Independent Schools: Tax Changes

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for securing this debate and for the long-standing interest he has taken in independent schools and the families they serve. It is very good to have him back on the Benches, and I wish him well.

I will respond fully and with evidence to the points raised. Before I do, I will comment that, while I understand there are very strong views about this issue, I cannot help thinking that, more characteristically for this House, it might have been better with a bit less questioning of the character and motives of me and my colleagues—verging in one case on unparliamentary language, in my view.

The Motion before us asks this House to take note of the impact of VAT and other tax changes on private schools since 1 January 2025. It is right that we should do so. These were significant reforms, debated extensively inside and outside Parliament before their introduction, and it is entirely proper that we continue to scrutinise their effects. The Government’s position, however, remains clear. Education is central to our mission to break down barriers to opportunity. We want every child, regardless of background, circumstance or where they happen to live, to have access to an excellent education. That means ensuring that public funding is directed where it can have the greatest impact and that difficult decisions about taxation are taken fairly and responsibly. It was for that reason that the Government ended the VAT exemption on private school fees from 1 January 2025 and removed charitable business rates relief from private schools in England from April 2025.

As the Government set out at the 2024 Budget, these measures combined would raise more than £1.8 billion a year by 2029-30 to help support investment in public services, including education. The Government remain confident in these costings, which were certified by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. In November 2025, the OBR revised the expected yield up slightly by an average of £40 million per year, so these measures are raising more than was expected when they were announced. This was, of course, also a manifesto commitment.

The Government set out in their manifesto a range of ways in which the revenue earned would be used. While it is not possible to directly link this spending, as it is non-hypothecated, it is appropriate to identify some of the links between those areas identified in the manifesto and increased spending and provision. We are spending more than has been raised to improve our schools and deliver on our commitment to the 94% of children who attend state schools. We are increasing our overall core schools budget by £2.3 billion in 2026-27. We have now achieved 71.6% of our target of recruiting 6,500 additional teachers. There are now 4,654 more teachers: 3,008 more teachers in secondary and special schools in 2025-26, and 1,646 more teachers in further education than in 2024-25. This year, we are investing £18 billion in post-16 education and skills. That includes funding for careers and work experience, with over £86.4 million of funding for careers-related activities.

In July 2025, we announced that funded support for the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme would continue for a further four academic years. We are building and expanding nurseries in schools by providing £82 million of capital funding to over 600 primary and maintained nursery schools across phases 1 and 2 of the school-based nursery programme, which will create over 11,000 new nursery places by September 2027. As of March 2026, 60% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England are covered by a mental health support team. As part of the national youth strategy, the Government are committed to establishing 50 Young Futures hubs by March 2029. These are all things that we said in our manifesto we would do, and we have done them.

I say at the outset that the Government recognise the valuable contribution many private schools make to our national life. Private schools educate hundreds of thousands of children, provide specialist provision, deliver bursaries and scholarships, and work in partnership with state schools and local communities. Nothing in these reforms was intended to undermine those contributions, and nothing in the Government’s approach seeks to remove parental choice. I also understand the international impact of our private school sector. That is why, in Saudi Arabia earlier this week, I raised it and pushed for further opportunities for our private schools.

The question before us is not whether private schools make a contribution; they undoubtedly do. The question is whether it is right that private education should continue to benefit from tax breaks that are not available to most other goods and services. This Government concluded that it was not. It is important to place recent changes in their proper context. The Government always expected that applying VAT to private school fees would lead to some movement of pupils into the state sector. That was explicitly factored into our analysis before the policy was introduced. Our estimate remains that around 35,000 pupils may move into state-funded education over the course of this Parliament. That represents fewer than 0.5% of the state school population.

At the same time, we must recognise the wider demographic picture. Falling birth rates are affecting pupil numbers across the education system. The latest available data show that overall pupil numbers have fallen across all sectors, not solely within private schools. It would therefore be wrong to attribute every change in enrolment solely to the introduction of VAT. The evidence points to a combination of factors, including demographics, local market conditions and broader economic pressures. As Ministers have consistently stated, the trends seen thus far remain broadly consistent with the assumptions underpinning the original policy.

It is, of course, sad when any school closes. I understand the impact on parents, children and communities. School closures, however, can be influenced by a range of factors, not just the VAT policy. Although we accept that VAT may have compounded pressure already on private schools, closures cannot be attributed to it alone. Private schools, like other organisations, can close for a number of reasons. Demographic change, financial sustainability, governance issues, regulatory concerns and mergers have all contributed to school closures long before these reforms were introduced. Given my understanding particularly of the history of Malvern St James, I thought that at least a couple of the examples used by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, were perhaps not the best examples of the impact of VAT and possibly had more to do with the new ownership of those schools.

The Government’s assessment remains that closure rates are within historical patterns and do not demonstrate systemic failure across the sector. On average, 75 private schools closed per year over the 20 years before the tax changes. A total of 60 schools closed in the 2024-25 school year and 67 closed in 2025-26—below the average of previous years. We also note that private schools have continued to open. The picture is therefore considerably more nuanced than some commentary has suggested.

The Government have continued to monitor place availability closely. There remains substantial spare capacity across the school system, with hundreds of thousands of unfilled places nationally across primary and secondary schools. In England, overall pupil numbers have declined by 1.2% between 2025 and 2026, so state-funded primary and secondary schools have fewer pupils and sufficient capacity. For the new school year, 98.7% of applications to primary school led to an offer from one of the preferred schools, and the same is true for 96.4% of secondary applications. Both those figures represent an improvement on last year.

Local authorities retain statutory responsibility for securing sufficient school places and continue to plan effectively for local demand. To date, no authority has suggested that pupil movements associated with these reforms have created pressures that cannot be managed within existing arrangements. The Government therefore remain confident that the state sector can accommodate any additional pupils arising from the policy. That reflects the position that Ministers have consistently set out to Parliament.

Concerns about children with special educational needs deserve careful consideration, and I recognise the points that the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, made, not only in his contribution today but in previous debates and, as he says, in his Questions. The Government have always recognised that children with SEND can require highly specialised provision and that stability of placement is particularly important. That is precisely why protections exist for children whose private school placement is named in an education, health and care plan and funded by a local authority. In such circumstances, local authorities are able to reclaim the VAT incurred. Those arrangements remain in place and continue to provide protection for some of the most vulnerable children in our education system. We will continue to monitor outcomes closely and remain committed to improving support for children and young people with SEND wherever they are educated.

I note that the tax changes in fact have not led to fewer pupils with SEND at private schools. Indeed, the number has increased slightly. That includes those without EHCPs, the number of whom at mainstream independent schools has grown from fewer than 98,000 in January 2024 to over 101,000 in January 2026.

The majority of children with SEND attend state-funded schools, and we want every child to have the best start in life, with help available earlier and locally when families need it. Every Child Achieving and Thriving, the schools White Paper published in February, set out our intentions. We will ensure children get the right support in their early-years setting, school and college. We will invest in new training for all staff and better buildings and equipment and make sure that every setting has access to expert professional support when it is needed. We will create a new offer for children who need additional support, called “targeted” and “targeted plus” layers. Children in early-years settings, mainstream schools and colleges can benefit from education and health professionals without long waits for assessments. For children and young people with complex needs, we are developing new specialist provision packages, designed with experts and tested with parents, to set out exactly what support and resources are required for specific needs. Parents should of course be able to choose where their children are educated, but we must move away from a system that forces the parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities to feel they have to move their children, where they can afford to do so. We will restore parents’ trust in the SEND system. These changes will be introduced gradually, but we are investing £7 billion more on SEND compared to 2025-26.

What matters now is that we continue to examine the evidence carefully, as noble Lords have called for today. The Government have done so throughout implementation and will continue to do so. We will keep monitoring pupil movements, school capacity, school closures, SEND provision and the wider health of the sector. Where concerns arise, they will be considered seriously and responsibly. However, after more than a year of implementation, the evidence available to us does not suggest that the fundamental assumptions behind the policy were misplaced. The education system continues to function effectively, state schools continue to have capacity, the independent sector continues to educate hundreds of thousands of pupils and the reforms continue to support the Government’s objective of raising funding to improve opportunities for children and young people across the country.

Once again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for bringing this important issue before the House and allowing me to respond with evidence and a commitment to ensuring that we continue monitoring this policy.

Education and Skills Reform

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful for this debate on education and skills policy because ultimately it comes down to one question: are we giving every young person the opportunity to build a good-quality life regardless of where they come from?

There is much in our education system of which we should be proud. As we heard earlier, the latest PISA results show that the United Kingdom remains one of the highest-performing education systems in the world, particularly around science, mathematics and reading. Our performance in science has improved since 2022, and we need to acknowledge these achievements. However, we also have to recognise that academic success alone is not enough. The ONS has estimated that more than 1 million young people aged 16 to 24 are currently not in education, employment or training—a figure that has increased over the past year. Alan Milburn’s review, which many of us have spoken about, warns that, without action, one in six young people could be NEET within the next five years. That should be a wake-up call to all of us.

We need an education and skills system that works for young people who want to go to university, but equally for young people who want to become engineers, electricians, nurses, technicians and skilled professionals. The Government’s reforms to post-16 pathways have the potential to provide greater choice, including V-levels and occupational certificates, but choice exists only if young people have access to a genuine range of choices. My concern is that technical education must not become a second-tier route, disproportionately taken by children from poorer backgrounds while affluent families continue to choose the traditional academic pathways. There must be parity of esteem between academic and technical education and, crucially, the ability to move between the two pathways.

A 16 year-old should not be expected to make a decision that permanently determines their future. That is why careers advice is so important. Every young person should have access to high-quality careers guidance and meaningful work experience—an issue that I have often mentioned in your Lordships’ Chamber—so that choices are informed by aspiration and opportunity rather than postcode or family income. We also need to ask whether the system has the capacity to deliver these ambitions. Technical education requires teachers, lecturers, specialist facilities and strong links with employers, yet colleges are already under pressure to recruit and retain staff with the specialist skills required. How will the Government ensure that colleges have the workforce and the funding necessary to deliver these reforms? Will the Minister commit to addressing the disparities in pay and conditions that are making recruitment and retention more difficult?

Apprenticeships must be central to this debate. They can provide a powerful bridge between education and employment, but employers, in particular small and medium-sized businesses, need a system that is simpler, more flexible and financially viable. I welcome the Government’s move towards greater flexibility in the apprenticeship levy, but we should go further: make apprenticeships more attractive, ensure that apprentices are properly paid and give smaller businesses practical support to take on more. We also need regional flexibility. A young person in a rural community should have access to the same breadth of opportunities as someone in a major city. That would require proper workforce planning and greater involvement from regions and employers.

We cannot discuss education and skills reform without mentioning SEND. Too many families are still fighting for support while councils struggle with the financial consequences of a broken system. Reform must put children and families at its centre. That means early identification, sufficient specialist and mainstream provision, a properly funded workforce and meaningful rights to appeal for parents.

Skills are not simply about filling vacancies; they are about giving people the confidence, knowledge and opportunities to shape their own future. If these reforms are to succeed, we need an education system that does not divide young people into winners and losers, academic or vocational, advantaged or disadvantaged. We need a system that says to every young person: your background does not determine your future, and, whatever route you choose, we will give you the opportunity to succeed. That should be the ambitions of education and skills reforms.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their questions. I will turn to the specific points that have been raised in a moment, but, before I do, it is worth briefly reiterating the context of the Secretary of State’s Statement last week. At its heart was a simple proposition: every young person should be able to see a clear pathway from education into further learning, skilled work and adult life.

Our education system has many strengths. The latest PISA results confirmed England’s strong performance in reading, mathematics and science. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, that that should be reflected in our thanks to the hard-working staff in our schools who have helped to deliver that, but it also builds on the work of successive Governments. I am very proud of the role that I played in the previous Labour Government, alongside some of my noble friends here today, in the focus on numeracy and literacy, the introduction of phonics and the support to ensure school improvement across the system. I recognise that many of those elements were built on successfully by the previous Government.

However, there is a slight flavour in the Opposition’s response to this Statement, both in this House and in the other place, that somehow we should now place in aspic the education system and not recognise the areas where, notwithstanding the progress, there is more work to be done. I am afraid that a disadvantage gap still exists for our children, and it is stubbornly wide. A gap between regions is widening. We have a growing SEND crisis, 1.5 million children persistently absent from school at the last general election, a doubling of those educated at home since 2019 and now 1 million young people, all educated during the last 16 years, not in education, employment or training. Simply standing still and resting on our laurels will not be good enough for our children.

The purpose of these reforms is therefore to build a nationally coherent, locally responsive education and skills system that supports opportunity, responds to local labour market needs and creates stronger progression routes for young people. Central to that ambition is a new approach to technical and vocational education. Academic, technical and vocational routes should be complementary parts of a single high-quality offer with stronger connections to employment. New technical pathways from age 14 will combine technical qualifications alongside GCSEs, careers education and meaningful work experience, helping young people to progress into further study, apprenticeships and skilled careers. Alongside that, mayors, local leaders, schools, colleges and employers will work together to develop those high-quality technical and vocational routes for 16 to 19 year-olds, aligned to local economic opportunities and the Government’s industrial strategy.

These reforms are designed to widen opportunity, not to narrow it, ensuring that technical excellence is recognised and valued alongside academic achievement, and that every young person can see a clear route to success. That is why I have to rebut the suggestion by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, that this Government are dismantling the system. Actually, we are aiming to ensure that the high standards we can achieve for a lot of children—although not all—in our academic education are matched by high standards for those who want to take a more technical or vocational route, and that the opportunity to do that at the age of 14 by combining GCSEs with technical qualifications is made much more widely available to young people than is the case at the moment. That is not a dismantling of our system; it is building on what is good but ensuring that technical and vocational education has the support and the priority that many people in this House think it should have.

Furthermore, we are not talking about abolishing resits. We are talking about abolishing the situation where young people, without the additional support that they need, resit in a way that simply promotes their feeling of failure. That is why we are investing in teaching in further education, and it is why we are introducing a new level 1 stepping-stone qualification in order to enable young people to get the foundation that will then enable them to go on to successfully resit their GCSEs.

On some of the detailed questions about the 14-16 technical route, first, as I think I have made clear, this is not about separating pupils into academic and vocational groups or narrowing choices. All pupils will continue to study a broad and balanced curriculum. We are drawing on evidence from the interim Milburn review, the Curriculum and Assessment Review and engagement with strategic authorities, employers, schools, colleges and other partners as we develop those pathways. They will be rolled out using the existing level 1 and 2 technical awards that are already available. We will also work with Ofqual and other key partners to develop top-quality vocational and technical qualifications, which support—to respond to the noble Baroness—progression to T-levels, A-levels, V-levels, apprenticeships, university and beyond. Those qualifications will continue to sit alongside GCSEs and provide a high-quality option at key stage 4.

As that work progresses, the DfE will consider how to use its existing budgets to best support delivery, including through reprioritising budgets to ensure investment in high-quality education and clearer routes into skilled work. We are already making a difference to the number of teachers we are recruiting but, of course, we recognise the challenge to ensure that the expertise is there to deliver on this.

The noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, is right about careers guidance and work experience. He is right about apprenticeships, which is why we are already going further with support for employers. He is also right about reform of the special educational needs system, which is why we will bring forward the results of our consultation. We are already investing in the SEND system. We will have plenty of time in this House to discuss this Government’s reform programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I know that the Minister has taken a very positive attitude towards strengthening the status of kinship carers. The Government have also introduced pilot programmes. Both have a capacity to help in bringing forward the work which is spoken of in the Statement. Could she give a rather fuller account of what the Government are doing on kinship carers? If that takes more time than we have available today, could she write to me? She and her colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, have played a very positive role in this important area.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord. He is right that we are seeking ways to support kinship carers, to strengthen the opportunity for children to live with those who are close to them in those arrangements. We are also taking action to support the educational outcomes of children who are in kinship care. I think I am right in saying that we are expanding the role of virtual head teachers to those children. I will certainly write to the noble Lord with more detail about our plan.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the emphasis that the Government are placing on work experience. Might the Minister like to say a bit more about how the Government plan to deliver this? It is clear that work experience will be available both to students below and post-16. With the two funding streams that will now cover those areas and the extra responsibility that will be put on schools, can she give an absolute assurance that there be equality of opportunity for children from all backgrounds and that the extra work will not fall merely on schools? I think back to something which was called the business education partnership, which offered a brokerage service which meant that greater access for everyone was available and schools were not overburdened.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right. The opportunity for high-quality work experience is a very important theme in these reforms. The Government are committed to offering two weeks of work experience for every child pre-16, starting from an early age, with different ways to engage with employers. It is an important part of that work. She is also right that, given the ambition we have post-16 for T-level placements and other work experience opportunities, we need to support, for example, our mayoral and strategic authorities to be able to broker those links locally. My noble friend’s ideas about support for brokerage are very important and something we are reflecting hard on.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

Given the need for more work experience, more apprenticeships and other support from the private sector, will the Government look again at the very damaging tax rises and regulatory changes they have introduced, which have driven down vacancies in a big way and driven up unemployment? They impede success for this programme.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Of course, we will keep the business environment under review to ensure that it provides as many opportunities as possible. I note that, in his interim review, Alan Milburn argued that it was not, for example, changes to national insurance or to the national minimum wage that have caused the numbers of young people to be out of work. The biggest increase in those numbers, of course, happened in the two years in the run-up to the last general election.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register of interests as regards City of London College. Within the Statement, the Government commit to transferring responsibility and finance for 16 to 19 year-olds to mayors and, presumably, to strategic authorities, but, to date, local authorities have sometimes been quite inconsistent in their support and taken a very differential approach, for instance, to young people who are in danger of becoming NEETs but do not reach the level of an EHCP. How do the Government intend to move forward while ensuring that there is consistent and full access to pathways for all pupils and that equal opportunities are provided for every young person, irrespective of where they come from?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

If I am completely frank, this is one of the big challenges of the very welcome devolution that this Government under the new Prime Minister are engaged in. We are discussing with mayors and others the relationship between national entitlements and the flexibility, for example, to bring in work experience opportunities, to work with local employers and to tailor education so that it suits the types of work and opportunities that might be available to young people locally, while ensuring there is equality of access. A key objective of this Government is to close, not to worsen, the disadvantage gap. As we develop the devolution proposals, we will keep thinking hard about how we can ensure that that happens.

[Lord John of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, even in the world where we are ruled by robots, it is entirely likely that genuine human creativity and culture will have an important part to play in the future of our economy. In her Statement last week, the Secretary of State mentioned drama, but can my noble friend tell us about the wider cultural opportunities that these reforms might bring forth, perhaps in music, dance and film?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

An important part of our Curriculum and Assessment Review was finding time within a curriculum, that still focuses on the knowledge necessary for children to succeed, for broader opportunities to undertake music, drama and PE—some of those human skills and opportunities that are so important to our children, as my noble friend says. In this House, we have discussed a range of ways in which we are supporting the development of opportunities for music and dance.

I will also respond at this point to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, about accountability measures. In removing the requirement for children to study within the straitjacket of the former EBacc accountability measures, we have freed up schools to reintroduce some of those music, drama and other qualifications that had been squeezed out by it. Of course, at the moment, while we consult about the changes that we want to make to Progress 8, it remains in place.

[Lord Willetts (Con)]

My Lords, there clearly is a tide of opinion in favour of devolving funding. The Statement in the other place was absolutely clear. It said:

“For the first time, mayors will have control of the 16-19 education budget”.


This is causing some concern. Can the Minister tell the House whether that includes control of the expenditure of the apprenticeship levy for 16 to 18 year-olds, and does it extend to classroom-based provision for them?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Obviously, we are still working on the details of that but no, it does not extend to the growth and skills levy provision for apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds. It will cover the 16 to 19 budget as it applies, for example, to post-16 qualifications, including classroom provision in colleges.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a working teacher and I beg the House to wish me luck in teaching jollof rice to year 8s tomorrow. I broadly welcome this Statement and its ambitions, but I am slightly confused. The Becky Francis review promised us “evolution not revolution”, while the new Secretary of State has said there will be “an education revolution”. Has the curriculum review been superseded and are we evolving or revolting?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I have no doubt that, with the noble Lord’s skills, year 8 will thoroughly enjoy jollof rice and come out of his class with renewed enthusiasm for cooking and, I hope, a whole range of other things.

As I made clear in my first answer, we are building on the successes of the last 30 years in our education system but we are recognising, as Becky Francis did in the Curriculum and Assessment Review, where we have overly narrowed the curriculum. In some cases, we have forced out things that many people would consider to be important skills and opportunities for young people. We will reintroduce those, but we are also determined to do something that many previous Governments have expressed a commitment to, yet none has really delivered so far, including me in my former incarnation: genuinely good, high-quality, high-standard technical and vocational opportunities for young people. That is one of the opportunities that we have through these reforms and it is an important part of the focus of the work that we are doing.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, while I welcome many of the aspects of this Statement and much of what my noble friend the Minister said, I still feel that it lacks an overall strategy in relation to future changes of demands on the employment and skills markets. In particular, will the Government produce a strategy which is central to their economic policy and deals with the impact that AI will have on the employment and skills requirements in the medium term? One does not have to be a total pessimist and say that AI is going to destroy millions of jobs, but it will change millions of them dramatically, not least entry-level jobs. Will there be a strategy from the department for dealing with AI and its impact on the needs of our education and skills system?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

It is precisely in order to equip children to respond to the changing needs in the labour market that we are making some of these changes, but those build, of course, on the introduction by this Government of Skills England. I hope that my noble friend will have seen some of the important work that Skills England has done on the way in which AI skills will be necessary for the future workforce, and how they are likely to change the nature of the skills that young people and, in fact, adults need. The Government have responded to that through additional skills training to support not just young people but people throughout their lives to develop those AI skills. I agree that this is a wide-ranging challenge to both the labour market and our education system and that more work needs to be done, but we have certainly made an important start.

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interest with respect to Access Creative College. Only last month, the Government implemented substantial reforms to the apprenticeship levy by transforming it into the growth and skills levy, increasing the amount that employers must contribute to adult apprenticeships and reducing the amount of time they have to use their levy funds. We read in the FT recently, though, that the Government’s own reviewer is minded to recommend the abolition of the apprenticeship levy. Are the Government minded to go down such a path? If so, how do they plan to backfill the £4 billion or so that the apprenticeship levy, now the growth and skills levy, brings into our training and skills system?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord knows as well as any of us that you cannot necessarily believe everything that you read in the newspapers. As I suggested to the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, there may well be further changes to the growth and skills levy, but we have been clear that we want to pivot it to young people to put right the 40% fall in them starting apprenticeships that we saw in the last 10 years. We also understand the role of apprenticeships, and of skills training more widely, in supporting people who are currently in work. I ask the noble Lord to wait, for example, until the final publication of Alan Milburn’s recommendations and the Government’s response to them.

Creative and Performing Arts Teaching Grants

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review the decision to cut funding to creative and performing arts teaching grants in universities.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, decisions on the strategic priorities grant for academic year 2026-27 reflect the challenging fiscal position and not the value we place on creative and performing arts courses. We recognise the important contribution that the disciplines make to our cultural life and economy. We have had to prioritise funding towards the highest-cost subjects and areas facing the most acute skills shortages, while protecting £57.1 million of funding for world-leading specialist providers, including 12 arts institutions.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, far from being “challenging”, as the previous Secretary of State put it, this is a disastrous decision that will further imperil higher education arts courses already under threat from closure. It is at odds with the industrial strategy’s commitment to the creative industries and the concerns of Skills England, including those skills combining creativity and new technology. Does the Minister agree that increases in tuition fees are not relevant, since that will affect all courses equally? Will the Government reconsider this decision and instead formulate a strategy which will improve access to creative subjects in higher education?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I understand the disappointment in this decision, but to be clear about the scale, we are talking about the removal of £130 per student for those taking some creative and arts subjects. That is roughly 1% of the contribution towards those subjects. A £6 billion increase in the income to higher education that comes from the decisions this Government have made about tuition fees is not insignificant; it is by far the biggest part of the funding for all higher education courses, including those in creative and performing arts.

[Baroness Bousted (Lab)]

My Lords, before I ask my question, I must apologise to the House for my inadvertent failure to declare my interest as chair of the independent inquiry into the Police Federation of England and Wales when I spoke last week in the Second Reading of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill. This interest is recorded in the register.

Does the Minister agree with me that access to higher education and careers in the creative and performing arts should be open to all, regardless of wealth or social background?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Absolutely I do, which is why, in the strategic priorities grant, we have focused on at least maintaining the funding that goes towards access and participation, including for students going into creative and performing arts subjects. This is why, as a Government, as part of the support of the creative areas, we have additionally invested in, for example, a wider spread of awareness of careers in the sector. In fact, there is a £9 million UK-wide creative careers service.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, given that the creative industries are one of the country’s most productive money earners, is it not perverse to cut grants to young people hoping to bring their skills and talents to the world of work? I was recently up at the Edinburgh Fringe, where brilliant young musicians, actors and dancers often to have to fund themselves, so tight are the purse strings for funds, yet they give such pleasure. How do the Government to propose to encourage more young people into these creative industries with these cuts?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

To be clear, this is not a cut of a grant to students; this is a cut of £130 per student to the institutions that run these courses. This is partly in order to safeguard, for example, the £20 million funding that goes to Uni Connect to open up opportunities to get into higher education for more young people. It goes alongside the expansion of other ways to develop skills in this area, such as higher technical qualifications, creative skills bootcamps and the lifelong learning entitlement, all of which provide support and opportunities for young people and people throughout their lives to get into the creative sector.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, universities need more teachers generally, but so do schools. The Government pledged to recruit 6,500 new teachers, but the annual school workforce census shows that there are 1,900 fewer teachers across all schools. Does the Minister agree with Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union, who called it a “mockery” of the pledge?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

No, because we have been clear in our pledge to recruit 6,500 more teachers that we would focus them on the areas in secondary and special schools where we are not seeing a fall in the number of pupils and where we know that there is a particular need, and there we have done so. The latest number is over 2,500 more teachers. We are delivering on our commitment to teachers and pupils.

[Baroness Caine of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, £76 million of capital funding from this grant has been let out to competitive bidding. The OfS prospectus, subject to separate guidelines and the guidance letter, identifies bids that relate to the creative industries nationally and locally as meeting the criteria for growth and priority skills needs. I am confused, as I am sure the universities and the industries are. Please can my noble friend the Minister clarify the situation? Does she agree that, with a new Secretary of State in DfE, it is an excellent time to reflect on the evidence base, ready for next year’s guidance?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am sorry that I am not completely clear about the point that my noble friend is making with respect to SPG capital, which I think is what she was referring to. I will write to her about that.

[Lord Mendoza (Con)]

My Lords, it is not all gloom and doom—I declare an interest at the University of Oxford—as there are other ways to encourage capital and money to come into creative education in our universities. I draw the Minister’s attention to the recent donation by Stephen Schwarzman to the University of Oxford, which provided £200 million for a new centre for the humanities and, within that, all sorts of performing arts spaces using the latest technology. If we can encourage business and commerce to invest here and make more money here, I know of lots of other organisations, like Bank of America and Steve Schwarzman, that would put more money into the creative industries and higher education in this country. Does the Minister support philanthropy coming into this area to help?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes, of course. I do. Philanthropy has always been an important way in which facilities in our universities have been supported. To help that happen, as other noble Lords have commented, we have already made the creative industries part of our industrial strategy. As a Government, we are supporting an extra £100 million of investment for the next wave of creative R&D clusters. We are supporting the arts through additional money to Arts England, and we are making sure that there is a pipeline of young people coming into the sector as well. Given the enthusiasm that there always is in this House for the creative industries and the arts, which I know is reflected out in the country, I hope that where people have the money to contribute to higher education and other areas of education, they will consider doing so.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, the reason that I was able to retrain as a design and technology teacher is that I have a graphic design degree. There is evidence that universities are already reducing their creative courses. How are we going to get the new generation of people with the subject knowledge to teach these badly needed courses that are part of the new national curriculum if nobody has the subject knowledge?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As I have said previously, I am very glad that the noble Lord has a degree and was able to train as a teacher. I am not quite sure when that happened, but I suspect that the availability of a bursary was probably as important as his first degree. It is by investing in our teachers through pay awards and bursaries for shortage subjects, and because of the success that we are having in retaining more of them in the classroom, that we are seeing more teachers in all areas of the curriculum, including the creative areas.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, is my noble friend looking forward, as I am, to the freeing up of the curriculum, so that there can be much more drama and other creative subjects in the secondary phase? This will ensure that we have enough students to continue the very good place in which the creative industries are at the moment.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes. That was absolutely a theme in the commissioning of the Curriculum and Assessment Review. We are already making changes to the curriculum, as my noble friend says, to ensure that the breadth, enrichment and value of creative subjects are reflected both across the curriculum and in the wider enrichment opportunities that we want all schools to offer to their pupils.

Office for Students: Academic Misconduct Allegations

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

In begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I declare an interest as the director of the Free Speech Union.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, our world-class higher education system is built on the principle of institutional autonomy. As autonomous institutions, universities are responsible for setting and maintaining the academic standards of the qualifications that they award. The Office for Students regulates these standards through its regulatory framework. When providers fall below minimum requirements, it already has the power to investigate and take regulatory action.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

I am grateful for that reply. Does the Minister accept that the Jason Arday case, where serious allegations of academic misconduct were initially dismissed by Cambridge as a “vile smear”, with an investigation launched only after months of damaging public scrutiny, illustrates why the Office for Students needs this power? Will the Government commit to consulting about it?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I have already identified that the Office for Students has that power already. The death of Jason Arday is of course a tragedy. I am sure that, for many people, our heartfelt condolences are with his family and friends and everybody who cared about him. Cambridge is rightly establishing an independent investigation. I had the opportunity yesterday, along with the Secretary of State, to talk to the vice-chancellor and senior leaders of Cambridge University about that, and they will be imminently announcing the detail of the terms of reference for that investigation. Importantly, they gave assurances to me and the Secretary of State that it would be independent and rigorous.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, one area of academic misconduct that does not get addressed is the exploitation of junior academics, particularly women and minority-ethnic academics, by older academics who sometimes force their names on to papers to which they have not contributed, use the work of junior academics to secure millions of pounds of research funding and then discard them from projects. Sometimes there are tribunals, settlements and NDAs, but there is no accountability and the cycle continues. What are the Government doing, and what can the Office for Students do, to address this?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

That would clearly be an unsatisfactory position for any junior academic involved in that situation. It is slightly less a job for government and slightly more for the leadership of universities, which, as I have said, are autonomous institutions that are rightly responsible for maintaining their academic standards. I am sure that they and others will have heard the concerns that the noble Baroness has expressed today.

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I also pay tribute to Jason Arday. In the Minister’s response to the noble Lord, Lord Young, she talked about the Office for Students having the powers already, but is she willing to carry out a review to ensure that it has sufficient powers and, if possible, look at the possibilities of beefing up its powers if she found that it needed more?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

We always keep the powers of the Office for Students under review. I am sure that it, like others, will want to look carefully at any recommendations that come out of the independent inquiry that Cambridge University has instituted. Universities UK may also want to think about the way in which any lessons learned from this episode can be reflected across the whole sector, and we will obviously want to work with it on that as well.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a serious and difficult case that clearly raises legitimate questions, but surely we should await the outcome of the various inquiries under way before passing judgment. Universities, as the Minister said, are already subject to a range of checks and balances, and indeed Cambridge has already started its review process. I suggest that the most responsible course of action at this stage is to let the investigations establish the facts, look carefully at what they tell us about the robustness of the existing checks and then consider whether any regulatory or other intervention is necessary.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I agree with my noble friend. Much has been said about this issue, not all of it, I suspect, either helpful or correct. It is important that we allow a relatively speedy—I hope—and independent investigation into the issues raised by this very sad case, which may well relate to the processes for the recruitment of academics, the levels of academic and research standards and the processes in place, both within individual institutions and across the sector, for ensuring that in our higher education system those are maintained at the very highest levels. I am sure it will be helpful to wait for the results of these inquiries and any recommendations that are made in order for all of us to be able to review what further action might be necessary.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, on Tuesday we heard some moving and powerful speeches about breaking through the defensive institutional cover-ups of wrongdoing when we discussed the Hillsborough law. Even honest mistakes can be made toxic by a lack of accountability. Can the Minister assure us that universities are also held to these high standards of candour, that their autonomy cannot be used as an excuse for marking one’s own homework, as in the instance of what Cambridge proposes, and that she takes seriously the fact that academics, whistleblowers and journalists were threatened and smeared for simply doing their job? Does she accept that academic freedom and academic standards are threatened if nothing is done, and can she assure us that she will keep her eye on this? What has happened here is very serious.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As I think I have already made clear, both I and the Secretary of State have been doing more than just keeping our eye on this. It was important for us yesterday, in our meeting with the vice-chancellor, to have the assurance that she was able to give us that the detail of the reviews would be imminently announced, that the reviews would be carried out independently and that recommendations that came from them would be made available for all of us to consider whether any further action is necessary.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, the department at the centre of this summer’s tragic events is not any university faculty. It trains teachers with public money under DfE accreditation. Parents and schools are entitled to know that those who train our teachers meet the standards that we demand of the teachers themselves. Will the Minister confirm which regulator—the Office for Students, Ofsted or her own department—is responsible and accountable for the integrity of academic qualifications in accredited teacher training providers? Will she accept that nobody in England currently has the power to investigate across institutions? If she agrees with that, will she say which body should do it?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

First, to reiterate what I said, it is right that institutions themselves are responsible for maintaining academic standards. It is a fundamental part of the reason for the success of our higher education system that they continue to maintain high academic standards. The noble Baroness raises an important point about regulation with respect to teacher training, where I think there is a role for Ofsted, but I will come back to her with more detail.

With regard to the university itself, as I have made clear, the Office for Students already has the ability to regulate with respect to academic standards and processes that might be undermining them. She makes an important point, which I touched on earlier, about the extent to which the system itself, rather than simply individual institutions, maintains the quality of academic standards. That is something that we and Universities UK will want to look at in more detail.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister—inadvertently, I am sure—creates an impression of if not complacency then certainly inertia. I emphasise that I am sure it is inadvertent. What many of us find surprising is the question of what would be necessary to allow the Office for Students to launch an investigation, rather than a general periphery discussion going on among institutions. Surely that office should have the power to take dynamic action.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

It is unlike the noble Baroness to make the charge that she has just made to me, and, frankly, I think it is unfair. I have been pretty clear that, in talking to Cambridge University, we have been assured and are clear that there will be an independent investigation into the particular circumstances here. I have also been clear, in response to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, that when we know what the conclusions of that review are, there may well be further action that we want to take. If the noble Baroness wants me to take knee-jerk action on the basis of news headlines, I am afraid that is not something I am willing to do.

Skills, Vocational Training, and Further and Higher Education

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, as others have rightly done, I thank my noble friend Lady Morgan for securing this important debate, which has ranged widely. I will do my very best to respond to the range of points that have been raised and to receive written representations from anybody who wants to send them—as I believe the noble Lord, Lord Young, promised to do when I took a little comfort break earlier.

As others have said, the breadth of expertise that has been shared today shows that improving opportunity is not the responsibility of government alone; it is a national endeavour. This debate goes to the heart of how we build a fairer and more prosperous country. It is about whether every young person, whatever their background or postcode, can gain the skills, confidence and opportunities they need to succeed, and whether every region has the skilled workforce it needs to grow, attract investment and create good jobs.

The issues before us are clear. Too many young people remain outside education, employment or training. Too many adults lack access to flexible routes to upskill or retrain. Too many employers report skills shortages, while too many communities still feel cut off from the opportunities that growth should bring. That is why skills and technical and further education matter so profoundly. They are not peripheral to our economic strategy or our mission to break down barriers to opportunity; they are central to both.

The debate is therefore about how government, local leaders, employers, colleges, universities and communities work together to make technical and vocational routes more respected, more responsive and more accessible. If we are serious about widening opportunity and driving growth in every part of our country, we must also be serious about where power sits and who is trusted to use it. As the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, emphasised, there is an important argument for ensuring that power rests with those closest to making the decisions. That is why I want to begin with devolution, which is a practical answer to a practical challenge when we are thinking about how we build a skills system that reflects the needs, strengths and ambitions of the places it serves.

As several noble Lords have noted, opportunity is not distributed evenly across our country and employer demand is not identical from one region to another—a point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry—and the barriers facing a young person in one community may look very different from those facing a young person elsewhere. Local leaders know their labour markets, employers, colleges, communities and young people, and this Government believe that they should have the powers, funding and accountability to act on that knowledge within a national framework that protects quality, entitlement and access. Our approach is clear: shift power away from Westminster, strengthen strategic authorities and build a skills system that is more responsive to local economic need while staying aligned with the national priorities that matter to us all.

Noble Lords have also been clear about the scale of that challenge, with almost 1 million young people not in education, employment or training. These figures are not abstract. They represent young lives and talent we cannot afford to waste. That is why we commissioned Alan Milburn to produce what is an excellent interim report. We look forward to receiving his final report with recommendations. We are already working to ensure that we will be able to respond effectively to the recommendations and believe we will be building on progress and action already taken.

I reassure my noble friend Lady Morgan and my noble friend Lady Morris, who should be congratulated on the leadership she showed in the white working-class inquiry, that we will want to respond to those issues together. We must ensure that where a young person grows up does not determine what they can become. It is about how we ensure that talented people, wherever they live and whatever their background, can gain the knowledge, confidence and qualifications needed to succeed.

Another theme raised by many noble Lords has been the importance of prevention and early intervention. We know that young people who become detached from education or employment often face multiple and overlapping barriers. These can include disadvantage, low attainment, special educational needs, poor mental health, family circumstances and limited local opportunities. They can affect different groups differently, as my noble friend Lady Whitaker, with her usual tenacity, identified with respect to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children.

We know that the consequences can be long lasting and that is why this Government are placing increasing emphasis on prevention, earlier identification, stronger transitions and more co-ordinated support. We are improving how schools, colleges, local authorities and partners identify young people at risk of disengagement. We are strengthening post-16 pathways, introducing new technical pathways from age 14, and investing in better data and support systems so that fewer young people fall through the cracks. The noble Baroness, Lady Cash, is right that this starts early and that is why we are improving the quantity and quality of early years provision, tackling child poverty and improving, through our support for families and better start in life information, support and information for parents as well.

The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, argued that there should be machinery of government changes to put skills, training and education at the heart of government. I now straddle the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions following the most recent machinery of government change, which puts skills alongside employment support in the Department for Work and Pensions. I think that was an important change.

It has led us to the development of the youth guarantee, which reflects the principles we have been talking about that every young person should have a pathway forward, whether through further learning, training, work experience and apprenticeship, or employment support. We are investing an additional £2.5 billion over the next three years into that and the growth and skills levy to support almost 1 million young people and to create up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn. In response to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, I can say that there are 300,000 work experience places through the youth guarantee, specifically.

I turn to further education. Many noble Lords have rightly emphasised the critical role that further education colleges play. They are anchors within their communities. They support young people, adults, career changers and employers, drive social mobility and connect education directly to the needs of local economies. My noble friend Lady Morgan described the excellent work happening in Wigan. Every time I visit excellent FE colleges, I see staff and leaders engaged with the local economy, building its input into the curriculum and building links back to their students; this is at the heart of their success. But too often they have been left behind. My noble friend Lord Barber emphasised the need for high-quality teaching, which has been harder for FE to deliver, given its vacancy rates and the lack of investment it faces.

That is why this Government are investing in the FE workforce and strengthening the sector’s foundation, including by providing around £120 million in 2026 to support colleges and other FE providers to address recruitment and retention needs, rising to £365 million next year. It is why we have increased the basic funding of FE and supported, in particular, further disadvantage funding, uplifts for T-levels and an inclusive mainstream fund to help those settings meet more special educational and disability needs.

Many noble Lords have rightly emphasised the need to raise the status of technical and vocational education. For too long, public debate has treated academic and technical routes as though one were superior to the other. We want technical excellence to command the same respect as academic achievement, and technical education to be seen not as a second choice but as an excellent choice. I also support the argument made by my noble friends, my noble friend Lady Morgan in particular, that high-quality technical and vocational education is not only about engaging students and is not only for those who would otherwise be disengaged; it should be for everybody who wants to achieve excellence, but via a technical and vocational route. It is important that we keep that at the heart of our ambition and the changes we are making.

That is why the Prime Minister has announced new prestigious technical education routes, giving 14 year-olds earlier access to technical skills, work experience and local employers. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, has noted the emphasis from 14 that the new Prime Minister has brought in. I note the noble Lord’s strong emphasis, once again, on the opportunities that UTC sleeves may well provide in delivering this. But rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all model for delivering this new approach designed by Whitehall, regional mayors, local leaders, schools, colleges and employers will shape pathways around local industries and growth sectors, from advanced manufacturing, AI and digital technology to clean energy, life sciences, construction, health and care, and the creative industries. These changes build on our existing reforms, which demonstrate both the urgency and the ambition.

With respect to the point about English and maths, I strongly agree that the literacy and numeracy skills that you need throughout life, often represented by a grade 4 at GCSE, are fundamentally important. That is why we are determined, with all the reforms that we are making pre 16, to strengthen the ability of children to get those qualifications and, post 16, to make sure that the system is focused not on a churn of resits but on the quality of teaching, professional development and the evidence of what works to enable young people to succeed if they have not up to that point. It is why we will also introduce a new level 1 stepping-stone qualification to enable young people to build the foundations they need in English and maths if they have not been successful in doing that previously.

Equally, it is important that we emphasise the specialism and the contribution of FE colleges, which is why we have developed 29 new technical excellence colleges, including the 19 announced this year that are backed by £175 million, giving around 65,000 learners access to training for high-demand jobs in advanced manufacturing, clean energy, defence, digital and technologies. That builds on the first wave of construction technical excellence colleges, supported by £120 million of investment, which will train 40,000 construction learners by 2029. Together, that is a practical example of skills policy being tied directly to the industries and places where growth will come from, and it is an investment in the capacity and ability of further education colleges to work alongside those industries to provide opportunities for young people and the skills the country needs.

As I have already said, I strongly support the points made by my noble friends Lady Morris and Lady Morgan about the rigour and quality that we must maintain in technical and vocational education. It should not be seen as a second-rate or alternative route for those who do not want or are not able to take an academic route. It must of itself be a prestigious, high-quality and rigorous route, and access to that quality must be open as widely as possible. I take the points made about level 6 apprenticeships, for example, which are offering brilliant opportunities for students but are not currently widely accessible enough to those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

It is also the case that young people need a broader range of enrichment and experience, as several noble Lords have identified. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester talked about the need for work experience, as I have said, and the role of volunteering in contributing to the sorts of experiences that are important for young people. The noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, rightly identified the benefits that cadets can bring. Others identified important ways in which we need to support young people to progress. I note as well the point, made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry, about young people who might arrive at 16 without having had the opportunity to achieve up to that point. That is one of the reasons we are changing the qualifications and the routes for young people—what we would call level 2 post-16—to provide new pathways through an occupational route into jobs and a further study route into the ability to study level 3 qualifications. We cannot let young people lose the opportunities that jobs or further study could offer them.

As she often does, my noble friend Lady Caine made a powerful case for creativity across the curriculum and throughout the age ranges. She challenged, as she often does. In a Question on Monday, we will have an opportunity to talk about support for higher education in creativity. We rightly heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, about the need to ensure routes into dance. This Government have continued to support the music and dance scheme, and I hear the calls for certainty around that. My noble friend Lady Hazarika spoke on the enthusiasm, the opportunities, the enrichment and joy that the study of music can bring, and the need to continue the work that we are doing on financial literacy was emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sater.

Several noble Lords highlighted apprenticeships and their powerful role in supporting young people into work and on the path to successful careers. That is why we are investing in them and reversing the sharp decline in apprenticeship starts among young people which we have seen over the last decade. There is an additional £1 billion investment to support 50,000 more young people into apprenticeships over the next three years. My noble friend Lady Alexander noted the ambitious plans that the Government have and rightly identified our need to make it as simple, easy and straightforward as possible for employers to take on apprentices. We have made progress in that area already, and we will keep pushing to make sure that that is the case. To support employers, we will also develop brokerage opportunities locally—as was suggested by my noble friend Lady Morgan; we are piloting them already—to bring together employers and apprentices.

An important point was made about the role of higher education. I see—not just because of my job—the system as a tertiary system where opportunities need to work through further education and higher education. Of course, it is the case that very many of the skills that our economy needs will be provided through higher education, not just through an earlier route. That is why we need higher education to provide more opportunities for apprenticeships and to work effectively with further education to develop the level 4 and 5 qualifications that we need in this country. The Government have set out our target to increase the number of young people achieving level 4 and above qualifications.

My noble friend Lord Docherty raised adult education, and several noble Lords talked about the need for education to be lifelong. I strongly support that. My noble friend is right that the funding for adult skills has fallen since 2010. Within the constraints that we face, we will try at the very least to maintain the support that is there, because it is so important for reskilling people, getting people back close to the labour market, helping people who have no English and maths to take up their entitlements to that, and supporting speakers of other languages with English—which is one of the things that the adult skills fund supports. The adult skills fund is devolved to make sure that it will be as effective as possible. My noble friend Lord Nagaraju, quite rightly, talked about the need for reskilling and the emphasis on AI, and made the point that that needs to be open to encourage the widest possible participation.

In closing, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. The points raised today will inform our work to build a skills system that is ambitious, inclusive and responsive; one that empowers local leaders, supports disadvantaged communities, strengthens regional growth and ensures that talent, determination and hard work are rewarded wherever they are found. I commend the Government’s approach to the House.

Schools: Mobile Phone Policy

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the ‘not seen, not heard’ mobile phone policy in schools.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, our mobile phones in schools guidance is statutory from yesterday, 1 September, and is clear that schools should be mobile phone-free environments by default. We trust school leaders to choose the approach that works best for their setting. This includes the use of “not seen, not heard” policies if they are backed by strong enforcement to ensure that pupils do not have access to their phones during any part of the school day. We have committed to reviewing the guidance and making necessary revisions by September 2027.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the Minister for that reply, and I am pleased that she reiterated the Government’s commitment to review the guidance. Can she say what data and evidence the Government will use to inform their decision and when they expect to take that decision? I know that normally the school behaviour survey is published in November each year, and obviously it would be helpful to schools and trusts to hear as quickly as possible after that if they need to change their policies going forward.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am sure the noble Baroness will be pleased that we are already seeing evidence—for example, from research done as part of Teacher Tapp—that schools are continuing to strengthen their approaches, with 41% of secondary schools planning changes to their mobile phone policies for this new academic year. On the review, I think we will want to start from January 2027 with the data that we are able to collect, the results of the behaviour survey, as the noble Baroness says, and engagement with stakeholders, so that we will be in a position to put any revisions into the guidance so that it can be implemented from September 2027.

[Baroness Berger (Lab)]

I listened closely to my noble friend the Minister’s response. It is fantastic to hear all the work that the Government are doing to reflect on this. Parents at this time are reporting that schools retaining the “not seen, not heard” policies are having lots of challenges. They are hearing from their children how the children are still accessing those phones at break or lunchtimes because, understandably, teachers are not able to police all areas of the school. Is it possible that parents will also be spoken to in order to gather the evidence?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes, of course parents need to be involved in this. They need to be involved in the development of schools’ behaviour policies in which, or alongside which, the mobile phone policy should sit. They need to understand the benefits for children of not using phones during the course of the school day. As I say, notwithstanding the fact that the majority of secondary schools use a policy that could come under the broad category of “not seen, not heard”, there are lots of examples of schools, even within that category, that have strong and effective mobile phone policies that are making a real difference to the calmness of the classroom and the learning of their pupils.

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, the effectiveness of a policy is always about how it actually happens on the ground. What assessment has been made about the variations in how schools are implementing “not seen, not heard” policies? In particular, what support is given to those schools that are facing a challenge from either pupils or parents? We heard during the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in the last Session that a small group of parents are very vocal about this issue and often take up a lot of teacher time.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that the difference is made on the ground. That is why school leaders, and their capacity to be able to decide what is right for their school, are absolutely at the heart of this. Where school leaders are finding it difficult to do that in a way that supports their school’s functioning effectively for children, there will be support from the department’s attendance and behaviour hubs, and of course Ofsted will now be inspecting schools on the basis of the extent to which their mobile phone policies are not only in place but being properly implemented. That will potentially have an impact on their standard for attendance and behaviour.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I am slightly confused here. I have taught in three schools but never in one that allows mobile phones. The Department for Education expects schools to implement a policy whereby pupils do not have access to their mobile phones throughout the school day. It says “not seen, not heard”, but if the phones are in their bags they have access to them. Surely “not seen, not heard” does not actually apply to this guidance.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Well, it does. If the noble Lord wants to have a look at some of the case studies that we have also provided for schools to support their implementation of the policy that schools should be mobile phone free by default, he will see that lots of schools are successfully using this approach and getting the calmness in the classroom, the focus of pupils and the support of teachers that we all want to see.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, as the Minister knows, schools with effective phone bans, which means handed in and locked away, are twice as likely to be rated outstanding, with GCSE results one to two grades higher. The poorest pupils gain the most. However, the reality is that this costs money, and providing a Yondr pouch costs about £20 per pupil—some £75 million nationally, in a schools budget of £65 billion. The Government have not provided a penny to schools to do this, and they have to find the money from stretched budgets. Will the Minister commit to funding the actual equipment needed to make our schools phone free?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

This Government have committed to funding a whole range of things, which is why there are considerable increases in school budgets. Nevertheless, it remains for head teachers to choose how to spend that additional investment, given the very clear and now statutory guidance that this Government have provided.

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, as was well rehearsed during the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, protecting our children online is not just about what happens in school. Last week Meta settled claims with 47 states in the US in which it committed to making a whole series of product and service changes for under-18s, but only in the US. What are the Government doing to ensure that our own children receive the same protections?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Noble Lords know that on 15 June the Government announced that they will ban social media companies from providing their services to under-16s and prevent under-16s engaging in livestreaming and stranger communication on a wider range of services, alongside stronger default protections for 16 and 17 year-olds. The Government intend to lay regulations before Parliament on that social media ban by the end of 2026. We expect the restrictions to enter into force in spring 2027, and they will be among the strongest controls, if not the strongest, across the world.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that if particular tech companies cannot agree to the safety of children, they should not be allowed to have a licence to operate?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The provisions we are making with respect to social media for young people build on provisions in the Online Safety Act. It is important, and the Government have been clear, that Ofcom needs to continue to put in place the strongest possible protections for children and take the strongest possible action against companies that do not fulfil that.

Free School Meals

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we very much welcome the Minister’s Statement. As we heard, over half a million more children will benefit from a free, nutritious meal every day. The Government have estimated that this will put £500 back into parents’ pockets. In the coalition, as we heard, we introduced a free meal for every key stage 1 pupil and prepared to extend this to key stage 2. This is excellent news for parents and their children.

As a primary school head teacher, I was always concerned that the number of pupils’ parents who did not take up the free school meal entitlement was quite alarming. Despite numerous personal letters to those parents, newsletters and all the rest, they still did not take up their entitlement. That is why auto-enrolment of free school meals at a national level ensures that every child gets the meal they are entitled to. Will the Government now follow the example of many successful local authorities and introduce auto-enrolment for meals, and if not, why not?

As we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, many vulnerable children spend many weeks each year not in school during the holidays. Will the Government take the opportunity to end holiday hunger and perhaps look at the feasibility of funding for meals during school holidays?

Children on free school meals, particularly those in more affluent areas, often feel embarrassed and stigmatised, and are sometimes bullied, because they are having free meals. Will the Minister assure the House that confidentiality will be maintained at all times for those who are entitled to a free meal?

I realise that the Statement was about free school lunches, but can the Minister update us on the number of children receiving breakfast and the timescale for rolling this out to more schools? The Minister is probably aware of the letter from a whole host of children’s charities about the problems of free breakfast for those children with special educational needs, which I have no doubt will come up during the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

We on these Benches have been pushing hard for the provision of free school meals in schools; it was in our manifesto. It is a victory for thousands of passionate campaigners, and the Government have listened.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, when this Government came into office there were 900,000 more children living in poverty than there had been when the Labour Government left office in 2010. This was a stain on our country. It was a terrible way for those children to live, preventing them having what they needed day-to-day and limiting their opportunities for the future. That is why this Government have announced the biggest expansion of free school meal eligibility in England in a generation, because we can and we must end the scourge of child poverty.

That is why we will give every child whose family is in receipt of universal credit the entitlement to free school meals. That means not simply meals in mouths but, crucially, money back into the pockets of parents and families on an unprecedented scale. It means that 500,000 more children per year will be entitled to free school meals. In response to the noble Baroness’s question, it means that, over the course of this Parliament, 100,000 children will be lifted out of poverty.

I commend the approach of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, to asking questions to gain some confidence and elucidation from me—an approach very different from that of the shadow Education Secretary, who did not allow the facts to get in the way of her tweeting completely erroneous information about the Government’s proposals. I will respond to the specific questions raised by the noble Baroness.

First, we have been clear that transitional protections will now be extended to 2026, when all children whose families are in receipt of universal credit will be entitled to free school meals. At that point, we will bring to an end the transitional protections that were put in place to protect entitlement as universal credit rolled out.

Secondly, the Government will continue to spend £3 billion on pupil premium and disadvantage this year. In 2026, the total will remain the same, on the basis of the level of those who would have been entitled to free school meals. Over the longer term, we will take action to consider the most appropriate way to distribute the funding necessary to respond to disadvantage and support schools in a range of ways, so that they can use it to help ensure that all children can succeed, regardless of their disadvantage.

The holiday activity fund will also remain at existing levels. It will enable local authorities to have, as they already do, the flexibility and funding to ensure provision for children who need it.

The entitlement to home school transport will remain the same, based on the current eligibility criteria post 2026, so no children will lose their entitlement to extended home school transport.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, talked about take-up. First, it is likely that the simplicity of now basing the entitlement on universal credit means that it will be much clearer to families, when they claim universal credit, that they are automatically entitled to free school meals. In addition, the Government are also improving the ability for not only local authorities but parents and families to check their eligibility more clearly than they have been able to until this point.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

If we find that that is not having the take-up that we hope for, will the Government look at auto-enrolment?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The Government are extending the entitlement to free school meals because we want children to benefit from them. We will keep under review the extent to which those free school meals and all the benefits that come with them are being taken up.

The noble Lord made a point about the stigma that some children and families feel. I know that many schools are—all schools should be—very careful about the way in which they identify which children are eligible for free school meals and which are not. We have moved some way from the terrible times when those children eligible for free school meals had to sit at separate tables and all the awful things that I know some people have experienced or certainly heard of. Schools will work hard to make sure that there is confidentiality and that that stigma is removed.

On the point about breakfast clubs, we have ensured that, from this April, there are 750 early adopter breakfast clubs across the country, having significantly increased the investment in those breakfast clubs to £30 million. As the noble Lord says, we will be able to consider this and the further rollout of breakfast clubs in more detail when we come to that part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will put the Government’s intention to ensure that all children in primary schools can benefit from breakfast clubs into legislation.

This considerable investment in our children is a significant sign of this Government’s commitment to tackling the scourge of child poverty. It is, as the Prime Minister says, a “down payment” on the Government’s child poverty strategy and it is symbolic of the difference that a Labour Government make.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the extension of free school meals. It is important for children and for parents in poverty. I very much welcome what my noble friend has said about it being a down payment on the child poverty strategy, but I echo my Commons colleagues who argued that it cannot be a substitute for the abolition of the two-child limit on universal credit. Given that the real benefit of the free school meals extension will not be felt until September 2026, that it is estimated that over 100 children are falling into poverty every day that the two-child limit continues, and that parents and children are really struggling now, will my noble friend please impress on the Chancellor and the Prime Minister the need for urgent action on the two-child limit?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I say to my noble friend that, as I think she has conceded, this considerable investment in our children is urgent action on tackling the issue of child poverty—as have been the Government’s investment in breakfast clubs already; our plans to limit the cost of school uniforms; the increase in the national minimum wage, adding an additional £1,400 to the income of those poorest families; the extension of the entitlement to free childcare; the uprated benefits this year; and the way in which the Government has supported 700,000 of the poorest families by introducing a fair repayment rate on universal credit deductions. But I agree with her that there is more to do. That is why the child poverty task force is currently looking at all the levers that could be used to support children out of poverty, including income, housing, energy costs and the availability of work for our poorest families. This is, as I have already emphasised, the latest step to put extra money into people’s pockets, building on action that this Government have already taken. It is a down payment on our child poverty strategy, where work continues, and the Government will have more to say.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, I quote from the Statement that

“it is an investment in our children’s futures. It sets them free from the worries and strains of growing up in poverty”.

Does the Minister agree that, if this is the Government’s aim, there should be compulsory financial education in schools about pensions? A £50 pension contribution every month from the age of 18 can produce £363,000 at retirement age. The excellent brief last year from the House of Lords Library stated that there were

“concerns have been raised that financial education is not being adequately provided”.

How will the Government ensure that education on pensions is being properly taught and help to end poverty?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

On Thursday, I think I will have the opportunity to answer a Question in this House on financial education in schools. Of course, I agree with the noble Earl that it is important that children develop the mathematical and business skills to understand the decisions that they then need to make about their own and their family’s money, and he makes an important point about pension contributions —notwithstanding his argument that young people should start them from the age of 18. I am not quite sure whether, in primary school, you can embed in a child’s mind the significance of that, but he makes an important point about ensuring that people understand the importance of pensions. Of course, hopefully, those children will look to their grandparents and the additional funding that they will receive as a result of this Government’s ability to maintain the triple lock, and they will see that investing in a pension is a good thing to do.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this Statement. It really is good news. I particularly welcome the look at nutritional standards. We talked about resources in, but, in education, we use free school meals as a measurement not only for money going into the school but for attainment levels, and that has become quite a considered and important way of monitoring performance and improvement. Have the Government given any thought to how having so many more children entitled to free school meals will affect that set of statistics, and does more work need to be done on that?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend makes two important points. First, she is right that, alongside this announcement, we have also said that we think now is the right time to review the nutritional standards for school food. My ministerial colleagues have already begun work with stakeholders on scoping out what will happen there and how those standards can be brought up to date. It is an important point that quite often accountability measures—analysis and monitoring of attainment—is based on a proxy of free school meals for disadvantage. The department will look at other ways of measuring that disadvantage and the way in which that can then be used to ensure attainment. Even more importantly, as I am sure my noble friend will have noticed, the Secretary of State is absolutely clear that the most disadvantaged groups need to have a better deal and to be supported to perform better in our schools than has been the case until this point, and she will do everything necessary not only to measure how effective that is, but to ensure that it happens as well.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this announcement, as others have done, because, in the words of the Statement, it is not just anti poverty but pro learning. As chair of the E-ACT multi-academy trust, I see the context of too many children’s lives coming through our school gates every day. I also note the disconnection with pupil premium and free school meals eligibility. What advice does the Minister have for schools wanting to run registration campaigns for pupil premium without the literal carrot of free school meals?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right of course about the importance of the contribution to learning. I think it is hard to envisage how children can focus on the learning that needs to happen without having nutritious, good food inside them both first thing in the morning from our breakfast clubs and of course at lunchtime as well. The important point about the pupil premium, as my noble friend will know very well, is that, while it has been allocated and designated on the basis of individual pupils’ entitlements, it is spent within schools on a range of different activities. It is not attached to a single pupil. That is why I think the Government will want to undertake some serious thinking about how to maintain and improve the support that is available for ensuring that children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds get the support in schools that they can, without depending in the long term on the link to entitlement for free school meals. Of course, in the short term, not least because free school meal entitlement based on the current criteria lasts for six years, there will be a considerable amount of time when that could be used to allocate pupil premium, but there needs to be work on ensuring that funding for disadvantage can continue for students to be used as effectively as possible by schools.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I join the congratulations to my noble friend and the Government. This is very good news at a time when good news is particularly welcome. I also welcome the welcome from the Lib Dem Front Bench and the very responsible and sincere questions about how many children will benefit from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Does my noble friend agree that compulsory education for primary and secondary school children was one of the greatest things about the post-war, cross-party human rights consensus? Does she also agree that we would not dream of charging children or parents for heating, security and pencils during the compulsory school day and therefore it was always a little odd that food was charged for? Given the concerns about the number of children who benefit, stigmatisation et cetera and all the obvious logic that we have heard from noble friends about the learning benefits as well as the anti-poverty benefits of nutrition in school, might we one day, with this level of consensus, aspire to—my noble friend chuckles because she knows where I am going with this—universal free school meals for every child or young person in compulsory education?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

One of the things I have noticed about this House is the ambition of noble Lords. They are not satisfied with the status quo. In fact, they are not satisfied with the next stage of development; they push for more.

My noble friend will understand that this big increase in entitlement represents a considerable financial investment in children by the Government. There is, of course, entitlement to universal free school meals for infant-aged children. For the time being, we will have to celebrate, and ensure that we properly implement, this increase in entitlement, but I note the ambition of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti and other noble friends on this issue.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th June 2025 Lords Chamber

On Amendment 107B, I am grateful to the noble Lord opposite because I confess that I did not completely understand it as given on the Marshalled List. He is right that we must set high expectations for local authorities and have consistency on the legal rights of children in care.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, this group of amendments has enabled us to hear a consensus in this House about the enormously difficult, tragic and appalling instances of child sexual abuse over the years, and that it is no longer good enough for us not to take important action to protect children in the most appalling circumstances. That is why this Government are committed to protecting children from harm, including from the horrors of sexual abuse, trafficking and exploitation. Measures included in the Bill and the significant programme of reforms already under way will help to protect children at risk of abuse and stop vulnerable children falling through the cracks in services.

I shall speak to the detail of the amendments. As we have heard, Amendment 66, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, seeks to insert into the Children Act 2004 a mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse. I wholly understand why noble Lords have taken the opportunity today to raise this issue. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, we should take every opportunity to raise it and to emphasise the determination of this House and indeed this Government to take action. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, alongside the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, about the specific issues relating to sport. We have also heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, the noble Lords, Lord Meston and Lord Bichard, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about their experience and the pressure they have rightly put on the Government to make progress.

Noble Lords knew that part of my response would be that the Government are already taking forward a new mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse for individuals in England undertaking regulated activity with children, as well as, crucially, a new criminal offence of obstructing an individual from making a report under that duty. This duty is included in the Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently in the other place.

That is the most appropriate route to debate the detail of a mandatory reporting duty, but I have no doubt that colleagues in the other place—and those of my noble friends who will be responsible for taking that Bill through this House—will have listened carefully to the specific points and challenges raised by noble Lords during the course of the debate on this group, and on Amendment 66 in particular. I will draw this debate to their attention because, while we might disagree over the details, we can agree that any new duty must ensure that the words of children who are seeking help are heard and apply the strongest possible measures to anyone who seeks to cover up abuse of this kind.

I will respond to a couple of points on the mandatory duty. On criminal sanctions, there may well be differences, partly because of the sensitive and careful balance here, which the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, identified. The Government have not attached criminal sanctions in the Crime and Policing Bill to a failure to report. However, there will be criminal sanctions for anyone who obstructs an individual from making a report under that duty. This is because millions of people in England take part in regulated activity with children and young people. Many of them will be teachers, nurses, social workers and other qualified professionals, but a significant proportion will be volunteers giving up their time to support, for example, their child’s sports team.

Those volunteers are the lifeblood of many opportunities on offer to our young people. They should comply with the duty, but we do not think it would be proportionate to create a criminal sanction for failure to comply with it. That could create a chilling effect where people are reluctant to volunteer or even enter the professions, because they fear being criminalised for making a mistake. I know that this is a delicate and difficult area and I am sure that it will be subject to further debate when the Crime and Policing Bill comes to this House.

The purpose of mandatory reporting has to be to improve the protection of children. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, emphasised, the aim is to create a culture of support, knowledge and openness when dealing with child sexual abuse. In working through the details of how this mandatory duty works, we must be careful that we do not do the opposite to that. Mandatory reporting will create a culture of openness and honesty, empower professionals and volunteers to take prompt, decisive action to report sexual abuse and demonstrate to children and young people that, if they come forward, they will be heard.

Amendment 69A was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Given the amount of work we have to get through on the Bill, I thank him for his brief but effective introduction to his amendments. I recognise the importance of safeguarding children from the risk posed by parents who have been convicted of serious offences, including those involving domestic abuse, child abuse and child sexual abuse. Ensuring their safety and well-being must remain at the heart of our family justice system. This amendment seeks to allow the High Court to curtail or remove parental contact where a parent has been convicted of domestic abuse, child abuse or child sexual abuse. It would also require the High Court to publish annual statistics on how many times they have removed or curtailed rights to parental contact.

However, we do not believe that new legislative provision is required, because existing legislation already serves to protect children from the harms associated with abusive parents. This is undoubtedly an issue where the courts should consider enormously carefully the potential damage that could happen to a child through contact with people in the sorts of circumstances that this amendment references. Section 1 of the Children Act 1989 already states that the child’s welfare must be the court’s “paramount consideration” when making a decision relating to a child’s upbringing. That section already includes a list of factors, known as the “welfare checklist”, which the court must take into account when deciding whether to make a child arrangements order for a child to spend time with or otherwise have contact with a person. This already includes considering the likely effect of any change of circumstances on the child and any harm that the child has suffered or is at risk of suffering. It follows that, when determining whether parental contact with a child is appropriate, legislation already gives the court the powers set out in the first subsection of this amendment. The court must already consider any potential risk or harm to the child, and this of course includes the very serious risks associated with domestic abuse, child abuse and sexual abuse.

The noble Lord’s amendment would also require the High Court to publish data on the number of times parental contact is curtailed or removed. Although I understand the call for accountability, it would not in fact be possible for the Ministry of Justice to collate this information without consulting each individual judgment. Of course, many of these judgments will be made in the family court, and therefore it would be very difficult to go through each individual judgment in order to collate the information that the amendment asks for. This is not to undermine the significance of the point being made by the amendment, but I hope that the noble Lord will see that there is already, within the law and in fact within the practice of the courts, the ability to ensure that this protection is available for children.

Amendment 107B was tabled by my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie. It seeks to enable courts to prohibit or enforce specific local authority action where children in local authority care are experiencing or at risk of significant harm. I wholly share my noble friend’s objective here; we recognise the necessity for children and young people to be protected from harm, to have their voices heard and to challenge aspects of their care, especially when they have concerns about their safety. But of course, if a child is at risk of harm, they need swift and responsive action from the professionals around them, not a court process to navigate. The system of children’s social care is purposefully designed to protect and safeguard children, and there are numerous existing mechanisms through which any concerns can be escalated.

That does not mean that there is no room for improvement here, as I will outline. But, for example, there are many professionals who surround children in care, each with a specific duty to promote the child’s best interests. They include social workers, independent reviewing officers and advocates. In children’s homes, they are required to report serious incidents and abuse allegations to Ofsted, which will investigate and, where necessary, has powers to take appropriate action. There are also legal routes to challenge local authority actions where there are serious concerns about misconduct. We are, of course, aware of cases in which children have been harmed while in care, which is completely unacceptable. We know that strong, trusted relationships surrounding the child are key to keeping children safe, which is why we are already taking further action, as I say.

First, we are improving advocacy for children in care by publishing new national standards and statutory guidance for advocacy later this year. Secondly, we are introducing new post-qualifying standards for social workers that clearly set out the need to be agile and timely in adapting plans and intervening to keep children safe. We are creating a new local authority designated officer—LADO—handbook to improve consistency and information sharing across local authority boundaries. We are improving qualifications, standards and access to training for staff in children’s homes to ensure that children are receiving the high quality of care they need. We are in dialogue with the sector, including children and young people, to consider how effectively professionals around the child work seamlessly together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the points that she has made. She referenced the update that came out in April, but that does not go far enough to meet recommendation 6 of IICSA, which talks about access to courts. It seems to me that there is an inconsistency between that and what the Home Secretary said in January about implementing all 20 recommendations, if the update is—if I understand my noble friend correctly—as far as the Government are prepared to go in this aspect of it at this stage.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

In relation to recommendation 6, in very big consultation with the sector, the objective of the Government is to deliver on the intention of the recommendation while recognising—this is something that professionals have also raised—that, for the reasons I have outlined, a new legal route here not only is not necessary but would risk making children’s ability to have their voice heard and for the professionals around them to support them less likely to happen. It is the Government’s view that this is a more effective way of delivering the intentions behind recommendation 6.

Between existing safeguarding mechanisms and planned improvements, this Government set a clear expectation that children are safe, their voices are heard and professionals work together to take immediate action in response to issues or concerns. I thank noble Lords for the range of issues that have been raised on this group of amendments. I hope that I have been able to provide some assurances and that noble Lords will feel content not to press their amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am not sure that I entirely agree with the noble Baroness on the spirit of the law. It talks about “trifling”—where the chastisement is of a trivial nature—and, while different parents might interpret that in a different way, the kinds of abuse that were cited in the debate that we have just listened to were not trifling; there was no question that they were trifling.

I will turn now to Amendment 173 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, which seeks to introduce a national strategy to address neglect of children. As we heard the noble Baroness explain—from her own professional experience, she brings great expertise on this matter—neglect is too common a feature in too many children’s lives. I commend her for bringing this to the attention of the Committee, and I would support her assertion that many practitioners lack confidence in how to respond to neglect. The approach set out in the amendment is practical in terms of sharing best practice and supporting both professionals and parents to understand and address neglect. My question to the noble Baroness, and potentially to the Minister, is whether it is wise to try to separate neglect from abuse, since we know that in most cases they will coexist, and therefore I imagine one would want practitioners to go in with their eyes open to both.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government are putting children at the heart of everything we do. This is evident in the far-reaching child protection and safeguarding measures in the Bill.

The amendments in this group were tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Tyler. They relate to the defence of reasonable punishment and what the Government are doing about neglect.

I will speak first to Amendments 67 and 505, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on removing the defence of reasonable punishment in legislation, which has been the basis of most of the contributions in this group. Let me be completely clear: the Government do not condone violence or abuse of children, and there are laws in place to protect children from this. Violence against children is not only unacceptable but illegal. The Crown Prosecution Service guidance referenced during the course of this debate is very clear that only the mildest form of physical punishment can be used to justify discipline. Child protection agencies and the police treat allegations of abuse very seriously; they will investigate and take appropriate action, including prosecution, where there is evidence of an offence having been committed. Local authorities, police and healthcare professionals have a clear duty to act immediately to protect children if they are concerned that a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, identified terrible cases that we must all take note of. Much of Part 1 of the Bill aims to address precisely these types of cases. But it is important to emphasise that cases where children have been abused or murdered by their parents—children, in fact, who experienced abuse far short of the terrible cases she identified—even in cases where their parents claimed to have been legally disciplining them, would not be covered by the reasonable punishment defence. To suggest otherwise is simply wrong. I am not convinced that it really was simply a reasonable punishment that led to the terrible outcomes in those cases; I think it was something far more profound, dangerous and worthy of attention—in fact, attention would be legally required.

We have heard that other countries have made these changes. We are looking closely at changes in Scotland and Wales and continue to build our evidence base, but we do not want to take this important decision yet. Wales will publish its report at the end of the year, looking at the impact that the change in legislation has had.

It is important that, in making any decisions, we consider all voices, including those of the child, trusted stakeholders and those who might be disproportionately affected by removing the defence. I certainly accept some of the examples used by noble Lords about the support that there is for removing this defence. I do not think it is quite as straightforward and completely categorically clear as some noble Lords have suggested.

Most parents want what is best for their children and they should be supported. It is right that we protect all children who are at risk of harm, but it is also right that we do not intervene in family life when children are safe, loved and well supported. This is why I agree with noble Lords who identified the need to find more positive ways to parent. I do not think that most parents who resorted at some point or another to a smack feel that that is the most positive way they could parent their children.

That is why we are rolling out national reforms to multi-agency family help and child protection—backed, as we have said previously, by over £500 million of funding—and, importantly, providing parenting support in 75 local authorities through family hubs. Parenting is difficult. Any of us who has done it understands the challenges of choosing the right ways to promote the positive development of our children. The recent publication of our practice guide for parenting services for parents of zero to 10 year-olds is a positive way to help parents identify how to do that very difficult job most effectively.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I warmly welcome the Minister’s remarks, because at the heart of this debate there seems to be a mischaracterisation and misunderstanding of Section 58 of the Children Act 2004 and a conflation of mild admonition with assault by beating, which obviously should be subject to the full force of the law. For the avoidance of doubt, and just to sum up, would she agree with the words of her colleague the Minister of State, Catherine McKinnell:

“As the law stands, quite frankly, any suggestion that reasonable punishment could be used as a defence to serious harm to a child, or indeed death, as has been asserted, is completely wrong and frankly absurd”?—[Official Report, Commons, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee, 6/2/25; col. 464.]

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I hope I did make that clear earlier, but I am very happy to reiterate. It would be wholly wrong. It would not be in line with the law for the types of cases that we have heard about in this debate to be subject to the defence of reasonable punishment. The Crown Prosecution Service has been clear, as professionals are clear, that that would get nowhere near to this defence. I know that noble Lords will be disappointed, with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, with the response of the Government, but I think it is a reasonable recognition of the very strong action taken when children are subject to violence and the need to learn from those who have recently changed the law. That is a sensible and appropriate way to go forward in this case.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to all those who have who have spoken in support of this amendment. I am slightly disappointed that it leapt straight into the court end of things. I did not recognise being categorised, as was said, as an activist parent. I am not an activist parent, and those who have spoken are not activist parents.

One of the problems—and that is why I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister of Burtersett, Lady Whitaker and Lady Benjamin, who have been with me on this journey for such a long time—is that violence and assault against children happens insidiously. Children learn that this is the way to get control over other people, and it escalates. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, parents lose it. When they have lost it, it is often associated with alcohol, drugs or other stresses in the home. They do not deliberately set out to beat up the child; it just escalates, and it becomes more and more common.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for pointing out the change in the constitution in Germany towards children and to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, for his extensive experience with children. I think his experience may mirror mine. When I was doing paediatrics and admitting children, I was told, “Oh no, I just smacked them and they fell over”. When we investigated further, we found multiple fractures: old fractures, new fractures, all kinds of injuries that nobody had noticed before because they thought this had just been a gentle smack. I have yet to find a family who declare that they are wilfully not a loving family, but loads of families declare they are loving families and they clearly are not, and they have many problems.

The emphasis on positive parenting is certainly a theme from this Government. It has been a theme from the Government in Wales. It is terribly important. The last thing that I will say is that I have seen this at first hand with one family where the father certainly smacked his children remarkably often—and when he had had a drink, it was even more often. When he was told by the others in the family, “You can’t do that any more, you’ve got to stop”, his behaviour changed. Interestingly, the children’s behaviour improved dramatically. They went from being quite disturbed and disruptive to being quite well behaved, because of the positive parenting that went with being told why what they were doing was not good rather than just receiving a clout. That is what we are trying to do. The defence is used at the end of the road. For somebody seeing a child who is told “Oh, that was just reasonable punishment”, it is very difficult to unscramble it in the school or the GP surgery as you cannot do a bone scan. You have to take things at face value.

I shall just comment on the issue of skin colour. You do not see bruises nearly as easily in highly pigmented skin. That is just a fact. I advise noble Lords to look at a textbook of dermatology. All these things were written based on white skin, and they have finally woken up to the fact that in pigmented skin all kinds of things look different, and that includes injury and so-called “superficial injury”. So to say that you must not leave a mark does not hold water in a country where we have people from all over and a wonderful richness there.

So for the moment, I will withdraw the amendment, but I am very tempted to come back to it later, because I am not convinced by what I have heard today from the Government, and I feel much more convinced by my home country of Wales and my other home country of Scotland. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 169 and 172 in my name and to comment on the other amendments in this group. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and my noble friend Lord Farmer for their support on Amendment 169, and the noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Meston, for their support on Amendment 172. As has been noted, they seek to do similar things.

Amendment 169 is a narrower version, focusing on support for mothers who have had a baby removed into care at birth. Like the noble Lord, Lord Meston, I prefer Amendment 172, which is broader and would create an obligation for local authorities to offer an evidence-based programme, such as the Pause programme, to mothers who have had a child removed from their care and who, as we have heard, very often immediately get pregnant again. From a human point of view, one can absolutely understand why, after all the attention that they may have received from children’s services prior to the child being removed and then the deafening silence that surrounds them once the child is gone. Very often, that void is filled by another pregnancy. I prefer Amendment 172 because it is a real issue and is broader, but the evidence for Amendment 169 is crystal clear. Almost half of newborns subject to care proceedings are born to mothers who had previously had a child—an older sibling to the newborn—removed through those proceedings. The near inevitability of that seems very powerful.

I am not sure whether it is on my register of interest, but I did a period of volunteering for Pause before I joined your Lordships’ House, so I have seen the quality of its work first hand. Since 2013, over 2,000 women have completed the Pause programme who, prior to working with Pause, collectively had had more than 6,200 children removed from their care—that is just over three children per woman. This is not a competition for how many children a woman has had removed, but Pause was founded by a social worker, Sophie Humphreys, and a district judge, Nick Crichton, after they worked together on a case where a 14th child was removed from the same woman. It is grounded very much in the experience of women.

I suggest to the Minister that this amendment is similar in spirit to Clause 1, which puts family group decision-making processes on a statutory footing, in the sense that some local authorities offer these programmes and some do not. The delivery is inconsistent and patchy and, as the noble Lord, Lord Meston, said, the funding for it is not always available. Also in the spirit of the Bill, which seeks to support those in the care system, we know that 40% of women who have taken part in the Pause programmes were themselves in care.

The Minister will know that the DfE’s own evaluation of this work saw significantly improved outcomes for mothers, reduced rates of infant care entry and very significant savings to children’s social care, with the department’s evaluation suggesting that every £1 spent on the Pause programme resulted in a saving to children’s social care of £4.50 over four years and £7.61—that seems remarkably accurate—over 18 years. I am not sure whether that is the net present value of £7.61, but anyway—that is a 7:1 return. From the point of view of the mother and the children, and from the financial perspective, these amendments deserve the Minister’s serious attention.

More broadly, this group has been focused on the important subject of support for families, both at a relatively early stage and at crisis points, such as when a child is removed into care. The purpose behind Amendment 68, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and my noble friend Lord Farmer, is to ensure that there is universal provision of family support services. There is no question that such services are valued by the families who use them and can make a great difference to the lives of children and to their parents. We support the spirit of the amendment, which keeps universal services separate from those that are voluntary but targeted to more vulnerable families, as the noble Baroness knows from our earlier debates on Clause 3.

Amendments 68A and 68B seek to introduce the concept of earned autonomy for family support services, which is again something that we are very sympathetic to. I have the greatest respect for my noble friend Lord Farmer for his extensive work in this area, particularly in relation to family hubs. I look forward to hearing what the Minister might say about the expansion of family hubs, which the Government have described as

“a non-stigmatising gateway to targeted whole-family support”.

In normal-speak, I think that is a good thing.

Amendment 167, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, would require local authorities to report annually on early intervention services for children and families in their area. As the noble Baroness acknowledged, local authorities have annual reporting requirements, including in relation to their multi-agency safeguarding work. As I understand it, this amendment would make that more explicit in relation to early help. I just wondered whether this would not naturally fit as an update to the Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance, as opposed to being in the Bill.

It is hard to argue with the spirit of Amendment 171, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. I was sad to hear of her loss and that of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I am sure that, across the Committee, we are very grateful to those charities that offer great support to children, and their families, who have been bereaved. When I was in the department, I remember meeting the team at the Ruth Strauss Foundation—indeed, I went on to recommend it to extended family members, who benefited from its support. In some cases, when perhaps a parent has cancer, the death can be anticipated and support can happen pre bereavement as well as post bereavement, if the family wishes, but in other cases, such as cases of domestic homicide, the child in effect loses both parents—one parent has been killed and the other parent is in prison. Effective support in all these cases is to be encouraged. If accepted, this amendment would make the task of finding the right support so much easier for bereaved or soon-to-be-bereaved children.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for highlighting in this debate very important issues aimed at ensuring that children and families can get the support that they need at the right time. That is an enormously important theme of the Government’s reforms to children’s social care. In doing that, we are already taking forward recommendations from the independent review of children’s social care, mentioned by several people today, particularly the aim to rebalance the children’s social care system towards earlier intervention and supporting more children to stay safely with their families.

I shall speak first to Amendment 68, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, which raises the important issue of family support services. I appreciate the noble Lords’ intention with this amendment and confirm that the Government are already investing in the provision of family support nationally. I also accept the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, that there is a need to ensure that there is that investment. The noble Baroness outlined the fall in investment since 2010; for example, in the Sure Start programme. It took me back to one of the very last interventions that I made in the other place before I came starkly up against the electorate in 2010. I expressed concern that a different Government might not continue to support the development of family support services and Sure Start in a way in which that Government had. There was heckling and jeering, as tends to be more the case at the other end of the building than here, but I am afraid that what we saw in the intervening years was a reduction in support for precisely the sort of services that noble Lords today are, quite rightly, pushing the Government to ensure that we both develop and fund. That is why, as we have frequently referenced—I do so again—that this Government have provided over £500 million to local authorities to roll out the national Families First Partnership programme, which aims to prioritise earlier intervention and ensure that families can access the right support sooner.

To turn to some of the more detailed points, I note the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, regarding earned autonomy status for local authorities to not follow prescriptive criteria in determining the services to be delivered. This is a challenge: how do we enable local authorities to have the autonomy to build and link the services in a way that makes sense to them in their circumstances, while also ensuring that additional investment placed into preventive services is spent on that? I have considerable sympathy for the idea that there needs to be that flexibility. That is why the Government are not mandating the delivery of specific family support services by any local authorities through the programme. They all have flexibility to respond to need in their areas, taking account of available resources, and they are supported in thinking about what might be appropriate and what would work best by reference, for example, to the programme guide that the Government have issued and the work of foundations that are developing information about what is most effective and working well. It is of course important, as I say, that we are clear that the additional money allocated for this work is spent on it. Grant funding is therefore ring-fenced to ensure that it is spent on a range of preventive services. Within that ring-fence, there should be—and there is—flexibility for local authorities to think about the nature and combination of the services that they are providing.

Before I move on, I want to respond to the point that the noble Lord made not only about flexibility, as we have talked about, but about combining funding pots. It is an important point. While local authorities funded through the family hubs and Start for Life programme have the flexibility, as I have said, to tailor services to meet programme expectations and address local needs, combining funding is also an important bit of that flexibility. Many local authorities are combining funding with other funding sources to enhance support for families. It is important that they are enabled to do that, notwithstanding the accountability point that I have made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would be grateful if the Minister would agree to go back and talk to her ministerial colleagues about this again. She is absolutely right that some of the effective targeted help and Section 17 types of help that she was talking about, set out in the Families First pathfinders, can be useful to some families, but these cases where a woman has already had multiple removals do not typically fit into that bracket; they go straight to care proceedings. The case load, if I remember rightly, is that each full-time Pause practitioner works with three women, so it is super-intensive and I think is complementary to this. I would just be grateful if she did not close the door on that as an option, particularly as I know that her noble friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, previously put this down as an amendment—I feel strengthened in that knowledge.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I have been persuaded in the course of this debate about the significance of this issue. I had some experience in previous work that I did in children’s social care about this, so I will certainly undertake to go back and talk to my colleagues about some more specificity around the particular requirements in these cases. Perhaps I can return to the noble Baroness with a bit more detail about that.

Amendment 171 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, seeks to establish a duty on local authorities to improve access to bereavement support services for children. Like others, I recognise and respect the noble Baroness for talking about her own experience of bereavement, as we also heard from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, identifying the enormous pressure that falls on families and particularly other children at the point at which they are bereaved. It is for this reason that the Government continue to consider how to improve access to existing bereavement support. There is a cross-government bereavement group, chaired by the Department of Health and Social Care and attended by officials from the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office, continuing to look at how we can improve access to support.

Following discussion by this group of opportunities to improve signposting of support—and as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said, I would have appreciated being signposted to some support outside the family—we have recently added links to bereavement support specifically for children and young people on GOV.UK. Schools increasingly talk to their pupils about mental health and where to access further support, both as part of the curriculum and through their wider pastoral duties. The relationships and sex education statutory guidance specifies that teachers should be aware of common adverse childhood experiences, including bereavement. I hope that, bringing those things together, we are enabling an improvement in the support that we provide for children who have suffered bereavement. I hope that this, along with the continued investment in services for children and family support, reassures noble Lords that we are taking action on that.

In all these areas, I hope that I have provided, after a useful and important debate, some reassurance about the acceptance by the Government of all the issues identified during the course of the debate, but also about the action that the Government are taking to commit to and invest in improving outcomes for children and their families through effective support services. I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to press these amendments, but I will certainly come back on the specific points and reflect on the case made in what I think has been a very important and helpful group of amendments.

School Teachers’ Review Body: Recommendations

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, on 6 February this year, in response to an Oral Question about teacher recruitment, the noble Baroness the Minister stated:

“We are committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools, both mainstream and specialist, and our colleges over the course of this Parliament”.—[Official Report, 6/2/25; col. 797.]


However, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the recent pay award has left a £400 million funding gap that schools will need to fill, which equates to the salaries of about 6,000 teachers. A recent survey from the National Association of Head Teachers showed that 46% of heads said that they would have to cut either teaching hours or the number of teachers, and 80% said that they would cut teaching assistants or their hours. I wonder whether the Minister could update the House on what the Government’s revised forecast is for the number of additional teachers they will recruit—that is, net of those redundancies and retirements—over the course of the Parliament. My maths suggests that it will be close to zero.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, on 22 May we were able to announce that this Government will fulfil the recommendations of the School Teachers’ Review Body and award a 4% pay increase to our teachers. Alongside that, we were able to announce an additional £615 million to fund that pay increase. That, alongside last year’s acceptance of the STRB’s recommendations, means that, while this Government have been in office, teachers have received a pay increase of nearly 10%. That is a fundamentally important contribution to retaining teachers in our classrooms and recruiting new teachers to be able to meet our 6,500 extra specialist teachers during this Parliament.

Noble Lords opposite, while asking legitimate questions, might like to reflect on the fact that, when we arrived in government, we found on the desks of the DfE the STRB’s recommendations from last year that their Government had run away from implementing. Since this Government have been in office, given the action we have taken not only on pay but on other provisions, we have seen an increase of 2,000 students starting teacher training. We estimate that the actions we have taken will ensure that an additional 2,500 teachers will be retained in the workforce over and above what would have happened had the previous Government continued their action towards teachers.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, on these Benches we welcome the Government’s acceptance in full of the School Teachers’ Review Body and the additional resources provided. However, there is a financial impact on schools having to implement the pay rises from their existing budgets. Given that half the schools are already considering staff cuts, and 45% of secondary head teachers are using pupil premium funding to fill budget gaps, can the Minister clarify the efficiencies the Government believe are still available to be found within existing school budgets?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that we have inherited a situation where school budgets are stretched. That is why we have already made available an additional £2.3 billion for the core schools budget in the October 2024 Budget, of which £1 billion was for high needs. We have also made available, on top of that, £930 million to support schools with the cost of the national insurance contributions increase in March 2025. There is also, as I have already said, £615 million for the 2025 pay awards. That means that, while this Government have been in power, we have seen the core schools budget increase from £61.6 billion to £65.3 billion.

There will be productivity challenges for schools and the Government have been clear that, as with other parts of the public sector, we will look to support schools in finding 1% of efficiencies to contribute to the ability to pay the pay award. That is alongside considerable funding support; considerable additional funding, on top of the efficiencies, to fund the pay award; and work that the department is doing with schools to help them find those efficiencies. That is a responsible way to balance the need for teachers—who are the most important in-school determinant of children’s success—in our classrooms with our responsibility to the taxpayer to ensure that public money is spent as effectively as possible.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, as a working teacher, I say thanks very much for the 10%—it is very gratefully received. It occurred to me a few days ago that the Government seem to presume that nowadays everybody leaves university, trains to be a teacher and stays a teacher for the rest of their lives. That is just not happening. The way working patterns are now, people change professions after 10 years. Is that built into the model of recruiting now—that people last only, say, 10 years and move on, and that we can get people who have been in other jobs and recruit them into this very fine profession?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises an interesting point. There are of course people who enter the teaching profession, teach for 10 years, and then leave to become Members of Parliament and Ministers. I am probably too old now to ever countenance going back into the classroom, but the noble Lord makes an important point about how we attract people into the profession at a later age.

That requires, for example, some of the flexibilities we have introduced through the postgraduate apprenticeship route into teaching. It also means that you have to make teaching an attractive profession for people to enter at any age and, importantly, to stay in. That is why we are—through the targeted retention incentives, the bursaries we are offering for specialist subjects, the action we are taking on supporting teachers on the considerable workload they face and the action we are taking to ensure that technology can support teachers in doing the face-to-face work in the classroom that makes all the difference—helping to recruit teachers at the beginning of their careers and teachers who are perhaps coming from other areas and, most importantly, to retain the excellent teachers that we have.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Will the Minister say something about where the 1% efficiency savings in schools might be found?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes, they might be found by, for example, schools being able to take the opportunity of the national energy contract that the DfE has entered into. We have already seen that schools that take part in that save considerable amounts of money. They might be found in other ways by thinking about the procurement that schools are doing. To emphasise the point I made earlier, we are not asking schools to do this alone, not least given the enormous pressures that we know there are on head teachers; we are standing alongside schools to support them with a wide range of advice and practical things, such as the energy contract, to be able to achieve this.

It is not unreasonable, at a time when we are asking organisations across the public sector to find efficiencies, that a small part of the contribution to the teachers’ pay award should come from efficiency. On top of that, of course, is the considerable investment of £615 million that this Government are making in teachers through the teachers’ pay award.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned bursaries, but art and design and music lag a long way behind science subjects. Do the Government have any intention of increasing those? Science subjects get a considerably higher amount of bursaries than art and design and music do.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

This pay award means that all teachers will now be receiving about a 10% increase, which this Government have been able to deliver. When we are then thinking about specific bursaries and retention incentives, we need to think about those areas where there have been particular difficulties with recruitment as well as those areas that are particularly important for delivering on the Government’s growth objectives. That has been the thinking behind where those additional incentives have gone. However, I reiterate that the basic pay for teachers now means that median or average pay for a teacher is now over £50,000, which strikes me as being the sort of amount of money that we should be willing to provide for those people who are making such a fundamental—the most important—difference in school to our children’s futures.

Social Mobility: Sutton Trust Opportunity Index

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Newcastle]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Sutton Trust’s Opportunity Index and what steps they are taking to increase opportunities for social mobility across the country.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Sutton Trust’s valuable report highlights that too many children face barriers to success because of who they are or where they come from. That is why, through the Government’s opportunity mission, we will break the link between young people’s backgrounds and their future success by tackling child poverty and ensuring that all children have safe and loving homes, get the best start in life, achieve and thrive in school, and develop skills to succeed in life.

[The Lord Bishop of Newcastle]

I thank the Minister for her Answer. The opportunity index shines a light on the great disparity of prospective outcomes for children and young people in London and the south-east compared with those in the north-east, particularly Newcastle. What consideration have the Government given to reforming the national funding formula to address some of the granularity of that disparity and improve chances for all our young people?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Funding is important, which is why the Government will consider the national funding formula and ensure that it focuses on the right places and addresses need in the way the right reverend Prelate outlined. But it is also important that we take action—across schools, for young people through training, and in the early years, when children need to have the best start in life. We have already started taking that action.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the Sutton Trust for this piece of work. It is worrying that, of the 20 constituencies with the highest ranking for opportunity, all are in London. Among the top 50, all but eight are in London. The lowest, of course, are in the north, including Newcastle, followed by Liverpool. We have had levelling up—whatever happened to that? My concern is that, often, government works in silos, but issues such as this have to be across silos. Is there a case for a Minister having responsibility for getting hold of this issue and making a real difference?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The whole Government are responsible for ensuring that young people’s opportunity is not determined by where they come from or other factors of their background. That is why the Government have an opportunity mission, as I outlined in my initial Answer; it is owned across government, and all parts of government are expected to make a contribution to ensure that young people get the best start in life, that they can achieve and thrive in school, and that they are then able to gain the skills necessary to succeed further on in their lives.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, as we have heard, this excellent report highlights the uneven impact of where you live on your opportunities. For instance, a free school meals pupil in Stratford and Bow in London is over 10 times more likely to attend university than someone in Bristol North West. This brings to mind the findings of the 2020 report from the Social Mobility Commission, The Long Shadow of Deprivation. In response to that report, the Minister at the time pointed to the 12 opportunity areas, which later became 55 educational investment areas, as important for driving change. Can the Minister say what lessons were learned from both those programmes, which have now closed? Crucially, how are they being applied in the new approach that this Government are taking to addressing regional inequalities?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I think that the lessons that were learned are feeding every aspect of the work that is happening across the opportunity mission. For example, there is the need for high-quality schools and excellent teaching throughout the whole of the country; the need for young people to have the access to skills wherever they are in the country; the need for our higher education sector to do more to ensure that all those who can benefit from higher education can access it, which will be a key part of the Government’s higher education reforms; and, of course, the need to start early in children’s lives, to ensure that they have access to early years education of the highest quality. It is work on all those areas that will ensure not just that the benefits are felt equally across the country but that we are able to close some of the gaps that the Sutton Trust report identified.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Will the Minister look very carefully at social mobility in rural areas and, in particular, the fact that the rural deprivation grant was withdrawn, which has had a major impact in North Yorkshire? I pay tribute to the work in rural areas that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans has done as head of the Rural Coalition. He will be greatly missed in this House.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am sure the noble Baroness is right that there are particular challenges in rural areas—and, particularly, as she identifies, in terms of the pockets of poverty found there, where perhaps there is no infrastructure of support, that might explain why those children and young people in London are doing comparatively better than people in other parts of the country. She makes a very fair point, and we need to keep a focus on rural poverty and how we ensure that children and young people in rural areas get the opportunities that they deserve.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, when it comes to opportunity, a ubiquitous one is service in the Armed Forces, which offers access to the greatest number of apprenticeships, longer life expectancy and highly successful second careers. It probably represents the biggest engine for social improvement in the country. In the context of a dangerous world and 9 million people on benefits, might the Government not commit to a narrative that makes that more evident?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble and gallant Lord makes an important point. I was discussing exactly that point with the Minister for Veterans just a couple of weeks ago; as he says, we were talking about the excellent apprenticeship programmes that there are within the armed services, as well as the opportunities that there are for young people who choose to take that route to benefit from it.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, long before the term “nepo baby” was ever invented, we understood the role of unpaid internships in ensuring that professions remain a closed shop for the offspring of the well-to-do, and how difficult it is for young people from ordinary backgrounds to move to London without contacts, where they simply cannot afford to work for free. The law is already clear that productive work should be paid at least the national minimum wage, but it is not enforced. Will the Minister talk to colleagues about the need to boost the labour inspectorate in the proposed fair work agency to ensure that young people from all backgrounds get the paid work that they need?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a very important point. It is for employers to ensure that they provide access to the types of opportunities that will enable young people to experience different forms of work—but it is of course also the responsibility of those agencies tasked with enforcement to make sure that, where the law is not being properly applied, there are consequences for it. Of course, it is also our responsibility, which this Government take seriously, to make sure that all children have, for example, better careers education and the opportunity to have two weeks’ high-quality work experience and that we work with employers to ensure that placements are available to those young people doing T-levels while ensuring that apprenticeships are open to all. So there are a range of ways in which we need to make sure that young people get equal access to the experience of work that will set them up for a successful future.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the Sutton Trust opportunity index rightly looked at the importance of early intervention and the early years, and the Minister will be aware that there are about 50,000 children annually on free school meals who go into year 3 without sufficient reading skills to be able to engage successfully in the curriculum. Will the Minister agree to look at the Apex programme funded by the Fischer Family Trust, which has worked providing reading mentors to children in years 1 and 2 where there are significant concerns about their ability to read? At the end of year 2, 81% of them reach the expected standard in reading, compared with 60% for a comparable cohort, and 95% pass their phonics test, compared with 85% nationally.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The scheme that the noble Baroness talks about sounds interesting and important, and I shall certainly undertake for the department to look at it in detail. She makes an important point, as she did in the previous Question, about the need to ensure that children are supported to make a successful start at school at the point at which they arrive. That means the sort of support that the Government are providing through family help and Start for Life to support not only the children but the parents to provide learning environments at home. That is supported, of course, by this Government’s priority to ensure that more children arrive at school ready to gain the benefits of that education.