Knife Crime: First Aid in Schools

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right that the causes of knife crime are complicated. We must be honest about not fully understanding them. I accept that austerity is one reason offered, but I am not certainly convinced. We have done a number of things to support young people in terms of ensuring that they have a good education. One priority of the Secretary of State is what he calls the five foundations of character—sport, creativity, performing, volunteering membership and the world of work. I commend to noble Lords a particular initiative that I am always keen to promote called OnSide Youth Zones. Nine of these are now open and six more are planned, mostly in London. They provide an avenue for young people between what are considered the danger hours after leaving school at around 4 pm until 6 pm.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend satisfied that the police are liaising closely enough with schools as and when the need arises? Are the Government making more resources available to the police generally to help combat this terrible scourge?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My noble friend asks a good question. In fact, about a month ago, I wrote to the head of Counter Terrorism Command in London to broker a meeting between him and some heads in London so that schools and police work together. We have introduced a number of initiatives over the past couple of years to support these areas. For example, the Big Lottery Fund invested £80 million towards the #iwill fund and £40 million to the Youth Investment Fund. In addition, in October this year, we announced the new £200 million Youth Endowment Fund to provide support over the next 10 years for young people most at risk of serious violence.

Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I have tried to reassure noble Lords that that is not the intention. We always recognise that parents should lead in this part of a child’s education, and are not intending to undermine that in any way.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that these regulations are essential if teachers are to be able to give children a firm, proper understanding of very sensitive issues that, left untaught, can so easily give rise to vicious bullying of LGBT pupils, and serious sex offences at a young age? As far as independent schools are concerned, to which reference has been made, has my noble friend noted the wide support that they have given to the Government’s proposals? This means they are likely to be widely adopted. As one who follows independent schools affairs closely, I have been very struck with the seriousness with which they are treating mental health issues.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My noble friend raises an important point. These issues are a matter of safeguarding, not only against bullying but in ways such as recognising unhealthy relationships and symptoms of poor mental health. These subjects are designed to support all children to be healthy, happy, safe and respectful, both in the school environment and the wider world. We are committed to ensuring that schools and teachers are supported and ready to teach these subjects to a high standard. The £6 million we have announced today is an initial amount for the 2019-20 financial year, which will be used to develop the programme of support. I agree with my noble friend that independent schools have been very supportive in this process, and I am confident that they will follow the guidance.

Education: Art and Design

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we have seen a decline in the number taking design and technology specifically, but there has been a major restructuring in the way that exam is taught. We have replaced it with a new food preparation and nutrition GCSE, examined for the first time in 2018. D&T food technology accounted for nearly 30,000 entries in 2017, and a greater number of pupils took food preparation and nutrition and design and technology combined than took design and technology in 2017. So the numbers are not as bad as they look. We offer a bursary for teachers of design and technology of £12,000 for those with a 2.2 or higher, which has been increased from £9,000.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Is my noble friend encouraged by the continuing growth of partnership schemes between independent and maintained schools? Has he noted that there are now over 1,200 partnership projects in drama and music? Does he agree that independent schools can do more to make their skills and facilities available to their colleagues in the maintained sector?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I agree entirely with my noble friend. One of the things I have prioritised in my discussions with the independent sector is how it can improve and increase its support for the state education sector. Harris Westminster, which I referred to a moment ago, would acknowledge that it received a lot of help from Westminster School in the extraordinary outcomes it got—but there is always more to be done.

Special Educational Needs and Funding

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I think there are two questions there. Perhaps I may address, first, the post-19 phase for young people migrating from education into the world of work. We are now providing supported internships. There were 1,200 in January last year, an increase of 700 on the year before. We have also legislated to promote the joint commissioning of services. This means that children’s services funded primarily by education funds should be able to work effectively with adult services to support young people as they transition. Secondly, on overall funding, we are very conscious of high-needs pressures. We made available £130 million of high-needs funding in 2017-18, and the high-needs block will rise by £142 million next year.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, what can be done to reduce the cost of going to appeals tribunals, which deters many parents from asserting their rights in the face of obstruction from local authorities, and what can be done to stop local authorities telling parents—quite wrongly, as some do—that a local independent school cannot be named in an education, health and care plan?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, this is a new provision. We have radically changed the way that support is provided for vulnerable children. Although no one is happy to see money wasted on expensive tribunal proceedings, the percentage of tribunal cases is relatively consistent with the increasing number of education, health and care plans awarded. We will obviously challenge local authorities where too many tribunal cases occur but they are still learning about this.

Schools: Music Education

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I find myself following the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester. For me, his diocese is for ever synonymous with one of the greatest of all bishops, George Bell. Three years after this revered man’s reputation was traduced by the Church of England authorities on the uncorroborated word of a single complainant, the outcome of yet another private inquiry by the Church is awaited. I hope that it will be published soon and that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury will at last do what is required of him in restoring to a great man a reputation that has been so gravely defamed.

I declare my interests for the purposes of this debate as president of the Independent Schools Association, one of the organisations that comprises the Independent Schools Council, of which I am a former general secretary, and as president of the Council for Independent Education, which works on behalf of 20 independent sixth-form colleges.

Unsurprisingly, it is about independent schools that I would like to speak in this debate, for which we are indebted to my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood, himself an accomplished organist and pianist who can often be found playing impromptu piano duets with musical guests at his home in Italy. I recall with pain that at my bleak boarding school in Suffolk long ago, I insisted on banging the piano keys so furiously that my music teacher swiftly sacked me. I am thus ineligible to play duets with my noble friend.

As this debate has already frequently noted, music is one of the great strengths of the independent sector of education. Some 1,300 of the total 2,500 independent schools in our country come within the ambit of the Independent Schools Council. In the overwhelming majority of ISC member schools, where the average school roll is only 165, life without music would be inconceivable.

A few days ago I received the latest journal of the Independent Schools Association, featuring news of recent arts awards won by our member schools. Top of a considerable list came Hulme Hall Grammar School in Stockport, winners of the Incorporated Society of Musicians trust gold award.

My colleague Mr Neil Roskilly, a man with long experience of teaching in both state and independent schools and now chief executive officer of the Independent Schools Association, studies all aspects of our education system with close attention. As this debate loomed, he wrote to me as follows:

“The majority of independent schools recognise music education as part of their core, certainly up to the age of fourteen and often well beyond. The range of formal and informal opportunities to access music is phenomenal. My son’s own school, the Perse in Cambridge, boasts 50 music scholars, several pupils who are members of the National Youth Choir, with more than 20 peripatetic staff with instrumental specialisms delivering around 550 individual lessons each week. That is not untypical”.


I draw attention to this state of affairs not in any spirit of self-congratulation or self-satisfaction but to underline the fact that many of the 7% of our nation’s schools in the independent sector have important resources and musical accomplishments that can assist their colleagues in the state sector. Mr Roskilly notes:

“What is so pleasing is that many independent schools are working with state schools in partnership to promote music. Our own Association is doing a great deal. For example, Queen Ethelburga’s in York works closely with a range of local primaries. Our Chairman’s Old Vicarage School in Derby has a wonderful joint choir in which children from a local primary play a major part. At a recent concert in Derby they sang to an audience of some 30,000 people”.


To a greater extent than ever before, independent schools are being actively encouraged to come together in mutually beneficial partnerships with their counterparts in state schools. The Schools Together website records what is being done. Some 16 pages of it are devoted to the music partnership schemes that have now been established. In a recent formal statement of joint understanding with the Independent Schools Council, the Government pledged to promote the case for partnership among state schools. That is vital to ensuring the continuing expansion of partnership schemes. Success will be achieved only when state and independent schools come together of their own free will. Coercion could not lead to success.

There are now 624 projects uniting state and independent schools in the teaching and performance of music. There can, and should be, more. I well remember the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, expressing the view in a debate a few years ago that partnership schemes needed to be expanded fast. I do not disagree with him. Between them, the ISC’s 1,300 member schools have 725 concert halls and theatres, along with 425 dance studios. All should be used as fully as is possible and practicable by staff and students in both sectors of education. Mr Tom Arbuthnott of Eton College, a leading figure in the promotion of music partnerships, writes that they are,

“particularly easy to get off the ground, largely due to musicians’ instinct to perform, and the likelihood that Directors of Music are going to care very much about spreading the benefits of music over as wide an area as possible”.

Those telling words—“spreading the benefits of music”—must be kept ringing in the ears of independent and state schools. They must ring in the ears of government Ministers too—at high volume. Music partnerships between independent and state schools will not of course solve the profound problems which this debate has identified but they can make a useful contribution.

Child Sexual Abuse: Safeguarding Failures

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, where independent schools are charities they are regulated by the Charity Commission. We regulate all of them in terms of their right to run a school. The noble Baroness mentioned female genital mutilation; that is one of the few areas where there is a mandatory requirement to report any suspicions or evidence of it to the police. We take that very seriously and awareness of it is growing in schools.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, appalling things happened at these two schools, for which the most profound sense of shame must always be felt. Has my noble friend noted the appointment of Ampleforth’s first female head, Deirdre Rowe, an expert in child safeguarding, who has said that she will lead the school into a new era? More generally, does he agree that boarding schools today are among the most thoroughly regulated and stringently inspected schools in the world?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that the degree of oversight of boarding schools in this country is probably one of the most stringent anywhere in the world. I am delighted that Ampleforth has appointed a female head. As part of the Charity Commission’s oversight of that school, it has appointed an independent observer, Emma Moody, who has the rights and powers of a trustee and is there specifically to oversee safeguarding.

Relationships and Sex Education

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for his comments and indeed for his contribution yesterday. He asks a very practical question. This is something that needs to be handled sensitively, and we will be looking in the consultation response for any sense that we need to strengthen the guidance to schools. Broadly speaking, head teachers are experienced at engaging with parents, particularly on difficult topics, so we trust them to put the right processes in place for their schools. We will see if there is a sense in the consultation that they do not feel well enough supported, and if that is the case then we will address this point further.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Will the end of the consultation period be followed swiftly by final government decisions? Clearly, it is important that things proceed quickly, since new arrangements take effect in September 2019. I thank the Minister for clarifying, too, in response to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that independent schools will be covered by these new arrangements. It seems to me extremely important that all elements of our school system participate in what is now going to be established.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

Yes, we are keen to get on and do this, and the plans at the moment are that the results of the consultation response will be published on GOV.UK within 12 weeks of the consultation closing. We will make an announcement on the draft regulations and draft statutory guidance at the start of next year. At that point, we will, if appropriate, make clear any changes to the draft statutory guidance and regulations prior to parliamentary debates, during the passing of the associated regulations.

Primary School Children

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is correct that we cannot be clear on future careers over the next 10 or 20 years. Underlying this, we have to ensure that young children are properly educated in the basics, and I am pleased to be able to report that the provisional key stage 2 data, which came out last week, show an ongoing improvement in the number of children achieving the national standard; it has gone up from 61% to 64%, which in turn was an increase from the previous year. I acknowledge the role of the creative industries, but there is a strong sense that STEM will be increasing the number of jobs at double the rate of other areas between now and 2023, and we are doing a lot to encourage STEM awareness in schools.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that children at primary school should concentrate above all on the subjects that need to be grasped firmly at that early stage, such as the basic history of their country?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, of course understanding the basic history of our country is fundamental, but to do that they need a good knowledge of basic reading and writing, and that is what I was referring to.

Grammar Schools

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it is a top priority of the Government to ensure that we have enough good maths teachers. Indeed, the noble Lord may be aware that we have now opened two specialist maths schools linked to universities, and are about to announce another one. They are producing some of the best mathematicians for the future generation, and I hope that they will go into teaching themselves.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that wide public attention could usefully be given to the Government’s recent memorandum of understanding with the Independent Schools Council? It stresses that its own bursary support, which amounted to nearly £400 million last year, should be targeted on families,

“on the lowest incomes as well as looked after children, to increase opportunities for these children and to support social mobility”.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point. We have recently signed this memorandum of understanding with the Independent Schools Council, which is reflective of its changing attitude to try to help more children from disadvantaged backgrounds into its schools. But it is also relevant—and I thank the noble Lord for his prompt—that we have just signed a memorandum of understanding with the Grammar School Heads Association. This is all about sharing the aims of seeing more pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds sitting the entrance test, applying to grammar schools and being admitted. That is already happening, and more than 90 of our 160 grammar schools are already prioritising pupil-premium children where they can.

Social Mobility Commission

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the national strategy for social mobility is focused on removing barriers to opportunity for all, including disadvantaged people and places—whether it is through education, using the pupil premium, in which the Government have invested £13 billion since 2011, closing the attainment gap, which has narrowed by 10% in the last seven years, or increasing the national living wage by 4.4% at the beginning of this month, and by £2,000 a year since April 2016. The recommendations of the Education Select Committee are being considered by the Government, but our commitment to improving the lot, particularly of the least advantaged, remains paramount.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

What are the Government doing to help break down barriers between children from different religious and cultural backgrounds?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we have an ongoing process of education. We announced the integration strategy a couple of weeks ago, using the schools linking programme to create sustained opportunities for children of different backgrounds to mix and socialise, and strengthening expectations on integration for all new free schools.