Lord Lingfield

Conservative - Life peer

Became Member: 17th December 2010


Lord Lingfield is not a member of any APPGs
1 Former APPG membership
University of Hull
Lord Lingfield has no previous appointments


Division Voting information

During the current Parliament, Lord Lingfield has voted in 534 divisions, and never against the majority of their Party.
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Debates during the 2019 Parliament

Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.

Sparring Partners
Baroness Barran (Conservative)
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
(8 debate interactions)
Lord Bethell (Conservative)
(2 debate interactions)
Baroness Goldie (Conservative)
(2 debate interactions)
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Department Debates
Department for Education
(8 debate contributions)
Department for International Trade
(5 debate contributions)
Ministry of Defence
(5 debate contributions)
Department of Health and Social Care
(2 debate contributions)
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Legislation Debates
Schools Bill [HL] 2022-23
(887 words contributed)
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Lords initiatives

These initiatives were driven by Lord Lingfield, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.


Lord Lingfield has not introduced any legislation before Parliament

Lord Lingfield has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting


Latest 25 Written Questions

(View all written questions)
Written Questions can be tabled by MPs and Lords to request specific information information on the work, policy and activities of a Government Department
15th Dec 2021
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is possible for a school in a multi-academy trust to opt by resolution of its governing body to become a stand-alone academy; and, if so, how many such schools have done so in the last three years.

It is not possible for a school in a multi academy trust to opt by resolution of its local governing board to become a stand-alone academy

It is possible, however, for an academy to leave a multi academy trust with the mutual agreement of the governing board of the trust and the Secretary of State for Education. Before agreeing to such a move, the Secretary of State for Education would need assurance that it would be in the best interest of all pupils within the trust. However, there have been no recorded instances of this happening during the last 3 years.

Baroness Barran
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
10th Sep 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to create more new maths schools in England.

The department has announced the approval of 5 new maths schools into the pre-opening stage: Cambridge Mathematics School, Durham Mathematics School, Imperial College London Mathematics School, Lancaster University School of Mathematics and Surrey Mathematics School. These are in addition to King’s Maths School and Exeter Maths School, which are already open, and the University of Liverpool Mathematics School, which opened in September 2020.

The department is working with the proposers to obtain sites and prepare these schools for opening, subject to funding agreements. We are also in discussion with other potential maths school proposers, in order to have a 16-19 maths school in every region. Successful proposals will be announced in due course.

21st Jul 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what practical support there is to assist pupils with special educational needs and disabilities to learn a musical instrument at school.

Our vision for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is the same as that for all children and young people, namely that they are taught a broad and ambitious curriculum.

The department funds a national network of 120 Music Education Hubs who work with the majority of schools to deliver 4 core roles, one of which is to enable children from all backgrounds and every part of England to have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument. This includes children with SEND.

In addition, one of the programmes that the department partially funds with Arts Council England is Music for Youth. Working with the Music Education Hubs, this provides over 60,000 young people each year with free opportunities to perform and experience live music through nationwide festivals, concerts and tailored projects. This includes giving pupils with SEND opportunities to both perform and access performances they would not otherwise be able to.

29th Jun 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment has been made of trends in the number of pupils learning lesser-played instruments such as the (1) bassoon, (2) French horn, and (3) double bass, through school music tuition.

The government believes all pupils should have access to an excellent, well-rounded education and the arts and music are central to this.

The government does not hold information on individual school music tuition. However, music is included in the national curriculum and is compulsory in all maintained schools from the age of 5 to 14. Post-14, all pupils in maintained schools must be offered the opportunity to study at least one subject in the arts.

29th Jun 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what support they are providing for (1) secondary schools, (2) music hubs, and (3) national youth music organisations, to give young people opportunities to play in classical music ensembles and orchestras.

All pupils should have access to an excellent, well-rounded education, and music education is central to this.

The government invested over £300 million of ring-fenced funding in music hubs in 2016-20, to ensure all children, whatever their background, have access to a high-quality music education, including learning to play musical instruments and having the opportunity to play and sing in ensembles.

On 3 January 2020, we announced a further £80 million investment in music hubs for 2020-21. Alongside this investment, charities that help young people learn about different styles of music are also set to receive a further £1 million to support the next generation of musicians. These programmes are In Harmony, National Youth Music Organisations (NYMOs) and Music for Youth.

3rd Jun 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government how they have been monitoring the effectiveness of measures set out in the guidance on helping children with special educational needs and disabilities to continue their education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government is committed to supporting local authorities and their partners to ensure children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) continue their education during the COVID-19 outbreak.

We have published a range of guidance for education settings, local authorities, health commissioning bodies and families, and are monitoring the effectiveness of measures through:

  • carrying out briefings with all local authorities through regional events, setting out the government expectations regarding meeting the needs of children and young people with SEND (these briefings were also attended by a number of parent and carer representatives and health bodies);
  • undertaking structured conversations with SEND leaders in all local authorities to probe the detail of their response to the measures in the guidance;
  • drawing on wider feedback from our team of professional SEND advisers, delivery support partners and a range of stakeholders, including representative bodies for local authorities and parents of children with SEND, and several specialist SEND organisations; and
  • through Regional Education and Children’s Teams, the department is bringing together up-to-date intelligence to provide ongoing support to local authorities to deliver their responsibilities, working with Ofsted to bring all support into one coherent offer to best support them in their response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

We will continue to work with education settings, local authorities, health commissioning bodies and a range of stakeholders to keep the effectiveness of measures in our guidance under close review.

18th May 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of COVID-19 on the delivery of free schools in the pre-opening stage.

We are monitoring closely the risk that construction delays caused by COVID-19 might impact on our capacity to deliver free schools, including special free schools, planning to open in September 2020.

Where delays are putting at risk completion of sites by September, we are agreeing appropriate mitigations, including alternative temporary accommodation.

We remain committed to opening all free schools due to open this September, as planned.

18th May 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government how COVID-19 is affecting the delivery of new special free schools; and what steps they are taking to mitigate this impact.

We are monitoring closely the risk that construction delays caused by COVID-19 might impact on our capacity to deliver free schools, including special free schools, planning to open in September 2020.

Where delays are putting at risk completion of sites by September, we are agreeing appropriate mitigations, including alternative temporary accommodation.

We remain committed to opening all free schools due to open this September, as planned.

28th Apr 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Berridge on 13 March (HL2079), whether any regional workshops on the annual reviews of Education, Health and Care Plans have taken place so far in 2020; and if so, which local authorities have sent representatives.

In February and March 2020, we delivered training on Annual Reviews of Education Health and Care Plans across the country. 11 out of 13 planned workshops were delivered. The remaining 2 workshops were postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

A total of 98 local authorities attended the training events. The local authorities in attendance at the training events are listed in the attached table.

28th Apr 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to protect teaching and non-teaching staff from COVID-19 when schools re-open.

The school workforce is central to the country’s response to COVID-19 and we thank them wholeheartedly for their support at this difficult time.

As a result of the huge efforts everyone has made to adhere to strict social distancing measures, the transmission rate of coronavirus (COVID-19) has decreased. We therefore anticipate, with further progress, that we may be able, from the week commencing 1 June, to welcome back more children to early years, school and further education settings. We will only do this provided that the five key tests set by government justify the changes at the time.

A range of actions will be taken to prevent transmission of the virus, including protective measures to minimise contact and mixing. Public Health England is clear that if early years settings, schools and colleges implement these measures, and crucially if they are also applying regular hand washing, hygiene and cleaning measures and handling potential cases of the virus as per advice, then the risk of transmission will be lowered.

We have published guidance for education and childcare settings on how to implement protective measures, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings.

Access to testing is already available to essential workers, including all school staff.

These are rapidly developing circumstances. We continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.



2nd Mar 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to address the concerns raised by the report by Special Needs Jungle Education, Health & Care Plan annual review, published 10 December 2019, and in particular the findings relating to the low completion rates of statutory Education Health and Care Plan annual reviews by local authorities.

The annual review process for Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans, set out in the Children and Families Act 2014 and the special educational needs and disability (SEND) Code of Practice, requires local authorities to ensure reviews are conducted within twelve months from the final EHC plan being in place, or within 12 months of the last review of the plan.

The department has sought to strengthen local area’s knowledge and understanding of their duties in relation to the completion of annual reviews. Between January and April this year, a series of regional workshops have been planned. A number of have already been delivered, with good levels of attendance from local authority education and social care teams, health teams from clinical commissioning groups, and parents. Part of the workshops include planning for improvements and this will be followed up through the department’s team of SEND advisers.

More broadly, we recognise that there are a range of concerns with the SEND system. We announced the SEND Review in September 2019 to ensure the system is working best for all families, and that support in different areas is consistent, available and joined up across health, care and education services.

2nd Mar 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that, where local authorities have decided to place a child's Education Health Care Plan at a particular school, that the school has sufficient funds to make the provisions specified.

For a child with an education, health and care (EHC) plan, the local authority is responsible for securing the provision specified in that plan, including making arrangements for the child to attend any school named in the plan.

A local authority is required to provide each mainstream (primary or secondary) school in its area with a budget that is sufficient for it to meet the additional costs of supporting all its pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, including those with EHC plans, with up to £6,000 per pupil, per annum. Where the costs of making the provision specified in an EHC plan exceed £6,000, the local authority responsible for securing the provision and placing the child in the school pays top-up funding to the school so that the school can make the necessary provision. This top-up funding comes from the local authority’s high needs budget. Nationally, high needs funding will increase by £780 million in the next financial year, up to £7.2 billion. This will be the largest year-on-year increase since the high needs funding block was created in 2013.

Similarly, where a pupil with an EHC plan attends a special school, the local authority responsible for the plan provides top-up funding in respect of the child, to enable the school to make the provision specified in the plan. The top-up funding for a special school is intended to contribute to the costs that exceed the total amount of place funding the special school receives, at £10,000 per place.

6th Sep 2023
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent the abuse of the driving test block booking system through the purchase and resale of test appointments by unofficial brokers.

DVSA has already taken a range of measures to restrict abuse of driving test booking services.

The DVSA is continuing to take steps to block cancellation services from accessing the booking system. These applications, however, are constantly evolving and changing, and the DVSA’s work on this is ongoing.

Baroness Vere of Norbiton
Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
16th Nov 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that stroke rehabilitation services continue to be delivered effectively during the COVID-19 pandemic.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have ensured that stroke services across England continue to provide rehabilitation and post-acute services to stroke survivors and their families and carers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have funded the Stroke Association over the last six months to provide Stroke Connect, which was developed in direct response to COVID-19 to ensure stroke survivors and their carers have support when discharged from hospital.

15th Jun 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what recent assessment they have made of the efficacy of the healthcare system in diagnosing silent strokes.

NHS England and NHS Improvement continue to focus on the detection and management of risk factors including high blood pressure, raised cholesterol, atrial fibrillation and diabetes to improve diagnosis of silent strokes.

The NHS Long Term Plan highlighted that stroke community rehabilitation as an area with significant scope for improvement. NHS England and NHS Improvement are developing a service specification for an integrated community rehabilitation service in order to reduce variation in the provision of stroke rehabilitation across England.

Stroke rehabilitation pilot schemes from 2020 to 2022 will develop a best practice model for high intensity rehabilitation, to be rolled out nationally. Both the specification and the pilot schemes will incorporate learning and innovation within community stroke teams as a response to COVID-19, including virtual rehabilitation.

15th Jun 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made on the commitments to improve stroke rehabilitation set out in the NHS Long Term Plan.

NHS England and NHS Improvement continue to focus on the detection and management of risk factors including high blood pressure, raised cholesterol, atrial fibrillation and diabetes to improve diagnosis of silent strokes.

The NHS Long Term Plan highlighted that stroke community rehabilitation as an area with significant scope for improvement. NHS England and NHS Improvement are developing a service specification for an integrated community rehabilitation service in order to reduce variation in the provision of stroke rehabilitation across England.

Stroke rehabilitation pilot schemes from 2020 to 2022 will develop a best practice model for high intensity rehabilitation, to be rolled out nationally. Both the specification and the pilot schemes will incorporate learning and innovation within community stroke teams as a response to COVID-19, including virtual rehabilitation.

12th May 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether COVID-19 contact tracing, if widely applied, will also extend to school-aged children.

The Government is developing a new test and trace programme. This will bring together an app, expanded web and phone-based contact tracing, and swab testing for those with potential COVID-19 symptoms. This programme will play an important role in helping to minimise the spread of COVID-19 in the future, including for school-aged children.

The programme will include more traditional methods of contact tracing if a child, parent or guardian test positive. This could include, for example, direct discussion with parents and schools on recent contacts. The Government has recruited 21,000 contact tracers to support contact tracing and will recruit more if needed. They will play an important part in tracing the contacts of those with COVID-19, including school-aged children.

12th May 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to provide COVID-19 testing equipment to schools and colleges so that pupils and students can be tested on-site; and what assessment they have made of the impact of any such plans on the transmission rate of COVID-19 once schools begin to resume.

To provide a more comprehensive response to a number of outstanding Written Questions, this has been answered by an information factsheet Testing – note for House of Lords which is attached, due to the size of the data. A copy has also been placed in the Library

8th Jun 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the attainment of Cadet Expansion Programme targets.

The Cadet Expansion Programme aimed to have 500 cadet units parading in schools by March 2020. This target was met five months early in November 2019. The Government’s ambition is to now grow the number of cadets attending these units to 60,000 by 2024.

COVID-19 caused the closure of all secondary schools and the suspension of all face-to-face cadet activity from 17 March. Restarting activity in school cadet units will be at the Headteachers’ discretion, subject to Government guidance and will be secondary to efforts to return schools to normal service.

Cadet training personnel from the Services will be available to support school cadet units in returning to activity when Headteachers decide the time is right.

8th Jun 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support the cadet forces to resume their normal activities as the COVID-19 lockdown is lifted.

Face-to-face cadet activity has been suspended since 17 March but a significant effort by adult volunteers to engage cadets in virtual activities has resulted in around 70% of units participating online. This important action is being taken to retain the engagement of young people and adult volunteers and to prepare for when normal cadet activities recommence.

Planning is currently underway across the cadet forces for a gradual step-by-step return to face-to-face cadet activity in line with Government guidance on easing COVID-19 restrictions. The Service cadet organisations are ready to support cadet units returning to normal cadet activity when it is right to do so.

5th May 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal hearings were cancelled for the second or subsequent time in the 2019 calendar year.

I have to advise the Noble Lord that this information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. The next release of data will be the Tribunals Quarterly Statistics on 11 June 2020 which will provide information from January to March 2020 and can be found at this address: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.

2nd Mar 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to compensate parents who have appealed to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal but whose first hearing was cancelled without adequate notice and as a result have incurred expense.

The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) is free to access and use, but where appellants have incurred and can evidence financial loss as a consequence of the postponement of a hearing they may apply for a compensatory payment. Each application for an ex-gratia payment is treated on its own merits and dealt with in accordance with HM Courts & Tribunals Service’s complaints procedure.

Examples of the types of claims which might be made include the payment of any legal expenses incurred and, where the hearing has been postponed at short notice, the payment of loss of earnings of witnesses who have been unable to find other remunerative employment on the date in question.

In 2018/19 there were 17 applications for a compensatory payment, 14 of which related to the cancellation of the first hearing. The average sum paid was £2,347.

2nd Mar 2020
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce the number of cancellations of first hearings in Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunals.

The Ministry of Justice recognises that there is a high level of postponements in the Special Educational Needs and Disability jurisdiction of the First-tier Tribunal (“the SEND Tribunal”). Statistics show that 77% of cases listed for hearing in 2018/19 were postponed, compared with 76% in 2017/18. The number of postponements (2,900 in 2018/19) is due to two factors. The first is that there has been a significant increase in the number of appeals received (an increase of more than in the last three years); and the second is related to the listing policy currently in place where cases are listed for hearing upon receipt and hearings have to be postponed if the date is unsuitable to the parties involved.

The SEND Tribunal has increased the number of administrative staff, legal advisers, salaried and fee-paid judges in the course of the past year. A campaign to recruit a further 50 fee-paid judges and 100 specialist members is being taken forward by the Judicial Appointments Commission. The posts will be filled in the next financial year.

The tribunal will introduce a revised listing process in April 2020 under which parties will be asked to identify, in a two-week window, dates on which they will be able to attend. This will enable a mutually convenient date to be identified in advance of the hearing being fixed.

These two measures will reduce the number of cases which are postponed after they have been listed for hearing.