Schools: Free School Meals

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord is quite correct. Family Action was deployed in March last year on a two-year contract. It has since provided support to improve breakfast clubs in some 1,770 schools with a focus on increasing provision for disadvantaged pupils in opportunity areas.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister failed to answer the question that my noble friend Lady Lister asked. She gave evidence of discriminatory practices and the Minister said they could not possibly exist. Will he please look into the allegations that my noble friend made and answer the question? If this is going on, does he believe it is fair? It is a simple question and it deserves a simple answer.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, if the noble Baroness would like to write to me with examples of this, I will certainly look into it.

Schools: Mental Health Support

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I strongly support the noble Baroness’s comments on children’s exposure to outdoor activities. There is a very good trust, the Country Trust, which takes children on to farms in the same spirit as just mentioned. I think this is enormously important. I am the Minister responsible for the disposal of land in schools, and I intervene weekly to ensure that land used for such outdoor pursuits is not disposed of.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister not realise that the answer he gave to the right reverend Prelate about it taking a year to get help for a child in need was extraordinarily disappointing? Can nothing be done to deal with these urgent cases, about which the right reverend Prelate made such a persuasive point?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we are committing to and experimenting with much shorter waiting times in the NHS to bring that down to four weeks. The rollout of the trailblazers will be in exactly the same spirit: to learn best practice, which we can then adopt across the whole system.

Academies: Gender Pay Gap

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, unfortunately there is a market in different skills and professions. We know that we have a shortage of good physics teachers, and in order to bring physics teachers into the profession we need to offer additional incentives. However, looking more broadly across the gender pay gap, academies do not look as bad as people might suggest. For example, while in the top quartile men occupy 23% of the total workforce but have 32% of the jobs, the situation in the middle quartile is almost even, with men occupying 23% of the workforce and only 25% of them having upper-middle jobs. Therefore, I think that we are seeing great progress on this. It is also worth pointing out more generally that in 1997 the gender pay gap stood at 17.4%. Today, it has been reduced to 9.1%. I do not suggest that that is enough but it shows that we are making progress across our economy.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister be kind enough to clarify whether he is a director of the Inspiration Trust while holding the office that he holds at the moment?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am a director and a trustee. I stood down as the chairman. That matter was discussed with the Propriety and Ethics Team in the Cabinet Office. It was fully disclosed and is in my ministerial declaration.

Schools: Funding Formula

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that these proposals have a disproportionate effect on small primary schools in rural areas? I declare an interest because the school in my village, of Vernham Dean in Hampshire, will have suffered a cut of £64,000 in relation to the money that was available to it only a year and a half ago. I wonder whether the Minister can accept that these proposals will adversely affect young children in small, rural schools in relation to their counterparts in larger towns.

[Lord Nash]

Rural schools are of course essential to their local communities and ensure that children do not have to travel long distances to school, but we are including an enhanced sparsity factor in our formula to target additional funding to our smallest and most remote schools. This sparsity funding is over and above the lump sum that all schools will receive to help them meet costs that do not vary with their pupil numbers.

Birmingham Schools

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right. I outlined in the Statement the other actions that we will be taking, including, as she says, promoting British values. One issue that has come out of these Ofsted reports is the importance of keeping children safe on the internet. It is widely known that the biggest recruiting ground for extremism is the internet, so it is particularly important that we focus on that issue, as the Government are. As I said, we will be taking steps to ban teachers and governors from promoting extremism.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords—

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, I wonder whether—

[Noble Lords]

Bishop!