Children’s Homes etc. Inspection Fees, Childcare Fees, Adoption and Children Act Register (Amendment) Regulations 2019
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, my father and his brother were adopted into a loving family, and it changed his and his brother’s lives for good, so in a sense I have a vested interest in this important debate. I welcome the opportunity to speak in support of the Motion to Regret and thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for moving it.
I am deeply troubled that the Government’s behaviour has made such a debate necessary. I remember that, during the coalition Government, the then Prime Minister David Cameron rightly spoke of the importance of adoption and the need to ensure that children are matched with the right family and that the process is not dragged into bureaucracy of our making.
I paid careful attention to what the Government said in the Explanatory Memorandum about the revocation of the regulations referring to the adoption register, but there is no explanation, merely a statement of what the regulations state, ending with the following sentence:
“These revocations are necessary as the Secretary of State will not be operating or maintaining an Adoption Register from 1 April 2019”.
That is the sum total of the Government’s justification for simply allowing the adoption register to lapse. They have abandoned—or let lapse—plan A without any plan B.
In the letter to the scrutiny committee, the Children’s Minister says:
“I would like to reassure the Committee that this decision was made following careful scrutiny of all the evidence and I am confident that it will not have a negative impact on children and adopters”.
However, there is no information about what “all the evidence” comprised, nor details of the “careful scrutiny” that the Government claim to have undertaken. It is difficult to challenge the Government’s decision, as the Explanatory Memorandum offers no explanation. The Government cannot claim that there will be no “negative impact”—nor, indeed, any other impact—as they have not undertaken an impact assessment of any sort. The adoption register has disappeared without trace and without any transition arrangements being put in place. Worse than that, there is no suggestion as to what the Government intend to do to replace the register.
Later in his letter, the Minister admits:
“It is my understanding that the charity Coram, the former contractor for the Adoption Register, also intends to set up a matching service. They have communicated that to all local authorities, but I do not know when this service is expected to launch … I do not know how many local authorities choose to subscribe to additional services … I am unable to say what the distribution of local authorities across that range is, except to say that around £5,000 is the average. The amount paid is a matter between individual local authorities and Link Maker”.
The Minister goes on to justify the decision by saying:
“The Adoption Register ceased operating on 31 March 2019, and, since then, I have not received feedback from any adoption agency to suggest they are struggling without it”.
I hope that the Government do not think that the lack of feedback within just seven weeks is evidence that there is no problem.
Some people may think that the regulations are just tidying up some unnecessary bureaucracy or getting rid of another length of red tape, but they would be wrong. It is always easier to talk in the abstract, but this is a shameful—perhaps dreadful—example of the Government pulling out of or back from doing something positive. The Government are washing their hands of hundreds of the most vulnerable children.
According to Coram—it ran the adoption register, as we heard—the hard evidence is that 277 of the most difficult-to-place children were found families in the single year up to 31 March 2019. Although I say “most difficult”, the difficulties are not of the children’s own making but their often complex needs mean that they need adoptive parents with the skill, determination and commitment to provide them with a proper home.
The alternative for many of these children is life in an institution of one sort or another—a life that could be transformed by finding the one set of parents in England that could meet their need for a family life, as happened for my father. In her letter to the scrutiny committee, the chief executive of Coram stated:
“The Adoption Register was the only registered, child-focussed pro-active independent service helping agencies to find adoptive homes for children when all other approaches have been tried. It was a vital extra chance for those who wait the longest - those with additional needs, developmental uncertainty, BAME or in sibling groups”.
In its excellent briefing, Coram said:
“Without the Register, agencies may pay to use an alternative product, with the total cost to the sector likely to exceed the value of the Register contract”.
The commercial alternative, depending on the size of the local authorities and the looked-after children population, is typically between £5,000 and £10,000 per local authority. We are all well aware of the dire situation of children’s services and the difficulty in them finding even this relatively small sum. To cover its annual costs, the register needed to help to find adoptive families for just two children who would otherwise have remained in care for the rest of their childhood—a target that has been achieved every year since it was created.
For some children, the adoption register was their last chance. For every child not adopted because the Government have abandoned the register, and for every adoptive parent not matched with an adopted son or daughter, the impact is incalculable. This Government should be ashamed of allowing the register just to disappear.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, due to the announcement in Part 4 to close the national adoption register for England, these regulations are subject to a regret Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, on which I congratulate him. I should also say that we do not believe that the negative procedure is appropriate in this case. It should be used for routine matters; by no stretch of the imagination is the sudden closure of the national adoption register—with no proper replacement identified, far less in place—a routine matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, the Explanatory Memorandum provides no rationale for it.
When a local authority considers placing a child for adoption, it looks for a match with a suitable family, which is often found locally. For some children, it needs to look further afield to families “recruited” by another adoption agency. To facilitate this process, the national adoption register was introduced in 2002. The database included details of children who had been approved for adoption but were waiting to be matched, approved prospective adopters and prescribed information about children for whom the adoption agency was considering adoption. It was used by social workers and approved prospective adopters to seek matches until it was closed down in March this year under these regulations.
Like the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, we find too many unanswered questions associated with the closure of the register. The committee drew the regulations to the special attention of the House on the grounds that the explanatory material laid in support provides insufficient information to gain a clear understanding about the instrument’s policy objective and intended implementation. It also expressed concern that there was no public consultation on the closure.
Such was its concern that it held an oral evidence session with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families. The committee remain dissatisfied with Mr Zahawi’s responses to its probing about the potential implications of the Department for Education ceasing provision of the register before a replacement system is ready, particularly regarding the impact on hard-to-place children. At that session, the Minister stated repeatedly that his aim was to end what he called the “silo mentality”, saying that he wanted to bring fostering and adoption into one place. That is a worthy aim, but, unfortunately, he offered no suggestion as to how that might be achieved and said nothing at all about when or even if a new type of national register would be established involving children available either for adoption or fostering or both. How the needs of children would be separated if such a register were ever to be established was not left hanging because it was not even mentioned.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for tabling this Motion. I understand that he has a strong interest in this area, so I appreciate his desire to have this debate.
Every child deserves a loving and stable home. For the majority of children, that is with their birth family. For others, it may be with extended family, foster carers or adoptive parents. Indeed, thousands of adoptive families have had their lives transformed by adoption, which can give vulnerable children the opportunity of a caring and stable home. I am proud of the work this Government have done, and continue to do, to support adoption.
The time it takes for a child to be adopted has fallen. Since 2012 the average time between a child entering care and being placed with a family has reduced by seven months to 14 months. This is encouraging, but of course more can be done. We are creating a network of regional adoption agencies across the country to help ensure that children are placed without delay and that high-quality adoption support is available nationwide. There are 80 local authorities in 18 live regional adoption agencies, which are reporting the benefits of working together. We expect all local authorities to be in a regional adoption agency by 2020.
Since launching it in 2015, we have provided almost £120 million through the Adoption Support Fund, helping adopted and special guardianship children and families adjust to their new lives. By March 2020 the total investment will reach almost £150 million.
These regulations do a number of things. However, I appreciate that the primary concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, relate to revoking the duty to refer children and adopters to the adoption register. As we have heard, the register was an online database that sought to match children and adopters who had not been matched locally. In August 2018 the Government announced their decision not to re-procure. The contract for its running ended on 31 March this year. As a result, we wish to revoke the duty to refer children and adopters. Not revoking this duty would cause an unnecessary burden on adoption agencies to fulfil a redundant duty to refer to a register that is no longer in operation. I reassure noble Lords that these regulations do not seek to do more than this. All other legislation relating to the adoption register remains.
The noble Lord, Lord Russell, raised the issue of exchange days. The register contract part-funded exchange days and activity days. It is my understanding, from information provided by Coram, that it intended to continue them. These tend to be on a commercial basis, funded by local authorities. Central government funded them as part of a discovery phase to ensure that they worked—and in many cases they do.
The Government have considered these changes to the adoption register for some time, gathering evidence on its use. In late 2017 we completed specific research on the adoption register. To answer the specific question from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about how we reached this decision, the research found that although the register had been useful in matching children with adopters over its period of operation, practitioners did not favour it, instead wanting to be provided with up-to-date, accessible information. A clear theme arising from the research was the difficulty of using the register and views on its effectiveness. Over recent years the vast majority of adoption agencies—93%—have chosen to pay for subscriptions to alternative services, despite the adoption register being free. I understand that all local authorities now subscribe to an alternative.
Feedback from adoption agencies suggests that often the adoption register was used only because the agency was under a legal duty to do so. Before the register closed, we understand that the majority of children and adopters appeared on alternative matching services. In March 2019, the main commercial provider had active profiles for more than 1,500 approved adopters, while the register had around 400 active profiles.
The noble Lord, Lord Russell, was concerned about a lack of compliance with the duty to refer. He is correct that, although there was a statutory duty on adoption agencies to refer children and adopters to the register, this did not always happen. I appreciate the concerns that the Government did not do enough to fix this. I assure noble Lords that we did take measures to address it: we regularly discussed the matter with Coram, the contractor, monitoring data or referrals and then speaking to the agencies when Coram had identified a recurring issue. My colleague, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families, also wrote to all local authorities to remind them of their obligation. It should be remembered that around 70% of adoption matches are not made using matching systems; they are made locally. The adoption register contributed around 7.4% of matches in 2017-18, with other services contributing the remainder.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
That is exactly the point: some 257 matches were made in 2018-19, and hard-to-place cases are the ones that we are concerned about. The Minister has not so far mentioned hard-to-place children. I hope that he will come on to that.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
I assure the noble Lord that I will specifically address the issue of harder-to-place children in a moment.
Since we announced the closure back in August 2018, the Government have not received any feedback to suggest that local authorities and adoption agencies are having difficulties matching children. In fact, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services said that,
“local authorities continue to take responsibility for our children who need adoption and the adopters we approve, and have never relied on one system alone in the matching process”,
and ahead of the closure, the sector leaders spoke out about their support for the decision.
On harder-to-place children, the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Watson, sought reassurance that such children would not be more vulnerable or drop out of the system because of the loss of the register. The adoption register was never intended to be solely for harder-to-place children. Rather, it was to provide an alternative source of potential adopters for all children. To some extent, all children who are not placed locally, so needing a matching service, could be regarded as harder to place. But “harder to place” is generally understood to mean sibling groups, ethnic minorities, children over five years-old and children with a disability. One of the commercial alternatives contains a high number of hard-to-place children. I understand that its recent child cohort included 50% in a sibling group, 12% aged over five, 27% who did not identify as white British and 15% who had multiple health or emotional needs. I hope that that also addresses the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey.
In a recent survey by Link Maker, the alternative provider that was discussed, 67% of respondents said there had been no change to their ability to find matches for harder-to-place children, 14% suggested that it was now harder and 17% suggested that things had improved. Indeed one of the comments said,
“by far the most matches for the harder to place children, siblings groups etc, came via Link Maker rather than through the Adoption Register”.
The noble Lord, Lord Russell, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, asked how many children were likely to miss out on placements. That is the most crucial question in this debate. I would like to reassure noble Lords that children are not being left behind following this decision. There is no gap in provision; children are and will continue to be matched with loving families. The Government will of course continue to monitor this and robust action will be taken if this changes.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about a lack of proactive searching. I understand that there is concern that the alternative provider offers only a system, whereas the register provided an additional service. As the noble Lord said, the register employed 10 regional business partners to search for links. In 2018-19, it found 120 matches. During the same period, the main commercial alternative found 967 matches. If a child has been waiting for a long period, the main commercial provider system will proactively contact the social worker to provide assistance.
Alongside the register, agencies have used a range of other services and also use the exchange and activity days that I have already mentioned, including commissioning them for their areas. It is important to acknowledge the important work of Coram in this area. I recognise the important work that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, does with Coram and the support he provides to it.
Naturally, I understand concerns when we talk about commercial providers, but I assure noble Lords that we are not talking about large organisations making a profit at the expense of children and adopters. The main commercial provider, Link Maker, is a social enterprise run by a group of adopters. It monitors the progress of children added to the system, and if a child has been on the system for an extended period, an email is sent suggesting ways of finding matches. I understand that another service is being launched and will be run by Coram, which, as I said, is respected for its work.
For the main commercial provider, subscriptions by local authorities are paid on an annual basis, not per child. There is no reason—in particular, no financial reason —why a commercial service would ignore harder-to-place children. Local authorities have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of a child they are looking after, and I trust that they will continue to fulfil this duty.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about the cost of Link Maker. I appreciate the concern about the cost of commercial alternatives. As the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State said to the committee, on average it costs a local authority about £5,000 a year for the subscription. I appreciate the concern when considering that the adoption register was a free service, but it is important to state that the majority of adoption agencies—around 93—were already paying for a subscription.
The noble Lord, Lord Russell, asked about our future plans. The Motion refers to work we are undertaking on the feasibility of a future digital infrastructure to support this area. This brings us to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Russell, about the Select Committee and Sir Martin Narey. Both reports suggested that the Government’s work for the most vulnerable children in our care is too siloed. The reviews found that considering the component parts of the care system, for example fostering and adoption, in isolation,
“creates an unhelpful divide in the way we approach a child’s experience in the system and his or her routes to permanence”.
In response to this, we are trying to improve support across the sectors with better information and better systems. Agencies hold and share a lot of data and need to ensure that it is managed appropriately. We are exploring the feasibility of introducing a system that can bring it together to support better communication and present it in one place in a user-friendly way. We agree that this makes sound sense and we are actively considering the implementation of a single list.
Reflecting the findings of these recent reviews, we want to work with the sector to think through the best digital infrastructure to support adoption and fostering. My colleague, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, will write to colleagues to provide more detail on this work following the spending review.
Beyond the adoption register, I shall also say a few words about what else these regulations cover. They make changes to inspection fees for social care providers and childcare providers. They introduce a 10% increase to the fees payable to Ofsted by some social care providers to move closer to full cost recovery. This increase has been made annually since 2010. As well as this, Ofsted charges an annual registration fee to childcare providers on the early years register. This statutory instrument maintains the current registration fee of £50 for a specific group of providers that operate for only a limited number of hours each day, reducing the potential burden on childcare providers of a fee increase.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred to the procedure used for these changes to the regulations. I understand that there has been some concern. We are advised that the negative procedure was correct for this type of change, and it is the procedure set out in the primary legislation. We spoke to the sector extensively, and it was comfortable with the adoption register coming to an end. We wanted to revoke an unnecessary duty; indeed, we were asked to do so by the sector. There was therefore a feeling that this was routine and that we were attempting to tidy up regulations so as not to leave a redundant duty. I reassure noble Lords that there was no attempt to hide this or slip it through under the radar.
I welcome noble Lords’ interest in these regulations. I want to provide reassurance that the Government have spoken to the sector extensively regarding changes to the adoption register and that that dialogue continues. Feedback shows that users of the register are comfortable with the decision to end its operation. We have not received any feedback to suggest that agencies are struggling without it. I accept the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that it is early days; however, had it been crucial to the operation of local authorities, within three months we would have heard something from them.
I hope that I have been able to provide more context to these changes and to reassure noble Lords of the focused and necessary attention of these regulations. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Russell, to withdraw his Motion.
Sure Start
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. The IFS research demonstrates the critical role that Sure Start plays in children’s health as well as in their general development. The key findings are that the Sure Start programme begun by a Labour Government 20 years ago had a big, positive effect on children’s health, reducing the hospitalisation of children from disadvantaged areas by the time they finish primary school. Indeed, by age 11 Sure Start prevents about 5,500 hospitalisations each year, at an estimated saving to the NHS of £5 million.
Surprisingly, the Statement says that the Government welcome the report, although it is not clear why. Even more surprisingly, it asserts that there are now more children’s centres than at any time prior to 2008. How can that be? Last year, the Government’s own figures admitted that more than 500 Sure Start centres had closed. We know that it is many more than that. How does the Minister justify that astounding claim?
With the upcoming spending review, the IFS calls on the Government to review the impact of Sure Start and decide how the programme will be used. We thoroughly endorse that call, and I ask the Minister: will the Government commit to responding to the report’s recommendations before the Summer Recess, because children in disadvantaged communities cannot wait while the Tory party continues its self-indulgent navel gazing?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord’s question about the exact number of children’s centres, as at the current state, there are 2,353 main children’s centres and a further 700 linked sites open to families and children. The important part of this issue is that all noble Lords share our concern to help improve the chances of disadvantaged children in our society. We have taken a slightly different approach through the introduction of the offers for two year-olds, three year-olds and four year-olds, where we are providing free childcare for hundreds of thousands of young children.
Schools: Free School Meals
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, we are running a number of pilot schemes on food in school holidays, and we have quadrupled the amount of money this year to strengthen programmes to encourage co-ordination in local communities. Just two weeks ago, we announced a number of organisations that will be working across the country to do this. We hope to feed around 50,000 children during the holidays this summer.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
Can the Minister square his comment that all children are entitled to nutritious school meals with the fact that the Conservative Party’s 2017 manifesto committed to ending universal free school lunches for infants?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, the reality is that we have not done that and are providing some 1.5 million infant meals at a cost of some £600 million a year.
Education: Climate Change Science
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
The noble Lord makes a very interesting suggestion, which I shall pass on to the Foreign Office.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord commented on science and geography being taught in schools. Clearly that is not effective enough, because students in Oxford have started a national petition to make climate change a core part of the curriculum. So far it has attracted 71,000 signatures. So young people are getting the message, and it seems that MPs are as well, because two weeks ago a Labour Motion in another place to formally declare a climate and environment emergency was endorsed without a vote. I should add that the Environment Secretary responded to that debate by saying that the situation we face is an emergency. That endorses the Minister’s point about this not being party political; I very much welcome that. Given Mr Gove’s wise words, perhaps I might build on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Singh. Does the Minister know whether Mr Gove will raise with Donald Trump during his visit the fact that climate change is a very real threat and that ignoring international agreements and action on the climate crisis is something that he can no longer do?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I am not sure whether my right honourable friend Michael Gove will be meeting Mr Trump, but I am sure that he would raise those issues with him. I want to put a slightly different slant on things. We are making enormous progress in this country to combat climate change. As I mentioned, we are leading the world in offshore wind power generation, the cost of which per kilowatt hour has dropped dramatically in the past five years. We have created a Green Finance Institute. A record proportion of our energy is generated by low-carbon sources. In the past few weeks, we have had the first evidence of generation of electricity without any use of coal at all. We have dramatically reduced the role of coal-fired energy in generation. So we must remember that we are doing an enormous amount. My priority on climate change is that we should adapt to deal with its consequences.
Schools: Adopted Children
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Triesman for initiating this debate and for his powerful opening speech which, as he said, was informed by his personal experience as an adoptive parent.
There are over 40,000 children in England who have left care as a result of being adopted or finding a guardian. Many of them will have suffered loss or trauma and therefore require special support. For too many, that is sadly not what they experience. Last year, Adoption UK’s report entitled Bridging the Gap, which has been referred to by several noble Lords, explored the powerful links between well-being and attainment in school. It revealed that adopted children struggle more than their peers at school in several ways and that there are several gaps as a result.
The first is the understanding gap. The report found that almost three-quarters of adopted children said that they did not feel that their teachers fully understand or appreciate their needs and how to support them. Teachers are already underpaid and overworked, so it is essential to ensure that they get the support and training necessary to enable them to bridge this understanding gap. It is also important to inform and educate children about this. Two-thirds of adopted children surveyed had experienced bullying or teasing because it had become known that they were adopted. Under the new regulations on teaching relationships education, pupils will learn about the variety and diversity of modern families. They also need to be taught about families where one or more of the children do not live with their birth parents. An increased understanding of adopted children among their peers is necessary to counter that type of bullying.
Related to this is the empathy gap, which was stressed by my noble friend Lord Triesman and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. It is key to giving adopted children a chance of receiving an education that will enable them to make their way in the world. It should be a matter of great concern to the Department for Education and Ministers that the Bridging the Gap report found that 60% of adoptive parents do not feel that their child has an equal chance at school. This needs to change, because every child deserves an education that allows them to develop their talents to the full. Yet adopted children are much more likely to be excluded from mainstream school than their peers, on which I shall say more later.
Many of the challenges that these traumatised children face are often exacerbated by an educational environment and culture which, it seems, cannot accommodate their needs. The third gap concerns resources. Schools in England are facing real-terms funding cuts leading to a decline in teaching assistants and specialist support, the very people needed to support looked-after and previously looked-after children. Cuts typically disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, and it is no different in schools.
Finally, there is the attainment gap, which results from the early traumas experienced by many adopted children. DfE statistics on adopted children’s attainment shows that they perform only half as well as the general pupil population at key stage 2 and in their GCSEs, so it should be no surprise that they are also more likely to leave school with no qualifications. The attainment gap will be meaningfully reduced only when the other three gaps of understanding, empathy and resources are addressed.
It is now 10 months since Adoption UK’s report was published, and I would like to think that its recommendations will have been studied carefully by DfE officials. I hope that the Minister will be able to point to actions that the Government are taking or will take to address the gaps referred to in the report and how they can at least be narrowed, if not closed.
In June 2018, a DfE official was quoted in Schools Week as saying that, from September of that year, schools would be required to appoint a designated teacher for children adopted from care to help them at school. In addition, to gain their qualified teacher status, trainee teachers would be required to show that they understand how a range of factors such as social and emotional issues—and how best to overcome these—can affect a pupil’s ability to learn. Can the Minister say what monitoring of progress in these two areas has since taken place and what that monitoring shows?
This feeds into the issue of exclusions, where the figures concerning adopted children are extremely worrying. In November 2017, Adoption UK’s Schools & Exclusions Report found, as my noble friend Lord Triesman said, that adopted children are 20 times more likely to be permanently excluded from schools. Official DfE statistics also show that looked-after and SEND children are more likely to receive exclusions than their classmates. Adopted children share many of the same issues as looked-after children and are disproportionately represented within the SEND cohort.
Despite this, official figures on adoptees being excluded are not currently collected and analysed by the DfE. Why would the Government not collect and analyse full data on attainment, special needs, exclusions, truancy and NEET status for adopted children? It is essential that the Government collect and analyse exclusion and performance statistics for adopted children, as they do for other cohorts, and I hope the Minister will be able to announce today that this will change. If he is not able to do so, I trust that he will be able to explain why. How will educational outcomes for adopted children improve without measuring them? The short answer, of course, is that they will not.
The 2017 Adoption UK report that I referred to revealed that the true extent of adopted children who have been excluded from school is being masked because schools are regularly asking adoptive parents to keep their children out of school without recording them as exclusions. Some 12% of parents said their child’s school had advised them that the only way to avoid permanent exclusion was to remove their child voluntarily—generally referred to as a “managed move”. If true, that is shocking. Can the Minister say what he intends to do to address this behaviour by certain head teachers which, if not unlawful, certainly ought to be?
Another means by which adopted children can be induced by head teachers to disappear from school records is through home education—or, more accurately in many such cases, so-called home education. We welcome the recent announcement by the Secretary of State that it will become mandatory not just for all parents taking their children out of school to register that fact but for head teachers to inform local authorities when a child leaves a school register, for whatever reason. Adoption UK found that 12% of adopted children were being home educated. That is appropriate when parents opt for home education as a first choice, often as a conscious contribution to the development of the child whose life they are determined to make as rewarding as possible. But no less than eight out of 10 home-educating adopters said they would prefer their home-educated child to be in school if the right school place were available. Many of these parents have had no training in educating children and are doing so solely because their children have been permanently excluded or off-rolled and no quality alternative provision is available locally.
Yesterday, along with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, I attended one of the hearings conducted by the All-Party Group for Adoption and Permanence as part of its inquiry into the adoption support fund. I heard some very powerful evidence from both practitioners and parents and, although it is not directly related to this debate, I have to say to the Minister that the view was very clearly articulated that the adoption support fund simply must be continued beyond March 2020, when its funding is due to come to an end. Those giving evidence to the all-party group told us that it would have catastrophic effects if that were not the case.
I understand that the Minister will be unable to do other than repeat the response made by his fellow Minister Nadhim Zahawi, in a Written Answer to my colleague Rachael Maskell MP two weeks ago, that until the spending review has been concluded, the Government are unable to say anything about the future of the adoption support fund. However, the Minister can—and, I believe, should—give a commitment to noble Lords today that he will undertake to make the case in strong terms to Treasury colleagues that the adoption support fund provides essential therapeutic support for children and families and therefore must continue beyond next year.
Finally, the disparity in education provision between children adopted from local authority care in England and those adopted from overseas is stark. This was referred to by my noble friend Lord Triesman and the noble Lord, Lord Storey. Indeed, in December 2017, the Schools Minister Nick Gibb wrote to all school admissions authorities recommending that they give second priority to children who have been adopted from overseas. That represents discrimination involving vulnerable children who are legally adopted by UK citizens. I understand that Mr Gibb had a re-think and has now committed to righting this wrong with new legislation, although given the suffocating blanket of the Government’s attempts to leave the EU, just when overseas adopted children and their parents will finally receive equal treatment is anyone’s guess. What I do not understand is why the Schools Minister cannot simply tell admissions authorities as an interim measure to treat overseas adopted children as they treat domestic adopted children. Can the Minister provide an answer to that?
There appears to be no such change planned in respect of pupil premium plus, which sees £2,300 per year allocated to each domestically adopted child but not those adopted from overseas. Again, why the difference? Must we assume that it is simply the cost? If so, it is unacceptable for the interests of overseas adopted children to be regarded as dispensable in that way. Pupil premium plus should be paid in respect of all adopted children and should be ring-fenced to ensure that it meets the needs for which it is intended.
It is vital that adopted children, wherever they come from, are not hindered by their past and are given hope that they will be able to create a better future for their own children than they themselves experienced. Education is the number one issue for adoptive parents and, as this debate has highlighted, there is much to be done before they will be convinced that the Government are fully on their side in bringing about an educational environment that meets their needs.
Apprenticeships
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
I will write to the noble Earl with the exact figures, but there is good news; I have come reasonably prepared for this question. The percentage of BAME apprentices—black, Asian and minority ethnic —went up from 9.9% in 2011-12 to 11% last year. Importantly, the number of apprentices with learning disabilities has gone up from 7.7% to 11.9%.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, one of the causes of the Government falling so far short of their laudable target of 3 million apprenticeship starts by next year is that not enough young people are directed towards apprenticeships in schools. A recent survey showed that only 9% of current apprentices found out about theirs through their teacher, and just 6% through a professional careers adviser. That is totally unacceptable. When will the Government start enforcing the requirement introduced last year for all schools to have a designated careers leader and—under the Baker clause of the Technical and Further Education Act—for head teachers to allow outside speakers to come in and inform young people of the rewarding alternatives to the academic route after they leave school?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
The noble Lord is right that schools are still not engaging enough to encourage apprenticeships. I accept that as fair criticism, but we are improving. We have just had the Youth Voice Census back for 2019, which shows that the percentage of children learning about apprenticeships has gone up. For example, specifically for engagement at FE level, “meaningful encounters” with sixth-form colleges have gone up from 52% to 60% and with FE colleges from 52% to 58%, and independent training provider engagement has risen from 29% to 34%. The work is ongoing.
Children’s Rights
Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I will have to seek advice from the Home Office and write to the noble Lord on that.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the 2017 Conservative manifesto said:
“Britain should be the best country in the world for children”.
Yet, as other noble Lords have said, today the UNHRC’s recommendation on the child’s rights action group or strategy still remains unfulfilled. The same manifesto also said that child poverty would be reduced but, despite what the Minister has just said, it is going in the opposite direction. Adding insult to injury, last year the role of Minister for Children and Families was diminished from Minister of State to Parliamentary Under-Secretary. In the circumstances, how can the Minister come to this House and tell us that the Government are committed to the interests of children?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord about child poverty. A child growing up in a home where all the adults are working is five times less likely to be in poverty than a child in a household where nobody works. In 2010, under the old Labour national minimum wage a person would have taken home £9,200 after tax and national insurance. Today, under the national living wage that person would take home £13,700. That is a dramatic increase for that family.
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. Noble Lords have contributed to what I can fairly say has been a wide-ranging debate, and certainly a very interesting one.
These regulations relate to issues that I believe are fundamental for the human rights of everyone in the UK, both adults and those young people who have yet to achieve that status. As my noble friend Lady Massey said, they are overdue and we welcome their introduction, although they could be more robust in one important respect, as I will mention.
As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham said, a major change in the world that young children are growing up in since the sex and relationship guidance was last updated two decades ago is the development of the internet and the spread of social media. Of course social media has benefits, but it can also have a genuinely detrimental effect on the lives of children.
Another instrumental factor in the legislation that provided for these regulations was the growing realisation and acceptance that LGBT people have human rights too and that it is not for the state to dictate the dynamics of family life. It is poignant to remember this on the day of the funeral of the murdered journalist Lyra McKee, whose life stood for treating LGBT people equally, especially in a part of the United Kingdom where those rights are currently often denied.
Many noble Lords will recall the progress two years ago of the then Children and Social Work Bill though your Lordships’ House. The key change to the Bill was made in another place, when a new clause was tabled by Maria Miller MP with the cross-party support of almost 50 other MPs, most notably my colleague Stella Creasy, who had long campaigned on the need for LGBT education. The new clause was given enthusiastic support by several children’s organisations and the Terrence Higgins Trust, which, allied to the broad base of support from MPs, led the Government to table their own amendment. So, from September next year, relationships education will be compulsory in all primary schools in England, and relationships and sex education will be compulsory in all secondary schools, with health education compulsory in all state-funded schools. That is an appropriate response to the identified risks that children and young people might face and the need to support them to be safe, healthy and manage their academic, personal and social lives positively.
By that same deadline all schools must have in place a written policy for relationships education and relationships and sex education. Schools are meant to work closely with parents when planning and delivering these subjects, but therein lurks a potential problem. There is a real concern that the Government’s structural reforms to the school system have made it more difficult for parents to have their concerns heard at a school level. The shift to academies and the removal in many cases of local parent governors gives the impression, I fear too often borne out by fact, that decisions are made by managers rather than educationalists in academy trusts that are remote from schools and their communities. That not only damages the relationship between parents and schools, but surely works against early and effective engagement in framing relationships and sex education. It matters if the person in charge of each school is not accessible to parents; that person has to have sufficient stature to carry out the consultation sought by the Secretary of State under these regulations. The Minister is very much an academies man, so I invite him to set out how the remoteness felt by many parents from those running some academies will be addressed in the context of the close working with parents when planning and delivering the subjects covered by these regulations.
We accept the need for parental choice, and understand the provision for parents having the right to withdraw their child from the sex education element of relationships and sex education—in what are still rather ill-defined exceptional circumstances—up to and including three terms before a young person turns 16. I accept what the Minister said in his introduction—that there were likely to be only a small number of occurrences of that—but in terms of contributions from other noble Lords, who can say how many parents will be either willing or equipped to fill the void in providing the sexual knowledge that a young person needs to enable them to make informed choices in their lives? In relationships education in primary schools, the focus should be on teaching the fundamental building blocks and characteristics of positive relationships, which will create opportunities to ensure that children are taught about positive emotional and mental well-being and how friendships can impact on that.
Children should also learn about different types of family make-up. The guidance falls short of requiring schools to teach the acceptance of LGBT people and lifestyles, and gives encouragement to those few schools that might wish to omit LGBT content completely, which is unacceptable. A school’s role is surely to set out different views and approaches in society, with an overall duty to tackle prejudice and foster good relations between people of different characteristics. Teachers should be actively supported in this regard, not undermined, as has happened in those schools that have recently suspended the No Outsiders programme. While the guidance is stronger on LGBT inclusivity at the secondary school stage, it nevertheless advises that sexual orientation and gender identity “should”, rather than “must”, be explored by secondary schools in a,
“clear, sensitive and respectful manner”.
I do not think that comes close to the proselytism referred to in the powerful contribution by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. There is obviously a need to reassure parents about these regulations, not least in some faith communities. However, it must be stated unequivocally that there can be no opt-out from the Equality Act 2010. We have to ensure that all schools understand their legal obligations. It is essential that they work with their wider communities and resist any attempts to push back from the gains that we have made—often with great difficulty—over recent years.
For all the positive change that has been achieved, as my noble friends Lord Cashman and Lord Liddle said, nearly half of all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people are bullied at school because of their sexuality, and half of them do not tell anyone about it. More than three in five lesbian, gay and bisexual young people have self-harmed, and the figure rises to more than four in five among trans students. We have a duty to ensure that all young people are provided with the tools they need to navigate a course through situations and events that are at best confusing or challenging, and at worst frightening. As the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, schools should offer a safe space.
At the point at which schools decide that it is appropriate to teach pupils about LGBT issues, they should ensure that this is fully integrated into their programmes of study, rather than delivered as a standalone unit, a fact that I was pleased to see supported by the Government, who articulated it succinctly in their response to the consultation on these regulations:
“Pupils should be able to understand the world in which they are growing up, which means understanding that some people are LGBT, that this should be respected in British society, and that the law affords them and their relationships recognition and protections”.
Ensuring that parents are involved in planning what is taught in their children’s schools as part of these regulations is important, but parents must not be allowed a veto on school policy, particularly when that policy is following the law. Recent events at schools, particularly in Birmingham, related to the introduction of the No Outsiders content in the curriculum have attracted a disproportionate amount of attention. In response to these events, the Secretary of State has written a helpful letter to the National Association of Head Teachers, stating that:
“What is taught, and how, is ultimately a decision for the school. We trust and support head teachers to make decisions that are in the best interests of their pupils”.
The only slight issue I have with Mr Hinds’s letter is that not many parents outside school gates will read a letter of three and a half pages to the general secretary of a trade union. A well-publicised visit by the Secretary of State to Parkfield school in Birmingham, standing in support of the head teacher, would have said much more than the letter.
My colleague Wes Streeting MP spoke powerfully when these regulations were debated in another place last month. He suggested that when schools are talking about the importance of having no outsiders and celebrating diversity and difference, the parents need to ask themselves who they think the teachers are talking about. As he said, it is not just the gay child at the front of the classroom. It is the Muslim children in the playground, the Christians who are still persecuted—horrifically in Sri Lanka, as we saw just three days ago—and the Jewish people who are subjected to a rising tide of anti-Semitism. I echo his pointed question:
“How dare people, in defence of their own difference, seek to stifle the freedoms and equality of others?”—[Official Report, Commons, 20/3/19; col. 1162.]
I want to finish on a practical point that I raised with the Minister when these regulations were discussed in your Lordships’ House in February. I did not get an answer then, so I am returning to the subject. We agree on the need for these reforms, but we must ensure that they are properly implemented. The Government have said that there will be £6 million budgeted for school support, training and resources. However, if that were to be spread across all of England’s 22,000-plus schools, it would amount to around £250 per school. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Russell, that the Minister cannot believe that such a paltry amount will enable schools—let us not forget that many are already under huge financial pressures—with the resources they need to deliver this new curriculum. That figure simply must be increased. This is emphatically not political point-scoring. At the heart of relationships education, relationships and sex education and health education, there is a focus on keeping children safe, informed and prepared for life. We are united in wanting that aim to be fulfilled. It must not be frustrated by a lack of resources.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
I thank the Minister for that interesting description of the complaints procedure, but it was not the point that I raised. I was talking about the means available to parents of children who are in an academy as part of a multi-academy trust which has its own governing body. Often, the schools within that do not have their own board of governors or even a committee—call it what you like—to which individual parents can feed in. In the context of these regulations, if we are deciding what is taught in a particular school, that is important. If parents do not have that link—because it is perhaps a manager at the academy trust headquarters making the decision—it is a gap that needs to be filled.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
I am certainly happy to write to the noble Lord to clarify that, but I reassure him that each academy school will have a governing body. There may be some instances where a governing body operates over two or three schools if they are small schools, and they may be called academy councils rather than governing bodies, but there is a representative body beneath the academy board—there may be instances that I do not know about, but I would be very surprised. To link back to my opening comments, academies as well as local authority schools will be required to consult parents in their construction of these curricula.
The noble Lord raised the budget issue. I understand that £250 a school sounds somewhat derisory. We will be looking at training for newly qualified teachers and at how we can provide more training as part of that preparation for teaching. We will of course keep a weather eye on the quality of the online materials made available and will gain experience from the pathfinder schools that start teaching this from September this year.
I believe that we all share an ambition to ensure that our children and young people have the knowledge to help keep themselves safe, to be prepared for the world in which they are growing up and to respect others and difference. These regulations give us the opportunity to build a consistent foundation across all schools so that children and young people have the knowledge they need to manage their academic, personal and social lives in a positive way. For the reasons that I have set out, I commend the regulations to the House.
Schools: Staffing
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the decision by some teachers to take a 20 per cent pay cut in order to prevent staff redundancies in their schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, it is for schools to make their own decisions about investing their funding and their staffing. The department publishes pay ranges and all maintained schools must follow these in setting pay. Although there is more money going into our schools than ever before, we recognise that there are some budgeting challenges. That is why we have introduced a wide range of practical support to help schools and local authorities economise on non-staff costs.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but it is the usual mantra about more funding going into schools. That is, frankly, sophistry, because 91% of schools have suffered real-terms cuts in per-pupil funding since 2015. My question highlights just one example of school budgets being stretched beyond breaking point, leading to situations where parents are asked to buy essential items such as books and stationery. Some schools now close on Friday lunchtimes to save money. Is it not a disgrace that, in one of the richest economies in the world, head teachers are forced to beg for funding in some situations? The very principle of free education is being undermined by Conservative cuts to our schools. The Government’s latest school workforce statistics show that, in 2017, there were 137,000 more pupils in England’s schools, yet there were 5,400 fewer teachers and 2,800 fewer teaching assistants. How can the Minister possibly justify that?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I think that the school which has come to the noble Lord’s attention is Furzedown School in Wandsworth. The challenge which that school faces is declining pupil numbers. They have declined every year for five years, which is why it needs to keep an eye on its staffing levels. That is its problem. It is a well-funded school, receiving £4,900 per pupil, which is well above the national average of £4,166. On the bigger point of overall funding, the IFS has said, independently, that per-pupil funding for five to 16 year-olds by 2020 will be 50% higher than it was in 2000.
Knife Crime: First Aid in Schools
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of schools offering pupils advice on what first aid to deliver, and how to communicate clearly with emergency services, when someone has been stabbed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, we know that first aid saves lives. That is why life-saving skills are part of health education, which we are introducing in all state-funded schools. Pupils will be taught first aid, how to make efficient calls to the emergency services and, in secondary schools, CPR. We are also introducing relationships education in all schools. That will help pupils to form and maintain healthy relationships, manage conflict and get help when it is needed.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that reply. Children are learning in school how to deliver first aid to knife crime victims because they increasingly find themselves affected by violence. I commend the important work being done in schools by the charity StreetDoctors. Last week, the Prime Minister denied that there was a direct link between reduced police numbers in communities and increased knife crime and, although that was widely refuted, not least by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, many usually linked causes contribute to knife crime. One of them is permanent exclusions from school, which have risen sharply in recent years; there is a shortage of registered provision for excluded children, some of whom are thus unsupervised. Exclusions are a necessary and important sanction, but does the Minister agree that it is not acceptable or indeed legal to exclude without due regard for the impact on and risks to the child being excluded?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, the noble Lord raises a very important point on exclusion. It is always a last resort to use a permanent exclusion for a pupil. Just to give some context, the percentage of permanent exclusions last year was actually less than it was 10 years ago. In 2006-07, it was 0.12% and last year it was 0.10%, so we need to keep that in perspective. We are pretty confident that there is no causal link between permanent exclusions and knife crime. However, we are alert to the need to provide better specialist provision for children who are permanently excluded. That is why we announced a number of initiatives in October, including an extra £100 million in capital for special provision for schools.