Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I intervene briefly and echo the support for all those who have spoken about the problems with the powers of the Secretary of State. I come back to a point made slightly earlier about the lack of detail in the Bill, which does not provide a framework for what should follow in regulation. Some of us who have followed the health brief throughout the Covid era know this all too well.

I will just give noble Lords one example of where things went wrong. Nothing gave any guidance to the Health and Safety Executive about how its responsibilities would be carried out. There were Covid enforcement powers for local authorities, Covid enforcement rules for the police and everything else, but whenever anyone went to the HSE to ask it what they should be doing, there was no role for it at all. In fact, on at least two occasions Ministers brought back regulations because they were not working in the field. One might say that in a pandemic mistakes will happen, but because there had not been a framework in the Coronavirus Act it was not clear what the Government were trying to achieve by those objectives.

The worry is that Bills keep coming to your Lordships’ House with so little detail in them—this may be the most recent and most egregious example—that it will be impossible to safeguard everything, and even for this House to do its job should we get to scrutinise them properly, because we just do not have the framework that the front of the Bill sets out for us.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, I draw to your Lordships’ attention my relevant interest in the register as the deputy chairman of the Inspiration academy trust.

Although I have been here for nearly five years, this is my first experience of dealing with legislation as a Back-Bencher and I am completely flummoxed by the process. The Bill has been introduced with no consultation with the sector and there has been a promise of a regulatory review that has not even begun, so it has landed like a lump of kryptonite among all of us who are trying to educate children in the system. That is why I have asked my noble friend the Minister to just step back and kill off these 18 clauses so that there can be some proper reflection.

When we have such a backlog of legislation, I find it extraordinary that we are going to waste days and days grinding through pointless clauses. I defer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and so on about all the constitutional stuff, but I know how much this country needs to legislate on important things, and I am going to have to go through the 20 paragraphs of Clause 1(2) and explain why none of that stuff is necessary. In the education system we all know that it is not necessary. If it needs to be clarified, fair enough, but in my two years as Academies Minister I used the Academies Financial Handbook. Every year I amended it; I consulted the sector and we basically squeezed out the mavericks that my noble friend Lord Baker refers to.

A few days ago we had a bizarre conversation with our noble friend the Minister and her officials. I asked how many there are left—I knew there were problems. They said 1%. We are going to spend days going through this for 1%, without having had any consultation and without any regulatory framework in place. I do not understand that, so I urge the Minister, however uncomfortable it might be in the short term, to back off and reconsider. I understand that it might need a write-round, but take the hit early because this is going to be very messy. I think there is enormous consensus across the Chamber today. We have at least three previous Academies Ministers and a previous Secretary of State for Education. We all come at it from different perspectives, but we share one overriding objective: to improve the quality of education. I hope the Minister will listen.

There are really only four things that the Government, sitting in their ivory tower, should worry about: good governance, sound financial management, good educational outcome and the highest level of safeguarding. That is where they should start. The Government have four organs to achieve those things: bureaucrats sitting here in Whitehall; the regional school directors—although they have just been renamed—out in the field; the ESFA, which is the financial organisation that oversees the financial capacity of the academies; and Ofsted. We have to mesh those together and show the sector how they should work. That should be the starting point.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

Given the noble Lord’s relatively recent experience as Academies Minister, can he clarify, using those four things, how he would have gone about dealing with the 1% that is the basis of our having to legislate, as the Government would put it?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

That is a very good question. I can tell the noble Lord candidly that when I arrived in that post in September 2017 it was more than 1%. In my first few weeks in office, I was probably getting three or four cases a month of maverick trusts on the brink of failure financially and basically, as my noble friend Lord Baker said, putting a gun to my head for a financial bailout. By the time I left, we had virtually eliminated that. I did it through what was then called the Academies Financial Handbook—it is now the Academy Trust Handbook—by absolutely binding the ESFA tightly together with the RSCs, so that whenever they met a MAT or a single-academy trust, the two people were in the room. I bang on about the money because if you get the money right, you have the resources to educate properly. That is how I have always managed the process, and we achieved it.

I accept that there are different views of Ofsted and that Ofsted is not perfect, but one thing about Ofsted is that the brand value across the sector is very strong. People respect it—they might resent it—but there is a mechanism to appeal if you get a report you do not agree with. Everyone in the sector largely accepts that it is the arbiter of good education.

When I left, the ESFA was an extremely effective organisation; it knew where the money was. I know that noble Lords opposite me do not all agree with academies, but the financial reporting and transparency of the academy programme is infinitely greater than those of local authority schools. An academy trust closes its books on 31 August. It has to file audited accounts in four months, by 31 December; ordinary companies have nine months to do that. That is not a requirement in the local authority schools and it provides huge scrutiny. You pick up the warning signals. If those accounts are not filed on 31 December, I used to get a weekly report on who was late and how late they were, and went after them. If they were late filing their accounts, you knew there were problems. By the time I left, we had got that down to a very small number.

I do not want to bang on about all this detail in this Chamber—it is not fair on noble Lords. I just want the Government to back off on this. There are some important things in this Bill—the homework and home schooling stuff—which are absolutely vital. I saw that agony when I was here, in my noble friend’s place, when we had a Private Member’s Bill and it was suffocated. This is a huge problem, getting worse all the time. Let us get that sorted out. This is a crucial problem, not to be sorted out in a rush. My noble friend has been bounced; the Bill Office has just said, “You’re the first cab in the rank in this new Session, get on with it,” and she has not had the time to do the job properly.

I am going to stop here, but I want to thank my noble friend the Minister. I think that she has been given an impossible job; she is bending over backwards to listen to everybody here, and I want to extend my courtesy to her and say that I will do anything I can to help.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

We do, of course, have the ability to recommit a Bill to Committee if there are substantial changes to it.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support my noble friend Lord Lucas on protecting these freedoms and to try to cross the bridge between the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Knight. I managed those interventions with the powers that already exist. The freedoms that my noble friend Lord Lucas proposes go to the heart of what academisation is about. I will give noble Lords one tiny example. In Norwich we have two primary schools four miles apart. In one school they speak 25 different languages and the other is in an old-fashioned 1950s council estate—a totally different dynamic where a totally different approach to education is needed. Is that to be decided here in an ivory tower in Whitehall?

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I apologise for missing some of the earlier speeches; the ones I heard were very helpful. I support this group of amendments because it emphasises the question of freedoms. The one thing I had agreed with the Government on in the past—there has not been very much—was the emphasis on the kind of freedoms schools would have, which is why I am completely bemused by what has happened with this Bill.

The other very important thing has been raised in other comments, which I would like the Minister to take away. If you tell anyone outside this place that there is a Schools Bill and you are talking about schools, interestingly enough they say, “What are the Government proposing for schools? What is the educational vision?” I have talked to teachers, parents and sixth-formers and they say, “What’s the vision?” I have read it all and I say, “There is none, other than that the Secretary of State will decide that later on.” Because there is no vision, these amendments really matter as they give a certain amount of freedom to people who might have some vision, even if I am not convinced that the Bill has it. I was glad to see these amendments.

Adoption Support Fund

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for securing this important debate to discuss the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Adoption and Permanence’s Investing in Families report on the adoption support fund beyond 2020. I am also grateful to him for his constructive and helpful approach.

The ASF was introduced in 2015 to improve access to much-needed therapeutic support for adopters and their children. It is reassuring to hear that those who participated in the inquiry think that it is largely achieving that aim. Tens of thousands of families have been able to access support that they would not have been able to without the fund.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, queried the longer-term funding outlook for this success story. The Government have increased funding year on year; it has twice the original budget now and that will rise further next year to £45 million. Already, £140 million has been released to support families.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, is worried about some of the bureaucracy. It is absolutely part of our approach to continually challenge the structure of these sorts of arrangements, and if any noble Lord participating in this debate has any specific concerns about excessive bureaucracy, asking a question several times or generally being inhospitable to people, I would be pleased to hear of it. It is a personal mission of mine to try to simplify all the government bureaucracy I deal with and make it accessible to as many people as possible.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, also asked about the annual application requirements. It is something we are going to look into beyond 2021. We originally introduced a maximum of 12 months’ funding to ensure the appropriateness of the therapy received and that we are linked to the health service. Another point for the noble Lord, Lord Watson, who is always a hawk on funding, is that today we announced a substantial local authority settlement. It has gone up from £46.2 billion to £49.2 billion for 2021. That is a 4.4% increase and the biggest year-on-year increase in a decade.

The APPG report asked about future funding, which we have just discussed. We committed in our manifesto that adoption would remain a key area and the adoption support fund would continue. As noble Lords are aware, all departmental spending after 2021 is subject to a future spending funding settlement. My right honourable friend the new Chancellor of the Exchequer will be very busy on that from today, but we recognise that this fund is making a difference.

None the less, in line with the approach taken last year, I confirm that, from July 2020, families will be able to start nine months of therapeutic support, even if it does not end until after March 2021. This transitional arrangement will continue until the outcome of the spending review is confirmed. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, rightly says that the feedback on the fund has been good. The evaluation of the fund found that the majority—84% of parents surveyed—felt that the ASF had helped their child and made the adoption placement more stable and less likely to break down. It showed that there has been a statistically significant improvement in adopted children’s behaviour and mental health. This includes parents’ understanding of their children’s needs and meaningful improvements in parents’ well-being.

I am particularly pleased that the report draws heavily on the lived experience of children, young people and their families, social workers and therapists. It is always important to hear how the policies we make affect those on the ground. Ninety per cent of children and young people said that the fund had helped them significantly. It is encouraging to hear that the fund has literally been life-changing for many young people and their families.

The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, asked what the Government are doing about the problems of children with potential multiple diagnoses. It is important that children who have experienced trauma and loss have access to high-quality specialist assessments that result in an agreed support plan. In recognition of this, we have made an additional £2,500 per child available this year, through the ASF, for specialist assessments. The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, also asks about overseas adoption. We have included new duties for virtual school heads, specifically to look after that cohort of vulnerable children. In 2016, we extended the eligibility of the adoption support fund to families who had adopted from overseas.

The report shows how the fund has been working and what more we can do to improve it. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, asked about take-up of the fund. So far this year, 88% of applications have related to adopted children and 12% to special guardianship children who were previously in care. We have seen an almost fourfold increase in applications involving special guardianship children since the fund was opened to them in 2016. The fund does not collect data on income. However, I will write to the noble Baroness with any more detail we have in the department.

The APPG has identified a number of areas that are being considered carefully, as we think about the fund’s future in the context of the spending review process. The noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Watson, raised a few of these issues today, and I will attempt to give the House some initial views. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, stressed the need to improve prevention in families, and I wholly agree. This links to comments from the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, on general improvements and is one of the purposes of our £84 million innovation programme. We certainly do not intend to stand still in any of these areas.

I will not be able to cover all the recommendations, but I can assure the House that they are all being considered. We are taking immediate action on some of them. For example, we are increasing awareness of the fund among eligible special guardianship families and an information leaflet that has been developed in partnership with the Family Rights Group, Adoption UK and Home for Good will be launched shortly. This will be made available for all local authorities to share with the families they are working with.

On the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Russell, about extending access to the fund to new groups of children, we will look at the report’s recommendations. However, we do not want to duplicate support that should already be provided elsewhere—for example, when a child is in the care system. We will have to consider the consequences for the fund’s budget of any extension to new groups, and that is why we will consider those issues as part of the forthcoming spending review. The noble Lord also raised the issue of establishing a board of clinicians in the Department for Education to provide clinical oversight of the support provided by the fund. We have always consulted clinicians on what therapies can be provided and we will carefully consider whether setting up a new board would be helpful in that process.

Ensuring that the application process is as streamlined as possible has been a priority for us. The number of applications has quadrupled in the five years since the launch of the fund. Recently we put in place a new, improved application system designed in conjunction with feedback from users, but I also refer to my earlier points on continually challenging that process.

Our annual survey of local authorities about the system showed that 78% are satisfied or very satisfied with it as compared with just 26% last year, which is an impressive 300% improvement. Another issue raised in the report is that of the delays in getting initial assessments completed or services in place. These issues are being addressed through the regional adoption agencies. The report rightly identifies that the fund alone cannot meet the needs of all families. It should form part of the support offer for children and families. We agree that more work is needed to ensure that a genuine multi-agency approach is taken when providing support.

The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, mentioned siloing. This is a problem across the whole of government, but I am delighted to report that we are seeing growing success through the regional adoption agencies. We now have 22 up and running, and between them they cover 109 local authorities. We are actively working with the remaining 45 or so to encourage them to join in and participate.

This debate has highlighted the success of the fund since its launch five years ago. It also highlights the need for practice around the fund to continue to evolve and improve. Nationally, we will endeavour to increase awareness among special guardians, and as I said earlier, we are already taking action to address this.

Lastly, I want to take this opportunity to look at unregulated settings, which is a key issue for some children who remain in care. These can be an important step towards independence for older children, but we are concerned that they are not always good enough. That is why yesterday the Secretary of State published a consultation to invite views on a set of new measures. The proposals include introducing new checks and balances into the system, including national standards for providers and measures to drive up the quality of provision. We are keen to hear views on these proposals and the consultation will be open until 8 April.

I was certainly very moved to hear the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester about his personal experience of the fund. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, was right to end his comments by reminding us that these children did not choose their circumstances, so we must do everything possible to improve their lives.

Children in Care

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Laming]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to prevent children in care being placed in unregistered accommodation far away from their home local authority.

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

My Lords, where local authorities place children in independent and semi-independent settings, they must ensure that these are suitable and meet the needs of young people. Ministers have also reminded local authorities of their duty to keep children safe. This is even more important if they are placed out of area. The Secretary of State made this expectation clear in his letter to local authorities last year. We continue to consider where further action is needed.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister. I know that he shares my concern about the increased number of children who are being taken into public care, and the effect that that is having on their well-being and development. It is especially worrying that an increased number of these children are being placed in unregistered accommodation, often many miles from the local authority that is responsible for them, simply to put a roof over their head. Will the Minister assure the House that this new Government will give priority to the well-being, safety, care and education of these very vulnerable children?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I assure the House that this is a priority area for the Government. We committed in our manifesto to a review of the care system, which will cover key issues facing vulnerable children and young people. The Government have invested £5 million from our innovation programme to develop new approaches to care placements. This includes supporting local authorities to increase their capacity in residential care and to improve their commissioning practices.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, what priority is given in the guidance to placing children near their homes?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it is always a priority to ensure that children are placed as near to their home as possible. However, there are certain circumstances where this is not wise, such as getting them away from the impact of gangs or where there are deep disputes in their family—but the emphasis is very much on keeping them locally. We have two initiatives, Staying Put and Staying Close, which are both aimed at keeping children locally. Staying Close encourages foster parents to keep the children in care beyond the statutory age, and that is starting to work.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I commend my noble friend and the Government for their continuing efforts to enable more looked-after children suited to boarding education to obtain places in our state and independent boarding schools. How does the cost of a place in a boarding school compare with other types of provision for looked-after children?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, this is an area of particular focus for me. I have made a lot of effort over the last two years to encourage local authorities to be more open-minded about the possibility of boarding school places for children who are being—or who are at risk of being—looked after. The independent sector has offered 40% bursaries for children in these categories. If that is taken into account, it is substantially less expensive than the normal routes that a local authority might take. We have also seen indicative evidence that the educational outcomes are far stronger for many of the children who go down that route.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, half of England’s £8.6 billion children’s services budget is spent on the 73,000 children in care. Surely the two key questions are: why are there so many youngsters in care; and why are cash-strapped local authorities and hard-pressed social workers being driven to take this course of action, which, in my experience, none of them wants to do?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

On the noble Baroness’s issue about funding, we have made the tremendous commitment of an extra £1 billion a year to adult and children’s social care for every year of this Parliament. We have also invested a further £84 million in targeted and evidence-based interventions to improve the support provided to vulnerable children. The decision on when to take a child from his or her birth parents and put them into the care system is enormously difficult and complex, but it often has to be the case because of disintegrating family circumstances. I assure the House that the decision is never taken lightly.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, what action are the Government taking to assess the mental health consequences of placing a child in care outside their home local authority area?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the mental health of these children is extremely important. One recent initiative we have introduced is the role of virtual school heads, who become the overseeing official for a child who is looked after in his or her school setting. We are seeing that that is starting to work. They have control over the enhanced pupil premium, which allows funds to be spent on such things as additional tutoring and mentoring, summer and weekend schools and additional support to schools for these vulnerable children.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not sure that the Minister has grasped the seriousness of this issue. He referred euphemistically to independent or semi-independent homes. These are homes that are unregistered, in some cases illegal, and beyond the purview of Ofsted. It cannot be right that thousands of children are sent there each year, with minimal checks on who is providing the accommodation. Ofsted reported two weeks ago that it had discovered organisations that were, in its words, “gaming the system” by setting up short-term arrangements to avoid registering as a children’s home. That cannot be right. I have a simple question that the Minister will not have to refer to his trusty ring-binder for: how can it ever be acceptable for a vulnerable child to be placed in an unregistered home?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am afraid it is not quite as simple as the noble Lord would like to suggest. He is quite correct that Ofsted has carried out 150 investigations in the last year, and alongside this it has tightened up requirements under its inspection regime for local authorities to share how they monitor children in unregulated provision. However, the reality is that we have an increasing number of older children in the care system who do not want to be in a traditional fostering situation and want semi-independent living. That is one of the reasons for the increase in this category.

Looked-after and Adopted Children

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review support for children looked after by local authorities and those children who are adopted.

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

My Lords, we are committed to undertake a review of the care system. We are already implementing substantial reforms to improve outcomes for this most vulnerable group of children and young people. Alongside the reforms, we are providing councils with an additional £1 billion for adult and children’s social care in every year of this Parliament. The review will allow us to go further in ensuring that children and young people have the support that they need.

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, I am grateful that this much-needed review has been announced and I trust there will soon be details of a specific timetable, not only for the review but for its implementation. In the meantime, what are the Government doing to ensure that 16 and 17 year-olds vulnerable to county lines exploitation are always housed in safe, stable and appropriate accommodation? Are the Government confident that councils have appropriate resources?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is right that an increasing number of older children are going into care, and their preference is often to go into less-regulated accommodation. County lines is a phenomenon that has arisen over the last five years and we are now acting strongly to deal with it. In October we announced £20 million of targeted investment to increase our efforts against county lines, and £5 million of that is already in operational use.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, almost three-quarters of children in care live with a foster family. Those families are the unsung heroes of the system, providing a vital service at minimal cost while saving the Treasury countless millions, something that the Minister might care to acknowledge. Ofsted recently reported that 60% of children in children’s homes are placed there from outwith their local authority area, and research by the Children’s Society highlighted the fact that children in out-of-area homes are much more likely to go missing from care. Surely the interests of the child should be at the centre of all decision-making when it comes to placements, but that seems to be lacking. Can the Minister offer an assurance that when the review to which he has referred takes place, it will take an in-depth look at placement policy?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord is right that 73% of children in care are with foster families and that such families are indeed heroes of the system; in most cases they provide stable, loving homes. We have also learned that the longer that a child spends in one home in continuity, the better his or her life chances are in future. We are concerned about children being placed out of area, but there are often legitimate reasons for it, such as taking a child out of exposure to a local gang or a difficult family environment that he or she needs space from.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

How far have the Government got with their plans to enable more looked-after children suited to a boarding education to gain places in our excellent state and independent boarding schools?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, this has been a particular passion of mine. We have created a unit called Boarding School Partnerships, which is encouraging local authorities to engage far more with boarding schools. We even have an offer by many of the independent schools of a 40% bursary for looked-after children. A study recently carried out by Norfolk showed the longitudinal outcomes of looked-after children or children on the edge of care, and they achieved far greater educational results and indeed often came off the register completely.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister said, these are the most vulnerable children in our community. They are four times more likely to develop mental health conditions. Surely it is not acceptable that 65% of all looked-after children receive support within local authorities whose services are deemed to fall short of what is expected. Can we have a clear statement from the Minister that this will be tolerated no more?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we certainly do not tolerate the failure of children’s services and local authorities. We have made a great deal of progress over the last five or six years. For example, Birmingham was a failing children’s services institution for 10 years but is now out of that. Likewise Doncaster, where we created a trust, is now greatly improved.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, as a former family judge, I am well aware of the very considerable problems that many adopted children and their families have in settling together. What will the Government do to help adoptive families and adopted children when there are mental health and other serious issues?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we have created a large number of initiatives over the last few years. For example, the adoption support fund has provided £136 million since 2015 and has helped some 50,000 families. We have also committed a further £45 million in 2021 to provide therapeutic support for adoptive and eligible special guardian families through the same fund. The regional adoption agencies, through which over 70% of local authorities deliver their adoption services, are creating a system through which children are matched with adopters as quickly as possible and with the matches that are best suited.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

The noble Lord did not address the last part of the question from the right reverend Prelate about the adequacy of resources for local authorities to fulfil their duties. Will he answer that part of the question, please?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, as I mentioned, we have provided interventions when local authorities have failed, and have seen 47 local authorities improve in their Ofsted inspections over the last five years and not revert downwards.

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

Could my noble friend outline the Government’s plans to increase the number of adoptive and foster families that are prepared to take disabled children, both under and over the age of four?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My noble friend is right that children with any kind of mental or physical disability are harder to place. The key is to try to get these young children placed as early as possible. Our scorecard will be published shortly, which shows the progress that local authorities are making across the country.

[The Archbishop of York]

My Lords, I declare an interest. Margaret and I adopted a brother and sister; Davina was three and George was eight. Their long-term stay with us depended on a wonderful social worker by the name of Ruth. She visited regularly and was able to talk to our two children and the adopted children. Davina is now 33 and George is 38. They both have good jobs and are working very well. The key is really an increase in the number of social workers who can work closely with adoptive and foster families. However, I have not seen this. If we really want to care for young children who have been fostered or adopted, we need to increase the number of sensitive, able and capable social workers. Without them, relationships tend to go wrong.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it is certainly true that we have a huge demand for good social workers. This is also about establishing that as a profession and giving it a higher profile, which we have done over the last few years. We are also using interventions such as the Early Intervention Foundation, a charity established in 2013, to champion and support the use of effective early intervention. We funded this foundation, giving it some £2 million in 2018-20 to assess, evaluate and disseminate evidence. I entirely accept that good social workers are crucial.

Schools: Excluded Children

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to improve support for children excluded from mainstream schools.

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

My Lords, every child in this country should have the opportunity to receive a decent education. This includes children in alternative provision, many of whom are vulnerable or disadvantaged. To help achieve this, we will expand alternative provision schools and improve their quality so that their pupils receive an education on a par with their mainstream peers. Special and alternative provision will continue to be an integral part of the free schools programme.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. However, exclusions from mainstream education have increased dramatically over recent years. County lines gangs and drug gangs generally target these vulnerable children as they emerge from their pupil referral units. They are sitting ducks for those criminals. Will the Minister initiate a review within government of the urgent need to provide professional mental health care and help with communication problems for children identified as at risk of exclusion? The important point is to keep children in mainstream education while addressing their often severe mental health and other problems. This will cost money, but it will be a fraction of the hundreds of millions which would otherwise be spent on police, courts and, most particularly, prisons, as these children pursue a lifetime of drug-related crime.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, to put things in perspective, the level of exclusion has remained broadly stable over the last 15 years at 0.1%. However, I take on board the noble Baroness’s comments. More needs to be done in mainstream education, which is why we are announcing and rolling out our behaviour hubs to try to stop children being excluded. The quality of alternative provision also needs to be improved continuously to deal with some of the issues that she raised.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister knows, the problem is that many excluded pupils go into unregistered alternative provision. In many cases, this does not have simple things such as a register or safeguarding procedures. One of the reasons this happens is because local authorities, which are responsible for this, choose unregistered provision because it is cheaper. They say that they have a quality assurance regime. Will the Minister liaise with Ofsted and the Local Government Association to make sure that this quality assurance regime complies? Finally, where are we up to on a register for all children who go missing?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Lord raises a good point on the link-up between the Local Government Association and Ofsted. I certainly recommend that the Local Government Association write to HMCI to outline the issues that the noble Lord has raised. There should be a closer join-up. Essentially, such a school is illegal if it has more than five pupils and is teaching a full curriculum—that is the bottom line of an unregistered setting. If there are failures in the two linking up, that needs to be improved. We have announced a broader review of the whole SEND system, on which we will provide details soon.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, far too many pupils are expelled from our schools today and it is a disgrace. Teachers want to get rid of their most difficult children, particularly to improve their exam results. Should not the Government look at the whole principle of exclusion and see whether it should be more strictly monitored? The schools that I promote—university technical colleges—very rarely use exclusion. We work with disengaged and difficult children; we train them properly so that they can have a better life and get a job.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I acknowledge the great work that my noble friend is doing with UTCs, and he is right that they have attracted an excessive number of children who are more broadly off-rolled rather than excluded. As I said in answer to an earlier question, the level of exclusion has not spiked particularly; the more pernicious practice is off-rolling. In the new inspection framework that Ofsted rolled out in September, much more focus goes on to that and a school’s rating can be adversely affected if evidence of it is found.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I was pleased to hear the Minister support the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. Further to that point, children with special educational needs and disability account for almost half of permanent exclusions and so-called off-rolling, often in situations where parents are encouraged to remove their child from school for reasons more beneficial to the school than to the pupil. Last year, the Government commissioned the Timpson review, which contained the recommendation that the Department for Education should ensure that schools were held responsible for children whom they excluded and accountable for their educational achievements thereafter. The Government accepted all 30 of the Timpson recommendations. What steps have been taken to ensure that head teachers cannot simply wash their hands of children whom they take off the school roll?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord raises a very good point and is correct that the Timpson review made a number of recommendations that we accepted. Work is ongoing to look at the feasibility of its implementation, and we will make announcements on that shortly. On an expelled child being rated back to the school from which he or she was removed, in theory it is a very good idea, but we need to be careful because it will obviously depend on the quality of the provision where he or she was sent, and it would not be right for the referring school to be penalised. More active thinking is going on with our larger academy trusts about creating their own APs so that they own the problem. In the longer term, this is probably a more useful solution, as it means that the system is better joined up.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, some of these children have mental health problems. What are the Government doing about delays with CAMHS?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble and learned Baroness is right that mental health is a more prevalent issue among these vulnerable children. In our Green Paper Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health published in December 2017, we made various commitments, including the creation of mental health support teams and 25 trailblazer sites delivering 59 mental health support teams by December 2018. Those teams are expected to complete their training by the middle of this year and will be fully operational following it. A further 123 mental health support teams will be introduced in 57 sites over the next 24 months.

Children: Rights and Well-being

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following their ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, what plans they have to promote children’s rights and well-being across government departments in this Parliament.

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

My Lords, we remain strongly committed to delivering a framework of actions across government to promote children’s rights and well-being. We have successfully delivered a range of measures, including establishing a UNCRC action group and launching a children’s rights training package and an impact assessment template across the Civil Service. We will continue to promote these tools during 2020, including via the action group.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, which I find worthy but somewhat incomplete. Is he aware that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the UK ratified in 1991, had its 30th anniversary last year? Is he also aware that in 2016 the Committee on the Rights of the Child reviewed the UK’s record of achievement in relation to the convention as regards, for example, children in care, child mental health, youth justice and child poverty? We were criticised for having no overall strategy or action plan for children, as recommended in the convention. The next review of the UK’s achievement will be in 2021. Will the new Government take the opportunity to set up before 2021 a committee to form an action plan and strategy for children across government departments, with a lead Minister to oversee it, to assess and improve our performance in helping children thrive and achieve? There is much support and enthusiasm for such action across the children’s sector. How will the Government respond?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, there is a broad range of work across government that promotes children’s rights and well-being, which is set out in the report that we provided to the UN in November last year at the conference to mark the 30th anniversary of the UNCRC, as the noble Baroness mentioned. The report summarises the work of 14 government departments. My department has strong working relationships with other departments on children’s rights. I am confident that these will continue in the run-up to the next reporting cycle in 2021.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the chair of Feeding Britain. We recently saw new and disturbing academic research. Children in Britain who are on free school meals are allocated £2.20 or £2.30, depending on where the school is. It has come to light that councils are now so broke because of the cuts that they are taking around 50p of that allocation for their needs. When the money then gets to the school, it is also so broke because of budget cuts that it nicks another 50p. This is not malice but just need. In too many instances now, the actual value of the food that we are serving to our hungry, needy kids—as is their right—is 82p. Can the Government assure us that they will look into these figures and ring-fence that amount? Food is always the bit that gets cut, either by a hungry mother or, in this case, a hungry council.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I am certainly happy to look into the figures that the noble Baroness refers to. If she has any example of a local authority where she feels that excessive amounts are being top-sliced away from food provision, I would be interested to hear of it. I have not seen examples of that myself.

[The Lord Bishop of Rochester]

My Lords, I have two particular groups of children in mind whose well-being is often compromised. The first are those who have a parent or other primary carer on the cusp of going into custody. What plans do Her Majesty’s Government have to ensure that sentencers, including magistrates, are aware of the new guidance from the Sentencing Council on this matter? On looked-after children, what intentions do Her Majesty’s Government have to further promote the vocation—it is a vocation—to become a foster carer or an adopter?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

On the right reverend Prelate’s first question, I will certainly check with officials that the justice system is aware of the provisions that he refers to. Looked-after children is an issue of increasing priority for the Government, as was mentioned in our recent manifesto, and I completely agree that they are one of the most vulnerable groups in our society. One of the initiatives that I have encouraged, for example, is the far greater use of local authorities teaming up with boarding schools which offer 40% bursaries to encourage some of these vulnerable children to join their institutions. We have seen evidence of a dramatic improvement in the life chances of those children.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, with a 28% increase in the number of children in care, a 53% increase in the number of children on child protection plans and, as we heard yesterday, a 70% increase in the number of children being excluded from school, are we taking our obligations seriously?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we are committed to social care; it is one of our top priorities. In the settlement for 2020-21, we see the largest rise in core spending since 2015; a real-terms increase of 4.3%. On top of that, we are investing £84 million in targeted, evidence-based interventions to improve the support provided to vulnerable children and their families and to enable more children to stay at home, thriving with those families.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, in 1996, I had the privilege of representing this country at the congress that took place on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Stockholm. We in this country were proud of our presentation on that occasion, and we should continue to be proud of the efforts we have made in relation to the rights of the child, both domestically and elsewhere. Is it not a good idea that we should perhaps have a more comprehensive review, to make sure that we bring together in a more co-ordinated fashion all the elements throughout our departments which protect children?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I agree with my noble friend that this is a continuous effort that needs to go across government. We know that government can be weak across departmental initiatives, and I completely agree that we should do everything we can to strengthen that.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, in view of the recent High Court judgment that the exorbitant fees charged to children who register that they are entitled to citizenship are unlawful because due regard was not given to the best interests of the child, what steps are the Government now taking to ensure that all government policy-making gives primary consideration to the best interests of children, in line with the UN convention?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we are confident that we comply with all the main conventions of the UNCRC. A recent CRAE report praised the work that we are doing in government. I quote from its summary report:

“More encouragingly, the Department for Education … has taken positive steps to raise awareness and understanding of children’s rights across Whitehall and to encourage policy makers to take children’s rights into account in decision-making.”

Children in Public Care: Unregistered Accommodation

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, the Government take unregistered and unregulated provision extremely seriously. I cannot imagine a situation where it is acceptable for a child under the age of 16 to be in an unregistered setting. We are working with Ofsted, local authorities, the Children’s Commissioner and others to tackle this. Ofsted has conducted 150 investigations into unregistered providers this year. Ministers have reminded local authorities of their duty to keep children safe, particularly if they are placed away from their area.

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for that encouraging response. I am sure he will agree that, when a local authority takes a vulnerable child into public care, it has a duty in law to be a good parent to that child. Surely it is little short of outrageous for a child who has not had the best start in life to be placed in a caravan or a narrowboat without proper support. Even worse, these children will have been separated from their wider family, friends and school, as they are often placed miles away from their homes. Surely in this day and age this is unacceptable. Will the Minister do all he can to stop it happening?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I completely agree with the noble Lord. Any cases such as those he has just cited are tragedies. We are doing a great deal to try to help local authorities. We are funding a programme called “staying put”, where a young person continues to live with a former foster carer, and are providing funding for “staying close” to be piloted in eight areas. To date, we have provided over £110 million to local authorities to support them in implementing “staying put”, which has helped thousands of care leavers to transition more smoothly from care to independent living.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, there have recently been reports in the media that cared-for children of 16 and over are being placed into accommodation with young offenders. This cannot be right. Can my noble friend say exactly what numbers we are talking about and whether this is accurate?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I cannot give a specific answer to the noble Baroness, but I will write to her if the numbers are available. I certainly agree that it is a tragic error to place a vulnerable 16 year-old in accommodation where they can be subject to any harm. The idea of the post-16 provision is to try to provide a pathway to more independent living. That is why we have a slightly different arrangement for those children or young people.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of a recent UNICEF report on developed countries which places the UK 16th out of 21 in relation to the well-being of children? Children in care are part of this. Will the Government take account of the UNICEF report and do something about all children so that their welfare is protected?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is entirely right that looked-after children are some of the most vulnerable in our society. I mentioned in my Answer to the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Laming, some of the things we are doing, but there are also a number of other initiatives under way: we are providing £5 million from the £200 million children’s social care innovation programme to develop new approaches for care placements and making seed funding available for seven partnerships to test new approaches for sufficiency planning and commissioning in foster care.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, it is quite clear that, despite the Minister saying that he did not like young people being unsupported when going into care, it is happening. It is quite clear that the Government will need a cross-departmental approach to deal with this. Can the Minister give us some idea of how this approach has been structured across the Home Office and the Department for Education and when we can expect this practice to be removed?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite correct that this will need a great deal of inter- departmental co-operation and discussion. It involves departments such as the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government as well as the Department for Education. We are all working closely on a number of initiatives to try to improve the situation, as I outlined in my previous answer to the noble Baroness.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, this month marks the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. If the Government could finally incorporate that convention, would that not make such cases less likely?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I am afraid that I did not hear the beginning of the noble Baroness’s question because of the interruptions. We have a number of initiatives; this is a matter of great concern to us. At the moment, for example, the Secretary of State is considering changing the guidance to local authorities on the placing of children under the age of 16 in unregulated settings.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I applaud the Government’s “staying put” programme, but I press them on the issue of children being placed way away from their local authority. The incidence of children being placed outside their local authority has increased by 77% since 2012, which is the highest level on record. Will the Minister look at an emergency action plan to address this matter, carried out by the Department for Education and local authorities, to ensure that there are sufficient, appropriate, good-quality local placements for young people in care, as Ann Coffey MP strongly recommended in the other place recently?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Earl is correct that the “staying put” programme is having a positive impact: around 35% of 18 to 20 year-olds are still living with their former foster carers, and 55% of children in a foster placement are now still with them on their 18th birthday, which is an improvement. On “staying close”, again, I agree with the noble Earl that there are one or two situations when moving a child out of the area is important—for example, to get away from gangs or from county lines drug-trafficking— but we are trying to help in this area. We are initiating a move-on accommodation offer in suitable and sustainable accommodation, located as close as possible to their former children’s home, as well as a package of practical and emotional support provided by member of staff from the young person’s previous children’s home, who are providing some continuity in support during the transition to adulthood.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pinnock]

My Lords, over 75,000 children are currently in the care of local authorities, and 88 children are taken into care each and every day. That is the highest number in the last 10 years, yet in that same period funding for looking after children has dropped dramatically. The Local Government Association —I declare my interest as a vice-president—has shown that there will be over a £3 billion gap in funding by 2025. The small addition of funding that the Government have provided will not close that gap. We can all complain and be concerned about care for children, but funding is essential. What will the Government do about it?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, as I said in answer to earlier questions, we are very aware of this sensitive area, but we are providing additional support. For example, we have a £40 million capital grant programme to increase the number of beds in secure children’s homes, and we have a number of initiatives on a regional basis. We are supporting: Havering to create a sub-regional approach to commissioning residential placements; Croydon for sub-regional commissioning for looked-after children across eight south London boroughs to increase patient choice: and in Essex, there is an initiative to set up alternatives to residential care by providing targeted support to those on the edge of secure care.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I have some experience of the situation in which a child is sent from one local authority to another and there is a gap in information. Is the noble Lord aware of that, and can he do something about the situation in which the local authority from where the child came loses interest and the new local authority does not know sufficient about the child?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

As the noble and learned Baroness will know, all local authorities are subject to Ofsted inspections on the level of social care that they provide, and these are the sorts of issues that are addressed. Indeed, officials from my department met the Ofsted National Director for Social Care only today to discuss issues of this kind.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, in his earlier answers my noble friend referred to the Secretary of State “revising the guidelines”. I put it to him that that is urgent and must not wait until 12 December. Can he give an undertaking that those guidelines will be looked at forthwith?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I commit to my noble friend to go back to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State today to seek clarification.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, for how long have Ministers known that these children were being placed with minimum cover in these caravans, and what action are they now taking to ensure that the practice is stopped?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

As I said in answer to an earlier question, the quality of social care provision is inspected by Ofsted—

[A noble Lord]

How do you know?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

If noble Lords are asking me personally, I am not the Minister for this area; I was given the Question an hour ago.

Vocational Education and Training

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I am pleased to answer the Question for Short Debate and to thank my noble friend Lord Bridgeman for creating this opportunity.

This Government are committed to ensuring excellent educational outcomes for all children whatever their backgrounds. All young people should get the opportunity to reach their potential, whether that be through an academic or a more vocationally focused route. I agree with my noble friend Lord Bridgeman, and indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, that technical and vocational education has for too long not been given the focus it deserves. As a result, the content of vocational qualifications has too often been misaligned with what employers actually want. This is why the Government are putting employers at the heart of our work to build a new, world-class education system.

We are developing T-levels. They are rigorous qualifications for students aged 16 to 18 who want to study subjects that will prepare them for skilled jobs. Crucially, the content of T-levels is being set by employers; some 200 have worked with us in their creation, so students taking T-levels can be sure that they are gaining skills that businesses are looking for. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, are concerned that we are now rolling these out. T-levels will include a broad core of underpinning knowledge. They will include English, maths and digital skills as well as other transferable skills. They will attract UCAS points equivalent to three A-levels and students will be able to progress into higher education.

In answer to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, we are conducting a wider review of post-16 qualifications with the aim of streamlining the vast number on offer. Our apprenticeship reforms have been focused on quality, ensuring that the new employer-led apprenticeships reflect what today’s businesses really want and need. All this supports the Government’s aim of overtaking Germany in the opportunities that we offer to those studying technical routes by 2029.

On soft skills, my noble friend Lord Bridgeman and the noble Lord, Lord Young, asked about support. I rather agree that the term “soft skills” underplays the importance of those skills that you need to engage in a career. We are providing £1,000 for both employers and providers taking on 16 to 18 year-old apprentices and eligible 19 to 24 year-old apprentices, which allows them to provide support on what are currently called soft skills. If anyone wants to suggest a better term, I would be very open to that.

I regret that I will have to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, my noble friend Lord Baker and several other Peers today on the EBacc. The Sutton Trust did some research on 300 schools a couple of years ago, looking at the impact of the EBacc on children. It showed that the average grades in English and maths rose by 0.2 and 0.4 of a grade respectively, with the five A to C pass rate improving by 1.2%. Pupils who attended the schools were also 1.7% more likely to be taking an A-level or other level 3 qualifications. Pupil-premium students benefited most from the changes in these schools, essentially because low and middle prior-attainment students increased the take-up of EBacc subjects most. As a result, the pupil premium gap closed more in schools with similar pupil intake demographics, including a six percentage point narrowing of the EBacc gap.

We want students to have the option of studying technical and vocational subjects before the age of 16. That is why we deliberately designed the EBacc to allow for the study of additional subjects. Our Progress 8 school performance measure takes account of the results that pupils achieve in up to three technical and vocational qualifications alongside their GCSEs. However, it is critical that the vocational courses that students take at key stage 4 are of high quality and as vigorous as GCSEs, and that they have real value in terms of progression on to further study and employment.

Several Peers asked about careers advice. We are working closely with the Careers & Enterprise Company and are making good progress in delivering the careers strategy. We have extended the enterprise adviser network of senior business volunteers across the country. Over 2,200 schools and colleges are now matched to an enterprise adviser. We have established 40 new career hubs, meaning that around one-quarter of secondary schools and colleges in England will now benefit. We have made over 1,300 career leader training bursaries available for schools and colleges. We have introduced a targeted set of funds for disadvantaged areas focusing on personal guidance, SEND and vulnerable young people. Of course there is more to do, and it is our aspiration for all the services to be available to all secondary schools. The careers budget in 2021 will be confirmed after the conclusion of the department’s business planning process.

In 2011, the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, conducted a review of vocational education for 14 to 19 year-olds. It found that the system of vocational education at the time was failing many young people. A large proportion of students were on courses that had little or no market value, and it was seen as a second-class route aimed at the less able. The Government announced a number of reforms in response to the Wolf review. These changes included ensuring that only those vocational qualifications that were the most valuable for young people in terms of their content, assessment and progression would be recognised in performance tables. The Wolf review found that a broad-based academic curriculum at key stage 4 was the best way of keeping pupils’ options open. It accepted that for some pupils a proportion of curriculum time might be used for other options.

The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, asked about exclusions—there is a connection there, as I recognise. However, it is important to stress that the number of permanent exclusions is still extremely low. At 0.01%, it is lower than it was 10 years ago. We have consulted on the issue of off-rolling, which I suppose is an ugly first cousin of exclusion. We are clamping down on it. The new Ofsted inspection framework requires much greater scrutiny of any off-rolling-type behaviour in schools.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, asked what support we are offering for employers in other work placements. We have expanded the role of the National Apprenticeship Service to provide a matchmaking service. In May, we announced a £7 million employer support fund pilot to trial the provision of financial support to employers across different industries.

Virtually every noble Lord, but particularly the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Storey, and my noble friends Lord Baker and Lord Kirkham, said that they feel that the vocational route does not get the status it deserves. I completely agree. I think we have overcooked the rather lazy mantra of encouraging children to go to university whatever the cost to them and whatever the quality of the course they are studying. We are starting to change that. As someone who did not go to university, I am passionate about this. I am one of seven children and only one of my siblings went to university. We have all managed perfectly well without it. This is the beginning of the push-back.

We know that for some students technical and vocational education at this stage of their education can help to motivate and engage them, as well as opening their eyes to potential options for future study and careers. To address the point made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, evidence shows that for pupils in state-funded mainstream schools in 2017, taking a technical award was associated with lower absence and exclusion rates.

Despite the reforms following the Wolf review, concerns remain regarding the quality of some of these qualifications. In recent months, the department has been working with Ofqual to consider what more needs to be done to ensure that we can have confidence that these awards are of high quality. Ofqual launched a consultation only last week on finding a way to achieve this. I am confident that this will lead to further improvements in the quality of technical education at key stage 4 in the future.

It would be wrong to omit reference to universal technical colleges and to not pay credit and tribute to my noble friend Lord Baker. I have spent more time with him than any other Peer in this House in the last two years. Strong UTCs are succeeding in equipping our young people with the skills businesses need, getting them into employment and creating a future pipeline of skilled workers. Several noble Lords referred to the Baker clause, including my noble friend Lord Bridgeman in particular. This is a new clause that came in only during the summer of last year, so we cannot expect universal take-up straightaway. However, I completely accept that not enough schools have taken it seriously enough, and we will be taking a tougher approach with them. We surveyed a number of schools recently and 76% stated that the duty is being partially complied with. A further review this summer found that compliance, although patchy, is improving. In January of this year, a report from the IPPR contained similar findings: 70% of providers found it difficult to access schools in their area, but one in three said the situation had improved. I am not complacent, and we will continue to put pressure on schools to be more open to this.

My noble friends Lord Baker and Lord Bridgeman asked about the size of the skills gap. In September, we announced that a new skills and productivity board will be established to provide the Government with expert advice on how to ensure that the courses and qualifications on offer to students are high quality, are aligned to the skills that employers need for the future and will help increase productivity. We are also establishing skills advisory panels across the country, to bring together local employers and skills providers to understand and address local skills challenges. In tackling skills gaps, the Government’s role is to support the skills market in making it more responsive to demand. We are doing this by delivering a long-term programme to reform the post-16 skills system.

My noble friend Lord Bridgeman also asked what the Government are doing to introduce children to trades in the first two years of secondary school specifically. Schools must support young people to understand the education, training and careers options open to them. The work must start long before students reach that point of decision. Careers advice should inform and inspire them from an early age. That is why the Government expect all schools to provide careers guidance from year 7—

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. I asked a specific question about the challenge facing employers in responding to T-levels and the 45 days of work experience that they have to provide. They are also expected to support apprenticeships. That is the challenge they are faced with. Some are saying that they cannot do both. If the Minister cannot provide the answer now, I would welcome some further response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I am certainly happy to write with more detail, but the National Apprenticeship Service is working with 12,000 employers to deal with the challenges the noble Lord quite rightly raised.

I am conscious that I am running out of time. An area I want to address is the development of institutes of technology. These will be high-quality education providers, delivering high-level technical education with a clear route to high-skilled employment. We have committed to 12 of these and eight more are due to follow. We aspire to having one in every part of the country in due course. The idea is a collaborative model involving partnerships of existing FE and HE institutions, operating at regional and sub-regional scale, focusing on STEM subjects, with 50% of planned provision relating to engineering and manufacturing.

This debate has highlighted the importance of robust vocational and technical qualifications. My noble friend Lady Bottomley is right that a lot of work is in play and we are tackling prejudices that go back more than 100 years. I hope that the range of actions that I have set out demonstrates how serious the Government are in continuing to strengthen technical education to support young people. I believe that the tide is turning for vocational routes.

House adjourned at 8.16 pm.

Education: Special Educational Needs Budget

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take further to the recent survey of local authorities in England which found that since 2014 approximately £400 million has been diverted from mainstream education budgets in order to pay for special needs education.

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

My Lords, we allow transfers of up to 0.5% from local authorities’ mainstream school budgets to pay for special needs education. This requires agreement from the local schools forum. Larger transfers must be approved by the Secretary of State. Next year we will increase high needs funding by £780 million. This increase in a single year should be compared with the reported £73 million that local authorities transferred from mainstream schools to high needs in 2018-19.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the survey by the Times laid bare the extent to which local authorities are desperately trying to compensate for the lack of resources provided by central government to enable them to meet their funding requirements under the 2014 changes for SEND pupils. Yet even after the raiding of mainstream education budgets, thousands of SEND parents are left in despair as they attempt to get the support that their children need and are entitled to. It is no good the Minister referring to the election sweetener of additional funding for SEND, which is obviously too little and certainly too late. Annually, it would meet less than half the needs for special needs provision and would in no way reverse the cuts of recent years. Protecting the most vulnerable in society ought to be a priority for any Government. Why is it not for this one?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it is absolutely a priority for this Government; that is why we have just announced a very substantial 8% increase per head of population for those aged between two and 18. It is put in place with a 5% uplift to the schools budget, which will also support lower SEN.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that local authorities must accede to, and not obstruct, applications from parents of children with special needs who seek places in independent schools, where good provision is currently being made, usually in small classes, for around 85,000 children with special needs? I declare my interest as president of the Independent Schools Association.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My noble friend is correct that local authorities should not impede parents who want particular solutions. That is why, when the EHC legislation came through in 2014, we put parents much more at the heart of the entire process. We accept that the process has not been without teething troubles and are carrying out a review of it, which we had committed to previously.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, would the Minister not agree that any system that spends tens of millions of pounds on local authorities fighting unsuccessful appeals against EHCPs has fundamentally failed? If you are in a situation where parents have to fight the system to get what is given to them by law, something is fundamentally wrong.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, because while local authorities lose a proportion of these appeals, they do not lose the entirety of each appeal. For example, a parent might win through appeal the right to send their child to a certain school but elements of the support that they asked for would not be granted.

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, several heads in Coventry and Warwickshire have told me about the heavy demands on their energies and budgets from, to quote one primary head, children who are not on the SEN register but face horrific circumstances at home and so need extra help; for example, families who are homeless through domestic violence and children whose mental health is so poor—these are nine year-olds—that they threaten suicide. Does the Minister recognise the pressures on schools in mainstream education from children who do not meet the thresholds of special needs but who nevertheless have severe needs and require acute support? Is he confident that there is sufficient funding for them?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The right reverend Prelate is correct that there seems to be an increasing trend of mental health needs in young people, and I urge all noble Lords who are concerned with this area to look at why this is happening. It is certainly happening, but there is not enough discussion around why it is happening. To restate our commitment, we have increased high needs funding from £5 billion a year in 2013 to £6.3 billion this year and over £7 billion next year. As I mentioned in an earlier answer, we have increased core school budgets by 5%, which will indeed help with the lower levels of SEN not specifically addressed in the high needs budget.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

In respect of children with special needs who require diagnosis and then further assessment—I am particularly thinking of those on the autism spectrum—when they reach the age of nine or 10 and the prospect of having to go on to a more senior school, that is a critical point for parents who are still waiting for diagnosis and assessment. One of the weaknesses is of course the question of the resources of CAMHS. How regularly does my noble friend’s department discuss the particular problems of this age group with CAMHS?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I cannot answer that specific question but I am happy to write to my noble friend on the matter. As I mentioned earlier, we are carrying out a review of the SEN code of practice, which will be completed by the end of next year, and I will ask the relevant Ministers to ensure that that is part of that review.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, the modest increase in funding and the review are welcome, but very many parents and young people are extremely worried at the moment, as are the institutions they are applying to. Would the Minister, with his department, take a look at the serious financial situation of the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford and its potential lack of viability? I declare a historic interest in that I went to the Royal National College in its previous guise.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am very happy to accede to the request of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, to do that, and I will carry out some inquiries.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, can I take the Minister back to the reply he gave to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, on state schools impeding parents from applying to private schools for special educational needs? I declare an interest as I have a grandson who has special needs and who has applied to a special needs school outside the system. In most instances, state schools have to fund these private places, which do not come cheap. Can the Minister give an assurance that these schools, which provide excellent facilities that the state system may not supply, will have sufficient funds so that some of these children can access these services in the private sector?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, part of the reason for the very substantial increase in funding we have just announced is to provide more resources. I certainly cannot promise unlimited resources for all requests, but I believe that the £780 million we have just announced is substantial.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that because of the funding problem for many schools, some primary schools have started to close their premises at Friday lunchtime. Can he now guarantee that all those schools will open for the full five days in quick time?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I strongly object to the policy of the very limited number of schools that are doing this. There is absolutely no need for it; any school that feels the need to do it should write to me so that we can examine the budgets and see how well resources are being run. It makes me extremely angry and it is unnecessary.

Newcastle Upon Tyne, North Tyneside and Northumberland Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2019

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 22 July be approved.

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

My Lords, this order will provide for the transfer of certain adult education functions and associated adult education budget to the combined authority and provides an opportunity for it to help its residents to reach their potential in life and contribute to the growth of the region.

As noble Lords will be aware, six orders are already in force in relation to the combined authorities of Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, West of England, West Midlands, Tees Valley and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough for the academic year 2019-20. In 2018, a devolution deal was agreed between the Government and this combined authority. We made the commitment to fully devolve the adult education budget. This order will deliver on that commitment.

The order is made under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 and will transfer certain adult education functions of the Secretary of State, which are set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, to the combined authority for the academic year 2020-21 and thereafter. This transfer does not include the functions in so far as they relate to apprenticeships or those subject to adult detention.

Across England, the adult education budget, as part of the adult skills system, seeks to improve productivity, employment and social inclusion. It provides vital support to help adults, including those furthest from learning and the labour market, gain the skills they need for work, an apprenticeship or further learning. From August of this year, approximately 50% of the AEB has now been devolved to six combined authorities and delegated to the Mayor of London under separate powers.

The AEB supports three legal entitlements to full funding for eligible adult learners aged 19-plus, without the equivalent of a GCSE pass in English and/or maths and for young people aged 19 to 23 without a first full level 2 or first full level 3. The funding enables most flexible tailored programmes of learning to be made available to help eligible learners engage in learning, build confidence and/or enhance their wellbeing.

People are working longer. The OECD has reported that the average age of exit from the labour market is at its highest since 1970. Automation and technological change will increasingly change sectors and occupations. As people work longer and jobs change, they need to be able to adapt to changes in the labour market in order to stay and progress in employment. This means that the adult skills and lifelong learning education or training that people undertake once they leave formal full-time education becomes more and more important.

Post-16 education plays a crucial part in supporting future economic growth. In respect of leaving the EU, it is important that our homegrown workforce is skilled and able to make the most of the new opportunities that come our way. Devolution of the relevant functions and the associated adult education budget forms a key part of these reforms.

The Government are committed to ensuring that local areas have an active role in shaping the skills provision that is available in their area in order to meet their specific local economic challenges. In particular, departments across government, including the Department for Education, are working with the combined authorities and local enterprise partnerships covering England to help them develop their local industrial strategies. This has allowed us to prioritise the support required in their local economies, including adult skills and lifelong learning.

The DfE has set out expectations for local skills advisory panels behind local industrial strategies to ensure they are informed by robust skills needs analysis. SAPs aim to bring together local employers and skills providers, including colleges, independent training providers and universities, to influence local skills provision by providing high-quality analysis of local labour markets.

The order will transfer certain adult education functions of the Secretary of State in the Apprenticeships Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 to the combined authority in relation to its area and enable the transfer of the relevant part of the AEB to the combined authority. In particular, the following functions will be exercisable by the combined authority instead of by the Secretary of State in relation to its area: Section 86, which relates to education and training for persons aged 19 or over; Section 87, which relates to learning aims for such persons and provision of facilities; and Section 88, which relates to the payment of tuition fees for such persons.

Conditions are set with relation to the transferred functions; in particular, that the combined authority must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State and must adopt eligibility rules in accordance with any direction of the Secretary of State.

The DfE will transfer the relevant part of the AEB to the combined authority to undertake the functions. It will be the combined authority’s responsibility to manage the overall AEB allocation efficiently and effectively to ensure that it delivers for local residents. Prior to this, the department has considered a business case from the combined authority for implementation funding in preparation for the transfer of functions. Through evaluation of the case, the department has agreed to provide appropriate implementation funding to support the combined authority’s preparations and ensure that they can effectively prepare taking on those functions.

From academic year 2020-21, the combined authority will be responsible for providing funding for statutory entitlements for eligible learners in maths and English, up to and including level 2; first full level 2, which is learners aged 19 to 23; first full level 3 qualification—that is, learners aged 19 to 23—and the forthcoming digital skills entitlement. The combined authority will be able to shape the adult education provision that is available to its residents and ensure that the provision best meets local needs.

We talk about the northern powerhouse, and I think we can agree that skills is an essential driver for economic growth in any region. Devolution gives the combined authority the opportunity to address the skills challenges that it faces and to enhance economic growth in its area. The economy of the combined authority is founded on a strong tradition in manufacturing and engineering excellence. Although there has been a transition to a predominantly service-based economy, manufacturing continues to play an important role in both employment and defining the ongoing characteristics of communities. The scale of the challenges faced by the combined authority is significant, most particularly consistently higher unemployment than the national average, lower productivity than the national average, social inequality with pockets of deprivation and a lack of job opportunities in some areas.

Through the order, the combined authority can deliver a step change as part of its strategic skills plan by offering a second chance to learners aged 19 to 23 through first full level 3 academic or vocational programmes and by commissioning providers to deliver a curriculum mix that reflects the changing nature of the local economy and the skills needs in the area, including job vacancy-led programmes. Without this order, the combined authority would be much more limited in how it could address such challenges for its residents and bring about greater prosperity in its region. I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests as a Newcastle city councillor and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

For an area such as the north-east with high levels of unemployment, enhancing the availability of adult education is an important objective. The more our residents acquire skills and education, the greater will be their confidence and that of employers in the region or contemplating investing in it.

It is a matter of regret that this order is confined to the three North of Tyne authorities, given in particular the proximity of Gateshead and South Tyneside—that is not a choice of government; it is unfortunately a factor in the local government world of the north-east. Ideally, the authority should include the whole north-east region, sharing as it does many of the same needs, not least given the likely impact of Brexit should we be unfortunate enough to suffer the Prime Minister’s resolve to leave without the deal that he purports to be pursuing.

The current adult education budget for the authorities concerned is £22.7 million. Do the Government envisage increasing that budget and, if so, by how much and over what period? How does it compare per capita with other combined authorities or other individual local authorities providing adult education?

The North of Tyne Combined Authority intends to use the opportunity to make its own decisions in targeting resources and providing its residents,

“with the skills, education and confidence to benefit from the opportunities that will follow”.

Drawing on the adult education budget, it aims to drive up educational standards by working with post-16 pupils and skills and training providers, and it sees it contributing to the north-east strategic plan and the local industrial strategy.

The combined authority has developed a strategic skills plan and is engaging with the providers of adult education. It has declared its expectation that providers will develop the curriculum and support they offer and focus on learning progression. The combined authority would like to see the Government go further, with a commitment to devolve other functions, especially an educational achievement challenge for the area, as exemplified in London between and 2003 and 2011. Perhaps the noble Lord will indicate whether that is something he would regard as worth pursuing.

The combined authority also seeks greater flexibility in the local provision of skills for residents and businesses. Will the Minister look sympathetically into these suggestions? Can he confirm that budgets will be maintained or, even better, enhanced, given the needs of the area, and will capital funding be protected or enhanced? Will the apprenticeship levy be reformed with a view to regional oversight of a more flexible skills levy?

Important though the provisions of this order are, we must not forget the enormous pressure our schools are under following years of cuts and the effective displacement of local authorities from the provision of the education service, and the enhanced role for academies, many of which have proved to fail their pupils and the communities they were supposed to serve. This was highlighted for me earlier this year when I approached a school in the ward I represent on the city council about a possible grant from a local charity. Expecting a request for something extra, I was dismayed by a request with which to buy books.

School budgets are under enormous pressure, as are staff members. The ratio of staff to pupil numbers has fallen, the proportion of staff making it to retirement has halved and working hours have lengthened. In Newcastle, in the period 2015 to 2019, 74 schools out of 85 have suffered cuts to per-pupil funding of £24.4 million, or a loss per-pupil average of £259. Unaccountable academies, many of which have failed abysmally, dominate the provision of the service in the area.

Welcome though the provisions of this order are, the Government have failed for nearly a decade to protect a key service—key to the life chances of our children and to the future of our economy and our country. Adult education should not be seen as a means of repairing the failings of an underfunded and overstretched school system. Having said that, I repeat the welcome for this provision, but it has to be seen in the context in which it takes place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for introducing this order. As he said, it is of course similar to orders relating to six other combined authorities which we considered in your Lordships’ House almost exactly a year ago. I do not intend to repeat what I said then—at least, not at the same length. I will repeat, however, that the devolution of powers and funding for adult education that this order introduces are welcome. I very much hope that it enhances the provision of adult education in the north-east.

I thank my noble friend Lord Beecham for his local knowledge and for setting out the region’s funding cuts—sustained over the past decade—and what the new combined authority will face as a result. Much effective adult education provision is delivered locally, in line with the needs of communities. As the accompanying Explanatory Memorandum states, the transfer of those functions will assist in providing local areas with a role in,

“managing and shaping their own economic prosperity”.

Spending on education and adult learning needs to be seen as an investment for the long term. To achieve a sustainable supply of skills with the flexibility needed to meet the ever-evolving needs of business, industry and the public sector, the UK must maximise the potential of its existing workforce. That means that all adults of working age, whatever their background or location, need every opportunity to upskill and/or reskill. Learning and earning will make the biggest and quickest difference for the learners themselves, to their families, and to the communities they live in, as well as to employers and the wider economy itself.

A year ago, I referred to the possible unintended consequences of this transition from centralised to devolved funding. I highlighted the case of the Workers’ Educational Association, a long-established and hugely respected organisation of 116 years’ standing and the UK’s largest voluntary sector provider of adult education. I said then and I repeat now that I need to declare an interest of sorts, as the WEA was my first employer after leaving university. More than 25% of the WEA’s 48,000 students are in the combined authority areas, and many of them are from deprived communities that are furthest from the labour market. The devolution of funding could have the unintended consequence of diminishing this provision rather than enhancing it.

In last year’s debate, the Minister recognised the work being done by the WEA and stated that it,

“has a major role to play in delivering adult education and fostering a culture of lifelong adult learning … It is vital that providers such as the WEA make contact with the MCAs”—

the combined authorities—

“and support them so that the local economy and workforce have the skills and expertise that they need for the future. We have provided some guidance to the MCAs for the transitional years”.—[Official Report, 24/10/18; col. GC 85.]

I regret to say that, one year on, some of the WEA’s fears have been confirmed. The organisation has adapted to the new landscape by securing grants and contracts in most devolved areas, though this has not been without the loss of provision in several areas either because it was unsuccessful in its bids, or the new contracts did not support the same range of provision as the organisation previously delivered. As a national provider delivering locally, it remains in a difficult position, seeking multiple grants and contracts against different criteria, often on a year-by-year basis. It should surely be of benefit to combined authorities to acknowledge the level and impact of existing national provision in their area, not only as regards the WEA, and to seek a degree of continuity and gradual transition. It would help if the Government too acknowledged the role of national providers, thus safeguarding against the unintended consequence of destabilising provision, which is already having an impact on local authorities.

I want to raise a matter relating to the Explanatory Memorandum. Paragraph 12.1, under the heading “Impact”, states that:

“There is no significant impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies”.


It would be helpful—indeed instructive—if the Minister were to explain how such a statement could be included when, in paragraph 10.1, the memorandum states that no consultation was carried out. On what basis was it therefore determined that there was,

“no significant impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies”?

I ask this because the WEA is one of Britain’s biggest charities and a voluntary body. It was not asked what the likely impact would be, although of course it made its representations and concerns known to the DfE in advance of the orders introduced last year. It is clear that the impact of this and the previous orders is certainly “significant” as regards its ability to continue its established delivery of adult education.

The meaning of “significant” is of course subjective. Can the Minister say whether his officials assessed the effect on providers such as the WEA and deemed that effect to be not significant? If so, we should be told what criteria were used and at what level the impact would have been deemed significant. I do not expect him to provide these answers today, but I ask him to write to me setting out explanations. For devolution to be fully effective, support must be offered to the full range of providers—local and national—especially those already working with the most disadvantaged.

As the Open University has reported, the real casualties from the 2012 funding changes in higher education have been part-time students in England, whose numbers have since dropped by around 60%. Those who have been most deterred from study by the trebling of tuition fees are not those aged 18 entering full-time higher education but older, especially disadvantaged students. It is apparent that the biggest reason for the decline is the fees and funding policy in England because the scale of the decline in England, where tuition fees are much higher, is two and a half times greater than in other parts of the UK.

The key question regarding the future delivery of adult education concerns how much funding will transfer and how that will affect the ability of the combined authorities to deliver a full provision. The transitional funding in preparation for the full implementation of this order is not clear. The Minister said there was £6 million available in funding for the six combined authorities that were the subject of orders last year for 2019-20 and 2020-21, funded nationally by the Education and Skills Funding Agency. The combined authority for the north-east opted to begin its transition from academic year 2020-21, so will it also receive transitional funding for two years, including for 2021-22? How much will be made available annually?

The spending review announced £400 million for further education, which was widely welcomed within a sector that had been starved of adequate funding over the previous decade. Yesterday we had the unexpected announcement by the Secretary of State of £120 million for eight new institutes of technology. That was without consultation with the FE sector, which is already performing much of what he seems to envisage, so why reinvent the wheel? Simply fund FE colleges adequately and they will do the job that is necessary. But I am afraid that we now seem to have a rather macho Secretary of State who thinks that the role of Cabinet Minister is not demanding enough, so he has abolished the post of Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills and subsumed that remit within his own. I have never been a Cabinet Minister but I am fairly confident that it is a full-time job. I am equally confident that any previous Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills would contend that that too is a full-time job. To downgrade that post and bury it within the Secretary of State’s own portfolio demeans the importance of the skills agenda and the need to expand it, rather than the opposite. Labour will certainly reinstate the Minister of State post, while ensuring that apprenticeships and skills have the funding and the direction needed to play their part in building the economy that the country needs.

I may have departed somewhat from the order, but my final remarks are directly related to the devolution of adult education functions. The last thing required is mixed messages about how we ensure that we provide for the sustainable supply of flexible skills to which I referred earlier. This order is one part of the jigsaw, which is why we welcome it, but much more needs to be done.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this discussion on the statutory instrument. I will endeavour to answer as many of the questions as I can.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked a number of questions on the size of the combined authority region itself. This came out of the devolution deal that was agreed in that part of the country. I am not familiar with the local politics in that part of the world, but there are some fairly fierce rivalries, and the area that we ended up with was about as good as could be created at the time. On the size of the allocated funding for this region and the plans for the future, that will be part of the spending review, and the details will be announced once we are aware of them ourselves. On the devolution of other functions, we are very much taking an incremental approach. We want to make sure that the functions we have devolved are improved upon, and if local authorities or combined authorities prove that they are good at it, I am sure that we will have a debate about whether more can move in the future. However, at this stage, we want to make this work.

The same applies to the apprenticeship levy, which will maintain as a central function. To answer the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, because this is a relatively new and very profound change to the way apprenticeships work, we wanted to make sure that it was run centrally until we had ironed out all the glitches. Again, I am sure that this will come up for discussion in the future.

On schools funding, I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on his rather gloomy view of the position. As I am sure he is aware, we announced a dramatic increase in schools funding only a few weeks ago of some £14 billion over the next three years—which I think is one of the largest single uplifts in funding for 10 or 15 years. That is before we take into account another £4.5 billion which is going into the teachers’ pension scheme contributions for schools.

I should be very happy to look at the case of the individual school to which the noble Lord referred, which claimed that it could not afford adequate books for its pupils. As the Minister responsible for academies, I spend a great deal of time ensuring that schools are run properly, and perhaps may be able to shine a light on any issues in that particular school. The noble Lord is also somewhat unenthusiastic about academies. There have indeed been failures there, but it is worth reminding the House that the whole point of academies was to tackle entrenched underperformance in local authority schools that often had gone on for 10 or 20 years. Indeed, schools that I took over from the local authority where my academy trust operated had been failing for 15 or 20 years. In the academies programme, we move much more quickly if the academy trust proves unable to sort out the challenges that it undertook in the first place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I am intrigued by the noble Lord’s comments. I unreservedly withdraw any suggestion that the Secretary of State might be acting in a macho manner—but it seems that somebody was. Can he enlighten us as to whose decision it was? If it was not the Prime Minister, my adjective might remain appropriate.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I am afraid I am going to have to disappoint the noble Lord. Those decisions were taken above my pay grade. I can assure him that the further education brief is given full support and impact in the department. I will need to write to the noble Lord on some of his more technical questions around transitional funding and so on, but I will be very happy to do that. We will continue with a watching brief on how this devolution is rolling out.

I reiterate that the order needs to be introduced to allow the combined authority to work with providers to tailor adult education provision for the academic year 2020-21. It will give residents the opportunity to reach their potential, improve their earnings and gain progression, and it will allow the system to deliver in a more flexible and responsive way and have the agility required to sustain a flexible economy. I commend the order to the House.

Motion agreed.