T-levels

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 25th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that we need a range of choices of placements, and that must include small and medium-sized enterprises. We launched recently an employer support fund, which will pay for legitimate costs employers incur in hosting placements. We believe that will be of particular value to small and medium-sized enterprises.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am slightly shocked that the Minister does not seem to be taking seriously the very serious criticisms included in the Ofsted report about T-levels—which, I have to say, my noble friend Lord Watson and other noble Lords predicted when the House discussed the establishment of T-levels. There is no satisfaction in being right, because this concerns the lives, futures and aspirations of a cohort of young people who have been badly served by T-levels, many of whom have dropped out. Has the department tracked these youngsters? What has happened to them, and have they been offered alternative options?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I will make a couple of points. I think the data that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, referred to on drop-outs refers to the T-level transition programme—we are doing a lot of work to strengthen and improve this, for the reasons both noble Lords referred to—rather than T-levels themselves. In the interests of fairness and accuracy, noble Lords have understandably reflected some of the areas for improvement highlighted by Ofsted, but I will quote the report:

“At their best, T levels provide an opportunity to combine high-quality study of theory with excellent development of practical skills”.

Schools: Admissions

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is estimated that 1.2 million school places are subject to religious selection. There is evidence of low numbers of pupils eligible for free school meals, which is a measure of deprivation, in English faith schools. Will the Minister share her reflections and concerns about the selection process that may have led to this and whether the Department for Education will take a deeper look at this?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I looked at those numbers just before this Question, because I anticipated that the noble Baroness might raise them. I am happy to pick this up with her afterwards, but the data that I looked at suggest very little difference in the profile of deprivation between faith and non-faith schools.

Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I have also added my name to Amendment 5 in this group.

Currently, the definition of a credit is outlined in Ofqual’s conditions of registration, the Office for Students’ sector-recognised standards and the QAA’s higher education credit framework. It is outlined in the Bill’s Explanatory Notes but not on the face of the Bill. It is important to put it in the Bill to ensure that the Government do not amend the value of a credit without any proper scrutiny. Even though the current Minister committed to the affirmative resolution procedure, there is no ongoing commitment for future Governments. Evidence given to the Bill Committee also set out reasons why a definition should be in the Bill.

It is really important to communicate to a student what a credit means. In essence, a student wants to know a number of things: how much this is going to cost them; what they will have to expend in effort and energy to complete the module; and what they will get for that module and those credits from the institution that they choose to go to. Transparency around the relationship between credits and fees and between credits and module content, including what is expected within that, is very important. Would it not also help anyone whom we want to use the lifelong learning entitlement to understand what their fees translate to in practice?

For a similar reason, I have added my name to Amendment 5, which the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, will address more fully. It is a probing amendment on credit structure. Other institutions have told us that they are on a 20-credit system and so increasing the structure to 30 credits would cause significant disruption, inhibit a quick rollout and be a great disincentive to many learners. There is the argument that short courses are valuable to employers and that putting in a higher credit minimum limits the potential for students’ choice in short courses.

This group has also acquired Amendment 6A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Johnson. We certainly support it. Higher education institutions should be allowed to uprate in line with inflation and this measure should be in the Bill; there would be little incentive for them otherwise.

These are three useful amendments. I beg to move Amendment 2.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 5 in the name of my noble friend Lady Twycross, to which my noble friend Lady Wilcox and I, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, have added our names. It is a probing amendment intended to ensure that modules worth 20 credits or more are included within the lifelong learning entitlement.

We are concerned that there is a series of questions on this that need clarification. The briefing that we have all received from the Association of Colleges also expresses concern about how the credits system will work. It says in its briefing that this is a significant reform and that we need to ensure that credit requirements do not limit access to modular learning, as many providers teach 20-credit modules and a minimum requirement of 30 credits would require learners to bundle together at least two modules to meet the funding requirement.

This issue was discussed in Committee in the Commons, where a similar amendment was tabled to the one that I have put down here to probe this issue further. Since we put our amendment down the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone, has tabled his Amendment 6A, which is of great interest. I want to see what the noble Lord has to say about it but, on the face of it, it is the kind of amendment that we would be interested in discussing as we move forward with the Bill.

Childcare Reform Package

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement today. We need to congratulate the Government on arriving at the childcare party—possibly 10 years late but, as they say, better late than never. For many of us—for me, after 25 or 26 years—this recognition of the vital importance of childcare is very welcome. I realise that, for this Government, this is actually quite a radical Statement.

The reforms outlined reflect some of the changes to universal credit that the shadow Secretary of State, my honourable friend Jonathan Ashworth, has repeatedly called for, so of course we welcome them. But, as he has also warned Ministers, they do not go far enough in giving people the chances and choices to go back to work at the scale necessary to tackle the challenges.

On childcare, the Government’s fixation on a broken hours model leaves them, I believe, blind to the wider challenges around supply and demand for childcare and what might happen to the extraordinary structure of the market for extra hours as a result of this. We have to ask whether the announcement addresses the extra staff who will be needed to deliver the extra entitlement for parents that the Minister has announced. We have to wonder about the retention and upskilling of existing staff in the sector who, we have to say, are leaving in droves for work that is clearly more valued. We also have to wonder how to enrich childcare to drive up quality, make it part of our education system and deliver a foundation for achievement and success right through school and life. We have to ask whether it delivers the flexibility that parents need not merely to work but to get into work—to get the training and skills they need and that our companies, communities and country need.

My honourable friend Stephen Morgan MP, who spoke in the Commons on this, said:

“It is a promise of jam tomorrow”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/6/23; col. 310.]


I think he might be a trifle harsh, but I certainly think it is a promise that brings with it some questions. When the 30 hours childcare entitlement is spread over a year, it is equivalent to 22 hours per week. The cliff edge in costs between government-funded hours and hours that parents have to pay full costs for therefore may create a barrier for parents wanting to work more hours. What is the Minister’s department doing to tackle the issue of the cliff edge?

What modelling has the department undertaken to estimate the number of additional staff required to deliver the increase in childcare hours entitlement announced in the Budget? There are currently two children for every Ofsted-registered early years childcare place in England, rising to 11 children in some areas. Does the Minister understand that parents simply cannot find the childcare they need, even if the funding is there? How will the Government help move people into work if those undertaking training, for example in nursing or health services, are excluded from accessing childcare hours entitlement?

Early years childcare is essential, not just for working parents but for children for their learning and development. What assessment have the Minister and her department undertaken on the impact of their changes to staffing ratios and qualifications required on the quality of early education that children will receive? How does the department intend to increase the uptake of the universal credit childcare entitlement among the thousands of eligible families missing out on this support due to the complexity and bureaucracy of the system?

As we approach the summer holidays, parents across the country are making plans for coping with summer childcare costs. In the case of those who are grandparents, we are working out how we will fit in the childcare we will need to do with the holidays we might want to take. This announcement will do nothing for thousands of families who cannot afford to pay childcare costs up front, so I would like some more detail from the Minister about how the Government intend to ensure that these parents are able to stay in work over the summer.

Research from the National Day Nurseries Association shows that nursery closures are up 50% in the last year, with poorer neighbourhoods seeing more closures. That is not going to help working parents. What steps are the Minister’s department going to take to retain staff within the childcare sector, using their experience and expertise and not simply focusing on getting more staff through the door?

The Minister’s press release yesterday highlighted the hourly funding the Government are giving providers caring for two year-olds, yet most children in childcare are aged three to four. The Minister mentioned them. Could the noble Baroness explain how the funding rate for three to four year-olds compares with the cost to providers of delivering an hour of childcare? This is definitely a start, and definitely more needs to be done.

Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 19th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, it seems clear, from listening to the noble Lords, Lord Johnson and Lord Stevens, and my noble friends Lady Blackstone and Lord Blunkett, that there is a great deal of agreement across the House about the things that we need to address in this Bill. I for one am really rather looking forward to our sessions in Grand Committee because we might make some progress.

I congratulate my noble friend on her opening remarks and say how much I enjoyed the maiden speeches today. I say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield that I forgive him for being from South Yorkshire, not West Yorkshire. In terms of football teams, if he put a flash of yellow in, he could of course support Leeds United, which would be a wise thing to do at the moment—they need all the support they can get. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Sewell, will make his own distinctive contribution to your Lordships’ House.

I wish to speak about why lifelong learning is so important and to pay tribute to the person who I believe helped to set us on this path many years ago. He has already been referred to by my noble friend Lady Blackstone. I had the privilege of working with Michael Young—later my noble friend, as he became, Lord Young—at the start of my working life at the Institute for Community Studies in Bethnal Green. Your Lordships will all know of Michael Young: sociologist, social innovator and reformer, and a politician. During his seminal research in the East End, Family and Kinship in East London being the most famous, and over years of research in those communities, he learned, as he put it to me over 40 years ago, that working people could not access higher education or university because they had to go out to work, usually when they were 15 or 16 years old. My noble friend Lady Blackstone, who modestly did not say that she is a former leader of Birkbeck College, mentioned the institutions which tried to address that over many years.

I know that is an obvious thing that working people had to go out to work in those days at 15 or 16. Speaking as somebody who was the first in their family to go to university, and is married to someone who was the first in his to do so, we come from the kinds of families where such a thing was not usually possible, however smart the person might be—my mum certainly was. Even if they managed to pass the exams which should have qualified them for higher education, family circumstances and the imperative of earning a living and supporting themselves and their family meant that it was out of the question.

It was not that some of them did not make it through the system—of course, they did. My father did an apprenticeship and was a master plumber. My uncle Jim became a draughtsman and helped to design fighter aircraft, but he was the exception in a large family stuffed with smart and ambitious people. We were of course very proud of him. To get a degree after you had started your working life was rare, so the Open University and the institutions that we are discussing today are to address the waste of talent and thwarted ambition.

Higher education became accessible to the likes of me and my generation thanks to successive Labour Governments’ support for and expansion of it. But that came from the recognition of Michael Young, because he looked, as he did in so many other areas of disadvantage, for practical solutions. We have Which? magazine at the moment, for example, because he set up the Consumers’ Association. Over the 1960s he saw the establishment of several institutions, with—it has to be said—a mutually useful political relationship with the man who became the Labour leader, Harold Wilson. There was a commitment for the Open University to be set up and included in the 1964 Labour manifesto, then to be in the Queen’s Speech and open for business in 1969. It was part of that Labour Government recognising the need for a leap forward in the country—Harold Wilson called it the white heat of technology—in science and modern education. Just like that, today, the Labour Party is launching its vision and mission for rebuilding our economy and greening our world. Who knows what innovations might be necessary or lie ahead with the radical shift that we may well need in our skills and education system?

Michael Young had to tackle the academic community and convince it that a robust degree could be achieved through distance learning and over a longer period. I expect the Minister and her colleagues have had to do much the same in recent times. He had to address the issue of preparing students to apply and be ready to study. In 1960 he created the Advisory Centre for Education and the National Extension College to do these things and achieve distance learning, using the tools then at their disposal.

The idea that new technologies such as radio and television could be used to bring education to a wider audience began to surface as long ago as the 1920s. “Dawn University” on Anglia Television became the prototype of the Open University, which was part of Harold Wilson’s vision. The partnership between two great institutions, the newly formed Open University and the BBC, used the technology that existed at the time to move forward.

Given the amazing availability of technology to assist learning, for the Government to have excluded distance learners from maintenance support seems a backward move if we are serious about lifelong learning and its accessibility. I ask the Minister to address that question. Currently, part-time students studying face to face are entitled to maintenance support, but the vast majority of part-time distance learning students are not. The introduction of the LLE could be a real opportunity to make this important change, which would bring greater access and flexibility to lifelong learning.

The promotion of flexible learning is why we support this Bill. It needs to be improved, but we absolutely support its core aims to widen participation and support student outcomes by allowing distance learners to take unpaid study leave or reduce their hours of work to focus on their studies. Recognising the ambition to study, learn skills and be more ambitious about lifelong horizons should lay at the heart of this Bill. It is good for industry and business, and for individuals and their families.

That leads me to my final points. As my noble friend Lady Wilcox said, we need to see the Government’s vision of what they are building. It is not entirely clear how this Bill and the previous legislation will promote lifelong learning, and what the Government intend to do to promote that demand. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said about the need to promote and encourage demand and the need for more flexibility. Indeed, I agree with the noble Lord’s remarks about the supply side and how that might be delivered. I have to say that I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, who asked: how will we know if this Bill has succeeded, and when? There is a large measure of agreement across the House on how we might improve it, and I look forward to working with noble Lords to do so.

Schools: Curriculum Update

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 8th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, everyone would agree on the need for a relevant curriculum, so the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, makes a very good point, particularly on building character and resilience. Can the Minister explain to the House how children’s resilience can be built when the Public Accounts Committee report published yesterday found that the attainment gap in respect of the most disadvantaged children has continued to grow? The Government appear to have no specified measurement for the success of the additional investment in the National Tutoring Programme.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

This country is not unique in its disadvantaged children having suffered particularly during the pandemic. We have been very clear about our vision for the National Tutoring Programme, which is particularly relevant in giving disadvantaged children access to some of the privileges enjoyed by children from more socially advantaged homes. Tutoring on its own is not enough, which is why we have made a number of commitments including, at one end of the spectrum, putting senior mental health leads in our schools and, at the other, reinforcing our commitment to sport, music and other resilience-building activities in our schools.

Schools: Financial Literacy

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Certainly, the aspects of the curriculum that relate to how to operate safely online include fraud, which is a growing and terrible problem, as the noble Lord points out.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom strategy for financial well-being sets a national goal to ensure that 2 million more children and young people across the UK receive meaningful financial education by 2030. I have not found any evidence yet that the Government have dropped this goal, although I have yet to find any evidence that the Government are on track to deliver it. But I would like the Minister to wonder how that goal can be achieved, given that research from the APPG on Financial Education for Young People suggests that two in five teachers are completely unaware of the legal requirement to teach financial education.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I understand the direction of the noble Baroness’s question. I would say that the data from the APPG report, which is extremely valuable, is none the less from a very small sample. It was from, I think, 401 teachers across the four nations. So, I think we have to be careful about extrapolating from that. The Money and Pension Service, which is responsible for delivering the additional 2 million children receiving good financial education has a wide range of programmes, including support for teacher training, communication and support for parents as well.

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

3rd reading
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister. I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for the way in which he handled Committee and Report on the Bill, and the various consultations. It was a model of how Ministers should engage. We had a very constructive process with the Bill, for which I am, and all of us are, very grateful.

This Bill was drafted by the last Secretary of State but five. It was eventually inherited by the current team in the Department for Education, with what I dare say was an element of surprise as well as interest: it was, after all, initially drafted almost entirely by Policy Exchange through a range of papers, and Policy Exchange had based its analysis very heavily on American as much as British sources. There were therefore oddities in the Bill, which I hope we have ironed out as we have gone through.

Many of us were very much concerned about the potential for this Bill to damage university autonomy and extend state authority, including Members on the Conservative Benches and others. There are a number of areas in which we have made considerable progress on the defence of freedom of speech. For many of us, there is the removal of civil tort, not simply the reduction of the weight of the civil tort on universities. That remains to be sorted out in the Commons. I hope that the current ministerial team will reflect very deeply on whether to insist on its own amendment or to accept the amendment which a substantial majority in this House produced.

There is also the outstanding issue of the appointment of the new free speech champion. I very much hope that the Government will take particular care in finding a candidate for that position who will be accepted—possibly even welcomed—by the sector he or she sets out to regulate.

Still outstanding is the question of the degree of overlap between what is set out in this Bill, the recent National Security and Investment Act and the current National Security Bill. All of them impose new duties and new reporting requirements on universities, some of which have not yet entirely been ironed out, particularly for the National Security Bill—I hope we will be able to do that as it proceeds through the House.

I thank in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, who took the burden when I was away for part of Committee, as well as our team, including Sarah Pugh in our Whips’ Office. I know that the Bill team must have worked extremely hard throughout this. One recognises that civil servants are often not thanked enough for the criticisms they accept and the burdens they undertake.

Our universities are a huge national asset. They are an important part of our soft power in the world and a major source of our international income. We all need to be sure, as we have done in considering the Bill and as we look now at the National Security Bill, that we do not damage our universities in dealing with some of the problems and threats which they face, sometimes from their students, sometimes from visiting speakers, and sometimes from foreign powers, because they are such a large part of what makes this country very special.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank both the Ministers, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and also the Bill team for their accessibility and friendliness throughout the whole of this process. I also congratulate the noble Baroness on her list of commendations of noble Lords who have participated, and wish to second that. Obviously, I need to thank my noble friend Lord Collins, who is probably on his feet in the Grand Committee, which is why he is not here. He did most of the heavy lifting around the Bill, particularly around the—for our part—unlamented Clause 4 and the non-disclosure amendment, which the Government accepted and for which we are very grateful indeed. I also thank Liz Cronin in the Lords office and our team in the Commons, Jonny Rutherford, Vicky Salt and Tim Waters, who provided us an enormous amount of support, which, as the Ministers will know, you need when you are in opposition and dealing with complex pieces of legislation. The stakeholders have also provided us with great briefings; of course, some of them are serving vice-chancellors and heads of colleges here in this Chamber.

The question at the outset was whether the Bill was necessary at all. The answer is that the jury is still out, but probably not quite as out as it was at the beginning of the process. I think we can say with some confidence that we are sending back to the Commons a piece of legislation that is much improved from the one we started out with. The reason for that is twofold. The Ministers and the Bill team engaged seriously all the way through this but this House also engaged in a non-partisan, cross-party examination of the Bill, and I congratulate noble Lords on that.

There are still some outstanding matters which will need further attention, such as the role of the students union, but also the issue that the noble Baroness referred to, which is Clause 8, previously Clause 9. I and my noble friend Lady Royall, the noble Lords, Lord Patten and Lord Wallace, and others raised the risk of duplicating security regulations and the risk that the Bill might pose to the business community, the commercial relations and the trading futures in which our universities have been successful.

I definitely welcome the Minister’s invitation to have a meeting, because I think the Russell group and others need to further discuss this whole matter, particularly when draft statutory instruments and guidance are under consideration. I am grateful to her for saying that. We were still being approached about this as late as last night, because there are still serious concerns among some of our academic community.

I add my thanks for what has been a really interesting Bill. It is slightly outside my normal remit of health and equalities, but I have very much enjoyed being the number two to my noble friend Lord Collins and working with noble Lords on the Bill.

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 14th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire’s contention that Clause 8 should not stand part of the Bill. He is back from his holidays but is speaking at the funeral of a very old friend in Bradford. He is very regretful that he cannot be here with us for the Bill, about which he cares so much.

This amendment harks back to the passionate speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, at Second Reading, in support of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. She was critical in setting it up and said it was doing a decent job. It exists and does a reasonable job of dealing with complaints, but Clause 8 is a complete duplication of bureaucracy. We noted that it was recommended by a Policy Exchange paper, but we do not have to do everything that Policy Exchange tells us to do. This clause will impose considerable additional costs but where are the benefits of this? Surely the Office of the Independent Adjudicator should be able to sort out most of the issues in this clause.

Anyway, universities should be able to manage their own complaints themselves, which most of them do very adequately. Mistakes will of course be made occasionally, but we cannot necessarily assume that state intervention will do better in most cases than the universities themselves. This very lengthy clause, with lots of duplication, is surely not necessary. I am sure my noble friend Lord Wallace would have put it much more passionately, but we simply propose that there is no need for this clause in this Bill.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 61 in the names of my noble friends Lord Collins and Lord Blunkett, and say to the Minister that this group of amendments is striving to make sense out of something. I read this clause several times over the weekend and found it very puzzling and complex. The Minister needs to look at this amendment and the complete complaints procedure again. I am very struck by the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden: it imposes costs, but where are the benefits?

The amendment of my noble friend Lord Triesman has tried to impose order on a very confusing clause. It may not be perfect but he is initiating a useful discussion. Every amendment in this group seeks to clarify and modify how the complaints procedure might work. As the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, said at the opening of this debate, the complaints procedure is not clear.

My noble friend’s amendment would ensure that free speech complaints are considered alongside other competing freedoms, such as the Equality Act 2010 and the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, and that the Government should specify in guidance how that should happen. We have been raising issues around the compatibility of this Bill with those Acts all the way through this discussion and we are raising it again in relation to the complaints procedure.

I will not add any more to that. I think the Minister—the noble Earl or the noble Baroness—will need to address all these amendments, including ours, because, as it stands, this is not a satisfactory clause at all.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I shall now address the group of amendments that relate to the complaints scheme to be operated by the Office for Students.

Amendment 58, from my noble friend, Lord Willetts, seeks to mandate the provisions set out in paragraph 5(2) of new Schedule 6A on what complaints can or should be ruled out of scope for consideration under the scheme. Amendment 59 seeks to mandate that the OfS must dismiss “frivolous or vexatious complaints”, with the intention of reducing the potential bureaucratic burden on the OfS and higher education providers.

The current drafting’s use of “may” rather than “must”, as highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Grabiner, is intentional. The wording is derived from the Higher Education Act 2004, which established the student complaint scheme of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education. This is the usual drafting approach when setting up a new body or new scheme in legislation, allowing for the decision-making body to have discretion in setting out the detail.

New Schedule 6A sets out the bones of the new scheme but it will be for the OfS to provide the detailed rules. The OfS needs the discretion to determine which rules should apply, looking at the scheme in the round. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, highlighted some of the reasons why that is important. We anticipate that the Office for Students will consult on the rules, so it will be informed by key stakeholders in the sector. These rules will set out the detail of the type of complaint that the scheme will consider and the process to be followed.

I think we are aligned on my noble friend’s aspiration for coherence—he is smiling behind me; I am not sure whether that is encouraging—but it is a question of where that coherence is established. We respectfully suggest that that should be done in detail in the rules. My noble friend will absolutely be aware that paragraph 5(2)(b) of new Schedule 6A clearly sets out what is within scope for the OfS to decide—whether a free speech complaint should not be referred until the internal procedures are exhausted. We would expect that to be set out more clearly and in more detail when the OfS has gone through this procedure of drafting the rules.

It is also the intention that complaints should be referred under the scheme within a specified time limit. In the case of the OIA, the time limit is 12 months from the date on which the higher education provider tells the student its final decision. The OfS may well decide on a similar provision, but that is a level of detail for it to determine; it is too specific to be included in primary legislation. It is not necessary to mandate that there should be a time limit, as the OfS will want and need to include this as a matter of good administration. The OfS will also set out rules on how it will deal with frivolous or vexatious complaints for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Grabiner, eloquently exposed.

I know that my noble friend and the Committee more generally will have spotted that we use “must” in a couple of cases in the Bill. That is where it is considered particularly significant, such as in the requirement to make a decision and the need to make a recommendation if the regulator considers a complaint justified where “may not” is used—that is, where we have a prohibition.

Amendment 60, from my noble friend, Lord Sandhurst, seeks to confirm in the Bill that the OfS has the power to determine whether a provider has breached its freedom of speech duties. My noble friend is right to think carefully about how the complaints scheme will work.

My noble friend mentioned the Court of Appeal decision in Maxwell and the powers of the OIA. This was about its power to adjudicate on disability discrimination. The court held that it was the OIA’s role to review complaints and consider whether the provider acted reasonably and in a justified way. Here, the Bill sets out the parameters of what the OfS must decide. It is clear that it will have the power to determine whether they consider that there has been a breach of the free speech duties.

The Bill specifies that the OfS must provide a scheme under which it is to review and determine free speech complaints. Such complaints are defined as claims that the person has suffered adverse consequences as a result of the governing body’s action or inaction, and

“claims that, or gives rise to a question as to whether, the action or inaction was a breach of a duty of the governing body under section A1.”

That is at paragraph 2 of new Schedule 6A. Where a complaint is referred under the scheme, the OfS will be required to make a decision as to the extent to which the complaint is justified. As I mentioned earlier in relation to the Maxwell case, this makes it clear that the OfS may determine whether a provider has breached the freedom of speech duties. Indeed, it is a central part of how the complaints scheme will operate.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Thornton]

67: Clause 10, page 15, line 11, at end insert—
“(1A) A person may not be appointed as the Free Speech Director if the person has at any time within the previous three years made a donation to a political party registered under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.(1B) The person appointed as the Free Speech Director may not while in office make any donation to a political party registered under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.(1C) The appointment for the Free Speech Director must be made by an independent advisory panel to be established by regulations made by the Secretary of State.(1D) The appointment of the Free Speech Director is subject to a confirmatory resolution of the relevant Select Committee of the House of Commons. (1E) A statutory instrument containing regulations under sub-paragraph (1C) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This would ensure that the Free Speech Director has not recently and cannot while in office donate to a political party, and that they are only appointed subject to confirmation of an independent advisory panel, a Select Committee of the House of Commons and a resolution of each House of Parliament.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 67 was tabled in the names of my noble friends Lord Collins and Lord Blunkett. I raised the issue of the appointment of the director at Second Reading. At the time of our Second Reading, which I think was around June, the job had been advertised, with a closing date of 13 July. I do not know what happened after that. I appreciate that the Government have had their mind elsewhere over the last few months, so it is possible that it has sunk without trace. I suppose my first question is: what happened? Was an appointment made and, if so, who is that appointment?

We hope that Amendment 67 is helpful for the Government to fulfil the Prime Minister’s stated ambition for integrity and honesty in politics and government. It is about the kind of person who should be appointed to this job and the accountability and safeguards that need to be in place to ensure that they can do their job in the best possible way. Our view is that we should ensure that the free speech director has not recently, and cannot while in office, donated to a political party. Their appointment should be subject to the confirmation of an independent advisory panel of a Select Committee of the House of Commons and a resolution in each House of Parliament.

This is an important job, and we should be using the accountability structures that we have to ensure that this job does what it says it will do on the tin and that the person appointed is appropriate. This was raised by my honourable friend Matt Western in the Commons, at Committee and Report stage. He raised concerns at that time, and we still have those same concerns. I would like to be updated on where exactly we have got to.

If the appointment has not yet been made, at Second Reading I raised the job description, and recommended noble Lords might read it—and some may have done so. The position seemed to require no legal background or expertise in higher education. The person holding this job will be tasked with settling contentious cases, so it must be in our interests that they have a broad understanding of the sector and of the legal and regulatory frameworks around free speech. None of those things was essential in the job description, as it was in July. I ask the Minister whether that has changed. Maybe now there has been this hiatus, there is an opportunity to return to that and perhaps start again.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

By following the public appointments process, which I hope your Lordships trust, we are endeavouring to make it as independent and objective as possible.

On the noble Baroness’s point about legal training or expertise, I reassure your Lordships that the successful candidate for the role will have been assessed for their understanding of the legal framework concerning freedom of speech and academic freedom, including how this relates to other relevant legislation. Although legal knowledge would be a benefit for the person undertaking the role, the director will be supported by a team of lawyers, caseworkers, board members and others at the OfS to support decisions under these measures. These decisions will legally be those of the OfS and not of the director personally.

Important oversight will also be built into the system once the director has been appointed. The director will be responsible for reporting to the OfS board on the performance of the OfS’s free speech functions. This reflects a similar provision in Schedule 1 to the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, which makes the director for fair access and participation responsible for reporting to the other members of the OfS on the performance of the OfS’s access and participation functions. This will not only ensure oversight of the role of the director for freedom of speech and academic freedom by the rest of the OfS board; it will also allow the OfS to co-ordinate and monitor its free speech functions better.

I therefore confirm that the appointment of the director will be in line with the usual public appointments processes, and there will be ongoing oversight of the role. On the noble Baroness’s question about where we have got to in the appointment, applications for the role closed on 27 July, and we are currently sifting them, after which there will be interviews and an announcement in due course. Given this, I hope that noble Lords will agree that these amendments are not required.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that explanation. I also thank my noble friend Lord Stansgate and the noble Lord, Lord Deben, for their comments. We of course support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her comments in support.

This is not a satisfactory situation. I suppose we should be quite pleased that the accusation of pre-emption that I made at Second Reading is not happening. I suspect that this is not through design—through deciding to wait until the legislation is on the statute book before making the appointment—but rather through not having got round to doing it yet, which is par for the course in government at the moment. I hope that will change over time, particularly if we have a change of Government.

In a way, this is the most partisan amendment that we on these Benches have put down. It is based partly on the appointment of the chair of the OfS, which was not uncontroversial, because it was a donor to the Conservative Party and someone who made a speech in a gathering of very right-wing European politicians in Hungary, as mentioned in the discussions on the Bill in the Commons and at Second Reading. So, pardon me, but we are a bit suspicious about this appointment.

My point is that made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben: this is a particularly special appointment, and it needs to have the confidence of the whole higher education sector. The Government’s job is to ensure that that happens, and I am afraid that it is not the case at the moment. However, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 67 withdrawn.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th November 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Thornton]

53C: After Clause 28, insert the following new Clause—
“Legal aid: families with children experiencing domestic violence
In Regulation 33 of the Civil Legal Aid (Procedure) Regulations 2012, after paragraph (2) insert—“(2A) A general practitioner or other health professional may not charge for the provision of evidence of domestic violence or risk of domestic violence, where the domestic violence has taken place, or is at risk of taking place, in a family which includes children.””

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 53C seeks to insert a new clause into the Bill. I have not participated in the passage of the Bill to date, but I have followed its progress with great interest and am pleased to bring this important matter for the consideration of the House today. The aim of the amendment is to put an end to the practice of GPs charging domestic violence victims a fee for producing the letter they need to access legal aid.

As noble Lords will remember—some of us remember it very distinctly—legal aid is now available for private family law matters only where an individual can prove that they are a victim of domestic violence. A person must produce specific evidence to qualify, and one way to do it is through the provision of medical evidence.

Doctors are free to levy an unspecified fee for providing this medical evidence, as it sits outside the NHS contract—and it seems that some are doing so. This seems inappropriate at every level. For a woman on a low income, who may be on benefits or financially controlled and coerced by an abusive partner, paying a fee could seem almost impossible. I think that this is most unfeeling. Sometimes these women are struggling financially and may have to make a choice between a fee to the doctor or paying the bills.

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[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her amendment and for the points that she, the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, have made. I understand that the concerns around GPs charging for evidence are shared by others, including the Law Society and Rights of Women. I also note that Tom Watson MP, deputy leader of the Labour Party, launched a campaign related to this issue in September. Before addressing their points, it may be helpful if I briefly explain the purpose of the regulations to which the tabled amendment refers.

The reforms introduced by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 removed most private family matters from the scope of legal aid. These were mainly matters concerning child contact arrangements following separation. A clear exception to the scope of these reductions was for family cases involving the appalling crime of domestic violence, for which legal aid is available provided that applicants can produce a piece of objective evidence from those listed at Regulation 33 of the Civil Legal Aid (Procedure) Regulations 2012. A letter from a health professional, including a GP, is one of the specific pieces of evidence listed. Such letters are one of the most common ways that victims evidence their abuse: around 25% of applicants rely on it currently. In the letter, the GP must confirm that the victim has been examined and has injuries or a condition consistent with being a victim of domestic violence. The examination must have taken place within five years of an application for civil legal services. GPs are not required to provide a full report of the violence, just a brief letter for which a template is provided by the Legal Aid Agency. The template was designed in conjunction with the Royal College of GPs.

The Ministry of Justice does not believe that there is a need for GPs or health professionals to charge for writing a letter, although we recognise that this may happen on occasion. I am sure we can all agree that none of us wishes to see unnecessary barriers placed between victims of domestic violence and the help that they need, and I understand the concerns raised by noble Lords. However, I worry that in the absence of alternative funding arrangements or legislation compelling GPs to provide this service to victims, GPs may choose not to provide the evidence following this amendment. That could be counterproductive and prevent victims accessing legal aid. In any event, the House should be aware of an extensive programme of work currently being undertaken by the MoJ, looking not just at this specific issue but at the domestic violence evidence requirements for legal aid more generally. It is worth me elaborating on this a little further.

The Government have broadened the domestic violence evidence criteria three times since implementation; they were most recently amended in April this year. Upon announcing the latest amendment, the Minister then responsible for legal aid announced to the House of Commons that the Ministry of Justice had begun work with domestic violence support groups, legal representative bodies and colleagues across government to gather data and develop their understanding of the issues encountered by victims in obtaining evidence, with the aim of drawing up replacement regulations. The Law Society and Rights of Women are among those with whom the Government have been working collaboratively over the summer. Among other things, the work has involved a large survey of legal aid providers and domestic violence support organisations, as well as a series of focus groups facilitated by Women’s Aid with victims who have had experience of providing evidence. The work is looking at all types of evidence set out in regulations, not just letters from GPs and health professionals, as well as issues around accessibility more generally. The Ministry of Justice is considering the findings and will announce any change to regulations in due course.

I reassure the House that the Government strongly believe that victims of domestic violence must have access to the help they need, including access to legal services funded through legal aid. The extensive research work undertaken by the Ministry of Justice is a reflection of that. I am sure that my colleagues will be happy to meet the noble Baroness to discuss the matter in more detail, and I will certainly take back the particular point made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson. However, in view of what I have said, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel reassured enough to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Thornton]

I thank the Minister for that detailed and comprehensive answer. My only complaint is that he did not accept my amendment, because he has covered all the bases. Clearly there is more to discuss. I thank him for his answer and will certainly accept the invitation to discuss this further. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 53C withdrawn.