National School Breakfast Programme

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord is quite right. I should perhaps declare my own interest as someone who grows 3,500 tonnes of sugar beet every year. Of course, a lot of that sugar does not go to the right places. The levy is designed as a pump-primer for the system. We want to see this money encouraging schools to start breakfast clubs that are sustainable in the long term. Noble Lords will be aware that we have just announced a tremendous funding settlement for schools over the next three years. I am confident that there are now resources coming into schools that will enable them to sustain them.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it should be a source of shame to the Government that after nine years in power some children in England turn up at school in the morning too hungry to learn. I was astonished to hear the Minister say that he cannot understand why that is the situation. There is a simple one-word answer to that: austerity. That is said to be over now, but it has a long way to run in its effects. The National School Breakfast Programme is a necessity but, as other noble Lords have said, its funding needs to be not just continued but increased—a point made by the CEO of the charity that delivers the programme in his recent report. The problem is that the sugar tax funds it. The Prime Minister has said that he wants to reduce the sugar tax, so where does that leave the National School Breakfast Programme? Labour will enter the general election with a commitment to provide universal free school meals to all primary schoolchildren. What will the Tory party’s response to that be?

Education Funding

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Secretary of State’s Statement, but we feel that the announcement should come with a note of apology, because the Government have for so long denied our regular and consistent claims that there is a funding crisis in our schools. Now, all of a sudden, it seems that there is.

Nevertheless, the funding announced is welcome and a clear recognition of the campaigning not just of Labour in both Houses but of the education unions—the NEU, the NAHT and the ASCL—together with parents, councillors and many others. But unfortunately, today’s announcements do not live up to their billing, because even the sums announced are not enough to reverse all the cuts already made that have so damaged children’s education. As teachers and pupils start the new term this week, too many will do so in schools facing an immediate financial crisis. Can the Minister say why there is no immediate support? Even next year’s funding is £1 billion short of reversing just the cuts to school budgets since 2010. Will this additional funding be allocated on the basis of the new funding formula announced last year?

In case the Minister is thinking that only the usual suspects are questioning the funding announcement, he might have seen that last weekend’s Sunday Times—hardly noted for criticising the Government—reported that the so-called “cash boost” will overwhelmingly benefit those in Tory constituencies. That paper’s analysis of how regions will benefit from the new minimum funding thresholds revealed that more than 90% of schools receiving more than an additional £100 per pupil are in Conservative seats in areas such as Essex, Kent and the south-west. Of the 153 constituencies set to receive the increase, 143 are Tory held. Can the Minister say whether that is simply a coincidence?

The Statement said that the Secretary of State would announce the affected individual constituencies. It seems that he could get some useful information from the Sunday Times, because it has delivered quite a bit of that already. So is it a coincidence or, as many others suspect or perhaps know, just an election bribe? Many of the schools most in need and struggling with their budgets are in the north of England and London. They are largely not to receive any help. What does the Minister have to say about that? He might be aware that the Education Policy Institute found that a pupil eligible for free school meals would receive less than half the funding of their more affluent peers. How can that be fair?

Can the Minister reassure noble Lords that support staff will not pay the price for the boost to teachers’ salaries? A leaked document from the Prime Minister’s office recently revealed that they were concerned about the rising number of teaching assistants. Many people feel that there should be more teaching assistants, given the extremely important support they provide, and we join with parents, teachers, heads and those who care for children with special needs and disabilities in valuing them. Perhaps the Minister can say what the effect on them would be of this announcement.

On school standards, we know that Ofsted is to lift the exemption on outstanding schools being inspected. I welcome that. The school that my son attends has an outstanding report attached to it, but it was dated three years before he was born. That outstanding schools should not have that protection—I use the word advisedly—is to be welcomed, but none the less, what additional resources will be provided to Ofsted? Its staffing levels show that it is already under strain. If this is to be meaningful, there will have to be additional resources there.

It seems that the Government have finally admitted that there is a crisis in further education, but we know that the Education Secretary returned from the Treasury with about half of what he thought was needed for that sector. What plans are there to address the long-overdue increase in pay for further education staff? Without it they will continue to fall further behind teachers in schools.

Finally, I will say a word about early years. I understand that it is not officially part of this announcement, but the hourly rate for providers has not increased since 2017. How can issues in schools such as mental health concerns, closing the disadvantage gap and social mobility issues be addressed without paying attention to the support required in early years? Surely it is about prevention rather than cure. Might this issue be addressed tomorrow by the Chancellor, or have the youngest children been forgotten again? I certainly hope not.

The Statement contains far more questions than answers. Whenever the general election comes, Labour will offer a comprehensive funding package for our schools, allowing head teachers, teachers and teaching assistants to provide the high-quality education our young people deserve. I regret to say that this Statement will not achieve that.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. It is interesting and we have to say thank you for the increase in funding—but we needed it. As I understand it, we will get the full impact in about three years’ time. We will not get all of it quickly enough.

The main delivery system for education is the staff. Teaching staff will receive a pay rise, but there seems to be a question about whether academies will be able to filch off and take away the best staff with better offers to make sure that they are not available to schools that need them. Can the noble Lord give us some idea of what the thinking is there?

In the same tone, why are those in further education teaching not being treated in the same way and given the same degree of support? Delivery, and the person who delivers, is the key point here. If you get that wrong, everything struggles. Making sure that we have systems in place to ensure that people are properly paid across the sector is vital. We need more thinking about this. The cash is welcome, but unless these things are properly delivered, problems will be compounded.

There is also the issue of equalisation of funding. We have already mentioned that schools who have been receiving this seem to be those with fewer, shall we say, home problems, or potential home problems, in terms of free school meals. We all know that backing a parent sufficiently makes a huge difference to schools. An idea about the thinking there would be very beneficial. Why is it that those who have that background support are able to get support outside and within the system more easily? Why is that seen to be the way forward?

I now go to my specialist subject and remind the House of my interests in special educational needs and technical support. I thank the Minister for the money for special educational needs; it is roughly a third of what we need to go back to 2015 levels. When are we going to make sure that local government and the education authorities have enough money to meet their needs? I have raised with the Minister on numerous occasions the fact that tens of millions of pounds is wasted by local authorities in losing appeals not to fulfil education and healthcare plans. When will this no longer be the case? This is a ridiculous situation. We have, I hope, the start of a cohesive plan here. It can be restructured if you like, to put in more specialist teachers who can deal with these problems in the classroom and the school. That is an infinitely better situation than leaving it to bureaucracy—but when are we going to start dealing with it?

In the same tone, why are we so obsessed with making sure that people must continually take English and maths tests they failed when they were in further education? The amount of undiscovered special educational needs is recognised by everybody, possibly because the staff are not well enough trained to recognise it and give the correct amount of support. Some people just will not pass. Why are we wasting time there and not finding other ways of getting around this? The technology for English translation is there and it is also there to help with things such as maths. Surely this is a better and more coherent way forward. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I thank the noble Lords for their questions; I will try to address all of them.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, is worried about the fact that the funding seems to be benefiting Conservative seats. The only reason it will benefit those is that historically they have been underfunded compared to other seats: small rural schools have not received the same level of funding as urban schools. With the national funding formula, we have introduced a hard bottom, so that even the best funded schools will increase their funding, but we will increase those who are below the NFF at a rate that is considerably quicker. I assure the noble Lord that there is no gerrymandering; it is just a quirk of history that has ensured that these schools have not done nearly so well.

The noble Lord also asked about teaching assistants. I am concerned about teaching assistants because I believe that we are missing an opportunity to provide fantastic career progression for many of them. Amazingly, some 30% of teaching assistants have degrees, and therefore could go on to teaching relatively easily if they wanted to but are often held back by their wish to look after their children. Many TAs are the parents—mostly mothers—of young children, and therefore teaching hours are not always conducive. That is why the Statement says that we are going to try to make more progress with having more flexible working in the teaching profession. We strongly believe that if we could have more flexible working in teaching, job sharing and so on, many more TAs would go on into teaching, which would be a great boon to them. It would increase their pay—

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for giving way. It is not so much about those progressing from being teaching assistants to being teachers, but that schools under such financial pressure have in many cases had to dispense with the services of teaching assistants. That is an important issue and many people will be looking to this announcement for reassurance.

I had not noticed when I was speaking earlier that the Secretary of State and the Minister for Schools are here. That is laudable, and I commend them .

Relationship Education Lessons in Schools

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement.

On 25 February, the Government announced the new regulations and guidance on relationships education, relationships and sex education, and health education. As the Minister said, they were warmly welcomed by all sides of both your Lordships’ House and the other place, but words of caution were part of that welcome.

It was clear that in some schools, the guidelines could be controversial. I asked the Minister for an indication of how many teachers were to be trained in the new subjects, and how many schools he expected to be teaching them by September 2019. I am afraid I did not receive answers to that, nor to my question on what he expected schools to do with the £6 million we made available for training and resources in the new subjects, averaging out at around £250 per school.

Events since have shown that these were key questions because, with the best will in the world, head teachers and classroom teachers simply were not prepared for the onslaught of protests, abuse and trolling that some have since received. In part at least, those disgraceful reactions to the teaching of the “No Outsiders” part of the new guidelines are the result of the Government leaving schools, teachers, head teachers and parents ill prepared for the introduction of the new subjects. Even worse was the Secretary of State being much too slow to speak out in support of those head teachers under duress. He did so, but belatedly. Why did he not demonstrate that support by appearing at those schools worst affected by parental protests, which are often fuelled by people whose interests are not focused on education at all?

Some of those opposed to the new curriculum have argued mendaciously that young children in primary schools are learning about sex or being encouraged to adopt LGBT lifestyles. Will the Minister take this opportunity to state categorically that this is not the case and that anyone suggesting otherwise is wilfully misrepresenting the curriculum? Will he join me in signifying his full support for the brave teachers at those schools in Birmingham who face repeated protests and intimidation, simply for following the law and teaching the curriculum? Finally—I hope it will not be “finally”, although we have a new Prime Minister and new Front Bench in the offing—will the Minister confirm that while schools have flexibility in how they teach the curriculum, complying with the Equality Act is not optional or something that parents can have a veto over, but the law of the land and the will of both Houses of Parliament?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord asks a number of questions. The first was on how many schools we envisage will start teaching this voluntarily this autumn. We are up to about 1,500 schools having registered as early adopters; when I took the regulations through in April we had about 1,000, so the number has gone up quite dramatically even in a couple of months. It has spread among primary schools as well.

On the teaching of sex education, the noble Lord is entirely right. At primary level, parents are able to withdraw their children from specific sex education. That is not relationship education and it is important to discern the difference, but they have that right. As I mentioned when we debated the regulations in April, they have the right to withdraw their child up to the age of 16 minus three terms, for the reasons we discussed at that time.

The Government give their unequivocal support to teachers and absolutely condemn the aggressive behaviour. It is worth pointing out that a lot of this behaviour is nothing less than misogynism on the part of some of these protesters, and that they are protesting against the teaching going on at the moment, not the teaching that will come in under the new regulations in September 2020.

The noble Lord’s last question was about whether teaching under the Equality Act is voluntary. I can confirm that that is absolutely not the case. The original provisions of that Act insisted that teaching advances equality of opportunity and fosters,

“good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic”.

Those relevant characteristics include sex, race, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, or pregnancy and maternity.

Multi-academy Trusts

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My noble friend is entirely correct. Again, we have done a lot to strengthen the quality of academy trust boards. We have organised a programme called Academy Ambassadors, finding more than 1,000 commercial individuals who have volunteered to join trusts over the past four years, bringing extra rigour and scrutiny. The regional schools commissioners have carried out 1,000 trust reviews in the last academic year, which also requires that non-exec members of the board attend those meetings.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the rather blithe dismissal of concerns by the Minister runs counter to the Public Accounts Committee, which reported six months ago that financial controls in schools needed to be strengthened and that,

“the Department for Education’s … oversight and intervention needs to be more rigorous”

The fact is that the Government have virtually no powers to rein in those academy trusts that are acting in a cavalier manner with public funds. I know that the Minister wrote to several academies earlier this year asking them to justify excessive salaries; can he say whether the Harris Federation was one of them? I acknowledge the good results that that trust’s schools produce, but it is the third largest trust in England and it has 11 staff earning more than £150,000 a year. Yet the largest trust, United Learning, has just one. Does that not make the Minister curious?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I am afraid it does not, my Lords, because the Harris trust is delivering the most extraordinary level of education improvement in the country. If you take the cost of that senior management team and divide it by the number of pupils in that trust, you will see that it is extraordinarily good value.

Education: Music A-level

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The right reverend Prelate shares the concern of many Peers in this Chamber today. As I have said in Answers to earlier Questions, music has been extremely important in my own life; as I mentioned a year ago when this was raised by my noble friend Lord Black, my own father was cured of a debilitating stammer through the discovery of singing when he was a teenager. However, as I said earlier, children can discover music not only through the specific routes of GCSE and A-level. We have set up the music education hubs, which have been an outstanding success. In 2013-14, some 600,000 children had access to them, and last year, according to Birmingham City University, 89% of schools and some 700,000 pupils benefited from them.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, despite what the Minister said, the Government’s commitment to music education is very much in question, not just because of the falloff in A-level entry that we have heard about. When I met the Secretary of State two weeks ago to discuss music education, he was unable even to give me a commitment that the national plan for music education, which finishes next year and to which the Minister alluded in his initial response, would continue. That is a disaster for the many young children who are studying music just now but have no guarantee beyond 2020. Will the Minister undertake to investigate the possibility of transitional funding to ensure that those young people can continue with their studies?

Children’s Homes etc. Inspection Fees, Childcare Fees, Adoption and Children Act Register (Amendment) Regulations 2019

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[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

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[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

Thursday 16th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[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

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[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.