Equality of Opportunity for Young People

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I express my gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for initiating and instigating this debate. I congratulate her on the number of name-checks for her Lib Dem colleagues she managed to achieve in the early part of her speech. This is not a problem I have to wrestle with.

I will enter another slightly discordant note. It should not go unremarked that many of the policies that have taken us backwards in equalities over the last nine years—as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, acknowledged in his contribution—sadly had some of their origins in the coalition years: Sure Start cuts, the bedroom tax, the scrapping of EMAs and the tripling of tuition fees, to name just a few.

But this debate is about more than that. When Mrs May became Prime Minister back in 2016, she did so with a mission to heal social divisions and act to help those just about managing. She put herself at the head of a Government with a social agenda designed to tackle inequality and unfairness in the workplace and to rebalance the housing market. That early promise is often forgotten and, in a news cycle dominated almost totally by the daily psychodrama that is Brexit, wholly overlooked. So I very much welcome this debate focusing on what equality of opportunity means for young people seeking a beneficial quality of life. This Government have strayed a long way from Mrs May’s original purpose and have long lost any sense of where their policies might lead.

As others have referenced, the Social Mobility Commission’s State of the Nation report concluded recently:

“Inequality is now entrenched in Britain from birth to work, and the government needs to take urgent action to help close the privilege gap”.


The same report observed that,

“social mobility has been stagnant”,

for over four years. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, observed in her contribution—a brilliant contribution, with lots of really powerful and important questions—being born privileged still usually means that you remain privileged. The report found that:

“The dominance of background factors on future outcomes is further compounded when we look at the interaction with gender, ethnicity and disability”.


This is a damning indictment of government policy by a government-sponsored body, and not one that I have heard anyone question.

Probably the most troubling aspect of the picture painted by the Social Mobility Commission and the Lords Select Committee on Intergenerational Fairness and Provision is that younger generations are not seeing the increases in living standards experienced by previous generations—my generation. This has led to what the committee identified as,

“disappointed expectations … in housing and the workplace”.

This was attributed to successive government failures to anticipate and,

“prepare for social, economic and technological change”.

Inequality in all its forms has sadly become so entrenched in modern British society that the IFS has launched its own large-scale study on the topic. I very much hope your Lordships’ House will have the opportunity to discuss the Deaton review as it progresses.

None of this comes as a surprise to those of us on this side of the political divide. Since 2010 the Government have pursued policies pinned to the holy grail of austerity Budgets designed to lead to the false God of ending the deficit in public finances. In reality, we know to our cost that these policies have led to a decline in public services and a loss of trust in the power of the state to intervene and promote greater equality and opportunity in society. Since 2010 the Government have systematically undermined things that had been introduced to narrow inequality, make higher and further education more accessible and enable people to make provision for decent housing options—all things that tangibly improve the quality of life for a rising generation.

The litany of negative policies is a long one. Scrapping the EMA took away much-needed financial support for books, transport and studying costs for low-income students in post-16 education. This was coupled with the massive tripling of tuition fees in England, which has driven whole generations into debt they will never clear, making access to the housing market after graduation even harder. The fees have had a disastrous impact on part-time studying too.

Young people face the impossibility of accessing reasonably priced housing. As the Lords Intergenerational Fairness and Provision Committee found, the Government are,

“not taking the action needed to ensure there is a sufficient supply of affordable housing”,

which is primarily hurting the younger generation.

The Resolution Foundation has calculated that it will take a 27 to 30 year-old 18 years to save sufficient money to put down a deposit on a house; 20 years ago it would have taken just three. All of this makes the bank of mum and dad even more important—so much so that at the age of 30 those without parental property wealth are approximately 60% less likely to become homeowners.

Young people, too, are experiencing the worst impact of the private rental market. Typically, young renters are paying as much as 35% of their income to rent, whereas the immediate post-war generation spent, as we heard, only 15%. In a sector lacking security of tenure and with many private landlords demanding large deposits and access charges, and providing poor repair services, it is little wonder that young renters suffer increasingly from mental health problems and anxiety.

Housing and employment taken together have a major impact on life satisfaction. By historical standards we live in an era of relative full employment, with young people out of work at historically low levels—11.3% according to the latest figures. However, that masks considerable dissatisfaction with insecurity of employment and pay levels. Slow pay progression is a real factor for new entrants into the labour market. Young people have seen larger declines in pay over the past decade than other age groups. This of course impacts on labour market flexibility and household formation rates and has led to couples starting families much later in life.

Both the Social Mobility Commission and the Intergenerational Fairness and Provision Committee commented on job insecurity and low pay. The SMC found that 52% of disadvantaged young people leave school without qualifications and, as a consequence, get stuck in low-paid work. The commission argued that young people with professional parents were 80% more likely to get professional jobs themselves. It made the point that adult education was failing to address this inequality. That failing, coupled with the increasing rate of automation of jobs, is likely to lead to a further entrenchment of inequality and reduced levels of social mobility.

What sort of change do we need if we are to emerge from this malaise? The SMC was clear that we need an economic model that values concentrated investment in skills, jobs and infrastructure in areas of low pay and low social mobility. This will of course need a new approach from employers too. To this I would argue and add that if we are to answer the Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, we need comprehensive policies that counter growing inequality in the workplace, in our communities and in the provision of good-quality housing.

Reintroducing the EMA, scrapping tuition fees and promoting a national education service will all go some way to creating a learning culture that says it values the development of skills for life. We need to set out to provide lifelong learning so that, as new technologies come along, the workforce of the future can adapt and retrain. Apprenticeship and graduate-based skills need an equivalence of value in the workforce so that we can get away from the rigid divides prevalent in the labour market that prevent progression and social mobility.

Exploitative zero-hours contracts, unpaid internships and poorer pay for part-time employees need outlawing. Scrapping the youth rate for the minimum wage and ensuring a real living wage of £10 per hour for all would go a long way to restoring dignity in our workplaces.

In the housing market we need decisive action. Rents and house prices are sensitive to the scale of a building programme. A national programme, with councils enabled to expand their stocks, more help for first-time buyers, with Help to Buy expanded and extended, and an end to insecurity in the private sector, with a cap on rent rises, new minimum standards and a guaranteed right to repairs are all measures that will make a difference to our younger generation.

Work and home are the things that give our lives value and can create a sense of well-being. They are the foundations to much of our personal satisfaction. Public policy over much of the past decade has done little to enrich the lives of younger people or provide them with an opportunity to progress and aspire. We live in a society which, despite the best efforts of the last Labour Government, is still overly defined by class, place and background. If we want to escape from a future defined by those things, we need to rethink, reimagine and revisit whole areas of public policy. The alternative will leave us stuck in a time-warped, two-speed economy where inequality becomes even more entrenched and young people become resentful and alienated as the issues that affect them and shape their world are ignored. We let those things fester at our peril.

School Exclusion: Timpson Review

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for repeating this important Statement, and I join him in thanking Edward Timpson and all those who contributed to this report.

It is a fact that too many children are being written off as failures, with tragic consequences. Permanent exclusions have risen by 40% in the past three years, and analysis carried out by Barnardo’s found that one in three local authorities in England has nowhere for excluded children to go, leaving them socially excluded and at serious risk of being groomed and exploited by criminal gangs. This is simply not acceptable. Urgent action is required to help schools reduce the number of children who are excluded. It is therefore imperative that those schools have the necessary resources to support pupils at risk of exclusion, especially those with more complex social needs.

We know that the most vulnerable children in society are more likely to be permanently excluded. Indeed, analysis found that 78% of permanent exclusions were issued to children who had special educational needs or who were eligible for free school meals. It is also worth noting that Traveller children of Irish heritage have the highest rate of permanent exclusion, followed by Gypsy and Roma children. However, as this House has noted in recent debates, school budgets are £1.7 billion lower in real terms than they were just five years ago. As a result of the shortfall, special needs provision in England has lost out on some £1.2 billion since 2015. Does the Minister share my concern, and that of others, that the current level of funding is so desperately inadequate that many schools have had to cut back on support staff who provide key support and early intervention for children with challenging behaviour? Here I am thinking of teacher assistants.

Exclusions must be used only as a last resort; on that I think we are all agreed. However, as Mr Timpson emphasised, “exclusion from school” should never be allowed to become “exclusion from education”—and yet sadly that is what has been happening over the past few years. It is clear that the Government must do more to improve the availability and quality of alternative provision, to ensure that every child, particularly the most vulnerable, gets the education they need to achieve a positive future. However, the latest wave of free schools included just two specialising in alternative provision. Does the Minister recognise that restrictions on new schools imposed by this Government have seriously constrained the ability local authorities have to address the lack of services in some areas without allowing other schools to be built?

I would also like to touch on the shameful practice of off-rolling, which the Statement dealt with, where schools try to remove pupils who cause problems or who might lower exam league table performance. Pupils moved in this way miss out on the support they would receive via the formal exclusion process, and are hidden from scrutiny and due process. Schools must be made accountable, not only for permanently excluded pupils but for those who leave their rolls in other ways and circumstances. Will the Minister advise the House what action the Government are taking to address this phenomenon? The Statement makes plain that this is accepted as an issue, and we must ensure that no child is left behind.

To conclude, although the Opposition broadly agree with the recommendations of the review, we remain concerned at what is not included. The Government’s response to the report makes no mention of the impact of cuts to schools, nor have they outlined a credible plan for how improved outcomes for pupils in alternative provision will be achieved. This falls far short of where we believe we should be going on this issue.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for the Statement that he has read, and I thank Edward Timpson for his report. It is not a surprising report, really —we all knew that this was going on—and I always wonder why we need to wait for a report before taking action. It is an absolute scandal that 40 pupils a day are permanently excluded from school and 2,200 pupils every day are put on a system of semi-exclusion. What happens? Well, two things happen. First, if they are lucky, they get put into alternative provision, and most of that alternative provision is unregistered. We have heard what the chief inspector has said about unregistered schools—that they are unsafe and that vulnerable young people are put in a very unhelpful situation. Many of them, if they are not put into a proper alternative provider, get involved in gang culture, and we know where that can lead. So why does the report not say absolutely clearly that unregistered schools for alternative provision should not be allowed and that we should take action against them? These vulnerable young people need to be in the most supportive environment with the best qualified and trained teachers.

Secondly, on the issue of knife crime, I welcome the idea of having a multiagency discussion to look at how we deal with this, but it is sad that there is no mention of the youth service. We should be investing in the youth service and, in particular, in detached youth workers.

Then we come to the issue of off-rolling, which has already been mentioned. Again, it is a scandal that schools can just off-roll pupils—often the most vulnerable pupils, including those with special educational needs. Nowhere does the report say why schools are allowed to off-roll. Why are schools off-rolling? We know that they off-roll because they want to do well in their school inspection and in their league table results, but, again, that should not be allowed. Also, when a pupil is off-rolled from a school, who is responsible for that pupil? Not the school or the local authority—the pupil is in limbo.

I hope the Minister might address those three issues. Finally, I am sure he would agree that it would be useful to have a proper debate on this issue in your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I will respond to the noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord Storey. On permanent exclusions, last year 85% of schools had none at all, so it is important to put the issue in some perspective. But we are not complacent in any way—that is why we commissioned Timpson last year to undertake his review.

That flows into the issue of off-rolling, which greatly concerned both noble Lords. The term has crept into usage only in the past two or three years, and when we initially commissioned Edward Timpson to undertake his review it was not in common usage, but he has expanded the report to deal with it. It is important to reassure noble Lords that off-rolling is an unlawful practice, so it is not something that a school can do legitimately. We are focusing on this partly through the changes to the Ofsted inspection framework, for example, which will come in in September, which will ramp up the inspection process to ensure that such things are not going on. Ofsted will look at children who have left the school roll and interrogate the school as to why they have left and where they are.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

I am grateful that the Minister has said that off-rolling is illegal, but have the Government actually challenged any of the schools that have off-rolled? Is there any data on that?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I am not aware of any specific data, but from this September, with the new Ofsted inspection framework, it will be very clear in any inspection that the issue will be under the spotlight in a way that is not the case at the moment. As we know, Ofsted has quite a lot of power to change behaviours in the system, so I am optimistic that we will see a change in behaviour. I also think that the public debate about off-rolling has changed behaviours already in those schools where it may or may not have been going on. One of the Timpson recommendations also asks us to look at the convoluted and complicated system of coding of attendance, which allows a lot of opacity—that will also help.

On funding, we are very aware that funding is tight in the system, but it is important to place on record that we have increased SEND funding from £5 billion in 2013 to £6.3 billion in the current year, and we have opened 42 AP free schools since the free school programme began.

Schools: Modern Languages

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, with Ofqual figures showing a drop of 7.3% in students taking foreign languages at GCSE and A-level, I invite the Minister to join me in congratulating our European partners, whose Governments are directly funding the teaching of Italian, German, French and Spanish in our primary schools. Will he tell the House what plans the Government have to encourage that continued economically viable support and commitment post Brexit, so that we can compete more easily in the global economy? Does he appreciate the irony of our seeking to leave Europe while our European partners are funding school posts at a time when we are cutting them?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I think the irony has to lie with the noble Lord opposite, because in 2004 the Labour Government removed the compulsory requirement for modern foreign languages at GCSE. It collapsed from 70% participation to 40% in 2010 and we have clawed it back to 46%. That is not enough, I absolutely accept that, and I give full commendation to the Italian Government who are helping with Italian in this country. The Goethe Institute is also helping with German and we have announced our own scheme, which has been running for three years with the Spanish Government, whereby we bring over young Spanish undergraduates to work in our schools.

Universal Credit: Free School Meals

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Thursday 21st February 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to reconsider recent changes to access to free school meals following their decision to delay the roll out of Universal Credit.

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

My Lords, the continuing provision of free school meals to children from out-of-work or low-income families is of the utmost importance to this Government. Due to the generous transitional protection we put in place, no child eligible for and currently receiving free school meals will lose their entitlement as a result of the universal credit rollout. Even more children will benefit by retaining eligibility through the protection.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is estimated that there are 5 million children now living in poverty in the UK, so is it not time for the Government to consider using the pause in the rollout of universal credit to reconsider their mean-spirited free school meals policy? What assessments have they made of the number of families who are in work poverty who do not qualify for free school meals but for whom the cost of school meals causes genuine daily hardship?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I dispute the noble Lord’s assertion on the number of children living in poverty. The DWP estimates that 300,000 fewer children are in poverty now than prior to 2010. On eligibility he will know that, through the introduction of infant free school meals, another 1.5 million children are now in receipt of them. I give credit to our coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats—particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Garden—for helping to bring that in. We are in a better place than we have ever been before.

Schools: Funding

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Morris on her excellent plea for education and on phrasing the debate in the terms she did. She is right to say that our education service is at a crisis point, and that the Government have to make their mind up about what they want to do with education—where they want to take it and how they see the future.

The Chancellor, in announcing a budget increase, as he put it, for primary and secondary schools, made probably one of the most patronising throwaway remarks ever when he said of the £400 million that he was giving out that it was, “money for little extras”. He should have left it at “little extra”—at least that would have been more honest and accurate. It gives a primary school on average £10,000 extra and a secondary school £50,000 extra. Few of us on these Benches know of a state school that is not struggling to keep within its budget. Local schools in my area, Brighton and Hove, have long had banners outside their gates telling local residents that the average loss to local schools is roughly £200,000 a year—and parents tell me that they can tell.

Yet still the Government, in a flurry of statistics, try to explain it all away by saying that the dedicated schools grant, delivered through the new funding formula, will mean that, as Schools Standards Minister Nick Gibb, claimed:

“Core schools funding will rise from … £41bn last year, to £42.4bn this year and £43.5bn in 2019-20. This means that real terms per pupil funding in 2020 will be more than 50% higher than it was in 2000”.


What this bland assertion ignores, of course, is the truth that, as the IFS—the respected independent fiscal analysts—pointed out, the 50% increase was during Labour’s years in office, between 2000 and 2010. The IFS placed the changes in a wider financial context and stated:

“Total school spending per pupil fell … in real terms between 2009-10 and 2017-18, and will only be … 14% higher in real terms in 2017-18 than in 2003-04. This adds on the additional effect of a … real-terms cut in local authority service spending and a real-terms cut of more than 20% to … sixth-form spending per student between 2009-10 and 2017-18”.


The Government’s reaction is to retreat, as they always do, to assertions such as, “schools funding is at record levels” and that changes are part of a “historic move to fairer funding”. No doubt we will be treated to this mantra later from the Minister. He will also tell us, no doubt, that schools standards are rising and that disadvantaged pupils are doing better than ever.

Fortunately, we are blessed with independent-minded observers such as the National Audit Office. In December 2016, it reported on the financial sustainability of schools based on the Government’s spending plans. It concluded that, while the schools budget was protected in real terms, it did not provide for funding per pupil to increase in line with inflation. It also pointed out that with the increase in numbers—174,000 in primary schools and 284,000 in secondary schools—there will be a real-terms reduction when inflation is taken into account. The NAO went on to say that department estimates show that mainstream schools will have to find savings of £3 billion a year to counteract cumulative costs pressures. These they identified as pay rises, the introduction of the national living wage, higher employer contributions to national insurance and the teachers’ pension scheme—plus non-pay inflation and the apprenticeship levy. By 2019-20, this will amount to an 8% per-pupil funding cut. It is no surprise, then, that the professionals on the ground who teach in and manage our schools are beginning to feel the effect of this continued austerity squeeze.

So those are the figures and that is the theory—but what is the practice? I decided to take a look at one of our more affluent London boroughs—Barnet—to see what professionals there were saying. They believe that they are providing a world-class education for Barnet children, and they are rightly proud of their achievements, but head teachers recently wrote to Nick Gibb, and I think also met him, about school funding. They said that they are seriously concerned that current levels of funding are now seriously threatening this high-quality provision. They pointed out that 95.5% of Barnet pupils attend a good or outstanding school and that most schools in the borough are full or over-subscribed. They pointed to the cost pressures that the IFS drew out. What worries Barnet’s head teachers is the impact on the education service they run.

In their open letter to the Minister, they listed 27 areas where budget cuts are reducing the quality of education. I shall give eight items from the list: staff reductions in teaching and support posts; curriculum reduction, including languages, the arts and sport; increases in class sizes; SEN service reductions; fewer teaching assistants; ICT equipment not being replaced; reduced book budgets; less training; and reduced school building maintenance expenditure. These are not trivial impacts; they are core to a school’s activity. They stretch teachers. Heads battle with budgetary control. They report that fundraising for core educational activity has become standard practice, which displaces management and leadership time for heads and senior staff.

The responses from the Barnet heads are disturbing. All 53 reported significant issues for their schools, including budget cuts varying from £43,00 a year to £150,000 a year. Most no longer have significant numbers of teaching assistants. One head reported 20% fewer staff than five years previously. Class sizes of 35 are now not uncommon. Another school reported a contingency fund of just £1,000 to cope with emergencies within a year. This is economic educational madness. A prominent secondary head in the borough recorded that two years ago the school had a surplus of £800,000 which has now gone and that insolvency for his school is a real prospect. Of course, the things that go first are the extras that my noble friend pointed to, such as providing additional places when they are needed and all the SEN work which targets those most in educational need. In-year deficits are now commonplace in Barnet schools, overspends are standard and teaching assistant and support staff reductions are obligatory. Several schools report running without deputy heads, senior staff and the specialists needed to have a full curriculum.

I say to the Minister that Barnet is a Tory flagship borough, and I presume the Government are proud of its quality service claims. On the data recording the borough’s educational service they should be, but, like all boroughs, Barnet has vulnerable pupils and areas of low attainment. They deserve the support which is now beginning to disappear.

Young people are our nation’s future, they are its intellectual capital and, in an increasingly service-dominated knowledge economy, that will always be the case. What sort of sense does it make for us to run down IT and ICT investment when it should be rising to meet the challenges of the AI revolution? What sort of sense does it make to underinvest in our teacher workforce to lead this work at precisely the moment when we need it most and when our nation faces an uncertain economic future, where investing in that knowledge economy may well make a difference to our national destiny and prosperity in a post-Brexit world?

My noble friend Lady Morris is a distinguished educational leader and has done great service in bringing this debate forward. She has given great service to our nation in the field of education. I hope this debate brings intelligent reflection from our Schools Minister and a change of course on funding the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I entirely accept that this is an extremely difficult subject that has been kicked down the road for a long time. Doing it at a time when there are not huge amounts of additional money makes it difficult, but the system puts a floor in the bottom so that no one loses out. Of course, the debate will always be about why we are not moving the bottom ones up quicker. I met a head from West Sussex only last week—

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

The noble Lord is being extremely courteous and helpful to the House, but what he does not seem to be doing is explaining why it is that all these schools, in experiencing what he is saying are increases in budgets, are also experiencing reductions and losing the ability to provide the level of service that they have provided in the past. The Barnet study is a good case in point, because it is not just one isolated school; it is all the Barnet schools. While I am here, I recommend to the noble Lord that he uses Lockets next time, rather than worry about Tunes.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I thank the noble Lord for that very important piece of advice. There is a very complicated answer to the noble Lord’s question. It goes right back to the 1990s, to a system of training called COSMOs that was given to head teachers then. That training has not been continued and has lapsed, but what it showed senior leaders in the 1990s was how to most effectively allocate resources in their schools. A lot of those skills have been lost. I will cover some of the individual questions that have been raised—I have some figures for the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, on Barnet, for example.

I now turn to high needs. We recognise the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and my noble friend Lady Eaton about funding for children and young people with high needs. We are also concerned about provision for excluded pupils. We have produced a range of support for local authorities to help them best use the resources they have available, including a high needs benchmarking tool by which they can compare spending. We have increased overall funding allocations to local authorities for high needs by £130 million last year and £142 million this year. We will increase this further next year, by approximately £120 million. In fact, high-needs funding will be more than £6 billion next year and will have risen by £1 billion since 2013. Every local authority will see an increase to their high-needs funding per head of the population of two to 18 year-olds this year and next, with underfunded authorities receiving up to 6% more next year than in 2017-18.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, asked about mental health care for young people. We are very concerned about that—one would be callous to say anything else—and are putting more resources in. Our Green Paper last year set out proposals to support schools to put in place senior leads for mental health, to introduce new mental health support teams working in or near schools and colleges, and a trial of a new four-week waiting time for NHS children and young people’s mental health services. As came up in a Question earlier this week, the NHS itself is committing £2 billion more to mental health, which will include, over the next several years, adding 8,000 mental health professionals to the system.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked about improving teaching for, and increasing awareness of, the kind of challenges that he is so passionate about. We are increasing the level of resources available to help teachers support children with SEN. We have a special resource in the initial teacher training modules. We have online resources for teachers and the department has also contracted with the Whole School SEND Consortium to deliver a programme to equip schools to support children with SEND, which includes dyslexia.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, was also concerned about education, health and care plans. We carried out a survey last year that showed that 66% of parents are satisfied with the process. This is, of course, a new process and one we aim to improve.

Turning to efficiency and the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on high pay, I completely share his concern about high pay in academies. The very first thing I did when I took on this job just over a year ago was to tackle it. We went after about 213 trusts, I think it was—more than 200 trusts—and since then 56 have stopped making those sorts of payments, for various reasons. That is a campaign that I will continue. I completely support the noble Lord in calling out those who do that.

On school resource management more generally, we recognise that schools have faced cost pressures. I want to be clear to the House that we are not in denial about that. The idea that I operate in a citadel is a dream that I can aspire to, but the real world is rather different, and that is why we are providing extensive support to schools to help get the best value out of every pound. We recently launched a strategy setting out the support, current and planned, that we have designed to help schools reduce costs. It provides practical advice on how to identify potential savings from their non-staff spend that can be put back into teaching to get the best value. To put that in perspective, we have a non-staff spend of about £10 billion a year, and we believe that £1 billion of that could be pulled out of the system over the next three or four years.

We know that marketplaces can be complex, leading to schools facing higher costs than they need to. The initiatives in our schools buying strategy aim to reduce this complexity when procuring goods and services. For example, we recently launched an agency supply teacher deal to provide schools with greater transparency on costs. We now have 34 national deals to help schools save money on items they buy regularly.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, referred to my comments at the Schools & Academies Show last week—he is obviously very thorough in his research. The reason I used a somewhat strong or controversial approach there is that, for a year now, I have been going round forums such as that show giving endless speeches pointing out that we have these deals available for schools. In the audience for the address he referred to were 200 head teachers and chief executives. I asked those who had used our deals to put up their hands. Out of the 200, five put up their hands. When I arrived in this job a year ago, I wrote to 1,300 chief executives of trusts and told them about the deals that were in place. I said, “If they are no good, please tell me”. How many responses did I get? I did not get one response. I understand the pressures in the system, but the system also has to respond to us. Since we are trying to help them improve efficiency, they need to tell us how we can help them more. That is why I made those comments the other day: it was not to be glib. I am a huge fan of spreading best practice and if there were schools in that audience that were doing interesting, innovative things, I want to let other schools know about that. It is important to put that into context because the trade magazines made fun of me, which of course is grist to the mill in this job.

We have created a benchmarking website for schools. This allows them to compare their spending with that of similar schools elsewhere in the country. We continue to improve this service and recently introduced a trust-to-trust comparison functionality. This will help school and trust leaders to identify if and where improvements can be made.

I am conscious of time. On teachers’ pay and pensions, we have recently responded to recommendations made by the School Teachers’ Review Body to confirm the 2018 pay award for main scale teachers. It is our aim that schools continue to attract high-quality recruits—I take on board the many comments about recruitment challenges—and this award will support them to do that. We will see a 3.5% uplift to the main pay range, 2% to the upper pay range and 1.5% to the leadership pay range. In the main pay range, it is important to stress for noble Lords, this is the biggest percentage increase since 2011.

Grammar Schools

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the findings of Professor John Jerrim in his paper The association between attending a grammar school and children’s socio-emotional outcomes, published in May, that grammar schools do not promote social mobility; and what continuing benefit they anticipate from the increased funding recently announced for grammar schools.

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

My Lords, the paper attempts to explore emotional outcomes of selective schooling and finds little difference between grammar school pupils and their peers at 14 in terms of well-being. It draws no conclusion about social mobility. Other research indicates that a grammar school education significantly reduces the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils. It is a condition of approval under the selective schools expansion fund that schools seek to admit more disadvantaged pupils.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, the £50 million extra for selective schools comes at a time when cash-strapped schools are asking parents for donations to make up funding shortfalls. Given that the noble Lord conceded in a written reply to me that there were no set numbers of places reserved for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, can he explain how the funding will benefit disadvantaged students? Does he also agree that, since the money provides just 4,000 extra places, it would be better spent reversing cuts to teaching assistant posts in primary schools, where research shows that the money would make a difference to social mobility?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the amount of capital allocated to the grammar school expansion fund is, as the noble Lord says, £50 million against the context of over £1 billion allocated to the mainstream state system, so the sums are not big. However, we should discriminate between capital and revenue funding. While there is some pressure on schools on revenue funding, they receive 6.5% more per pupil in real terms than under the highest level of Tony Blair’s regime.

Schools: Free Lunches and Milk

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we must look at our Government’s broader track record since 2010. As I said when summing up the debate introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, last week, we have intervened in a number of areas for the most disadvantaged children in our society: 15 hours for disadvantaged two year-olds, 30 hours for working parents, early years pupil premium, disability access fund, tax-free childcare and shared parental leave. None of those are designed other than to help the most disadvantaged members of our society. I urge noble Lords to look at universal credit and free school meals in the context of all that we have done over the past eight years.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, if that is the case, why did a recent report point out that 1 million more children would be in poverty by 2020? How does the Minister justify the policy and answer that question?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I am not familiar with those figures. However, we have done more than previous Governments to ensure that families are taken out of poverty—and we know that the route out of poverty is through work. The items on the list I gave a moment ago are all aimed to help parents become working parents and not to be exposed to poverty.

Free School Lunches and Milk, and School and Early Years Finance (Amendments Relating to Universal Credit) (England) Regulations 2018

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

That this House regrets Her Majesty’s Government bringing forward changes in entitlement to free school meals through the Free School Lunches and Milk, and School and Early Years Finance (Amendments Relating to Universal Credit) (England) Regulations 2018 which will undermine work incentives in Universal Credit and leave up to a million poor children unable to claim free school meals; and calls on Her Majesty’s Government not to implement the Regulations until a full poverty impact assessment has been completed and considered by both Houses, and not before six months has elapsed (SI 2018/148).

Relevant document: 20th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I make no apologies for moving this Motion. I make it plain from the start that I see this in very personal terms.

Back in the 1960s, a time which brings happy nostalgia for many noble Lords, I was a teenager at secondary school, living with my mother and stepfather. Shortly before the start of the 1966 World Cup, he collapsed and died of a heart attack. I was just short of 13 years old and, frankly, my mother’s world collapsed around her. She worked, as she always had. She was then a farm worker on a soft fruit farm that produced plants for sale all year round. She picked soft fruit in the summer months and then worked in the fields, greenhouses and packaging and distribution centre the rest of the year. It was hard, backbreaking work, sometimes with long hours.

The pay was regulated by the old Agricultural Wages Board. Her weekly take home pay was 157 shillings and six pence, the equivalent today of £7.85. The equivalent today, annualised, would be £7,152.60. With overtime, it would have risen close to the threshold set by the Government for cutting off access to free school meals. My mother would have faced a hard choice akin to those who face today a modern cliff-edge judgment. Like most teenagers, I found odd jobs to try to help pay my way, but in 1966 she was what we now call part of the working poor. In fact, until I did some research today, and assuming I have my sums right, I had not realised quite how poor she was.

There were not many silver linings for my mum becoming a widow and she struggled to cope, both financially and emotionally. Eventually, the local council transferred the tenancy to her. The loss of household income led to a housing allowance and, in turn, that triggered entitlement to free school meals. When my mother eventually got her head around it, she asked me to see if we qualified for something called family income supplement—it was a sort of universal credit of its time—but apparently we did not.

Why do I mention this, and why now? Free school meals were, for my mother, a godsend. They were not an add-on, they were an essential. She did not have to spend time packing a lunch for me and it meant I had a hot meal five days a week without her having to worry. It saved her time—if you are working poor, that matters—and it saved her money. That is what makes these regulations so abhorrent. The Government seek to dress up this change as something it is not. They say, as the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, did last week, that they are an act of state generosity because, when they roll out universal credit and it is complete, there will be 50,000 additional beneficiaries. This is not because the scheme is more generous; it is simply, as the Children’s Commissioner rumbled last week, because of an increase in the size of the school-age population by nearly half a million by 2022. In fact, as a percentage of the school-age population, fewer will be entitled to free school meals.

Studies show that the educational benefit of good eating habits are profound. Northumbria University’s work on this suggests there is a real benefit in terms of educational attainment of a midday meal for those from low-income households. It was precisely because of this link that school meals were first introduced back in 1906 and why Labour has done so much to encourage breakfast clubs to ensure that kids get fed before the school day begins.

The Government are not making these changes out of the goodness of their heart. These changes are being made as part of the continuing austerity package. Will the Minister enlighten us this evening on the level of continuous savings they produce for the Treasury? However, we know the value of free school meals to individual households: £437 per child for a year and more than £1,300 a year for a three-child family where all are in education. Take those sums away and that represents a significant cut to family income.

We are supposed to be reassured by the transitional arrangements. No family should lose out if they currently receive free school meals except when they move to the next phase of schooling. On transfer from primary school to secondary school, you lose out, and you lose out when you transfer to sixth-form college. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how many will fall out of free school meals eligibility through that route each year. I ask this: how will it feel if you are in a family where the youngest child moves up to secondary school and loses their free school meals as a result of moving phases, but has a brother or sister still in receipt of free school meals? This is a divisive policy in families where some will get the benefit until they finish school and others will not. What are the total numbers who benefit now, and who will benefit at the real end of the rollout? Perhaps the Minister can give us a better and fuller picture of the long-term impact. The Children’s Commissioner suggests that we will not know the difference until 2026 or 2027 because of the protections relating to the educational phases.

I have read the consultation document. At paragraph 4.4 it states that 90% of pupils currently getting free school meals will continue to get them. The 10% who will not amounts to roughly 110,000 children, a not insignificant number. Where is their transitional protection? In the White Paper on universal credit, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said:

“At its heart, Universal Credit is very simple and will ensure that work always pays and is seen to pay. Universal Credit will mean that people will be consistently and transparently better off for each hour they work”.


The Children’s Society argues that the introduction of the £7,400 earnings limit for free school meals creates a serious cliff-edge that fundamentally undermines that objective and will mean that many families actually become worse off overall by increasing their earnings. The society estimates that some 200,000 families with half a million children are at risk of falling into a new poverty trap where they seek to increase their earnings, or are forced to do so by their work coach, and they then lose the benefit of free school meals. It also estimates that a further 150,000 families with 400,000 children will find themselves in a position where they could be better off by reducing their earnings.

The best thing that can be said for the Government’s consultation paper is that it is confusing. In it the Government tell us that 1.9 million pupils will be sufficiently in poverty for them to apply the pupil premium formula to schools. If they can apply this number to schools, why not to pupils in poverty? Another DWP report on households with below-average incomes 1994-95 to 2015-16 suggests 2.3 million and 4 million children living in poverty, yet only 1.1 million currently benefit from free school meals and even on the Government’s best estimate, the figure will increase by just 50,000. The Children’s Society states that up to 1 million children living in poverty will miss out, and, as the Children’s Commissioner says,

“under any scenario, many hundreds of thousands and possibly well over a million children living in poverty are already not receiving free school meals”.

The Children’s Commissioner suggests that the Government should do four things. First, they should release the analysis behind what looks like a spurious claim for increased eligibility. Secondly, they should provide an estimate of the future number of pupils who will be eligible under a range of scenarios, including the old system of benefits-based eligibility, and the current system based on universal credit. Thirdly, they should provide impact assessments beyond 2022 to capture the full impact over the long term. Fourthly and finally, they should publish an estimate of the number of children who were previously ineligible for free school meals who will now become eligible because of the changes as compared against the number of 110,000 whose eligibility will cease as a result of the changes.

My Motion suggests that the Government should delay the changes for six months while they put their house in order, complete a full poverty impact assessment and place it before both Houses so that we get a complete picture. We should then consider these regulations again, otherwise they will penalise many of the working poor, people like my widowed mother who lived and worked in hard times and who asked for little. However, she needed a benign state not to penalise her, but to make life more tolerable so that she could just about manage.

Poverty does not make headlines, although it should. These regulations do nothing to solve the problems of modern poverty—rather, they surely make things worse. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for tabling this Motion and I was moved by his opening comments about his own circumstances as a child with his widowed mother. For many people, in particular those whose children have left school, it may not seem important for us to debate a tiny piece of secondary legislation that tweaks the regulations about who will be entitled to a free school dinner. But this measure is about children, specifically those who most need our support: children living in poverty—children who through no fault of their own are not well fed, even in one of the wealthiest countries on this planet.

For many children, the 190 hot meals a year they get in school, which on average comes to fewer than four a week, are the only “proper” meals they get. For them, a holiday from school is also a holiday from hot dinners. I can well remember Christopher, who I taught many years ago, telling me that he was always pleased to see the end of the summer holidays so that he could come back to a school dinner once more.

I am sure that we will hear from the Government about how the statisticians with their electronic slide-rules have worked out who should and who should not qualify for a free school lunch, to meet the demands of the small army of government accountants employed to deliver austerity. The reality is that hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren will, each and every one of them, pay the price for our meanness. Children in our poorest communities who are born next month, children whose brothers and sisters have benefited from a free school lunch, will not have that benefit. Why? It is because they will not be four years of age by April 2022.

Margaret Thatcher is remembered for many things, one of which was taking away free milk from children. Mrs May, I am sure, will be remembered for trying to take us out of Europe, but if these regulations get on to the statute book, she will also be remembered for taking away from many children their only hot meal of the day. Marie Antoinette is believed to have said “Let them eat cake” when she was told that the poor had no bread to eat. What will the Prime Minister say to poor children who have no free school meal?

The Liberal Democrats fought hard when in the coalition to deliver universal free meals for infant schoolchildren as we recognised the importance of a nutritious meal in ensuring that children are able to make the most of their education. These regulations, once universal credit is rolled out, will ensure that 1 million children will not be getting that free meal. Last week on 14 March, the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its final report looking at what the impact of changes to the tax and welfare system on families will be in the 2021-22 tax year. It found that children will be hit the hardest, as an extra 1.5 million will be in poverty. The child poverty rate for those in lone-parent households will increase from 37% to more than 62%, and households with three or more children will see particularly large losses of around £5,600. David Isaac, the chair of the commission, which is responsible for making recommendations to the Government on the compatibility of policy and legislation with equality and human rights standards, said:

“It’s disappointing to discover that the reforms we have examined negatively affect the most disadvantaged in our society. It’s even more shocking that children—the future generation—will be the hardest hit and that so many will be condemned to start life in poverty”.


We cannot let this continue if we want a fairer Britain. Appalling though this picture is, I am pretty certain that it does not take into account the additional impact on many poor families of these changes to the free school lunch regulations.

When I taught infant schoolchildren, if they occasionally misbehaved, I would say that I was sad in my heart. I am sad in my heart about these regulations and I regret the lack of humanity that these changes to the regulations demonstrate. Our children are our future and we must cherish and nurture them. On top of the negative impact on children of the tax and welfare reforms, this change adds insult and hunger to injury.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, on securing this important debate. I also thank many noble Lords for their contributions today. I will attempt to deal with the important points raised. This Government are committed to providing a healthy free school meal to the most disadvantaged children. I reassure the House that, contrary to some reports, no child will lose a meal as a result of these changes. In fact, more children will benefit by 2022 compared to the previous system.

Let me discuss the technicalities behind these regulations. As your Lordships will be aware, we are reforming the welfare system to ensure that work always pays by replacing a complex and fragmented system with one benefit—universal credit. Since April 2013, all families receiving universal credit have been entitled to free school meals. As my noble friend Lord Lexden said, we have on several occasions flagged up that this was a temporary measure—for example, in the Social Security Advisory Committee report on passported benefits in March 2012 and as repeated in April 2013. As the national rollout of universal credit accelerates, we are replacing this temporary measure with clear eligibility criteria for free school meals to ensure that they continue to be targeted at disadvantaged families.

Under the new eligibility criteria, we have estimated that by 2022 around 50,000 more children will benefit from a free school meal. I want to address the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that this included population growth—it does not. In addition, our protections will ensure that no child receiving free school meals now, or gaining them during the universal credit rollout, will lose their entitlement until the end of the rollout, and beyond that until the end of their primary or secondary education. Children protected in this way are in addition to the 50,000 I have just mentioned.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

I am interested in this phasing argument. Say you are in primary school now, and get free school meals. If you fall outside the eligibility criteria, am I right in thinking that when you go to secondary school, in maybe two or three years’ time, you will then lose entitlement to that free school meal?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The protections are in place until 2022. It is the longer of the period of being in a phase of education or 2022.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

So if you go to secondary school in 2023—which is quite possible if you are in primary school now—you will lose your free school meal. Is that what the noble Lord is telling us?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it will depend on the circumstances of the family at that time.

I turn to the comments about the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, which published a briefing which assumed that the number of 50,000 more pupils who will benefit from free school meals does not take into account population growth. This is incorrect. Our analysis compares 2022 under a universal credit system to 2022 under the legacy benefits system, and population growth is by definition captured within this comparison. Furthermore, the Government have just published an updated equalities impact assessment, on 7 February. The majority of respondents to the consultation agreed with us that there would be no adverse impact on those with protected characteristics.

It is important to add that the £7,400 threshold relates to earned income. It does not include additional income through universal credit. A typical family earning around this threshold, depending on their exact circumstances, would have a total annual household income of between £18,000 and £24,000 once benefits are taken into account.

I take this opportunity to bust a myth. Some have claimed that these reforms will take away free school meals from 1 million children. This is simply not true. As my noble friend Lord Patten said, Channel 4 made this clear in its FactCheck article. It highlighted that this claim is based on an entirely hypothetical scenario in which universal credit was to continue being an automatic eligibility criteria. This was never going to be the case. Contrary to some people’s claims, this Government’s plan will result in more children benefiting, not fewer, and is more generous than the old system.

I also acknowledge the report published by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee on 1 March this year. We have listened to the committee’s comments and have responded to its report requesting that we publish the methodology supporting the modelling of the 50,000 children who will benefit by 2022. This has been published as part of the report.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, expressed concern about fluctuating income. We recognise that some households see their earnings fluctuate on a regular basis and have written into regulations that earnings should be checked over a period lasting up to three months, where the assessment period data is available. We are also exploring ways to ensure that families with very low incomes can receive free school meals during the initial assessment period for universal credit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am happy to relay those concerns and to take the matter away for further consideration.

Finally, I would like to highlight the five key improvements made by this Conservative-led Government for early years and child care. I give credit to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, as part of his party’s involvement in these important reforms, but I believe that it is incredibly important to put these into context. First, there is the 15 hours a week of free early education for disadvantaged two year-olds, which did not exist before 2010. Secondly, there is the universal 15 hours a week free childcare for three and four year-olds, now with the early years pupil premium. Thirdly, there are an additional 15 hours a week of childcare for working parents. Fourthly, through universal credit, up to 85% of childcare costs can be reimbursed, which is a higher percentage than was ever available under tax credits. Finally, nearly 1 million more families will gain support through tax-free childcare than through the existing voucher scheme.

I hope these five elements exemplify the efforts this Government have made to support vulnerable families. The continued provision of free school meals to children in households that might not be able to afford them remains of the utmost importance, and I would stress that—the utmost importance. Free school meals have always been provided to children who need them most, and we want to make sure that as many eligible children as possible continue to claim them.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that rousing conclusion. I have not really heard anything that convinces me that the Government have got their policy on this right. The Minister failed and ducked the issue of the cliff-edge point that was so eloquently addressed by my noble friend Lady Sherlock and others. The Minister actually supplemented and aided my argument on phasing when he said that, yes, it would depend on the individual’s circumstances in 2023, but if they move from one phase of education to the other then of course there would be an issue about whether they continue to have eligibility for free school meals.

I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for reminding us about fact-checking because, for me, he added to the confusion about figures. Part of the argument that we have been pushing over these last few weeks about free school meals is that nobody has quite got to the bottom of the Government’s policy because nobody can be absolutely certain about the data on which it relies. I was very heartened to hear the noble Lord, Lord Freud, express some concern about the waterfall and cliff edge, because that cuts to the core of the issue. We just do not know.

I have tabled a lot of Written Questions on this issue; most of them have not yet been answered. Most of them were directed at trying to find out at what stage of the rollout of universal credit we can expect to have hard numbers and data about the overall impact. I find that most worrying and troubling because the Government have not done a poverty assessment in this whole process. We do not know what the real impact will be of taking away free school meals from people, or what impact the new system will have on populations in the future. The failure to do a proper poverty assessment fatally flaws this new system.

I agree with the Minister and I agree with other noble Lords on the Benches opposite when they say that work should always pay. That is a laudable objective of universal credit, but I am not convinced that the levels are right or that the policy is set in the right direction. I am grateful to my noble friends Lady Lister and Lady Sherlock, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Kirkwood, and my noble friend Lord Watson for their support in this debate.

I have done a bit of a fact check since I have been sitting here. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, went to Wimbledon College; the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, went to Framlingham College; the noble Lord, Lord Freud, went to Whitgift School and the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, went to Rugby. I bet there were not too many free school meals at those schools. This evening we should stand up for those who benefit from this, and I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.