Covid-19: Education Attendance

Lord Laming Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, current attendance levels—despite those who are self-isolating—are at around 87%. One feature of the pandemic has been the appreciation for teachers and the workforce. On the importance of school, many young people now report that they appreciate it more than they did in the past. We have been clear that we wanted education settings to be the last to close and the first to reopen.

[Lord Laming (CB) [V]]

My Lords, may I ask about the children not attending school and not in contact with any other services? What are the Government doing to ensure that these missing children and safe and being well cared for?

Children: Care Homes

Lord Laming Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is correct. Through the Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation charity, the Government are currently running regional pilots in the south-west, the north-east and London, to try to ensure that, where it is in the best interests of the child and the most appropriate placement is in one of those boarding schools, that is the placement. That is being done with a view to, after looking at the regional pilots, making it national.

[Lord Laming (CB) [V]]

My Lords, do the Government now regret the pressure that they placed on local authorities to outsource their services, as they call it, thereby placing into the hands of independent providers the powers both to choose the children to be offered a service and to set the charges that they demand? Does the Minister accept that placements in unregulated accommodation have been just one result of this policy?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, as I have outlined, there are many excellent providers in this sector, and it is not fair to tar everybody with the same brush when there are a minority of situations in which, of course, we need to act. The noble Lord is correct: a review is currently under way by the Competition and Markets Authority to look at the market in this space, but many of those providers provide a good or outstanding service.

Schools: Return of Students

Lord Laming Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Caine.

I am afraid that we cannot hear the noble Lord, so we will go to the noble Lord, Lord Laming.

[Lord Laming (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am sure that it will be very good news if all our schools are fully open in September. I have a growing concern for those young people who just will not appear in September. What steps will be taken to make contact with these young people? Some of them may be extremely vulnerable, and we must not let them be lost in the system.