Education: English Baccalaureate Certificate

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, I, too, commend the noble Earl for bringing this debate to your Lordships’ House and for providing the opportunity to give voice to the groundswell of concerns about Michael Gove’s proposal for the English baccalaureate.

Unfortunately, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and others around the House have commented, the Secretary of State’s greatest success has been to forge a wide coalition of opposition, embracing not only the arts but sport, business, entrepreneurs, faith organisations, his own exam watchdog and many schools.

By adopting the language of the international baccalaureate, the Secretary of State would have us believe that the EBacc embodies the same principles and might enjoy similar acclaim. Yet the narrowness and rigidity of the EBacc could not be further from the international baccalaureate, in which, for example, students aged up to 16 years—the age we are talking about—are required to study not five but eight subjects, including arts, physical education, the humanities and technology. As we have heard this evening, can so many people in so many different sectors be wrong in their concerns about the EBacc? Four years before the first EBacc exams are taken, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh, pointed out, we are already seeing schools not replacing arts teachers and reducing the number of hours and subject options in art, design, technology, music and drama.

The research that my noble friend referred to shows that last year 45% of schools cut courses, and this year 27% did so, with art, design, technology and the performing arts being the worst hit. Therefore, whether or not the Government finally decide, as the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, suggested, that there will be an individual EBacc certificate in the arts by 2017, it will be too late by then because it is the EBacc itself—this group of five subjects that my noble friend Lady Morris referred to, quoting Michael Gove as regards the “gold standard”—that is now driving schools and forcing the arts out of the curriculum, as my noble friend Lord Smith pointed out. Not only will that be to the detriment of many pupils but it will starve our economy of the creative and enterprising talent of the future. With Britain now a world leader in the creative industries, is it right to risk squandering that advantage from the point of view of both our young people and our economy?

So I ask the Minister, first: what are the Government doing to monitor the extent to which these subjects are being cut from the school curriculum, and when will they intervene to prevent further cuts and the loss of teaching capacity in the creative subjects? We could make an equally important case in respect of physical education and sport, and indeed, many are doing so. Similarly, business leaders have expressed concern about the impact of the EBacc on preparing students and equipping our economy with the skills of the future.

We on this side believe, like the CBI, that all students should continue to study English and maths up to the age of 18. Will the Government require all students to do so? Will the Government now listen to the groundswell of protest about the marginalisation of these key subjects and suspend the implementation of the EBacc while we consider more fully more imaginative changes to equip our young people and our economy for the 21st century, not for the 1950s?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

There is in fact a middle years programme that is taken up to the age of 16 in the international baccalaureate. That is what I was referring to. Students up to the age of 16 are required to take eight subjects, not five.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I apologise to the noble Baroness because I misunderstood her comment. The international baccalaureate certainly is a wonderfully rounded programme, but it is not suitable for all pupils—just as the English baccalaureate will not be suitable for all pupils. Schools will be able to opt for different ways of meeting the needs of their pupils. A number of noble Lords referred to the inspirational nature of the Olympic and Paralympic Games last year where we saw arts and music so brilliantly on show. They were a true credit to all the skills and talents that we have in this country.

I am conscious that I have not addressed all the issues that were raised in this brief debate, but I can see the strength of feeling in the House which no doubt will manifest itself again and will be relayed to the department when the discussions on these subjects take place. I thank all noble Lords for their wide-ranging and powerful contributions to this fascinating debate. I hope that I have reassured your Lordships that the Government are committed to the arts in the UK. We have demonstrated that commitment by investing more than £2.9 billion over this spending review period. We should never forget that a good education, including high quality arts and cultural education, has the power to change a child’s future, whatever their background. We should be proud of the UK’s international standing in the creative industries and acknowledge the invaluable part that the arts play in the life of the country.

Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, we have had enormously powerful and very knowledgeable contributions this afternoon on the substance of the Bill before us and I shall not repeat them. I wish to make some brief comments on the process in which we find ourselves and on the substance of the Bill.

I should like to reflect on two broad issues. The contributions that we have heard from some Members opposite illustrate for me how deeply contradictory the approach adopted by the Government is to explaining the way in which they are conducting their deficit reduction strategy. The Minister has told us that, on the one hand, there was no alternative to measures such as these to abolish very important social policy measures but, on the other hand—here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne—he asks us to believe that this will have no negative impact on inequality and child poverty in particular. That is simply inconceivable and deeply contradictory. In all of these debates about how to reduce the deficit, I can see no evidence of any clear criteria to explain which measures the Government have decided to abolish and which they have not. I should have thought that any important set of criteria should include something that attempts to retain, at least in part, measures such as these that will make a long-term positive difference to some of the most disadvantaged people in our community.

I take up a point raised by my noble friend Lady Drake. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that in principle they are very uncomfortable with universal measures, such as the child trust fund and the health in pregnancy grant. On that basis, and to take it to its logical conclusion, they may well be opposed to free schooling and the National Health Service. However, if they are so concerned that, at least in the present climate, a universal measure such as the child trust fund cannot be sustained, it is open to them to argue for the targeting that they say they support. Yet we have heard no such argument for targeting; instead we have a wholesale dismantling of these measures. These abolitions will affect the poorest people the most.

The second issue on which I wish to reflect is why these measures were introduced in the first place. All, in their way, are preventive measures. They are designed to help people avoid falling further into poverty or disadvantage. The child trust fund, in particular, and the saving gateway formed a radical new approach alongside the measures which the previous Government brought in to try to improve people's prospects in the here and now through the working tax credit, for example, and the national minimum wage. They were farsighted measures to try to help people to get into the habit of saving and to accumulate assets which they could use when they needed them. Long-term universal benefits help to achieve those long-term aims and they help people who, otherwise, would not have the opportunity to get the benefit of long-term savings, which many of us take for granted. It was also a very strategic approach to try to sustain, over the long-term, the improvements that we saw in the reduction of the number of children living in poverty over the lifetime of the previous Government: 600,000 fewer children living in poverty by the end.

It is worth reflecting on those issues because that brings me to the conclusion that, even in the current climate, the child trust fund, in particular, should be retained for those specific groups of children who are least likely to acquire long-term assets through their own families. While children in care are an obvious group for whom I support such a measure, there are others, such as disabled children, whose families find the cost of their disability an enormous burden on family resources. There is a very strong case for continuing the child trust fund for them and for children living in poor families, where there is no hope of such children acquiring the kind of back-up of a pot of capital assets that most parents want for their children. It is out of reach for children in those specific groups.

I shall focus briefly on the process that was clarified for us by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. The Speaker has made a decision, although we do not know whether it was at the request of the Government or simply on advice, but the Minister knows the position and sees the concern of Members in both Houses of Parliament who would wish for an opportunity to amend this legislation. The Minister cannot hide behind the Speaker’s decision because, while he cannot challenge that decision, and nor do we, there are other routes open to him to bring forward other measures as outlined by my noble friend Lady Armstrong. He can give a commitment to the House today that he will do so.

On the merits of the argument, there is an overwhelming case for continuing the child trust fund, not some other measure. The child trust fund has many advantages over the junior ISA being proposed. We should continue it, at least for children in care. We have heard in great detail, which I shall not rehearse, the arguments relating to the still poor, although improving, outcomes for children in care. As Minister of State, I was responsible for developing the Green Paper Care Matters. Many Members of this House helped me with that and were very energetic in trying to take the boundaries of the policy as far as we could, and I was very grateful for their support. Through that process, I talked directly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, does in her current position, to many children in care. I can say to your Lordships without any sentimentality that many of them constantly surprised me with their talent, ability and resilience in terms of what they had been through and the enormous hurdles that they had overcome.

Particularly at the point of transition out of care, whether at 16, 17 or 18, they have virtually no resources to fall back on. I talked to a number of young people who were in higher education, and many Members of this House will know from their experiences with their own children of the things that you have to buy for them when they go away to university or college or when they move into their own flat. There is an enormous bill for most parents. Young people who have been through the care system simply do not have the wherewithal to cope with that, so I think there is an unassailable case for continuing with a long-term savings mechanism, such as the trust fund, for children in care because we, the state, are the parents. I think there is also an equally strong case in terms of need for families with disabled children and for children in poor families. What we need from the Government today is not more warm words or promises but a firm promise from the Minister to bring forward in another Bill proposals to ensure that the child trust fund is either continued or replaced with a similar measure, at least for all children in care, and with a process that will enable Members of both Houses to amend those proposals.

Comprehensive Spending Review

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, it is with great pleasure that I have listened to the maiden speeches tonight. They were all excellent, particularly those of my noble friends Lady Nye and Lady Healy. There were also a number of other very notable speeches on this subject. In the short time that I have, I wish to address the four spurious claims that the Government are making to justify the plans that they have produced in their comprehensive spending review.

The first is that the current crisis is the legacy of the Labour Government’s handling of the economy. When the credit crunch started in 2008, as we have heard in great detail from the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, and the noble Lord, Lord Low, Great Britain had one of the lowest debt-to-expenditure ratios among comparable countries. It also had lower debt as a proportion of GDP than the debt which the Conservative Government left us in 1997. It was a time of low interest rates, low inflation and low unemployment. It is quite clear that public spending did not cause the scale of the credit deficit. That was caused by a global financial crisis in relation to which the Labour Government took decisive action, not to shore up the banks as an objective in itself but to protect people’s savings, people’s jobs, people’s homes and livelihoods and to protect businesses. As a result, unemployment rose by only half as much as in previous recessions, and there was a more rapid return to growth, the momentum of which is still with us, just about, in the quarter 3 figures published this week, although it is clearly dwindling because of the lack of a growth strategy from the Government and their slashing of capital projects. Construction is still the main contributor to the growth that we have seen so far.

My noble friend has just touched eloquently on the second claim: that the scale and pace of these cuts are avoidable. In his opening remarks the Minister said that it was about striking the right balance. He is right, but implicit in that acknowledgement is that choices are being made. I have been in government for 12 years and I know that in meeting and solving a problem you always have choices. Generally speaking, you try to make the choices that most fit with your value set, ideological position and political objectives. As several of my noble friends and others have commented today, the Government have chosen to make the cuts deeper and faster than necessary. This is a political agenda, not an economic objective, which will have serious long-term consequences for this country and our citizens.

The third claim is that in the midst of these proposals the Government are protecting key public services. This is, frankly, incredible. We need only look back at what happened under the previous Tory Government—this is, of course, a Tory Government despite the fact that it is called a coalition—when Margaret Thatcher’s cuts, which pale into insignificance when compared with what is being proposed in this spending review, led to long-term damage for our country. The noble Baroness, Lady Browning, who is not in her place, referred to amnesia. There is amnesia on that side of the Chamber, too, because Members there seem to have forgotten the dilapidated state of schools and hospitals, the leaking roofs, school standards that had flatlined, people waiting 18 months to two years for elective surgery and outpatient appointments, unemployment rising dramatically, youth unemployment hitting record highs, pension poverty doubling during the 1980s and 1990s and child poverty more than doubling. It is inconceivable that the impact of the cuts now proposed will not be even worse than the ones that we saw in the 1980s and 1990s.

The damage the country sustained then was long term and, despite all the improvements and investment that the Labour Government made to redress that damage, we are still left with that legacy in part. Key public services will not be protected; they will be decimated by these cuts. People do not yet understand the depth of the damage that will be done.

The fourth and final claim that the Government are making—again already referred to by many Members—is that the cuts are fair and will fall on the broadest shoulders. I wish to draw attention to their impact on those least able to speak for and protect themselves against the Government—that is, children and young people. Cuts from a variety of different sources will impact negatively on children and young people, and on the most vulnerable children and young people the worst. First, there will be an impact on schools. We have heard about the pupil premium for schools with disadvantaged children. We were told by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister that this would be paid for by money outside of and additional to the Department for Education’s budget. We now know that the Secretary of State has had to admit that that is not true. He also admitted that the settlement for schools will mean real-terms cuts because there is no element in the settlement for schools to cover the rise in pupil numbers over this period. The IFS has estimated that 60 per cent of primary school children and 87 per cent of secondary school children will experience cuts in their school’s budgets.

Secondly, there is the non-school budget, because in order to sustain the settlement for schools, such as it is, the Department for Education will experience a 12 per cent cut in its non-school budgeting, achieved by, and I quote from the Government’s document here,

“rationalising and ending centrally directed programmes for children and young people and families”.

This means that some of the things that we have not yet heard about, because we have not seen the Department for Education’s budget plan, have gone. Support for the strategy to reduce the rates of teenage pregnancy across the country has gone; support for the strategy to reduce the number of young people not in education, training or employment has gone; the Youth Taskforce, working to help some of the most vulnerable young people to reduce antisocial behaviour, has gone; and the City Challenge in Greater Manchester, the Black Country and London to raise aspirations and standards among some of the most disadvantaged children has just been scrapped. Young people’s services, support for parents, and support for disabled children and their families have simply all been stopped, and I think we will see a severe impact from the cessation of those programmes.

Thirdly, there is the reduction in local government spending of 7.1 per cent in each of the four years covered by the spending review. I have been talking to a number of chief executives and directors of children’s services over the past few weeks who tell me that such is the level of cuts they are facing that their councils cannot protect children’s services, that they will be able to preserve only the minimum level of statutory provision, and that a lot of the progress we have seen in local children’s services over recent years, with a focus on early intervention and prevention to stop some of those problems escalating, will simply go.

Last but not least, it is families with children, as my noble friend Lady Sherlock mentioned earlier, who will be the biggest losers from the array of tax and benefit changes that are proposed. Page 98 of the document published by the Government says that the negative impact of freezing child benefit and withdrawing it from those who pay higher-rate tax will be offset by the indexation of child tax credit and ensure,

“no measurable impact on child poverty”.

That is simply risible.

What we do not have in the documents produced by the Government is any comprehensive assessment of the cumulative impact of all these cuts from different sources on children and young people. It is not simply about child benefit; it is about the cumulative impact of the four housing benefit changes and the changes to working tax credit, to childcare tax credits and to parents losing their jobs and going on to time-limited benefits, as well as the service issues that I have outlined. It is inconceivable, frankly, that child poverty will not rise as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation predicts. I know that there are Members on the Benches opposite who are also concerned about children, and I hope when the time comes that they will scrutinise all these proposals for their cumulative impact on children and young people.

I also ask the Minister if he will commit in his summing-up to producing a comprehensive impact assessment of all these changes together on children and young people. These cuts will not fall equally across the income distribution but will be concentrated on some families rather than others, so some children and young people will be very severely damaged.