Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Hughes of Stretford

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I have a suggestion following what the noble Baroness has just said about implementation, but first I must say how pleased I am to see that my noble friend Lord Nash has listened tremendously well and gone away and done something about it. This has been a great example of the way this House works so well behind the scenes. I am very pleased that the blanket statement that all the good stuff in the Bill should not apply to children in custody has been got rid of and that my noble friend the Minister has grasped the opportunity that the Bill gives to put something better in place. Let us see whether we can get it as perfect as we would like to see it.

It occurs to me that it is a very good thing that the responsibility moves back to the home local authority. What we want to see when young people come out of custody and go back to their home local authority is continuity of provision. I know that the Local Government Association has welcomed this provision, but the people actually delivering the services while the young people are in custody are a company, an organisation that has been contracted to deliver that service from outside. They are not the prison authorities. These education services are provided by external organisations under contract. Why should those contracts not always have a proviso within them that says that there is somebody within the organisation with the responsibility of liaising with the home authority to ensure that the EHC plan is delivered, or the assessment is made, whichever is appropriate, and that the services are provided while the young person is in custody? That should be a condition of the contract for delivering education services within the prison. They should be obliged, under their contract, to provide what EHC plans say should be provided. I see no reason why that should not be a condition of winning a contract for providing services within a prison.

My final point is that I am particularly pleased about the duty that is being put on health commissioners to provide services within an EHC plan. I am aware, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has emphasised it on many occasions, that speech and language therapy is much needed by a high percentage of young people in custody. Let us hope that those services will be provided better in future under these new provisions.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendment 50 along with that of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. The amendment seeks to take Clause 70, which disapplies the provisions of Part 3 to detained young people, out of the Bill and I am pleased that the Government have accepted that. I also support Amendment 49, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.

I can be brief because most of the points have been made. I welcome the Government’s recognition that, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, it was unbelievable that the provisions in Part 3 ought not to apply to detained young people and they have come some way, at least, to applying some of the provisions to young people in custody. However, I regret that, compared to the situation that will exist for young people in the community, the provisions in the government amendments are weak and that, as they stand, they will not give detained young people the same rights to and expectations of support as those in the community.

A number of points have been raised and I would like to summarise two significant holes in the proposals in the amendments as they hang together. First, where there is an EHC plan in existence before a young person goes into custody, the amendments will require the home local authority to maintain that plan and be ready to re-implement it on the release of that young person. That is good. However, as the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Storey and others have said, the amendments will require the local authority and the healthcare authority to use only their “best endeavours”. That is very different from the duty on the local and healthcare authorities for young people in the community to secure the provision in the EHC plan. That is a big hole and I should be grateful if the Minister would address that issue and say why the Government have diluted the duty on local authorities in respect of detained young people.

The other big gap, which has been addressed in different ways by different contributors to the debate so far, relates to what happens to young people while they are in custody. Most of the amendments address the issue of what happens when the young person is released—they ought to be able to go back home and the home authority should carry on implementing the EHC plan that was in place—but there is nothing in the amendments about what happens in custody. There is a duty on YOIs and custodial institutions to co-operate with the local authority but there is no requirement on the institutions to, for example, identify if a young person has SEN if it has not been identified before they go into custody. This may well be the case because many of them have special educational needs. There is no responsibility on the custodial institution to request an EHC assessment. They can, but there is no requirement for them to do so. There is no responsibility laid on the custodial institutions to take over the responsibilities that would exist for a local authority if that young person was still in the community.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred to the contractors providing the education, but the responsibility ought to lie with the public sector organisation, or the quasi-public sector organisation in the case of a privatised institution, which is holding these young people. It ought to be its responsibility to address the special educational needs of those young people while they are in custody, working closely, of course, with the home local authority from which a young person has come and to which they will return.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Hughes of Stretford

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, to which I have added my name. We had a very good debate in Committee on Clause 11 about the status of the presumption that is enshrined in that clause. Concerns about preserving the overriding status of the presumption of the best interests of the child in the Children Act have been largely assuaged.

By definition it is very difficult for both parents and children when a family breaks up, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, has underlined, things can get very heated and parents can get very focused on coming out of that conflict with what they regard as the best arrangements for them.

As I made clear in Committee, I start from the position of sharing the Government’s desire to enshrine in public policy the principle of joint parental involvement in a child’s life, including after separation. I argue that for most children, the paramount principle of the child’s welfare, as enshrined in the Children Act 1989, cannot be fully met unless both parents are fully involved in the child’s life and have a continuing relationship with the child. Perhaps slightly differently to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I think that there is an issue to be addressed here, particularly for fathers. I agree with the Government that the principle of parental involvement needs strengthening.

However, if we agree—as I think we all do—that the paramount consideration is the welfare of the child, and that this principle should not be jeopardised or diluted, then we must also ensure that the presumption in Clause 11 is not misinterpreted and applied in ways that can be detrimental to children. Specifically, Clause 11 must not send the signal that parental involvement, which regrettably the Government initially called “shared parental responsibility”, is taken to mean that the child is divided according to some a priori formula, whether that is 50-50 or something else. Clause 11 gives a right to the child to expect continued meaningful involvement by both parents after separation. It must not be interpreted as giving a right to both parents for equal—or near equal as possible—time with the child. I know that the Government’s Explanatory Notes make clear their intentions. But there are a number of reasons why the Minister must take seriously the possibility, indeed the likelihood, of such misinterpretation.

First, the experience in Australia is that 65% of fathers interpreted “shared parental responsibility” to mean equal time. Litigation between parents increased as a result, and they had to change the system. Secondly, as touched on by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth: the clause, unless it is qualified on the face of the Bill in the way that this amendment seeks, could inadvertently increase the risk of harm to children, because only 10% of separating couples resort to the courts to resolve their contact disputes, with the majority of parents reaching agreements privately. There is concern that if it is the expectation of those parents that the law now says that the child’s time has to be carved up, then some parents may seek to use the new changes as a bargaining tool and put pressure on the other parent into making contact arrangements which are not in the best interests of the child.

Again, evidence from Australia suggests that similar reforms resulted in an increased reluctance for mothers to disclose abuse, for example, with many feeling that if there is a legal presumption of shared contact, there was little point in disclosing problems in the family. Given that the vast majority of cases do not go to court, if as a result of Clause 11 there is a common perception that having the child’s time shared out will be the norm in future, then even in families where there is no abuse or there are not problems we may still see the unintended consequence of nomadic arrangements, with a child moving between homes in a way that we would all want to avoid for obvious reasons. This would not be in the interests of most children.

Finally, and very significantly, we have to respond strongly to those parts of the media, which have promoted the interpretation which we are discussing now, despite the best efforts of the Government. I do not believe that any amount of communication or clarification can shift this now. This is why Amendment 14 is so necessary—the Government’s intention and interpretation would be quite clearly on the face of the Bill, and enshrined not in guidance but in law.

Last night we received a policy statement from the Government about Clause 11 and Amendment 14. This makes clear the Government’s intention—it is not to promote a particular division of time, but they feel that the most effective way of dealing with this is through a wider communication strategy to explain to parents what the interpretation is. This is wholly inadequate, for the reason I have just expressed; this view is already well entrenched, partly because of the initial nomenclature of shared parental responsibility and partly because parts of the media have triumphantly proclaimed that this means an equal proportion of the child’s time is to be spent with father and mother. That view is now so well entrenched that I am very concerned about the impact on expectations and, therefore, on negotiations between parents, particularly those not going to court. The most emphatic and unambiguous way of disabusing people of that false impression is to put the amendment alongside Clause 11 into the Bill. The Government will then have something in law that they can go to town about in communications, explaining Amendment 14 if it became part of the Bill.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I believe that there is only one a priori formula, as the noble Baroness puts it, that we should have in our mind today, and that is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which gives children the right to be safe and protected and the right to a family life. We all agree that that right to a family life, where it is in the child’s best interests and safe to do so, should include an ongoing relationship with both parents. Unfortunately, in many cases the parents themselves feel that they cannot continue to do that within the same home, so they separate. I believe that it is the Government’s intention in this clause to give the child that right back and ensure that the child continues to have a relationship with both parents where it is safe to do so and in the child’s best interests.

Governments make their intentions clear in more than one way. The wording of legislation is one thing, but Pepper v Hart is another. I am hoping that, in his reply, my noble friend the Minister will make it very clear that what the media have been saying is not the Government’s intention. Indeed, my noble friend has made that very clear to probably all of us in this Chamber now in private meetings, but of course it has to go on the record for people to be able to rely on it, and I am very much hoping that he will be able to do that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, mentioned the media. I call on the media—indeed, I challenge them—to give just as much space and just as large headlines after today’s debate to the Government’s real intentions on what this legislation and any surrounding regulations really mean, rather than what they mistakenly thought that they meant, which caused an awful lot of concern and worry to families who can really do without that sort of worry when they are going through the stress of breaking up and wondering what they can do to cause the least possible damage to their children’s lives while they do so. I very much look forward to my noble friend’s reply.

Education (Amendment of the Curriculum Requirements for Fourth Key Stage) (England) Order 2012

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Hughes of Stretford

Monday 23rd July 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I thank the Minister for that detailed explanation of why the Government are proceeding in this way. I would not argue with Professor Wolf’s recommendation that a blanket one-size-fits-all approach to work-related activities has served its time, as I think she said. I also agree that work-related activities should remain a key priority for schools and colleges, including, I would argue, for those key stage 4 pupils who would benefit. Accepting those conclusions, though, is not an argument for abolishing altogether the statutory duty to provide work-related activity and for absolving schools from that provision. The definition of work-related activity in the legislation that the Minister read out remains even more relevant today.

It is instructive to hear what employers have to say. Recently I attended a listening event with small and medium-sized enterprises in Manchester. I declare an interest as a policy adviser to the Chambers of Commerce. It was salutary how many of those owners of businesses complained about the preparedness of students now for the workplace, not in terms of being prepared to do the specific job that the workplace was doing but simply in terms of getting there on time, being expected to work perhaps from 8:30 pm to 4.30 pm and the general, basic teamwork skills that you need to deploy to be successful in the workplace. They were arguing that many schools prepare students very badly for that, even with work-related activity as a statutory duty.

Today I was sent some comments about this proposal from the Federation of Small Businesses. It says that it is disappointed at the proposals to remove the statutory duty to deliver work-related learning at key stage 4, and argues that the concept of work-related learning should be broader than purely work experience placements and should encompass helping students to gain a range of experiences and skills that they will need in the workplace, such as writing job applications, and work-based skills of the sort that I mentioned, such as timekeeping and so on, improving young people’s understanding of potential careers and jobs. In fact, the FSB argues that work-related skills and an understanding of business and enterprise should be gained at as early an age as possible. The statement that it put out today repeats the contention that we should start early with work-related learning, maybe in small doses, in order to embed some of those skills and knowledge about the workplace in our young people.

The FSB goes on to say:

“This is not to say that work related learning and work experience for young people is perfect and cannot be improved but in our view we cannot see any significant justification for its removal which outweighs the benefits of introducing young people to work related knowledge and experience at Key Stage 4. In our view this is an area of learning that needs to be strengthened rather than watered down”,

and it is concerned that:

“Removing it from the statutory curriculum will inevitably lead to it being sidelined”.

The British Chamber of Commerce has said that it endorses the FSB’s statement, so there is a range of concerns from employers and it would be good if the Minister addressed them when he replies.

A second concern is the consultation, which produced the result that 89% of the just short of 600 respondees said that they were opposed to the change that the Government are making, and gave various reasons for their concerns, which we can see in the consultation document, all of them reflecting some of the points that I have just raised and which the FSB has talked about. I found it rather—I was going to say “insulting”, and I am sure that the Government do not mean to do that. There is a great deal of detail about the kind of responses that people gave and their reasons for opposing this measure. Yet the consultation document simply says, in terms of next steps, that the Government have decided to proceed with removing the duty, without engaging in any way with the concerns that people have expressed and the reasons why they are opposed to the action that the Government are taking. That is something that the Minister may want an opportunity to develop.

There is a range of concern in the world outside, and I would like to bring all that down to four questions for the Minister, if he would be kind enough to think about them. First, if work-related activity continues to be important to the Government, as the Minister says that it is—I understand about the evaluation work that is going on, and the models that are being tested by colleges—why, then, are the Government abolishing the statutory duty to provide it rather than amend that duty to allow schools to be more flexible and to extend it for 16 to 18 year-old, for example? I know that the Minister has said that abolition fits in with the Government’s mantra about liberating schools and freedoms, but a lot of people are concerned that anything that is not in the national curriculum will be sidelined, as the FSB contends. Therefore it would be possible for the Government to have amended the duty rather than abolish it altogether. Why have they chosen abolition?

Secondly, why are the Government ignoring the overwhelming views of the people who took the trouble to respond to the consultation with very little explanation? Thirdly, will Ofsted specifically report on the extent to which schools are providing effective work-related activity, and on the quality of those experiences that the students are getting?

Finally, given that the Government are undertaking this evaluation and working with colleges to experiment on different models, at least for 16 to 18 year-olds, will they at some point produce guidance to illustrate what that best practice has been found to be? When the results of those projects are available to inform ideas about best practice, will the Government consider making that guidance statutory, so that schools and colleges at least have to follow what has been discovered to be the best alternative way of doing them? I would be grateful if the Minister could address those points in his reply if at all possible.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I preface my comments on the order with this: when one sits in this Room, sometimes, listening to the debate on an order that has been listed prior to one’s own, one often hears interesting things. I heard of something today called “rural proofing”, which I had never heard of before. It struck me that about 18 months ago, the Minister for Children, Sarah Teather, hinted that we might get child-rights proofing of policy before very long—or at least before this government comes to an end. Will my noble friend write to me to say how that is progressing?

On the order, I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, that early experience of these issues is necessarily the best. They become more relevant later to the young person, when they get a bit nearer to leaving school and considering whether they are going on to further or higher education, or some training in employment. Of course, that is not going to happen before the age of 17 next year, and before the age of 18 a couple of years after that. Schools really struggle to find enough places for 14 year-olds. Many employers do not see it as terribly useful to have 14 year-olds knocking around their place of work.

I, too, received a briefing from the Federation of Small Businesses. I do not think any of us would disagree with the list of knowledge sets and skills that the federation wants young people to have before they leave school. However, having had a number of teenagers doing work experience with me for a couple of weeks, I do not think that young people really get those skills. I did my best to give them the best experience that I could, but they were certainly not training to become Peers of the realm—unless they would be prepared to stand for election.

Children Act 2004 Information Database (England) (Revocation) Regulations 2012

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Hughes of Stretford

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I very much support the abolition of ContactPoint. Setting up a monumental database to cover every child in the country was a terrible waste of money. It had a danger of setting up a tick-box mentality, and there were safeguarding issues because it was quite widely accessible. We had to set up all kinds of safeguards for the people who had access to it. At least some of the savings should be spent on better training for professionals in the children’s workforce in how to work effectively with other professionals in the children’s workforce. That would be a far better way to spend the money, so I very much support the regulations.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

Briefly, my Lords, as the Minister said, this is a very limited set of regulations in its intent. Given that ContactPoint has gone, I will not say anything about those regulations. I just put a couple of points on record in respect of the wider context that the Minister outlined.

First, as someone involved in the implementation of ContactPoint—sweating blood over it would not be too excessive a statement—it was never intended that it of itself could protect children. However, the recommendations from equally august people as Eileen Munro that we ought to try it came about because every inquiry, from Maria Colwell through to Jasmine Beckford, Victoria Climbié and even, to some extent, Baby Peter, identified to a lesser or greater extent the repeated failure, despite all those inquiries over 30 or 40 years, of professionals to share information properly.

One reason for that is that the local solutions that the Government are now asking local areas to put in place were always variable at best and, in many instances, were totally inadequate. They ran into the buffers of particular agencies—health is an example in many places—which felt that the law did not allow them to share information. It needs decisive government action to make it clear, as we tried to do, that those barriers do not exist. I do not mean this unkindly, but many professionals in local areas take a default position of, “We cannot share information”. That is what has happened and many children have lost their lives because of it.

There is a second, more practical reason, which ContactPoint, cumbersome though it might have been, was designed to address. For example, as a social worker, a referral from a school expressing concern about a child might land on your desk. If it is completely cold, your only contacts at that point are the school and the address of the child and their parents. You do not know, and it is often very difficult to find out, who else has been involved with or might have had concerns about that child in the recent past. It is very hard to get that information and put it together. You cannot call a case conference because you do not know who to call to it.

I must put on record that ContactPoint was never a database of information about children, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, maintained; it was a database of professionals. It was simply a list of the people who were connected to a child, such as their school, their GP and any other professional who had provided a service. If you, as a professional, got a referral about a concern, you could look on the database not for the details of the child—their background, history or circumstances—but for a list of professionals who had been involved in one way or another. That does not transgress that child’s human rights or reveal any information about that child. You would have to go to the professionals and ask for the information in order to get it. The database would never have given it to you.

Therefore, I do not think that local solutions will cut it. We have tried them over decades and they have not worked. Facilitation from government is needed. While I am very much in favour of building up professionals’ capacity to use their judgment more effectively, I disagree profoundly with Eileen Munro’s belief that that will simply happen without central government drive, commitment and clarification—not necessarily prescription. I simply say to the Minister: be very wary. I am not at all sure that what is being put in place instead of ContactPoint will prevent the death of another child through the failure of professionals to share information. We need a stronger system to ensure that that does not happen. Much has been tried over the years and nothing has yet worked. I am sorry that ContactPoint did not have a chance to prove whether it could have been better.

Alternative Provision Academies (Consequential Amendments to Acts) (England) Order 2012

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Hughes of Stretford

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I very much support this statutory instrument. I am very excited about the potential of these new academies. Whether the new providers coming in to the system will be able to provide high-quality, more specialised alternative provision for young people remains to be seen, but it is likely that they will.

The 16-19 academies, particularly those that focus on science and technology, engineering and maths, are getting employers involved. Big companies are getting very involved in the applications to new academies, and that is a very good thing, especially to help them take in young people doing apprenticeships based in these 16-19 academies and working closely with the employer. That is a good thing.

I notice from the Explanatory Memorandum that there is no guidance specific to the amendments, given that they are consequential, but it comments that guidance on how to apply to become an alternative provision free school for existing non-maintained new providers is available on the DfE website. I gave the Minister notice today as we came into the Committee that I would ask him to look at the guidelines to make sure that they are not too tight and do not thereby exclude organisations that we really need in order to provide for certain special kinds of children—for example, the Red Balloon organisation, which provides for children who have been severely bullied and are self-excluding from school. These are young people who do not necessarily have a special educational need or a physical disability. Very often they are extremely bright but cannot go to school because they have been severely bullied. The guidance as it stands on applications to become a free school excludes organisations such as that, and possibly others that I do not know about. Will the Minister look at the guidance to see whether it can be a little more flexible so as not to exclude such worthwhile organisations?

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, as the Minister said, the regulations on alternative provision academies are consequential and therefore rather technical and limited. He described what they are seeking to do and I have no issues with either of those aspects. However, I would be grateful if the Minister took the opportunity to clarify three issues on the principle of alternative provision academies with regard to the implementation. I have questions in three areas. First, how will alternative provision academies work in practice in a local area? Secondly, what will the funding level be? Thirdly, how will accountability be applied, given that it cannot be applied in the same way as a mainstream school or academy?

On the first point, which at this stage is the most important, how will an APA work in practice in a local area? As the Minister said, currently the local authority ensures that there is sufficient provision in an alternative setting, a pupil referral unit, and that there are sufficient places available for the local schools in that area to place a child when a child needs placement outside mainstream education, whether because of illness, exclusion, behavioural problems or whatever. The pupil referral unit is the resource for all the other schools locally and takes referrals from those schools; by definition, it does not have a normal admission process. The objective, one hopes, is to return the child to a mainstream school, either the one that they left or another one, as soon as possible.

If a pupil referral unit becomes an alternative provision academy, it will, as the Minister said, have all the freedoms and independence that other academies have in law. I see the argument that those freedoms are necessary to raise standards in alternative provision, and it is certainly the case that in some of our alternative provision those standards are far too low, even taking into account the difficult circumstances of some of the children. However, if an alternative provision setting has all those freedoms, how will that work in practice? Who, for example, will commission the places in an alternative provision academy? Will it be other mainstream schools? Will it be the local authority? Will the APAs themselves be able to determine the level of provision—that is, the number of places—that they will provide in that academy? If so, will that necessarily match the level of need and demand from the other local schools? Under this new regime what obligation will the alternative provision academy have to accept children referred by other schools? Will they, as now, be obliged to accept them?

Presumably the APAs—independent establishments—will be funded according to the number of pupils they have. I am concerned that as independent units, dependent on that funding, there may be the development of a perverse incentive for APAs to hold on to pupils because that is where their funding is coming from, rather than as now—where there is no such funding relationship—returning those children as quickly as possible to their mainstream education. How will a pupil actually get out of an APA, and who will be responsible for ensuring that the decisions taken about that child—whether they stay in the APA, for how long, when they leave and where they go—are in that child’s best interests? What responsibility will the referring school have for monitoring that child’s progress, looking to the eventual outcome for that child and whether it is the best that could be? What responsibility will the local authority have, if any, for monitoring the progress of the children collectively in the APAs in their areas?

All of this, I am afraid, is still very unclear to me. I may have missed something, but it seems to me, and I am not against the principle, that we are changing very profoundly the dynamics of the relationship between alternative provision and mainstream schools, whether they are schools or academies. In making the alternative provision an academy, with all of those freedoms, it is not clear where the reciprocity will lie and who will be responsible for the children.

Briefly, I have two other points. One concerns funding. I think the Government have said that the funding will follow pupils into APAs and that it will be set at a high need level. This level has yet to be announced. Can the Minister say when this will be announced and how the level of funding will compare to that in mainstream schools?

The third point is also important. It is clear to me that the usual accountability measures for mainstream schools cannot apply in quite the same way here. How will APAs be held accountable for their children’s progress or lack of it? Are the Government considering, for example, a payment-by-results model, as they are within the criminal justice system? By what yardstick will children’s progress be measured? I agree with the Minister’s comment that children’s low levels of attainment in some alternative provision is lamentably low and we should not accept it. Equally, these children are often facing multiple problems, and they need significant amounts of help in overcoming the barriers to learning that those problems engender. I am not clear about how being in an independent academy will help children to access the level and quality of extra support they need, much of it from local authority children’s services and health services. In becoming an independent academy, the relationship between that provision and the local authority and the other children’s services will be changed quite fundamentally and will, necessarily, be more distant.

Those are my three concerns. I know there are a lot of questions there, and if the Minister cannot deal with all of them in detail, I am quite happy for him to write to me. The issues which I raised in the first group of questions about the new relationship, how that will work locally and who will be responsible for the child, are particularly important. If he cannot give me answers today, then perhaps later.

Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Hughes of Stretford

Monday 24th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his detailed response. As my noble friend Lady Morris said, he was trying to be helpful. However, a number of issues are still outstanding. I also thank other noble Baronesses and my noble friends for contributing to the debate as well. It is somewhat disappointing that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said that she tabled her amendment to enable the Minister to say what he had to say, as she spoke with great conviction in Committee about the necessity for an overarching duty precisely for some of the reasons that my noble friend Lady Morris pointed out; namely, that this issue—

[Baroness Walmsley]

Perhaps I may clarify the situation for the benefit of the noble Baroness. I have been convinced by my noble friend the Minister and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State that the duty is there and that it is no longer necessary for me to press my amendment. I have been satisfied on the issue.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

As I hope to point out, I did not hear the Minister say anything which suggested that that duty already exists in statute. He said that it is not strictly necessary. I will try to unpick what I think he said. I am surprised that the noble Baroness is satisfied by that.

Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Hughes of Stretford

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 16 and to speak to all the other amendments in the group, apart from Amendment 31, because they are also in my name. As we have heard, Clause 4 proposes to change the arrangements for hearing appeals against permanent exclusions from school. Many issues arise in the case of the high proportion of children in this situation who have special needs. Clearly, a driver for this legislation has been those head teachers who have asked the Government to change the system because they have been subjected to what they believe are bad decisions and have lost confidence in it. In such a situation the logical thing is to change a bad system to a better system. Instead, I believe the Government are in danger of changing a bad system into an inferior system.

In Committee, I asked the Government to consider allowing all exclusion appeals to go to the First-tier Tribunal, where provision for children with special needs is appealed. That would mean changing to a system which one of my advisers said is light years better than what we have now, with a qualified solicitor of seven years’ experience in the chair. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will confirm on the record that the Government have agreed to pilot this idea and test it out. I am grateful for that, which is why I have not laid that amendment again but instead have laid this group of amendments which seeks to improve the Government's independent review panels in the mean time. However, I hope that my noble friend will confirm that the pilot will be a proper one and give the First-tier Tribunal the same decision-making powers that appeals panels have now, including to reinstate a child if, in its vast experience, it considers that an injustice has taken place, bearing in mind, as always, the best interests of the other children in the school as well as those of the excluded child.

Another idea has been put to me only in the past few days. I wonder whether the Government might consider whether the magistrates’ courts might have a role which does not suggest that either party has committed a criminal offence. They are used to dealing with young people and they understand how to judge difficult cases, so that is an idea worth considering while we are piloting alternatives.

Amendment 16 requires that a child has an opportunity to make his own representations to the IRP and receives all relevant information to help him to do so. I hope that this will also be allowed in the First-tier Tribunal pilot. It is now becoming good practice for children to be able to represent themselves in all sorts of spheres, according to Article 12 of the UNCRC, including in SEND tribunals. It would make sense for them to be able to do it here too.

Amendment 20 is about the training of panel members, which should be provided by accredited independent providers and cover all relevant issues, as outlined in my amendment. Amendment 30 defines what is meant by independent and accredited providers. Amendment 22 would ensure that the panel understands whether it was being asked to consider a case that should really be before SEND and then be able to refer that case to that First-tier Tribunal instead. Amendment 23 seeks to support the head teacher in a situation where the independent review panel has asked the school to reinstate the child, perhaps because it feels that exclusion was too harsh a punishment for the offence. Under the legislation, of course, we know that it cannot insist. However, in such a situation the head teacher may wish to put a condition on accepting the child back and involve the parents in ensuring the child’s future good behaviour in the interests of the other pupils in the school. That is why I have suggested that a parenting contract or parenting order might be a good idea—something else in the head teacher’s armoury.

Finally, Amendment 32 would provide a last resort for the child and his parent if he believed that the IRP had erred on a point of law. It would allow an appeal to an Upper Tribunal, rather than judicial review. An Upper Tribunal is a judicial body with expertise in this area. SEN cases already go to it and it consists of members of the senior judiciary. They look at a case on the basis of error of law or fact, so moving beyond the process under which the decision was taken, which is all that a judicial review can look at. The Upper Tribunal can look at a panel decision and remake it, or refer it back to the original panel.

Of course, we all hope that, if properly trained, the independent review panels would make sound decisions and that is what this clause seeks to ensure. However, no one is infallible, so this is a failsafe natural justice mechanism which I hope commends itself to my noble friend the Minister. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, I want to briefly speak to Amendment 31 in this group. This is a very simple amendment which would ensure that Clause 4 on exclusions and all that we have been talking about would apply also to academies. As the clause stands, it says:

“Regulations may make provision for this section and for regulations made under this section to apply, with prescribed modifications, in relation to Academies or a description of Academy”.

This amendment simply changes the “may” to “must”, so that the exclusions legislation and the guidance covered in Clause 4 apply equally to all state-funded schools. We cannot see any reason why these provisions, especially with the movement already made by the Government in guidance, should not apply also to academies. Why should the parents of children at academies not have the right to a special needs expert at the review panel? Why should the detailed requirements now in the guidance on the head teacher at the decision-making stage, on the governing body and on the review panel not also apply to the arrangements in academies?

Apart from the point of principle, there is a very practical reason why we need to do this. It is clear that the Government, in clauses we will discuss later—with presumptions that all new schools will be academies, with powers for the Secretary of State to intervene in schools that are in difficulties so that they immediately become academies—intend, as they have made clear, that as many schools as possible, if not all schools, should become academies in the fullness of time. If that is to happen, if we have many more schools becoming academies, I cannot see why we are discussing this legislation. If it does not apply to academies, it raises the question of the point of the guidance—it will become redundant if all schools become academies and this clause does not apply to academies. So we have very practical reasons for making sure, right at the outset, that this applies to all state-funded schools, including academies. I hope that the Minister will accept this amendment and I look forward to his response.

Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Hughes of Stretford

Monday 18th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, I stand to move Amendment 100A and speak also to Amendments 101A, 103ZA and 107B in my name.

This is a very important clause in this Bill and it proposes to introduce a number of changes to admissions. I am sure we all agree that admissions and the way children are admitted to school really matters. It matters in ensuring that everyone gets fair access to a good education and that matters in terms of helping to improve social mobility and ensuring every child gets the best life chances, regardless of their background. The international evidence upon which the Government are drawing to support their moves to give schools much greater freedom also makes clear that, while those freedoms can improve levels of attainment in schools, they only do so in the context of a system that is both accountable and also in systems which have an inclusive admissions system, meaning that the schools have a comprehensive intake across the ability range. That is the balance of the international evidence—not freedoms on their own but freedoms in the context of accountability and inclusive, comprehensive intakes for all schools.

The Secretary of State is making a number of changes with this clause which in our view add up to a significant weakening of the admissions system from the point of view of parents and children. This causes me concern that it will be harder for parents and children to get fair treatment. First, the clause removes the powers of the adjudicator to direct a school or local authority to change its admissions practices when the adjudicator has judged that they are in breach of the admissions code. Secondly, it removes the power of the adjudicator to choose to look more widely at admission practices of a school or local authority when the adjudicator receives a specific complaint. Thirdly, the clause abolishes the local admissions forums which bring parents and others together to resolve issues locally. That prevents all complaints from going to the adjudicator.

I shall come on to the amendments in relation to the adjudicator in a moment. First, I want to concentrate on ensuring that admissions are fair in the first place—that is that children have fair access to good education and training, whatever their background. Amendments 100A and 107B are similar in effect to Amendment 103 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Brinton, and would place a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure fair access through the admissions code.

We want all children to be able to access schools that are good or better. Schools that are highly performing are often very popular and it is crucial to ensure that access is fair so that children from all backgrounds can benefit. With the fragmentation of the education system that will follow if this Bill becomes law in its entirety, it is more important than ever before that systems are in place to ensure that those admissions are fair.

Where a school is an academy, it is its own admissions authority, setting its own admissions arrangements, hopefully within the admissions code. For community and voluntary controlled schools, the local authority is the admissions authority. Given the Government’s direction of travel towards making ever-increasing numbers of schools into academies—already more than a fifth of secondary schools are academies—it is not hard to envisage a future in which most or all of our 20,000 schools are their own individual admissions authorities.

I cannot get beyond thinking that this means that parents and pupils will face a baffling and utterly opaque situation, with all the schools in their area operating different admissions criteria. Parents who are most articulate or who know the system can perhaps work it to their advantage; others—for example, those for whom English is not a first language or who are less engaged in the education system—will lose out. When the Minister replies, can he please explain in detail how a parent would navigate such a system? Will not parents inevitably apply to as many schools as they can, and will not that in itself cause gridlock, with schools processing many more applications than they have places? Will not parents be in limbo, with no one co-ordinating that process? I am informed that in many local authorities this is already the case. Parents whose children currently do not get into their preferred choice of school are at a loss to know what to do and the local authority cannot do anything to help.

It may be a good thing to give more freedom and autonomy to schools but, as I said earlier, with that freedom should come accountability and safeguards. Without those safeguards there is a risk that highly localised admission arrangements could result in what Barnardo’s has described as “selection and segregation”, with some children missing out unfairly.

Last year’s schools White Paper supported a local authority role to ensure fair access but, as this clause would get rid of the duty to have an admissions forum, the Government are abolishing the mechanism to enable local authorities to do that. These amendments would ensure that the Secretary of State had an overarching duty to ensure fair access to education and training.

The new draft admissions code uses the word “fair” 26 times, including the line:

“The purpose of the Code is to ensure that all school places for maintained schools … and Academies are allocated and offered in an open and fair way”.

It is good to note the Government’s commitment—at least, on paper—to drive fairness, but if that is the case it would surely follow that the Government would be keen to support these amendments, which give the Secretary of State a statutory duty to ensure that admissions are fair.

Amendments 103ZA and 101A would respectively reinstate the power of the adjudicator to direct admissions authorities—that is, academies and local authorities—to change their policies where they had been found not to be in compliance with the admissions code. Amendment 103ZA goes further. It would require the adjudicator to put the views of parents at the heart of his decisions in exercising his powers.

Currently, as I said, the school adjudicator can specify appropriate modifications to the admissions arrangements, whether they arise from objections or not. He can protect those modifications from being changed back for up to three years, and the admissions authority in question can be made to comply with the adjudicator’s decisions forthwith. Clause 34 would remove all those powers. At the moment, the school adjudicator steps in to challenge and remedy non-compliance with the admissions code. Surely, if the Government are serious about fairness in admissions, a control needs to be in place to ensure that, where admissions criteria or processes are not fair, they are identified and corrected. There is a need to ensure that somebody is responsible for seeing that they are corrected and it should not simply be left, as I feel sure the Government will argue in a moment, to schools to do that of their own volition without any need for any monitoring. Last year, 92 per cent of complaints heard by the school adjudicator were from parents. Where these complaints were upheld, the school adjudicator could direct the admissions authority to change. As I said, under the Bill that process will change.

In one sense, the Bill is also contradictory. On the one hand, it extends the right of parents of academy pupils to go to the adjudicator and lets parents from anywhere—not just the school in question—to make a complaint. On the other hand, it removes the school adjudicator’s powers to do anything to overturn malpractice. Therefore, under the Bill more parents can now complain to the school adjudicator but he or she can do less as a result of the Bill. I just wonder whether the Minister thinks that this will empower parents or do the reverse.

Clause 34 also abolishes admissions forums—the local bodies made up of parents, local authorities and schools—which oversee the admission arrangements in an area. I cannot see any valid reason for cutting parents out of that process of having some kind of say on the way that admissions are handled throughout an area. Parents will have nowhere to go except to the school adjudicator, whose powers are being seriously diminished. I beg to move.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I have Amendment 103A in this group. What concerns me is that someone should have oversight as to whether fair access is going on. I am most grateful to the Bill team for sending some notes about how the school admissions and appeals code works and how the Bill seeks to change that. I was very exercised about the fact that, as the note states:

“School admission arrangements are set two school years before pupils enter the school by the schools’ admission authority, in line with the Admissions Code”.

Of course, the authority must have consulted about those arrangements beforehand. That makes it very difficult for parents. If they apply to several schools two years before their child moves schools, they then have to scrutinise the admissions arrangements of all the schools to which they apply in order to make sure that they are happy with those admission arrangements. This is not the case just under the Bill, but is the case now, before the Bill goes through. The arrangements are very difficult for parents to navigate.

The note also points out that:

“Parents, local authorities, other schools or the Secretary of State who have concerns about the admissions at a maintained school can ask the Office of the Schools Adjudicator … to investigate”.

I very much welcome the fact that this power is being extended to the parents of children who want to go to academies. However, the problem is that many local authorities are not doing the job of scrutinising admission arrangements terribly well. It is therefore left to parents to make the complaints and appeal. If all the schools in the area are academies, parents have to look at a whole lot of different sets of arrangements.

The note that the Bill team kindly sent us points out that:

“Local authorities will still be required to report annually on local admissions”.

The Bill states that they do not have to report to the adjudicator, but they will have to report. Therefore, my first question to my noble friend is: to whom do they have to report? It does not say in the note. However, I have a clue here in the way that the note continues. It states:

“The Chief Adjudicator will still be required to report to Parliament each year and, as now, base his findings on a range of sources, including having access to local authority reports from their websites. The local authority reports will still focus on key issues for local parents and others with an interest in access to local schools”.

My question, therefore, is: does the chief adjudicator or any parent just have to go to the website of the local authority to find out what the arrangements are and whether there have been any appeals, or what the problems are? The whole system is not at all parent friendly. It is not access friendly or social mobility friendly, given how important social mobility through education is to my Government.

What I want to do in Amendment 103A is give a reciprocal duty to the Secretary of State to take this information from the chief adjudicator, who is reporting to Parliament, and act on it if he identifies trends of injustice happening, perhaps across the country. The difficulty with the proposed arrangements is that any adjudicator looks only at the appeals in his own area. Let us be clear that we are not talking about appeals from parents who did not get their child into a school; we are talking about appeals being made 12 months before parents even try to get their child into a school, and two years before the child goes there—or not, as the case may be. These are appeals against the nature of the arrangements.

If the adjudicator can only look at arrangements in his own local area, who is going to look at trends? For example, an education provider may have a lot of appeals against the admission arrangements in one part of the country, another lot in another part of the country, and yet another lot in a third area. The adjudicators in those three separate areas can only see the problems brought to their attention in their own areas. Who is going to identify that there are trends of injustice in that particular chain of education providers? It is important not just to have, as the Explanatory Notes tell us, a requirement on the chief adjudicator to report to Parliament each year. We need a duty on the Secretary of State to take the information and ensure that the arrangements his department have in place are providing fair access for children all over the country, no matter what sort of school they go to.

Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Hughes of Stretford

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I thank the Minister for a very detailed response to these amendments. I also thank other noble Lords for their contributions, particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, on disengaged parents, the importance of qualifications, how that relates very clearly to quality, and how quality is the key factor that makes the biggest difference to children’s experience of a setting. That is all very positive and I am grateful to them for their comments.

I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord True, felt that there was a conflict between the various amendments in the group; perhaps I did not explain them well enough. I did not perceive that conflict, but perhaps when we return to the amendments on Report—I think that we will do so—I can iron that out for him.

I want to comment specifically only on the Minister’s response on Amendment 5, which would enshrine in legislation current provision for three and four year-olds. I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Peston for his comments in that regard. Including this provision on the face of the Bill would consolidate the progress that has been made. I am not requesting that it should be included simply to nail it down; the measure would indicate powerfully to parents and to the private and public sector early-years providers that any future Government who rolled back the provision would be subject to the full scrutiny that is involved in changing primary legislation. As the Bill stands, the regulation that enables provision for two year-olds to be extended also allows the entitlement for three and four year-olds to be reduced if a Secretary of State chooses to do so. It is a lost opportunity not to make clear to parents and providers—

[Baroness Walmsley]

Can the noble Baroness cite any single word that she has heard from this Government which suggests that that might ever be our intention?

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

No. I made it very clear that I do not doubt the commitments that have been expressed both here and in the other place. I said in my opening remarks that while these Ministers and this Government can speak for themselves, clearly they cannot speak for any future Government. Therefore, to capture this entitlement for parents and children in legislation would protect it and send a signal to both parents and the private and public sector providers that it will take any future Government something other than the diktat of the Secretary of State through the negative procedure of secondary legislation to remove it, which would be allowed under the Bill as currently drafted.

The Minister said that he felt the current wording of our amendment might be too restrictive and would not allow the Government the enormous flexibility they would need if parents were unable to accept the offer of 15 hours over 38 weeks. However, it should not be beyond our wit to find a formulation which would allow us to put the offer in the Bill and make it subject to any subsequent provisions for increasing flexibility. I should like to talk to the Minister between now and Report to see if we can find a way of achieving the spirit of the amendment in a way that does not restrain any future thoughts on flexibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, this has been an excellent and wide-ranging debate. I thank all noble Lords who contributed, and in particular the Minister for his reply. Before I make a few comments, I will make one correction. I mentioned that it was the Association of Colleges that was against the statutory requirement for training: I meant to say that it was the Association of School and College Leaders. I am sure that Hansard in its usual inimitable manner will correct that for me.

I will pick up on a few disparate points from the debate. First, a number of noble Lords raised the issue of what would happen if a child were wielding a knife. I believe that a teacher or anybody else in the room would have a common-law right to intervene to protect themselves or any child there: they would not need these searching powers. Anyway, you do not need to search for something that is in full view.

I thank the Minister for his assurance that no teacher will be pressurised into doing a search. I am aware that this was in previous legislation. However, the Government are repealing a number of checks and balances in previous legislation, so I was a little concerned that they might be repealing that.

I very much agree with the points made by my noble friend Lady Benjamin about stop and search. She made her points very passionately. These are things that we must bear in mind. I asked for a very detailed review so that we can make sure that no discrimination is occurring. Of course, if the incidents are reported and recorded, as the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, suggested, it will be very easy to collect the information. I know that the Government are trying to ease the bureaucratic burden on schools and are not implementing the duty in the previous Bill to record all incidents, but incidents of this nature are really quite serious and perhaps it should be suggested in guidance that best practice should dictate that these sorts of things are recorded under the school’s judgment.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

Is the noble Baroness aware that in some parallel situations, for instance in children's homes, a written record is required? One can only think that, if it is required there, perhaps it should be required in schools.

[Baroness Walmsley]

I quite agree with the noble Baroness. We need to have another debate about consistency in the way that we deal with children across the piece.

The noble Lord, Lord Elton, suggested that searching might be a preventive measure. I do not think that this legislation would allow a whole class to be searched as a preventive measure. I may be wrong about that, but I think that it would not.

On the issue of how to search a child safely, I am not suggesting that there should be any kind of qualification—simply that the head should be satisfied that the staff have had appropriate training. The Minister pointed out, when he was talking about not forcing a member of staff to do the search, that the head would have to designate who could do these searches, and I accept that. However, we are making a number of assumptions here about what the head would know about the competence of the teacher. That is why we need something either in the Bill or in statutory guidance to say that, in designating teachers to do that sort of search, the head must assure himself or herself that that person is competent to do that. Without our being too prescriptive about the sort of training, it really is up to the head or principal to ensure that the training is adequate and appropriate. That would probably satisfy me.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, who is not in his place, suggested that if the CPD was expensive the head would not want to do it, and therefore all the legislation would be redundant. Nothing would make me happier than that. I point out that it was his Government who started down this slippery slope in the first place.

I pass on to the Committee a point that my noble friend Lady Sharp made; she is no longer in her place but was here a little earlier. She has been doing a report about FE colleges and has been visiting a great many of them recently. She said that the proposal in Amendment 30, in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones, would be inappropriate in a big college because its senior management would not want these powers and would very willingly delegate them to the security staff or to other senior staff in the college. The powers in Amendment 30 would not actually be welcomed.

As I said earlier, I would, reluctantly, not oppose these measures lock, stock and barrel. However, it is important that we get this right, which is why I have tabled a raft of amendments about training, gender, witnesses and various other matters that we will come to the next time we meet. With those words, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Education: 16 to 18 Year-olds

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Hughes of Stretford

Monday 4th April 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Willis, on securing this debate. It is an extremely important time to be talking about these issues. He has a reputation from the other place and from his earlier career of being a terrier on these issues, a real champion of young people in education. It is good to see him continuing that.

I also thank all Members for their contributions, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Fink, for his maiden speech. I was very pleased to hear that his priorities as a new Member of the House are the improvement of children’s health and education. They are very fine objectives and I very much look forward to hearing his contributions to future debates.

Among Members right across the House and among teachers, parents and others working with young people up and down the country, there is a growing concern about this generation of young people, particularly those aged 16 to 25. That concern, which in some ways is unintentional, is none the less the cumulative effect of many of the cuts being brought in by the Government and they are falling hardest on that age group. We have seen dramatic cuts in youth services, in Connexions, in services to address teenage pregnancy, NEETs and so on, limitations on the school curriculum, on sports, music and enrichment activities, tuition fees and rising unemployment for young people and for their families. In this context it is even more important that as many as possible of the subset of the 16 to 25 group, the 16 to 19 year-olds, can stay in education or training as long as possible. There are in fact a range of cuts that, taken together, make it more difficult for thousands of young people and they fall disproportionately on disadvantaged young people affecting their ability to stay on. We have seen the scrapping of the September guarantee, the abolition of the diploma entitlement, the abolition of the apprenticeship guarantee, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the abolition of the EMA. I want to touch briefly on the apprenticeship guarantee before talking about the EMA, as most Members have done.

The additional funding for more apprenticeship places for young people is very welcome, but I wonder whether the Minister understands that in this regard funding is the easy bit. From my experience in government, it is much more difficult to secure high-quality places, engaging employers and matching young people to those placements. The guarantee was designed to put the onus on local agencies and the providers to ensure that the apprenticeship placements were there and to give a guarantee to a young person. I am concerned that if this guarantee is abolished as the Education Bill proposes—the previous Government did not abolish it, they introduced it; the current Government are proposing to abolish it—then, despite the funding, we will not see a substantial increase in apprenticeships.

[Baroness Walmsley]

The noble Baroness has slightly misunderstood what I said. It was the guarantee for information about apprenticeships that was dropped, not the guarantee of an apprenticeship if suitably qualified.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I thank the noble Baroness for her clarification but my point remains valid: there is a proposal to abolish the guarantee itself, which is arguably more important. What are the Government going to do to ensure that there is a sufficient supply of good placements?

Secondly, on the abolition of EMAs, despite repeated promises from the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State before the election that they would not abolish them, and despite the independent evaluation from the IFS, to which my noble friend Lord Watson referred, that EMAs increased participation and boosted grades, even if you accept the Government’s dead weight costs, which are dubious, the cost of EMAs is still outweighed by the financial gain of getting young people into training. Despite all this evidence, there was a rush, without consultation and without any alternative plan in place, to abolish them.

The bursary scheme that has now been announced after fierce public protest and the threat of legal action from students in the middle of courses is not only much reduced, with about a third of the previous level of funding, but also has a number of questions about it which I hope the Minister can clarify. First, on the guaranteed bursary of £12,000 for a tiny minority of the most vulnerable students—less than 2 per cent—the Secretary of State made much of the claim rehearsed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that this is more than those students would have received under the EMA. It is more—it is 77p per week more. Does the Minister agree that it is only 77p more per week than those students would have received under the maximum EMA to which they would have been entitled?

Secondly, the Secretary of State also announced two other elements—a discretionary pot of the balance of £165 million for colleges to pay out, as well as transitional protection for those students already receiving EMAs to the end of the course. However, he did not make clear whether both of those elements are to be paid out of the £165 million that is left after the bursary for the vulnerable students. Can the Minister clarify this matter? Does he agree that the transitional protection for existing students at the level announced by the Secretary of State will come to about £130 million, as my noble friend said? Does that mean that there is a balance of only £35 million for the discretionary pot for colleges? They already receive £26 million, so if that is the case it is not much of an increase. If these two elements are not coming out of the discretionary pot, where is the £130 million for the transitional protection coming from and what other services have been cut to pay for it?

Thirdly, the Secretary of State claimed that the poorest students on free school meals would receive more than they do at present, with a potential under the discretionary pot scheme of £800 per annum. Does the Minister agree that with a household income of under £17,000, as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, identified, to qualify for free school meals, these students would be entitled now to the maximum of £1,170 of the EMA and that therefore, under this scheme, they would face a reduction of over £300 a year?

Fourthly, does the Minister agree that many thousands of young people, whose hard-up families have an income of more than the threshold of just under £17,000 for free school meals but less than the threshold of £21,800 for the maximum EMA—let alone the £30,800 to get any EMA at all—will not be guaranteed anything under this scheme and could end up with nothing?

Finally, as the IFS pointed out, after the proposed discretionary scheme—and this is a very important point, notwithstanding the limitations that we have already identified—young people will not know from their colleges whether they qualify for any support from the discretionary pot before they decide to apply for courses. My big concern is that, unless many young people from very hard-pressed families have some certainty that they will get some financial support, they may well not take the chance and sign up for the course.

The noble Lord, Lord Willis, has made an interesting suggestion of diverting child benefit to preserve a larger budget for EMA under the scheme proposed by the Government. I think there were any number of ways, with the right commitment, that the Government could have approached this differently, with careful consideration and a real attempt to keep the main benefits of the scheme for more of those who qualify. As it is, I feel that the Secretary of State acted very rashly and irresponsibly on this, reneged on those pre-election promises and created a great deal of uncertainty and potential hardship for many hundreds of thousands of young people.