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.

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[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.

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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.

Covid-19: Effect on Education in Deprived Communities

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Storey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education of school children in the most deprived communities.

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

My Lords, pupils were one to three months behind in their learning in summer 2021; an improvement on spring 2021. Pupil premium pupils were around half a month further behind in reading and maths at primary level and 1.7 months further behind in reading at secondary level. That is why, as well as the universal offer to all students and staff, we are targeting our £5 billion of education recovery funding at pupils who most need support to recover their lost learning.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. She will be aware that the Education Policy Institute has announced that, for the first time since 2007, pupils have fallen behind. It has also said that the number of students on the poverty line has grown. If this so-called £5 billion recovery plan is not successful, what will the Government do? Will more money or other funding streams become available? Will the Minister comment on Teach First’s proposals that we rethink the pupil premium?

School Absences

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, as well as the absentee rates in schools, as the Minister knows we have hundreds of thousands of children not in school at all. They are missing from the system. Some may be home tutored, but we do not know that. What plans have the Government got for those home tutors to register their children, so that we know they are safe and know where they are?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am pleased to update the House that, this morning, we announced our response to the Children Not in School consultation and have confirmed that we will be setting up a register of home-schooled children.

Alternative Education

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Storey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of young people in alternative education.

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

My Lords, in January 2021 there were 12,800 pupils whose main registration was in a state place funded alternative provision, or AP. A further 9,200 pupils were dual subsidiary registered in state place funded AP, meaning their main registration was at another school. Additionally, local authorities arranged 32,700 placements for children and young people in other independent or non-maintained registered and unregistered settings. Around 59% of these were in independent and non-maintained special schools, many of which are not AP placements.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, of the 40,000 or so young people in alternative provision it is widely recognised that once they finish their schooling, many leavers—particularly those with special educational needs—still have anxieties of a large institutional environment. The only funded progression opportunity that exists at entry level would be a further education college. Will the Minister look at supporting these year 11 leavers in alternative provision and pupil referral units who require time to develop and progress towards level 2 with post-16 alternative education funding?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I recognise the work the noble Lord has done in this really important area. He is right that the percentage of young people leaving alternative provision who go on to be NEET is far too high. Over the last two years we have provided £15 million of funding for the AP year 11 transition fund, which allows settings to support year 11 students to transition into sustained post-16 destinations. That fund supported over 6,000 pupils, which is about 55% of pupils in year 11.

Child Safeguarding

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I do not doubt the sincerity of the commitments that it contains. This has to be one of the most harrowing and tragic deaths any of us can imagine. My heart goes out to everyone who knew and loved Arthur Labinjo-Hughes. Talking to friends over the past few days, the first reaction they expressed was of course sorrow, but that was quickly followed by anger as to how such an awful fate could have been allowed to happen to little Arthur.

A serious case review is now under way and, while it is of course essential that it leaves no stone unturned in establishing what happened and what went wrong, it must also avoid simply repeating the recommendations of previous such reviews, such as those in respect of Victoria Climbié, Baby Peter, Daniel Pelka and too many others. Their serious case reviews reached conclusions that were depressingly familiar: warning signs were not picked up; the invisibility of children; poor early interventions and support for families; social workers’ high caseloads; and poor lines of communication between the various agencies. The main issue for Government this time is surely that these failures keep occurring. How can we avoid being here again in a year or two in similarly distressing circumstances?

Obviously, there are many questions to be asked in relation to what did or not happen locally, but I hope that the blame game that has already started will not point fingers at social workers, because it is well established that they are overworked and often lack the necessary experience to cope with distressing cases. In respect of the Statement, I welcome that it contains a clear defence of professionals in the various agencies.

Too many social workers on the front line who are recently qualified are sent into situations to deal with difficult households, often with manipulative parents such as Arthur’s. Social workers need to be supported by senior management, and by that I do not mean the directors of children’s services; I am talking about line managers and senior managers who themselves will have built up experience of troublesome families and should more often accompany inexperienced social workers, to provide the support that they need so that their teams can provide what is required by children in those difficult and often chaotic families.

If questions need to be asked about what happened at the local level, they also need to be asked in the national context. When the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education gave evidence to the Public Accounts Committee in 2016, he committed his department to the target of all vulnerable children receiving the same high quality of care and support, with the best outcome for every child at the heart of every decision made. Three years later he returned to the committee and was obliged to admit that the target was delayed until 2022 because the DfE did not have a detailed plan in place to deliver the target. I do not like the blame game but, in the case of little Arthur, if it is going to begin then let it begin at the top, with a department that is inexplicably unable even to put in place a plan to protect the most vulnerable children in society. We are three weeks away from 2022 so does the Minister know whether her department yet has that plan ready? I do not expect her to be able to answer that question today, but we all deserve an answer and I hope she will write to me when she has it.

Let us not ignore the elephant in the room: the funding of local authorities and, by extension, their ability adequately to fund children’s services. Both have suffered substantial cuts through the austerity policies of Governments between 2010 and 2019—decisions, as I have said many times in your Lordships’ House, rooted in political ideology not necessity. The Minister mentioned the MacAlister review of children’s social care, which has already signalled that an increase in resources will be necessary to begin to bring children’s services up to an acceptable level. I look forward to that report when it appears next year, and I hope the Government will use it as an opportunity to reassess the importance that they attach to children’s social care and wider children’s services. We hear a lot about adult social care, and rightly so, but we definitely need to hear more about children’s social care. I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to do—I hope I am quoting the Statement correctly—whatever it takes, whatever is necessary, to keep children safe.

Over the last few days my mind has consistently returned to an image of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes that appeared in many newspapers and on many websites. It showed a happy little boy in his Birmingham City football top, with a big smile, full of potential and with his whole life ahead of him until two evil monsters shamefully and horrifically cut his young life short. Let us try to remember that smile, not just the awful events that took it and his life away.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement, which I thought was very thorough. I agree with every word. It is a tragedy that Arthur lost his life in such a horrific way. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, talked about those photographs of a happy young child with his school bag on his shoulders. You just cannot believe how people can be so evil as to do that to a child, to poison and abuse him in the way that they did.

A single child abused, a single child suffering as poor Arthur did, is one life lost too many. Sadly though, as the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, both rightly said, we have been here before. Daniel Pelka, Keanu Williams and Keegan Downer are the names of only a few children murdered by their guardians. What lessons have we taken from those previous cases to empower social services with the mission of preventing child abuse?

Let us not forget that the serious case review published after Baby P’s death in 2007 said it could and should have been prevented. Every agency involved in his care, including health, the police and social services, had been well motivated and wanted to protect him, but their practice collectively and individually was completely inadequate and failed to properly challenge the explanations of maltreatment. More than 10 years on from that appalling crime, we see this tragic murder of young Arthur.

I think people struggle to understand why the photographs of his bruising and the complaints raised seemed not to satisfy those concerned. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that this should not be a blame game against social services. As a head teacher, I worked with social workers a great deal and I found caring, hard-working individuals. However, not through the fault of any individual, I also found that bureaucracy meant that it took time for issues to be dealt with.

I remember the case of a little girl who we felt was being abused. We contacted social services, but a case conference had to be arranged and we had to make sure that all the partners could be at the case conference. We would be told, “We can’t make this date or that date”, as the weeks went on. Eventually, the case conference was held and, I am glad to say, strong action was taken in that case; we were right to have raised the flag on that event. The point I am making, however, is that it is not the fault of individuals—individuals care. No social worker, teacher, police officer or health worker wants this to happen. What they want to see is speedy action but, sadly, that does not happen because of the system that we currently have. In this case, these were evil people who, sadly, would probably have circumvented any system, but that is not to say that we should not have tried.

I was interested to hear the comments of the Children’s Commissioner on “The Andrew Marr Show” yesterday. She made a number of important points and commented on the serious case review under way, saying that

“we need to see what that says but we must take decisive action and now.”

We cannot wait months, or whatever it may be, for this case review to happen; we need to know what we are going to do now. So I put it to the Minister: following the words of Dame Rachel de Souza, what does the Minister think we should directly do now?

It is essential that we protect vulnerable children and families. The national review needs to take into account the significance and scale of the circumstances of Arthur’s murder and allow findings to be disseminated around the country. We must identify the lessons that must be learned and ensure that nothing like this is ever allowed to happen again.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank both noble Lords for the tone of their remarks and their support for the Statement by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. I reiterate that we will leave no stone unturned in trying to understand and address what happened in this case, both in terms of its local implications and nationally.

I understand the focus of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on funding and the pressures that local government and children’s social care have been under, but I would say again that there really has been a shift; since 2019, there have been year-on-year real increases for local government. The latest spending review shows that the core spending power for local authorities is estimated to increase by an average of 3% in real terms each year until the next spending review. Importantly, that includes £200 million for family help, as part of a £500 million package to make sure that all children get the best start in life.

Both noble Lords asked what is happening on the ground, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised the issue of the performance of local children’s services teams around the country. He will be aware that we have moved from only 36% of children’s services teams being judged to be good in 2017 to, today, 50% being judged to be good or outstanding. Solihull’s children’s services team is currently rated as requiring improvement. We intervene decisively where local authorities are failing, and we continue to facilitate and fund sector-led improvement.

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Storey, who said that we cannot wait; we need to do something now. Work had already started in Solihull. It is part of the strengthening families programme, which is very tailored support for local authority children’s services teams, where they follow a clear model. That work started in October this year. It is also getting support through the sector-led improvement partners, which is the more bespoke element, so the first takes well-understood and well-established improvement programmes and applies them in the local authority in question, and then the sector-led improvement partners allow for a more bespoke approach. Clearly, events such as this give a renewed urgency to the work that was already in train, and I will of course write to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, with more detail on the implementation plan.

Both noble Lords asked—possibly not in these words, but I hope I paraphrase accurately—how we avoid being here again. We have the two new reviews that we have just announced, and we will need to wait and see what they advise. We cannot pre-empt them. We also have the care review, which we hope will come forward with very practical, actionable recommendations focusing on empowering social workers to take those extremely difficult decisions to which both noble Lords referred.

I genuinely think that great progress has been made over the past 10 years in implementing almost all of the recommendations of Professor Eileen Munro’s review, and major investment is going into the workforce, with 10% more social workers today than in 2017. A great deal of work is going on. We are trying to ensure that that is sequenced and delivered in a way that is practical and effective on the ground.

School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions (England) Order 2021

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the wording of this regret Motion is self-explanatory. When inflation is taken into account, this order amounts to a reduction in pay for all but a very few teachers at the lowest levels of the pay scale. Even there, the increase of £250 is measured against the increase to the national minimum wage. Is that really an appropriate yardstick of the respect which the Government accord to our teachers? It would appear so.

Government policy on teacher pay since 2010 has created significant problems, and the current policy—which is, in effect, a pay freeze—will create further problems. Concerns on the key pay issues for teachers are reflected across the profession, as seen in the joint union response to the School Teachers’ Review Body report, to which the STRB draws attention.

A month ago, the Chancellor’s spending review offered a historic opportunity to demonstrate that this Government value education and educators. Despite his rhetoric, he failed to do so, as does this order.

The aspiration of “levelling up” is a worthy one but government policy on education is achieving the opposite. As the Public Accounts Committee noted in October, education funding policy is actually driving resources away from areas with greater relative need, and the spending review announcements will not address those inequalities.

The Minister may have noticed that yesterday the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a report which showed that the most deprived fifth of secondary schools have seen their funding cut by 14% in the decade to 2019 compared to a drop of 9% in the least deprived. If the Minister, or indeed anyone else on behalf of the Government, can offer a justification of those figures, I am sure that I would not be alone in being very interested to hear it. For what it is worth, the Institute for Fiscal Studies also says in its report that a teacher’s starting salary of £30,000 and a 3% increase for teachers across the board are “affordable”.

It was with some incredulity that I and many others heard the Chancellor boast in the spending review about restoring school spending to 2010 levels—when Labour was in government. I thank the Minister for the endorsement—however belatedly—by her Government of our Government’s understanding of the level of funding necessary for education. However, the admission that a decade of cuts to education was a mistake went only so far: those 2010 levels of spending will not be restored until 2024. I suggest that that should be a matter not of pride for any Government—more one of embarrassment.

Teacher pay has been eroded in real terms by successive Conservative Governments, increasing the numbers of recently qualified teachers leaving in their first five years. The Government are not obliged to accept the recommendations of the STRB, so it is at least welcome that they have done so on this occasion. However, any additional costs resulting must be fully funded so that school leaders are able to properly reward and retain all their staff.

We cannot understand why the Chancellor and the Government as a whole do not share our view that pay rises are an investment in public services and in ensuring that we have the teachers we need in front of classes. Public sector workers support the economy with their spending on the high street, which they are less able to do if they are struggling to make ends meet. The era of real-terms pay cuts—there has been a 15% reduction since 2010—and an alarming exodus of recently qualified teachers has been wholly destructive and should now end.

According to the Explanatory Memorandum that accompanies this order, the DfE says that, while the majority of teachers will not receive a headline pay uplift, teachers earning below the maximum of their pay range may still be eligible for performance-related pay progression. The department says that it remains committed to increasing the teacher starting salary to £30,000—a 2019 manifesto commitment, it should be said—and that while pay restraint in 2021-22 will slow progress towards this commitment, steps taken in recent years, including a 5.5% uplift to starting pay in September 2020, have made

“a substantial difference to the competitiveness of the early career pay offer”.

However, I regret to say that that claim is not substantiated by evidence.

In its report, the STRB warned of a “severe negative impact” on the retention and recruitment of teachers if the pay uplift pause for teachers continued beyond the 2021-22 academic year. That caused it to urge the Government to allow it to make recommendations on pay uplifts for all teachers and school leaders in 2022-23. The Government effectively rebuffed the STRB, merely committing in its response to “reassessing” the pay award position ahead of the 2022-23 pay round. From experience, I suggest that neither teachers nor school leaders will be holding their breath in anticipation of a positive outcome to such a reassessment.

The Government have not only imposed a pay freeze on virtually all teachers in England, they have prevented the STRB from fully considering the impact of that and proposing alternatives. That demonstrates both the weakness of the Government’s case and undermines the role of the STRB. The STRB’s remit is regularly restricted to specific areas of government policy. The teaching unions continue to call for an objective, evidence-based assessment of all the key issues on teacher pay, such as: pay losses against inflation; the impact of pay cuts on teacher supply; and the need for a fair national pay structure, including better pay levels and progression based on experience without the restrictions imposed by performance-related pay.

The national teacher pay structure has been dismantled over recent years, with schools given significant discretion on teacher pay. This pay “flexibility” has not worked, as evidenced by the development of serious teacher supply problems over the past decade. With teachers and school leaders having been denied the pay progression they deserve as they acquire experience and expertise in their roles, I believe the case for a return to a national pay structure to protect the fairness of pay arrangements is a strong one.

Ministers appear to believe that levels of remuneration for teachers are not a big issue because their pay is significantly higher than average. Yes, the average teacher salary in 2020-21 was £38,400, although that figure was lower in the nursery and primary sectors. But the profession needs to be able to compete with other graduate professions, so comparing teacher pay with average pay across the whole economy is not only misleading but does not serve any meaningful purpose. As the STRB has pointed out, the position of teacher pay in the graduate labour market has declined significantly, and the decline correlates with the real-terms cuts to teacher pay since 2010 and with the development of serious teacher supply problems over that period.

I will not enter into any detail on performance-related pay other than to say that the case against it is clear and it is opposed across the teaching profession by teachers and school leaders. It is being dropped by an increasing number of multi-academy trusts and the Welsh Government have dropped it from teacher pay.

The second part of this regret Motion refers to the consultation process taking place over the school summer holidays. The Minister will be familiar with this issue because I have raised it with her twice already in relation to other consultations in the short time since she took up her post. I may be wrong, but I sensed on those occasions that she did not disagree with me.

Four consultees on this order concluded in a joint submission that the timing of the consultation had created significant problems for consulting meaningfully and with regard to planning at school level. It seems that only the Government have failed to notice that most people take their main holidays between mid-July and mid-September.

I note the excuse offered by the DfE in response to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee of your Lordships’ House. In its report on this order, the committee recalls that it has previously expressed concerns about the timing of the consultation on teachers’ pay. Asked why the consultation had again taken place over the summer, the DfE told the committee that, as with the situation over the past four years, HM Treasury and No. 10 now insist that all review body reports and consultations should be launched on the same day. In a mea culpa, the DfE then went on to state:

“So, although we would have been ready and happy to publish much earlier than we did, we were subject to the decision from HMT and No10.”


If that is indeed the case, the remedy is quite straightforward and surely not onerous: the Government should alter the date on which all review body reports and consultations are launched. They could be brought forward from October, but even if they went beyond that month it would matter not, as the provisions of these orders are currently made retrospective, with September being the month from which they apply.

I suggest that what needs to be applied here is common sense. Again, I have a suspicion that the Minister may be sympathetic to the case that I am advancing, so will she give me an assurance that she will discuss this with fellow Ministers in her department with a view to the DfE taking the lead in injecting that shot of common sense? After all, the summer holidays are more of an issue within her department than any other, and, as we know from its own words, the DfE is ready and happy to publish much earlier. So I say to the Minister: over to you. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, there is a wonderful expression that infant teachers often use: I am sad in my heart. I am sad in my heart that teachers in maintained schools are in this position and effectively having a pay cut. If we have a system where we consult on pay and conditions, surely the hallmarks of good consultation are, first, that it should be at a time when we can maximise that consultation and not at the tail end of the summer period—as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Watson—and, secondly, that we really listen to the views of those people who know what they are talking about. In the last education debate in this Chamber, we all extolled the virtues of teachers and how important they were to young lives. We spoke of how we should value them, reward them and consider their worth. And yet this happens, so, yes, I am sad in my heart.

Let us understand what all the teacher associations or teacher unions have said. All have had the same reaction: that this will undermine our attempts to stem the constant haemorrhaging of teachers. Geoff Barton, the General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, has said:

“Teacher and leader salaries have already failed to keep pace with inflation over the course of the past decade and the imposition of what is effectively another pay cut undermines retention of existing staff and makes salaries less competitive.”


The national teachers’ union described the Government as being “out of touch”. Its joint General Secretary, Kevin Courtney, said:

“The government’s pay freeze for teachers is demoralising”


and causes

“recruitment difficulties as we come out of the pandemic.”

It was interesting that he should use the word “pandemic”, because, at the time of the pandemic, the Government said how important teachers were and how much we valued them. Then we hear from the head teachers’ union, NAHT, which says the same thing: that this will be challenging in retaining and recruiting teaching staff, particularly for senior positions, and, again, that it is seen as

“eroding leadership supply, and risks prompting an exodus of leaders when the pandemic finally lifts”.

Finally, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers carried out a survey in which 94% of teachers said they disagreed with the pause on pay uplifts, with 83% saying that it would have a negative impact on the recruitment and retention of teachers.

So I would be interested to hear what the Minister says. I have one cheeky, direct question for her: if it is all right for Peers to have their allowance updated for inflation, why is it not all right for teachers in the maintained sector?

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I fully endorse the remarks of my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie. The figures on teachers’ pay make depressing reading. Since 2010, teachers’ salaries have been in serious decline in real terms—we have heard the figures from the noble Lord, Lord Storey. Teachers on main scale 6, which is where they can get to before going through the threshold, would need an increase of 17% to make up for the loss against inflation since 2010. That is not even to get an increase; it is to make up for the loss since 2010. On the other pay spine, an increase of 21% would be needed, and the same figure holds good for the leadership group of teachers.

The School Teachers’ Review Body notes that teachers’ pay has worsened in the graduate labour market, as we have already heard. Is that not ironic, since, without teachers, there would be no graduates?

But worse, some would say, even than the overall level of remuneration is the lack of any coherence in the pay structure, bringing with it inherent unfairness and injustices. Performance-related pay, which was largely anathema to the profession when it was imposed, has failed on its own terms, with many teachers and school leaders seeing pay progression blocked even when they have met or even exceeded the objectives that have been set for them. This simply cannot be right, and it brings the system categorically into disrepute.

The NEU, the National Education Union—for which I worked in its predecessor form of the National Union of Teachers, the NUT—is very clear in calling for a national pay structure, with appropriate pay levels and pay progression to embed competitive and fair pay with a rate for the job. There are obvious advantages to such a system. It would assist teacher mobility and career development, allowing teachers to move between schools in the full knowledge of what their pay would be. As a young teacher and even a somewhat older teacher, I benefited from the national pay scales. Teachers, I am bound to say, were not well paid, but at least they knew what they could expect to be paid, both when they began teaching and as they progressed through their career.

It seems no coincidence that both teacher recruitment and retention are suffering under the present system of incoherence and pay cuts in real terms. The National Education Union and other unions have called for a fundamental review of issues relating to teachers’ pay. Performance-related pay certainly needs to be reviewed and revised. As my noble friend Lord Watson said, the Welsh Government and an increasing number of multi-academy trusts have already dropped it from any consideration of salaries of teachers whom they employ.

A coherent and fair pay structure would certainly render teaching much more attractive than it is now. While it is not an STRB matter, a root-and-branch reform of Ofsted, whose inspections are leading to an increased exodus from the profession, is also long overdue.

Finally, on timing and consultation for STRB reports in relation to teachers’ pay and conditions, these really should be held in term time. I hope that the Minister will agree, given her and other Ministers’ often repeated respect for and gratitude to our teachers.

Initial Teacher Training

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the LGA. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, for opening this important debate.

It is a pleasure to speak on the Government’s policy on initial teaching training and how to ensure that every school in every part of the country can confidently appoint the teachers it needs to deliver an excellent education to every child and young person. As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkham, rightly said, the quality of our teachers must be paramount in our education system. If a primary pupil has a poor teacher, they cannot repeat that year. If a secondary student has a poor subject teacher, they have lost a year of learning and understanding.

We need to ensure that our teachers are highly trained, highly motivated and have the pedagogical skills to enable them to teach and relate to children. Children need teachers who can teach, enrich their learning, motivate and give them the confidence that education is all about. As a nation, we need teachers who are well trained, well respected—and well paid. As a historical footnote, it is interesting to observe that, when Margaret Thatcher was Secretary of State for Education, she implemented in full the Houghton review—the largest ever increase in teachers’ salaries.

As I listened to the cogent arguments made by my learned friends in this House, I reflected on my own teacher training. The world has changed considerably since I started at St Katharine’s Church of England Teacher Training College in Liverpool—now Liverpool Hope University. As another historical footnote, the principal, as he was called, discovered in the Times Higher Education Supplement that his college was about to be closed down by the then Wilson Government, as was the Roman Catholic Christ’s College across the road. They had the political nous to join together, daring the Secretary of State for Education to close an ecumenical establishment—which, of course, he did not. Now Liverpool Hope University is flourishing. It is a gold standard university and the only ecumenical university in Europe.

The pattern of teacher training was much simpler then. The majority of teachers went to what was known as a teacher training college to do a three-year course, until, in the 1990s, the four-year B.Ed. was introduced. Another route into teaching was for graduates, who took a one-year postgraduate certificate in education at university. The third route was to go straight into teaching with a degree in the subject you intended to teach; this happened in many secondary and independent schools. Such people learned their teaching on the job.

In the last decade, as we have heard from the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, there has been a steady growth of different routes into teaching, and ITT has become very fragmented. Teaching is now pretty much a graduate profession, with most teachers getting their degree before deciding which route to take. In addition to the traditional degree plus PGCE route, the balance has swung very much towards school-based initial teacher training. The traditional years spent at university, with a placement in a school for an extended teaching practice, has been replaced for many students with a year based in a school, with the school buying in the pedagogical element from a university.

Teach First—the implication being that teaching will be the first of many careers—has grown enormously in recent years, with good honours graduates going into challenging schools after a six-week summer school camp and very much learning on the job. I still have grave reservations about whether you can learn to be a school- based teacher after just six weeks in a summer school.

All the while, there has been a range of initiatives to try to recruit teachers of so-called shortage subjects, particularly maths and physics, with bursaries—the equivalent of a golden handshake—offered to encourage applicants. The reaction of the university sector to the market review of teacher training, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, has told us, was, by and large, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But I welcome the opportunity to look at the sector. Given the multiplicity of routes into teaching, the quality of the training offered has been patchy, to say the least.

The Liberal Democrats have consistently emphasised that our teachers are the greatest asset of our education system. The disruption to our children’s education caused by the pandemic, with long periods of enforced absence from school, has served to emphasise how valuable face-to-face teaching is. However good the technology, however well planned the lessons, virtual lessons are a pale shadow of an excellent school education.

I welcome any and every attempt by the Government to attract high-quality graduates to the teaching profession and will support the proposals to make teaching an attractive profession. I can see some merit in the Government’s attempt to improve the quality of initial teacher training. There does seem to be a need to ensure that every trainee teacher, at the end of their professional training, is confident and well equipped to face what is the one of the best, but most challenging, jobs in the world.

I also believe it important that certain elements are mandatory in teacher training. We heard from my noble friend Lord Addington about the importance of special needs. Every primary school teacher needs to do a unit on child development. If they do not know how a child develops from a very young age, how can they really have the rapport to teach them? Every teacher, whether in the primary or secondary phase, needs to know how to identify a child who suffers from dyslexia. It seems crazy to me that that does not happen. When I was doing my degree after my teacher training, my education tutor told me that there was no such thing as dyslexia. That was in the early 1980s.

Universities do have an important role in teacher training, as I have said. However, the emphasis of the Government’s market review of teacher training seems to be on the market aspect. The noble Baroness, Lady Blower, emphasised this, and she is right: it is a pity that the Government’s consultation on the future of initial teacher training was carried out in the summer, between early June and the end of August. The Government maintain that delaying the consultation until this autumn would have delayed plans to push forward with the reforms. Although the consultation ended on 22 August, almost three months ago, we have not yet had any information on the response to it. Maybe we can blame the pandemic; I do not know.

Teachers are the lifeblood of our education system and we must recruit and retain the very best teachers. We can do this only if we can offer them an excellent preparation for the role, support them during the early years of teaching and enable them to flourish in their chosen profession.

A number of questions have arisen during the course of this debate and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answers. I am concerned that we are still waiting to hear what will emerge from the market review and how much of teacher training will be to do with the market. We have heard today about the Institute of Teaching, with a £122 million contract up for grabs to run the flagship teacher training establishment. Will that be run by a private provider? The top priority of teacher training is the quality and, as in many areas, there is a mixed economy of providers, but I am concerned that we do not throw the HEI baby out with the bathwater. How will the Government ensure that the market is managed so that every teacher benefits from the teacher training experience?

I end by saying that teacher training does not just start before they go into schools, or however they do that; the training of a teacher goes throughout their teaching career, and continuing professional development has to be a hugely important part of the role of schools and, indeed, of government.