Education: Early Years

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, the noble Baronesses, Lady Benjamin and Lady Walmsley, have already referred to the recent neurological research, which has taught us that the later months of pregnancy and the first two to two and a half years of a child’s life are crucial to that child’s future. During this period, up to 80% of a child’s brain development may take place.

Both this Government and their predecessor have realised the importance of this finding. Both have supported a spate of early years projects, which are designed to help parents when things begin to go wrong. I strongly support this emphasis on early intervention and I especially support it where the projects have been well evaluated and have been shown to be effective.

I put my name down to speak today because I want to ask one important question. Is this intervention early enough? Should we not be starting proactively to prepare children for the challenges of adult life while they are still in secondary school?

In 2010, in his report on child poverty to the Government, Frank Field drew attention to the case for children in secondary schools to be prepared for the responsibilities of parenthood. I believe that he was right to suggest that we should build on the natural interest which young adolescents have as they seek to understand more about the adult world into which they inexorably are moving.

One possible reason why the Government apparently have not responded to Frank Field’s proposal—I apologise if I am wrong and they have—is that if young people in secondary schools were taught how to be better parents, it is extremely probable that some of them would tell their own parents about the rotten job that they have done.

My proposal is for a much more broadly based educational exploration of the challenges, opportunities and responsibilities of adult life, led by the interests of the pupils but guided and moderated by teachers who are specially trained and qualified for the job. Such a programme would include not only the existing citizenship, PSHE, SRE and SEAL programmes but much more. It would concentrate on developing the soft skills, such as building self-confidence, relationship skills, emotional and social skills, ability to work as a team or to lead a team, commitment and character capabilities and care and consideration for other people. I believe there should be a special qualification and special training for teachers involved in such a programme if it is to be a success.

Will the Government consider funding one of the existing universities which already offers teacher training to introduce a trial training programme which could form the basis of a qualification for teachers to lead young people in secondary schools as they explore the challenges, opportunities and responsibilities of adult life? I apologise to the Minister for not having given him notice of that question and I realise that he may want to write to me about it.

It is true, of course, that many—perhaps even a majority of—children in this country will learn about the importance of stable and supportive family life and the needs of young children through their own experiences as they grow up in their own families. Alas, however, in this country today, too many children between the ages of 13 and 17 grow up in families where their parents are not able to give them the parenting they need. The causes, which we all know, include alcohol and drug addiction, domestic violence, mental health problems, poverty, family breakdown or instability and the lack of parenting skills. These families cannot avoid denying their children the opportunity to experience and learn about family life and to learn the skills that one day they will need to bring up their own children. Save the Children has estimated that 85% of a child’s success at school depends on the type of support their parents provide at home.

Today in this country, most 13 to 17 year-old children attend secondary school. A wider distribution of the soft skills could be a powerful agent for increasing social mobility and equality in our society today. Why are we not taking the opportunity in school to prepare these adolescent children, who are tomorrow’s parents, for the day when most of them will find themselves looking after their own very young and vulnerable children?

The Government might say that these matters are adequately covered by the PSHE, the SRE and the SEAL programmes in secondary schools. Alas, this is not the case. Recent Ofsted reports speak favourably of PSHE teaching in primary schools; most of them rate at least as satisfactory. However, the same is by no means true for secondary schools. Ofsted says that in too many of these schools today, PSHE is a Cinderella subject, taught—if it is taught at all—by teachers with no training and little interest in the subject. Will the Government take action to ensure that all children in secondary schools are helped to explore, under professional guidance from specialist teachers, the challenges, opportunities and responsibilities which they will face as they become adults, not least the responsibility to provide for their children a loving and caring family environment?

Education: Development of Excellence

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, you must be weary. I shall make only one short but important point. I want to draw attention to an area of education in which I believe there is a serious and lamentable lack of excellence in our education system today. Ofsted tells us that in most of our secondary schools personal, social, health and economic education is being badly taught or not taught at all. Ofsted reports tell us that PSHE teaching in most secondary schools is very much a Cinderella subject. It is mostly taught, if taught at all, by teachers with no specialist qualification in the subject, given little or no curriculum time and edged out by examination subjects. In contrast, Ofsted tells us that PSHE in primary schools is, on the whole, well or at least satisfactorily taught.

Most young people of secondary school age are keen to understand more about the responsibility and challenges they are going to encounter in adult life, not least the challenges of parenthood. These issues need to be explored interactively but under guidance as part of every secondary school’s PSHE education programme and as part of the adolescent’s preparation for life. Ministers justify the status quo by quoting an Ofsted figure for all schools. That figure shows that in 74% of all schools, Ofsted considers that PSHE teaching is “satisfactory” or better than satisfactory. Does that figure contradict that report saying that it is bad in secondary schools? I am no statistician, but it seems that if you add together the large number of satisfactory primary schools with the much smaller number of secondary schools, which are unsatisfactory, you are bound to get a confusing and misleading answer. The Ofsted reports on secondary schools make the picture absolutely clear; most secondary schools are failing their pupils in this area.

In my view, it is irresponsible not to prepare adolescents adequately for the challenges and opportunities of adult life in a way that is excellent. It is irresponsible to leave them to rely mainly on soap operas for the knowledge they need and irresponsible of us not to encourage and support them in exploring what the future holds for them. Will the Government please look seriously at the possibility of setting up or sponsoring, at one of the major teacher training establishments, a pilot project to establish and develop specialist teaching skills in this area?

Young People: Parenthood

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to supporting good parenting, but we do not believe that it is the Government’s role to tell parents exactly how to raise their children. As such, we are funding services that offer advice and support to all parents, but we do not plan to prescribe how or what skills schools need to teach their pupils, or to test pupils’ knowledge about parenting when they leave school.

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that amount of comfort, but does he not agree that responsibility for the quality of parenting in our society is basically shared between the parents of the child and the state in its various forms and through its various agencies? It is essential that parents should understand the responsibilities for which they are responsible. The obvious place for them to learn that is in secondary school as they grow up. However, as the noble Lord confirmed when I asked a Question on 17 May, the Government are determined that secondary schools should not be obliged to teach parenting skills. I hope that I can persuade the Government to think again on this subject, both on the question of whether those skills should be taught in school, and secondly on the urgent need for a cadre of teachers to be developed that is skilled in dealing with that subject.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I agree very much with the point the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, makes about the importance of parenting. He is absolutely right that schools can play an extremely important part in helping to prepare young people and helping them to understand some of the issues that he discusses. Our difference of opinion is over the degree of prescription that there should be. As he knows, rather than adding things to the national curriculum, we are trying to take things out of it, partly to provide more space for the teaching of these sorts of issues that he refers to.

Schools: Parenting Skills

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Northbourne]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to implement the recommendation of the Independent Review on Poverty and Life Chances that parenting and the responsibilities of parenthood should be taught in all secondary schools.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, the teaching of parenting skills in schools falls within the remit of personal, social, health and economic education. We are reviewing PSHE to determine its core body of knowledge and improve the quality of teaching without being overly prescriptive about it. Schools will have the flexibility to determine whether they include parenting skills as part of their PSHE lessons based on local circumstances and the needs of their pupils.

[Lord Northbourne]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for that Answer. However, I cannot help wondering whether the Government take this issue sufficiently seriously. Are they aware of the number of children who arrive in school at five years old damaged by a lack of appropriate parenting—sometimes almost by a lack of parenting at all? Do the Government realise the extent to which this damages and will continue to damage those children, and makes difficult the coalition’s commitment to developing social mobility and equality in schools?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

The Government do take this issue seriously. I know how much the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, cares about it and I was glad to have the chance to discuss some of these issues with him a month or two back. The Government are taking a range of measures such as extending free education and care to 15 hours a week for disadvantaged two year-olds from September 2013, and doubling that again by September 2014. We have announced parenting trials and more flexible parental leave, so there are a number of measures. When one draws those together, I hope he will see that we take this issue seriously. We need to approach it across a broad front.

Education Bill

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, this is an important amendment and it is important for the Minister to respond to the questions that have been raised. When the Government were first formed, they made great store of talking up the importance of teaching. Indeed, the title of the first White Paper that the new department published was The Importance of Teaching. Just now, I looked up the discussion document on teacher training published in June this year, where the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, begins his foreword:

“If we want to have an education system that ranks with the best in the world, then we need to attract the best people and we need to give them outstanding training”.

Clearly, if we believe what the Secretary of State is saying on that aspect of the Government's policy, the Secretary of State understands the importance of trained, qualified teachers.

I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said in preceding me and it is important to offer people the opportunity to come in with other expertise and knowledge. However, there are ways of doing that while still preserving the importance of qualified teachers. For example, it should be easier for people to become qualified and to train on the job in terms of pedagogy. What I would not want to see is this opening the door to a sort-of “Jamie's Dream School” approach. Just because you are brilliant in your field—you might even be a brilliant noble Lord—it does not mean that you are necessarily going to be a brilliant teacher. I think that those of us who watched any of the episodes of “Jamie's Dream School” will have been appalled at times by the inability of some of those people, brilliant in their subject, to relate to children and to teach them. It needs some training so, yes, we should allow some of those brilliant people to enter the teaching profession but we should also allow them an opportunity to train and gain pedagogical understanding as they do so, under the supervision of a qualified teacher. That is what this amendment offers.

I am concerned that as the free school policy develops, it is being informed by a belief on the part of some in the department that if it works in independent schools, it must work in free schools and in the maintained sector—because independent schools can have non-qualified teachers, it must be fine. We have heard the parallels with health, for example, and about whether it is fair to presume that if I bowl up to a hospital and it has let somebody practise, it will be all right and it does not really matter whether they are qualified. I do not like that idea. I would not trust someone to treat me as a medical practitioner unless they were qualified and I would not want to trust my children to a teacher unless that practitioner was qualified.

Many or most independent schools do a great job but they do that with a very narrow set of pupils. I know that if my friends in the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference were listening, they would be shouting at me but it is fair to say that it is often the case that those pupils are from fairly narrow backgrounds and do not, by and large, have quite the same behavioural challenges or some of the obstacles that have to be overcome in the maintained sector. I would be looking for training to inculcate those sorts of skills in teachers.

This is a good amendment. It seeks to give some guarantees on quality. We have had debates during this Report stage on the weakening of admissions and on some schools being exempted from inspection by Ofsted. We seem consistently to be weakening some of the measures and guarantees of quality in order to pursue and make a success of this free school policy in terms of numbers and flexibility. If we are to go with the free-market approach to education, we need to hang on all the more tightly to guarantees of the quality of the workforce, the quality of the inspection and fair admissions. We have also talked about fair funding. In the end, I will always come back to this in debates on this Bill: I fear that unless we can give some guarantees about the workforce being qualified, we will lose quality in some of these free schools.

In the United States, some of the charter schools were set up with the best of intentions by parents who were dissatisfied with what was going on locally. They might think, “Well, I’m okay as I have done a bit of home education myself. I’ll rock up and teach—it’ll be fine”. They are very well intentioned, and it might be fine for their kids, but I am not persuaded that it is fine. The experience of so many charter schools in the United States is that it is not fine; so many of them have failed. There are some great ones, but many of them are not great. I do not want to take that risk in this country.

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, this suggests that teaching is not entirely about qualifications; it is also a gift of God. However, that was not what I intended to ask. I wanted to ask the mover of the amendment what is meant by “non-specified work.” I am concerned —so are the Government, and indeed we should all be concerned—about, for example, those who do not have a tendency to be very successful in academic qualifications and who need to get fulfilment in life from their work, or from other skills. Why should not someone be taught to use a lathe by someone who is brilliant at using a lathe, rather than by someone who has an academic education? Or perhaps I have got it wrong.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, this is an amendment about professionalism, and I think everyone who has spoken supports the importance of professionalism. I commend the Government for what they have done in this area already, as well as the previous Government, as important things were done then.

However, I have reservations about a universal requirement for a particular kind of qualification. If we take the example of health, I would not mind being nursed by a nurse who was not a graduate, although actually these days, that does not seem to be on. I do not want to push that analogy at all, but to point up the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Perry: there may be exceptions. There may be individual cases that, if we were too rigorous, would be excluded. However, the question—which I believe has just been raised —is of proportionality, and whether it can become disproportionate in, for example, free schools.

There is a real danger there, and I have already expressed worries about inspection and exemption from inspection in these areas, which is why I think the questions raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, are fundamental. I approve of the use of the word “normally” here, and I wish it was in more legislation, but “normally” must then be monitored. I hope there are clear answers to the questions that she has asked.

Education Bill

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Northbourne]

76A: Clause 40, page 36, line 39, at end insert—
“( ) in the case of any school taking in children at compulsory school age, the extent to which such pupils are emotionally, socially and cognitively “school ready” when they join the school;”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, this relatively modest amendment contains an important principle. It is on that basis that I shall take the time of the House to introduce it. This Bill makes major structural changes to our school system which I support. We need to recognise, however, that for many schools the burden of responsibility for delivering satisfactory educational outcomes will change. Many primary and secondary schools will themselves have to justify their success or failure much more clearly. They will have less opportunity to have the comfort of being able to pass the buck to the local authority. Education and well-being in the early years foundation stage will still remain wholly the responsibility of the local authority. So there will be an educational interface between the local authority and schools when the child reaches the age of five. My amendment is designed to draw attention to the possibility of friction—or, indeed, of unfairness—at that interface.

The amendment would ensure that there will be an objective assessment of school readiness of children as they enter their primary school—whatever kind of school that may be. This assessment could be used to estimate the extent to which any poor outcomes in any particular school arise from the school being overloaded with children who, when they joined the school, were not school-ready and thereby deflecting resources to remedial work when those resources should have been available for teaching.

The criterion for a successful school is to add value to the child’s education. We need to be able to identify which institutions are failing to deliver the appropriate amount of added value: is it the schools or is it the early year settings? If we want to achieve this Government’s objectives—and I think we probably all believe in them—to improve school outcomes and reduce inequality in our society, it is important that children arrive in school with their foot on the first rung of the educational ladder to be socially, emotionally and cognitively ready to settle in and to learn. Today, alas, we still have far too many children who are not school-ready at the age of five.

I thank the Minister and his department for the help that they have given to me and for the information about the current situation as regards inspection at age five. I have to say that much more is being done than I was aware of when I set down this amendment. Most children are being assessed for progress towards completing the early years foundation stage of the curriculum and those assessments are available to the public.

I do, however, have two serious concerns. The assessments are being made by the providers of the early years foundation services that the child is receiving. They are, therefore, far from impartial. If we are to have a fair assessment of the added value that a school or an early years setting is delivering, the starting point as well as the outcome must be assessed impartially. My second concern is that a small but significant minority of young children today are still not participating in the early years foundation stage programme. This is often because their parents do not want to make contact with the authorities because they are afraid of having their children taken away. Yet these are often the most disadvantaged children of all—often from families designated as hard to reach. They therefore tend to be the children who need most remedial help when they get to school. They are therefore heavy users of school resources. They are the most likely to fail in school, yet they are not taken into consideration in the assessment of the intake of the school.

Is the Minister prepared to give an undertaking that the arrangements for checking each child’s school readiness when they join a primary school at five years old will be improved so as to be impartial and include all children joining the school, not just those who have been following the early years foundation stage programme? It would also be comforting if the Minister could confirm that, just as schools may be criticised if they do not give their pupils the educational added value they need, some way will be found to chase up recalcitrant local authorities which are failing to help those children most in need. I beg to move.

[The Lord Speaker (Baroness D'Souza)]

My Lords, I understand that there has been agreement that Amendment 76A shall be grouped with Amendments 77, 78 and 79.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I will certainly write to my noble friend.

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, if you were setting up a business to manufacture and sell bicycles and you were going to subcontract the construction of the wheels and maybe the bell to another provider, would you not inspect the wheels and the bell when they came in? Would you rely entirely on the provider to give you the inspection that you need to ensure the quality of the pieces that you were bringing in and putting together and on which your life’s work would depend?

The Minister has kindly given us a great deal of detail about what the EYFS does and all the inspections that take place, and it is very exciting that that is happening, but I am looking at it from the point of view of the school in this particular case. I think that the school needs to have an independent assessment to ensure that the input into the school is up to standard; and if it is not, then extra funding perhaps needs to be provided to enable the school to give special support, rather than having to take money away from its educational work in order to have to pay for restorative work to bring children up to speed.

I will read the reply carefully, but I am sorry to say that I do not honestly think that the Minister has covered the point that I tried to address. That may be my fault for not addressing it sufficiently clearly. Under the circumstances, I certainly do not intend to take the matter any further and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 76A withdrawn.

Education Bill

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I hear the expression “fair access”, but it is possible to develop arguments for different kinds of fairness. Is “fair access” clearly defined anywhere? We are turning this legislation on the assumption that we all agree about fair access. However, fair access might be for the poorest children, or for the children with the greatest educational need, or for the cleverest children, as they are the children who are most likely to profit from an excellent education. Can we have a definition of “fair access”?

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I see that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is exercised by his inability to define what a parent’s responsibilities are. Along the same lines, he is looking for us to define what “fair access” is tonight.

I would like to speak to my Amendment 70 in this group. It is identical, I think, to the one that I tabled in Grand Committee when I raised this issue. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, said, we are making some changes in this legislation to the powers of the adjudicator. I was concerned that, since the adjudicator cannot look at wider issues but only at the complaints put before him or her, there was nobody who could take a view across the piece and see whether injustices were arising in different places in the country. Indeed, if one could see a pattern emerging, somebody ought to do something about it.

I followed up our debates in Grand Committee by raising the issue with the Secretary of State. I pointed out that we on these Benches do not usually want to give additional powers to the Secretary of State, but in this case we thought that it was necessary, partly because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, said, the schools landscape is becoming more and more complex and diverse and many schools are now their own admissions authorities. So I am pleased to say that, along with my noble friend the Minister, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is of the view, as I understand it, that he already has these powers and duties. The only reason I tabled my amendment again was to give my noble friend the opportunity to put it on the record under which statutes the Secretary of State already has these duties. If that is perfectly clear, I see no reason to press my amendment.

Education Bill

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships’ House for not being here at the beginning of the debate. I want to make a few remarks in response to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack.

No one is suggesting that the teaching of Christianity should be banned from school. That is not the point at all. The question is whether people should be required to take part in worship. It is all very well for the right reverend Prelate to say that pupils can be excluded, but being excluded puts them aside, apart from everyone else, and makes them feel outcasts. That surely cannot be the intention. One final point is that all sorts of things are taught in school—Greek mythology, for example—but nobody expects people to believe it.

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, can help me. In his speech he mentioned the universal values that are common to mankind, and also the moral values of our civilisation. Can he tell me where I can find those values set down clearly? This is a very relevant issue. The various revealed religions of the world set out a set of values, whether you like them or not. I have been trying to find a clear definition of the responsibilities of parenthood. I cannot find it.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, I, too, apologise for arriving late through inadvertence. I adopt everything that my noble friend Lord Touhig and the right reverend Prelate said. I say to my noble friend Lady Whitaker that it is not the teaching of one faith but of the faith that has run like a thread through our history, literature and language. To deprive our children of what may be their only opportunity to learn about that faith—

Education Bill

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Northbourne]

1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Foundation Stage
During a child’s first five years, both the father and the mother have a responsibility to do their best to provide or procure for their child the early education, including the personal, social and emotional development that child will need when they enter primary school at 5 years old.”

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I apologise to the House as I did not hear the amendment being called. In Committee, I received strong support from all sides for my amendments on the importance of early years parenting. We all agreed that too many of the nation’s children today fail to get in their early years a foothold on the bottom rung of the education ladder. In her report published earlier this year, Dame Clare Tickell says:

“Parents and carers are the people who have the most important influence on children’s early development”.

She goes on to say that “clear and unambiguous evidence” shows that 44 per cent of children,

“are still not considered to have reached a good level of development by the end of the year in which they turn 5”.

The issue of how we improve school readiness is clearly important.

In his response to my amendments in Committee, the Minister suggested that my concerns were dealt with by Section 1 of the Childcare Act 2006. Having read it very closely, I find that the Childcare Act 2006 indeed sets out general duties on local authorities in relation to the well-being of children but it addresses the issue in terms of institutional childcare and nursery education. It makes no mention of the need to encourage, help and support parents who struggle to support their child with the start in life that it needs. The Act makes no mention of early years education in the home.

Looking at it in detail, Section 1 of the Act provides for free-of-charge provision of early childhood services. Section 2 defines the meaning of early childhood services and mentions parents only in that context. The rest of the Act makes it clear that the services referred to are institutional childcare services. They do not cover the role of parents and family members in the home. In my opinion—I say this with regret to the Minister—the Childcare Act 2006 is not a good basis for addressing the issue of the needs of parents, and indeed grandparents and family members, in their role as carers and educators of a young child.

The Government’s policy seems to be to deploy all available resources to the provision of out-of-family childcare and early education rather than supporting adequately parents in their efforts to educate in the home. As the noble Lord, Lord Peston, wisely said in his excellent intervention in Committee, the Government cannot take on the role of a parent.

Of course, institutional childcare has an important part to play but so do attachment, love, care, encouragement and education in the family. In the first two years of life, most children spend almost all their waking hours with a parent or surrogate parent. Even when they start to spend 15 hours a week in nursery school, they will probably spend the vast majority of their waking hours within their family. It is also important to remember that some families, often the most vulnerable, do not have any contact at all with institutional childcare services—often because they fear that if they did, social services might take their child away. In my view, there is the strongest possible case for working with and through parents, and through family structures, to help potentially disadvantaged children to develop emotionally and socially so that they are school-ready when they reach compulsory school age. The Childcare Act 2006 does not address these problems.

I turn now to Sarah Teather’s position paper Supporting Families in the Foundation Years, which unfortunately became available only after we dealt with these issues in Committee. Sarah Teather’s report is excellent and most welcome in many respects but it, too, fails to place sufficient emphasis on developing more and better in-family education in the early years. It does not give it anything like the same level of importance as it does to institutional care outside the family—I am sorry, my computer made a mistake and printed something in the wrong place.

The Government are making a mistake in this. I cannot see much hope in changing the policy by putting this matter to the vote during the Report stage, but I should be very grateful if the Minister would agree to meet me to discuss whether there is any possible way in which we could put more emphasis on in-family education as well as out-of-family education.

The three amendments which I have set down today move in the same direction as my earlier amendments but have much more modest objectives. Amendment 1 is about the very strong case for trying to reduce unwanted pregnancies, and to do that by making all parents, especially men, more aware of the obligations that they have to any child who they bring into the world. This is a matter not of outdated Victorian values but about what we believe is fair to the child. Surely every child should, as far as possible, have a chance to get their foot on the bottom rung of the education ladder before they go to primary school. Well informed and well motivated parents are the best and, incidentally, probably the cheapest way to achieve that objective. I believe that a reduction in unwanted pregnancies will not be achieved by making laws or by providing more institutional childcare. It can happen only as a result of a change of heart in our society, which would require a major campaign such as the one that so successfully addressed passive smoking. A clear statement such as this amendment, if accepted, would produce a solid basis for such a campaign.

I have set down the second and third amendments in my group because I believe that there is a strong case for making someone explicitly responsible for ensuring that the services to parents which the Bill establishes are actually being delivered by the wide range of different bodies that will be involved. It seems to me that the pattern of joint working that the Government propose for the early years services will lead to extravagance, duplication and inefficiency—especially when it comes to shared budgets. What business would run successfully without someone in charge? I have selected my amendments on the basis that so much of the delivery of this programme will fall on local authorities and they should have to answer for the effectiveness of delivery in their areas. At national level the Department for Education should have overall responsibility to Parliament in order to ensure that the outcomes of the programmes are being delivered because I believe that the early years programme is a key element in the success of the Government’s policy to improve educational outcomes and to reduce disadvantage.

I have set down these amendments because leadership is a subject that should not pass without some discussion in this debate. I beg to move.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I very much commend the objectives of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. I feel sure that my noble friend the Minister would also do so although I strongly suspect he would not accept that they should be put in the Bill. They express the Government’s intention in relation to helping and supporting parents. I am sure we all understand how important well informed, confident parents are to the upbringing of our children.

I agree with the noble Lord that we need a change of heart in this country. We need to accept that parenting can be learnt. I was in New Zealand during the summer and talked to the people who instituted its highly successful SKIP programme of parenting assistance, support and information. It is based on the premise that you can learn to be a better parent if you are well informed about how children develop, how their brains develop, what works and what does not, and what is good for the child and what is not. We can do that in two ways in this country. One is to start with PSHE in schools and work with young people to help them understand the seriousness of what they take on, as the noble Lord said, when they become parents. Later we can provide more assistance to parents.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for his somewhat qualified warm words about my honourable friend Sarah Teather in another place. I would point out that she announced during the conference season this year that the Government will be providing more funding for parents who wish voluntarily to attend parenting classes. That is very much a step in the right direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, it has been an extremely good debate to kick off Report stage. Like others, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for raising this issue. No one has done more than him to keep the importance of parenting before this House. No one could possibly disagree with him about the vital role that parents play and about the importance of helping children get off to the best possible start in life. He is always keen for the Government to do more, but I hope he will accept that there is a lot going on in the early years already.

I imagine the noble Lord saw the announcement made yesterday by my honourable friend Sarah Teather about the parenting trials that will be run in Middlesbrough, High Peak and Camden. My noble friend Lady Walmsley referred to the lead that my honourable friend Sarah Teather is taking in this respect. Those trials will give parents access to parenting classes during the first five years of their child’s life so they can have help with parenting until the child starts school. I would be very happy to arrange for the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and any other noble Lords who are interested, to be briefed more fully on those trials.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, said, the Government are protecting support and advice for parents in some other ways as well. We funded a range of voluntary and community sector organisations to operate online and telephone support services which, in the past three years, have had 10 million contacts from parents. They give help to parents in the important job of bringing up their children, and there is more news coming on those later this week.

The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has tabled three separate amendments relating to parenting. The first would be a duty on parents. While I agree that parents—both fathers and mothers, as has been said, not just mothers—have a responsibility to provide for their child, including promoting their personal, social and emotional development, we do not believe that imposing declaratory obligations on parents is the right way forward, as my noble friend Lord Eden of Winton, also argued. We know that most parents do a good job, as my noble friend Lord Storey reminded us, many in difficult circumstances, and we therefore do not think that they need a new legal duty to do what they do naturally. The duty would also be unlikely to motivate the small number of parents who do not do a good job. We would argue that what is needed is practical help and support of the kind that a number of noble Lords have already raised—for example, about communication, a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, underlined from her distinguished experience as Children’s Minister.

The kind of support we provide is offered through Sure Start children’s centres. I know that the noble Baroness is concerned about those and their future, as we discussed yesterday and will discuss later today. The Government are putting in enough money, through the early intervention grant, to sustain a national network of Sure Start children’s centres and to make sure that they focus on those with the greatest disadvantage. I have mentioned the parenting trials and the helpline services. There are programmes for families with multiple problems or the kind of flexible working that was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote. We are also adding 4,200 more health visitors. Those are the kind of health visitors who will be able to carry out the sort of assessment that was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. I shall come back on his points in a moment.

We have protected the 15 hours a week free nursery education for three and four year-olds, and, subject to parliamentary approval, we will extend that to disadvantaged two year-olds. Local authorities are under statutory duties to ensure that there are sufficient children’s centres to meet local need, so far as is reasonably practical, and to provide information to parents about the services available locally to help them. That brings us on to the important points that were raised about information, particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. The point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, was echoed by my noble friend Lady Benjamin. He is right to highlight the importance of speech and language to children’s school readiness. The Government, on the recommendations of Dame Clare Tickell, are introducing a review of children’s progress at age two. We are looking at bringing the health and education aspects together in the way that the noble Lord said. I know that my honourable friend Sarah Teather is looking at that, but I will also raise the point with my noble friend Lord Howe.

With regard to information generally, there is quite a lot of information out there. The early years foundation stage profile gathers information on a child’s preparedness for school. Under existing legislation, local authorities are required to collect information about children’s progress in the early years foundation stage at age five, and the Secretary of State publishes these data annually at both the local authority and national level. But what I will do, which might help noble Lords, is to write to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and set out in one place the various ways in which information is provided so that we can pull it all together and see what is out there.

Like all other noble Lords who have spoken, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for raising the profile of parenting. I would be keen to take him up on his generous offer of discussing these important issues further after Report stage and to arrange for him to meet my honourable friend Sarah Teather who has responsibility. I will speak to the noble Lord with a great deal of pleasure.

As regards these amendments, we do not think that the statutory declaration is a necessary or practical way forward. I know that I will have disappointed the noble Lord but in light of the existing duties around the provision of information and services, I would ask him to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I always get a bit nervous. It makes me feel a bit of a bore when everyone is so kind as to say that I am always raising these issues. But they are none the less important. Perhaps I may take what the Minister said first—I think it was referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Eden and Lord Peston, one against and one in favour—as regards why it would be a good idea to put something in the Bill. It is not at all an original idea. The Children (Scotland) Act 1995 already has a very good definition of the responsibilities of parenthood.

Earlier this autumn, I was at a wedding in France. I was interested that the mayor read out certain extracts from the Code Civil to the married couple. Loosely interpreted, one extract said, “If you have children, you as parents will be responsible for feeding and caring for your children”. It is not unthinkable or way out to suggest that some sort of hint of obligation could be in statute. I suggest it more as a matter of principle. As someone said, our moral values have hugely changed, not always for the worse, since the introduction of contraception. We really have not thought the issue through properly to ensure that everyone understands what we as a society believe to be the responsibilities of bringing a child into the world. Somewhere, somehow, some Government have to have the courage to get people together and to say, “Look, this seems to be a reasonable compromise solution”. It should be thought of in terms of the rights of the child.

I do not think that the noble Lord spoke to my two other amendments but I shall read what he said. There is an element of chaos in the organisation that the Government are proposing. The speeches of a number of noble Lords today have shown that one person is doing one thing and another is doing something else, but one did not know that the other was going to do it, and this, that and the other. Somehow, it needs pulling together as an organisation if we are to get results, and get them at the right price. I am sure that an enormous amount of money is now being wasted in terms of duplication.

I am very grateful to so many noble Lords for participating in the debate on this important subject. I had something to say about what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said but I have forgotten what it was. I hope that we shall move forward on these issues from one Bill to the next. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I think I can give the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, some comfort on Amendment 4 because I am very familiar with a document called the coalition agreement. Although we cannot bind any future Government, this Government are bound by that agreement. I do not think it would allow any reduction at all in the amount of early years education provision given to children in this country during the five years of this Government. Turning to Amendment 5, I agree with the noble Baroness on the point about qualifications. The most reputable pieces of academic research into the effects of early years provision make it clear that the better the qualifications of the staff leading a centre, the higher the quality of provision and the more good that does for children. Indeed, it has also been shown that poor provision can do more harm than good. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that we should focus on improved qualifications for the early years workforce.

On the number of Sure Start children’s centres, it is a pity that the noble Baroness’s diary was unable to allow her to attend the meeting and seminar of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Sure Start last week, at which we heard from a number of local authorities. It has to be admitted that they were all struggling to continue to make the provision they wanted to make for children and their parents. It was startling to see how differently they approached the issue. One of them pointed out that while in some cases they had closed a physical centre, they had not ceased to provide services to children and their families because they were being offered out of another centre, or from a virtual centre or something like that. We have to allow local authorities to work with the budgets they are given and make provision in the way they see best. But, of course, we also have to allow them to impose their own priorities on the provision they make. I am delighted that so many local authorities consider Sure Start children’s centres to be so important that they have somehow managed not to close any or reduce the services they provide.

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I would at this point offer a brief thought on this amendment, which I do not entirely support. All the payments we are making are about inputs and what really matters is outcomes. How and whether it is possible to measure the output from a children’s centre, I am not entirely clear. It would not be easy and, so far as I have had any experience of children’s centres, there is a wide variation; not only in the quality of the service that they offer, but also in the clientele they offer it to. In one that I visited, it was quite manifest that the parents were quite wealthy, and when I asked them what they did about hard-to-reach families, they sucked their teeth and said, “Well, they are hard to reach”. So it is outputs that we should be paying for, not inputs.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, it is clear from the discussions that we had earlier in Committee and the exchange today that everyone on all sides of this House agrees on the importance of investing in children’s early years. We know that high quality early education is crucial to achieving greater social mobility and to improving the life chances of all children. That is why the Government seek to extend the free entitlement to early education to disadvantaged two year-olds. Clause 1 allows us to build on the provision that the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, established through the Childcare Act 2006. I was grateful for her generous welcome for the measure. I know how much it means to her. I also know what a respected Children’s Minister she was, so I think there is agreement across the House on the importance of this measure.

Since we last debated this clause in Committee, the Government have published their Families in the Foundation Years policy statement. That sets out the Government’s vision for the foundation years as a whole and reaffirms our commitment further to improve early years services. It includes a number of proposals specifically on the early education free entitlement. For example, we intend to launch shortly a public consultation on how the flexibility and quality of provision of the entitlement could be improved. This consultation will also cover the criteria for which two year-olds should be eligible for the free entitlement.

Despite the challenging economic circumstances we face, we have protected funding for the three and four year-old entitlement and provided the additional funding that the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, referred to for disadvantaged two year-olds.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, set out her concerns underlying Amendment 4, and I understand what she seeks to achieve. The current entitlement for three and four year-olds is set at 570 hours a year, over no fewer than 38 weeks a year. That is, 15 hours a week. We now seek to extend this to all disadvantaged two year-olds. While I understand the case that the noble Baroness made about protecting the level of this entitlement in primary legislation, the question that I would ask is the same that my noble friend Lady Walmsley asked: protection from whom?

This Government, as my noble friend says—I am sure she is accurate, since she knows the coalition agreement extremely well—have given repeated assurances over the early education entitlement. I am also sure the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, recognises that, and her party clearly believe that one would want to move only in one direction. So do the Liberal Democrats.

The first amendment in this group seeks to tie the hands of future Governments regarding the entitlement and I would contend that we do not think it is the place for primary legislation to prescribe that level of the entitlement. Those details should lie in regulations. That was the approach taken by the previous Government when they initiated free entitlement for three and four year-olds in the Childcare Act 2006. When the noble Baroness was in my department, they argued in their memorandum to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in 2006 that:

“It is appropriate that this provision is in secondary legislation to give flexibility to react to changing circumstances”.

We believe that was the right approach.

Subsequent Governments will have to make their own judgments on the appropriate level of the free entitlement. We are responding to lessons that have been learned from experience since 2006, and in particular in extending it to disadvantaged two year-olds, and it is possible that future experience may throw up other lessons. So, as the noble Baroness conceded that she would expect, we believe the first amendment is unnecessary.

The noble Baroness’s second amendment concerns the sufficiency of children centres to meet local need and the qualifications of the staff working at them. There is no difference between us about the importance that we attribute to children centres. They are vital to improving outcomes for children and their families—a point made also by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne—and it is the outcomes rather than the inputs, to use the jargon, which are important.

There are, year on year, overall improvements in early years foundation stage outcomes and that is vital. We know that 94 per cent of children who achieved a good level of development at age five in 2007 went on to achieve the expected levels for reading at key stage 1 in 2009. So there is a clear link.

The existing legislation requires local authorities to ensure there are sufficient children centres to meet local need so far as is reasonably practicable. The effect of the noble Baroness’s amendment would be to take out having regard to what is “reasonably practicable”. We should stick with the current formulation. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley argued, local authorities need the flexibility to be able to determine local priorities in the context of their many responsibilities and, yes, the resources that they have available to them. Again, that was the position that the previous Government took in 2009: local authorities must be able to consider their local context, their resources and their overall priorities as they strive to ensure access to services that improve young children’s outcomes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, is right to say that local authorities are facing difficult financial circumstances. I know of her concern about the funding going into Sure Start children centres. She or one of her colleagues in another place has carried out their own work to ascertain the extent of what is going on. The department is monitoring the situation and is working with local authorities to get an accurate fix on what is happening. She will know probably better than me that it is a fluid situation, and we want information from which we can see how things are developing.

As my noble friend Lady Walmsley has just mentioned, and mentioned yesterday, many authorities are keeping all their children centres open. Local authorities should have the flexibility to deliver services in the ways they think best meet local needs within the resources that we have.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, about the importance of qualifications. Again she will know that for some roles qualification requirements are in place. The statutory framework for the early years foundation stage specifies that all supervisors and managers of registered childcare settings for children under five must hold a full and relevant level 3 qualification and half of all other staff must hold a full and relevant level 2 qualification. Those health services delivered through children centres can be provided only by suitably qualified and experienced professionals because of other statutory requirements already in place. As Dame Clare Tickell said in her recent review, there has been an improvement in the skills of the early education and childcare workforce in recent years. We have set up recently a review of qualifications for the early education and childcare sector, led by Professor Cathy Nutbrown, to consider how best to strengthen qualifications and career pathways.

Children: Parenting

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Northbourne]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they propose to accept the recommendations in the recent report by Frank Field MP on child poverty that all children should receive age-appropriate parental education in school.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, we will consider Mr Field’s recommendations as part of our review of PSHE. Evidence suggests, though, that parenting skills are best taught to parents through a mix of practical application and learning, which is likely to be more effective the closer it is to the age at which people have children. My honourable friend Sarah Teather will shortly publish a foundation years policy statement to respond to recommendations from the Field, Allen and Tickell reviews that deal with the foundation years.

[Noble Lords]

Order!

[Lord Northbourne]

I know that the noble Lord is aware that Frank Field, in this and previous reports, carried out research in his constituency on the teaching of life skills in schools and found a widespread majority of young people in favour of such instruction. This is not necessarily a question only of parenting; I believe that Frank Field recommended life skills and parenting. Is the noble Lord prepared to institute a wider inquiry to find out what children and young people really would find helpful in life skills and parenting education?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, part of the purpose of the PSHE review to which I referred is to look at what element of the content of PSHE is most helpful to children and young people. The other part is to look at what support teachers need in order to teach these important skills to children.