Free Childcare Entitlements
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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.
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.
Schools: Recruitment and Retention
Lord Nash Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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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.
Free Childcare Hours
Lord Nash Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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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?
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.
Children in Need
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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?
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 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 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?
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?
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?
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
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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.
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?
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.
Education: Funding
Lord Nash Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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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 in the other place earlier today by my right honourable friend the Minister for School Standards and for Equalities. The Statement is as follows:
“Mr Speaker, this Government are determined to ensure that all pupils, regardless of where they live, receive a world-class education. Over the past seven years we have made significant progress. There are now 1.8 million more children in schools that are rated good or outstanding than there were in 2010, and today we saw an 8% rise in key stage 2 results, as pupils and teachers rise to meet the challenge of the new, more demanding curriculum and assessments.
Looking beyond schools, the Government have prioritised funding for all phases of education. At the spending review, we announced that we would be investing an additional £1 billion a year in early education entitlements, including funding for the new 30 hours entitlement and funding to increase the per-child rate that providers receive. We protected the national base rate per pupil for 16 to 19 year-olds in sixth forms, sixth-form colleges and further education colleges in England and, in his spring Budget, my right honourable friend the Chancellor announced new investment in technical education for 16 to 19 year-olds, rising to an additional £500 million per year. We have maintained funding for the adult education budget, which supports adult skills participation in cash terms at £1.5 billion per year. We have implemented reforms to higher education to drive greater competition and teaching standards. Together, this adds up to a comprehensive package of support for education at all stages of life.
We want to ensure that every school has the resources that it needs, which is why we have protected the schools budget in real terms since 2010. We set out our intention to increase funding further in our manifesto, as well as continuing to protect the pupil premium to support the most disadvantaged pupils.
We recognise that schools are facing cost pressures. Beyond the total amount of funding going to our schools, we know that there are two crucial questions. First, we know that how schools use their money is important in delivering the best outcomes for pupils. We will continue to provide support to help schools use their funding effectively. Secondly, we know that how funding is distributed across the country is anachronistic and unfair, and that the current system is in desperate need of urgent reform.
We have gone further than any previous Government in reforming school funding. The second stage of our consultation on a national funding formula for schools closed in March, and I am grateful to all 25,000 people who responded, as well as to honourable Members who contributed in the more than 10 hours of parliamentary debates on school funding, and many face-to-face meetings, during the period. It is important that we now consider carefully how to proceed. As outlined in our manifesto, we will make sure that no school has its budget cut as a result of the new formula. We remain committed to working with Parliament and bringing forward proposals that will command a consensus. We will set out our plans shortly”.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, the House will be grateful to the Minister for repeating that Answer—but whatever gloss he puts on school funding, the fact is that the amount of money per pupil is due to go down between now and 2022. As a result, class sizes will grow and schools will replace qualified teachers with unqualified staff. The Minister had nothing to say about this, yet it is worrying parents up and down the country—except, perhaps, in Northern Ireland. Can he confirm that there is now to be an increase in school funding of £150 per pupil in the Province?
The Minister said that no school would have its budget cut as a result of the new funding formula. Can he confirm that that is in real terms and not just in cash terms? His party’s manifesto promised £4 billion of additional money; £650 million of that was to be obtained by scrapping infant school meals. The Minister in the other place has said that that policy has now been scrapped, so where will that money come from? Is it still the Government’s intention to provide universal free breakfast in primary schools—and, if so, does he now have a proper costing of that manifesto offer? Furthermore, is the Government planning to fund new and expanded grammar schools, or has that also been abandoned?
Lord Nash
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his questions. To be clear, first of all, on grammar schools, as the noble Lord will know there is no education Bill in the Queen’s Speech and the ban will remain in place, although we will keep working with the Grammar School Heads’ Association and good grammar schools to see how their excellent practice can be spread more widely.
As far as breakfast is concerned, we do not plan to introduce free breakfasts, although we will continue to work on a number of schemes for breakfast clubs, such as Magic Breakfast.
There has been a lot of talk about the expansion of class sizes. Despite the fact that, by this September, schools will already have experienced an increase of more than 3% in their cost base, the actual increase in class sizes in the last six years has been very marginal indeed. This is at a time when we have 1.8 million more pupils in good and outstanding schools and have created nearly 750,000 new places. I have already said that there will be no cuts in per-pupil funding as a result of the national funding formula. We will be responding in full to the consultation shortly and I am afraid that the noble Lord will have to wait until then for the answers to the rest of his questions.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his Statement. He is right to say that funding is anachronistic in England. I was pleased to hear that there will be no cuts to any school budgets. Presumably with the fair funding system there would be winners and losers, so he is clearly saying that the losers—in other words, those whose budgets will not go up—will not be cut at all. However, there is a problem now. When I asked an Oral Question back in March, I pointed out that audit figures showed that, on average, over the next four years, every primary school will be £74,000 worse off and every secondary school will be £291,000 worse off. In his reply, the Minister said it was about organising things differently and that better deployment of staff, efficiency savings and redeployment of non-teaching staff in schools could save £1 billion. He has never said how and where that is going to happen.
My main question is in regard to sixth-form colleges. The Minister believes in fair funding for all secondary and primary schools, but he clearly does not believe in it for sixth-form colleges—because only those which have become academies are VAT exempt. Those that choose to remain maintained have to pay VAT. That is surely grossly unfair. Why is the Minister not prepared to allow the same advantage to all sixth-form colleges? If he did, it would mean an immediate amount of money for the maintained ones. At the same time, why has the full amount of funding for sixth-form colleges—£200 million—been held back? That could be released to them as well.
Lord Nash
I am grateful to the noble Lord for recognising that we have been the first Government for some time to grasp the issue of the anachronistic state of school funding. It was never going to be easy —that is quite obvious from the debates we have had. However, we are determined to press on and make school funding fair. As I have said, there will be no cuts per pupil as a result of the national funding formula.
I would invite the noble Lord to come into the department and see the extensive work we are doing on school efficiency and organisation to make sure that schools fully understand how to make the resources available in a more efficient way so that there are many more resources for the front line. I recognise the pressures that schools are facing, but it is a fact that under the Labour Government schools received a 5.1% per annum increase in their funding in real terms and that during that time we slumped down the international league tables in the performance of our schools. So it is not just about money; it is about the efficient deployment of resources.
Baroness Andrews (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has been insistent on fairness in both the Statement and in what he has just said. I am sure that he is familiar with the work of the Education Policy Institute, which said in a recent report that:
“The most disadvantaged primary and secondary schools in London are expected to see an overall loss of around £16.1 million by 2019-20 ... In addition, the distribution of funding based on area deprivation … shows that pupils who live in the least deprived areas experience the highest relative gains”.
What is fair about that?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness refers to the Education Policy Institute, with which I am very familiar as I attended its one-year anniversary event only a couple of weeks ago. It is a very excellent organisation, ably chaired by my ex-colleague David Laws. As I have said, we are determined to make the funding formula fair. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, it is clear from what we have said that we have looked at the issue of losers. We will redress that in the fact that no school will have its budget cut on a per-pupil basis as a result of these changes. Certainly, as part of the consultation—the 25,000 responses we have had—the point made by the noble Baroness has been made.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, the Minister probably shares the concern of other noble Lords about the number of teachers who are leaving the profession prematurely—especially young teachers, some of whom have told me recently about the unbearable pressures and stress that they have had to endure, which is why they are pulling out of teaching. Given the great cost involved in training teachers to work in our classrooms, does the noble Lord share that concern? Can he tell us how many teachers have left the profession over the course of the last 12 months?
Lord Nash
I completely share the noble Lord’s concern about teacher retention. In fact, the news recently has been quite good. I will write to him with precise details but we are seeing more multiacademy trusts having much better teacher retention programmes because they have much better career development programmes for their teachers. I think it was the case until quite recently that a young teacher coming into the profession could look forward to perhaps becoming a head in about 20 years, but it was very difficult to have any visible career structure in the meantime. As a result of schools coming together in teaching school alliances and multiacademy trusts, teachers can now look forward to perhaps being head of a subject in their mid-20s and even being head of a primary school in their late 20s or 30s. There is a much clearer teacher hierarchy and career development structure, which bodes well for teacher retention in the future. It is also fair to say that we have a much more fluid workforce, and in many professions people leave their chosen line of work and change jobs.
Baroness Manzoor (Con)
My Lords, due to changes in universal credit, local authorities are no longer routinely advising schools on which students are entitled to pupil premium and free school meals. That means that head teachers are having to contact the local authority to find out this information for themselves, if parents are not able to do so or are unaware that they need to give the information. Therefore, some schools in very disadvantaged areas are losing quite significant sums of money. Can the Minister say how the Government can help to ensure that local authorities are carrying out this duty diligently and are not charging for what was originally free?
Education: English Baccalaureate
Lord Nash Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will respond to the public consultation Implementing the English Baccalaureate which closed on 29 January 2016.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, the results of the consultation on implementing the English baccalaureate and the Government’s response will be published in due course—I hope soon.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, is this long delay because the overwhelming public response voices the concern that the EBacc excludes art and design subjects? I ask the Minister not to continue to justify the EBacc with the New Schools Network stats on the percentage of pupils taking one arts GCSE, which represented a shift away from other qualifications, but instead to look at the latest Ofqual figures revealing—two years in a row—a hugely alarming 8% decline in the take-up of arts GCSEs. The EBacc must be scrapped.
Lord Nash
I can tell the noble Earl that it is not a result of the points he has made. We have been considering carefully a great many responses, and there have been a few political issues in the meantime. I am certainly encouraged to see that we have been improving the quality of these subjects with help from the Royal Academy of Engineering and the James Dyson Foundation. The decline in the subjects to which the noble Earl refers has been more than made up for in the substantial increase in the number of pupils taking IT and the now almost 70,000 pupils taking computing.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the GCSEs which are just now finishing this term have seen a drop in every technical subject and every creative and artistic subject? If this trend continues, there will be no technical education or creative education in schools for those aged under 16. This is a disgrace and really is unacceptable. Changes must be made to the EBacc, otherwise the Government will not meet their objective to improve technical education.
Lord Nash
I refer to my previous remarks about the take-up of computer science and the dramatic increase in the number of pupils taking IT. Of course, we must always remember the very low base that we had in 2010 when only one in five pupils was taking a core suite of academic subjects, which we know are so essential particularly for those from a disadvantaged background. I think that we should all be extremely pleased that we have actually doubled the percentage, which is rendering our education provision much more fit for pupils, particularly for pupils from a disadvantaged background.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister please explain the remarks he made in answer to the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty? I believe he said that the loss of entries into the creative subjects is more than made up for by an increased number of entries for IT and computer science. Can he explain in what way those things compensate for one another?
Lord Nash
Numerically. I think we all know that the quality of some of these subjects was not what it might be, and that quite a few people were taking some of them not because they suited them but because they were easier. Of course all schools teach many of these subjects, although it may not necessarily lead to exams, and of course all schools have to provide a broad and balanced curriculum—something which the new chief inspector seems to be particularly focused on, which I am very pleased to see.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that a GCSE is a good basis for starting study? As there has been a drop of 50,000 in the number of those taking design and technology GCSE, how do we get a good basis for those going on to study creative and technical subjects if we cut a subject such as that?
Lord Nash
I agree that a GCSE is an extremely good basis. In fact, the drop in take-up of design and technology over the last six years has been less than the drop over the previous four years to 2010. We are keen to improve the quality of those subjects and to give our pupils a wider choice of subjects.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, given that the Government frequently salute the creative industries for what they bring into the Exchequer and the tourists they bring to this country, is the Minister not concerned about the next generation of creative artists, who are not getting the necessary inspiration they need while at school?
Lord Nash
Again, this assumes quite a lot. As I said, it is clear to us that a number of pupils taking these subjects in the past were not the next generation of creative artists; they were people that suited, for instance, the Labour Government’s equivalence structure, whereby they were helping the statistics. Heads will respond only to the incentives set for them. We have set them an incentive to have many more pupils doing a core academic suite of subjects. That seems to be working and we should celebrate that. But we are investing considerably in the creative subjects, and we have a number of free schools and technical colleges focused specifically on that.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
I very much note the concerns expressed by noble Lords on the teaching of creative and technical subjects, but, perhaps offering the Minister some welcome respite, I will look at another aspect of this Question: the rather worrying trend developing in the Department for Education and its Ministers of the inordinate amount of time it takes them to respond to consultations. In January this year, I asked in a Written Question how many DfE consultations that had a closing date between January 2015 and September 2016 had still not been responded to, including the one in the Question asked by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. The Minister replied, saying that there were seven—one of which, incidentally, was the revision of fire safety for buildings in schools. That cavalier approach may have been something the Government felt they could get away with when they enjoyed a majority. Now that the Tories are merely the largest of the minority parties down the Corridor, will the Minister commit to noble Lords that he will ensure his department replies to consultations in a much timelier manner?
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend truly satisfied that we are exposing our young people to the beauties of art and music, and giving them a proper opportunity to participate, in what is becoming an increasingly depersonalised age where young people spend more time with their machines and hand-held devices than they do with their fellows?
Lord Nash
I certainly agree with my noble friend’s comment about the amount of time our young people spend gazing at screens of one sort or another and the balance that subjects such as music, dance and drama can provide. Of course, all good schools do this, not necessarily aiming at exams—music and dance are compulsory in key stages 2 and 3, as is drama up to key stage 4. As I said, the chief inspector is very focused on this. I am sure that noble Lords will see the fruits of that work in due course.
Fire Safety: Schools
Lord Nash Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Walmsley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the Grenfell Tower fire, what plans they have to review their guidance Fire safety in new and existing school buildings.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, our thoughts and prayers are with the relatives, friends and families, and all those people affected by the Grenfell tragedy. The department certainly has no plans to introduce any changes to its guidance that would make fire safety laws for schools less strict. Alongside the rest of government, we will review and act appropriately on any findings from the tragic events at Grenfell Tower. We are undertaking an analysis of all school buildings to identify any at a fire risk from cladding.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
I thank the Minister for his reply and share his concerns about the victims of Grenfell. Is he aware that last year the London Fire Brigade did 184 school fire safety consultations and that, despite it feeling that all new and refurbished schools should have sprinklers fitted, only 2% of such schools were fitted with them? This indicates that the current guidance is not being followed. Given that sprinklers can save lives and reduce the rising cost of property damage, will the Government commit to making sprinklers mandatory in new and refurbished schools and producing up-to-date and robust information about the cost of school fires in lives, cash and educational disruption?
Lord Nash
My Lords, all new schools must comply with fire safety guidance before they are allowed to open and only in those assessed as low risk are sprinklers not expected to be installed. The number of fires in schools has halved in the past 10 years. The department is not aware of the claims that the noble Baroness makes. Our recent consultation involved discussions with experts from across the fire sector, including the Chief Fire Officers Association and the London Fire Brigade. We would welcome any intelligence that they or she have to offer in relation to this.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the school immediately adjacent to Grenfell Tower is the Kensington Aldridge Academy. It has sprinklers installed, thanks to the regulations that I pushed through when I was a Minister, with the presumption that all new schools should have fire sprinklers fitted. Has the Minister seen the figures from the London Fire Brigade that show that, in the nine years since those regulations came in, there have been 717 fires in schools in London and in only 15 of those schools were sprinklers installed? I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said. Now is the time to go further than the regulations I agreed, to listen to the London Fire Brigade and to make sprinklers mandatory in all refurbishments as well as all new schools.
Lord Nash
I am fully aware of the situation in Kensington Aldridge Academy, which is right next door to Grenfell Tower, and that a number of its pupils have died. Of course we will look at this further. We have not changed the regulations. The regulations that the noble Lord introduced are still extant. Although we thought they were absolutely on the right lines, we thought that in some ways they were a little long and potentially confusing. We have been discussing some changes, but we have no intention of changing those regulations and we would welcome discussions with anybody about any further changes and improvements they think are necessary.
Lord Brookman (Lab)
My Lords, with many other Peers of the realm, I sit on the All-Party Group for Fire Safety and Rescue and sprinklers and the Fire Brigades Union and so and so forth. I have to tell the House that the most frustrating of meetings take place because these people who are really keen on having sprinklers all over the country, not in Scotland or Wales but excluding England, are very frustrated that the Government of the day are not acting accordingly.
Lord Nash
As I mentioned, the recent rather technical consultation we had on the precise wording upset a few people who thought we were reducing the expectation, which we certainly were not. I thought I had pretty much reached an agreement with the APPG on this—but I am very happy to have further discussions.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I am also a member of the APPG for Fire Safety and Rescue, which I joined when I came into your Lordships’ House because the primary school where I was chair of governors burned down in 2004. Because one and a half classrooms survived, it was deemed to be a refurbishment, and under the guidance there was no requirement to increase the level of safety to that required in new schools. The key thing for both new and refurbished schools is that the Government’s advice is advice—it is not statutory. Will the Minister ensure that it becomes mandatory to have the highest standard of safety protection, including sprinklers, in all schools, new and refurbished?
Lord Naseby (Con)
I, too, am a member of the all-party fire group. Is it not right that Members of this House and others who comment from outside should now take a deep breath and hold back a little and allow those who are competent in this world to tell us what action is needed? These actions should flow from proper, deep investigation—and hopefully we as a House will be told as soon as possible what changes are to be made.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, what discussions has the Minister or any of his colleagues had with his counterparts in Scotland to exchange experiences north and south of the border and advice? Here is another sensible suggestion: if he has not had any meetings so far, will he do so now?
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, closer to home, given the long delay to the refurbishment of this building, is the Minister satisfied about fire precautions in the Palace of Westminster?
Education: Design Subjects
Lord Nash Excerpts(7 years ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they intend to take to encourage the study of design subjects in schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash)
My Lords, the Government believe that all pupils should have access to an excellent and well-rounded education. Art and design and design and technology are essential to that, and they are compulsory subjects in the national curriculum at key stages 1 to 3. We have reformed the D&T and art and design GCSEs and A-levels in response to feedback from experts such as the Royal Academy of Engineering and the James Dyson Foundation to make them more rigorous, contemporary and of greater appeal to students.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that skilled design is essential for our technical trades and creative industries? As the Government are correctly putting an emphasis on technical education, are they not concerned about the significant fall in take-up of GCSE and A-level design subjects, with a recent Association of School and College Leaders survey showing a drop of 44% over the past year alone in the number of schools offering GCSE design and technology? Will the Government address these concerns, and if so, how?
Lord Nash
My Lords, the figures for pupil number decline in D&T GCSE have fallen less in the past six academic years than in the four previous academic years up until 2010, so we have arrested the decline. We have introduced computer science for the first time. The number interested in that subject last year along with a substantial increase in IT entries considerably more than make up for the decline in D&T. Of course, as the noble Earl has mentioned, I do not think that anyone can doubt our commitment to technical education given the passing in your Lordships’ House yesterday of the Technical and Further Education Bill. New courses will be based on groups of occupations within the 15 framework routes, which will include creative and design.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, a look at the Government’s website shows the importance of design to our economy, yet since it became a subject that is no longer compulsory in secondary schools we have seen a 50% reduction in the number of young people taking it. Added to that, there will be some 2,000 fewer teachers for the subject by this coming September and half the number of new trainee teachers that are needed for it. This is a real crisis. I agree with the Minister about the importance of this subject, but we need to fix these problems and make design part of a celebration in our education service.
Lord Nash
I agree entirely on the importance of design, and of course we have a number of free schools that are particularly focused on this area. We offer a £12,000 bursary for new teachers coming into the sector to teach design and technology, and as I have said, we are making our D&T courses much more contemporary. Previously, they were very material focused, but now they are more context driven. We are particularly keen to reform them so that we can address the gender imbalance in D&T and attract more girls to study the appropriate STEM subjects. For instance, under the existing D&T syllabus, 96% of the participants in textiles are girls whereas only 7% are studying electronic products. We are keen to address this.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, there is a bigger picture here because design is one of the subjects that some head teachers will be unable to afford to provide if a Tory Government are re-elected and cuts to the schools budget are given free rein. The Minister and his department like to repeat the meaningless soundbite that more money than ever is going into schools. Of course it is, because there are more pupils than ever in our schools; the point is the funding per pupil. Last month the Education Policy Institute reported that by 2020 not a single school in England would be able to report that they had had no real cuts in funding per pupil. That is in direct contradiction of the 2015 Tory manifesto. Can the Minister assure the House that this year’s version of the manifesto will tell parents the truth about education funding plans?
Lord Nash
I know that the noble Lord always likes to look at the bigger picture, but as we all know, and as the National Audit Office and the IFS have told us, the increase in funding per pupil between 2000 and 2020 is 50%. As I have said previously, particularly when I answered a Question and invited the noble Lord to visit the government website, it is quite clear that many of our best-performing schools are also the most efficient schools financially. We have a great deal of advice, toolkits and benchmarks available to advise schools on how to manage their finances more effectively.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, last July take-up of design and technology fell by 10% for the seventh year. That subject and others are being squeezed out of the curriculum as a result of the EBacc. Yet, the artistic, creative and technical side of our economy is worth £500 billion a year. Many companies are finding it quite impossible to employ youngsters leaving school at the age of 16 or 18 because they do not have the skills the industries want. This will get much worse after Brexit. There must be fundamental change to the EBacc to allow a broader curriculum to serve the British economy.
Lord Nash
I pay tribute to my noble friend’s support for technical education. In fact, there is no evidence that the EBacc has had a direct effect on the number of pupils taking arts subjects. In fact, the number of pupils taking at least one arts subject has increased since the introduction of the EBacc. As I have already mentioned, it is quite clear that modern pupils, in addition to being interested in design, are also interested in things such as coding.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister admit that it is shameful that the Government are wasting money on creating new free schools where school places are not needed and cutting the funding for pupils in adjacent schools where the money is needed? The Minister is presiding over a system that is depriving pupils in general because of his and his colleagues’ pet theory about independence.
Lord Nash
I am delighted that the noble Baroness has given me the opportunity to answer that question. Since I have been a Minister for the last four and a half years, 93% of free schools have been created in areas where there is a recognised need for new places. We are spending our money far more efficiently than the previous Labour Government. Despite inflation, we are building schools at least a third more cheaply than Labour’s profligate Building Schools for the Future programme. I constantly face bills from schools built quite recently under that programme, where I have to spend millions rectifying their very poor design.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, drawing attention to my interest as chairman of the William Morris craft fellowships, can I ask what my noble friend can do to encourage young people in our schools to follow the traditional crafts and to have more, proper apprenticeships available to them thereafter?
Literacy in the Workforce
Lord Nash Excerpts(7 years ago)
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Baroness Rebuck (Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare my interests as listed in the register.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, we know that strong literacy skills are fundamental to people’s education and employment prospects. That is why we have taken steps to improve literacy standards for people in the workforce by embedding English into our major education and work-based training programmes. We are also providing full funding for adults to access free English courses up to the equivalent level of GCSE, supporting community and workplace programmes, and working to improve the quality of English teaching for adults.
Baroness Rebuck
I thank the Minister for that Answer, but 9 million adults in England suffer from poor literacy and would struggle to send a simple email or fill in a basic job application form. The CBI’s 2015 business survey shockingly showed that the problem was getting worse, not better. Some 50% of businesses reported a workforce literacy deficit, up from 40% in 2009. The Learning and Work Institute and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimate that an extra £200 million needs to be spent on adult literacy every year to ensure that by 2030 all adults will have sufficient basic skills. Communication, numeracy and digital skills all depend on literacy, so does the Minister agree that scaling up local literacy interventions in the 100 worst-performing constituencies, as identified by the National Literacy Trust and Experian, is a prerequisite to fulfilling the post-Brexit industrial policy? Would he agree to prioritise adult literacy—this is an important question—and provide the necessary funds to address this chronic and worsening problem?
Noble Lords: Too long!
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness is absolutely right to highlight this important issue, which is why we are increasing funding for adult skills participation by 40% from 2015-16 to 2019-20. We have integrated English study requirements into 16-18 education, future technical routes and apprenticeships, and we are working closely with employers to ensure that courses and qualifications meet their needs. I also agree with the point the noble Baroness makes about the importance of local provision, which is what our focus on opportunity areas and the importance of a local offer is all about.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, there are also children who drop out of school before they become adequately literate but who would nevertheless really like to work. Could the Minister arrange to make apprenticeships more open to those who need to further develop their literacy skills?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness makes a very good point and we are doing this; for instance, the Maynard report was very focused on the issue. There has in fact been a doubling of pupils who did not have their grade C in English at 16 achieving it by 19—the number of pupils who have caught up has doubled since 2010.
Lord Bird (CB)
My Lords, if the Government are really determined to tackle the question of literacy, can we see a more vigorous defence of our libraries as well as a more vigorous intervention in our prisons where many of our young men and women are left with deep literacy problems?
Lord Nash
I agree entirely about the importance of books and libraries. We have seen some library closures but this is a responsibility for local authorities, and there are many good libraries. As far as prisons are concerned, the Prison Safety and Reform White Paper has committed to assessing on entry all prisoners’ education needs, including maths and English, in order to create a personalised learning plan and to focus very much on their literacy skills. I agree it is absolutely essential that we educate prisoners so that they can gain employment after their sentence.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister says he accepts that this is a major problem. Does he intend to find £250 million to address it, as was highlighted in the report?
Lord Nash
I think that we have made significant progress. I have talked about the 40% increase in funding over the next five years. We know that the OECD told us that our 2012 school leavers were among the most illiterate and innumerate in the developed world after more than 11 years in education up to 2012. We have made considerable progress on that, which is partly what our apprenticeships and T-level reforms are all about.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
Does my noble friend not think that at the root of this problem is the poor performance of teachers in many of our schools? They simply do not seem to be interested in teaching the basic skills of literacy and other subjects. Perhaps while they are at it, they could also, with benefit, teach some of their pupils how to ask a question briefly and succinctly and not stand and read it for hours on end.
Lord Nash
On the last point, I entirely agree with my noble friend about the benefits of précis. I remember spending a lot of time at school studying précis and I am sure that many people, including civil servants, could benefit from some training on that. But I pay tribute to our hard-working teachers who have supported with enthusiasm our phonics programme, which has resulted in many more children being on track to be confident young readers, and of course we now emphasise the importance of grammar in our curriculum.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, the Minister will confirm that literacy levels are the highest they have ever been, and that is thanks to the dedication of our teachers. However, a small number of young people slip through the net and there are some enlightened employers who help their workforces to develop their literacy skills while they are at work. That not only gives them greater employability but helps with their personal confidence. Sainsbury’s is an example of a company which does that. Will the Minister look at how other companies might be involved in similar schemes?
Lord Nash
The noble Lord is quite right and is always well informed on this. We now have a higher proportion of young people than ever leaving compulsory education with a C or equivalent in English. We also work with organisations such as Unionlearn and the Learning and Work Institute to promote literacy training for people in the workplace. But I shall certainly look at the points he has made and I would be delighted to discuss them with him further.