Special Educational Needs

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the average time without appropriate special educational needs support spent by students who have successfully appealed a decision to have an education, health and care plan.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

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

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

My Lords, local authorities are required to carry out any tribunal orders within specified time periods. Data is not collected to demonstrate compliance. However, all local authorities are subject to local area inspections. Children and young people continue to receive support during tribunal appeals. A local authority cannot cease an EHC plan for any young person under 18 unless it determines that it is no longer necessary for special educational provision to be made in accordance with an EHC plan.

[Lord Addington]

I thank the Minister for that reply. However, often it takes people years to get to the process of making an appeal. According to the British Dyslexia Association, if you do not have a lawyer it can then take up to three years to get through, but much less time if you have a lawyer supporting you. How have we got to the situation where the basic government support is available for those who have lawyers and are capable of handling the system? What chance does a dyslexic child with a dyslexic parent stand?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it is important to stress that about only 1.5% of all EHC plans are appealed to tribunal. Of those who decide to appeal, 60% fall away and do not go to tribunal, because their issues are resolved. The other important point is that if a local authority loses a tribunal case, it is not because it has lost the whole case; it is just that the tribunal has taken against one element of the case. That is not commonly understood.

Schools: Swimming and Life-saving Skills

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is one of those debates in which you find yourself rapidly agreeing with everybody in front of you. The basic tenet of it—that swimming is a skill that will save your life and is best learned early—will have nobody disagreeing. The fact that it is a social skill that allows you to do other things is pretty obvious as well. I asked the Minister if he had a list of all those sports you cannot do. The noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, said there were 20. I did not get that far. I just knew that there was a big list of activities which are not available to you if you cannot swim.

There is a little bit of social isolation in there as well, and it is something that is dangerous. It is something which we are supposed to be doing. The noble Lord read out a list of figures I had seen as well. More than a quarter of schools are not doing anything. The Government set targets. How are we not actually implementing this? If we have got ourselves into a mess where a few people are saying, “We can’t get there, we can’t afford the bus fare to get to a pool because the local authority has shut it down because it didn’t have enough budget”, this may go beyond the Minister’s area of control, but this is a factor that plays into it. There is no way that you can ignore the capacity in local government with this figure because most schools, particularly junior schools, do not have their own pool.

We can also say, “What about independent schools? How are we accessing them? How are they helping?”, but ultimately it is still the transport to them. There is a big interaction here going on from the various bits of government and the approaches to it. The prioritisation of this is very important as well. Is this regarded as something that you will have to do, or something that you will fit in round the edges?

When most of these situations come up—usually less life-threatening ones—it is the same thing that is happening in education in other areas, such as the arts, sport, et cetera. An interaction here is of course more direct—“Here is your core, and here are the things we would like you to do”. Learning to swim cuts across this. It becomes a real priority, so the figure of 26% of primary schools is utterly unacceptable. It would be nice to hear from the Minister exactly what we are doing to address that.

I return to the idea of sports, and the idea the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, mentioned, that swimming is one of those activities that are easier to do in later life. If you are in water that carries your weight, you are less likely to damage yourself in various ways. That applies if you are taking exercise, and it is useful for rehabilitation from sports injuries—even for horses—and it is a good way of taking gentle exercise. It is also an essential part of making sure that there is social interaction in many mainstream sports that are readily available; canoeing is one example. How can you get in there and become a part of it? We often talk about mental health problems, and once you are part of that sport, company, activity and focus help. If you take that away, you are cutting off whole bits of activity.

The anecdotage of the Bishops’ Bar comes out. Somebody said to me, “I knew somebody who was a good sportsman and went to live in Australia. He discovered that he couldn’t swim, so he spent large parts of his life watching the rest of his family on the beach as he hid from the sun under towels”. Possibly that is a more jokey part of it, but it is still something that says, “You can’t do it”.

How are we doing on water safety? The fact of the matter is that if you fall into certain types of water, it does not matter how good you are at swimming—you are in real trouble. Deep, cold and fast-running water are things we do not like being in. If you hit cold water, you go into a sort of system shock, where you try to take a breath, and if you are underwater, you are probably not getting out. So training about what to avoid and what not to go near is another important part of this.

How do we train people to make sure that you do not go in there—you do not swim in that small river with a current of, say, a couple of knots, because most people cannot swim against that, and they cannot do it for any length of time? That sort of education is also a key part of what is going on, making sure that you stay safe. It is also a good thing if you are taking it as a social activity, because you will know the limitations of your capacity as a swimmer. This is the sort of information that we need, and we need it early.

We live predominantly in cities, and virtually all of them have rivers running through them; that is probably why they were built there in the first place. We have access to open, cold, running water all the time. Mix that with alcohol—we have a habit of building bars beside these nice bits of water—and we end up with situations where people go in. Something else that comes in here is whether people know—it may cut through the fog of the cheap cocktail—that you should not go for a little paddle in there now, and whether your friends, who are hopefully not quite as far gone, know what to do to get you out and call for help. There is no downside to making sure that we get better figures for making sure that people can swim, and early on. I hope that when the Minister gives his answer, he will be able to do that.

I have one last specific question, which I sent through to the Minister’s office. There seems to be a suggestion in the briefing provided by the Library that those with special educational needs in schools are not getting access to this. Anybody who has suffered me in a series of debates on this subject will know that that is one of my key areas. However, I do not think that we are talking about dyslexics en masse but about specific groups. Are we, for instance, talking about groups of people who are autistic, because they are difficult and people do not want them in that situation, or are other groups included in that because it is not considered that they would benefit? Many people with quite alarming physical disabilities can swim—they can action in water. It might even be easier for them. What are we doing to make sure that they get access as well? It may be of even greater benefit to them than it is for people in the mainstream, because it may be an area of exercise that they can take safely once they have had that initial training. I hope the Minister will have an answer on that. If not, I hope he will write to me, because we should look at it.

I look forward to the Minister’s reply because this is something we should all be working together to achieve. I can see no party-political advantage in not achieving it.

Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating this important Statement. We welcome the fact that the Government are introducing the provisions of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 on the introduction of compulsory relationships education for all pupils in primary schools, and compulsory relationships and sex education for all pupils in secondary schools. In addition, health education is being made compulsory for all pupils in state-funded schools, which is also something that we regard as a positive move in preparing young people for an increasingly complicated world. I have a number of questions for the Minister and will be perfectly content if he wishes to respond in writing if he feels unable to answer them immediately.

The Secretary of State announced that he is making £6 million available for training and resources to support the new subjects, but that averages out at around £250 per school. What does the Minister expect schools to be able to achieve with such meagre additional resources? Can he further provide an indication as to whether these are indeed additional resources or whether they are recycled from within the DfE budget? How many teachers will be trained in the new subjects, and how many schools does he expect to be teaching them, by the date that he mentioned, September 2020?

I agree with the Secretary of State that these subjects are of vital importance, but I suspect I am not alone in wondering what he expects schools to teach less of in order to make room for these new subjects in the timetable.

I understand the Government’s position on the parental opt-out for relationships and sex education, but I have to ask why they would not give a child the right to be included in those lessons at any age instead of selecting what appears to be an arbitrary age at which point the child’s voice will be heard. The Statement says that the parental opt-out could be overruled in “exceptional circumstances”. Could the Minister give examples of what he believes would amount to such exceptional circumstances?

Noble Lords will have read of the dreadful bullying and mental health problems that affect LGBT people. The fact that these issues are included in the draft guidance could be a milestone in ensuring that these people and others can grow up understanding more and living in a safer environment. We are certainly glad that the draft guidance says that these topics must be fully integrated into the curriculum and not taught separately. Does the Secretary of State believe that there are any circumstances in which a school should be allowed to simply not teach LGBT issues as part of this curriculum? Obviously, it would undermine the whole thrust of the provisions if that were the case.

It can be only to everyone’s benefit if we better understand the differing issues that face each of us. I hope these regulations will mean that we can work on a cross-party basis to make that a reality for the next generation.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, following on from the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, I would like to say that I agree with virtually every single one of them—indeed, all of them on this occasion. I also congratulate the Government on having done this. Apart from anything else, this is a good thing; there have been very few things from across the House recently which we have been able to say were a good thing, so whatever else, it makes a nice change. Also, it was announced on the radio this morning—I heard it while having my cornflakes—that certain groups were protesting against this activity. Let me congratulate the Government again; if you had not offended somebody when you did this, it would not be worth the paper it is written on.

I have one or two smaller questions, which follow on from those of the noble Lord, Lord Watson. First, on the tools and the £6 million, the noble Lord hit it absolutely squarely; that is a very small figure for the entire education system. How much ongoing training will be given to teachers in delivering this? Will it be worked into initial teacher training or education, whichever one you want to use? How much CPD will be used? This is a new set of skills that has to be worked into lessons. It will not be that easy; there will be mistakes. How will we look at this and review it? I think this is a very valid question. Do not damage a good thing for a ha’p’orth of tar. Make sure you do this correctly.

Also, when going through this process, can we make sure that the entire system comes around and behind it, so that we can deliver this properly? If we push it off into certain departments, or it becomes something which is normally seen in certain lessons, we will always have problems. It would be very helpful, either today or in some later guidance, to have some idea about how the Government will bring the system around this and how they will work this through.

Last, but I hope not least, I have a question about what it says in the Statement about people with special educational needs. What does the Minister mean by this? Of course, this is my own special area. Which groups is he talking about? Is there some style in this? A few people with autism may have some trouble understanding these topics, but only a few. Somebody with dyslexia may well have no problem with this. What do the Government mean by this? If you do not have the answer now, where will it be presented? The phrase about special educational needs takes into account 20% of the school population, so please give some guidance on this.

Universal Credit: Free School Meals

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 21st February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it might be worth pointing out this week’s ONS statistics, which show a rather more positive figure on employment: 32.6 million people in this country are now employed. That is 167,000 more than between July and September 2018, and 440,000 more than a year ago. We take child poverty very seriously. We also encourage schools, through the use of the pupil premium, to encourage additional recruitment to the programme.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree with the general agreement that a good diet improves performance at school? Taking that on board, would not an Education Minister encourage his colleagues to make sure that more children got free school meals, not fewer?

Education, Health and Care Plans

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the cost to (1) parents, and (2) local authorities, of appealing education, health and care plan decisions.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and draw the House’s attention to my declared interests in the register.

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

My Lords, costs for parents and local authorities will vary, depending on the circumstances of individual cases. Local authorities and families can access free advice and information about SEN tribunal hearings. The vast majority of cases for education, health and care needs assessments are concluded without the need to resort to tribunal hearings.

[Lord Addington]

I thank the Minister for that reply. The British Dyslexia Association has provided me with figures which show that local authorities are having to fork out nearly £10,000 for each of these appeals and that parents are having to fork out over £6,000. “Tiger parents” are winning nine out of 10 of these appeals. Would the Minister care to speculate on the situation of somebody who is on the minimum wage, who cannot afford to spend £6,000 and who does not know how to deal with local bureaucracy, perhaps through having the same educational problems as their child? How well will they cope with this system?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the tribunal process is designed to be as accessible as possible. Parents should be able to appeal and present their case without the need for expensive legal representation; local authorities should also not need to engage lawyers. Free advice and support regarding appealing is available from the tribunal and SEND Information, Advice and Support Services, which exist in every local area. To put this in perspective, only 1.5% of cases are appealed through tribunals, so the percentage is not as serious as is often said. However, we accept that this is an issue, and we are looking at how we can improve it.

Children: Special Educational Needs

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, first I compliment the noble Lord on all he has achieved in his career, starting with a disability. It should be an inspiration to all the children in the system at the moment. I can confirm that the Government are completely committed to helping these vulnerable children. Spending plans beyond 2019-20 will be set at the next spending review, but we are committed to securing the right deal for education, including for those children and young people with special educational needs. More specifically, we are providing education, health and social care teams with legal training. SEND inspections are identifying good practice and where improvement is needed. Parent/carer forums are promoting the engagement of families and putting them at the heart of this issue.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister not agree that the vast majority of those with special educational needs should not be considered for education, health and care plans because they have moderate or lesser degrees of difficulty? These can be dealt with only by making sure that school staff, teachers and teaching assistants, are properly trained. That will save money all round and make the young people’s lives better. What are the Government doing about continual professional development for those people already in the system so that we can meet their needs without their having to go to court?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I completely agree that the first priority is to try to keep children with special educational needs in mainstream education unless they have very severe challenges. To give an example of what we are doing to improve that, we are funding the Autism Education Trust to deliver awareness training for education staff, and we have trained 195,000 people in this programme.

Education: Art and Design

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I am happy to write to the noble Baroness on that specific subject, but I reassure her that, in primary schools, broadly the same amount of time is spent teaching arts as is spent teaching history and geography. Indeed, the number of pupils taking GCSE art and design was broadly the same last year as in 2009-10: 26% then compared to 27% last year.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister consider that we are having to import people skilled in design and technology? Art and design is the gateway qualification, particularly at GCSE. Would it not be in the nation’s direct interest to make sure that we up the number of people taking examinations at this first step?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we have seen a decline in the number taking design and technology specifically, but there has been a major restructuring in the way that exam is taught. We have replaced it with a new food preparation and nutrition GCSE, examined for the first time in 2018. D&T food technology accounted for nearly 30,000 entries in 2017, and a greater number of pupils took food preparation and nutrition and design and technology combined than took design and technology in 2017. So the numbers are not as bad as they look. We offer a bursary for teachers of design and technology of £12,000 for those with a 2.2 or higher, which has been increased from £9,000.

Free Schools: Educational Standards

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when I looked at this debate I expected that we would discover most of the enthusiasm and intellectual drive behind this movement being expressed in this Room. I have not been disappointed. We seem to have everybody who knows anything about the subject here. For the rest of us, finding out exactly where the people who are involved in the free schools movement think it should go will be one of the lessons we will take away.

However, I am afraid I am with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. Indeed, she said much of what I was going to say—and, irritatingly, in a very good style—about the problems. The first is that if we have a lot of enthusiasm, where is the control? As the noble Baroness pointed out, more than 50 schools are closing. I thought, from the House of Lords Library briefing, that 29 free schools had closed in the past three years. We have a fairly high casualty rate. This must call to everyone’s attention that this is not a panacea that will be universally successful and guarantee success.

Once again the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, beat me to it: the fact of the matter is that free schools are a way of creating more academies that has been created by academy trusts. The problems of the academies are effectively going to the free schools. They are one and the same beast. It might be a different way of creating them, but they are the same thing. They are a movement. They have the same types of criteria, so the creature should be seen as one whole. Can we get an idea of how we will look at this?

I remember that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, discussed regional schools commissioners. Indeed, I think it was in this Room that we first discussed some things about them. It might be a good idea to find out exactly what they think they will be doing to give a more strategic focus. The days of the innovative, wonderful parent and teacher-led start-up are probably behind us—or they will occur only very infrequently. The noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, shakes his head, but it certainly has not been the fashion of late. He now nods his head. I wonder how Hansard will deal with that. We must look at what is happening now as a good example of where it might go.

I discovered when looking through some of the briefing about what academies are doing, if we can accept that this is a way into the academy movement, whether independently or as part of it, that we have a juicy little problem of off-rolling when it comes to taking exams. I am afraid that a name that stuck out when I was reading through an article sent to me by the Guardian is the Hewett school in Norwich. I discovered only today—I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, for letting his office know only today—that it is an academy in the trust that he helped to run, or I think was the head of. In one year it lost 20% of its pupils before they took exams. The Hewett school always strikes me because it is the school that I went to, as did my siblings. It is a very big school. It went through days when I was there of being the big comprehensive success story, with a huge sixth form, to special measures. What can go up can go down under any system. I hope that the free schools remember that. Sometimes things can go horribly wrong.

Are the schools commissioners going to look at and check off-rolling to stop the gaming of the system? If they are not, we will miss the group that we should be concentrating on: those who are difficult to educate, who probably do not have the best parental backing, and those with a very high number of hidden special educational needs, which is quite normal in those who fail. Will we look at this? Will the schools commissioners take a lead in this, or are we looking at somewhere else? Will it be Ofsted—although Ofsted cannot look at somebody who is not there? Will we make sure that academies, free schools and everybody else take full responsibility for those people they have recruited and who go through the system? If we are not going to, there is a fundamental flaw here in the way we are being organised. We must address this vigorously.

We have a system which may well have benefits, in a Panglossian way, as the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, would have it: everything for the best in the best of all possible worlds. If the sun is always behind you and everything is going well, any system will do well. If you recruit the right parents and the right students, you will succeed. But when things go wrong is the test of any system: how do you handle the problems and the mistakes? I hope we get a good answer here, because if that is not built into this system, it does not really matter what you do with your successes—your failures will still mar it, probably to the extent that it will have to be got rid of in the end.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, mentioned off-rolling and picked out a single school, the Hewett school—which strikes a slightly raw nerve, as I was the chairman of the trust that took it over. That school was a wonderful example of what we were dealing with in the reforms that we brought to education. The school was built for nearly 2,000 pupils and run into the ground by a local authority. At one point it was the largest secondary school in England, but the local authority hung on to it, delivering appalling education until, finally, when my trust took it over, there were fewer than 500 pupils. It was in chaos. Sorting out such situations, where a trust inherits protracted and entrenched failure, is no small undertaking. That ex-local authority school is a classic example of why the nirvana of so-called local democracy is meaningless in many cases.

We want to go further, to make sure that no one is left behind, by extending the programme to areas of the country that have not previously benefited from it. To this end, we launched Wave 13 last year, targeting the areas of the country with the lowest standards and the lowest capacity to improve. These are the places where opening a free school can have the greatest impact on improving outcomes.

[Lord Addington]

Looking at free schools and academy trusts, off-rolling is coming in. Will we look at why that is happening? I was at the Hewett school many years ago; most of the teachers will now be dead. I do not dispute that it has changed. It was a case of it having happened there and it catching my eye because I had a personal connection. What happens when you off-roll a group of people who are seen not to be achieving and who will damage you in the league table? What structures do we have in place to make sure that that is not happening—and we are not simply dumping them?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

Off-rolling is dealt with in the report by Edward Timpson which will be released quite soon—I think in the next few weeks. I will make sure that the noble Lord gets a copy of it. It certainly addresses all the issues that the noble Lord raises. One point that it makes is that academies are no more aggressive in off-rolling than anybody else in the system. I acknowledge that it is a problem. When I was running my trust, for any permanent exclusion I always said to a head teacher that they had to telephone me personally and told them, “This is a professional failure on your part”. We need to be much more rigorous, but I can assure noble Lords that the practice is widespread also among local authority schools. It is a complicated issue, because there is whole range of categories that a school can use when it shunts a child out of the door. For example, category B is sending a child home to work, although it really wants to get rid of the child. It is a very complicated area, but I will send the noble Lord the report as soon as it is available.

The application window for Wave 13 closed on 5 November. We received 124 applications. A rich collection of potential schools is proposed by a range of groups with a variety of expertise, both new providers and experienced multi-academy trusts. We are assessing those proposals and will announce the results later in the spring.

To answer the concerns raised by my noble friends Lord O’Shaughnessy and Lord Hill, we are planning a further wave, Wave 14, which will continue to put free schools into the areas of most need. Innovation remains key. I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that free schools are different because they start with a different ethos. They have the same legal basis as an academy, but having set up four myself—as I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Watson—I know that they are quite different.

A further 55 special and 14 AP free schools are in the pipeline. Last summer we launched a special and AP free schools wave. By the deadline in October we had received 65 bids from local authorities, setting out their case for why a special or AP free school would benefit their area. Early this year we will launch a competition to select trusts in the areas with the strongest case for a free school.

My noble friend Lord Polak asked about the religious designation of special schools. He is right that they cannot have a specific designation, but they can acknowledge the religious impetus behind their application by registering themselves as having a faith ethos.

Beyond this, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, raised some important general points, in particular about recognising the importance of teachers. I echo the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and others, that that is the key to a good education. We have accepted in full the STRB’s recommendation of a 3.5% uplift in the minimum and maximum of the main pay range—one of the largest increases in 10 years. Last year we published a workload reduction toolkit, and we continue to work extensively with the unions and Ofsted to challenge and remove unhelpful practices that create this unnecessary workload. For me that is the most important issue: most teachers do not feel underpaid but do feel that they are put upon with a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy. That is one of my priorities.

We are also working with Ofsted to produce a new inspection framework. A consultation document will be issued in the next few weeks. The framework challenges the senior leadership teams, during inspections, on the workload that they are imposing on their teachers.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, raised the issue of structures versus standards.

Religious Education

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is a very interesting report. As I started to go through it, I was very impressed by how it designs a method for improving the training of teachers and broadening the information they have.

To start with the practicalities—I will come to my philosophical point in a moment—the report has the right approach: make sure that the people who teach the subject have a good understanding of it; otherwise, you will be trying to push water uphill from a very early point. The fact that we have got into a system where we do not take this subject seriously is probably at the heart of it—it has lost status. The noble Lord will be familiar with the criticism of EBacc. It has downgraded many subjects and religious education has merely joined a list. I am normally in a room supported by people who talk about the creative subjects—things that we make money on. Avoiding conflict and stress in society might be a very good way of saving money but we actually make money from them. However, those subjects are downgraded by the EBacc. The road to hell is undoubtedly paved with good intentions, and, trust me, you are on the road to purgatory when you insist on downgrading useful subjects. I am afraid that the EBacc misses the mark.

I turn to the philosophical point. It is probably presumptuous for a dyslexic—I join the noble Lord, Lord Stone, in the mafia of the mis-spellers; we would take over the world but we forget exactly who we are and where we jotted it down—to point out that the “s” on the end of the term “world views” is where this report scores. The first step towards a more civil and co-operative society is knowing what other people think and how they think. It is deciding that another person is well intentioned or it is thinking that they are wrong most of the time as opposed to evil, whether because of religion, politics or anything else. When we reach out from inside ourselves, politics works well. Those are good things to do, and this report says that we should do them and prepare other people to do them. The methodology is very similar to that devised by—back to the mafia of the mis-spellers—the British Dyslexia Association for training people in schools to deal with those in neurodiverse communities. It is important that there is expertise and support in this area.

If I were an Education Minister, I would instinctively go for two strategies. One would be to hide under the biggest desk in the room; the other would be to punt it down the road. We are talking about making a structural shift. My noble friend Lord Alderdice hinted at one or two of these things, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, suggested that the current system would be okay if only we would put a bit more effort into it. I think that the system is broken. It is out of date and reflects the old times. Politicians tend to be reactive—they say, “That was the problem yesterday. Let’s fix it today”—and we have a system that fixes the problems of some time ago. We have to try to address this situation in a new way, and this document gives us the platform to start thinking about that.

We do not need to reinforce faith. Jedi got on to the census. To the English, religion is a movable feast that does not go down certain tram-lines. It does not even go on branch lines; it is hiking across hills somewhere. Then we have groups that want to acquire an identity. Those of Islamic faith seem to defend themselves and their identity by hanging on to aspects of religion. We have to try to make these people see each other as the norm and not as alien. If you are alien, we can disagree with you and persecute you because you are not us. We are right and, if you are not us, you must be wrong.

This approach is a good one; if the Minister can give us some idea about how the Government are starting to address some of the ideas, I would be very grateful. However, the point of the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice—throwing a few more pounds at the problem, training three or four more teachers and saying everything will be fine and quoting a couple of statistics about a pass rate at, say, GCSE—does not begin to touch this. The important bit will be in primary schools to get the base of understanding.

If the noble Lord can give us some idea, I will be very surprised—it is a difficult question and this may be the opening shot—but primary is where we must put the emphasis on. Understanding will probably lead to great rewards in the future.

Young People

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when we talk about young people in a debate, we tend to go in one of two ways. One is, “It were tough when I were a lad. They don’t know what anything is about nowadays”, and the other is all gloom and dreadfulness. The answer is always somewhere in the middle. We are facing a world that is changing faster than anything anyone in this Chamber has experienced. Through the digital revolution, everything is happening more quickly. I think that the best thing the various bits of government could do is look at how we tell people what is out there and what the opportunities are.

At the moment, we have an entire society that seems to be going through something similar to the familiar story we hear in this Chamber from people who have held office about the red box with the one piece of relevant information tucked away at the bottom. You do not know where it is and you cannot find it. If you understand the systems you are dealing with, you will get the best out of society because the variety of information will come through in waves. If you do not know where to look, you will not. If you have guidance from family, friends and so on, it will help you to get the best out of society. It has always been the case that if you know what you are looking for, you will find it.

At the moment, the huge opportunities of the modern world are often missed because the people we are talking about have no one to show them where to look. There is a changing variety of opportunities in the types of work available in the creative industries, but we are not training people to tell young people how at least to get their foot in the door. If you do not get that sort of information, you stand very little chance of being in a position to exploit what will happen tomorrow. We must at least react to what is going on today.

In my experience, democratic government is at its best when it reacts quickly to what is happening now. Future-gazing has a bad record of getting things horribly wrong, but if we react to what is happening today, we tend to get better results. At the moment, we are not getting the best out of the environment around us because not enough people know how to get into it or access it properly. We need to accept that the old structure of careers guidance and advice, which asks young people what they want to do next, has to be better.

We may well have to provide better structures for lifelong learning in this rapidly changing world, but unless someone tells a young person what is available now and helps them to think about their jumping-off point, they will miss out. If we continue to underinvest in the knowledge of what is out there and the guidance to take people through, the groups with the least input from those around them in the form of family and close-knit support structures will continue to underperform on a massive scale. Unless people are at least informed about what is available, we will not get the best out of them.

I could go on for longer on this subject and one or two others, but I will leave it by referring to a debate from a few days ago. We found ourselves talking about another problem we face today: people going to the gym, pumping themselves up and taking drugs. I could not find anyone who could tell me exactly what these drugs do to you and why they are bad for you. I know that they are bad, but I could not find out how exactly. If that can happen to someone reasonably well-informed, heaven help a 17 year-old who has not been told anything about the subject.