Unregistered Children’s Homes: Fees

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps, if any, they are taking to lower fees being charged by unregistered children’s homes.

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

My Lords, profiteering from vulnerable children in care is unacceptable. Children must live in safe, high-quality homes, which is why it is a legal requirement for children’s homes to register with Ofsted. This means that they can be inspected and children are safe, and that where there are failings, they are addressed. We will strengthen regulation through the children’s well-being Bill so that children’s social care delivers high-quality outcomes for looked-after children at a sustainable cost to the taxpayer.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her Answer, but there remains a real concern about the number of children still living in unregistered children’s homes. Is the Minister aware of the recent BBC investigation, which highlighted that some unregistered children’s homes are charging up to a staggering £20,000 a week and still failing to keep very vulnerable children safe, which a senior family court judge has described as breathtaking? What immediate steps are the Government taking to address this issue? Does the Minister also agree that the key aim of addressing excessive costs, which I fully support, should not lead to the eradication of children’s homes, and that we need a mix of high-quality, registered provision to meet all children’s needs?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that some extraordinary amounts of money are being charged by placement providers. The Local Government Association found, for example, that in 2022-23, 91% of respondent councils paid at least £10,000 per week or more for one placement, compared to 23% in 2018-19. That is why, as the noble Baroness says, we need to ensure that a range of safe, regulated, high-quality placements are available for children, and to ensure that where there is excessive profit, we take action against that as well.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that local authorities rushed into outsourcing their services some years ago, and now there is insufficient provision but they are paying these huge fees? Could she give some thought to the number of children who are being placed, time after time, in different places, sometimes many miles away from their home base? That is not good for these very vulnerable children.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right, in that in the children’s home market, 83% of provision is now private. To be clear, there is high-quality private children’s home provision, just as there is in the local authority and voluntary sectors. What is important, as the noble Lord says, is that children can be placed securely in those homes—that they are not being constantly moved from one to another—and that they get the care they need. It is absolutely true that moving children frequently and taking them far away from friends and perhaps other family members is not in their best interests. That is why we need to tackle this, and we will take further action on regulating the sector in the children’s well-being Bill.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome my noble friend’s announcement today. Surely, the promised reform of public services must prioritise the provision of residential care for our most vulnerable looked-after children, and we have to deal with inadequate care and profit gouging. There are some great examples of good provision, particularly in the voluntary sector and social enterprises. Can my noble friend assure me that this issue is being addressed across government, given that the Cabinet Office is involved regarding procurement, and the MHCLG and Department for Education are also involved? Will my noble friend meet with me so that I can share some of the good practice I have seen and heard about in recent months?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Because of the disproportionate costs being placed on local authorities and the findings that Ofsted sometimes makes in unregulated homes, if we are not careful, we can forget that some brilliant work is being done, as my noble friend says, in the voluntary sector, in social enterprises and in private and local government-provided facilities. We should celebrate that, and that should be our aspiration for all children. My right honourable friend the Commons Minister and I will be very pleased to hear about those examples. They will inspire us to take forward the provisions we are planning in the children’s well- being Bill.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister will recognise that a disproportionately high number of the prison population comes from children’s homes; it is a very sad figure indeed. While she is looking at the issue of unregistered children’s homes, can she also look at the broader issue of the number of children from children’s homes who finish up in prison?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right. Across a whole range of measures, care leavers do worse than those who have not been in care. Whether or not they end up in prison, they are more likely to be not in employment, education or training and are more likely to be homeless. That is why we must ensure that the care and concern we have for children while they are in care continues after they leave care, and that we set those children up for life as well as possible while we, as the state, have responsibility for looking after them.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, although there is clearly good practice in many children’s homes, there are also examples of really bad practice. Do the Minister and the Government have any plans to formally and professionally regulate some of the senior staff, at least, in children’s homes? A number of staff are from very diverse backgrounds and are not necessarily professionally qualified social workers.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that the leadership of these homes is very important in ensuring that they are providing the quality of care we want to see. In thinking about the provisions in the children’s well-being Bill, we are working with the sector, with local authorities, on where we need to improve regulation. In considering that, I will certainly feed back the point the noble Lord makes about staff.

[The Lord Bishop of Newcastle]

My Lords, at the last count in March 2023, 41% of children’s homes in England were located in the north of England. What steps are the Government taking to provide additional support to areas of the country where there is a disproportionately higher number of children in the care home and care system?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate raises an important point. In the development of private children’s homes, we have seen a growth: for example, it is possible to get hold of accommodation more cheaply, but that does not necessarily mean that such homes are where children need them. Some 25% of all homes nationally are in the north-west, despite only 16% of children who need to be looked after in residential care coming from the north-west. That is why there has been investment to support local authorities to improve existing provision and to create additional placements; and it is why, through the children’s well-being Bill and in other ways, we will work to ensure that, wherever a child needs care, there is high-quality care that does not involve them having to travel or the local authority facing excessive costs.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, raised the issue of the costs associated with some unregistered children’s homes, but I want to ask the Minister a more basic question. We know from Ofsted’s 2023 guidance that it is illegal to send a child, even a child with a deprivation of liberty order, to an unregistered children’s home, yet the case to which the noble Baroness referred, as I understand it, was about a year later. What are the Government doing to make sure that children do not go to unregistered homes at all, whatever they cost?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness identifies the absolute difficulty and the challenging circumstances that directors of children’s services and others find themselves in. For example, on a Friday afternoon, when faced with having to find a placement for a child urgently, they have no other option, because of a failure to provide sufficient places, than to place a child in an unregulated home. This is so unsatisfactory for everybody, and that is why, through the provisions we will bring forward in the children’s well-being Bill and through appropriate investment in increasing the number of places, we will try to ensure that that happens far less in the future.

Special Needs Schools

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, as others have, I will start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, for securing this debate on the contribution of special schools and colleges. The noble Baroness and I did our maiden speeches on the same day and she has continued to be, as she was then, an enormously important advocate both for the project that she leads and for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

I am also grateful for the excellent contributions today from across the House. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, there has been a breadth of discussion. There has also been an understandable use of personal experience and an emphasis on the experiences of individual children. As my noble friend Lady Hazarika said, this is about how we ensure that every child gets the best possible start in life and the best possible opportunities to achieve their potential in life. That is why we said in our manifesto that we were committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity, so that every child, regardless of their background, their family circumstances or their needs, is supported to achieve and thrive.

Sadly, that is not happening in our special educational needs and disability system at the moment. We have inherited a system in crisis. As others have identified, it is a crisis of provision and a crisis of confidence. Outcomes for children and young people are often poor in a system which can be adversarial for parents and carers to navigate. This was reinforced this morning with the publication of the National Audit Office’s report referenced by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln. The NAO report on the SEND system exposes the full extent of the failure. It reveals a system that has been neglected to the point of crisis and, consequently, has failed children and families with special educational needs on every measure.

I also identified that the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, in a broad speech, concluded that the one answer was more money. Of course it is important that this area receives the resources it needs, but one of the most worrying things about the National Audit Office report was that it identified that, although the annual budget has risen by 58% in a decade, this has not led to better outcomes for children with special educational needs. Money is not enough in this case. I think that is because—as I the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, very ably spelled out—we have a whole range of pressures and a whole system that is broken. Therefore, we need to take a systemic and radical approach to the way in which we think about special educational needs and disabilities.

It is both a cause and an effect that, in recent years, we have seen a significant surge in demand for SEN support in education, health and care plans, and in special school placements. The number of children and young people with EHCPs has increased markedly, from 330,000 in 2021-22 to 400,000 by 2023-24. That rise is particularly pronounced among specific need types. Over this period, the number of children and young people with autism recorded as their primary need grew by 27.9%. Similarly, those with speech, language and communication needs have seen an increase of 36.4%, and those with social, emotional and mental health needs have risen by 25.4%. Those sharp increases highlight the growing pressures on the SEND system. As noble Lords identified, they also demonstrate the need for not only an education-wide response but a government-wide response, where the contribution of health, for example, will also be important.

The Government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, or in alternative provision, receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. That is why we are committed to taking a community-wide approach, improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream settings, as well as ensuring that specialist settings cater to those with the most complex needs.

My noble friend Lady Hazarika talked about the experience of many families and children in mainstream schools, where their failure to get the support necessary drives them into this battle for an education, health and care plan. Today, we have published independently commissioned insight that suggests that, if the system were extensively improved, using early intervention and better resourcing in mainstream schools, that could lead to tens of thousands more children and young people having their needs met without an EHCP, and having their needs met in a mainstream setting rather than a specialist placement. That is what is at stake here. We are determined to rebuild families’ confidence in a system that so many rely on. There will be no more short-termism when it comes to the life chances of some of our most vulnerable children. We understand how urgently we need to address this, but the reform that families are crying out for will take time.

I say to my noble friend Lady Morris that that will obviously mean that there will need to be a further opportunity for debate—in this House, yes, but also across the country, with the families, the children and those who are supporting them also having the opportunity to take part. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State is absolutely determined to engage widely as we do this.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, made an important contribution when he talked about the role of parents—the significance of the support they provide to their children, the crucial relationship they need with the schools and, of course, their contribution to the debate. Their voices and concerns must be heard as we take forward systemic reform in this area.

We also understand that people are impatient and we have already taken several steps to deliver on this vision. We have restructured the Department for Education, with much more focus on support for children and young people with SEND as part of our schools provision. The part of the department that does the core work on SEND and alternative provision has moved into the schools group, so it sits under the Schools Minister and the schools director-general. It is being considered as a central component of that wider schools work, including school standards, curriculum and assessment, and the operation of the education system as a whole.

We have begun the work to address the serious workforce challenge facing the school system. We are recruiting an additional 6,500 teachers while providing support to areas facing specific recruitment challenges. We are investing over £21 million this year to train 400 additional educational psychologists, ensuring better support and education for our young people.

The noble Lords, Lord Bilimoria and Lord Addington, and others rightly emphasised the need for early intervention and identification. We are similarly determined, therefore, that the early years sector receives the support it needs to grow and to develop further skills. In September, the department published a new, free online training module and SEND assessment guidance and resources for early educators aimed at supporting children with developmental differences and with special educational needs and disabilities. In the new core schools budget grant in July, we provided special and alternative-provision schools with more than £140 million of extra funding to help with the extra cost of this year’s teachers’ pay award and the outcome of the pay increase negotiations for support staff. This is important to support the recruitment, retention and development of dedicated specialist and support staff, ensuring that they continue to play that crucial role in providing high-quality education and care for pupils with SEND. As my noble friend Lady Morris said, special schools and colleges employ a high proportion of such support staff. They play a critical role in the education of the children and young people with the most complex needs, building that team around the child that is so crucial.

We also know how vital it is that all our children have strong speech and language skills. That is why this Government will roll out early language interventions to make sure that all our children get support at the earliest possible point, including continuing the support for the 11,100 schools registered for the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme, because it is important that we make a difference when our children are young.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, talked about the contribution of technology support for pupils with SEND, with rapid improvements in the accessibility features built into standard devices. Schools now have more access to assistive technology than ever before, and evidence shows that when used effectively it is a key component of high-quality teaching for pupils with SEND. The Government are committed to helping teachers use technology to support their students with SEND, and we are embedding evidence-based practice, broadening the effective use of assistive technology through research, training, and guidance.

My noble friend Lady Morris and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, rightly talked about the importance of the curriculum and assessment in how we support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. In launching the independent curriculum and assessment review chaired by Professor Becky Francis, we have been clear that the review will look closely at the barriers to progress and how we can achieve good outcomes specifically for those with special educational needs and disabilities. Last month, the review launched a call for evidence which will give stakeholders in the SEND sector an opportunity to have their say on the curriculum and assessment system, including what currently works well and where things could be improved.

Several noble Lords talked about the importance of preparing children and young people for adulthood, and that has to be at the heart of the SEND system. We know that, with the right support, the vast majority of young people with SEND are capable of sustained paid employment and living full lives, and they should be supported to achieve that outcome. To help with this, we are supporting schools and colleges to work in line with the Gatsby benchmarks to address individual needs and to raise career aspirations.

The noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, raised the issue of how we can ensure that young people with SEND are able to access apprenticeships. I strongly agree with her about that. We have already expanded the flexibility of English and maths requirements for apprentices with learning difficulties or disabilities, allowing those without an EHCP but facing barriers to achieving level 2 qualifications to complete entry level 3 instead. We are also investing £18 million to March next year to double the number of supported internships, and we are testing this model with young people to support even more young people to achieve, thrive and transition into employment. However, I take the noble Baroness’s point about further flexibility in the apprenticeships programme, and I shall certainly reflect carefully on that.

In thinking about further education, it is of course the case that lots of general further education colleges are doing very good work in the area of special educational needs. But, for young people whose needs cannot be met in general further education colleges, specialist post-16 institutions play an integral role in providing that specialist further education provision. In 2024-25 there were 118 of those institutions for students receiving high-needs funding. It is also worth saying that young people with SEND who choose to progress to university should also continue to access high-quality support. As of the most recent data, almost one-fifth of English higher education students had a disability. Under the Equality Act, all HE providers have a responsibility to make reasonable adjustments for their disabled students, and the Office for Students requires registered HE providers to take all reasonable steps to ensure that students are supported. In their access and participation plans, providers must also outline how they will improve opportunity for underrepresented groups, including disabled students, to access, succeed in and progress from higher education.

Ultimately, we want more children and young people to receive the support they need to thrive in their local mainstream setting, reducing the need for them to travel a long way to access a specialist placement and, as several noble Lords have said, enabling them to learn alongside their friends. Many mainstream settings are already going above and beyond to deliver specialist provision locally, including through resourced provision and SEN units. But there will also always be a place in the system for special schools and colleges for children with the most complex needs.

As we have heard today, special schools and specialist post-16 colleges make an invaluable contribution to the education of nearly 200,000 learners, supporting them to achieve and thrive. Their staff work tirelessly to support children and young people and I take this opportunity to thank them for their dedication. I recognise the point made by my noble friend Lady Morris about how the range of staff and the skills that exist in specialist schools and colleges can inform teachers in all our schools. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln said, that role of staff and where possible that collocation can enable everybody to benefit. Specialist staff across schools and colleges play a fundamental role in educating children and young people with SEND and supporting their preparation for adulthood.

We have also seen some really positive partnerships between specialist and mainstream colleges that enhance the educational experience for children and young people with SEND. For example, Orchard Hill College and Crawley College have collaborated to support learners with complex health needs, enabling them to access mainstream courses with tailored care plans. Similarly, Newfriars College and Newcastle and Staffordshire Colleges Group are working together to create new supported internships and work placement opportunities, open to students from both settings. Those are the types of partnerships that enable the very best specialist, understanding staff and provision to be shared for all to use.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, talked about other specialist colleges and I take her point about the need for us to have a view about how more broadly specialist colleges need to be organised and contribute to the system. I shall certainly take that point away and take up the challenge to look at that provision.

Several noble Lords once again took the opportunity to raise the issue of VAT on independent school fees. I reiterate, as I have said on every single occasion, that local authority funding already supports the vast majority of pupils with EHCPs who attend independent schools, and they will not be impacted by the introduction of VAT for private schools. Next week, in the Budget, the tax information and impact note will include the impact on special educational needs. I assure noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, that the Treasury has been considering how VAT might apply to post-16 institutions; the Government will publish the results of that consultation soon.

For too long, the education system has not met the needs of all children and young people, including those with special educational needs and disability. Educational outcomes for children and young people are too poor, after years of councils and parents being pitted against each other. Special schools and specialist colleges, such as Team Domenica, make an enormous contribution to the education and care of thousands of children and young people, helping them to learn, achieve and prepare for adulthood.

We will work to restore parents’ trust that their child will get the support that they need in a mainstream setting if that is the right place for them, and that there will always be a place in specialist settings for children and young people with the most complex needs. That is central to improving the life chances of children and young people across the country, and I look forward to working with noble Lords to make that vision a reality.

Special Educational Needs

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I remind the House of my declared interests.

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

My Lords, this Government acknowledge the struggles faced by children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and their families when trying to access the right support, particularly through a long and difficult EHCP process. We are currently working on plans to deliver our manifesto commitments to take a community-wide approach to special educational needs and disability. This work will improve inclusivity in mainstream schools and ensure that special schools cater to those with the most complex needs.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Does she agree that the current system has, basically, failed completely? When can we get an assurance from the Government that they will manage to get to a situation where schools are identifying special educational needs, rather than concerned parents going to the school and asking them what the problem is? This is the situation at the moment, which favours the wealthy and informed parent throughout the system, right up to the plans.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Lord. In fact, so does the National Audit Office, which published a report this morning, and so do members of the former Government, who have described it as a lose-lose system. That is exactly why we need to ensure that within our mainstream schools, and in our early years provision, where most children’s special educational needs can and should be identified, we have better support and training for the staff and more support for those children when their needs have been identified, short of having to go through the very arduous process of getting an education health and care plan, on which the noble Lord is absolutely right.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the National Autistic Society. Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, has recently produced a report on waiting times to get a diagnosis for autism. She says:

“We have created a system … working against itself”.


Children need the diagnosis before they can get SEND provision and they have to wait up to five years, sometimes, for a diagnosis. Will my noble friend look at this and the report? In the meantime, children are getting no help and support at all. We have to change this.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. That is why, as part of the 10-year plan for change and modernisation in the NHS, I am assured that there will be a focus on reducing the length of waiting times and improving the provision of autism services. The SEND Code of Practice is also clear that meeting the needs of a child with special educational needs and autism does not require a diagnostic label or a test. We expect schools and colleges to monitor the progress of all pupils and put support in place where needed. There has been some good work—for example, by the Autism Education Trust—to provide a range of training and support for staff on autism. However, it is clear that there is more we need to do, both to identify and then to support children and young people in this situation.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, what is the Government’s plan to have the right level of SENCO support throughout our education system? Similarly, what are the Government going to do in terms of access to clinicians and experts for the preparation of reports? It cannot continue to be a matter of those who can pay, paying, and those who cannot, sadly, having to wait and often ending up in an endless loop, never ending up getting the diagnosis and help they require.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that in an education, health and care plan, the health element is also very important. As my noble friend identified, where there are delays in getting a diagnosis, that can also mean that children and young people are not getting the support that they need in schools or being identified for additional support within those schools, which is wrong. That is precisely why the Government are determined to make the long-term fundamental reform that will support inclusive mainstream schools for the early identification and support of children, and also ensure that where special schools are needed, there is a place in them for the most complex needs.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

At the end of their time at school, many of these people—who are now young adults—have ongoing educational needs to be addressed to allow them to integrate into society and find places of work. Are the Government planning to make sure that they look at continuity, so it does not just end at the age of 18—or whenever they leave—but that educational provision is included right up into their early 20s, to make sure that these children can eventually become well integrated into society and have a prosperous and fulfilling adult life?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that as good practice for children and young people with special educational needs and disability, we need to prepare them for a healthy and productive adulthood. That is already clear in the SEND Code of Practice. For those with an education, health and care plan, there must be a focus from year 9 onwards on preparing the young person for adulthood, as part of their annual review. That also means that we need the expertise within our further education colleges and higher education as well, where students can receive specific support. This will make sure that the support is there available for them through the education system and onward into fruitful and satisfying employment.

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, as I understand it, the situation for looked-after children—who, as we know, have a much higher proportion of EHCPs and SEND—is that, when they move from one area to another, the new local authority has to conduct a review of the EHCP. This causes further unnecessary delays. Can the Minister confirm that, as part of the review of current provision, this unnecessary duplication will be addressed?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate makes an important point about the experience of looked-after children, which I also discussed in an Oral Question earlier this week in response to the noble Lord, Lord Laming. We have to get to a system where there are fewer bureaucratic processes to enable children and young people to get the support that they need. The point about moving from authority to authority is very important, and I will certainly take it back to my colleagues in the department. This strikes me as an additional piece of bureaucracy. While it is obviously important that, in every context, children’s needs are properly understood—and that provision through an EHCP, for example, is properly put in place—that should not be a bureaucratic process that prevents children getting the support they need when they need it.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm whether the Government are committed to continuing the reforms that the previous Government set out in the SEND and AP plan to set national standards and to digitise the process, so that EHCPs are much clearer and speedier, removing a lot of stress for parents and their children?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The Government are committed to doing everything we can to ensure that the process of going through an education, health and care plan—even now, only 50% of parents get them within 20 weeks of applying for them—is made much easier. I am sure that there are ways that we can build on work from the previous Government to ensure that that happens. Fundamentally, the problem with the system, which we also inherited from the previous Government, is that too many parents feel the need to go through this arduous process alone, because they do not have the support in the rest of the school system and do not get identification early enough. That is what, more fundamentally, we need to put right, and that is what the Government are committed to doing.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

In Wales, the additional learning needs framework was introduced in September 2021 to provide children with an independent development plan in place of the SEN statement. There is also a right to advocacy for children—an active offer of advocacy—provided by the National Youth Advocacy Service Cymru. Have the Government evaluated these initiatives, and would they help to alleviate the pressure in England? My grandson is being helped with special schooling and travel under just such a plan. Cardiff is truly an exemplar that all local authorities should follow.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am very pleased to hear that Labour-led Wales is providing a good service for the noble Lord’s grandchild. In the fundamental reform that we need to undertake, we will be very keen to learn from good experience, wherever it comes from. I will certainly ask officials in the department to look into the examples that the noble Lord highlighted.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Smith of Malvern]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

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

First, I thank noble Lords who contributed to the debate following His Majesty’s gracious Speech, when we first discussed this Bill. That was also my maiden speech, and it seems an awfully long time ago. I thank noble Lords who attended the recent open briefing sessions with me in this House to talk about the Bill and the work that the Government are doing in this area. Our central mission is to grow the economy. We have set out a modern industrial strategy with a primary objective of long-term sustainable growth in our highest-potential growth-driving sectors.

To succeed in our growth mission, we need to harness the talent of our people, meet businesses’ skills needs and break down the barriers to opportunity. Education is critical to breaking down those barriers, and we are focused on ensuring that all children and learners can achieve their ambitions and thrive in education, work and life, no matter their background.

However, I am sorry to report that this country’s workers still lack the skills they need. This means that businesses cannot grow and people are not able to make the most of the opportunities that come their way. For example, around 7.5 million working-age adults do not have even basic digital skills, despite most employers saying that these are vital for their businesses. As recently as two years ago, UK employers put over one-third of their vacancies down to skills shortages.

Our businesses have become overly reliant on importing skilled workers from abroad as they have not seen a plan to develop the skills they need in this country. Compared with other countries, our workers are underqualified. The OECD states that 26% of the UK workforce are underqualified for their job, compared with an OECD average of 18%. That underqualification is in part the result of a “missing middle” in our skills system. Not enough people attain post-school qualifications in sought-after disciplines.

Technical training at levels 4 and 5, between A-levels and undergraduate study, is low compared with other countries and with our own historical levels. In England only 4% of people have level 4 and 5 qualifications as their highest qualification, compared with around 20% in Germany and 34% in Canada.

Not only do we lack the skills we need today; our economy’s skills needs are changing, with 1.4 million jobs in new fields projected by 2035. England’s skills system has a crucial role in ensuring that businesses and individuals are prepared for the future, but the current fragmented skills system is preventing young—and older—people from seizing the opportunities that are out there.

That is the sorry state of the skills system that we have inherited from the last Government, a system that employers and individuals report is overly complex, where people cannot find the training opportunities that would help them achieve and which is holding back our businesses, our public services and our economy from accessing the skills they need to grow. After 14 years of tinkering with qualifications, introducing a levy that has seen apprenticeship starts fall, and a failure to look to the future needs of our economy, the skills system is failing individuals and our country. The skills system needs an overhaul. It needs to be strategic, creating opportunities for young people to get on and for adults to upskill and retrain, and delivering the skills that will help our businesses to grow.

The Bill is a crucial step towards creating a skills system fit for the future, enabling our growth and opportunity missions to deliver better life chances for all, meeting the challenge of our industrial strategy, supporting our NHS to have access to the people and skills that it will rely on, and delivering the skills to build the houses and infrastructure that we need and to support our clean energy superpower mission.

This Government have already begun to take action. In July the Prime Minister announced the launch of Skills England, which then published its first report in September. This new organisation will bring coherence to the system, ensuring that we have a clear assessment not just of where the skills gaps are now but of what we will need in the future to realise our potential in a rapidly changing world. It will use that assessment to ensure that there is a comprehensive suite of apprenticeships, training and technical qualifications for individuals and employers to access. At its heart will be employers working with trade unions, training providers across our further education, higher education and independent sectors, and local and regional government—a partnership raising the profile and impact of our skills system. Skills England’s strong board and chair will deliver the operational independence, external expertise and challenge to drive the change that we need to see. Its link back into government will provide the voice and the advice to ensure that skills sit at the heart of joined-up decision-making across government.

Skills England will transform our ability to determine and then deliver the skills that our country needs, giving it a key role as part of an even more ambitious programme of reform and national renewal. The launch of our industrial strategy will provide the firm foundation and confidence for businesses to plan. We are moving away from the chaos of recent years, where policy changed as quickly as Prime Ministers. Skills need to support this growth and investment rather than being the barrier that many employers highlight, so Skills England will work closely with the industrial strategy council to remove those barriers.

Skills England will work closely with the Department for Work and Pensions on our major cross-government effort to get Britain working and tackle deep-seated challenges in our labour market. It will work closely with the Migration Advisory Committee to ensure that we have a strong skills pipeline.

We plan further fundamental reform to support a vibrant and responsive skills and education system. We are creating a growth and skills levy to bring the focus and flexibility lacked by the last Government’s levy; a curriculum and assessment review to ensure that our schools are providing the learning to maximise all children’s chances to develop the skills, knowledge and creativity to make the most of their education; a youth guarantee to ensure that all young people have access to jobs and training; and a new national jobs and careers service to provide direction and support for people entering the workforce.

To create a single, unified body in Skills England, it is crucial that the functions that currently sit with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education are folded into it. Skills England will build on IfATE’s role in securing the quality of technical qualifications and apprenticeships, and we are grateful for the role that IfATE has played in doing that—but, to pave the way for Skills England, the Bill will abolish IfATE. It will remove functions relating to IfATE’s current accountability to the Secretary of State and Parliament, transfer IfATE’s functions to the Secretary of State and amend five of them. It will allow the skills system to operate without organisational boundaries and administrative hurdles. Skills England will help the skills system become more agile and responsive by identifying what skills are needed where in the economy, supporting our industrial strategy and securing the availability of high-quality qualifications that meet those needs.

The Bill is narrow in scope and technical in nature. There are two main elements. The first part of the Bill, as outlined, will abolish IfATE and transfer its functions to the Secretary of State. These functions will largely be exercised by Skills England, operating as an executive agency. The Bill will also enable the transfer of IfATE’s property, rights and liabilities to the Secretary of State. The second part makes changes to some of the functions to be transferred. We have examined the functions carefully and determined that the way some of them are set out in the existing legislation is overly prescriptive and could hamper the responsive and agile skills system we need.

The Government therefore propose some changes to functions relating to apprenticeships and technical education to increase our responsiveness and allow the Secretary of State to make small and fast adjustments to our education and training programmes. This should provide the speed and flexibility the skills system needs. Clauses 4 and 5 remove the requirement for each occupational standard and apprenticeship assessment plan to have been prepared by an appropriate “group of persons”.

Employers will continue to be central to how technical qualifications and apprenticeships are produced. In the preparation and design of standards and apprenticeship assessment plans, while design by employers and others will be maintained as the default position, these changes will allow greater flexibility in scenarios where preparation by a group can be unnecessary or restrictive—for example, where training requirements are already tightly defined as a result of there being a regulator or an industry-recognised qualification, such as the dental hygienist occupation being regulated by the General Dental Council. Giving the Secretary of State the flexibility to consider whether to convene a group of persons in such cases will enable the skills system to be more agile.

Where the Secretary of State makes the determination not to use a group of persons to prepare standards or apprenticeship assessment plans, a high level of rigour and recognition of the value of external input will be upheld, for example by publishing standards in draft for stakeholder comment before they are finalised.

Clause 6 will retain the duty to maintain arrangements to review technical education qualifications, standards and apprenticeship assessment plans. But we will remove the duty to review these at regular intervals and publish information about these intervals. This change is necessary in light of there now being more than 700 standards, spanning a huge range of sectors and occupational specialisms. The frequency with which different standards should be reviewed and updated will depend on their performance, how widely they are used and the pace and extent of technological advancements resulting in changes to the type of tasks performed and expertise required. This change will therefore allow the Secretary of State flexibility to focus on reviews with the greatest need and impact.

Clause 7 will remove the requirement for a third-party examination of a standard or apprenticeship assessment plan to be carried out before approval. Again, we expect the default position to remain that standards and assessment plans will be examined by independent third parties. The Secretary of State will deviate from this only in a minority of instances, where appropriate. This change will allow flexibility where examination would add limited value—for example, in highly regulated occupations in the health and finance sectors where the assessment plan simply sets out the regulator’s requirements.

Clause 8 will allow the Secretary of State to grant an exception to Ofqual, which is currently prevented from exercising its accreditation power for technical qualifications. This amendment would allow Ofqual, where the Secretary of State deemed it appropriate, to be given the discretion to apply its accreditation power to specified technical education qualification types, subject to appropriate consultation. This change reintroduces the potential for technical qualifications to be accredited in the same way as general qualifications, so that learners and employers can be assured of the quality of the most high-stake qualifications.

These flexibilities reflect the calls from employers and others to ensure that the system is agile and flexible and can respond to rapidly changing needs. In developing Skills England we are already building the vital partnership I mentioned earlier through a series of engagement events. So far, the round tables led by Skills England’s interim chair, Richard Pennycook, have involved more than 100 key stakeholders, including a wide range of employers. These sessions have emphasised the need for greater flexibility in the skills system and more opportunities becoming available to shape technical qualifications and apprenticeships so that they best reflect the changing needs of industry, particularly in the most critical sectors. It is in this spirit that we bring forward the Bill.

The Bill makes vital, practical changes that enable us to deliver Skills England, to bring coherence to the skills system and ultimately to deliver the skills we need for the future. These reforms will sit at the heart of this Government’s missions to drive economic growth and to spread opportunity across all parts of this country. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions and acknowledge the many passionate and informed speeches that we have heard and the expert knowledge that this Chamber has brought to the debate.

I particularly welcome and give a special mention to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Beamish. He and I served together in the other place. I remember the breakfast meetings that he used to have in the tea room—particularly when I was Chief Whip, because no Chief Whip likes to know that there is plotting going on in the tea room. My noble friend was a steadfast colleague and a strong supporter of the Government. As he outlined in his maiden speech, he used his real enthusiasm to challenge the Government on issues relating to defence and to protect those affected by the Post Office scandal. Based on his maiden speech and what I know about his history, I know that he will certainly play a very important role in this House, and I am very pleased to welcome him.

The Government’s first mission is to grow the economy. To succeed, we need to harness the talents of our people. A skills system fit for the future can enable people to learn the skills that they need to seize opportunity and businesses to access the skills in the workforce that they need to grow. I join the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, in celebrating both those who are taking part in apprenticeships and those who are delivering them. There is excellent work going on across the country, which I often have the opportunity to celebrate, where providers and employers are providing a splendid apprenticeship opportunity.

The noble Earl asked me, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, to celebrate the last Government, but I have to point out that apprenticeship starts peaked in 2015-16 at 509,360 and in the most recent year were at only 337,140—in other words, a 34% reduction on the levels seen in 2015-16—so I do not think it is enough for us simply to rest on what the previous Government have done. In fact, we need a fundamental change in our skills system if we are going to ensure the potential of our people and our economy.

On the specifics of the debate, I will start with the number of contributors who have asked questions about how we maintain an employer-led approach to the skills system. The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked questions about that. I reassure noble Lords that employers will continue to play a central role in the design and delivery of apprenticeships and technical education. Indeed, it is crucial that apprenticeships and technical qualifications reflect the needs of employers and that employers have confidence in them. That is why, through Skills England, we will ensure that there is a comprehensive suite of apprenticeships, training and technical qualifications for individuals and employers to access, all of which will be informed by what employers and other partners tell us that they need.

The default will be that employers will set standards and assessment plans—I hope that responds to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. It is not the case that this legislation enables the Secretary of State to rewrite a standard on a train, even if she were to have the time to do that. Employers remain fundamental. In fact, regarding standards and assessment plans, the legislation states that the Secretary of State will be able to prepare these only where she is satisfied that it would be more appropriate than using a group of persons. Each time the Secretary of State does this, she will need to make such a consideration and she will not be able to proceed without doing so. That approach will be taken in only a minority of circumstances where there is a clear rationale for doing so, some of which I outlined in my opening speech and all of which I will be very happy to go into more detail on in Committee. I think the important point was made by my noble friend Lady Wilcox, who, using her experience, identified some very good examples of the need for flexibility in the system, as was also recognised by others in the debate.

My noble friend Lord Watson asked about the Ofqual amendment. This amendment will ensure that, should the Secretary of State wish to in the future, she could grant an exception so that Ofqual can consider whether it is appropriate to accredit certain types of technical education qualifications. It will therefore reintroduce in a managed way the potential for Ofqual to exercise its accreditation power for technical education qualifications. Where the Secretary of State deems it necessary to maximise the quality of and confidence in technical education qualifications, it will become possible for the full suite of regulatory options to be applied to them, helping to put them on an even footing with other academic and vocational qualifications.

On the specific point about Clause 9 raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Barran and Lady Finn, these are not sweeping powers. This is not an undermining of the correct exhortations made by the Attorney-General on the use of delegated powers. Clause 9, in introducing Schedules 2 and 3, details the primary legislation that we are amending simply to remove references to IfATE as a result of its abolition. We have attempted to identify all the primary legislation that will need to be amended as a result of the Bill and the Henry VIII power that is included in the Bill exists solely in case we uncover any other Acts in need of consequential amendment after the passage of the Bill, so there is no way that this could be called a sweeping use of delegated powers.

To return to the nature of Skills England, at its heart will be the role of employers, alongside an important partnership to ensure that we are developing the most effective skills system. The noble Earl, Lord Effingham, questioned whether trade unions should play an important role in that, but my noble friend Lord Blunkett rightly identified the enormously important contribution that trade unions have made to the development of skills for their members, citing in particular the important work done by the Union Learning Fund. We make no apology for including trade unions in our work to improve the jobs and skills that their members will get. It is also a feature of high-performing systems across the world that trade unions are involved.

My noble friend Lord Watson talked about the role of higher education. We certainly believe that it has a very important role to play in this partnership with Skills England.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, talked about regional flexibility and the excellent work that he identified. Skills England will collaborate with combined authorities as well as with equivalent bodies in places which have devolution deals but where there is no combined authority present, and it will also work with a wide range of regional organisations as well as other local and regional partners, such as employer representative bodies. It will support them to construct skills systems which reflect and feed into both local and national priorities. That is the partnership that Skills England will bring together to deliver the impact we need to see in our skills system.

I turn to the charge made by several speakers in the debate that, somehow or another, as an executive agency Skills England will not have the independence or, frankly, the oomph that it will need. That is wholly wrong. As an executive agency, Skills England will have operational independence from the department. A permanent chair and board members will be recruited to oversee Skills England. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Blunkett recognised the status, experience and impact that the current chair, Richard Pennycook, is already having in this role, and I can tell noble Lords that we have had several hundreds of applicants for the board of Skills England—clearly, people understand the significance of that role and the impact that it will have.

I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, did not mean to suggest that I was a “here today, gone tomorrow” politician with no clue about what I was doing, despite the fact that that is what she said.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

I assure the Minister that it was not personal.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Okay. I do not note any other Ministers in the Chamber—but anyway, in that case I will not take it personally.

The important point here is that, once in place, it will not be Ministers who decide the day-to-day activity of Skills England; the board will provide scrutiny that Skills England is operating effectively within the agreed framework and will provide assurance functions as well as leadership and direction.

However, while operationally independent, it is critical that Skills England, for many of the arguments made in the debate, has sufficient proximity to government to directly influence and inform policy decisions, as many have argued for. This will allow Skills England to use its insights to influence skills policies and funding decisions. It is important that they are retained by the Secretary of State, but Skills England will have a crucial role in informing them.

For further reassurance, I say that we do anticipate the relationship between the Department for Education and Skills England will be set out in a publicly available format and updated periodically. I expect us to talk about this more in Committee. People have argued that we know little about Skills England and its functions —the noble Baronesses, Lady Evans and Lady Barran, for example—but having been set up only in July, Skills England has already produced a report which, as others have mentioned, outlines its functions and ways of working. That is how we expect Skills England to operate in the future.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, for the excellent work she has done in leading IfATE. I echo her thanks to the board and the chief executive for that work. In talking about how employers will remain at the heart of Skills England, I hope to learn from the way in which IfATE has done that. However, bringing the functions currently held by IfATE into Skills England is essential to address complexity and fragmentation in the skills system. The majority of IfATE’s functions will be transferred to the Secretary of State but will be exercised by Skills England unchanged, so we will be able to ensure continuity of skills delivery through the transition process. My officials are working very closely on this with IfATE’s senior leadership team. The noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, has been very clear about this, as she was when we met. She has been very engaged in ensuring that there is a transition plan which will ensure minimal disruption to learners, employers, providers and IfATE staff, and which will safeguard the good elements of the work that IfATE has already done, which she outlined.

It is absolutely not our intention to allow the transfer to cause a delay or drop in apprenticeship numbers. We will mitigate the risk of that through the transition plan I have talked about. On the point raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, any approvals by IfATE will transition and will not have to be redone as a result of this legislation. These decisions will continue to stand until such time as the occupational standard, apprenticeship or technical qualification in question is reviewed under successor arrangements and a new decision is taken.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, also raised points about the sharing and transferring of IfATE’s functions. We have been clear that we expect the functions of Skills England to include broad continuation of the core work IfATE does with employers. I will be very happy to talk more about that in Committee. My noble friend Lord Watson asked about the engagement between Skills England and Scotland on UK-wide organisations such as the Migration Advisory Committee and the Industrial Strategy Council. We have had close collaboration with devolved Governments, as was recognised by my noble friend Lady Wilcox. This is critical to ensuring that there is an effective skill system regardless of where in the UK you live, work and train. We have had regular meetings with senior officials from all four nations to share best practice and approaches and their long-term strategic goals. These relationships will be important to Skills England’s success, as has already been set out by Richard Pennycook in his role as the chair.

My noble friend Lord Layard and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds rightly talked about the significance of young people and how we can ensure that we improve our skills system for them. This is where our commitment to developing a youth guarantee is very significant, and my noble friend Lord Layard once again made his strong call for the apprenticeship guarantee, which I have discussed with him on numerous occasions. He is pushing us further as a Government than we are able to go at this time, but he continues to make a strong case and I will continue to listen to him.

However, we have of course already started to think about how we reform the apprenticeship system to ensure it better serves young people, who have particularly seen the numbers of apprenticeships fall off. That is why we recently announced that we would develop foundation apprenticeships to provide a route into apprenticeships for young people who have not been able to benefit from apprenticeships up to this point.

We have also heard calls with respect to the growth and skills levy. Our reformed growth and skills levy will deliver greater flexibility for learners and employers, including through shorter duration and foundation apprenticeships in targeted sectors. We will want Skills England and the employers it engages with to have a crucial role in determining how that skills levy is spent. I also recognise the significance of the role of further education, as outlined by my noble friend Lord Watson and others in the discussion, and I can assure him that we will continue to do more than perhaps has been the case for FE previously to raise the status and significance of that sector, because it is so important for young people. We will include more about our overall role in the post-16 strategy, which we are currently working on.

The role of schools is really important, as my noble friend Lady Wilcox and the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare, Lord Hampton and Lord Lucas, outlined. I can assure noble Lords that the curriculum and assessment review will look at the significance of digital skills, creativity and how enterprise can be developed in our schools.

If we are to meet the skills gaps that persist in our economy, we must address the fragmentation in our skills system. To respond to the challenge of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, I do not believe we can do that by simply building on IfATE. We need, with Skills England, to make sure that we do more than the excellent work that IfATE has done. We have to make and maintain an authoritative assessment of national and regional skills needs in the economy, now and in the future, combining the best possible insights from employers and other key stakeholders.

This legislation will enable Skills England to build on IfATE’s work but will also enable us to build that broader partnership and assessment that will help us to transform our skills system. This Bill is an important milestone in the delivery of the Government’s manifesto commitment to establish Skills England. I look forward to further discussion through the passage of this legislation.

Bill read a second time.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Smith of Malvern]

That the bill be committed to a Grand Committee, and that it be an instruction to the Grand Committee that the bill be considered in the following order: Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clause 2, Schedule 2, Clause 3, Schedule 3, Clauses 4 to 13, Title.

Motion agreed.

Schools: Absenteeism

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce absenteeism in schools.

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

My Lords, tackling absence is at the heart of our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. If children are not in school, it does not matter how effective or well supported teaching and learning is; they will not benefit. That is why we are committed to working with the sector to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school and rolling out breakfast clubs to every primary school.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I am grateful for that. Does the Minister agree that Covid weakened the contract between parents and schools? As a result, we have over 150,000 children missing on average every other day, double the number pre Covid, as well as 1.7 million missing on average every other Friday, again double the number pre Covid. Against the policies that she has just announced, will she agree to have targets to reduce absenteeism for those two categories?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to identify the scale of children who are both missing school and, in the case of those who are severely absent, missing more than 50%. We have seen those figures continue to rise, unfortunately. I am open to the idea of targets being the right approach, but I absolutely assure him that we are working extremely hard with a range of policies: the breakfast clubs that I have outlined, the specialist mental health professionals, the new guidance expecting close working between schools and local authorities, and the work on data and better analysis of those who are absent. That was started by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and we are absolutely determined to build on it to make sure that we bring those figures down.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with the Minister that we should ensure that children are in school and get the best possible learning opportunities. However, we have a system whereby any parent can take their child out of school and say, “I am home educating them”. We have no checks on whether that home education is taking place, on its quality or on whether children are safeguarded. After Covid, we have seen children go back to school, not like school and say, “Can I be home educated?” “Yes.” Is the Minister prepared to support my Private Member’s Bill on home education?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is of course talking about a slightly different issue from absenteeism, which is where somebody is already on a school roll and is not attending. He makes a valiant plug for his Private Member’s Bill, which I am delighted to say I will respond to on 15 November. It is probably also worth saying that of course, through our children’s well-being Bill, we will legislate to introduce children not in school registers, to improve the visibility of children and young people who are not on school rolls, including those getting unsuitable home education.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that children in the care of local authorities have generally had very disturbed childhoods and, because of that, missed a great deal of schooling. Will everything be done to help them catch up?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. Sometimes children in the care system have to move too frequently from one placement to another, which too often means that they have to move schools. They rightly get priority for admissions to schools but it is crucial that, through the work of our virtual schools and all corporate parents of children in care, we ensure that they have the stability to enable them to attend school and succeed.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the main drivers of school absence are mental ill health and poverty, so it is very welcome that the Government will provide specialist mental health counsellors in each school. Hitherto where that has been provided, it has mainly been paid for from the pupil premium. Given that a number of those pupils now requiring assistance and counselling are not in receipt of free school meals, how will it be paid for and will it be the responsibility of the Department for Education or the Department of Health and Social Care?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that mental health disorders among children are a growing problem. Working alongside the Department of Health and Social Care, we will provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, and develop new young futures hubs, which will include access to mental health support workers. Also, we will recruit an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults, to cut the unacceptably long time that children and young people have to wait for child and adolescent mental health services; that commitment is specific to the Department of Health.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, is there any causal correlation between poverty, particularly in the wake of the cost of living crisis, and absenteeism from school?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate is right to identify that. The data shows that those on free school meals are far more likely to be absent from schools than those who are not. That is why we need a wide-ranging approach to ensure that we provide both the school action and the home backgrounds that will enable children to attend school and learn. My right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Education and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions are working hard on the cross-government childhood poverty strategy precisely to address some of those issues.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

What is the Minister’s assessment of the National Parent Survey 2024 published by the charity Parentkind, which showed that three in 10 parents are now more relaxed about school attendance? This aligns with the department’s excellent data, which shows a big rise in that group since the pandemic.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My assessment is that it is concerning that parents, for whatever reason are becoming relaxed about their children’s attendance at school. As the noble Lord suggested, this has partly been linked to the pandemic. We know that each day of lost learning can do serious harm. Days missed can add up quickly. There is a link between absence and attainment, and pupils who are persistently absent are less than half as likely to achieve good GCSEs as those who attend every day. We need to give that message loud and clear to parents who, in being relaxed about their children’s attendance at school, are fundamentally damaging their future prospects.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, numerous studies have demonstrated the positive impact of arts and creative programmes on attendance and engagement, which is especially true for pupils from at-risk populations, where absenteeism of course creates an even longer shadow. Will the curriculum and assessment review take account of this evidence in considering the value of arts subjects, and will the Government encourage more schools to take up Artsmark, given that 96% of Artsmark schools report positive improvements on attendance, punctuality and engagement?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that we need a curriculum in schools that will encourage all children to flourish and to be engaged. That is why, in setting up the curriculum and assessment review led by Professor Becky Francis, we have specifically asked it to consider how we can ensure that the curriculum meets the needs of disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs, and that it does that through creating space for exactly the sort of creativity for which the noble Baroness is a strong advocate.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

Has any work been done on working from home? I gather that this is a factor which is leading to some absenteeism. As we are likely to see a growth in the number of people working from home, could we see that, at least in the public service, part of the contract is that those working from home will give an undertaking that their children will go to school?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend makes an interesting point. In my response earlier to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, I was very clear that, to be honest, it does not matter whether you are working from home as a parent, or where you are working—your responsibility is to ensure that your children are in school every day. If you do not do that, you are disadvantaging their futures. I do not think my noble friend meant this, but I would not want there to be some idea that there is some sort of excuse because of the way in which there are—quite rightly—more flexibilities about the way in which we work. However we as adults work, we have a responsibility to ensure that our children are in school, because that is where they will learn and have the best chance of a successful future.

Government’s Childcare Expansion

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches welcome the proposals; they are very much in line with our manifesto at the last election. I believe that all three parties, in perhaps slightly different ways, have a real desire to develop childcare provision. I want to tease out from the Minister the most important thing for early years childcare provision: the quality of the staff and the staff feeling valued. That means not just the salary but the training opportunities they get.

Over the last decade or more, we have seen staff in nursery and early years settings feeling that they are there just as glorified helpers. One nursery nurse said to me, “I could get more stacking the shelves at Lidl than I get in my job in a nursery”. If we want brilliant early years education, we need staff who feel motivated and want a career in that line of work. I had a 100-place nursery in a primary school and I remember how the staff were absolutely devastated when their names were changed from “nursery nurse” to “NVQ level 4”. They hated that. There had been no consultation with them at all; it just happened as part of the skills agenda. That is my first point.

My second point is that, while we welcome the commitment on top-up charges, we have also to recognise that the income generated in private nurseries sometimes caused real problems for them; but doing away with top-up charges is absolutely correct.

I like the notion that we increasingly put nurseries in primary schools, where there is capacity. Why? Because the primary school can provide all the other things that are available there: advice on special educational needs, and a whole host of other opportunities.

I am pleased about childminders—although I do not actually like the title “childminder”. They do not just mind children; they develop children. They get them to play, to interact, to talk, to learn and to discover. They do more than just minding—but I suppose we are stuck with that title. Childminders were very concerned several years ago when there was a movement towards doing away with single childminders; they had to be part of a company or a group. I thought that was wrong. So I recognise and welcome the proposals on childminding. It should not be a sort of privatised provision. Anybody who has the qualifications and experience should be allowed to do it.

I want to make a final point. There is an aspiration to go to 30 weeks’ provision, but that provision does not cover a full calendar year. Nurseries—particularly private nurseries—find it very difficult because, at the end of the 30 weeks of provision, some parents, especially those from deprived communities, cannot pay the additional money, so they withdraw their children for that period. The nursery or early years setting then finds it difficult to financially survive. So, we need to look at how we ensure that there is equity for the provider as well.

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

I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord. I am very happy to accept that there has been an enormous transformation in the country’s attitude to childcare and in the extent of childcare available. When I entered the other House in 1997, following a considerable period of Conservative rule, we in Worcestershire were infamous for having the worst childcare provision across the whole of Europe. I am glad that people have seen that childcare and early years provision is important for people’s ability to go to work and, at this moment in time, to support people with the cost of living, but I think that the additional area where we need to focus more attention is that good early years provision is absolutely fundamental for children’s development and giving them the very best possible start in life.

The noble Baroness suggested that the Government are pitch-rolling away from the pledge to entitle working parents to 30 hours of childcare a week from 2025; that is absolutely not the case. The Government are committed to providing that, but we are being transparent and honest about the challenge it will bring. As we said last week, it will mean another 75,000 childcare places and over 30,000 more staff will be necessary; that is a big challenge that needs a plan, not just an aspiration.

I am sorry that the noble Baroness thought that the comms at the beginning of the school year were a little on the quiet side; I did a whole morning media round on this and shouted it from the rooftops. I am pleased that we were able to celebrate 320,000 more parents getting their childcare entitlement this year, but there is certainly more that we need to do. That is why we will work to look more strategically at what we need to do to develop the early years sector and have undertaken to develop a strategy, which I expect us to publish and bring to this House next year.

The noble Baroness asked about breakfast clubs. A few weeks ago, we were able to announce the 750 trailblazing breakfast clubs that will be open by next year, which will build on previous work to get breakfast clubs into schools. However, we are also making a stronger commitment both to providing these free for all primary school pupils and to ensuring that the childcare element of the breakfast club is also in place—that is a very important way that we get children to school early and ready to learn, which does not necessarily happen just if you have a breakfast club, despite the excellent work those breakfast clubs are doing.

On school-based nurseries, the noble Baroness is right that we announced last week £150 million of funding which schools can bid into, so that we can develop up to 300 school-based nurseries as part of our objective to have 3,000 of those over the course of this Parliament.

The noble Lord is absolutely right that, if we are to achieve quality early years provision, we need to develop even further the brilliant staff who are working in early years and childcare. That means we need to reset our relationship with the childcare workforce, ensure that there is appropriate status for that role and think about training. We have already begun to provide, for example, more guidance around how to identify special educational needs, and we will want to continue that work.

We are taking action on ensuring that mandatory extra top-up charges are not levied on parents who take up government-funded childcare places, and we will be working with the sector and with parents in order to make sure that we strengthen that guidance.

Childminders do excellent work, but we have seen a halving of the numbers of childminders over recent years. The flexibilities, including the additional flexibilities announced last week, will help to ensure that childminding remains an important element of the childcare environment.

The noble Lord raised a point about flexibility for school holidays. It is already the case that quite a lot of childcare provision, including that provided around schools, continues into the school holidays. However, in thinking about our overall development of provision and our strategy, we will certainly want to think about how we can ensure that that is as flexible and well supported as possible for parents to be able to use all year round because of the enormously important impact that it has on those parents and, more importantly, on children’s best start in life.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Before the Minister sits down, I wonder if she could clarify something. I heard her say that there was a £150 million capital pot for nurseries, but I think I read in the Statement that it was £15 million. If she cannot confirm that now, maybe she could write to us.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I apologise. The noble Baroness is absolutely right. I have been overambitious on the Government’s spending plans and I will be in big trouble for that. The figure is £15 million for up to 300 new or expanded nurseries. I thank the noble Baroness for allowing me to correct that.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the decision by the Government to expand early-years provision, both education and childcare, but the Statement does not perhaps go far enough in clarifying some of the issues that are likely to emerge from that policy decision. The first, as the Statement makes clear, is that we do not have enough staff to carry out this expansion, certainly not in the timescale that the Government are hoping to achieve. What discussions are taking place with the providers of teacher education and training to try to increase the numbers of young people deciding to become teachers and who take on specialisation in the early years, particularly for three to seven year-olds?

Secondly, what will the role of head teachers be in this slightly complex set-up where, on school premises, there will be not just an expansion of nursery classes but also the provision of childcare for younger children? What responsibility will head teachers have to take for what is going on on their premises in relation to childminders, private providers of one kind or another or voluntary organisations? Certainly, parents will imagine that head teachers have some responsibility for what is happening on their premises.

Lastly, what work is being done to integrate the educational aspect of provision with the childcare aspects of provision? The Minister has rightly said that it is important for the development of children that this expansion takes place, but that expansion must bring with it high standards of provision. Indeed, the Statement says it is the Government’s priority to provide such high standards. Could the Minister respond to those questions?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that having sufficient well-qualified staff is one of the biggest challenges for developing the entitlement in early years. That is why, as I outlined earlier, we have a national recruitment campaign, we are piloting whether financial incentives will boost recruitment in early years, we have skills boot camps for early years that lead to an accelerated apprenticeship, we have the new T-level, and Skills England will look at the sector to see what more qualifications we need to have in place. We are providing additional flexibility for childminders to help to care for children and to come into childminding through the childminder start-up scheme.

The DfE currently supports a pipeline of early years teachers into the sector by funding early years initial teacher training and developing an undergraduate early years teacher degree apprenticeship to support early years leaders and teachers to earn while they learn. My noble friend is right that the range of provision within a primary school is a challenge for a head teacher, but we also heard from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, some of the benefits that head teachers will find from having that early start for children, with all that it brings to their development.

On the quality and scope of early years, we made some announcements last week about ensuring that, as we develop the scale of the provision, we do not lose quality through new provisions around the early years foundation stage. We will also want to continue thinking about how we can ensure that the highest quality of learning happens during that stage. We will undoubtedly have more to say about that as we develop the quality and extent of early years care.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this Statement, especially the section that reads:

“The Government believe that all children deserve access to a brilliant early education, regardless of who they are, where they come from or their parents’ income”.


The Minister will share my concern about young children who either are not registered at nursery school or are registered but rarely attend. What steps might be taken to monitor what happens to those children, who should be in school but are not?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a very important point. We have already said, more broadly, that we intend to bring forward provisions in the children and well-being bill for a children’s register for those outside schools. However, in the changes that we announced last week to the safeguarding provisions in the early years foundation scheme, we are also intending, after consultation, to introduce a new provision that will ensure better follow-up of children who have been registered with nurseries and who then do not attend, in the way in which the noble Lord suggests.

[Baroness Wyld (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my registered interest as a non-executive board member at Ofsted. The Minister will be aware that this landscape can be complex for parents to navigate. She talked about communications, but can she say a bit more about what the Government will do to ensure that all parents who have entitlement for their youngest children get the provision to which they are entitled? Might they be working with the family hubs and health visiting teams to have a strategic approach to communications on this?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point: that when there is a new entitlement, parents should understand what they are entitled to and be supported to find the places that support their children, which is why we will continue to publicise this. We will also, as she rightly says, find the other routes to ensuring that parents understand what their entitlements are. The next time that I am doing a media round on this, I will redouble my efforts so that I do not disappoint the noble Baronesses opposite.

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

My Lords, the most formative childcare for most children is of course provided by parents and families themselves. What plans do the Government have to make it easier for grandparents to care for their children and what plans they have, if any, to build on the transferable allowances introduced by the coalition Government?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that grandparents quite often play a very important role in supporting their children and grandchildren. I will take away his exhortations about support for grandparents and perhaps return to that matter directly with him when I have found out more about it.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, further to the questions about the workforce, the point has been made that it is about more than just giving an adequate salary for those in childcare; it is about recognition. The Minister referred in her reply to status and staff development. What steps are being taken to develop a proper career structure so that this field of education can compete with the rest of the education field in having a well-defined career structure for people to aim at?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right; it is of course about reward, but it is also about progression and recognition. We have worked hard already to try to reset our relationship with staff across the education system. Over the coming weeks and months, the Government will set out further plans for reform to ensure that the workforce feels supported and valued. We want a system that celebrates and supports early years carers and embeds it into our wider education system. Alongside the work I have already outlined on recruitment, recognition and status is something that we will want to return to in the early years strategy as we develop it.

[Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, to what extent does my noble friend the Minister consider that this welcome expansion will further the Government’s mission to break down the barriers to opportunity?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a very important point. As I suggested earlier, childcare provision is good for parents because it provides them with opportunities to work and supports them with the cost of living. Most importantly—my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is adamant about this—high-quality early years education provision ensures that children get the very best possible start. It helps to overcome disadvantage in their home lives; it helps to identify special educational needs earlier, and it sets children up to learn. That is why it will be an absolute commitment of this Government. We were pleased to be able to outline last week the next stage of our development in this area.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, could the Minister of State say something about the importance of the status of people who work in early years?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Absolutely. The name of our recruitment campaign to encourage more people to come and work in this area is “Do Something Big”. Our argument is that there is little that you can do that is more important for changing somebody’s life than working with them in their very earliest years, whether through caring or through early years education and development. That is why the investment that this Government are putting in is so important and why we will celebrate the people who carry out that really important role.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, is it not also the case with the staffing of early years that there may be a staff surplus in some parts of the country? One has seen the statistical collapse in the number of young children in the inner London area, yet places such as Oxfordshire have apparently double the number of children than childcare places. Is part of the strategy to enable people already in this sector to relocate?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point. I am not sure that it is for the Government forcibly to relocate staff in this area, but let me take that back to those working on the childcare strategy as we think about how to reform this as a place to work and ensure that it is a positive place to work. We seek to meet demand where it is needed, because not only are there shortages of staff in some areas but there are shortages of provision. We will certainly make sure that we are focusing support on those areas that most need both the staff and the provision.

[Baroness Prosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to hear the Minister speak about the importance of the workforce. Will the Government bear in mind that it is important to include the employment of young men as nursery nurses as well as young women? Many years ago, my son was one of a very small handful of men who qualified under the old NNEB rules. Lots of the children in nursery at that time had very disjointed families and did not have a good male figure within their household. Sometimes the male nursery nurse was the only stable male person they came across. That may not be so much the case now, in terms of the sorts of children who will find their way into good nursery care, but it is important to bear in mind that men as well as women can be very good at this job.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend eloquently outlines the enormous difference that can be made to a child’s start in life by the security and development that they can get from any early years worker. She is absolutely right that this is a job that men do extremely well and should be encouraged into doing. For some children who have not had the benefit of having those sorts of role models in their family lives, they will probably be fundamentally important for their success later on in life.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the last Labour Government’s great achievements was the introduction of the Sure Start scheme, but, as my noble friend will know, many Sure Start centres have been closed. I am often asked what our Government’s position is on Sure Start. Could my noble friend perhaps say something about it?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

One of the very last contributions that I made in the House of Commons before I came face to face with the electorate in Redditch was to suggest that I feared that a future Conservative Government might dismantle our Sure Start programme. I was jeered at the time, yet sadly I was right. In recent years we have seen, through some of the longitudinal analysis that was done on Sure Start, the impact that it had on children’s lives. I am afraid I cannot at this time undertake to reinstate the scale and significance of the last Labour Government’s Sure Start scheme, but I can say that recognising the way in which all those elements work in a child’s life—childcare, early years, health and family support—will be a very important way that, across this Government, we think about our future plans to support children to have the very best start in life.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the creation of a children’s register —yet another register that we are creating when we have already set up so many over the years. If she casts her mind back to the previous Labour Government, one of the major initiatives we had was to create an identity system for each person and child in the country. We increasingly see that that need still has to be addressed, particularly for problems with immigration, yet we now have a different approach by the new Labour Government. Although I recognise that this is rather wide of her brief, I wonder whether she would care to bear in mind that there is a case to be made for a simple approach to this. We ought to be trying to create coalitions where we work together to create a system that will give us greater data about everyone, including children, and which would be far more efficient than the present system, where we create separate systems all the time.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend tempts me to relive my days developing the national identity scheme and, in fact, having one of the very first identity cards issued by the last Labour Government. However, I will not go down that route. I have some sympathy with his point about around the range of different ways in which we now ask people to prove their identity. The intention behind the register for those children who are out of school is very much about safeguarding and ensuring that children do not get lost to our system, as has sadly become increasingly the case over recent years and which was exacerbated by Covid. This has a very special and important child safeguarding intention, which is why it is a legitimate scheme in its own right.

Early Years Provision: Bell Review

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to publish the main findings of Sir David Bell’s review of early years provision, commissioned by the Labour Party in October 2023.

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

The early years sector is facing shortages of places and workers, and it will be challenging to deliver the entitlements promised by the previous Government. Sir David Bell’s review, undertaken for the Labour Party prior to the election, considered how to ensure all children have access to high-quality early years education. The Government are considering how to reform the sector and will set out further information next year. Sir David’s findings will inform that work.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, when in opposition, the Secretary of State for Education repeatedly said that childcare was her No. 1 priority, but she also said that she was unable to set out her plan until Sir David Bell had completed his review. Given that the Government have now committed to roll out the previous Government’s childcare plan to increase entitlements, can the Minister confirm whether or not Sir David recommended continuing with the Conservative Government’s plan, and did he agree to the levels of fees we had published? If so, it is really puzzling that the Government will not publish his recommendations; if not, I think there is a greater reason to know what they are.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Importantly, having made it clear that we want to deliver the entitlements set out by the previous Government, this Government have started the hard work to put in place the action necessary to do that. It will not be easy; I am afraid that we inherited a pledge without a plan to deliver it. Having ensured that 320,000 children have been able to take up this year’s additional entitlement, the Government’s focus is to make sure we have the places and workforce to enable the growth of that entitlement, which we will try to deliver in September 2025. However, it will be a difficult task, made more difficult by the planning failure of the previous Government.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

Sir David is clearly a man of integrity, great educational experience and knowledge. We understand that because the report was leaked, he decided that he was not going to continue and publish it. However, I hope that some of the key elements of that report—not least introducing a new qualified teacher route—will be included in legislation that comes before us. In fact, after Questions, we will be considering the Minister’s Statement on early years. Can the Minister confirm that the proposal to increase the early years pupil premium, whether it came from Sir David or not —it has not yet been published—will be considered at some point?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

While we are ambitious for early years and childcare, we will need to consider the outcome of the spending review in thinking about where we can focus our resources. We intend to produce an early years strategy early next year, which will certainly build not only on what we have learnt in government and our work engaging with stakeholders and the dedicated staff in early years and childcare, but on Sir David’s recommendations.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that to deliver the programme, we will need another 35,000 people working in childcare by this time next year and 6,000 by the end of this year? How confident is she that she will find the necessary people?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right about the challenge for the workforce. That is why, last week, as he says, we published further information about the 75,000 additional staff that will be necessary. It will be a challenge, but we have already begun work, focusing on the Government’s childcare recruitment campaign, “Do Something Big”. We have also introduced a T-level in early years and childcare, and through Skills England we will be identifying the gaps and ensuring that the support is there for employers to develop staff in this area. But it will be a very big challenge to make sure that the places and people are there to deliver the entitlement by next September.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, many young mothers are not very good at looking after their very young children. What are the Government doing to help mothers and children bond and learn to look after each other?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

In my case, I could say that slightly older mothers were probably not particularly good at looking after their young children either.

The noble and learned Baroness makes a very important point about the support we provide for mothers, obviously through midwives and antenatal care, which I know my colleague in the Department of Health and Social Care will be very concerned about, and we will hear her views. In ensuring we have early family support, particularly for the most vulnerable families, we will also help to overcome that problem.

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, in his review, Sir David Bell looked at the attainment gap between children from less privileged and more privileged backgrounds. Can the Government commit to ensuring that the ministerial taskforce on child poverty will look at the impact of the current benefits system on children from lower-income families?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right to identify that disadvantage —in fact, special educational needs impact on children at a very early stage in their development. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education, alongside the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is absolutely committed, through the work of the child poverty taskforce, to looking at precisely how we break that link between poverty in childhood and the ability to make the most of your life later on. That will include elements of the benefits system as well.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

Taking my noble friend back to the question on recruitment, will she consider that a number of the people who will be needed in the workforce are currently in full-time education? Quite a lot are at school, and many are studying BTECs—for example, in health and social care—which can then lead them into careers in childcare. Can she say whether the Government intend to go on supporting the BTECs that will take these young people towards the childcare sector? What else are the Government doing to encourage young people currently in education to see it as a good career path for them?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

We are carrying out a short qualifications reform review precisely to identify the qualifications where there are particular needs for learners or for the economy—in this case, childcare. Unlike the previous Government, we are saying that where we can see for both those reasons that there is a particular need for qualifications, we will continue to fund them in the system. As I identified earlier, we are also supporting the development of a T-level, which will provide a very good and rigorous route for young people into the childcare sector. Also, through the “Do Something Big” campaign we are encouraging more people to consider a career in early years and childcare, which can have such an enormous impact on children’s lives.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am sure that my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care will look closely at that, given their concern to ensure that babies and children have the healthiest start in life.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, I was saying that it is quite inspirational how fathers, particularly young fathers, are now much more involved in bringing up young children. We should recognise that sharing of responsibilities in many families. What do the Government say about that? What more can be done to encourage fathers to get more involved in bringing up their young children?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a very important point. I know from personal experience that, where fathers can give that care, it has an enormously important impact on children and their development. Obviously, over recent years we are more able, through parental leave provisions, to share that leave at the early stages of children’s lives. I assure the noble Lord that, across government, we will continue to think about ways we can support parents, including fathers, in doing that very important role.

Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th October 2024 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I congratulate the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, on securing this Second Reading for his Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill. As many contributors to today’s debate have asserted, the aims of the Bill are admirable. It is vital that pupils have a sound understanding of the fundamental values on which our society is founded and their relevance to the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living in modern Britain.

This debate also exemplifies one of the most important aspects of our approach to values in this country, which is the ability to be able to debate, engage widely and develop our understanding. In that respect, the noble Baronesses, Lady Butler-Sloss and Lady Neuberger, identified in talking about the Living With Difference report the importance of us continuing to have a national debate, beyond our schools, about our values and the best way to inculcate and develop them.

My noble friend Lady Morgan made the important point that our values develop and need to be lived. Although I turn to many sources of wisdom on this, I am most certainly willing to turn to Gareth Southgate when it comes to living our values.

Labour Governments have a proud history of promoting British values across our education system. We were the first Government to introduce mandatory citizenship education into the national curriculum under the leadership of my noble friend Lord Blunkett—with me as a lowly junior Minister at the time doing some of the legwork. This Government will continue that tradition to ensure that our children and young people are supported to become active and engaged citizens. I will say more about citizenship in a moment.

Although some have sought to use these issues as a political football—not in this morning’s debate but more widely—to sow division and hatred across our communities, it is only through promoting genuine respect and tolerance through our education system that we will tackle the shameful actions we saw across our towns and cities this summer. The riots showed that we cannot take these values for granted but must continue to embed them within every child’s education.

There were compelling contributions to the debate from my noble friend Lady Uddin and the noble Baronesses, Lady Verma and Lady Warsi. My noble friend Lady Uddin, while talking about her own experience, made a strong case, as have others, that the development of these values needs to be broader than simply in our education system. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, is right to identify the significance of speaking English to enable people to be able to feel fully part of our communities. The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, is right that our discussion about British values should not be about setting one person against another or defining the difference in terms of those who have come to this country and accepted and lived our values, and that everybody, whether born or coming to take up citizenship, is equally able to exemplify our values.

The noble Earl, Lord Effingham, challenged me to clarify how this Government will develop the significance of British values in our schools, and I will do that, because I would like to clarify how this understanding, and many of the issues identified in this morning’s debate, are already being satisfied by some of the existing duties on schools and current curriculum requirements, and also the action that this Government want to take to go further on that.

Our schools have a statutory duty, as the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, identified, as part of a broad and balanced curriculum, to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development. This is a duty that stems from the Education Act 1944 and was reinforced in 2002. The previous Government published guidance in 2014 to support schools in delivering that requirement with respect to fundamental British values. That guidance rightly acknowledges that

“while different people may hold different views about what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ … a school’s ethos and teaching … should … support the rule of English civil and criminal law”.

That in practice means embedding

“British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs”.

Noble Lords have made important contributions today on how those ideas need to be developed.

It is important that teachers and schools have the capacity and range of ways to ensure that they are embedded in our schools. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, meant to be insulting to teachers in suggesting that in our schools people are only putting up a poster in order to do that because, actually, there is a whole range of different activities that schools are already using to successfully embed the values across a whole breadth of provision. This means that the values are taught in the curriculum, reflected in behaviour policies, reinforced in assemblies and deepened through carefully planned opportunities to, for example, experience democratic processes. Having been on the receiving end of the Somers Park Primary School Pupils’ Parliament only a few weeks ago, I know how rigorous and important some of those processes can be.

There are difficult questions for teachers and our schools to consider and to reflect in the teaching and experiences that they provide for our students. That rightly brings a responsibility on to the Government to provide appropriate resources and we should continue to develop those. The department currently provides a range of support to the sector, in particular, for some of those issues that are very difficult for teachers to teach, through the Educate Against Hate website. I took a look at that yesterday and was impressed with the range of specific resources to support schools and colleges, not only to promote values but to deal with some of the difficult and contested issues that it is important for our schoolchildren to be open to and engaged with.

I want particularly to talk about citizenship, given the focus that many noble Lords have put on it this morning. Since its introduction under the previous Labour Government, as I outlined, citizenship remains compulsory in the national curriculum at key stages 3 and 4 in maintained schools. Although it is optional for primary schools, it is supported by non-statutory programmes of study at key stages 1 and 2. In the curriculum, pupils learn about democracy, politics, Parliament and voting, as well as human rights, justice, media literacy, the law, the economy, and the need for mutual respect and understanding. Pupils also learn the skills of active citizenship, as called for by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, through practical opportunities to address issues of concern to them in school and the wider community.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, identified how important it is that we equip our children with the ability to distinguish fact from opinion and to have critical media literacy. That is an important part of citizenship teaching. My noble friend Lady Whitaker and others identified the significance of human rights teaching, which is an important part of the citizenship curriculum. I say in response to my noble friend Lord Browne that pupils should also be taught about the diverse national, regional, religious and ethnic identities across the United Kingdom, and the need for mutual respect and understanding.

However, I take noble Lords’ point that, as well as some of the resources that I have already outlined, which probably need further development, it is also crucial that we have sufficient appropriately qualified teachers. It is the case that the number of specialist teachers has fallen over recent years. This Government have a commitment, both in their recruitment of 6,500 additional teachers and in the approach to professional development for classroom teachers and leaders, to ensure that teachers are equipped to deliver what we believe to be important in schools. This area of citizenship is certainly, in my view, one of those areas.

My noble friend Lady Blower rightly talked about the significance of schools in tackling racial and religious discrimination. It is absolutely right that, as part of a broad and balanced curriculum, there are opportunities to discuss racism and other forms of discrimination. Those include citizenship education, which teaches about religious diversity, and mutual respect and understanding; relationships education, which teaches about the impact of prejudice and the importance of respect and individual worth, as many noble Lords have mentioned; and religious education, which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield also rightly challenged us on, which teaches about religious tolerance. Once again, the Education Against Hate website provides important teaching resources to help schools discuss those sensitive topics. The department is also committed to tackling all forms of prejudice, including Islamophobia, and other forms of racism. Earlier this month, my right honourable friend the Education Secretary announced that the Government are resuming the procurement of £7 million-worth of funding to tackle anti-Semitism in schools, colleges and universities.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield also asked what the DfE is doing about rolling out the GCSE in natural history. The natural history GCSE was a commitment made by the previous Government. We will want to set out our policy priorities for the curriculum in due course—I will come to the curriculum and assessment review in a moment—but that does not mean we do not believe, as was rightly emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, that respect for the environment is a very important part of what we need our schools to be able to develop.

Topics related to climate change and the environment are taught within the current national curriculum for citizenship. For science and geography, teachers have flexibility to take account of new developments, societal changes or topical issues. As a result, we are seeing some excellent work in climate and nature education in many schools. The department launched—to be fair, this was under the previous Government—a number of initiatives to encourage all education settings to take a holistic approach to climate, nature and sustainability. My ministerial colleague, Stephen Morgan, recently launched the first- year report for the National Education Nature Park, which brings together all of the land from across education settings into a vast virtual nature park. We are seeing a real change in the way that very many schools are using their estate and their environment to educate young people, develop those environments and habitats, and boost the biodiversity in their sites.

My noble friend Lord Mann rightly talked about the challenge of tackling misogyny in the work that we do on values in our schools. The Government are enormously serious, both in our department’s work in tackling misogyny and in the mission across government to tackle violence against women and girls, about focusing on prevention through relationships education and ensuring that pupils are safe while at school through schools’ compliance with their safeguarding duties. We are currently reviewing the RSHE statutory guidance and want to ensure that it provides schools with the direction and ability to protect all pupils from the growing scourge of misogyny. His idea about the way in which the NUS might support schools in developing that work was very interesting.

Several noble Lords mentioned the fact that the Government have delivered on their manifesto commitment to establish an independent curriculum and assessment review for England. The review will look at how we deliver a curriculum that ensures young people develop the knowledge and skills required to thrive as citizens in work and throughout life—a curriculum in which they are represented. That has the potential to reinforce the good work already happening in schools, and it will be important for us to consider any wider issues raised by the review within our next steps in government. I will certainly make sure that the very important contributions made in this debate are brought to the attention of the review.

The noble Lord, Lord Bird, gave a passionate explanation of how those outside the mainstream also need to be supported in their consideration of British values, and how, understandably, they may feel alienated from what others of us take for granted. Our curriculum and assessment review must consider those who are disadvantaged and excluded; that is a specific objective for it. The Government are committed to tackling poverty, particularly child poverty. The task force led by my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Education and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will look precisely at how we ensure that fewer children have to grow up in poverty in the way that the noble Lord explained.

As I conclude, I want to talk briefly about my concern about legislating for values in the way in which this Bill would do. At the moment, fundamental British values are not set out as a list of values that exist within law. The guidance is non-statutory, and I fear that primary legislation that changed, and to a certain extent set in stone, British values would potentially limit schools’ freedom to tailor their approach and would open schools up to external challenge to their provision, beyond Ofsted inspections, which are right to ensure that values are being properly dealt with. Dealing with that challenge would in turn place huge burdens on schools.

In saying that, I support the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, who talked about the danger of too rigid an interpretation of values. I also agree with the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, that ensuring that schools have some autonomy in this area is important. Schools need to be free to embed the values in a way that meets the needs of their pupils. They need to be supported in doing that, but they can include a full range of issues, ideas and materials in their curriculum, including where they are challenging or controversial, subject to their obligation to ensure political balance.

While we support the importance of schools reinforcing these values and considering, in the way in which the noble and right reverend Lord’s Bill would ensure that they do, the updating and development of those values in what is taught in our schools, I do not believe that more rigidly legislating for them is the right way to secure effective implementation by schools. That is why I must express reservations on the content of the Bill. The current arrangements provide a sound basis for delivering British values, but there is room for improvement. I assure noble Lords that this Government will continue to support our teachers, provide resources and give clarity about how we expect schools to go about the range of ways in which they teach British values and bring coherence and cohesion to our communities. I thank the noble and right reverend Lord for the contribution of the debate this morning.

Education Sector: Equality of Opportunity

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, who unfortunately is unwell.

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

My Lords, this Government are committed to promoting equal opportunities and breaking the link between young people’s backgrounds and their future success. Breaking down barriers to opportunity is one of our five missions, ensuring that every child thrives in education and achieves their ambitions, no matter their background. That is why, as first steps, we are committed to delivering 6,500 additional teachers and rolling out free breakfast clubs in every primary school.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that response. She will be aware that education provision all too often does not meet the needs of all children, particularly those with special educational needs and disabilities. The Government are committed to a community-wide approach to school inclusivity, so does my noble friend agree that there is a need for all state-funded schools to be required to co-operate with their local authorities on school admissions, SEND inclusion and place planning?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that children with special educational needs and disabilities are not receiving the sort of education that they need and deserve, despite the enormously hard work of our teachers and others in supporting them. That is why we are committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring that special schools cater to those with the most complex needs. As announced in the King’s Speech, we intend to legislate to require schools to co-operate with their local authority on admissions and place planning.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that women and girls with special educational needs have a history of being underidentified because they tend to cope in the classroom by hiding and disappearing, as opposed to disrupting? When do the Government reckon they will have enough trained teachers to spot the girl who has her head down and is desperately excluding herself from the classroom by being quiet, as opposed to the boy causing trouble at the back?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point about early identification of children with special educational needs or some form of disability—he is absolutely right. In the early stages, that needs well-qualified teachers, with the support of inclusive practice and expertise developed throughout the school, to recognise that. This Government are determined to improve that provision in mainstream schools.

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

My Lords, earlier this year, schoolteachers got a fully funded 5.5% pay increase, but no such award was made to college staff, even though most pupil-premium students in the 16-plus age group are in colleges. How do the Government propose to address the impact of this unequal treatment on colleges, including the haemorrhaging of skilled staff?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will understand that in FE there is no pay review body in the same way as in schools. The Government were pleased to be able to fund the 5.5% pay increase for schoolteachers. The noble Baroness is right that, although we recognise the enormous contribution of FE staff, we were not able to match the pay for FE teachers on that occasion. This week, we have for the first time extended the retention incentive to teachers in the first years of their careers in FE. Applications for that opened on Monday, and lots of FE teachers have already applied for that. In our discussions on the spending review, we are thinking about and arguing hard for the support that further education needs and deserves, as the noble Baroness rightly said.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Could this mission to promote equal opportunity in schools include much greater encouragement of teaching financial literacy in schools, in line with several ideas put forward by Members of your Lordships’ House?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Having spent 11 years teaching economics and business studies— I am not sure my personal financial literacy quite matches up to what might have been expected from that—I think the noble Lord makes an important point. A whole range of schemes and important initiatives already help in that area, and I am sure that teachers and schools would be keen to support others, as well as what they are able to deliver in the curriculum.

[The Lord Bishop of Sheffield]

My Lords, according to data published by the Education Policy Institute, disadvantaged learners in Yorkshire and the Humber are typically 21.4 months behind their more advantaged learners by the end of secondary school. This is opposed to a disadvantage gap of half that size, at just 10.4 months, in London. What steps will the Government take to reduce such perniciously stubborn regional inequalities in educational outcomes?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right that regional inequalities at key stage 2, GCSE and A-level are not just persistent but, certainly in some of those cases, have become worse. That is why the Government and the Department for Education are absolutely committed to ensuring that, wherever you live in England and whatever your background, you will have access to the highest-quality teachers and the best possible curriculum. This is the reason for our launching the curriculum and assessment review. That is absolutely at the heart of the Government’s opportunity mission.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the latest figures show that 65% of Asian girls and 61% of black girls on free school meals go to university. That is fantastic, and a credit to them and their parents. But the comparable figure for white working-class boys on free school meals is just 15%. Getting on for 70% of young people from some wealthy London boroughs go to university, but the figure is less than 20% in places such as Barrow, Blackpool, the south Wales valleys and Grimsby, for example. What will the Government do to deal with this massive problem of educational inequality?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that white working-class boys are among the lowest-attaining groups in our schools. That links to the point about regional inequality made previously. It is why the opportunity mission is absolutely clear that we need to break the link between background and success. That means more highly qualified teachers in front of our students. It means making sure that children, whatever their background, get to school, are well-fed and are able to learn, which is the reason for our rolling out breakfast clubs in primary schools. It also means that this Government are absolutely focused on raising standards in all our schools for all our children.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Minister talked about regional inequality. Of course, the region, or country, with a severely underperforming educational system is Labour-run Wales, which has seen standards decline and where the OECD has described the education system as having “lost its soul”. That is in contrast to England, where we have seen international rankings improve in reading, maths and sciences. What will this Government do differently from Wales to make sure that we do not see the same decline here?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am surprised, given the efforts that the noble Baroness made when she was a Minister in the Department for Education, that she is quite as complacent about performance in England as she appeared to be in that question. We are still in a situation, in 2024, where at key stage 2 the gap between the highest-performing and the lowest-performing regions remains the same, at 10 percentage points, and where at GCSE, the distinction between the best-performing and worst-performing regions has grown by 0.7 percentage points. So not only are all standards not high enough but we have ongoing, persistent inequality in our system between regions and between people, dependent on their background. With respect to England, this Government will not rest on their laurels in the way in which the noble Baroness seemed to suggest the previous Government would have done. That is why, as I have outlined, whether it comes to teachers in classrooms, getting children into our schools or making sure that we have a curriculum fit for them, we will take action, which the last Government failed to do.

Independent Schools: VAT

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Lords Chamber

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

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for securing this debate and providing another opportunity for noble Lords to discuss the implications of tax changes affecting private schools. I welcome the speed with which those contributing to the debate have rattled through their questions and I will do my best to respond to the points that have been raised. Where I am not able to do that, I will write to noble Lords with those responses, although given that we had three and a half hours on this topic relatively recently I am not sure that any new issues were raised in this debate. That does not mean that I do not recognise the strong feelings that have been expressed.

For the Government, the key implications are to secure the funding necessary to improve the state-funded schools that educate 93% of our children. Our state-funded school system includes more than 20,000 schools in England educating almost 8.5 million pupils. It is to this system that most parents and children must turn to meet their high aspirations—they do not have a choice. It is to this system that any parent can turn if they need a school place for their child—this includes parents of children who have previously attended a private school or may do so in the future. It is this system which already supports the vast majority of children with special educational needs. Most children with education, health and care plans are already educated in mainstream state-funded schools. It is these schools that provide a safe, supportive and nurturing environment, and high-quality education, for most children. It is for all the parents who have no choice that we must focus our efforts on these state-funded schools—this is where our priorities lie.

Ending the tax breaks on VAT and business rates for private schools is a tough but necessary decision. It will generate additional funding—I am afraid I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria—to help improve services, including the Government’s commitments to improve state-funded schools, which includes expanding early years childcare for all, opening 3,000 new nurseries, rolling out breakfast clubs to all primary schools, recruiting 6,500 new teachers, and improving teacher and head teacher training as part of restoring teaching to the career of choice for our best graduates.

It is strange to argue that “£1.5 billion is not that much money and therefore we should not pursue this particular route”. It perhaps explains how we ended up in the fiscal mess that we have done that so many noble Lords opposite are so flip about £1.5 billion.

Many noble Lords expressed concern about the timing of this provision. It was, of course, included in the plans of this Government when in opposition, and was for some time. It was in our manifesto. We have had a consultation on the issue. I and my colleagues in the DfE and the Treasury have held many meetings with concerned groups to listen to concerns and respond to them.

VAT will apply to tuition and boarding fees charged by private schools. I should say to my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours that VAT will not apply to boarding fees in a state boarding school for terms starting on or after 1 January 2025. It is right that we end tax breaks as soon as possible to raise the funding needed to deliver our education priorities.

HMRC will be providing support to schools. Schools will be able to register for VAT following the Budget on 30 October. The Government recognise that, for many private schools, this will be the first time they have needed to register for VAT, which is why there is already bespoke guidance for schools. There will be online support sessions over the coming months to support schools to ensure that the registration process is as smooth as possible for them. That will help schools to be ready to charge VAT correctly and to remit it to HMRC.

I was clear the last time we spoke that the Treasury is assessing the impact of these changes in advance of the Budget. It will publish a tax information and impact assessment, including an equality assessment. The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, wanted an assurance that that would include special educational needs, and it will. On the impact, it is worth pointing out this change does not necessarily mean that parents will automatically face 20% higher fees. The Government expect private schools, as all businesses have to when taxes change, to take steps to minimise fee increases, including through their ability to reclaim VAT that they incur in supplying education and boarding, and, like state schools—which have seen considerably smaller increases in the resources available to them than the increases in fees for private schools—to make savings where necessary.

I know noble Lords feel very passionately about special educational needs, and so do the Government. That is why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has made improvements in special educational needs provision fundamental in our department. We are not willing to accept that the only way we can deal with special educational needs is by providing an opt-out for a small number of pupils. We have sought to ensure that these changes do not disadvantage pupils who genuinely need provision unavailable in the state sector. Pupils who need a local authority-funded place in a private school, including those with local authority-funded education, health and care plans, will not be impacted by the changes because local authorities are able to reclaim the VAT that will be charged.

Most children with special educational needs attend mainstream state-funded schools. Most parents do not have the option to secure support within a private school. It is right that, where parents have the resource to choose a private school place for their child, for any reason—I understand why parents might choose to do that, given the parlous state that special educational needs provision in our schools was left in by the previous Government—they should pay their fair share to support a good state-funded education for every child. Any child with SEN who needs a state-funded place can apply to their local authority. All state-funded schools are used to supporting the needs of children with SEN. With the actions of this Government, I hope they will be even better at doing that in years to come. Parents of children with needs that cannot be met by their current school can request an education, health and care assessment, which can lead to an education, health and care plan. As I have already pointed out, if it identifies that a place in a private school is necessary, that will not cost the parents.

Once again, noble Lords have rightly identified the considerable contribution made to our education and creative sectors by music and dance schools, and choral schools. The Government have been engaged in discussions with schools providing that service. It is because we recognise the enormous contribution made by the eight schools in the music and dance scheme that we already provide access to that provision for talented young people on a means-tested basis. This allows low-income families to access that specialist education, where they have the enormous talent needed to do that.

The right way to manage this is to consider the support that the department provides through our music and dance scheme, rather than through any tax exemption, given the simplification in this system that the Treasury has rightly set as a principle. I know that the department will consider these issues following the upcoming spending review, as will the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office when looking at the continuity of education allowances provided to eligible officials and service personnel.

Once again noble Lords raised the extent to which pupils will transfer out of private schools. There are always some pupils who move between the private and state-funded school sectors. Approximately 50 mainstream private schools close every year, for a range of reasons. Where schools close, pupils may transfer to another private school or move into the state sector. I am sorry, but I fundamentally disagree with the analysis of my noble friend Lord Hacking; all the evidence appears to suggest that the number of pupils who might switch schools following these changes represents a very small proportion of overall pupil numbers in the state sector, and any displacement is likely to take place over several years. The IFS, by the way, is sticking with its figure that there will be a small impact in pupils moving.

Given that private schools have increased their fees— I made this point in a previous debate—by 20% in real terms over recent years, yet we have seen few students moving, it is not unreasonable to suggest that there is an inelastic demand for private schools, and that we will not see the scare stories about pupils having to move which have been part of this debate. All children of compulsory school age are entitled to a state-funded school place if they need one. I know that moving schools can be challenging but, where that happens, local authorities and schools already have well-established processes in place to support pupils moving between them.

I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, that Scotland will be covered by the impact assessment.

Private schools will remain a part of our education system. Most pupils who are currently privately educated will continue to be privately educated. For the small number of parents who choose to move their children from the private to the state sector, we will make sure that there is a place for them. However, most children are already educated in the state sector, and that is where we must target our support and focus our efforts and resources. That is what we will do.