Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

I understand why the Start for Life offer has to be tightly drawn for local authorities, with far more patchy provision. However, where local authorities have pioneered good practice and blazed an innovative trail for other councils that has proven successful, they should not have to conform to a one-size-fits-all approach. I understand that a level of standardisation is essential to get timely scale-up of new approaches. What used to be known as the troubled families programme began in quite a clunky way, which attracted a lot of criticism, but it would never have got off the ground without tight controls around payment by results. However, a sizeable chunk of its success lay in its operation becoming more flexible for well-performing local authorities. The ability to gain earned autonomy from the strictures of payment by results gave local authorities lump sums to spend on early intervention and helped to float a fleet of family hubs. Deploying a similar approach with councils whose family hubs are being hampered in delivering excellence by command and control from the centre could similarly help greatly with progress of the whole national programme. Hence I will likely table amendments later in this Bill that would give councils earned autonomy in how they design and deploy family hubs.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, we have heard some highly respected voices this afternoon, and I want to put two or three things on the record.

The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, rightly draws attention to the fact that this kind of clause is now becoming commonplace at the beginning of Committees on Bills. I understand why people might want to raise specific issues, or even flag the amendments that they want to move in Committee, but if we prolong this stage to the point where our debates lose their purpose or we go on into the night—when, frankly, it is impossible to have rational and sensible debate—we will lose the purpose of the Committee itself.

I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who I respect as a friend, said about Second Reading. I was frustrated to have only four minutes, and I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, was deeply frustrated because she was trying to get back to Britain and could not. But we cannot have Second Reading debates at the beginning of every Committee.

I make an appeal. I have amendments down, and I understand that we need to listen and learn. On Second Reading, my noble friend the Minister did just that, and listened to what I and the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and others from outside this House, were saying. There is a willingness to listen and reflect and to believe that we do not get things right the first time. There is real wisdom and experience in this House and beyond that can be brought to bear, and we can change the Bill and have a better result at the end of it. But, to pick up what the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said, we will do so only if we respect each other, with no calling out of people due to ill will, and if Ministers are committed to working with us. That is the role of our House. Over the 10 years I have been here, I have understood, in a very clear way, how different it is from the House of Commons. If we are able to listen to each other, take well-meant amendments and see how we can provide a better outcome for all, so much the better for this House.

The respect of this House is really important. I have never understood why, recently, those who are most committed to this kind of second Chamber go about undermining it. I did not understand when that happened on the Football Governance Bill and other Bills—this one is in danger of going the same way—where we prolonged debate rather than concentrating and focusing on improvement.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, is quite right—I am in favour of what he is saying, and of bringing back the old local Sure Start programmes. We will be able to debate that on amendments being put down. I would like to pick up the issue of what Part 2 is about. I think it is about raising standards, opportunity and life chances for all children, not just those who can jump through particular hoops. We touched on this with the 80 people who spoke on Second Reading. Let us try to get through Committee stage and to Report. At the end of it, let us all believe, whatever part of the House we are from—there should be no “sides”—that we have done a good job in making this Bill better.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I sat through almost all the Second Reading but deliberately did not intervene in it because I was trying to ascertain how much of the Bill was to do with Wales and how much was not. In the context of her amendment, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, to clarify subsection (1)(c) of the proposed new clause, where it says, and I select the words deliberately,

“improve … standards … in schools in … Wales”.

Education in Wales is a totally devolved subject. I know that the Welsh Government and the Senedd have asked for certain provisions to be made via the Bill for application to Wales. I am sure the Minister can confirm that. Those are specific provisions that have been asked for and not a matter of generality. As I read the proposed new clause, there is a suggestion that it applies to the generality of standards in schools in Wales. The noble Baroness spoke of autonomy and accountability. That goes to the heart of the administration and provision of education in Wales, which is a devolved matter, and we must be clear in our minds why we are choosing those words.

Clearly, the term “England and Wales” can arise quite rightly when we are talking about the jurisdiction or the legal aspects of it. But here we are talking about the administration of education. Specifically, we are talking about schools and schools in Wales, and the Senedd has the right to know to what extent amendments such as this are meant to apply to them.

Pupil Absenteeism

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

This is why we need to make sure that the curriculum provides the excellence of subject teaching and knowledge necessary for children to progress in life, and also that it has the opportunity to provide the broad experience for learners that the noble Lord references. There are lots of good examples of schools that, while offering the whole national curriculum, nevertheless also manage to provide other alternatives: more enrichment and more opportunities to learn about the skills that will be necessary in the workplace. I am sure that makes school even more attractive to students.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure my noble friend will know that, in the last academic year, the number of those absent more than 50% of the time went up by a staggering two-thirds—so we have a genuine crisis. I know that my noble friend is too old—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I mean that she is too young to remember the school bobby, who turned up at my parents’ house only to find that I had been sent away to a school for the blind. Is it not true that, in some circumstances, we really have to work with the parents, because they have a responsibility as well?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend—despite what he just said about me—is absolutely right. This is where that personalised plan around an individual child—using, where necessary, early help provision, family support and challenge to parents—is absolutely fundamental for those children, who have sometimes completely lost touch with what it means to attend school regularly and learn appropriately. They need that type of intervention—my noble friend is absolutely right.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness. I offer a very warm welcome to and look forward to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley. I know that he will remind me of just how old I am by reflecting on his childhood when I was leader of Sheffield.

Over the last four months, there has been the most misleading rhetoric about Part 2 of this Bill. It is our job in the House of Lords to lower the temperature and get to the reality. If there are amendments to be made to clarify it, we should do so. That is our role, and I hope we can do that in the spirit of coming together in the interests of children.

I take up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, that what goes on in the school and in the classroom is what really matters. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Shephard, Lady Morris and Lady Morgan—I will not pay tribute to myself—but I think they would accept immediately that we did not transform the ability of children to succeed or develop their talent, or their ability to shine through. It was the world-class leadership in schools and the first-class teaching and support staff who did that job. That is what we must build on.

Let us set aside the disagreements about whether multi-academy trusts or maintained schools have done better. The stats from the House of Lords Library are very interesting, but I have not got time to go into them. I can pay tribute to the sponsors and leaders of multi-academy trusts, because I was the Secretary of State who floated the academies in the first place. Let us get it right. We have put the record straight about minimum rather than maximum pay and conditions. We can put the record straight on what happens with schools that are failing their children and the interventions that are needed. We can put the record straight on misleading comments about admissions, where the drop in pupil numbers will be catastrophic and there will need to be co-ordination if massive resources are not to be wasted.

I hope we can also clarify issues around the basic entitlement to a national curriculum brought in by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, in 1988. He will speak next, and I pay tribute to him. I ought to declare an interest—I have two grandchildren at Sheffield University Technical College and one going there in September. I know we will be able to clarify during the course of this Bill that the basic entitlement to a national curriculum will not interfere with the innovation and creativity of UTCs.

Let us get it right. There is so much to be done, because absence is up. I feel so strongly about this. Exclusions are up, off-rolling is up and one million children leaving school between the ages of 16 and 24 are not in education, employment or training. In the PISA surveys on life satisfaction, we are second from bottom. There is so much to do, which we can do together if we put the rhetoric behind us and put children first.