Relationship, Sex and Health Education

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that one of the important decisions that schools need to be supported in making is delivering the right content at the right time for students to gain, from trusted sources, the information that they need to grow up properly and to keep themselves safe. That is of course our key aim in reviewing the guidance, ensuring that children’s well-being is at the heart of it. That includes ensuring that they have the knowledge they need at the right time to help them to be safe.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I have taught more PSHE days than I care to remember. The fact that in secondary schools they are a stand-alone day once a term enables some parents to keep their children at home to avoid the uncomfortable truth that homosexuality, religious tolerance and contraception are part of a normal society. I too get the impression that relationship, sex and health education in schools is down the list of priorities. Can the Government urgently find a way for us to teach these vital topics, plus citizenship, in a more effective way?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I hope I can reassure the noble Lord that it certainly is not down the list of priorities. It is precisely because we need to provide guidance that identifies children’s best interests and the well-being of children, having drawn on a considerable process of engaging with a wide range of stakeholders, that we are taking our time to get it right.

Lifelong Learning

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, it is always a joy to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, whom I thank very much for securing this debate on this important topic. As ever, I declare my interest as a state secondary school teacher; it is more like “Learn with a Lord” around our place. I also greatly enjoyed the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Curran, and welcome her to the next part of her lifelong learning journey, as everyone has been telling her.

We all know the value of lifelong learning. Professor David Snowdon’s nun study looked at the cognitive ability of nuns during their lives and analysed their brains after death. In one famous case, Sister Mary, who did sudoku every day, passed all the regular tests until her death at 102. Tests on her brain afterwards showed that she had full-blown Alzheimer’s. One explanation was something called “cognitive reserve”, the idea that lifelong learning can strengthen protective neurons, so that they, in effect, create patches around the damage to our brains that happens as we age; the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, touched on that. Think of the savings to the NHS if we can decrease the effects of brain deterioration.

I would say that I have been quite a good example of lifelong learning so far. After my degree, I took evening classes. I learned to ski and became a ski photographer. I learned Italian and married an Italian. I did courses to become a level 2 cricket coach. I retrained as a teacher on the School Direct scheme. I taught myself SolidWorks and—I emphasise this to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran—Excel. Working in the House of Lords has been a steep learning curve, particularly if you forget Lord Judge’s 75-word rule when asking questions. There was very little formal training there, certainly at college.

Derek Lewis, a friend of mine and chair of UHI North, West and Hebrides, says:

“Lifelong learning is now a necessity rather than an option because the pace of change in science and technology in particular makes the notion of a qualification for life nonsensical”.


Here we have a problem. I am confident that I know where I can get the training that I need. However, the Association of Colleges complains that the majority of adult learning takes place among those who are already educated to a certain level. Those with poor basic skills are least likely to seek support to address their basic skills needs, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, riffed. As the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said, we need everyone to be able to access the type of learning that they need. Perhaps the Government could look at learning mentors, who could guide people through their long-term learning journey in the way they do with teachers—or at least, perhaps, a lifelong learning number. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that.

What about the sheer enjoyment of learning, which can lift people out of loneliness and poor mental health? That is where charities such as the Men’s Sheds Association can help: in reducing the stubborn numbers of male suicide. If we can get people learning and keep people learning, whether formally or informally, the societal and financial benefits will be immeasurable. We should all strive to be a Sister Mary.

School Accountability and Intervention

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, not having been a Minister, I am not sure of these terms such as 2RI+, but perhaps I will learn.

In Oral Questions this morning, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, raised the question of teachers—a very important topic. Not only do we need good teachers, but we also need good schools. It is important that we retain a robust inspection system. Inspections should remain a vital part of the accountability process for schools and councils, and we should extend inspections to multi-academy trusts. However, their purpose needs to be thought through carefully. Where a school is struggling, poor inspection results should lead to greater support. We very much welcome the new regional teams to turn around the so-called stuck schools in England, which have received back-to-back negative judgments from Ofsted.

We would abandon the idea that a school’s performance should be reduced to a single grade. Instead, inspections should identify how a school is performing across a wide range of issues, such as curriculum breadth, provision for SEND pupils, teacher workload and pupil well-being, so that parents can decide for themselves whether a school suits their child’s needs. We should lower the stakes of a school inspection so that deciding to intervene in a school or change its governance arrangements does not depend on a single grade. Instead, inspectors should work alongside schools, councils and academy trusts as critical friends, providing the evidence that a school needs to identify its strengths and weaknesses and how it needs to improve.

Does the Minister think that the proposals outlined by her Government can really change the culture around Ofsted inspections? The framework does not include SEND provision or SEND inclusivity as a stand-alone assessment area. As we try to fix the SEND crisis, should this not form a key part of any assessment of schools?

Safeguarding will be assessed separately from other elements of the Ofsted report. How will this be organised and who will carry it out? Can the Minister reassure the House that safeguarding will remain a key area being assessed?

We must remember that Ruth Perry took her own life after an Ofsted inspection. Given everything that has been said following that heartbreaking tragedy, it is important that, after the 12-week consultation, we get this right.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords—

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for her recognition that this Statement represents the objective that, I believe, is shared across this House: to ensure that every child in every school is getting the very best opportunities to learn; and that, where there is a need to improve the provision being provided in a school, that happens as effectively and as quickly as possible. That is because every day that a child spends in a school that is not performing as well as it needs to is a day lost to that child at a crucial part of their life.

It is with that objective in mind, of course, that the Government outlined on Monday the consultation on the approach that will be taken to accountability, intervention and improvement, alongside the consultation being carried out by Ofsted on the revised inspection framework. The development of the report card will provide considerably more information, granularity and insight for parents in determining that most difficult of choices—where they want their child to go to school—and for the schools themselves and others to determine areas of improvement and where they need to see more work. As the noble Baroness said, one of the most important priorities is to able to intervene and improve schools as quickly as possible and appropriately. I will come to that in a moment.

The noble Baroness started with a reasonable barrage of statistics. I will do my best to respond to the suggestions that she made but I may well need to follow up some of those points subsequently in a letter. The first thing she said was that the number of pupils in underperforming schools was 500,000, not 300,000. To be clear, the figure of 300,000 was for those schools that are stuck in a period of persistent underperformance. This Government are unwilling to allow that consistent underperformance to continue and we have been clear that we need to have a wider range of improvement tools than has been the case previously.

The noble Baroness characterised the RISE teams as being within the department, but these are teams based in regions, made up of people who have enormous background in and experience of school improvement, many of whom come from multi-academy trusts and who are in a position both to support the turnaround of schools that are not performing adequately and to ensure that those schools that are not seeing improvements over a period of time are challenged and supported to make that improvement. To be clear, for those stuck schools, if, after two years of this targeted intervention, they were not improving, once again, the option of structural intervention and change would be considered.

What the Government are also proposing in this consultation is that up until September 2026, where schools would previously have been in categories of concern, where they are in what we might have thought of as special measures—in other words, where there is not the capacity of the leadership within the school to improve it—there will be immediate structural intervention, but where the leadership could enable that to change, they will be subject to immediate academisation. After September 2026, when we have the RISE teams fully up and running, for those schools where the leadership has the potential to change, we would expect the RISE teams to be focusing on and targeting them to make sure that there is improvement.

Of course, the reason for taking this more sophisticated approach to improvement is precisely because, while there is clearly evidence that being academised can lead to improvement, there is also evidence that in many cases, that can take too long, given the urgency of improving education for our children. Some 40% of academisations take more than a year to convert; 20% take more than two years. We cannot wait for those structural changes to happen, important and impactful though they might be. We need to ensure that children’s chances are improved as quickly as possible.

On the specific questions about the Ofsted consultation, it is important to emphasise that it is a consultation that builds on the Big Listen, which makes important recommendations; for example, about how the inspection will now focus, as noble Lords have said, on nine areas. This is a consultation, but I support the move from a single headline grade, where the emphasis was literally on a headline, which was of course very low in information for parents making that decision but very high stakes for schools, and very much did not encompass the nuance of where a school might be doing well, where it might be more challenged or where it might have exemplary practice that needed to be shared more widely. There is consultation on these areas, but I think the fact that they will now include absence, attendance and inclusion—to respond to the noble Lord’s point about the significance of ensuring that there are improvements around SEND, I think that partly covers that point—is important.

On the safeguarding point, I will write to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness about the specific questions about the proposals for follow-up visits. The noble Lord rightly mentioned the tragic death of Ruth Perry, and the campaigning work of her sister, Professor Julia Waters, has been important for ensuring that Ofsted thought carefully about the approach that it was taking. One of the issues highlighted there was the impact of the safeguarding measure on the overall headline grade. One of the reasons for the different approach to safeguarding that Ofsted is proposing is to avoid that position, where a failure on safeguarding would have the impact that it had in that particular case, while also recognising that it is important that schools are assessed on the basis of the quality of their safeguarding.

On the point about whether or not the Government should have a duty or a power to academise, we will of course have the opportunity, when the Bill comes from the other place, to look in detail at the intention of Clauses 43 and 44, and I look forward to doing that. I just push back against the noble Baroness’s suggestion that in some way or other there has been a pause in this Government’s commitment to intervening where necessary and to ensuring that all our schools are improved. In the case that both she and her right honourable friend in the other place identified, it is not as clear-cut as she says that there was a revocation of the decision to academise. In fact, that was a quite considerable change of circumstance in that particular case.

Let me respond to the point that the noble Lord made about the pressure on teachers. My experience as a teacher, having been on the receiving end of an Ofsted inspection, notwithstanding that it was some time ago, is that, yes, it is stressful, but no teacher wants to teach in a school that is not doing the best for its pupils, and having an improvement, inspection and accountability regime that ensures that teachers are able to successfully support the children who need it will be good for teachers, good for parents, good for schools—and, most importantly, good for children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a very important point about teachers. In fact, probably less than an hour and a half ago, we were engaged in a discussion across the Dispatch Box about the significance of teachers. She is absolutely right. What I would say about these two consultations running side-by-side with respect to teachers really goes back to my final point in my previous response. I think it is valuable for teachers to have not just that headline grade that was previously the case with Ofsted, but the more granular understanding of where there are strengths within the school, where there are areas for improvement, where, as I said, there is exemplary practice that needs to be shared more widely—and, incidentally, how they can get access to that good practice in other areas, to improve their practice and their school.

My noble friend also makes an important point about training. We are as a Government working on how to not just recruit additional teachers but keep them in the classroom and ensure that they are able to improve and gain in competence and skill. That is why, in looking at and reviewing the national professional qualifications, we will want to consider those forms of training and opportunities for continuing professional development that will really focus on the areas that teachers need and that will make the most difference to the pupils they are teaching.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise—twice: once for being late for this debate and once for being a bit keen. Ofsted is a real problem, and there is quite a simple solution. A friend of mine, who is a teacher, told me a story. They were told, “Ofsted is coming tomorrow. The school will be open all night”. That is not a fair reflection of the school or the teachers. If Ofsted goes in twice, the first time is a snap inspection. It sits down with the leadership and talks through where they are going wrong and where they are going right. Nine months or a year later, Ofsted goes back, and that is the inspection that gets published. That takes the pressure off everybody and gives a fair result. Will the Minister reflect those ideas back to the consultation? I think they will listen more to her than to me.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Given the noble Lord’s background as a teacher, I am sure that Ofsted will listen to his response to the consultation, which I hope he will make. While I have some sympathy with the concerns of teachers about the arrival of Ofsted—having experienced it myself, as I have already said—I am not wholly convinced that students can afford to wait nine months between the preparatory conversation and the point at which some judgment is made. Frankly, if things are going wrong, it is important for students and parents that those are identified at the appropriate time, and, if things are going right, it is important that those are shared as widely as possible.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 1 and 4 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Before speaking to them, I thank the Minister for her very positive engagement with those of us involved with the Bill. That includes several meetings and her letter last week describing the three amendments that she has tabled—all of which represent welcome improvements, even if they do not go quite as far as I might like—and including a draft of the proposed framework document for Skills England. Having said that, I remain concerned about what impact the transfer of IfATE into the DfE will have on the vital engagement of employers in standards and assessment processes, and about the proposed status of Skills England as an executive agency, albeit an arm’s-length body within the DfE.

Amendments 1 and 2 relate to the organisations which should be involved or taken into account by the Secretary of State when preparing apprenticeship standards. Amendment 1 requires that a group of persons preparing such standards should include a person from the representative body for the relevant sector; it would be even better to spell out that this should be the representative skills body. Many industry sector skills bodies have played a crucial and leading role in working with IfATE to prepare standards and assessment plans for their sectors. It will be important to continue this under the new regime, not least because of the positive effect it could have in leveraging valuable support for Skills England from such bodies.

Recognised sector skills bodies, such as Energy & Utility Skills for the energy and utilities sector, already work closely with employers in their sectors to identify needs and translate them into standards and training pathways in England and across the devolved Administrations, ensuring UK-wide consistency. Through their links with employers, they can respond with speed and agility to the developing skills needs of their sectors, while ensuring consistency with existing qualifications and apprenticeships across the whole UK. They work closely and effectively with IfATE, thereby ensuring that employer views are properly represented in standards and assessment plans approved by IfATE while minimising its workload.

I also support Amendment 2, which broadens the range of bodies to whose interests the Secretary of State must have regard. Both amendments seek to ensure that the central role of employers and other relevant bodies is properly and fully reflected in the Bill.

Amendment 3 in the Minister’s name—I will speak to it briefly now rather than standing up again later—addresses the issue that I and others raised in Committee about spelling out the circumstances in which the Secretary of State might herself prepare a standard, rather than a group of persons. The amendment requires the publication only of matters to be taken into account in deciding whether to make such a decision rather than specific criteria, but I welcome it as far as it goes.

Amendments 4 to 6 raise essentially—almost exactly—the same issues as the previous three but in relation to the preparation of apprenticeship assessment plans rather than occupational standards. All I will say is: ditto. Again, I support all three of them, particularly Amendment 4, which requires a person from the representative skills body for a sector to be included in the group of persons developing a standard for that sector, for the same reasons as I have given for Amendments 1 to 3.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendments 2 and 5, to which I have added my name. I declare the fact that I am a teacher. I join other noble Lords in thanking the Minister and her team very much for our collegiate and friendly meetings and for their letters on the draft framework. They have gone a long way in calming a lot of the fears that I had about this Bill and about the lack of information. There is still a lot that has not been said, but I am an optimist. I genuinely believe that the Government are going in the right direction but, rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, I would like to hear a little more.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when a framework Bill comes before the House, you expect to have a series of amendments such as these, asking for more information. I thank the Minister for answering some of those questions, but the fact of the matter is that this is still a framework Bill. I hope that we will get a little more detail when she responds to this group, but we really need a bit more information before we assess a piece of legislation. I thank her for what she has done, but I hope she will take back to her department that the original approach on this really was not good enough.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. A significant number of the amendments discussed in Committee related to reporting requirements. If Skills England is to be an executive agency within the Department for Education, which still seems less than ideal—I will come to that later—arrangements for transparency and accountability, especially through reporting, become all the more critical. So, I welcome the Minister’s Amendment 7 requiring the Secretary of State to publish a report six months after the abolition of IfATE on how she has exercised the functions transferred from IfATE. However, I feel that this does not go far enough in spelling out what should be covered by the report.

The draft framework document, as we have heard, requires the publication of an annual report and accounts, and indeed a corporate plan, but I am not clear whether that will really cover the breadth of information needed. Surely Skills England will need to publish, at least every year, a report on progress across the whole of the Government’s promised post-16 education and skills strategy, of which Skills England will be at the heart. What we need is not so much a corporate plan as a sort of state of the nation report: where are we with the skills objectives that Skills England is all about promoting? For that reason, I added my name to Amendment 8 from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, which is more specific about the issues covered in the report. We have covered that.

I also feel that it is particularly important to ensure that the local skills improvement plans developed across the country by employer representative bodies, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, mentioned, and the plans of the mayoral combined authorities are covered as part of the state of the nation report. That is one reason why it is very important that Skills England should be a lion, to use the word used by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, rather than a mouse. At the moment, it is somewhere between the two but moving in the right direction.

I also added my name to Amendment 10 from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which spells out a number of matters relating to quality, value for money, efficiency and effectiveness in Skills England’s performance of its functions, and specifies some content of the annual report. I hope the Minister will give us further reassurance on how the Government will ensure that the report lives up to what I see as the requirements of a state of the nation report. Failing that, if the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, decides to test the opinion of the House, I will dutifully march in behind her.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 10, to which I have added my name. With due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, the whole point of being a Cross-Bencher is that you do not have to cut any Government any slack.

The thing I really like about Amendment 10, to take up the point from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, is that while I find the language in the framework document very iffy at times, Amendment 10 has

“ensure that education and training is of an appropriate quality … represents good value … ensure that Skills England performs its functions efficiently and effectively”.

I really like that.

We talk about annual reports. The Government have already committed to putting out a report after six months. I really like annual reports.

The Minister talked about Skills England already having experience in shadow form. Perhaps she could comment a little more about that as well.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 7 in the name of the Minister, Amendment 8 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Aberdare, and my Amendment 10. It feels a bit churlish not to welcome a report on how Skills England is discharging its functions, and it is even more troubling to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, since I have obviously made it a policy always to agree with him. However, I genuinely think that this amendment is rather odd.

The first thing is the timescale. The amendment says that the report

“must be laid and published within six months of the abolition of”

IfATE, which means the department will need to start writing it within a few weeks of the Bill passing, since I imagine that the sign-off process is similar to the example the noble Lord, Lord Storey, read out, in terms of complaints. What will it be able to say at that point about the exercise of its functions—that it has just got started? What impact will a few weeks of work have on apprenticeships and technical education in England, particularly given how many other moving parts there are in the system, with the proposed introduction of the growth and skills levy? I genuinely worry that, with the best will in the world, the report risks being rather thin and without any real substance, and that it will not be the kind of state of the nation report the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, suggests is appropriate.

In contrast, Amendment 8 sets a more realistic timescale. It is much more tailored to the specific points the Minister has heard repeatedly across the House, which relate to skills and technical education policy and strategy. I guess that it is a backdoor way of trying to get a bit more policy into the Bill. The serious point, which so many of our debates have centred on, is that the Bill is not clear on the Government’s specific policy approach. I urge the Minister to consider Amendment 8 as a helpful way of starting to sketch this out and perhaps to commit in her closing remarks to including at least parts of it in the next draft of the framework document.

I draw attention to two particular points in the document—which I am so glad that I read, otherwise I would have been found out by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. At 26.2, where the document refers to the annual report and accounts, it says that it will include the main activities and performance during the previous financial year. The Minister has obviously memorised it—we could have “Mastermind” on this. At 26.3, the document says there will information on the financial performance of Skills England. So, some of the points in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, could be used to flesh out those statements.

I am very grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Hampton, for their support for my Amendment 10. We have already debated the point of principle that the framework principles for the new executive agency should be in the Bill, and my amendment does this in a way I had hoped would not be controversial for the Government—although I am not terribly encouraged by the Minister’s opening remarks. I would be very grateful if, when she winds up, she could be absolutely clear on whether the public law duties which she says cover all the points in my earlier amendments and this amendment apply to IfATE. If they did apply to IfATE, why was that original drafting chosen and why was it part of the legislation passed by both Houses?

Like Amendments 2 and 5, this amendment takes the text from the original legislation, puts it in the Bill and applies it to Skills England. It is clear that Skills England will need to have regard to the quality of education and training, and the Minister said that that was in the aims. She can put me right if I have missed it, but I have to say that I cannot see it anywhere in the aims, so maybe she could commit to including that. It is also clear that it must represent good value in relation to funding and be efficient and effective, and it needs to prepare an annual report and lay it before Parliament. Paragraph (c) makes it clear that the Secretary of State can write to Skills England setting out

“other matters to which it must have regard when performing its functions”.

It gives the Secretary of State the flexibility for the focus of Skills England to evolve over time, which I am sure it will, naturally and rightly. The aim of this is not a straitjacket for government; it is just trying to get a balance between transparency, focus and flexibility.

I laid my amendment before the Minister shared the draft framework document and her letter, and I have a couple of concerns arising from those. Of course, if these principles are not in the Bill, Ministers can change at will the focus of the agency. I know that is not the Minister’s nor the Secretary of State’s intent—or I assume it is not—but the Minister’s letter to your Lordships says that there will be a review in the 18 to 24 months from inception, and a very wide range of options will be looked at, which seem to run from creating a different body to putting Skills England on a statutory footing. I know that this is not the Minister’s intention today, but it is what the letter says, and it underlines the point that a number of noble Lords have tried to make on more than one occasion.

Secondly, as I have said already, there is a lot of detail on page 7 of the document—it is page 7 of my printed version, although the printer of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, obviously uses different page numbers. It is the section on aims. It is not explicit in the same way about the importance of quality, it does not talk directly about the need for education and training to represent good value, and it does not talk about efficiency and effectiveness. I appreciate that there are generic references—boilerplate text—in the document, but it would be helpful if the Minister committed to amending this to reflect those three principles, which she confirmed in her opening remarks she definitely accepts.

The list on page 7 risks highlighting some of the issues we have debated at length, with specific government policies included in it, such as the Government’s mission to become a clean energy superpower. Of course, those priorities could change, and it would be entirely appropriate to put them in an annual letter from the Secretary of State to the agency. I am just surprised they are in the framework document. Perhaps I am being overly picky, and the Minister can correct me if I am, but it feels odd for an independent agency to use the term “superpower”—it does not feel quite right.

I very much hope that when she sums up, the Minister will be able to say how much of the text and the spirit of my amendment she will be able to put into the next draft of the framework document. It is more workable and much clearer than the current text in the section covering purposes and aims, and it is obviously more rigorous to have those principles in the Bill, but if the Minister commits to using that text in the framework document itself, I absolutely trust her. It is a workable, albeit less satisfactory option. If she cannot do that, when we come to call this amendment, I will test the opinion of the House.

Free Schools and Academies

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park, for enabling this vital debate. As ever, I declare my interest as a teacher in an academy in Hackney. As the noble Baroness said, this debate is in response to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, on which I shall have much more to say at Second Reading.

I have only ever taught in academies. I trained in a Catholic academy, despite the fact that I am not a Catholic. You will hear some people say how terrible academies are—that they are just fortresses of weird ideas and legalised ritual bullying. Near where we live is one of the original academies, Mossbourne Community Academy, which has a reputation for strictness and superb results. When my son was at primary school in year 6, we thought that he had no need for a strict school—but gradually, through his year, he became more and more frustrated that there were two boys in his class who were causing disruption. The teacher struggled to contain the behaviour, and the learning of the whole class was compromised. Often, the teacher would get so frustrated that he would punish the whole class for something that perhaps only one or two had done.

We were lucky enough to get our son into Mossbourne, where, because the behaviour is so good, he could actually learn his lessons; he could express an opinion and not get laughed at and he could get on with his studying in peace. There is nothing creative about background noise when you are trying to concentrate, whether it is in maths, product design or art. I was so impressed with the school that I joined it a year later, and I have been a teacher there ever since, alongside the other three of our children. There have been accusations of systemic bullying within academies, and specifically within my school, which I do not recognise. It is one of the top-performing non-selective schools in the country for value-added results. Our children are succeeding, and no child succeeds when they are unhappy.

After a similar debate, I took the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, around the school. The noble Earl and the noble Lord have been effusive in their praise of the school ever since.

The previous iteration of the school, Hackney Downs School, when it closed, had a 5% pass rate for either maths or English GCSE. Last year, 85% of our PP students achieved a grade 4 plus in both English and maths GCSE. Hackney is still one of the most deprived boroughs in the country, and 54% of our year 11 cohort last year were pupil premium. Tragically, one of our pupils, Pharrell Garcia, was stabbed and killed at the end of last year.

It is within this gloom that academies such as Mossbourne and the remarkable Carr Manor Community School in Leeds shine brightly in very difficult circumstances. They are a massive success story.

We have a Richard Rogers-designed, wooden-framed, stunning building that offers a varied and interesting curriculum, including courses for future medical and architectural students. My daughter does rowing in year 9, as part of her PE. So why are we trying to destroy this?

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, described the buses Bill as

“statist and anti-enterprise. It is also mildly nostalgic and backward-looking—a sort of return to the Attlee Government”.—[Official Report, 8/1/25; col. 783.]

I would say: right sentiment, wrong Bill.

Perhaps I may end by quoting what my head teacher, Rebecca Warren, says about these plans: “It’s a disaster for disadvantaged pupils, a condescending lowering of standards that will reverse the strides made in education over the last 20 years and ruin those children who need rigour and aspiration the most. My blood is boiling. I feel a mixture of heartbreak and anger, but with a feeling of terror thrown in”.

Children and Young People: Literacy

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, touching on the—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a very important point. Going back to the Little Moments Together campaign that I was talking about earlier, we have provided grant funding for early years voluntary and community sector partners, including the National Literacy Trust, to work with families on that campaign. As I said earlier to the noble Baroness, there are also ways in which we can look at the relationship with other organisations, particularly creative and arts organisations, to help to ensure that the joy of reading is available to all children, whatever their background.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I speak as a teacher and—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

Reading.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

And the noble Lord will be marking my homework later.

The National Literacy Trust says that one in seven primary schools in the UK does not have a library, and in London it is one in four. It has a ready-made Libraries for Primaries campaign set up with Penguin. Will the Government think about sorting this out now?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As a fellow teacher, although from quite a long time ago, I can say that the noble Lord makes a very good point. It builds on the earlier point about how we can work alongside the National Literacy Trust and others, along with the Government’s reading framework, to make sure that schools know and have the information and best practice available to them to develop libraries if they do not have them, and to make the most of them if they do.

Primary Schools: Swimming Lessons

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a very important point about the discrepancies in achievement in children’s swimming. He is absolutely right that if someone comes from a well-off background they are more than 80% likely to have fulfilled the requirement, whereas that goes down to a third for someone from a poorer background. As he also rightly says, there is a real difference depending on someone’s ethnic background. That is completely unsatisfactory.

Although work is ongoing through the Inclusion 2024 project to try to ensure that more children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, get access to swimming, the noble Lord is right that there is more we all need to do together, and across government, to ensure that children meet the required standard by the time they leave primary school. Furthermore, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, identified in her previous question, we need to ensure that they are also able to get the enjoyment and opportunities that come from being able to swim confidently.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a teacher. Swim England reports that, since 2011, almost 500 publicly accessible pools have closed, and that child drowning deaths have doubled in the last four years. Would the Minister agree that it is difficult to swim if you do not have a pool?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I strongly agree with the noble Lord. As he says, there are 500 fewer public-access swimming pools operational in England now than there were in 2010. Alongside that, there has been a 7% increase in the pay-per-swim cost in the last year. Whether in schools, where we need to make sure that teachers are supported with the skills to develop children’s basic swimming skills, or in the provision across our communities more widely, there is more we need to do to support swimming.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th November 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, I add my support for Amendment 36 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Like other amendments, it calls for—among other sensible things—a report, in this case on levels of investment in skills by employers.

If you have believed the CBI over the past few days, you would think that the investment climate for business had taken a turn for the worse in recent weeks, with what it is calling the “triple whammy” of increased employers’ national insurance contributions, the higher national minimum wage and various changes in labour market rules. The CBI feels that there is a palpable sense in the business community that the UK is becoming a more difficult environment for investment. Of course, skills are very much part of that picture. There is a clear risk that our levels of investment in skills, which are already running at half the levels of our peer group in the OECD, will suffer further if this climate of paralysis in the UK with respect to business investment is allowed to continue.

On the uncertainty that noble Lords have alluded to with respect to big government policy, notably the development of the growth and skills levy and the future of the LLE, these things may become compounding factors that risk current low levels of investment in skills dipping even further. Clearly, we cannot afford that as a country, so I believe it is vital that the Government take steps as rapidly as possible to lift the policy uncertainty that will potentially blight levels of investment in skills over the current year and accept the amendment, which will provide a healthy baseline against which we can measure progress in this respect in the months to come.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I have a tactic nowadays of speaking towards the end, when everybody else has said it better than I can. I just want to add that I have put my name to Amendment 18, and I agree with Amendment 23 and pretty much everything that includes the word “reporting”.

I am slightly concerned that our positions became entrenched in the last day in Committee, and that nimbleness is seen as being reduced by reporting. There is a lot that we do not know and a lot that we need to know. In my own profession of teaching, we have to teach with the door open and, at any time, somebody senior could come in, observe your lesson and give you formal feedback. At the very least, you get one formal observation a fortnight and—let us face it—we all work better with that kind of incentive. Skills England needs to be held to account; otherwise, we are looking at it being held to account by Henry VIII.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, quite rightly, the noble Baronesses have raised the issue of how we can ensure continuity of provision while transferring functions under the auspices of this Bill.

I reflect that coming back 14 years—probably 16 years —after the last time when I was responsible for doing any government legislation directly, there are some important improvements in the way in which Governments are expected to lay out the impact of their legislation, with the development of impact assessments. Of course, such things also provide grist to the mill for those who look at them and say, “Well, you’ve identified that there is potential concern about delay, and that must mean that the delay is going to happen”. The point of an impact assessment is that it enables, quite rightly, the Government pre-emptively to identify potential risks that could result from the transfer of functions and property from IfATE to the Secretary of State and think about how those risks can be mitigated. We are confident that that they can be, so I hope I can provide noble Lords with some reassurance about that.

I should also like at the outset to repeat assurances that I provided to noble Lords at last week’s session. We will ensure that the practical transition of functions from IfATE to the Secretary of State will be designed so that standards or apprenticeship assessment plans that are in the process of preparation or approval at the point of transition will continue. Similarly, approval decisions for technical qualifications that are part way through the process will also continue. It is our intention that employers and other stakeholders and, as rightly identified by the noble Baronesses opposite, learners perceive no interruption. The transition scheme that is being developed will be designed to ensure the minimum possible disruption for stakeholders.

I note that Amendments 25 and 26 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seek to place on the Secretary of State a duty to lay before Parliament a report on the timetable for the creation of, respectively, endpoint assessment and new technical education qualifications. As the noble Baroness said, Amendment 24 seeks to place on the Secretary of State a duty to lay before Parliament, within six months of Royal Assent, a report on mechanisms for employers to apply for the approval of new technical education qualifications and to appeal the removal of approved status for existing technical qualifications.

Skills England will undertake ongoing engagement with employers and other key stakeholders to identify skills needs that are not being met through the existing suite of technical qualifications and apprenticeships. This engagement will help identify where new standards should be produced and where existing standards and/or apprenticeship assessment plans should be updated, ensuring that the system responds quickly. With that in mind, Amendment 25 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would, to some extent, frustrate the Bill in enabling more effective prioritisation of the preparation and updating of apprenticeship assessment plans. We intend for the functions transferred to the Secretary of State to focus on where there is greatest need for a new or updated plan, informed by feedback from employers and other key stakeholders.

We also anticipate that plans in development at the point at which the functions transfer will continue and be finalised by the Secretary of State. Standards approved by the Secretary of State will be published, as is the case in the current system, as the basis for new technical qualifications to be developed. Awarding bodies will then, as now, submit applications for new technical qualifications to be approved in line with standards and reflecting employer demand. IfATE is currently responsible for the approval of technical qualifications; its function is being transferred through this Bill. Responsibility for decisions on the withdrawal of approval from technical qualifications will also transfer through this Bill, which includes a duty to publish information about matters taken into account when deciding whether or not to withdraw approval.

We would argue that Amendment 26 is also unnecessary as it would duplicate existing transparency, which will occur as a matter of course through the Secretary of State’s routine engagement with Parliament and through the establishment of Skills England as an arm’s-length body. As I have outlined previously, Skills England will report on delivery in line with standard practice, including as set out in its framework document and in a manner consistent with other executive agencies.

I turn to Amendment 24 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Placing on the Secretary of State a requirement to report on mechanisms for employers to apply for the approval of new technical education qualifications and to appeal the removal of approved status for existing technical qualifications is unnecessary. It would give employers an additional role in the approval of technical qualifications, which would risk undermining their central focus on highlighting skills needs and, as appropriate, preparing standards that reflect those needs. Where there was clear evidence of continued employer demand, it would be unlikely in practice that approval status would be removed—unless, for example, other significant issues had been identified in relation to the successful delivery of the qualification.

I hope I have provided some assurance that we do not expect a delay due to the transfer of functions in this Bill. We have already put mitigations in place and we will, in relation to the approval of—and the withdrawal of approval of—technical qualifications, continue to follow the current arrangements.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

Before the Minister sits down, can I ask for a bit of clarification here? The Minister has described Skills England as an arm’s-length body a couple of times today. I apologise if everybody else knows this, but can you have an arm’s-length body within a department? I thought that the definition of an arm’s-length body was that you cannot.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes, you can. There is a whole range of different types of arm’s-length bodies. Executive agencies are one such type. They are governed by a governance document—the framework document that I have previously described—and by a set of requirements and relationships that I would be happy to spell out for noble Lords.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 21st November 2024 Grand Committee

I too remember the Schools Bill, and the problem was solved by just letting it die. I do not think we can let this Bill die; I do not suppose the Government have the slightest intention of letting it die, and therefore we really have to improve it and get some concrete progress into the Bill so that we really can improve the skills landscape and the opportunities for our young people.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I was at Second Reading. I am a teacher and an optimist, and I genuinely trust the Government. As the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said, we all desperately want this to succeed; we want the 13th iteration to be the Bismarckian iteration that actually cuts through and cuts down flab. We were talking about this and I said that it is like trying to amend fog. We have the sunshine coming through, but at the moment we cannot really see it.

Amendments 21 and 33 seem like a sensible idea because there is a real worry about something going into a government department. I will talk about my amendments later but they are all about scrutiny. There seems to be less scrutiny rather than more once something has disappeared into a government department, which is slightly strange. If we could get Skills England to being a statutory body, out in the open and with more scrutiny, people would have a lot more belief in it.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I share many of the concerns expressed by noble Lords. The Bill should by no means leave the House in the state in which it entered it. It is important that whatever body Skills England occupies has a great deal more status than the Government have proposed. I just do not think that what they have proposed will ever work in Whitehall. We need to take more care with the preservation of the relationships that have been established by IfATE, which make it work so well. I do not see anything in the transition proposed here that does that and, as I said at Second Reading, I would like to know what is going to happen to the Careers & Enterprise Company.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, the interesting Library briefing on the Bill contains the following paragraph:

“Unifying the skills landscape to ensure that the workforce is ‘equipped with the skills needed to power economic growth’, by bringing together mayoral combined authorities and other key local partners, large and small businesses, training providers and unions”.


That brought joy to my ears. In this question about determining standards and all the other things that need to be done, we have a wealth of experience and expertise within trade unions of various kinds. My own experience, of course, is in education, but there will be other unions covering other sectors. It is important, when we are thinking about this, to ensure as we move forward with skills that we take account of those people who are either delivering the training or have themselves done the jobs. The best way to hear that voice may well be through the trade unions. I therefore commend to the Government listening to trade unions and having trade unions in the conversation.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendments 2 and 6, to which I have added my name. The great thing about following so many intelligent noble Lords is that I have little to say. In particular, my noble friend Lady McGregor-Smith talked about the employer, which is important for everybody. I have been playing bingo with words and phrases and “clarity” has come up many times. With due deference to my noble friend Lord Aberdare, I am going to repeat myself: we need clarity; employers need clarity; teachers need clarity. This is my second bite at the cherry and I am not sure whether I declared my interest as a teacher at first. Everybody needs clarity from the Bill and these amendments give more rather than less, which is vital.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, it is great to see the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, with us, because his voice has enormous stature in these discussions. These amendments are all to do with the creation of standards. My noble friend Lord Storey added his name to Amendments 2 and 6, but we are broadly supportive of all the amendments in this group. It is vital that in any work-based qualification the voice of employers is heard loud and clear. I should perhaps have declared that I worked for 20 years for City & Guilds on what we always called “vocational qualifications”, because while some were technical, some were craft qualifications. I always regretted the fact that we had taken over the word “technical” to cover all those myriad work areas.

Of course, employers may not be expert in teaching or assessment, as we discovered in spades when we were developing national vocational qualifications. Employers had wonderful, grandiose ideas about all the things that they wanted to assess, but when we got the colleges and City & Guilds with them, they realised that if they wanted staff to know about fire, they could not actually create a fire for every member of staff to have a real experience of dealing with fire. Assessment bodies had their place, as well as the colleges.

I was working for City & Guilds when the first national vocational qualifications were established. NVQs were going to revolutionise the “skills” word with a very easy to understand grading, which would have enabled parents, teachers and everybody to understand exactly where the vocational system was in relation to the academic one. Alas, where are they now? Why do we have local skills improvement plans and partnerships if they are not to be used for all the skills they have in this brave new world? I think it is important that the Secretary of State must set the priorities for LSIPs and review them regularly to ensure that their priorities are reflected in national strategies for the creation of standards, so I think this set of amendments has a great deal to commend it.

--- Later in debate ---

Debate on whether Clause 6 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, reluctant as I am to join the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, in the bonfire of the clauses, I rather took against Clause 6 and was advised by the Table Office that this was the best way to discuss it. During the word bingo I have been playing, we have had “flexibility”, “agility”, “lean”, “speed”, “quick”, “quicker”, “responsive”, “speed”, “momentum”, “rapidly developing”, “fluidly” and “speed” about five more times.

In Clause 6, taking away the fact that we will be reviewing approved technical educational qualifications “at regular intervals”, the Government are getting terribly excited. It is like someone at new year who is going to join the gym, going to play tennis and going to run around the block every time. Then, gradually, the pie shop starts calling, it rains—yes, I am speaking for myself—and it becomes a little more flabby. The trouble is that there is this great enthusiasm—the Minister will be running around and talking to everybody—but, as my noble friend Lady McGregor-Smith said, it took five years to get IfATE. What will happen in five years?

In the Bill, we are mistaking consultation, scrutiny and review for rigidity and delay. We need more clarity, reassurance and scrutiny. By taking out looking at education qualifications at regular intervals and taking out the publication of information on standards and apprenticeships at regular intervals, we are putting a cloud of suspicion into this when we really need clarity. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions on this group. I feel confident in thanking noble Lords, because I am confident that I am on strong ground on this one. I hope nobody proves me wrong.

In preparing to transfer functions from IfATE to the Secretary of State, an assessment of the current operation of the system was undertaken to identify any functions that should be amended rather than simply being transferred in their current form. In that consideration, the proposal for a relatively small change to Clause 6 came forward. Clause 6 amends the requirement to review technical education qualifications and standards, and apprenticeship assessment plans, at regular and published intervals, by removing the requirement to publish information about the intervals at which reviews will be conducted.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, argued, rightly, that there is a need for review. The point about this clause is that there is no change to the broader review requirement. The Secretary of State and Skills England will still be required to maintain arrangements to review approved technical education qualifications and standards, and apprenticeship assessment plans, with a view to determining whether they should be revised, be withdrawn or continue to be approved. I wholeheartedly agree with noble Lords who have said that that is an important function, and it is absolutely right that that duty should remain.

Removing the requirement to publish information about the intervals at which reviews will be conducted will allow Skills England to determine when reviews of technical education qualifications and more than 700 high-quality occupational standards and apprenticeship assessment plans should be carried out, based on need rather than a fixed review point, as is currently the case. Originally, IfATE expected to carry out reviews every three years but, with the proliferation of standards, assessment plans and technical education qualifications to review, it has been unable to do so; nor was it able to do this by undertaking reviews on a route-by-route basis. It has since adopted a more risk-based approach. The current approach, which fixes review points, has been too rigid and fails to recognise the differences in starts and achievement rates and rapid changes in skills needs; for example, where occupations evolve quickly.

Clause 6 will ensure that standards, technical education qualifications and apprenticeship assessment plans are kept up to date, coherent and relevant, and are reviewed appropriately. The amendment would remove a statutory obligation and provide the Secretary of State flexibility that is in line with the current risk-based approach taken by IfATE to determine whether a review should be prioritised; in other words, we believe that IfATE has arrived at the right, flexible position, but that would not be reflected without this legislative change. It recognises that flexibility is needed to take a targeted approach to administering the significant volume of reviews based on whether there are specific issues with the performance of the standard and how widely used it is, rather than on meeting an arbitrary timetable.

Without this clause, standards, technical education qualifications and apprenticeship assessment plans would need to be reviewed at published intervals, rather than based on need, preventing resources being deployed effectively to ensure that standards, technical education qualifications and apprenticeship assessment plans are kept relevant and up to date as required.

Amendment 16, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would remove the flexibility that we intend to create, and it would mean that the Secretary of State would be required to arrange for an independent third-party assessment for every new standard and assessment plan. Clause 7 amends the 2009 Act to substitute a requirement for independent third-party examination of all new standards and assessment plans with a discretionary power for the Secretary of State to make arrangements to do so. The default position will remain that the Secretary of State will make arrangements for independent third-party examination of new standards and assessment plans prior to their approval.

The clause will provide an alternative approach in certain circumstances where obtaining third-party examination is duplicative or not necessary. For example, the option not to arrange an independent third-party review might be deployed where employers place unequivocal high value in a professional body’s mandated qualification or key skills and behaviour learning outcomes, and where the occupational standard adopts that very closely, such as the CIPD and HR standards. In these cases, an external review would be nugatory.

In highly regulated occupations, such as the health sector, the regulatory requirements for occupational competence must be reflected in the occupational standard and assessment plan, and deviation from this is simply not possible. Again, the need for third-party review would be redundant.

Without Clause 7, examinations that do not improve standards and assessment plans but take time and resource to deliver would continue to be required. That would continue to place unnecessary burdens on those involved, slow down the process and make it excessively onerous.

For the reasons I have outlined, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, will feel able to withdraw his opposition to Clause 6 standing part of the Bill.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who took part in this short debate. It is always quite exciting to see the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, describe herself as baffled—in my short career here, I have not seen that yet. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and I talked about how there is no third-party examination and there is a conflict of interest. It looks like Skills England is not only marking its own homework but writing its own exams.

I did not join the Minister in her strength of feeling that she had got it absolutely right, because it is all based on need, but, again, who defines need? It is the Secretary of State. We are losing this clarity—this is a trust issue again. But I am sure that some conversations can be had between now and Report, so I withdraw my opposition to the clause standing part of the Bill.

Clause 6 agreed.

Curriculum and Assessment Review

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point about the breadth that we need in the teaching that goes on in our schools and in the skills, attributes and knowledge that young people have when they leave school to enter into life and into work, as I said. That is why this Government set up the curriculum and assessment review: to use the evidence being gained from the wider engagement to make recommendations about how we can improve on providing skills in all those areas, and particularly ensure that the curriculum supports students with special educational needs and those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to close some of the gaps in pupils’ learning.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a state secondary schoolteacher. Does the Minister agree that it is ridiculous that our children leave school now with a very good knowledge of the religions and their gods but cannot have a working knowledge of Microsoft Office?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I do not think it is strictly true that large numbers of young people do not have a working knowledge of important areas of digital skills and computing. Of course, increasing numbers of them take GCSEs and A-levels in computing, but the noble Lord makes an important point about it being important to have the necessary skills for life. The curriculum and assessment review will consider that, and this Government will take decisions on it when we receive that review.