Young People: Digital Resilience

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister in our first meeting at the Dispatch Box. I salute his sense of adventure in joining the Government in what may be politely described as interesting times. Surveys have revealed that parents are now more concerned about their children sexting than drinking alcohol and smoking, so the Government’s internet safety strategy Green Paper is certainly welcome. However, they need to spell out exactly who will pay the social media levy, how much they will pay and what it will be spent on. I realise these are questions for the future. The question of transparency for social media companies is also an issue. I want to ask the new Minister a question, but I will be happy if he wants to respond to me in writing. In May 2015, the noble Baroness, Lady Shields, was appointed Internet Safety and Security Minister—a post she held until June this year. If the Government are really serious about online safety, why has the noble Baroness not been replaced?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I will have to respond to the noble Lord in writing, but to give some reassurance, the Digital Economy Act 2017 introduced requirements for online pornography provided on a commercial basis to be inaccessible to under-18s. The Internet Safety Strategy Green Paper, which we have just published, will also look at related issues.

English Baccalaureate: Creative and Technical Subjects

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it is entirely appropriate that the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, secured this debate. To no one’s surprise, she opened it with a flourish and covered so much ground that it left very little for others to say that was new; I certainly find myself in that position.

Labour is not opposed to the EBacc—certainly not per se. We recognise its value, and it is right that every student should have the opportunity to take all the EBacc subjects if they want to. But we do not believe that it should be compulsory. It is to some extent instructive that, of the 13 previous speakers, only the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, spoke favourably about the EBacc as it currently operates. Forcing it on 90% of GCSE students is sensible neither for them nor for the long-term needs of the country’s economy. Further, it amounts to yet another accountability measure on which schools will be scrutinised and judged, including by Ofsted.

By imposing the full EBacc, the Government are claiming that foreign languages, and history or geography, are inherently, and in all circumstances, of more value than non-EBacc subjects. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, handled that point effectively when he offered an escape route, should the Government desire one. If there is evidence to support the Government’s position on this, I do not think that I would be alone in your Lordships’ House in being very interested to see it.

The logic of the EBacc appears to be that GCSEs in these subjects are harder and therefore more worth while, and they are described as the facilitating subjects that Russell Group universities want to see. That means that you need to do two of them at A-level in order to be in the best position to get on to a Russell Group course. Two of them—not five of them—and only if you want to go to a Russell Group university, and only at A-level. So that rationale is exaggerated, at best.

Other subjects should form equally valuable components of a student’s rounded education, as other noble Lords have said. Surely it cannot be denied that arts and technology are important, not least because of the personal development that they allow young people to pursue, but also because the creative industries, as other noble Lords have said, are now such an important feature of our economy. So we should not be sending a message to schools and to young people that creative and technical subjects are not really valued. There has been a great deal of government rhetoric about closing the divide between academic and vocational education, but with the EBacc the Government are unequivocally promoting the superiority of the academic pathway.

The curriculum should not be driven by the needs of the minority who are going to the most selective universities. Many of the essential work-related skills that the CBI warns are in short supply may well be better developed in technical and practical contexts. To impose the EBacc on students regardless of their interests and ambitions for the future is simply not appropriate. That is not to say that some young people are not suited to academic subjects and so should be pushed down a vocational route. But there should be a genuine opportunity to choose at 14, rather than be forced into a government-designed straitjacket.

Quite rightly, the Government have been promoting the apprenticeship route heavily as a valid alternative to university, and further education colleges now recruit 14 to 16 year-olds directly. Equally, the Government are encouraging still more university technical colleges and studio schools, which, according to the Government’s response to the EBacc consultation, are to be exempted from the 90% threshold. To develop a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, in her opening remarks, perhaps the Minister can say what percentage will be expected of them and indeed whether any target will apply. Despite what the Government said in their response to that consultation, which was published in July, these initiatives leave the Government’s position confused, if not contradictory.

Changes must be made to the EBacc—otherwise, the Government will not meet their stated objective of improving technical education—but just as important is the effect the EBacc will have on restricting the range of subjects available in many schools. Research carried out by King’s College London for the National Union of Teachers showed that 74% of teachers believe that the EBacc has already narrowed the key stage 4 curriculum offer in their school. Arts and technical subjects are often the losers, and the Government’s persistence with a measure which reduces students’ opportunities to take part in such subjects risks disengaging some from education altogether.

The Minister has said in the past that there will be room for students to study subjects outwith the EBacc core—in theory, perhaps, but in recent years there has already been a significant shift away from creative and technical subjects in key stage 4. The impact on design and technology has already been referred to by many noble Lords, but between 2009-10 and 2015-16 there was a 35% drop in take-up, which must be a matter of real concern. My noble friend Lady McIntosh spoke passionately about the benefit of arts and culture being delivered as part of the curriculum. As we have heard, these subjects are already being squeezed.

The DfE response to the consultation makes great play of the New Schools Network survey published earlier this year. The New Schools Network is well known as a cheerleader for government education policy, but its figures do not square with those involved at the chalkface. I have already referenced the King’s College survey of teachers. The National Association of Head Teachers found that four-fifths of school leaders are against government plans to make 90% of pupils take the EBacc, while the Association of School and College Leaders is concerned that,

“this will have a significant impact on arts and technology subjects and increasingly squeeze them out of the curriculum for many pupils”.

These are the professionals dealing with our schools on a day-to-day basis and what they say should be given considerable weight.

At a time when school budgets are under severe pressure, head teachers will naturally look at closing classes that are not full or not as popular as others. Perhaps the Minister will inform noble Lords whether the Department for Education has cast its net wider than the NSN survey in considering the likely effects on narrowing the curriculum.

Enforcing the EBacc on 90% of students also means that the current teacher supply problem will be exacerbated, not least in relation to modern languages. Equally, there may be teachers of non-EBacc subjects who are deemed surplus to requirements. How does the Minister intend that staffing issues emanating from the EBacc will be dealt with?

Not all young people thrive and receive positive reinforcement of their strengths in a highly academic curriculum such as that of the English baccalaureate. The robust nature of the new grade 9 to 1 GCSEs is likely to propel the move towards a narrower curriculum offer to allow for greater focus on those core subjects. This will not serve young people whose strengths lie in hands-on technical and professional subjects, such as the creative arts, construction or the service sector, all of which make a considerable contribution to our economy.

The Government's current emphasis is on vocational or technical and professional education, outlined in the Post-16 Skills Plan for delivery from 2020. Young people and educators are being encouraged to focus on destination outcomes: work or higher education. Yet the opportunities for young people to experience subjects with a clear path towards work at key stage 4 are being eroded, in contrast with high-performing countries such as Norway. In the academic year 2009-10, 63,000 key stage 4 students attended college for at least one day a week on vocationally focused programmes. By 2014-15, that had dropped to 24,000. Evaluation of these increased-flexibility programmes points to the value they provided in confidence building and progression directly on to level 2 or 3 programmes post 16. The Government’s plans on EBacc will not address this problem.

Further, by 2022, when 90% of young people are supposed to be entered for the EBacc, the gap between the number of students entered and their achievement levels will inevitably grow. The danger is that more students will feel that they have failed—a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott—and failure, or perceived failure, at that level could have a negative impact on confidence as they progress to post-16 education.

The Minister may have seen or had drawn to his attention the OECD Education at a Glance 2017 report launched this week. My noble friend Lord Knight mentioned the OECD. Given that that report runs to some 487 pages, I would not recommend that the Minister or indeed any other noble Lord devour it in its entirety, but it shows that the UK spends less per vocational student compared with other OECD countries, most of which spend more on technical and vocational programmes than on academic ones. The challenge put forward for western OECD countries is to make teaching more financially and intellectually attractive—a point that the Minister and the Department for Education should note.

It is essential that the Government allow some flexibility in the development of the EBacc. Rigid adherence to the 90% target will not allow sufficient room for opportunities to study the creative and technical subjects better suited to many students. That would not only act as a boost to career opportunities for some of the less able and disadvantaged students, but more broadly it would begin to bridge the growing skills gap that the Government otherwise seem intent on tackling.

I say to the Minister that some consistency is required, because mixed messages and conflicting policies will help neither the next generation of the workforce nor the already uncertain future of the UK economy in a post-EU world.

Schools Update: National Funding Formula

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Secretary of State’s Statement. If today’s announcement is indeed a funding formula where not a single school loses funding and it is genuinely new money, I will welcome it. Indeed, I will offer hearty congratulations to the Minister because that would mean the Government had formally adopted Labour Party policy, as set out in our manifesto for this year’s election.

To expect the Minister to concede that point might be a step too far but in any case we are not yet there. Real questions remain about real-term protections for school budgets, the length of the transition to the new funding formula and whether the Government will finally begin to reverse the wider cuts facing school budgets. However, I unconditionally welcome the recognition given to high-needs pupils, not least in the title of the policy document itself. Yet the total spend of £5.9 billion that the Minister mentioned is not referenced. Is that the figure projected to 2020? What is the baseline figure?

On the question of cuts to schools already being dealt with by head teachers, non-partisan bodies such as the National Audit Office and the Institute for Fiscal Studies stated that even the £1.3 billion of what we now know is recycled money announced by the Secretary of State in July would reduce the 6.5% real-terms cuts facing schools only to 4.6%. What effect will today’s announcement have on these real-terms cuts? Indeed, where does the £1.3 billion announced in July stand in relation to today’s Statement? It is mentioned but it was not clear to me how it is tied in. The Statement says core funding for schools and high needs will rise from £41 billion this year to £42.4 billion next year and then £43.5 billion. It is not clear how that relates to the £1.3 billion announced in July.

I mentioned that if this is as it seems it will be welcome but head teachers, teachers, support staff and students deserve to know quite clearly where they stand in respect of today’s announcement. In announcing the £2.6 billion additional core funding, the Statement mentioned delivery on the Conservative Party manifesto in terms of fairer funding. However, it made no mention of the fact that that same manifesto promised £4 billion of new funding in the period of the entire Parliament, should it last up to 2022. What status does that commitment now command? I hope it still stands.

Finally, we welcome the fact that the Government listened to the voices of teachers and parents, as expressed during the general election. That clearly had a considerable bearing on the content of this announcement. However, as ever, the devil is in the detail. Until we have that detail, future funding for our schools will remain unclear. I hope the Minister will allay those fears. I would not expect him to come back on those points just now. It would be perfectly acceptable if he wrote to me.

Schools: Children in Care

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

It is not driven by money at all; it is driven by a passionate belief by a number of people, including the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and others who have been to boarding school that it can help and that we had lurched into a certain prejudice against boarding schools. We are just inviting local authorities to look more widely at the options and making much more information available to allow them to evaluate those options.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, while acknowledging the potential benefits of the Boarding School Partnerships, the noble Lord will be aware that most children in care will have experienced some kind of trauma and a high proportion have unmet mental health needs. Extending the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, I think that it is questionable whether boarding schools are equipped to provide the sort of wraparound support that these children may need. Indeed, such a placement does not necessarily address the reasons a child was taken into care in the first place. For many of the children being placed at a state or independent boarding school, that will be outside their local authority. Research by the Children’s Society demonstrates that the further children are placed from home, the more likely they are to go missing from care. Will the Minister give an assurance that, when children in care are placed in boarding schools outside their home local authorities, the placing local authority will share appropriate information with the host authority to ensure that these children are appropriately safeguarded and have their particular needs met?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord raises a very good point. I think that that is the situation, but I will check and write to him.

Free Childcare Entitlements

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Statement as well as for his Statement on the same subject on 18 July. The Government then responded to an Urgent Question on the process of applying for the 30 free childcare hours. The Minister’s response included the admission that the childcare service is a complex IT system which had “experienced technical issues”. He went on to state that:

“HMRC, which developed the service, has been working hard to resolve these issues and as a result the customer experience has improved”.—[Official Report, 18/7/17; col. 1525.]


I have to say that it has not improved enough in the intervening seven weeks to avoid many parents being unable to get their code to access the 30-hour entitlement. None the less, I note what the Statement says in respect of no one losing out. However, according to figures given by the Minister in another place today, six days after the new entitlement began, only 152,000 out of 390,000 eligible parents have been able both to get a code and to find a place for their children. That represents a success rate of under 40%. What plans do the Government have to increase that rate dramatically? I suggest that re-evaluating the policy’s funding would be one means of doing so.

I hope that the Minister will also be in a position to provide an answer to a key question asked earlier by my colleague Tracy Brabin in another place. She did not receive an answer, but three hours have elapsed and I am confident that the Minister’s officials will have ensured that he arrived at the Dispatch Box fully briefed and able to provide an answer. The question was: can the Minister guarantee that he will not allow a two-tier system to emerge whereby parents who can afford to pay extra will have access to the new entitlement and those who cannot pay will not?

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments. I think it is fair to say that no Government have done as much as this one to develop childcare. We have delivered a massive increase in childcare provision and the sector has handled that well. Our evidence from the 12 live pilot projects—not surveys but live projects—is that they are handling this implementation well. As I said, this is a complicated project, which the noble Lord also referred to, but overall it is going well. Of course there are teething problems, as there always are with a new provision, and we apologise to those parents who may have experienced them. We will do all we can to help them.

The evidence from the 12 pilots, however, is that the vast majority of providers are engaging, parents are happy and, for many of them, this project has had a life-changing impact. We have heard some moving stories of parents who have experienced this. Almost a quarter of mothers have reported that they have been able to increase their working hours, along with a 10th of fathers. The fact that some 150,000 or so places have been taken up reflects that these are very early days. It is inevitable when one has a deadline that there is always quite a rush up to it, and the fact that 70% of these children have already had their codes validated by nurseries is pretty good, given that only a few days have elapsed since the deadline and obviously not all parents will want to take up the offer immediately.

We have no desire to preside over a two-tier system. The Government have done all they can to support less privileged children. We have the early years pupil premium, the free entitlement for two year-olds and tax-free childcare. It is certainly not our intention to preside over that kind of system.

Schools: Recruitment and Retention

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, despite the Minister saying that he is not complacent, I think that noble Lords will agree with me that his answers suggest that he and his department remain in denial about the crisis in teacher retention and recruitment. Just eight months ago, the department confirmed that almost one-third of teachers who joined the profession in 2011 had left it within five years. My noble friend Lord Knight asked a few moments ago whether the cause was workload or pay. In fact, it is a combination of both, particularly below-inflation pay increases. On that specific question, can the Minister reveal to noble Lords whether teachers and teachers’ assistants are among those public servants that the Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to regard as “overpaid”?

[Lord Nash]

One reason why it has become difficult to recruit teachers is the strength in the economy. The best way to recruit more teachers might be to have a Labour Government, who would wreck the economy and therefore dramatically improve unemployment rates and increase our chances of employing teachers. We live in a highly competitive economy. In many parts of the country, we have full employment. Difficulty in recruitment is not exclusive to teaching or to this country. However, we are not complacent; we are investing a great deal of time in a more regional approach to teacher recruitment and in changing our approaches to advertising and marketing, with schools working together in different regions on a much more sophisticated approach to recruitment.

Free Childcare Hours

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government apparently rushed out their revised implementation strategy for the scheme yesterday, less than two months before families are anticipating taking up their additional hours. The pledge that the extra hours would be free seems to be evaporating because it was announced yesterday that providers would be allowed to charge parents for extras on top of those 30 hours. What will happen to those families for whom affording those extras is not possible?

When the then Prime Minister touted the free childcare pledge in the 2015 election campaign, he promised to double the 15 hours available to nearly 1 million children. It was then reduced to 600,000 children, and it has since been admitted that fewer than 400,000 children will be eligible. Will the Minister tell noble Lords the Government’s latest estimate for the figure and how many families are getting the 38 hours that his party originally promised to all?

We know from our newspapers today that there was some kind of IT failure in the system yesterday. Treasury Ministers admitted in response to my colleague in another place Angela Rayner:

“It is not possible to provide a definitive number of applications not completed due to technical issues”.


What is the Minister’s estimate of just how many parents suffered those technical issues? What guarantees can he give to parents that those technical issues will be smoothed out in good time for the system to come into operation as intended?

[Lord Nash]

I think this is good news. There are some very moving stories around the country and a lot of happy parents emerging from our early implementers. There are examples of couples who are both factory workers who were previously working shifts that did not coincide now managing to coincide those shifts. In answer to the specific points made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, he is quite right that providers can charge parents for meals, consumables, such as nappies and sun cream, and additional activities, such as trips or yoga, but parents must not be required to pay any fee as a condition of taking up a free entitlement place. We have done a great deal since 2010 for disadvantaged families. In additional to the pupil premium we have 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two year-olds, tax-free childcare and many other offers.

I am not the most computer-literate person on this planet, but I had officials take me through the process earlier today and I could not see any step in it that was unnecessary. It takes about 20 minutes, and the steps seem absolutely necessary to make sure that the system is secure and that only those who are truly eligible are qualifying.

Children in Need

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I will have to go away and look at this. I am certainly a great believer in earned release schemes, where prisoners earn the right to be released early on the basis that they attend courses in prison. I was not aware of this and it is rather off my brief, but I will go away and come back to the noble Baroness on it.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Local Government Association recently highlighted a serious shortfall in local authority budgets to appropriately fund services for children in need and their families. Between 2010 and 2015, high-deprivation local authorities had to endure cuts of 21%, while the figure for low-deprivation authorities was 7%. Perhaps the Minister can help noble Lords make sense of that. I hope that he has been made aware of the research published last year by Professor Paul Bywaters and colleagues at Coventry University, which showed an association between the numbers needing child protection and looked-after children’s services and children living in local authorities with the highest rates of child poverty. Will he now commit to taking steps to ensure that the local authorities with the greatest proportion of children in need receive the funding necessary to ensure that children are not unnecessarily drawn into the child protection and looked-after systems?

Schools Update

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, what a disappointment the Statement is. Filled with contradictions, it is, I regret to say, little more than smoke and mirrors. Given the current state of the Government, it is probably akin to a sticking plaster on a broken leg.

We had been led to believe through leaks—the Government have them as common currency these days—that the national funding formula was to be scrapped. It may still be scrapped, but we do not know because we will not hear the result of the consultation until September. So why have we had the Statement today? It leads me to the conclusion that the cliff edge on which the Government are balanced means that the Prime Minister has had to offer a sweetener to her MPs who were in a ferment about the potential cuts faced by schools in their constituencies, which had cost some of their colleagues their seats as recently as June. Something had to be done and it seems that it could not wait until September—I suspect that that is because September is two months away and there can be an awful lot of plotting in two months these days, even with Parliament in recess—not a scenario that the Prime Minister could afford to have unfold.

The Statement does not provide a solution to anything. In fact, it is quite dishonest—I use the term advisedly—because the implication is that this is new money. It is not. It a refocusing of resources. The Statement quite clearly uses the term “additional investment” which would appear to be new money but it is not. In repeating the Statement, the Minister said what I think is the most important phrase in all five pages of it:

“The £1.3 billion additional investment in core schools funding which I am announcing today will be funded in full from efficiencies and savings”.


What do the Government think schools have been doing for the last seven years if not finding efficiencies and savings? We are at the stage where you cannot get blood out of a stone, yet the Government seem to think they can turn the wheel just a little tighter and out will pop some more savings that can be refocused.

What the Government say they intend to do with the money we are of course pleased about. There is no question over more money for primary schools, particularly in the sports premium, or funding being ring-fenced for the vast majority of primary and secondary schools. Yet there is more to it than that because the savings the Government seek will in many cases be impossible to make. They talk in the Statement about having advisers they can send into schools to tell them how to make yet more savings. That is an insult to head teachers, many of whom are leaving the profession because they cannot face making teachers redundant or not replacing those who leave. That is an extremely serious problem which the DfE and its Ministers do not seem to grasp. Frankly, I do not know who they speak to on a daily basis, because that is the impression I and many noble Lords and Members in another place get regularly through our postbags and from meeting people.

The Minister seems to think that schools which have had to resort to asking parents for donations for books and other materials will welcome what the Government are saying today. I cannot see why on earth that would be, particularly in respect of new free schools. Last year, the Government promised that they would introduce 600 new free schools. The National Audit Office predicted that, because of the money made available, only 20% of that number could be funded. As if by magic, we learn today that the figure has been reduced to 140 for one of the Government’s pet projects. The trouble with free schools is that all too often they pop up in places where there is no pressure on school places, i.e. where they are not particularly needed, when there are all sorts of pressures in other places.

The Minister says that the investment will be,

“funded in full from efficiencies and savings”.

In the general election, it was proposed to end free school lunches for children at key stage 1. We know that has been rolled back and we know why. However, if that saving is no longer available where do the Government think they will find the resources to increase spending in schools? I am worried about the fact that this is only a transitional arrangement. We are told it is for 2018-19 and 2019-20. I wonder whether more sticking plaster will be required then. The refocusing of resources, which is what this is, can happen for only so long. Many people will read this Statement and think on the face of it that it looks good. I see that some of the media coverage already is that there will be £1.3 billion of new money for schools. As I said, that is simply not the case.

I also wonder whether, with the additional resources that the Government are looking for, other budgets will be raided. Can we have an assurance that the further education budget, already severely hit, will not be to any extent tapped for additional resources, and that the apprenticeship programme will be protected? It is not clear to me how the Government can meet their aims in this document. For years, schools have made those savings. To quote the bottom of page 4 of the Statement,

“it is vital that school leaders strive to maximise the efficient use of their resources”.

That will be met by head-shaking in schools. That is what school leaders have been doing for as long as many of them can now remember.

I am at a loss when it comes to finding anything good to say about this Statement. The Government have the obligation to come clean and highlight that the so-called additional investment is not additional at all. There may be extra money going to schools but only if extra money can be taken out of schools in the first place—a Peter and Paul situation, which I do not think will fool many people for long.

This is a major disappointment. It does not meet the needs of schools or provide the resources requested by local authorities and many school leaders and head teachers. We are led to believe that there is a new spirit in government of seeking ideas from other parties. I suggest that the Government look at Labour’s proposals to reverse the existing cuts and give schools a real-terms increase—something there is a very good chance we will be in a position to do in the very near future.

Education: English Baccalaureate

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

Again, this assumes quite a lot. As I said, it is clear to us that a number of pupils taking these subjects in the past were not the next generation of creative artists; they were people that suited, for instance, the Labour Government’s equivalence structure, whereby they were helping the statistics. Heads will respond only to the incentives set for them. We have set them an incentive to have many more pupils doing a core academic suite of subjects. That seems to be working and we should celebrate that. But we are investing considerably in the creative subjects, and we have a number of free schools and technical colleges focused specifically on that.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I very much note the concerns expressed by noble Lords on the teaching of creative and technical subjects, but, perhaps offering the Minister some welcome respite, I will look at another aspect of this Question: the rather worrying trend developing in the Department for Education and its Ministers of the inordinate amount of time it takes them to respond to consultations. In January this year, I asked in a Written Question how many DfE consultations that had a closing date between January 2015 and September 2016 had still not been responded to, including the one in the Question asked by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. The Minister replied, saying that there were seven—one of which, incidentally, was the revision of fire safety for buildings in schools. That cavalier approach may have been something the Government felt they could get away with when they enjoyed a majority. Now that the Tories are merely the largest of the minority parties down the Corridor, will the Minister commit to noble Lords that he will ensure his department replies to consultations in a much timelier manner?

[Lord Nash]

I do not think that this slow pace of response is in and of itself necessarily cavalier, but I have said I very much hope that our response on EBacc will be available shortly, and I shall do all I can to try to make sure that we respond quickly in future.