Educational Trips and Exchanges

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I say a huge thank you to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for securing this debate. The importance of educational trips and exchanges between England and other countries cannot be underestimated from an academic, educational, cultural or economic perspective. They are often life-changing for the pupil or student, who establishes bonds of friendship that can last a lifetime, and of course it develops our soft power.

Universities report that the amount of funding through the Turing Scheme is only a fraction of what the last combined Erasmus+ award was. As a consequence, the opportunity to undertake creative study and work abroad is limited to students on a course with a mandatory period of exchange or students who are able to fund their period abroad themselves. The former is already troubling, as we are aware of the importance of exchange, but the latter is especially detrimental to the Government’s commitment to equal opportunities. This funding shortfall is, unfortunately, not the only issue impeding equal opportunities.

In the first analysis of the Turing Scheme, fewer than half of university students felt that the funding covered half of their costs on placement. Additionally, many described worrying a lot before funding was confirmed, then struggling with day-to-day living costs while waiting for funding to come through. More students reported significant delays in response to their application to the scheme. This means that students who rely on funding to start their exchange will feel forced to drop out of it when delays in funding occur.

Although the Turing Scheme was promised to be a real game-changer for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, it is especially those students who will be negatively affected. I have no objections to the Turing Scheme but, in departing from the Erasmus+ funding, we ought to ensure that the Turing Scheme is equal, if not better—as of course was promised by the Government and Ministers.

The number of students coming to the UK on trips and exchanges is on course to decline for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic. We should all be concerned about this. A report by Universities UK emphasises the importance of international students to local economies throughout the UK. It states that the economic benefits associated with students coming to the UK on exchange programmes are currently being underestimated. Unlike the former Erasmus scheme, the Turing Scheme does not provide for this reciprocal funding. This cut in funding for inbound students raises concerns not just for them and local economies, but for how universities are to sustain relationships with other institutions, say, in research and other educational projects. Moreover, it begs the question whether this reflects the inclusive and welcoming image that we aim to portray as a nation.

Although the Government are clear that they do not intend to establish reciprocal arrangements, I urge them to re-evaluate that stance. Whether it is for languages, music, education, understanding or just plain old-fashioned friendship, a new Government need to work either to restore Erasmus or to develop, as was promised, a Rolls-Royce alternative.

Childcare Entitlements

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity for us to discuss the Statement made yesterday in the other place. I thank the Minister for repeating it today in your Lordships’ House. Noble Lords present are probably united in thinking that the Government’s aspiration in expanding free childcare is welcome. However, unfortunately, it appears that currently only the Government believe that their flagship policy is on track.

My first question to the Minister is: why are Ministers proactively bringing a Statement to Parliament to say that everything is on track, when the Government’s own auditors are now saying otherwise, without the Government acknowledging that there are issues? When I suggested yesterday at Oral Questions that the policy was in trouble, the Minister stated that

“it is a huge success”.—[Official Report, 23/4/24; col. 1369.]

I woke up to headlines that indicated that I was not far off. In light of the report published today by the National Audit Office, will the Minister accept that the policy is, at the very least, at risk of not going to plan? Even the Telegraph is reporting that parents are facing worse childcare under this Government’s childcare expansion.

Are the Government still guaranteeing that every eligible child has a spot now, that every eligible child will have a spot later this year, and that every eligible child will have a spot in September next year? Are parents getting the savings that they have been promised? Why have the Government repeatedly dismissed genuine concerns about the rollout of the plan, when the problems are so clear and stakeholders across the board are highlighting the same problems?

Even the DfE has the expansion as its top programme risk, with risks including insufficient places, operational infrastructure not being ready, insufficient parental demand and an unstable market. When will the Government make a formal response to the NAO’s report? Furthermore, could the Minister confirm that the DfE has itself

“assessed its confidence in meeting milestones beyond April 2024 as ‘problematic’”?

Does she agree with the NAO that the extension does not “achieve its primary aim” or demonstrate “value for money”? How did the DfE think it was appropriate to set dates for expansion without engaging with the sector or understanding local authorities’ and providers’ capacity? Will the Government act on the NAO’s recommendations about continuously reviewing the achievability of the 2025 milestones and will they now publish interim performance thresholds?

I return to the point I made to the Minister yesterday: the DfE’s own pulse survey from last week found that 45% of childcare and early years providers said it was unlikely that they would increase the number of places they offer to under-threes as a result of the Government’s childcare expansion. The NAO estimates there is in fact a net reduction in places—albeit just a 1% reduction —since 2018, but this is at a point at which we need a significant increase in places. Could the Minister outline what the DfE’s plan is if it accepts that it will struggle to reverse this trend, if it finds that the providers simply cannot afford to offer free places, or the one in three nursery and pre-school providers that the Early Years Alliance says are at risk of closure simply do not survive? This would potentially put 184,000 places in jeopardy. How does the Minister explain the disparity between what the Government say and what the sector, parents and councils, and now the NAO, are saying?

The Statement repeated today states confidently that

“no local authorities are reporting that they do not have”

sufficient “places to meet demand”. This is very different from the National Audit Office view that only 9% of areas are confident that they will have enough places. To clarify this point, I contacted the Local Government Association, which told me that councils have reported greater concerns about the next stages of the expansion, where it will extend to children and families who would not previously have accessed childcare to this extent. It is deeply concerned about provision for families that require a different range of childcare options, such as outside traditional hours, or families for children with SEND.

The Coram Family and Childcare survey found that England has seen reductions in the availability of childcare in all categories. Worryingly, the greatest reductions have been in childcare for disabled children, which I understand is now at 6% sufficiency. Can the Minister say why this is the case and what the Government will be doing to remedy this? Local authorities are also concerned about recruitment, particularly because of the higher ratios required for under-twos. They are concerned about the lack of sufficient level 3 qualified staff in the sector. Is the Minister confident that recruitment is on track?

There is broad consensus on the need for a decent childcare and early years offer, including increasing free hours. It is a shared ambition across political parties to have an improved system that works for parents and carers and delivers the best start in life for children. Labour genuinely wants better childcare and early years provision. We have commissioned a review by Sir David Bell to assess a way forward. We want a well-planned, well-designed system that delivers for children and improves the offer to parents.

I am confident that the Minister also wants a system that works, but the first step in this instance to getting that has to be for the Government to accept that there are problems, and work to get this scheme back on track. I look forward to her response as to how, in light of the serious risks facing this flagship government policy, the promised expansion in free childcare and early years provision will be delivered.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her detailed Statement. I would guess that all of us aspire to the aspirations that she espoused on childcare. The issues that we are concerned about—and they concern a number of people—are around whether this can be delivered. I listened to the Statement with great care and the words that were missing were not about numbers but about quality. I have always believed, as my party always has, that it is not just about providing childcare. It has to be quality childcare—and I did not get a sense of that in the Minister’s Statement. There are a number of issues. She mentioned pay, quite rightly, but it is about training as well.

As we have heard, the National Audit Office has raised concerns that plans to extend free nursery provision could compromise—again, that word—the quality of childcare as the sector expands to meet demand. The NAO cautioned that hiring inexperienced staff and a lower supervision ratio for two year-olds could undermine childcare quality. There are also worries about whether inspections by Ofsted would identify issues early enough. The NAO has highlighted concerns about the Department for Education’s confidence in delivering required places, with only 34% of local authorities expecting to have enough places by this September. On the other hand, the Minister has painted an extremely positive picture of rollout. It will be interesting to see who is right.

This ministerial Statement did not mention or address the up-and-coming report and findings, which have been described as utterly damning by the early years sector. The Government must address the findings of this report urgently. The report concludes that there is a risk posed by

“the lack of contingency and flexibility”

in the Government’s “fixed, ambitious timetable”. It is therefore important that clarity and reassurance is provided quickly on how they will address the report’s findings. Families across the country will struggle to plan their arrangements if certainty over the next phase of the rollout is not provided.

Only 17% of nursery managers said that they could offer the extended entitlement, due to the crisis of recruitment and retention. What will the Government do to address this recruitment and retention issue?

Finally, I was interested to hear about the campaign to use unused schools. The Government want to set up what I think they call “in-home nurseries” to create some of the 85,000 places needed. How many schools will be used in the pilot scheme that the Minister told us about? If the scheme is successful, how many schools do they think they will be able to finally use?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank both noble Lords for their questions and for sharing, as we all do across this House, the ambition for all children, as we know the importance of a great start in life.

I will start, if I may, where the noble Baroness did in relation to the National Audit Office report and her question, which was echoed by the noble Lord, about when we will respond to the National Audit Office formally. I can give the House some sense of that today but, in terms of timing, we will also be giving evidence on this subject to the Public Accounts Committee on 8 May—so our plan is to respond to both the NAO report and the Public Accounts Committee in the normal way.

On the NAO report itself, I absolutely understand why both noble Lords rightly raise its challenging aspects, but it is also worth noting some of the more positive aspects. The NAO report identifies that the programme has been fundamentally successful in the rollout so far, meeting and actually surpassing the April 2024 objective. It confirms that the trajectory and take-up of this expansion in entitlement is the same as previous expansions. It also notes that it expects that the number of places being taken up will continue to grow and notes the phased introduction of the new entitlement.

On the recommendations, the noble Baroness opposite raised the achievability of the September 2025 milestone, whether the department would be setting interim performance thresholds and how we would respond with corrective action, if needed. Of course, we continually review the deliverability of the programme. We have a local authority delivery team; we have our insight unit, which analyses the data; and we have pulse surveys, stakeholder groups and provider groups, so we are really well connected into the sector. We have set a series of milestones that cover local authority readiness, sufficiency and workforce and, by the end of June, we will set regularly spaced performance thresholds. We will use those to assess the growth of capacity places and the workforce. Of course, those can and should be updated as needed, as we get live data in.

By the end of June this year, we will agree a set of staged corrective actions, if those actions are needed. To support that, we will also use our data better. We regularly update both our supply and demand modelling, and we share that directly with local authorities. We have a set of KPIs for the programme, which we monitor regularly.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, raised a point about the quality of staff and the risk that, with less experienced staff, the quality might suffer. We do not really accept that. Back in 2021 we made major reforms in early education, which the noble Lord will remember. These were designed to improve outcomes for all children, but particularly for disadvantaged children and children with special educational needs. In October last year we published the evaluation report of those reforms, which showed that practitioners have really benefited.

As we continue with the rollout, we will be looking at the availability and quality of places for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Similarly, for those with special educational needs and disabilities, we will be looking at what the impact is if we see new providers and staff entering the market.

We have also commissioned and funded the children of the 2020s study, which collects longitudinal data on elements that influence cognitive and social and emotional development during early childhood. Obviously, we will share that data.

Deliverability was a key part of both noble Lords’ questions, and the workforce is a critical part of that. It is fair to say that, where we are further away from a delivery deadline, it is not unreasonable that confidence in readiness might be lower. Looking at where we were in November in our pulse survey and what providers were saying about their readiness for April, 65% of them said that they were ready. By the March survey, one month ahead of the extension, that figure had risen by 16 percentage points to 81%. That is just normal.

It is also important to note that all types of providers that took part in our pulse survey have increased their capacity in the last year by over 20% for group-based and school-based providers. The figure is rather more for childminders although, as your Lordships know, they represent a smaller part of the market. On applications, for group-based and school-based providers, the number of applicants to vacancies is now on average five to one, which is a really healthy and promising indicator for the future.

The noble Lord also talked about retention, which is clearly critical. It will be important to improve retention in order to reach our objectives. The additional funding, the visibility of funding and the ability of providers to plan will make recruitment and opportunities in this sector more attractive, but there is work to do to deliver that.

The noble Lord also asked about the number of schools. We are working in a small number of areas with those schools to build a template of what might work. We will test that and, if it is successful, roll it out.

The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, asked about wraparound care outside formal hours. In the Spring Budget last year, we announced £289 million to support the expansion of wraparound childcare for primary school-aged children.

Finally, the noble Baroness rightly raised concerns over this programme delivering for children with special educational needs. She will remember from my remarks yesterday that we are conducting a review of how the special educational needs inclusion fund works to make sure that it is as good as it can be.

We have chosen a phased approach to make sure that we learn as we go along with the implementation of this expansion, but we are doing everything we can to make sure that it is a success.

School Meals for Children

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Cooking and nutrition are firmly within the national curriculum: in design and technology they are compulsory between key stages 1 and 3, they aim to teach children how to cook and the principles of healthy eating and nutrition. It is also picked up in the science curriculum; indeed, through the Oak National Academy, we funded a module on cooking and nutrition that will equip children leaving school to be able to cook at least six predominantly savoury recipes that will support a healthy diet.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, is not the problem that the tendering process for school meals is based on cost and not quality? Of course, there is another side to school meals, and that is the famous packed lunch. The experience of teachers and head teachers of packed lunches is that they are mainly filled with bags of crisps, chocolate biscuits, fruit drinks et cetera—not necessarily fruit drinks but canned drinks. Has the Minister any idea how we can ensure that packed lunches as well become a healthy nutritional meal?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord touches on issues relating to how parents bring up their children, which is obviously delicate territory for the Government to pronounce too firmly on. Our messaging around the risks of obesity and on healthy lifestyles more broadly is obviously picked up by parents. Our family hubs also look at things such as nutrition. On the first part of his remarks, I should say that the department centrally offers a service called Get Help Buying for Schools that supports schools to negotiate high-quality and affordable catering arrangements.

Free Childcare Scheme

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

It is slightly curious to say that delivery is falling short when the new entitlements start in April of this year. The noble Baroness knows that we have made a significant investment in capital to support local authorities. We have made a number of innovations in relation to the workforce and the uptake of the scheme has been very encouraging. Most importantly—I think the Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed this—we have announced very generous funding rates, particularly for younger children.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I think we are surprised at the confidence of the Minister, given that we have seen a 50% increase in the number of nurseries that have closed in just the last year, that 40% of nurseries say they are undecided as to whether they will deliver the new funded offer for two year-olds, and that 20% say that they will but that places will be limited. Why is the Minister so confident about this scheme? We hope she is right, but can she give us more reassurance as to why she thinks it will definitely happen?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The first thing I would say is that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord are right that this is a very ambitious expansion of childcare. However, the really significant increase in capacity will be in September 2025, so we have some time to put in place what is needed to deliver on that. The noble Lord talked about the number of nurseries that have closed. I know he is also aware that the childcare workforce has gone up year on year, over 2022-23, and is up by 40,000 places—I mean that the number of places has increased in the past five years by 40,000, while there has been a 1% annual decline in nought to five year-olds.

Higher Education

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for securing this debate and for his thoughtful comments.

I look back with affection to those heady days of the 1980s and 1990s when the higher education sector in general and the university sector in particular were going through a period of transition and growth—the establishment of new universities and the evolution of polytechnics to university status—although before that the Wilson Government had formed the Open University, which was a pioneering world first. It gave students of any age, background or, indeed, geographical location the chance to study for a degree. Its partnership with the BBC was quite unique.

We saw in the late 1990s how universities released their validating powers and other institutions became stand-alone colleges and/or universities. The higher education sector blossomed and flourished. In my own city, the University of Liverpool was joined by Liverpool John Moores University, and then Hope, Europe’s first and only ecumenical university, was established—joining together two former Roman Catholic colleges and an Anglican teacher training college. More recently, the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, Paul McCartney’s and John Lennon’s former grammar school, has become a performing arts higher education college.

The universities complement each other, as they have worked together on many collaborative projects. The old notion of town and gown is very much still alive in Liverpool; for example, in working together with Liverpool City Council on a science park.

Britain is home to 137 Nobel Prize winners, second only to the United States, a fact that should be of great pride to us all. We are a land of academic progress and innovation. Our physicists pioneered atomic and nuclear physics and our economists designed the liberal world that we live in. Today our universities keep producing world-class, ground-breaking research that shapes our country and our world. Research briefings and research papers of our doctors and professors have inspired policy at the United Nations, the White House and the European Commission, as well as leading innovation in some of the largest global corporations, in the fields of engineering, information technology, artificial intelligence, medicine and much more. But the impact of research carried out in our universities is not limited to the grandest history-shaping excellences. For every history-shaping innovation, there will be millions of attempts by dedicated students and individuals contributing each day to moving the frontier of knowledge one step ahead. These are the students and people we need to support as, without them, there would be no innovation.

But what now? Student fees have not gone up in eight years, and costs have doubled. Student numbers are down, and some universities are facing recruitment problems, as we have heard. Universities are facing severe financial difficulties. Staff salaries have declined, and the brightest and the best are regularly poached from overseas, particularly by universities in the USA. Many staff are now appointed only on fixed-term contracts—try getting a mortgage when you are on a fixed-term contract. Like all of us, universities have been harshly hit by the pandemic and the recent higher costs of living crisis. Universities reporting year-on-year deficits jumped by 5% from 2015-16 to 32% in 2019-20, according to Universities UK.

We need to financially support our universities to keep producing the high-level research that we pride ourselves on and to keep leading in the world of innovation. The plummeting value of domestic tuition fees is forcing universities to rely more and more on overseas students—that is a good thing, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, but they are increasingly hard to recruit. We need to recognise that foreign universities have increased competitiveness and are gaining in popularity. Europeans were once charged domestic fees in UK universities. Now, facing triple the yearly tuition fees, most of them are diverting to new destinations, with the Netherlands scoring highest. Others are finding US universities better value for money, as fees in American colleges have almost come to match tuition fees in the UK.

All this is not to say that our universities are perfect. They always need to support and value the best staff, and the staff always need to put the best interests of the students first. As a society, we need more than ever to have high-level skills, to support our higher education sector and to see a new renaissance in learning and research.

Schools (Mental Health Professionals) Bill [HL]

Lord Storey Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 1st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I obviously start with a big thank you to my noble friend Lady Tyler for this Private Member’s Bill. She is a worthy parliamentarian to take up this issue and to stick with it until she gets the result that is so needed for our children, schools and colleges.

I have rarely been in a debate where I have agreed with every single point that colleagues have made, whether it is about eating disorders, gardening grannies or Tourette’s. I was so glad the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, talked about it, because I had not thought of the effect on children themselves. I suppose that, in some respects, it has all been said before. Indeed, we had the precursor to this Private Member’s Bill last week. Good: the more we talk about it and the more we raise these issues, the more we all learn, and Governments of the day take action.

I look back on my 23 years as a head teacher, and mental health was not talked about in schools. Yes, there was bullying, and schools had bullying policies. Yes, there were behavioural problems, and schools had behavioural policies. Yes, there were children who perhaps behaved in odd ways, and did not turn up for school, et cetera. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester and the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, were absolutely right to say that you do not deal with non-attendance by penalising but by finding out the reason why pupils are absent—it might well be because of a mental health problem. The last thing that we want in the world is for those people not attending school to suddenly decide to be home educated so they will not be penalised.

So these things did not happen and then gradually local authorities and the health service started establishing CAMHS. That was a lightbulb moment for all of us; we saw how effective CAMHS could be in supporting children and young people. And then, sadly, through no fault of politicians perhaps, along came the recession and Covid. Everything ground to a halt. Cuts were made and services suffered. I look back, as I have said many times before, to my local authority of Liverpool. We lost a third of our budget and so looked for things that had to go. Some support services were lost.

I will make a few brief points. We talk about mental health support for children and young people, but get this: it is also needed for teaching and non-teaching staff in schools. Two months ago, I met a head teacher of a very large primary school who had had a serious mental breakdown. He was so busy being concerned about and supporting his staff and pupils that his own health suffered. He should have had support readily available.

As my noble friend Lady Tyler said, across the political divide, we all want the same result: qualified and readily accessible mental health support provided in our schools and colleges. There are variations in what we can provide and how we make that provision. We on these Benches feel that it should be for all schools, not just secondary schools, although we recognise that it may make sense to share that provision across smaller primaries. As my noble friend points out in her Bill, we need properly qualified staff, with wraparound support from other professionals. We understand that there will have to be a rollout, but this should not be an opportunity for delay and penny-pinching.

I also make the obvious observation that early intervention by proper diagnostic support is the most effective provision. The earlier the support needs are identified, the better the pupil, student or staff member can be helped.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, used the term “lobbying”—well, the more they lobby me, the better. We have had important briefings from a number of organisations, such as the Mental Health Foundation, Barnardo’s and the Centre for Mental Health. The Mental Health Foundation makes the important point that levels of mental health awareness within education settings remain highly variable. It calls for a minimum level of provision and qualified mental health professionals in every school. It also stresses how important anti-bullying programmes are to young people, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, pointed out. Mental health issues often start with low-level bullying.

The Centre for Mental Health called for the full rollout of mental health support teams in schools and colleges and a fully resourced national implementation programme to support every school, college and university so they can adopt a whole-education approach to mental health and well-being.

Barnardo’s backed the call for mental health support in all schools, but made the important point, as did my noble friend Lady Tyler, that mental health support teams do not work for all children. Many with moderate or complex needs cannot be supported by MHSTs and do not meet the criteria for child and adolescent mental health support—CAMHS. It believes that the model should be expanded to include counsellors to allow children to access a consistent offer of support.

I think we were all moved by the personal tale from my noble friend Lord Russell. Perhaps “courage” is the wrong word for it, but good on him for being able to stand up and use his own personal experience.

I have two questions for the Minister, which may already have been raised. First, where does mental health figure in the training of teachers, if at all? I think the right reverend Prelate mentioned that. If it does not, why not? Secondly, we are talking about schools but there has been some mention of universities and higher education. I am conscious that universities and the higher education sector are either wholly autonomous or semi-autonomous, but how do we make sure that the necessary support and provision are there? Is it just left to those stand-alone institutions to provide it?

Finally, we must all hope that my noble friend Lady Tyler is successful with her Private Member’s Bill, and I once again say a big thank you to her.

Skill Shortages in Business and Industry

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Storey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the skill shortages affecting business and industry.

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

My Lords, one-third of UK vacancies are due to skills shortages. Sectors with large shortages include construction, information technology and communications. This Government have committed to developing a world-leading skills system that delivers the skills that employers need through T-levels, apprenticeships, skills bootcamps and higher technical qualifications. Where there are key shortages, we have introduced programmes such as the construction and digital bootcamps to increase the supply of people with the right skills.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that helpful Answer. Since this Oral Question was tabled, I have been shocked by the number of employers who have written to me. The Heat and Building Business Council says the UK has faced significant challenges in attracting engineers, despite substantial salary increases of up to 35%, which of course contribute to rising costs for the clean heat sector that are ultimately passed on to the consumer. How do we encourage young talent to consider engineering and green technologies as a secure path for the future?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am sure the noble Lord will agree that many young people are attracted to working in areas that will address climate change, environmental issues and sustainability, but they might not always make the association with those engineering roles as opposed to some others. We are working with business through our Green Jobs Delivery Group, and with the Green Apprenticeships and Technical Education Advisory Panel, making sure that our standards map on to those occupations and that that is backed by great careers advice for young people.

Pupil Mental Health, Well-being and Development

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I too want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for securing this important debate. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, will be pleased to know that Everton ward, one of the most deprived communities in Liverpool, is celebrating 10 years of In Harmony—I have been invited—and it has been life-changing for some of those young people.

I am changing what I was going to say. For starters, the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, ought to have been a primary teacher—no two ways about it. It is only nine or 10 years ago that I was the head of a three form-entry primary school in a place called Knowsley, outside Liverpool, with 500 pupils from one of the most deprived communities in the country. We had 96% attendance, the children wanted to come to school, and they were enthusiastic. We had science trails with parents, technology days, and all the children, from year 3 to year 6, went away to the Isle of Wight for either a weekend or a full week. Parents did all sorts of things for the school, and raised huge amounts of money. I look back and ask: what, sadly, went wrong?

By the way, this school had three Ofsted inspections, and we were a good school for all three of them. The results were above the national average; this is not me boasting—it was due to the teachers and pupils of that school. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, that we did not get an Artsmark—but we did get a gold Artsmark. One of my very average teachers was doing a literacy lesson when the Artsmark inspector came, so I was thinking, “Oh no”, but then she came back and told me it was the best lesson she had ever seen—that the teacher had done the literacy lesson with percussion instruments. I thought, “Wow, I’ve underestimated him”. He was brilliant and rose to the occasion. With all that enthusiasm, the pupils wanted to learn and come into school; 97% of our pupils went to the local secondary school and the links were fantastic. It was not just my school—the five other primary schools and the Church of England primary school all worked together and the local authority gave us support when we were in difficulty. We supported each other. I do not know why we have lost all that.

Several noble Lords have talked about the alarming mental health statistics for our children and young people. Two sets of statistics have not been mentioned. First, terribly sadly, the numbers of young people taking their own lives, the numbers of young people self-harming and the numbers of young people with eating disorders are all increasing every year. Secondly—of all the statistics we have mentioned, this really concerns me—10% of children aged five to 16 are clinically diagnosed as having mental health problems, but 70% of them had not had appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age. Had we intervened as early as we could have done and had the support mechanisms there, we might have prevented some of the problems we face further down the line. It is a bit like the discussions we used to have about special educational needs; if we can diagnose autism or dyslexia at an early stage then we can intervene and do something about it, and the same should be true of mental health.

I am sure the Minister will tell us about the resources the Government are spending on mental health, which are to be welcomed and applauded, but we face a mental health emergency and there is a huge hole in the current provision. Last year, fewer than half—44%—of the 1.5 million children who needed additional support had not received a CAMHS appointment. A report conducted last year by the Children’s Commissioner found that the average waiting time in England between referral and the start of treatment is the highest it has been for two years. Some 35% of those classified as having high psychological distress say that they have not received the support they sought and Barnardo’s points out that children with moderate mental health issues are falling through the gaps, as they are considered too acute for intervention from mental health services but do not meet the threshold for CAMHS, as my noble friend Lady Tyler said.

Schools have been helping children and young people with mental health problems through online tutoring, particularly those with special educational needs, some of those in alternative provision and those who are home-educated. That scheme will come to an end this summer, with its £200 million not going back into education but being returned to the Treasury. That is a lost opportunity. I know that the tutoring programme was brought in during Covid, but it was immensely successful and has helped huge numbers of children, particularly those in deprived communities. Will the Minister look at how we can keep that programme? It is no answer to say that it can be provided from the pupil premium; that is already overstretched and in many schools some of that money is used for mental health support.

What should we do in this mental health emergency? My noble friend Lord Russell told the House what we would do: we would put a statutory duty on every state-funded school to make provision for an education mental health practitioner or a school counsellor. A mental health practitioner means a person with a graduate- or postgraduate-level qualification accredited by Health Education England. For schools with 100 or fewer pupils, the duty may be satisfied by a collaborative provision between schools.

We also need urgent financing, training and provision for CAMHS staff, and indeed for school support, whether it comes from the school psychological service or from speech therapists. Children with speech and language challenges are twice as likely to have difficulties with mental health.

I am sure that many colleagues will have received numerous briefings from charities and professional bodies, and I thank them. I was particularly taken with the Mental Health Foundation, which had a very pupil-focused approach, with clear, school-based actions: school anti-bullying programmes; the whole-school approach that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, mentioned; targeted programmes; implementation of a trauma-informed approach; supporting the most minoritised and marginalised pupils; looking at comparable studies in other countries; and learning from the experiences of young people themselves. There was the remarkable quote from one young person:

“Despite the profound impact on individuals and communities, mental health remains largely undervalued and shrouded in silence”.


I end with a comment the Minister made in response to the Select Committee report on the 11-16 curriculum. As was pointed out, sadly, all those recommendations were rejected by the Government. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said:

“Exams are a great leveller, whatever a pupil’s origin or level of disadvantage”.


Exams may or may not be a great leveller, but they are also very stressful. We have more tests and more exams for our children and young people than any other country in the world. Perhaps our target-driven schools need to be more focused on a child-centred approach, which would certainly help with mental health issues.

I end by repeating the quote from that young person:

“Despite the profound impact on individuals and communities, mental health remains largely undervalued and shrouded in silence”.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a truly interesting and varied debate. I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on securing it. There can be nothing more important in a child’s development than ensuring that they have good mental and physical health, not least in what many noble Lords have noted is a complex and often confusing world.

Children need a healthy, caring, constructive, lively and varied school environment, of the type to which the noble Baroness referred in her opening remarks. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, good mental health is a prerequisite for learning. My noble friend Lord Touhig powerfully articulated the need for children to have the confidence to succeed.

I also agree wholeheartedly with my noble friend Lady Morris that academic education and mental health and well-being should not be seen as being in competition with each other. I am very much in the camp which believes that schools should prepare children for life and work, and liked how my noble friend Lady Morris articulated how this might be balanced in relation to exams, and how people view exam success and failure.

I do not, however, think that this excludes fun or creativity. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, on the need for creative arts to be a key part of school life and the lives of students. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester also spoke powerfully to this point, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, on the work of the charity, Books Beyond Words.

My noble friend Lady Blake did not speak in this debate, but I understand she did great work as leader of Leeds City Council in ensuring that all children had access to learning a musical instrument. This is the type of thing that can enrich children’s lives and make school life much more rewarding.

I found the contribution of the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, on physical activity and food very compelling. Clearly, the quality of food in school is an issue that my noble friend Lord Brooke has campaigned on with vigour, not least on sugar, and will continue to do so.

From what we have heard today, none of us can be in any doubt that we have a huge mental health crisis among children and young people. As the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, also made clear, schools have a very distinct role in identifying and triaging issues. Schools and teachers do incredible work in a difficult environment. Schools sometimes struggle to meet the needs of their students, and teachers do not always have the support they need, or the time or expertise to identify and deal with student mental health issues. CAMHS cannot deal with the scale of the demand, with unacceptable delays for treatment that risk an individual’s mental health issues escalating.

I return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, about the focus on fun. I think that we all now want to visit his school, so he should expect a queue for us to do that.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

He should change to being a primary teacher.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

He does not have to become a primary school teacher; he can carry on as he is.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, mentioned the need for a whole-school approach, as did others, but what we really need is an understanding of how we get a better whole-system approach—I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on that. Surely, that is what is needed to address the issue. There is a clear need for the Government to drive forward and work much more on a cross-departmental basis. The NHS, individual schools, charities and local authorities cannot solve the child mental health crisis alone. The noble Lord, Lord Wei, discussed the need for school pathways to be made clearer and simpler for parents and children, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s reflection on his point about the correlation with decisions that parents might make on home schooling.

I will give a personal view of an amazing meeting I had this week with a fabulous group of students from the Ark King Solomon Academy near Edgware Road. It was a reminder of how a good school can provide a truly nurturing environment. The students spoke to me about the mental health provision in their school with their vice-principal and the charity Place2Be, whose services the young people had accessed. They told me that Covid had led to isolation, that they needed more clubs and activity to improve their well-being, and that PHSE could do so much more than it does currently to help young people understand their mental health and how to deal with any issues they might face. They also said that their parents often did not know how to help, so the parents also needed additional support to help deal with the issue.

The provision that the students had accessed had given them a sense of belonging and a trusted space. But they said that there was a need for more provision, so that students did not have to wait to access services. The students were hugely articulate in how they spoke about their experience and the need for young people to build resilience. I have no doubt that their school and their parents are incredibly proud of them. After they met me, they went to No. 10 to deliver a letter to the Prime Minister; I would be very grateful if the Minister could ensure that it reaches the right person for a response.

We cannot talk about the role of schools in mental health without discussing the wider context. The scale of the problem was mentioned by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, who noted that the rise means that, on average, five children in a class of 30 are likely to have mental health issues. He also noted the recruitment crisis in specialists.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, asked what was probably the most valid question of the whole debate: what is going on? In 2022, 1.4 million children were referred to CAMHS, with 270,000 children waiting longer than three months to begin treatment. The Local Government Association has found that at least one in six children and young people aged seven to 16 has a probable mental health disorder, which increases to one in four for young people aged 17 to 19. The Children’s Commissioner, who has been quoted several times, has raised particular concerns around older teenage girls; she found in her report last year that nearly two in five of 16 to 17 year-old girls were unhappy with their mental health. Things going wrong— such as when children and young people do not get support in a timely way—can lead to forced hospitalisation. In the worst cases, unresolved mental health issues lead to self-harm and attempted or successful suicide, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, highlighted in his remarks.

Children living in poverty, where parents separate or have a financial crisis, or children whose own parents have poor mental health or poor health, are even more likely to have poor mental health themselves. As my noble friend Lord Touhig said, children with speech and language difficulties are twice as likely to have a mental health issue than their peers—the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, also highlighted this point. This is also the case for children and young people with a wide range of other special needs, physical illness or disabilities.

Can the Minister say what the government view is on how provision is currently tailored towards the needs of different groups of children, and what more can be done to ensure that children and young adults get access in a timely way? To tackle an issue of this scale, you surely need a thorough understanding of what needs to be addressed—and with apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, I do not think that policy should be made routinely at London dinner parties.

Can the Minister clarify whether the Government intend to start to routinely collect statistics on mental health provision in schools, including the type of provision and therapy provided? As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, this should include a cross-referencing of this with other data, including absenteeism. If not, can the Minister tell the House when the Government at the very least intend to carry out a new survey, given that it is almost a decade since the last one found that only 62% of schools offered counselling services? However, I understand that that figure has risen. Can the Minister provide information on how many schools now have counselling services? Are the Government, like Labour, committed to specialist mental health support for children and young people in every school? Furthermore, can the Government provide a demographic breakdown of the number of children accessing mental health services in schools and through CAMHS?

Finally, I acknowledge that I am clear that the Government know that there is a problem. However, I do not feel that they have yet managed to introduce a comprehensive solution—the proposed ban on phones in schools is evidence of this. Many noble Lords referenced social media and phones. However, many schools have introduced this, and head teachers have noted that they cannot control their use out of school. Having heard today’s debate, what more is the Minister able to commit to the Government doing to address this epidemic of mental health issues in children and young people, both in and out of school, to ensure that our young people get the support they need to thrive both socially and academically through their childhoods to successful adult lives?

Schools: Special Educational Needs

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Again, I stress that not every special educational need requires a diagnosis. Children should get support regardless. If we look at the age at which children get an education, health and care plan as a proxy for diagnosis, we see that around a quarter receive an EHCP under the age of five, with almost half getting one between the ages of five and 10. That has been very stable over the last 10 years. The remaining quarter are above 11. I understand that these can be stressful, difficult times, but there has been relative stability over many years at the age of diagnosis, although there is greater identification of specific issues—in particular, autism.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I note what the Minister said in reply to my noble friend about new provision being made; that is to be welcomed. Ofsted inspections have found a shortage of school places and special school provision locally—that is the key word: locally—for children and young people with complex needs. As a consequence, they are placed out of their locality, away from their families, friends and peer groups. What are the Government planning to do to ensure that there is sufficient specialist provision in local areas?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I can only refer again to what I just mentioned: the £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to deliver additional new specialist places, which will of course be closer to where children are. I absolutely share the noble Lord’s concerns about children having to travel out of area.

Schools: RAAC

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, as the Chamber empties, the first thing I should say on this debate is to remind everybody listening of what we are talking about: reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. It is a type of concrete of which I have heard some very picturesque descriptions—“a cement Aero bar” was my favourite. I am not quite sure what that confectionery has done to deserve comparison to this substance, but we are talking about a type of concrete that does not have aggregates in it, and thus is light, with its strength given by putting steel strips in it. It is used in things such as roofs and walls. In Britain, it is used very heavily in roofs. It is fine if it is kept dry and well-maintained. Unfortunately, it has been used in school roofs. Whatever you say about schools’ maintenance budgets, we can all agree that they have not been that great or consistent, and anybody who has ever owned a house knows that you cannot guarantee not to have leaks. We have in schools a substance which is porous, above your head and can collapse. This is not a good starting point.

The timeline for when trouble was first spotted is incredible. This issue was first raised in 1996. In 1999, the Standing Committee on Structural Safety maintained that we should be identifying it. We have had this problem a long time and we have not dealt with it. We waited until the situation got critical, when things started falling down, and then had to run around trying to do something about it. This is where we have got to. What has been the result? We have schools which are unsafe—when your classroom ceiling comes in, you cannot teach in it.

Here we come to the real nub of the matter: children’s education is affected. We find classrooms that are not fit for purpose and potentially dangerous, and we have to take remedial action. We can bandy around figures about just how many, but a few hundred schools are affected and tens of schools have actually been collapsing. In certain key cluster areas, the construction pattern of previous years has led to schools that do not work and pupils who are not being educated. Largely, they are the same pupils who have already had their school life disrupted by the Covid lockdown. This Chamber has talked often enough about not getting enough children into school. We have a historically high absentee rate. Across schools we have children who are not functioning in their classrooms, and we have this thrown in.

Then we see that the maintenance of schools has usually been something that people have wanted to put off for another day. We have not had the drive to make sure schools are maintained. We have not spotted the problem and now we have this nice little crisis coming down and pushing in. The Government’s response has been, “Oh, terrible! Let’s stop going in and let’s take money from somewhere else, roughly in the budget, and push it in here as a priority”. This effectively means that you are robbing Peter to pay Paul—moving money around within the school budget. So we are going to have other problems in other areas, and there are already other problems in the school infrastructure package—we know that.

One of the things that brought this issue to my attention was the “Panorama” programme showing temporary classrooms that were older than the teachers in them. I ask the Government this: if you are bringing in temporary structures, what is their life expectancy and where will that be reported? Before this debate, the Local Government Association came to me and said, in effect, “By the way, it has always been clear as mud as to where we have these problems”. Can we have some guarantee that we will take the information about where the problems have been identified and pass it on to those who will have to make the budgetary decisions? That is one of the things that we should do on the way through.

The second thing is that we simply must make sure that the schools that have this issue get the extra funding they need to deal with the situation now. If we strip the budget or move things around, we will create more problems across the piece. What is the Government’s attitude to making sure that funding goes directly to this problem now, and quickly? We have had emergency funding before, and okay, the figures will sound big. The Government will then tell us that we are spending more money than we have ever spent before. Last night, we had a debate about financial education. One of the things we did not mention was inflation. Inflation means that you will always spend more money on a project today than you did yesterday. Some of the figures I have received estimate that, in real terms, our budget has been consistently lower than at any time since around 2003.

What are we going to do to make sure that the immediate need is met? We have a situation where children who should be in a classroom and should be being taught are not. We then have extra costs being lumbered on people, such as for temporary accommodation and moving children around. They are not concentrating; it is going to be more difficult. Some will come through and some wonderful teachers will pick up the slack, but any system that says you have to be a little lucky and a bit special has a degree of failure in it; if you have to be very lucky and very special, it is a total failure.

Can the Minister tell us how the Government mean to mitigate this quickly and keep track of what they have done, so that we can come back in and make sure that temporary solutions are not becoming permanent ones? That is an important facet here. The temporary classroom that sits in the corner of a school estate should be gone in five or 10 years. It should not be waiting for its third refit.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

Not 10 years.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My noble friend’s comment suggests that I am being hopelessly optimistic in my assessment there; I look forward to hearing from him later.

Can we have some guidance from the Government showing that they will make sure that the Treasury helps the department, because that is where the money comes from? The current Prime Minister has been Chancellor. If he did not give money in the past, it is time to give it now—or to encourage his friend in Downing Street to ensure that there is enough money to deal with this issue. Its oncosts are incredibly high, not just for the establishment but for pupils and teachers in particular. This is where we should concentrate. I hope that, when the Minister replies to this short debate, we will get an idea of how that will be achieved. If we just move money within the estate—an estate that needs more repairs—we will not achieve it. We might not even deal with the RAAC problem—it will have gone—but there will be other problems. It is important that we make sure that the school estate is in better condition and that those working in it can function properly. This is the least we owe our pupils.

I hope that the Government will have a positive response for me, and will tell me that they are going to punch through and make sure that the Treasury coughs up. I do not expect that but I hope for it. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I begin by declaring my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank my noble friend Lord Addington for initiating this debate.

I pay tribute to all the teachers, staff, governors and parents who have coped during this very difficult situation. Anybody who saw “Panorama” could not help but be shocked by the effect on schools and schooling. Pupils face misery, with governors and head teachers struggling to cope and make alternative arrangements. Some 227 schools are unable to deliver face-to-face teaching to all their students, with 23 schools having to implement mixed-age teaching. The impact on those schools, whether of temporary classrooms, being bussed miles away to safer schools, or hurriedly organised virtual learning, is immeasurable. The huge effect on mental health and academic performance, and a lack of social interaction, come on the heels of the same things happening during the pandemic.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans mentioned St Leonard’s, which is one of the best-performing schools in the north-east. It has concluded that school closures and mixed-teaching arrangements will have seriously affected pupils and their performance in exams, impacting their anxiety and academic performance. Paul Whiteman of the National Association of Head Teachers has said that we

“need a real sense of a clear plan not just to put short-term mitigation measures in place, but to properly repair or replace buildings so they are fit for purpose. Propping up ceilings with metal poles is clearly not a serious option in the medium or long term”.

It is very easy to get into a blame culture, which I am pleased to say we have not done, because it helps neither the schools nor, more importantly, the children and young people. However, we need a clear commitment from the Government that they have a clear plan that every affected school can have the provision of first-rate buildings. Yes, there will be short-term measures while replacements are planned and built, but it is the long term that we need to get right. The school of which I was deputy head had mobile classrooms that had been provided because there had been a bulge in the birth rate. We were told that we would have these mobile classrooms for just a few years. They were still there 20usb years later. Temporary solutions are, as it says on the jar, temporary; they cannot be there many years later. I hope the Minister will give a commitment that any mobile classrooms will be provided for the shortest of periods until permanent provision can be made.

I have three other things I want quickly to mention. First, I am sure the Minister will speak to Ofsted to ensure that any affected schools will not have the added pressures of an Ofsted inspection. Might she consider making that move?

Secondly, although I think the Minister shook her head, I very much agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans that the academic performance of these young people will be affected in their all-important summer exams, whether they be GCSEs, T-levels or A-levels. There needs to be some consideration of how we can mitigate the effect that this disaster has had on them.

Thirdly, why not use this as an opportunity not just to replace what has happened, but to actually enhance the school buildings and make sure that pupils, for all the suffering they have had, get a much better provision? Let us use this as an opportunity.

Knowing the Minister, I am sure she will be anxious to do all she can. I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans that we cannot just take existing funding which was planned to be spent and use that. We need to make sure that this is additional money, because it would be quite wrong that those schools that have been waiting for some considerable time, whether it be for an extension or a major repair or whatever, suddenly find that stopped while their money is used to deal with this particular issue. I hope this is new money we are talking about; perhaps the Minister could confirm that as well.