Boarding School Partnerships

Lord Nash Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. It is extremely important. Indeed, in the study that was recently carried out by Norfolk County Council, a third of the children were placed in state boarding schools. Boarding schools can offer a holistic environment in which to grow and develop, and it is this stability that can have long-lasting, positive effects on children’s outcomes. We are open to proposals from the state system to consider more boarding facilities. From my own experience in a boarding school, I can say they are very important, particularly if one comes from a broken family.

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend say how many of the 52 young people funded in boarding schools by Norfolk County Council were able to be taken off the local authority’s risk register completely, as a result of their experience and the benefits of attending a boarding school?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I thank my noble friend for this question and pay tribute to the important role that he played in setting up Boarding School Partnerships last year. Almost three-quarters, 37 of the children, showed a reduced level of risk and nearly two-thirds moved out of a high-risk category into universal services. Overall, 33 children were taken off the council’s risk register. These outcomes can only be described as very encouraging. For the right child, at the right time and in the right school, boarding can present an excellent opportunity.

A Manifesto to Strengthen Families

Lord Nash Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome my noble friend the Minister to your Lordships’ House. He has worked tirelessly for the communities of Norfolk for many years, and I worked closely with him as a non-executive director of the Department for Education and in his capacity as chair of the academies board. He is particularly committed to improving the life chances of young people. He is someone of very sound judgment, with a very fine mind, and I am absolutely delighted that he has taken up this position. I am sure that he will be an outstanding Minister and—this is probably the only time I could ever say this without upsetting someone—far better than the previous incumbent.

I also thank my noble friend Lord Farmer for bringing forward this debate on such an important issue. As he said, so many of our children and young people suffer from unstructured home lives, poor parenting, family breakdown and absent fathers, and they are at risk from gangs. At one charity in which I am involved, we surveyed the parents and asked how many of them had any kind of structured environment at home. Nearly 90% said that they had no such structure or routine system at home, but a similar number said that they would like to hear about one if someone would describe it to them. Increasingly, we are seeing children enter primary school with inadequate toilet training and some with black teeth from too much sugar. At one school with which I am involved, one of our five year-olds had to have all his teeth removed.

As the academy movement has progressed, we have seen many academy groups which started with secondaries move into primaries and then into nurseries, as have many free school primaries. One particularly successful free school—Reach Academy Feltham—engages with parents when their children are babies, and I am delighted that it has been approved for a second free school, where it will seek to have a range of services on site for families.

Overlaid on this issue of parenting is the problem of children and young people’s overexposure and addiction to computers and smartphones. This can affect the development of a child’s brain and lead to poor ability to concentrate, scatty behaviour and severely disrupted sleep patterns. Many schools are now exhorting parents to ensure that children do not have their smartphones with them after, say, nine o’clock at night or to consider using one of the apps available to control access time and content. All this, however, requires discipline and structure from the parents. One school in California, where many parents who work for social media and other IT companies send their children, severely limits the use of computers and smartphones.

We want our children and young people to grow up and become good parents themselves. Most pupil surveys show that the majority of school pupils aspire to finish up in a permanent, long-term relationship. Sadly, so many of them have no experience of having seen what that looks like at close range. This is why relationship education, which is now compulsory in all schools under the recent Children and Social Work Act, is so important.

I strongly support any initiative that can help deal with these issues and welcome the manifesto. I am particularly attracted to the idea of family hubs and hope that the Government will consider piloting at least some of these. I am sure that the benefits and payback, in every sense, would be substantial.

English Baccalaureate: Creative and Technical Subjects

Lord Nash Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott for calling this debate, and to all noble Lords who have contributed to this lively discussion.

I am sure everyone agrees that we need an education system that ensures all our young people have a fair chance to go as far as their talents and hard work will take them, regardless of their circumstances. An important part of that will be ensuring that children have the opportunity to study the core academic subjects at GCSE: English; maths; science, which could include computer science; history or geography; and a language. That is the EBacc.

From international studies, it is clear that there is a strong correlation between high-performing educational jurisdictions and EBacc-type content in their curriculum. Many studies have shown, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, that it is pupils from a disadvantaged background, who may suffer from not having that core cultural capital at home and who particularly benefit from gaining a high cultural capital from academic and arts subjects.

I begin by reminding noble Lords of the facts surrounding the recent history of our education system. Schools previously entered many more pupils in EBacc subjects, but those figures slumped under the Labour Government. For example, the number of pupils studying geography fell from 44% to 26%, the number studying history from 35% to 31% and the number studying science from 81% to 63%. As a result, in 2010, only 22% of state school pupils were studying a course of those academic subjects, which we call the EBacc and which will be regarded as minimum basic fare in any private school and in most successful educational jurisdictions. The fact is that during that slump in the EBacc, we also slumped down the international league tables for education. I am afraid it gives the lie to my noble friend Lord Baker’s point that these academic subjects are not connected to educational performance. Happily, thanks to our EBacc, the number of pupils now entering these academic subjects has nearly doubled in the last six or seven years.

We know why the Labour Government introduced a broad range of vocational subjects—I am sure it was a genuine attempt to improve vocational standards and the range of available opportunities for pupils. Their mistake, which is probably the most polite way I can describe it, was their use of the concept of equivalence, so that many subjects that were not GCSEs were ranked as GCSEs in the league tables. My favourite—I have mentioned it to noble Lords before—is the higher-level BTEC diploma in fish husbandry, a subject in which there were no formal exams, only coursework, but which counted for four GCSEs. Other favourites of mine include cake decorating and hazard control; sadly, there are many other examples. Head teachers and teachers inevitably respond to the incentives that are put on them; those were the wrong incentives. We believe the EBacc is the right incentive and they have responded well to it.

My noble friend Baroness Stedman-Scott spoke about the case for broadening the 14 to 19 curriculum. That is exactly what was tried, and I am afraid the result was that too many young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds were told that academic qualifications were not for them and that they should study these subjects. During that period, among the OECD countries, we fell from seventh to 25th in reading, from eighth to 28th in maths and from fourth to 16th in science. Happily, the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, helped us reform these vocational subjects from 14 to 16, and from 16 to 19.

The OECD’s adult skills survey found that the level of maths ability in England is no different among school leavers than among retirees, unlike in most other countries where school leavers perform at a higher standard than older generations. In fact, our youngest adults, aged 16 to 24, are amongst the OECD’s lowest scoring countries, alongside their peers in Turkey, Chile, Israel, Greece, Italy and Spain. That is why we are building an education system where pupils master the basics in primary school, study common core subjects up to the age of 16, and then start to specialise after that through high-quality academic, technical and apprenticeship routes.

My noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott talked about UTCs and studio schools. We have removed them from the target of the percentage of pupils that will study EBacc, but while we continue to keep this matter under review, we have not exempted them from the performance measures. It is for UTCs and studio schools to demonstrate progress to Ofsted by baseline testing their students as they enter to show Ofsted that they have made significant progress under their management.

My noble friend and many other noble Lords referred to a decline in entry in many subjects. Some of the confusion here is caused by a substantial decline in the secondary school population—approaching 10% over the last six to seven years. I will therefore veer more helpfully here to facts relating to percentages. It is also relevant and undoubtedly the case that some pupils in the recent past, as I have alluded to, have been encouraged to take some of these subjects because, bluntly, they were seen to be easier. As I said, we have reformed the subjects to make them more rigorous and more internationally competitive.

I turn first to design and technology. A number of noble Lords referred to the decline in this. Indeed, the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, talked about a torrent. He is quite right; there was a torrent. There was a decline from 40% in 2010 to 28% in 2016, but from 1998—we do not have figures for 1997—to 2010 there was a fall from 65% to 40%. A number of noble Lords have spoken about the huge importance of music. Since 2010, in percentage terms, those taking music has stayed static at 7%. For art and design, the figures since 2010 have gone up slightly from 26% to 27%, but in the years prior to that from 1997 to 2010 they fell from a third of pupils to just over a quarter. Drama has declined a little from 13% to 11% since 2010. Business studies has gone up somewhat. Lastly, on computer studies and IT, it may be relevant—the noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred to the importance of not letting our school system become obsolete—that more pupils are interested in taking these subjects. The number of pupils taking computer studies and IT since 2010 has gone up from 7% to 23%—it has more than trebled.

The Government are in no doubt that studying EBacc subjects up to the age of 16 is right for most pupils. We are committed to unlocking their potential. That is why we would like to see 90% of year 10 pupils studying GCSEs in EBacc by 2025. I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for his support in this matter.

Research shows that there are big differences in A-level subject choices depending on social background, and a major reason for this is that the GCSE subjects studied by pupils still differ depending on their background. Disadvantaged pupils remain half as likely to be entered for the EBacc combination of subjects as their peers. The Sutton Trust has found that this gap persists even among the most academically able pupils. We must therefore encourage more pupils to take the EBacc. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked for a broader church of research than the New Schools Network. Research was published last month by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at the IoE which shows that studying the EBacc combination of GCSE subjects increases the likelihood that a pupil will stay on in full-time education.

Contrary to the arguments of those who think that many pupils cannot study the EBacc, Sutton Trust research has found that when schools move to a core EBacc curriculum at GCSE, pupil attainment improves. In fact, pupils in these schools are more likely to achieve good GCSEs in English and maths, refuting claims that a more academic curriculum would distract them from these subjects. In 2016, the Ark King Solomon Academy, which has a high proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals, entered 80% of pupils for the EBacc and 76% achieved it. We have many more examples of successful schools. Some of our free schools have just reported some really quite stellar results in the EBacc. These are schools designed to promote the EBacc, particularly in areas of disadvantage. Taking the EBacc is important not only for those who want to pursue A-levels but for those who want to go into technical education. As I am sure noble Lords are aware, we have reformed GCSEs, AS and A-levels to be internationally competitive.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, talked about university not being right for all pupils. I am delighted that he has accepted that his Government’s desire for many, many pupils to go to university was rather misguided. For too long, however, pupils from a disadvantaged background with the potential to study at our world-class universities missed out on that opportunity, simply because they never thought of applying or never knew that they could. In recent years, we have seen that the number of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university has gone up substantially.

Through our consultation on implementing the EBacc, we wanted to understand the barriers that schools face in increasing EBacc entry. We do not believe that it needs to be the case that studying the EBacc will deter pupils from studying the arts and creative subjects. We have always said that the EBacc should be studied as part of a broad and balanced curriculum. In fact, the EBacc was designed to be limited in size to enable pupils to do that. On average, pupils in state-funded schools do nine GCSEs, rising to 10 or more for more able pupils. The EBacc covers seven GCSEs, or eight for those pupils taking triple science, which leaves room for other choices. My noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott spoke about the fact that the lowest quartile of attainers take an average of six or seven GCSEs. In fact, in 2016, the Progress 8 measure showed that the number of GCSEs taken by this cohort has risen to seven or eight.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, talked about not all young people thriving on an academic curriculum. It is of course for schools to decide about that. My noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott referred to an informal group of people who are focused on this and I would be absolutely delighted to meet them whenever suits them.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, talked about the importance of arts-based subjects and a broad and balanced curriculum, and I entirely agree with her. She also raised the question of how it is possible for a school or academy to be deemed outstanding when many of them do not even offer the full range of arts subjects and talked about the narrowness of curriculum. I also particularly enjoyed the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Bird. I am personally concerned about the narrowness of curriculum at key stage 3 and about the narrowness of curriculum in many of our primary schools. I know that Her Majesty’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, sees a broad, rich and deep curriculum as of vital importance to all pupils. I entirely agree with that. She has commissioned a major Ofsted study of the curriculum, which is currently under way. The outcome of this will inform Ofsted’s approach to school inspections, and will inform the Government’s approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, talked about the evidence to support the position advanced that entries to arts subjects have fallen as a result of the introduction of the EBacc. As we say in our response, we carried out an analysis of the trend in arts uptake in schools that had increased EBacc entry. This analysis was published. It showed that in the nearly 300 schools that increased their EBacc entry rates by 40% or more between 2011 and 2016, on average 49% of their pupils took at least one arts subject. This is the same as in other state-funded schools. Furthermore, we found there to be a small positive correlation between schools’ EBacc entries and arts entries, suggesting that schools where EBacc entry has increased tend to have also seen an increase in their arts uptake. I agree that there should be space in the curriculum for the arts, and good schools, such as the King John School in Benfleet, show that there does not need to be such a false choice. Between 2011 and 2016, it increased its EBacc entry rate by almost 50%, and during the same period the percentage of its pupils who took at least one arts subject increased by nearly 50%.

My noble friend Lord Lucas expressed concern about comparable outcomes, an approach that has been used by Ofqual since 2011 and is designed to ensure that the grading system is consistent and fairly reflects the ability of the cohort of pupils each year.

We should also remember that GCSE statistics do not tell the whole story. Many students take part in dramatic societies, choirs, orchestras and bands. A number of noble Lords were concerned about music—the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Berkeley, and my noble friend Lord Sherbourne. I entirely agree about the very great importance of music. My noble friend Lord Sherbourne referred to our music hubs and a number of our other initiatives that benefit many pupils. My noble friend Lord Baker suggested that there should be encouragement and bursaries for design and technology teachers. In fact, we have a bursary of £12,000 if you have a first or a PhD, and £9,000 for a 2.1. He also talked, as I have done, about the fact that computing counts towards the EBacc.

My noble friend Lord Lucas made a very good point about making sure that we study what works in schools and build on good practice. He referred to the Michaela free school’s approach to marking. We intend to look closely at those schools, including free schools, which have had remarkable success. We have funded the Education Endowment Foundation with £137 million to look at just this sort of thing.

Alongside reforming GCSEs, AS and A-levels, we are undertaking a programme of reform to technical education, which we debated in your Lordships’ House recently, and which I believe received fairly broad support. We will invest £2.5 billion by 2020 in apprenticeships. We are introducing the apprenticeship levy and raising the quality of apprenticeships. This will result in new, high-quality apprenticeships in many occupations, including creative and design—for example, junior journalist and broadcast production assistant, with standards for fashion studio assistant and live event technician in development.

Reforming technical education will help meet the needs of our growing and changing economy. It will have 15 different routes, each grouping together occupations where there are shared training requirements. Within these will sit our new two-year T- level programmes. We want T-levels to have real labour-market value and credibility, so we will work closely with employers to define the standards and the content. The T-level certificate, awarded on successful completion of the overall programme, will capture the technical qualification achieved, the work placement and attainment in English and maths. These reforms will ensure a consistent technical education system, raising its prestige and ensuring that it is a sought-after option. They will help young people and adults to achieve their potential, as we hope that T-levels will become a gold standard for technical excellence.

We do not expect that a technical education at 16 will close down to 18 year-olds options such as pursuing a degree. High-quality careers advice will of course help in this regard. We are confident that enabling pupils to progress from the core academic subjects that all pupils study up to the age of 16 to our reformed post-16 technical education routes will provide the skills and knowledge that we need for our growing and rapidly changing economy.

Again, I thank all noble Lords for debating such an important issue. Ensuring that every young person is allowed to achieve their full potential is of course vital. Our reforms to the curriculum and qualifications are aimed at just that. Our ambition for the majority of pupils to take the EBacc subjects as part of a broad and balanced curriculum is central to ensuring that every young person has the best preparation for life in modern Britain.

Schools Update: National Funding Formula

Lord Nash Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education in the other place earlier today.

“In my Statement to the House on 17 July, I set out my department’s plans to increase spending on schools by £1.3 billion over the next two years, on top of our existing plans. I informed the House that this would mean that we could press ahead with introducing a national funding formula for schools and high needs from April 2018 that would provide a per pupil cash increase in respect of every school and every local area, and maintain the overall budget in real terms per pupil. And I promised to return to the House in September to set out the Government’s final decisions on introducing fairer funding in full. Today I am doing just that.

This is an historic reform. It means, for the first time, the resources that the Government are investing in our schools will be distributed according to a formula based on the individual needs and characteristics of every school in the country. Not only will the national funding formula direct resources where they are most needed, helping to ensure that every child can get the high quality education that they deserve, wherever they live, it will also provide that money through a transparent formula, providing greater predictability. And, by clearly setting out the sums that we are directing to different aspects of the formula—to the basic amount per pupil, or to children with additional needs—for the first time it allows for properly informed debate on this vital topic: something the existing, opaque system has held back.

The need for reform has been widely recognised across this House, and beyond. The National Association of Head Teachers says, ‘a revised funding formula for schools is essential’. The Association of School and College Leaders believes that ‘the way in which funding has been distributed to schools has been flawed for many years … Reform of the school funding system is vital’. The case is so strong because of the manifest unfairness when Coventry receives £510 more per pupil than Plymouth despite having equal proportions of pupils eligible for free school meals; or Nottingham similarly attracts £555 more than Halton, near Liverpool, in Cheshire. Addressing these simple but damaging inequalities will represent the biggest improvement in the school funding system for decades. It is a step that previous Governments have failed to take for far too long.

In making such a significant reform, it has been vital to take account of a broad range of views. Our wide-ranging consultations, in both 2016 and earlier this year, allowed us to hear from over 26,000 individual respondents and representative organisations. I am grateful to everyone who took the time to share their views and to respond to the consultations, including many Members across the House. We have carefully considered them all.

As I said to the House in July, I am putting an additional £1.3 billion into core funding for schools and high needs so that the overall budget will now rise by around £2.6 billion from almost £41 billion in 2017-18 to £42.4 billion in 2018-19 and £43.5 billion in 2019-20. Building on this firm foundation, I can today set out the final funding formulae we will introduce, which, over the next two years, will mean we will deliver on our manifesto pledge to make school funding fairer and ensure that we deliver higher funding in respect of every area and school.

Building on our consultation proposals, as I set out in the House prior to the summer recess, I am increasing the basic amount of funding that every pupil will attract. We recognise the challenge of the very lowest funded schools so we will introduce a minimum per pupil funding level. Under the national funding formula, in 2019-20 all secondary schools will attract at least £4,800 per pupil. Today I can announce that all primary schools will attract at least £3,500 per pupil through the formula in 2019-20, and the formula will provide these levels of funding quickly: secondary schools will attract at least £4,600, and primary schools £3,300 in 2018-19; and then the full amounts the following year. I will also provide a cash increase in respect of every school. Final decisions on local distribution will be taken by local authorities, but under the national funding formula every school will attract at least 0.5% more per pupil in 2018-19, and 1% more in 2019-20, compared to its baseline.

Many schools will, of course, attract significantly larger increases under the formula—up to 3% per pupil in 2018-19 and a further 3% per pupil in 2019-20. And the minimum per pupil funding level will not be subject to this gains cap—delivering particularly fast gains in respect of the very lowest funded schools.

Our consultation confirmed the importance of funding for additional needs, deprivation and low prior attainment. We know that these factors are the best way to identify those children who are most likely to fall behind, and to remain behind, their peers, and it is only right that we provide the greatest resources to the schools that face the greatest challenges. As I said in July, we will protect the funding that the formula will direct towards additional needs at the level proposed in our consultation, and I can therefore confirm today that the total spend on additional needs will be £5.9 billion. As we proposed in December, we will distribute that funding more fairly, in line with the best available evidence. We will use a broad measure of deprivation to include all those who are likely to need extra help, and we will increase the proportion of additional needs spending allocated on the basis of low prior attainment to give additional support to those who may not be economically deprived, but who still need help to catch up.

I can also confirm today that, as we proposed in December, the national funding formula will allocate a lump sum of £110,000 for every school. For the smallest and most remote schools, we will distribute a further £26 million in dedicated sparsity funding. Only 47% of eligible schools received sparsity funding in 2017-18 because some local authorities chose not to use this factor. Our national funding formula will recognise all eligible schools.

Our formula will rightly result in a significant boost directed towards those schools that are currently the least well funded. Secondary schools, which would have been the lowest funded under our December proposals, will now gain on average 4.7%. Rural schools will gain on average 3.9%, with those schools in the most remote locations gaining 5.0%. Schools with high numbers of pupils starting with low attainment will gain on average 3.8%.

As I set out in my Statement in July, to provide stability for schools through the transition to the national funding formula, each local authority will continue to set a local formula which will determine individual schools’ budgets in their areas for 2018-19 and 2019-20 in consultation with local schools. This means that the school-level allocations from the Government that I am publishing today, alongside this announcement, are notional allocations which we will use to set the total funding available for schools in each area. As I set out, schools’ final actual funding allocations for 2018-19 and 2019-20 will be based on the local formula agreed in their area by the local authority, and schools will receive their allocation ahead of the new financial year as normal. I will place copies of both documents in the Library of the House.

Our objective to provide the best education for every child places a particular focus on the support we offer to those children who face the greatest barriers to success, and on the high needs budget which provides for that support. The case for reform of high needs funding is every bit as strong as the case for school funding reform, and therefore the move to a national funding formula is every bit as important.

We set out the full proposals for the introduction of a high needs national funding formula last December, alongside our schools formula. I am today confirming that we will proceed with the proposals. Moreover, thanks to the additional investment that I announced in July, I can increase funding for high needs so that I will also be able to raise the funding floor to provide a minimum increase of 0.5% per head in 2018-19 and 1% per head in 2019-20 for every local authority. Underfunded local authorities will receive up to 3% per head gains a year for the next two years. That is a more generous protection than we proposed in December in order to help every local authority maintain and improve the support it offers to some of our most vulnerable children. It means that local authorities will see on average a 4.6% increase in their high needs budgets.

The additional £1.3 billion we are investing in schools and high needs means that all local authorities will receive an increase in 2018-19 over the amount they plan to spend in 2017-18. Local authorities will take the final decisions on distributing funding to schools within local areas, but the formula will provide for all schools to see an increase in funding compared to their baseline.

In conclusion, the new national funding formulae will redress historic inequities in funding that have existed for too long while maintaining stability so that schools and local areas are not disadvantaged in the process. After too many years in which the funding system has placed our schools on an unfair playing field, we are finally making the decisive and historic move towards fair funding.

The national funding formulae for schools and high needs and the increased investment we are making in schools will help us to continue improving standards and create a world-class education system. No one in this House should accept the system as it has been. It has perpetuated inequality and that is unacceptable. I am proud that a Conservative Government are now putting this right. On this firm foundation, we will all—government and schools, teachers and parents—be able to build a system that finally allows every child to achieve their potential, no matter what their background or where they are growing up”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, which on the face of it sounds extraordinarily good news. However, we have concerns that none of this money is actually new and is being taken from efficiencies and savings in the DfE budget. We have £420 million taken out of the capital budget, including £315 million from healthy pupils capital funding used to fund improvements in schools’ PE facilities. Surely, at a time when we hear of the concerns about children’s obesity, that is not a terribly wise transfer of money.

The free schools budget is also being cut. Three of the 14 planned new free schools will now be funded by local authorities. There is a sense about this Statement of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The National Audit Office estimates that it will cost £6.7 billion to return all school buildings to a satisfactory condition. Why is the Secretary of State pilfering from the capital budget to pay for the increase in core schools budget? If the Tories can find £1 billion for the DUP, can the Treasury please find some more money for schools?

The Government broke the pay cap on police and public sector pay, and yesterday they were unable to defend the cap on NHS staff pay. Will they now look again at giving teachers a pay rise above the 1% too, with the Secretary of State increasing the schools budget accordingly? The teaching profession faces a number of crises and shortages and, surely, a long-overdue pay increase would be most welcome to try to redress some of the iniquities in the system.

The Government have scrapped their plans to make private schools help out neighbouring state schools or lose their charitable status, which is particularly worrying at a time when we see state schools unable to afford building repairs and forced to cut back on resources for their students. In our earlier debate, we heard how there was much advantage to the independent sector in creative studies. Will the Education Secretary urge the Prime Minister to rethink her broken election promise as a matter of urgency? Does the Education Secretary not also think it deeply short-sighted to fund the core schools budget by cutting the capital funding for PE facilities? I have already mentioned this, I think: we know childhood obesity rates continue to rise.

The per-pupil funding for 16 to 19 year-olds in sixth forms and FE colleges has been frozen since the 2015 spending review. Now that the Government are pledging that per-pupil funding for schools will increase with inflation, will the Secretary of State make the same commitment to 16 to 19 year-olds? I repeat that we welcome anything which causes funding for schools to be fairer, particularly if it focuses on the more deprived children and areas, but I would be grateful for the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful for the general tenor of support for our proposals. It may not surprise the noble Lord, Lord Watson, if I do not go quite so far as he wished in his dreams that I would but I will write to him in more detail about his points. The £5.9 billion is for additional needs, not high needs, and we have maintained the existing total that authorities are currently allocated. This funding will be maintained in 2018-19 and 2019-20, and rise in line with pupil numbers, but I will write to him with a more detailed figure.

There is a lot of talk about cuts but, as I think everybody knows, they are not actually cuts. They are cost pressures, which everybody has suffered from in the private sector and business. Schools are more than half way through those cost pressures, caused by things such as pensions. Well-managed schools do their budgeting extremely well and are managing to improve this.

We have a huge amount of advice available to schools—I have referred to our website before—with a lot of resources such as toolkits, benchmarks and comparators for them to look at. We have a buying strategy in place, as £10 billion of schools’ spend is on buying services. This is a bit theoretical and top level but our analysis reveals that if all schools bought at the cheapest prices available there would be considerable savings, probably over £1 billion. We have a big programme in place on that and it is true that our best-performing school groups on finance, the MATs, are also often our best performers educationally—and, sadly, vice versa—because those school groups have learned how to focus their resources on exactly the areas they want. They have thought through where they want to spend their money and drive efficiencies so that there is much more available for the front line. If I have not covered any other points and noble Lords feel that they would like me to, I will write to them.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, would my noble friend not agree that what the Opposition Front Benches meant to say was that they are immensely grateful to this strong and stable Government for grasping the nettle and making a reform that they jolly well should have made when they were in power?

[Lord Nash]

Well, it is true that we are the first Government who have actually done this. It is not easy and I pay tribute to the officials in the Department for Education. They tell me that they have been working on this for at least 10 years, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Knight, knows, and are personally delighted that it has happened.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government and particularly the officials on bringing this forward. I certainly remember commissioning a review of the funding formula back when I announced one, about 10 years ago. Unfortunately it felt as if politics, with things such as general elections and changes in government, got in the way of implementing the outcome of that review. These things happen. I am particularly pleased to see sparsity issues recognised in this announcement.

My question relates to a welcome guarantee, if I heard the Minister correctly, of a real-terms, per-head increase of at least 0.5% next year and 1% the year after. That is important. However, I am also mindful of this week’s report from the National Audit Office regarding the recruitment and retention of teachers—and I remind the House of my interest in respect of my work at TES. At paragraph 2.2, the report states:

“To meet the increasing need for teachers, particularly in secondary schools, the Department for Education … and schools will need to improve teacher recruitment and retention. We reported in February 2016 that the Department has not met its overall target for filling teacher training places in each of the past four years. It has since missed the target for a fifth year”.


As the department reflects on that, particularly given that this week we have seen the pay cap go for the police, is it possible that it might reflect that the pay cap for teachers needs to be lifted? If so, will the department then ensure that the Treasury funds that rather than it coming out of the money announced in this funding formula? I would hate to campaign to raise the pay cap for teachers but then see the ensuing problems as schools scramble to try to fund 0.5% from what, certainly in some of the urban areas, will be quite a limited extra amount of money.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord makes some very good points about teacher recruitment and retention. Of course we have a strong economy with very high levels of employment and very low levels of unemployment which impacts on the ability to recruit teachers. We are doing a huge amount of work on improving our recruitment approach, which is a much more regionally focused approach to look at where we particularly need to recruit teachers. There is no doubt that the work of a number of our multi-academy trusts in career development, CPD and teacher retention will help teacher retention.

The independent School Teachers’ Review Body has recommended teacher pay increases. We have listened carefully to what it recommended and accepted the recommendations. We continue to work closely with schools to help them manage their finances.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I think we all welcome this, and the Government are to be congratulated on bringing a fair funding formula forward—four Fs, such alliteration. I have a number of questions. Schools will still face financial difficulties because the problem for school budgeting has been oncosts, such as national insurance and the costs of buying in services, which vary dramatically, and we will not know the full financial impact until we see the figures working in schools. In terms of primary schools and £3,500 per pupil, will that be the same for each key stage—that is, foundation, key stage 1 and key stage 2—or will it vary between the stages? I am fascinated by the fact that we are gradually bringing local authorities back into the frame. Who would have thought that the archenemies, local authorities, are now going to have a little role in terms of the distribution of funds in their areas? In terms of schools in remote areas, what is the definition of a small school which would be eligible for this extra funding?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord is absolutely right about the oncosts, which is what I was referring to, and them actually being cost pressures rather than cuts. But as I say, we have very sophisticated work under way in the department looking at school finances. We have something called a RAT—a risk assessment tool, which is slightly easier to say than a fair funding formula. We are working with local authorities and with academy trusts to ensure that their financial planning is good. I do not really recognise the expression “archenemy” as applied to local authorities. We are working very closely with local authorities on a number of fronts, including the free schools programme and our basic needs school place planning. We have increased the number of school places by three-quarters of a million in the last six years. We now have the strategic improvement boards, on which local authority representatives and regional schools commissioners sit, among others. I am confident that this will improve relationships even further. But, as I think I have said, the relationships with local authorities are generally extremely good. The noble Lord may be very pleased to hear that.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, it would be churlish not to congratulate the Government on a fairer formula, although we will need to look at the repercussions. I still meet head teachers who are having to reduce the number of teachers and are under pressure as a result of national insurance, pensions and things like that. There is concern on that front. I have two other points to make. I presume, as we have not heard any reference to it, that the £50 million or so of funding for the extension of grammar schools has disappeared. I hope that will not be a further oncost, as I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on that. I read the couple of paragraphs in the document, but does this sustain the existing pupil premium or slightly increase it? Can the Minister just confirm that? It certainly makes a significant difference in my primary school budget. I have already declared an interest in a previous debate as chair of the governing body.

[Lord Nash]

I think the noble Lord knows that we will not be changing the rules about new grammar schools. They can of course expand. The pupil premium rates are being sustained. That is all I have to say.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Will Members of Parliament receive a briefing from the Department for Education about the implications, constituency by constituency, of this remarkable announcement today and the good news that it brings to every constituency in the country? I also want to ask my noble friend about independent schools, which the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, touched on. Will my noble friend confirm that the Government remain as fully committed now as they ever have been to securing the closer involvement of independent schools in co-operation with schools in the maintained sector? What individual independent schools can do varies so much depending on their size, their resources and the facilities that they have to share with the state sector. It also all has to be on a reciprocal basis. Is this not the underlying intention and aim of the Government today, just as it has been in the past? Finally, would my noble friend agree that it is always worth noting, when charitable status is mentioned, that independent schools give more in means-tested bursaries than they receive in benefit from their charitable status?

[Lord Nash]

The answer to my noble friend’s first question is yes, there will be detail by school and by constituency. I entirely agree with what he says about independent schools. We had of course an event yesterday about independent and state schools working more closely together. Interestingly, that afternoon I went to visit an independent school close to one of my academies and was struck by the willingness of the head teacher there—who himself was state-educated, and the first in his family to go to university—and his school to engage with our state school.

There has been some lack of awareness in the past, which I hope has been partially solved by the Schools Together website, which now has more than 1,000 examples of schools and the independent sector working together. Fantastic examples include both King’s, Wimbledon and the York Independent State School Partnership, where all schools in York—I think it is three independents and 10 state schools—work closely together. We are dedicated to ensuring that every part of our school system, whether independent or state, works quite closely together and it is clear to me, having had detailed discussions with the Independent Schools Council, that it is determined to do that.

House adjourned at 5.05 pm.

Schools: Children in Care

Lord Nash Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to enable more children in care to obtain places in state and independent boarding schools.

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

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for this Question, as it is a subject close to my heart. We are very keen to encourage more local authorities to consider boarding for vulnerable children. This summer we launched the Boarding School Partnerships service, very ably chaired by Colin Morrison, the former chair of the Royal National Children’s Foundation, and this service operates jointly with the boarding schools sector and charities to help local authorities collaborate with charities to place vulnerable children in state and independent boarding schools.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that children in care can benefit greatly from a boarding education where they are suited to it? Is it not the case that many local councils once recognised this, with some 10,000 placements being arranged in the late 1960s?

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with my noble friend that boarding can have great benefits for the right children, and we want to see more vulnerable children able to access it. My noble friend is quite right that boarding was more common at one time. Boarding school, with its 24/7 level of pastoral care, can be particularly suitable for vulnerable children, and that is why we are encouraging its use more widely and why we have set up the Boarding School Partnerships.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, has this scheme been evaluated, and, if so, how? Have children been asked about the success of the scheme?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

That is a very good question from the noble Baroness. The scheme was launched only a few months ago and we will be concentrating initially on promoting it with local authorities. The department recently had a very successful event with local authorities to launch it with a number of people who had been in care and at boarding school speaking passionately about it. Our first step is to promote it with local authorities, but we will, when appropriate, evaluate it.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that it is easy to say that this facility should be for children when it is appropriate for them? But please let us not gloss over what happened in the 1960s. Many children were sent to boarding schools where, frankly, they were out of sight, out of mind and they had some terrible experiences. Let us go for a wide range, but make sure the placement is appropriate to the child’s needs.

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Lord. It is essential that the placement is appropriate and, as I have said, this is appropriate only for some children. We have moved a long way from the 1960s, but I entirely agree with everything that he says.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, as the Minister is aware, those who live in tied accommodation as part of their employment or the holding of an office have an unintentional structural disadvantage when it comes to their children’s schooling. This is ameliorated in the case of military families but not in the case of others, such as clergy and their children. Will Her Majesty’s Government now act to address this disadvantage by amending the code?

[Lord Nash]

I will look at this and I am happy to discuss it with the right reverend Prelate in more detail. I am not briefed on it, but I am fully aware of the situation with military families and I will look at the point he makes.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the appropriate word is “appropriate”, and we must do what is right for the individual child in care. It might be that boarding school provision is correct, but would the Minister agree that, where boarding school provision is provided, we must have the most vigorous safeguarding assessment of that provision?

[Lord Nash]

I agree with the noble Lord that that is essential, but we have moved a long way from the 1960s. It may have been, as a reaction to some of the points the noble Lord, Lord Laming, made, that we have moved too far in the other direction and there is a certain overreluctance by some local authorities. We have definitely seen that local authorities are now better informed and visit schools. If noble Lords visit the Boarding School Partnerships website— at boardingschoolpartnerships.org.uk—they will be impressed, as there is a lot of information there to help local authorities on which schools are providing this and how they might assess whether it is appropriate for a particular child.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, will local authorities retain their duty of care during term time, and what arrangements will be made during holidays to see that the children’s educational interests are not neglected during that time?

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend makes a very good point, as local authorities do remain responsible. In holidays there are some facilities that may be able to keep children and we have initiatives to try to extend such arrangements, but it is certainly the case that local authorities continue to be responsible.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, is it true that this whole programme is being driven by the need to save money, as against placing children in foster care? In so far as we know that only 100 children nationally are now in such placements, surely we should fully evaluate the effect on those children before we proceed further down this route.

[Lord Nash]

It is not driven by money at all; it is driven by a passionate belief by a number of people, including the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and others who have been to boarding school that it can help and that we had lurched into a certain prejudice against boarding schools. We are just inviting local authorities to look more widely at the options and making much more information available to allow them to evaluate those options.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, while acknowledging the potential benefits of the Boarding School Partnerships, the noble Lord will be aware that most children in care will have experienced some kind of trauma and a high proportion have unmet mental health needs. Extending the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, I think that it is questionable whether boarding schools are equipped to provide the sort of wraparound support that these children may need. Indeed, such a placement does not necessarily address the reasons a child was taken into care in the first place. For many of the children being placed at a state or independent boarding school, that will be outside their local authority. Research by the Children’s Society demonstrates that the further children are placed from home, the more likely they are to go missing from care. Will the Minister give an assurance that, when children in care are placed in boarding schools outside their home local authorities, the placing local authority will share appropriate information with the host authority to ensure that these children are appropriately safeguarded and have their particular needs met?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord raises a very good point. I think that that is the situation, but I will check and write to him.

Free Childcare Entitlements

Lord Nash Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement made in the other place earlier today by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Children and Families.

“Thank you very much indeed, Mr Speaker, for allowing this Urgent Question, which gives me the opportunity to highlight this Conservative Government’s determination to support as many families as possible with access to high-quality, affordable childcare and early years education. We are investing a record amount. Our support will total £6 billion per year by 2020.

My department is committed to ensuring that all three and four year-olds have access to free childcare. All parents—regardless of income and employment status—are entitled to 15 hours of free childcare for their three and four year-olds. Take-up of this universal entitlement is 95%. In addition, take-up of 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two year-olds is rising, and it is fantastic that over 70% of eligible two year-olds are benefiting from this.

On 1 September 2017, the Government reached a major milestone in delivering their key manifesto pledge to double the free childcare entitlements for working parents of three and four year-olds from 15 to 30 hours. Today I have laid a Written Ministerial Statement updating the House on delivery of the 30 hours offer. By 31 August, more than our target of 200,000 30-hour codes had been issued to eligible parents wishing to take up a place this autumn. Indeed, the actual figure, I can update the House, is 216,384 codes issued.

These families starting their places join the existing 15,000 families who are already benefiting from 30 hours of free childcare in our 12 early delivery pilot areas. Independent evaluations of these areas were encouraging, showing that over three-quarters of parents reported greater flexibility in their working life as a result of 30 hours, and more than eight out of 10 childcare providers who were offering the existing 15-hour entitlement went on to offer 30 hours. During the autumn I will closely monitor the delivery of all free childcare entitlements to ensure continued improvements to all our offers for parents and providers. I will continue to work closely with Ministers at HM Treasury to ensure that parents are able to access the HMRC-run childcare service smoothly.

The majority of parents have successfully applied using the childcare service, but some parents experienced difficulties accessing the service through the system by the 31 August application deadline. However, those parents who are eligible and applied before the deadline will have a code to allow them to access our 30 hours of free childcare. They will not lose out. I am pleased to report that this is yet another key manifesto pledge delivered for working families”.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Statement as well as for his Statement on the same subject on 18 July. The Government then responded to an Urgent Question on the process of applying for the 30 free childcare hours. The Minister’s response included the admission that the childcare service is a complex IT system which had “experienced technical issues”. He went on to state that:

“HMRC, which developed the service, has been working hard to resolve these issues and as a result the customer experience has improved”.—[Official Report, 18/7/17; col. 1525.]


I have to say that it has not improved enough in the intervening seven weeks to avoid many parents being unable to get their code to access the 30-hour entitlement. None the less, I note what the Statement says in respect of no one losing out. However, according to figures given by the Minister in another place today, six days after the new entitlement began, only 152,000 out of 390,000 eligible parents have been able both to get a code and to find a place for their children. That represents a success rate of under 40%. What plans do the Government have to increase that rate dramatically? I suggest that re-evaluating the policy’s funding would be one means of doing so.

I hope that the Minister will also be in a position to provide an answer to a key question asked earlier by my colleague Tracy Brabin in another place. She did not receive an answer, but three hours have elapsed and I am confident that the Minister’s officials will have ensured that he arrived at the Dispatch Box fully briefed and able to provide an answer. The question was: can the Minister guarantee that he will not allow a two-tier system to emerge whereby parents who can afford to pay extra will have access to the new entitlement and those who cannot pay will not?

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments. I think it is fair to say that no Government have done as much as this one to develop childcare. We have delivered a massive increase in childcare provision and the sector has handled that well. Our evidence from the 12 live pilot projects—not surveys but live projects—is that they are handling this implementation well. As I said, this is a complicated project, which the noble Lord also referred to, but overall it is going well. Of course there are teething problems, as there always are with a new provision, and we apologise to those parents who may have experienced them. We will do all we can to help them.

The evidence from the 12 pilots, however, is that the vast majority of providers are engaging, parents are happy and, for many of them, this project has had a life-changing impact. We have heard some moving stories of parents who have experienced this. Almost a quarter of mothers have reported that they have been able to increase their working hours, along with a 10th of fathers. The fact that some 150,000 or so places have been taken up reflects that these are very early days. It is inevitable when one has a deadline that there is always quite a rush up to it, and the fact that 70% of these children have already had their codes validated by nurseries is pretty good, given that only a few days have elapsed since the deadline and obviously not all parents will want to take up the offer immediately.

We have no desire to preside over a two-tier system. The Government have done all they can to support less privileged children. We have the early years pupil premium, the free entitlement for two year-olds and tax-free childcare. It is certainly not our intention to preside over that kind of system.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s Statement. As he rightly said, getting these extra free hours—the 30 hours and the 15 hours—is life changing for many families, particularly working families who perhaps could not afford the extra costs of childcare or did not have the family networks to support them.

I am pleased that the Government have apologised for the problems—the website crashing and the difficulties of the eligibility codes, et cetera. The fact is, mistakes will occur in any new system. The fact that they have resorted to doing some of the eligibility codes by manual means shows the determination to sort this out and ensure that every parent gets the financial support they need.

I have two other issues to raise. The first is not the financial aspect or the application, but whether the places are there to provide for families. I raise the impact of the introduction of free childcare for three and four year-olds on availability of places for one and two year-olds. Two year-olds from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are already struggling to access places in many areas. If we are to create more places for three and four year-olds there is a danger that the places for two and three year-olds will be reduced.

There is also concern about the sector facing quite serious financial problems. The number of nurseries forced to close has almost doubled. The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee found that many private and voluntary providers were finding that the funding they receive does not cover the costs. Are there plans for government to meet with local authorities and the private sector to see what extra support can be provided?

Finally, I would be interested to know what proportion of children eligible for the 30-hour week of free childcare received the eligibility code by 31 August. The Minister might have given that in his reply, but if he could repeat it I would be grateful.

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for his realistic comments on this complicated but important new provision. As far as availability is concerned, as I said, in the 12 live pilot schemes 80% of existing providers have engaged and another 10% say that they are considering it. Obviously there will be some areas where there may be gaps in provision and we will work with the sector to see that they are filled.

We did a detailed study of the amount of money that should be paid, which the National Audit Office described as thorough and wide-ranging. The recent independent survey from Frontier Economics said that we were more than covering the costs of the extra provision.

So far as support for providers is concerned, the noble Lord makes a very good point that we need to do all we can to help providers develop their businesses. We have a package of support to help providers to ensure that their business remains stable. This includes a document of key insights from successful providers, guidance on marketing, managing finances and business planning, and an online directory of organisations that can provide business and finance support. We have also awarded grants to the National Day Nurseries Association and the Professional Association of Childcare and Early Years to develop new business sustainability resources. We will do whatever else we need to do.

On the percentage, we anticipated on the basis of a 75% take-up that we would get 200,000 applicants at this time. We have had 216,000.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the Minister who has taken this policy through from the beginning—he took the Bill through the Lords and has taken pains to listen to concerns from around the House. I think I speak for us all when I say that we are very grateful to him. On the issue of quality, maintained nursery schools, in particular, where the staff are qualified teachers, find that they have higher expenses and overheads than much other provision, because of their highly qualified staff. Will he pay particular attention to concerns raised from that sector as this is rolled out, and be sensitive to its particular needs?

The Minister was good enough to listen to concerns about homeless families and their access to this provision. Will he also keep an eye on how effective we are at reaching out to them and how the pilots have worked in that area? If he could say some more reassuring words about high-quality provision and assure us that the rollout will not lead to a dilution in quality, it would be very welcome.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for his comments. I should apologise: I promised him a letter last time we discussed this to confirm my point that whether the parents are in temporary accommodation, or even homeless, will have no impact on the provision because it is not based on residence. Perhaps I can save the taxpayer the cost of a stamp by confirming now that that is the case, rather than writing. Of course, we are very keen to preserve the quality of childcare. The figures, as I am sure he knows, are very encouraging. The proportion of children with a good level of development has gone up since 2010 from 56% to 69% and the proportion of childcare providers rated good or outstanding has gone up from 69% to 93%. The gap between disadvantaged children and others has narrowed quite significantly and we have a workforce in which 79% of staff in group-based providers and 69% of childminders are qualified to at least level 3. We are determined to maintain, indeed to increase, the standard of the workforce.

Free Childcare Hours

Lord Nash Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, with the leave of the House I will now repeat a Statement made in the other place earlier today by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Children and Families.

“Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and I thank you for allowing this Urgent Question, as it gives me the opportunity to highlight this Government’s determination to invest a record amount in childcare, supporting early education and helping parents financially. Our support will total £6 billion per annum by 2020.

My department is committed to ensuring that all three and four year-olds have access to free early education. All parents, regardless of income and employment status, are entitled to 15 hours of free early education for their three and four year-olds, and for those parents who work we are providing access to an additional 15 hours of free childcare from 2017. Parents who want to take up 30 hours of free childcare can apply through the digital childcare services. They can access the application via the Childcare Choices website, which provides information on all the Government’s childcare offers. The application process takes about 20 minutes. I have recently had a walk-through of the service myself; it is straightforward and the format will be very familiar to parents who have used other government digital services.

The childcare service is a complex IT system, which checks parents’ eligibility in real time by interfacing with the other government IT systems. The vast majority of parents will receive an instant eligibility response. However, there will be a delay for some parents whose eligibility is not immediately clear, for example some self-employed people. The service has also experienced technical issues, which has meant that it has been unavailable to parents on a small number of occasions. HMRC, which developed the service, has been working hard to resolve these issues and as a result the customer experience has improved.

The application has been open to parents of under-fours since 21 April and today my Treasury colleagues will make a Written Ministerial Statement informing the House that the service has been further rolled out to parents of under-fives. Parents whose application is successful receive a 30-hours eligibility code to take to their provider to claim their childcare place. As of today, more than 145,000 codes have been generated from successful applications. This is an increase of almost 5,000 codes since Friday 14 July and an increase of almost 25,000 since Friday 7 July. Increasing numbers of parents are successfully applying. It is great news that so many families will benefit from 30 hours in September because, as we have seen from our early implementer and early rollout areas, this support can make a real positive difference to the lives of hard-working families”.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government apparently rushed out their revised implementation strategy for the scheme yesterday, less than two months before families are anticipating taking up their additional hours. The pledge that the extra hours would be free seems to be evaporating because it was announced yesterday that providers would be allowed to charge parents for extras on top of those 30 hours. What will happen to those families for whom affording those extras is not possible?

When the then Prime Minister touted the free childcare pledge in the 2015 election campaign, he promised to double the 15 hours available to nearly 1 million children. It was then reduced to 600,000 children, and it has since been admitted that fewer than 400,000 children will be eligible. Will the Minister tell noble Lords the Government’s latest estimate for the figure and how many families are getting the 38 hours that his party originally promised to all?

We know from our newspapers today that there was some kind of IT failure in the system yesterday. Treasury Ministers admitted in response to my colleague in another place Angela Rayner:

“It is not possible to provide a definitive number of applications not completed due to technical issues”.


What is the Minister’s estimate of just how many parents suffered those technical issues? What guarantees can he give to parents that those technical issues will be smoothed out in good time for the system to come into operation as intended?

[Lord Nash]

I think this is good news. There are some very moving stories around the country and a lot of happy parents emerging from our early implementers. There are examples of couples who are both factory workers who were previously working shifts that did not coincide now managing to coincide those shifts. In answer to the specific points made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, he is quite right that providers can charge parents for meals, consumables, such as nappies and sun cream, and additional activities, such as trips or yoga, but parents must not be required to pay any fee as a condition of taking up a free entitlement place. We have done a great deal since 2010 for disadvantaged families. In additional to the pupil premium we have 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two year-olds, tax-free childcare and many other offers.

I am not the most computer-literate person on this planet, but I had officials take me through the process earlier today and I could not see any step in it that was unnecessary. It takes about 20 minutes, and the steps seem absolutely necessary to make sure that the system is secure and that only those who are truly eligible are qualifying.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, what advice does the Minister have for the following two parents, who are not isolated examples? One parent applied a month ago and received a message that she would get an email “shortly” as to how to apply, but has since received nothing. The other spent an hour on the phone in May and was told that she would be called back—again, nothing. I stress that these are not isolated examples. Perhaps each of them should be assigned an official to walk through it with them. My interest is already declared as a governor for the wonderful Heathbrook primary school. How do I as a governor, along with senior managers, plan in these circumstances for ratios and decent skill levels, given that the scheme appears to be in the hands of people who, frankly, I would not allow to run a certain event in a brewery?

[Lord Nash]

As I said, the early implementers, which have already been tested with 4,000 parents, seem to be going extremely well. I take the noble Baroness’s point about particular examples and would be very happy for her to share those details with me further so that I can penetrate this to see if there is anything systemic here and if we can help these particular parents.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, are there any particular obstacles to accessing the free childcare hours for families living in temporary accommodation? Do they have difficulty getting information about what is on offer? As the Minister knows, 100,000 children are currently in temporary accommodation, 40% of whose families are in employment so many of them will be eligible. Will the Minister write to me on this point if he cannot elucidate now?

[Lord Nash]

I cannot see any reason why the fact that they are in temporary accommodation should be a barrier. We have tried very hard to advertise the service and of course they can go to any local provider to talk to them about it, but I will write to the noble Earl about this.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, could the Minister give us some more information about the availability of the new 15-hour free places from September? Reports from the Pre-school Learning Alliance in April this year suggest that just 44% of providers were planning to use the 30 hours because they could not afford to provide them at the rates that the Government were offering, and around the same time the National Audit Office said of the implementation that there was a risk that the new entitlement would have a negative impact on the further success of the free entitlement.

[Lord Nash]

As the noble Baroness knows, we did a great deal of work in our review on ensuring that the pay for this was adequate. Indeed, that has been borne out by a number of independent parties. Some 145,000 people have now received a code. They then have to go to the provider and the provider has to come back to us to verify; 32% of them have done so already, which is well in advance of the September date—if they start in September. As I say, all the indications are that there will be adequate provision.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister, who often repeats his acclaim for high-quality education, encourage his colleagues in the Government to stop using “childcare” as an alternative expression for “nursery and early childhood education”? It is not the same. The experience is that good-quality nursery education provides a much better start for young children, particularly those from difficult backgrounds. Will he please encourage people not to use the term coterminously? Referring back to an earlier question about teachers, would he please accept that experience in Lancashire shows that employing bilingual young people to work with children as nursery nurses and teachers helps those for whom English is not their first language or mother tongue? It gives children a better start in their lives in education.

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with the noble Baroness. The evidence is clear: although we have had a dramatic increase in the quality of early years provision—it has risen from 69% to 93% rated good or outstanding by Ofsted since 2010—those attached to schools are the best. That is why we have been encouraging primary schools to open nurseries, and we will continue to do so through our free school process. She makes a very good point about bilingual nursery staff. Through our recruitment drive for teachers, we are working with the Spanish Government to recruit teachers from Spain. We are looking at whether we can work with France and Germany, and I will certainly take her point back to the teams.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

How are primary schools responding to the Government’s encouragement to open more nurseries?

[Lord Nash]

Generally, well. It was only a few rounds ago that we allowed primary free school applications to include nurseries, and a considerable proportion of them have now come with nurseries. As I said, that is something that we are keen to encourage: any opening of primary schools should come with nurseries attached.

Schools: Recruitment and Retention

Lord Nash Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recommendations on pay made by the School Teachers’ Review Body, what action they will take to increase teacher recruitment and retention.

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

My Lords, teaching is and remains an attractive graduate profession. Despite the dramatic improvement in the economy, more teachers are in our schools than ever before, over 15,000 more than in 2010. However, we are not complacent, which is why we continue to invest, including more than £200 million this year, in attracting the brightest and the best into teaching and on tackling the areas that cause teachers to leave the profession, in particular that of workload.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. Figures I have obtained show that between 2010 and 2015 we trained 117,000 teachers and that we have lost 27,000 of them. Does the Minister think that this is due primarily to workload or to pay?

[Lord Nash]

It is quite clear that teacher retention rates have remained pretty stable over the past 20 years. We live in a world where people do move between jobs a lot, but there is no evidence to suggest that teacher retention has declined in recent years. Moreover, we are doing a great deal of work with teachers, including running an active programme in order to reduce workload.

[Baroness Sharples (Con)]

My Lords, is not the great increase in the number of pupils with English as a second language making life very difficult for teachers?

[Lord Nash]

As we have discussed before, there is no doubt that initially pupils who either do not speak English or have poor English do make life difficult for teachers, but the evidence is clear that those pupils, once they can speak the language—which many of them do relatively quickly—can be, to put it bluntly, much more aspirational. As we now all know, although we spend a lot of time compiling statistics on what we call English as additional language pupils, it is in fact white working-class pupils who are falling behind dramatically in our schools. That is why we are making such a substantial investment in coastal towns, former mining villages and other such communities to improve education.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer the House to my interests relating to teacher recruitment through my work at TES Global. The Minister says that he is not complacent. When I look at the statistics for teacher retention and take out retirement because the number of those retiring has been reducing, I can see that the number leaving the service prematurely has been increasingly significantly every year since 2012. The figure rose from 28,630 in that year to 39,980 in 2016. To repeat the question: is this because of workload pressure or because of pay?

[Lord Nash]

I know that the noble Lord is very experienced in this area, but he has picked one particular statistic. The fact is that returners to education employment have increased by 8% since 2011 and, as noble Lords will know, this year our recruitment programme has run substantially ahead of last year. We have again recruited 100% of primary teachers and 89%, as opposed to 82%, of secondary teachers.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister consider reviewing the system of continuing professional development for teachers with a view to streamlining and strengthening it? Only last week I heard from the leader of a multi-academy trust that he thought that there are too many providers in this area and it is not working efficiently. Does the Minister agree that consistently excellent levels of continuing professional development could have a significant impact on the retention of teachers?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Earl makes an extremely good point. I think that we are all aware that continuous professional development for teachers is vital. Their initial training may be brief, for nine months, and I think that it is accepted by all in the profession —I have had discussions with the unions as well— that professional development should take place throughout a teacher’s career, particularly in their first three or five years. We know that overseas—for instance, in Shanghai—the programme takes five years. We are seeing many multi-academy trusts developing much more sophisticated continuous professional development for their teachers.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, despite the Minister saying that he is not complacent, I think that noble Lords will agree with me that his answers suggest that he and his department remain in denial about the crisis in teacher retention and recruitment. Just eight months ago, the department confirmed that almost one-third of teachers who joined the profession in 2011 had left it within five years. My noble friend Lord Knight asked a few moments ago whether the cause was workload or pay. In fact, it is a combination of both, particularly below-inflation pay increases. On that specific question, can the Minister reveal to noble Lords whether teachers and teachers’ assistants are among those public servants that the Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to regard as “overpaid”?

[Lord Nash]

One reason why it has become difficult to recruit teachers is the strength in the economy. The best way to recruit more teachers might be to have a Labour Government, who would wreck the economy and therefore dramatically improve unemployment rates and increase our chances of employing teachers. We live in a highly competitive economy. In many parts of the country, we have full employment. Difficulty in recruitment is not exclusive to teaching or to this country. However, we are not complacent; we are investing a great deal of time in a more regional approach to teacher recruitment and in changing our approaches to advertising and marketing, with schools working together in different regions on a much more sophisticated approach to recruitment.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Are the Government continuing to improve the arrangements under which teachers are initially trained?

[Lord Nash]

Yes. As I think my noble friend knows, we have substantially increased the proportion of teachers trained in schools—it has now risen to 56% of initial teacher training. As I said in answer to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, we are continuing to look at improving initial teacher training.

Children in Need

Lord Nash Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that local authorities put an action plan in place for all children in need that will improve their family relationships and resolve other difficulties sufficiently for them to be stepped down from that status.

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

My Lords, our statutory guidance, Working together to safeguard children, is clear that, where a child is found to be in need, support should be provided to address those needs in order to improve their outcomes. Where the outcome of the assessment is the continued involvement of local authority children’s social care, the social worker and their manager should agree a plan of action with other professionals and discuss this with the child and their family.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for his reply. At his suggestion, I visited Feltham’s Reach Academy, where staff are working with the local authority to develop a family hub. Parents with children aged nought to 19 will get any early help they need so that they can partner with the school to help deliver outstanding pupil outcomes. This could be transformational for children in need. What are the Government doing to encourage the development of family hubs?

[Lord Nash]

I am delighted that my noble friend visited Reach Academy in Feltham. It is an outstanding example of the success of the free schools programme, and I am pleased that it has also been approved to open a second free school. I know that my noble friend has done a great deal of excellent work with the Centre for Social Justice on the concept of family hubs. Obviously, the earlier we can help children the better, and this is why we are encouraging so many primary schools to open nursery schools, through the free schools programme and otherwise. A number of local authorities have introduced family hub-type models, and I hope we will see more of them. However, ultimately it is up to local authorities to decide the best local solution.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that school exclusion can exacerbate the difficult situation of children in need and may put them into care? Will he look at whether the system of continuing professional development for teachers can be strengthened and streamlined so that teachers are better able to manage such children and do not need to exclude them?

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with the noble Earl that school exclusions are to be avoided at all costs, if possible. Certainly, permanent exclusions are counterproductive and even temporary exclusions are often so, because they amount effectively to the child bunking off for a day. They would be much better off segregated in the school, doing something which encouraged them to behave better in future. Most teachers are very keen to avoid school exclusions. I have just taken over responsibility for attendance and exclusions and will certainly look at this in more detail.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, children with parents in prison are particularly vulnerable and need much consideration. However, under the incentives and privileges scheme, prisoners have to earn the right to see their kids. Barnardo’s has been calling for this to change and for a review of the scheme. It should not be a privilege for parents to see their children, but the right of a child to see their parents. When will a review take place to change this unjust situation? I declare an interest as a vice-president of Barnardo’s.

[Lord Nash]

I will have to go away and look at this. I am certainly a great believer in earned release schemes, where prisoners earn the right to be released early on the basis that they attend courses in prison. I was not aware of this and it is rather off my brief, but I will go away and come back to the noble Baroness on it.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Local Government Association recently highlighted a serious shortfall in local authority budgets to appropriately fund services for children in need and their families. Between 2010 and 2015, high-deprivation local authorities had to endure cuts of 21%, while the figure for low-deprivation authorities was 7%. Perhaps the Minister can help noble Lords make sense of that. I hope that he has been made aware of the research published last year by Professor Paul Bywaters and colleagues at Coventry University, which showed an association between the numbers needing child protection and looked-after children’s services and children living in local authorities with the highest rates of child poverty. Will he now commit to taking steps to ensure that the local authorities with the greatest proportion of children in need receive the funding necessary to ensure that children are not unnecessarily drawn into the child protection and looked-after systems?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

I do not recognise what the noble Lord is saying. Child protection and safeguarding spending by local authorities increased by 13% between 2011-12 and 2015-16. It is clear that local authorities are rightly prioritising this area.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the charity Malachi, which has had great success in the West Midlands and Birmingham working with schools where broken families are involved and children are in trouble as a result? It is now in the process of some degree of franchising to other parts of the country.

[Lord Nash]

I am not aware of this charity. I am very grateful to my noble friend for drawing it to my attention and look forward to hearing more about it from him.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

My Lords, as regards the Government’s promise to accept 3,000 unaccompanied children within the next couple of years, how does this link in with the care that our children are getting?

[Lord Nash]

We intend that all children in this country are treated equally. I hope that the children to whom the noble Lord refers will be able to access all the services that would apply to any other children.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, both the Question and my noble friend’s Answer refer to the “need” of children. Could he kindly define the Government’s definition of “need” for these purposes?

[Lord Nash]

I had better write to my noble friend on the definition of “children in need” as it is quite long and I do not want to take up noble Lords’ time. However, it should apply to all children equally.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to go back to the answer that he gave on local authority funding? He made the assertion that it was clear that local authorities were making this issue a priority as they were spending more money on it. That may or may not be true, but what is important is how many children they are having to spend the money on. Can he tell the House what the increase was in numbers of children in care or needing local authority support over that period?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness raises a very good point. The number of children in need during that period remained fairly constant. We are doing a great deal of work reforming social care to try to ensure that the money is better spent.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, in her recent report on vulnerable children the Children’s Commissioner drew attention to the role of child poverty in that vulnerability. What are the Government doing to reduce child poverty—and will the Minister please not simply say “moving families into paid work”, because we know that that is not necessarily a route out of poverty for low-income families?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

We are certainly very focused on social mobility; I always find the definition of child poverty or of poverty in general quite difficult, because if you define it as being below a certain barrier, there will always be people below it. However, we are determined to improve social mobility—it is what drives all our educational reforms.

Schools Update

Lord Nash Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, My Lords, with the leave of the House I will now repeat a Statement being made in the other place by my right honourable friend Justine Greening, the Secretary of State for Education. The Statement is as follows:

“This Government believe that all children should have an education that unlocks their potential and allows them to go as far as their talent and hard work will take them. That is key to improving social mobility. We have made significant progress: nine out of 10 schools are now good or outstanding and the attainment gap is beginning to close. We have launched 12 opportunity areas to drive improvement in parts of the country which we know can do better. But all this has been against a backdrop of unfair funding. We know that the current funding system is unfair, opaque and out of date. This means that, while we hold schools to the same accountability structure, we fund them at very different levels. In addition, resources are not reaching the schools that need them most.

School funding is at a record high because of the choices we made to protect and increase school funding even as we faced difficult decisions elsewhere to restore our country’s finances, but we recognise that, at the election, people were concerned about the overall level of funding as well as its distribution. As the Prime Minister has said, we are determined to listen, so that is why today I am confirming our plans to get on with introducing a national funding formula in 2018-19. I can announce that this will now additionally be supported by significant extra investment into the core schools budget over the next two years.

The additional funding I am setting out today, together with the introduction of a national funding formula, will provide schools with the investment they need to offer a world-class education to every child. There will therefore be an additional £1.3 billion for schools and high needs across 2018-19 and 2019-20, in addition to the schools budget set at the 2015 spending review. This funding is across the next two years as we transition to the national funding formula. Spending plans for the years beyond 2019-20 will be set out in a future spending review.

As a result of this investment, core funding for schools and high needs will rise from almost £41 billion in 2017-18 to £42.4 billion in 2018-19. In 2019-20 this will rise again to £43.5 billion. This represents £1.3 billion in additional investment: £416 million more than was set aside at the last spending review for the core schools budget in 2018-19 and £884 million more in 2019-20. It will mean that the total schools budget will increase by £2.6 billion between this year and 2019-20, and funding per pupil will now be maintained in real terms for the remaining two years of the spending review period to 2019-20.

For this Government, social mobility and education are a priority. Introducing the national funding formula—something shied away from by previous Governments—backed by the additional investment in schools we are confirming today will be the biggest improvement to the school funding system for well over a decade. I said when I launched the consultation last December that I was keen to hear as many views as possible on this vital reform. I am grateful for the engagement on the issue of fairer funding and the national funding formula. We received more than 25,000 responses to our consultation, including from Members from across the House. We have listened carefully to the feedback we have received.

We will respond to the consultation in full in September, but I can tell the House today that the additional investment we are able to make in our schools will allow us to: increase the basic amount that every pupil will attract in 2018-19 and 2019-20; for the next two years provide for up to 3% gains a year per pupil for underfunded schools and a 0.5% a year per pupil cash increase for every school; and continue to protect funding for pupils with additional needs, as we proposed in December. Given this additional investment, we are able to increase the percentage allocated to pupil-led factors, and this formula settlement for 2019-20 will provide at least £4,800 per pupil for every secondary school—something which I know Members in some areas in particular will welcome.

The national funding formula will therefore deliver higher per-pupil funding in respect of every school and in every local area. I believe that these changes, building on the proposals we set out in December, will provide a firm foundation as we make historic reforms to the funding system, balancing fairness and stability for schools. It remains our intention that a school’s budget should be set on the basis of a single, national formula, but a longer transition makes sense to provide stability for schools. In 2018-19 and 2019-20, the national funding formula will set indicative budgets for each school and the total schools funding received by each local authority will be allocated according to our national fair funding formula, and transparently for the first time.

Local authorities will continue to set a local formula, as they do now, for determining individual schools’ budgets in 2018-19 and 2019-20, in consultation with schools in the area. I will shortly publish the operational guide to allow them to begin that process. To support their planning, I am also confirming now that in 2018-19, all local authorities will receive some increase over the amount they plan to spend on schools and high needs in 2017-18. We will confirm gains for local authorities, based on the final formula, in September.

The guide will set out some important areas that are fundamental to supporting a fairer distribution through the national funding formula. For example, we will ring-fence the vast majority of funding provided for primary and secondary schools, although local authorities, in agreement with their local schools forum, will be able to move limited amounts of funding to other areas, such as special schools, where this better matches local need.

As well as this additional investment through the national funding formula, I am today also confirming our commitment to double the PE and sports premium for primary schools. All primary schools will receive an increase in their PE and sports premium funding in the next academic year.

The £1.3 billion additional investment in core schools funding that I am announcing today will be funded in full from efficiencies and savings I have identified from within my department’s existing budget, rather than through higher taxes or more debt. This has required some difficult decisions, but I believe that it is right to prioritise core schools funding, even as we continue the vital task of repairing the public finances.

By making savings and efficiencies, I am maximising the proportion of my department’s budget which is allocated directly to front-line head teachers, who can use their professional expertise to ensure that it is spent where it will have the greatest possible impact. I have challenged my civil servants to find efficiencies, as schools are.

I want to set out briefly the savings and efficiencies that I will secure. Efficiencies and savings across our main capital budget can release £420 million. The majority of this will be from healthy pupils capital funding, from which we will make savings of £315 million. This reflects reductions in forecast revenue from the soft drinks industry levy. Every £1 of England’s share of spending from the levy will continue to be invested in improving child health, including £100 million in 2018-19 for healthy pupils capital.

We remain committed to an ambitious free schools programme that delivers choice, innovation and higher standards for parents. In delivering the programme, and the plans for a further 140 free schools announced at the last Budget, we will work more efficiently to release savings of £280 million up to 2019-20. This will include delivering 30 of the 140 schools through the local authority route rather than the central free schools route.

Across the rest of the DfE resource budget—more than £60 billion per year—I will also reprioritise £250 million in 2018-19 and £350 million in 2019-20 to fund the increase in spending that I am announcing today. I plan to redirect £200 million from the department’s central programmes towards front-line funding for schools. While these projects are useful, I believe strongly that this funding is most valuable in the hands of head teachers.

Finally, alongside this extra investment in our core schools budget, it is vital that school leaders strive to maximise the efficient use of their resources to achieve the best outcomes for all their pupils and best promote social mobility. We already provide schools with support to do this, but we will now go further to ensure that support is effectively used by schools.

We will continue our commitment to securing substantial efficiency gains over the coming years. Good-value national deals that procure better-value goods and services on areas all schools purchase are available: for example, under the deals, based on our existing work, schools can save on average 10% on their energy bills. We will expect schools to be clear if they do not make use of these deals and have higher costs. Across school spending as a whole, we will improve the transparency and usability of data so that parents and governors can more easily see the way in which funding is spent and understand not just educational standards but financial effectiveness, too. We have just launched a new online efficiency benchmarking service which will enable schools to analyse their own performance much more effectively.

We recognise that many schools have worked hard up to this point to manage cost-base pressures on their budgets, and we will take action this year to provide targeted support to those schools where financial health is at risk, deploying efficiency experts to give direct support to them.

The significant investment that we are making in schools and the reforms we are introducing underpin our ambition for a world-class education system. Together, they will give schools a firm foundation that will enable them to continue to raise standards, promote social mobility and give every child the best possible education and the best opportunities for the future”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I agree that this is a sleight of hand. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that there is not one single new penny coming into education for our young people in the Statement. I agree that it is robbing Peter to pay Paul and I hope he will tell us a lot more about Peter and the losses to programmes that schools have been relying on. More importantly, will he confirm that in the Statement there is actually a cut in funding for education—£315 million—which will be cut from the healthy pupils capital funding,

“to reflect reductions in forecast revenues from the soft drinks industry levy”?

So in fact this is an announcement of a £315 million cut in the budget for education and schools.

The Statement refers to 30 schools that will be removed from the free schools programme and delivered through the local authority route. Is the Minister expecting local authorities to provide substantial funding to support these 30 schools and, if so, can he tell us which local authorities are now so flush with money that they are in a position to provide significant numbers of additional schools if there is not a single penny coming from the central budget to support them?

As the Minister talks about efficiency for schools, I join many others in saying that, looking at schools today, you can see remarkable efficiencies introduced by one head teacher after another, but it looks as though a significant amount of the savings is meant to come from new energy efficiencies: a 10% cut in energy bills overall. The Minister will be well aware that the largest component of an energy bill is the cost of energy. Will he tell us how he will prevent volatility and price rises in the energy bills that are presumed within the Statement?

I actually think it is beneath the Government to come up with this announcement when after a moment’s reading it becomes apparent that there is sleight of hand and a difference between the announcement and its implications and the reality that is contained within the Statement. I suggest that if we are to encourage the British people to recognise the importance of politics and to respect any party in this House, it is time for that to stop.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked why the Statement was being made today. It is so that schools can go away for their summer break knowing that we will be introducing a national funding formula. No doubt that will be welcome to them.

All schools have to run themselves more efficiently and we as a Government have to make efficiency savings. We have already predicted that our scheme to self-insure academies will save £600 million by 2020. We have introduced LocatED, an organisation set up specifically to find free school sites. It is already showing that it is buying sites very effectively and we believe there will be significant savings from that. Our efficiency advisers are not an insult to head teachers. They are a support. I invited the noble Lord, Lord Watson, to look at the efficiency tools on our website. I am disappointed to hear that he obviously has not done so, particularly given the Labour Party’s appalling record of spending money in the past.

So far as free schools are concerned, since 2014 90% of them have been located in areas where there is a recognised need for places, which of course is many areas, given that despite a massive increase in immigration, the Labour Party actually reduced the number of school places in this country. As for listening to its proposals across the board, doing so would result in bringing us back to the edge of bankruptcy, as it did the last time that it was in government. As I said, we have increased the core school funding. In answer to the point about local authorities, we are working extremely collaboratively now with them on free schools. We believe that we can do so more collaboratively, and that energy is only one part among many of the savings we can make.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, further to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, I too was drawn to the announcement of the further 140 free schools, which said that 30 would go through the local authority route. I am interested to know exactly how that works, given that this is the Minister’s responsibility, and how much more efficient that is than going through the department. Will he answer her question as to whether the local authorities concerned will get any money to pursue that route?

[Lord Nash]

Yes. As I said, we have been working very collaboratively with local authorities to plan much more accurately with them precisely where they want free schools. Local authorities obviously often produce free school sites on a peppercorn for no money. It is also clear to us that some local authorities have perhaps not been spending their basic need money, as they should have been, but relying on the central programme. I believe that this can be done efficiently. The local authorities that we work with certainly seem keen to provide many more of these schools. We go through a process whereby they decide where they want the schools to be and, effectively, an open process is then gone through whereby school providers can approach them and be approved, initially by the local authority and then by the department.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, the answer from the Minister to the question about whether local authorities will get more money for embarking on this project was, in short, no. They will not get more money but will have to find the money though doing things more efficiently, according to the Minister. Will he please accept that his repeated assertions about the Government’s commitment to social mobility can be answered by all the research which shows that good, early childhood education involving parents is the best way to help children who underachieve, and that Ministers repeatedly referring to childcare are ignoring the educational issues? Will the Minister please answer the questions that he is being asked and not the ones he prefers?

[Lord Nash]

The answer to the question on where the money will come from is that local authorities are funded substantially to provide their basic need budgets. We will look to them to use those budgets to fund some of these places through new schools and the free schools programme. I agree entirely with the noble Baroness that the early years are a vital part and that the younger we can support all our children, the better.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

My Lords, the Statement makes it clear, does it not, that the award is entirely conditional upon savings? So that there be no shred of ambiguity left, can the Minister confirm that if in fact there is no saving, there will be no award and that if there is but a percentage of saving, there will be a percentage of that award? Furthermore, if it be the case that there would appear to be an achievement of saving which does not fit neatly into the timetable, will there be credit for a notional saving and what will happen if it turns out to be a smaller sum than that which was first anticipated?

[Lord Nash]

No—it is not conditional on savings. We have a firm intention to bring in a national funding formula. We are the first Government for many years to tackle this point. We consulted on it. Schools want a fair funding formula, and I am disappointed that noble Lords are not pleased that we are going ahead with these plans. I am sure schools will be. They are all asking for it. It is not a condition. This is our plan. This will happen. The department has a budget of £60 billion per annum. We have shown over the past few years that the Government can run things efficiently, and we are determined to do so in the future.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the Statement talks about those with additional needs. Will there be good, in-service improvement of skills for those dealing with those with special educational needs in the mainstream classroom? There have already been some changes made for new people training, and I thank the Minister for that, but there will be considerable savings if people are better trained to handle the pupils in their classrooms and to recognise the most commonly occurring conditions such as dyslexia and dyspraxia and to tell the difference between the two. Are we going to do this? If we do, we will take some of the pressure off expensive things such as special schools.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. We all acknowledge the importance of continuous professional development. We must remember that teachers are initially trained for only nine months, most of which is in the classroom. We are looking at reforming initial teacher training. In multi-academy trusts, we are increasingly seeing much greater emphasis on continuous professional development throughout a teacher’s entire life, particularly in the first three to five years of their engagement in the profession.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

The Minister talks about a world-class education. I am glad that at last the word “teacher” has been mentioned because teachers create world-class education. I go into schools and find head teachers desperate about losing teachers. Can the Minister say how this can be prevented?

[Lord Nash]

I think I have a Question tomorrow on teacher retention. Teacher retention is looking a lot better this year. I was referring to multi-academy trusts. We have seen a transformation in the past few years in career development opportunities for young teachers. Historically, a young teacher coming into the teaching profession in their early 20s could look forward to perhaps being a head teacher in 20 years. I can just about remember what it feels like to be in one’s early 20s, and 20 years is light years away. Now we are seeing young teachers becoming a head of subject in their mid 20s, a head of school responsible for teaching and learning, behaviour and safeguarding and parent relationships in their late 20s with all the rest of the administration, accounting and HR done by the MAT centrally, and becoming a head in their 30s, so the career development opportunities for teachers are much greater than they were. I am hearing consistently from people who work in multi-academy trusts that this is having a very good impact on teacher retention. We have an economy in which we are experiencing full employment in many areas in the country. The issue in relation to teacher recruitment and retention is not unique to this country, and it is not unique to the teaching profession. It is one of the consequences of having such a strong economy. The early signs are that teacher retention is improving.

[Lord Evans of Weardale (CB)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my declared interest as a governor of a multi-academy trust. I broadly welcome the thrust of the Minister’s Statement, although as a former public servant I am always slightly suspicious of spending commitments that are going to be funded through efficiencies because sometimes what you take with one hand disappears in another. Nevertheless, it would be helpful if the Minister could let us know what efficiencies there are from running schools within a multi-academy trust system because a number of common services which otherwise have to be run separately in each school can be shared between schools, and that is an area where potential efficiencies have not yet wholly been captured.

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments. What we are seeing through the multi-academy trust system is that a group of schools working together can employ one much more highly qualified accountant rather than each individual school having someone who often really struggles with the accounts, takes a very long time and would rather not do it. We are seeing a huge number of MATs achieving substantial savings in purchasing. One study said that primary schools working together in MATs was resulting in a saving of £146 per annum per pupil. I think it is self-evident that this is working, and we have plenty of examples. I would be happy for any noble Lord who is interested in this to attend a teach-in to hear about it in much greater detail.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

I would like to ask my noble friend about the more than 25,000 responses that have come in to the consultation exercise. Have they come from all parts of the country to provide an indication of how people feel in different areas? Have comments come from all those most closely involved in and concerned about education—namely head teachers, teachers, governors and parents themselves? Is the Minister able to give any indication at this stage whether there is clear evidence that, overall, a positive view was being taken in the country of the principle of the basic idea of a national funding formula?

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend makes a very good point. We have had a very wide response from all areas of the country. It is clear, particularly in those areas of the country that historically feel that they have been underfunded—we have discussed here before the vast differences in funding per pupil that can occur between two schools not that far apart—that this news will be welcomed by schools, despite what some Peers have said. It will be very welcome to move to a system that is not a postcode lottery and not based on very out-of-date information. I am certain that this will be welcomed by schools.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister kindly answer the question asked by my noble friend Lady Kramer regarding the efficiencies and savings mentioned in the Statement? Some £315 million is going to be saved from the healthy pupils capital fund. Will the Minister confirm that that is actually a £315 million cut, as suggested in the Statement, which says:

“This reflects reductions in forecast revenue from the soft drinks industry levy”?

[Lord Nash]

Well, that has only recently been announced and I have to say that our plans on it were not very far advanced, so I think describing it as a cut is rather unfair. As I have said, we are making sure that resources are focused more on core school funding and in the hands of head teachers.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I am assuming that £50 million of this saving is because we have not mentioned the expansion of grammar schools. I hope that is the case and I would welcome confirmation of that because, if we are focusing on areas of real need, if ever there was a waste of money it was that. I would also welcome some indication that we are going to continue with the expansion of the university technical college programme.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord is quite right that as a result of the fact that, as I have already said, we will not be removing the ban on new selective schools, there will undoubtedly be some saving there. We intend to continue with the UTC programme, selectively and carefully. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the early years of the programme but we are confident that it can become very successful, and we have some very good examples of that. I see that my noble friend Lord Baker is not in his place; I am sure that if he were here he would be on his feet very quickly to mention some of them. We certainly intend to continue with the programme.

[Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, have the Government considered ending the charitable status of private schools, which some people see as of rather dubious benefit to the community and state schools? If so, how much money would be released, which could then go to state schools for their direct benefit?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

We have not considered that because we do not plan to do it. Were we to lean heavily on the independent sector, it would probably result in a much greater burden on the state sector, because there is no doubt that the country saves a huge amount of money on state education by the number of people who go to private schools. We have, however, made it absolutely clear that although the independent sector does a great deal to support state schools in terms of both bursaryships and school partnerships up and down the country—I was recently in York, where there is a strong school partnership—we think that some independent schools can do more. We are in active discussions with the Independent Schools Council and the other independent school organisations. They are very willing to help and we will be working with them so that they can help the state sector much more. There is a lot that they can do to help the state sector—particularly in teaching, the use of sports facilities and sports personnel and preparing pupils for applications to university.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, part of the problem is that it is such an unclear Statement. There are so many questions, but we are not getting particularly clear answers in response, so I return to two issues that have already been raised to seek further clarification. The wording of the Statement,

“deploying efficiency experts to give direct support to”

schools, reads to me like real people going to schools to give advice. In his response to my noble friend on the Front Bench, the Minister implied that it is an online tool. Can he clarify exactly what is meant by those words? If they are real people, how much will that initiative cost? I also return to the part of the Statement which talked about 30 of the 140 new schools coming through the local authority route. It would help me to know whether local authorities will be able to say that they do not want to spend their money in that way.

[Lord Nash]

We have done a great deal of work in the department on efficiency in schools. There is no doubt, despite what people say, that some schools have grown their budget a bit like Topsy. I see that the noble Baroness is nodding. Interestingly, our most successful education providers are also our most efficient financially, because, as any organisation has to when it faces financial pressures, they go back to a bottom-up approach to budgeting. Schools that do that spend their resources where they are needed and think about where they want to spend them rather than, as has happened in a number of schools, through consistent increases in funding over many years, where their budgets have grown like Topsy. There are significant efficiency savings. Many schools have grasped that, but there is no doubt that some have not, and we now have a number of experts—we currently work with about 20—who are well versed in this. We will be making them available to schools that need them.

We have no intention of forcing free schools down the throats of local authorities. It is a collaborative approach. We have been working collaboratively with local authorities on free schools and see much greater scope to do so in future.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, will the Minister take advice from somebody who has chaired an education authority and knows the sorts of questions that arise? He is talking about a national funding formula. Parents, teachers and governors will ask how the calculation has been made as to what is appropriate. They will make comparisons—I am not doing so—between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and English regions. We will have to refer them to him. Can he assure me that in calculating the amounts per pupil, all pupils in all countries and in all areas have been treated fairly, equally and on the same assumptions about need?

[Lord Nash]

Well, the whole purpose of the funding formula, which is for England only, is to treat everybody much more fairly. As for comparisons with Wales and Scotland, I hope that parents will make them, because they will be able to see that what has been happening in the Welsh education system is no lesson for the future and that what has recently been happening in the Scottish education system is deeply disturbing.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister clarify that additional CPD—continuing professional development—required for teachers, school nurses and health visitors in relation to the manifesto commitment on child and adolescent mental health improvement will be funded separately and will not have to come out of the standard formula?

[Lord Nash]

I do not think that I can confirm that, but we are investing £1.4 billion in child and adolescent mental health. We will produce a Green Paper on mental health later this year, and we have worked closely on a number of pilot projects between mental health and schools. I shall look at this and write to the noble Baroness.