Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Smith of Malvern

3rd reading
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, noble Lords will be aware that this is National Apprenticeship Week. There is much to celebrate and much to build on. It is therefore fitting that this Bill leaves this House this week. It paves the way for an ambitious new body in the skills landscape, Skills England, to build an apprenticeship and training offer that is fit for the future.

The Bill has benefited significantly from the scrutiny of this House, and I thank all who engaged with and supported it. I am particularly grateful to Peers from across the House who shared their insight into the skills system and underscored the importance of skills to growth and opportunity. I thank my noble friend Lord Blunkett, my first ministerial boss, for his advice and the wealth of experience that he brings to this House. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, for her contributions to debate, but more importantly, for her invaluable work as the chair of IfATE in preparing for the smooth transition of its work and people into Skills England. I thank the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

The Government have a strong democratic mandate for reforming the skills system and establishing Skills England. It is heartening that, while we might not have agreed on everything, there is deep support for Skills England and its vital work from across the House, and I am grateful to noble Lords for their engagement in helping us to get the details right. I appreciated the considered amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the noble Lords, Lord Storey, Lord Ravensdale and Lord Addington, and our engagement with these Lords, as well as with the noble Baronesses, Lady Wolf and Lady Garden, and the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Hampton. I am pleased that this House has recognised that the Bill is a crucial step towards a skills system fit for the future that delivers for our growth and opportunity missions.

As noble Lords are only too aware, significant skills gaps limit business growth and individual opportunity. Skills England must tackle these gaps and develop the skills we need for our future economy too. To do this, it will need to work with industry, employers and other key partners across the economy. I am delighted that the leadership of Skills England has been confirmed today, with Phil Smith appointed as chair alongside Sir David Bell as vice-chair. As the former CEO and chair of Cisco, Phil Smith will ensure that Skills England benefits from his experience and leadership in industry, particularly within a sector—digital and technology—identified as a priority for the Government’s industrial strategy.

Appointing this team shows how serious we are about the full and rapid establishment of Skills England. It has been operating in shadow form since July last year, and preparations for full transition are well advanced. I must be clear that delay, which this House considered on Report, would create additional uncertainty for employers, learners and IfATE staff, undermining the ongoing preparation for their transfer. Crucially, a delay to the full formation of Skills England would limit progress in tackling skills gaps to drive growth and promote opportunity; this is my prime concern.

Finally, I record my thanks to officials at the Department for Education, including the Bill team, policy leads, government lawyers and my private secretary, all of whom have worked incredibly hard to support me through the passage of the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, it is appropriate that during National Apprenticeship Week we are coming to the end of the first part of this Bill. It was one of those few Bills where it was a pleasure and a joy to be involved. Everybody wants the same thing—we have a few little differences but we all work together. I am particularly grateful to the Minister, who gave of her time enormously, which is much appreciated. Colleagues right across the House have all worked together in the interests of young people and the skills agenda.

On this side, I particularly thank my small but perfectly well-formed education team of my noble friends Lord Addington and Lady Garden, and Adam Bull in our Whips’ Office, who did incredible work. I do not particularly know the Bill team, but I am sure it did fantastic work. I thank everybody. We will come back to this, but I think the work that has been agreed will do a considerable amount to develop the whole skills agenda and the growth agenda in our country.

Recruitment of Teachers

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I strongly agree with my noble friend. The curriculum and assessment review is important to ensure that teachers have a curriculum that promotes high standards in reading, writing and maths and is strong and knowledge-rich. It also provides the opportunity for innovation, expertise and, as she said, the agency of teachers to provide the absolutely best, broadest and richest experience for our children. That is a clear objective of the curriculum and assessment review.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has inherited a situation where we have the highest number of teachers leaving the profession and the fewest people wanting to go into teaching. As she rightly pointed out, we have a shortage of teachers of specialist subjects. Is it not time that we no longer look at sticking-plaster solutions but at the whole picture? If we are to make teaching a profession that people want to go into, we have to deal with workload problems, the salary and some of the problems that teachers face in terms of their role increasingly becoming one of social workers. If we do that, more and more people will want to become teachers.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I completely agree with the noble Lord about the challenges, not just that individual teachers have in the classroom, but that we have in attracting people to and keeping them in the profession. He has identified a range of areas that we need to make progress on as a Government and on which we are already taking action. I have mentioned some of the proposals around retention. The noble Lord is right about teacher workload and well-being. Our improved workload and well-being for school staff service, developed alongside school leaders, contains a whole range of resources to enable schools to review and reduce workload and improve staff well-being. On the other pressures that happen outside school but which children bring into school, we will have the opportunity during the forthcoming Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to consider the other initiatives that the Government are taking to support the most vulnerable children, strengthen our children’s social care services and, through a whole range of other provisions, make sure that children are able to arrive at school appropriately supported and ready to learn.

Primary Schools: Mental Health Problems

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to deal with mental health problems in primary schools.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a particularly pertinent Question as it is Children’s Mental Health Week. The Government are committed to setting every child up for the best start in life and, as part of our ambition for high and rising standards in schools, helping every child to achieve and thrive. We will provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, so that every young person has access to early support to address problems before they escalate.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I am grateful for the Minister’s reply. It is important that children and young people have access to mental health support, but of course the reasons that cause mental health and well-being problems need to be carefully considered, whether it is bullying or online problems. Every school needs to know how well children are doing, but I would suggest to the Minister that maybe the pressures that key stage SATs put on 10 and 11 year-olds can at times be very harmful indeed. Would the Minister consider looking at how we might alleviate those pressures, by perhaps considering having standardised teacher assessments or ways that make it much more enjoyable rather than a frightening experience for them?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am afraid that I think it is important that we maintain both the check on students’ progress and the accountability for our schools that key stage tests enable us to have. So, no, I will not be taking the noble Lord up on his suggestion of fundamentally changing those any time in the near future.

Primary Schools: Swimming Lessons

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I was reminiscing about a previous life in which we worked together as Ministers to considerably increase the sporting opportunities for children in our schools and for people more widely. She is absolutely right to identify that, although it is obviously important that children learn, as the national curriculum suggests, to swim 25 metres by the time they finish primary school, there is much more to swimming as an opportunity for life than simply meeting that standard, important though it is. We need to think about how schools can provide more opportunities for broader sporting activity, including swimming, and, of course, how our community facilities, which have been reduced in recent years, can support the broadest possible engagement, including from those children whose parents are perhaps less able to take them for swimming lessons and activities than is the case at the moment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as patron of the Royal Life Saving Society. The Minister will know that, in the 10 to 16 age group, one in three young people cannot swim; that is the group with the highest occurrence of drowning. More shockingly, within the black community, 95% of adults and 80% of children cannot swim; the figures are roughly the same in the Asian community. These are shocking figures. Does the Minister agree that it is time we had an action plan so we can ensure that every child who leaves school can swim?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a very important point about the discrepancies in achievement in children’s swimming. He is absolutely right that if someone comes from a well-off background they are more than 80% likely to have fulfilled the requirement, whereas that goes down to a third for someone from a poorer background. As he also rightly says, there is a real difference depending on someone’s ethnic background. That is completely unsatisfactory.

Although work is ongoing through the Inclusion 2024 project to try to ensure that more children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, get access to swimming, the noble Lord is right that there is more we all need to do together, and across government, to ensure that children meet the required standard by the time they leave primary school. Furthermore, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, identified in her previous question, we need to ensure that they are also able to get the enjoyment and opportunities that come from being able to swim confidently.

Qualifications Reform Review

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

On these Benches, we very much welcome this Statement. We got a flavour of what was to come when the Minister, in a recent opinion piece in Further Education Week, struck a more conciliatory tone and indicated that the Labour Government now see a bigger role for applied general and other qualifications, alongside A-levels and T-levels.

We on these Benches have consistently opposed the scrapping of BTECs. While there is always some value in rationalising qualifications from time to time, forcing students into a choice between A-levels and T-levels will narrow the choices of the students at a time when we need a range of ways for them to gain the transferable skills needed in future careers. BTECs are popular with students, respected by employers and provide a well-established route to higher education or employment, so it is hard to understand why the Government wanted to scrap most of them and force young people to choose between studying A-levels or T-levels from the age of 16. We are concerned that removing the option of BTEC qualifications will adversely affect poorer students in particular.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, a particular difficulty for schools and colleges has been uncertainty. It is impossible to plan for a course, have the right staff on hand and have timetables planned if you are unsure whether a course will actually run. For many students, this is very unsettling. Will the Government undertake to provide certainty for colleges, schools and pupils? Secondly, we can all recognise the teething problems that T-levels have had, with low student satisfaction, complex assessments and major work experience requirements. What will the Government be doing to tackle these issues moving forward?

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their response to the Statement. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, says, we have been clear, in making this Statement, that we are providing certainty for colleges and sixth forms up to 2027, which was certainly one of the sector’s requests.

The noble Baroness asked about the future vision for technical education and the skills system, which I have been able to expound at some length in the consideration of the IfATE Bill. Fundamentally, our view is that skills are essential to this Government, particularly given their mission-led approach. The skills system has a crucial role to play in training the workforce needed to deliver our missions of greening the energy system, rebuilding the health service and delivering safer streets, and is a core component of growing the economy and ensuring that everybody has opportunities to succeed throughout their lives.

We are in the process of developing a comprehensive strategy for post-16 education and skills, to break down barriers to opportunities, support the development of a skilled workforce and drive economic growth through our industrial strategy. At the Association of Colleges conference at the beginning of November, I was able to outline some of the key principles that will apply to that strategy. I hope that we will be in a position to publish more information about the principles and vision of the strategy soon, and then work collaboratively with noble Lords, and, importantly, the sector, to bring forward the details of that.

One of the reasons for providing certainty on qualifications to 2027 is to enable the Government’s curriculum and assessment review to carry out its work, and to do so in a way that will inform further consideration of ensuring that the qualification options for level 3 students—those between 16 and 19—deliver on the fundamental need for appropriate choice and high-quality qualifications, with support from employers and others to ensure that the qualifications, particularly in the technical and vocational area, deliver the skills needed to grow the economy.

I am looking forward to Report stage of the IfATE Bill after our Christmas break, when we will all come back refreshed and ready to re-engage in this important legislation. I have been reflecting hard on the points made by noble Lords in Committee about clarity on the role of Skills England, and the ability for noble Lords to see more clearly how the functions transferred to the Secretary of State to be invested in Skills England will be implemented. I look forward to sharing those views and bringing forward what I hope will be helpful changes to provide assurance to noble Lords when that Bill comes back.

The noble Baroness asked in particular about engineering and manufacturing. It is probably worth while saying that one of the new ways that we have approached the qualifications review is to take a route-by-route look at the options available to students. The reason for the decision to keep the applied qualifications in engineering and manufacturing is precisely that the occupational standards in this area—where employers play a crucial role in identifying what those are—are in the process of being updated. We want to make further decisions and invite reform to qualifications in the light of those improved and updated occupational standards when they emerge.

On national insurance contributions, the Chancellor announced at the Budget that public bodies will receive support to help with the costs of the employer national insurance contribution increase, and we will set out in due course what support will be available to colleges.

In addition to asking about certainty, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about T-levels. As we made clear in the Statement, T-levels are high-quality qualifications, and we want to extend the opportunity they provide to as many young people as possible. We acknowledge that T-levels are large programmes of study and cannot always meet the needs of all learners who want to study in the occupations that they cover, which is the argument for leaving alternatives. However, where a student wants to study a large qualification equivalent to three A-levels’ worth of study in the routes that T-levels cover, T-levels should be the qualification that is offered to them.

We have already taken specific action on one key issue with respect to T-levels, the industrial placements, which are enormously popular with students. When I talk to T-level students, I find that they are enormously enthusiastic about the opportunity to carry out a 45-day placement, but to grow T-levels, we need to ensure that those placements are in place. That is why we have introduced flexibilities around the way in which the placements can be offered, to enable the continued growth of T-levels.

In certain T-levels, of which digital is a good example, the awarding bodies are now looking at the assessment within the T-level to ensure that, while it remains the rigorous qualification that it should be, it is more manageable for those providing it and for students, while enabling students to demonstrate what they have learnt.

I thank noble Lords opposite for their questions. I hope that we now have a period of certainty where students will be able to benefit from the choice of a range of qualifications, with an assurance that this Government will continue to ensure that they will be as high-quality as possible in order to support students’ opportunities throughout life and to meet the need for skills to help us grow the economy.

Maintained Schools: Term Dates

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Under regulations, schools are expected to be open for 190 days, or 380 sessions, each year. As I suggested in my initial Answer, it is also important that there is local co-ordination around holiday dates in order to support parents and to ensure consistency, in the way the noble Lord described.

I think the noble Lord started by saying that this makes it more difficult to recruit teachers. Of course, while it is important that children have a fixed week and a specified number of days, it is of course possible, as has been the case, to develop more flexible ways in which teachers can work. The department is keen to promote that by, for example, funding a programme focused on embedding flexible working in schools. I hope that will be one of the things that will enable us to improve teacher recruitment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thoroughly agree with everything the Minister has said. She is right that schools must be open for 190 days—195 days for teachers, so they can do the five days of in-service training. There has to be flexibility for such things as religious holidays in faith schools and wake walks in Lancashire; you have to be able to deal with those changes. The real problem occurs when academies with headquarters in, say, the London area but schools in the north-west try to standardise the holidays and do not take those regional variations into account. Of course, travel companies shoot up the prices during the main school holidays, and it becomes very difficult for families to afford those prices.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I simply reiterate what I said: it is important that there is co-operation at a local level to cover the types of schools where parents might have a child in each, to ensure consistency in school holidays. But I take the noble Lord’s point about that possibly differing from place to place. In the end, we need to focus on what is the best arrangement and the appropriate amount of time for children to be in school, so that they can get the best possible opportunity to learn.

Higher Education Reform

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we welcome the Secretary of State’s Statement on universities in the Commons yesterday. Labour introduced student loans, and in opposition Keir Starmer wanted to abolish them. No doubt he cannot because of the £22 billion black hole.

We know that in 2015, the Liberal Democrats paid the price for making a pledge on tuition fees that we could not keep, but our reforms at least made the system fairer by giving more support to pupils on low incomes and ensuring that the least well-off graduates repaid the least.

Now, our universities are crying out for government to look at their funding, which has remained frozen for eight years. The Conservative Government, while espousing their importance, did nothing but abolish the maintenance grant, so that living costs became a barrier to university learning for disadvantaged students. The previous Government also cut the repayment threshold to £25,000, so that today’s students have to repay hundreds of pounds more per year than older graduates on the same salary. They lengthened the repayment period from 30 to 40 years, so today’s students will still be paying back their loans in 2066.

Does the Minister agree that the crisis in funding must be addressed, and have the Government considered how to support universities without raising fees? Will the Minister look at the benefits of international students and give universities stability in this area of policy? Finally, will the Minister look at how universities spend their allocation of £10,000 per student, so that students get value for money and a good university education experience, and the money is spent as efficiently as possible?

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I welcome the positive response to yesterday’s Statement and announcements. I think we all understand that this country is blessed with a world-class university sector whose teaching, research, contribution to the staffing of our public services, international reputation, earning and impact are significant and something we want to defend and ensure continues into the future.

Sadly, on coming into government we feared that the crisis in the funding of higher education put all these things at risk. That was the reason for taking the action we announced yesterday: to increase tuition fees by 3.1% and to reflect the challenge that students have faced, particularly from the cost of living, by increasing maintenance loans as well. We were also very clear that alongside that increase in investment that students will make in our higher education sector, we also expect to see considerable reform, which I will come on to in a moment.

Let me respond to the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. First, on repayments, she is right that the way in which both tuition and maintenance loans are repaid means that no student will pay more per month. Of course, no student pays anything, up to £25,000-worth of annual income. The total amount a student pays depends on whether they repay within the 40-year time limit for the loan. Any student who currently would not repay within the 40 years—because they were on a low income or had gaps in work—will not pay any more with the increase in tuition fees. It is of course right that anybody who would have repaid during that time period will now have a larger debt to repay; but to reiterate, that is no cost upfront and no higher repayment per month after graduation.

On the impact of both the national insurance contributions and the changes to foundation degrees, we will publish an impact assessment alongside the statutory instrument that will bring about the increase in the fees, and we will spell out the analysis at that point. Regarding students who have already started, the intention is that the tuition fee increase will apply to new and existing students, but that could depend on the contract and arrangements made between the university and the individual student. We will make further announcements on the changes to postgraduate support and the disabled students’ allowance in due course.

The noble Baroness also raised the issue of the gap in respect of disadvantaged students. I think she conceded, as my right honourable friend stated yesterday, that this year the gap between those who are more advantaged and those who are more disadvantaged has widened. Although there are more students, both advantaged and disadvantaged, going to university now, it is not good enough to rest there: not only have we been incapable of closing that gap, but it has widened in the last year. That is why, as the first of the elements of the reform programme, we will undertake serious work with the sector, with those who support students in applying to higher education and with schools, and think about what more we can do to support anybody who could benefit from and wants to take part in higher education, so that they can access it.

We are determined to close—

Education: Early Years Attainment Gap

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right about the progress that was made under the last Labour Government, and she played an important role in that Government in this area of policy. I assure my noble friend that, as well as the plans that I have outlined, the department is working on an early years strategy that will give consideration to all the areas that she has outlined.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, this is a hugely important Question. I wonder if the Minister would take a moment to think that it is not just about provision; it is also about the quality of that provision and of the staff. Does she agree that all nursery staff working with children from the ages of two to four should have a relevant qualification, or be working towards that qualification, in early years?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that the quality of staff is fundamental, but so is the number of staff. We have a big challenge to ensure that we have sufficient staff in place by next September to deliver the outlined entitlement. We are working to provide additional training for staff. I take his point about the training and ongoing support that we need to provide for the staff who do such an important job at the beginning of children’s lives.

Schools: Absenteeism

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to identify the scale of children who are both missing school and, in the case of those who are severely absent, missing more than 50%. We have seen those figures continue to rise, unfortunately. I am open to the idea of targets being the right approach, but I absolutely assure him that we are working extremely hard with a range of policies: the breakfast clubs that I have outlined, the specialist mental health professionals, the new guidance expecting close working between schools and local authorities, and the work on data and better analysis of those who are absent. That was started by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and we are absolutely determined to build on it to make sure that we bring those figures down.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with the Minister that we should ensure that children are in school and get the best possible learning opportunities. However, we have a system whereby any parent can take their child out of school and say, “I am home educating them”. We have no checks on whether that home education is taking place, on its quality or on whether children are safeguarded. After Covid, we have seen children go back to school, not like school and say, “Can I be home educated?” “Yes.” Is the Minister prepared to support my Private Member’s Bill on home education?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is of course talking about a slightly different issue from absenteeism, which is where somebody is already on a school roll and is not attending. He makes a valiant plug for his Private Member’s Bill, which I am delighted to say I will respond to on 15 November. It is probably also worth saying that of course, through our children’s well-being Bill, we will legislate to introduce children not in school registers, to improve the visibility of children and young people who are not on school rolls, including those getting unsuitable home education.

Government’s Childcare Expansion

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches welcome the proposals; they are very much in line with our manifesto at the last election. I believe that all three parties, in perhaps slightly different ways, have a real desire to develop childcare provision. I want to tease out from the Minister the most important thing for early years childcare provision: the quality of the staff and the staff feeling valued. That means not just the salary but the training opportunities they get.

Over the last decade or more, we have seen staff in nursery and early years settings feeling that they are there just as glorified helpers. One nursery nurse said to me, “I could get more stacking the shelves at Lidl than I get in my job in a nursery”. If we want brilliant early years education, we need staff who feel motivated and want a career in that line of work. I had a 100-place nursery in a primary school and I remember how the staff were absolutely devastated when their names were changed from “nursery nurse” to “NVQ level 4”. They hated that. There had been no consultation with them at all; it just happened as part of the skills agenda. That is my first point.

My second point is that, while we welcome the commitment on top-up charges, we have also to recognise that the income generated in private nurseries sometimes caused real problems for them; but doing away with top-up charges is absolutely correct.

I like the notion that we increasingly put nurseries in primary schools, where there is capacity. Why? Because the primary school can provide all the other things that are available there: advice on special educational needs, and a whole host of other opportunities.

I am pleased about childminders—although I do not actually like the title “childminder”. They do not just mind children; they develop children. They get them to play, to interact, to talk, to learn and to discover. They do more than just minding—but I suppose we are stuck with that title. Childminders were very concerned several years ago when there was a movement towards doing away with single childminders; they had to be part of a company or a group. I thought that was wrong. So I recognise and welcome the proposals on childminding. It should not be a sort of privatised provision. Anybody who has the qualifications and experience should be allowed to do it.

I want to make a final point. There is an aspiration to go to 30 weeks’ provision, but that provision does not cover a full calendar year. Nurseries—particularly private nurseries—find it very difficult because, at the end of the 30 weeks of provision, some parents, especially those from deprived communities, cannot pay the additional money, so they withdraw their children for that period. The nursery or early years setting then finds it difficult to financially survive. So, we need to look at how we ensure that there is equity for the provider as well.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord. I am very happy to accept that there has been an enormous transformation in the country’s attitude to childcare and in the extent of childcare available. When I entered the other House in 1997, following a considerable period of Conservative rule, we in Worcestershire were infamous for having the worst childcare provision across the whole of Europe. I am glad that people have seen that childcare and early years provision is important for people’s ability to go to work and, at this moment in time, to support people with the cost of living, but I think that the additional area where we need to focus more attention is that good early years provision is absolutely fundamental for children’s development and giving them the very best possible start in life.

The noble Baroness suggested that the Government are pitch-rolling away from the pledge to entitle working parents to 30 hours of childcare a week from 2025; that is absolutely not the case. The Government are committed to providing that, but we are being transparent and honest about the challenge it will bring. As we said last week, it will mean another 75,000 childcare places and over 30,000 more staff will be necessary; that is a big challenge that needs a plan, not just an aspiration.

I am sorry that the noble Baroness thought that the comms at the beginning of the school year were a little on the quiet side; I did a whole morning media round on this and shouted it from the rooftops. I am pleased that we were able to celebrate 320,000 more parents getting their childcare entitlement this year, but there is certainly more that we need to do. That is why we will work to look more strategically at what we need to do to develop the early years sector and have undertaken to develop a strategy, which I expect us to publish and bring to this House next year.

The noble Baroness asked about breakfast clubs. A few weeks ago, we were able to announce the 750 trailblazing breakfast clubs that will be open by next year, which will build on previous work to get breakfast clubs into schools. However, we are also making a stronger commitment both to providing these free for all primary school pupils and to ensuring that the childcare element of the breakfast club is also in place—that is a very important way that we get children to school early and ready to learn, which does not necessarily happen just if you have a breakfast club, despite the excellent work those breakfast clubs are doing.

On school-based nurseries, the noble Baroness is right that we announced last week £150 million of funding which schools can bid into, so that we can develop up to 300 school-based nurseries as part of our objective to have 3,000 of those over the course of this Parliament.

The noble Lord is absolutely right that, if we are to achieve quality early years provision, we need to develop even further the brilliant staff who are working in early years and childcare. That means we need to reset our relationship with the childcare workforce, ensure that there is appropriate status for that role and think about training. We have already begun to provide, for example, more guidance around how to identify special educational needs, and we will want to continue that work.

We are taking action on ensuring that mandatory extra top-up charges are not levied on parents who take up government-funded childcare places, and we will be working with the sector and with parents in order to make sure that we strengthen that guidance.

Childminders do excellent work, but we have seen a halving of the numbers of childminders over recent years. The flexibilities, including the additional flexibilities announced last week, will help to ensure that childminding remains an important element of the childcare environment.

The noble Lord raised a point about flexibility for school holidays. It is already the case that quite a lot of childcare provision, including that provided around schools, continues into the school holidays. However, in thinking about our overall development of provision and our strategy, we will certainly want to think about how we can ensure that that is as flexible and well supported as possible for parents to be able to use all year round because of the enormously important impact that it has on those parents and, more importantly, on children’s best start in life.

Early Years Provision: Bell Review

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Importantly, having made it clear that we want to deliver the entitlements set out by the previous Government, this Government have started the hard work to put in place the action necessary to do that. It will not be easy; I am afraid that we inherited a pledge without a plan to deliver it. Having ensured that 320,000 children have been able to take up this year’s additional entitlement, the Government’s focus is to make sure we have the places and workforce to enable the growth of that entitlement, which we will try to deliver in September 2025. However, it will be a difficult task, made more difficult by the planning failure of the previous Government.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

Sir David is clearly a man of integrity, great educational experience and knowledge. We understand that because the report was leaked, he decided that he was not going to continue and publish it. However, I hope that some of the key elements of that report—not least introducing a new qualified teacher route—will be included in legislation that comes before us. In fact, after Questions, we will be considering the Minister’s Statement on early years. Can the Minister confirm that the proposal to increase the early years pupil premium, whether it came from Sir David or not —it has not yet been published—will be considered at some point?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

While we are ambitious for early years and childcare, we will need to consider the outcome of the spending review in thinking about where we can focus our resources. We intend to produce an early years strategy early next year, which will certainly build not only on what we have learnt in government and our work engaging with stakeholders and the dedicated staff in early years and childcare, but on Sir David’s recommendations.

Ofsted

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Smith of Malvern

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

In response to the noble Baroness’s first remarks, I agree that teachers and school leaders deserve enormous congratulation on the improvements that they have made in schools, and this Government are committed to supporting them to achieve even higher standards for all our pupils.

The announcement that the Government have made alongside Ofsted is the removal of the single headline grade for Ofsted inspections, something that provided a relatively low level of information but of course had enormously high stakes for schools. In doing that, we are absolutely committed to ensuring that parents have the information they need to be able to make decisions for their children, and that schools have the information to enable them to improve. That is why we will work with schools, parents and young people themselves, and Ofsted will lead this to help to develop the report cards that will provide more useful information.

The noble Baroness was, understandably, particularly interested in the impact on intervention. To be absolutely clear, where Ofsted identifies serious concerns with a school, the current situation whereby the Secretary of State can ensure that a maintained school becomes an academy or a failing academy is forced to become part of an academy trust remains. There is no change there but where schools could benefit from improvement, the development of regional improvement teams, apart from an early structural intervention in the management of schools, gives us an additional way to promote improvement in our schools and make sure that all children, wherever they are learning, are gaining the highest standards and schools are being held to account for delivering those.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, these Benches welcome the changes to Ofsted inspections and applaud the Government for the speedy way they have acted. Following the tragic suicide of Mrs Perry, noble Lords will recall that the review of what happened found that Ofsted had acted in a way that was

“defensive and complacent rather than reflective and self-critical”.

For us, school improvement is not about wielding a big stick—it is about collaboration, support and valuing schools and helping them to get better. How does the Minister see well-being and mental support of staff being provided during an inspection?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right to outline the comments made by the coroner in the case of the tragic death of Ruth Perry and by the Education Select Committee in another place about the impact of the single headline grade in those circumstances. That is part of the reason for the Government’s decision to remove that single headline grade, while maintaining a wealth of information from the Ofsted inspection in the report card that is being developed.

I will be frank with the noble Lord. Having been on the receiving end of an Ofsted inspection both in schools and children’s social care, I think the inspections will always bring pressure on to schools and other settings, and so they should. The point is whether they are bringing pressure to good effect. During its Big Listen process, Ofsted has also had the opportunity to consider how to maintain that rigorous inspection and accountability process but to do that in a way, as the noble Lord says, that focuses on accountability and improvement but does not put undue stress on to schools and head teachers.