Education Funding

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Addington

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—

Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Addington

Monday 25th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating this important Statement. We welcome the fact that the Government are introducing the provisions of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 on the introduction of compulsory relationships education for all pupils in primary schools, and compulsory relationships and sex education for all pupils in secondary schools. In addition, health education is being made compulsory for all pupils in state-funded schools, which is also something that we regard as a positive move in preparing young people for an increasingly complicated world. I have a number of questions for the Minister and will be perfectly content if he wishes to respond in writing if he feels unable to answer them immediately.

The Secretary of State announced that he is making £6 million available for training and resources to support the new subjects, but that averages out at around £250 per school. What does the Minister expect schools to be able to achieve with such meagre additional resources? Can he further provide an indication as to whether these are indeed additional resources or whether they are recycled from within the DfE budget? How many teachers will be trained in the new subjects, and how many schools does he expect to be teaching them, by the date that he mentioned, September 2020?

I agree with the Secretary of State that these subjects are of vital importance, but I suspect I am not alone in wondering what he expects schools to teach less of in order to make room for these new subjects in the timetable.

I understand the Government’s position on the parental opt-out for relationships and sex education, but I have to ask why they would not give a child the right to be included in those lessons at any age instead of selecting what appears to be an arbitrary age at which point the child’s voice will be heard. The Statement says that the parental opt-out could be overruled in “exceptional circumstances”. Could the Minister give examples of what he believes would amount to such exceptional circumstances?

Noble Lords will have read of the dreadful bullying and mental health problems that affect LGBT people. The fact that these issues are included in the draft guidance could be a milestone in ensuring that these people and others can grow up understanding more and living in a safer environment. We are certainly glad that the draft guidance says that these topics must be fully integrated into the curriculum and not taught separately. Does the Secretary of State believe that there are any circumstances in which a school should be allowed to simply not teach LGBT issues as part of this curriculum? Obviously, it would undermine the whole thrust of the provisions if that were the case.

It can be only to everyone’s benefit if we better understand the differing issues that face each of us. I hope these regulations will mean that we can work on a cross-party basis to make that a reality for the next generation.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, following on from the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, I would like to say that I agree with virtually every single one of them—indeed, all of them on this occasion. I also congratulate the Government on having done this. Apart from anything else, this is a good thing; there have been very few things from across the House recently which we have been able to say were a good thing, so whatever else, it makes a nice change. Also, it was announced on the radio this morning—I heard it while having my cornflakes—that certain groups were protesting against this activity. Let me congratulate the Government again; if you had not offended somebody when you did this, it would not be worth the paper it is written on.

I have one or two smaller questions, which follow on from those of the noble Lord, Lord Watson. First, on the tools and the £6 million, the noble Lord hit it absolutely squarely; that is a very small figure for the entire education system. How much ongoing training will be given to teachers in delivering this? Will it be worked into initial teacher training or education, whichever one you want to use? How much CPD will be used? This is a new set of skills that has to be worked into lessons. It will not be that easy; there will be mistakes. How will we look at this and review it? I think this is a very valid question. Do not damage a good thing for a ha’p’orth of tar. Make sure you do this correctly.

Also, when going through this process, can we make sure that the entire system comes around and behind it, so that we can deliver this properly? If we push it off into certain departments, or it becomes something which is normally seen in certain lessons, we will always have problems. It would be very helpful, either today or in some later guidance, to have some idea about how the Government will bring the system around this and how they will work this through.

Last, but I hope not least, I have a question about what it says in the Statement about people with special educational needs. What does the Minister mean by this? Of course, this is my own special area. Which groups is he talking about? Is there some style in this? A few people with autism may have some trouble understanding these topics, but only a few. Somebody with dyslexia may well have no problem with this. What do the Government mean by this? If you do not have the answer now, where will it be presented? The phrase about special educational needs takes into account 20% of the school population, so please give some guidance on this.