Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2018

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

That the draft Orders laid before the House on 23 July be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 24 October.

Motions agreed.

Further Education Bodies (Insolvency) Regulations 2018

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Further Education Bodies (Insolvency) Regulations 2018.

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

My Lords, these regulations were laid before the House on 5 September. In the Technical and Further Education Act 2017 we introduced a special administration regime for the further education sector. This included provisions for insolvency in the rare instances that it might be needed. It has been some time since we have discussed further education insolvency in this place and it is worth taking the time to set out some context for the benefit of those less familiar with this regime and the primary legislation.

Colleges are statutory corporations but operate independently of government. They have the ability to raise debt funding in the same way as a commercial body, through bank or other lending, although they are not for profit. A financially resilient further education sector requires strong leadership and an efficient structure to operate in. Since 2015, we have been working with the sector to strengthen that leadership.

Additionally, through a programme of area reviews, we have supported the restructuring of the sector so that colleges can meet the needs of learners and employers in their area as efficiently as possible. The Government have supported the sector to share best practice and to help weaker colleges to improve and raise standards. Coupled with the FE strategic leadership programme offered by the Education and Training Foundation, the aim is to drive up professional standards in the sector to help colleges to improve quality and become better equipped to deliver sustainable provision serving local needs. The Government also provided access to a restructuring facility, set up in 2016, to support the implementation of recommendations that came out of the area reviews. As that work is coming to an end, the restructuring facility closed to new bids at the end of last month.

Although we are seeing merged colleges and more robust arrangements developing as a result of the area reviews, we cannot guarantee that no college will fail in the future. We recognised that we needed a suitable mechanism in place to deal with colleges in an orderly manner if they should fail in the future. Therefore, in 2016 the Government announced that they would develop an insolvency regime for the sector. This includes a special administration regime with the objective of avoiding or minimising disruption to the studies of existing students of the FE body as a whole, while ensuring that the education administration is no longer than it needs to be—thus it benefits both students and creditors of an insolvent college.

The main provisions for the regime are in the Technical and Further Education Act 2017. The legislation provided clarity on whether and how insolvency law applies to FE bodies. The new regime ensures that there is an orderly process in place for managing a college insolvency. It also introduces, in the unlikely event that a college should become insolvent, a special administration regime known as education administration, which prioritises the protection of learner provision. Once commenced, the regime will give the Secretary of State the power to apply to court for an education administration order, appointing an education administrator. This could happen as a result of a creditor taking insolvency action of its own, in which case the Secretary of State can use his powers to put in place a different form of insolvency proceeding to protect provision for learners. Alternatively, he may be persuaded that the FE body is insolvent and that an application to court for an education administration order is the best course of action.

The 2017 Act applied certain provisions of insolvency law to the FE sector subject to modifications set out in the Act and specified in the regulations that we are considering today. These regulations modify insolvency legislation as it applies to FE bodies, both in the Insolvency Act 1986 and in wider legislation that concerns insolvency, to make it work effectively for further education bodies.

I also draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that there will need to be another piece of secondary legislation enacted before the special administration regime can be commenced. This will be a statutory instrument setting out the rules that apply to the education administrator’s conduct of an education administration. That instrument will follow the negative procedure. The insolvency regime provides the framework for insolvency practitioners to work within when dealing with the further education sector and specifies how education administration can be used to protect provision for existing learners at a college in financial distress. It is not the purpose of this legislation to seek to close colleges. It is a necessary tool to deal with the worst-case scenario, as the hard edge of a broader intervention system providing a structured and measured approach to preventing and responding to failure.

Colleges enjoy a high degree of financial independence, and it is right that they should be responsible for the decisions they take. This wider intervention system will start with the monitoring of colleges that are experiencing difficulty. If things get worse, then there will be a wide range of intervention tools. The insolvency regime is the mechanism of last resort, and we would expect it to be used only rarely. I wish to be clear that, where a college becomes insolvent, it will not necessarily lead to provision being closed. The aim would be to deliver the best scenario for the local area in the manner that is least disruptive for the learners at the college.

I turn to the purpose of this legislation. The draft regulations before the Committee today are quite technical. Their main purpose is to modify provisions of the Insolvency Act 1986 and to have legislation made under those provisions apply effectively to college statutory corporations. This not only ensures that a regime works technically, it also deals with practical issues to allow for the fact that FE bodies are autonomous and will have different provisions within their instrument and articles of governance. Therefore the regulations make provisions to manage insolvency proceedings in a standard way. These regulations also set out provisions for filing documents with Companies House, so that insolvency procedures are transparent for further education corporations, as they are for companies.

The role that the governors play in the UK education system is a crucial and well-established one. They bring a wealth of outside experience and knowledge to the sector. They are, rightly, already subject to important duties and liabilities as trustees of a charity and should already be well used to the responsibility that these duties bring. Governors should respect good practice, following proper process and ensuring that they take and carefully consider appropriate professional advice before taking key decisions.

The regulations have been drafted purposely to exempt student governors from certain offences and duties normally contained within insolvency legislation. The Government took the view that there would be some situations where student governors could not possibly have a meaningful say in decisions that gave rise to particular offences. It follows that it would not be right to expose them to liability for those offences. It is common for student governors under the age of 18 to be excluded from voting on decisions by the board that have financial outcomes. We have taken the view that if they cannot have a say in financial decisions, they should not be liable for offences linked to those decisions. Equally, student governors should not have to prepare a statement of the affairs of the college corporation, which includes a summary of the corporation’s assets and liabilities and details of its creditors—details that they might not be expected to be privy to. However, let me be clear that there is an onus on all governors—student members, staff members and other governors alike—to co-operate with the insolvency practitioner appointed by the court. This includes not making false statements when they are required to supply evidence of events.

I turn to the more technical detail of the regulations that we are considering today. Part 3 of the regulations modifies provisions of the Insolvency Act 1986 and the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016 as they apply to FE bodies that are statutory corporations. Part 4 of the regulations applies provisions of other legislation relating to insolvency to FE bodies, subject to modifications. For example, the Land Registration Rules 2003 need to be modified to enable the Land Registry to make an entry in the register that an administrator or liquidator has been appointed over a statutory corporation. Part 5 modifies provisions of the Companies Act 2006, applied to statutory corporations by Regulation 3, to ensure that they work effectively for FE bodies that are statutory corporations. This is to facilitate the correct filing of key insolvency documentation.

We carried out consultation on the position adopted in the regulations with insolvency practitioners, lenders, colleges and organisations that represent the sector. This included the Association of Colleges and the Sixth Form Colleges Association. The department has also worked hand in hand with Companies House and the Insolvency Service to ensure that these regulations work effectively for their intended purpose. The regulations apply to FE bodies and companies conducting designated further education institutions in England and Wales, and Welsh Ministers are fully supportive of the approach taken in the development of this legislation. I commend these regulations to the Committee.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations, which will bring a new college insolvency regime into effect by the end of the year. We believe that they are necessary and will not be opposing them, although we have some caveats that I shall bring to the Minister’s attention.

The Government are right to regulate in this area to bring more legal certainty, but we believe they should use the new powers only in exceptional circumstances because of the risk that they could damage confidence in an important sector. As I argued in Committee on what was then the Technical and Further Education Bill—before the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, was in your Lordships’ House—there is a danger that highlighting the need for a statutory insolvency regime that has not hitherto existed may alarm governors, banks, employers, international partners and others whose support is necessary to ensure that colleges provide the education and skills that the country needs. That is even more important now that the country is about to leave the EU and faces an uncertain economic future into the 2020s.

These regulations are technical and take a sensible approach to fitting out the structure of the legislation. The continuing underfunding of further education and the growing financial weakness of some colleges heightens concerns that the Government could unintentionally force a college into insolvency, with the serious consequences that that would bring. The new statutory college insolvency scheme can be traced back to early 2016, when the Government were overseeing the rationalisation of the sector through the national area review programme. No clear rules currently exist as to what happens should a college run out of money and the Government did not effectively indemnify it. When colleges were taken out of local government in 1992, a new type of statutory corporation was created to run them but no rules were ever established to apply in circumstances where colleges simply ran out of money. Instead, to protect a college’s students, courses and assets, central government—through a succession of funding agencies—has ended up being the funder of last resort. This has meant that the banks have always been paid in full or been able to replace an old loan with a new one.

The Government’s post-16 area review was designed to put all colleges on a sustainable financial footing and has resulted in more than 50 mergers since 2015, the majority of which have been self-funded by colleges. The process of restructuring colleges has proved to be more complicated than was anticipated when the area reviews started. Colleges have found that it takes more time than expected to satisfy their banks, resolve pension issues and navigate rules devised by Ofsted, the Home Office and the Education and Skills Funding Agency. We understand that the Treasury insisted on a college insolvency regime as a price for providing its restructuring loans, and this is what was legislated for in the Technical and Further Education Act. These regulations will put this into effect and are intended to provide clarity about what happens when a college gets into severe financial problems. The law creates a special administration regime for colleges akin to that put in place in recent years for energy companies, train operating companies and housing associations—strange comparators, noble Lords may feel. But it is to be welcomed that the special administrator will have duties to protect learners, as well as creditors, in a situation where a college has run out of money.

The new college insolvency regime has been described as a last resort rather than a normal route to secure change. Once the new arrangements come into force, there will be several lines of control in place: the governing bodies will of course have a duty to ensure the solvency and viability of colleges; the ESFA will have financial oversight; the Further Education Commissioner will intervene where the college has a notice to improve; and there is the independent business review, a new pre-statutory process that will apply for colleges in severe financial distress. Only if and when all the above fail to resolve matters will the new college insolvency regime apply.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I preface my remarks by saying that we value further education. It will go through a renaissance and the need for vocational courses, skills development and apprenticeships will help it to blossom. This instrument is technical but it is absolutely right that we should agree it.

However, I have a number of concerns. We have had the area reviews, of course, but why do we allow a further education or sixth-form college to become insolvent? One would think that further down the line we would take strong and robust action to ensure that that does not happen. If a college closes down the effect on the local community and economy can be devastating. If we allowed a further education college in, say, Northumberland to close down because we had not kept our finger on the pulse, imagine the effect that that would have in a predominantly rural area.

It is important that we understand the mechanisms for ensuring that this does not happen. I see in the document that 37 further education colleges published notices to improve financial health. What do the Government do to make sure that that support is given?

I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about cuts, but it is not always about cuts; it is about management as well. An institution might not have all the resources it needs but it might be so well managed that it thrives nevertheless. It is about the management of the college as well as its finances.

I have three further questions. First, the Minister said that insolvency will not always mean closure. Will he expand on that and say what other actions can be taken? Secondly, do these regulations apply to university technical colleges? Thirdly, if we want to create the level playing that the Minister talked about, should we not ensure that all sixth-form colleges are treated equally and that those that have to pay VAT will no longer have to do so? Will he perhaps explain why sixth-form colleges that are not in a multi-academy trust have to pay VAT?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for the interesting points they have raised. There have also been a number of questions which I will certainly try to address.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that we are adamant that this provision is for exceptional circumstances. I made that clear in my opening comments. In answer to noble Lords who raised questions about our commitment to this sector, it might be worth summarising the extent of that commitment. In the current academic year, 2018-2019, we expect to spend some £7 billion, which includes apprenticeships. That gives a sense of the proportion of our public spending that we are putting into this age group.

I can reassure all noble Lords that this instrument is designed as an exceptional mechanism. The main reason for it is that under traditional insolvency arrangements, the lenders take control of the process. The provisions in these regulations make sure that learners are given more priority. That is the overarching principle of why this is being done.

On the specific question that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about how the various bodies involved in the sector would interact with one another, we are still developing intervention systems so that we can respond effectively to the early signals of poor financial health to focus on preventing colleges from getting into positions of insolvency. This allows the FE commissioner and his team to go into colleges at an early stage, work with principals and governors and share best practice on better financial management to help college boards develop sustainable plans for financial resilience. College boards may need to make tough decisions to make to become more resilient. We will rely on their engaging with us early on, as soon as they know there is a problem. That goes somewhat to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, made about the quality of management and governance. That is very much what we are pushing for, to ensure that when the canary in the coalmine sings, it is listened to and early action is taken.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

There is no objection to the fact that young people are helped by being able to read, write and add up. The point is that GCSEs are very academically focused and the content of those syllabuses is completely inappropriate for many people who have technical skills and could happily do a functional test paper but not the academic papers of GCSE; it is the GCSE exam that is the bugbear, not the fact that people need to be able to read, write and add up.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

I will certainly take the noble Baroness’s views back to the department and reiterate them; I understand exactly what she is staying. She also raised a question about providing guidance to governors. We are committed to providing clear guidance, particularly on their duties and liabilities under insolvency law. The general College Governance guide, last published in 2014, will be updated. Both sets of guidance have been drafted and are being developed with the stakeholders—the Insolvency Service, the Association of Colleges and the Sixth Form Colleges Association—ready for publication in, we hope, the next few weeks.

The noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked whether I have any specific examples of colleges that have become insolvent. The short answer is no, as they have so far resolved their issues. In 2016 we created the restructuring facility, a fund from which some £330 million has been drawn across the sector. That has been used specifically to help them carry out the restructurings and some of the mergers to which other noble Lords referred, so there has been a period of consolidation over the last two years.

The noble Lord also asked about sixth-form colleges. There is a provision—this also addresses the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden—for sixth-form colleges to convert to academy status. If they do that, they get the benefit of VAT recovery. The question was: why cannot everybody do that? The reason is that it is a complicated process. It is an option that we have offered to sixth-form colleges but not all of them have taken it up.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

There are all sorts of reasons. If a sixth-form college chooses not to become an academy or part of a multi-academy trust, it is penalised by having to pay VAT; but if it chooses to go down that route, it gets the reward of not having to pay VAT. Is that what the Minister is saying?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

That is, in essence, correct. However, one of the advantages of the FE sector is that colleges are allowed to borrow money commercially. If that is a route they want to take or have taken, that can be a barrier to conversion to academy status.

The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, asked about the role of private providers in subcontracting. These regulations are specifically designed simply for the further education sector, not for independent subcontractors. If a further education college were to become insolvent, a subcontractor could become one of the creditors.

I hope I have answered all the questions that have been raised.

[Lord Storey]

There was the question of university technical colleges.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

These regulations do not apply to university technical colleges. A UTC is framed under the academies legislation and has a funding agreement in the same way as an academy has, but UTCs are a separate legal entity.

As I have outlined, these regulations make necessary modifications to insolvency law so that it effectively applies to FE bodies and can bring the further education insolvency regime into effect. Cases of insolvency are rare and will continue to be so, but we cannot afford to be complacent. It is essential that this legislation is put in place for the FE sector to provide legal certainty and, most importantly, to ensure that learners are protected in the event of financial failure.

Motion agreed.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2018

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2018, the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2018, the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2018, the Tees Valley Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2018, the West Midlands Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2018, and the West of England Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2018.

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

My Lords, these six orders, if approved and made, will provide for the transfer of certain adult education functions and the associated adult education budget—the AEB—to the mayoral combined authorities. This provides an opportunity for them to help their residents to fulfil their potential in life and contribute to the growth of the region. As noble Lords will be aware, in 2015 and 2016, through a series of devolution arrangements agreed between the Government and the mayoral combined authorities, we made the commitment fully to devolve the AEB to specified mayoral combined authorities. These orders will deliver on this commitment.

These orders are made under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. They will transfer certain adult education functions of the Secretary of State, as set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, to the mayoral combined authorities in relation to the area of each specified mayoral combined authority for the academic year 2019-20 and thereafter. This transfer does not include the functions in so far as they relate to apprenticeships or those subject to adult detention.

In the 2015 spending review, government made available £1.5 billion annually until 2020 for the adult education budget. Across England, this budget is supporting adults with the skills and learning they need to equip them for work, an apprenticeship or further learning. These facilities provide an integral stepping stone, particularly for disadvantaged adult learners.

In 2016-17, the AEB supported adults to study English, maths and courses of English for speakers of other languages, full level 2 or 3 qualifications and a wide range of community learning provision. Devolution will mean that mayoral combined authorities are able directly to shape the adult education provision available to their residents. This means that, from the academic year 2019-20, the provision can be more focused around local area need.

We are currently undertaking a wide-ranging programme of skills funding reforms across areas such as T-levels and apprenticeships. Post-16 education plays a crucial part in supporting future economic growth. In leaving the EU, it is important that our homegrown workforce is skilled and able to make the most of the new opportunities that arise. Devolution of the relevant functions and the associated AEB forms a key part of these reforms. Alongside devolution, the department is opening dialogue with mayoral combined authorities and other sectors on how skills provision and reforms can best be shaped to fit the needs of local areas.

These orders will transfer certain adult education functions of the Secretary of State in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 to the mayoral combined authority in relation to its area. They will enable the transfer of that relevant part of the AEB to the mayoral combined authority. In particular, the following functions will be exercisable by the mayoral 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 the provision of facilities; and Section 88, which relates to the payment of tuition fees for such persons.

Conditions are set in relation to the transferred functions—in particular, that the mayoral 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 Department for Education will transfer the relevant part of the adult education budget to the mayoral combined authorities to undertake the functions. It will be the responsibility of each area to manage its overall AEB allocation efficiently and effectively to ensure that it delivers for its local residents. The department is assisting the mayoral combined authorities to be ready for taking on the functions and has provided implementation funding to each of them to prepare effectively.

From the 2019-20 academic year, the mayoral combined authorities 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 for learners aged 19 to 23, first full level 3 qualifications for learners aged 19 to 23, and the forthcoming digital skills entitlement. We talk about the northern powerhouse and the Midlands engine among others. Skills are an essential driver for economic growth in all our regions.

We are already seeing the mayoral combined authorities make a real difference locally. For example, Tees Valley Combined Authority has implemented the Tees Valley Routes to Work pilot. This is an innovative pilot that has a total fund of £7.5 million, with £6 million from the Department for Work and Pensions and £1.5 million from the combined authority cabinet. It will run until 31 March 2021. Routes to Work will support at least 2,500 individuals who are long-term unemployed or who have significant barriers to employment. The pilot aims to move at least 375 individuals, 15% of the cohort, into sustainable employment. It aims to work with those most disengaged from the labour market and support them in engaging, identifying and addressing any potential barriers that they may face in gaining employment.

In Greater Manchester the mayoral combined authority has implemented the Working Well programme. This stream of work responds to one of its strategic aims of reducing long-term unemployment and helping more residents into sustained employment. The £52 million devolved programme offers intensive and tailored support to individuals who are out of work due to poor health or disability and the long-term unemployed, to help to address their barriers to employment. The programme, which takes referrals from Jobcentre Plus, will support around 22,000 individuals over its five-year life. In the first six months more than 1,700 residents had started to receive support.

Those examples give a picture of the specific interventions currently taking place at a local level and illustrate the positive impacts that devolution can have. Devolution gives all mayoral combined authorities the opportunity to address the skills challenges that they face and enhance economic growth in their areas. The scale of the challenges faced is both significant and different dependent on region. For example, there are currently 41,000 Greater Manchester Combined Authority residents with no qualifications. There are significant variations between residents’ skills levels across the districts. West Midlands Combined Authority currently has the lowest employment rate of any of any mayoral combined authority—72.3%, against a national average of 78.4—whereas Liverpool City Region Combined Authority has one of the highest rates of economically inactive residents of any combined authority area. Similarly, despite employment levels rising at a rate faster than the national average, Tees Valley Combined Authority still has higher levels of claimant unemployment compared to national averages, with a Tees Valley average of 4.2% compared to 2.2% nationally. Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and West of England combined authorities have skills shortages and hard-to-fill vacancies that are constraining local businesses. These examples show that each area has specific challenges. These can be addressed through the devolved AEB, and the orders give the mayoral combined authorities the opportunity to address specific regional problems.

The orders will enable mayoral combined authorities to support their residents into good jobs with opportunities for people to progress and develop; improve the earnings potential of their low-paid, low-skilled workers; and help to deliver a thriving and dynamic economy. Without these orders, the mayoral combined authorities will not have the ability to address these challenges and bring greater prosperity to their regions. I beg to move that these orders be approved.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction. No doubt he will share my relief that in your Lordships’ House we are considering all six of these orders together, not following the procedure adopted in another place, where they required three sittings over a period of eight days. I think we can do things more efficiently.

The devolution of powers and funding for adult education that the orders introduce is welcome, as much of the most effective adult education provision is delivered locally in line with the needs of local communities. The Explanatory Memorandum characterises the transfer of functions as giving local areas a prominent role in managing and shaping their own economic prosperity. Who could argue against that? But—there is almost always a but—the transition from national funding to devolved funding may have unintended consequences for some national providers if it disrupts their existing local provision. A long-established national charity, the Workers’ Educational Association, is one such provider that may be adversely affected. I declare an interest as a former employee of the WEA. I shall say more about that organisation in due course, but before doing so it is appropriate to put the effect of these instruments into context.

The Explanatory Memorandum also states:

“The transfer of the specified functions to the combined authorities will result in an associated transfer of funds to each combined authority to facilitate the exercise of those functions. This will take the form of a proportion of the overall adult education budget moving from the Department for Education to the specified combined authority”.


The key question mark over 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 Minister delivered an upbeat assessment of what the combined authorities will achieve through the powers contained in these orders, but the current experiences of providers are not so upbeat.

The report published last month by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which the Minister and his officials will be aware of, found that between 2004 and 2016 the number of adult learners fell from 4 million to 2.2 million. That alarming 45% drop means that apprenticeships now account for over one-third of total adult education funding, as opposed to 13% in 2010. That may be good news for those fortunate enough to work for an employer that is part of the apprenticeship programme, but of course millions more people never get the chance to undertake an apprenticeship, such as those working part-time, in the gig economy, for a microbusiness or on zero-hours contracts.

For the majority of adult learners, the IFS report painted a rather bleak picture. The numbers show that there are fewer evening classes and opportunities for people to learn, whether it be to improve literacy and numeracy, to update technical skills that might help get a job or a promotion, or to take GCSEs and A-levels to help to access higher education. Each year there are 1.8 million fewer adults able to improve their life chances through education. This is not the place for discussing the Open University, but in recent debates in your Lordships’ House I have highlighted the serious decrease in adult part-time education on Open University courses since the tripling of tuition fees in 2012, and that fits with the pattern across adult education.

Of course, cuts in funding which have the inevitable consequence of reducing the numbers participating in adult learning have a direct impact on the economy. One of the obvious benefits of adult education is helping people, as the Minister said, to equip themselves with the skills that employers need now and will need even more in the future. This is a pressing issue, with fewer EU nationals being allowed to bring their skills to the UK. In the context of our leaving the EU, opportunities for upskilling and reskilling should surely be going up not down, yet figures on enrolments in key areas of the labour market are worrying. Enrolments in health and social care courses dropped by a third between 2006 and 2016. The reduction was of a similar percentage in both construction and engineering. If the Minister, his department and the Government are not concerned by these figures, I think we should be told why.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the orders that will devolve elements of the adult education budget that are currently held centrally to the mayoral combined authorities. I always welcome devolving budgets to authorities, either combined or local. We can have local decisions to help local people, which is much better than having national decisions made by people in London who, in my experience, know little about the folk I represent in Yorkshire. One of the factors that is holding back business development, business expansion, economic development and GVA in many regions, and in the north in particular, is a lack of appropriate skills and the low levels of skills in the population compared with the more prosperous parts of the country.

I want to highlight four issues, broadly supporting what we have before us today. The first, which the noble Lord, Lord Watson, also raised, is that of funding. The question should be: how much funding are each of the combined authorities going to be allocated, and how does this allocation of additional funding fit in with the significant reduction of government funding to further education colleges, where much of the skills provision is delivered? It does not bode well for the adult education elements of the budget. I know from my own experience in Yorkshire that there is a huge demand for construction workers, yet the colleges delivering those skills are finding it difficult to do so because of the funding squeeze on them. There is also a danger that we will end up with a very fragmented adult skills funding mechanism and delivery. This will not help achieve what the Government have set out in what the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, has said; namely, enabling those areas of the country with combined authorities to really support skills being developed by people who left school without the appropriate skills for the economy and for their own well-being.

The second point I want to make is about one of the phrases in the document; it talks about the challenge of encouraging more training and education. Obviously, as someone who has spent a lifetime in education, I totally support that. What is interesting is that the Government have had rather limited success in addressing the issue of what are crudely called NEETs—those who are not in employment, education or training. We ought to focus much more attention on that group of people, who, as we have heard, will need those skills for their lifetime of employment, and the country needs them to have skills. I want to understand, from that element of what is before us, how that is going to be measured. We are talking about it being important to encourage them, so how are the Government and the combined authorities going to measure that?

The third issue that I want to raise is the business of consultation, which the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has raised in a different way. All the documents say there is no need for additional consultation because it was done three or four years ago for the original orders for the combined authorities; adult education and skills were in all those original functions for the combined authorities, and this is just giving the funding to allow that to happen. However, now that we have a specific defined allocation and devolution of a function and funding, a consultation ought to take place in those combined authority areas as to how that should be carried out. There are institutions that will be affected one way or another—one in particular, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has pointed out—and I think there ought to be consultation among providers in those areas to listen to any issues that they raise. I am disappointed that in here it says that no consultation will be necessary.

The fourth issue that I want to raise is accountability. Right from the start of combined authorities, I have been concerned about the lack of accountability for the devolved functions and the funding that has been made available. The governance model that the Government have decreed is very light on accountability. Perhaps the Minister will be able to describe how the combined authorities will be held accountable to the Government for the delivery of the function that is being devolved, and how he anticipates the constituent local authorities being able to hold the combined authority decision-makers to account in a public way. I hope he will not tell me that they all have scrutiny panels or committees, because I do not think they have the necessary powers to really hold the combined authorities to account for the functions that they fulfil and the public money that they spend.

In summary, I support what is being proposed here. I know from the examples that have been given that the combined authorities will set up different models to fit the needs of the people in the regions, and that is positive. However, there are some issues that we need to be concerned about: consultation is one, accountability another, and the third is the fragmentation of funding. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I thank noble Lords for their comments and questions. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for their broad although perhaps qualified support. I will try to address the various questions that they have both raised.

To start with the funding question, as that is something that both speakers raised, the overall budget, as I mentioned in my introductory words, is £1.5 billion a year, which was set for this current spending review. In aggregate, the amount of money being devolved to these combined authorities—including the Greater London Authority, which has a slightly different legal structure, although we have issued a delegated letter to that authority to give it the same or very similar powers—is about £750 million. I cannot speak for beyond the spending review, but I can certainly reassure noble Lords that this is an area of huge focus of this Government. We are very committed to supporting adult learners into improving their skills and their future life chances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I shall finish off on the WEA. Devolution gives the WEA an opportunity to work with the mayoral authorities and shape the ways in which they can contribute to meeting skills needs locally so that people of all ages are given those opportunities. It is vital that providers such as the WEA make contact with the MCAs to support them.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

The WEA provides the contacts for these opportunities and possibilities. At the moment it is delivering adult education courses but it may not be able to do so in the future. There is not going to be a transitional period during which it can adjust. As I say, it is discussing these issues with the authorities but it may not always be successful, and that is the problem. There could then be a significant reduction in what the WEA is able to provide.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

What I can offer the noble Lord is that if he does not feel that the mayoral authorities are engaging constructively with the WEA, he should write to me and I will take the matter on. When the noble Lord, Lord Bird, wrote to me in April, I passed the letter on to the Minister, my right honourable friend Anne Milton, who wrote to the noble Lord and offered to meet him. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that I believe such providers to be a very important part of the further education landscape and we certainly do not want to see them put out in the cold.

To address the questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on NEETs, or that category of vulnerable young adults, we are trying to help them through further studies in GCSE English and maths. In each case, more than 500,000 adult learners are studying maths and English to get them on to a platform that will enable them to go on and acquire the broader skills that are needed. We already require information about further education to be submitted to the DfE and we will continue to complete the individualised learner records in respect of provision delivered to learners resident in authority areas. This will continue to feed through into the national statistics publications. For transparency, the national statistics publications will include provision delivered to residents of the authority areas.

On accountability, we have put in place a number of measures to deal with the issues raised. There will be a robust governance arrangement between the department, the Education and Skills Funding Agency and the MCAs to govern the transitional year. As part of these arrangements the department is working with the MCAs to monitor and evaluate the performance of AEB-funded provision. This is assisting the MCAs in determining their commissioning and provision strategy when the budget is devolved from 2019-20 onwards. The Secretary of State has issued guidance on the approach an MCA should take to commissioning adult education. This includes guidance on how the approach should align to the existing adult education funding milestones which a provider operates under when commissioning. They have statutory requirements, which gives the department powers to intervene in the event of a failure to deliver decent provision.

Introducing these orders now will allow the mayoral combined authorities the opportunity to work with providers to tailor adult further education provision in preparation for the academic year 2019-20. This will give their residents the chance to reach their potential, improve their earnings and gain progression in their jobs. It will allow the skills system to deliver in responsive ways to sustain a flexible labour market. I commend these orders to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Schools: Music Education

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2018 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 Black, for securing this important debate. I also thank colleagues for their contributions. There was much in my noble friend Lord Black’s comments on the benefits of education that I strongly agreed with.

Music is statutory in the national curriculum, so every child in a maintained school must study the subject from the ages of five to 14. Between 2016 and 2020, we are providing £300 million of funding for music education hubs to ensure that all pupils have the opportunity to learn an instrument, sing and perform regularly, and have access to clear routes of progression.

Many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Watson, and my noble friend Lady Redfern, mentioned the national plan. I can confirm that we will announce our plans for the next phase of this within the next couple of months. I say to those noble Lords who may be unware of it that the Government’s priorities for music education are set out in The Importance of Music: A National Plan for Music Education. It sets out our belief that children from all backgrounds and every part of England should have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, to make music with others, to learn to sing, and to progress to the next level of achievement.

We have set up a network of 120 music education hubs to support schools in providing these opportunities. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, spoke about music in Wales, but that is a devolved matter. He was also concerned that children in England should have the opportunity to learn to work together in groups. That is exactly what the music hubs are trying to do, working with local authorities, schools, arts organisations and community and voluntary organisations. Between 2016 and 2020 music hubs will receive £300 million to work with all state-funded schools in England, including academies and free schools.

In primary schools, the national curriculum aims to ensure that all pupils perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians. At key stage 1 pupils are taught to use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes, as well as to experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using interrelated dimensions of music. At key stage 2 pupils are taught to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They should develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory. At this stage pupils will also begin to develop an understanding of the history of music.

To address the concern expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, that music is being sidelined in primary schools, with less time being spent on the subject, in the 2016 Omnibus survey, primary school classroom teachers were asked about the time they spent teaching different subjects. The survey showed the time spent on humanities to be broadly similar to that spent on music and the arts. I would also like to put to bed the myth that says academies can opt out of teaching music. This is simply not correct. All schools, including academies and free schools, must provide a broad and balanced curriculum.

Prompted by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, I will offer a couple of examples. Yesterday I corresponded with the chief executive of the Outwood Grange Academies Trust in the north. He said:

“I have specialist teachers working in 10 primaries delivering music, and we use the peripatetic service. I have a specialist supernumerary director who supports music across the whole trust. We annually have students who perform in the Royal Albert Hall. We also book regional theatres for our students to perform in. We are promoting music heavily and have, for example, a youth brass band in our Barnsley school, Outwood Shafton. It is next to Grimethorpe, which has a famous colliery band. We have 206 entries to do music this year”.


I corresponded with the chief executive of the Burnt Mill Academy Trust near Cambridge. She said:

“We get all children to start an instrument in year 7; all pupil premium children in primary. At the end of year 9, they can choose to continue or not. This has a massive impact on self-esteem, resilience and music outcomes”.


I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Clement-Jones, that Ofsted does consider music education as part of a school’s broad and balanced curriculum—one that promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of all pupils. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, is correct that Ofsted is consulting on its new framework, and we will have to leave it to Ofsted to develop it. The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, asked about the relationship between the DfE and DCMS. I am able to say that we are in touch with each other. That department carried out a survey in 2016-17 which showed that 97% of children aged five to 15 participated in the arts in general.

When talking about music education in primary schools, I would like to share a splendid example that came to me via the music education hub in Gloucestershire. One of the hub’s partner organisations, the Music Works, delivers whole-class ensemble teaching on iPads. According to one teacher:

“The year 6 children from Chesterton Primary School, Cirencester, had a wonderful time combining music and technology. Even our most reluctant musicians are finding out about time signatures, chords and composition as they enjoyed exploring GarageBand”—


that is not a genre I am familiar with—

“on the iPad”.

I appreciate the kind words of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, although he made me feel like a young subaltern at Balaclava with Lord Raglan telling me to charge—but I will now address the EBacc issue. I reassure noble Lords that the EBacc is not responsible for forcing music out of the curriculum. These concerns were raised by nearly every speaker: the noble Lords, Lord Wallace, Lord Aberdare and Lord Clement-Jones, and my noble friends Lady Bloomfield and Lord Black. First, the data shows that the percentage of time spent by secondary school teachers teaching music remained broadly stable between 2010 and 2017. This data is drawn from the school workforce survey, which is a statutory survey, not a limited poll.

Secondly, there is no evidence that arts subjects, including music, have declined as a result of the introduction of the EBacc. In response to an Oral Question yesterday, I said that there were 31,000 entries for GCSE music in England in 2017. That was fewer entries than seven years ago because the cohort was smaller. The percentage is the key figure, and it has remained broadly stable at around 7%.

The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, spoke about the rise in the number of pupils studying geography and history. He is right: it went up from 48% in 2009-10 to 76% in 2016-17. I believe this is a matter for great celebration, and it very much plays into the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, about facilitating subjects. One of the main reasons why we pushed for this was to help those from disadvantaged backgrounds get a decent chance of going to a good university. I take on board the noble Baroness’s challenge—that should be taken to the universities. I accept that music is a very challenging subject and it should get recognition, but that fight should be taken to that sector. In 2018, 23% of children in the independent sector participated in art and design GCSE, compared with 27% in the state sector. The best schools are combining a high-quality cultural education with excellence in core academic subjects, and we are committed to ensuring that all pupils have access to both.

Some noble Lords raised careers and secondary schools, and GCSE study leads me on to the subject of careers. The Government want to encourage young people to consider careers in music and have published a comprehensive careers strategy, building on the improvements we have already made to the careers system. We are investing more than £70 million this year to support young people and adults to get high-quality careers provision. Of the 330 new apprenticeship standards approved so far, 28 have been made available for the creative and digital industries, with a further 33 in development.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about the recent pay rises. We have committed to provide £500 million for an increase in pay for classroom teachers on the main pay scale of up to 3.5%. It is being paid directly to schools on a per-pupil basis, that being the quickest and simplest way to get the money into the system. The number of teachers centrally employed by councils represents only around 1% of the teaching workforce. We are in discussions with local authorities about how this issue is dealt with.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, challenged me on what I think he described as an arts pupil premium. It is important to put on the record that we have created a pupil premium which has delivered more than £12 billion into the schools sector over the past five or six years and is aimed at those in areas of disadvantage. We are providing £300 million for a network of music education hubs. To break that down, we have given £400,000 to Music for Youth to provide opportunities for young people and families who might otherwise not have access to perform at or attend regional and national festivals. More than 10,000 pupils attended Music for Youth Proms primary concerts in London and Norwich last week. The festival series reaches its climax next month when around 3,000 young people will perform at the Music for Youth Proms concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. Department for Education funding helps to support the festival series, including supporting those participating or attending for the first time.

To address my noble friend Lord Lingfield’s concern about orchestras, we have a £2 million fund for national youth music organisations such as the National Youth Orchestra, the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain and the National Youth Jazz Collective. This helps them to continue their excellent work and ensures that they remain able to provide bursaries to those from disadvantaged families who would otherwise be unable to take up the opportunities.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised the issue of funding for the music and dance scheme. The actual figure is £118 million for exceptionally talented young musicians and dancers, which is not quite the sum that was mentioned.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

The issue I raised concerning the music and dance scheme was not the total funding but the fact that it was set up to assist students from disadvantaged families, yet many of its students are from families that could certainly not be described in that way. Can the Minister clarify why that is happening?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am not familiar with the exact mechanics of the scheme but I will write to the noble Lord to clarify that.

My noble friend Lady Bloomfield spoke about In Harmony, a scheme that is running some excellent programmes in Nottingham and is working with 26 primary schools. Last month, it ran a music camp for children in need of extra support to move into the after-school band. In March next year the programme is organising an immersive play-along concert with the Robin Hood Youth Orchestra. Impressive work is happening too in Liverpool. Next year the Liverpool In Harmony programme is celebrating its 10th anniversary. In March the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Opera is holding an In Harmony benefit concert, there is a special children’s orchestral production at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and further Liverpool In Harmony concerts are planned in Leeds and Newcastle.

My noble friend Lord Lexden, the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Wallace, and the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Chichester all spoke about independent schools. As my noble friend rightly said, we have recently agreed a joint understanding with the Independent Schools Council. This is the first of its kind and it sets out the commitment that independent schools are making to support disadvantaged pupils, including looked-after children, and to work with others across the sector on things such as the better targeting of bursaries. I am aware of an excellent drama and music production organised by the King’s College School in Wimbledon in partnership with Ricards Lodge High School, Coombe high school, St Mark’s Academy and Cricket Green special school. Interestingly, the statistics for those studying music GCSE are broadly the same in the independent sector and the state sector: about 6% in the state sector and 7% in the private.

We held a round-table meeting in Downing Street a few months ago with independent schools as part of something that I am very committed to: getting them to collaborate more with the state sector. At the round table, I asked the question: “What more should be happening?”, and all the heads from the independent schools said, “We should have state school heads in this meeting next time”. They are passionately committed to supporting the state sector in the promotion of good music, among other things.

My noble friend Lady Bloomfield referred to the quality of teacher training. In December last year we launched a consultation on strengthening qualified teachers’ status and improving career progression. This will happen for all subjects but I do not yet have specific details on music.

My noble friend Lord Lingfield may be interested to know of the Classical 100, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. Classical 100 was launched in 2016 and is a free online resource that provides classical music to primary schools. It was developed by experts in music education and the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, Classic FM and Decca. Over 4,000 schools have signed up to this resource, with 6,300 teachers registered as users. The 100 pieces were selected to encourage people to explore, discover and listen to a range of styles over 10 centuries, including JS Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and Tchaikovsky. The online site offers schools a range of flexible resources to support teachers and can be used not only in music lessons but as part of school assemblies, plays and dance and drama studies. My noble friend Lord Borwick is right: technology is emerging to offer different routes into music and the teaching of music, and the Classical 100 is a good example of that.

Let me say a few words about the Music for Youth Proms concerts taking place next month, from 5 to 7 November. The Proms is an annual event which takes place at the Royal Albert Hall and is a celebration of the entire Music for Youth season, showcasing high-quality performances from some of the UK’s most creative, innovative and energetic young musicians. The DfE funds Music for Youth, and each night, more than 1,000 different young musicians take part in a concert which sees full-scale orchestras showcased side by side with some of the brightest young jazz bands, chamber groups, rock bands and choirs from across the UK. This is a tremendous experience for young people, giving them an opportunity to perform in a world-renowned venue alongside their peers.

I close by reassuring your Lordships that the Government absolutely understand the value of music. I cannot put it more personally than this. My own father studied music at university just before the outbreak of the Second World War. He volunteered to fight before graduating but it remained an important part of his life. A few years earlier, at school, he used singing to overcome a debilitating stammer. I understand the power of music.

I again thank my noble friend Lord Black for tabling this debate to give the Government a chance to put on record all that is being delivered in music. I take note of all noble Lords’ concerns and will ensure that the Government bear in mind all of today’s contributions.

Education: GCSE Music

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare an interest in the subject as chairman of the Royal College of Music.

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

My Lords, there were 31,000 entries to music GCSE in England this year, and the proportion of pupils taking music GCSE between 2010 and 2018 has remained broadly stable. Music is compulsory in the curriculum for local authority maintained schools for key stages 1 to 3, and pupils have an entitlement to study an arts subject, including music, at key stage 4 if they wish. We are investing more than £300 million up to 2020 in music education.

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

I thank my noble friend for that Answer, but he should be in no doubt that the situation of GCSE music in schools is very grave. The number of pupils completing it fell by 7% last year, which means a fall of 23% since 2010, with one in five schools not offering it at all last year. This is undoubtedly the fault of the EBacc, which punishes arts subjects at the expense of sciences. Does my noble friend appreciate that this merciless decline is the start of a destructive downward spiral? As fewer pupils take GCSE even fewer then take A-level, and fewer still will go on to study music at a university or conservatoire, thereby threatening the long-term sustainability of music in our country. Is it not time thoroughly to overhaul the EBacc before irreparable damage is done to music education and it has become the privilege of the children of the rich rather than the fundamental right of all pupils?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, there is no evidence that arts subjects have declined as a result of the introduction of the EBacc. Since the EBacc was announced in 2010 the proportion of young people taking at least one arts GCSE has fluctuated across the years, but has remained broadly stable. The best schools in the country combine a high-quality cultural education with excellence in core academic subjects. I reassure my noble friend of the importance, to my mind, of music to brain development, and I shall quote from a study on this; the education system needs to become more aware of it.

“Music’s pitch, rhythm, metre and timbre are processed in … the brain … Rhythm and pitch are primarily left brain hemisphere functions, while timbre and melody are processed primarily in the right hemisphere”.


Music is an integral part of our education, and so is EBacc.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not sure where the noble Lord gets his evidence from. I wonder whether he is aware of research, published just this week and launched in this House, jointly commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company and Tate, from Nottingham University. The unique feature of this research is that it talks to young people about their experience of arts and cultural education. One of the things that emerges from it is that they are clearly getting a strong message that, important as this is to them, it is not valued in the curriculum: consequently they are often discouraged from taking it up. He might, if he has time, listen to the recent appearance of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on “Private Passions” to hear first-hand testimony of what an impact music can make on one person’s education, particularly someone who did not have a very good start in life. How much more evidence do the Government need before recognising that this is a serious issue not just for future professionals but for all students?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

To answer the noble Baroness’s first question, about where the research I am using comes from, an initial five-year study by the University of South Carolina showed that music instruction appears to accelerate brain development in young children. I entirely accept that, but let us also talk about the amount of time that is being devoted to the teaching of music in schools. Music as a percentage of teaching time in secondary schools has remained broadly stable since 2010: 2.4% in 2010 and 2.3% in 2017. I get that data—I am conscious of noble Lords saying that we are loose with our data—from the school workforce census, a survey of 76% of secondary teachers and 85% of secondary schools.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of a musical education charity which is overwhelmed by requests from schools and music hubs for us to collaborate with them because the number of teachers with training in music teaching is declining and is expected to decline further in the next two or three years. Do the Government accept that music is going to be pushed aside as an extra subject and is likely, in state schools, to be provided increasingly by volunteers and charitable bodies?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the vacancy rate for music teachers in schools is currently 0.6%, so I do not believe that there is a crisis. I am glad that the noble Lord raised music education hubs, which are supporting more than 650,000 children learning to play an instrument. More than 340,000 pupils took part regularly in area-based ensembles and choirs, of which more than 8% were eligible for pupil premium. Music is an important part of our system and the Government are supporting it.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, despite what the Minister is saying and the replies he is giving, it is now very clear from a huge amount of evidence that the EBacc is harming not just music but all the arts, and design as well. Do the Government not think it time, if we are to retain some form of baccalaureate, to look at other models such as the Edge Foundation to enable the rounded and forward-looking education the Government say they believe in?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the EBacc was designed to get a good general education to as large a part of the population as possible, in particular those from disadvantaged areas. We all know that the cultural capital from those areas is much less than in people coming from the backgrounds of most in this Chamber. That is why we did it. There is room in the key stage 4 curriculum to add music if that is what schools decide to do. The average number of EBacc exams is seven—eight if you go to triple maths, but seven would be standard—and that leaves one slot for music if that is what a child decides to do.

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise the important contribution that cathedral choir schools play in the musical education of this country? They are the envy of many European musical countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My noble friend is absolutely right. To link this for a moment to EBacc, I believe that a sense of history and music come together. Many noble Lords who have listened to the “Miserere” will know that Mozart went to hear that in the Vatican aged 14, memorised it and took it back and published it for the outside world because the Vatican had chosen to keep it to itself. Beethoven wrote five piano concertos, the “Missa Solemnis” and his ninth symphony when he was totally deaf. That gives a very different understanding of music when you listen to it, so history and music stand together.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a patron of the Docklands Sinfonia. I support what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said. This sinfonia, which is based in the East End, very often goes out to schools in the Tower Hamlets area because there are insufficient music teachers. This is wonderful and important to do because it stops people in gangs killing each other with knives. There is clearly something wrong. There is not enough chance to learn music at school if they are having to do this.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I referred earlier to the percentage of teacher time allocated to music, so I do not think this is the problem. I accept there are challenges in areas of disadvantage, which is why we have launched the In Harmony programme. This is working in six of our most disadvantaged areas. We are already seeing quantitative and qualitative evidence to suggest that children’s musical enjoyment has improved through the involvement of In Harmony. It is popular among its participants and we will be carrying out a further evaluation next September to see if we can widen its scope.

Further Education: Teachers’ Pay

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, all teachers are equally important to us. However, further education providers, including sixth-form colleges, are private sector institutions, independent of government. It is for individual FE employers to agree local pay structures, with unions, based on local needs. We are currently considering the efficiency and resilience of the FE sector, and assessing how far existing funding and regulatory structures meet the costs of delivering quality further education, ahead of the spending review.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

But, my Lords, the Government do have an input into this. This is Colleges Week and we should acknowledge the part which further education colleges play in education and English education, with apprenticeships, with further technical and academic qualifications, and with adult learning. They have been lumbered with the wretched GCSE and maths resits, which really are an abomination that the Government need to reconsider. Can the Minister say why, in the last 10 years, college funding has been cut by around 30% and the value of staff pay has fallen by 25%? Why has the recently ring-fenced teachers’ pay grant for schools not been extended to FE colleges? The Government after all do have a part to play in this.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, to reiterate our acknowledgment of the great role FE colleges play, more than eight out of 10 are judged “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted and, in the most recent data, 58% of pupils leaving go on to jobs and 22% go on into further learning. We absolutely recognise that. There are a couple of figures that might interest the noble Baroness. According to the ONS earnings data—which is, of course, only a survey—when accounting for inflation, FE teacher pay in England has remained stable since 2013. The other point—to pull on some of the broader strands that the noble Baroness mentioned—is that, by 2020, funding available to support adult FE participation, including the adult education budget, the 19-plus apprenticeship funding and advanced learner loans, is planned to be higher than at any time in our recent history.

[Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)]

My Lords, if FE colleges are doing such a good job—the Minister says that eight out of 10 of them are of high quality—why is it that Conservative Governments always fail to resource them adequately? Could he tell the House how he thinks the Government’s industrial strategy, which is dependent on a more skilled workforce, can be implemented while FE colleges are being decimated and their staff are leaving in droves?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we have given a number of different strands of support to the sector. We have a strategic college improvement fund to help colleges improve and build partnership capacity. We launched National Leaders of Further Education in October last year, empowering the best principals and senior leaders across FE to spread their expert knowledge. We have also created an FE strategic leadership programme, run by the Education and Training Foundation, a sector-owned body responsible for professional standards in the sector.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, can we also include the Workers’ Educational Association in this discussion? It is doing profoundly interesting work in getting people out of long-term unemployment and into work and education. We would like to know what the Government’s plans are to support the Workers’ Educational Association because of the work that it does.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I do not have that information to hand, but I will write to the noble Lord with some further information.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

The Government are always, quite rightly, banging on about the importance of skills and skills training. We have heard from my noble friend that there has been a 30% cut in the FE budget and, in adult education, there has been a 61% cut. How on earth will we attract staff to develop the teaching to develop those skills? He mentioned—I was quite surprised about this—that the Government are looking at this sector. When can we expect to hear about this assessment of the sector?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we have reformed the high-needs funding and disadvantaged funding in this sector and we are now putting in some £520 million for disadvantaged students. As I mentioned earlier, we have the strand of support that I have already discussed. If we look at apprenticeships on their own, for example, we see that we have nearly doubled the amount of money going into apprenticeships since 2010. By 2020, it will be £2.45 billion, which is double the amount in 2010. The other thing we have done to try to support the sector is offer sixth-form colleges, where appropriate, the opportunity to academise, which gives them a VAT-recovery opportunity. So we are looking all the time at how we can support this important sector.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister beggars belief when he says in response to my noble friend Lady Blackstone that various strands of additional funding have gone into further education colleges. The Institute for Fiscal Studies reported recently that funding per student in sixth-form colleges and further education colleges has fallen by 20% since 2010. How can the average funding per student in those sectors be £4,000, compared to more than double that for universities with their tuition fees? In Colleges Week, which the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, mentioned, is there any possibility of the Minister saying that the Government will properly fund the new cost pressures on further education colleges of pay and pensions increases to ensure that an age group essential to filling the skills gaps in the economy in future years will not be further disadvantaged?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we have already committed to holding baseline funding per pupil until the next spending review in 2020, and I can offer a couple more examples of where we are supporting the sector. We have the exceptional financial support scheme, the area reviews and the restructuring facility, with a fund of some £700 million that has been made available and is being drawn down upon to assist colleges in rationalising and improving—so I reiterate our strong support for this sector.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, listening to questions from noble Lords to the Minister this afternoon makes me recall the report of the ad hoc Committee on Social Mobility on the transfer from school to work, which I had the privilege to chair. Every single point raised by noble Lords this afternoon was raised in our report. What is the point of us having committees if the Government do not take any notice?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we certainly do take notice. As I said in my opening Answer to the noble Baroness, we are looking at this whole area ahead of the next spending review.

Education and Training

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, we are working with employers to make the skills system more responsive to employers’ needs. This includes supporting industry to create high-quality apprenticeships and developing a national retraining scheme. This will give adults the skills they need to thrive as the economy changes. We are also introducing T-levels, a high-quality technical alternative to academic education, and establishing institutes of technology to meet higher-level technical skills needs.

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

I hear what the Minister says, but with the Open University and FE colleges cutting back and several training companies in difficulty, the usual routes for skills and social progress via Earn and Learn, lifelong learning and adult reskilling, are in decline, as are apprenticeships. As a result, the number of skilled job vacancies is soaring, and high employment is based on low-skill, low-paid and low-security jobs. To me, this is not a route to a modern economy but a race to the bottom. How will the Government reverse that?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, there are a lot of questions in that question but I can pick out some of the strands. I mentioned the national retraining scheme, which we have announced, which is investing £100 million in retraining. It will include a phased series of impactful interventions, and initial interventions will be in digital and construction. I mentioned national colleges, which are specialist colleges for technical areas. We have started with two for the nuclear industry and high-speed rail. We are also tendering for the institutes of technology at the moment. I assure the noble Lord that we are very focused on this important area.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the 2,000 leavers from university technical colleges since July included virtually no NEETs and that 30% of them became apprentices, which compares to the national average of 7%? Of the 47% who went to universities, three-quarters studied STEM subjects, which is double the national average. As he is the only Minister who has visited UTCs in this or the previous Government and I know he likes them, could he spread his enthusiasm among the Government, because these are outstanding schools—some of the most successful in the country—and we need many more of them, because they produce the skilled engineers at 16 and 18 which the economy needs?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am sure the whole House will recognise the enormous effort that my noble friend Lord Baker has put into the UTC movement. He is right: I have put a lot of my own time into it, because I think UTCs are a vital part of the skills network. We are doing as much as we can; the system still needs to improve. I am encouraging the Baker Dearing Educational Trust to allow more UTCs to join multi-academy trusts so that their resources can be pooled. I am also trying to encourage my noble friend to adjust the entry age of UTCs so that they are not in conflict with surrounding schools. Then, local areas can work in harmony.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, has the Minister had any further thoughts about giving more support to careers education, so that young people are more fully aware of the range of work opportunities in the world of tomorrow?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

Again, the noble Baroness asks a very important question. We have our careers strategy, underpinned by the Gatsby benchmarks, which among other things help students to learn from the career and labour market information available. The curriculum should be linked to careers, for example by bringing STEM subjects to life, and young people should have real engagement with employers and receive personal guidance. The performance of 3,000 schools and colleges has now been diagnosed against the Gatsby benchmarks, and awareness in schools is increasing all the time.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the creative industries have lots of vacancies they cannot fill with UK citizens. What are the Government going to do to address the shortage, which has mainly been caused by changes in the education system?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am not sure if this is a question about Brexit and skills from abroad or about training our own people, but even the artistic and creative industries need well-educated children. One of the first things the coalition Government did was to get rid of 3,000 pointless qualifications, to encourage children to learn proper subjects—including creative subjects.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

Further to the noble Lord’s answer to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, what are the Government doing to ensure the availability of enough qualified careers professionals to deliver the admirable goals of the careers strategy?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

As noble Lords may be aware, we recently established the Careers and Enterprise Company. It is working with schools to ensure that there are enough career advisers in the system. We have 2,000 schools and colleges within the enterprise adviser network, 700 schools and colleges in career hubs and the Government have announced a doubling of the number of career hubs to 40 to meet this rising demand.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the issues on which the Government’s ongoing post-2018 review of education will focus is how to deliver the skills the country needs as we enter unknown terrain when we leave the European Union.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I defer to my noble friend Lord Foulkes. In a debate in your Lordships’ House in July, the Minister’s colleague, the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, said that the review panel’s interim report would be published at some point this year. Can the Minister be more specific about when we can expect to hear the initial thoughts of the people charged with the important task of mapping a route that links schools, apprenticeships, further education, higher education and industry with a view to filling the skills gaps now and into the future?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, there are several parts to this answer. To deal with the initial concern about a post-Brexit scenario, as noble Lords will be aware, the Migration Advisory Committee has just issued its own recommendations on how we should adjust to a post-Brexit environment, including that we lift the cap on Tier 2 visas—at present only 20,000 a year are allowed in that area—and that we add 140 more categories to that sector. Turning to our economy and our school system, we created the skills advisory panels last year, which initially are convening in the opportunity areas to liaise with the LEPs and other employer groups. We have also created the institutes of technology, which are designed to be at a higher level of the skills matrix to ensure that the STEM skills the noble Lord referred to are given priority.

Department for Education: Use of Statistics

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they will take to address the concerns raised in the letter sent to the Secretary for State for Education on 8 October by the chair of the UK Statistics Authority concerning the department’s presentation and use of statistics.

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

My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to confirm our support for the UK Statistics Authority’s work. This ensures that the communication of statistics across government meets the highest standards. The Education Secretary has written to the UKSA to respond on its points and clearly set out statistics that show the success that this Government’s education reforms are achieving. The Permanent Secretary has also responded, giving detail on the department’s work to strengthen our internal processes on fact-checking.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that, but it does not answer the Question. This latest rebuke by the UK Statistics Authority is the fourth since the Secretary of State’s tenure began less than nine months ago. In his letter, Sir David Norgrove writes:

“I regret the department does not yet appear to have resolved issues with its use of statistics”,


and calls on him to,

“ensure that data are properly presented in a way that does not mislead”.

In an era of fake news and alternative facts, perhaps that is not too surprising, but it is completely unacceptable in a government department, particularly when previous warnings have been ignored. In response to Sir David’s letter, the DfE’s Permanent Secretary admitted, “We need to improve our performance”, but the Secretary of State’s response showed no such contrition. Will the Minister take this opportunity to apologise for the manipulation of statistics by him and fellow Ministers and state unequivocally that the department will begin complying fully with the statutory code of practice on statistics?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I reassure the Chamber about one statement we made that has caused criticism. I shall read it and then give a little context. We said that the UK is the third highest spender on education in the world, according to the OECD, spending a higher proportion of our GDP on education than Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal and Spain. This is correct, but I accept the noble Lord’s comment that the context needs to be made clearer; indeed, the Permanent Secretary acknowledged that in his letter this week to the UKSA.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, on the subject of his department’s use of statistics, is my noble friend aware of the Economic Affairs Committee report which pointed out that the penal rates of interest being charged on student loans—currently 6.3%—are counted as income by the Government, even though they will be written off 30 years down the line? Therefore, the numbers give the impression that the deficit is being reduced by charging students those penal rates of interest when in fact it is not. Is it not time that students were treated fairly and the statistics put in order?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I certainly agree that student loans constitute an important and sensitive issue, which is continually under review. Recently, we agreed to the lifting of the threshold at which repayment begins, and I am sure that debate will continue in this important area.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am quite happy to believe that the Minister and the Secretary of State have not behaved improperly, but that noble stance cannot be said to have been taken right across the department. Will the Minister give the House an absolute assurance that no pressure has been brought to bear by either Ministers or special advisers on any civil servant in the department to act outside the political impartiality and neutrality that is part of our Civil Service?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, as far as I am aware, absolutely no inappropriate pressure has been put on civil servants. I do not have any spads, so I have not been able to put any pressure on them. I assure the noble Lord that we have never endeavoured to mislead. To take one area about which people were concerned—the statement on the number of children in good or outstanding schools—the figure of 1.9 million is correct, but it is also correct that 600,000 of those relate to the increased pupil population over the past few years. One of the most important things that the department has done is to ensure the expansion of pupil places in good or outstanding schools. That is something that I began when I joined the board six or seven years ago and have been able to put a lot more emphasis on since I became a Minister. Indeed, I regularly berate any local authority considering increasing pupil place numbers in poor schools. There is a context around all this, but I assure the noble Lord that I have no knowledge of any inappropriate pressure being placed.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, the issue of the manipulation or misuse of statistics is extremely important, but it is perhaps worth recalling that this came to a head last week because the Government were able, by the use of statistics, to challenge the assertion of head teachers that school budgets were being cut in an unsustainable way. Those among your Lordships who have direct contact with schools will know that that is the case in many instances. Schools are struggling to maintain the level of their curriculum and the offer that they believe appropriate for their students because they have lost funds. Does the Minister accept that that is the case?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am afraid I do not accept it. I will use the work of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which has done a long-range analysis of school funding since 1979. It has said that the real-terms per-pupil funding for five to 16 year-olds in 2020 will be more than 50% higher than it was in 2000 and 70% higher than it was in 1990.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, is there any other government department that charges 6.2% on loans or any other contribution?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I am not aware of the practice in other government departments. As I said in my earlier answer, this is a subject of ongoing debate. We have to consider where the cost of this education lies. Is it with the individual, who will benefit in his or her future, or with the general taxpayer?

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

One of the most chilling remarks I heard during my limited time in government was from a special adviser complaining about civil servants being “prissy” with the figures. Will the Minister take this opportunity to state clearly that the Government believe it is an absolute duty of civil servants to be prissy about the figures?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, as I said in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, I am not aware of any undue pressure. In all my dealings with officials they are meticulous in the presentation of their data. Many noble Lords will be aware that there has been a tightening of data releases, so Ministers are not privy to information until 24 hours before it is released. I can assure you, there is no skulduggery going on as far as I am aware.

Child Sexual Abuse: Safeguarding Failures

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they plan to respond to the report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse regarding safeguarding failures at Downside and Ampleforth schools, published in August 2018.

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

My Lords, before answering the noble Baroness’s Question, I inform the House that various members of my wife’s family attended Ampleforth. I have never visited the school nor had any other connection with it.

The report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse regarding Downside and Ampleforth schools did not make specific recommendations to my department. However, a regulator of independent schools is carefully considering the inquiry’s findings. We have asked inspectors to pay close attention to the matters in the report at the next inspection of Downside. Ampleforth is currently under regulatory action and must improve or face further action, which could include closure.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the committee had evidence that one of the schools consulted its legal adviser as to whether it was legally obliged to report the abuse that it knew about. Having learned that it was not so obliged, it decided to cover it up. How much more evidence do the Government require of the need for mandatory reporting of child abuse in regulated activity? Of course, that does not include social workers, because social work is not a regulated activity. Will the Government now follow the evidence and respond with legislation?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it is absolutely unacceptable for anyone to conceal abuse. The Government are committed to ensuring that legislation can adequately deal with this. We will scope this issue fully during the current Parliament. What individuals and organisations should do is already clear in statutory guidance. The guidance also makes it clear that there is a legal duty on employers to make a referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service in certain circumstances.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, have the Government considered how IICSA’s current inquiry with the 13-strand remit to examine the role of institutions, including educational institutions, has decided to single out and give priority to the case of the late Greville Janner, where there was no arrest, no proceedings and therefore no challenge on evidence, no conviction, all civil claims collapsed and where the deceased’s family has been denied the right to cross-examine and test the evidence? On what possible basis has IICSA been allowed to decide to identify Janner uniquely, effectively trying a dead man in his absence? Do I detect a hint of institutional anti-Semitism here? This is a question about process, and something is very wrong.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I can assure noble Lords that there is no religious prejudice of any kind. I am happy to take this matter up with the independent inquiry and write to the noble Lord.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, we know that many faith schools, and the great majority of non-faith schools, provide an excellent service. Will the Minister institute a full-scale investigation into the potential risks in some of our faith schools, not only of child sexual abuse but of homophobic attitudes and behaviour and, in some schools—often different ones—the promotion and encouragement of the cruel practice of female genital mutilation? These practices are utterly unacceptable in our country and reform should surely begin in our schools.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, where independent schools are charities they are regulated by the Charity Commission. We regulate all of them in terms of their right to run a school. The noble Baroness mentioned female genital mutilation; that is one of the few areas where there is a mandatory requirement to report any suspicions or evidence of it to the police. We take that very seriously and awareness of it is growing in schools.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, appalling things happened at these two schools, for which the most profound sense of shame must always be felt. Has my noble friend noted the appointment of Ampleforth’s first female head, Deirdre Rowe, an expert in child safeguarding, who has said that she will lead the school into a new era? More generally, does he agree that boarding schools today are among the most thoroughly regulated and stringently inspected schools in the world?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that the degree of oversight of boarding schools in this country is probably one of the most stringent anywhere in the world. I am delighted that Ampleforth has appointed a female head. As part of the Charity Commission’s oversight of that school, it has appointed an independent observer, Emma Moody, who has the rights and powers of a trustee and is there specifically to oversee safeguarding.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the independent inquiry investigated history cases of appalling child sexual abuse. However, in April this year, the Charity Commission announced that it had stripped the charities that run Ampleforth School of their ability to have safeguarding oversight. A recent audit at Downside School by the Social Care Institute for Excellence found that there were still several important weaknesses in safeguarding. Yet the last two reports by the Independent Schools Inspectorate gave both schools a clean bill of health on safeguarding. Given that the inspectorate is monitored by Ofsted on behalf of the Department for Education, what efforts will Ministers make to ascertain how it managed to miss the continuing failings at those wretched establishments?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right that the ISI is overseen by the Department for Education and is also monitored by Ofsted. The Ampleforth matter is not over yet; there will be another inspection shortly. Everyone realises that that school is in the last chance saloon on the matter of safeguarding.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has talked about the last chance saloon and said that schools know what they should be doing. However, they are still not reporting all cases. When will the Government introduce mandatory reporting for regulated activities?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I know that there are calls for mandatory reporting and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who asked the Question, is a keen advocate of it. All noble Lords will be aware that we have consulted on this matter. We had 760 responses from social workers, police officers and other connected parties. Some 70% of them felt that mandatory reporting would have an adverse impact; 85% said that it would not, in itself, lead to the appropriate action being taken. However, over the last few years we have prioritised sexual abuse as a national threat, to empower police forces to maximise skills and expertise. This is one of only six such threats that require prioritisation.

Relationships and Sex Education

Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat a Statement made in the other place earlier today by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education. The Statement is as follows:

“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the consultation on the Government’s proposals for relationships education, relationships and sex education—commonly known as RSE—and health education, copies of which will be made available on the GOV.UK website.

Children and young people today are growing up in an increasingly complex world and living their lives seamlessly online and off. This presents many positive and exciting opportunities, of course, but also challenges and risks. In this environment, children and young people need to know how to be safe and healthy, and how to manage their lives in a positive way. Ensuring that they have this knowledge also helps to tackle problems such as sexual harassment and sexual violence.

That was why, during the passage of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, the Government acted on the compelling case to make relationships education and RSE compulsory through regulations, and to consider doing the same for elements of PSHE. There was strong cross-party support then, and I am confident that we can continue to work together on these important reforms in that way.

Since the passage of the Act, we have engaged thoroughly with a wide range of organisations. Supporting the department has been Mr Ian Bauckham CBE. With 33 years as a teacher and 13 years as a head teacher, Mr Bauckham has considerable experience in the education system. I put on record that I thank Ian for the invaluable support and advice he has provided to me. Between November 2017 and March 2018, Ian led wide-ranging stakeholder engagement with groups representing teachers, subject specialists, parents, religious bodies, MPs and others. In addition, the department launched a call for evidence to seek public views from adults and young people. More than 23,000 people responded and the level of consensus has been encouraging.

I am pleased today to be able to announce the key decisions and to launch a consultation on the detail of the regulations and guidance. For relationships education and RSE, the aim is to put in place the building blocks needed for positive and safe relationships of all kinds, starting with family and friends and moving out to other kinds of relationships, including online. It is essential that we ensure that young people can keep themselves safe online—from the basics of who and what to trust, through to how personal information is used and can be used, and how to ensure that online relationships are healthy and safe. A guiding principle here is that teaching will start from the basis that children and young people, at age-appropriate points, need to know the laws relating to relationships and sex that govern our society to ensure they act appropriately and can be safe. This includes LGBT relationships, which are a strong feature of the new subjects at age-appropriate points.

The draft guidance sets out core required content, but leaves flexibility for schools to design a curriculum that builds on it and is right for their pupils, bearing in mind their age and religious backgrounds. It enables schools with a religious character to deliver and expand on the core content by reflecting the teachings of their faith.

I am also proposing to introduce compulsory content on health education. This supports the findings from the call for evidence and engagement process, where giving children and young people the information they need to make good decisions about their own health and well-being, particularly their mental well-being, was a clear priority for many who responded. This directly supports the Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health, as well as our manifesto commitment to ensure all young people are taught about mental well-being. The focus on physical health also supports work on childhood obesity.

Financial education is already on the curriculum in maths and citizenship, and careers education is an important part of our careers strategy. For these reasons, I do not consider that further economic education needs be made compulsory. I am committed, however, to improving provision of financial and careers education, and will continue to work with stakeholders to do so. I know that many schools successfully cover the content we have been talking about in a broader PSHE programme. They should continue to do so, adapting their programme to the new requirements rather than starting from scratch. Schools are also free to develop alternative, innovative ways to ensure that pupils receive this education, and we want good practice to be shared so that all schools can benefit.

We have previously committed to parents having a right to withdraw their children from the sex education part of RSE, but not from relationships education in primary or secondary schools. A right for parents to withdraw their child up to 18 years of age is no longer compatible with English case law, nor with the European Convention on Human Rights. It is also clear that allowing parents to withdraw their child up to age 16 would not allow the child to opt in to sex education before the legal age of consent. I therefore propose to give parents the right to request that their child be withdrawn from sex education delivered as part of RSE. The draft guidance sets out that, unless there are exceptional circumstances, the parents’ request should be granted until three terms before the pupil reaches 16. At that point, if the child wishes to have sex education, the head teacher should ensure they receive it in one of those three terms. This preserves the parental right in most cases, but balances it with the child’s right to opt in to sex education once they are competent to do so.

We are keen to hear as many views as possible through the consultation and I encourage Members and their constituents to respond. The consultation will be open until early November and the final regulations will be laid in both Houses, allowing for a full and considered debate. This very important change to the curriculum has to be delivered well, and while many schools will be able to adapt their existing teaching quickly, it is essential that schools that need more time to plan and prepare their staff get that time. It is our intention that as many schools as possible will start teaching the subjects from September 2019. We will be working with those schools, as well as with multi-academy trusts, dioceses and education unions, to help them to do so.

All schools will be required to teach the new subjects from September 2020. This is in line with the department’s approach that any significant changes to the curriculum have a year’s lead-in time, and will enable us to learn lessons from the early adopter schools and share good practice further across the sector. We will be seeking views through the consultation to test the right focus for a school support package, as we know that it is crucial for schools and teachers to be confident and well prepared. I believe that our proposals are an historic step in education that will help equip children and young people with the knowledge and support they need to form healthy relationships, lead healthy lives and be safe and happy in modern Britain. I commend the Statement to the House”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches very much welcome this Statement and congratulate the Government on bringing it forward. It is a very welcome first—perhaps not historic—positive step forward in equipping our children and young people to cope with life in a modern society.

I think it was David Cameron who, referring to Europe, said that we should “stop banging on” about it. I am, however, glad that on this issue so many Peers, MPs and organisations outside Parliament did bang on for some considerable time. That banging on has meant, in the end, that the Government have taken note. It is right to congratulate not just the present Government but the former Secretary of State, Justine Greening, who did a lot of work to get to this stage. I particularly remember meeting Edward Timpson, the then Children’s Minister, who was very clear in his view about this topic.

The importance that not only our party but young people, parents and teachers attach to this subject is clear from the 23,000 responses to the call for evidence. While there is no definitive tally of similar calls for evidence, I am confident that this number would be near the top of that particular league table. I have looked through the consultation, and I am glad that, as most school terms finish tomorrow, sufficient time has been allowed for schools to respond in the autumn.

It is quite interesting how the world, and government policy, have moved on in the last five years, but it is disappointing that what the noble Lord, Lord Nash, the Minister’s predecessor, said in this House five years ago—

“The Government believe that PSHE is a vital part of a broad and balanced curriculum and that excellent PSHE provision is part of the life-blood of all good schools”—[Official Report, 24/4/13; col. GC 426.]


—has not led to a commitment to go one step further and make PSHE a statutory part of the curriculum. I certainly do not accept that economic education is covered by the current provision in careers, maths and citizenship, as the Statement claims. It is welcome that students can decide, from the age of 15, to opt in to sex education even if their parents do not want them to. However, there is still a discussion to be had about whether one term of sex education in the year before the age of consent is sufficient.

Liberal Democrats believe there should be an independent standards authority to pilot, phase in and resource policy changes. Such an authority would be better able to monitor the introduction of RSE than either civil servants or Ofsted. A broad and balanced curriculum for life, as the Liberal Democrats would like to see, would also include mental health education, first aid and emergency life-saving skills and financial literacy, in addition to relationships and sex education. The Welsh Assembly has already introduced a new RSE curriculum on the basis of extensive research and consultation. What discussions have the Government had with the Welsh Minister?

In 2013, the noble Lord, Lord Nash, informed us:

“I agree that we need to improve the focus on this area through teaching, schools and ITT providers”.—[Official Report, 18/6/13; col. 136.]


I cannot, however, find any mention in the Statement about who will provide the resources to train teachers. Initial teacher training had been totally fragmented, and I am sure that head teachers will be trying to work out how to provide the high-quality CPD to bring their staff up to speed with yet another new demand on finite and shrinking resources.

I have three questions that I hope the Minister will be able to clarify. First, the Statement says that RSE will be prescribed core content for all schools. The phrase that I am unsure of—perhaps the Minister will explain how it would work—is that it,

“leaves flexibility for schools … with a religious character to deliver and expand”,

on that content. I am not sure how that will work in practice and what it means.

My second question has, I think, been asked by the noble Lord, Lord Watson. It is important not just to introduce this measure in 2019-20 but to make sure that it is of good quality, with qualified teachers and good resources. What funding has the Minister set aside to invest in high-quality training and continuous professional development?

Finally, the Minister says that financial education should not be made compulsory, as it is already covered in the national curriculum in maths and the careers strategy. The national curriculum, however, is not compulsory in academies and free schools. Are we planning to make it compulsory for those schools, so that this subject will be taught?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords for their questions on this subject and for their broad support. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for joining us yesterday and for the contributions that he made in that meeting. I hope that I will be able to answer most of their questions.

On the consultation period, the reason that we decided to issue the Statement today, ahead of the school holidays, is that most multi-academy trusts are open over these holidays. They cover half of secondary school pupils, so we felt that it was better to get the information out there sooner rather than later to enable them to get focused on the subject.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I am sorry, but that answer is not particularly helpful. Half of them may be open during the holidays, but that means half of them are not. Why should the maintained schools sector be treated less favourably? I am really surprised at that answer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the point is that the subject is already being considered by the sector. That is why we have given it a 15-week period, which takes us to the next half-term. I was trying to answer the noble Lord’s question about why we issued it today rather than, say, on 1 September. Another thing we expect to see is a lot of schools introducing this from September 2019, which will be a year ahead of the statutory requirement. We expect that a lot of those early introducers will be the bigger chains, which are already further developed in this area.

The noble Lord also asked whether schools will be required to tell pupils and parents about the policy. It is clear that schools will be required to publish policies on their RSE and RE curriculum, and the guidance sets out what should be included in that notification.

On the right to withdraw, a parent may still request the withdrawal of their child in the three terms before they reach the 16 year-old age group, but if the child wishes to receive education, the school will be required to provide it. That is the case for all schools. To put that in perspective, 99.5% of children currently participate in the sex education that is going on in schools, so we do not feel that it will be a sensitive issue. Again, however, in the consultation we are asking for views from all respondents. If they feel that we need to improve the guidance, we are open-minded about doing that.

Regarding the materials and resources for schools, we are certainly committed to ensuring that schools are supported and ready to teach these new subjects to a high quality. Many schools are already doing that, so they will be able to adapt quickly to teaching the new subjects. But many schools will require some support, and we are asking questions in the consultation about where the help will be most needed. To support schools, we will ensure that there is a repository for quality teaching materials covering these new subjects. We intend to work closely with the unions, the MATs, the dioceses and subject associations to ensure that the right support is available for schools.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, also asked whether the guidance will apply to all schools, including independent schools, and how we will know that the subject is being delivered in those schools. The guidance for relationships education and RSE will apply to all schools, including independent schools. PSHE is already a compulsory subject in independent schools and we will work with the Independent Schools Inspectorate, which already addresses these areas, to ensure that it covers the area adequately when it inspects.

I turn to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, who asked about the level of training that we will give to support teachers in these new areas. We will certainly amend the initial teacher training. In fact, perhaps I might give the noble Lord a list of the specific subjects that will be covered in the new areas. I think this gives a bit of context to the areas that teachers will address. The noble Lord will see from the list that much of this is already going on and this is just a way of codifying it. The subjects are: mental well-being; healthy friendships; LGBT; respectful relationships, including addressing inappropriate behaviour, harassment and exploitation; online safety; consent in all types of relationships, including sexual relationships where appropriate; tolerance and respect for others; the impact of viewing harmful content or sexually explicit material; and the law in relation to abuse, exploitation and harassment. That gives a flavour of the subjects, and I think they will be intuitive for the majority of the profession.

Schools will be encouraged to teach PSHE and may cover content that they feel their pupils need. The PSHE Association has today strongly welcomed our approach. I have a quote from the association that may provide some reassurance:

“The government’s commitment to mandatory health and relationships education is welcome and a major step forward. Damian Hinds has shown outstanding leadership in guaranteeing young people an education that supports their physical and mental health, wellbeing and relationships”,


and it goes on. We have made the association a key stakeholder in our discussions.

I think I addressed the topic of support to schools in replying to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, but I reiterate that we want to use the consultation to finalise our plans for the support that we provide to schools. It would be a bit premature to commit to a particular budget on school support before we get to the detail of the support that they feel they would like.

[Lord Storey]

Before the Minister sits down—perhaps he could write to me on this, because it is quite difficult to give a verbal answer—I get that the core RSE content will be prescribed for all schools, but then there will be flexibility for schools with a religious character to expand on that content. Could he write to me about how he sees that working in practice?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I will write, but, to give the noble Lord some reassurance, two of the bodies that have been most effective in handling sex education have been the Catholic Education Service and the Church of England education service. Both have model ways of dealing with this, and part of that is early engagement with parents so that they do not feel that they are being railroaded into it and it is done in an inclusive way. I shall write with more details.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and for the meeting that he held beforehand, which I managed to get to even if my noble friend did not.

Whenever we go through this, we may find that the three-terms exemption to parents being able to remove their children is where the potential conflict is going to occur, and where it is going to be difficult to manage the balance between the right of parents’ controls and the rights of the child. I am quite in sympathy with what the Government are doing and probably agree with it; I am someone who more or less likes everything that is there. A little more might have been more to my taste, but we support what the Government are doing. However, the people who are going to have to implement this are the teaching staff. Have the Government given any guidance as to whether a parent has to be informed if a student opts into this process having been previously excluded? If there is an objection, what sort of support are we giving to the teachers and headmasters when they encounter some form of conflict? This may well be a tiny minority of people, but it will be a very vocal one because—let us face facts—it always has been. Have the Government given any thought to how we support teachers through that process, ensure that what they are doing is the law of the land and not something the teacher has decided upon, and make that clear to the parents of students who are in conflict over this? That is a point that will ultimately affect what happens on the ground.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for his comments and indeed for his contribution yesterday. He asks a very practical question. This is something that needs to be handled sensitively, and we will be looking in the consultation response for any sense that we need to strengthen the guidance to schools. Broadly speaking, head teachers are experienced at engaging with parents, particularly on difficult topics, so we trust them to put the right processes in place for their schools. We will see if there is a sense in the consultation that they do not feel well enough supported, and if that is the case then we will address this point further.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Will the end of the consultation period be followed swiftly by final government decisions? Clearly, it is important that things proceed quickly, since new arrangements take effect in September 2019. I thank the Minister for clarifying, too, in response to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that independent schools will be covered by these new arrangements. It seems to me extremely important that all elements of our school system participate in what is now going to be established.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

Yes, we are keen to get on and do this, and the plans at the moment are that the results of the consultation response will be published on GOV.UK within 12 weeks of the consultation closing. We will make an announcement on the draft regulations and draft statutory guidance at the start of next year. At that point, we will, if appropriate, make clear any changes to the draft statutory guidance and regulations prior to parliamentary debates, during the passing of the associated regulations.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful that the Government are going to make progress in this important area. I thank the Minister for spelling out the content of the teacher education aspect, which has partially answered the question that I wanted to ask. Some of us have raised on a number of occasions the issue of the increase in violence and harassment against young girls in schools. In particular, there is the fact that a lot of young boys get their sex education from pornography online. They are getting sex education, but it may not be the appropriate sex education. This issue of violence is becoming endemic, and I wonder whether we are a little bit mealy-mouthed in all this in talking about internet safety and harms. In the content that the Minister quoted, he talked about illicit internet information, or something. Should not we call a spade a shovel? Perhaps I am influenced by listening to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Pickles. We are talking about a serious increase in pornography available at school level. I hope that people recognise how difficult it will be to tackle. If we do not make it clear that these sorts of issues are included, I wonder whether some people may miss it as an important aspect.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point. The key point that I would like to make is that this is the first change to this part of education for 18 years, which is extraordinary when you think that 18 years ago very few children owned a mobile phone, and Facebook did not even exist—so this is a major step forward to bring us into the 21st century. The Secretary of State said today that this would be kept under review every three years or so, to make sure that we were keeping on top of any further developments that occur in the online world. I gave the noble Lord, Lord Storey, a taste of some of the things that we are including, although I did not give the whole list. To give the noble Baroness some reassurance, it includes strengthened content around areas such as relationship focus and bullying, including cyberbullying. We are very alert to this—it is so important.

I can tell you a terrible story in my own life as an academy sponsor. Last year, in one of our schools a young girl of 16 went on a date with a boy. They ended up in bed together, and the next day the boy boasted on Facebook, and the girl was so mortified that she hanged herself—dead. That is the reality. That boy will have to carry that for the rest of his life, and a young girl lost her life. So there is no one more passionate about this than me.

[Baroness Barker]

My Lords, I declare my interest as the chair of the All-Party Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health. I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, and I too think that Justine Greening deserves great commendation for having started this, and that Nick Gibb deserves credit for taking it through. This is clearly a very carefully worded document and I very much welcome its main intention.

There are just two things that I take the opportunity to pick up. The first is about pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. There are very few people who are expert in the field of developing materials and delivering training for talking to people with disabilities, including learning disabilities or disabilities such as deafness. Can the Minister say whether the Government will make sure that, during this consultation, young people with disabilities and the people who work with them are included? They are often very isolated; it is difficult enough to talk about some of these matters if you are in full command of your communication, and sometimes teachers find it intensely difficult to speak to people with disabilities about these matters. There is a lot of evidence that these young people end up relying on the internet and coming away with really strange ideas, because they have been looking at the wrong sort of stuff. It is an area that has to be handled with great sensitivity and care.

Secondly, I welcome paragraph 33 of the draft guidance, which is about the inclusion of LGBT, and I note the way in which it has been drafted. It is my understanding—and I ask the Minister to correct me if I am wrong—that there is no general guidance for schools about transgender issues, including what happens when you have trans teachers or trans pupils. There are bits and pieces of guidance that individual schools and authorities have developed—most notably Cornwall County Council—but I do not think that there is any general guidance for schools. Am I right that this is the first time that any kind of guidance on trans will be in schools? Will the Minister consider that in a bit more depth?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Baroness raises two important questions. First, on SEND, just to reassure the House, the whole thrust of these changes is for the teaching of all pupils, including those with special needs. In the debate in the other place today, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State made particular reference to reaching out in the consultation to special schools, SENCOs and others on how we can support the needs of pupils with SEND to ensure that we have the correct materials available for them. Likewise, on the LGBT question, I do not know what the existing materials are, but one reason for not bringing this in sooner, as some people would like, is to give us the time to start developing best practice, particularly across these sensitive areas. As I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, earlier, we expect quite a few schools to be starting this in September 2019, which will give us time to develop good practice and make it available across the whole system.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, with the permission of the House, I would like to return to a point that I asked the Minister about when I spoke earlier, which is the issue of faith schools. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, raised a similar point. If there is any difficulty in making this guidance effective, that is most likely where it would occur. The point I specifically asked was: what happens where the school itself effectively does not recognise that sex education should be delivered at, say, the age of 16 and puts pressure on the parents to ask that their children opt out, and yet one or more of these children decide that they want that? The school, as I understand it, would be legally obliged to provide that sex education but would be very uncomfortable about doing so. Can the Minister say a bit more about how faith schools will be expected to act in those circumstances to make sure that they comply with the guidance?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

Yes, of course this is a very sensitive area, but I think we have to be clear that there is a requirement for faith schools to enter this mandatory process. However, schools with a religious character can teach these subjects according to the tenets of their faith. In schools with a religious character, the distinctive faith perspective on relationships may be taught, and balanced debate may take place about the issues that are seen as contentious. For example, a school may wish to reflect faith teachings about certain topics, as well as how their faith institutions may support people in matters of relationships and sex. As I mentioned as part of my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, we find that two of the most effective organisations in dealing with these areas tend to be the Catholic Education Service and the Church of England. However, we do invite responses in the consultation if there is still a sense of ambiguity.