Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank Josh MacAlister and his team for their hard work and commitment on this piece of work. We must recognise the commitment of the social workers, support workers, foster carers, children’s home staff, youth workers and everyone else who devotes their lives to providing safety and stability to children who are in need or whose own families are unable to care for them. We on these Benches welcome the review’s conclusion: a total reset of children’s social care is now needed.

I remember serving as lead member for children’s services in Darlington and spending time with our looked-after children, visiting our children’s homes and, back in 2007, having a very strong sense that these children are a priority for local agencies and that their futures are our responsibility as corporate parents. I do not think there has ever been a golden age for us to look back at, but it is unarguable that pressures have grown and services have come under more and more strain over the last decade.

MacAlister’s conclusions must make us all wake up to what has been going on in every community up and down the country. Looked-after children are our children, and we are failing them. Over the last 12 years, we have seen the number of children living in poverty rise to 4.3 million. We have also seen the number of looked-after children increase continually, up by a quarter since 2010. The number of Section 47 inquiries, where a local authority has cause to suspect that a child is in need, has gone up by 78% since 2011. Half of all children’s services departments have been rated inadequate or requiring improvement. At the same time, vacancy and turnover rates for children’s social workers are increasing and outcomes for care-experienced children and young people are worsening.

There are many reasons for this, of course, but we have to ask ourselves how, against this backdrop of failure, the 10 biggest private providers of children’s homes and private foster care placements made a jaw-dropping £300 million in profit last year. Where have the early intervention and prevention services gone? We warned that the decimation of Sure Start would have deeper, long-lasting impacts that would cost us socially and economically. Other local authority-led services that would have identified problems sooner have faced cuts too.

Time and again, we all agree that these services are vital—yet the Government do nothing to protect them. I must refer the House to the work led by my noble friend Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, who has been making these arguments for as long as I can remember. Perhaps if she had been heard by the Government, the MacAlister report could have been different and outcomes for children so much better.

We welcome the review’s focus on restoring early help to families so that many more children can be supported to remain and to thrive with their own family, on supporting kinship carers and on seeking to ensure that every looked-after child can build lifelong links with extended family members. We also welcome the review’s clear statement that:

“Providing care for children should not be based on profit.”


The law recognises childhood as lasting until the age of 18, so it is shocking that the Government have continued to allow children to be placed in unregistered children’s homes and other completely unsuitable accommodation. The review says that this must stop, and now.

Nothing the Government have revealed so far answers the review’s demands. Successive piecemeal announcements are yet further indication of what the review describes as

“a lack of national direction about the purpose of children’s social care”.

We agree. The Government do not seem to grasp the depth of change that the review requires, at scale, across the whole country.

We would like to see a firm date for publication of a comprehensive response to the review and a detailed implementation plan. Does the Minister think there will be a need for legislation? We note that nothing was suggested in the Queen’s Speech.

How will the announcement of early-help investment in a handful of additional areas ensure that services are available in every single area of the country so that every family needing help can be supported? Will the Minister agree, as the review demands, to investigate profiteering in children’s social care? How will the Government ensure that the voices and experiences of children are always at the heart of children’s social care? Will she guarantee that the workforce, who are the backbone of children’s social care, are fully respected, engaged and involved as reforms are implemented?

This review represents an opportunity to deliver the total reset needed in children’s social care. It is an opportunity that must not be missed.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we too very much welcome this review and thank all those involved in presenting it to us. I associate my remarks with all those people involved in working with children and families at all sorts of levels; they do an amazing and fantastic job.

The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care provides an opportunity to unlock potential for recognising that loving relationships and supporting kinship networks lead the way to sustainable and ideal solutions for children in social care. Her Majesty’s Government’s response focuses on providing foster carers and social workers with more support but does not address the supporting of children themselves. This review is a wake-up call to Ministers who, after a series of reviews, must finally address the scale and severity of the challenge to provide adequate support to those who rely on us. The report recommends injecting a minimum of £2.6 billion into the care system over the next four years. Will the Minister reassure us that the Government will commit to this kind of important investment?

The Government’s response so far does not address the discrepancy between care-leavers and the continuing success of the individual throughout their life. Every child, no matter where they live or what their circumstances, deserves a great start in life so that they can have the support, relationships, skills and knowledge needed to succeed. We on these Benches believe in young people being allowed to stay in care until the age of 25, as well as increased financial resources through expanding the bursary for those leaving care from £1,000 to £2,000, access to mentors and support networks. We champion bridging the gap between care and a fulfilling adult life in a way that current government policy does not meaningfully address.

Furthermore, Her Majesty’s Government’s proposed policy places the onus of finding care providers for vulnerable young children on the relevant local authority while underfunding those very same councils. The providers in the private sector are charging exorbitant rates—£4,000 a week—for inadequate care, knowing full well that there is a shortage of care providers. The predictable outcome is that the authority finds care from the lowest bidders, often unregistered providers with no quality assurance of care.

Young people are the future of our nation. How can we be content to allow such a situation to continue? Can the Minister give an assurance that the Government will stop these vulnerable children and young people going into inadequate, unregistered care provision? We welcome many of the review’s recommendations, including a renewed emphasis on supporting families, financial allowance to parental and kinship carers at the same rate as foster carers, and providing parental leave to kinship carers. This will support our nation’s most vulnerable young people while allocating funds towards those who are best able to support them.

Without the resources and proper structures of support, children will continue to be placed in unregistered care situations, which can of course be incredibly harmful. It is of paramount importance to use this report as a springboard for sustainable and meaningful change for those who deserve a safe and purposeful upbringing.

We talk about levelling up but, if we are actually to make any meaningful changes, we need to deal with the root causes of what these children and families often find themselves in. It is about making sure that we tackle poverty and provide the best educational opportunities. It is about making sure that families in the most disadvantaged communities are supported.

Finally, I remind the House that we have a Select Committee looking at the Children and Families Act, chaired by my noble friend Lady Tyler. Many of these issues are being discussed in that Select Committee, so I welcome that opportunity as well to highlight these important matters.

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

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their remarks. As a Government, we absolutely acknowledge that the children’s social care system needed a fundamental report. That is why we commissioned this independent, broad and bold review. We will be publishing an ambitious and detailed implementation strategy later this year that will deliver for our most vulnerable children. The noble Baroness asked for a timeline on that; we can be clear that the implementation plan will be published before the end of the year.

Obviously, a lot of work is already ongoing within government but, in response to the review, we have been clear about three key priorities that we want to focus on initially: first, to improve the child protection system so that children are safe; secondly, to support families to raise their children so that they thrive; and finally, for those children who need to be placed in local authority or foster care, to have the right placements in the right places and in a timely way. On Monday we announced plans to establish a national implementation board, which will challenge us to achieve the best for our children. One of the strengths of this review, as I am sure all noble Lords will agree, was the incredible contribution from people with lived experience of the care system. We commit to ensuring that their voices are also represented on that national implementation board.

We are prioritising work with local authorities to recruit more foster carers, which we think can make a real difference in the short term, and to support social workers, particularly early in their career, and give them additional focus on child protection given its key role in their work. We are developing a national children’s social care framework, which will set out a clear direction for the system and provide an evidence base for all those working in the sector. Finally, we are introducing a new digital and data solutions fund, which will help local authorities to improve delivery for children and families through technology.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, commented on the pressures that the social workforce faces. I do not question for a second that those are very real, but I remind the House that the number of social workers has increased by 14% since 2017 to 32,500. One of the points noted in the report was that the average caseload has come down slightly. We are not arguing that every case is the same, but the figures are going in the right direction.

The noble Baroness asked whether we were planning legislation. In response to her question and that of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about our commitment to funding additional services, I say that we need to wait and see what the implementation panel recommends. We will respond to its recommendations but taking real care with implementation is crucial, because your Lordships will all know very well of examples where implementation has not delivered on the aspirations within such reports.

Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord referred to the situation with children’s homes. This Government are absolutely not against companies making a profit, but we are absolutely against profiteering, which I think was the phrase the noble Baroness used. We are putting funding into local authorities now so that they can expand their provision as quickly as possible while we look at some of the longer-term structural issues raised in the Competition and Markets Authority review as well as the care review.

In relation to unregulated provision for children in care, we are investing over £140 million to introduce new standards and Ofsted-led registration inspections for supported education to ensure that young people are safe and have the high-quality living arrangements that they deserve.

The noble Lord also referred to support for care leavers. We are providing £172 million over the next three years to support care leavers as they transition to independence, with better move-on accommodation and practical and emotional support from a personal adviser.

Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord rightly challenged the Government on how we will implement this. There is real commitment and ambition to try to address some of the tragedies which we have heard about all too often in this House, and the systemic issues that we face in the child protection and care system. We look forward to working with all noble Lords across the House in our attempts to do this.

Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Storey Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part one
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank those organisations and individuals that have been kind enough to send out briefings, particularly the NEU, Professor Anne West at the LSE and Dr David Wolfe. It is good to see the noble Lord, Lord Watson, here; his contribution on education in your Lordships’ House has been enormous, and I thank him for that.

Last Tuesday we debated the glorious speech—sorry, the gracious Speech, though it was probably glorious as well. Many Peers spoke on education, and this Second Reading gives us an opportunity to reconsider some of the excellent and important points raised then. I said that I wanted every pupil, no matter the type of school, to have the same educational opportunities and resources. I also said it was important that the parent voice was heard loud and clear in schools and that transparency, accountability and openness must prevail.

To my mind, transparency should be the hallmark of the Bill. Part 1 sets out a new framework for the regulation of multi-academy trusts. In launching the schools White Paper, the Government said they wanted all children to

“benefit from being taught in a school in, or in the process of joining, a strong multi-academy trust”.

Stand-alone schools in multi-academy trusts have no individual control over governance, admissions, finance and destiny, so let us remind ourselves that academies in MATs have no legal identity of their own.

These individual academies have precious little of the individual independence and decision-making that they were promised when the programme was first espoused. It is the MAT that has the legal status and it is the MAT that has the contract with the Secretary of State, which means the school has no automatic right to make decisions or policies relating to the running of the school; stand-alone academies and maintained schools do. The school becomes a satellite of the all-powerful centre, with head teachers and governing bodies virtually powerless. With some MATs having schools all over the country—say, from the north-east to the south-west—there is a real concern about how, for example, local circumstances and ethos are reflected.

Decisions in academies are often made without transparency by trustees whose appointment is opaque. Often, they have little or no experience in educational matters. Is this really the best way to run educational schools? School academies in MATs have no individual power over governance arrangements and are often locked into a contract that is no longer appropriate for the values and educational direction of staff, pupils and parents.

Finally, MATs, while having accounts signed off by an external auditor—who, by the way, they appoint themselves—do not have to provide detail of how public money is spent. Data published by the MAT can mask financial decisions regarding individual schools in the MAT. The lack of financial transparency leads to concerns about how public money is used. We see, for example, excessive salaries paid to trusts’ chief executives. It can also use public money to pay out compensation claims and non-disclosure agreements, all hidden from the public, whose money it is. We have seen how procurement contracts can be a murky area, with contracts going to family and friends without proper transparent arrangements. Maybe we should consider Ofsted, when it inspects academies, applying the same rules as it does to maintained schools and looking at the financial arrangements as well. We will be tabling a number of amendments to ensure that transparency is the order of the day.

I turn to the other important issue in the Bill: school funding and the national funding formula. We very much welcome these proposals but want to raise the issue of the funding of small village schools, which are the centre of many rural communities and of which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham spoke during the Queen’s Speech. It is sad to reflect that between 2000 and 2019, 183 rural schools closed. We need, through the funding formula, to do all we can to support these rural schools and the communities they serve.

Similarly, this is an opportunity to look at transport for school students, an issue that has never been properly addressed. In Northumberland, for example, pupils have to travel long distances to get to an FE provider or sixth-form college. We think free transport should be extended to the age of 18. Community should be at the heart of educational change.

I hoped that the Bill would set out a clear role for local government and that a partnership could develop between local government and multi-academy trusts. There are a number of areas for which LAs are ideally placed, having local knowledge and expertise, including admissions, expulsion appeals, school place planning and working with Ofsted to tackle unregistered schools—an area where a partnership approach would be so beneficial. The 2016 White Paper proposed three roles for local authorities in an all-academy system:

“Ensuring every child has a school place … Ensuring the needs of vulnerable pupils are met … Acting as champions for all parents and families.”


It did not, however, propose any new powers to help them fulfil these roles. It is also vital that an element of local discretion is used in the national funding formula, allowing councils to take local priorities and the needs of their area into account.

I congratulate the Government on listening and being prepared to tackle the issue of unregistered schools. No child should be placed in a school where unacceptable practices bordering on indoctrination take place. We must liberate children from such dangers. Similarly, home schooling needs to be regularised. Home-school educators do a fantastic job, and we should pay tribute to their commitment, or the commitment they take on—by the way, with no financial support—but is it right and proper that home educators are not registered? Perhaps they need a light touch in terms of support as well. I have no doubt that your Lordships have faced a deluge of emails from the home-school educating lobby complaining of any changes, but it is not acceptable for hundreds of thousands of children that we have no idea where they are. Their safety and well-being are paramount, and I congratulate the Government on this simple measure.

Finally, I want to raise an issue which is very important to me: the issue of pupils who are permanently excluded from school. These are the most vulnerable children who need the most care and attention. They invariably have special needs, whether behavioural or emotional, and certainly have learning difficulties and often difficult family circumstances. If they are excluded from school, they might be lucky that there is a pupil referral unit on the school site, but in most cases it will be left to the local authority to find an educational placement for them. Because local authorities still have huge budgetary pressures, they often place these damaged young people with the cheapest provider they can find, and that provider will be unregistered. Some of the educational practices of these unregistered schools are frankly not acceptable. Because they are not registered, they do not have to be inspected by Ofsted, so we have no knowledge of what is going on. All excluded pupils should be placed with a registered provider so that they can get the best possible support and educational opportunity. Remember: some of these young people, as well as being sent to an unregistered school, might also be with an unregistered care provider. My goodness, this is the 21st century and we are treating children in this way.

I was interested in the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, on the curriculum. Over the next eight years, when the Government hope to implement these proposals—of course, there will be a general election during that period too, and goodness knows what will happen then—we are going to have a system where some schools will have freedoms in the curriculum and others will not. I hope we will come together and start looking at ways to ensure that all schools have the same opportunities and freedoms, which can go together, and that way be better prepared if and when they become academies.

Covid has been a real shock to our schools and education service, with pupils missing huge amounts of schooling, falling further and further behind with their education, having increased mental health problems and Covid disproportionately affecting children from poorer families and communities. Boosting education, ensuring the resources and best teachers are there for all pupils, is the best way to level up.

Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2022

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Grand Committee

Britain’s perpetual skills and productivity crises are rooted in that midnight culling of the boards. I emphasise again what paragraph 7.4 refers to, and again thank the Minister for her opening speech.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jones, for that tour de force, and, having spent the week in Anglesey, we have a Welsh connection.

As the Minister rightly said, the construction industry is hugely important to the economy of the UK. She also referenced the need for a pipeline of skilled workers. What she did not talk about was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jones, that there is a national crisis in the shortage of construction workers, which could hamper the many infrastructure schemes that we have—not just big infrastructure schemes, but local and small ones. If my noble friend Lord Stunell was here, he would tell the Minister in no uncertain terms, which I think he has already done, about the dire consequences of not ensuring that those brickies and pointers, as the noble Lord, Lord Jones, said, are recruited as quickly they should be. I have also wondered why more women are not involved in the construction industry.

The Construction Industry Training Board undertakes a large number of activities, and the Minister spelled them out in some detail, but this is perhaps a time to question what has been going on. I wonder whether the CITB would be considered by Jacob Rees-Mogg as part of his bonfire of the quangos. I hope not, but I hope that it will be reformed and refocused, because there are real concerns. You have only to listen to the National Federation of Builders, which is calling for a fundamental restructuring of the CITB, including an end to its levy-raising powers. It states that the majority of construction employers asked do not see the CITB as adding value to the industry and do not believe that it meets the labour market or industry needs, and that they cannot access the training they need when they need it. That is quite a concern.

Employers in the construction industry are facing many issues, post Covid. Is it fair that the academic institutions receive so much more; should not the levy go directly to levy-paying employers? The levy returns can sometimes be challenging and time-consuming for employers, generating additional administrative costs. Importantly, there needs to be an easier and quicker way to complete the required documentation without further record-keeping. As I have said before, a business must focus on the job of the business, making a profit and securing jobs. When the bureaucracy gets in the way, that often causes real problems for the business.

I hope that the Minister will listen to the comments made and answer them. I too had scribbled down that it would be useful to know, on a regular basis, the names of the small group who advised: let us name them and see who they represent. I had also scribbled a note asking whether the TUC was involved.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction to the order, which it is fair to say is not controversial. It states that

“the Secretary of State is satisfied that the industrial training levy proposals are necessary to encourage adequate training in the industry”,


and we concur. For that reason, I do not propose to say much at all about the levy itself, which will continue much as before. Rather, I shall focus on the CITB and its role in assisting the construction industry to address some of the issues of recruitment and training it currently faces.

In a previous life, further back than I care to remember, I was a full-time official with a trade union in the engineering sector, and I recall dealing with several industry training boards on a number of different issues. Indeed, from memory, there were more than 20 in the 1980s, until the number was significantly reduced by the Industrial Training Act 1982. It is to be regretted that, apart from those in the film sector, only the Construction Industry Training Board and the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board are still in place today. The last two are non-departmental public bodies, and thus accountable to Parliament and, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, possibly within the sights of the Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency—a quaint name, without a department behind it.

The order we are considering today runs to six pages, but its impact assessment is five times that length. That is to be welcomed, because it contains much interesting—in some cases, fascinating—information and statistics about the levy, the board and the construction industry itself. From it, we learn that the industry has had a levy and grant arrangement for 58 years. The impact assessment says that it currently employs more than 2.5 million people—the Minister said 3.1 million, so I am glad to hear it is growing—contributes 8.6% to GDP, and, if I caught it correctly, 9% of gross value added, which, as an economist, I think is a productivity metric. Both demonstrate the importance of the industry.

The CITB exists to ensure that the construction workforce has the right skills for now and the future, based on three strategic priorities: careers, standards and qualifications, and training and development. As is made plain in the impact assessment:

“There remains a serious and distinct market failure in the development … of skills in the construction industry”.


It is stated that this is because

“the trading conditions, incentives and culture do not lead to a sufficient level of investment in skills by employers.”

Unfortunately, this malaise is not restricted to the construction sector. UK employers in many sectors have long been unwilling to recognise the need for upskilling and to pay for it, and that is a major factor in the low productivity levels from which our economy suffers. The introduction of the apprenticeship levy five years ago was a clear sign of the Government’s acceptance that employers will not in sufficient numbers invest of their own volition in skills development, and thus require a firm hand on their collective shoulder to encourage them to do so.

The training levy plays a key role in equipping the construction industry with the skilled and flexible workforce it needs. In the post-EU world in which we find ourselves, and given the large number of EU nationals who have traditionally worked in the construction industry in this country, it is not just important but absolutely vital that the industry is in a position to train, and continually retrain, its workforce for the challenges facing the economy.

Indeed, to quote the Explanatory Memorandum:

“It is essential, now more than ever, that employers have access to the support needed to upskill existing workers and adequately attract and train new talent, as industry seeks to fully recover from the impacts of the pandemic.”


Absolutely. This order will raise more than £0.5 billion between now and 2024 to invest in training skills, which is why employers have always strongly supported the levy and value the payback they get from their contributions.

However, as the Minister will have noted from the impact assessment, the consultation among employers on the CITB’s proposals for this levy produced a figure of 66.5% in support. That should cause some concern, because not only does it mean that a third of employers were not in favour of the levy—for reasons unknown, or at least not listed in the impact assessment—but the 66.5% figure was down from 76.9% when the vote was last held, in 2017. Perhaps the Minister can say whether DfE officials and/or Ministers have asked the CITB for its explanation of that reduction and what action, if any, the board will be asked to undertake to ensure it does not fall further in three years. More positive is the survey on the final page of the impact assessment, which shows that, when asked whether the statutory levy, grant and funding system should continue, 75% of employers said that it should.

The CITB has had an awkward few years recently, with more than its fair share of criticism from within the sector. The board was forcefully led by Sarah Beale from 2017 until her departure last year, and now has Tim Balcon as its CEO. Ms Beale oversaw a restructuring that saw its workforce cut by two-thirds as it returned to its core business, but that has not assuaged all in the sector. One of its largest participants, Build UK, recently called for fundamental changes, stating that there remains

“widespread frustration with the performance of CITB”.

Mr Balcon deserves the chance to make his influence felt, but are the Minister and her officials aware of the discontent with the board felt by some of the employers it exists to assist? If so, can she share any information as to what support—I am not talking about financial terms—might be offered to the board?

One of those areas should be the need for much greater diversity within the construction industry. The CITB itself deserves credit for becoming, under Sarah Beale, a female-led organisation in a male-dominated industry. One of the potential benefits of that was that it allowed the CITB to push boundaries and promote change, but much more remains to be done. ONS data shows that the construction industry’s 16% female workforce—a point referenced by the noble Lord, Lord Storey—compares with 23% in transportation and 25% in water supply and manufacturing, the other worst sectors.

The 2011 census showed that 13% of the UK population identified as black, Asian or minority ethnic, yet ONS data found that the percentage employed at that time in UK construction was just 7.5%. More worryingly, in a 2015 survey of its own, the CITB found that the actual figure could have been closer to 5%. We should be told what the current figures are, so that the board can begin to plot a course towards increasing the number substantially. As Kay Jarvis of the global infrastructure company blu-3 reported in 2020:

“The 2018 OutNext/PwC Out to Succeed survey also found construction had the third-worst image of all industries as an LGBT+ employer.”


A recent study by recruitment analytics specialist Hays discovered that, of those black people

“who managed to break into the construction sector”—

that term is perhaps of some importance—no less than

“78% claimed they had experienced career restrictions due to their race or other demographic factors such as sexuality and age.”

Whether this is down to structural prejudice or unconscious bias, it highlights the significant and clear challenge of discrimination in the hiring and promotion process, which surely must be addressed. The CITB is well positioned to do so; I hope that the Government will offer it every encouragement, perhaps by setting a baseline and then measuring year-on-year progress against it in respect of equality and diversity in various forms in construction.

Education: Multi Academy Trusts

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 6th April 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, for securing this debate. We note the growth of multi-academy trusts in the school system and the ways in which strong MATs can demonstrate an impact on the education of young people, although it depends on what we mean by “impact”—I will come to that in a moment. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, and I particularly thank the NEU and Professor Anne West for her briefing.

I have always said, “It’s not structure, stupid”—it is about good-quality teachers and the importance of the leadership of any school. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, on that—it is good to see her again talking about education in person, as opposed to looking at her on a screen. As politicians, we talk all the time about structures and the types of schools that we want. One of the reasons that I continued in local politics was that I saw a rather extreme council in Liverpool which decided in the 1980s that all secondary schools would be co-ed and community based and have seven forms of entry, and decided their curriculum. Very good schools and good schools which did not fit into that model—single-sex schools, former grammar schools and small schools—were ruthlessly closed down. Again, we think about structures and not teachers. If we invested in proper training in leadership qualities and proper remuneration and reward for teachers, and if we allowed only good teachers to teach in our schools—I remember Michael Gove always talking about Finland, and I wish we had followed the Finnish model—we would be in a much better place.

Of course, as we have heard, academies were started by Labour as the city academies in 2000, and our very own noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who was then a Downing Street education adviser, is widely credited with the idea and their development. We hear that education is central to the Government’s levelling-up agenda—quite rightly—but, in levelling up, we surely want fairness and equal opportunities for all children and, of course, we want transparency. As the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, said, there is a huge difference between the original stand-alone academies and the schools now in multi-academy trusts. As the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, reminded us, individual academies in multi-academy trusts have no legal identity of their own and have precious little independence; decision-making and the ability to be free from central control, which were promised and espoused by successive Ministers, have gone. Many of them find themselves straitjacketed by the multi-academy trust itself.

It is the MAT, rather than individual schools, that has the legal status and holds a contract with the Secretary of State. This means that schools in MATs have no automatic freedom or ability to make decisions relating to their running and policies, as individual stand-alone academies and maintained schools currently still do. It is like “Back to the Future”: in the past, local councils appointed the head teachers and deputy head teachers, told their schools what they could or could not do, decided what the curriculum would be, et cetera. We have almost got to that stage again, and we want that original view that all our schools should be free to innovate.

I was really heartened to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, talk about creative subjects in MATs. I was delighted to hear what she said and want to have a conversation with her some time about it, but I am sorry to disagree slightly: if we look at MATs as a whole, the success story in creative subjects that she speaks about is just not there, for all sorts of reasons, particularly in music. Music, which she cares passionately about, is declining. If individual schools had that freedom, it might be that music and other creative subjects would blossom once more.

As they have no individual legal identity, academies in MATs cannot extract themselves from the MAT to exist as an independent entity or to join another MAT. This can leave good, ambitious academies bound to low-performing MAT schools. We know that in maintained schools the governing body sets the ethos, vision and direction and appoints the headteacher. Its composition is set by statute, governors must have the skills to govern and meetings must be reported. We now find MATs without governing bodies, in which governing bodies are seen to get in the way a bit. If you have MATs with individual schools all over the country in them, it is surely crucial that governing bodies exist.

However, in academies, decisions are often taken without transparency by trustees whose appointment is opaque and who may have little, if any, educational expertise or experience. Many academies in MATs have no individual power over governance arrangements and in some cases have been locked into contracts that are no longer appropriate to the values and direction of the staff and pupils. High-performing academies are forced into a MAT on the basis of a single, historic Ofsted report.

Admissions policies for the academies in MATs are overseen by the MAT, with some very questionable admission arrangements. That was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Blower. The Government say that academies are free to choose the curriculum for their pupils. This is a complete fallacy because in the MAT there is less flexibility, with the centre often deciding the curriculum. I heard of a school in a very strong ethnic community which had no black studies as part of its curriculum. If it were an individual school, it might have the freedom to decide not to do what the MAT or chief executive told it to do and to have a curriculum unit on black studies.

The lack of transparency in the financial arrangements of MATs has caused real concern. MATs are using public money to pay excessive salaries beyond the boundaries of the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions framework that governs maintained schools. It has also allowed MATs to pay compensation costs without setting out how much public money was used to cover them by using opaque reporting practices to hide payments. Just by chance, the Answer to my Question on excessive salaries for chief executives of MATs came to me today. I am grateful to the Minister for the reply. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, rightly says:

“It is … essential that we have the best people to lead our schools if we are to raise standards.”


That is absolutely right. She also says—I am grateful for this comment—in her final paragraph:

“The department continues to challenge high pay where it is neither proportionate nor directly linked to improving pupil outcomes.”


This is the crucial line, and we will see what happens:

“We have been reviewing our current approach to challenging high pay and will start engaging trusts on our findings”,


because currently trusts can pay what they like, and many pay their chief executive more than our Prime Minister. Surely that cannot be right.

The procurement practices of academy trusts, as we also heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, are a real concern. Related-party transactions, which are business arrangements between the MAT and a body with which those responsible for the governance of the academy have a personal connection, were worth £120 million in 2015-16 and numbered 3,000 transactions. It cannot be right that lucrative contracts go to companies owned by the chief executive of the MAT. There are numerous examples of where chief executives have got contracts from their business connections.

There should be a common rulebook for all state-funded schools to establish coherence across the system and deliver equality of opportunity for all pupils. The admissions processes should be transparent for all schools and administered by local authorities on behalf of all schools to ensure fairness for all parents and children. All academies should have their legal status restored. MAT accounts should show how all public money is spent and be subject to Ofsted inspection. We have a golden opportunity now. The forthcoming education Bill will give us an opportunity to highlight these issues and, where necessary, to put down amendments to make this happen.

Schools White Paper

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the briefing that she and her officials provided for the Labour education team yesterday.

This White Paper is a thin document that we believe represents a missed opportunity in many ways. Paragraph 123 says:

“The system that has evolved over the past decade is messy and often confusing … Unclear expectations of academies and local authorities permit grey areas which have sometimes allowed vulnerable children to fall through the gaps. Government has not been able to intervene adequately in the small number of trusts that have fallen short in the expectations of parents”.


So what have the last 12 years been all about?

Other than an attainment increase at key stage 2 and GCSE, for which there is minimal detail, this White Paper betrays a real lack of ambition by the Government. When the headline soundbite is some schools staying open for 10 or 15 minutes longer, there is something seriously lacking.

The Secretary of State would have done well to have studied the speech given by his shadow, Bridget Phillipson, at the ASCL conference earlier this month, where she spoke about the broader aims of education and the importance of soft skills, creativity and balance in the curriculum. The White Paper never really gets beyond a fixation with maths and English.

There is no recognition of why many employers are seriously critical of the current school system and curriculum. There is seemingly no understanding that England is becoming an outlier internationally in its narrowness and fixation on academic subjects and end-of-course exams. There is no attempt to set out a vision of what education is for and of the kind of world that we are preparing children for.

There are no funding commitments of any seriousness, and inflation will surely erode much of what has already been agreed. This needs to be seen in the context of the new funding formula, which has been introduced at the expense of the most disadvantaged areas and is quite contrary to the Government’s levelling up ambition.

One proposal that I welcome is the introduction of a register for children not in school, which is long overdue, not least in terms of safeguarding issues.

On structures, some potentially interesting changes are proposed, but without the detail it is hard to assess them. It could imply the effective replacement of individual funding agreements by a statutory framework. It could imply the end of the free school programme except where there is a demographic need for new schools. In recent weeks, the education media have been fed stories of all schools being forced to become academies. The White Paper does not state that explicitly. Can the Minister clarify the Government’s intent? I read paragraph 146 as enabling forced academisation where the local authority wants it, irrespective of what individual schools want, as has been the case in places such as Hull, Leicestershire and Thurrock.

The Government admit that contracting with academy trusts is at an end and will be replaced with “academy trust standards”. No further information is given. Is this a return to direct grant schools, which Labour abolished in the late 1970s, with academies remaining independent schools? Is the intention to set up a new type of school which is “Secretary of State maintained” rather than local authority maintained, similar to the grant-maintained schools? We just do not know, and there is scant evidence that the Government do either.

The premise that trusts are the best way of organising schools is asserted but not proved. Occasionally, data is cherry picked. I ask the Minister how many trusts do not contain 7,500 pupils, which is said to be the benchmark for efficiency and effectiveness. How does the DfE propose to deal with the many trusts that are not that size? Talk of a family of schools quickly comes up against a basic problem: that of geography. How can you have a family of schools scattered the length of the country?

Chapter 3 focuses on targeted support. There is no definition of students falling behind, but the White Paper says that you must not label children as “behind”. Can the Minister clarify where the funding for this support will come from? Of course, the elephant in the room on the whole question of education recovery is the Chancellor. Sir Kevan Collins knew exactly how much was required to deliver meaningful programmes, but the Chancellor callously put his red pen through it and hundreds of thousands of children throughout the country are living with the consequences of his parsimony. Yesterday’s DfE-commissioned report on pupil learning loss from the pandemic bears that out.

There is no recognition of the huge issues in teacher recruitment at present but quite a lot about the current attempts to change initial teacher training, with the imposition of a political ideology on all stages of teacher development. The proposals around the Oak academy turning into a provider of resources and lesson plans could be a worrying step towards enforcing a national model of pedagogy and curriculum content.

After two years of pandemic chaos and six years since the Government’s last schools strategy, this plan will leave parents, teachers and pupils wondering where the ambition for children’s futures is. Clearly, it is not with this Government.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for being a few minutes late; I hope that I shall not be sent to the back of the class.

I thank the Minister for the Statement. I like the tone of it; I like the fact that we are celebrating schools and the hard work that teachers do. I detect a real change in the way that we look at our education system.

All the research shows that parents are not interested in structures. We go on about academies, academy chains and LEA schools, but parents want good teachers, good leadership of a school and a curriculum which excites, motivates and enthuses pupils. I am afraid that we get hung up far too often on structures. I think I detect the glimmer of hope that we will again move away from the notion that structures are the way forward—they are not; it has to be about the quality of the education provision and of the teacher.

Turning to academy trusts—we have long debated this in the past—I have a number of observations resulting from the Statement. First, we hear that the voice of the parent should be heard. Perhaps the Minister could assure us that those academy trusts—few, thank goodness—which have done away with governing bodies for each school will be a thing of the past. Schools, even in multi-academy trusts, need to have a governing body, particularly so the parent voice can be heard.

My second observation, which I raised time and again with the Minister in the Lords before this Minister, is about chief executives of academy trusts and how their salaries have got completely out of control—some are getting up to £300,000. Over the last two or three years the number of chief executives of even small academy trusts earning more than £100,000 has grown. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, assuring us that he was going to tackle this issue, but his tackling of the issue has seen the problem escalate rather than get better.

As was mentioned in Oral Questions, academies can choose the curriculum they want. There are certain things which are crucial for all children. Again, when we discuss the White Paper, we need to look at giving all schools the same freedoms and opportunities, but with those freedoms come responsibilities. There are areas of the education curriculum where we should ensure that every school, whether a local authority academy—there is a new thing—a free school, or, if they still exist, any local authority schools not in academy trusts, must teach.

One thing that slightly jarred with me in the Statement was that only one school was mentioned. It was not that anything this school—Oak National Academy—had done was wrong, just that only one was picked out. A teacher would not pick out one clever pupil in the class, they would celebrate the whole class. There are lots of examples of schools which have done just as much, if not more, innovative things than the Oak National Academy. That jarred slightly.

This afternoon we talked about creative subjects and the EBacc. I challenged the Minister to give a direct reply, which she was not able to do, and I understand why. The White Paper will give us all an opportunity to explore the effect the EBacc has had on certain subjects in the curriculum. It might well be—it is not my particular wish, but I got this sense from the Minister’s reply—that she sees T-levels as providing the less academic, more vocational route, hence they would not be part of the EBacc. That would be a grave mistake and the EBacc should encourage creative subjects as well.

I am pleased the Government have listened to the issue of a national school register, but there are a number of other matters, as the Minister well knows, such as unregistered schools. One of the reasons we are not able to take action against unregistered schools, as Ofsted will tell you, is that they can morph into very small units. Unless we are prepared to see home education treated in a different way, it will be very difficult to deal with unregistered schools. That is an area where we need to focus.

We are told that Ofsted will inspect all schools. That is right, but let us remember that schools have been through a terrible time just keeping the doors open and keeping children educated. I would hope that Ofsted would be more about an opportunity to work with schools and would offer a supportive inspection. Rather than waving a big stick where perhaps the wheels have wobbled during the pandemic or things have gone wrong, I hope that Ofsted might proverbially put its arm around the school and say, “Look, these are the issues that need sorting out.”

I have a few questions. First, we know that children from deprived communities have suffered the most for all the reasons that we have debated and discussed in the past. I was a bit disappointed that that issue was not particularly addressed in the comments. Secondly, children have missed out on extra-curricular social and academic experiences—opportunities to develop the skills that they will need for the future. Why have the Government not used the first White Paper in six years to change and expand the range of opportunities that are given to children? Where is the ambition?

The White Paper has so far had quite surprisingly mixed reviews. Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that, although the paper outlined promising measures, it lacked ambition or “big ideas”. The Education Policy Institute think tank said that pushing all schools to become academies was “no silver bullet”, and that, although the White Paper contained “some bold aims”, it seemed

“unlikely that many of these bold pledges will … be met.”

My party looks forward to the opportunity that this White Paper gives to address not just the questions that I have raised or those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, but issues such as children being permanently excluded from school, how they are treated, and how we need to make sure that we give them a much better opportunity and a much better education. I look forward to working with the Government on the White Paper.

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

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their remarks. I will do my best to respond to them now, but I look forward to further opportunities to discuss the White Paper in more detail.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked where all this comes from and criticised the thinness of the document. The White Paper stems from a very clear ambition for our children at every stage of their schooling and beyond. We have approached this by trying to understand what is already working well in our school system and scaling that up. The gap between what the best schools and trusts achieve for our children at key stage 2 and key stage 4, and what that means for their future prospects, is very sizeable, particularly for disadvantaged children. Our focus is on scaling up what works and has been shown to work over the last 12 years.

The big idea is to make that work on a national scale. I understand why the noble Lord questions where the sparkly new policies are. There are, of course, new elements within the White Paper but the big, difficult idea and the hardest thing to do will be to scale up that quality. Our ambition is crystal clear: it is about quality for all our children. We have approached it in a spirit of looking at the evidence and being very transparent about that evidence. I hope that the noble Lord will have a moment to look at the data annexe that sits with the White Paper; it is not in the hard copy but is available online. I hope he will feel that it is anything but cherry picked. We have made every effort to be as transparent as possible, including both data that supports our arguments and data that does not, so that we can show how we have reached our conclusions. Most importantly, we have approached this in a spirit of fairness—it should feel fair to all of the actors in the system as we move forward.

The noble Lord asks why we have a fixation on academic standards, particularly in English and maths. Of children who did not reach the expected standard at key stage 2, just 21% achieved grade 4 or above in English language at GCSE and only 14% achieved that at key stage 4 in 2019. Of those with five or more GSCEs, 55% completed a degree, compared to 6% of those with fewer; post GCSE, they are 16 percentage points more likely to be employed, and they earn on average £9,000 more a year. I could go on. The impact on the economy is massive—these are huge and important markers at the start of a child’s life which translate to their future prospects, their future social mobility and the future health and wealth of them, their families and our nation.

I did not follow the noble Lord’s argument on the funding formula. It is clearly not at the expense of disadvantaged areas—quite the reverse. We currently have an outdated mechanism for funding our schools. We now have a national funding formula, and we will be working progressively and incrementally to make sure that funding goes to schools directly in response to the need and nature of the cohort that they serve.

The noble Lord also asked about compulsion and requiring schools to become academies. We are keen and have worked very hard in this White Paper to try to make sure everyone involved in the schools system feels they are part of this journey. We are considering all options, and we will engage with the sector to deliver a fully trust-led system.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, talked about the importance of local governing bodies. In preparing the White Paper, we—and I personally—spent a great deal of time with local authority-maintained school heads, particularly primary school heads. One of the things they talked about that was almost universal was a sense of being local and part of their local community. Therefore, in the governance plank of the five planks of our “strong trusts” framework, we are clear that schools need to feel local, have a sense of local identity and have a role in their local community.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, talked about families of schools and families being strung out across the country. I will not take the analogy too far, but we will be working hard on commissioning to make sure we have geographically coherent trusts, so they can benefit from all that that offers.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, talked about CEO salaries. We take that seriously and are continuing to follow on from the good work of my noble friend Lord Agnew. The Oak National Academy is not an individual school; it was the platform that was created during the pandemic that delivered all the digital lessons for children across the country. I apologise if the name was confusing.

To finish, the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Watson, said we would need a number of measures to turn things around for our children. That is what is in this White Paper—it is about great teachers, a great curriculum, good attendance, good behaviour, a pledge to parents if their children fall behind, and creating a system that delivers the strongest, fairest and most ambitious school system for our children.

Schools: Creative Subjects and the English Baccalaureate

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Storey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the teaching of creative subjects in schools since the introduction of the English Baccalaureate.

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

My Lords, the Government remain committed to ensuring that all pupils receive a high-quality cultural education as part of a broad curriculum. This starts during the early years and continues in school, with art and design, design and technology and music all forming part of the national curriculum from age five to 14. The percentage of young people entering at least one arts GCSE between 2010 and 2021 has remained broadly stable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Storey (LD)]

The Minister will be aware that since the introduction of the EBacc in schools, there has been and is a creativity crisis—for example, in music there has been a 16.83% fall in A-levels—and there has been a 31.47% fall in students taking those subjects. Obviously, that has a pipeline into universities and only one university now has an English professor. I want to ask the Minister a direct question—no ands, ifs or buts. If it is not the English baccalaureate that is causing the crisis in creative subjects, what is the reason?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We simply do not accept that there is a crisis in creative subjects. The noble Lord rightly quoted some data, but I point out that the percentage of students taking art and design at GCSE is up from 26.5% to 30.4%. He is right that there have been declines in some other subjects, but he will also be aware that the numbers taking vocational and technical qualifications have gone up very substantially, particularly in media: since 2018 the figures for media have risen from 4,500 to 55,000 students.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Lord Storey Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Thursday 24th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, coming from up north I do not really understand about the Central line and Crossrail. What I do remember was the Liverpool overhead railway, commonly known as the dockers’ umbrella. It was scrapped before the new transport system had proved its worth and chaos resulted.

I preface my remarks by thanking the Minister. I do not think I have come across a Minister so prepared to listen and engage—I am sucking up here—and to consider changes. That is the way it should work in the House of Lords and I pay tribute to her. I also want to pay tribute to the Government because we have talked about the importance of further education and vocational education for a long time but, frankly, successive Governments have done nothing about it. They have done little bits at the edges and margins but not actually done real, radical change. We now see something which is going to be really important to not only the skills agenda but young people particularly.

My comments from our Benches are not being made from a stance of party dogma. They are being made from a stance that it is important to get this right, as the noble Lords, Lord Baker, Lord Blunkett and Lord Adonis, have said. We want the Government to be successful. We want them to be able to triumph in this legislation, so the areas we are finally down to are just small changes which would make sure this really happens. I want to talk about two important areas, in the order that we have discussed them.

First, on the local skills improvement plans, yes, it is now important to have a plan in each locality and for all the partners to be joined up to it. Those plans will vary from area to area—of course they will. I have never quite understood why we should exclude the further education providers or local combined authorities, or whatever they are. They have not only budgets; they have influence and expertise. I take the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, made about us not wanting it to be bureaucratic but we want to make it successful so, as I have just said, it is important that those stakeholders are there.

Colleges bring a wealth of experience. You cannot expect them to provide the courses and skills needed unless they are truly involved. This notion of the combined authorities just ensuring that the plan is not signed off until they raise the white smoke is not good enough. They should be working alongside by influencing, empowering and suggesting, not as some huge bureaucratic body but through some simple opportunity to work side by side. Actually, the employers need to be in a position to tell the colleges where they have got it wrong and how they can improve by doing things to step up to the game. We feel strongly about that and if it goes to a vote, we will support it.

We have heard the talk about the BTECs. Again, I do not really understand it. It was interesting to see what Pearson said, which was that the introduction of T-levels need not lead to a requirement to defund other qualifications. Why? Because there is a clear distinction between T-levels and career focused BTECs, which have different structures and different purposes.

It seems to us that we have long advocated this, as far back as the Sainsbury reform of vocational qualifications; again, it is a bit like the local skills plan. It is important to get it right and we are not convinced that you can rush at this. The two qualifications have to work alongside each other. This is not an area I have any expertise in but listening again to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, who has expertise in this matter, the Government would be wise to take on board his suggestions. We are saying that we clearly want to see BTECs not being defunded for at least four years, and we want to support the very important amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for the contributions they have made to this important debate and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for acknowledging the importance of the Government’s work in this area. I also thank my noble friend Lady Wolf for her descriptions of how local skills improvement plans should work in practice. I attempted to write something down but she put it very well.

We are trying to balance having a clear focus on the needs of employers, for all the reasons that your Lordships are well aware of—given the feedback we have from employers that students do not come to them with all the skills and experience that they need—with drawing on the valuable local insight and intelligence to which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and others of your Lordships referred. We are trying to strike a balance between those two things.

In relation to the role of local authorities in this, particularly those which have a devolved adult education budget, the Secretary of State will have the ability through regulations to add local authorities in England to those relevant providers already subject to the duties in the legislation. These regulations will be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution in Parliament.

Those independent training providers that deliver English post-16 education or training will also have duties on them where that training is material to a specified area. There is already a duty on them to co-operate and engage in the development of the local skills improvement plans.

Turning to the vexed issue of defunding BTECs, I am concerned about my communication skills. I am not sure how many times I have stood at the Dispatch Box—I know colleagues at the other end have done the same—trying to reassure the House that we are not defunding most BTECs, as the noble Lord, Lordusb Watson, said, deploying a scorched earth policy, which the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, suggested, or leaving them as a niche qualification, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, suggested. We see them as an absolutely core part of the offer in giving young people choice, diversity and quality, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, described. We agree absolutely and think that the suite of qualifications we will have in future will do those three things.

To my noble friend Lord Johnson’s point about blighting and—these were not my noble friend’s words—besmirching the quality of BTECs, it is absolutely the reverse. Once we get through this and we are clear which BTECs are remaining, they will have absolute endorsement from the Government that they meet the standards of quality and future employability which are so critical for our young people, particularly those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. All will be on a level playing field and have that endorsement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, Motion 17D and Amendments 17E and 17F, tabled in my noble friend Lord Watson’s name, would in essence require schools to give careers advice for at least two weeks and in person after year 7 in secondary school. Technical education information provided to students must be given on two occasions per key education phase rather than on one occasion. In the next Labour Government, we will reinstate two weeks of compulsory work experience and will guarantee that every young person gets to see a careers adviser. We will refocus the curriculum, deliver new opportunities for digital skills, practical work and life skills, sport and the arts, and give every young person access to a professional careers adviser to make sure that they leave school ready for work and for life. We will give every child access to quality careers advice in their school by giving schools access to a professional careers adviser one day a week. In the meantime, however, we are where we are, and this amendment would at least put some extra provision into an area that is underresourced and in need of additional support. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I start again by thanking the Minister for meeting with myself and colleagues and with the Minister for the Department of Work and Pensions. I think we are all agreed that we want to ensure that every young person, whatever their circumstances, situation or abilities, is given the opportunities to study and to develop the skills that they need and that, presumably, we as a society need.

In meeting with the Ministers, I was impressed with the number of schemes for support that the Department for Work and Pensions provides. In recent years, we have seen a coming together of the Department for Education and the Work and Pensions Department in a way that we have never seen before. I was interested to see that the Department for Work and Pensions offers young people the intensive work-coach support through youth employability coaches, 160 youth hubs, training progress, expansion of sector-based work academy programmes, the restart scheme, the access to work scheme, providing personalised support to the disabled, and of course through Kickstart. However, I have to say that I have always been surprised that, although Kickstart has been a successful programme, a 16 year-old cannot join it unless they are on universal credit, and of course most 16 year olds are not.

Although I said how impressed I was at the joining up of the two departments, I was rather concerned when, in a Written Question to the Department for Work and Pensions, I asked how many young people aged 16 to 19 are currently studying for a post-16 qualification and the answer came back: “That information is not available.” I then asked:

“how many young people aged 16 to 19 who are receiving Universal Credit have successfully completed a post-16 qualification.”

Again, the answer came back: “We haven’t got that information”, which I was slightly concerned about.

Perhaps the most vulnerable—if I may use that term—with regard to education must be those students who either have learning difficulties or who are disabled. I want to highlight, as the Minister has done, the problems that disabled students face. Under the current rules, to start a claim for universal credit while in education a disabled person must already have limited capability for work status, as the Minister said. But, of course, to get that status a disabled person must have a work capability assessment, and the main way to access an assessment is by starting a claim for universal credit.

In practice, disabled people in education are in a Catch-22 situation. They need limited capability for work status to start a claim for universal credit, but they need to start a claim for universal credit to get limited capability for work status. Currently, the only way a disabled learner can get an assessment and therefore limited capability for work status while studying is by applying for a contributory new-style employment and support allowance instead of universal credit. Because claiming ESA involves an assessment, it can establish a young learner’s limited capability for work, so they can go on to claim universal credit. Is the noble Baroness following me? However, the oncoming rules will close off the ESA workaround route because they require assessments to have taken place and limited capability for work to have been established before a claimant starts studying. The new rules close off the only route young disabled learners have to universal credit.

Additionally, it would probably be helpful to address the Government’s assertion that the welfare system is not designed to fund maintenance support for those in education and training and that financial support for students comes from the current system of learner loans and grants. The problem is that, currently, there is extremely minimal financial support for those seeking to train and retrain in further education colleges, which might at best contribute to travel costs but which is nothing like enough to support wider living costs. As such, adults who are forced to forgo their universal credit in order to study have to be supported by family or live off savings they might otherwise have been able to obtain.

I know we discussed the amendment from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham on Report, and I am conscious of the Minister’s detailed reply, but for disabled people particularly, the situation is very precarious. I hope the Minister might agree to look at this matter with her colleagues and see how we can further support them.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, this House carried an amendment in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, who cannot be in his place today, concerning universal credit conditionality—this has been referred to several times—but it was not accepted when the Bill was considered in the other place.

If the Government are to achieve their levelling-up ambitions and enable individuals to secure better-paid employment with improved prospects, then it is essential to achieve greater integration of the support provided for skills development and training by the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham wishes me to say that, on these Benches, we are most grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Stedman-Scott and Lady Barran, for their very constructive and helpful meeting with the right reverend Prelate and their subsequent letter setting out how this better integration is being actively pursued, the range of provision open to universal credit claimants seeking to retrain, and how work coaches are able to exercise appropriate discretion when applying universal credit conditionality rules.

I know that the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of Durham and the Bishop of Coventry—the latter now in his capacity as lead bishop for FE and HE—welcome the opportunity to contribute to the consultation on equivalent or lower qualifications, which will engage Peers in more detail, along with the outworking of the detail behind the lifelong learning guarantee. In the light of these assurances, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham is content not to press the matter.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[Lord Storey]

At end insert “and do propose Amendment 19B instead of the words so left out of the Bill—

19B: After Clause 16, insert the following new Clause—
“Universal credit conditionality: report
Within twelve months of the passing of this Act the Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament on the impact of universal credit conditionality on the ability of unemployed disabled people to take up further education.””

[Lord Storey (LD)]

Given the assurances from the Minister, I am not moving this amendment.

Amendment to the Motion on Amendment 19 not moved.

Higher Education Reform

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I may have touched on some of the points that I hope can address the right reverend Prelate’s question. To go back to the consultations, they are explicitly to help us avoid unintended consequences and to get input from as wide a circle of stakeholders as possible. Obviously, we believe, as Philip Augar did in his review, that a modular, lifelong education system with the funding to back it up will be accessible, lead to greater career development over somebody’s lifetime and meet the skills needed in the economy. Specific elements, such as the scholarship I mentioned, can be used not just for higher education but for further education and apprenticeships. Lastly, these changes must also be taken in the context of the major investment in and major reforms we have made to further education and the bringing together of the funding approach between higher technical qualifications at level 4 and 5 and degrees.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister talks about fairness in access and increasing the options for young people. But we know how the EBacc has reduced the options for young people in our schools, particularly those who want to do a creative subject. By doing that, the pipeline into universities, and indeed FE colleges, has become less, so we are seeing low numbers following creative subjects in higher education. Indeed, in the whole university sector there is only one professor of music. Surely if we want to increase options, we have to ensure that those options are available at our secondary schools.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am certainly aware from the many schools I visit that some of the best of them offer a great deal of choice, both within and outside their curriculum. I understand and hear the noble Lord’s concerns, but if we look at the success of our creative industries—which are world beating, in that well-known phrase—we see that we are clearly providing our children, through school and through further and higher education, the skills they need to be very successful within them.

National Tutoring Programme

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I had not thought about Neil Armstrong for a while. I thank the noble Lord for the reminder, but I do not think that that is an accurate reflection. There is absolutely no complacency in the department about this contract. We are committed to delivering 2 million courses, and we are working extremely closely with Randstad to make sure this happens.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, what would the Minister say to Garry Ratcliffe, the chief executive of an academy trust of primary schools in a deprived community in Kent? One Saturday morning, 20 or so pupils were gathered together for their tutoring session and 10 minutes beforehand, it was cancelled. We hear from school leaders up and down the country about the poor quality of tutors, their lack of punctuality, “no show” and lack of specialist knowledge. Surely it is time that the financing of this programme be given directly to the schools. Independent schools could be involved to make this a really successful programme.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I remind the noble Lord that the bulk of the programme is being directly delivered by schools; that is what they recommended to government, and we listened. Some 230,000 tuition courses started through the school-led pillar, 52,000 through tuition partners and 20,000 through academic mentors. There is a reason for the blend of approaches. It is clearly unacceptable for a tutor not to turn up, and I hope that Mr Ratcliffe has been able to resolve that.

Higher Education: T-Levels

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

It is absolutely a high priority for this Government. Within the department, we have three key areas of focus: skills, schools and families. I hope I can reassure the noble Lord that we are all very focused on this issue.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, it is important that we make the T-levels the success that they should be for vocational education as a whole. I am not sure the Minister properly answered the question about rural areas, where there will be a much narrower choice of options and students will struggle to find employers who will give placements. Could encouragement be given to those employers through financial incentives?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I will gladly take the noble Lord’s suggestion back to the department. Obviously, the colleges can deliver the T-levels that they believe will be most relevant in their community and where work experience exists.