Queen’s Speech

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I will try to get what I want to say into five minutes. What attracts me to the Speech are the things that are not there and one thing that is. The thing that is is the attention given to further education.

I was told when I first came to this House, well over 30 years ago, that we have a major problem with skilled staff at what I think was called executive or technician level—levels 4 and 5, in modern parlance. We have always had the problem that this group is not taken seriously because it does not fit into the regular strands of where we think people should go. We have always thought that there was up to decently skilled craftsmen and then there was A-levels. Our education system has pushed people in those directions.

There is no real argument here. The fact is that we spent so long saying that we must get more people into university—up to 50%—then we said we had slightly too many. We then rediscovered apprenticeships, which really do not have a good penetration rate at levels 4 and 5. We now have something that is addressing a real problem and it has taken us only several decades to get there.

To get this working properly we have a couple of things we have to address. The first is making sure that those people who should apply for these training programmes know that they are not a second-rate option. This can be achieved only by making sure that not only our careers service but parents and teachers know that decisions about levels 4 and 5, generally post A-level, are realistic and will actually get you fulfilling employment. They should be seen not as university-lite but as something different and worth while. This will take a structural change in the way that we educate our educators to pass on this information. We have to make sure that someone says that it is a valid way forward, that people get something out of it and that it is not a second option.

The Government have an idea about having a package—okay, it is not a loan. Just about everyone else who has spoken has said that it would be better if it was some form of grant or entitlement, or a package of money to spend on training, but it has to fit into a structure. The Government are talking about this, which is good.

Indeed, before I go on to this, I must declare that the Government have asked me to become an FE ambassador, I think due to my experience in special educational needs. I have something from this group, which has already had an initial meeting to feel out the ground. I mentioned special educational needs. It recognises that it has duties and commitments there, but there is one big problem: we are not even identifying most of those with moderate special educational needs in our system. There is no argument about this. The current set-up in schools—you have a budget that you can take out of the school once you identify a need—is working against this. To get an idea of what we are saying, 10% of the population are dyslexic. I am dyslexic. There are many other issues, such as dyspraxia, dyscalculia and autism. Those at the moderate end, who do not stand out and do not have the tiger parent ripping at the system, do not get identified because the system has very little incentive to make sure that they do.

To show how just how bad that is, there are lots of specialist legal firms to make sure that one gets the identification, but they struggle to get the education and healthcare plans that give one legal status to achieve it. When we put the legislation through the House, we assumed that many people would not need it in order to get assistance. Now they do. The Government lose between 85% and 95% of the appeals which local government spends more than £100 million fighting to achieve identification. There is a horrible hole here. I do not know how many of the population—perhaps 15% or 20%—are covered in this area but those groups will underachieve.

If further education is to get the best out of the system, one has to make sure that it works properly in order to get those people identified. If that does not happen, one runs into problems. It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, is not here but we went through great pain, which I inflicted on the House, to make sure that, in order to get an apprenticeship, if one was dyslexic one received assistance in getting an English qualification. One had to write to get the qualification; and that could not be done by voice recognition technology because people did not know about it. I shall stop there.

Covid-19: Pupil Referral Units

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that many children who end up in these units come from backgrounds where they do not have supportive families and people who are keen on education? Does the Minister also accept that these are the groups in which undiagnosed special educational needs—I remind the House of my declared interests in this field—do not get spotted until much later, if at all, and probably in the prison system? Do the Government have any process by which to pick up on the backlog of identification caused by the pandemic and the missed school experience?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, it is precisely for those reasons that we must consider AP in the context of the SEND review and work out why some conditions are not being spotted early enough. For instance, it seems that in an all-through setting—we now have some all-through schools—spotting it in early years or reception is vital to the educational progress of those young people. As I have outlined, we need to look at why so many young people with these needs are ending up in alternative provision and with late diagnosis of conditions.

Family Policy

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the current Minister for Children and Families, the right honourable Vicky Ford MP, works across government on many issues—for instance, online harms, at the moment, and the issues that have been raised by Everyone’s Invited. The independent Children’s Commissioner today launched her Big Ask to talk to children about their experiences. The group that the noble Lord outlined will get a reply from the Prime Minister, but it is beyond my pay grade to comment further.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is a degree of confusion about who takes the lead in various family issues? What decisions will be made about which departments lead on certain problems? For instance, if it is finance, will the Department for Education or the DWP lead? What is the process by which that decision is made?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, decisions are made on an issue-by-issue basis. As I outlined in terms of care leavers, the dual chairmanship of that is clear. It is important there is also a degree of flexibility so that, as issues arise, a responsible Government are able to work across departments. For instance, the Home Office, DCMS and the Department for Education have been meeting in regard to safeguarding in schools. I have a meeting with the Home Office on violence against women and girls this afternoon.

Education and Training (Welfare of Children) Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is one of those odd Bills where, when you look at it, you think, “You mean you actually need this? We missed this as we went through?”. I have probably been here too long and become cynical, but I said, “Right, what is the horror story behind this? What has gone wrong?”. Apparently, nothing has. This may be more by luck than by judgment, but nothing has gone wrong, so I commend everyone involved in this for taking action before they absolutely had to, because we are far too often very reactive.

I hope that, if we see something like this, all of us will bring it to attention and that the Government will respond in the same way. Everyone involved in this should take some credit for this: the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, the people who did this in the House of Commons and those involved going forward.

When she sums up, can the Minister—or the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, whichever is more appropriate—give us a bit of an idea about how it came to be and was spotted. That would be helpful going forward. Looking down at education, especially further education, and when you look through this and some of the changes that have taken place, it is understandable that it happened. However, the fact that we went through this without something going badly wrong does not mean to say that we will get away with it next time. Responsibility and being able to have an overview will be very important.

Further education is a very complicated area that spills into both secondary and higher education and connects in odd ways. This should have been done in the first place. I congratulate all those involved on seeing this and changing it, and I congratulate the Government on not fighting it but helping it get through. However, please can we have an overview of the process of finding this and what we will do to make sure that other oversights like this do not occur in the future?

Having said those rather grumpy and petulant words, I hope that the Bill gets through quickly because it is clearly needed.

International Women’s Day

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords—or should I say “my Ladies and Lords” in this debate?—I feel a little like the forlorn hope on the outside here, being the first of the male of the species to speak. The subject that brings me to this debate is one which I have touched on over many years, and I remind the Committee of my interests. It is those with neurodiverse conditions. These start with dyslexia, which is the biggest group, but there is an impressive list to run down: attention deficit disorder, the various parts of the autism spectrum, dyscalculia, dyspraxia—the list goes on.

What has happened traditionally is that the diagnoses among males were far greater than among females. These were seen in the past to be male-dominated conditions. We now know that this is not true. Indeed, with dyslexia, we have touched a little barrier since we are now getting almost as many females diagnosed as males. The Government might take some pride from that but we should realise that we are still missing the vast majority, even while doing it in a gender-balanced way.

The real problem comes with the other conditions such as autism, dyscalculia and dyspraxia—try saying all of those without stumbling. Many of the conditions and the ways that people express them tend to be more prominent in males, especially when it comes to people who are higher functioning—the condition does not impair them quite so much. We think this is not because of the male or female brain but because that is taught behaviour.

Somebody with ADHD who is male tends to act out; they tend to be seen and will disrupt the classroom, where we would first hope to spot that. It has been said that a girl with this condition has been told, “You don’t—you internalise it and keep things down.” She may express the problem by doing things such as playing with her hair, or little tics such as constantly organising her desk. A boy with autism who puts a train set across the middle of his floor, where everybody can see it, in exactly the right order is obvious; a girl who brushes the hair of her dolls 100 times each and every night, obsessively, is not.

Again, the odd thing about it is that where the condition is milder and intervention can enable them to interact with society better is also where you miss it. This is because we are not training people to spot it, or spot it well enough; they wait until something comes out and shouts at them. It has been described to me as like someone saying “Pick out the equine quadrupeds” when you are trained only to recognise zebras: you only see the obvious.

I can go on about this issue at considerable length but I have only 40 seconds left—less now. I hope that the Government will pay attention to this. During lockdown, restrictions have been placed on education. There will be more, shall we say, misdiagnosis and a greater lack of awareness about this problem than there is now. I hope that the Government will take this on board and start to address it because it is vital, for these people to function in later life and avoid things such as mental health problems, for them to be spotted and told about the condition so that they can put coping strategies in place.

Education Return and Awarding Qualifications in 2021

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord, as I have outlined, about the harm that we all know of in terms of education loss, and of course the harm for certain vulnerable children who have remained at home and what we sadly expect will be a period of referrals to children’s social care after schools reopen. In relation to education, I do not need to say to the noble Lord that it really is a devolved matter. All I can say is that schools in England are reopening in accordance with PHE and CMO advice.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, would the Minister agree that, if you are going to do an assessment on work that has been done by people going forward, it is very important that the teachers involved know the patterns of the people they are dealing with. If somebody is dealing with, say, a moderate dyslexic who underperforms in essays et cetera—I remind the House of my declared interests here—they might not be in the best place to make the assessment, given that condition, and this might be carrying on for virtually anybody with a special educational need. The teachers may not have the experience to assess what they will do, and these groups often outperform in exams. Will there be an appeals process that goes forward and takes this on? It is a real problem and, as we get better at identifying it, it is a growing one.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, obviously many of the mitigations that certain children with special educational needs need in terms of extension of time in exams are not obviously going to be relevant under this system. There is a short list at the moment of assessment materials that teachers can take into account; it is not just “sit an essay”. There is are a range of materials and we would and do expect and hope that teachers will know, in circumstances such as the noble Lord outlines, which materials to set for children with those particular needs. I will write to him about whether there is any specific aspect of the training that exam boards will give in regard to special educational needs students and the outperformance in exams that he outlines.

Schools: Exam-year Pupils

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to permit exam year pupils affected by the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to repeat that year of study.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, the department and Ofqual are working at pace to provide clarity to the sector on how grades will be fairly awarded to all pupils following the decision that exams will not go ahead as planned. The Government will also collaborate with the education sector to develop specific initiatives for summer schools and a Covid premium, alongside developing a long-term plan to support pupils to catch up during this Parliament.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. Does she agree that everybody has experienced disruption in their schooling and that it has been worst, as was referred to in the first Question today, for those on the lowest incomes, who often have least access to online capacity? If there is a need for people to retake the year, will the Government make sure that such pupils can access the help that they would have got—for instance, from the state through child benefit and other methods? Will they make sure that such help is available for those groups who have the lowest economic status and who will probably need the help most?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is correct. That is why part of the catch-up premium will be made available to all schools, recognising that all children will be affected. However, the effects are disparate, and some vulnerable children have been in school for the entirety of the school year. Under the system at the moment, head teachers in exceptional circumstances can allow a child to repeat a year and that remains the position. I am sure that noble Lords will be aware of the complexity that would arise if cohorts were to repeat an academic year.

Skills for Jobs White Paper

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I am grateful to hear the noble Lord’s own career history. I think the institutes of technology are the first examples we have of the HE sector working with the FE sector in STEM with local employers. He is right that we want to see parity of esteem, but the situation we are dealing with is that for decades this country has not been like many of our European partners in valuing these technical qualifications. That is what we need to level up at the moment. There are degree apprentices, and I believe that Minister Keegan is the only Member of the other place with a degree apprenticeship. It is important that we got T-levels validated for UCAS points, so that they are also an access point, and you will see them merging in. This is a work in progress, but the most important thing in this country is that we respect technical qualifications. That is the first job we need to do and a clear ambition of the White Paper.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I should first remind the House of my declared interests in the field of education. There is a great deal here about bootcamps to get people ready for study. I believe these are designed to help with things such as basic skills as well. Will some consideration be given to those with special educational needs in how these are structured? Anybody who was around when we did the last Education Bill knows how much time we spent making sure the dyslexics and others were allowed to actually get apprenticeships, while also having some realistic form of saying that for the English qualification you have got to get through. In this world, when we talk about technical skills, the answer is usually on a programme that is built into your computer software. That is there. Are we going to accept that that is used to acquire these skills, and will we make sure that when we are training people in technical IT skills they know how to access and integrate it?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, in relation to special educational needs, I will go back and look at that. We are into the second procurement phase of the bootcamps and I will make sure that he is given the details in relation to special educational needs. In relation to what we are trying to focus on with level 4 and 5 qualifications, employers will be in the lead on the standards. I want to be very clear to the noble Lord that if what they outline for that qualification is to give the learner the knowledge, skills and behaviours to do that job and there is no additional English and maths requirement, that will be the framework. I hope that encourages the noble Lord that it will not be the case that “You must have passed x exam”. With the employer in the lead looking at those qualifications, if they say those are the functions and what you need for the job, there is to be no additional English and maths requirement.

Schools: Exams

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, obviously education is a devolved matter within the United Kingdom, and Northern Ireland is still planning examinations, so there will have been different decisions at different times. In normal circumstances, exams are the best way to assess the education that children have been given, and we held out, as we believed was appropriate. It was a last resort to close our schools. We are keenly aware of the mental health and well-being implications for young people, hence why schools are open for vulnerable children at this time. We have not abandoned mass testing, because there are children in school. This will be a period in which schools can roll that out for students and staff who are there with a view to it being rolled out to primary schools and with a view to reopening as soon as the public health situation allows. That mass testing may be necessary at that point in time. We have closed the schools as a last resort and will reopen them as soon as public health allows.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interests and declare another: I have an 18 year-old daughter who was actually set to be taking her exams this year, and I can confirm that, even for somebody like her who was expected to do well, there is stress.

Looking at other groups, students who sometimes overachieve in exams—generally the males of the species and particularly those with special educational needs, and who, for instance, might be able to dictate to somebody for the first time in an assessment—what plans have been made to make sure that these people are allowed to progress? Are we going to make sure that extra places are available in the next stage of their education in the foreseeable future?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, on the cancellation of exams for this summer, the consultation by Ofqual will include all the factors, including the ones that the noble Lord outlines. We know that although there was generally, percentage-wise, an inflation grade last year over the previous year, there are certain groups—sometimes disadvantaged students, sometimes BAME students—whose predicted grades are less than what they actually achieved. This consultation will enable those factors to be part of that assessment as to how we fairly assess the performance of our young people who will not be sitting exams.

Covid-19: Social Mobility

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I also have the privilege of being the Minister for Women, and we are looking at the entitlement to flexible working. I am also pleased that we are focused on ensuring that the economic recovery is for women as well. We have been encouraged by how the digital skills boot camps have not only met targets for women’s participation but exceeded them. I am pleased to say that, in April 2021, the national living wage will be going up 2.2% to £8.91, so we are looking to help women in particular gain the advantages of the economy recovering.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Would the Minister give a thought to people who have failed in the examinations system, who will increasingly become unemployed and present themselves for benefits? Could some assessment be made of whether they have commonly occurring educational problems such as dyslexia and dyspraxia, so that they can have a form of assessment and thus start to implement at least basic coping strategies, if not educational programmes?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, as part of our response to the pandemic, the Government are investing £900 million in additional work coaches. We have also made £100 million available for high-value courses for 18 and 19 year-olds who might leave college when there are no employment opportunities. That is in addition to the digital skills boot camps and the online skills portal that we have set up, so we are providing opportunities and supporting more work coaches. We have invested more in the careers service, as well, to help with the issue that the noble Lord outlines.