Adoption Support Fund

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, has obtained this debate and has set it out so admirably. I shall not repeat his well-made points and so I shall speak briefly. I am also grateful to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Adoption and Permanence for its persistence in supporting families and children involved in the adoption process.

Adoption procedures have improved greatly over many years. Adoption agencies have contributed to the dialogue and to the action on it. The adoption support fund, ASF, introduced in May 2015, was a welcome and important development.

As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said, the all-party group is calling for a commitment from the Government to put the ASF on a longer-term basis until 2030. It also calls for more support for local authorities in taking on the administrative burden placed on them by the ASF.

Adoption has been on the agenda in your Lordships’ House and in Parliament generally for many years. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who cannot be here today, has wisely led many initiatives, drawing on a lot of experience of our systems of adoption care for children. I want to recall something she said on 16 May 2013 on a Motion to Take Note of the report of the Adoption Legislation Committee that she chaired. She said that

“we had very much in mind the right of the child to be brought up in his or her birth family, whenever possible, and the right of … children to respect for their family life … sadly, not all children are able to remain with their birth families. The welfare of the child is the paramount consideration.”—[Official Report, 16/5/13; col. 594.]

So it is, of course. The noble and learned Baroness had written earlier of the importance of post-adoption support to families. She wrote, very tellingly, that the committee realised that implementing the recommendations

“will take time, commitment and money”.

She went on to say that that money was well spent in providing children with loving, caring homes and keeping them safe by means of adoption. How true, and how much worse the situation would be for children being cared for without structures and funding to enable them to thrive. That is what this debate will emphasise.

The Children and Families Act 2014 was thoroughly debated in your Lordships’ House. It covered a number of issues related to vulnerable children, including adoption and children in care. It put the best interests of children at the heart of decision-making. I repeat that that does not come cheap, but it is vital if we are to support children who may be in serious trouble and who may cause serious trouble without intervention, such as the ASF. This House has always been supportive of doing the best for children, and that tradition is carried on in today’s debate.

I am pleased to see that children were consulted in the APPG report. The messages from children in the report are moving and powerful, such as that the fund

“has helped me in tough situations”,

and

“I learned to calm my body down”

and

“I don’t know where I would have been today without it. The fund has helped me stop doing drugs, being violent, feeling suicidal and self-harming.”

I hope that such comments and the report will convince the Government that the ASF is essential to support adoptive children and families. I go back to the regular plea to the Government from so many of us: to spend money on early intervention rather than waiting for problems to build up and possibly become out of control. Not only is it humane to provide such early intervention, it also saves a great deal of money in the long run in relation to anti-social behaviour, educational achievement and health outcomes. Some 79% of parents have said that the ASF is meeting a need not found anywhere else.

I want to turn briefly to the evaluation of the ASF in 2019. I found it very interesting. First, it recorded that the fund has clearly been a positive force in relation to child development, including behaviour, family functioning and the well-being of adoptive parents. Parental comments in the evaluation are significant and indicate a need for more therapeutic support; respite support; more flexibility in the scope of the fund, such as links with education; and improvements in the response of social workers and the fair access limit, which makes some types of support unavailable. Do we have up-to-date figures on uptake of the fund, and by whom? Are there geographical differences? Is take-up more prevalent in certain parts of the country than others? If so, why? Are there socio- economic differences? Are some people—special guardians, for example—missing out? I am aware that the fund is available only where the child was looked after immediately prior to the special guardianship order.

I want to give a specific example. I became aware of the needs of grandparents who care for children some years ago when I was involved in a drugs organisation. I learned that grandparents may take over looking after children when the parents cannot cope, are in prison or dead. Grandparents may become special guardians. The need for support for grandparents in these circumstances is enormous. Some are looking after more than one grandchild, and grandparents are ageing. Many do not take up special guardianship. Many find the bureaucracy of filling in forms, applying for support and seeking help daunting. A grandmother once said to me: “I should be reading to my grandson rather than spending hours filling in forms.” Kinship care is often very successful, with good outcomes, but many such carers feel overwhelmed by administrative detail and form-filling.

Are local authorities given the means to make adoptive parents aware of the ASF, and to support them? Who else promotes awareness and supports applications? I repeat my question to the Minister: what detail do we have on the take-up of the ASF? Is this an area to look at and improve on? If he cannot provide an answer today, maybe he could write to me and others speaking in this debate.

I welcome this opportunity to discuss the adoption support fund. I hope that our concerns will be noted by the Government, and that the good work of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and his colleagues in the APPG for Adoption and Permanence is appreciated. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Children: Rights and Well-being

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following their ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, what plans they have to promote children’s rights and well-being across government departments in this Parliament.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, we remain strongly committed to delivering a framework of actions across government to promote children’s rights and well-being. We have successfully delivered a range of measures, including establishing a UNCRC action group and launching a children’s rights training package and an impact assessment template across the Civil Service. We will continue to promote these tools during 2020, including via the action group.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, which I find worthy but somewhat incomplete. Is he aware that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the UK ratified in 1991, had its 30th anniversary last year? Is he also aware that in 2016 the Committee on the Rights of the Child reviewed the UK’s record of achievement in relation to the convention as regards, for example, children in care, child mental health, youth justice and child poverty? We were criticised for having no overall strategy or action plan for children, as recommended in the convention. The next review of the UK’s achievement will be in 2021. Will the new Government take the opportunity to set up before 2021 a committee to form an action plan and strategy for children across government departments, with a lead Minister to oversee it, to assess and improve our performance in helping children thrive and achieve? There is much support and enthusiasm for such action across the children’s sector. How will the Government respond?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, there is a broad range of work across government that promotes children’s rights and well-being, which is set out in the report that we provided to the UN in November last year at the conference to mark the 30th anniversary of the UNCRC, as the noble Baroness mentioned. The report summarises the work of 14 government departments. My department has strong working relationships with other departments on children’s rights. I am confident that these will continue in the run-up to the next reporting cycle in 2021.

Children in Public Care: Unregistered Accommodation

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I cannot give a specific answer to the noble Baroness, but I will write to her if the numbers are available. I certainly agree that it is a tragic error to place a vulnerable 16 year-old in accommodation where they can be subject to any harm. The idea of the post-16 provision is to try to provide a pathway to more independent living. That is why we have a slightly different arrangement for those children or young people.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of a recent UNICEF report on developed countries which places the UK 16th out of 21 in relation to the well-being of children? Children in care are part of this. Will the Government take account of the UNICEF report and do something about all children so that their welfare is protected?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is entirely right that looked-after children are some of the most vulnerable in our society. I mentioned in my Answer to the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Laming, some of the things we are doing, but there are also a number of other initiatives under way: we are providing £5 million from the £200 million children’s social care innovation programme to develop new approaches for care placements and making seed funding available for seven partnerships to test new approaches for sufficiency planning and commissioning in foster care.

Children’s Rights

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to develop a cross-departmental action plan to address the conclusions and recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child's assessment of the United Kingdom in 2016, in order to ensure that all public bodies act to protect and promote children’s rights.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, we remain strongly committed to delivering a framework of actions across government and with key organisations. We aim to continue to embed the importance of children’s rights in policy-making across Whitehall. We have successfully delivered the majority of actions, including establishing a UNCRC action group and launching a children’s rights training package and impact assessment template across the Civil Service. We are on track to deliver outstanding actions, including extending the UNCRC to Guernsey.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that optimistic response. Does he agree that children’s rights to health, education, justice, security and so on are of supreme importance? Does he further agree that although these areas do not come under one department but go across departments, only the Department for Education has a team of people working on children’s rights? Would it not make sense if every department had a team of people working on children’s rights so that they could talk to each other and develop a coherent plan? We have been criticised by the UN for not having such a plan. Is it not time for action?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we do not agree with the substantial machinery of government changes recommended by the UNCRC but we work across government all the time. I have to draw on many government departments for most of the answers that I give to noble Lords in this House. We are well joined up and we continue to emphasise that through initiatives such as the Civil Service learning programme which we introduced last year.

Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Lords Chamber

We believe our proposals are a landmark step and, after an extensive debate in the Commons, we have gained strong cross-party support for what these subjects seek to achieve by equipping children and young people with the knowledge they need to form healthy relationships, lead healthy lives and be happy and safe in modern Britain. I beg to move.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome these guidelines and thank the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, for introducing the Motion. I am very pleased to see that this topic of education will at last be a requirement for schools from September 2020. Indeed, some schools will pilot the programmes and there is encouragement for some to start them during 2019.

Some schools are ready to go with this but others may need more time. Quite rightly, the Government have sought to stress the issue of consultation. We know that sexual relationship education has been considered important by children, parents, school governors and many organisations for a long time. I pay tribute to those who have worked with such diligence to get us to this point. The noble Lord, Lord Nash, deserves full credit for his determination to ensure that schools engage with the important topic of the rights of children to receive information and develop good attitudes towards sexuality and relationships. He recognised that resilience, confidence and self-esteem are important components of performing well at school and having a fulfilling life.

I congratulate the PSHE Association on its constructive and thorough approach to developing and creating materials for schools. I congratulate those organisations which have been helpful with consultation and have developed training materials for schools. I congratulate, too, those who have had the courage and perception to insist that consideration of the needs of all pupils is important. LGBT pupils have rights, too; disabled children have rights. Attention to such groups is important, not just for them but for their parents and fellow pupils.

Many individuals have helped describe and respond to the climate in which children are living today, as did the Minister just recently. That climate is different from the one in which we grew up. For example, we have social and other media, which may portray unhealthy and dangerous attitudes towards relationships and sexuality. Children and young people need resilience and skills to resist such approaches.

I have a few questions for the Minister and a few matters on which I seek reassurance. Will the decision that academies and free schools will not be required to teach sex education, but simply be encouraged to do so, be reviewed? This will affect a great number of children and leave them disadvantaged in relation to protection from harm and gaining important knowledge.

I was surprised that so few children and young people were involved in the consultation. I hope that any assessment of the effectiveness of programmes will involve them. They are the best judges of what they need. It is most encouraging that children are consulted much more on issues and decisions which affect them, such as in relation to the NHS long-term plan, where there was a children’s panel—and very useful it was, too. Many voluntary and statutory organisations have children’s panels which prove so valuable. I hope that Ofsted inspections will incorporate the views of children among their other considerations.

It is also important that school governors and parents are involved in monitoring these issues. There is a case for local communities to be involved, as envisaged in the guidelines. I note that £6 million has been set aside in the 2019-20 financial year to develop a programme of support for schools. Funding beyond that will be a matter for the forthcoming spending review. What type of support is envisaged? How will funding be decided for individual schools? Will the Minister and the DfE fight for funding to develop and maintain such programmes, monitor their outcomes and share good practice?

Some of us have concerns about discussing certain issues with children and young people and worry about “corruption”. These guidelines make it clear that teaching materials should be age appropriate. I taught, a long time ago now, sex and relationships education in an inner-city, multi-faith secondary school. We were scrupulous about consulting parents and children and had very few difficulties. No child was ever withdrawn from any part of the programme. I remember working with a nun, Sister Mary, on a sex education course. She said, in public:

“I and my Church may not approve of some of the things related to sexual activity. This does not mean that we should refuse to discuss them. Refusal to discuss denies knowledge to children, and the denial of knowledge is against good educational practice”.


I have never forgotten what she said.

We must never forget in the midst of all this that the welfare of the child is paramount, as spelled out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the UK is a signatory and which celebrates its 30th birthday in November this year. The convention is inspirational in envisaging a world where children flourish and where their physical, emotional and social needs are met. With this legislation today, we move a step towards that, and I very much welcome it.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, this is a landmark moment for children and young people in our country and I very much welcome it. I congratulate the Government and the Minister on everything he has said. If there were ever a reason to ensure that our young people had proper relationship and sex education in our school system, it came home to me this morning when I went into my office, where a letter was waiting for me with a card in it. It was a vile piece of information, trying to compare the teaching of relationships and sex education to giving up smoking. It had such comments as:

“Being gay is essentially lonely because the truth is that most gay partnerships are unstable and have a strong tendency to be promiscuous”.


There was more, but I do not wish to read the rest out, because it is so horrible. That sort of warped view about relationships in 21st-century Britain shows how strong is the need for an education system that addresses the issues in the way the Minister explained.

During the coalition Government, Edward Timpson took over the role of Children’s Minister and was looking to develop the PSHE curriculum and the sex education curriculum, as it was then called. My noble friend Lord Paddick and I were asked to meet him—he wanted to talk about that curriculum. I remember saying to him, “This is very good, but the important thing is that we have almost a dual education system here. We have maintained schools, an increasing number of academies and free schools, which of course have a much more relaxed approach to what they teach. Will this be taught in all schools?” He said, “Yes, it will”. Hallelujah, I thought. I asked whether such things as contraception and gay relationship would be taught. He said, “Yes, of course, it will”. And in church schools? He said, “Yes, of course, it will”. That was the breakthrough moment that I and many in this House were waiting for and I think that, alongside the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Nash, Edward Timpson MP, as he then was, deserves a deal of credit in this as well.

When I first started teaching, sometime in the 1970s, we had an eight-week period in which we followed the BBC’s “Merry-Go-Round” sex education programme—eight weeks of watching the television and doing the workbooks. Not one single parent complained, those eight year-old pupils never giggled or sniggered and it actually developed their relationships with each other. That programme continued and was updated over the first 10 years of my teaching. I always thought it was a great pity that we almost became Victorian in our approach to such issues as sex education; we went through those difficult times in the 1980s and 1990s, with some rather nasty thoughts about relationship education.

As well as the praise I have given, there are a few things we need to ensure. I think the Minister said this, but I just want to go through them again. It is vital that teachers get quality training. I am pleased that it will be a rollout; some schools and some staff may be ready, but it is important that we get this quality training for teachers right. It is important that the resources and materials are of the highest calibre. It is also important that when school inspections are occasionally held, Ofsted actually looks at the quality of relationship and sex education.

I have three questions for the Minister. First, the Government used the powers in the Children and Social Work Act to make PSHE compulsory in all schools, including academies, for financial education only. Why not for citizenship and financial education? Let us raise that now while we have the opportunity. Secondly, this matter is also about continuing professional development for teachers. Thirdly, as the Minister knows—he has been very active on this issue—there is a still a large number of unregistered religious schools where the teaching about relationships is horrendous, disgraceful and wrong. So far, only two unregistered schools have had action taken against them. We need to get this right. We need to put in place the legal requirements to close these establishments straightaway because the damage they do to young people and young minds is not to be tolerated.

Schools: Staffing

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, as I said in answer to the Question, funding is going up. It does not help the debate to follow scurrilous articles about food portions. That school was throwing away a large quantity of food. No parent wants to see that happen. It is a huge environmental waste. It was highlighted simply as an area of inefficiency. As a Schools Minister, no one wants more funding into the system than me, but I want that system to be well run so that the money goes to the front line. Noble Lords will have seen the story in the press the other day about the Tolworth Girls’ School, where the head teacher claimed that she was so badly funded that she had to clean the lavatories herself. What she did not tell you was that she took an 8% pay rise, taking her to between £125,000 and £130,000, and increased the cleaning budget by nearly 90%.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government speak a lot about the importance of social mobility for pupils. Does the Minister not think that this is an appalling situation for dedicated professionals to be in, taking salary cuts and doing all they have to do to keep schools running? Are the Government speaking to teachers’ and head teachers’ unions about this situation? If so, what is the response?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, last year we increased the main scale pay rate for teachers by the largest amount in nearly 10 years. Teachers are well paid, and deservedly so. This year, we are increasing the contribution to their pensions by some 43%, one of the largest increases in any pension contribution in the country.

Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Statement.

[Noble Lords]

Order!

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I am so sorry.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating this important Statement. We welcome the fact that the Government are introducing the provisions of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 on the introduction of compulsory relationships education for all pupils in primary schools, and compulsory relationships and sex education for all pupils in secondary schools. In addition, health education is being made compulsory for all pupils in state-funded schools, which is also something that we regard as a positive move in preparing young people for an increasingly complicated world. I have a number of questions for the Minister and will be perfectly content if he wishes to respond in writing if he feels unable to answer them immediately.

The Secretary of State announced that he is making £6 million available for training and resources to support the new subjects, but that averages out at around £250 per school. What does the Minister expect schools to be able to achieve with such meagre additional resources? Can he further provide an indication as to whether these are indeed additional resources or whether they are recycled from within the DfE budget? How many teachers will be trained in the new subjects, and how many schools does he expect to be teaching them, by the date that he mentioned, September 2020?

I agree with the Secretary of State that these subjects are of vital importance, but I suspect I am not alone in wondering what he expects schools to teach less of in order to make room for these new subjects in the timetable.

I understand the Government’s position on the parental opt-out for relationships and sex education, but I have to ask why they would not give a child the right to be included in those lessons at any age instead of selecting what appears to be an arbitrary age at which point the child’s voice will be heard. The Statement says that the parental opt-out could be overruled in “exceptional circumstances”. Could the Minister give examples of what he believes would amount to such exceptional circumstances?

Noble Lords will have read of the dreadful bullying and mental health problems that affect LGBT people. The fact that these issues are included in the draft guidance could be a milestone in ensuring that these people and others can grow up understanding more and living in a safer environment. We are certainly glad that the draft guidance says that these topics must be fully integrated into the curriculum and not taught separately. Does the Secretary of State believe that there are any circumstances in which a school should be allowed to simply not teach LGBT issues as part of this curriculum? Obviously, it would undermine the whole thrust of the provisions if that were the case.

It can be only to everyone’s benefit if we better understand the differing issues that face each of us. I hope these regulations will mean that we can work on a cross-party basis to make that a reality for the next generation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

I apologise for my earlier interruption. Noble Lords may put it down to keenness, as I am keen on this area of the school curriculum. I very much welcome the fact that this will be a compulsory subject in our schools; it has been a long time coming. The Minister rightly emphasised that teaching on keeping children safe, developing good relationships, self-esteem and sexual education has been recognised in surveys as having an impact on academic performance in schools.

We know that not all children learn about issues such as sex and relationship education and online safety at home. Indeed, many parents say that they are pleased and grateful that their children receive this kind of education from schools and other professionals. I hope the Government will not be swayed by negative impulses from media sensationalism about this, as we have seen already. Such treatment of serious subjects is a disservice to parents and children.

We have talked about funding; I hope that that will be sorted out. I also hope that schools will be encouraged to involve other professionals in delivering this programme, including school nurses, and will work across departments to share expertise and the funding that will be made available.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I reassure the noble Baroness that we are absolutely firm on steering the middle course that we have tried to achieve over this long period to get to this point. As she will know, the call for evidence generated some 23,000 responses; the response to the consultation generated another 11,000. On top of that, we had two petitions, with 29,000 names in combination. We have tried to steer a way through this and we believe that we have come up with a process that keeps the vast majority of parents happy and comfortable that we are doing this in the right way, but, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, we will keep this under review because we are in a fast-changing world, particularly online.

Young People

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Armstrong for initiating this debate and for introducing it so powerfully. Coming last of the Back-Bench speakers is not enviable, and less so after a debate of such variety, covering so many important aspects. Noble Lords have spelled out eloquently many of the challenges facing young people. I shall not repeat their wise words.

The challenges facing young people are often diverse, complex and not of their own making. It is important both to protect young people and to empower them; these are basic human rights. I believe it is also important to involve young people in defining their own needs and to respond to their concerns with positive and appropriate interventions. That means asking young people and involving their energies in solving the problems. I thoroughly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, about citizenship education and involving young people in education.

We can begin to have an impact on the challenges facing young people only if we listen to them and take their views seriously. Sometimes the biggest challenge for young people is being listened to. I want to give a couple of examples of the way that this might work. Last year, I was involved in a seminar in Portcullis House on child mental health and child-friendly justice, organised and funded by the Council of Europe and the UK Parliament. “Children” means those up to the age of 18. Half the participants were children and some older young people; the other half were European parliamentarians, NGOs and the police. Discussion took place in small groups, feeding back to plenary sessions. The young people were vocal about the challenges that they faced. They were totally involved and the seminar received some moving statements and suggestions for improving services. I will give noble Lords a flavour of what they said.

One said, “We are experts by experience. Policies are often good but badly implemented. There are problems of access, of waiting lists. There are not enough counsellors in schools and not enough mental health services for young people where they are treated in a child-centred way. Early diagnosis is important, otherwise the challenge of mental health gets bigger and bigger. We need key workers who follow the progress of the young person step by step”. I think that noble Lords will appreciate how sensible that advice is.

I shall now relate a few of the comments on child-friendly justice. I am pleased to see that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is here, as he has always supported child-friendly justice. The young people said that the training of professionals needs to make systems more child-friendly; that there are passionate and committed people in the workforce but they need support and funding; that children get passed around and that is not helpful; and that multi-agency work is needed. They said that some children have particular challenges—BME young men, refugees, and lesbian and gay young people, for example; that the justice system is designed for adults but too often applied to children; that the system should be built around the needs of the child and should rehabilitate rather than punish; that a child should be encouraged to grow out of crime; and that the age of responsibility—10 in England—should be raised.

Due to these young people expressing their feelings, a report involving them was produced last November, with follow-up round tables with Ministers—Jackie Doyle-Price and Ed Argar, in particular. The young people’s movement has grown and become more determined. Peer support and self-help are also growing. Can the Minister say how the Government are encouraging the voice of the child to be heard, in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? Can his department perhaps provide examples of good practice? I believe that listening to young children and taking on board what they say is supremely important.

Schools: Funding

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Morris for her passionate, inspired and concerned introduction to this important debate. She is a true champion of true education, as is my noble friend Lord Knight. True education, as someone—maybe one of them—once said, is rounded and grounded. I share their concerns and those of others about larger classes, a narrow curriculum and total school funding per pupil, which has fallen by 8% since 2010, with sixth forms taking a huge hit.

Like my noble friend Lady Morris, I worry about special educational needs, and I salute initiatives such as the London Challenge. I salute schools with hard-pressed head teachers who nevertheless work with classroom teachers on the whole ethos of their schools, trying to preserve art, languages, sport, drama, music, libraries and personal, social and health education. All these are so important to a rounded and grounded education. These schools also spend money on counsellors and pastoral support. But real funding is a depressing problem.

My commitment to education comes from having been a teacher in secondary schools—the best job I ever had—a governor in various schools and the co-founder of a preschool playgroup when my own children were small. I now suddenly see disintegration and an unreasonable focus on passing exams, to the detriment of children and teachers.

In a debate in my name two weeks ago, we addressed life chances and social mobility, including early intervention. I and others put forward the point that early intervention did not just mean in the early years. Adolescents can take advantage of intervention. They undergo massive brain development as well as social and emotional development. This can make them more knowledgeable and aware of the importance of health, education and developing positive relationships. According to the World Health Organization, adolescence stretches from the age of 10 to 19. Schools and higher education institutions can intervene to develop not only adolescents’ academic skills and achievement but social and emotional skills, which employers say they value so highly.

We have a patchy education system, and things are not changing fast enough for many young people who have poor parents, live in deprived areas and go to below-average schools. Successful intervention models such as Sure Start and youth services have been decimated. Between 2012 and 2016, around 600 youth centres and one children’s centre closed every week—a poor record for a Government who say that they care about education and social mobility.

I shall focus mainly on the funding of early years education today. This is not, strictly speaking, about schools, but we all know that education happens in places other than schools, and it happens early. In 2014-15, I was involved in the Select Committee on Affordable Childcare. We carried out a comprehensive review of childcare, which involved a number of providers, both in schools and in the private and voluntary sectors. Government ministries and academics also supplied responses. Some of our findings are still relevant today. Funding systems were complex and often difficult to understand; it is still the same. Provision was piecemeal, with the best being in affluent areas with well-trained staff, and often in school settings; it is still the same.

We know from the Department for Education’s own research that 25% of families earning under £20,000 use their 30-hour free entitlement, compared with 58% of families earning more than £45,000. Only 40% of two year-olds qualify for this provision, yet research shows that two year-olds who have attended nursery have larger vocabularies, are more socially skilled and achieve better in primary school.

My noble friend Lady Morgan spoke in the debate that I have mentioned and highlighted the strange funding disparities in childcare. Government support seems to now focus more on the wealthier: they have moved from supporting vulnerable children to supporting affluent families. Less-advantaged parents, earning under £16,000 a year, are entitled to 15 hours a week of free childcare, and those parents earning £100,000 a year get 30 hours a week of free childcare. Where is the logic in this?

It is rightly pointed out that providing early support to families and children can contribute to preventing anti-social behaviour and crime and support school attainment and good mental health. It makes sense to have the best possible early years education universally, with simple and effective funding mechanisms. Such interventions save enormous costs around later problems. It has been argued, and is mentioned in the report on affordable childcare, that increases in maternal employment of 1% could have a net positive impact on public finances of around £200 million.

We have a great deal of information on all aspects of early intervention, both for children and adolescents. Our superb voluntary sector does a splendid job working with children and provides research that identifies good practice and bears out the need for funding. As I said, funding in early years and adolescence saves later, enormous costs around truancy, delinquency, unemployment and imprisonment. Professionals strive to overcome these problems, but they have a tough job later on.

On 13 November, a debate took place in another place on education funding, and there were many excellent speeches from all sides. I was particularly interested in one from the MP for Burnley, Julie Cooper—I was born, bred and educated not far from Burnley. She pointed out that, in her constituency, the average reduction in school funding is £300 per child, and that the Burnley FE college has had its funding cut by 30% since 2010. She too spoke of early years, and gave examples from her own constituency of deprivation affecting choices and chances. Like me, and like my noble friend Lady Morgan, she is aware of variations in provision and the potential savings for the economy from good-quality provision. Every £1 spent on early years is worth £15 in later years, yet many children have no access to good early years education, and this will get worse unless the Government show a real commitment to sustained support for this vital age group that continues throughout primary and secondary school, and into higher education.

We read in the press regularly, and we have heard today, about per-pupil funding not being protected, and significant cuts so that schools cannot balance their budgets. Schools and further education colleges are having to make dramatic cuts, and local authority funding for the provision of children and family services and youth services is suffering. They are having to focus instead on crises and safeguarding, rather than on creative work with children and families.

The Government have created a volcano and it is beginning to erupt. Teachers are angry, parents are angry and too many young people are feeling the effects of overtesting and stress at school. I am particularly concerned about mental health issues in children and young people. It is a growing problem, and schools are one of the reasons for this. Yet schools should be able to play their part in preventing or defusing such situations. Many do a very good job but, in an insecure early years system, with poorly funded schools and FE colleges and cuts to services for families, it is difficult to perform that function. How will the Government remedy these conditions and do their duty by all our children?

Schools: Mental Health Support

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, that is the reason why we are rolling out mental health training in schools. Since April last year, we have already trained 1,300 teachers across 1,000 schools to increase awareness of subjects such as the one the noble Countess raises.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand that the number of school nurses and counsellors has dramatically decreased over the past few years. Can the Minister confirm this? What is the role of school nurses and counsellors, or do they no longer have one because they have disappeared?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it is up to individual schools to deploy their resources as they see fit. Where school counsellors provide an important role, I am sure they are used, but as I said in answer to the supplementary question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, we are deploying more resources into this area in schools.