Education Bill
Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Morris of Yardley
My Lords I have no difficulty or disagreement with anything that anyone has said so far. I very much agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said, shortly before the Division, and I did not disagree with what the Minister said.
My problem is that it is almost as if the Government have launched a press release saying, “No change”, and therefore expect change. It has always puzzled me what drives teacher behaviour or teacher perception. As the Minister said, this is not new legislation. It has never been illegal to put a sticking plaster on a child, hold on to a child’s arm to the front or rear of the queue, or to hold a child’s arm while practising the violin. My only criticism is that to table an amendment—I appreciate that it is a probing one—saying that we should have rules allowing you to do those things almost implies that we have rules saying that we cannot do those things.
I have two points. First, does the Minister believe that this guidance will change anything? I am not sure that it will. It is not the first time that the teaching profession has been given guidance and reassurances that it can do these things and that they are not against the law. What deeper understanding does the Minister have of what is driving teacher behaviour and public perception? It is not as if teachers have not had assurances in the past that they would not be hauled over the coals if they behaved in that way. There is a danger in putting together in guidance touching which is natural and instinctive and touching which could be totally wrong and a threat to children. The trouble is that we have not been successful in marking the difference between the two. I am not confident that the guidance being offered today will do anything more than the guidance that previous Governments gave out. Indeed, I may have given out some myself; I cannot remember, but it certainly had no impact.
Secondly, there is a lesson to be learnt. People who are not in government are sometimes tempted to give the impression that certain things are illegal and guidance says that you cannot do them. We ought not to play that game because we then become accomplices at creating a false impression. The problem is that there is a false impression out there that teachers cannot do these things. However, they have always been able to do them, and it is right that they should.
Will the Minister say something about the guidance? It could even be the same press release, who knows? How can we have any faith? I am not being critical because I did not solve the problem either, but what else can be done to get the message across?
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, perhaps I may help the noble Baroness, which would be unusual from my position to hers. The Minister sent me a most useful document, Customer Voice Research: Behaviour and Discipline Powers in Schools, for which I thank him very much. It is extremely helpful to me in my arguments, I fear, in several places. As regards powers of discipline, a teacher commented that she was completely,
“unaware … of the ‘main powers’ available to teachers”.
Teachers say, for example, that the powers sound “really antiquated”. They have said, “I don’t understand it”, and,
“I don’t feel confident that the Head would back me up”,
if I was to do this. It seems to me that this is about knowledge, culture and leadership, and not about legislation. We should not be legislating for executive powers; we should be legislating for strategic options, the things which I have just mentioned.
Lord Moynihan
My Lords, my friend in sport, my noble friend Lady Massey, will not be surprised to see me rise to address the subject of sport in the context of Amendment 74, particularly in respect of a brief but important issue.
In subsection (2) of the proposed new clause to be inserted by Amendment 74, my noble friend uses the phrase “for teaching physical skills”. As he knows, and as I am sure the Committee knows, physical skills cover cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, co-ordination, agility, speed, balance and—from memory—accuracy. However, I think that my noble friend is focusing on sport and recreation in schools. Sport requires participants to compete in physical activities and we should also cover recreation.
Standardising the language in legislation is extremely important. I hope that if my noble friend withdraws his amendment and brings it back later, he will focus on ensuring that, in this and in all contexts, we are talking about sport and recreation in schools. It is very important that recreation should be included to encourage dance, for example, among young people in schools, and not just competitive sport and the traditional sports. In that context, I simply offer that brief observation to my noble friend, who I hope will consider it when he is considering his reaction to the Government’s reply.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I was going to make some comments on the content of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, but I am struggling, as I gather are other noble Lords. I know that we got rather a lot of e-mails this morning in rather a hurry but I do not believe that I have seen the e-mail referred to by the noble Lord. This raises a wider question. Here we are trying to scrutinise legislation properly, but how on earth can we get involved in a debate when we are debating blind assurances that the noble Lord has been given that we do not appear to have seen? Forgive me if it is somewhere in the ether and I should have received the e-mail by now.
The comment that I should like to make—and which this infamous e-mail might answer—is that the amendment is very stark. I suppose that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that teachers do not go into teaching to fail. The onus should be concentrated far more on identifying what has gone wrong and identifying support mechanisms than on simply setting out provisions such as those in the amendment for the disciplinary measures to be taken against an individual. Somehow the context is missing, although it may be that the Government have now provided it.
My only other point is that, as I said, teachers do not go into teaching to fail, but there should be a requirement on all teachers, not just those who are struggling, to get involved in continuous professional development. Under this amendment, if all else fails, we will get them to do some extra training. It should be a requirement for all teachers at all times to update their skill-set. Those are my only comments, but it would be interesting to see this e-mail. Perhaps we can have the opportunity to come back and make further comments when we have seen it.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I want to comment briefly and probably will be told off by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in his summing up, but I do not know why we are debating this at all. If I was sitting on one of my boards I would be saying that this is an executive matter and not a governance or policy matter. If I look at the amendment and think about the number of disciplinary procedures that I have had to write, and the number of development programmes in which I have had to be involved, I can see all the difficulties and loopholes that this would lead to in terms of the present HR legislation and the difficulties that people would face trying to implement it. Not having seen the famous e-mail, I do not know whether it answers these questions. However, I would respectfully say to my colleagues that these sorts of issues are much better not dealt with in legislation.
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood
My Lords, lest my noble friend think that she is on her own, I am with her.
Children: Parenting
Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
Yes, my Lords, I take that point. The right reverend Prelate will know of the Ofsted report that referred to three-quarters of PSHE education in schools being good or outstanding, but it also pointed out that there were some other areas of weakness. As I have already said, part of the review that the department will carry out, which I hope will benefit from the views of outside and expert opinion, is precisely to look at the kind of support that needs to be provided to help teachers provide good quality PSHE.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that in the past two years the number of children before the courts has doubled, that the number of children in care is increasing and that the accommodation and opportunities for children in care are decreasing. With that scenario in mind, what else does he hope to do to ensure that children from poor families, whose choices will be even more limited, get the education that they need so that they do not repeat that cycle?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, there is a range of measures that the Government need to take, starting with our response to the early years, which will be coming shortly, the provision of the 15-hour free entitlement to two year-olds, the increase of that to 15 hours for three and four year-olds and the introduction of the pupil premium. Then there is what we can do to raise standards in our schools, which is clearly vital because we know the connection between failure at school, illiteracy and life going off the rails. There is a range of measures that we need to take across the board.
Education Bill
Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, we seem to have hit an area where it would be helpful if we take this away, look at the detail of the arrangements and write to members of the Committee. The position at the moment appears to lack some clarity. We will write.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
When the Minister writes, will she tell us the principle behind this? Some of us are anxious that we are going to move towards a position where anyone can teach in any school without appropriate qualifications. We hope that is not the Government’s position and so look forward to that being clarified in the Minister’s reply.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
I shall speak briefly to this amendment and to this clause. I am motivated in large part by the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood. I wrestled with this subject as a Minister and came under a lot of pressure to bring in a clause such as Clause 13. My judgment at the time was that it would be a slippery slope—the slippery slope that has been described by the noble Lord—and that it would start to include an awful lot of people. The NSPCC put the argument very strongly that we should not go down the road in Clause 13 and that it would be better for children if we put pressure on the enforcement authorities to get on with it and bring cases to justice where there was a case to be put. I was pleased that we managed to get some agreement from the Association of Chief Police Officers to accelerate things. It will be interesting if the Minister has any information about whether that genuinely accelerated things or whether the Minister was just told that it accelerated things.
Probably that is where my instincts lie. A better way of dealing with things is that the police should not feed information to the press and that they should get on with prosecution if that is what needs to be done. Then the blight that can affect professionals in schools as a result of false allegations can be lifted very quickly because there is no doubt of the seriousness of the problem for some individuals.
However, if we are going to have Clause 13, I support the amendments put by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. If you are going to give this protection to people who work in schools, you need to give this protection to all people who work in schools. These days, we see support staff, in particular, doing a range of work. In a lot of cases, it is support staff who are doing one-to-one work in schools, not the higher-qualified person, who is left to deal with the majority.
If there is a case to be made for teachers, there has to be a case made for support staff. The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, made a very strong case in respect of FE colleges, which are starting to educate under-16s. I suppose I am trying to be slightly consensual in saying that I understand and, in the end, kind of agree that I am sceptical about Clause 13 but, if we are going to do it, let us do it properly.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
I had hoped to support the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, but I am not sure whether he is going to speak now or later. I shall add to what the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said because I, too, believe that this is a question of process rather than of principle. I have talked to the Minister about this before. If we could get the issues dealt with quickly, then we would be able to avoid having to have this kind of clause. I speak as someone who has not only dealt with many victims of abuse—I want to come on to that issue in a moment—but has also supported members of the social work profession who have been faced by unproven, unsubstantiated and quite serious allegations. Having been a director in a child abuse case, I understand all the shock and pain that brings when it happens. It is the same sort of emotion that you feel about not being responsible for what you are being accused of. It is a terrible time for the individual and their family, but if we can get this process speeded up, that pain will be lessened, and we can get on with it.
I agree with the noble Lord who pointed out that we should not deal with the principle in a different way because we have a process problem. The principle must surely be that when an allegation has been made, it must be transparently investigated. I say this because not only have I dealt with people who have been falsely accused, but I have dealt with more young people than most people in this room who have been abused and who have had to face the process themselves. It is a terrible time for the young people when there are delays because they are faced with having to keep their evidence in their mind, they are going to be cross-examined in disciplinary proceedings and if it goes further than that, they are going to find themselves in court. That is another reason for the process to be speeded up.
However, I think the legislation as it stands at the moment is unworkable. I say this because, particularly if you have a situation where there is residential care alongside education—and I declare an interest as a patron of Livability which has a number of schools with both on the premises—what if you have two people accused at the same time? Will one of them find themselves free from publicity and the other one be thrown to the wolves and to the press? Unless the Government think that through, we will have a series of totally untenable situations. I think it is especially difficult in the present climate to talk about not having transparency in these situations when the Government are allowing the press into the family justice system. There are very strong feelings among families that find themselves and their situation in the press, albeit anonymously, when they find that the teacher who they think has harmed their child is protected. We have all sorts of muddled principles developing.
If this legislation is passed, it will weaken safeguarding. One of the things I know from many situations involving young people is that when one speaks out, it gives a voice to others. We know that an individual child’s voice in a court or in disciplinary proceedings is a very small voice. We know that when other young people come forward because one person has been brave enough to do so, you have much more hope of getting your case together. Even then, those of us who work with young people before the court as victims know that you are very unlikely to get a conviction without a great deal of effort and support. You have much more hope of doing so if you have a number of young people. To those people who say that groups of children come forward to make these allegations, research will tell you that there are very few situations where a group of children comes forward and they all tell exactly the same story that cannot be seen through. The lawyers among us will know that. If you talk to children and young people, as I have done, if they are making up a fairy story, you get it in one. If they tell you the story is the true story, then it follows through.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Knight, I am concerned because it is very difficult for people who are faced with these allegations, but the unforeseen consequences of not making them transparent are huge, and I think we should continue to make sure that our children’s needs are paramount, not the adult’s needs.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I normally find myself 100 per cent in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland. However, picking up the last point that she made, I am comforted by the fact that the legislation makes it possible for the police to apply to a court for the restriction to be set aside if they feel that publicising the name of the accused person will enable them better to make their case by encouraging other abused children to come forward. I trust the wisdom of the court in that situation.
As regards school staff, my noble friend Lord Storey has just pointed out to me that certain highly-qualified teaching support staff are allowed to be fully in charge of a class without a teacher being present for up to two days, so they are in exactly the same position as teachers. All these issues make it all the more important that the Government consider our Amendment 75A, which asks them to have another look at this measure a couple of years after it has been introduced to ensure that it is not protecting abusers or allowing the names of innocent people who have had allegations made against them to be dragged through the dirt in the press. I am sure that that is sufficient time to enable the Government to make a sensible decision about whether the measure goes too far or does not go far enough.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
The difficulty about the police applying to a court is that they will not know that there are other issues on which to move forward if other children do not come forward. That is the problem. Children come forward because they know that something is happening. The police consider that situation, and then they apply to the court. If they do not have that information, they will not apply.
Lord Black of Brentwood
My Lords, I wish to deal with an important point in this regard. My noble friend rightly says that the court has the power to lift a restriction on an application, but the legislation directs the court to have specific regard to the,
“welfare of the person who is the subject of the allegation”.
That is a very dangerous measure. My noble friend Lord Phillips will be moving amendments on this matter in the next group, but it is not as straightforward as just going to the court, as the court could already have a predetermined view.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
I am really sorry, but can I gently express my incredulity that we can say that teachers are in a different position from, say, care staff? Those care staff find themselves in a parental role with all the discipline and, often, the actual physical contact which that involves from all the aggro that you get when you are dealing with adolescents in the parental role—adolescents who have often failed to be contained in their own family. Are they in a less vulnerable position than teachers? I do not particularly want to extend this but I cannot see the logic at all of saying that this is a special position for teachers, because they are responsible for discipline in schools, when you have care staff in residential establishments— some of them very large residential schools—who in fact find themselves with even greater contact. I would like the Minister to look at that. I still do not understand how a teacher who may be in a residential institution and a care member of staff might both be accused of the same offence, yet one can be protected and the other cannot. I do not necessarily want the Minister to answer at this moment but I would really like him to take this away because it will make his legislation unworkable.
Lord Elton
Without going into the broader field just raised, would my noble friend perhaps look within the school confines, which is what he is addressing here? It seems to me that classroom support staff, who may spend two days at a time in sole charge of a class, are in a position so analogous to that of teachers that they could perhaps be separated from the remainder of the staff for the purposes of this legislation. I realise that, as they more rarely have sole responsibility for the children, they are less at risk but it seems that the risk, although less, is just as real and the damage could be just as great.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I shall speak extremely briefly as the noble Lord, Lord Black, has made a number of the points that I was going to make. I wish to make three points. First, given the debate that took place in the Commons, I seek reassurance that parents and children who share information between themselves will not fall foul of the provision regarding publication. That provision has dangers attached to it but also strengths because, if this legislation is passed, they will be able to share information and ascertain whether other children have been involved. That is crucial.
Secondly, I suspect that the Minister may say that as regards new Section 141F(5) and the protection of the person who is the subject of the allegation, the children concerned may be covered by the “interests of justice” provision. However, that needs to be made explicit because it will not be understood that the children are protected in the interests of justice when the Bill makes special mention of,
“the person who is the subject of the allegation”.
That is a serious flaw and goes against all the legislation put on the statute book from the Children Act 1989, which was introduced by the Conservatives and made children’s rights paramount, right through to the subsequent legislation introduced by the previous Government.
Thirdly, even if parents wanted to go to court, the present state of legal aid means that they would have no support through the legal aid system to enable them to put their case. Therefore, they are even less likely to do so than might have been the case previously, difficult as such a process is. I support the sensible amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, and the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Black.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I hope that my noble friend the Minister accepts that my noble friends are trying to help the Government produce a good piece of legislation and that he will consider the very thoughtful case made by my noble friend Lord Phillips. In an earlier debate, I said that I was somewhat comforted by the possibility that the police would be able to apply to the court for the restriction to be lifted. However, I take the point that my noble friend Lord Phillips and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, have made that the last few words of new Section 141F(5) skew the position of the court in the direction of the alleged perpetrator and not of the child. Personally, I think it would be a very good idea to take that out.
I am also very convinced by my noble friend's argument about inserting his proposed new paragraph (b)—in Amendment 73HH—into subsection (10) of proposed new Section 141F, so that the restriction could be lifted once the person has resigned or been sacked. I have had a great deal of evidence sent to me by campaigners against child abuse particularly, it has to be said, in relation to independent boarding schools, where of course the opportunities are greater. Very often, however, what my noble friend said is absolutely right: it does happen that it is in the school’s interest to sweep it under the carpet and quietly say, “You go away and resign and we will say no more about it”, because these schools are financial organisations and they will lose money if things get about that dreadful things have happened there.
We really have to be very careful if we are to pass legislation that might encourage that situation or protect those people because I am told that what happens is, yes, they go away from that school but they pop up somewhere else and carry on. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister is most concerned about safeguarding children and, secondly, concerned about innocent teachers who might have allegations maliciously made against them. We somehow have to find the right balance between those two things.
I would say one more thing about what the noble Lord, Lord Black, said. The Human Rights Act asks us to draw a balance between the rights of free speech and the right to privacy of the individual. We have to bear in mind that it is not all in the direction of free speech. The Act talks about the rights to privacy for the individual as well and there, again, we have to create the correct balance.
Education Bill
Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Perry of Southwark
I am not saying that it is true or untrue. The difference—it is very small—is that in the past the appeals panel could insist that the child went back to the school, while the review panel can now simply say, “You got the decision wrong. We ask you to consider again”. The only difference between what a review panel can do and what the previous appeals panel could do is the power to reinstate. In any case, to allow a child to go back into a school when all this process has taken place is a terrible thing for the teacher who asked for the exclusion in the first case, for the governing body which made the decision and supported the head, and for the authority of the head themselves.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
I know what effort heads and teachers make when children are reinstated into schools in difficult circumstances, so I am very pro what is going on; they work very hard. Does the noble Baroness not accept that the child who finds that their case has been upheld but is still told that they are not able to go back to their school would see this as a total injustice? As many of these children are struggling anyway, this simply reinforces their feeling that society is simply not just, so why should they conform and join in with it?
Lord Storey
My Lords, I want to talk about Amendment 47, and then make some general comments on the other amendments. Amendment 47 is clear and concise: it is about the £4,000 fine, which is a blanket fine for all schools. For some schools, that might not seem a lot of money; for others, it is a considerable amount. For a small school—a rural village or a small urban school—it is a significant sum. In my area, there is a secondary school with 10 forms of entry. Next to that is a small Roman Catholic primary school with 101 pupils on roll, I think, and £4,000 equates to that school’s entire literacy and numeracy budget. Down the road, there is a small maintained school, for which £4,000 equates to its entire special needs budget. For a large secondary school, £4,000 is perhaps its promotion budget. We might need to link the sum in a fair and equitable way. On this occasion, one size does not fit all.
I turn to some comments made during the debate. I declare an interest as a head teacher of 25 years. I have never excluded a pupil at all. Why? First, we forget that the important thing is not the end of the process but all the things that you put in place beforehand. As I think I said last week, if you have a robust behaviour management policy, you will involve parents at every stage, and the parents are the greatest way of ensuring that a pupil does not have to be excluded from school.
Having said that, my wife is a secondary teacher in a large inner-city school and I have seen teachers’ careers destroyed by disruptive behaviour. We are not talking about teachers who should not be in the classroom but, because of the circumstances—because of poor leadership, because the other issues have not been put in place—their lives as teachers can be wrecked, as indeed can those of the pupils.
Some of you may recall that I said two things last week. I agreed with a noble Lord opposite who said that any exclusion is a tragedy. I also said, however, that teachers have a right to teach and pupils have a right to learn. Pupils also have a right to ensure that a system is fair and just and they are the first to know if something is not fair. In any school it is the pupils who say, “Hey, sir, that’s not fair” or “Hey, miss, why are we doing this?”. If we have an exclusion policy which is not fair and just, pupils will be the first to see that and that is why I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Walmsley.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for arriving late. Sitting on the M11 was not the best place to be; I would rather have been with all of your Lordships. I wanted to ask a series of questions of the Minister. I regret missing the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, because I always enjoy her speeches on behalf of children. We have just heard that disruptive children are challenged children; they are not very often evil children. However, they can be very difficult. From my time as a director of social services and an assistant director looking after assessment centres where some of the most dangerous and difficult children are contained, I know that there are children who cannot be on the school floor. Those children who destroy classes for teachers and other pupils should not be in school. But those are not the children we are talking about. We do not need to change the legislation for them, and we do not have to change the legislation to make it successful.
One of the points that I was going to make was made eloquently by the noble Lord; that is, in good schools, the work is done beforehand, with the child, with the family and with the involvement of the local community. In my local primary school up in Norfolk, I know that things get done beforehand.
There is of course a great lack of services for some of these children. We know that teachers are crying out for good psychiatric support, psychological assessment and therapeutic support. Those are the areas where we should look if we want to provide for the next generation. However, what concerned me when I was looking through the legislation, apart from its fairness, was how decisions would be made across the country. The Government are setting up a range of new sorts of schools which will be settling their ways of working. What will the criteria for exclusion be? Will the powerful head set the criteria? How will we therefore ensure consistency? Will a child be able to move districts and find that their behaviour gets them excluded in one area but not in another? How will we ensure consistency? If Ofsted will not be inspecting all schools, how will we achieve that balance from one area to another, as we can at the moment?
How will we ensure that an assessment is made by those responsible for children’s education and welfare to understand the circumstances leading to the problem? Who will carry out that assessment across the country? Most of all, what will happen to the children thereafter? We know that some will go to a referral unit. I was a social worker on the ground, if you like, in the days when my kids went off to the sin bin, as they called it. I am not against special provision if it is properly put together, but if it is a constant stream of children moving in and out, with some children not moving at all, I should like to be clear about the basis on which the children are being put together. What worries me most is that the heads of those special units can also exclude children. I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, will express more than anxiety about what happens to children who will often have been in care and are showing difficult behaviour, for all the reasons we know.
I did not want to make a long speech. I simply wanted to ask that series of questions to get a clear picture of how this is going to work by the time we get to Report stage.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I will briefly make three points, unless something else occurs to me as I am on my feet. First, will the Minister tell us how many schools have actually asked for this? I have listened carefully to what the last noble Lord said, but in my three years as Schools Minister no school ever asked me for this power. I would be really interested in what evidence there is for a demand for it.
Secondly, I listened to what the noble Lord said about the fact they we should trust schools and leave it to them to decide whether to use the flexibility that they are being given in this Bill. I refer back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said about schools not necessarily fully understanding the circumstances of some of their pupils’ families; her example was whether or not they have caring responsibilities. I was shocked to talk to some schools where they did not know that parents might be in prison. All sorts of things happen that families do not necessarily want to go around talking about but which affect the nature of the home environment, and would then affect whether it would be appropriate to give a detention without notice on the same day after school.
Finally, on reinforcing the discipline from the school at home, when I was given detentions at the prep and independent private schools that I went to for things like forgetting my towel or—God forbid—being cheeky and a bit mouthy, which I know would shock noble Lords, there was always a letter home that went with the detention. That was always the worst part of the punishment: your parents knew that you had been given a detention. Giving 24 hours’ notice so that your parents are informed of the detention is a really important aspect of linking up the discipline of the school with home. We know that the single most important determinant of the success of a child’s education is the involvement of their parents in that education. I strongly believe that it is really important that we ensure that that linkage through the notice is there in every school.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I wish to follow the noble Lord, Lord Knight, because I found it extraordinarily surprising that this Government, who stand very much for working with and alongside parents and making sure that there is accountability and responsibility at home, can suggest that they would give a detention without informing parents. Having worked with the Minister, Tim Loughton, on other issues and knowing how important it is for the Government that children should be safeguarded, I find it astounding that they can suggest that children can be detained in the evening and be allowed to go home without their parents knowing and without safeguards. I expect better.
Detention is not always about discipline. I got my detention for leaving my French homework on the bus and not producing it.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am the Minister who is in receipt of applications for powers to innovate. I have not been overwhelmed over the last year and a half by applications for powers to innovate. It may be there but the point is that for it to be there it is a more complicated process than it ought to be. Every school would have to apply individually. They apply to officials and officials put up submissions and Ministers decide and opine and then the power to innovate, like Zeus, is given. It is time-limited.
As a way of dealing with the issue, if one accepts that this is a permissive power, as it clearly is, and if you say to schools that all those that might want to use this power have to go through the rather cumbersome and protracted process of applying for a power to innovate, no one will go through the process of applying. They will say that this has been made difficult for them, whereas something that is simple, which gives them the opportunity and which applies to all—to choose either to use or not to use—with safeguards in place, seems a more rational way than making every school try individually.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
Could I respectfully say to the Minister that this is not about powers and process, it is about message. If the message you want to convey is that you want to support schools and head teachers in whatever powers they wish, that is a message that will go out. But it will not be generally helpful in forging relationships between families, communities, parents and schools or indeed between children and their teachers. That is what it is about. It is about ethos and message. A better message is that these powers do exist. I am a strong believer in discipline in schools. Children learn much better if you have discipline. You need these sorts of structures in schools. But it is unhelpful to put into statute something which every speaker in this Room, even those who think we should do something, sees as unsafe and as poor communication with parents. I hope the Government will re-think how they convey that message of support to teachers without putting children into danger.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
Before the noble Baroness sits down, I want to be clear what she is saying. Is she saying it is okay to have short-notice detention and not to tell the parents, because that seems to be the message? That raises all the concerns that people around the Room have raised. By all means have short-notice detention but make sure the parents are told. It seems she is saying it is not necessary. All our amendment is doing is to make sure the parents are told. That is a safeguard—the check and balance that is needed. I have not heard a convincing case why we should not insist that parents are told.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord’s point, which reflects that of my noble friend Lady Massey. These issues should be discussed more openly in the round through personal, social and health education and other discussions that take place in schools. If such bullying happens to them, pupils will then feel safer and more confident in declaring what has happened to them.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I briefly add a point about this being a Forth Bridge issue. It is perpetual and we must work at it all the time. I am interested in what the Government’s strategy for tackling bullying in schools is. The previous Government certainly had a strategy, which I assume the current Government will carry on and build on.
When I was involved with Childline, bullying was the most significant issue for children. I understand that this is still the case now that the NSPCC runs Childline. It came above safeguarding, relationships and issues to do with friends. It had an emotional impact on children. I know this because I spoke personally to hundreds of them over the telephone about their view of themselves, particularly young children from ethnic-minority communities, for whom this was a very confusing issue. More recently, we know that homophobic bullying has become much more rife, with names being called in the playground. Therefore, I recognise that collecting statistics may not be the Government’s way of taking this forward but I should like to hear more about what they are doing strategically. This is not something that needs a plan for today or yesterday; it has to happen all the time.
I remember advising the head of a school in the south of England where a young man had taken his own life. He said, “But we don’t have bullying in this school”. I said that the healthy position was to recognise that every school has bullying, but to have a strategy to deal with it that involves its pupils. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about the strategic position.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, first, like others, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for raising this important issue and, if I may say so, for doing it in a very thoughtful way and getting the debate off to such a good start. He and other noble Lords have described the terrible impact that bullying can have on a child. I agree with him and other noble Lords that schools, pupils, parents and the Government must work together to tackle bullying in schools, and prejudice-based bullying in particular.
We set out in our White Paper, as the noble Lord mentioned, our clear expectation that schools should take a tough and firm stance on all forms of bullying. They should seek to identify what bullying is happening in their school and take steps to support pupils who have been bullied and prevent it happening in future. To support schools, we have issued the guidance to which the noble Lord referred, setting out their legal powers and duties, the principles that underpin the strategies used in successful schools, and the specialist organisations that can provide information to help schools to understand and tackle different types of bullying. This guidance makes it clear that primary legislation, introduced by the previous Government, already requires head teachers to determine measures to prevent all forms of bullying among pupils. The Equality Act 2010 further requires them to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and to consider how they can positively contribute to the advancement of equality and good relations.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said—and I agree with her—bullying is a problem which happens to children and young people in schools on a spectrum of severity and for all sorts of reasons. The noble Lord’s amendment addresses a particular kind of bullying, which is particularly horrid, but if one is on the receiving end of bullying all kinds of bullying feel completely horrid and vile. It is, as has already been explained, a complex issue that is too often hidden from parents and teachers, as noble Lords have said. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that in order to tackle bullying schools must have a good understanding of what is driving bullying in their schools. That is a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, made as well. We need a much broader approach. Schools must also understand the types of bullying that are a problem. It is crucial that they create an environment where pupils know that bullying is not tolerated and feel able to report it where it occurs.
The nature of bullying changes over time. If the noble Lord, Lord Rix, were here, he would talk about the concerns that he and others had about the rise in bullying of disabled children. If we had been here 10 years ago, we probably would not have had a debate about the rise in homophobic bullying. Therefore, understanding the issues and how they change over time is extremely important and will require different action in different schools. I have been told that 35 per cent of bullying goes unreported, so any system that relies on reporting alone cannot give a full picture of what is happening in a school.
The most effective schools use a range of approaches to monitor bullying. They combine evidence from incidents reported with other sources of information, such as anonymous surveys of pupils, surveys of parents and making use of school councils. We want to see more schools take a sophisticated approach that allows them to understand the problems in detail, address them and improve their approach based on evidence of what works. The new, more focused Ofsted framework will encourage schools to do this. Inspectors will have more time to look at how schools address poor behaviour, including bullying. That greater focus will flush out some of these things. The report that Ofsted will produce will provide information to parents about the detail of a school’s approach and how effective it is.
All that having been said, on the specific amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, I fear that there are potential practical pitfalls with requiring all schools to collect and publish information about bullying in one way. That point was alluded to by my noble friend Lady Brinton. Information about bullying is by its nature fairly subjective, and the amount of bullying recorded will not necessarily depend on the amount of bullying taking place. I can envisage a situation where a low number of recorded incidents could mean that a school was exemplary at tackling bullying. Alternatively, it could mean that staff were not aware that it was going on or that children were afraid to report it.
Education Bill
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Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, you will see from the Marshalled List that I added my name to that of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, in his intention to oppose the Questions that Clauses 30 and 31 stand part of the Bill. Amendment 100 replaces Clause 30. It may be appropriate if I comment now.
It was, I think, the Children Act 2004 that imposed a duty on the local authority and a number of relevant partners to work together to improve,
“the well-being of children in the authority’s area”
and reduce inequalities. Initially, schools were not included in the list of relevant partners, and I seem to recall my noble friend Lady Sharp and I protesting loudly about that. Perhaps we were influential in getting schools added to the list at a later date. Therefore, it will come as no surprise to your Lordships to hear that I am very unhappy about the proposal to take them out again. Schools are the only service that all children access at some time or another and therefore they are in a better position than most to affect children’s well-being and equality.
I am not one who believes that the job of legislation is to send out a message but I do believe that, if you repeal a piece of legislation, that sends out a message whether you like it or not. We should remember the outcry when the department ditched the phrase “every child matters”. Everyone suddenly believed that every child did not matter to the coalition Government, which I know for a fact to be quite untrue. Therefore, what will be the message that goes out if we repeal the duty on schools to co-operate with local authorities? Some will believe that they do not have to do it any more and that would be a disaster, particularly for children who need joined-up services. Joined-up services are exactly what the recent Green Paper on SEN is trying to achieve. It is what all vulnerable children and their families want. Children’s trusts, being unaccountable, may not be the best organisations in whose hands to put the children’s plan, but it is essential that there is one and that schools are involved.
There are many special groups with needs that must wrap around the child and not stand alone, and the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has just spoken about a very important one. Another group is young carers and I shall use it as my example. The Princess Royal Trust for Carers has concerns that, by withdrawing the duty on schools to co-operate with local authorities and the duty to have regard to children and young people’s plans, the Bill makes it increasingly difficult for local authorities to deliver against their responsibilities towards vulnerable groups of children such as carers. Services work best for young carers where local authorities retain a strategic role, where they have an overview of all services, including education, and where services and professionals join together around the needs of the young carer and his family. The Carers Strategy 2010 highlights the coalition Government’s commitment to improving support for carers. It advocates a whole-family approach, with services in health, education and social care working together to address the needs when it comes to providing the most effective support. It is also committed to embedding Working Together to Support Young Carers, a model memorandum of understanding between directors for children’s and adult services and health, social care and education. Removing the duty on schools to co-operate with local authorities—that is, with all services that matter working together—therefore runs opposite to the Government’s policy on supporting young carers.
We are not just talking about a few children. The 2001 census data show that there are 175,000 young carers aged from five to 18 in the UK, and I do not know how many more there are according to the most recent census. One-fifth are caring for more than 20 hours a week, and 13,000 young carers are caring for more than 50 hours a week. Twenty-seven per cent of young carers of secondary school age are experiencing educational difficulties. Where children are caring for a relative with drug or alcohol problems, the incidence of missed school and educational difficulties rises to 40 per cent. As young carers get older, so their caring roles often increase, and it gets more difficult for them to participate fully in education, as well as to take part in leisure and social opportunities. For them, time off is a thing unknown in many cases.
Therefore, young carers are a good example but there are others, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. Most schools will carry out this duty anyway but it is those that will not do it unless they have a duty to do so that worry me. I think that we need this duty and it should stay on the statute book.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I shall speak briefly, having not yet spoken at all on the Bill for a number of reasons. I support my noble friend in this matter. I particularly want to make the point that education does not exist in a vacuum and that education without an understanding of welfare—I have said this on a number of occasions—does not address the issues concerning children who will not learn unless those welfare considerations are addressed. I have asked on a number of occasions why this clause on co-operation is going to be taken out of the Bill. The answer that I have heard is that it is bureaucratic. Well, if it is bureaucratic, it is the kind of bureaucracy that I like. I have always felt that bureaucracy is not always a bad thing; some of it is really quite useful in terms of enhancing services.
Children: Adoption
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Lord Hill of Oareford
I understand the point made by my noble friend and know the strength of feeling that he brings to bear on this. The department has approached adoption from the point of view of what is in the best interests of children by trying to have as a wide a pool as possible of potential adopters. No one on this side of the House is keen to do things that are driven by political correctness. That is one of the reasons why we are looking, for example, at the adoption of minority ethnic children. I understand the points that my noble friend makes, but at the moment we have no plans to respond directly to them.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, in welcoming the Munro report today, which talks about some aspects of social work but has implications for the whole field, does the Minister agree with me that the complexity of the task that Mr Loughton is taking on involves improving social work practice and the practice of panels, reviewing the court processes, and ensuring that guardians move quickly? All of those things will take time and are much more significant than the matter being raised.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I very much agree with the point about the complexity of the issue and the need to look at all the issues in the round. The points that have been raised to do with court processes, finding suitable adopters, speeding up the process and tackling obstacles are all extremely important. As the noble Baroness will know, in responding to Munro my honourable friend Mr Loughton will take advice from an expert group on precisely these issues. He will come back later in the year to pull the various strands together and, I hope, come up with solutions. The whole House, irrespective of from where we are coming on some of these issues, will share the view that we need to find more good adoptions for the children who need them most.
Children: Policy
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Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree with the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, that parents need support. As far as concerns Sure Start, the Government believe that they have put enough funding into the early intervention grant to make sure that there is a national network of Sure Start children's centres. The Government have not ring-fenced that funding. Our approach is that local authorities should be able to decide on local priorities. However, they have statutory responsibilities to ensure sufficient provision, and they have to consult before opening Sure Start children's centres or making any significant change to their provision.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, the Minister will be aware of the wide range of responsibilities that local authorities have for children. What will the Government do to ensure that the quality of services is maintained as the authorities set various priorities around their cuts? Will the Government look at the various means of inspection such as Ofsted to ensure that standards are as high in welfare as they are in education?
Lord Hill of Oareford
A number of good points are wrapped up in that question. Across the piece, the Government will need to ensure the spread of good practice and concentrate approaches for the families most in need of help. I will take back with me the point about the importance of inspection. As I said in my first Answer, a number of reviews are currently going on that are looking at a range of different but connected issues. The Government will set out later in the spring—I think in May—a strategy to bring these strands together.
Children: Care
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Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I am aware that there are issues around the operation of the family courts system and a review of the family justice system is under way. I will reflect on the points made by my noble friend and would be happy to discuss them with her further and to arrange a conversation for her with my honourable friend Mr Loughton, who is the relevant Parliamentary Under-Secretary.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that, following the Baby Peter case, there was a 37 per cent increase in referrals to the family courts on care orders. I wonder what the Government’s response is to that, bearing in mind that this is a local authority responsibility. The Government need to do all that they can, given what such an increase means for the nation’s children, to ensure that local authority social workers have as much support as possible through all the government channels that have been put in place in the near past, including the preventive services such as Sure Start and other under-fives services, so that children can stay with their families safely when appropriate.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree with both the main points made by the noble Baroness. In my Answer, I said that we think that the legal framework is broadly correct. The key issue is clearly the ability of social workers on the ground to make the right judgments. Those involved work extremely hard in almost impossible situations, but they are criticised from both ends because they are thought to intervene either too quickly or not quickly enough, so it is terribly difficult. Training is vital, and they need support. I also take the point about Sure Start centres.
Schools: Special Needs and Disabilities
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Lord Hill of Oareford
I will very much bear in mind the noble Lord’s warnings as we work our way through the replacement arrangements for Becta. I also accept his point about the advantages of technology in delivering assistance to our neediest children. We have under way a number of pilots to test approaches, particularly for blind, visibly impaired and dyslexic children, and those are demonstrating the powerful effect that technology can have.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, the Minister spoke of frameworks being developed to ensure a smooth transition between Becta closing and future delivery. Can he say a little more about that and tell us what stage of development that has reached? In particular, can he say how technology will be supported in schools? I declare an interest as the chair of Livability, which has two colleges and one special school for children.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am afraid that I am not able to go into further detail at the moment. However, given the noble Baroness’s interest, I would be happy to discuss with her subsequently her thoughts and views and to take them into account.
Academies Bill [HL]
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Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, this has been a stimulating and diverse debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for her amendment. Academies have the advantage of being able to teach in a way that they think appropriate to their pupils. That would be a plus in making PSHE a curriculum requirement and we could get it started in the academy set-up.
I agree that it is sad that PSHE has not been included in the curriculum as a result of bits being struck out of rushed legislation in the final days of the previous Government. However, that is as it may be; I can see no reason why we should not start with this Bill and see at a later stage whether it needs extending. The noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said that PSHE is taught in practically every school, yet we hear from the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that it is taught neither well nor in a way that young people approve of and can gain from. So it is clear that there is a need for rather greater teacher training, too.
I am only sad that my noble friend Lord Northbourne is not here, because he would have stressed, as have I on previous occasions, that here is an ideal framework within which to teach parenting. I am talking not just about relationships with one’s own parents but also, and much more importantly, about the relationship that a parent will have with their children and their responsibilities to the rising generation. That will be of enormous value to young people when they think about whether to use contraceptives at the age of 10 or, better still, to refrain from sex altogether. When I was chair of the Broadcasting Standards Commission some way back, a lot of issues of this kind were brought to us by worried and concerned parents. What children see on television today, and sometimes even hear on the radio, is enough to make it important that we educate children as early as possible to deal with these situations.
My thanks still go to the mover of the amendment. If we are pushed to a vote on it, my instinct will be to go into the Lobby with her. In the mean time, we all need to think about even more ways in which we can get over the important message behind all this.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I had not intended to speak today as I have not had the opportunity, for various reasons, to become engaged in the Academies Bill. I should like to ask the Minister a couple of quite simple questions. If this proposal were to be delayed today, what timetable would there be for bringing it back in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, suggested? We are told that the Government have an education Bill coming along in the autumn. What guarantees can he give that this subject will be in that Bill?
I have heard at least four of the noble Baronesses whom I admire most in this House speak on opposite sides in this debate. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, that this subject is different from all the others. I have said previously in this House that, unless we attend to the welfare of our young people, they will never learn the other subjects that they are in school to learn. This topic attends to their welfare. It ensures that they have the life skills and confidence to move forward in all the other subjects that they are trying to achieve with all the other hopes that they have in order to attain a good life position and life skills. I talk to a lot of children and remember my life in ChildLine, and I feel that unless this is grasped soon we will lose more children who do not understand the issues.
My noble friend Lady Howe has just talked about the influences around young people. I also talk to a lot of parents. They may often feel anxious about some of these topics being taught, but they are even more anxious about the influences on their children without having facts and information. In ChildLine, I talked to one child after another one and one young person after another who had curious and false information. I am told by my colleagues still working there that that continues. I have been out of ChildLine for 10 years and it is a great indictment that we have not yet got these topics in schools so that young people have, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, would say, their rights, because it is a right to have this information.
The Government should grasp this nettle now so that we do not lose time and more children. If they do not and if the noble Baroness does not divide the House, I should like the Minister to give us a timetable so that we know when this can be taken forward.