Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL]

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 24th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, at the tail end of our reflections on this important Bill, I want to comment on an aspect not yet touched on: the Bill’s relevance to the children of Gypsy and Traveller families. Since the Government do not collect any information on how many children are educated at home, they have no idea what proportion of them come from Gypsy and Traveller communities; nor have they any idea what curricula are used.

An analysis of Department for Education figures, carried out recently by the Traveller movement, indicates a disproportionate number of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils attending alternative provision—which is broader than home education—or pupil referral units, and a highly disproportionate number of Traveller children in that situation: a much larger proportion than there is in the school population. A survey by the eminent former HMI Arthur Ivatts found that in 2005 up to 35% of home-educated children were from Gypsy, Traveller or Roma families; it also recommended registration. The reasons for this large proportion are not always the same as for other home-educated children. For instance, there is anecdotal information that some local authorities promote the option of home education to Traveller parents in a way they do not with the families of other ethnicities. If this is the case, it amounts to breaches of several legislative obligations.

Why would they do this anyway? People of known Gypsy, Traveller and Roma heritage face persistent discrimination at all stages of their life, which is particularly distressing and damaging for children. In some schools—thankfully not all—this heritage is not understood or acknowledged, let alone celebrated. Teachers’ attitudes are often not such that they correct the ignorance and prejudice of other pupils, as they might with other forms of racial discrimination. I have heard of many instances of children being bullied and no one standing up for them in school. A recent report by the Traveller Movement found that this was a common experience for many Gypsy and Traveller children. One 14 year-old was told to “tone down the Traveller thing” when she reported racist bullying to the head teacher.

Is it any surprise that parents do not want their children subjected to this? Or, I am afraid, do schools and education authorities think it would be easier to get such children out of school? There is considerable evidence of bullying of children by children in school; it is absolutely not confined to children from Gypsy, Traveller or Roma communities. Some time ago, the National Children’s Bureau found that bullying was a significant cause of drop-out from school, particularly secondary school. While bullying is likely to be a substantial route down a path that leads to home education for Gypsy and Traveller children, it is not the only one. Among some communities, there is a general mistrust of the education system—indeed, of all public authorities—engendered by the discrimination and prejudice I referred to earlier. There may be insufficient understanding of the crucial role that education plays in employability, or of its influence on personal and social development—all of which I think are better done in schools.

There is the important structural influence on that small minority of Gypsy and Traveller families who travel of fitting school round a travelling livelihood and lifestyle. Distance learning could be a boon here, if there were the political will to engage with the problem. I should add that since the Government’s new, discriminatory definition of Travellers, there has been an increase in the number of unauthorised encampments, which has resulted in the inadvertent punishing of children who want and need to attend school by constantly moving their families on. The Bill would enable very many children to receive an education that fitted their circumstances and better fulfil their potential.

My noble friends have mentioned the Badman report. Its recommendations were accepted by the Labour Government for the Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009 but fell through lack of all-party support in the wash-up before the 2010 general election. Tower Hamlets is one of the few local authorities that does as the Badman report recommended. It is time to bring it back. So far there has been no government political will to make arrangements that implement every child’s right to education. My noble friend’s admirable Bill will go far to start that process.

Education: Design Subjects

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend makes a very good point. We have a wide range of new apprenticeships. Employers will be at the heart of our design of these apprenticeships. We are keen that these lead to jobs. I will certainly take his point back and discuss what we are doing in this area.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords—

Literacy in the Workforce

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right to highlight this important issue, which is why we are increasing funding for adult skills participation by 40% from 2015-16 to 2019-20. We have integrated English study requirements into 16-18 education, future technical routes and apprenticeships, and we are working closely with employers to ensure that courses and qualifications meet their needs. I also agree with the point the noble Baroness makes about the importance of local provision, which is what our focus on opportunity areas and the importance of a local offer is all about.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, there are also children who drop out of school before they become adequately literate but who would nevertheless really like to work. Could the Minister arrange to make apprenticeships more open to those who need to further develop their literacy skills?

Technical and Further Education Bill

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, most of what I want to say has been said very well by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden. I have a couple of questions to add. First, some of the existing awarding organisations have quite substantial overseas businesses in the qualifications that they currently run. Is it the Government’s intention that these should be destroyed? I cannot see how they could be continued under the proposed IP arrangements. Secondly, how do the Government propose to deal with the incorporation into their regulated qualifications of qualifications whose IP they cannot hope to own, such as a CompTIA or Cisco qualification? In other words, if an apprenticeship can have four or five of these qualifications stuck in it like a currant bun—which is very much what employers want—presumably no transfer of intellectual property is involved. If this is the case for CompTIA, why should it not be the case for any existing awarding organisation?

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

I remind noble Lords of my fellowship of the Working Men’s College. I support Amendment 20, not only for all the reasons so eloquently expressed by my noble friend but because it also offers a much more solid opportunity for young people from the Gypsy and Traveller communities to enter apprenticeships and to gain qualifications. These people have often dropped out of secondary school. A high proportion do so, for a variety of reasons. High among them are bullying and discrimination, and there is also a degree of alienation. However, these young people want to earn a living. They live in a work culture, an entrepreneurial one even. Their traditional trades—tarmacking, tree-lopping and scrap metal dealing—now need a high enough standard of literacy and numeracy to understand quite a lot of documentation, such as safety regulations and all sorts of papers. They do not often acquire these at school, so the implementation of this worthwhile amendment could result in many more such young people gaining a credential and raising their earning potential, so allowing them to join a society which, in the past, has tended not to be sympathetic.

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico]

I support Amendment 20. I had hoped that one of the most important things we were doing in the Bill was providing a route to employment that did not involve crossing apparently insuperable academic barriers, which some children seem to have no way to get through. These are children who, for some reason or another, have been unable to follow conventional education paths, such as the Travellers of whom my noble friend spoke, or who have suffered parental negligence or have been in care—those children have a notoriously poor track record in conventional education; or are children whom I did not know existed until I was in my 20s who learn not from books or from being told things but through their hands.

We had a nanny for my children who, after six years decided to leave us to train as a nurse, but she could not muster the necessary two O-levels to become a state-enrolled nurse. With the aid of very good references, we managed somehow to persuade the Royal Free to take her for that training. She passed third in the hospital because she was one of the people for whom, if your hands can do it, she can write it down and explain it.

I so hope that this will be another group of children who will be rescued, if you like, from misery in conventional education by the way out of an apprenticeship. I do not want them retaking their GCSEs. I want a special provision, and I hope that the Institute for Apprenticeships will be able to make it, while, by all means, if they need it, providing for further maths or other education. By the way, this proved a very successful way of integrating some of our immigrant population who do not have an academic background but are well capable of undertaking apprenticeships. The more enlightened jobcentres have been pointing them in exactly that direction, but you have not to disqualify them before they start. That goes back to the point that we were all making earlier about the benefit trap: many of our children will be unable to access an apprenticeship without paying an unaffordable financial penalty.

The Bill must be about rescuing many of our young from insuperable barriers to employment, and I very much hope that we can manage not to put any more in their way.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Grand Committee

For employers faced with paying the apprenticeship levy who would like to recruit some apprentices but cannot, it seems worth finding some way of giving them the power to ask, “Can we use some of this money to open up the pipeline into schools and improve the interface between business and technical education?”. I am not trying to push the Government into doing that now, but I would like to see them have the power to do so. I would also like to see them have the power to support organisations such as Women in Construction in their efforts to get through to schools if this is what is needed to open up the pathway into schools for particular areas of industry. This is an entirely positive thing for schools. They would not be looking at immediately losing their students, although it may have that effect. This is about supporting students, improving their education and giving them resources at a time of great shortage to connect with all that is possible. As I say, the amendment is not trying to compel the Government to do anything, but I would love them to have the power to do it.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

I apologise that I was not able to be at the Second Reading of the Bill and I declare an interest as a fellow of the Working Men’s College, whose chair I used to be. I support all these amendments but I shall speak briefly to Amendments 9 and 11. Careers advice has not exactly been the jewel in the crown of maintained education, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said. It is imperative that our young people have comprehensive advice on routes to the later stages of education. That will give them the capacity to fulfil themselves as well as help them to build up the technical expertise our economy needs. We have never been in more need. I think that the Government approve of choice, so I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I also apologise that I was not able to speak at Second Reading and I remind the Committee of my interests in respect of my employment at TES, which is probably where I was when the Second Reading debate took place. As others have said, careers education has been a failure under successive Governments, including the one of which I was a part. It is a hard area to resource well and it is hard for professionals in this area to keep up with the real world. From the contacts I have had with careers education professionals, they feel that the situation is getting worse, but that is for people generally to judge. I certainly mourn the loss of the education business partnerships that were part of keeping schools in touch with employers in their localities.

I join with those who are looking forward to a careers strategy from the Government, as set out in Amendment 2, but I am not sure about Amendment 9 and the need for a platform. I remind the Committee that UCAS itself has apprenticeship routes on it. You can search for apprenticeships on the UCAS website. I also remind the Committee that there are other providers. There is a company called Unifrog, which has been set up by a young man who is a Teach First ambassador. It takes the API feed from UCAS, provides a range of advice around apprenticeships, higher education and various learning providers, and as far as I can see it does that very well. I have some scepticism about requiring the Government to set up websites when others are providing them perfectly well and are probably better able to keep up with how technology is being used on the ground by young people.

I am very pleased to see that Amendment 11 would apply to all schools, including academies. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has added his name to it. I remember a similar amendment to the Education and Skills Act 2008 requiring the provision of impartial careers advice, but that applied only to local maintained schools because my then fellow Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, did not want it to apply to academies. However, there were not very many of those at the time. I also remember that in the following year the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act came in which required all post-16 institutions to give specific advice on apprenticeships.

To an extent, we have been here before. That is why the comments of my noble friend Lady Morris are so important on the incentives, and indeed the disincentives, in the system around giving impartial careers advice. So much is loaded on the intellectual, academic route and, in the end, that is what our schools system is designed for. It was designed in a bygone age to route people towards intellectual destinations in the knowledge that there would be a lot of wastage along the way but that those people would be picked up by the labour market employing them in factories or by marriage to someone who worked in a factory. However, we do not live in that labour market any more.

The substantive point I want to make to the Committee is this: how are we going to keep up with the rapid changes in the skills environment that are going on in the labour market? How do we ensure that these apprenticeship qualifications continue to have currency with the level of technological and demographic change that is altering things so dramatically? How do we ensure that careers advisers know the reality of what is changing? Demographic change means that a child starting school last September has a more than 50% chance of living to be over 100. The only way it is affordable for them to live to such a ripe old age is for them to carry on working into their 80s. They will have a 60-year working life and will, therefore, change career on many occasions. We need a skills infrastructure that allows them to be credited for the skills they acquire in work, to take short, intensive breaks from work to acquire new skills, and to take longer sabbatical periods to reacquaint themselves, if they have been there before, with higher education. How we design that is a big challenge, as is how we give young people through their educational journey, particularly their statutory one, a fundamental love of learning and the skills to learn so that they can retrain as technology deskills them. That way, they will have the resilience and reflective ability to understand that need.

Yesterday, I was discussing an Oxford University study, being done jointly with NESTA, on the skills needed for 2030. It is a bit of a mug’s game trying to predict what those might be, but a good projection is that the particularly vulnerable skills are in transport, customer services and sales, administration, and skilled construction and agricultural trades. These are among the themes that are picked up in the letter we were so pleased to receive from the Minister yesterday and in the 15 routes set out in the Sainsbury review. But some of those will go. For example, we have seen huge investment into driverless vehicles, particularly in Silicon Valley, and know the number of people who will be affected if that investment achieves a return—we can be pretty sure that it will over the next 20, 30 or 40 years. We have also seen the first humanless retail outlets being opened by Amazon. We can start to see some of these changes taking place, and I question how we are going to keep the advice, qualifications and structure sufficiently agile to keep up with the rapidity with which these changes may come and the new sectors that will emerge. We should not be wholly pessimistic about what will happen to the labour market, but advanced cognitive skills will undoubtedly be in increasing demand as artificial intelligence and robots take over some occupational categories.

How often does the Minister see the occupational categories set out in Schedule 1 being reviewed? How often are we likely to review the agility of the qualifications themselves? Qualifications generally are losing credibility with many employers because it takes too long to design them and get them approved. In particular, the suggestion set out in the letter—of procurement on a single licence for each one—means that whoever wins the qualification has to get a return on investment for delivering it. That might lock them into a period that removes the very agility that I am talking about. Finally, and most importantly, how will the new institute work with employers to ensure that that agility is informed by the best possible predictions about future skills needs five and 10 years hence?

Children: Safeguarding

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, what is the Minister’s assessment of the reason why a significant proportion of Gypsy and Traveller children are home educated, and of the quality of that education?

[Lord Nash]

Again, we do not have any evidence that they are any more at risk than other children but we are considering this whole area of home education carefully.

Educational Attainment: International Rankings

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Lord’s point on the importance of textbooks and rigorous teaching materials. Increasingly, we are seeing multi-academy trusts developing these for their teachers to ease their workload and to support them. We have introduced a rigorous maths curriculum at GCSE. We have launched 35 maths hubs as centres of excellence based on best practice internationally. They will work with schools to introduce high-quality textbooks as part of the department’s £41 million primary programme, Mathematics Mastery, announced in July.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister say how many of the schools that rank high on the PISA report from different countries have selection at 11-plus?

[Lord Nash]

That is a rather precise question. However, it is clear from the report that selection does work, and I will write to the noble Baroness with more detail.

Grammar Schools

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2016 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, exam data show that grammar schools achieve good results for pupils attending them. As set out in our consultation document, Schools that Work for Everyone, some studies suggest that there may be an association with poorer educational consequences for pupils not attending selective schools in areas where selection is allowed. In contrast, research from the Sutton Trust found no adverse effects of existing grammar schools on GCSE results for pupils in other schools.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, in what way—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that very well-crafted Answer. The vast majority of studies, apart from three, show that there is no overall attainment and actually all that happens is a distributive effect, where those who go to grammar schools improve and those who do not—the majority—have slightly worse educational attainment. Given that three or four times more people who sit the 11-plus fail it than succeed at it, that grammar schools tend to attract the highest-graded teachers and that this distributive effect takes place, what evidence is there that the consultation paper ideas that the Government have put forward will deal with these systematic failures that fail so many young people in the grammar school system based on selective education?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

We want to widen the choice for parents and there may well be areas where they would like to see more grammar schools.

[Baroness Whitaker]

My apologies for inadvertently attempting to pre-empt the noble Lord’s interesting and relevant question, but can the Minister tell us in what way a system set up to reject a majority of children will serve the interest of a modern labour market and the needs and potential of individual students?

[Lord Nash]

Again, the noble Baroness is referring to an old system, where indeed parents and pupils may have had a binary choice between a highly performing grammar school and a very poor secondary modern. Now they may have a choice between a highly performing grammar school and a highly performing academy, which may well suit that pupil better. We believe that if we have a system where all selective schools, including existing selective schools, are required to engage in a wider system of support, we may well be able in certain circumstances to develop technology which works for the benefit of all pupils.

Schools: Arts Subjects

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We have brought back languages into primary schools, which I think all parties have acknowledged was a good move. Languages are up 25% as regards entries under this Government, and we do not believe that the outcomes will be as the noble Baroness says.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, to follow the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, another area where the UK has an international lead is in design and technology. The Government recently announced that they are postponing the structure of the new design and technology course. When will they announce it?

[Lord Nash]

I am not entirely sure. I believe that it is next year, but I will come back to the noble Baroness on that.

Child Poverty

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

It is true that this Government have done a huge amount for disadvantaged children: the pupil premium, reforms to the curriculum, reforms to the exams and making sure that particularly disadvantaged pupils have that core cultural knowledge that is so essential, as has been acknowledged by many, including the Labour MP Diane Abbott. As we know, the number of pupils who got that core cultural knowledge under the previous Government fell from 50% to 22%. Thanks to our reforms, it is now up to 40%. Some 800,000 more children are being educated in good and outstanding schools than in 2010, and Ofsted tells us that our school system is in the best shape ever.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have very commendably given early years provision to two and three year-olds with discretionary places for other vulnerable groups, but Gypsy, Traveller and Roma children have hardly benefited from this at all. What assessments have the Government made with regard to the early childhood development of children in these groups, most of whom live in poverty?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point about the impact on these groups, particularly as they come into nursery and primary provision. It is an area that we need to look at more closely.