Equality of Opportunity for Young People

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in this debate and to follow some inspirational and knowledgeable contributions. I thank my noble friend Lady Grender for her powerful introduction and for the way she set about organising this debate—listening to young people, holding a webinar and putting together a package of proposals. It is a model for how other debates might be organised.

I am the father of a child born in the millennium—I never say “millennial”—and work from time to time with young researchers and interns in Parliament. I have been thinking quite a bit about the gap between Peers and the current generation of young people—not just in years. I am not particularly religious but I recall a verse from Matthew chapter 13, verse 12:

“For whoever has, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance. But whoever does not have, from him shall be taken away even that which he has”.


This sounds like a pretty good account of the 21st-century reality for many young people.

Certainly, most of us in this Chamber were among those who, according to Harold Macmillan in 1957,

“never had it so good”.

We grew up in a country where the then Prime Minister was able to claim that,

“you will see a state of prosperity such as we have never had in my lifetime—nor indeed in the history of this country”.

We remain one of the world’s wealthiest countries, and even during the great austerity, our generation has continued to benefit from free prescriptions, free TV licences, bus passes and the winter fuel allowance. Compare that with what our young people have lost in the name of austerity: education maintenance allowances, affordable bus services—if there are any at all—the decimation of youth services, the decline of services provided by the voluntary sector, and dare I mention university fees?

We have heard much—perhaps too much—about social mobility as the golden thread that is meant to underpin many of the Government’s policy initiatives. Everyone in government, from the Prime Minister down, talks about a moral responsibility to reduce inequality. Too many young people suffer many of the injustices that the Prime Minister spoke of in the speech she delivered in Downing Street just a couple of years ago. On equality of opportunity, the current Administration are word perfect when they talk the talk but trip and stumble whenever they try to walk the walk. There is perhaps no finer or more detailed analysis of how unequal opportunities are than the latest report of the Social Mobility Commission. Noble Lords will recall that the previous commission resigned en masse 15 months ago. The new commission’s message in its analysis, the State of the Nation 2018-19, can be summed up as: on social mobility we are going backwards.

I want to talk about schools and education. I listened with great interest and awe to the contributions of the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and I agree with everything they said. I will add just two other things. First, the EBacc has seen the creative and arts subjects in our schools squeezed and squeezed. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, rightly said, we see the maintained sector having fewer opportunities with regard to creative and arts subjects than the independent sector.

The second issue, which was briefly mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is our teachers, who are crucial to providing opportunities for our children and young people. I do not believe that you can train a teacher over a five-week intensive course, call it whatever you want—Teach First, or whatever. That is not the way you train a quality teacher. Teachers need to learn about child development, psychology and special educational needs to be able to motivate their children and young people. They themselves need to be highly trained, to have continuing professional development and to be respected—to be the linchpin of our education system. Sadly, we now see schools where there are shortage subjects, so supply teachers are brought in or the subject is taught by teachers who have no passionate understanding or knowledge of it. We also see a workforce strategy for teachers where we have to quickly try to recruit people in all sorts of different ways.

I am saddened by how we have allowed this situation in our schools to happen. In our primary schools, at one stage, it was a period of joy: looking forward to education. We now have a regime that develops SATs, creates league tables and puts pressure on children. That is not the way that children should develop. They should enjoy and be encouraged to enjoy the thrills of learning and discovery.

We are one of the wealthiest countries on this planet. It is surely a disgrace that while the number of banks is decreasing—admittedly, because many people use online banking and pay for everything with a credit card—the number of food banks is increasing. According to Napoleon, an army marches on its stomach. Many of our young people do not march but walk unwillingly to school or college on an empty stomach. Only yesterday, the End Child Poverty report showed that poverty is the new normal.

If we put to one side those who are really poor—as the Government seem to do without too much concern—children and young people have a very different quality of life compared with the life experiences of those of us in this Chamber. The children I taught in Liverpool at the beginning of my career lived simple but limited lives. They had a television, but no one had a telephone at home or a motorcar, as they were then called, and few went on holiday.

In the 21st century, there are still children who live similar lives, but even those without a smart device at home have access to the internet at school or in the local library—those that are still open. This has brought a whole range of opportunities to every young person. They can set up an email account, open a Facebook page, join a WhatsApp group or join Instagram.

The internet does not make judgments on the basis of your accent, what school you attended, what your parents do, whether you went to university and, if so, which one, whether you are rich, and so on. The collection of judgments about people that underpin our class system and ensure that the few maintain their superiority over the many are not made by Google, although it and other companies collect data that enable them to get to know you very well.

However, the downside of the internet is the pressure put on young people, especially the vulnerable. Social media works 24/7, and unless you switch off your smartphone, iPad or computer, there is no escape from it. Young people today are under huge pressure to meet what is promoted as the norm, particularly in terms of body image. Everyone promoting themselves—and, often, commercial products—on the internet is always a perfect shape, with high-fashion clothes and the latest gadgets. We hear about the reality of their lives only when they go into a clinic because of drink, drugs or mental health issues.

In the previous debate, we learned much about what is happening to the mental health of our young people and the need for the Government to make urgent headway to improve mental health services. We are training teachers in every school to identify mental health issues in young people, and there is now a scheme to train sports coaches to spot young people with mental health issues. These measures are welcome—early intervention is always better than a cure—but it is not enough simply to respond to crises in young people. Months after a Green Paper pledged to make Britain the safest place in the world to be online, it took—very sadly—the suicide of a young girl to speed up the Government’s response to taking seriously the contribution of social media to young suicides. Perhaps in the same way, it took a suicide to persuade ITV to take “The Jeremy Kyle Show” off the air.

In my final minute, I make a challenge to young people themselves. They have it in their own hands to change the way we think by going to vote, by using the ballot box. It is very alarming that 18 to 30 year-olds are the lowest percentage of voters, while those aged 50 to 70 are the highest. If young people went out to vote, Governments of the day of any political colour would take note and, when they took note, some of the issues that we have been raising and are concerned about would be acted on.

Schools: Adopted Children

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, first, I put on record my thanks to all parents who adopt or foster children for the tremendous amount of work they do. I also commend the schools themselves. I was very much taken by the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, about Edward Timpson: I have said the same thing in debates on many occasions. Thinking about it, during the coalition years, the Children and Families Act was started by Sarah Teather. I put on record my thanks to her for starting that ground-breaking legislation.

I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, for securing this debate on the educational attainment of adopted children today, but I start by placing this group of children in a wider context. Inevitably, a child who is adopted is unable to live with either or both of their biological parents. Almost inevitably, that is the result of one or more traumatic events in a child’s life. For a child or children living in England, there are a number of factors: the death or severe illness of a parent, the breakdown of a relationship, or personal issues affecting one or both parents, such as drugs or alcohol. For children adopted from abroad, in the best case, a baby may be adopted soon after birth if the family cannot look after it, or may be the result of a surrogacy arrangement. More common, I suspect, is that children have been separated from their families or orphaned by conflicts and war. In other areas, severely damaged children have been found in children’s homes. Others have been orphaned through the spread of AIDS in their communities. These children are a significant subset of children mostly in the care system and either being fostered or living in—and often moving between—residential children’s homes.

I have read the very detailed briefing prepared by the Library and will not repeat the facts and figures already quoted. However, it is clear that, as a group, while they achieve more than children who are looked after, adopted children do not achieve nearly as well as non-looked-after children. Given the trauma that many adopted children have suffered and the upset and dislocation that all of them have experienced, this group of children will find it more difficult to make the most of the education opportunities available to them.

From my long experience as a primary teacher in Liverpool, I know the impact on children whose family lives have been disrupted. For many looked-after children, school can offer the only stability in their lives, with frequent moves between foster homes and children’s homes. By comparison, children who are adopted are in a much more stable environment, but that alone does not wipe out the trauma.

However well an adoption works—and many do through the efforts of the adoptive parents—we owe it to these children to do as much as we can to compensate for their unnatural situation. It is unfortunate that many adopted children are treated badly, not because of who they are but because of circumstances utterly out of their control.

Adoptive parents need all the support they can get so that the adoptive family can cope with the ups and downs characterising life in every family. Good relationships with the adopted child’s school can do much to smooth out any problems at school, which may be the result of earlier trauma. In turn, schools can make sure that teaching, non-teaching and pastoral staff are sensitive to the needs of adopted children.

There should be a member of staff in every school who has been trained or has ready access to training in how to support adopted children, and there should be a whole-school policy to ensure that the additional needs of adopted children are understood and dealt with sympathetically. These additional needs may relate to emotional and behavioural issues in addition to lack of educational attainment.

The Children and Social Work Act 2017 requires the remit of the virtual head teacher to include the promotion of the education and attainment of adopted children. The virtual head teacher should be in close contact with the designated member of staff in each school.

I pause to reflect that there is often an issue with schools’ working relationships with social services. Far too often, the social worker with that case is moved on. It is my experience that the social worker working with the family and the school is often employed only for six months, and 12 months if you are lucky. That does not bring the stability that the family, the adopted child and the school need. We need to look at why this is happening.

I have been asked to raise one specific issue—it has already been raised, but I promised. My noble friend Lady Walmsley wanted to be here today but is speaking in another debate. She has asked me to raise the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, raised about the admission of adopted children to school. While children adopted in the United Kingdom have been given priority for admission to schools, this does not apply to children adopted from abroad. To me, this seems absolutely ludicrous.

The Schools Minister, with whom my noble friend Lady Walmsley has met, indicated that to accord them equal treatment would require primary legislation, adding that there was no chance of the Government finding parliamentary time until “all the Brexit stuff is over”. Trying to determine when all the Brexit stuff will be over under the present Administration is like asking how long a piece of string is. Since the Brexit stuff began a couple of years ago—although it seems considerably longer—the Government could easily have found time to put this acknowledged injustice right. Can the Minister give a commitment at least to issue guidance to local authorities and academies requesting them to accord the same priority to children adopted from abroad?

I conclude by saying that we are all aware of the pressures on children and young people in the 21st century. They are far greater than anyone in this Chamber has experienced. Those pressures are often magnified for adopted children, many of whom will become parents themselves later in life. They need to have a positive attitude to the way in which society treats them. How we look after adopted children and looked-after children, the most vulnerable children in our society, is the litmus test of a caring and compassionate society.

School Exclusion: Timpson Review

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for repeating this important Statement, and I join him in thanking Edward Timpson and all those who contributed to this report.

It is a fact that too many children are being written off as failures, with tragic consequences. Permanent exclusions have risen by 40% in the past three years, and analysis carried out by Barnardo’s found that one in three local authorities in England has nowhere for excluded children to go, leaving them socially excluded and at serious risk of being groomed and exploited by criminal gangs. This is simply not acceptable. Urgent action is required to help schools reduce the number of children who are excluded. It is therefore imperative that those schools have the necessary resources to support pupils at risk of exclusion, especially those with more complex social needs.

We know that the most vulnerable children in society are more likely to be permanently excluded. Indeed, analysis found that 78% of permanent exclusions were issued to children who had special educational needs or who were eligible for free school meals. It is also worth noting that Traveller children of Irish heritage have the highest rate of permanent exclusion, followed by Gypsy and Roma children. However, as this House has noted in recent debates, school budgets are £1.7 billion lower in real terms than they were just five years ago. As a result of the shortfall, special needs provision in England has lost out on some £1.2 billion since 2015. Does the Minister share my concern, and that of others, that the current level of funding is so desperately inadequate that many schools have had to cut back on support staff who provide key support and early intervention for children with challenging behaviour? Here I am thinking of teacher assistants.

Exclusions must be used only as a last resort; on that I think we are all agreed. However, as Mr Timpson emphasised, “exclusion from school” should never be allowed to become “exclusion from education”—and yet sadly that is what has been happening over the past few years. It is clear that the Government must do more to improve the availability and quality of alternative provision, to ensure that every child, particularly the most vulnerable, gets the education they need to achieve a positive future. However, the latest wave of free schools included just two specialising in alternative provision. Does the Minister recognise that restrictions on new schools imposed by this Government have seriously constrained the ability local authorities have to address the lack of services in some areas without allowing other schools to be built?

I would also like to touch on the shameful practice of off-rolling, which the Statement dealt with, where schools try to remove pupils who cause problems or who might lower exam league table performance. Pupils moved in this way miss out on the support they would receive via the formal exclusion process, and are hidden from scrutiny and due process. Schools must be made accountable, not only for permanently excluded pupils but for those who leave their rolls in other ways and circumstances. Will the Minister advise the House what action the Government are taking to address this phenomenon? The Statement makes plain that this is accepted as an issue, and we must ensure that no child is left behind.

To conclude, although the Opposition broadly agree with the recommendations of the review, we remain concerned at what is not included. The Government’s response to the report makes no mention of the impact of cuts to schools, nor have they outlined a credible plan for how improved outcomes for pupils in alternative provision will be achieved. This falls far short of where we believe we should be going on this issue.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for the Statement that he has read, and I thank Edward Timpson for his report. It is not a surprising report, really —we all knew that this was going on—and I always wonder why we need to wait for a report before taking action. It is an absolute scandal that 40 pupils a day are permanently excluded from school and 2,200 pupils every day are put on a system of semi-exclusion. What happens? Well, two things happen. First, if they are lucky, they get put into alternative provision, and most of that alternative provision is unregistered. We have heard what the chief inspector has said about unregistered schools—that they are unsafe and that vulnerable young people are put in a very unhelpful situation. Many of them, if they are not put into a proper alternative provider, get involved in gang culture, and we know where that can lead. So why does the report not say absolutely clearly that unregistered schools for alternative provision should not be allowed and that we should take action against them? These vulnerable young people need to be in the most supportive environment with the best qualified and trained teachers.

Secondly, on the issue of knife crime, I welcome the idea of having a multiagency discussion to look at how we deal with this, but it is sad that there is no mention of the youth service. We should be investing in the youth service and, in particular, in detached youth workers.

Then we come to the issue of off-rolling, which has already been mentioned. Again, it is a scandal that schools can just off-roll pupils—often the most vulnerable pupils, including those with special educational needs. Nowhere does the report say why schools are allowed to off-roll. Why are schools off-rolling? We know that they off-roll because they want to do well in their school inspection and in their league table results, but, again, that should not be allowed. Also, when a pupil is off-rolled from a school, who is responsible for that pupil? Not the school or the local authority—the pupil is in limbo.

I hope the Minister might address those three issues. Finally, I am sure he would agree that it would be useful to have a proper debate on this issue in your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I will respond to the noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord Storey. On permanent exclusions, last year 85% of schools had none at all, so it is important to put the issue in some perspective. But we are not complacent in any way—that is why we commissioned Timpson last year to undertake his review.

That flows into the issue of off-rolling, which greatly concerned both noble Lords. The term has crept into usage only in the past two or three years, and when we initially commissioned Edward Timpson to undertake his review it was not in common usage, but he has expanded the report to deal with it. It is important to reassure noble Lords that off-rolling is an unlawful practice, so it is not something that a school can do legitimately. We are focusing on this partly through the changes to the Ofsted inspection framework, for example, which will come in in September, which will ramp up the inspection process to ensure that such things are not going on. Ofsted will look at children who have left the school roll and interrogate the school as to why they have left and where they are.

Children’s Rights

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the civil servants’ guidance that we issued at the end of last year was specifically aimed at supporting civil servants to join up. We created a template for civil servants to enable them to understand the children’s rights impact. We have revised the statutory guidance for working together to safeguard children and we have co-chaired a new action group with the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, CRAE, which brings together all of these issues.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that the committee has called on the UK to urgently review the asylum policy as the UK is the only country in the EU not to permit unaccompanied refugee children to sponsor their immediate family. Given that the Government are searching for legislation to pad out the parliamentary term, will the Minister speak to his colleagues in the other place to see whether they can make time to give the Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill—which has already been passed in this House—its long-awaited Second Reading?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I will certainly take the noble Lord’s suggestion back to the department for consideration. Let me reassure noble Lords that the numbers of children becoming looked after from unaccompanied asylum seekers has remained stable over the past three years. Under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989, local authorities have a statutory obligation to provide accommodation for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

Religious Schools: Admission Policies

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord is quite right. With the help of all Members of this House, we got the relationships and sex education regulations through last week. They underpin the whole concept of preparing children for our very diverse society. To reassure noble Lords on the recent voluntary aided application system, we were very clear in the criteria that anyone applying for it had to address the needs of all pupils in that community, of all faiths and none. They have to prepare children for life in modern Britain and create inclusive environments. Nothing is more important, beyond a good education, than an integrated system.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister will agree that it is important that children and young people, whatever their faith and whether they have a faith or not, should have an opportunity to learn and socialise together rather than being separated because of their religion. My question is about admission arrangements. Maintained schools, academies and some faith schools have different admission criteria, and because of all these different arrangements it is often difficult for local authorities to find places for pupils, let alone for parents to navigate their way around. How can the Minister make it easier for parents to understand the admission arrangements within their area?

Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome these guidelines and thank the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, for introducing the Motion. I am very pleased to see that this topic of education will at last be a requirement for schools from September 2020. Indeed, some schools will pilot the programmes and there is encouragement for some to start them during 2019.

Some schools are ready to go with this but others may need more time. Quite rightly, the Government have sought to stress the issue of consultation. We know that sexual relationship education has been considered important by children, parents, school governors and many organisations for a long time. I pay tribute to those who have worked with such diligence to get us to this point. The noble Lord, Lord Nash, deserves full credit for his determination to ensure that schools engage with the important topic of the rights of children to receive information and develop good attitudes towards sexuality and relationships. He recognised that resilience, confidence and self-esteem are important components of performing well at school and having a fulfilling life.

I congratulate the PSHE Association on its constructive and thorough approach to developing and creating materials for schools. I congratulate those organisations which have been helpful with consultation and have developed training materials for schools. I congratulate, too, those who have had the courage and perception to insist that consideration of the needs of all pupils is important. LGBT pupils have rights, too; disabled children have rights. Attention to such groups is important, not just for them but for their parents and fellow pupils.

Many individuals have helped describe and respond to the climate in which children are living today, as did the Minister just recently. That climate is different from the one in which we grew up. For example, we have social and other media, which may portray unhealthy and dangerous attitudes towards relationships and sexuality. Children and young people need resilience and skills to resist such approaches.

I have a few questions for the Minister and a few matters on which I seek reassurance. Will the decision that academies and free schools will not be required to teach sex education, but simply be encouraged to do so, be reviewed? This will affect a great number of children and leave them disadvantaged in relation to protection from harm and gaining important knowledge.

I was surprised that so few children and young people were involved in the consultation. I hope that any assessment of the effectiveness of programmes will involve them. They are the best judges of what they need. It is most encouraging that children are consulted much more on issues and decisions which affect them, such as in relation to the NHS long-term plan, where there was a children’s panel—and very useful it was, too. Many voluntary and statutory organisations have children’s panels which prove so valuable. I hope that Ofsted inspections will incorporate the views of children among their other considerations.

It is also important that school governors and parents are involved in monitoring these issues. There is a case for local communities to be involved, as envisaged in the guidelines. I note that £6 million has been set aside in the 2019-20 financial year to develop a programme of support for schools. Funding beyond that will be a matter for the forthcoming spending review. What type of support is envisaged? How will funding be decided for individual schools? Will the Minister and the DfE fight for funding to develop and maintain such programmes, monitor their outcomes and share good practice?

Some of us have concerns about discussing certain issues with children and young people and worry about “corruption”. These guidelines make it clear that teaching materials should be age appropriate. I taught, a long time ago now, sex and relationships education in an inner-city, multi-faith secondary school. We were scrupulous about consulting parents and children and had very few difficulties. No child was ever withdrawn from any part of the programme. I remember working with a nun, Sister Mary, on a sex education course. She said, in public:

“I and my Church may not approve of some of the things related to sexual activity. This does not mean that we should refuse to discuss them. Refusal to discuss denies knowledge to children, and the denial of knowledge is against good educational practice”.


I have never forgotten what she said.

We must never forget in the midst of all this that the welfare of the child is paramount, as spelled out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the UK is a signatory and which celebrates its 30th birthday in November this year. The convention is inspirational in envisaging a world where children flourish and where their physical, emotional and social needs are met. With this legislation today, we move a step towards that, and I very much welcome it.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, this is a landmark moment for children and young people in our country and I very much welcome it. I congratulate the Government and the Minister on everything he has said. If there were ever a reason to ensure that our young people had proper relationship and sex education in our school system, it came home to me this morning when I went into my office, where a letter was waiting for me with a card in it. It was a vile piece of information, trying to compare the teaching of relationships and sex education to giving up smoking. It had such comments as:

“Being gay is essentially lonely because the truth is that most gay partnerships are unstable and have a strong tendency to be promiscuous”.


There was more, but I do not wish to read the rest out, because it is so horrible. That sort of warped view about relationships in 21st-century Britain shows how strong is the need for an education system that addresses the issues in the way the Minister explained.

During the coalition Government, Edward Timpson took over the role of Children’s Minister and was looking to develop the PSHE curriculum and the sex education curriculum, as it was then called. My noble friend Lord Paddick and I were asked to meet him—he wanted to talk about that curriculum. I remember saying to him, “This is very good, but the important thing is that we have almost a dual education system here. We have maintained schools, an increasing number of academies and free schools, which of course have a much more relaxed approach to what they teach. Will this be taught in all schools?” He said, “Yes, it will”. Hallelujah, I thought. I asked whether such things as contraception and gay relationship would be taught. He said, “Yes, of course, it will”. And in church schools? He said, “Yes, of course, it will”. That was the breakthrough moment that I and many in this House were waiting for and I think that, alongside the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Nash, Edward Timpson MP, as he then was, deserves a deal of credit in this as well.

When I first started teaching, sometime in the 1970s, we had an eight-week period in which we followed the BBC’s “Merry-Go-Round” sex education programme—eight weeks of watching the television and doing the workbooks. Not one single parent complained, those eight year-old pupils never giggled or sniggered and it actually developed their relationships with each other. That programme continued and was updated over the first 10 years of my teaching. I always thought it was a great pity that we almost became Victorian in our approach to such issues as sex education; we went through those difficult times in the 1980s and 1990s, with some rather nasty thoughts about relationship education.

As well as the praise I have given, there are a few things we need to ensure. I think the Minister said this, but I just want to go through them again. It is vital that teachers get quality training. I am pleased that it will be a rollout; some schools and some staff may be ready, but it is important that we get this quality training for teachers right. It is important that the resources and materials are of the highest calibre. It is also important that when school inspections are occasionally held, Ofsted actually looks at the quality of relationship and sex education.

I have three questions for the Minister. First, the Government used the powers in the Children and Social Work Act to make PSHE compulsory in all schools, including academies, for financial education only. Why not for citizenship and financial education? Let us raise that now while we have the opportunity. Secondly, this matter is also about continuing professional development for teachers. Thirdly, as the Minister knows—he has been very active on this issue—there is a still a large number of unregistered religious schools where the teaching about relationships is horrendous, disgraceful and wrong. So far, only two unregistered schools have had action taken against them. We need to get this right. We need to put in place the legal requirements to close these establishments straightaway because the damage they do to young people and young minds is not to be tolerated.

Schools: Modern Languages

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point, and I will certainly take that recommendation back to my department and the Home Office. The noble Baroness mentioned the Mandarin programme, which we began in September 2016. It started with 23 schools; we are now up to 64.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, has the Minister seen the survey carried out by the British Council last year, which found that a third of our state schools were not teaching whole classes of modern languages, particularly in year nine? The majority of these schools were academies. Is it not true that academies do not have to follow the national curriculum? Will he consider ensuring that academies and free schools have to teach modern languages as well?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord makes a valid point. He is correct in saying that academies are not obliged to follow the national curriculum, but we insist on a broad and balanced curriculum. The Ofsted changes to their framework will put much more emphasis on the EBacc, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, which includes modern foreign languages.

Schools: Staffing

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said “91%”; it is 91% of schools that have had their per-pupil funding cut across England. To have staff taking cuts in their salaries; to close schools on a Friday; to have so-called cost cutters going into schools and suggesting that school lunch portions are reduced in size; that is no way to run an education service. Does the Minister deny that there has been a reduction in funding in 91% of our schools? Since 2015, my home city of Liverpool has lost £48 million to our schools.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, as I said in answer to the Question, funding is going up. It does not help the debate to follow scurrilous articles about food portions. That school was throwing away a large quantity of food. No parent wants to see that happen. It is a huge environmental waste. It was highlighted simply as an area of inefficiency. As a Schools Minister, no one wants more funding into the system than me, but I want that system to be well run so that the money goes to the front line. Noble Lords will have seen the story in the press the other day about the Tolworth Girls’ School, where the head teacher claimed that she was so badly funded that she had to clean the lavatories herself. What she did not tell you was that she took an 8% pay rise, taking her to between £125,000 and £130,000, and increased the cleaning budget by nearly 90%.

Special Educational Needs

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, when these reforms came in, we initiated local area inspections. The noble Lord may be aware that we carried out a number of these in combination with Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission. They are shining a light on both good and bad practice in the sector and, where a poor inspection result comes up, they are asked to provide a written plan for correction. That is how we are gradually improving the system.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister may be aware that we are also seeing a rise in legal services offering a no-win no-fee system for parents wishing to appeal. That is likely to add further pressure to already hard-pressed local authority budgets. Actually, when all the costs of one case are taken into account, it can cost up to £80,000. Given that it costs only about £3,500 to train a specialist teacher, does the Minister agree that we should try to prevent this no-win no-fee system from taking off?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I certainly support the noble Lord’s suggestion and will take that back to the department. I see no benefit in ambulance chasers benefiting from these cases. It is also worth pointing out that we support the charity Independent Parental Special Education Advice, which provides advice to parents going through the tribunal process. There is no absolute need to use lawyers, which is why IPSEA is an important path for parents to consider.

Knife Crime: First Aid in Schools

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Lord raises a very important point on exclusion. It is always a last resort to use a permanent exclusion for a pupil. Just to give some context, the percentage of permanent exclusions last year was actually less than it was 10 years ago. In 2006-07, it was 0.12% and last year it was 0.10%, so we need to keep that in perspective. We are pretty confident that there is no causal link between permanent exclusions and knife crime. However, we are alert to the need to provide better specialist provision for children who are permanently excluded. That is why we announced a number of initiatives in October, including an extra £100 million in capital for special provision for schools.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, it is sad that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, had to ask this Question, but the bigger question is why young people are being stabbed. After a decade of austerity, we have seen youth services decimated in our towns and cities and positive activities for young people are almost gone. What will Her Majesty’s Government do about knife crime, not in terms of the narrow criminal issues but in terms of creating healthy community activities?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right that the causes of knife crime are complicated. We must be honest about not fully understanding them. I accept that austerity is one reason offered, but I am not certainly convinced. We have done a number of things to support young people in terms of ensuring that they have a good education. One priority of the Secretary of State is what he calls the five foundations of character—sport, creativity, performing, volunteering membership and the world of work. I commend to noble Lords a particular initiative that I am always keen to promote called OnSide Youth Zones. Nine of these are now open and six more are planned, mostly in London. They provide an avenue for young people between what are considered the danger hours after leaving school at around 4 pm until 6 pm.