Secondary Schools: Autistic Pupils

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord raises two connected issues. Formal diagnosis of autism in this country needs to be done by a medical professional—a doctor. The noble Lord is absolutely right; that does not need to slow down interventions to support a child where there is apparently autism, even before it is confirmed. The Government announced a contract with a number of leading charities in this area to provide universal training across the teaching workforce in both schools and FE, and 60,000 people have been trained so far since April 2022.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, on this question of diagnosis, which the Minister has referred to, I am sure she is aware that it can take quite a long time before it is even seen to be necessary to seek a diagnosis, that this is particularly true with girls—children and young people up to teenage years—and that, once the need for a diagnosis has been identified, it can take a very long time to get it. Even if you are prepared—some people are, but not everybody can—to go for a private route to secure that diagnosis, it can sometimes be a year or two, three or four years before that diagnosis can be made. Can she see any way forward to changing that situation?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The whole strategic focus of the improvement plan that we will be publishing in response to the SEND and AP Green Paper consultation is to address the problem we see today of late diagnosis, late intervention and needs escalating; that is absolutely our aspiration. On the diagnosis of girls, we are running two pilots at the moment, one testing new screening tools and the other seeing whether we can adapt existing ones, because we are all aware that four times as many boys are diagnosed as girls.

Family: Protective Effect

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I will certainly take the point that my noble friend has raised back to the department. I am delighted to express my support for the incredibly important, difficult and sensitive work that child contact centres carry out.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

To take the Minister back to the answer she gave on the subject of mental health services, particularly for young people, she will be aware that the real difficulty in providing those services is that there is an insufficiently large workforce. There are simply not enough professionally qualified people to deliver the kinds of services that young people very badly need. In what way are the various funds that the Minister has referred to going to help with that problem?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a fair point, and I am happy to write to her setting out in more detail the Government’s strategy on expanding the workforce. She will appreciate that this falls more within the Department of Health workforce strategy, but I am happy to expand on that. Also, there are a number of very sophisticated and helpful digital applications that can help support young people in addressing the mental health challenges they face.

Education: Philosophy

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate will be aware of the legislation we were debating in Grand Committee only yesterday afternoon on the importance of free speech in our universities. The Government think that is of critical importance, as is academic freedom, but of course, it needs to start in our schools, and I have seen many fantastic examples of teachers engaging with children and giving them those skills and the confidence to debate.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I should declare an interest as I have a degree in philosophy—but I am not sure what that says about the value of such a thing. I may no longer be very familiar with synthetic a priori or logical positivism, but what I do know is that philosophy teaches you never to be sure that you are right. Does the Minister agree that our public discourse and political culture could really do with a bit less certainty about rightness?

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 114A is the first appearance of an amendment that deals with longer time limits. Such amendments seem to be scattered through a number of groups. I will try not to repeat myself, or indeed focus on them at this moment because there are many more of them in later groups.

The principle I am working to is that the time limits being set should work for a reasonably together, reasonably collaborative parent. We have to allow for the fact that children go on holidays and that out of term time, it may be hard to get hold of them. We should look at longer limits than are set out in the Bill, and at the concept of “school days”—the parental equivalent of working days—as the form these limits should take.

I am interested to know where my noble friend finds herself on this and all the other amendments on time limits. I am aiming to help the Government produce a system that works fairly. If we have a system that trips parents easily into school attendance orders, then we need to allow parents time to react first. I particularly think that we need to give parents time to get it wrong first. I know how often I managed to get things wrong. Reading through my amendments in putting together these groups, I can see that my drafting has not exactly been perfect. We ought to have human time limits. They should not be overlong, but they ought to allow for the real lives of the home educators involved. After all, local authorities are not known as the fastest people in the world when it comes to responding to inquiries. There ought to be some equality of allowance.

In this group, Amendment 122C questions whether, in this section of the Bill, the Government intend to catch hired home tutors—people picking up an individual from a tutor supplier and saying, “We’d love you to come in a couple of days a week to support us in home education”. Would they be caught by Amendment 122C? Where is the boundary between organised provision of education and a parent asking an individual to come in and help?

Amendment 126A asks that we look at the benefit of registering tutors, in much the same style as we have done with parking operators. The Government are expanding the number of tutors and their use in the schooling system, but we do not have a system that in any way is protective of the public. There is no useful form of registration for tutors. To my mind, this is a subject to which the Government should be bending a thought. The best I can hope for from my noble friend is, “Yes, we’re thinking of looking at it”, but I do think that they should be.

I have read through Amendment 128A before. This does need to be said somewhere, and I suspect it is in the guidance my noble friend has been talking about. The basis on which local authorities are supposed to be interacting with home education need to be made clear to them.

All the other amendments in this group—apart from Amendment 140B, which is just an example of an appeal—consider ways in which the support the Government mention in the Bill but do not, as far as I can see in the impact assessment, provide any money for, might be provided. They look at things that good local authorities already do. Amendment 173 suggests that this support should be in place before we pitch into activating the registration system.

The point was made when considering the last group that home educators are actually saving the state a lot of money. My noble friend said we should not start giving money to home educators, and that this was a decision they had made. Yes, but we should give money to local authorities so that their support for home educators is properly funded. In previous iterations, I have suggested that half the money the Government save should go to local authorities—with no undue ring-fencing—the intention being that it is a fund to provide for their support of home educators, to be used in a way that works best locally. That is not in the impact assessment at the moment, and I very much hope that the Government will have a figure in front of us before the Bill leaves this House. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I remind the Committee that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I call the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the comprehensive introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, to the wide-ranging amendments in this group has once again set the tone for many of us with concerns about this part of the Bill as originally drafted. I think that everyone, including the Minister, has said that they want to see the relationship between home-educating parents and their local authority start from a position of trust and support, while ensuring that there is a system that protects children too.

I am pleased that at the end of his speech the noble Lord mentioned that there should be some money for local authorities to help support home educators. That was one of the points I mentioned about the northern California home educators I saw at Sierra College, just outside Sacramento. That was exactly what had happened. The school board here understood that it could help parents without changing parents’ way of educating their children. As a result of that trust, the entire tone changed between the home educators and the school board.

I have signed the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans’s Amendments 115, 117 and 119, which extend from 15 to 30 days the period in which parents must register their child and provide the information. Other amendments in this group do the same. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, talks about “school days”, not just “days”, and that is very helpful and supportive as well. Amendment 129 from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will ensure that children or teachers get the support for any special educational need or disability that they would have already got.

In previous groups I have talked about the problem that many parents have had of not getting the support they need for their child, even though they may be entitled to it. If they have had some support, it has not been enough to provide the specific support that the child needs, whether for special educational needs, disability or a mental or physical health problem. I have given examples of that before. As a result, some parents have been forced to withdraw their children from school, often because they felt that their child was literally not safe—perhaps a medical procedure requires a school nurse to do it but there is no longer a school nurse available. Sometimes parents have been threatened with off-rolling by the school. Sometimes the promised special educational needs support has not happened.

In the last group the noble Lord, Lord Soley, gave a further good example of children being withdrawn from school because of their challenging behaviour. It is important to recognise that children with this challenging behaviour should also get support. If they end up out of school with their parents trying to cope, that is a very big burden for parents. The behaviour of parents, when accused by the local authority of not doing things, often causes friction. Local authorities should always come from the approach that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, outlined: that of teachers always wanting to help, understand and get to the root of the problem and provide the support that will change the child’s behaviour.

I believe the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is vital. A child with SEN, a disability or a health problem who is out of school should have the support that they would have got in school. They need it wherever they receive their education. His amendment needs to succeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I oppose Clause 48 standing part of the Bill to enable us again to have a full discussion of the issues in this part. Part 3 has drawn significant criticism from home educators and I want to put their significant anxieties and concerns about the introduction of the children not in school register to the Committee. They are very fearful of its consequences and its unintended consequences for their children and their children’s education. Sadly, many feel demonised by the tone of this part. As we have heard from the Government, their intention behind this part of the legislation is to tackle the increasing number of pupils who are disengaging from schools and increasing non-attendance. I hope, therefore, that this debate will allow the Minister to explain to the Committee, and put on record comprehensively, the reasons this part is being introduced. More importantly, I hope it will give the opportunity for the fears and anxieties of home educators to be alleviated, to allow the Government’s significant reassurances to be given to home educators and for this Committee to hear those comments before Report.

I think all of us in this Committee would recognise that home-educating families begin and continue with home education as they passionately believe the home is the best setting for their children to learn and thrive. There are many reasons why school is not a suitable environment for some children. Often, it is because the specific needs of the child cannot adequately be accommodated by a school, which may already be managing a lot of competing needs of the children in its care. By way of illustration, may I spend a few minutes giving the situations and views of two home-educating families?

First, I have first-hand experience of how a five year-old boy has thrived from being home educated. This little boy, settled now with his new adopted family, can be quite disruptive. In a school environment it became clear that, if bored, he would cause trouble and risked being too easily dismissed as the naughty kid in the class. Through home education this five year-old little boy now has a reading age of eight: he loves Shakespeare and reading about classical Greek mythology. In maths he is doing algebra because he loves it, and does it over and over. He is confident and, although only five, can have a proper conversation with anyone, including me. All that was needed was a different educational environment in which he could flourish. His parents and the home-educating community of which they are a part are terrified by this part of the Bill. His parents can understand the intent behind it, but they feel that

“this legislation is effectively punishing parents for doing what they feel is right by their child”.

My second example illustrates how a child’s specific health needs often mean home education is the only choice. For one mum the health of her daughter was paramount; her daughter developed absence seizures in year 1, a debilitating condition which affected her brain. Despite requests, her school refused to facilitate necessary long-term changes to benefit her health. They asked for her to attend school late once a week, so she could wake naturally, as advised by her consultant. Even though this was trialled prior to lockdown, when the school reopened the family was threatened with a fine. It appeared to the family that the school was far more concerned about the impact on its attendance figures than the needs of their daughter. Now, through home education, in which the family was able to deliver the needs advised by the medical professionals, the young girl has recovered from the seizures and her parents are determined to keep it that way. Her mum said:

“I am terrified the Schools Bill will result in her being forced back into school and the seizures recurring.”


What assurances can the Minister give both these families, and the many others that have contacted us, that the register will not be used by local authorities to force children back into school? For example, condition C in new Section 436B could be read as saying that consent needs to be secured to educate your child at home. Parents—and especially parents of children with special educational needs—need assurances that their child will not be compelled to attend a school that is unable or unsuitable to provide for that child. What assurances can the Minister give that this will not be the case? Will the Government consider tabling an amendment to this condition to ensure that this is not the case?

The renewed focus on reducing the number of children not in school must not lead to an overaggressive approach from schools and local authorities towards home educators. Can the Minister state or comment on whether it is envisaged that guidance about the use of the register regarding home educators will be issued? We already hear reports from home educators of overreach by schools and local authorities, threatening fines and prosecutions, and making parents feel like they are troublesome or elitist and making the wrong choice for their children. There is a lack of empathy and understanding that, for home educators, it is the successful education of their children that is utmost in their mind. How will the Government ensure that the regulation around the children not in school register and any associated guidance will not be used as a stick to erode parents’ democratic right to decide how best to educate their children?

In this part of the Bill, there is a huge increase in information for families to provide—so much so that it is intrusive. Home-educating families are already known to their local authority. Why is more personal and sensitive data needed? New Section 436C(2) states that the register may contain

“any other information the local authority consider appropriate.”

What information did the noble Baroness have in mind when this subsection was drafted? What reassurances can she give that the information requested by local authorities will not grow and be extended in different ways by different local authorities, creating a postcode lottery of registration information?

It is so important to be clear about what data will be published, who it will be shared with and how it will be kept secure, as the failure to provide this data, as people have said in the past, can result in fines and imprisonment.

New Section 436D creates a duty on parents to provide information requested by the local authority, but there must be exemptions for victims of domestic violence. One woman who works with home educators wrote to me to explain that local authorities will now require the names of both parents. The fear of data breaches from authorities is causing terror among some women who have fled abusive former partners. One mother she met through her work has already had to relocate three times, including once to a refuge with her daughter, because both social services and the local authority elective home education staff divulged her address to her former partner who, by court order, was not allowed to hold her or her daughter’s address. This situation happened under the current protections we have in place. How will the Minister protect victims of domestic abuse when the regulation around the register seems to eradicate this protection completely?

Many home educators are part of local groups and networks. They offer each other support and share information. That is why new Section 436E is a concern for those home educators who are part of active home education groups. It could allow for financial penalties to be levied against child tutors, childminders or home education groups where parents share care of their children. I am sure that was not the intent of this section, and therefore ask the Minister to look again to see whether the breadth of this section can be re-examined so that there are no other unintended consequences of this nature.

Finally, one of the stated aims of this part of the legislation is to give more support to home educators. However, it is not clear what support will be afforded to home educators, as it is left to the local authorities to decide what they think is fit. Furthermore, there is no clear and detailed framework to ensure that local authorities assess children’s education fairly and consistently. What support do the Government envisage being given to home education by this part of the Bill and by local authorities?

In conclusion, I thank all the organisations and home-educating parents who have contacted me; there have been many, including Education Otherwise, Square Peg and the elective home education art project, to name a few. I hope I have managed to get across their main concerns today. All the themes of their comments were the same: that home educators felt demonised not encouraged, unfairly victimised, and powerless to counter the additional local authority powers and demands. Clearly, this reaction from home educators was not the Government’s intention, so I hope that this debate, and the other debates we have on clauses in this part, will allow the Minister to allay the genuine fears of home educators across the country and consider how this part can be changed before Report.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I call the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, whose introduction to this clause stand part debate was helpful, especially with the examples she provided. I also agree with her about ensuring that no data for victims of domestic abuse should be published or passed on. When doing my work on stalking law reform, I met a woman who was such a victim. She and her son had had to repeatedly move after her violent and stalker husband had found her. After the third move a big red flag was put on her file, but the social worker at the local authority decided to give her ex-husband her address because she felt that he should have access to his son. Unfortunately, he attacked both her and him. We cannot always guarantee the behaviour of people, but in this case we know that victims of domestic abuse are targets for their ex-partners.

The Minister has heard from noble Lords across the Committee over the last two days of debate concerns about this part of the Bill, particularly Clause 48, with questions about the language. My noble friend Lord Shipley raised concerns about the word “expediency”, but plenty of other concerns were raised too. For example, how exactly will data be held and used?

There are concerns too about the tone of the legislation, which is designed on the basis of home educators being a problem, as we have heard from many people speaking today. I know the Minister does not agree with that and is urging us to be careful with our language, but we are hearing from parents that the tone of the Bill is what worries them.

Once again, many parents have said that, unfortunately, their relationship with the local authority has been the root of their problems, which has meant that the child had to be withdrawn from school. Far too many local authorities have taken the view of having a hostile and difficult relationship. It has been helpful to listen to the debate and hear the supportive way in which many amendments, often led by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, have tried to change that tone. It would be good to see that in revisions from the Minister at a later stage.

Concerns about the principles that underpin this clause also worry many. So I completely agree, first, with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, that we should ask the Minister to respond to the clause standing part, but also with my noble friend Lord Shipley’s earlier comment that, with Report stage starting in under two weeks, it is completely wrong to proceed with this part of the Bill while there are so many unsolved problems: those of principle, language and attitude. Frankly, this means that there must be a delay to starting Report while the Government think again—at least until the autumn.

Special Educational Needs

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government have made a big commitment to increasing funding in this area. High needs funding has risen by 40% over the past three years, but we work proactively with local authorities which are under particular pressure. We have a safety-valve programme, where we provide additional funding to those local authorities that can demonstrate they have a strategy for addressing their overspend.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness said that she understood the point being made by my noble friend Lord Kennedy; I fear I did not entirely understand her answer. She appears to be saying that it does not matter that schools are not getting the money per pupil originally intended for them because they have flexibility to spend it as they wish. I do not quite see how those two things go together. Could she explain?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the noble Baroness knows, schools get two amounts of funding for children. In the current financial year, they will receive directly almost £9 billion, and the notional SEN budget was £4.3 billion. We believe that it is best for them to decide how that is spent. The noble Baroness will also be aware that we are moving to the national funding formula, which will create greater consistency and transparency in how those funds are used.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 97A I shall speak also to the other amendments in my name in this group.

The substantive amendments in the group concern the completeness of the register. I personally see no justification whatever for the register targeting only people who are home educating. To my mind, the point of the register should be that we know what is happening to every child in this country. We should be able to track their progress through education, know what it has been, see the outcomes, understand what is going on and, through that process, improve our education system and make sure that every child benefits from our determination that they should have the opportunity of education.

Amendment 101B asks that we specifically identify those who are electively home educating so that we can know exactly which children come under that category—we do not want it cluttered up by people who have been off-rolled by schools into the care of parents who are clearly not up to home educating; this should be a definite decision—and understand how support for those parents and children in different local authorities, because it is very different between local authorities, results in the outcomes that it does. Then we can get a good picture of the benefits of, and concerns that we might reasonably have about, home education, rather than the darkness which is all that confronts us at present. Anyone who has been involved in home education will have a fistful of wonderful examples of parents who have made a great success of children who have been abandoned by the state, but is that the universal picture? None of us knows, but most of us suspect not. Home educators know that there are some parents who do not make a success of it.

We really need to know what is going on with all our children, so to my mind there is no justification for not putting on a register people who are not being electively home educated but who are not registered for full-time attendance at school. We should know who these children are, why they are not at school and what is being done to support them. The first thing the register should do is identify the home educators and, specifically, those who are not electively home educated and who therefore should be in the direct care of the local authority, and to pin a duty on the local authority as to why they are not in school and what is being done about it.

That is echoed in my suggestion that we should not grant local authorities an exemption for Section 19 children. To my mind, that is a disgraceful dustbin that is used by local authorities to deal with difficult children and put them out of mind. We should be focusing on them. We should know exactly who they are, where they are and what is being done about them. All that information should be easily accessible so that we can hold local authorities to account. It is really important that children who are difficult to educate should be educated well; they will only cause us much greater difficulties later on if we do not do so. We should not allow local authorities this escape hatch. We as a Government, and as people who hold the Government to account, should be able to see clearly what is going on with children who come under Section 19.

We should also have a very clear picture of what is happening in independent schools. If you try to track a child through education at the moment and they switch from state to independent, they go into a black hole: they are no longer in the national pupil database. They reappear when they take GCSEs or A-levels, but otherwise they are gone. Why? We should know what is happening; we should be able to judge the progress these children are making. We should be able to see how they are being educated and what pattern of education our children are going through. It is really important to have the data on which to base decisions about our education system.

We should have a universal pupil number that applies to every child, and we should know where every child with a UPN is; they should not be able to disappear off the system. That a child with a UPN does not appear on the register should be a cause for immediate concern; someone should be looking for them and finding out what is happening to them. At the moment, there are so many holes in the register we just cannot see. My plea in Amendments 101B, 122B, 130B and 132A, and 97E in the next group, is that the register should be complete and that this completeness should be used to make sure we know exactly what is happening by way of education to every child in the UK on at least an annual basis.

There are three small amendments in this group. On Amendment 97A, the phrase used in the Bill is that

“the child is in the authority’s area.”

Does that apply when they are on holiday? What is being “in the authority’s area”? How does this apply to Travellers’ children? What is the meaning of that phrase as it is at the moment—where is it established?

On Amendment 97B, the current wording rather sounds as if permission is needed to take a child out of school to home educate. I know that is not the case, but I just want to query the wording used in that clause.

Amendment 97C says that this is a big change as we are suddenly requiring a lot of people who have not had to register their children previously to register them now. We ought to provide them with information, support and plenty of time to get up to speed with what they need to do. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is contributing remotely.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right that we need to know about all children, whether in school or not. In this part of the Bill, the problem is the focus on a one-size-fits-all approach that is all about truants or bad children, when we have already heard about the complexity of the difficulties that many of these children are facing—often, but not only, SEND.

The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, talked about a unique pupil number. We had the same debate during the passage of the Health and Care Act about a unique child identifying number, and an amendment was passed. As a result of that, there are certainly discussions going on with the DfE to have a unique children’s number because often, for the most vulnerable children, the information is not shared between different departments—health and education are the two obvious ones, but there are others as well. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response.

This group moves us on to some of the detail about how the register of children who are not in school will work, and I share many of the concerns that have already been expressed about whether this part of the Bill is ready to be enacted and whether it will actually ever really work in practice.

My Amendment 129AA picks up on the last group of amendments, where I outlined the long list of children currently being let down by schools and local authorities, many of whom are not in school for their own health reasons. I will not repeat that detail. My amendment in this group seeks to ensure not just that the local authority must have regard to the parent’s request but that it takes account of

“the advice of an independent expert familiar with the particular circumstances of the child.”

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder whether I might assist the noble Lord and the Committee. I just want to make it clear, purely procedurally, that Clause 3 stand part will be put as a Question once this group of amendments has been discussed. It has not yet been put as a Question; however, it was discussed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, just said, as part of an earlier group on the first day in Committee.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

I thought that in fact, with great respect, in the earlier debate we debated Clauses 1 and 4, which are no longer there. Amendment 35 states specifically that:

“The above-named Lords give notice of their intention to oppose the Question that Clause 3 stand part of the Bill.”

--- Later in debate ---

Debate on whether Clause 3 should stand part of the Bill.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that this Question was debated in the first group of amendments on day 1 in Committee. The Question is that Clause 3 stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

May I speak to this?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

You may.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

I was reminded earlier by the Minister that there was a debate on Clause 3—I remember it very vividly—on the previous day. In fact, that was when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who is the Convenor of the Cross Benches, said it was outrageous and should be deleted from the Bill, but I do not remember an actual Motion being mentioned on Clause 3. I do not see Clause 3 mentioned in any of the amendments from 1 to 35. Clauses 1 and 2 were, and Clauses 1 and 4 were dealt with on Wednesday.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, with the greatest respect to the noble Lord—I very much agree with the thrust of what he has said—I actually did have a Clause 3 stand part notice, to which the noble Lord signed his name, so I think we did debate it. Our problem is that we want to debate it again, and when we come to the fifth group, we shall want to debate it again and again and again.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

Does the noble Lord wish to continue to discuss Clause 3 stand part?

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

I would like to. Clauses 1 and 3 are crucial parts of the Bill, and Clause 3 extends the power of the Secretary of State quite considerably. If I could draw attention to Clause 3, this allows the Secretary of State to apply or disapply education legislation almost at will, because the whole relationship between the Secretary of State and the school has now been changed. It has moved from a contract relationship, which we now have, where both sides can argue—and eventually, if necessary, go to law—to one of statutory imposition by the Secretary of State. That is why Clause 3 is very central; it is as important as Clause 1. That is why the noble and learned Lord on the Cross Benches spoke against it.

Obviously, I will not divide the House in Committee, but if the Government still come back with these sorts of clauses on Report—which I think they hope to take in July—my noble friends Lord Agnew and Lord Nash and I will table all these amendments again and will seek the opinion of the House on them, because this is essentially a constitutional Bill. That is what this comes down to. The power of the Secretary of State is being enhanced in a way that has not happened since 1870, and that has not been done with consultation or any sort of examination.

I am amazed, with the success that my noble friends Lord Agnew and Lord Nash had in dealing with failing schools, that I was at the receiving end—I had to defend my UTCs and all the rest of it, so I saw how well they worked. Actually, they were quite reasonable people to deal with. Some things we agreed on, some we did not, but at least I had a legal status. In fact, the Government changed their view only when I threatened them with a judicial review, because my trust could afford to pay for that. Then they changed their view, and I think as a matter of revenge the department has said, “Well, we’ll now take such powers that we’ll be able to use them willy-nilly, and make them completely our powers and not resistant to judicial review or anything.” This was only because my charity could afford go to judicial review, whereas an individual school that is threatened with closure under this Bill would not have the ability to do that, nor would a governing body take the Secretary of State to judicial review. This is really a sort of revenge act by the department for losing out against me in order to give it quite incredible statutory powers. I really do not think the House should accept this, but, of course, I will not divide the House today.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part one
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a member of Middlesex Learning Trust and a trustee of Artis Foundation. When I spoke in the debate on the humble Address last week, I focused on things the Bill does not address. I am not going to go back to them, but I have not forgotten them, and I am very pleased that quite a lot of them have been addressed by others.

Today I want to concentrate on one aspect the Bill does address, which has already been touched on—I think—by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who is no longer in her place, but I missed a tiny bit of her speech, and certainly implicitly if not directly by the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham. These are the new provisions dealing with school attendance. In doing so, I acknowledge an excellent briefing from Ambitious about Autism.

I am assuming I do not have to explain in this very well-informed company what autism is. On current evidence, one in 57 children are affected. The briefing from Ambitious about Autism reveals that 31% of autistic children and young people—that is, over 43,000 students—were persistent absentees in 2021. Autism is a spectrum disorder, so different people present in different ways. I want to try to describe what it is like for one family with a charming, funny, articulate and highly intelligent autistic adolescent for whom school is a nightmare—not schoolwork, but school itself, the environment and the social demands. This is an ordinary middle-class family with two parents with high-pressured senior jobs, one of them in education. It is my family.

As most of us know, living with adolescents can be pretty gruelling at the best of times. An adolescent with an autism diagnosis and significant mental health problems, especially one who is highly articulate and intelligent, presents a whole different level of challenge. There are good times and bad times, of course. At good times, life goes along in a reasonably normal way; at bad times, it is very different. There is extreme volatility and unpredictable behaviour; there is acute distress leading to extended meltdowns and self-harm; there is frequent disruption to family and professional life, including mine, caused by the struggle to get the young person to school and keep them there, which is sometimes impossible. There is the limited availability of help and support, both in school and from other agencies such as CAMHS, which has already been alluded to. This is not from want of good will, but from want of resources.

Then, there is the stress, guilt and corrosive anxiety of trying to keep daily life more or less stable, which wear away at the mental and physical health of the parents, and there is the impact of constant disruption on other children in the family. It is relentless, exhausting and heart-breaking to see. What possible value could there be in adding to the pressure by threatening these parents and others in the same situation with fines and penalties?

Six in 10 young people say the main thing that would make school better for them would be to have a teacher who understood autism. I have heard a version of this many times over the years, but only half of teachers—53%—feel they have been adequately trained to support autistic children in the classroom. I know only too well what a difficult job teachers and school leaders have coping with everything that is asked of them. Most of them are doing their absolute best, but young people like my family member need special attention, which they often do not get.

Ambitious about Autism says:

“Compelling these young people to be at a school … without the support they need to attend, will not help them learn.”


We hear from parents and teachers that, when autistic young people are forced into a classroom where they cannot access the learning, they may go into shutdown, completely detaching from what is happening around them, or have meltdowns that affect other children and teachers and are very distressing for the young person themselves. It is just so.

What evidence does the Minister have that the provisions in the Bill will reduce absences in SEND groups, specifically among students with autism? Ambitious about Autism says punishing families of autistic pupils with fines for poor attendance will not make a positive difference;

“it will just further penalise families who already struggle to get support for their children.”

I am sure the Minister does not want this to happen. I hope she will accept the necessity to amend the Bill to ensure such potential—I hope unintended—consequences are avoided. I beg her to do so. My family and others like it do not deserve to have further pressure put on them. Their lives are difficult enough already.

Schools: Creative Subjects and the English Baccalaureate

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The department does not track the expenditure on these subjects in independent schools. What the department is committed to, and restated in the schools White Paper yesterday, is that every child should have a rich cultural education, and we will be publishing a new cultural education plan jointly with DCMS next year.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness’s credentials regarding personal commitment to these issues are impeccable, both in this role and the role she held previously at the DCMS; however, the evidence is against her. As the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, has just said, there is an impact not only on students in schools but on the workforce both within education and in the creative industries more widely, as there is a decline in the numbers of people prepared to take forward qualifications in music, drama and other creative subjects, Does she worry at all that the much-vaunted creative industries, of which she and her colleagues frequently speak with pride, will be suffering over the coming years as a result of these policies?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question and her kind remarks but I just cannot accept what she suggests. As she points out, we have thriving cultural and creative industries in this country. We have enough teachers entering initial teacher training for art and design and drama, well above our recruitment targets. We are committing more funding in T-levels, in media, broadcast and production, and in craft and design, so I think we are building the platform for our creative industries and our children to thrive.

Music Education in State Schools

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government share my noble friend’s concern about the importance of music education in all of our schools. We see it, along with other arts subjects, as integral to a good, strong curriculum. In relation to the numbers that my noble friend quoted on the music GCSE, I point out that while he is right that uptake of the GCSE has declined, uptake of the VTQ—the vocational qualification—has increased, so actually there are almost 53,000 children today taking either the GCSE or the VTQ, compared to almost 50,000 in 2016. On the timing of the announcement of the plan, as I said, it will be later this year. I will take his recommendations on further consultation back to the department.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I will follow directly from the question of the noble Lord, Lord Black. The Minister may be interested to know that my daughter is a professional musician who spends part of her working life, like so many of her colleagues, teaching in an independent school where the list of peripatetic and full-time music education staff takes up half a page on the school’s website. This shows that parents value music education and, in that case, are prepared and able to pay for it. Does the Minister think that parents of state school pupils care any less about music education? I am sure that she does not. None the less, she will be aware that my daughter’s own children, who attend state schools, do not have access to anything like the provision which my daughter is part of providing in an independent school.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I agree with the noble Baroness that parents in every school care about the richness and breadth of the curriculum which their children undertake. The music education hubs that were created in 2012 now work with around 91.4% of primary schools in this country and almost 88% of secondary schools. Since 2018, there has been a sharp increase in both music tuition and whole-class ensembles.