Early Years Intervention

Lord Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freeman (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness. She has tremendous experience, she has already made a great contribution and I hope that she will continue with her hard work.

I would like to complement what the noble Baroness has said by concentrating on the nine to 11 year-olds—and, indeed, right up to school-leaving age at 16—because child poverty, in my humble judgment, is not to be defined simply in terms of the very early years. The impacts of economic poverty, and the poverty of guidance by parents, the local community and brothers and sisters, can last a lifetime and has to be addressed at different stages. The noble Baroness has aptly, and in a very clear way, concentrated in part on the very early years.

My limited experience, when compared with the noble Baroness, dates back to the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s excellent initiative in commencing what became known as SkillForce when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Subsequently, the Ministry of Defence, and now the Department for Education, took up sponsorship, initially financially and now in terms of model support, for the work that SkillForce does. It is largely staffed by ex-service men and women, some of whom suffered injuries, and now works with 180 schools in the United Kingdom with 4,000 children. The children are aged between nine and 16. They are identified as disruptive children in school by head teachers.

In part, they are disruptive because of child poverty. Very often they come from single-parent families. If a mother has to go to work in a supermarket, and has to leave very early and does not come back until late at night, one can imagine the depressing effect that that has on a child who is bussed back from school, particularly in rural areas such as East Anglia which I know very well. The child may travel long distances and go back to an empty home. Almost by definition, it will be a poor home. The experience of that type of poverty sometimes leads to disruption in class. That might affect only 5% of a class but it can affect the academic and social education, guidance and achievement of the rest of the class. That is where our staff, who, as I say, are mainly ex-service men and women, work very hard.

The situation is excellently set out in your Lordships’ briefing pack, The Case for Early Years Intervention in Breaking the Cycle of Deprivation and Promoting Social Mobility, prepared by Heather Evennett. I commend it to noble Lords who wish to follow up this debate. The study makes the point that attention should not be age limited to the very early years but has to be given right through to age 16. I have been chairman of the trustees of SkillForce for more than 10 years. I am glad to say that it has had a dramatic impact on reducing the NEET—not in employment, education or training—figures for those who are under-privileged and, in the early years, in economic as well as social and parental poverty. I strongly support the achievements of SkillForce.

I ask the Minister to comment on the likelihood of the United Kingdom receiving a substantial portion of the European fund that has been set aside by the European Union to deal with youth unemployment. The European Union Committee, on which I have had the pleasure to serve, has been monitoring progress, which seems remarkably slow. Any funds from Europe to help, in particular, 14 to 16 year-olds into employment—young people who might have no social skills and no background of employment—would be very helpful.