Earnings: Mothers and Fathers

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not accept that it has been an abysmal failure. I appreciate that the numbers are still modest, but they are definitely going in the right direction, with 13,000 couples taking shared parental leave in 2021-22, up from 6,200 in 2015-16. Clearly, this is part of a broader cultural shift. The noble Baroness may wish the Government to enforce everything, but this Government do not wish to.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, 90% of single parents are women, and 49% of these families are in poverty. Universal credit discriminates against single parents by requiring those with children over three to work a 30-hour week, regardless of their circumstances. What steps will the Government take to end discrimination suffered by single-parent families under universal credit so that their children are not forced into acute poverty and deprivation through unfairness and discrimination?

Children’s School Meals

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

—but I do not accept that they were weakened. As I say, there is sensible flexibility to allow schools to respond to their local community.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, the findings of the House of Lords Select Committee report Hungry for Change found that to pay for government healthy eating recommendations, the poorest 10% of UK households would need to spend 74% of their post-housing disposable income on food. The report also found that the cost of healthy eating did not factor in the calculation of benefit rates. Would the Minister urge her colleagues in government to make sure that realistic benefit rates pay for a healthy diet, even for the poorest people?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am more than happy to share those figures on benefit rates with my noble friend sitting next to me on the Front Bench. More seriously, there are so many variables in this. I remind the House of the scale of support that this Government have given every household over 2022-23 and 2023-24: an average of over £3,300 per UK household.

Plurilingual and Intercultural Education

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the study of a foreign language provides unique opportunities to young people and to our country, given the growing isolation that has followed Brexit? Is she concerned that the lowest take-up of languages is in the poorest communities? What action will the Government take to ensure that young people in these communities receive their proper entitlement to such important educational opportunities and are not disfranchised from the international identity by recent Brexit developments?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are concerned about the level of uptake of modern foreign languages in schools generally, and specifically in the communities to which the noble Baroness refers. That is why we announced in our schools White Paper that we are setting up a network of language hubs, introducing new continual professional development courses for language teachers at both primary and secondary level, and have undertaken a review of the modern foreign languages GCSE curriculum and syllabus, which we think will improve uptake.

Child Health: Physical Education

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. I am the Minister who signs off on playing field disposals, and we feel strongly that this should not happen except where absolutely necessary. We have a very rigorous process in place, and most disposals occur where schools have either closed or merged—a lot of them involve very small bits around playing field land. We are very clear that we will not allow playing fields to be disposed of unless it is absolutely necessary.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, given that only 18% of girls and 21% of boys achieve the Government’s recommended level of physical activity, and in the light of the cuts to local government in recent years, including shrinking sports programmes, do the Government have any plans to expand the range of opportunities not just in schools but in local communities, so that all children can have several opportunities to participate in physical activity?

[Lord Nash]

I am sure the noble Baroness will be pleased to hear that we fund Sport England to decide how to invest the National Lottery funding, and as part of its strategy its Inspired Facilities scheme has invested over £100 million to allow clubs to make major improvements in more than 2,000 facilities. As part of its strategy towards an active nation it has set aside a new £40 million investment, which it will use to get more families and children active. It has also set up a dedicated fund of £120 million to tackle inactivity over the next four years.

Children: Local Authority Care

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, what are the Government doing about young people and children who are often difficult to place and end up in more than one kind of care? They very often end up in different schools and are not really being monitored throughout the system. Can he say what the Government are doing about monitoring these young people? Can he also say what opportunities for different kinds of care are being offered to many of these troubled young people?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point. It is well known that children in care quite often have a depressing number of placements. We are very well aware of this: in schools, we now have the concept of a virtual school head to take responsibility and a designated teacher in each school. There are often mental health issues as well concerning these kind of pupils. Where the child requires specialist services such as CAMHS, the local clinical commissioning group has a clear role. The noble Baroness will be aware of our strategy Future in Mind, which focuses on that area as well.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Bill and the extension of free childcare. The issue of childcare is of great importance to families, particularly those on low incomes. Cost, availability and accessibility are all factors that can put huge pressures on family incomes, limit the opportunities available to parents and result in problems and anxieties for all members of the family. In this context, the provision of an additional 15 hours of childcare for three and four year-olds is a very positive move.

Nevertheless, as others in the Chamber have said today, there are some concerns about the Bill before us. There are a number of areas where more information and clarity is needed, particularly as much is to be delegated to secondary legislation. I am sure we all hope that the Bill will be a Bill of opportunity. Many noble Lords have mentioned the importance of supporting child development; of closing the attainment gap; of giving disadvantaged children a fair chance in life; and of providing opportunities to enable parents to work, many of whom are prevented from doing so for all sorts of reasons. It is therefore essential, as we have all said, that high-quality provision for every child who needs it is top of our list of priorities.

Others have said today that the present system is underfunded and the hourly cash rate has been frozen for the past three years. We know also that there are significant shortfalls to the private and voluntary sector providers. I would like to put in a word for those providers today because, as others would say, every child is different and has different needs. Children have a whole range of needs, and diversity of provision is a real strength and something we must seek to protect through the Bill. Capital funding really needs to be considered in an overall analysis. We have heard from the LGA that there is a lack of clarity between councils and the Government. I hope that this issue can be sorted out because I want us all to be united behind such a positive step; I do not want it to be criticised by those who want to criticise public sector provision or spending on what they believe are unnecessary social objectives—there are people who do that.

There needs to be more clarity as to what the eligibility criteria are. I very much welcome the definition of working parents that the Minister has given today and I hope that we can go into that in a little more detail. Lower-paid jobs are often less secure, and flexible and short-term contracts are less stable. If lower-paid parents are able to access the free entitlement, they may easily lose it, with all the resulting pressure on the child, the family and the care provider. So I hope that the assessment of eligibility is sufficiently flexible to take account of those circumstances and the uncertainties of the job market for lower-paid parents. Equally, barriers to gaining employment are often related to skills shortages. Training and back-to-work support are the means of getting better-paid employment and moving out of poverty and disadvantage. I hope that this will be taken into account as the Bill progresses, and that the eligibility criteria will include parents who are seeking to improve their employment prospects in this way.

I very much welcome the principles underpinning the Bill of supporting child development and enabling parents who want to work to do so. It can be very frustrating for parents who are ambitious and keen to do their best for their families to find that they are quite unable to afford childcare, and I hope the Bill will take account of that. The introduction of free childcare is extremely positive, as long as it is backed by realistic levels of funding. Local authorities are key partners, and I very much hope that government and local authorities will work together on this. Local government should be fully included in funding considerations.

People in lower-paid employment must be helped to benefit from additional free childcare and not disadvantaged as a result of their working conditions. For this to be the case, we must be flexible in taking account of the uncertainties and precarious nature of lower-paid work.

In welcoming the Bill, I look forward to further consideration of the detail and hope that the issues raised today will be resolved during its passage.

Schools: Arts Subjects

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

Ofsted does inspect on a broad and balanced curriculum; it looks in part at how pupils will participate in and respond to artistic, sporting and cultural opportunities. However, I refer to my earlier point, which the Benches opposite did not like: we started from a very low base. I should think that all Members of the House should be very pleased with the increase in and substantial enhancement of cultural and academic courses that we have produced.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister say what plans the Government have to address teacher shortages in arts and languages subjects, and will he say if he has a plan to evaluate Progress 8 in the medium term?

[Lord Nash]

We have our bursaries for arts. In music, for instance, there is £9,000 for music graduates with a first. We now have nearly 500 teaching schools and have designated 145 schools as specialist leaders of education in arts subjects. However, of course we will evaluate the performance of the Progress 8 measures as we go along.