State-funded Schools: Special Educational Needs

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point about the responsibility of all teachers to be able to identify special educational needs. All teachers are special educational needs teachers and that is why, although I cannot be completely clear on her point about dyscalculia, I can assure her that we are supporting improved teacher training throughout teachers’ careers, starting with changes to initial teacher training coming in from September 2025, and continuing through their careers from early career teachers into leadership roles. I will follow up the particular point the noble Baroness made in her question.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

As my noble friend the Minister knows, there are hundreds of thousands of children who simply do not go to school. How do we measure the limitations they are facing in the educational sphere?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right. It is important that we tackle absenteeism in the way that this Government have outlined and that I have talked about at this Dispatch Box on previous occasions, whether that is persistent absenteeism, where we see a higher proportion of students with special educational needs, or those who have been completely removed from schools and are no longer on school registers. It is also important that we introduce, as we intend to do through legislation, the registers for children who are not in school, so that we can ensure, first, that our schools are appropriately inclusive, so that parents do not feel the need to remove their children and children do not absent themselves from schools because of their inability to be able to learn, but also so that we can track children when they are not in school.

Universities: European Union Students

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Baroness makes a good point. These are reassurances that we are looking to give, and I reassure her further that we are maintaining our dialogue with the sector about the risks and the opportunities that Brexit presents. Jo Johnson, the Minister for Universities, has established a high-level stakeholder working group on the EU exit for universities, research and innovation.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Viscount will be aware that the regulations abolishing the bursary system for nurses in the UK, including places for students from the European Union, have been laid on the Table of this House. The first indication is that there is a 23% fall in applications, and, on the specialist courses, that the number of applications from European Union countries is down by 95%. If by the following year these figures prove to be as dismal as they seem, will the Government promise that they will look again at the whole bursary scheme for nurses?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Lord is correct on the figures. They are somewhat as expected. Data published by UCAS for nursing applications from English domiciled applicants show a dip of around 23%, so he is correct. However, at a national level, these figures will still allow the NHS in England to fill the 20,000 or so student nursing training places, assuming that students meet the entry requirements of their offer from their course provider.

Technical Education and Apprenticeships

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

Will the Minister advise the House of the Government’s latest thinking on introducing apprenticeships for fully qualified nurses? What discussions have the Government had with universities that currently provide degree qualifications for all qualified nurses?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I may need to write to the noble Lord. The only answer I can give now with regard to the nursing profession is that health and science is an important part of the 15 new technical routes. There are five different routes one can go down. This was part of the Sainsbury review.