Freedom of Speech in Universities

Lord Sewell of Sanderstead Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Lord. The position of higher education, support for higher education and the embedding of freedom of speech and academic freedom within our universities are serious issues. This is a serious Government who are interested in finding the right solutions, rather than a political headline.

[Lord Sewell of Sanderstead (Con)]

On freedom of speech, as a former academic, I detect—to put it firmly—a real stitch-up here between vice-chancellors and the Government. Really and truly, they just want an easy time of this and the Government have provided them the convenience of having that. This is not really an issue about freedom of speech because the Government do not believe in it in this context. This is more ideologically driven than anything else.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is wholly wrong. We strongly believe in freedom of speech and academic freedom. It was a Labour Government who enshrined freedom of expression in legislation. The discussions I have had have been not only with representatives of higher education but with advocates of this Act and of freedom of speech and academic freedom. I will continue to do that, and I will not be tempted into the sort of political grandstanding that the noble Lord is attempting to get me into.

Schools: Persistent Absenteeism

Lord Sewell of Sanderstead Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Disadvantage has always been, and sadly continues to be, a major element in whether a child attends. However, we really need to look at those schools in areas of particular disadvantage or with particular challenges—for example, in coastal communities—to see which schools are beginning to break the back of this attendance and persistent absence challenge. We should listen and learn from them, which is where our attendance hubs come in. Those are schools which are having greater success in addressing attendance and sharing that insight with their neighbours.

[Lord Sewell of Sanderstead (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister tell us about some of the data analysis that the ministry has managed to work on over the last few years and how that relates to school attendance?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. The data that the department is now collecting daily from about 88% of schools in the country—we are shortly going to make that mandatory, so that it will be 100%—gives us a real opportunity to have a more granular insight. Understandably, and rightly, there is much emphasis and attention on children who are described as severely absent, who are missing more than 50% of school. However, about a third of children, nationally, have between 6% and 15% absence. That is around the persistence absence threshold, and focusing on those children could make a real difference not only to them but to their teachers, their parents and their peers at school.

Schools: Absenteeism

Lord Sewell of Sanderstead Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I understand where the noble Baroness’s concern comes from. Obviously, the children I meet tend to be hand-picked for perfection, but when I talk to children and suggest to them that not all their friends are in every day, they tell me they need incentives to come in, whether that is fun at the end of the day such as extracurricular enrichment activities or reward schemes. Some of the best reward schemes I have seen are run on a weekly basis, which addresses the point the noble Baroness raises: no child feels they have fallen behind so far they can never catch up.

[Lord Sewell of Sanderstead (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest here as somebody who, as a schoolboy, regularly bunked off school. Noble Lords will be happy to know that I want straight to the library and studied medieval poetry—so that was helpful. I would like to ask my noble friend the Minister if she could give us some good practice examples and models of schools or academy trusts that have brought children back to school.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I find it hard to believe that my noble friend bunked off school—although, obviously, medieval poetry was the first thing that came to mind. In terms of examples of good practice, there is a lot going on around the country. One of the trusts we work particularly closely with is the Northern Education Trust, which runs schools in places such as Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Stockton. I went to visit its North Shore Academy in Stockton, where they are identifying children for whom reading is a particular barrier to engagement. They then communicate when children start to catch up with their reading to the parents, so parents are getting a good news story about their child at school and encouraging the child to go back to school. That, in turn, helps behaviour in the classroom because those children are no longer bored and potentially disruptive. That is the kind of thing on which we are encouraging schools to get together and share best practice.

Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill

Lord Sewell of Sanderstead Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 19th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sewell of Sanderstead (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I thank you all for the opportunity to give my maiden speech during this debate on lifelong learning.

Before I start, I must confess that my wife and daughter have warned me severely that I should not tell any jokes, because they claim you will not find me funny—a bit like dad dancing—so I shall try to refrain. I was also told to refrain from any football metaphors. That said, I am sure that many of you have been curious about this new signing: will he freeze in the penalty box or will he be the new Erling Haaland, able to deliver 50 goals a season and help my party to victory? As my mother would say, only time will tell.

I start by thanking noble Lords across the Chamber for taking me in in my first few weeks. I know many of you smiled as I pretended to know where I was going. I give a special call-out to the doorkeepers, who have been particularly friendly to me, with a great sense of humour—especially the ones from south London. I am also grateful to my noble friends Lord Godson and Lord Mendoza for introducing me to the House and for their continual mentorship, which has been really helpful.

My parents came here in the 1950s, as part of a group of Caribbean pioneers hoping to make some money then go back home. They did not, as a false myth would have you believe, come here to help build back Britain. They were not on some noble mission to save the mother country. However, like many, they stayed on, and soon owned their own home outright while supporting their relatives back in Jamaica and their own children here in the UK. If my parents were alive today, they would be proud of my achievements so far.

The idea of lifelong learning is appropriate, given my long-standing work in education. I am a trained teacher, a teacher trainer, an education researcher and a consultant. In 2002, I was lucky to be part of the board of the Learning Trust in Hackney, the body that took over the miserably failing Hackney education authority; I would like to link these comments with my friends Mike Tomlinson and Alan Wood. At the time, we faced an authority that was deemed not only the worst in Britain but the worst in Europe. Led by those two—as I said, I was grateful to be part of that team—we turned it around within five years. It became, as noble Lords know, one of the best authorities in the country, with the authority’s flagship Mossbourne Academy, which led to the academy movement that we know today. I am really proud to have been part of that movement.

STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—subjects are key to the country’s development. Back in 2004, I had the foresight to create a pipeline programme, starting with 12 year-olds and developing them during the school holidays into a new generation of talent. I called that charity Generating Genius. It led to thousands of young people from poor and black backgrounds studying STEM subjects at university. In fact, when I visit Oxford colleges and hear a south London accent and wonder where it is from, it is often a student from our programme. It is encouraging to know that and to see their fruition—and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, spoke a minute ago about starting early and building up.

The other key aspect of the programme is that we give young people fantastic career development by exposing them to a range of opportunities that their schools would never have the capacity to do. We have recently made the decision to share the programme across all income groups, across the country, from Hastings to Hartlepool.

In 2021, I chaired the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. Using data from the Office for National Statistics, the commission disrupted the usual narrative and showed that many of the disparities in education, employment, crime, policing and health were founded on multiple and complex factors based on class, geography, family structure, and individual and group agency. I am happy to say that the Government accepted all our recommendations and produced an excellent policy document, Inclusive Britain. Racism persists on all levels; I am proud that the recommendations are delivering sensible solutions.

I now see my work as helping to champion a group that has been marginalised, misunderstood and maligned. I am talking about the British small farmer. As a fledgling farmer myself, I must declare my interest. We need to ensure that farming is linked to our developments in science, particularly in hydroponics, and the other green technologies that we in this country are at the forefront of developing. We need to make farming a real skill and aspiration for a new generation.

I am also interested in the need for skills development in young people. In the past, the cry was, “Education, education, education”—I daresay that it occurred across the House. The cry that we are all embracing now is, “Skills, skills, skills”. What emerged from my so-called race report was a recommendation for the Office for Students, the university regulator, to stop universities offering poor-quality courses or face tough regulatory action. We need more students doing vocational-related degrees, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds.

As a farmer, an innovator, a developer of STEM skills and a change manager, I hope to make some humble contributions to the work of the House. I look forward to working with all noble Lords in this great Chamber of revision and scrutiny.