Children in Care: Gone Too Far Report

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We are going as fast as possible in this. Obviously, our foster caring strategy has had a very significant investment, and there is the additional £9 million we are putting into kinship care. The latter is building on some very successful pilots, so we want to speed up the things that work but make sure that we understand that they work first of all.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, the report Gone Too Far highlights that almost four out of five children’s home places in England were provided by the private sector. Children’s homes are not proportionately spread out over the country, due to the homes often being built where it costs less to build them. This means that almost a quarter of children’s homes are in the north-west and just 6% in London. It is not enough to blame local authorities; what more are the Government going to do to address the scale of the problem and what more support will they give to local authorities to address this?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I really hope I did not sound to the House as if I was blaming local authorities. There needs to be reform of the system and we need to provide additional funding. We are providing funding through the £250 million capital funding and securing reform through the commissioning structure of the regional care co-operatives. Specifically on the noble Baroness’s question, I say that we are anticipating two new builds to complete by the end of 2026, one in London for 24 secure places and four step-down placements, and 18 secure placements and two step-downs in the West Midlands, areas where there has been none of that provision recently.

Water Safety (Curriculum) Bill [HL]

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as London’s Deputy Mayor for Fire, as the issue of water safety—and water rescue—is part of the work of all fire and rescue services, including the London Fire Brigade. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for his efforts and campaigning on water safety and also commend the work of the Royal Life Saving Society.

The noble Lord raises vital points about the potential tragic consequences of children and young people not having the knowledge and skills that will keep them safe in and around water. It is absolutely right that we should ensure that children have the skills and understanding they require to stay safe. He also highlighted in his speech that behind the shocking statistics on death by drowning lie tragic individual stories of loss that could have been avoided. With over 400 people drowning accidently in the UK and Ireland every year, and many more suffering life-changing injuries, there is clearly an argument for looking at what more can be done to promote safety. As my noble friend Lady Morris said, everyone agrees that we need more water safety; we need everyone to keep safe in and around water.

This is a timely debate. As we come towards the summer with the weather—hopefully, at some point—improving, more young people will be tempted to take risks with outdoor swimming. A key risk that people need to be aware of is cold water shock, which can happen when people jump into cold water on hot days, and the danger that it poses. Tragically, it sometimes takes publicity about a death to trigger awareness of these risks in the media. Last summer, we saw some tragic incidents, and many local areas made extensive efforts to raise awareness during the extreme heat incident, including fire and rescue services, councils and voluntary sector organisations working in this area.

I would be grateful for a commitment from the Minister that the Government will include promoting national and local awareness of the risks of outdoor swimming and of being in and around water in their planning for safety over the summer. I am sure that she would agree that partnership working through different agencies, such as the drowning prevention strategy led by the Tidal Thames Water Safety Forum, can also play a vital role, not least in prevention of suicide by drowning—I apologise for moving away from the main subject for a moment—which is one of the key causes of death by drowning in adults. What more will the Government do to help facilitate partnership working of this nature to promote water safety knowledge for people of all ages?

This is not to underestimate the role of schools, which the Bill is clearly focused on. As Deputy Mayor for Fire, I had the privilege of meeting a young boy who had used the RNLI advice to “float like a large starfish” and had avoided drowning as a result until he was rescued. He had learned this through his school doing what schools are already required to do. My personal memory of what my school taught me reflects what has been said already by noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, about soggy pyjamas. I was in fact unaware of the current advice, which is perhaps a lesson in needing to make sure that adults as well as children are taught basic information around water safety. Organisations such as Swim England work with the RNLI and other local delivery partners and provide valuable support and resources to schools. It is clear from Swim England’s research that active learning works best. A remarkable 99% of children undertaking lessons through its Swim Safe programme since 2013 retain the message through to the following year.

It is already the case, and it is right, that all schools must provide swimming instruction in either key stage 1 or key stage 2. I cannot see why this swimming instruction would not or should not include wider, accurate information around water safety. The Government have said that they want to improve the number of children leaving primary school having achieved the goals of the current curriculum: to perform safe self-rescue; to swim at least 25 metres; and to be able to do a number of types of strokes. This is also right.

My noble friend Lady Morris was right that successive Governments have attempted to improve outcomes in this area. However, with the number of pools in the UK already falling—as has been noted by previous speakers—and expected to decrease by 40% over the next eight years, does the Minister have confidence that this will be feasible? Are the Government monitoring and addressing the closure of public—or publicly available—swimming pools? What practical measures do they intend to take to prevent further closure of swimming pools and increase access by schools to swimming pools, so that schools do not have to travel too far to provide access to this vital life skill to children?

As a number of speakers today have said, I also highlight that, despite the intention in relation to outcomes that are already in existing legislation, children from less affluent backgrounds are half as likely as their peers to be able to swim 25 metres. This is scandalous and the issue has been highlighted by both Swim England and the Royal Life Saving Society. As has also been noted, this divide exists in relation to ethnicity as well. While 80% of white British children aged seven to eight can swim a 25-metre length, the figure falls to around 50% for black children and to less than 60% for ethnically Asian children. There are similar inequalities for self-rescue. How are the Government addressing the specific barriers that lower-affluence and ethnic minority children face staying safe in water?

Swim England has also highlighted issues with the data available for schools. This has been noted by other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Morris and the noble Baroness, Lady Sater. Swim England gives the example that over half of schools in the Black Country do not publish the data required on swimming and water safety performance. Put simply, I cannot see how the Department for Education can adequately monitor or enforce the requirement to publish this information. As it is simply not being adequately monitored or enforced, the department cannot know if schools are meeting their existing requirements on swimming and water safety. Can the Minister commit to doing everything in her and the Government’s power to ensure that this data gap is addressed? Does she accept my noble friend Lady Morris’s point that this should be addressed as a safeguarding issue, with the accompanying pass/fail measure that that would include?

I accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that being able to swim is, by itself, not always sufficient knowledge to ensure water safety. While I am sympathetic to the aims of Private Members’ Bills, Bills intended to add things to the national curriculum always pose a question of what will be taken out to make room for the new subject matter, so I would be interested in the noble Lord’s thoughts on whether the existing legislation and national curriculum requirements would meet his aims if the department enforced them effectively. I would also welcome the clarity requested by my noble friend Lady Morris on whether the Minister thinks that the existing curriculum could or would meet these aims, if it was carried out effectively.

It is clear from this debate and comments that the House is of one view: water safety is an absolute priority. I look forward to the Minister’s response on the questions raised in the debate and I will follow the progress of the Bill, led by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, with interest.

Schools: “Ghost Children”

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Twycross]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to address the issue of so called ‘ghost children’, including the two million children who are persistently absent from school in England.

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

My Lords, the pandemic was a shock to education. Sickness absence increased, and persistent absence challenges were exacerbated: the persistent absence rate was 22.5%—approximately 1.6 million pupils—in the last academic year. This year, persistent absence has fallen from 25% in the autumn to 21.2% last term. This remains too high. Our priority is to reduce absence, and our strategy includes new, stronger expectations on schools, trusts and local authorities, and targeted support for them.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, in evidence to the Commons Select Committee inquiry on persistent absence, the Children’s Commissioner gave three reasons for it: special educational needs not being met in school; anxiety or mental health issues arising post Covid; and those who have simply not gone back to school. Given the long-term impact on children’s life chances and potential safeguarding concerns, can the Minister assure the House that the Government are treating this issue seriously?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely can reassure the House of that. I express my thanks to the Children’s Commissioner for her work in this area, particularly on children who are not on any school roll at all and are missing education entirely. The noble Baroness may be aware that we set up an attendance alliance, chaired by the Secretary of State, which meets monthly and is working with a number of experts in the field, sharing best practice with schools and other stakeholders to make sure that we get children back to school as quickly as possible.

Apprenticeship Levy

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am happy to reassure my noble friend that we have no plans to do away with the levy. Indeed, as I said, based on the OBR forecast we expect it to increase to £2.7 billion in 2024-25. The levy is part of a wider strategy to offer more flexible opportunities, such as modular learning and the lifelong loan entitlement, to potential employees and address the skills gaps of employers more effectively.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, the chief executive of the CIPD has said that the apprenticeship levy

“has failed … Without reform it will act as a handbrake on employer investment in skills”.

Given reports that more than £2 billion of the levy money has been clawed back by the Treasury rather than being spent on apprenticeships, is it still genuinely the Government’s view that the levy as it stands is fit for purpose?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

It is the Government’s view. Again, if we look at the trend in the use of the levy, we have seen an increase in adoption and use of the levy by employers, both levy-paying employers and much smaller enterprises. We are committed to offering all sorts of flexible and shorter courses, and to funding those to meet key skills gaps. We think this is a critical part of our strategy.

The Ties that Bind: Citizenship and Civic Engagement in the 21st Century Follow-Up Report

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest, as my husband, who is Norwegian, is currently studying towards the Life in the UK test which is mentioned in the committee’s report and to which I will refer during this debate.

I add my words commending both committees for their important work and their unceasing commitment to holding the Government to account over many years. As the report and several noble Lords have said during the debate this afternoon, there is a long way to go when it comes to supporting members of the public to have a thorough and rich engagement in civic society. I also commend the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and say that in his opening reflections on the work of the committee he was probably a little too harsh in his school report card on the impact of the work of the committee but spot on on the continued importance and need for young people to understand how to be good citizens and make their voices heard. There clearly is a need for the Government and Ofsted to take citizenship more seriously.

What struck me and has been evident in this debate is that is clear that there have been missed opportunities in the citizenship test, the National Citizenship Service and teaching citizenship in schools. It is evident that there are multiple serious deficiencies in the Government’s approach and I seek assurances on some of these today.

My noble friend Lady Morris and others, including the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, were clear that where the Government value things, they have the option of assigning a Minister. I agree that this is normally the case. Will the Minister tell us in her remarks if this is going to be addressed?

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, like many of those speaking, described citizenship teaching in very strong terms, I think calling it “appalling”. I was particularly struck by the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on the teaching of citizenship in schools and the downgrading of subjects, leading to an ever decreasing number of teachers.

The Liaison Committee’s follow-up report finds that, despite warm words, citizenship education is not yet a priority for the Government’s schools strategy. Damningly, as highlighted by many noble Lords during this debate, the report finds that Ofsted does not take citizenship education seriously. I agree with noble Lords that PSHE is not the same as citizenship, and the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is right in differentiating between the “I/me” of PSHE and the “we/us” of citizenship. They should be treated as separate and distinct subjects.

I was particularly struck—I think someone else also noted this—by the quote in the report from James Weinberg, who said that

“those in the top quintile for household income are five times more likely to participate in political activities”.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, said, the removal of barriers to democratic activity is vital. She is right that this is an issue for the levelling-up agenda and for government. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, also noted that this is lacking from the levelling-up Bill, while the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, noted the opportunity this Bill might present to government as it goes through the parliamentary process. As my noble friend Lady Morris said, on any other subject, the inadequacies pointed out in the quote from James Weinberg would have been addressed. If active citizenship means anything, it must include active participation in civic life, including political activities of all types, whether party-political—as most noble Lords have chosen—or issue-based activism. As the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, noted, active citizenship can also extend to volunteering and the voluntary sector, the growth and health of which we would all want to encourage.

I was concerned that the Government’s response to the report said that many of the recommendations on Ofsted were “a matter for the Chief Inspector”, although I note that their response to recommendation 12 acknowledged engagement between the department and the inspectorate. How will the Minister ensure that, going forward, Ofsted is equipped with the right training to assess the quality of citizenship education effectively? Labour is committed to reforming statutory citizenship provision within the national curriculum, placing a particular focus on practical life skills and employment skills, for example.

I turn to the Life in the UK test, which, as has been noted, is a gateway to becoming a UK citizen or having a permanent right of residence, and which is rightly being criticised. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, queried some subjective choices of questions. As someone who studied literature, I would say that all choices of questions are subjective; but there is an active choice to be made and at the moment, the questions as outlined are probably not most the appropriate.

As recently as last week, Durham University published a study that found that prospective candidates are being asked to memorise ridiculous trivia such as the height of the London Eye, and that the test is riddled with errors such as an incorrect date for the death of the late Baroness Thatcher. As I mentioned, my husband is Norwegian and is studying for the test. When I test him on the questions, he sometimes corrects me. He was clearly right when adamant that the answer to a model test question on the Vikings was incorrect. As the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, noted, one “wrong” answer can make a difference to the applicant. I would struggle to persuade my husband to give the wrong answer to a question about the Vikings.

While the pub quiz is a very real and valuable aspect of British culture, I cannot believe that the Minister would agree that it is the best model for testing whether people seeking to become British citizens understand what this means. Can the Minister tell us either the height of the London Eye—or why this type of information is relevant? Can she tell us when the handbook might be updated, rather than simply repeating what the report says: that the Government are committed to setting out their plans to update it? I would be grateful if she could explain why the Government cannot just get on with updating the handbook, and if she could press her government colleagues—accepting that it is a different department—to avoid kicking this into the long grass.

Finally, the last we heard from the Government was that the Inter-Ministerial Group on Safe and Integrated Communities has not met since 2019. Notwithstanding the fact that we have had a pandemic—we are no longer at its height—will the Minister say whether the group is still not meeting and, if so, whether it has been wound down or replaced with anything else? It is too crucial an agenda to be allowed to drift.

It is clear from the debate and everything noble Lords have said that citizenship matters, not simply because of legal status but because of values—values of loyalty fostered through feeling as though you belong. In this context, I found an article on the Migration Observatory website, Citizenship: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?, particularly thought provoking, covering both the legal status of citizenship and ideas of belonging. Surely, we want people of all ages, and our new citizens, not just to know that they are legally British but to be proud of our country and of the contribution they can make to its future, and to be proud because they feel that they belong. We want them to feel this pride irrespective of what language they speak at home or where they were born.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for mentioning the NCS, because we did not cover it very widely in the debate. As she noted, it could do more to foster citizenship. I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on her proposal of a review.

In today’s challenging world of online conspiracy theories, culture wars and, notably, the prohibitive voter ID laws from the Government, a firm commitment to building a strong and resilient society that builds up trust in politics and politicians must be at the heart of public policy-making. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, said that politicians are part of the problem, but he was absolutely right to say that they are also part of the solution. I hope the Minister can assure us that the Government are committed to being part of the solution, taking the recommendations of both committees seriously and acting on them sooner than the formal response suggests that they might.

Higher Education: Financial Pressures

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, like others, I thank my noble friend Lord Knight for calling this important debate today. I am pleased to be able to take part in what has been an informed and informative debate. I apologise to the House for being slightly late at the start of the debate; a rookie mistake but one which, in the context of a debate about learning, I promise I will learn from.

British higher education has historically rightly been held in high esteem. The UK has welcomed, and benefitted from, the large number of overseas students wanting to study here, and from overseas academics contributing to research and teaching. British universities are known and respected round the world. We have some fantastic higher education colleges, delivering top-rate courses. Many of us in this House, including me, have benefitted in our lives and careers from superb education from these world-class institutions. However, as this debate has shown, we cannot take this for granted.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and others highlighted the sometimes insecure and comparatively low-paid nature of academic life, and the risks this creates. As so many of the contributions have noted, the financial sustainability of our higher education is one we should not take for granted. It is clear, and this point was raised by so many noble Lords today, that it cannot be right that the higher education system has a current financial model that finds so many institutions in deficit.

I repeat the concerns raised by my noble friend Lady Wilcox, which surely must concern this whole House, that in just four years under this Government the number of institutions with an in-year deficit has risen more than sixfold, from 5% in 2015-16 to 32% in 2019-20. That is about a third of all higher education institutions. In any other sector, this would be regarded as a crisis.

Do the Government agree with the Office for Students that there is no major risk of one or more higher education institutions failing due to financial issues? If so, why are they not concerned? Is it complacency or is it just that the Government are hoping the problem goes away, or do they have a plan for resolving the issue? I would be interested to know whether any higher education institutions have raised specific concerns with the Government, or the Office for Students, about their financial sustainability? What assurances have the Government sought in relation to the sustainability of the sector?

I was particularly struck by the contributions of my noble friends Lord Knight, Lord Hanworth, Lord Davies, and others, on the fact that universities make a loss on UK students. My noble friend Lady Warwick gave a welcome focus on the student experience, and I particularly note the point made by my noble friend Lady Donaghy that there is a significant and almost greater risk than the failure of an institution of a decline in the quality of courses provided to students. With respect to the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, I fear that this might be increased were online courses, as he proposed, not confined to where they are appropriate but extended more widely simply to save cost.

Our British higher education institutions have a proud history of innovation. Over the past few years, at the exact same point at which the financial stress on universities has been starting to show, we have seen British research contribute to the fight against Covid, not least in relation to the development of some of the first vaccines. Can the Minister tell the House how the Government intend to make sure that the UK can continue to be at the forefront of innovation through the higher education system? Will they look, as my noble friend Lord Davies and others suggested, to rejoin Horizon, and will they take up the suggestion of my noble friend Lady Donaghy to provide financial support to universities for courses in much-needed expertise, such as medicine, nursing and teaching, to ensure we can get home-grown UK graduates into key roles?

As has been noted in this debate and by Universities UK, the economic contribution of the HE sector in England is considerable, contributing £52 billion to GDP and supporting more than 815,000 jobs. As someone who grew up in a university city, I know that a university town or city depends on these jobs—quite simply, the service industry or tech industries that grow up around a university would be unlikely to thrive without the university being there. As the noble Lord, Lord Austin, said, a university or higher education institution can also renew areas where traditional industries have declined or vanished by introducing valuable new jobs and skills.

My noble friend Lady Wilcox described the potential consequences for a community of their local college going under as simply too catastrophic for the regulator not to do everything in its power to set the conditions for success. In relation to the sector’s dependence on overseas students, the Government simply cannot have it both ways. We gain in so many ways from having the rich exchange of ideas and cultures that overseas students and academics provide—a rich exchange that, as my noble friend Lord Leong made clear in his passionate speech focusing on Erasmus and Turing, ideally works both ways, with UK students and academics having the opportunity to go overseas, as well as people coming here.

Many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and my noble friend Lord Davies noted concerns about Turing. Overseas students studying in UK higher education here, as this debate has demonstrated, provide financial benefits to our universities and colleges—arguably to a much greater extent than is appropriate. As the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, pointed out, this carries significant risks.

What is unarguable, however, is that the Government cannot assume in one department that overseas students will shore up the finances of our higher education sector, when in another they try to make it considerably harder or less attractive—even through rhetoric—for overseas students or academics to come to the UK. As my noble friends Lord Davies and Lord Hanworth said, this income from overseas students is also at risk from wider geopolitical issues and concerns. Can the Minister reassure us that government departments are talking to each other and agreeing a strategy in this regard?

The final point I would like to make—although my notes go on for a bit, so it is not necessarily my final point—is in relation to the role of higher education in social mobility, or “levelling up”, as a number of noble Lords have referred to it. Last year, as highlighted in the Financial Times this week, the number of people applying to university through UCAS was 767,000 and UCAS is predicting that by 2030 this will rise to 1 million, cue to the mini-boom in the birth rate that will lead to an increased demand by the end of the decade. It is understandable and right that students and their families aspire for children to achieve their potential, to do well at school and to go on to university; we value education not just for its own sake but for the opportunities it provides.

Does the Minister agree with the Minister for Higher Education that the new places to ensure that the increased number of applicants can access higher education may not be for undergraduate degrees but could well be within further education or apprenticeships? I could not have agreed more with the noble Lord, Lord Austin, on the points he raised about the rhetoric on limiting the number of children going on to university, and the fact that the children who do not go on to university, in the minds of the people who are saying this, are not their own.

What are the Government intending to do to make sure that the higher-status courses—those that often lead to higher-paid opportunities—are open to all, irrespective of who prospective students are and where they come from? I would be concerned if these students did not have access to a supply of high-quality opportunities. As the chief executive of UCAS has made clear, the interests of disadvantaged students must not lose out or be forgotten during the period of increasing competition. She rightly pointed out:

“This is an economic challenge as much as an educational one”—


and it is a challenge for opportunities.

I would ask the Minister to do whatever she can to respond to this point, and to other points raised in this debate. The future of our higher education institutions, and the towns and cities they are part of and support through their presence, is at stake. Critically, the life chances of their current and prospective students depend on this Government taking the issues raised today seriously and not simply hoping that the problem of higher education financial sustainability will go away. The price is simply too high.

Children’s School Meals

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am not aware that anyone is demonising fat, but there is a very serious issue about education. The percentage of children who are either overweight or obese rose very sharply during lockdown. We must absolutely do everything we can in our schools and health services. We also need to make sure that parents really understand the implications of what they feed their children.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, last year research from Imperial College found that ultra-processed foods accounted for 62% of the calories in school meals. Given the widespread obesity epidemic in our schools—that the Minister recognises has got worse since lockdown—and an NHS buckling under demand it can no longer meet, can the Minister tell the House when the Government will next update the current school food standards to include guidance on ultra-processed foods and other foods that could be contributing to the obesity epidemic?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Just to make sure that I have not confused the House, levels of obesity and children who are overweight rose very sharply during lockdown. Levels have come back, depending on the age group, to pretty much where they were pre lockdown—I just say that for clarity. I cannot say when the standards might be reviewed, but they are designed to give those in schools, and those supplying schools with school food, enough flexibility to make choices to give children healthy meals. As we heard in an earlier Question, there is also an opportunity here to make sure that we keep waste to an absolute minimum, so that the investment can go into the quality of food for children.

SEND and Alternative Provision

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the Statement. There is much to welcome in this long-awaited SEND improvement plan. Children and young people with special educational needs, as well as those with disabilities, all too often have to battle an unwelcoming and sometimes unsupportive world, including at school. Labour has some concerns, however, which I would be grateful if the Minister could address.

First, as your Lordships might be aware, the Children’s Commissioner has raised concerns that much of the substance of this plan, including the welcome new national standards, is not coming into effect until 2025 or even 2026. Children needing SEND assessments cannot put their lives on hold. Can the Minister reassure the House that this delay will not subject children, in the words of the Children’s Commissioner, to years of a vicious cycle of poor outcomes?

In particular, when will the initial teacher training review conclude? For the new area SEND inspection framework, we are told that timeliness will be assessed. What amount of time will be considered timely to have a SEND assessment initiated and completed? This involves pupils and parents who have spent their school lives waiting for appropriate assessments and subsequent placements, so time really is of the essence for this pupil group. The focus on additional skills in the workforce to improve SEND provision is welcome, as is the commitment to review the initial teacher training and early career frameworks. However, the timeline is not clear. Can the Minister advise this House when the review will be completed?

I note that Speech and Language UK is keen that the review of teacher training should also include how to support children with speech and language challenges, from early years and throughout school. Will this be included?

I would particularly like to highlight paragraph 75 of chapter 2 of the plan, which refers to data on inequalities

“in relation to certain characteristics such as place, gender and race”

and is the only paragraph that refers to gender or race. This is unduly light on detail, given that black children with special educational needs are increasingly likely to be permanently excluded from school for behaviour due to their condition, rather than malicious intent. Can the Minister assure the House of the Government’s commitment to addressing disproportionality?

Looked-after children also face particular issues in accessing SEND provision; this is referred to in the plan. As the Children’s Commissioner also highlighted, there are

“serious gaps in the Plan”.

She continued:

“Much of the Plan assumes that children will have familial support and does not consider how children in the care of the state will be represented and supported”.


References to looked-after children in this plan are limited. Can the Minister provide a timeline for when the work referred to in the plan to ensure that looked-after children get the best provision will be complete?

Finally, the plan sets out the aim of reducing the number of children with education, health and care plans. If this reduction is made through improving support in mainstream schools and getting better support in place early, it would be welcome. But the reduction must not be a means of reducing costs or making it even harder for children and young people to access support, and to access an education, health and care plan if required. How will the newly forming ICBs bring together health and education to support SEND children?

Parents, guardians, carers and, critically, children with special educational needs and disabilities are crying out for a more sustainable solution to the current patchwork of SEND provision. I had hoped this plan would be more ambitious in seeking to provide that. As yet, regrettably, I am still sceptical.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I should first declare my interests: I am president of the British Dyslexia Association and chairman of Microlink, which is an assisted tech company that works in the education sector. I also realised when preparing for this debate that I made my maiden speech almost 35 years ago on special educational needs.

When we look at the Statement, the most important bit is really where it says that:

“we know that the system has lost the confidence of parents and carers. We need to regain their trust by improving the support that is ordinarily available.”

That is the essence of it. We have a system that has got bogged down in legalese, buck-shifting and dodging. With the best of intentions, what was set up under the 2014 Act—I was involved in that, so I take a share of the blame—is not addressing need and is chasing itself around. The big beneficiaries of the education, health and care plans have been lawyers. The appeals procedure has become ridiculous, and I thank the Government for recognising that. There are also other structural changes.

A school is expected to have £6,000 to support a person going through. If you are planning a budget in a school, you actually have a disincentive to identify needs and get help and care through. That money could be far better spent on improving your staff structure to deal with the problems as they come through and on making sure the system can give support, particularly to those with commonly occurring conditions. Therefore, you would actually have something which means people do not go through the legal process of the plan, for the simple reason that a structure would be there to deal with it.

The best way to get high needs, if you have one of the commonly occurring conditions, is not to have them addressed for several years, so you are behind the curve, have not acquired the skills and have therefore got problems. It is also important to remember that, with the education system, you are only there for a fixed period of time. You are on a conveyor belt of acquiring skills to acquire more knowledge to pass exams. It should be more than that, but I am afraid that is the essence of it—and it has become more so of late.

I ask the Minister—I feel that she is a little bit like the poor infantry on this, but there we are, I am still going to shoot at her—if this is coming forward, how are we going to make sure that teachers are properly trained and have the support to intervene? We talk about better training here and about educational psychologists. An educational psychologist said to me in the all-party group on dyslexia, “We usually rely on people having failed for X number of years before we intervene.” Think about it: that is guaranteeing more failure. Are we going to get to something with better assessment and planning? There are tools in planning and screening tools available that can help with identification, but people need to train to be able to interpret results. Level 3 is not enough; they need to be at level 5 or level 7 to make these assessments. Are we going to passport this identification forward so that help can be accessed more quickly? That would be a huge change.

In the Commons, a great deal of attention was paid to special schools. I think 83 schools were promised—some now and some planned in future. Special schools, hopefully, should be for high-need pupils. They should not be for ordinary problems, or for people waiting to acquire high needs by failing. This was very common and many of the Government’s own supporters raised this. If you have got these special schools, how are you going to make sure people get the right one? Are you going to make sure that people can travel and that support—or indeed boarding arrangements—are there? Are you integrating them? How are you going to overcome certain education authorities or others saying, “No, we won’t send them there”—which is a very common thing in these processes when people are fighting forward. How will we start to address that? We need to know how the Government are going to use the private sector, which has been used in the past. These are questions which need to be answered.

I appreciate that the Government have started a process. I feel that there was enough information out there to have missed out some of this assessment, or perhaps to have got it done far more quickly. However, I have the Government to thank. They said we would be talking about this in September, but I have won a £5 bet because it is happening in March. We have got to get a little bit more speed and we know this. It has been a long time coming; many of these problems have already been established and everybody knows about them. I hope that the Minister can give us some guidance here, because we are not dealing with a new thing. We do not need to spend time looking at it. I hope the Government can go to the vast body of knowledge they have, give us a little bit more speed and tell us how they are going to meet these very well-established problems.

Education (School Teachers’ Qualifications and Induction Arrangements) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

That this House regrets that the data supporting the Education (School Teachers’ Qualifications and Induction Arrangements) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/1256) suggests that they will not prevent the continued fall in the number of overseas teachers qualifying to work in England over recent years (other than in 2021-22); and that the Regulations therefore demonstrate that His Majesty’s Government lack a coherent, holistic plan for the teaching workforce in England.

Relevant document: 24th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, my regret Motion is in response to the concerning report on this SI from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. It should be noted that this is the second iteration of the supporting material, which had to be reissued because there was a

“lack of information in the original”

Explanatory Memorandum

“about many key aspects of the policy, and one error that described one aspect of the policy as the opposite of what it actually is.”

This lack of rigour and thoroughness from the Department for Education is extremely concerning. I urge the Minister to investigate the factors that led to such poor material being published in the first place and to ensure that this does not happen again. The DfE is not the only department that has been subject to a flurry of regret Motions on concerning issues, but I would appreciate some assurances from her on the steps that she will take to prevent these happening again. Transparency and full information are crucial to our role as a revising and scrutinising Chamber. We simply cannot do this without being given the data we need—ideally, first time round.

Although process is important, my main source of regret concerns the detail of the policy in these regulations: first, that they will fail to prevent the continued fall in the number of overseas teachers qualifying to work in England and, secondly, that there is currently no coherent holistic plan for the teaching workforce. Can the Minister commit to ensuring that there is a workforce plan for schools and that it will be developed urgently and implemented in time to avert the growing crisis in teacher training, recruitment and retention?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not think that it is for me to comment on the progress of the negotiations. The Secretary of State has been absolutely clear in the offer she made to the NEU to enter into intensive talks, and, as a department, we are very disappointed that it has not accepted that offer.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response and her kind words; I also look forward to many debates with her in future. It is positive that the SI will create a level playing field for qualified teacher status, and I am pleased that the DfE will monitor the impact. I hope that the data and analysis will be made available to the House, along with an evaluation of the success of the incentive scheme.

I note and agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about the lamentable number of teachers having to teach subjects they are not trained to teach, including the vital subjects of maths and physics. I share all the regrets he listed.

Despite the intention of the SI, I regret that I cannot agree that it will achieve exactly what the Minister describes. It is not sufficient simply that the number of teachers is high; there needs to be an adequate and sufficient number of qualified teachers to deliver a first-class education for our children. Unfortunately, I do not share her confidence that the SI will go far enough in resolving the issues identified. It is regrettable that we are in this position; however, on the basis that there is even the slightest possibility that this might improve the number of qualified teachers available to our young people, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Food Price Rises: Public Sector Food Provision

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, a study published by Imperial College last year highlighted that, across primary and secondary schools, 64% of calories consumed by pupils at lunchtime were from ultra-processed food. Given the long-term health implications that this presents and the important role played by good nutrition in pupil attainment, does the Minister intend to take on board the report’s recommendation to cap the levels of ultra-processed food in school meals?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Our guidelines are clear in respect of the quality of food that children should receive in their lunchtime meals. They are clear about the range of fruit, vegetables, carbohydrates and protein that they should get.