British Baccalaureate

Lord Flight Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would be happy to talk to the Leader of the House about my noble friend’s idea.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the main problem is that people have to specialise too early in this country? When many of us were doing O-levels, the standards were closer to today’s A-levels, so we have the problem that you cannot specialise when the quality of the teaching you are relying on is not high enough.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I can say to my noble friend that we have worked incredibly hard to reform both academic and, more recently, technical qualifications. I proudly wear my T-level badge, although it is slightly upside down. More importantly, there is a perception that one can do either academic or technical qualifications. In our response to the consultation on level 3 qualifications, published in July last year, we set out the groups of technical and academic qualifications that we will fund and how they can be combined.

Schools: Biometric Technologies

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are clearly not washing their hands; there are very clear procedures which schools must follow if they want to introduce this technology and very clear procedures which must be followed if a breach takes place.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, for what purposes are biometric technologies used in schools?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

There are a range of purposes. One, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, mentioned, is in relation to payment; another is access to libraries, where fingerprinting is often used. They are also used in order that children accessing free school meals do not have a separate payment system and are not stigmatised and their dignity is not affected.

Covid-19: Effect on Education in Deprived Communities

Lord Flight Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not recognise the noble Baroness’s figure of 1/10th, but we have been highly targeted in our interventions and the early data is encouraging, particularly for primary school pupils, on the rate of catch-up in all areas of the country. The greater concern is about secondary pupils, and that is why we have apportioned a greater share of the funding to that group.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, is it not the case that Covid-19 and the effects thereof are little influenced by economic background?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I apologise, but I caught only part of my noble friend’s question. I think I understood him to say that a child’s background does not have a great impact on their outcome. The evidence does not support that. We are very pleased that the disadvantage gap decreased between 2011 and 2019 by 13% at primary level and 9% at secondary level, but it is clear that children from disadvantaged backgrounds do less well in education—hence our emphasis on levelling up.

Schools: Examination Assessments

Lord Flight Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I would not expect there to be a major issue with integrity—teachers are usually honest—but rather one of credibility where A-level and GCSE qualifications are being reviewed and compared by third parties. The 2021 super-results might be written down a little for comparison by third-party assessors.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The department is clear that these grades reflect students’ hard work in an extraordinarily difficult year. It is not unexpected, given the different approach to assessment that was taken, that the grades look different, but students can and should feel proud of their achievements.

Multi-academy Trusts

Lord Flight Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord is right in saying that we appeared together several years ago at an Education Select Committee. A great deal of work has been done since then. Under my tenure, we have rewritten the academies handbook twice—the latest version was released in the past few weeks and includes the change relating to related-party transactions that I mentioned. We updated the academies account direction —the directions for auditors—in March. We have asked for additional scrutiny of new academy trusts to ensure that they have the correct governance structure. We have ensured that there is a scheme of financial delegation that maintains robust controls, that management accounts are shared with the board of trustees and issued regularly and that there is board oversight of capital expenditure and funding to ensure that it is used appropriately for capital purposes. I have written to all auditors in the sector on three occasions during my tenure to stress the importance of many of these issues. The conversation that the noble Lord and I had with the Select Committee a couple of years ago was absolutely right, but a huge amount has been done since then.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, surely it is essentially the task of the governing body of the school to see that it is run properly and to exercise a role similar to that of a non-executive director.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My noble friend is entirely correct. Again, we have done a lot to strengthen the quality of academy trust boards. We have organised a programme called Academy Ambassadors, finding more than 1,000 commercial individuals who have volunteered to join trusts over the past four years, bringing extra rigour and scrutiny. The regional schools commissioners have carried out 1,000 trust reviews in the last academic year, which also requires that non-exec members of the board attend those meetings.

Vulnerable Children

Lord Flight Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

I draw to the Minister’s attention a charity in Birmingham called Malachi, run by the man who set it up more than 20 years ago, Gordon Lee. It has had terrific success in sorting out children from broken homes where schools have been excluding them but has not received adequate support from the Birmingham local authority.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I thank my noble friend for that information.

My noble friend Lord Balfe made important comments around the definition of vulnerability—we heard also from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—with which I agreed.

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, was concerned about unregistered settings and home education. The powers of local authorities are the same for all children, irrespective of the setting that they are in: if the local authority has a safeguarding concern, it should not hesitate to use its powers under the Children Acts. We have provided additional resources to Ofsted to root out illegal schools, and the DfE is taking further action to work with local authorities on this.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about Ofsted’s role in inspecting schools with vulnerable children. The guidance was adapted in March 2017 to take into account the medical needs of children in such schools. As the noble Lord, Lord Warner, will be aware, we have announced a consultation on the strengthening of guidance for local authorities and parents in the area of home education.

The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked about resources being made available for affordable housing. The Government have recently announced a further £2 billion for housing associations. This will increase the 2016 to 2021 affordable housing programme in England to more than £9 billion.

Despite the progress being made, we need to be engaged in an ongoing effort to search out children’s needs which have been overlooked and to identify where problems are being stored up for the future. We continue to work with the Children’s Commissioner, and the department is working to strengthen this engagement and support through the development of a new framework agreement planned for 2018.

I thank all noble Lords who have made contributions to this debate. If I have not been able to address specific questions I will write separately to noble Lords. Supporting vulnerable children and reducing the opportunity gap sits at the heart of all we are trying to achieve, in education and beyond.

Children in Need

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I do not recognise what the noble Lord is saying. Child protection and safeguarding spending by local authorities increased by 13% between 2011-12 and 2015-16. It is clear that local authorities are rightly prioritising this area.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the charity Malachi, which has had great success in the West Midlands and Birmingham working with schools where broken families are involved and children are in trouble as a result? It is now in the process of some degree of franchising to other parts of the country.

[Lord Nash]

I am not aware of this charity. I am very grateful to my noble friend for drawing it to my attention and look forward to hearing more about it from him.

Universities: European Union Students

Lord Flight Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I would be delighted to take up the noble Lord’s offer and visit my alma mater again. I am aware of the concerns expressed not just in Scotland but south of the border. Again, my honourable friend in the other place is taking note of all the concerns expressed.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, the last figure I saw of the estimates of student loans likely to have to be written off was a pretty horrific £45 billion. What is the Government’s present estimate?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I will need to write to my noble friend to give that figure.

Careers Advice and Guidance

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I share the noble Baroness’s concern. Our reforms to career guidance are based on schools connecting with pupils so that they understand the breadth of opportunities available to them, particularly in relation to girls. We welcome initiatives such as the Inspiring Women campaign, run by Inspiring the Future. We also have a lot of activity under way to stimulate more interest in STEM, including the Stimulating Physics Network and the Further Mathematics Support Programme. These provide support to schools, with a particular focus on engaging girls.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I believe that something like 58% of graduates are employed in what are described as non-graduate jobs. I suggest that part of the reason for that is that there is not an efficient functioning of the guidance of young people at university into career areas that are suitable for them. Indeed, as has been commented on, a lot of people are not even aware that there is advice at university. I hope the Government will think hard about how they can improve that and help our graduates get into the sorts of jobs that they are suitable for.

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. I know that my ministerial colleague Jo Johnson is very focused on this. I remember Andreas Schleicher telling me that we are the worst country in Europe for aligning courses at universities with the jobs available. We believe that our plans under the Higher Education and Research Bill will make students much more focused on what are worthwhile occupations.

Education: Citizenship Studies

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I do not agree with the noble Baroness on that.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, do citizenship classes include the proper teaching and understanding of not only how Westminster works but how local government, the United Nations and the EU work? In my time at school that was a part of it.

[Lord Nash]

They are supposed to include democracy, the electoral system, government, human rights and international law.