Building Schools for the Future

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I should like to provide some context in terms of scale. As I am sure the noble Baroness will know, this year, the amount of money made available for free schools is £50 million. The department’s capital budget in total this year is in excess of £7 billion, so the scale of the sum of money made available to the free schools when viewed in the whole is small. One of the points of the free-school policy is to find new ways to set up schools that are quicker and cheaper, and to look at things such as leasing and the different uses of school buildings in order that we can try to get schools open more quickly and more cheaply than in the past.

Free schools will, I hope, be a great success if we manage to get them open and delivered more quickly and cheaply. I hope that they will provide a good education for children in the same way as all maintained schools; that is, they will follow the admissions code and all the other things that I know the noble Baroness would be keen to see.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, will the Minister explain why the Secretary of State did not consult properly with every local authority in the first place? Given the fundamental criticism that the judge has made of the consultation process, will he confirm that there is an intention to consult properly, not just with the six which brought the case but with every local authority which was not consulted during the first stage of these decisions?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I have two answers to those two questions. As regards the broader application of the ruling to other local authorities, the judge is clear that the ruling applies to those six local authorities, which are those which the Government will consult. The basic answer to the noble Baroness’s first question, which the judge accepts in his ruling, is that Governments, particularly after a change of Government or a general election, have every right to make decisions. Given the scale of the deficit, the Government felt that the overriding imperative was to make decisions quickly and that the longer the process was drawn out, the more money would be wasted and the more uncertainty caused.

Apprenticeships

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I have huge sympathy with the noble Lord’s point and agree with him entirely. I am sure that we can do more. We are trying to establish a system across the country but journeymen face difficulties in this regard. I know of a local farrier in my village who wants to take on a young lad but it is not straightforward, so I very much take that point on board and will certainly look into it.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, the Minister referred to the challenges of getting businesses and organisations to take on young people as apprentices. That is why the Labour Government required public sector bodies to commit to provide a number of apprenticeships. Therefore, why have this Government now absolved the Civil Service, local authorities and health bodies—all of them major employers—from those specific commitments? Does the Minister not agree that the public sector should show a lead here and help to meet the huge demand for apprenticeships among young people?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As I have already said, I accept fully that there is a role for both the public and private sectors to play. If we are able to encourage more people from the private sector to offer good apprenticeships with good opportunities for employment and progression, that is good, and young people are keen to get into those kinds of jobs. However, I also accept that we should do as much as we can to encourage the public sector to play its fair share as well.

Children: Sexual Exploitation

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I, too, congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester on securing this debate on this very important topic. It is a privilege to speak after the knowledgeable contributions of so many colleagues.

While recent cases have brought this issue to the fore, there has in fact been a growing awareness of this problem for some considerable time. In a previous life, I spent some years as a research fellow investigating what was then called organised sexual abuse of children—paedophile gangs, trafficking and so on. I was a senior lecturer at Manchester University and spent many gruelling hours reading the transcripts of children’s evidence and interviews. Like other Members here, I know what a vile predatory crime this is, targeting the most vulnerable children.

This is also a challenging issue for professionals—possibly one of the most challenging—as well as one of the most dangerous for children. The crime is becoming increasingly sophisticated, as modern communications technology makes it easier for paedophiles and perpetrators to keep their tracking and contacting of children hidden from parents and carers.

There has been progress over recent years but, as the Children’s Society and Barnardo’s have reported, the implementation of government guidance, best practice and so on is patchy as regards local safeguarding children boards and local authorities. The extent to which progress has been made is variable. It is clear that, for an effective local response, we need a child-centred approach that is sensitive to listening to children, the capacity for early intervention and identification, close integration and interagency working—as was reinforced again today by the Munro interim report—the capacity of professionals to share information easily and early, and the dissemination of knowledge and best practice.

As well as adding to the calls to the Minister asking what progress he is going to make, I should also like to express some concerns about decisions that the Government have already made, which I think will create new and unnecessary barriers to that progress. The first relates to the cuts to local authority budgets. I have to raise this issue, because the worst levels of cuts are being experienced by the local authorities with the highest children-in-need scores; they are in exactly those places where most vulnerable children are going to be.

Secondly, why has the Minister distanced himself from Every Child Matters, the acclaimed multi-agency framework that is making it much easier for agencies to work together? Under the Education Bill, schools will now be absolved from the duty to co-operate with other agencies locally. Thirdly, the abandonment of ContactPoint will make it much harder for professionals even to know who else is working with them, let alone how to contact them. Finally, absorbing CEOP into a national crime agency with border control, immigration and all those things will harm the dissemination of the best practice that CEOP has been achieving.

Youth Sport Trust

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the decision to withdraw the grant from the Youth Sport Trust; and what consultations were undertaken before the decision was made.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, we looked carefully at the impact of the Youth Sport Trust and the school sport partnerships in recent years. While there has certainly been progress in some areas, the overall level of participation in competitive sport remains disappointingly low. The Government are bringing forward proposals to promote an Olympic and Paralympic-style programme where the Youth Sport Trust has been on the steering committee. We hope that this will lead to more involvement by more children at all levels.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer, but it is important to understand that the decision by the Secretary of State to cut completely the dedicated fund for school sports, condemned by head teachers, sports people and 600,000 young people yesterday, will mean the demolition of the 450 school sport partnerships across the country; partnerships that include every single school, including the smallest primaries and special schools. Despite the Secretary of State’s view that they are inefficient, repeated I understand by the Prime Minister today, independent evaluation has said that the partnerships have led a remarkable revival in school sports. I also understand that the Department of Health and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport want them to continue.

[Noble Lords]

Question!

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

In that regard, will the Minister not ensure that funding at least for the continuation of that infrastructure will be found within the department?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, as the debates in another place revealed a couple of weeks ago, there is broad agreement across the House on the importance of sport and on the fact that we want to have a very strong legacy from the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

In terms of the performance of the school sport partnerships, again there was broad acceptance that the record is mixed. I certainly do not subscribe to the view that there was not good work done—there clearly was good work done—but equally there is acceptance that it was not universally good across the piece, and there are many people in sport who would also make that argument. In terms of going forward, what I hope we are united on is the need to find an effective way—we may differ on the means—of making sure that there is a strong and lasting Olympic and Paralympic legacy.

Children: Care

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I was very pleased to hear the Minister reaffirm that social workers must make these very difficult decisions on the basis of the paramountcy of the child’s interest, as enshrined in the Children Act 1989 and in the Every Child Matters agenda established by the Labour Government. However, is he aware that the every child matters website now displays a very prominent and somewhat intimidating warning that it may not reflect the policy of the new Government? Does this mean that the coalition is abandoning the principle that every child matters?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

It is clearly not the case that the coalition Government are abandoning the principle that every child matters. I will look into the specific point that the noble Baroness makes about the website. That clearly is not the purpose. I hope that the priority that the Government give to caring for children, looked-after children and children at an early age is as strong as ever.