current pipeline, regardless of whether they are still needed or represent value for money. That is why the department is giving careful consideration to these proposals in relation to the need for places, their value for money and the extent to which they provide a distinctive local offer. It would be wrong to spend funding on new schools that cannot be financially viable while existing schools urgently need that funding to improve the condition of their buildings.

Amendment 481, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, would require local-authority-maintained schools to have an annual external audit. In response to the noble Lord’s contribution, I am afraid I must clarify that he was wrong to state that maintained schools do not have to publish salaries over £100,000 and that they do not have to submit three-year budget plans. Those requirements were introduced by the last Government in 2021 following a consultation put out by the noble Lord as a Minister. He has had more of an impact even than he realises.

I nevertheless understand the points the noble Lord made about the responsibility on all school leaders to ensure that public money is being spent as effectively as possible in order to maximise the amount that can be spent directly on supporting and educating our children. However, the Government do not believe it is necessary to mandate all maintained schools to have an annual external audit. Maintained school accounts form part of local authority’s accounts. A sample will be audited each year as part of the local authority audit process. Any maintained school that wants a separate audit has the right to commission one. We can argue about whether, as the noble Lord has suggested, auditing would save money. However, we are clear about how much it would cost. School audits can cost £10,000 or more—the total cost of separate audits for all maintained schools would be at least £100 million a year.

I hope that, given my explanations, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her clause stand part notice, and other noble Lords will not move their amendments.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I accept what the Minister says—that of course the proposal for new free schools has to be properly interrogated, et cetera— but it has now been nearly a year. She alluded to the fact that some of the issues may be around the tight funding. At the very least, could she commit to contacting the schools or groups that have put forward proposals, just to give them an update? In some sense, it is the not knowing and not hearing that is the most frustrating for them, so perhaps she could at least do that.

As the Minister well recognises, it is a huge amount of work to do this, and there will be local groups, schools and parents desperately wanting to know if these schools are going to open. Even if she cannot tell us today, if she could perhaps commit to some further information for those in the pipeline, that would be a welcome move forward from their perspective.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I recognise the point made by the noble Baroness and the need for trusts to have certainty about their projects as soon as possible. We will provide an update on next steps to trusts and local authorities in due course, and I am sure that others in the department have heard the reasonable points made by the noble Baroness.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 436ZB in my name. I remind your Lordships of my education interests, particularly as the chair of the Council of British International Schools. I thank Emily Konstantas, chair of the British International Schools Safeguarding Coalition and CEO of the Safeguarding Alliance, for her assistance with these amendments. She has given me ample evidence of two safeguarding loopholes that we are seeking to close with these amendments.

First is the problem that under current legislation the Teaching Regulation Agency can act only where misconduct occurs in England. This means that it is not possible for a teacher qualified in England who then commits an offence overseas to have that included on the register. Indeed, our experience is that there is not even any means to report the offence to the TRA that the individual is a risk to children.

International schools routinely use prohibition checks upon recruitment of teachers, so this loophole is significant for them. If an individual has committed an offence in a school in one country and then goes to another, that offence is not picked up by the prohibition check. Therefore, as it stands, prohibited individuals can exploit international mobility to avoid scrutiny and teachers dismissed abroad for misconduct can return to England or elsewhere unchecked. With pupils placed at risk in this way, the integrity of the profession is undermined. My amendment simply applies the teacher misconduct regime to anyone who has at any time been qualified to teach in England and thus closes the loophole.

The second problem is the growing practice of prohibited individuals legally changing their names between organisations and across countries to evade scrutiny and justice. I am concerned about the scenario where an individual has been convicted for an offence and then changes their name. They may then train and qualify as a teacher under the new identity and with a teacher reference number attached to that name. My amendment seeks to insert reasonable efforts to investigate name changes when the Secretary of State investigates disciplinary cases. I hope that my noble friend the Minister—and I associate myself wholly with the comments just made by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, in respect of her reappointment—agrees that these loopholes must be closed and will amend the Bill accordingly. I beg to move.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I add my support to Amendments 436ZA and 436ZB in this group, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Knight. I declare my interest as honorary president of COBIS which, as the noble Lord said, is a member of the British International Schools Safeguarding Coalition.

As the noble Lord set out, these amendments would close an important safeguarding loophole by extending the jurisdiction of the Teaching Regulation Agency to accept referrals of misconduct committed by UK-qualified teachers working overseas, and strengthening prohibition checks to ensure that individuals cannot exploit name changes to evade detection.

Prohibition checks are essential to identify individuals banned from teaching due to misconduct, safeguarding concerns or professional incompetence, and yet none of these misdemeanours committed at international schools overseas can be referred to the TRA. Indeed, as the noble Lord stressed, the current system does not even provide an option for them to report such concerns to the TRA online, creating a clear gap in the information that it holds. The loopholes in the current system mean that a teacher who is returning to the UK, for instance, and should have been referred to the TRA due to potentially serious child welfare issues committed overseas cannot be reported and so no prohibition order can be made. As a result, the individual would pass the statutory check, which schools rely on as evidence that an individual is safe to work with children. In practice, that could mean a teacher dismissed for misconduct abroad would have a clear result on their prohibition check and could subsequently be hired by a school in England that had no idea of their previous behaviour and allow the teacher to resume teaching.

I am sure the Minister agrees that this situation is clearly unsatisfactory and should be addressed. I hope she is able to accept these sensible amendments, which are supported by the Safeguarding Alliance and six UK Government-recognised British school associations and would undoubtedly help further strengthen the UK’s reputation as a global leader in safeguarding.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I say, briefly, that these seem to be incredibly sensible amendments, and I hope the Minister can accept them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendments 440 and 442 from the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. He tabled these amendments because of his concerns that the new national curriculum remains so uncertain. The interim report has given little indication of what might follow in the autumn or next year, and he believes that with that level of uncertainty these amendments are appropriate. I have taken this on at short notice and will listen to what the Minister has to say and respond.

Before I sit down, I want to give a warning. We have been here before. In 2004, the national curriculum obligation applied to virtually all schools, as very few schools were academies at that time. At that point, inspection was stripped down to remove subject-level scrutiny from most of the curriculum. English and maths in primary schools were specifically examined, but beyond that almost all subject-level inspection was removed.

What was the consequence? Over time, in primary schools and at key stage 3 there was a drastic reduction in what was taught. Various reports show that, such as Key Stage 3: The Wasted Years? from Ofsted. Primary schools, especially once the science tests were dropped in 2009, taught less and less outside English and maths.

At key stage 4, this was compounded by the equivalence concept brought into performance tables at the same time. All manner of distortions and gaming emerged in the secondary curriculum, and the DfE had to play whack-a-mole for years each time a new game popped up—some people will remember things such as the European computer driving licence, equivalent qualifications that were worth four GCSEs, double entry and so on. It would be unfortunate if we went back to that world.

I understand that the Ofsted changes that have been announced will remove the very limited subject-level scrutiny that was reintroduced in 2019 to counteract this loss of real curriculum. My concern is that the national curriculum obligation included in this clause could become a dead letter, simply because there will not be effective scrutiny to make sure that is what actually happens in practice. We could once again be in a situation where only the things that are tested—which, especially in primary schools, is quite a limited set and at key stage 3 is nothing at all—will get taught. That is a warning.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Barran’s proposition that Clause 47 does not stand part of the Bill. Clause 47 as it stands strips academies of one of their key freedoms: the ability to innovate and tailor their curriculum approaches to meet the specific needs of the pupils and communities they serve. We have clear evidence that allowing schools this freedom, with clear accountability mechanisms in place, improves outcomes for pupils.

This summer, free schools outperformed other non-selective state schools in both GCSE and A-level results, playing an important role in driving up standards, particularly in areas of significant deprivation and low educational attainment. One of the strengths of free schools has been their diversity, representing a varied range of educational philosophies and high-quality curricula.

In a recent report, New Schools Network set out a number of principles that it had identified across high-impact free schools—those with a strong track record, outstanding Ofsted ratings, strong exam results and high levels of participation, engagement, progression and achievement. Among them was a relentless focus on the fundamentals of learning, which often drew on international and well-evidenced school and curriculum models and practices, from Teach Like a Champion to Expeditionary Learning, KIP and High Tech High. Drawing on the best evidence and proven ideas of what works, schools have used the flexibility in the current system to adapt their curriculum to suit their students. They, after all, know their pupils best.

The NSM report sets out a number of examples where free schools have used their curriculum freedoms to the benefit of their pupils. Marine Academy Plymouth has developed its own curriculum around marine themes relating to the city’s coastal tradition. School 21’s curriculum is project-oriented, with curriculum and pedagogical practices allowing pupils to choose personalised opportunities for growth which fit in with their passions and interests. For children with special needs, the Lighthouse School in Leeds, the first special free school, has supported a growing network of similar institutions. Lighthouse has shared its unique curriculum with more than 50 other school leaders and demonstrated how its innovative approach has allowed it to design provisions specifically aimed at pupils with autism, while spreading best practice across the system.

Allowing this flexibility does not and should not mean a free-for-all, and that is certainly not the case now. While academies are not required to follow the national curriculum, they are required by their funding agreements to provide a broad and balanced curriculum, and of course there are further safeguards via the Ofsted inspection framework and exam system. Again, the Government are proposing changes to dilute the autonomy of academies when it is not clear what the systemic problem is that this clause is trying to solve.

As we have heard, the national curriculum itself is currently under review, which is creating more uncertainty. As a result of provisions in the Bill, academies will be forced to sign up to a new curriculum, the content of which the Government have not decided yet, without knowing if there will be suitable flexibilities within it for them to appropriately tailor their curriculum to the specific needs and contexts of their communities.

As has previously been explained by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, the breadth of powers included in the Bill would allow a Secretary of State in future to potentially be much more prescriptive and expansive in relation to the detail of any new national curriculum if they were so inclined—again, a further reduction in academies’ autonomy.

I do not believe this is the right approach. Our education system as a whole has benefited from the ability of teachers to be creative, to innovate and to adapt their curriculum to respond to the unique needs of their pupils. Unfortunately, Clause 47 as it stands is a retrograde step.

[Lord Sewell of Sanderstead (Con)]

My Lords, as someone who has not put down an amendment, I will give some collective memory context to what we are debating today. I support most of the amendments. I hope they will not be rejected, but we will see what happens.

Yesterday, I listened to the speech made by the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson. She rightly boasted about the legacy of Ernest Bevin and how he understood that real social mobility is about working-class people and the agency to aspire. Sadly, as she reeled off the achievements of the labour movement since Bevin, she forgot perhaps one of the most radical and important achievements from Labour: the setting up of the academies—yes, a Labour invention.

It may have been this philosophy that inspired Tony Blair in 2002 to set up the Hackney Learning Trust. This became the birthplace of the academy movement. Luckily enough, I was part of the board that was tasked to transform Hackney education. Some would say that our task was impossible; we were faced with a Labour education authority that totally failed all of its students and parents. Hackney was given the label not only as the worst education district in Britain but the worst in Europe.

In those days, boys from an African-Caribbean background were at the bottom of the heap. When I remember the early days, there was joy from the current education authority in handing us the power. Yes, there were some grumblings about what it knew about the new model of academies, but there was a real sense that this was the answer.

Our first task was to find an iconic school which was regarded as the worst performing and transform that. We set about closing the then Hackney Downs School and built the fantastic Mossbourne Academy, led by Sir Michael Wilshaw. We were given a 10-year contract. Within two years, Hackney was on its way to moving from the worst place to educate your child to the best. For African-Caribbean boys, the results zoomed to above the national average.

How did we do this? It was because of a number of factors that are in danger from this schools Bill. Great school leaders were a key element. Another was the massively high academic expectations of the students. There were also rigorous school improvement methods—no school was allowed to fail Ofsted. We were creating schools of excellence that could go toe to toe with the best of our private schools. For many ethnic-minority students, particularly black students, the context of a traditional, well-disciplined school with high expectations and great leadership—and no evidence of identity politics; that made no difference at all to them—made the difference. For me, the big difference was that we gave schools autonomy on the curriculum, discipline, hiring of staff and allocation of funding. These were key elements which drove that success. One of the things bringing us up into the highest levels of educational outcomes was that drive.

The proposal to remove automatic academisation for underperforming schools and replace it with something else is problematic. My concern is that we would probably be going back to those really dark days when schools, particularly in London, were going backwards.

I want to share a quote from one of the leaders of City of London Academies Trust. If he were here, he would probably put it as a plea. He says:

“I was fortunate to be granted the rare privilege of founding a government-funded state school in Newham, the second most deprived borough in London. Thanks to the freedoms afforded by the academies programme, that school now outperforms many independent and grammar schools. It regularly sends pupils to Oxbridge and Ivy League universities on full scholarships worth £250,000 each. I am by no means alone in this achievement. Across the country, others have used the opportunities of academisation to become beacons of hope in their communities and rank among the highest in national league tables for educational outcomes”.


I return to old Ernest Bevin and what he would have loved. He would probably have liked the academy movement and would turn in his grave at some of these new attempts to disrupt what is working for students from poor backgrounds and ethnic minorities. At the heart of some of these changes is the idea that academies are perhaps not working for the majority of the population or special needs students. I think that misses the point. We need to be creative in spreading a model that can work for all pupils, not dismantle and tinker with a great asset for social mobility. That is the key element in this.

I end with a quote from Ernest Bevin:

“I did not land on the rocks—I was launched from them”.


That is the spirit of academies, which enable schools and pupils to do their best and realise the best that they have. In London, we have created a great asset that was, in a sense, birthed by Labour. We carried it on, and we want to ensure that we have something we can be proud of. We should think again when looking at the curriculum to see whether we can find a way of ensuring that those students continue to do their best. We now have schools in London which can reach better results even than Eton. Noble Lords here who taught 20 or 30 years ago would not have dreamed of that. Now we can do it. That has come about through the way we have used academies and that process. I urge the Government not to tinker with their own success.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we return. I rise to speak to the amendments to Clause 49, including my intention that Clause 49 should not stand part of the Bill. It is of course reasonable for the Secretary of State to direct academies to comply with their legal duties, but this clause goes much further than that; indeed, it cuts across the academy funding agreements that have served the sector well to date.

Once again, in a familiar pattern, we start with the question of why this clause is needed. Where is the evidence of non-performance of relevant duties on the part of academies or of unreasonable behaviour in relation to either their duties or their powers? Once again, it brings academies into line with local authority-maintained schools, despite the fact that there are already significant powers within both the funding agreements and the academy trust handbook to address any breaches. Once again, we find the Secretary of State at risk of micromanaging, rather than delegating responsibility to the trusts that run over half our schools. Once again, we have to ask ourselves: even if it is not the intention of this Secretary of State to interfere in minor matters in our schools, how might a future Secretary of State use these powers?

Finally, we realised when reading the policy notes that the penalty for non-compliance is, first, a notice to improve and then a termination warning notice—the identical powers that exist today—or, in the words of the then Minister for School Standards arguing in favour of this clause in committee in the other place,

“using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”.—[Official Report, Commons, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee, 4/2/25; col. 383.]

But we end up with the same sledgehammer to crack what looks like quite a small nut.

You could argue that this clause at best creates another layer of bureaucracy and at worst is a micromanager’s charter. A close reading of the policy notes just leaves one asking “Why?” yet again. Not only is the Secretary of State taking powers to require a trust that is at risk of not complying with the new policy on the number of branded items of uniform to do so, but it also allows her to state how that should happen. Perhaps the Secretary of State will decide that the trust should remove a branded book bag, or maybe a tie, but I find it hard to see how this can be a good use of anyone’s time, let alone the Secretary of State’s. So I have a series of amendments that seek to bring back common sense to the Secretary of State’s interventions in these minor breaches, clarity of responsibility, and a reminder that the Secretary of State has considerable powers in the funding agreement, if needed.

My Amendment 444A on page 113 of the Bill aims to bring some proportionality to the power. It makes it clear that the proprietor must remedy any breach identified under subsections (1) or (2) within a reasonable period. In judging what is meant by a reasonable period, it refers to the nature and seriousness of the breach, the impact or likely impact on pupils’ education or welfare, the complexity of the remedial action required and any other relevant circumstances. My new subsection (2B) makes it clear that the Secretary of State can specify the time period within which a breach or unreasonable behaviour must be addressed, but not the method of doing so. Without this clarification, there is a real potential for the power to be used, ironically, in an unreasonable way.

My Amendment 444B removes the ability of the Secretary of State to intervene in the case of a likely breach. It is close to farcical to think of the time, resource and legal advice that would be taken to prepare the letter to a trust with an offending book bag or tie. The writers of “The Thick of It” might use this for a future episode.

Amendment 444C makes it clear that the powers within the funding agreement should be used to address breaches. Amendment 4445—sorry, we have not got into the thousands yet, although we might by the end of this Bill. Amendment 445 again ensures that any directions from the Secretary of State are limited to statutory duties, funding agreements or charity law where there is a breach or unreasonable behaviour in relation to a relevant duty.

My Amendment 445ZA has the same effect in relation to a situation where the proprietor has acted or is proposing to act unreasonably in relation to the performance of a relevant power. I apologise that the explanatory statement on that amendment was inaccurate and referred to a duty rather than a power.

Amendments 445ZC and 445ZD again seek to limit the power of the Secretary of State to a notice rather than a direction, so that the decision about how to address a breach rests with the proprietor. Surely this is a more practical approach than the one set out in the Bill, and clearly the issue needs to be rectified to the Secretary of State’s satisfaction.

We also believe it is important to have visibility on the way these new powers are used, so our Amendment 445ZB requires the Secretary of State to make a statement to Parliament when the powers are used, explaining the issues arising and the actions taken. I appreciate that currently a notice to improve and termination warning notices are published by the department, but they are really only visible to those of us who read the daily emails from the DfE closely.

It will not surprise the noble Baroness to hear me say that on these Benches we think that Clause 49 should not stand part of the Bill. It is not needed, it is disproportionate and it is drafted in a way that does not align to the purpose set out in the policy notes. My amendments offer the Government some ways to improve that alignment but, honestly, I think it is best removed altogether.

At a time when the Prime Minister is rightly talking about the focus on delivery, surely clauses such as this, which absorb precious ministerial and official time for little impact, should be dropped so the department can focus on much more pressing issues, such as special education needs and disabilities. I hope the Minister will think again and I beg to move the amendment standing in my name in this group.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I add my support to amendments 444A to C, 445 and 445ZA to ZD, in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran, which seek to rein in the sweeping new powers currently set out in Clause 49 for the Secretary of State to intervene in academy operations. As my noble friend said, of course the Secretary of State should have the ability to ensure that academies comply with their statutory duties, but the powers currently included in Clause 49 are so broad that they will undermine trust in school leaders, significantly reduce academy autonomy and create a top-down bureaucracy with potentially over-restrictive government insight.

The clause as currently drafted, for instance, allows for the Secretary of State to give directions they consider appropriate to academies if they are deemed to have acted unreasonably or to be proposing to act unreasonably. To my mind, the effect appears to be that a trust could be punished for actions it has not yet taken, with a central direction initiated simply on the basis of speculation from a Secretary of State. I may have misunderstood but, if this is the case, it surely cannot be right.

In this context, the use of the word “unreasonably” is a further cause for concern. It is a vague and subjective standard, left undefined in Clause 49 as it stands, and it seems to open the door to overreach and potential political interference in individual schools and trusts from Whitehall. Without clear guardrails, it would enable Ministers to meddle in decisions that surely must properly belong to academy trustees and head teachers.

As my noble friend has just said in her opening remarks, the drafting of the clause runs the risk of creating a micromanager’s charter. And the problem does not end there. The powers granted under Clause 49 are not only overly broad; they are also unchecked and have no independent review or appeal mechanisms built in—something which Amendment 445A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, would specifically address.

The group of amendments tabled by my noble friend, along with the amendment in the name of he noble Lord, Lord Knight, would bring some much-needed balance into Clause 49 by restoring proportionality and fairness into the process while maintaining the Secretary of State’s powers to ensure that trusts do not breach their statutory duties, funding agreements or charity law. I hope the Minister will think again about the breadth of powers that the Government are proposing.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I too support the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lady Barran. As she and my noble friend Lady Evans have pointed out, it is again not obvious why these powers are needed. The existing legislative framework and funding agreements provide ample levers to enforce and hold academy trusts accountable. If there is an implied shift, as there appears to be, away from accountability and towards direct control and management, it is important to remember what we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, this afternoon: he laid out very clearly those underlying principles about high autonomy, balanced with strong accountability, and referred to the problems and weaknesses of some local authorities, which made it necessary and desirable to move to the model that served us well for many years. It would be deeply unfortunate if we end up with a central government that is attempting to manage the entire school system, rather along the lines of one of the weaker local authorities of 40 years ago.

I am worried about the strain that this will place on the Civil Service. I have concerns about people trying to read tea leaves and decide whether a breach is likely. As others have said, it feels like a system that is almost certain to create more contention and disagreement, and more time wasted on legal disputes and challenges to action, than it is to help children by resolving problems early. I support the set of amendments proposed by my noble friend Lady Barran.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I agree wholeheartedly with this amendment. It would be difficult to do otherwise because, as my noble friend reminded us, I moved a parallel amendment to what became the Welfare Reform Act 2009 when we were in government. When one looks back at legislation one has been responsible for there is always a moment of trepidation, but we are on safe ground in this case. Those were the days when the noble Lords, Lord Skelmersdale and Lord Northbourne, were heavily involved in our debates. Having said that—and I underline the importance that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has placed on this amendment—it is slightly disconcerting to understand that one’s labours at the Dispatch Box all those years ago have lain dormant and fallow, so I press the Minister to say why it has not been introduced.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Manzoor, seeks to set into primary legislation a requirement for the Secretary of State, when preparing a claimant commitment, to have regard to the impact on any child affected by it. I fully support the principle that requirements should be adjusted according to individuals’ personal circumstances, including the well-being of any children for whom the claimant is responsible. However, this amendment proposes to unnecessarily prescribe the contents of the claimant commitment in the Welfare Reform Act 2012. During discussions with individuals, work coaches already take into account all the personal circumstances relevant to both claimant and child when agreeing work-related activities. We continually review the operation of the claimant commitment and will act on anything we find that can be improved. Claimants can request a review of their claimant commitment if they have concerns.

On the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about Section 31 of the 2009 Act, it applies to JSA and ESA, not universal credit. As part of the claimant commitment, parents can input into the contents of the commitment within universal credit.

We are very clear about the importance of our responsibilities with regard to the well-being of children. Regulations 98 and 99 cover the circumstances in which all or some requirements should be suspended for a temporary period, which includes circumstances in which a parent has to spend time caring for a child in distress or if they are in the kind of situation which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked about. The number of hours a claimant is expected to spend carrying out work-related activity is also tailored so as to be compatible with the claimant’s individual childcare responsibilities.

These reasonable requirements, including any limiting or lifting and the reasons for this, are recorded within the claimant commitment. The amendment does not specify that it applies to the responsible care of a child; it refers to “any child”, which would make it extremely difficult to determine which children are being referred to other than those within the claimant’s responsibility. This would make it difficult for jobcentres to effectively administer.

The key principle of the claimant commitment is that we treat people as individuals and tailor their requirements accordingly. We have chosen not to prescribe in legislation what a claimant commitment should take account of in order that we can reflect all the possible circumstances people can present with. It would be too prescriptive to single out one element—the well-being of a child—and legislate that claimant commitments must contain this information. It would not be practical to prescribe everything a claimant commitment should contain—we want to take account of a broad range of circumstances.

We know that developing a skilled workforce is key to realising the flexibilities that we have built into the legislative framework of universal credit. We want to empower our work coaches to use this broad discretion to make sound decisions that are right for the individual in front of them. As the noble Baroness said, I talked at length about the work under way to invest in learning and development of our front-line staff, including the work coach delivery model and accreditation. I did that because I wanted to stress the importance we place on making sure that work coaches are trained and that they use their discretion to the benefit of the families they work with. I emphasised that element because I wanted to stress to noble Lords that we take that very seriously.

Existing legislation already enables us to take account of the well-being of children when setting a claimant commitment; it is something that work coaches routinely do. Therefore we do not believe that it is necessary to set out this level of detail in primary legislation. I hope that on that basis the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. The noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, asked what there is to object to. It is a good question. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, gave a very good example of what happens when a child is unwell. But the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, in a sense finished off the argument by talking about the implications of the well-being of the child not being taken into account in a culture where many people are sanctioned—and, as the evidence from her inquiry showed, sometimes sanctioned for the wrong reasons.

I am again disappointed by the Minister’s response. It seemed simply to repeat the arguments that were made in Committee and did not really engage with the counter-arguments that I put. She said that Section 31 applies to JSA ESA. Yes, many lone parents are still claiming those benefits and will be for some time. As we know, universal credit is being rolled out slowly and the more complicated cases will move on to it more slowly, so why is it not being introduced in the mean time? I find it very sad that the good work of my noble friend Lord McKenzie is gathering dust. In fact, it was the good work done by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, that started it all, because it was his amendments that triggered this section, but nothing has happened. Therefore, I am afraid that the fact that it is JSA ESA is irrelevant.

This is not just one other detail; the best interests of the child is a fundamental principle that policy-making and legislation is supposed to have regard to in this country, or in any country that has signed up to the UN convention. So I am disappointed. Again, we have evidence of a sort of parallel universe where all the wonderful conversations are being had. It is excellent that the training is happening and I welcome that. However, as I understand it, when lone parents had bespoke advisers who understood the issues, rather than generic job coaches, they tended to be treated much better than they are now.

The helplines of organisations such as Gingerbread are constantly showing that the best interests of the child are not being taken into account. When this Bill is out of the way, I wonder whether the noble Lord or the noble Baroness would be willing to meet those organisations to talk about why there is this difference in perception, and perhaps we could have another look at Section 31.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I shall be very happy to meet them.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I very much appreciate that. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

54: Clause 24, page 23, line 42, at end insert—
“(b) regulations under section 26 of that Act, or(c) Part 1 of Schedule 2 to that Act.””

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group are mainly technical in nature. The majority of them respond to points raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and we hope that they will be welcomed. Others stem from issues which we have identified might have been of concern to social housing providers, or they might be helpful to them in accommodating the rent reduction measure.

I start by addressing some of the points raised by the committee. In its report it expressed concern both that the power in Clause 26 to make provision for excepted cases through regulations was drafted too widely, which could provide latitude to make different provision for rent control or enforcement, and that negative procedures apply here. The powers under Clause 28 provide important flexibility to put in place, by means of regulations, alternative provision for how maximum rents should be determined in special cases. Our broad intention is to use these powers either to relax the requirements for social housing providers or to protect tenants.

However, we recognise some of the committee’s concerns and, in response, have brought forward Amendment 77, which restricts the use of the power so that it may not be used to increase the annual 1% reduction specified in the Bill or to impose a maximum rent below the social rent rate in a case where an exception from Part 1 of Schedule 2 applies. The amendment also provides clarity regarding how the power may be used to apply modifications of the provisions.

The power remains a wide one, and necessarily so, because it will allow the flexibility to put in place provisions which soften the effect on providers of the rent restriction measure. It will also put in place protection for tenants and, if necessary, make provision for new rent products launched during the life of this measure. These are important flexibilities to ensure the proportionate application of the Bill’s provisions so that they are aligned, as far as possible, with the current rent policy, and they will enable us to respond to developments in the sector. It is not our intention to use them to put in place significantly different or more onerous provision for large swathes of social housing. That is why we have not accepted the committee’s recommendation that regulations under this power should be affirmative. That would make implementing measures intended to assist providers or help tenants more burdensome and it would curtail the Government’s ability to act quickly to modify the effect of provisions where required.

Amendment 80 is consequential on Amendment 77, and Amendment 65 is, in turn, consequential on Amendment 80.

The committee also expressed concerns about the different approach to enforcement of Part 1 of Schedule 2 and of regulations under Clause 26—both, as originally drafted, powers to provide for enforcement—as well as enforcement of Clause 21, which is on the face of the Bill. We accept that there should be consistency of approach, so Amendments 54 to 58, 74 and 78 align enforcement of Schedule 2 and Clause 26 with that of Clause 21 so that all enforcement will be provided for on the face of the Bill through Clause 24. Amendment 60 is consequential on Amendment 74. Amendment 59 is a consequential amendment which transposes Clause 24 to after Clause 28.

We are grateful to the committee for identifying an inconsistency in drafting relating to the definition of formula rent and have brought forward Amendment 64 to address this. We have also taken the opportunity to clarify that the power to define formula rent includes the power to provide that it is a rent set in accordance with a method specified in regulations. The committee also expressed the view that delegation of the power to define “formula rent” is inappropriate in the absence of a proper justification and includes unacceptable sub-delegation. I hope that I will be able to reassure the House on both points.

As many of your Lordships will know, formula rent is a principle that is well understood in the social housing sector and a key element of the current rent policy regime. We have been clear that the definition of formula rent in the Bill will be aligned to the definition under the rent standard and government guidance on the reference date, albeit with the qualification that the flexibility to deviate from formula in exceptional circumstances will no longer be available. That policy intention has been subject to parliamentary scrutiny and, given that the method for determining formula rent is complex and involves reference to numerous tables of supporting data, we remain of the view that it is appropriate to set the definition out in secondary legislation and to refer to the rent standard and guidance from which that definition is derived. We do not accept that cross-reference to these historic documents is inappropriate, but do accept that the drafting did not make the intentions in this regard clear. Amendment 64, therefore, restricts such references to the rent standard and guidance documents applicable on the reference date.

Finally, the committee expressed similar reservations about the power to define affordable rent. Having reflected on them, we have tabled Amendment 70 to address the criticism of sub-delegation. We agree that cross-referring from the regulations to the content of the rent standard and guidance documents is not necessary. Instead, the regulations may provide that it is a rent set in accordance with a method specified or described in regulations. However, again, the Government’s clear view remains that the complexities of the definition are such that they are more appropriately dealt with in secondary legislation, which can, if necessary, be adjusted to reflect the terms of new affordable rent agreements.

I now turn to Amendments 66 to 68. These are important amendments to address a drafting oversight and to allow the continuation of the present policy that affordable rent housing may be let at the social rent rate when this is higher than the affordable rent, as may be the case in some low market-value areas.

Amendments 71 and 82 will enable continuation of the present policy that affordable rents are inclusive of service charge when determined on the percentage of market rent principle, but exclusive of service charge when determined on the social rent model.

Amendment 79 is a consequential amendment and removes the definition of “affordable rent housing” and “affordable rent” from the interpretation section, as these terms are no longer used other than in Schedule 2. Amendment 69 adds an example to the list in paragraph 4(4) of types of arrangements and agreements to which the definition of “affordable rent housing” may refer.

I now turn briefly to Amendments 72 and 73. I know that my noble friend Lady Williams had a helpful meeting with some of your Lordships to explain the purpose of these amendments. They amend Schedule 2, paragraphs 6(2) and (8), and would enable the regulator of social housing or the Secretary of State to issue an exemption allowing a provider to set initial rents at a specified percentage above the social rent rate if the statutory conditions for granting such an exemption are met.

Amendment 81 is a small clarification that, for the purpose of calculating rent reductions, the day on which a tenancy begins or ends should be treated as a full day. The purpose of this is to simplify calculations for providers.

Amendment 62 modifies the principles for determining the assumed rent in order to avoid disadvantaging providers who implement their annual rent increases later in the year than 8 July. An “assumed rent” is a rent set by reference to the rent of a previous tenant, and this amendment corrects a drafting anomaly which could have meant that, in certain circumstances, the assumed rent would be determined by reference to the provider’s 2014-15 rate, not the 2015-16 rate as intended. Again, the Government’s intention here is that this amendment should prove helpful to providers.

Amendments 75 and 76 are consequential amendments.

I apologise to noble Lords, but I misspoke earlier: I was supposed to have said Clause 26 and not Clause 28. Due to the technical nature of these explanations, if it would be helpful, I am happy to write to noble Lords to clarify exactly what I meant and to correct what I said. Because it is late and these are technical amendments, I am very happy to pick up other points in correspondence if, having read what I said, noble Lords would like any further clarification. I am sorry about the length of time that that took. I beg to move.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 31, 33 and 34 in the names of my noble friends Lady Sherlock and Lord McKenzie of Luton. However, I shall concentrate on Amendment 32, which is almost but not quite the same as an amendment tabled in my name in Committee. I regret and apologise that I was unable to be in the House on that day. I am most grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham for moving that amendment on my behalf—more importantly, perhaps, on behalf of people with life-limiting illnesses such as motor neurone disease.

In speaking to that amendment, the right reverend Prelate reminded the Committee of the promises made by the Conservative Party in the run-up to the general election. I want to refer to that promise again, writ large in its manifesto, which was to always protect the benefits for the most disabled. Despite that promise, the Bill before us does not fully protect people with life-limiting illnesses such as motor neurone disease and other similar rapidly progressing ghastly conditions. Either the words in the manifesto say what they mean and mean what they say or they do not. As of this moment, these promises are not being kept. Going some of the way is what has happened in the Bill—and some of the way is not fully protecting, and is not always protecting, benefits for the most disabled. Unless this amendment is agreed, or the Government come forward at Third Reading with something to produce the same outcome, they will have failed to keep that manifesto promise. I do not believe that is good enough in a modern, civilised society, where people with life-limiting illnesses should not be expected to suffer any more financial hardship than is the inevitable consequence of their illness.

People with motor neurone disease frequently end up having to build bedrooms and wet rooms downstairs, adapt furniture and face all sorts of costs. Couples who may have been reasonably comfortably off rapidly find themselves in considerable debt. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham put it:

“Those whom we cannot reasonably expect to support themselves should not be expected to shoulder the burden of austerity”.—[Official Report, 21/12/15; col. 2405.]

The most disabled will lose perhaps more than £250 per annum by 2020 because the basic rate of the employment and support allowance is not exempted. I appreciate that the amendment in my name is rather complicated, but it is a serious attempt to right a potential wrong. If it is too complicated, I do not believe that it is beyond the wit of government to find another formula to produce a result that will give the full protection that is needed.

In Committee, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham expressed the hope that Ministers would give the matter further and serious consideration. The noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park, said in response that benefits,

“are designed to provide a basic standard of living to those who are not in work but at a level that does not disincentivise moving into work”.—[Official Report, 21/12/15; col. 2406.]

People with life-limiting illnesses such as motor neurone disease are not disincentivised from going to work. They cannot go to work—would that they could. There is no behavioural change that people with these dreadful illnesses can make to get back into work. The noble Baroness, Lady Evans, concluded by agreeing that,

“we absolutely must provide suitable protections for disabled people”.—[Official Report, 21/12/15; col. 2407.]

However, she then did not support the amendment. The meaning of “suitable” is very different from the meaning of “full protection”, as was promised in the manifesto. A great many people with life-limiting illnesses, and their organisations such as the Motor Neurone Disease Association, take a great interest in what the Government will now do. I hope the Minister, for whom I have the greatest respect, will be able to say that he will bring something back at Third Reading along the lines of this amendment, which will honour the promise that the Government made in their manifesto in the run-up to the election.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for tabling these amendments. I do not wish to spend too much time restating the same points that were made in Committee so I will keep my remarks brief. First, I address the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, which replace the provisions in the freeze with a duty on the Secretary of State to review the benefits in question, having regard to inflation and the national economic situation.

I remind noble Lords that the provisions in Clauses 9 and 10 contribute £3.5 billion of the £12 billion of welfare savings by 2019-20 that the Government are committed to. The Government have a £35 billion consolidation plan, as the Chancellor set out in the summer Budget and the joint Autumn Statement and spending review, and we are on target to achieve a surplus of around £10 billion by 2019-20. The savings that the freeze provide therefore represent a significant proportion—10%—of the work that remains to be done through this Parliament to restore the nation’s finances.

Noble Lords have argued that these amendments would merely place a review on the freeze rather than remove it altogether, but they would remove the certainty provided by a legislated-for four-year freeze. This would lead to increased uncertainty about where the Government intend to find the necessary savings to restore the nation’s finances and could decrease market confidence in the Government’s ability to deliver their target surplus by 2019-20. Noble Lords have also raised concerns about the impact of this freeze. I reiterate that there are no cash losers to this policy and that inflation is still forecast, by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, to be relatively low over the next two years, providing time for benefit recipients to adjust their finances to compensate. Furthermore, OBR forecasts at the Autumn Statement projected average earnings growth of around 3.9% by 2020, higher than projected inflation at around 2%, meaning many working families can expect to see the impact of the freeze offset by their rise in earnings. The annual average income of the poorest fifth of households has risen by £300 in real terms, compared to 2007-8.

I turn to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie of Culkein, regarding employment and support allowance. This amendment seeks to place into legislation a requirement for the support group component of ESA to be uprated by an additional amount above the amount it would otherwise be uprated by. This additional amount would be equal to the difference between the current main rate of ESA and that rate if it were uprated by inflation. I should remind noble Lords that, as said in Committee, those in the ESA support group receive an additional amount on top of the personal allowance—the support group component—which we have specifically exempted from the benefits freeze. Furthermore, the enhanced disability and severe disability premiums within ESA are also exempt from the freeze, as are benefits which contribute towards some of the additional costs of disability such as disability living allowance and personal independence payment.

Noble Lords will be aware that spending on main disability benefits went up by over £2 billion over the course of the last Parliament, and that the proportion of those in relative poverty who live in a family where someone is disabled has fallen since 2010. We believe that we are continuing to provide important protections for the most disabled through the exemptions we have from the freeze, and that this amendment is therefore not required.

In conclusion, the Government believe that the freeze strikes a necessary balance between making important welfare savings while having in place the protections for the most vulnerable and disabled. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her response. If the Government are to be in surplus in 2019-20, why is it necessary for any benefits freeze to extend into that year, whatever the rationale for earlier years? The noble Baroness said that there are no cash losers, but we know what that means: in real terms, people are going to miss out. Specifically, I refer the noble Baroness to my question about what she said in the previous debate about the balance being struck between—in her words—the needs of claimants and affordability. I ask again: how were the needs of claimants assessed in that determination?

The response to my noble friend, who made a compelling case, was deeply disappointing. In any reasonable understanding of language, the commitment made in the manifesto has not been met by how this issue has been dealt with this evening. I ask the noble Baroness to reflect again to see whether the Government could at least come back on the issue raised by my noble friend. As he outlined, those with life-limiting injuries are the most disadvantaged and are missing out. This is simply not fair.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said in relation to the disability element, we have exempted quite a number of elements from the freeze, so we believe that we are ensuring that disabled people continue to get support and that the most vulnerable are protected. In more broad terms, we need to ensure that benefit spending is sustainable in the long term.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Is that it? Given the hour, I think there is no point in pursuing this, except to ask whether, on that point, there is nothing further the Government wish to say to my noble friend Lord MacKenzie in relation to those people who find themselves in the support group and are undoubtedly short-changed by the way that the Government have dealt with this uprating.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have said, we are protecting certain elements of disability benefits. We understand the needs of disabled people which is why, as I set out in my response, a number of elements are being kept outside the freeze. Overall, we have increased spending on the disabled and will obviously continue to try to ensure that they have the support that they need.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, we are clearly not going to make much further progress this evening. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment but it is deeply disappointing that this issue of the support group has been dealt with in this way.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 10, Schedule 1, Clauses 11 to 25, Schedule 2, Clauses 26 to 35, Title.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend on the Order Paper.

Motion agreed.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

104BC: Clause 21, page 20, line 23, after “began” insert “at or”

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the government amendments which are largely technical in nature and stem from issues that have been raised with us. The amendments seek to improve the drafting of the Bill and ensure that the policy can be implemented smoothly. We also intend that they will be helpful to social housing providers. I am aware that my noble friend had helpful meetings with your Lordships before Christmas to explain the purpose of these amendments. I will now seek to put that forward to the House.

Amendment 104BC is a minor technical amendment. It closes a small gap in the drafting of the provisions to bring into the scope of Clause 21 any tenancies that began at,

“the beginning of 8 July 2015 but less than 12 months before the beginning of the first relevant year”.

Under Clause 22, we have set out some exceptions to the policy. The purpose of the exceptions in Clause 22(2) and (3), and the equivalents in Schedule 2, is to protect the value of stock held by social sector landlords, to provide confidence to the financial sector and to ensure that providers can continue to use their stock as security for borrowing.

Amendments 108B to 108D and Amendments 110C to 110E improve the drafting of those exceptions and clarify that they apply to the registered provider’s interest in the property only if the relevant steps are taken for the purpose of enforcing the lender’s rights under the security as intended. They also clarify that for the purpose of these exceptions, where a registered provider appoints an administrator, this is a step to enforce security.

We have brought forward Amendment 110F in response to concerns regarding the potential for practical implementation difficulties in certain circumstances. The new clause, “Implied terms”, is intended to help social housing providers to comply more easily with the requirement for rent reductions for social tenants. The amendment overrides any provision of individual tenancy agreements that may prevent providers varying the tenancy agreement to reduce rents on the most appropriate annual timescales. This is a somewhat technical amendment, so it may help if I provide some background in order that its purpose, which is to assist providers, can be better understood.

The Bill requires social providers to reduce by at least 1% the rents payable by their individual tenants over each of four relevant years. Each provider has a single relevant year, which, as a general rule, will run from April to March. However, a private registered provider with an established practice of co-ordinated rent years for the majority of its tenants may choose instead to use that period as its relevant year. If there is no clear majority the default is that the provider must use 1 April.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has just said. He is right to say that the process of this particular measure and its sections through its various parliamentary stages has been less than best practice. Of course, it is not the Minister’s fault; I think that the Committee is grateful to her for her concise explanation of what these amendments seek to do, and it is agreed that they are, by and large, improvements. However, having substantial bits of policy of the kind covered by the sections and amendments that we are dealing with this evening in a summer Budget Statement, with no prospect of any consultation beforehand—an ex cathedra Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and then a long Summer Recess where everybody tries to work out what on earth it all meant—is not a good way of producing legislation.

It does not surprise me that there was a degree of confusion at the Commons Committee stages and that we are now faced at this quite late stage with admittedly helpful amendments. However, they are technical and they need consideration, because they increase the corpus of housing law and make things more complicated. Not only does the primary legislation make it more complicated; it will spawn secondary legislation. This House will no doubt look forward to studying it in great detail, larding and littering the statute book with consequential changes, including protecting mortgagees, implied terms in leases—which is always dangerous; from a legal point of view, implication by statutory legislation is never a good thing—and transitional protection, which may well be necessary. But at this stage I think it is appropriate for the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the Committee to say to the Minister that housing Bills and measures of this kind should be done properly. Consultation and Green Papers are always an advantage. If we had had a Green Paper in relation to these clauses, some of the difficulties that the Minister faced in introducing these amendments could have been avoided and could be avoided in future.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank both noble Lords for their contributions and take note of the points that they raised. In specific relation to the draft regulations, we will be putting out information on our detailed intentions in due course, and I will look at what more information can be provided at Report.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Can I just press the Minister a bit to say what “in due course” means? Can we narrow that timeline a bit? For example, is it likely to occur before we get to Report?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said, we will look at what information we can provide for Report; I am afraid that I cannot go further than that.

Amendment 104BC agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kerslake]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 110A and 110B. I am conscious that we are reaching the end of a long process, so I shall keep my remarks short. These amendments go to a specific issue that needs addressing. They focus on giving flexibility and excepting social rent reductions for two types of new supplier: affordable rent suppliers and social tenancies. That does not address the whole of the issue that I spoke about earlier because the social housing model involves cross-subsidy. When housing associations look at new supply, they look at two things: their investment plan’s overall viability and the viability of individual schemes. For schemes that are less profitable and more marginal, rent is crucial.

There is shared recognition in this House about the need for new supply of all types, including social housing. By giving flexibility by excepting new supply from the rent reduction policy and giving flexibility in the starting rates for these properties, it is very likely that some schemes that would have been put on the back-burner because of viability will go ahead. These amendments will cost very little because new supply is less than 2% of existing stock and therefore the cost in terms of benefits is very small, and the gain, in terms of new supply at the margin, will be considerable. These are two small amendments that will address the issue of new supply, give flexibility at local level to make decisions on rents and tip schemes that would otherwise not have been viable into viability and enable them to be built.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I shall start by addressing Amendment 110, which was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. It would in effect reverse the summer Budget measure of applying a four-year freeze to housing benefit local housing allowance rates from 2016-17.

Between 2000 and 2010, expenditure on housing benefit doubled in cash terms, reaching £21 billion per year. If left unreformed, by 2014-15 housing benefit would have cost taxpayers £26 billion per year. This measure to freeze local housing allowance rates for four years will build on the reforms introduced in the last Parliament, which saved £4 billion and continue to deliver savings of around £2 billion a year. Savings from freezing local housing allowance rates are estimated to be around £655 million for Great Britain over the four-year period of the measure.

I will set out the process for setting the local housing allowance rates and what we already do to monitor the levels in comparison with market rates. Within DWP, local housing allowance rates are monitored each year to assess any divergences between the rates and local rents. Each autumn, the rent officer services provide DWP with rental data for all broad rental market areas for the 12 months up to the end of September. This is used to review the rates, and in the past two years has been the basis for identifying which rates should be increased by the targeted affordability funding.

If any changes are needed to secondary legislation, such as setting out a schedule of which areas and rates might be increased by the targeted affordability funding, they need to be carried out during the autumn and laid before Parliament, observing the requisite timescales before the amendments come into force before the LHA determination date at the end of January each year.

I should add that the Secretary of State has the power to review the local housing allowance rates or to provide in regulations for the maximum housing benefit to be an amount other than these rates. These powers have been in place since the LHA scheme was introduced and were reinforced in the Welfare Reform Act. Noble Lords will be aware that this measure has already passed through secondary legislation and been agreed by the Delegated Legislation Committee in the other place. The order was not prayed against by Members of this House and was therefore not subject to a debate. I reassure noble Lords that, alongside the LHA rate, we will continue to publish at the end of January, as we have done previously, the 30th percentile of market rates in each area. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about his figures. They are broadly right in terms of the figures that he asked about.

The first step is for a provider to determine what would have been the rate of formula rent for that social housing—I apologise to noble Lords; I do not think this is quite right. I have not responded to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. Typically for me, I appear to be missing a page. I will now turn to Amendments 110A and 110B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. I am grateful to him for bringing forward these amendments and giving me the opportunity to explain to the Committee the approach that the Government are taking regarding rent-setting for new tenancies.

Schedule 2 to the Bill sets out how maximum rent should be determined during the four years of rent reductions for tenancies that were not in place at the beginning of 8 July 2015. Different rules apply to existing and new social housing and affordable-rent housing, and they are set out in paragraphs 1 to 3 of Schedule 2 respectively. Rents for new social housing, excluding affordable-rent housing, may be set up to the social-rent rate. It may be helpful for me to explain in slightly more detail how the social-rent rate is calculated, which is set out in the Bill in paragraph 1(4) of Schedule 2. The first step is for a provider to determine what would have been the rate of formula rent for that social housing at the beginning of 8 July 2015. The Government’s intention is to set that out in regulations that will mirror the formula for 2015-16, as set out in the rent standard guidance and the Government’s guidance for rent. In this way we have sought to make the 1% rent-reduction policy work in a similar way to existing policy in so far as we can.

Noble Lords will be aware that formula rent takes into account relative property values and local earnings, the size of the property and an overall rent cap. Local circumstances are therefore taken into account in determining what the rate of formula rent is. Once determined, the social-rent rate is found by then applying the appropriate annual reductions. But we do not think it appropriate to continue to allow providers of new general-needs housing the flexibility to set rents at up to 5% above formula. That flexibility was only ever intended to be taken up by general-needs housing providers on an exceptional basis and is now out of step with the Government’s policy for rent reductions, which necessitates a more tightly-controlled approach. As I have explained, the social-rent rate will be closely aligned to the previous formula-rent policy, which took into account local conditions. Local property values and local earnings are in fact built into the formula.

For new tenancies of affordable-rent housing, paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 provides that the rent payable by that tenant should be set at no more than 80% of the amount that would be the market rent for that property, and that in the following years a 1% per annum reduction to that maximum rent applies. But this is a maximum rent, and guidance regarding other factors of rent setting, including local factors, remains in place. Housing which may be let on the affordable-rent basis will be identified as such by regulations under paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the Bill, and I can be clear that our intention is that this will reflect existing policy regarding properties that may be let at an affordable rent.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Monday 21st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 70, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, seeks to require the Government to report on the adequacy of the funds provided to local authorities to support troubled families. We believe that the best way to judge the adequacy of the funding will be in the outcomes that the programme achieves. Our report will ensure that the Government remain transparent in publishing the progress made by families supported by the programme. This amendment, therefore, is not necessary.

The Government have committed to funding the new, expanded troubled families programme. In the spending review 2015, funding of £720 million was allocated for the remaining four years. Of course, the new programme also aims to incentivise local authorities to reprioritise existing resources to achieve better outcomes for families with multiple problems. These families are known to local services and money is already spent on them.

As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, there is pressure on funding for children’s services, but we have actually seen local authorities maintaining relatively stable funding in these areas. However, we completely understand that there is pressure, and that is why we are also providing additional resources to change the way services respond to these families to achieve better outcomes.

As a number of noble Lords have said, funding for the new troubled families programme is available to local authorities in three ways. They are provided with a service transformation grant to transform their services and collect evidence for the national evaluation; they receive attachment fees of £1,000, as mentioned, for each family that they agree to work with; and they are able to claim an £800 results payment once one of these families achieves significant and sustained progress.

Of course, noble Lords will be well aware that the real financial prize, as a number of noble Lords have said, is the long-term change that we make to these families’ lives. It is not the money provided by central government, but the cost savings that can be delivered through redesigning their services to deliver better results for complex families with multiple problems and to see those families take control of their lives and move forward. We would certainly expect, as the noble Baroness suggested, local authorities to work together when a family moves from one area to another. It is both in the local authorities’ interest and in the family’s interest, so we would expect the sharing of information.

The programme has been designed to incentivise local services to reprioritise their money and front-line resources away from reactive services towards more integrated, targeted interventions to offer better outcomes for families with high-cost, multiple problems. By responding more effectively to the issues that these families face, the burden placed on local services can be reduced for the long term.

It is also important to remember that we are talking about a programme that has a track record of success. As the noble Baroness said, the original programme achieved success with about 116,000 families struggling with a multitude of problems. This could not have been achieved if the right services had not been in place. As with the original programme, the Government have asked local authorities to provide information that will enable us to assess its impact. This includes understanding what is being spent on families and the savings that are being achieved through local cost-benefit analysis. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked whether this would increase the burden on local authorities. We do not believe that it will, because local authorities have already agreed to supply this information as part of the national evaluation of the expanded programme. Furthermore, they themselves receive valuable analyses of the programmes to help them drive improvement to their services.

Amendment 71, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, seeks to require the report of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to include information on the types of interventions families receive and whether they are successful. DCLG has always recommended that families should be supported through a whole-family approach to achieve positive outcomes, but it does not mandate a specific type of intervention. This is because we believe that, to work effectively, local authorities need the flexibility to adapt their approach to their local area and to each family they work with. There are no set or standard interventions that are universally applied by or across local authorities: each intervention is specific to each family. Given this necessary flexibility, the effectiveness of the programme will be measured through the outcomes it achieves with families rather than the individual intervention that it uses.

The duty to report, as it stands, already ensures that the Government are held to account on the effectiveness of the programme through publishing annual information on the progress made by families. To make progress, families will have received effective support from local authorities and their partners. The report will include information on this.

It may also be worth noble Lords noting that the report Parliament will receive annually on the troubled families programme will be based on the national evaluation of the expanded programme and the payment by results achieved by local authorities. The national evaluation will provide information about the progress of families against the six headline problems that the programme seeks to address.

The noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, asked about data matching, which was used by local authorities in the original programme in relation to outcomes. They used data sets to track and monitor the progress of families. However, the fact that they used data in this way should not imply a lack of support for families. Every family that it was claimed had been turned around made real progress following support from local services. This is checked through the councils’ internal audit process before they can claim a results payment.

On the Guardian report that the noble Baroness mentioned, that was based on something of a misunderstanding of the programme. The programme certainly encourages services to join up and offer better support for families with multiple problems through redesigning their approach to providing support, and we advocated a family-style intervention approach, but that is not the only approach. The Guardian looked only at a certain subsection of families who achieved support through the programme in this particular way, rather than the large number of families helped through a whole variety of different approaches.

On the basis of the information I have provided, I ask noble Lords to withdraw Amendment 70 and not move Amendment 71.

[Lord Beecham]

Could the noble Baroness indicate whether it is intended to have longitudinal studies of the programme and, if so, what kind of period we might look at? Secondly, are the Government encouraging—perhaps they are; I ask out of ignorance—peer review between different authorities carrying out projects of this kind? That would seem particularly helpful given the range of problems faced.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I believe that the full scope of the reports has yet to be decided. I am certainly happy to take back those two suggestions to the department.

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this short debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and my noble friend Lord Beecham for their support.

We heard a lot of emphasis on evaluation. When the Minister takes this back to the department, I urge her to reflect a bit more carefully on that. I was a little concerned that, towards the end of her remarks, she seemed to imply that we do not need to assess either quality or funding because if the outcomes work it must have been okay. The question I would raise is that of causality. We are dealing here with very complex situations. Essentially, a family that is already engaged with lots of agencies and that may have multiple problems is an organic and dynamic unit—coming in and going out all the time. To assume, because it started at X and ended at Y, that what happened must have been the right thing is a very central government assumption and a slightly risky one in the circumstances.

I ask her to take that back, along with the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Beecham about longitudinal studies and peer review, to try to think very carefully about how we can capture the learning. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, the point of these programmes is that what one authority does may not be the best thing for another authority. It depends on the circumstances, as my noble friend Lord Beecham described.

I also take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, about terminology. Certainly, when I was on the riots panel I talked to a number of families who felt that being stigmatised got in the way of their trying to deal with things. It was not that they did not know they had problems; it was just that everybody constantly telling them that they had problems did not help. They wanted help to get themselves out of those problems, not to be branded. We need to find a way to ensure that that does not happen. I encourage the Government to think some more on that.

I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Beecham for pointing out to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer—whose interest in this subject I recognise—how many local authorities are struggling with funding, especially in the poorest areas where so many of these families will be. We need to be aware of that. I am grateful for the subject having been aired in this debate and I hope that the Government will come back to us on this on a regular basis. Given that, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, I support these three amendments. I do not wish to repeat what has already been said but the passion of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, echoes in my heart because I, too, am deeply concerned by the impact these freezes will have on the poorest.

Most of us were delighted when the Chancellor of the Exchequer decided in the spending review that the national economic situation meant that we could, after all, as a nation afford not to make the previously determined cuts in tax credits. If this House had not voted the way it did, I presume he would not necessarily have been given the opportunity so to reassess in the light of the national economic situation. If the Bill is passed as it stands, the Chancellor has no option but to enact a freeze for the next four years.

While accepting that welfare spending must be controlled, we need to look very seriously at the impact on the poorest. I do not want to see the Chancellor’s hands tied to a freeze if the national economic situation continues to improve as forecast, or perhaps even more significantly. Suppose it does: who should be the beneficiaries? Surely, it should be the poorest. If the economic situation improves in 2017 and the Chancellor realises that actually, the nation could afford a slightly higher rate of child benefit or other benefits, that is what he should allow—not give it to people already perfectly well off because we earn enough. As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said, austerity, frankly, is not hitting large numbers of us. Surely, then, the Chancellor should value the freedom to once again say, “Well, we didn’t think we would be able to afford this but the national economic situation is better than expected so we are delighted to be able to offer a small—or perhaps large—amount of extra support for the well-being of children and the most needy in our country”. Does the Minister not think that would be a good position for the Chancellor to be in, rather than having to stick with a freeze without exception?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock and Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for these amendments. I will first set out why we believe a four-year freeze of certain social security benefits, child benefit and elements of working tax and child tax credits is necessary.

In total, measures to freeze benefits and tax credits are projected to contribute £3.5 billion of the £12 billion welfare savings the Government are committed to by 2019-20. The Government need to make these savings to reduce the deficit and to manage welfare spending. Spending on welfare increased by 54% in real terms between 1999 and 2010, and tax credit expenditure more than trebled over the same period. Despite the progress made in the last Parliament to increase incentives to work and reduce reliance on benefits, there is still more to do.

Some 7% of global expenditure on social protection is spent in the UK, despite the fact that the UK has only 1% of the world’s population. Between 2008 and 2015, average earnings rose by 12%, and the minimum wage increased by 17%. At the same time, benefits such as jobseekers’ allowance increased by 21% and the individual element of child tax credit rose by 33%. The benefit freeze will begin to reverse this trend. However, we are clear that we must continue to protect the most vulnerable. That is why we ensured that certain benefits are exempted from the freeze, such as pensioner benefits, benefits which contribute to the additional costs of disability and care, and statutory payments.

Concerns have been raised about the level of benefit rates after three years of 1% rises, to now be followed by four years of the freeze. Successive Governments have always sought to strike a balance between the needs of claimants and affordability, and I can reassure noble Lords that when introducing this freeze we have had due regard to these issues, but we believe we have struck a balance that protects certain key benefits and generates the savings I have set out.

There are no cash losers with this policy, and the continued growth in wages will help to mitigate the impact of the freeze for working families. The OBR expects wage growth to reach 3.9% by 2020. Around 30% of households will face a notional loss but, as I have said, the other things we are doing in the broader economy should go some way to mitigate it, and I will go through a couple of them in a second. We have also fully assessed the Bill’s impacts on equality and the wider budget meeting our obligations, as set out in the public sector equality duty.

The purpose of the amendments is to replace the freeze with a duty on the Secretary of State to review those benefits, having regard to inflation and the national economic situation. This Government’s overall approach is to give a level of certainty to taxpayers, employees and benefit claimants. As well as setting out the four-year freeze, we have also set out a clear plan to raise the national living wage to £9 an hour by 2020, to increase the tax-free personal allowance to £12,500 by the end of the decade and to double the free childcare available for working parents of 3 year-olds and 4 year-olds to 30 hours a week, which is worth £5,000 a year. The amendments would take away the certainty that we are attempting to implement, and for that reason we cannot support them.

The noble Baroness asked what happens after the four-year period.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

The Minister has said that this is very helpful to benefit recipients because they now have certainty that their benefit will fall in real terms, as opposed to the possibility that it might keep pace with the cost of living. Would she care to correct her statement?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I have said that we have had to make some difficult decisions.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

Difficult for whom? To use the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, I suspect that every Member of this House is protected from the difficult decisions. The difficult decisions will fall on those people who will have to choose whether to turn off their heating or pay their rent.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said, by being upfront about the freeze, we are trying to ensure that people in receipt of these benefits understand that that will be the situation over the next four years. We are taking numerous other measures, including the national living wage and the childcare changes, to try to help these families in other ways. That is what we are doing with this freeze, and I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. I thank my noble friend Lady Lister and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for highlighting the difficulties that the Government must have in understanding the implications of their decisions, since looking forward four years they have no way of knowing what economic conditions will prevail and what will happen to inflation.

I particularly want to thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham for making a very obvious point: that when this House voted on tax credits, the Chancellor was in position to make a difference. The reason why he was able to overturn that decision was that he found £27 billion down the back of the sofa. It is not impossible that there might be some more money down the sofa, if he shakes it hard enough. It is not impossible that, if all the boasts the Government make about the marvellous things happening to the economy come to pass, a couple of years down the line he may find the economic situation is looking good. If the economy is growing again, he may want to reconsider his decision not to share the proceeds of that growth with the poorest in our country. Why on earth would he want to tie his hands?

I would put money on it that if I asked the poorest people affected by this whether they would rather have the certainty of benefits falling in real terms year on year, or keep open the possibility that they will rise if the economy improves, most would be willing to take a chance—unless the Government are suggesting they would in fact cut them. All this amendment does is to allow the Government, if they wish to do so, to have exactly the same savings in four years’ time, but it would make them do two things. Every year, they would have to come back and look the country in the face, via this House, look at what people have to live on and explain their decision, and they would have to account for it. All they would have to do is to put it to both Houses of Parliament every year. What are they afraid of? People out there have suffered enough. The very least the Government can do is stand up for themselves. Given that we are in Committee, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.