Education (Pupil Information) (England) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2016

Lord Nash Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for tabling this Motion. Today’s debate will help shine a light on our reasons for collecting these data and dispel some of the myths and fearmongering that have taken hold in some parts of the media and in other places, with talk of anti-immigration rhetoric and so on. To deliver a world-class system that works for everyone, we need the right data and evidence to develop strong policy. We will use information on pupils’ nationality and country of birth to understand how we can give all pupils a better education—one that caters to their individual needs. This is about children’s needs first and foremost.

In its eighth report of this Session, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee drew this instrument to the special attention of the House. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, referred to the timing of this instrument. In its report, the committee noted that the timing for the parliamentary passage of the instrument did not respect our undertaking to schools to have a term’s interval between laying and coming into force.

The committee acknowledged our explanation that the delay was unavoidable due to the referendum purdah and subsequent change of Administration. However, a concern remains whether schools were prepared. The department regrets that we were outside the normal practice of providing schools with at least one full term’s notice. But the commitment that all school-related regulations would have a common commencement date of 1 September was met. Guidance was made available to schools on 4 May this year. We informed the committee that we had received no complaints about the compressed timescale and I reassure the House that this is still the case. As part of its report, the committee also made available to the House letters it has received from campaigners with comments about the department’s policies on access to our data.

Our schools educate pupils from a huge variety of backgrounds and we already ask for information on points such as disadvantage and special educational needs. This information enables us to target and ensure that our policies support all children so that they get the most from their education. There is nothing new in schools collecting information about their pupils. We have been asking them to do this for over 10 years through the school census. These regulations allow DfE to start collecting information on nationality, country of birth and English proficiency through the school census for educational reasons. Questions on nationality and country of birth are standard demographic information that is routinely collected in many data collections.

Let me be clear on a number of points. The new information collected has not been and is not shared with the Home Office. The DfE has no way of determining a child’s immigration status, nor would we seek to do so. Providing this information is entirely optional; parents can refuse to do so if they wish. This is clearly stated in our guidance. The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, asked about the ability of parents to retract this information and I will certainly take that back and consider it.

There is no requirement for schools to request or see evidence of nationality or country of birth. We know that some schools have not followed the guidance and have asked for this, so we will be working with them to ensure they do this properly in future. To address any uncertainties regarding how information should be collected, an information note is in the House Libraries and is on our blog for schools and parents. It is with these new data, which are to be used only by the DfE, that we can work to have a better understanding of what is going on and how to work with schools to deliver the best for all the children, regardless of where they have spent their prior years. The decision to collect these data was taken in 2015, long before Brexit, and followed approval by the Star Chamber Scrutiny Board, which is an external panel of schools and local authorities representing the sector. I reassure the House and repeat that these data items will be used for research, evidence and analysis within the Department for Education only.

Children of foreign nationals can face additional challenges on starting school in the UK. The education system that they have arrived from may be very different from the English system, so they may not be up to the same level as their classmates. This puts pressure on the pupils, teachers and schools. I visit schools constantly up and down the country where they have had substantial, and in some cases very substantial, influxes in-year of pupils with no or little English, or who are new to English—NTE, as it is becoming known—into the school system. They have to educate these pupils in separate classes until they can speak enough English to engage with lessons. That is expensive and they are not specifically funded for this.

One school that I visited recently distinguishes between whether pupils have enough English to engage with maths, which will be earlier than when they can engage in English classes. A colleague visited a school recently where he spoke to a pupil and the pupil next to him said, “He doesn’t speak any English, but I do. I’m from the same country and I’m his interpreter”. That is another approach. We need to understand this behaviour and its impact on our pupils from different educational jurisdictions and the impact on our whole school system.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, questioned our motives on this. We know that white pupils on free school meals are some of our lowest-performing pupils, particularly in areas of intergenerational unemployment, whereas once EAL students can speak English they can be particularly aspirational. That has had a positive and significant impact, as he said, on our school system in London. But that is once they can speak English. In the meantime, it can be very time-consuming and resource-intensive for schools and we need to understand different approaches. EAL is also a very blunt instrument in that many pupils characterised as EAL are fluent in English because it is their second language and these factors are not currently included in our accountability measures. We need to consider whether they should be, but we need more information first. Any noble Lord who doubts that should visit some of these schools. I would be delighted to recommend some that they can visit to see this in action.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked about the impact and burdens on staff. That is exactly why we seek to get this information—to understand. In short, we do not currently understand the impact of migration on the education system and we should. Understanding nationalities helps us to put the right policies in place to help these children.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

I have a particular interest in this subject because my grandchildren attend a primary school in east London, which has a large number of children from different ethnic backgrounds. I want to ask a practical question. The Minister has laid great emphasis this evening and previously on the fact that this is optional. If a number of parents in the school my grandchildren attend take the option not to give this information, how reliable will the information be?

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[Lord Nash]

Obviously, it will not be as reliable as if they had, but it will be better than nothing. At the moment we just do not know and we are seeking a better picture. Frankly, many schools and, I am sure, parents, will understand why we want this information. Parents want their children to be educated better and they want them to be integrated into our school system better. We need to be better at doing that.

Having these data also helps us shine a light on where good practice is taking place. The new data on English proficiency will allow the department and individual schools to explore whether there is a better way of targeting specific children who need additional language support. I repeat loud and clear that the data on nationality, country of birth and language proficiency are not and will not be shared with the Home Office or police. There is a memorandum of understanding in place to this effect, to which a number of noble Lords have already referred. The MoU sets out the terms for sharing data with the Home Office and it reflects the need for practical arrangements between departments of state. It would be disproportionate to put this arrangement on a statutory footing. So far as our apparent refusal to publish this MoU is concerned, we anticipate publishing it shortly.

Where the police or Home Office have clear evidence of illegal activity or fear of harm to children, limited data, including a pupil’s name, address and some school details, may be requested. To be absolutely clear, this does not include data on nationality, country of birth or language proficiency. We have shared data with the Home Office in relation to 520 pupils in the past 15 months, set against 8 million pupils in our school system. It is a very small fraction, but a none the less valuable contribution to the Home Office fulfilling its duties of law enforcement.

Separately from the new data items, the DfE does support the reuse of our data by third parties such as academics and education research organisations when the use of it is both secure and in the interest of adding to the evidence of what works. Recent examples include independent academic analysis of the performance of academies, and others unpicking the recent improvement in outcomes for London schools to ensure that we can maximise what the data tell us about the best things to do next to improve education outcomes.

The data are also reused on websites such as schoolsguide.co.uk and in the Good Schools Guide, which help parents make sense of these complex data when making vital choices. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about our procedures in this regard. We give extracts of our national pupil database out, but only under strict controls. We do not share nationality and country of birth data as part of this process. Access to sensitive data is strictly controlled by the DfE Data Management Advisory Panel, which is comprised of senior experts on the data and legal issues associated with the release of data.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, suggested that perhaps our NPD data are not secure. We believe that they are very secure because we have not had a leak in 16 years. However, we take data protection extremely seriously. All staff who work with data comply with the requirements of the Data Protection Act and undertake mandatory annual data handling training. In addition, all information assets are appointed an information asset owner to ensure that access to data is restricted to only those people who have been vetted and approved. All department systems used to collect, store or transfer personal data undergo regular IT health checks to ensure that they are secure, and these policies and the processes within them are regularly reviewed by the Government Internal Audit Agency to ensure that they are appropriate and effective.

I have responded to the point about this being optional by saying that it is better than what we have by a long way. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked whether financial support would be available to schools. Let us first get the information and analyse it so that we can work that out. I have already responded to the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, about the circumstances in which the data would be made available to the Home Office. They can be requested only where there is a reasonable expectation that a crime has been committed or fear of harm. I hope I have reassured noble Lords about the intended use of the data that these regulations will collect and that I have allayed the fears and dispelled the myths that have grown up around them.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his detailed response and he has given us quite important information about some areas of this matter. The truth is that I do not think he or the Government realised the effect collecting such data would have on schools. We have seen some of the most appalling practices such as, “Hands up if you do not live in England”. That is not conducive to good race relations or to how schools work.

On the question of resources, we already collect information about pupils’ ethnic backgrounds so that we can provide them, but the notion of saying to children, “We want to know where you live and where you were born because at some time in the future we may provide some resources”, just seems batty to me. This is not about shining a light; quite frankly, this is just inept. I am disappointed that the Government did not retract what they had done when they realised how stupid all this is. So I am afraid I am not convinced. I know that this will not have any effect on what has happened, but it is important that people stand up and be counted, and therefore I want to test the opinion of the House.