Schools: Children in Care

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Thursday 7th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

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

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

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

[Lord Nash]

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

Free Childcare Entitlements

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

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

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


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

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

[Lord Nash]

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

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

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

Schools: Recruitment and Retention

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

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

[Lord Nash]

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

Free Childcare Hours

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

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

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

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

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


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

[Lord Nash]

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

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

Children in Need

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 17th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

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

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

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

Education: English Baccalaureate

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 3rd July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

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

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

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

[Lord Nash]

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

Education: Design Subjects

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely on the importance of design, and of course we have a number of free schools that are particularly focused on this area. We offer a £12,000 bursary for new teachers coming into the sector to teach design and technology, and as I have said, we are making our D&T courses much more contemporary. Previously, they were very material focused, but now they are more context driven. We are particularly keen to reform them so that we can address the gender imbalance in D&T and attract more girls to study the appropriate STEM subjects. For instance, under the existing D&T syllabus, 96% of the participants in textiles are girls whereas only 7% are studying electronic products. We are keen to address this.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a bigger picture here because design is one of the subjects that some head teachers will be unable to afford to provide if a Tory Government are re-elected and cuts to the schools budget are given free rein. The Minister and his department like to repeat the meaningless soundbite that more money than ever is going into schools. Of course it is, because there are more pupils than ever in our schools; the point is the funding per pupil. Last month the Education Policy Institute reported that by 2020 not a single school in England would be able to report that they had had no real cuts in funding per pupil. That is in direct contradiction of the 2015 Tory manifesto. Can the Minister assure the House that this year’s version of the manifesto will tell parents the truth about education funding plans?

[Lord Nash]

I know that the noble Lord always likes to look at the bigger picture, but as we all know, and as the National Audit Office and the IFS have told us, the increase in funding per pupil between 2000 and 2020 is 50%. As I have said previously, particularly when I answered a Question and invited the noble Lord to visit the government website, it is quite clear that many of our best-performing schools are also the most efficient schools financially. We have a great deal of advice, toolkits and benchmarks available to advise schools on how to manage their finances more effectively.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, this Bill is integral to the Government’s ambitious reforms for creating a world-class technical education system. These reforms will help to ensure that technical education in our country provides everyone with the skills and opportunities they need to succeed and gain skilled employment on a long-term basis, and at the same time they will serve the needs of our economy and reduce our skills gap. The Bill’s further education insolvency regime will also protect students at FE colleges in the event that their college faces financial difficulty.

I am very grateful for the interest and input from noble Lords across the House on the Bill, and in particular how they have helped strengthen the Bill and its related policy areas. It is quite clear that the Bill has strong cross-party support. I am glad that the Bill returns to this House for further debate on two amendments from the other place. I will deal with these amendments in turn. Given the volume of business we need to get through today, I will try to keep this brief, and I hope other noble Lords will join me in that endeavour.

Noble Lords will know that Lords Amendment 1 was rejected in the other place on the basis of financial privilege, and I request that this House respects the decision reached there. However, I would like to acknowledge the sentiment behind the amendment and to address some considerations. First, I understand that a drop in household benefits income and a shift of income from parents to a young person can be difficult to manage. However, we should give parents credit for supporting their children to enter apprenticeships and develop their own financial independence and long-term careers. The numbers testify to this: last year more than 200,000 young people under 19 were in apprenticeships.

Secondly, during the Bill’s passage, the Opposition compared the financial support available to full-time students and that available to apprentices, while giving very little attention to the matter of remuneration. Full-time students are forgoing employment and income opportunities to gain qualifications, often while paying to invest in their future. Apprenticeships are paid jobs, with high-quality free training. The 2016 apprenticeship pay survey showed that the average wage for all level 2 and 3 apprentices was £6.70 an hour. Apprentices are also increasing their future employment prospects and earnings: on average, level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships increase earnings in employment by 11% and 16% respectively.

Finally, we must target resources. The cost of the amendment is estimated at over £200 million per year by 2020. The benefits system quite rightly targets financial support towards greatest need, including for example dependants in low-income families. Benefits awards must take other sources of income into account. We also target funds carefully to support apprenticeships among key groups. We pay additional amounts to training providers in the most deprived areas. We also steer funding towards providers and employers for the youngest apprentices and for care leavers, as well as for those with learning difficulties and disabilities. As the new funding system beds in, we will continue to review how funding is targeted, including to support access to apprenticeship jobs for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Amendment 6A was tabled in the other place in lieu of an amendment tabled on Report by the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden. The amendment proposes a new clause to the Bill which will require Ofsted to consider the quality of careers provision when conducting standard inspections of further education colleges. I am grateful to noble Lords and the noble Baroness for raising the issue of careers guidance in colleges and giving the Government the opportunity to consider this important matter further.

As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, explained so eloquently on Report, one of the most important things we need to do for young people is provide guidance and knowledge about careers. He rightly pointed out that this is particularly true for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, who may not have access to networks of support to inform them about options and perhaps provide opportunities for them to do work experience. That is why it is vital that FE colleges—which take many students from areas of educational disadvantage—should make high-quality careers advice available to everyone.

Of course, there are a number of colleges already leading the way in this. Gateshead College embeds careers in all aspects of a student’s learning. JobLab provides dedicated support to help their students develop practical employment skills, and Career Coach provides labour-market data and maps out education, training and career options. I also recognise Ofsted’s commitment to evaluating the quality of careers advice and guidance in further education. Matters relating to careers provision feature in all four graded judgments that Ofsted makes when judging the overall effectiveness of a college. However, the Government are persuaded of the need to go further to ensure that young people can benefit from the best possible preparation for the workplace and acquire the skills and attributes that employers need. The amendment will send a clear signal that a high-calibre careers programme must be embedded in every college.

I hope I have reassured noble Lords that we agree wholeheartedly with the principle of the original Lords amendment. The drafting changes serve only to ensure that the amendment achieves its intended effect and that the language conforms to current legislation. The amendment now includes an explicit requirement for Ofsted to comment on the quality of the college’s careers provision in the inspection report.

I urge noble Lords to accept this amendment in lieu. It is our chance to ensure that all FE students can access the support they need to help them to achieve their full potential. As discussed earlier, I also ask noble Lords to respect the other place’s decision to reject Amendment 1 on the grounds of financial privilege. I beg to move.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I acknowledge that the Bill is a better one than when it began its progress through both Houses. We shall not seek to impede its journey to the statute book.

The addition of the amendment promoted by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and others, represents an important step forward in ensuring that school pupils have explained to them the full range of options, not just those whose choice of an academic route might benefit the school’s coffers. It should not have been necessary for an amendment to be passed to secure that, because strong careers guidance is critical to promoting apprenticeships in schools. If the Government’s target for apprenticeship starts is to be achieved and sustained, as we all hope, then it is crucial that young people are alerted early enough in their school life to the importance and attraction of technical routes.

However, it is disappointing that the Government have not been willing to accept Amendment 1 passed by your Lordships on Report. The decision to exclude apprenticeships from the category of approved education or training will serve as a deterrent to some young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills said last week:

“The crucial point is that the vast majority of level 2 and 3 apprentices are paid more than £6.30 an hour, and 90% of them go on to jobs or additional education afterwards”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/4/17; col. 714.]


But that is not the crucial point; in fact, he has missed the point. At least 90% of university graduates go on to jobs or additional education, so there is no difference in that respect. And whether apprentices earn £3.50 an hour—the legal minimum, which, as I said on Report, not all of them get—or £6.50 an hour, their parents are still disqualified from receiving child benefit. That is the nub of the issue. Clearly, though, we have not been successful in convincing Ministers of that point.

It was interesting to read last week of the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, in defence of the Government’s position, coming up with a figure of some £200 million a year by 2020-21. So apprentices—the young people we need to train in order to fill the skills gaps that we know exist—are to be treated unfavourably compared to their peers who choose full-time study because of the cost. The Government can miraculously find £500 million to create new grammar schools yet cannot find £200 million to ensure that the number of apprentices from the poorest families rises from its current very low level of just 10%. If there is logic in that policy stance, it escapes me. The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, said in Committee that she would discuss this issue with ministerial colleagues in the DWP. By Report there had been no such meetings, and we learned from the debate in the other place last week that those meetings have still not taken place. So where did the £200 million figure appear from, if not the DWP?

In passing, I say to the Minister that I submitted a Written Question asking for the Government’s workings that produced the £200 million figure. As I understand that those Questions disappear on Dissolution, I ask him to write to me with the answer so that we can gain an understanding of the foundation on which the Government have erected the barrier to treating apprentices as “approved learners”.

On Amendment 6, initially I was dismayed that the Government were unwilling to accept the will of your Lordships’ House on careers advice in further education colleges, although that was perhaps not too surprising as the Minister told us on Report that it was not necessary. However, the Government’s amendment in lieu actually appears to be stronger than the original amendment. First, it goes further than further education colleges and refers to “FE institutions”, which of course covers all training providers on the register.

Secondly, the original amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, which your Lordships’ House voted for at Report, called on Ofsted to “take into account” the careers advice made available to students by colleges. Government Amendment 6A states that Ofsted must,

“comment on the careers guidance provided to relevant students at the institution”.

For that reason, I welcome Amendment 6A, as Ofsted will be obliged to be proactive in reporting what it discovers in FE colleges that it inspects. That is certainly to be welcomed, although it comes with the caveat that it will apply only to those colleges that Ofsted actually inspects. How many will be? Realistically, how many can it be?

At Report, I asked the Minister to give an assurance that Ofsted would be adequately resourced; I fear that he did not reply. Mr Marsden asked the same question of the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, and he did not reply, so perhaps the Minister can now tell noble Lords how many additional staff Ofsted will have to enable it to inspect as many training providers as possible out of the 2,000 likely to emerge. It cannot do that with its existing staff, and we have a right to know what additional resources Ofsted will receive to enable it to cope with large new demands. I look forward to his response on that. I suggest that he must have one because it is surely inconceivable that he and/or his officials have not met Amanda Spielman or her deputy, Paul Joyce, to discuss the resources that they will require as a direct result of the Bill.

We are now at the end of a process that has produced the Bill, which will strengthen the sector but could have achieved much more. I thank all noble Lords who have participated in our debates, as well as Ministers, who have moved some way, if not as far as we would like, during our deliberations.

Technical Education

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 5th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I pay tribute to my noble friend’s pioneering work on university technical colleges. I am fully aware of the statistics to which he refers because he has told me about them on many occasions. I am delighted they are so good.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the money announced in the Budget for T-levels was welcome, even though it will not be fully developed until 2022. We already have tech levels, a TechBac and a tech bacc, so it seems the DfE will need good interpersonal skills to create a separate identity for T-levels. Interpersonal skills are surely important in the workplace for young people, no matter whether they took the technical or the academic route. Does the Minister agree that the introduction of compulsory relationship education, agreed in your Lordships’ House yesterday in the Children and Social Work Bill, offers an opportunity for schools to do more to build interpersonal skills for life from an early age?

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely—it is so important to develop these skills. The noble Baroness referred to some, such as teamwork and communication. Self-management is also very important.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to be able today to speak about this legislation, which will help lay the foundations for transforming technical and further education, ensuring that all our young people have the same opportunities to travel as far as their talents may take them, move to a lifetime of sustained employment and provide the skills that British business needs. I am grateful for the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen. I share her sentiment: this Bill is the greatest engine of social change that can be imagined, or at least we hope that it will be. I also express my thanks to noble Lords for their continuous engagement in the Bill, which, as the noble Baroness said, has all-party support.

In Committee, we had some very interesting discussions on some of the broader aspects of the Bill, and on the operation and delivery that will turn this legislation into reality. My ministerial colleague Robert Halfon and I have found this scrutiny extremely helpful in refining our thinking for this next stage of the legislation—the transition. Minister Halfon was looking forward to being able to join today’s discussion, as he has done previously, but unfortunately has been called away as he needs to participate in the public sector apprenticeships debate.

I turn now to the first group of amendments, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt. I welcome the sentiment behind this amendment: that young people who choose to take up an apprenticeship should not be financially disadvantaged and that, in particular, young people who leave care should be encouraged to enter apprenticeships. I believe, however, that we have already established sufficient safeguards and support to deliver these aims. Following a 3% increase in October last year, the national minimum wage for apprentices is now set to rise again to £3.50 an hour from April this year. Most employers pay more than this minimum. The most recent Apprenticeship Pay Survey, in 2016, estimated that the average gross hourly pay received by level 2 and 3 apprentices in England is £6.70 an hour. Moreover, apprentices receive training which, together with their paid employment, sets them up for increased earnings in the future.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I wonder whether the Minister is going to respond to the point I made about apprenticeship pay. At the beginning of the year, the Low Pay Commission reported that 18% of apprentices were not getting even the national minimum wage.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord has raised that before. As we discussed at that time, it is illegal to pay below the minimum wage. We and HMRC are focused on ensuring that it does not happen. We all share the noble Lord’s concern about this. I assure him that we will do everything we can to stamp out such practices.

One of the core principles of our reforms is that an apprenticeship is a genuine job. As such, apprentices are treated accordingly in the benefits system. Child benefit is intended to provide financial support to parents to help with the extra costs of raising a dependent child. It is payable to parents until the end of the academic year in which their child turns 16. After that, payment can be claimed for children up to the age of 20 if they are in approved education or training. From April this year, undertaking an apprenticeship at minimum wage will pay more than five times the maximum child benefit rate. Therefore, an apprentice’s parents are not eligible for child benefit for supporting that employed young person. These rules have been a long-standing feature of the welfare system.

Moving to paragraph (b), on extending the higher education bursary to statutory apprentices, while I understand the intentions behind the proposal, it is not correct to equate being on an apprenticeship to being in higher education, where a student is making a substantial investment in their education and has appropriate access to student finance. Apprenticeships, by contrast, are real jobs and those undertaking them are employees who earn a wage, unlike participants in HE who are students and treated as such by the benefits system. Although apprentices generally spend a fifth of their time in training, it is part of the minimum wage regulations that they are paid while undertaking that training, so I cannot share the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that the training equates to being in HE. They are still being paid.

Consequently, our focus continues to be on ensuring that there are incentives for employers to recruit care leavers as apprentices. An additional £1,000 is paid to employers who take on a care leaver as an apprentice, as well as their training providers. Furthermore, the funding system ensures that, for all care leavers aged under 25, the full training costs related to undertaking an apprenticeship are met by the Government in recognition of their particular vulnerabilities.

I hope that I have provided sufficient reassurance that reflects that apprenticeships are real jobs, pay a wage that is more than sufficient to offset any household income reductions through the loss of child benefit, and are funded to ensure accessibility for care leavers.

Amendments 14, 15A to 15C and 16 concern the protection of students at independent training providers in the event of their closure. I am sympathetic to the intention behind these amendments that the interests of learners must be at the heart of the system.

Turning to the detail of Amendment 14, I think that it will be helpful also to consider Amendment 15, which would amend it. As currently drafted, Amendment 14 would apply only to further education bodies, which the Bill defines as further education corporations and specialist designated institutions in England and Wales, and sixth form colleges in England. Private providers would not fall under the scope of this amendment, although we need to consider that Amendments 15A to 15C would make this change so that private providers are within scope of the amendment.

As noble Lords will be aware, the main purpose of this part of the Bill is the introduction of a special administration regime which will prioritise the needs of learners. It places an overriding obligation on the education administrator to take the action that best avoids or minimises disruption to the studies of existing learners. This will apply to all students—fee paying as well as non-fee paying. The special objective focuses, rightly, on giving learners the opportunity to continue and complete their studies having set out on their journey to gain new skills or qualifications. That is what individuals will be most concerned to achieve rather than the repayment of any money for which they have not received provision.

Of course, fee-paying students typically pay for their courses in stages, as they do via advanced learner loans, and quite often in arrears, so it is likely that the student will not be significantly—if at all—out of pocket. But, through the special objective, the education administrator will be working to identify opportunities for learners to complete their studies, whether by rescuing the college or transferring the individual to another provider, meaning that the learner can continue on their study path.

We know that noble Lords are interested in the idea of a fund or guarantee to support students in the event of private provider failure, especially where they have paid money in advance. Following recent cases highlighted in the press. I will now say a little about what we are doing to provide support for those affected. Our priority is to support learners whose providers have ceased trading. I want to make it clear that we will take every step we can to ensure that learners are given the opportunity to complete their studies, be that with their current provider if possible or with another provider. In the rare cases where providers fail, the Skills Funding Agency and the Student Loans Company work together to identify solutions for any individuals affected. They make direct contact with learners to inform them of the help they will get. I am happy to say that this is already current practice and is an integral part of the contractual arrangements between the funding agency and the provider. There are many cases where those learners who are affected are successfully transferred to alternative providers.

Students’ new providers may receive funding to deal with necessary administrative costs relating to transferred learners to ensure that they are not out of pocket. We have taken further action to protect learners due to recent cases of private providers going into liquidation. For those who have not completed their course, and while we work to make transfers happen, they will not be required to start repaying their loans during the 2017-18 tax year.

I shall now look at the detail of Amendment 16. I believe, as a number of noble Lords have said, that we should approach the regulation of independent private training providers with caution. These are mostly private profit companies and, unlike the further education bodies which are the subject of this part of the Bill, they are not part of the statutory FE sector and are created by their promoters and owners with no hand from government. They are not subject to the same intervention arrangements as the statutory sector. Furthermore, while they may receive state funding, that funding does not have the same breadth of purpose as the funding for the statutory sector and is paid on a different basis. In particular, the funding is contractual and normally paid in instalments linked to attendance, which limits the financial risk which this amendment is seeking to address.

There are around 400 private providers, of which the vast majority are financially sustainable. I am delighted to join with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, in his comment that many of them provide very good quality education.

Providers must be listed on the SFA’s register of training organisations to receive advanced learner loans funding, while successful approval includes due diligence to assess providers’ capacity to deliver contracts to the required standard and to determine whether they are financially robust. Providers delivering only loan-funded provision must have a financial health assessment rated as good or outstanding. Once on the register, the SFA closely monitors providers’ financial health and achievement rates, with providers having to comply with robust funding and performance rules.

However, I accept that there could be rare cases where a private provider fails and students suffer as a result. Although learners choose their private provider as consumers, “buyer beware” may be thought an unduly harsh response to that predicament. That is the concern which noble Lords are seeking to address through this amendment. I understand the concern, but at the moment I am not convinced that the imposition of significant new regulation on a fully private part of the sector is either a necessary or proportionate response to it.

As far as I am aware, a banking or insurance market for the guarantees referred to in the amendment does not exist and would have to be developed. We do not know whether and how fast this might happen, or at what cost. However, much more significantly, the nature of this sort of financial protection is that it puts a burden on the vast majority of healthy providers, where it is not needed, as well as on those few where it is. In aggregate terms, it would mean substantial sums of money, much of it originally public money, moving from the education sector to the insurance and financial sector, which is not necessarily what the taxpayer would want for the sake of a safety net in very rare cases of failure. Moreover, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said, it would lead inevitably to an increase in the cost of these courses.

Private providers and their representatives will also have views on this of course, and there has not been the opportunity to seek them or reflect on these matters since the amendment was laid, so we are by no means ready to accept that legislation is an appropriate response to the risk that noble Lords have helpfully highlighted. However, I would be delighted to discuss this matter further with the noble Lord, Lord Storey. We are looking into this carefully, but we need to take proper time to consider our policy response, which may not require legislation.

I will now discuss Amendment 20. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, for this amendment. I understand their concerns, but I hope that I can reassure them that this amendment is not necessary. The Government are doubling investment in apprenticeships because we know that they provide employers with the skills they need to grow their businesses and benefit the economy. Through the funds raised by the apprenticeship levy, we will be able to invest twice what was spent in 2010-11 in apprenticeships by 2019-20.

The institute’s responsibilities include ensuring that the quality of apprenticeships available to employers reflects employer needs and the Government’s priority for apprenticeships to be a high-quality programme. It will need to work closely with the Department for Education, employers and other stakeholders to make that happen. Its responsibilities also include advising on the pricing of apprenticeship standards to ensure that government funding supports the delivery of high-quality training. The institute will work with employers and providers to understand the cost and value of apprenticeships to inform their advice. The institute does not have responsibility for the apprenticeship budget or how much of it is spent. This resides with the Secretary of State for Education and her department’s agencies.

The Government are fully committed to comprehensive investment in apprenticeships. The apprenticeships budget is set at the spending review. That provides certainty on the forward spending profile for the duration of the Parliament, as well as ensuring affordability of the programme and that the taxpayer receives value for money.

Tying a commitment on spending explicitly to the levy receipts could mean adverse funding consequences for the programme as a whole. The 2016 Autumn Statement revised down the projections for income from the apprenticeship levy over the next five years, but this does not impact on the agreed budget that the department already has as part of the spending review settlement. For example, the provisional budget for spending on apprenticeships in 2019-20 for England and the devolved Administrations totals in excess of £2.9 billion, versus the projected levy income of £2.8 billion. Having certainty over the funding for apprenticeship training is preferable to directly linking the funding on a year-by-year basis to the wider performance of the economy. As described earlier, levels of spending will be determined by the choices that employers make.

I hope that noble Lords feel reassured enough by my responses to these amendments not to press them.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. On the three amendments that carry my name—our amendments to Amendment 14, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey—the Minister said that we will have an opportunity to consider that further. That is to be welcomed.

On Amendment 20, I feel the Minister rather overegged the pudding. I said that I do not think the levy will be undersubscribed or short of applications. He seemed to be saying that this would depend on monetary fluctuations. The fluctuation that would concern me would be, if not enough applications for the fund came forward, what would then happen to any so-called surplus that would remain? I am not unhappy with his response. I am optimistic that the levy will be fully taken up.

I am not so optimistic about the Minister’s comments on Amendment 1 and apprentices being described as approved learners, as I think they should be. He mentioned apprentices as being employed and receiving—or at least being entitled to receive—the national minimum wage of £3.50, but that is the figure that will apply next month. For any other worker aged up to 18 the rate will be £4.05; for those aged between 18 and 20 it will be £5.60. Despite that very low level, apprentices are paid less than their peers who, for whatever reason, are not in apprenticeships but are working. I do not think that argument carries a great deal of weight.

The Minister also said that he is not willing to support extending the higher education bursary of £2,000 for apprentices to those leaving care. Surely any barriers to young people taking up apprenticeships should be removed or at the very least mitigated. On those two issues, the Minister did not show any willingness to do so. He said there were sufficient safeguards to ensure that apprentices and their families do not lose out by dint of the young person taking up an apprenticeship. That is palpably not the case. Further education colleges have already drawn to the attention of the Association of Colleges a number of cases of would-be apprentices being dissuaded from applying for—or, having applied for, then taking up—an apprenticeship when the financial consequences become clear. That is through pressures within their families. Whatever the rates in place, there are not sufficient safeguards. That deters some young people from taking up apprenticeships. That they are not regarded as approved learners is surely a glaring loophole which the Government must at some stage move to close.

I regret that the Minister has demonstrated no willingness even to acknowledge that there is an issue, far less a willingness to find a means of resolving it. We regard that as unsatisfactory. For that reason, I wish to the test the opinion of the House on Amendment 1.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords and the noble Baroness for the amendments on reporting issues for the institute. I start by discussing Amendment 2, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt. Being able to assess how well the apprenticeship reform programme is achieving outcomes is of course essential. We need to know whether those undertaking apprenticeships or technical education qualifications are receiving the benefits that we would expect them to receive. To be able to do that, we obviously need the right information to help us make such an assessment. How the institute reports on its work is a topic that we discussed in Committee, but I remain convinced that the provisions already in the Bill are the right ones and that they are sufficient. I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Watson, but I therefore still do not believe that an amendment to the Bill is necessary to achieve that objective.

As I have said, the amendment was discussed in Committee and on Report in the other place, and in Committee in this place, and both the Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills and I have given sound justification for why it is not necessary. The institute will be required to report on its activities annually under the Enterprise Act 2016, and the report must be placed before Parliament. This will include information on how the institute has responded to the statutory guidance. In addition, the Enterprise Act includes provisions enabling the Secretary of State to request information from the institute on any topic.

The information set out in the amendment is already collected and published by the Secretary of State on the performance of the FE sector, which includes apprenticeships. In order to inform its activities, we would expect the institute to make good use of these data in its annual report when it assesses its performance and impact each year. Indeed, the shadow institute has explained in its draft operational plan that it,

“will make more use of learner, employer and wider economy outcome data when reviewing the success of standards”.

The institute’s core role is to oversee and quality-assure the development of standards and assessment plans for use in delivering apprenticeships and, we expect, from April next year, college-based technical education. Much of the information that the amendment proposes that the institute provide goes well beyond what is in scope of its remit. It would therefore be inappropriate for the institute to be asked to provide this type of information, and an unnecessary duplication of effort, given that this information is already collected and published by the Secretary of State. It is right that the Government collect and monitor that information, but where it falls outside the remit of the institute, it cannot reasonably be expected to provide it.

I turn to Amendment 3. Improving social mobility is integral to our apprenticeship reforms. The Institute for Apprenticeships is supporting this by helping to create a ladder of opportunity based on quality apprenticeships for people across the country. This ladder will ensure that, no matter where you are born or who your parents are, if you work hard and apply yourself, you can get ahead, succeed and shape your own destiny.

To support this aim it is of course critical that reporting measures are in place to enable us to assess how well the programme is achieving positive outcomes for a range of groups, including young people. I agree therefore with the spirit of the amendment, which proposes that such information is monitored, measured and reviewed regularly. However, I believe this amendment is unnecessary to achieve that.

We want an education system that works for everyone and drives social mobility by breaking the link between a person’s background and where they get to in life. Our defining challenge is to level up opportunity.

On 18 January, the Secretary of State for Education set out her three priorities: tackling geographic disadvantage; investing in long-term capacity in the system; and making sure that our education system as a whole really prepares young people and adults for career success. That is why the Government are delivering more good school places, making school funding fairer, strengthening the teaching profession, investing in improving careers education, transforming technical education and apprenticeships and opening up access to our world-class higher education system.

The Department for Education already publishes a range of data on apprenticeships through a number of reports broken down by starts, achievements, sector subject area, framework and standard, geography, gender, age, ethnicity and other diversity and disadvantage markers. These data are published as national statistics by the department and intended to provide transparency.

It would be more appropriate for the head of profession in the department to consider how and where breakdowns of disadvantage for apprenticeships data are published, in accordance with the code of practice for statistics set by the National Statistician. Additionally, the department is considering publishing new data and measures required to support the Secretary of State’s three priorities. The department is committed to publishing disadvantage measures such as the pupil premium, but needs to be free to find the most appropriate for each age group, programme and purpose.

Data are already helping our work to improve social mobility. For example, we know that 10.5% of those starting an apprenticeship in 2015-16 were from a black and minority background, and we have set an ambitious target to increase the apprenticeships started by people from BAME backgrounds by 20% by 2010. In addition, the department publishes 16-to-18 performance tables that cover classroom-based provision within schools and colleges. The 2016 performance tables were reformed to report five headline measures for students taking A-levels and vocational qualifications at a similar level. Further reforms are planned for 2017 performance tables. This includes extending the performance tables to include outcomes for students still studying at GCSE level and reporting outcomes for disadvantaged students, the definition of which is those who were in receipt of pupil premium funding in year 11. This will have the effect of linking key stage 4 pupil premium information with 16-to-19 outcomes. In 2018-19, we will include only GCSE-level equivalent qualifications that are on the technical certificates list.

The institute has been given a clearly defined role, in which it will be responsible for setting quality criteria for the development of apprenticeship standards and assessment plans—reviewing, approving or rejecting them; advising on the maximum level of government funding available for standards; and quality assuring some end-point assessments. While we expect data to be at the heart of the institute’s operations, the collection and publication of the data in this amendment goes beyond that remit and would create an undue burden on the institute, preventing it from carrying out the range of its other duties effectively.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Lucas, for tabling Amendment 21. I completely agree with the spirit of the amendment, but there are already measures within the Bill that require the institute to monitor, measure, review and report on performance on a regular basis. I hope that after I have explained this further, the noble Lords and the noble Baroness will feel able not to press the amendment.

The institute will be a sustainable and long-term governance body that will support employers, individuals and others and will, among other things, uphold the quality of standards. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Baker for his comments on the strength of the board and its governance. Although the institute will have wide-ranging autonomy across its operational brief, and will be able to carry out its functions in relation to apprenticeships independently, the Secretary of State will retain strategic oversight of the reformed technical education system and will be able to give directions and statutory guidance where appropriate. Of particular relevance to this amendment, the Secretary of State may direct the institute to prepare and send to the Secretary of State, as soon as reasonably practicable, a report on any matter relating to its functions. It may be in that context that the idea to which my noble friend Lord Baker referred, of a letter, would be most appropriate.

The institute will be required to report on its activities annually under amendments made under the Enterprise Act 2016, and that report must be placed before Parliament. This will include information on how the institute has responded to the strategic guidance provided to it by the Secretary of State. While the institute will collect and report on relevant data and information, the Secretary of State will also continue to collect and publish a range of data on the performance of the FE sector, including apprenticeships. We would expect that, to inform its activities, the institute would make good use of those data when it assesses its performance and impact each year, and compiles its annual report. The Enterprise Act has made amendments that also include provisions enabling the Secretary of State to request information from the institute on any other topic that she deems appropriate in relation to their functions in relation to apprenticeships. Through this Bill, those provisions extend to technical education.

Therefore, although ultimately the Secretary of State will retain sufficient powers to ensure that government retains overall control in relation to technical education and will provide strategic guidance in respect of both apprenticeships and technical education, we would expect that, in the exercise of its functions, the institute would assess its performance and take action to address any issues identified. I am confident that, with the governance that it has managed to line up, that should happen.

I hope that noble Lords and the noble Baroness will feel reassured enough on the basis that I have explained not to press their amendments.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for his comprehensive reply—almost half the debate on this group of amendments was from his lips—which in some ways was not unencouraging. I welcome the contributions of two former Secretaries of State for Education, which are always informative. Although my noble friend Lady Morris was very supportive, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, was supportive only up to a point. He said that he did not believe this needed to be on the face of the Bill, but welcomed what Amendment 2 seeks to achieve. I noted that the Minister said it was likely that the request by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for a letter from the Secretary of State would be taken up, and that is to be welcomed.

I also welcome the supportive contributions of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. We are trying to make the point—expressed strongly by my noble friend Lady Morris—that the institute is just being established and needs to build its reputation. One way it will do that is by being as open and transparent as possible. The Minister said that collecting the information mentioned in Amendments 2 and 3 would be an undue burden. However, Amendment 3 provides only for the institute to ask the department for information which it already holds, which is not particularly burdensome.

The transparency mentioned in Amendment 2 is important because it will build confidence, as my noble friend Lady Morris said. Many employers and training providers—all further education colleges—as well as putative apprentices, are looking to the institute to raise the quality of apprenticeships. Why not demonstrate that as effectively as possible by both assembling and publishing the information mentioned in Amendment 2? The Minister said that the activities of the institute will be monitored, measured and reviewed but not reported on in the detail we have asked for. The Department for Education will have the information but apparently it does not want to give it to the institute to publish in its reports, which seems slightly odd.

Nevertheless, the Minister said quite a lot. I need to read his words in Hansard but he seemed to be mentioning quite a lot of benefit which will be seized on by those in the sector who have a genuine desire to make the Institute for Apprenticeships successful—to get it off to a good start and then build from there. There was certainly some positive input from the Minister, which I welcome. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Young for moving this amendment, which I am happy to support. In broad terms, we believe that the recommendations of the Sainsbury review should be fully implemented and funded. In the short term, there are three clear funding needs from the skills plan: fair funding for colleges; costs associated with finding and managing work placements, because they involve an individualised service to young people and employers rather than education to a group; and the cost of the transition year. A two-year full-time course would be the standard model under the plan, but with the expectation that some school leavers would need to take an additional transition year. This implies a full-time three-year programme. The current 16-to-18 funding system assumes a full two years and then administers a 17.5% cut in the third year. A sensible step, therefore, would be to maintain the full rate for three years for those students taking the transition year.

In his letter to noble Lords dated 22 February, the noble Lord, Lord Nash, stated that there are currently around 3,500 vocational qualifications. Most professionals in the sector have cited a figure of more than three times that amount, but more important is how the transition to the new regime is managed and funded. The Minister also said in his letter that the reforms would be phased in progressively, with the first routes available for delivery from September 2019. That apart, the transition was not set out and the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Young would enable that to happen. It would be a positive move and we believe that it is incumbent on the Minister to commit to it by accepting this modest amendment.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Young, for tabling this amendment. I fully understand their concerns and hope that I might be able to provide an explanation that will put their minds at rest. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, for his kind comments about our branding as T-levels.

We know that colleges, students and awarding organisations will need to know in good time the arrangements for existing qualifications as the new qualifications are introduced. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has just said, we plan for the first new technical routes to be introduced in autumn 2019, with the full range of programmes coming on stream soon after. Additional hours will be available for the new programmes as they become available and we will announce further details in due course following further engagement with employers, colleges and other key stakeholders.

In implementing the reforms, the Government will consider in consultation with the institute how best to manage the transition from legacy qualifications to new technical qualifications approved by the institute and intend to involve stakeholders and set out plans for this in due course.

Given that the new technical education routes will be subject to phased introduction, it would not be sensible or appropriate to commit to a fixed timescale for publishing detailed proposals for transition. I reassure the noble Lords, however, that once the institute has approved a new qualification, the Department for Education will consider future funding for the current, similar qualifications on a case-by-case basis. We will not withdraw funding for a student who is part way through their course. I therefore hope that the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Young, will be sufficiently reassured to consider not pressing their amendment.

Young Carers

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I am afraid that I do not know the answer to that question but I shall talk to the Department of Health and write to my noble friend.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Children’s Commissioner recently reported that four out of five young carers were not receiving support from their local authority and that not enough local authorities take steps to identify children in their area who may be providing care. Too often, it seems that funding under the Care Act is used for assessment purposes rather than providing support and activities that would allow young carers to enjoy some aspects of the childhood that every child surely should have. Will the Minister say what steps the Government are taking to ensure that young carers receive appropriate assessment and support, no matter where they live, through inspection and other forms of monitoring?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. We welcome the Children’s Commissioner’s report. We have just concluded our analysis of its findings and are considering what more we can do. We know that many local authorities are making great progress in their data analysis and capabilities but, as the noble Lord says, there is more for us to do. We are considering that in the light of the Children’s Commissioner’s report.

Education: Nursery and Early Years

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Lord in this regard. I am not familiar with that report but I will look at it and, I hope, have the opportunity to discuss it with him.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, if the Government really are serious about social mobility, then children’s first four years is where they should be concentrating—and doing so relentlessly. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, early years teachers are crucial to the development and effectiveness of childcare. In the workforce strategy, launched earlier this month and to which the Minister referred earlier, the Early Years Minister, Caroline Dinenage, said that if we are to prepare “the best” for our children,

“in their earliest and most formative years, we must … value”,

and train adequate staff to ensure their development. That is fine—that is as it should be—but the Family and Childcare Trust recently reported that one in 10 nursery workers do not receive the national minimum wage. Will the Minister work with Ms Dinenage and other Ministers to ensure that all childcare workers are properly and fairly paid and that public, taxpayers’ money does not go to employers that are breaking the law?

[Lord Nash]

That is an extremely good point. Nurseries are of course legally required to pay the national minimum wage and, just as any other organisation or business, they risk fines or even prosecution if they do not. We will be vigilant in this regard.

Immigration Skills Charge Regulations 2017

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Labour Force Survey showed that by 2014 the number of workers participating in training courses away from their own workplace has collapsed since 1992. I will not repeat the figures that the Minister gave, but this feeds into a pattern. In general, UK employers underinvest in training relative to comparable countries. It is therefore understandable that the Government should decide to incentivise employers to invest in training so as to maximise the number of jobs available to the domestic workforce. In that aim, we support what the Government are attempting to achieve through these regulations.

However, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee was critical of the fact that the Explanatory Memorandum laid with the instrument said nothing about the opposition to the proposals voiced by most of those consulted by the Migration Advisory Committee. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee was also critical of the fact that the Explanatory Memorandum provided little or no detail about the impact of the charge on those employers likely to be affected. That led the committee to conclude that the process of policy formulation for the proposals was not complete and that the Government were not in a position to supply Parliament with sufficient information about the implementation and impact of the proposed charge. If that is not the source of some embarrassment to the Minister and his officials, then it ought to be.

As far back as May 2015, the then Prime Minister announced the intention to introduce the charge, and in March 2016 the scope of the charge was set out. Why then was the DfE not ready when the regulations came to be submitted? Given the array of staff in the department, there is surely no excuse for this. I hope that the Minister will apologise and give an assurance that in future his officials will be better prepared.

Since the charge was first proposed almost two years ago, we can discount any suggestion that it had its roots in what I regret to say is the increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric that since last year’s referendum has characterised some government policy. The Government’s generally hostile approach towards migration—and the definition of it, as evidenced by their attitude on the Higher Education and Research Bill in relation to international students—risks further fuelling discrimination and social tension.

Changes to migration policies should be developed through consultation with employers and trade unions and, once agreed, should be introduced with adequate lead-in time to allow employers and employees to plan accordingly. That allows short-term gaps in the labour market to be filled while other measures are taken to address long-term training needs in the domestic labour market. It is to be hoped that that is what this charge will achieve.

Last week, during the briefing session on the charge, the Minister for Skills, Mr Halfon, explained that it will be used to address skills gaps in the workforce. In terms of the resources available to do so, and to some extent reflecting what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has said, the Minister said he anticipated an annual surplus of around £100 million once the Home Office had deducted the costs involved in collecting the charge.

Identifying those skills gaps is at the heart of these regulations. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills’ Employer Skills Survey 2015 shows that, while overall employer investment in training, in kind and cash, increased between 2011 and 2015, per employee expenditure flatlined at £1,600, despite a period of economic recovery and business growth. That was the last survey to be published, and I regret to say that it will remain the last survey to be published because earlier this year the Government closed the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. We no longer have a national overview. Perhaps the Minister will explain the rationale behind what appears to be an extraordinary step. What will replace it?

The Employer Skills Survey 2015 highlighted what it termed skill-shortage vacancies by sector and listed 13. The top five were: construction; manufacturing; electricity, gas and water; transport and communications; and agriculture. Interestingly, health and social work were only in seventh place, despite the regular reports of difficulty in filling vacancies. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has stolen a bit of my thunder here, so I will not repeat the thrust of her argument. Certainly, the proportion of NHS staff who are not UK nationals is high, although already in decline following last year’s referendum. It seems questionable, at the very least, that the list of exempted occupations listed in the regulations does not include doctors or nurses at a time when the NHS is under real pressure in filling posts in these areas. I acknowledge that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said that it goes wider than doctors and nurses. Enforcing the levy would effectively penalise the NHS for recruiting workers from outside the EEA to fill gaps in an already stretched workforce in an essential public service. I accept that to some extent the NHS has over the years gone for the easier option of hiring from outwith the UK, but the pressures currently being experienced there will be as nothing two years hence. I urge the Minister to consider what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said and what the pressures on the NHS will be if the charge is applied across the board for that sector.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics are also areas where there are skills gaps, not least in schools, where recruitment also remains a problem. I shall not repeat the comments I made in respect of the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board in a previous debate. Few teachers will earn above the £30,000 cut-off for the charge, and so non-EEA nationals will be unable to be used to help fill these gaps. From memory, Mr Halfon—or perhaps it was officials—said that there are only about 150 non-EEA nationals in that bracket. I accept that that is not a big number, but none the less these gaps need to be filled. With maths and ICT demonstrating digital skills shortages for the jobs of tomorrow, there could have been a case for relaxing the charge in these areas.

One suggestion I shall make concerns the follow-through on the charge, which we all hope will meet its aims. Could employers not be eligible for some sort of rebate on the charge for employing a non-EEA worker? There is an element of double-charging. If an employer has identified a gap for a group of employees, so that he or she has to take on workers from outwith the UK and, I assume in this case, from outwith the EEA, while doing that, the employer is meeting the aims of this charge by bringing through young, or perhaps not so young, people to train them up to the necessary level. So he is paying the charge for them to be employed and to be trained, and he is also paying a surcharge for those outwith the EEA who he is using temporarily. So in a sense he is training people for the long-term good of the business and of the UK economy, and there does seem to be an element of double-charging, particularly when the £1,000 rises over the years to a maximum of £5,000—leaving aside the charitable sector—when the employer is in fact doing what the Government want him or her to do: training employees.

My other question for the Minister is: when will the charge be reviewed? I do not know whether there is any significance in the fact that the assumption in the regulations is that it covers only non-EEA employees for up to five years. I am not clear whether that is to be a maximum. But there may be a case for, in effect, a sunset clause so that after five years the regulations could be reviewed and some assessment made of the charge’s success. As I said earlier, all of us in this debate, whatever our views and however critical we have been, want to see the outcome that the Government intend. I would be interested in the Minister’s views on that point. I do not expect him to respond just now. I do not expect his officials to give him a response just now. If it is more convenient, I am more than happy to receive something in writing.

Overall, I certainly want to see this charge introduced effectively and fairly, leading to a situation where there are more UK workers able to fill the gaps that are evident now and likely to be even more evident in the post-EU years ahead of us. To that extent, I do not do this often but I wish the Government well because I think their intentions are good, but there are certainly some rough edges in this charge which could perhaps be smoothed down to make it more palatable and perhaps even more effective.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for a really interesting debate. We welcome this feedback. I come back to my opening remarks: the investment in skills is crucial to a productive, strong UK economy—an economy which gives people from all backgrounds the opportunity to fill today’s skilled roles as well as those in the future. Migration has a role to play in supporting the development and supply of expertise and skills and we want to continue to attract the brightest and the best, but through the immigration skills charge we want to incentivise employers to invest in training. I am grateful for the support that has been expressed today for our desire to upskill our workforce. I am afraid that I will not cover all the points that have been raised but I will write to all noble Lords present today.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Hamwee, asked why this impacts particularly on the health service. The MAC was clear in its view that the charge should apply to the public sector. It is not sustainable to rely on recruiting overseas staff and the Government are committed to building home-grown skills. All employers need to look at how they meet their longer-term skills needs, and the long-term strategy must be to train and retain our own nurses and doctors in the UK. Steps are being taken to address the shortage of nurses, including continued investment in training, retention strategies, and a return to practice campaign. We are introducing a new nursing degree apprenticeship. Health Education England has increased nurse training places by 50% over the past two years and is forecasting that more than 40,000 additional nurses will be available by 2020. Similarly, Health Education England is forecasting that more than 11,000 additional doctors will be available by 2020. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked about the number of nurses impacted by the charge: 2,600 certificates of sponsorship were used for nurses in the year ending August 2015.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about the delay in publishing the impact assessment. As the charge is classified as a tax, we have not been required to carry out a formal impact assessment. It is also difficult to do so because it is difficult to anticipate how employers will respond to the charge and to wider changes to tier 2. In addition, the charge does not sit as an isolated measure—it is part of a wider skills programme to develop a strong, productive economy. On the noble Lord’s point about how we will assess and evaluate the impact of the policy and whether the charge will be reviewed, we will monitor the operation of the charge and will undertake a review of the policy after one year, as covered in the Explanatory Memorandum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

Before the Minister finishes, I mentioned the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, and that apparently it has been disbanded. Perhaps the Minister can give me a commitment that he will also write to me about that. I am happy to leave it at that just now.

[Lord Nash]

I will certainly cover that.

Careers Advice and Guidance

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 6th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. I know that my ministerial colleague Jo Johnson is very focused on this. I remember Andreas Schleicher telling me that we are the worst country in Europe for aligning courses at universities with the jobs available. We believe that our plans under the Higher Education and Research Bill will make students much more focused on what are worthwhile occupations.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, a few moments ago the Minister referred to the Technical and Further Education Bill, which is in Committee, and that he had accepted a cross-party amendment which means that from September this year all state-funded schools in England must provide access to a range of education and training providers. That was very much welcomed by all those in Committee, but in that debate the Minister said:

“Our careers strategy will not be effective unless schools and colleges are held to account for the quality of their careers provision. Ofsted has an important role to play in this regard”.—[Official Report, 22/2/17; col. GC 70.]


With schools that were previously reluctant to have their pupils advised about routes other than those that lead to university now being obliged to do so, does the Minister accept that when this comes into effect Ofsted should give an overall “good” or “outstanding” rating to a school or college only if it considers that the careers advice provided by them is of a good or outstanding standard?

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, the Committee will be aware that this issue is already being considered as part of the Higher Education and Research Bill. As a Government, we will want to consider our position across the board, and I can assure noble Lords that we are doing this. This topic is best discussed in the context of the Higher Education and Research Bill, where there will be ample opportunity to consider the issue during the forthcoming Report stage. However, I will briefly address the more specific points of the amendment.

While there are some further education colleges that have centres of expertise or offer higher level study that attract a significant number of international students, such as the one referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, as a whole the number of international students in FE is much smaller than for the higher education sector. Courses are on average shorter, and delivery is more locally focused and reflects local economic priorities. Where colleges take significant numbers of international students, the issues will parallel those that have been considered through proposed amendments to the Higher Education and Research Bill.

I do not propose to repeat the arguments that my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie made during that debate. I do wish to emphasise that we have and will continue to set no limit on the number of genuine international students who can come here. The controls in place are there to prevent abuse of the system and ensure that the reputation of the UK educational sector continues to be internationally renowned. The immigration statistics are controlled independently by the Office for National Statistics. It is not up to the Government to create the statistical definitions. Our responsibility is to set the policy, which in this case places no limit on numbers of students.

As I have said, there will be an opportunity to debate these issues further as part of the Higher Education and Research Bill, which is the more appropriate forum. In those circumstances, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the two noble Lords who contributed to the debate and the Minister for his response. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, about the positive message that this sends. That is what I was trying to get across in moving this amendment.

Equally, I accept the Minister’s use of the term “abuse of the system”. No one would be tolerant of that at all. There were such situations in the past in the case particularly of language schools. Some of them had been—to use about the kindest adjective that could be applied to them—“bogus”. Very largely, these have been driven out of the system. I would not say that there is no abuse, but there is not a great deal. Opening up the further education sector does not necessarily increase the likelihood of such abuse.

I take the Minister’s point that the Higher Education and Research Bill is the place to deal with that. Fortunately for him, he will not have to do that, but I will be returning to these subjects next week. I wanted to draw attention to the fact that, hopefully, the further education sector has the opportunity to broaden its scope a bit. Whereas local provision is what it is mainly about, there is scope to expand that and I hope that the sector will take the opportunity to do so and will not be prevented from doing so through the inability to bring students in from abroad.

With those remarks, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, for their two amendments relating to issues of representation for the Institute for Apprenticeships.

With regard to Amendment 16, the institute should obviously understand the views of those people undertaking this training to ensure that it is meeting their needs, because it is the organisation responsible for apprenticeships and technical education. Section ZA2 of the 2009 Act, inserted by the Enterprise Act 2016, already requires the institute to have regard to,

“the reasonable requirements of persons who may wish to undertake education and training within”,

the institute’s remit, and to other interested persons. The institute is also required to engage interested groups as part of the review of standards and assessment plans.

The institute has purposely been established as an independent organisation, with high-level responsibilities set out in legislation but with the freedom to decide how it delivers them. It is essential for the credibility of apprenticeships and the wider apprenticeship reform programme that the institute retains as much autonomy as possible. Government can provide the institute with advice and guidance about how it could carry out its functions. It has to have regard to this advice and must provide justification if it chooses not to follow it. The Government recently consulted on a draft of their guidance to the institute for 2017-18, which includes a request for the institute to establish an apprenticeship panel to advise the board. The shadow institute has already committed to doing this by the time that it is launched and good progress is being made. Members for the first apprenticeship panel have already been shortlisted and an initial meeting is planned for March.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

On that point, can the Minister say how this was done? Were applications invited?

[Lord Nash]

I will have to write to the noble Lord about that.

As well as advising the board, the first panel will decide how the panel will be run, including how future members will be recruited. The proposal is for the institute to take on responsibility for technical education from April 2018. I can confirm that it would be our intention to include a request in its guidance for 2018-19 for a panel to represent those undertaking technical education.

Amendment 18 would stipulate the make-up of the group of persons whom the institute could approve to develop a standard. In particular, it would require that the group includes a range of employers and at least one provider. I agree that it is essential that the standards that form the basis of reformed apprenticeships and new technical education qualifications are of high quality, and meet the needs of a wide range of employers and learners, but I am not convinced that this amendment is necessary. I have already explained that the institute needs to be independent from government to be able to undertake its functions with credibility. It will be well placed to make decisions about who can develop a new standard, based on a range of factors, and it is right that it should be given the flexibility to do so without the constraints that this amendment would impose.

However, in my remarks on the preceding amendment I referred to the strategic guidance providing a vehicle for government to advise the institute. The current draft of the guidance includes the recommendation on who should be able to develop standards and makes it clear that we will expect the institute to continue to ensure that standards are developed primarily by employers, but with input from others with the relevant knowledge and experience, such as professional bodies, other sector experts, providers and assessment organisations. If the institute decides not to follow the government guidance it must give reasons in its annual report, but it is crucial that, as an expert, independent organisation, it retains the ability to make decisions itself about delivery, taking into account all the relevant circumstances. We believe that our approach strikes the right balance. I hope that, on the basis of my explanation, the noble Lord will feel reassured enough to withdraw this amendment.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, for her Amendment 36A. I am sure it was prompted by concerns for publicly funded learners who may find themselves without a place to complete their course in the event that an independent provider shuts down. I share her concerns but just as with FE bodies, the likelihood of independent training providers becoming insolvent is low. The Skills Funding Agency has a robust entry process in place to ensure providers are capable of delivering a high-quality learning offer to loans learners. Once providers have met the entry criteria and are eligible to offer loans-funded provision to learners they are subject to a range of further measures and controls, including review of their financial health, audit, and assessment of their qualification achievement rates. Providers are also required to comply with robust funding and performance rules. A small handful of providers is facing difficulty, but the numbers affected by these cases represent less than 1% of providers operating in the advanced learner loans programme.

Secondary Schools: Funding

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The IFS pointed out that over the 20 years from 2000 to 2020, schools will have a 50% per pupil increase in real terms. As I said, we believe that there is considerable scope for savings in schools’ efficiency. We are already on course to save £250 million in academies by next year alone with our RPA scheme substituting insurance costs. We believe that our buying strategy can save £1 billion out of £10 billion a year of non-staff spending.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, quoted a head teacher and I would like to do the same. Last week, the head teacher of the Forest School in Winnersh, Berkshire, resigned her post because of the increasing amount of cuts facing her school. In a letter to parents, pupils and staff, she said:

“The situation with regard to schools funding, both nationally and locally, is bleak: in common with other headteachers, I did not enter the teaching profession to make cuts that narrow the curriculum, or to reduce the number of teachers and increase class sizes, yet my hand has been forced and I see no immediate easing of the situation. Consequently”—


this impacts directly upon the question—

“I feel unable to deliver the quality of education the boys at The Forest so clearly deserve”.

The National Association of Head Teachers says that that is increasingly becoming the situation across England. That is not surprising, as the National Audit Office has reported that there will have to be an 8% real cut in the schools budget up to 2020—this, it should be said, by a party that in its 2015 election manifesto pledged to protect the schools budget. The Government say that the new funding formula—

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I am not surprised that Members opposite are unhappy about this, because it is unpalatable. The Government say that the new funding formula is about fairness. How can the funding be fair when it is not sufficient?

[Lord Nash]

I do not think that time will permit me to respond to that speech. I can only repeat what I said: that schools that run themselves efficiently have ample resources for a broad curriculum. I invite the noble Lord to go on to the department’s website and watch a clip by Sir Mike Wilkins about the curriculum-led financial planning at Outwood Grange. Academically, this is one of the most successful and, financially, one of our most efficient multi-academy trusts.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Nash]

I will write to my noble friend about that.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this lively debate. It is important that the Minister in his response began by saying—I wrote it down—that the 3 million target is a target but quality comes first, and that the institute is not responsible for meeting the target but for ensuring quality. Those words will be well received, and to have them in written in Hansard will be a comfort to many people. However, that is the aim and it has to be followed through to ensure that apprenticeships achieve what everyone in this room would want them to achieve.

There seem to be three primary aims for apprenticeships, at this time anyway. One is that the aforementioned word “quality” must be everywhere. The second is that they are able to produce young people, and perhaps not-so-young people, equipped to fill the skills gaps in the economy that we know are there. The third aim is that apprenticeships and everything surrounding them should ensure what my noble friend Lady Morris said: that they have public confidence and that parents in particular are not just willing but knowledgeable enough to guide their sons and daughters into apprenticeships with the confidence that they will get something worth while out of them. If that public confidence is not there, the 3 million target will not be met. I therefore hope that those three aims will be met as a result of the institute being reformed.

The Minister mentioned Ofsted. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, covered some of the points I wanted to make but the Minister said Ofsted tells him that it has sufficient resources. I am tempted to say that it would, would it not? However, with a new head of Ofsted, I should have thought that this was a time to increase resources to take account of increased responsibilities and duties. There will clearly be far more apprenticeships than there have been. If Ofsted has the work deriving from Bill added to its ability to inspect schools—some are inspected rarely—it is hard to see how that can be done without additional resources. The Minister did not mention additional resources and I suspect that is because there may not be any, but it would be helpful if he could clarify the point about Ofsted. It is difficult for us to take on board that Ofsted could suddenly adopt extra responsibilities without additional resources.

The Minister also mentioned the Office for Students, particularly in respect of Amendment 5. He did not believe that it was appropriate for the OfS to have the regulating duty set out in that amendment and that the body’s role was regulating higher education. I agree that Ofsted will have the lead role but that does not preclude the OfS. I must ask the Minister for clarification because—with due deference to my noble friend Lady Donaghy—there are five acronyms in the letter he issued today for bodies involved in apprenticeships and technical education. The OfS is not one of them, yet it has some role in the provisions of the Bill. If Ofsted is going to take the lead role, it impacts on the resources argument. We need some clarification of what the OfS is expected to do.

I must also ask about another comment the Minister made in his response. He said that Ofsted had sufficient resources up to level 5. However, the chart at the back end of the letter we received today said that Ofsted inspects the quality of training for level 2 to level 3 apprenticeships. Perhaps that can be clarified because the two comments do not sit easily together.

The points made by my noble friend Lord Young, a former skills Minister, about the importance of safeguarding quality, and the Minister’s acceptance of the basis of these amendments, particularly Amendment 1, are important. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for his enthusiastic welcome. It is good to have cross-party support in these situations.

To some extent, the Minister has answered the points that we put to him. Some concerns remain, not least about who will be doing what. He seeks refuge in HMRC being the answer to enforcing the national minimum wage and apprenticeship rates. In my experience, HMRC is unable to enforce the national minimum wage for adults, again because of a lack of resources. I do not think much attention has historically been given to apprenticeships, and clearly much more should be, as recommended in the report from the Low Pay Commission, which I outlined earlier. But you cannot just add additional duties to public bodies without giving them the resources to make sure they can meet those. However, we have covered most of the points in some depth. On that basis, I thank the Minister for his response and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for that response and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, for her contribution. I should have said at the start that we support the suggestions in Amendment 8. I noticed that the Minister said that most of these were already covered. That impacts on a point that I will come back to in a minute about the operational plan for the institute.

The Minister somewhat took the wind out of my sails on Amendment 6 by saying that there was no role for the institute with regard to new institutions. I take it that just the Secretary of State would have the ability to give them the green light, if that is the case. In which case, I am rather surprised that it got accepted as an amendment. None the less, I hear what the Minister says, and if that is the case, so be it.

On Amendment 14 in particular, the Minister did not answer a couple of the questions I put to him. One was the point about the percentages for categories of those underrepresented in the take-up of apprenticeships. I mentioned the 20% target for people from black and minority ethnic communities and asked whether there were plans for anything similar for women, care leavers and indeed any other underrepresented groups. I am happy for him to write to me on that. I do not suggest what the percentages should be, but these are underrepresented, so by definition it is appropriate that some action is taken to bring them more into line with other groups.

[Lord Nash]

We do not intend to have any targets, but as I said, we intend there to be the expectation that the opportunity to participate should be widely available for all students.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

Yes, but that is a bit woolly. Students have always had the opportunity; the point is that certain groups are not taking it up in sufficient numbers. It would be interesting to know why black and minority ethnic people have been specifically identified, and yet others have not. If work needs to be done there to bring underrepresented groups more into the mainstream, surely the institute should concentrate particularly on that. However, that would impact on the institute’s operational plan. In the Minister’s letter today, he mentioned that the shadow institute’s draft operational plan is out for consultation but only for a few more days. He said that that will provide more detail on how the institute would be expected to deliver its role. I have not yet looked at that but I will do so. I hope that it will have something to say on broadening participation because we may wish to return to that matter on Report.

For the moment, we have covered the issues and I thank the Minister for his response. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Secondary Schools: Counselling Services

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We have committed an additional £1.4 billion for mental health services for children, young people and new mothers over the course of the Parliament. We are developing a Green Paper and as I said, we have asked all CCGs to submit their plans. We have extended our joint training pilot scheme and the Prime Minister has committed to strengthening the accountability of children and young people’s mental health provision.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I can tell the House that schools are not providing counselling for financial reasons. The Conservatives’ 2015 election manifesto said that school funding would be protected. It is not. For the first time in 20 years, it is being protected in only cash terms, not real terms, which is leading to teacher shortages and failure to provide support services. The education services grant is supposed to provide such services, but it has been subject to savage cuts. Will the Minister tell the House how he really expects schools to respond to the increasing demand from children with additional needs, when the schools do not have the funding to provide for it?

[Lord Nash]

A number of support systems and toolkits are available in the department. Any school that uses our toolkits, particularly following the new fairer formula we are bringing in, should be able to manage on their budgets.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, we have heard many expert contributions from noble Lords with considerable collective experience of education, which I found extremely helpful. My colleague Mr Halfon, the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, has been present throughout the debate and has already told me that he found the contributions very thoughtful. I am sure he also found the debate very instructive. I have no doubt that the scrutiny this House will provide will further strengthen the Bill. As I said, I am very grateful for the points that have been made. I will respond to as many as time will allow, and write to noble Lords on those points that I cannot cover. I look forward to discussing the issues further in Committee.

A number of noble Lords raised the important question of status. I agree that we desperately need to raise the status of technical education, and ultimately to achieve parity with academic routes. We have a long way to go to achieve this, although I believe that the Bill is part of what the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, called a serious reversal of the current situation. Many noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, my noble friend Lord Leigh, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and my noble friend Lord Lucas raised the important question of quality. The core aim of the apprenticeship reform programme is to improve the quality of apprenticeships in England. All reformed apprenticeships will be based on a standard which has been designed by employers, giving them the opportunity to set out the skills, knowledge and behaviours that their apprentices will need to be fully competent. Over 490 standards have either been developed or are in development, involving 215 groups of employers. Instead of being assessed through a number of small, low-quality qualifications throughout the apprenticeship, in future apprentices will be tested at the end of their apprenticeship by a new rigorous assessment, also developed by employers, to really test that they can do the job. No one will be able to pass their apprenticeship unless they have met this new high bar. We have introduced new quality criteria which providers have to meet before they can be approved to deliver training as part of an apprenticeship, and Ofsted, HEFCE and QAA will continue to quality assure the training as it is delivered. The Skills Funding Agency will also continue to monitor outcomes and intervene where it has concerns.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raised the potential problem of being fixated on targets. The 3 million target is an important galvanising force and a statement of intent but our reforms are absolutely about quality, not just quantity. Good progress is being made on the set-up of the institute and we fully expect it to be able to carry out its apprenticeship functions from April this year. Last week, we announced the institute’s board members. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Baker for his very high praise for the board members. We have also published the institute’s draft operational plan, which sets out how it will carry out its functions. This follows the publication for consultation earlier this year of the Secretary of State’s draft strategic guidance letter to the institute for 2017-18, which outlines the policy parameters within which the institute should operate. The recruitment of the senior team is going well. The interim chief executive and deputy chief executive are in place, six permanent deputy director roles have been filled and all will be in post in April, and a permanent chair will be announced very shortly. Job advertisements for the chairs of the institute’s route panels are out now, and interviews will take place before the end of the year.

A number of noble Lords asked whether the institute will have adequate resources. The final size and structure of the institute is still to be determined, but we expect that around 60 to 80 staff members will be appointed. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Leigh will be pleased to hear about the appointment of Paul Cadman to the board of the institute. He is the CEO of a training provider.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich and others talked about overlap with other bodies. We are confident that the institute will have a clear and distinct role in technical education. Instead of embarking on a mammoth merger of the different bodies, the Government are asking Ofsted, Ofqual, HEFCE and the QAA to work together collaboratively towards a common goal. We have explained in our draft strategic guidance for the institute that we will expect it to play a leadership role in the context of apprenticeships, including establishing a quality partnership group. This is also referred to in the institute’s draft operational plan published last week. To ensure the roles are distinct and transparent, we are preparing an accountability statement that will make the bodies’ responsibilities clear and avoid overlap or gaps.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised the point about representation. The shadow institute is establishing route panels, which will be aligned to the technical education routes—which are groups of occupations—and will review and approve proposals for new occupational standards and the standards and assessment plans themselves.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, asked about the constitution of the panels. They will be largely made up of institute staff but will include a range of experts with knowledge of the occupations within a particular route and could include employers, academics, professional bodies, sector and trade organisations, and national colleges or other training providers. The institute is also required by legislation to ensure that all standards and assessment plans have been subject to independent, third-party scrutiny. The draft strategic guidance sent to the institute sets out that it should involve a wide range of interested parties in this process.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Addington, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, raised the question of technical education for vulnerable students. Technical routes will be fair and accessible to young people with SEND and care leavers, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enable them to take part and succeed. When such young people cannot access a route because of prior attainment, they will have a “transition year”, which will be flexible and tailored to individual need, with additional support to ensure that care leavers and young people with SEND complete their courses and move on to the next stage of their learning. This “transition year” will help young people from all backgrounds, ability levels and personal circumstances to gain the skills they need to enter employment.

My noble friend Lord Leigh and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, raised the question of representation of apprentices. To ensure that the institute represents the views and interests of apprentices, it will establish an apprentice panel by 1 April, which will report and make recommendations directly to the board. This panel will be made up of apprentices from different occupations and experiences, and it will decide for itself what issues it will focus on.

On copyright, which was raised by my noble friend Lord Lucas, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and others, under the reforms it is our intention that there will be one qualification per occupation or group of occupations. Employers and other professionals will play a significant role in determining the content of the new qualifications, with the support and input of the institute. The institute will have the final say over approving these qualifications and their content. It is therefore appropriate that copyright for relevant course documents should rest with the institute. The institute is empowered to grant any person, including that organisation, a licence to use the qualification for a specified period or potentially to be used for other markets; that is, internationally. As a public body, the institute is under a duty to act fairly and transparently.

We recognise that this is a significant departure from the current system, whereby awarding organisations are free to decide on the qualifications they offer and on their content. We know that copyright is an important feature of the current system. However, I reassure noble Lords and awarding organisations that the copyright measures in the Bill are not intended to disadvantage them. To make sure that the new system is fair and transparent—and that it remains an attractive commercial proposition—we want to work with awarding organisations and others. We want to hear their views on these arrangements; for example, what the length of a contract should be or exactly which documents should be the subject of copyright. It is instrumental to the reforms that the institute, rather than organisations, dictates the content of the qualification. We believe that this will help drive up competition and keep the market active. Organisations whose qualifications were not approved in one round will be able to improve their qualification and its delivery and bid in another round. They would be prevented from doing so if copyright were not vested in the institute.

A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Lucas, raised the point about the single awarding body. To bring the system in line with the best in the world and ensure excellence in technical education, the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, recommended a single awarding organisation per qualification. The proliferation of qualifications has in the past led, as we all know, to a race to the bottom and a decline in standards.

The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, asked about certificates, as did my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. The institute will have overall responsibility for apprenticeship certificates. It will work with the SFA to design a high-quality apprenticeship certificate that will be awarded to learners who successfully complete their training. Every apprentice will receive the same design, and in time, learners who pass an approved classroom-based course will also receive a similar institute-designed certificate. The institute is by no means an awarding organisation, and a certificate will be given only when the assessment organisation has confirmed that the apprentice has passed their end-point assessment and this has been validated by the SFA.

Approving certificates for standards will be much less bureaucratic than for frameworks; indeed, the SFA took on responsibility for the certification of apprenticeship standards at the start of this year, and the cost will be covered by the employer, not the apprentice.

My noble friends Lord Baker and Lady Stedman-Scott and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked about pupils moving at 14. Young people can choose to focus on technical education at various ages and stages. Between the ages of 14 and 16, young people can study technical awards alongside their GCSEs, and of course they can enrol at a UTC, to which a number of noble Lords referred.

I am grateful for the endorsement by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, of the insolvency measures in the Bill. I will reflect on how we might consider the independent provider sector and how best to protect students—a point my noble friend Lord Lucas also made. HE and FE sectors have different characteristics, so it follows that they might need different approaches to student protection in the event of insolvency. The Higher Education and Research Bill requires student protection plans to be put in place by providers. Both SPPs and the special administration regime have the same objective of student protection, albeit by different means. The likelihood of insolvency of independent training providers is low; the SFA oversees a rigorous process through approving and monitoring independent providers, which subject financial returns to the SFA. Independent providers eligible to offer student loans are subject to the SFA’s policy on intervention, which is triggered by Ofsted inspection or not meeting SFA standards. We have put into intervention that it may have to take remedial action, with the potential effects on learners taken into account. As companies, independent training providers are already subject to insolvency law and, like public providers, private providers are already subject to obligations in their funding agreements which they have with the Government, which require them to protect the interests of students.

On more detail on private providers, the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Aberdare, raised the question of the private sector from slightly different directions, as one might expect. The private sector already provides a significant amount of education and training very effectively. It is true that transfers can be made to private companies. However, I recognise the concern that assets which may have been paid for by the taxpayer, and for the purposes of providing education, should not then be transferred to the private sector on the cheap. I reassure noble Lords this is not the case. The Bill provides four key protections, acting as a quadruple lock, should the education administrator deem it necessary to make a transfer scheme for the property, rights or liabilities of an insolvent FE body.

First, the education administrator is restricted in who they can transfer the assets to. These bodies are prescribed in secondary legislation and are public sector bodies with educational functions, colleges and similar public-funded educational bodies. Transfers may be made to private companies, but if so, the company must be established for the purposes, which include the provision of educational facilities or services. Secondly, any transfer scheme must be for the purposes of achieving the special objective; that is, it must avoid or minimise disruption to students. Thirdly, creditors have a right of challenge should they consider that the education administrator is not working to fulfil the objective of achieving the best result for creditors as a whole, so far as is consistent with that special objective with regard to students. Finally, the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers must approve the proposed transfer scheme. Any approval will include, among other matters, consideration of whether it is for the purposes of achieving the special objective.

The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Young, mentioned the IFA’s assertion that most money raised through the levy will not be spent on apprenticeships. We disagree with this. By 2019-20, spending on apprenticeships will be £2.5 billion, and we are confident in the extensive research that demonstrates the real economic benefits that apprenticeships deliver.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

When the issue was discussed on Report in the other place, the question was raised as to whether the Treasury might keep part of the money raised through the levy. I do not think that I am being unfair to the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills when I say that he did not answer that question clearly on Report. Can the Minister give us an assurance now that all the money will stay in the sector, not with the Treasury?

[Lord Nash]

I will write to the noble Lord about that, checking carefully before I respond.

I was very interested to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen of Pimlico, about her involvement with the Cambridge UTC and the Parkside educational trust MAT, and about the advantages. For the very reasons that she mentioned, it is our policy to encourage all UTCs to join MATs. On her point about the evaluation of UTCs and the fact that apprenticeships are not recognised in outcomes, this is something that we are looking at very closely at the moment. She also made the point that institutes should not approve degree apprenticeships. Degree apprenticeship standards are currently approved by my department. I can reassure her that, although the institute will take on this approval function, it will not be responsible for investigating or engaging with individual universities. However, it will of course work with the Office for Students in the future.

Many noble Lords raised the important matter of careers and careers advice. We take this extremely seriously. That is why the industrial strategy set out that we will publish, later this year, a comprehensive strategy for careers information, advice and guidance across all ages, expanding the quantity and quality of careers advice. As my noble friend Lord Lucas rightly pointed out, the development of careers leadership in schools and colleges will be an important element of this.

We are investing £90 million in this Parliament to improve the quality and coverage of careers advice for young people, and the Careers & Enterprise Company continues its excellent work. I echo the praise expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for this organisation, which is very ably run by Claudia Harris. Picking up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about the importance of careers education, the advisers will also support schools and colleges to develop comprehensive strategies. However, more needs to be done to inform pupils of their options. We have recently agreed to institute a requirement for local authorities to write to the parents of year 9 students, informing them of the existence of UTCs, further education colleges and studio schools that offer courses for students starting at the age of 14.

My noble friend Lady Pidding made a good point about the need to do more to promote apprenticeships. We launched a new apprenticeships communications campaign in May last year, promoting the benefits of apprenticeships for young people. It builds on the previous successful Get In Go Far campaign. National Apprenticeship Week 2017 will take place in March, celebrating the positive impact of apprenticeships and traineeships.

As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, getting careers advice right is an important area—as the Minister, my honourable friend Robert Halfon, noted in his careers speech on Monday. I look forward to hearing more from noble Lords in Committee, including my noble friend Lord Baker, about approaches to strengthening careers advice.

My noble friend Lord Baker talked about maths, as did the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. We now have maths hubs and are supporting many maths programmes, such as Singapore maths and Shanghai maths. Over the last few years there has been a substantial increase in the number of pupils taking maths GCSEs and A-levels. My noble friend Lord Baker talked about the skills gap in STEM subjects and computing. We have introduced coding and computing into the curriculum for the first time. He said that there were just over 60,000 pupils taking computing at GCSE. I accept that that is a small number, but it is from a standing start. I pay tribute to my noble friend’s engagement in the digital economy through UTCs.

My noble friend Lord Lucas talked about schools having a dedicated person to engage with the world of work. I consider that to be very important. I know that before the last election the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, had the idea that this should be the case in every school. We are not as prescriptive as that, but certainly it happens in my schools. I think it is very important that schools try to find the money in their budget to do that because, when you see the effect of pupils’ engagement with the world of work, the payback is obvious. Regarding the school sector’s engagement with the world of work, we have certainly found that the door is wide open, with businesses and the professions being extremely willing to help.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, talked about the importance of flexibility, and I entirely agree. A framework of routes will ensure that choices are clearer for young people. She also raised concerns about assessment and the approach to assessment for apprentices, and I look forward to discussing this with her further in Committee. We recognise that there is more to do to ensure the breadth of the high-quality assessment organisations that we need, but we have been making good progress through the register for assessment organisations, run by the Skills Funding Agency.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked why less money was spent on post-16 education. The best predictor of attainment at age 19 is attainment at age 16, and that is why we prioritise school funding. As we all know, students have many more pastoral issues, which are expensive to deal with, in the earlier years.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to the governance of FE colleges. We talked about this when we met yesterday, and I have already discussed it with my ministerial colleague, Robert Halfon. For the academies programme, we have started something called Academy Ambassadors, recruiting pro bono non-executive directors from businesses and the professions to the boards of multi-academy trusts. As of this morning, we have already made 417 appointments, which is quite a pro bono movement up and down the country. I have discussed with my fellow Minister the possibility of encouraging FE colleges which need further support on their boards to engage with this programme.

The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, asked whether craft, creative and service skills are intended to be covered by technical education. The answer is that they are. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, talked about the relevance of courses, rather than students just doing courses that are popular. Of course, our destination data and data on jobs and pay rates, as well as on payback from courses for students, will in future enable students to make much more informed decisions.

My noble friend Lord Leigh asked about spending on adult education. The total spending power of the FE sector to support adult and 19-plus participation will be £3.4 billion by 2019-20. In cash terms, this is an increase of 40% compared with 2015-16. Within the £3.4 billion, the Government have maintained funding for the adult education budget, which supports adult skills participation in cash terms at £1.5 billion.

My noble friend Lord Baker used some statistics from Davos which were very persuasive. Industry and all of us are aware of these issues. They create an urgency, but I am as hopeful as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that this is the moment when we start to reverse the trend that we have all discussed today.

Today’s debate has been thoughtful and enlightening, and I look forward to further discussions. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said—

Schools: Access to Defibrillators

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I do not know if they quite put it in those terms, but I am aware that they are apparently very easy to use and the instructions are very clear.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, rightly paid tribute to the outstanding work of the Oliver King Foundation, and I acknowledge the work the Minister has done in meeting the foundation and taking the issue forward. Every year, 270 children die after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest at school, and 12 young people a week die from sudden arrhythmic death syndrome. There are laws that mandate smoke alarms, fire extinguishers, seatbelts and lifejackets to save lives, but there is no law mandating a simple piece of equipment that could restart the lives of 12 young people each week. Do the Government intend to give a fair wind to Maria Caulfield MP’s Defibrillators (Availability) Bill, which will have its Second Reading in another place next month, so as to bring to an end the shameful postcode lottery that is access to defibrillators?

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, the Department of Health believes that it is unnecessary to require defibrillators to be placed in all public buildings, and it is our policy that local ambulance trusts already have responsibility for the provision of defibrillators and are best placed to know what is needed in the local area. When I met Mark King and the other representatives of the Oliver King Foundation some years ago, they seemed satisfied with our arrangements, particularly the deal that I referred to, but we are very happy to work with them further and to discuss what more we can do to ensure that more schools install defibrillators and that we raise awareness of this very important issue.

Education: Newly Qualified Teachers

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I do not agree with the noble Lord, although I have lot of respect for his experience in this area. One thing we have done is improve the knowledge in the curriculum because cognitive science is absolutely clear that to develop skills such as critical thinking, you need knowledge to apply. We are also clear that some of our best groups are now developing much better teaching resources for teachers so that they do not have to spend time devising lesson plans and can spend much more time developing the kind of techniques that the noble Lord refers to.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it beggars belief that just last week the Treasury cancelled a promised £384 million payment to schools—this at a time when the DfE itself is cutting school budgets. The Minister has said that he will address the very real issue of workload but the initial teacher training figures for this Session show that only 89% of secondary school places were filled—just as the “pupil bulge” begins to impact at secondary level. Does the Minister have anything positive to say about levels of professional pay to ensure that teaching remains an attractive profession?

[Lord Nash]

We have a very strong economy, as this Government and the previous Government have created what has sometimes been referred to as a jobs miracle, and many areas are struggling to recruit. I am sure the noble Lord will be delighted to hear that this year we are 12% up on maths and science teachers and 15% up on physics teachers. The number of returners to the profession is also up by 20% on 2011.

School Milk

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord raises a very good point and I know he is very experienced in the area of primary schools. I am aware of a depressing number of children having their teeth removed because they have rotted at a very young age, and of many schools having things such as tooth-brushing schemes, et cetera. I shall certainly look more at what we are doing in the area he mentioned.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister alluded to, but did not mention, the European school milk scheme, which is funded by the European Union, but administered by Defra. It provides subsidised milk to all children above the age of five each day in school. However, Defra has committed to continuing participation in the scheme for only as long as the UK is a member of the EU. I am sure noble Lords will remember that some 40 years ago, a former Education Secretary attracted considerable opprobrium when she decided to reduce the amount of milk available to school children. I am certain the Minister would not like that to happen to his current boss, so will he commit to meeting with his fellow Ministers in the Department of Health to find a way of lobbying the Government to provide a replacement for the current scheme when it expires in 2019?

[Lord Nash]

We will play a full role in the existing scheme until we leave the EU, but as our involvement in the scheme will be short term, we are taking a pragmatic approach to keeping changes to current arrangements to a minimum. We will consider the long-term approach to school milk provision, following our exit from the EU, as part of our future domestic policy programme.

Children: Safeguarding

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We have fairly limited visibility on this but I will write to the noble Earl with any up-to-date figures.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the recently departed HM Chief Inspector of Schools made determined efforts to uncover and root out illegal schools, and it is certainly to be hoped that his successor will not lose that focus. All schools which cater for five or more pupils full-time must be either maintained by a local authority or registered as an independent school. There is, however, a significant loophole in that schools which operate, for example, four days a week can claim not to be providing full-time education. The Labour Government’s Education and Skills Act 2008 provided a means of closing that loophole but this Government have refused to implement it and seem to be in denial about this as an issue. If that is not the case, can the Minister explain why, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, the Government’s response to the Wood review made no mention of any action on home education or unregistered school settings? When will the 2008 Act be fully implemented?

[Lord Nash]

We have just had a call for evidence on unregulated out-of-school settings and have had 18,000 responses. We are determined to regulate in this area but we need to tread carefully because many of these organisations are small, open for only a few hours a week and are staffed by volunteers. We do not want a cumbersome regime but one that works.

Schools: Volunteer Reading Helpers

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend makes a very good point; I know that he is very experienced in this area. Since the introduction of our phonics check, the proportion of pupils reaching the accepted standard has risen from 58% to 81%. The proportion of good and outstanding primary schools has risen in the past five years from 69% to 90%. Ofsted reports that the focus on reading and synthetic phonics has been a particular strength. However, my noble friend is right about the importance of primary, because those pupils who do not achieve level 4 when they leave primary school have only a 6% chance of getting five good GCSEs.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, perhaps underestimates what is involved in the teaching of reading. Children who have difficulty with reading require specialised help from teachers and teaching assistants in their preparation and supervision. As the Minister has conceded, a firm grasp of phonics is absolutely essential, which may not apply to volunteers. Children in the poorest families have lower literacy rates than their peers, yet last month the Government chose to abolish the child poverty unit. What effect does the Minister expect that to have on education policy and the attainment of poorer children?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord is quite right that children from less advantaged families struggle more to read. They hear many fewer different words and we all know that hearing words at home is incredibly important, which is why we have to place such a strong emphasis on teaching phonics and other programmes such as Read Write Inc. and Talk for Writing, and on volunteer programmes to make sure that our pupils are literate at as early an age as possible.

National Funding Formulae for Schools and High Needs

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right and I am sure that she will be delighted to hear that, at the moment, additional-needs funding accounts for 13% for the overall schools budget and that it will be increasing, under these proposals, by an additional £1.7 billion, so it will be 18%. So in fact substantially more money will be made available for that group.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, perhaps I may follow up an answer that the Minister gave to my initial question. He mentioned a figure of £200 million of new money. Why is it not in the Statement, how is it proposed that it should be allocated and where has it come from? I also asked about further education; can he allay any fears that this sector might have as a result of this Statement?

[Lord Nash]

The way the funding formula has worked means that we have been able to find an extra £200 million. We did not put it in the Statement because we felt that it was more important to focus on the percentage variation overall. As I say, this afternoon we will publish details on a school-by-school basis so that all schools can see where they stand.

Independent Schools: Free Places

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Earl makes an extremely good point—one that is very close to my heart. I have initiated a campaign to try to encourage more local authorities to send young children who are on the edge of care to state boarding schools and independent boarding schools. It is an area where there is quite a shortage of information. We have a new project that is providing a website essentially to market to local authorities the opportunities of sending some of their children on the edge of care to state boarding schools and independent schools very cheaply because they may qualify for full bursarships.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, what this offer reveals is that the cost of educating a pupil in the state sector is around £5,500, while the average level of private school fees is three times that, which is very revealing in terms of the different offers to children in the different sectors. Does the Minister know whether this offer will be conditional on a selection test being operated to see who is able to take up these places? If that happens, does he not agree that what will then occur is not so much that poorer children per se are helped but that already bright children will be helped to achieve what they would very likely have achieved in the state sector anyway? Does he agree that, if selection is to be involved in this offer, the Government should not accept it?

[Lord Nash]

A range of proposals is being submitted under the consultation document, some of which will involve selection and some of which will not. We will look at them all before we design the final proposals more carefully.

Educational Attainment: International Rankings

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 13th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with the right reverend Prelate, and I pay tribute to the Church’s performance in education—it is particularly good at this. Of course a love of learning is important, and we believe that being taught by teachers with a very high subject knowledge can inspire pupils.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

The Minister was rather dismissive of the results, although it is fair to say that the methodology means that to some extent the findings disguise almost as much as they reveal about pupil performance. But one finding in the report that was very important was that almost half of all the head teachers of schools in England—45% in fact—who took part in the survey regard the question of teacher supply as the key barrier to more effective education, whereas the average in other countries was just 30%. In England, the question of teacher recruitment and retention is an existential problem, so can the Minister tell us why the Government insist on continuing to apply caps on the number of places allowed in teacher training universities?

[Lord Nash]

As the noble Lord knows, our emphasis on teacher training has been on in-school training, but we have the highest number of trainees in science for five years; physics—traditionally our hardest subject to recruit for—is up 15% on last year; and we have recruited in excess of our targets in biology, geography and history.

Childcare (Early Years Provision Free of Charge) (Extended Entitlement) Regulations 2016

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 12th December 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. It goes without saying that we welcome the extension of free childcare to 30 weeks from next September and it is helpful to have these regulations as the route map to delivering that—or at least in theory. I suspect that the practice will be more challenging and that the Government will, I fear, face real difficulty in meeting the demand unless greater resources are committed to that end.

My fears on that score stem from the current difficulty in ensuring uniform delivery of 15 hours a week and from what we hear of the plans for the future. Indeed, the Government have been accused in some quarters of “raiding the budgets” set aside by local authorities to help disadvantaged children in order to fund the doubling of free childcare for working families, some of them relatively well-off families. Local authorities currently receive government funds for 15 hours of free childcare for three and four year-olds. Under the present system, local authorities have been able to pay extra cash to schools with nurseries from that budget because they employ qualified teachers and are used disproportionately by poorer families. They have also been able to set aside extra funds to ensure that children from the most disadvantaged families get more than 15 free hours. However, local authorities will now no longer be able to offer additional funding above a set hourly rate per child. Instead there will be a requirement to pass on 95% of centrally provided funds directly to childcare providers.

The new offer of 30 hours of free childcare is of course available only to working families, so any child from an unemployed family currently getting more than 15 hours will lose that extra support. About 80% of three year-olds from the most disadvantaged areas currently attend childcare with a qualified teacher or early years professional. By preventing local authorities from continuing to offer what are known as “quality supplements”, it is likely that schools will need either to reallocate funds from the main school budget, which is already stretched to breaking point in many council areas, or reduce the status of their school nursery. This policy threatens to take cash away from disadvantaged children to pay for the childcare costs of better-off families. I am confident that the Minister will use this opportunity to deny that that was the Government’s intention, and I am not suggesting it was, but if that is the outcome then will he commit to finding a way of ensuring that children from disadvantaged households do not become the victims of unintended consequences that could seriously hamper their development?

The significance of this issue cannot be overstated. We know that the Government are struggling to find the resources to finance 30 hours of free childcare, but targeting non-working families or those who are disadvantaged should be off the agenda. This is because investing in early years is not just about quality childcare for working parents. It is also critical to closing the education inequality gap, which can already be very wide before children arrive at school. I suspect that the Minister will respond by saying that local authorities are able to offer additional cash to childcare providers from their wider budget, but the reality is that few local authorities have the flexibility to do that, and even where they do, it may not be on a sustainable basis.

At the beginning of this month the Early Years Minister, Caroline Dinenage, announced that councils will receive a minimum rate of £4.30 an hour in the new early years funding formula. This came in response to the consultation which was carried out over the summer and the DfE has now found an extra £30 million in its budget to support the introduction of this rate. While any extension of the supplement is welcome, the Government’s funding plans still fall well short across the sector of what is needed to deliver on their promise of 30 hours of free childcare. It has to be said that their record is one of closed Sure Start centres, rising childcare costs and parents waiting for much-needed support. The Government have also announced an extra £50 million for councils to build nursery schools, which is of course an important part of the whole process, but last week the shadow Early Years Minister, Tulip Siddiq, released figures that show a huge black hole in the Government’s nursery building programme which is needed to provide for the new demand. With only one-third of councils having submitted their bids, the total asked for has already exceeded £55 million, which suggests that there could be a shortfall of around £100 million if all local authorities are to have their needs met.

It is all very well promising free childcare, but we need assurances on the infrastructure and resources to back it up. Even if the Government dispute the figure of the shortfall, there will be one, so where do they intend to make it up because surely they did not intend that local authorities which apply for this funding should be turned away empty handed? If they are unable to get the funding, that will underline the evidence that the Government’s funding plans fall short across the sector of what is needed to deliver on their promise of 30 hours free childcare a week from September next year. At the same time, the childcare profession faces a recruitment crisis, with the nursery sector struggling to pay staff even the national minimum wage.

Caroline Dinenage announced that the increased rate in the early years funding formula will be made up of a base rate, plus an uplift for additional needs, based on measures for free school meals, disability living allowance and, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned, English as an additional language. The Minister also said that the disability access fund would provide £615 a year for every eligible child. That, together with the recognition in paragraph 9.8 of the Explanatory Memorandum to these regulations, is welcome. Currently, children with special educational needs or a disability are not adequately supported, and it is hoped that this additional funding will, to some extent, address that.

The response from providers and sector organisations still suggests that the latest offer from the Government is unlikely to be sufficient to achieve the requirements set out in the regulations and to deliver the policy more broadly. When these regulations were considered in another place last week, my colleague Tulip Siddiq asked the Minister whether such concerns over the latest funding announcement were well founded. She did not receive a response, so perhaps the Minister will be able to oblige today. I heard his opening remarks but, given the concern in the sector, I think that that point needs to be reinforced.

The doubts about sufficient resources remain. Sir Michael Wilshaw’s annual report notes that the current increase in early years places has not kept pace with the increase in the early years population. So, again, I invite the Minister to assure us that he is confident that there is sufficient capacity to meet demand.

I thought that last week the Early Years Minister sounded somewhat complacent, saying that she did not expect the 30 hours of free childcare offer to double the demand for childcare places, because many parents already access more than the 15 hours a week and pay for the additional hours. That may well be the case but surely, human nature being what it is, these parents will now cease paying for it themselves as they will be entitled to have it covered by government—within earning limits, of course. Therefore, why the demand is unlikely to double is at best unclear.

I have one final point of clarification to put to the Minister. A new organisation called Childcare Works is to be established. It is intended to be a conduit between the DfE and local authorities to ensure that there will be sufficient 30-hours places from September next year. I wish it, and the local authorities involved, well, but the DfE website describes the new organisation as a consortium consisting of two companies of consultants and a charity. I am happy for this to be done in writing but can the Minister outline some details of the kind of assistance—I assume it will not be handing out cash—that Childcare Works will provide to local authorities to meet the demand for 30-hours places?

I hope that the Minister will accept that I have no interest in scoring points at his expense—at least, not on this issue. Naturally, I wholeheartedly welcome the introduction of 30 hours of free childcare, but I repeat that it will be meaningless for many parents if it is not fully funded.

[Lord Nash]

In relation to the noble Earl’s points about future costs, as he knows—we have discussed this—we have thought about this carefully through our review. In answer to that point and the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about capacity, it is true that the system has responded remarkably well to the substantial increase in provision that we have brought in over the last six years, including the funding for disadvantaged two year-olds. I think it is fair to say that the childcare system is in very good shape, but we will monitor it closely.

I will look carefully at the issue of homeless families and the point that the noble Earl made about penalties. I am sure he will also be interested to hear that in Swindon 30 hours of free childcare is being piloted in a refuge for women who have suffered domestic violence. This includes providing childcare at the refuge and using the space to provide training for the women living there.

At the moment, foster children are excluded from these arrangements but we have been listening carefully to concerns raised on this point. As we all know, foster carers play a vital role in supporting some of our most vulnerable children, and we recognise the importance of effective support for their recruitment and retention. However, we also need to consider whether it is possible for children in foster care to take up the additional hours in a way that promotes their best interests. We will consider whether the blanket exclusion of all children in foster care from the 30-hours policy is the right way to balance this and will clarify our eligibility criteria in relation to this group in advance of September next year.

Coasting Schools (England) Regulations 2016

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 12th December 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, first, I will take back the point made by my noble friend Lord Lucas about key stage 4 and discuss it with my colleague Nick Gibb MP, who is the Minister for this area. On the bar for selective schools, we will keep that under review. Of course, the coasting definition applies equally to all schools and we will certainly keep it under review.

I am afraid that I will not be able to answer all of the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, but perhaps I may respond to some of them and write to him on the others. I take his point about different pupils making different levels of progress from the starting point, but I think we have come up with a definition that is generally acknowledged to be fair and easily understood. Obviously, trying to work out exactly which pupils make what progress is very complicated, but the general definition we have come up with, which is based on measures that are already understood by schools, is the fairest and simplest way to proceed.

As for the noble Lord’s point about regional schools commissioners taking into account the wider context, they will, as is clearly set out in our procedures. That wider context includes Ofsted and the particular circumstances of the school, such as whether it is in a location that has intergenerational unemployment. We all know that, sadly, that is an issue in certain areas with a heavily white working-class population, for example. All this will be taken into account. The regional schools commissioners will work closely with local authorities. It is acknowledged now—I think the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said it himself—that school-to-school support is the best way to improve schools. They will be working closely with local authorities to help identify the help available, whether from other schools nearby, which may be local authority maintained schools or academies, or NLEs that can help them. They will also be able to access the school improvement fund, which I mentioned earlier.

All schools will know exactly where they are in terms of the results of the past two years, and will now have an estimate of their figures for this year. These will be published shortly. Of course, the regional schools commissioners will be working with some of these schools anyway—they may have asked for help—but they will all know exactly where they stand.

As for the resources available to regional schools—

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

Although the Minister was not talking specifically about this, will he address my question on whether the schools that are going to be named publicly on Thursday have already been told by the regional schools commissioner that that is about to happen, and whether the local authorities have been told?

Child Health: Physical Education

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness raises a very important issue. We know that mental health is an increasing issue in schools. Last year we funded the PSHE Association’s guidance on how to teach about mental health across all four key stages. A range of training on specific issues is also available through the MindEd website to all professionals who work with young people. We have been testing in a number of places the concept of a single point of contact in schools and CAMHS to improve collaborative working across schools and mental health services.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister said that physical education is compulsory for all children between the ages of four and 16. That is of course correct, but rather at odds with that is the fact that Department for Education guidance merely recommends a minimum of two hours of curricular PE for each pupil each week. I may be anticipating something that the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, is about to say, but independent schools would laugh at the suggestion that there should be only two hours of PE for pupils each week, and the Government should not be prepared to accept anything less in respect of state schools. What proportion of schools meet that DfE recommendation, and what role does the physical education and sport premium for primary schools have in increasing that figure?

Childcare: Early Years Funding

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We are focused on that. As the noble Baroness will know, we have a massive investment in this area, and on improving the quality of people coming into the profession. In terms of specific details on this, I will write to her.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it is widely accepted that investment in early years childcare is one of the most effective means of increasing social mobility, which the Government say is one of their aims. In July 2015, the then Childcare Minister Sam Gyimah announced a consultation on Sure Start centres that was to begin that autumn. We are still waiting for that consultation. Indeed, two weeks ago his successor Caroline Dinenage could only say in a waffling Parliamentary Answer that an announcement would be made “in due course”. The Minister has been there throughout that period. Is he not embarrassed about having to defend a Government who have been reneging on a commitment that is so important for the future of children’s centres?

[Lord Nash]

I know that the party opposite always raises this point. An independent study made it quite clear that the number of people accessing these centres has remained remarkably consistent over the last few years, even though a number have merged and indeed, a number have closed. The important point is their quality and location. I refer back to the point that no Government in history have ever invested as much in early years and childcare as this one.

Sex and Relationships Education

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Thursday 24th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

As I said, we are actively considering what our next steps should be. It may well be that such a review will be one of them.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the last time noble Lords had the opportunity to consider this question was in February this year on a Question from my noble friend Lady Massey. On that occasion, the Minister replied:

“We have now asked leading head teachers and practitioners to produce an action plan for improving PSHE. We shall continue to keep the status of the subject under review and work with these experts to identify further steps that we can take to ensure that all pupils receive high-quality, age-appropriate PSHE and sex and relationship education”.—[Official Report, 10/2/16; col. 2233.]

I emphasise the word “ensure”. The Minister who gave that reply has since moved on—indeed, she is now Leader of your Lordships’ House—but the question of PSHE has not. Can the Minister say, first, what happened to the action plan, and, secondly, how he plans to ensure that all schools inform their pupils of the crucial issues involved in this subject so that they are adequately prepared for adult life?

[Lord Nash]

As I think I said, our thinking has moved on somewhat further, which may please some noble Lords, and I hope that we will be able to say more about this shortly.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I too welcome the amendment. The local offer for care leavers and the corporate parenting principles are two of the most valuable aspects of the Bill to emerge. Of course, they were originally in the Bill and we have sought to improve them. The inclusion of the term “relationships” is certainly one of those improvements. I will add just one thing to what the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said. The question of relationships is not just about having someone to whom the child or young person can relate but about having the ability and the knowledge to build relationships in his or her adult life so that, we hope, that can confirm stable relationships for them and their own children. I support Amendment 2 and the somewhat impenetrable Amendment 12, which is consequential, and the other consequential amendments which the Minister has put forward in his name.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Farmer for driving this point so forcefully and to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for their positive contributions to today’s debate. I also thank my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern and the noble Lord, Lord Warner, for speaking on this important issue on Report. I am pleased to have been able to respond positively to them and I hope noble Lords will welcome and accept the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, we are all aware that social workers play a critical role in our society. It is in order to protect the public that we need a strong bespoke regulator committed to the social work profession. With noble Lords’ assistance and engagement, I am confident that we have arrived at a strengthened position and an improved model for the new regulator.

I believe the provisions in Part 2 of the Bill will lead to the establishment of an effective and successful bespoke regulator for social workers, with appropriate independence from government and clear oversight from the Professional Standards Authority. It is right, though, that these provisions be reviewed, and this amendment will ensure that that happens. I therefore hope noble Lords are able to accept this amendment. I am pleased that we are able to finish on such a positive note.

Before I sit down, I take this opportunity to say a few words of thanks to the House. Your Lordships’ House has been unwavering in the rigour and attention to detail that it has brought to bear as we have debated the Bill. I know that on occasion there has not been as much time as noble Lords would have liked to consider the provisions of the Bill before they have been debated, and I know that I have made further demands on noble Lords’ time through meetings, briefings, letters and policy statements. I can only apologise and say how grateful I am for the efforts that have been taken to bring the House’s expertise fully to bear on these matters.

I also thank my ministerial colleagues, particularly of course the Secretary of State and the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, who will now be taking the Bill on its next steps. I join noble Lords today in thanking officials, and I shall certainly take back their kind words to everyone involved in the department. In closing, I note the co-operative approach that has been taken on all sides and thank the House again for its constant efforts to find common ground in the best interests of all our country’s children.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I, too, should like to say a few words about the Bill, as it proceeds to another place. First, I record the thanks of these Benches for the advice and support supplied by the clerks and the Public Bill Office. It is not often that a Lords starter Bill moves down the Corridor containing such a plethora of changes from the form in which it was introduced to your Lordships’ House six months ago. To some extent, that is a reflection of the form in which it was received—which, noble Lords may recall, prompted Labour to take the unusual step of submitting an amendment on Second Reading regretting that Part 2 was bereft of detail, a fact drawing criticism from both the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers Committee.

Children: Local Authority Care

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 7th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point. It is well known that children in care quite often have a depressing number of placements. We are very well aware of this: in schools, we now have the concept of a virtual school head to take responsibility and a designated teacher in each school. There are often mental health issues as well concerning these kind of pupils. Where the child requires specialist services such as CAMHS, the local clinical commissioning group has a clear role. The noble Baroness will be aware of our strategy Future in Mind, which focuses on that area as well.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Education Select Committee’s report on the mental health of looked-after children, published in April this year, echoed the view of NICE that:

“Children and young people placed out of the local authority area are less likely to receive services from CAMHS in their new location”.

Matching children and young people to suitable fostering and residential settings, including the kinship settings that my noble friend Lady Armstrong mentioned, is crucial to providing stability and longevity in a placement and happiness for the child. Will the Government revisit the advice that they give to local authorities to ensure that the mental health needs of a child or young person are properly considered when deciding where they are placed?

[Lord Nash]

We are looking at this. We have an expert working group co-chaired by Peter Fonagy and Alison O’Sullivan, which is looking at the current arrangements. Sir Martin Narey has also reported so, yes, we will certainly look at this.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to thank noble Lords for these amendments. I will speak about each one in turn, commencing with Amendment 33, which would prohibit profit-making in children’s social services functions, and then Amendment 35, which would put a duty on local government to report on several outcomes for vulnerable children and for the Secretary of State to publish an annual report on these outcomes.

I recognise that profit-making in children’s social care is a sensitive issue, and I entirely understand noble Lords’ desire to ensure that legislation is clear on this point. We believe that it is. There is already a clear legislative restriction on the outsourcing of children’s social care functions in the 2014 relevant care functions regulations. There are also restrictions on profit-making by adoption agencies through the fact that the Adoption and Children Act 2002 allows an adoption service to be operated only by a local authority or an organisation that is not carried on for profit. These restrictions as they stand in secondary legislation have exactly the same force as they would in primary legislation. Any attempt to remove them would need to be debated in both Houses. Therefore, although I entirely understand the intention, I do not think it is necessary to move this to primary legislation.

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, referred to the LaingBuisson event—an ideas-generating event exploring new approaches to service delivery. As he said, concerns were raised about profit-making in child protection, and these are reflected in the 2014 regulations to which I have already referred.

I understand, however, that there is some concern about whether Clause 29, the power to test new ways of working, could be used to reopen this matter. I have therefore tabled a government amendment that will explicitly rule out using Clause 29 for profit-making. This was never the intention behind the clause, but by including this amendment I hope to put the point beyond doubt.

On Amendment 35, the Government are committed to understanding what drives successful outcomes for vulnerable children. It is critically important that we collect data from local authorities and others to steer evidence-based and effective policy-making. The Government have already placed a duty on local authorities under Section 83 of the Children Act 1989 to provide information to the Secretary of State on their performance on a wide range of children’s social care functions, including on vulnerable children and care leavers. The Department for Education already publishes annual reports on the outcomes for vulnerable children, including their educational attainment and levels of absence and exclusion from schooling. For looked-after children, we also collect information from local authorities on offending, substance misuse, healthcare, and emotional and behavioural health. For care leavers, we publish information on their accommodation—

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I welcome the information that the Minister has given us about the Children Act. However, can he say whether any of the headings listed in Amendment 35 appear in that legislation and whether any of them are reported on as things stand under that legislation?

[Lord Nash]

I will check that and come back to the noble Lord, either today or in writing.

For care leavers, we publish information on their accommodation and its suitability, as well as information on their participation in the labour market. Statistics are published annually.

As with national data, it is essential that local authorities collect the data they need at a local level to offer bespoke services to their communities. We know that many local authorities are making great progress on their data analysis capabilities. Noble Lords may be interested in looking at the Association of Directors of Children’s Services report, Pillars & Foundations: Next Practice in Children’s Services. The Department for Education is exploring ways of improving data collection on the experiences and outcomes for vulnerable children. Last year, for the very first time, we published factors identified by social workers in assessments of children, including parental and child risk factors. This helps us to understand the risk factors that are likely to lead to social work intervention with families.

I recognise that there is more we can do to make better use of data. Putting Children First, published in July, sets out the programme of work we are following to improve our data. We want to ensure that our data collections are focused on the most useful information without placing unnecessary burdens on local authorities. We are working with local government and with Ofsted to align different data requests and avoid duplication.

We also recognise that data collected by other departments or agencies offer the potential to gain a fuller understanding of the outcomes achieved by vulnerable young people. We plan to identify opportunities across government to align and analyse different data collections to understand trends and to target resources effectively. We are already working with HMRC, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Justice. The Department for Education will soon run its first children’s services omnibus survey, which will include questions on children’s social care to gather information from senior leaders and managers in local authorities. This biannual survey will run initially for two years, enabling us to collect data to track changes. We expect the first results to be available in early 2017.

On the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, I will write to him on that matter. I will also write to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on the point that he raised.

I hope that the noble Lords, having heard that I am tabling a government amendment around profit-making and of the existing legal requirements and planned activity to report on outcomes for vulnerable children, will withdraw or not press their amendments.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister and look forward to receiving his letter. I note what he says about further legislation on profit-making not being necessary. As I have moved the amendment on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, I should just say that he asked whether the Minister would meet with him in advance of Third Reading. As the Minister is nodding, I take it that he accepts, so that is welcome.

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, mentioned the LaingBuisson report. The Minister may recall that I recently asked a Written Question on when the report was going to be published, and his response was something like “in due course”. It would be helpful if we could have it published before we return for day 2 of Report, which is nearly a month away. That would perhaps give us the ability to have a fuller debate. I think it is there; it just has not been published. If the Minister could push that along, that would be helpful.

I note what the Minister says about collecting data and that leading to evidence-based policy, which is something that I very much agree with. In terms of the information collected already, he seemed to suggest that the means were already there for the information mentioned in the amendment to be collected. When his letter is received, I will see whether that is the case. At the moment, there is still concern. Given the changes in this Act, and moving forward not least after today on mental health, we would like to see something measured as a benchmark against which we can measure progress. I am also interested to hear about the children’s services omnibus survey, and I think that will be widely welcomed. I look forward to the outcomes of that in a year’s time. On the basis of the Minister’s responses, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Grammar Schools

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Thursday 15th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

Yesterday, in answer to yet another Question about grammar schools, the Minister stated that early years is so important. So why is it that a highly contentious and hugely socially divisive new policy on grammar schools can appear as if from nowhere in the form of a consultation document within two months of the Prime Minister taking office, yet a consultation document promised on children’s Sure Start centres last year still has no publication date, a fact confirmed by the Minister to my noble friend Lord Beecham in a Written Answer this week? The consultation document refers to £50 million being given over for grammar schools. Given the breadth of his remit, will the Minister commit now to fight within his department for a similar amount of funding for Sure Start centres, because they make such a difference to the lives of so many children born into disadvantaged families?

[Lord Nash]

As I said yesterday, I entirely agree with the noble Lord about the importance of early years—I think we all recognise that. That is why it is so pleasing to see so many academy groups opening nurseries. There have been a number of mergers and some closures of Sure Start centres, but the number of pupils attending them has remained fairly constant and the evidence is that they are doing well. Of course, this Government have invested heavily in early years childcare.

Teachers: Academies and Free Schools

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 12th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for bringing this Question for Short Debate. This is a very important issue, which as the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, has already pointed out, is often misunderstood. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions.

I start by making it absolutely clear that nothing in schools matters more than good teachers. Evidence from around the world shows that high-quality teachers are the single most important factor determining how well pupils do in school. We believe that all pupils, regardless of birth or background, should receive an excellent education wherever they are, and we cannot achieve that ambition without excellent teachers.

Academies are at the centre of our ambition to drive up standards of education. Our reforms are working. Over the past six years, we have more than 1.4 million more pupils in good and outstanding schools. In a somewhat tougher Ofsted inspection framework, the number of good and outstanding schools has gone up from 68% to 86%, as my noble friend Lord Suri pointed out. We have many more confident readers as a result of our phonics programme, and we have many more pupils leaving primary with the necessary literacy and numeracy skills that they need to succeed in secondary schools. We have doubled the number of pupils doing EBacc—and my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy quoted a number of other statistics in support of the academies programme. That is very much driven by the fact that we have empowered great leaders and teachers to take charge.

It is surely right that the head teacher of a school, who knows the school and its community best, should be able to employ the teachers he or she thinks will best serve the pupils of the school. That is what head teachers should be able to do. That is why, in 2012, the Government gave academies the power already enjoyed by free schools to employ teachers who do not hold qualified teacher status, where they judge it to be appropriate. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of teachers, 95.1% in state-funded schools and 94% in academies, hold QTS, and one-fifth of these are working towards QTS. Those figures suggest that heads are exercising their choice by continuing to employ a significant majority of teachers who have completed initial teacher training.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

What the noble Lord is saying is not without merit, but the point I made earlier was that if it is deemed appropriate to appoint an individual, why would you say to him or her: “Come and work in this school. It does not matter whether you qualify or not”? Surely it should be: “Come and work with us now, give us the benefit of your experience and, while you are doing that, work towards a qualification”. What is the reason for not doing that?

[Lord Nash]

If the noble Lord will let me continue, I hope I will develop the answer to that question as I go on.

It is not surprising that this is happening as we have given head teachers much greater involvement in recruiting and training their own teachers, through our very popular School Direct programmes.

There is a big difference between not holding a particular qualification or status and not being accomplished in a particular field. An influential study by McKinsey suggested that teacher quality is a complex mixture of different attributes, including personal characteristics such as commitment, resilience, perseverance, motivation and, of course, sound subject knowledge. These are qualities which the teacher Iris Williams, who inspired my noble friend Lady Finn so well, clearly had in great abundance—

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

And QTS?

[Lord Nash]

She may have had, but I am referring to a study on what McKinsey, based on worldwide evidence, think is most important for teachers. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Finn for her moving and inspiring speech. We need many more like Iris Williams.

One other way in which we are recruiting is through our Teach First programme, which brings teachers without QTS straight into the classroom. We have recruited just over 1,400 of these this year; 62% of them will be placed in schools outside London, many of them in cold spots where we have difficulty recruiting. Many Teach Firsters are helping transform our school system.

The freedoms that we have given academies and free schools around teacher qualifications are part of a broader policy of autonomy. Since 2010, we have given school leaders greater say over teachers’ pay and conditions and the curriculum they offer in their schools. We have even given school leaders and teachers the opportunity to open their own schools. I am extremely encouraged when I hear of schools making use of these freedoms to improve education for their pupils. For example, an academy in Barnsley has hired a published illustrator, without QTS, to teach art very successfully.

Many of our top schools, including independent schools—whose skills we intend to harness more greatly in our school system, as we have discussed several times recently in this House—employ many teachers without QTS. I know it will interest the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that the other day I was talking to the deputy head of one of our leading independent schools, who happens to have a PhD in physics and does not have qualified teacher status. His school employs many teachers without qualified teacher status. He told me about his exam results: 90% of his pupils achieved five good GCSEs. When they talk about five good GCSEs in that school, they do not mean five A to C grades; they mean 90% achieving A* to A. I agree entirely with the points made by my noble friend Lord Maude about the importance in our reforms of freedom of movement between these two sectors.

The freedoms we have given schools over teacher qualifications were influenced by the Review of Vocational Education by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, in 2011, which she referred to. I congratulate her on her excellent speech, which was full of truisms about the issue and international evidence. In some schools, the quality of education was suffering because it was often delivered in the absence of professionals with appropriate experience and expertise. Many schools were not even considering employing professionals from industry because they believed it was too difficult to do so. That is why, in addition to the freedoms we have given to academies and free schools, we have also made it easier for maintained schools to employ instructors—a type of teacher who has special qualifications and experience but not QTS. We also ensured that teachers qualified in the further education sector who hold QTLS are recognised as qualified teachers when they are employed in schools.

The Government recognise the enormous importance of pupils being taught by teachers who have a real depth of specialism in their subject or subjects. This point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. It is always more challenging to recruit new teachers in some priority subjects such as maths and physics. That is why we have bursaries available of up to £30,000 in these subjects. Since 2010 we have increased the number of teachers in our schools with 2.1s or better from 63% to 75%. Some 18% of people entering teacher training now have a first, which is higher than ever, and we are putting in place support that trainees and existing teachers need to develop their subject knowledge specialism further. That includes new content for ITT that emphasises the importance of teaching a knowledge-rich curriculum, which is particularly important for pupils from a disadvantaged background who might not get that cultural capital at home, and we have designed programmes to enhance the subject knowledge of both specialist and non-specialist teachers. I hope noble Lords will be glad to hear that the latest data show that the proportion of hours recorded as taught by specialist teachers has increased in 2015 across all subjects.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, for whom I have the deepest respect—she is very experienced—said that we have said that teachers in academies and free schools do not need any qualification at all. We have not said that; we just trust the heads to decide what qualifications are appropriate. She also said that this would enable a free-for-all where teachers could teach any subject to any group of people in any context in any environment. Of course, that is exactly what happens in many primary schools, where teachers have a very challenging task. I pay tribute to the way in which they so often rise to the challenge, and I spoke earlier today about the importance of primary education. It also, sadly, happens in secondary schools which cannot recruit teachers with the right subject. That is why we are so keen to see more subject-specific teaching in our schools by teachers qualified in that subject.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, talked about teacher training being a deep-end approach. I entirely agree. Far too often, that is exactly what has happened in QTS. We must remember that QTS takes nine months, that 65% happens in a school and that at the end of it there are no exams. That shows the importance we attach to training in school—which is why we have so much more training in schools. When I have interviewed newly qualified teachers and asked them, for example, where they learned about behaviour management, they have all said in schools, because that is how they learned it—except that people educated in South Africa say that they have one module in their ITT training on simulated behaviour management training and it is very important. I am delighted to see that our behaviour expert Tom Bennett and Sir Andrew Carter, in his review of ITT, have emphasised the importance of improved behaviour management in ITT.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, referred to our reforms mentioned in the White Paper, as did the noble Lord, Lord Watson, who said if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Well, we don’t think it’s broke but we certainly believe it can be improved substantially. We believe there is more we can do to help raise the status of the teaching profession to take its place alongside other learned professions such as law and medicine. As I say, it currently takes nine months. No one realistically considers a teacher fully qualified and fully proficient after nine months—that is why it is called initial teacher training. It is recognised that becoming a highly proficient teacher takes many years. I was recently talking to a leader of one of our unions who said he thought it took at least four years.

Of course, good schools in MATs have well-developed CPD programmes. I agree with my noble friend Lord Maude about the importance of CPD in this context. My noble friend also invited me to make an announcement about the reinstitution of direct grant schools, and earlier today the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said that he would not be surprised if there were more announcements. I am afraid that I have to disappoint my noble friend about that, but I agree with him about the importance of continuous development.

Under our proposed reforms to QTS in the White Paper, successful completion of initial teacher training would no longer result in a teacher being fully qualified. Rather, teachers would be required to demonstrate sustained proficiency in the classroom, which would continue to be judged against the teachers’ standards. I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, makes about the importance of the objectivity of the person who makes that judgment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, talked about the importance of evidence-based theories of education, which are so important. Recognising that requires a significant shift in the current situation. That is why we have worked with experts to produce a new framework of core content for initial teacher training and a new standard for teacher professional development, both of which were published earlier this year. These make it clear that trainees should be familiar with the most recent research and theories in education and view those with a critical eye, and that ongoing professional development should continue to be underpinned by the best evidence.

As well as these important developments, the Government are supporting the establishment of the College of Teaching—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, will be pleased to hear that—expanding our network of teaching schools and working with the Education Endowment Foundation, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, referred.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, talked about the importance of SEN. The additional freedoms given to academies and free schools to employ teachers without QTS do not extend to special academies. All state-funded mainstream schools are required to designate a member of staff as a SENCO, who must have QTS. The new Framework of Core Content for Initial Teacher Training published this July includes strong emphasis on ensuring that courses equip trainee teachers with the skills they need to support SEND pupils effectively in the classroom. I would be very happy to facilitate a meeting with the groups to which the noble Lord referred to discuss the importance of this further.

I again thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this important debate. I emphasise that the Government are committed to ensuring that we have a high-quality teaching profession in which teachers and school leaders are given the respect that professionals deserve. They certainly deserve that because they do such an important job. That is why we have given heads much greater freedom to bring in the depth and breadth of teaching experience and expertise that they judge to be appropriate for the needs of their own pupils, whose needs, after all, they are surely best placed to judge.

Grammar Schools

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Thursday 8th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement although it must be said that it was rather vague and unconvincing. Indeed, anyone listening to the Secretary of State this morning would have been struck by just how unconvinced she herself sounded when making it. The Minister will regard it as a backhanded compliment that his delivery was slightly better.

On the day that she assumed office, the Prime Minister announced that she would put social mobility at the heart of her agenda. That pledge was cast into doubt when she quickly abolished maintenance grants for students and any doubts were removed yesterday when she defended plans for new or expanded grammar schools. The Minister said that he was open-minded on the matter; the Prime Minister has already moved at least one step beyond that because whatever claims in support of grammar schools can be sustained, advancing social mobility is not one of them. I was surprised to hear the Minister tell your Lordships’ House yesterday that there is no clear evidence to support the views of the Chief Inspector of Schools, who said that the idea that poor children would benefit from the return of grammar schools was, “tosh and nonsense”. In fact, the Minister need look no further than Buckinghamshire or Kent to have Sir Michael Wilshaw’s opinion confirmed —an opinion, it might be said, that was supported yesterday by the Minister’s colleague and former Education Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Willetts.

In answer to a question following her Statement today, the Secretary of State said that the Government’s plans will not involve a return to secondary moderns. Well, perhaps not in name, but as that suggests that a considerable amount of policy development must have taken place already, will the Minister explain how the Government believe that a return to the entrenched inequality and social disadvantage of the 1950s and 1960s can be avoided? We fully understand why some parents are attracted to grammar schools and accept they want only what is best for their children, but to expand grammar schools by a non-legislative route at a time when school budgets are squeezed and teaching posts remain unfilled shows a skewed sense of priorities. Therefore, can the Minister give an assurance that newly created academies or free schools will not be used as a backdoor method of reintroducing selection into state-funded schools?

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his compliment. I will take any compliment I get from him, backhanded or not. As I said yesterday, I am a great fan of Sir Michael Wilshaw. He has played a big part in improving our school system and I am delighted that he is in the Chamber today. I am fully aware that there are arguments on both sides of this debate. However, we do not want this to be a dogmatic, ideological debate. Just because things may not have worked well in the past does not mean that we cannot find ways of making them work in the future for all pupils. We will make any changes against a background of ensuring that we improve the system for all pupils and against our drive for social mobility. However, we need more good and outstanding school places and we want all schools in the system that are good and outstanding to help us to do that. As I say, we have not made a policy announcement but I am sure there will be further Statements in due course.

Grammar Schools

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to making sure that every child has the opportunity to attend a good or outstanding school that will allow them to go as far as their talents will take them. As such, we are looking at a range of options to deliver this. We are aware of media speculation on the future of education policy and grammar schools specifically. The Government expect to come forward with proposals in due course.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, that is a clear non-denial. Yesterday’s inadvertent leak—if indeed that is what it was—that the Government are seeking to create new grammar schools has caused widespread alarm. The Minister has not accepted that that is the case. However, something must be afoot. It is not normal for a Permanent Secretary to arrive at the door of No. 10 Downing Street for a Cabinet discussion on a controversial subject without that having been given some considerable consideration in advance. Will the Minister give an assurance that there will be no means, either legislative or non-legislative, to increase the number of grammar schools, so that we are not faced sometime in the not too distant future with further ruses such as the so-called annexe at Tonbridge?

[Lord Nash]

To comment first on the noble Lord’s pun in his first statement, I can assure him that the leak did not originate from anybody in your Lordships’ House. I do not think I can add any further to what I have already said. However, we are not interested in any ruses and want the policy to be absolutely clear. The Prime Minister has made it quite clear that she wants a society that works for everyone and all children to have access to a good education. We are exploring our options for delivering this and we want all good schools to help us in this endeavour.

Independent Schools: Teacher Training

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We have bursary schemes of up to £30,000 for recruits in maths and science and up to £25,000 in modern foreign languages. Since 2010, the number of teachers with a 2:1 or better has gone up from 63% to 75%. This year, we have the highest number of teachers entering ITT with a first than ever before, at 18%.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, there is no requirement for teachers in the independent sector to have a teaching qualification, although of course many do, often having come from the state sector. I feel that the independent sector would talk with more authority on the question of teacher training if more of them offered an induction year to newly qualified teachers. However, is not the issue here teacher shortages—an issue on which both the Government and the DfE remain in denial? How else can you square the circle whereby a number of teaching establishments have a cap applied to them—an arbitrary national figure—and when that is reached, teaching establishments are not allowed to take on any more trainees, even if they are only half full? Meanwhile the Government have instituted an international recruitment programme to try to attract teachers from abroad. When many head teachers are finding it difficult to fill vacancies, why should there be any cap on teacher training places at all?

[Lord Nash]

As I have said many times before in this House, the teacher training recruitment situation is no different than it has been on many occasions over the last 20 years, including many years under the Labour Government. It has generally remained very stable. Since 2010, we have 15,000 more teachers and the number of teachers has kept up well with the number of students. We have 14,000 returners this year. To take the point about ITT, we have consulted with the sector and it has become clear that ITT providers would like to have more long-term visibility and stability in their places. That is something we intend to address.

Schools: Drama

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 5th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with my noble friend: studies have shown that this has had the effect of doing that with pupils. As I say, that is why we are so heavily focused on the EBacc. It is appalling that, until a few years ago, so few of our pupils were accessing such a curriculum.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

It is through programmes operated by theatres such as the Young Vic that schoolchildren get the opportunity to experience theatre production, which is so important in learning about and understanding drama, yet the National Association for the Teaching of Drama has reported that, increasingly, schools are removing theatre trips from their timetables because of the difficulty in balancing their budgets. At the same time, the number of drama teachers is decreasing: it went down by nearly 20% between 2011 and 2014. As Sir Peter Bazalgette, the chair of Arts Council England, said, the state sector,

“doesn’t generate quite the creative and acting talent that it could were people in that sector given the same quality of education in performing they get in private schools”.

Sir Peter also argued that it should not be possible for an Ofsted rating of outstanding to be granted to any school unless it offers a vigorous and wide-ranging arts education. Does the Minister agree with that?

[Lord Nash]

We are working with exam boards and Ofqual to make sure that all students see live drama in the theatre, as part of their drama qualifications, and we expect this to be in place from September next year. It is of course not just about GCSEs; many students choose to pursue drama through their school drama societies and in school plays. I cannot think of a school that I have visited which does not have an active drama society and puts on school plays. Ofsted inspects against how well the school supports the formal curriculum with extra-curricular activities for pupils to extend their knowledge and understanding, and to improve their skills in a range of artistic, creative and sporting activities.

Academies: Sponsors

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Thursday 21st July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We now have getting on for 2,000 sponsored academies. Last year, primary sponsored academies which have been open for two years improved their results by more than double those of local authority maintained schools. The benefits of academy status include the ability to employ teachers from a wide variety of backgrounds and to pay them appropriately.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, Bright Tribe, Cuckoo Hall, Dixons Kings, Durand and Perry Beeches are names the Minister will be familiar with; indeed, they are names that should keep him awake of an evening because they are just the most egregious examples found by the Education Funding Agency of where the financial requirements for academy trusts were not adhered to. Will the Minister assure the House that the new Secretary of State will do what her predecessor plainly did not—get a grip and ensure proper financial oversight of the £50 billion that, as he said, is swishing around the academy system?

[Lord Nash]

I am delighted that the noble Lord is so concerned to see value for money. It is a pity he was not around in the Labour Government; when we came into power, waste was seeping out of every pore. To get the matter into context, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, in 2013-14 the Audit Commission identified 206 cases of fraud in local authority maintained schools—given the much less rigorous accounting procedures that are required in relation to those schools, that was generally acknowledged to be an understatement—compared with 22 cases identified in academies. As I said, we need to set that in the context of such a small budget. It is a great pity that people from philanthropic backgrounds are not more appreciated. This is a move started by the Labour Party under the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and it is something that we have continued with gusto. I find this constant sniping from the sidelines very depressing.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

Today’s edition of Written Statements and Answers contains an Answer to a Question that I put down on social work training. It is from the noble Lord, Lord Prior of Brampton. Why is that?

[Lord Nash]

It is clear that the agency will be supported by the DfE and the DH. Both Secretaries of State will be responsible. If they do not agree, I assume we will put them in a room until we have an agreement. Secretaries of State do not initially agree on a lot of things. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, the Department of Health is responsible, just as the DfE is responsible for children’s social care. I do not know whether I can say any more at this stage, so I shall go on.

This new regulator will have an absolute focus on raising the quality of social work education, training and practice through setting new and more specific standards. We intend to establish a new executive agency for the regulation of social workers, jointly supported by the DfE and the DH and accountable to the Secretaries of State. I reassure noble Lords that in arriving at this conclusion we considered the merits of a number of different models. We also considered whether the HCPC could strengthen its regulatory framework to deliver the improvements that we want and to make it more social work specific. It is responsible for 15 other professions, and we believe it would require a fundamental shift in its approach to create the model required for social work. It would be likely to involve additional costs and could impact on its ability to regulate the other professions for which it is responsible. We have therefore concluded that at this time we need a bespoke regulator which can bring an absolute and expert focus to standards in social work education, training and practice that the current system lacks.

I know that many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, have questioned this approach, given the Government’s wider commitments to regulatory reform of the health and care professions. A number of noble Lords have also highlighted—as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has—that the regulation of social workers was moved to the HCPC in 2012. This decision and the decision to close the General Social Care Council were not taken lightly. We believed that it was the right decision at the time, but things do not stand still and, since then, the College of Social Work has also closed, creating a real gap in the representation and professional development of social workers. We have received the independent reports on social work education, which I previously referenced, and have identified continuing concerns about the quality of social work practice in some areas. That is why we think it is right to take a new approach.

However, that does not signal a change in the approach to the regulation of other professions; it is simply about making the right arrangements for social work. The Department of Health remains committed to broader reform of the health and care professions, building on the work of the Law Commission and the Professional Standards Authority in this area. However, it has not yet secured parliamentary time for a proposed public accountabilities Bill to inform wider professional regulation. We are discussing with interested parties how our ambition to simplify and improve the regulatory framework can be taken forward.

The new agency will support improvements across the social work profession by setting higher and more specific standards that go beyond the traditional safety-net approach of many regulations. The agency will set pre and post-qualification standards across practice, education and training, and CPD. It will not be a professional body. We believe this is the right approach for social work. There is no intention to replicate the representative functions of a professional body or membership organisation.

I assure noble Lords that we have, of course, also considered whether an independent regulator should be established. I will set out the key reasons why I believe it is not right to do that at this time. I have already set out the higher level of ambition that we have for our social work workforce: excellent social workers delivering world-class practice. Of course, government has a significant stake in ensuring high-quality social work practice, not least because it delivers vital services for the most vulnerable in the state. There is, however, a notable lack of consensus across the profession as to agreed standards of practice. Various efforts—through independent regulation and the development of the College of Social Work—have, unfortunately, failed to deliver what is needed or to move standards to where they need to be.

There are practical considerations too. Establishing a wholly new independent body will take time, as leadership and infrastructure are built from scratch, and our reform programme is rightly ambitious. The Government have significant resources, and it is right that they bring these to bear to rapidly deliver the reforms that we need. The effective functioning of an independent body requires, we think, a strong professional body. However, the profession has as yet been unable to sustain this, despite the Government investing over £8 million in funding the College of Social Work. I recognise, of course, that many noble Lords have signalled their support for a strong professional body. That was also raised by the Education Select Committee, which the Government also welcome. However, particularly given the recent experience with the College of Social Work, it must be for the profession to develop it.

For the reasons I have outlined, we remain convinced that regulatory reform is needed, but it cannot be addressed simply through the development of a professional body. For those reasons, we believe there is a strong and compelling case for moving the regulation of the profession closer to government at this time. This will allow us to rapidly deliver improvements and to embed a new regulatory system that supports this. I know that this closer relationship is a matter—

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 11th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Nash]

I will reflect and look into that in more detail. Once it is in the public domain that a particular instance is being investigated, knowing the media, however much you try to protect an individual’s identity, I cannot see quite how one can do it—but I will certainly look at it. The noble Baroness raises a very important point which we are aware of.

I should add that the Government have now responded to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, in answer to some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson. The response confirmed the Government’s intention to bring forward an amendment at a later stage to modify the provisions to ensure that the arrangements to which the clause refers be subject to affirmative parliamentary scrutiny.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

Has that response been published yet?

[Lord Nash]

Yes is the answer.

Clause 13 requires local authorities to notify the panel of events in their area where a child has died or suffered serious harm and is known or suspected to have suffered abuse or neglect. The clause will place the process of notifying such events to the panel on a statutory footing for the first time, demonstrating the importance that the Government attach to this process and leaving no room for doubt as to whether to report an incident.

If this part of the process is not made a statutory duty on local authorities, there is a risk that some events may not be notified, thereby reducing the likelihood of events being scrutinised and action taken to reduce the likelihood of such an event taking place in future. The DPRRC also commented on this clause in its report. The Government’s response to the report confirms an intention to look again at the definition of regulated setting, as well as agreeing that any future amendments to the definition should be by the affirmative procedure. We intend to return to this matter at a later stage.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked about the importance of taking into account local issues. The panel will make its decision on the basis of information from local areas. It will include the probation service in the list of relevant agencies. We will come shortly to a set of government amendments that respond directly to Alan Wood’s recommendations on local accountability. If I may, I will cover the rest of her points then.

She also asked a very good question, supported by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, about how learning will be implemented. Our whole reform to social work and the point of the national panel is to improve implementation. Our new What Works centre for children’s social care will have a key role in disseminating learning and making sure that it is acted upon. As under current arrangements, local safeguarding will be expected to report on practice improvements identified through the reviews and on action taken in response.

My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay commented on the guidance. I will not talk about guidance in general, but we have significantly reduced the statutory guidance on child protection in the past five years, and we keep it constantly under review. I hope that the explanation of Clauses 12 and 13 provides reassurance about the Government’s intentions, and I therefore urge the noble Lord and the noble Baroness not to press their amendments.

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[Lord Nash]

This new clause is purely technical, but fulfils some important functions. Subsection (1) means that the existing provision for LSCBs, as set out in Sections 13 to 16 of the Children Act 2004, will be repealed. Local authorities will no longer be required to establish LSCBs. Instead, they will work with chief constables and clinical commissioning groups to set out Working Together arrangements, as specified in amendments to the Bill that we have previously discussed.

Subsection (2) amends the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 to redefine social services functions by removing the reference to LSCBs and including provisions in relation to joint working arrangements in child death reviews that are the subject of amendments to the Bill. Where the term “social services functions” is used in legislation in respect of local authorities, the arrangements which these amendments provide for will be included. This is consistent with existing provisions for local authority functions relating to LSCBs.

An example of the importance of this provision is the Secretary of State’s intervention powers where local authorities are failing properly to fulfil any of their social services functions. The amendment means that should local authorities fail to fulfil their functions as set out in Sections 16A to 16Q of the revised Children Act 2004, the Secretary of State will be able to issue a suitable statutory direction. I should stress that this provision relates only to local authority functions. It does not cover any failures by clinical commissioning groups or chief constables in these arrangements. Existing provisions for intervention—sitting elsewhere—already cover other such failures. I beg to move.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, the Minister said that this is a technical amendment. Yes, it is, but the introduction of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel will see the disappearance of local accountability for the most serious child abuse. The current process has an independent chair appointed by a national panel of experts, who are themselves independent. That means that local knowledge is retained, because representations can be made by those who are involved with the child and indeed the family, and, importantly, those who have an understanding of local characteristics. If the local safeguarding children boards are scrapped, how can the Minister reassure us that the local input will not be lost?

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Dubs for bringing forward this amendment. The standard of debate has been high and I do not want to add too much more to it. The experience of my noble friend Lord Dubs in this matter—most recently on the Immigration Bill—is well documented and hugely appreciated. When unaccompanied children come to this country, however they arrive here, and try to fend for themselves, it is fraught with all sorts of dangers. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, has just talked about children at school but many of these children never reach school because they are kept in an environment where they are exploited; they are not educated or made into good citizens. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, made a point about a two-tier society, and that should resonate with us.

My noble friend Lord Judd, in talking about the action plan, spoke of setting the tone, but I would put that tone into a wider setting. One or two noble Lords referred to the events of a couple of weeks ago which were described as—it is a description that I would subscribe to—pulling up the drawbridge on the world to some extent, and that is the way it is viewed. Britain’s reputation has plummeted and has been matched only, it would seem, by the value of the pound in the last two or three weeks. We need to look at positive ways of showing that that is not all we are about.

I was profoundly depressed to read a report at lunchtime by a man called Mark Hamilton, who leads for the National Police Chiefs’ Council. He was reporting on an unprecedented spike in hate crime in the country within the last three weeks, directly related to the vote on 23 June. If we have an opportunity to show that we can do different and more positive things and that, despite the impression we have given, we are outward looking and welcoming as a country, then small measures can build into larger things. I think that this amendment is one of those acorns that may grow into something much more substantial.

I wish my noble friend Lord Dubs well in his meeting with Mr Brokenshire. I hope that the Minister will go to that meeting as well so that a way can be found of accommodating this amendment. It is important not just for the framework of this Bill and not just for the individuals concerned but potentially for the way that we are perceived as we approach difficult situations and respond to tragedies in other parts of the world. For that reason, I very much hope that a positive outcome for the amendment will be found, because it certainly deserves it.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for his amendment. I recognise that it seeks to safeguard and promote the welfare of this vulnerable group, and I assure him that I appreciate the sentiment and good will behind it. I also appreciate the strength of feeling in this Committee about the plight of unaccompanied minors who seek refuge in the UK, as illustrated by the contributions to the debate by other noble Lords, and I share those feelings.

The amendment seeks to ensure clarity on the action that will be taken and the support that will be offered to local authorities looking after unaccompanied children. Under the Children Act 1989, unaccompanied children become looked-after children once they have been accommodated for 24 hours. They will then have their welfare promoted in the same way as any other looked-after child. I emphasise that their country of origin and the circumstances under which they arrived in the UK will have no bearing on the support that these children are entitled to.

The number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children has risen significantly in recent years. In 2015 we saw a 56% increase in the number of unaccompanied children claiming asylum in the UK. However, as noble Lords have pointed out, until now the majority of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been cared for by a handful of local authorities. This has placed a considerable strain on their children’s social care services, which sometimes has been to the detriment of local children for whom the local authority has corporate parental responsibility. That is why the Government on 1 July launched a new voluntary transfer scheme that encourages all local authorities to participate in the care and support of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who arrive in the UK.

The National Transfer Scheme was created after extensive consultation with the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and individual local authorities. The scheme is based on the principle that no local authority should be expected to care for more unaccompanied children than its services are able to provide for—whether asylum-seeking children, as the majority will be, or unaccompanied refugee children brought to the UK through our resettlement scheme.

The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, raised the point about funding. To support the National Transfer Scheme the Government have increased the amount of funding that they will provide to local authorities caring for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Annual support for each child aged under 16 has risen from £35,000 to £42,000, and each unaccompanied asylum-seeking child aged 16 or 17 will attract £33,000 per annum. This represents a 20% and 28% increase in funding respectively.

Because we are increasing the number of local authorities that look after unaccompanied children, these children will be better able to access services such as mental health and other healthcare services, and local authorities will have more capacity to deliver excellent social work support and care. Local authorities will also be able to prepare themselves and commission the new services that are required, such as appropriate accommodation.

The National Transfer Scheme includes a rigorous administrative process by which the Home Office and the local authority in which the child first presents are able to collect information about each child and then ensure that the local authority receiving the child receives all that information. The scheme seeks to build on existing regional structures and use the regional strategic migration partnerships to co-ordinate regional hubs and enable the regional pooling of knowledge and resource.

A central administrative hub based in the Home Office will work with the regional hubs to ensure a nationally co-ordinated but regionally implemented scheme. Funding that might be provided to the regional hubs via the regional strategic migration partnerships is currently under review, while each region is considering its own data, process and resource requirements. The Home Office will consider any proposals for regional structures to underpin the scheme. Service providers are being encouraged to contact the regional hubs to share their expertise. We know that some regions are already discussing how to pool resources and share expertise.

In addition, two training initiatives are under way. I can announce today that the Department for Education will commission an organisation to deliver training for the foster carers and support workers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who are at risk of going missing from care due to being onward-trafficked. That is a new provision. In collaboration with the Department for Education, the Home Office has already said that it will commission a training programme for the existing independent advocates, who are provided for in statute. This will improve their awareness and understanding of the specific needs of trafficked children and how to support them.

Noble Lords will appreciate that a great deal is happening in this area to promote better support, and the details are laid out in the scheme. While the support and care of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children is undoubtedly an important issue, I do not believe that a published national action plan for their welfare is required, given all that is happening under the National Transfer Scheme.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, asked about the Children’s Champion. The Office of the Children’s Champion will remain in the Home Office to ensure that all children’s safeguarding issues are addressed and attended to. In addition, the Children’s Commissioner in the Department for Education speaks on behalf of this group of children.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, asked about asylum applications. It is always open to a person to make an application for asylum. There is no age barrier and as soon as an asylum application is lodged, it will always be considered.

The Government remain committed to ensuring that Parliament is kept informed about these issues. No one should be in any doubt of our commitment to bring vulnerable refugee children from Europe to the UK, as underpinned by the Immigration Act 2016. Unaccompanied refugee children with family connections to the UK continue to arrive from France and other European countries. We are also in active discussions with the UNHCR, UNICEF, NGOs and the Italian, Greek and French Governments to strengthen and speed up the mechanisms to identify, assess and transfer to the UK children who meet the criteria where it is in their best interests. This is in addition to the support for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who arrive from Europe without any assistance. Last year, there were over 3,000 claims for asylum in the UK from unaccompanied children.

I will reflect on the points that noble Lords have made and that will no doubt be discussed in the meetings with Mr Brokenshire. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, will feel reassured enough to withdraw the amendment.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, for their amendments relating to the arrangements for the new child safeguarding practice review panel set out in Clause 11, and for the observations of the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Howarth.

Amendment 101 raises an important issue, which is that both Houses should have an opportunity to scrutinise regulations in secondary legislation where it is appropriate to do so. Noble Lords will be aware that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has issued its report on the clauses within the Bill. I hope that noble Lords can be reassured that while the DPRRC commented on other clauses, it raised no concerns about this one. The arrangements that will be made in respect of the establishment of the panel set out high-level matters that relate to the processes, arrangements and administration of the panel rather than matters of substance that the Houses would need to debate. This clause covers processes and arrangements. I will turn to the question of regulations in a later discussion on the functions of the panel. This clause provides for the making of arrangements that are necessary to enable the functioning of the panel which may include clarity around such matters as reporting and its day-to-day operation.

Amendment 102 seeks to involve the Education Select Committee in the appointment of the chair. I would expect the appointment of the chair to be subject to a full and open Cabinet Office public appointments process involving advertisements for the position, applications and formal interviewing. Panel members could also be subject to this process if that were deemed necessary. I would expect the number of panel members to be sufficient to enable the effective operation of the panel and for the chair to be able to draw on the expertise that he or she considers necessary for the right decisions to be made about individual cases. We would of course welcome any views that the Education Select Committee may have, but we do not believe that we should prescribe a pre-appointment hearing. In view of this, I hope that the noble Lord will feel sufficiently reassured to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for that response, predictable though it was. I take his point about someone who is appointed being subject to the full appointments process; that is understood. However, I feel that there is room for the affirmative resolution procedure that I mentioned earlier, but clearly that is not going to happen. I think also that it would have been appropriate to involve the Education Select Committee at least in the initial appointment of the first chair of the panel. However, no other Members of the Committee have insisted on this, so on that basis I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has raised some important points and the name of my noble friend Lord Hunt is also on the clause stand part debate. We do not propose to do that just now; we think the broad principles can be transferred to the debate that we shall have on Monday on the next section or group. We shall say no more at this stage.

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, for Amendment 103. This raises important issues, which I welcome the opportunity to discuss. My exchanges with my noble friend Lord Lang of Monkton and the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, at Second Reading followed the helpful report of the Select Committee on the Constitution. This report cogently raised the question of how the panel will handle information subject to legal or medical privilege. I explained at that time that the Bill does not prevent those whom the panel asks for information asserting legal or medical privilege, where applicable. The panel would need to consider any such assertion against the need for the information. This amendment would add a specific provision for the Secretary of State to include, in her arrangements for the panel, information about the panel’s powers to secure the submission of material, subject to legal or medical privilege. I agree that it will be important for the Secretary of State to specify clearly to the panel the considerations which it should bring to bear in respect of the information which it requests. I agree that this should include specific reference not only to the question of legal and medical privilege but also to the way in which it handles this information, once requested and received. This is particularly important in respect of the information which is included in final published reports. The panel will be expected to handle all the information it receives with due care. Much of the information which it gathers will be highly sensitive, including information which is privileged in the way the noble Lord has set out.

As far as the issues arising from the very sad case of Ellie Butler are concerned, the independence of the judiciary is a constitutional matter and enforcement provisions will not apply, although there is scope to appeal judges’ decisions. I do not believe, however, that it is essential to say anything more in the Bill. It will not add anything to the powers of the panel to request this information, which are clearly set out in Clause 14. In view of this, I hope the noble Lord will feel reassured enough to withdraw his amendment.

Clause 11 requires the Secretary of State to establish a child safeguarding practice review panel and is central to this discussion. I will speak at a little length on this topic and in doing so, I hope to address some of the concerns expressed by noble Lords during the Second Reading of the Bill. The Government first announced their intention to decentralise the serious case review process in December last year. The background to the decision to seek to legislate to introduce the panel was set out in response to Alan Woods’s review of local safeguarding children boards. Alan Woods suggested that the body which supports the centralised review process should be one that is independent of government and the key agencies and operates in a transparent and objective fashion. The intention is to establish the panel as an expert committee, defined by the Cabinet Office as a committee of independent specialists who are politically and operationally independent. The panel is clearly set up to make its own decisions. We have just discussed arrangements for the appointment of panel members.

The Secretary of State will also be responsible for removing members, if satisfied they are no longer able to fulfil their duties—for example, due to ill-health, or if they are adjudged to have behaved in a way incompatible with their role. The clause also makes provision for the Secretary of State to provide whatever assistance is required to enable the panel to carry out its functions, including staff, facilities or other assistance. The Secretary of State may also pay remuneration of expenses to the chair and members of the panel. This will be commensurate with the level of time and commitment required. The clause further provides that the Secretary of State may make further arrangements to support the functioning of the panel, including, for example, the production of an annual report. This will serve to enhance the transparency of proceedings and in addition—although this is not specified in the Bill—I am able to say that the panel will be free to offer advice to the Secretary of State on such matters as it sees fit, and to make any such advice public.

The establishment of a strong, independently-operating national panel is an essential component, along with the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care, in taking forward the Government’s plans to develop a better understanding of the factors which give rise to serious cases, in order to inform policy and practice nationally, and to support local agencies in improving the quality of the services that they provide to vulnerable children and families.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 4th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate. I am happy to signify my support for the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, which is a common-sense amendment. Let me just express the hope at the outset that the Minister will find it in him to make a clean sweep of all our contributions—we shall see.

In moving Amendment 4 in Committee last week, I mentioned some of the arguments in favour of broadening the scope of the corporate parenting principles outlined in Clause 1. It is logical to adopt as comprehensive an approach as possible to corporate parenting and ensure that all those who can improve outcomes for looked-after children and care leavers have a role to play in parenting those children. In his reply on day one, the Minister stressed that the principles applied to all local authorities in England and that they apply to all parts of the local authority and not just to children’s services. That is important. He went on to highlight the fact that other bodies—such as central government, the National Health Service or housing organisations—are not corporate parents and therefore do not fall within the remit of the Bill, or this part of the Bill. He pointed out that NHS clinical commissioning groups had specific responsibilities for looked-after children, who were also specifically mentioned in NHS England’s mandate. That was certainly welcome to those who were unaware of it.

This amendment goes rather wider and includes the police but, given the proportion of looked-after children and recently looked-after children who have become involved with the youth justice system, that also has some relevance. That being the case, I hope the Government will accept the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, which seeks only to formalise the relationship between local authorities and other organisations, not least housing services, which increasingly are not found within the responsibilities of local authorities. What is of paramount importance is that there is joined-up thinking and working, leading to an outcome whereby all agencies, to use that umbrella term, ensure the most productive relationships on behalf of looked-after children.

Section 10 of the Children Act 2004 includes a duty on local authorities to co-operate with “relevant parties”. However, if that mechanism were working effectively, noble Lords would not have been contacted by various organisations working with or for looked-after children seeking to have the relationship tightened up to provide better outcomes across all agencies. They clearly believe that more needs to be done and we should listen to them, as they are involved on a day-to-day basis with the children the Bill is designed to help.

The Minister mentioned last week that the Government would look at the lessons that might be learned from Scotland. I hope he will note that there the widest possible range of organisations is given the role of corporate parents. Whatever potential obstacles appeared north of the border were clearly overcome. The Minister also stated:

“I would expect partners such as police and health bodies to consider how they can contribute to supporting care leavers. I also hope that many organisations in the private and voluntary sectors will commit to supporting young people leaving care through the care-leaver covenant”.—[Official Report, 29/6/16; col. GC 52.].

I submit that expecting and hoping sounds more like a recipe for disappointment than anything else. Such sentiments are by no means firm enough and the Minister should look to the Bill as a means of ensuring that those things happen. That is what young people leaving care, as well as those assisting them in doing so, have a right to expect.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, before I respond, I am sure noble Lords will be interested in the documents that my department has published today relating to children in the social care system. The first is a policy paper entitled, Putting Children First: Delivering Our Vision for Excellent Children’s Social Care. It sets out our programme of reform to children’s social care for the next four years. The second is an independent report on children’s residential care by Sir Martin Narey, the former chief executive of Barnardo’s, who is an independent social care adviser to the Department for Education. Sir Martin paints a positive vision for the future role of residential care and we are grateful for his report. I am sure noble Lords will be interested in both publications, which we have today emailed to all noble Lords who were present on the first day in Committee. They will be available in the Library of the House.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, for this amendment. I fully appreciate the intention behind it. However, what he seeks to achieve is already encompassed within the corporate parenting principles and existing legislation, which I will explain.

The fourth corporate parenting principle is designed to ensure that the local authority, as a whole, acts as a corporate parent, and helps looked-after children and care leavers to gain access to the services and support they need, including those provided by other relevant partners—to avoid the silo mentality that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, referred to, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, to ensure that all those who can help are involved. On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, about Section 10, I apologise for the confusion. I am sorry to have created so much homework for him. Perhaps in future he can send me a short note and I could save him some time. After all, that is what officials are for. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, we are talking about the Children Act 2004, and I will write to the noble Lord with the relevant section and an explanation.

On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, to make this section and duty more effective, for the first time we are bringing in the principle of corporate parenting. I am happy to discuss that with him further and, to take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to hold a meeting to clarify amendments and ensure, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, says, that we get a sensible Bill without imposing too many new duties that are not really necessary on local authorities.

Local authorities are already under a duty under Section 10 of the Children Act 2004 to make arrangements to promote co-operation between the local authority and each of its relevant partners, including health bodies, schools, local policing bodies, probation boards and youth offending teams, as well as the voluntary and community sector. On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, I know she would always like to have more money, but this does not impose any more responsibilities on local authorities. The intention of the existing duty is to improve the well-being of children in the local area and the corporate parenting principles are matters that the local authority must consider under the existing legislation. They do not add further functions.

Therefore, it seems inconceivable that under the existing legal framework relevant local agencies would not be aware of the needs of looked-after children and care leavers in the area. If that is the case, the issue must be with how well the local authority is putting its existing responsibilities into practice rather than it being a problem with the law. Therefore, I see no need to add to the seven principles in the way the noble Lord suggests.

The approach used in the existing legislation is broadly similar to the way the duty to co-operate works in the Care Act 2014, which the noble Lord, Lord Warner, referred to during the Committee’s first sitting. The local offer for care leavers will take us further than ever before in helping to ensure that the needs of care leavers are in the minds of services related to health, housing, education, police and employment. In developing their local offer, local authorities will need to talk to those services about what they intend to bring to the table based on what care leavers have told them they need.

For too long care leavers have told us that they do not always have the information they need about the services they need to access and about what they are entitled to. We expect the local offer to set out in one place the full range of relevant services, any additional facilities or entitlements that are on offer, and information about how to access them.

The care leaver covenant, which I have mentioned previously, provides a truly exciting opportunity to build the offer of services and support from a wide range of agencies and individuals. There is no reason why there should be a limit on this. We would like local communities to be as inventive as possible in finding ways of supporting and helping their children in care and care leavers.

I appreciate the very positive intentions behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Warner. However, I do not think it is necessary, given the requirements of the existing legislation and the enhanced focus on children in care and care leavers which the corporate parenting principles and the covenant will bring about. I therefore ask him to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Wills, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, for tabling this group of amendments. Let me begin with those amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, which would replace “former relevant child” with “care leaver” throughout Clause 3. I understand that the noble Lord’s intention is to apply provisions to all care leavers. I offer reassurance that the issue is already addressed in existing legislation. Different groups of care leavers and looked-after children are defined in legislation and I will set out how Clause 3 applies to them.

“Eligible children” are looked-after children aged 16 to 17 who are subject to the care planning process and the regular review that this brings. They are entitled to receive advice and support from a local authority personal adviser. “Relevant children” are aged 16 to 17 and have ceased to be looked after. They too are entitled to receive support and advice from a personal adviser. “Former relevant children” currently receive support from a local authority personal adviser up to the age of 21. If they pursue education or training they can retain that support until they are 25. Clause 3 will now address the gap and provide a personal adviser to all “former relevant children” up to the age of 25, where they want one. Whether they are in education will no longer be a qualifying factor.

In Amendment 52 the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, propose that personal adviser support should be provided whether requested or not. I have already spoken at some length on an earlier group about the practical issues involved in providing support up to age 25 even if care leavers no longer want a service. I will therefore not repeat the arguments.

The noble Lord, Lord Wills, referred to my reflecting on certain matters in relation to the role of personal advisers. I was going to come to this later in group 6, in relation to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, but I will deal with it now.

We want to learn from those areas where the personal adviser service is provided effectively and make sure that that becomes the standard of support that care leavers across the country can expect. We also need to make sure that the purpose of the role is clear, that the right people are recruited to take on the role and that they have the right opportunities to learn and develop so that they can better respond to new challenges that care leavers face. That is why we are reviewing the personal adviser role. The first phase of that review is already under way. My officials are carrying out a series of eight deep-dive reviews to local authorities. They are meeting with leaving care managers, personal advisers and care leavers so they can better understand: first, what support personal advisers currently provide; secondly, which issues care leavers most need support on; and, thirdly, how personal advisers provide the mentoring and befriending support which can be so critical to care leavers’ well-being and which we know they value so highly.

The second phase of the review will build on and be informed by the first phase, but will focus on wider issues such as: whether we have done enough to articulate the key purpose of the personal adviser role, as currently articulated in secondary legislation in the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010; how we can best raise the status of the role; and what opportunities exist for personal advisers to access continuing professional development. In conducting this review, I would like to offer reassurance that we will consult all relevant parties. I will also ensure that noble Lords have the opportunity to comment and contribute.

On Amendment 60, I can provide reassurance that local authorities will continue to develop and review pathway plans. As corporate parents, they will do this irrespective of other partners and the support that they bring. Local authority-appointed personal advisers will work with the care leavers to review plans on a regular basis. Local authorities are already required by law to manage these obligations as the corporate parent. Amendment 72 is unnecessary, as the functions of the personal adviser role are set out not in statute but in secondary legislation—the Care Leavers (England) Regulations 2010 and the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010. If any changes are made to the functions of personal advisers, an amending statutory instrument would need to be laid before Parliament, which would provide an opportunity, through the negative resolution procedure, to make any objections if needed.

To turn to Amendment 74, let me clarify why the Bill extends the role of the virtual school head to children who leave care through adoption, child arrangements or special guardianship orders but not to older children. In practice, virtual school heads and designated teachers do not suddenly turn a blind eye to the children in care whom they have been looking out for and supporting just because they have reached the age of 18. The arrangements in place will continue up to the time they leave school unless, of course, their circumstances have changed. In many local authorities, the virtual head plays a role in relation to care leavers. For example, in Hertfordshire, the virtual school head has included within it the post of a personal adviser for students at university. For care leavers, the main support in relation to education is from the personal adviser.

For older care leavers, a range of alternative support is already in place. Pathway plans for care leavers should include information about support for education and career aspirations. Care leavers are also a priority for the 16 to 19 bursary, worth £1,200 annually, and they receive a one-off bursary of £2,000 if they progress to higher education. I hope that this provides noble Lords with sufficient reassurance not to press their amendments.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

The Minister rather peremptorily dismissed the arguments advanced by other noble Lords and me on Amendments 52 and 53. He said that he had answered them in respect of some other amendment, but he uttered the words so quickly that I could not identify what he was talking about. Is he quite content that what he is proposing—he talked of practicalities—means that no young person who would benefit from the information and support that he or she needs will slip through the net simply because they either did not know or did not understand that they could ask for that information? Would it not be far better to ensure that people who do not need the information have it rather than that those who need the information do not have it?

[Lord Nash]

I do not think that we are arguing about anything here. It seems to me obvious that, to take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, we cannot just leave young people to ask for help; they have to know about it. The minimal expectations in the local offer from the local authority have to be absolutely clear, including, in my view, that children should have some financial education training and some domestic skills and that they should know what they are entitled to once they leave care.

That should be absolutely clearly spelt out in the local offer. As has been said, it seems to me that although a child or young person has rejected the need for a personal adviser at the age of 21, by the age of 23 they may well have changed their mind. They should be regularly reminded by the local authority of this right. I do not argue with that and we will set out our expectations of local authorities in relation to the local offer and what they will do to make care leavers aware of their rights and entitlements not just once but regularly until they are 25.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, when I first studied the raft of amendments tabled to this important Bill it seemed likely that we would have a high quality of debate and of argument. Certainly, what we have heard in the last 36 minutes bears that out. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for moving the amendment. I shall speak to Amendment 7 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Hunt.

Some noble Lords may have been present in the Chamber about an hour ago when the Minister responded to a Question on care leavers and my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws asked—I paraphrase her remark—what life had come to when we had to have corporate parents. I certainly echo the view that it is unfortunate that there has to be such a term, but the Minister answered the point well when he established that the term “in loco parentis” is very important in these situations. I believe that corporate parents have a duty to do no less for children in their care than do birth parents for their children. That is a very important role indeed—perhaps one of the most important roles of a local authority. I know from experience that elected councillors take their responsibility in this regard very seriously. Corporate parenting should mean the full and active involvement of the formal and local partnerships needed between local authority departments and services and associated agencies responsible for working together to meet the needs of looked-after children and young people as well as care leavers. Recognising that different component parts each have a contribution to make is critical to success.

One challenge of being a good corporate parent is to help each individual child. In many cases it is not recognised that every child is an individual. Often the only thing that they have in common is that life has not been easy for them and that perhaps at some stage a local authority or a court has decided that compulsory intervention was necessary. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, also made the important point that whenever possible, corporate parents should prevent children coming into contact with youth justice. The Government have recognised many of these sentiments in the seven corporate parenting principles outlined in Clause 1, but principles must reflect duties established by existing legislation and it seems that, in some instances, the principles in Clause 1 actually confer fewer responsibilities on local authorities than currently exist in social care legislation.

I sit somewhat in awe when I hear noble and learned Members of your Lordships’ House pronounce on legal matters, and I would not for one moment seek to question them, so I was very pleased when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, talked about the “having regard to” in Amendment 7, to which I am speaking. If I picked him up correctly, he said at one stage that it would be difficult if a local authority decided to set aside those responsibilities in full. I would be more concerned if there were situations where a local authority concluded—there could be reasons many why—that it could not or would not meet those responsibilities in full. Anything less than that would potentially steer that local authority into difficult waters in terms of the service it was providing as a corporate parent.

I am not going to comment on the detailed legal principle of that, but there seems to be further ground to be tilled in that respect. I am sure that we shall do that and perhaps the Minister can respond, having taken appropriate advice. Just talking about “having regard to” seems rather weak. That is why I hope the Government will recognise that Amendment 7 is put forward in a positive and constructive manner. It seeks to strengthen the Bill and the support provided by making it a requirement that local authorities must ensure that these principles are met in full.

There were other notable contributions, in particular that of my noble friend Lady Armstrong, who talked from experience not just in her own working life but as a Minister in this important sector. I would be very concerned if there were situations where, as she suggested, corporate parenting was used as an excuse for not trying to achieve what should in many cases be the desired outcome: settling the child with his or her family, if that is at all possible. When children and young people become looked after, it is essential from the outset that there is robust and flexible planning for their future. Certainly stability is crucial to a child’s development and happiness, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said. The system should support stability through minimising moves and seeking permanent solutions wherever possible.

For that reason, I believe that the wording in Clause 1 needs to be strengthened in order to demonstrate that we all want our children and young people to have successful and productive lives—and, to ensure that that happens, that we will provide the services and support in every form which will help them succeed, particularly when they have problems to overcome. The amendments in this group offer considerable opportunities to contribute to that and I would not take issue with any of them. I hope that the Minister will respond in a positive manner.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Howe, Lady Walmsley and Lady Pinnock, and to the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Bichard, Lord Hunt and Lord Watson, for their amendments relating to the corporate parenting principle set out in Clause 1. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, commented on timing and I can assure him that the usual channels, as he so comprehensively described them, will be made aware of his point.

In designing the seven principles, the Government have set out the key decisions that young people tell us are of fundamental importance to being a good corporate parent. Given their importance, it is absolutely right that we should debate the principles to ensure that when they are enacted, they do what is intended—namely, to change the culture within local authorities so that they take into account the needs of looked-after children and care leavers when discharging their functions.

At the outset, I want to be clear that the Government intend that the corporate parenting principles will have a life beyond the statute book. My honourable friend the Minister for Children and Families tells me that he wants every social worker, housing chief, leaving care adviser and council leader to have those principles on the wall of his or her office. He wants them to be discussed at council meetings, at looked-after children review meetings, and by foster carers when they talk to their children’s teachers. In short, he wants to drive a culture of good corporate parenting across the whole local authority and not just through the children’s services team. We cannot change culture through legislation alone, but we can legislate to influence how people talk about their responsibilities and how they discharge those responsibilities in relation to looked-after children and care leavers.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I was just suggesting that that should be looked at and that lessons could be learned.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord makes a good point: we should look at it and see what lessons can be learned, as Scotland is at least a year ahead of us on this.

To focus on England, we absolutely acknowledge that there is a role for central government—but it is a different role. Central government departments are not the corporate parents of the children taken into care or accommodated by local authorities. The role of government is to set the broader policy framework.

That is not to say that government departments across Whitehall do not recognise that looked-after children and care leavers need more support and assistance. That is why, if we take health services as an example, the NHS Constitution for England makes clear the responsibilities of clinical commissioning groups and NHS England to looked-after children and, by extension, care leavers. It is also why looked-after children are mentioned specifically in the mandate to NHS England.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, made a point about CAMHS not being willing to treat children not in a stable placement. Child and adolescent mental health services should treat children according to level of need, irrespective of the stability of their placements. The expert group set up to look at care pathways for looked-after children will specifically address this point, with a view to ensuring that access to treatment is according to clinical need and in line with existing statutory guidance.

There are other examples where central government in England has championed looked-after children and care leavers. That is why they now attract pupil premium at a rate of £1,900 per pupil—higher than for other eligible pupils. That is why they also get priority in school admission arrangements.

In 2013, the first cross-government Care Leaver Strategy was published. It recognised the need to work coherently across government to address the needs of care leavers in the round. As a result, a number of changes were made, including measures to better identify care leavers so that they got tailored support—for instance, through the introduction of a “marker” by Jobcentre Plus so that care leavers could be identified and offered additional help. This work continues. We are now working on a refreshed strategy, and have been working closely with seven other government departments in England. The development of the strategy, which will be published shortly, has the backing of the Social Justice Cabinet Committee.

Amendments 36 and 37 seek to require government departments to publish information about services that will help care leavers prepare for adulthood and independent living. As with Clause 1, Clause 2 is about local authority services. The local offer is a manifestation of what it means for each local authority to be a good corporate parent. I agree that central government has responsibilities to looked-after children and care leavers alongside local government. The work we have been doing with each government department at both ministerial level and involving senior officials meeting regularly to discuss what more can be done to support care leavers at the level of national policy represents a significant step forward in increasing the understanding of and commitment to care leavers across Whitehall. Guidance of course is incredibly useful and we shall be consulting fully on what the guidance on corporate parenting should include. But although—quite rightly—central government can and is setting the framework for good corporate parenting, the biggest impact on the lives of looked-after children and care leavers will be made at local level.

We have not extended the principles beyond local authorities in England because it is their duty to both looked-after children and care leavers—and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, for her remarks in this regard. These principles will guide local authorities in how they should exercise their existing functions and duties in relation to these vulnerable children and young people. As I have said, through these high-level principles we want to embed a corporate parenting culture across the whole local authority.

I recognise that looked-after children and care leavers need more support and assistance from a variety of public bodies. They will need to be able to make best use of services provided by other bodies, including clinical commissioning groups, NHS England, schools, housing and sometimes youth offending teams. That is why the fourth principle sets out a requirement to have regard to the need to help looked-after children and care leavers gain access to and make best use of services provided by the local authority and its relevant partners.

Of course, one could seek to apply these principles to a whole range of other public bodies. However, I believe that in doing so we would risk creating an overly bureaucratic tick-box approach that would do little to improve the life chances of looked-after children and care leavers. Instead, we need to embed a cultural shift. As I have said, the duty to co-operate with the relevant parties is already on the statute book in Section 10 of the Children Act 2004, where there is a duty to co-operate to improve the well-being of children and care leavers.

I emphasise that though we do not believe that extending the principles in law to other bodies is the way forward, we recognise that there is more to do to raise the awareness of these young people. Indeed, the consultation which local authorities will undertake with their local practitioners on developing the local offer being introduced under Clause 2 will ensure that access to NHS services and housing is inevitably brought into the process without the need for further prescription. To reinforce this, the department will also set out in statutory guidance how the corporate parenting principles should be applied in practice. Partnership working and commitment to care leavers is at the heart of the sea change that is needed to transform their lives.

Last month the Prime Minister signalled the Government’s intention to create a care-leaver covenant. This will provide a means through which public, private and voluntary sector organisations will be able to demonstrate how they support these young people and improve their lives. I would expect partners such as police and health bodies to consider how they can contribute to supporting care leavers. I also hope that many organisations in the private and voluntary sectors will commit to supporting young people leaving care through the care-leaver covenant.

I hope that noble Lords are reassured and that the noble Lord can be persuaded to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, undoubtedly many telling points have been made on these wide-ranging amendments. I cannot offer my support for all of them, but I certainly can in respect of those tabled by my noble friend Lady Massey and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, concerning mental health. My noble friend urged the promotion of mental health, something that we might imagine was not necessary but unfortunately it is. Current statutory guidance requires that children entering care should receive a physical health assessment by a trained clinician, yet mental health and emotional well-being are assessed only through a strengths and difficulties questionnaire. That is not an alternative to a full assessment conducted by someone with the appropriate qualifications in mental health, which should be instituted as a matter of urgency. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, sets it out clearly in her Amendment 87. This is not a new demand. I can recall asking for it on several occasions during our consideration last year of the Education and Adoption Bill, and I was not alone. Noble Lords from all sides of the House expressed the same call.

It is now well past the point when Ministers should get it, by which I mean the fact that 45% of children entering care have a diagnosable mental health condition. Their needs should be identified early and clearly. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, referred to the plans that form part of the implementation of Future in Mind, and I hope that I am quoting her accurately when she said that only 14% of children entering care receive proper mental health assessments despite the proposals in the document. I would suggest that the time for that situation to change dramatically is now long overdue. We missed the opportunity in last year’s legislation, so I hope that will not be allowed to happen again.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 10, 16, 17, 21 to 25, 28, 33 and 34, 80A and 81A, 84A and 87 regarding the promotion of the mental, physical, emotional and social health and well-being of looked-after children and care leavers, as well as their educational outcomes, along with the educational outcomes of children who leave care and return to their parents. I fully agree that promoting the mental health and social and emotional well-being of looked-after children and care leavers and promoting positive educational outcomes for these groups is critically important, and I shall deal with each of the amendments in turn.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, for her Amendment 10 and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for her Amendment 34. The Government have made clear in Section 1 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 that a comprehensive health service is one that addresses mental as well as physical illness. The Government’s intention is to ensure that the first corporate parenting principle, which refers to promoting the health and well-being of looked-after children and care leavers, is interpreted as covering both the physical and mental aspects. We think that this is clear in the Bill as currently drafted, but we will clarify the position in associated statutory guidance.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I will not say any more now in view of the time, except that I would be delighted to host a joint briefing on the matter. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions to today’s debate and look forward to Committee.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, earlier in the debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard of Northwold, expressed the hope that the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper would not dominate the debate. I cannot speak for her, but I think she would agree with me that that has not been the case; nor was that ever the intention of these Benches in tabling the amendment. Many noble Lords have referred to it. In his recent contribution, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, to some extent alluded to the consequences of the paucity of information in Clauses 20 to 40. It is slightly disingenuous of the Minister, although I do not propose to get into a tennis match with him over what is and is not in those clauses—but if we did so, we might call on the services of an umpire. On this occasion, we have an umpire in the form of the Constitution Committee, and I shall repeat a small part of what it said about this Bill. It said that,

“the government continues to introduce legislation that depends so heavily on an array of broad delegated powers”.

That seems unequivocal to me and to my colleagues on these Benches, and that is why the amendment was tabled.

It is inappropriate for the Government to continue to ride roughshod over the views of committees of your Lordships’ House—the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee will give us its views in due course—and the views clearly expressed in this debate by noble Lords. Although it is not my intention to test the opinion of the House on this amendment, if this continues in future and further Bills come forward in a similar form, the Government should expect the Opposition to come forward with a similar amendment, and on that occasion we may not be as accommodating. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Schools: Academies

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether there is any evidence that academies automatically perform better than local authority maintained schools, particularly those that are already categorised as high-performing.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, schools that have chosen to convert to academies—that is, those that are high-performing—are obtaining better results, improving their results and more likely to be rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. Secondary converter academies are performing seven percentage points above the national average and continue to improve. Primary converter academies improved by one percentage point in 2015, and those open for two years or more by four percentage points since either 2012 or their last results as an LA-maintained school.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Academy status is appropriate for some schools, but there is simply no evidence that mere conversion in itself guarantees success, as the Education Select Committee reported last year. What counts is hard work and a clear plan for improvement, both of which can be achieved without conversion. The Government need to accept that they have failed to win the argument on mass academisation. They have, however, achieved a remarkable feat: since the publication of the White Paper we have seen the emergence of a broad alliance involving parents, head teachers, trade unions, local government leaders, both Labour and Conservative, and MPs, more of a few of whom are Conservatives—all implacably opposed to forced academisation. Can the Minister tell the House who, apart from existing academy chains, has come out in favour of the White Paper’s proposals?

[Lord Nash]

A great many people have come out in favour of the White Paper’s proposals. I am glad the noble Lord got to a question eventually; I think I answered his original point in my first Answer. There has been lot of international research. The Sutton Trust has told us that sponsored academies are doing better at closing the gap. Ofsted has said that attainment in sponsored academies has increased over time, with the longest-standing academies having the strongest performance. The NFER has told us that the attainment gap between pupils eligible for FSM and those not is narrower in converter academies than in similar maintained schools.

Schools: Parent Governors

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree that we should encourage parents to stand for governing bodies, but we have been very clear over the past few years about focusing governance on skills. It is a skills-based function and that is why we have continually focused on skills. Anyone sitting on a governing body must have those skills, or certainly be able to develop them in relatively short order.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have announced that academies will be required to have parent councils. I think that this is a good idea, but if it is, why was it not included in the White Paper? The truth is that it was rushed out in response to a reaction to the White Paper about the marginalisation of parents from school governance. Is it not the case that the White Paper on the forced academisation of schools is actually the back-door privatisation of the education system, and that the Government are not willing to tolerate opposition from parents or anyone who opposes that ideology?

[Lord Nash]

Actually, it was made absolutely clear in the White Paper that we would create a new expectation that every academy would put in place meaningful arrangements for engagement with all parents. We do not want to be prescriptive about the precise nature of that engagement, but of course a parent council may well be a good way of doing that. So far as privatisation is concerned, it is interesting to note that anyone involved in an academy or in a governance relationship with an academy cannot profit from their arrangement in that, whereas of course that is possible in a local authority-maintained school.

Regional Schools Commissioners

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Thursday 14th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

As I think everybody knows, we are not planning to abolish parent governors. We greatly value the role of parent governors in schools, and I pay tribute to the many thousands of parent governors that we have. Indeed, we want to increase the role and involvement of parents in their children’s education. We will exert a new expectation on every academy to put in place meaningful engagement arrangements for all parents, but we must focus governance on skills. On the localism point made by the noble Lord, four members of every head teacher board are elected. They are local professionals who are well steeped in their local communities and local issues.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we should not lose sight of the fact that we are talking about public education here, paid for from public funds. That should mean that public accountability is a given—real accountability, not just accountability to the Secretary of State. In its report published in January, the Education Select Committee, which has a Tory majority and a Tory chair, called for greater transparency and accountability for regional schools commissioners. Will the Minister say what action he intends to take in light of that recommendation, particularly since the White Paper was published?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. We will publish the following information on the GOV.UK website this month: a high-level outline of the regional schools decision-making framework; each regional schools commissioner’s regional vision; a description of the national schools commissioner’s role; and the terms of reference for head teacher boards.

Schools: Funding

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, without suggesting that the current funding formula is beyond improvement, the proposed national formula is another example of the Government’s centralist mindset. It is not the latest because, since this was announced, we have also had the White Paper on academisation. However, the national funding formula proposes to remove from head teachers the ability to have any say in the distribution of funding within their local area. Why does the Minister believe that civil servants are better placed, and know more, than head teachers about the funding needs of each area of the country?

[Lord Nash]

The simple fact is that we inherited a funding formula from the Labour Government which was incomprehensible and confusing and which, through centralist diktats, got more and more complicated. We have to simplify it.

Schools: Food Nutrition Standards

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Thursday 11th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness raises an extremely good point. It is deeply concerning that many children seem to come to school not having eaten properly, which cannot help their concentration in school. We have funded a Magic Breakfast programme which has resulted in nearly 200 new schools in disadvantaged areas offering breakfast clubs. It is focused on areas where free school meals are 35% or more in the schools. The programme has been very successful and we are looking at it further.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, academies established prior to 2010 and those established from June 2014 have clauses in their funding agreements stating that their schools must comply with national food standards, but those academies established in the years in between do not have such clauses. Can the Minister explain that anomaly and inform noble Lords what he intends to do to end it?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: academies opened between September 2010 and July 2014, of which there were 3,900, do not technically have to follow the school food standards. But those standards were introduced only a year ago. Over the last year, 1,400 of the schools have voluntarily signed up to them, and we are encouraging many more to do so. We believe that most academies follow a healthy eating strategy. Indeed, the School Food Plan authors said that some of the best food they found was in academies. We do not think it is necessary to legislate further.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 8th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 2, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and Amendment 3, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt. Both concern the responsibilities and powers of regional schools commissioners. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, has proposed that the Secretary of State should be required to publish a document that would describe the powers and responsibilities of RSCs arising from the provisions in the Bill and other Acts of Parliament. Amendment 3 would extend this requirement to specify that the document must include a guide for parents and any other information to do with the powers and responsibilities of RSCs as may be appropriate.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for raising this issue once again, following the exchanges that he had with my noble friend Lady Evans on this matter on Report in this House. Since the last debate, he has also met officials from the Department for Education and he and I have had a number of exchanges on the matter. I hope that he has found these discussions helpful and has been reassured that the Government are committed to meeting the objectives of his amendment.

As my noble friend Lady Evans explained in the previous debate, RSCs are not defined in legislation: they are civil servants, and exercise only the powers and duties of the Secretary of State that he chooses to delegate to them. Accountability for the decisions made by RSCs rests with the Secretary of State, who remains fully accountable to Parliament. It is important to emphasise that the role of RSCs is very different from the role of local authorities. RSCs operate within a clearly defined framework, with the focus on monitoring and tackling educational underperformance in academies and free schools, approving new academies, advising on free school applications and approving changes to open academies, such as expansions or age-range changes.

To support these functions, RSCs also work to develop the sponsor market in their regions. Subject to the passage of the Bill, RSCs will also take on responsibility for formal intervention in underperforming maintained schools. RSCs carry out their functions within a national framework and individual decisions are made in accordance with the relevant legislation, academy funding agreement and/or published criteria.

Information on the work of RSCs is already publicly available. We have already set out the remit of our RSCs and the membership of each head teacher board, published registers of interest and made available the criteria for RSC decision-making. Academy funding agreements are publicly available, as are the criteria for other individual RSC decisions. For example, the criteria that RSCs use to assess schools applying to become academies are set out online in the guidance document, Convert to an Academy: Guide for Schools. Notes of board meetings that detail each decision made are also published on a monthly basis.

In addition, we have recently consulted publicly on revising the statutory Schools Causing Concern guidance that describes the responsibilities and powers delegated to RSCs resulting from the provisions in the Bill, and how they will be used in practice by RSCs to intervene in failing and coasting maintained schools and academies. Alongside this document the Government are also required, under the Academies Act 2010, to provide an annual report to Parliament on the expansion of the academy programme and the performance of academies during the year. This year’s report will include commentary on RSCs.

We recognise, however, that we need to go further. We acknowledge that RSCs are a new concept and that, as more schools become academies and the RSC remit expands, we need to clearly articulate the role, improve understanding of its responsibilities and increase transparency. Noble Lords will be reassured to hear that the new national schools commissioner, Sir David Carter, considers raising awareness, particularly among parents, as one of his top priorities and he made this clear in a Radio 4 interview last month.

As with any new system, we expect the level of awareness to increase over time, but to expedite this I am today making a clear commitment to the House that the Government will publish a full description of the RSC role and a guide to all RSC powers and responsibilities. We will ensure that this more detailed information is in understandable form, includes a succinct summary of the role and has clear links for the public to find more detailed information should they require it. We will make clear that this information is for parents and the sector.

The information will be published on the education pages of the government website, GOV.UK. This is the website where all government policies, publications, statistics and consultations are published. It is already used by parents to find information on matters such as school admissions, school performance and childcare. It is used extensively. In January of this year alone, there were nearly 1.3 million visitors to the education pages of GOV.UK. The website is designed for the public and is intended to be simple, clear and quick to find information. We will make sure that the information is collated and published in good time for the Bill coming into force. Furthermore, I assure noble Lords that we will keep the information up to date and revise it as necessary, following any changes to legislation or to RSCs’ non-statutory responsibilities.

Alongside publishing more detailed information, we recognise that it is equally important to ensure the public know where to find it. Once the new information is published, we will alert parent and governor groups such as the National Governors’ Association and the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations and encourage them to direct their members towards it. We will also publicise the information through the email which the Department for Education issues direct to schools at the start of every term and which sets out important changes. RSCs will also be carrying out a range of activities within their regions to improve awareness, to raise their profile and to ensure the sector understands and is prepared for the new legislation.

As the noble Lord has described, since we last debated this matter the Education Select Committee has published its report on the establishment of RSCs. While the committee welcomed the introduction of RSCs as a pragmatic approach to the expanding workload of academies oversight, the report also made a number of recommendations, including that the Government should reflect on the need to improve understanding of the role of RSCs. I assure noble Lords that the Government take this issue very seriously and will increase and improve the information available to the public on RSCs, with a particular focus on simplifying and improving the information for parents.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred to the situation in relation to E-ACT and parents. I can assure him that we regard the involvement of parents in education as crucial. The best way to do this is not necessarily through having two parents on a governing body. An equally good or better way may be to have parent forums. I understand that E-ACT has plans to do this and is meeting with Sir David Carter this week to discuss this further.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I certainly accept what the Minister is saying about parent forums, but why should that be to the exclusion of parent representatives from governing bodies? Can the two not exist equally well together?

[Lord Nash]

They can. They will have parents on their advisory boards and E-ACT is required, as are all multi-academy trusts if they do not have local governing bodies, to have two parents on their multi-academy trust board. So parents will still be intimately involved in decisions.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

Perhaps I may follow that up. That is two parents in a multi-academy chain board. E-ACT has been mentioned by me. As I understand it, it has 23 schools and one academy chain board. Out of all those schools, only two parents would have any kind of representation. They could not possibly be representative in any way of the views of the parents in 21 other schools.

[Lord Nash]

That is why, as I understand it, they will have advisory bodies, which will consist of parents. As I have said, the same point can be made about individual schools. Two parents cannot necessarily be representative of the body of parents, which is why a parents’ association may be a much better way of engaging with parents across a broader church.

I hope that, given the further explanations and reassurances I have been able to give in relation to information about the RSCs, the noble Lord will be assured that we are committed to improving understanding and increasing transparency relating to RSCs and will be content to withdraw his amendment.

Before I sit down, I would like to take this opportunity to put my wider thanks on the record for the careful consideration the Bill has received throughout this House. First, I thank my noble friends on the government Benches, in particular my noble friend Lady Evans, who has provided strong support and kept the Bill on track over the past few months. I also thank my noble friend Lady Perry for her continuing support and advice and my noble friend Lord Harris for his passionate words on Report about the difference that becoming a sponsored academy can make.

I also thank my noble friends Lord O’Shaughnessy and Lord True. I would particularly like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, for ensuring that the best interests of children are always at the forefront of all our considerations. Of course, I must pay tribute to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education who is committed to taking forward essential reforms to achieve real social justice for all children and young people.

I also particularly thank the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, who have provided strong and thorough opposition alongside their colleagues the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Addington, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Pinnock. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Hughes, for their contributions. While we may have crossed swords on many things, their challenges have been constructive and it has been clear throughout our debates that across the House we are united in our belief in the life-transforming power of education and in the desire to give every child the best start in life.

There have been very important contributions on this Bill from all sides. On the Cross Benches, I am grateful in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, for bringing his extensive knowledge and experience of our education system to bear on this Bill and to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for his considered comments and amendments on children in care and mental health issues. I also thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for supporting the Government’s ambitions with the important role that church schools play in our education system.

I also thank the organisations that have engaged with the Bill and contributed to ensuring that its content will benefit children waiting to be adopted and pupils in our schools. In particular, I wish to thank the individual head teachers and MAT CEOs who freely gave up their time to share with Peers their experience of school improvement at the outset of the Bill entering this House. They have improved our understanding of the very real issues that the Bill seeks to address.

Finally, I would like to put on record my thanks to the officials from the Department for Education, the Bill team, in particular Louise Evans and Kayleigh Walker, the lawyers, including Caroline Chalmers, the policy officials and others who have worked on this Bill and helped to ensure the good progress we have made in this House.

As noble Lords will have heard me say previously, the Bill has one essential principle at its heart: that every child deserves an excellent education and a secure and loving home. This Bill is about social justice and about building a fairer society in which every child has the same opportunities to reach their potential regardless of their background. To ensure that adoption is always pursued when it is in the child’s best interests, we have recently announced increased funding totalling £200 million over the course of this Parliament to further develop regional adoption agencies, fund the interagency fee and extend the adoption support fund.

To achieve a world-class education system, we need a school system that consistently and universally delivers high academic standards. To help deliver that, this House has accepted an important amendment to the Bill to give more consistent and effective powers to regional schools commissioners when academies underperform. The amendments we have made, alongside the original Bill provisions to strengthen our ability to turn around failing and coasting maintained schools, mean that I am confident that the Bill leaves this House with the potential to ensure that many more children and young people will have the opportunity to make the best start and succeed in life. I commend it to the House.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I did not expect the Minister to make those remarks at this stage—I thought he would do it at the Bill do now pass stage. I would like to say a little more about my amendment on the question of regional schools commissioners. The Minister was kind enough to facilitate a meeting with the regional schools commissioner who covers the area in which I live. In a sense, that encapsulated one of the anomalies of regional schools commissioners—the way that they are divided geographically. The Education Select Committee report highlighted the fact that London is covered by three regional schools commissioners. The committee suggested that there should be a ninth commissioner for London, to mirror Ofsted regions, which is a very sensible suggestion. The fact that I live in a region that covers places as diverse as West Ham and Great Yarmouth suggests that there is room for improvement.

There is also room for improvement in the role of parents in education. That must be about the hundredth time I have mentioned it in our many hours of debate. I believe that the Government are plain wrong in trying to say that parents do not have a meaningful contribution to make—and not the token that the Minister recently mentioned of two parents on a board that covers 23 schools. Most parents care passionately about their child’s education. The fact that they have effectively been brushed aside by much of the Bill is unfortunate, to put it mildly. It is also grossly unfair. Many people who want to have that input are now going to be unable to do so. So even a parents’ guide to regional schools commissioners would be a step forward, to at least make sure that people know where to go and who to speak to when they have a complaint, and how to forward it. I regret that it has not been possible to get agreement. Perhaps we should await the Minister’s response to the Education Committee report; I do so with some interest. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I beg to move.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, we have now reached the point where this Bill must return to the other place. From these Benches we have to say that it is regrettable that it will take so little in terms of amendments with it. As has been outlined, it has many faults, and despite claims by both Ministers that it is all about rescuing children from underperforming schools, many noble Lords believe that there is rather more to it than that.

I should say that I do not doubt the bona fides of either Minister. The relish with which they have advanced their arguments during the Bill’s time in your Lordships’ House reflects their own backgrounds and motivation. I understand that the noble Baroness has a history in the free schools sector and that the noble Lord has a history in the academies sector, each with some success. If I may draw an analogy, to be handed this Bill is tantamount to a girl and boy being given the keys to the toy shop. It is clear that they are in their element, because it allows them to pursue their personal and particular priorities. But it has to be said that their priorities are not necessarily those of wider society, judging by the briefings we have had from a very wide range of organisations, all of whom I thank, and not to any significant extent those of the education professionals, all of whom also have as their raison d'être providing the best possible education for our children.

We have spent almost 24 hours in debate on this Bill—a full day. I wonder whether we might ask ourselves whether we might have put it to better use—some may say yes—and I am sure that we are now all ready to move on to other things. But before we do so, I want to thank the Bill team. We on these Benches have worked rather hard. On my behalf I pay tribute to my assistant, Molly Critchley, who did the heavy lifting when it came to negotiating over amendments. She did much more besides, and both I and my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath are indebted to her for her tireless efforts. This is the first piece of legislation for which I have had Front-Bench responsibility and I have leaned much and often on the experienced shoulders of my colleague Lord Hunt, for which I am most grateful. Having leaned much, I like to think that I have now learned much—but I suppose time will tell.

I think I am correct in asserting that this is also the first Bill as a Front-Bencher for the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park. She has perhaps had a slightly tougher baptism than she might have hoped for, but through it all she has retained an upbeat manner and an ability to assure—or at least attempt to assure—those on these Benches that the Bill was much more benign than we believed.

The noble Lord, Lord Nash, and I have had—what shall I say?—our moments throughout those 24 hours. It seems that neither of us is ever going to convince the other of the veracity of our respective arguments, but at least we have given it our best shot. I have made a discovery about the noble Lord and, in spite of the fact that he has offered precious little in terms of concessions on the Bill, I am about to offer him one of my own. I think he and I have only two things in common. One is clearly membership of your Lordships’ House. The other, I have learned, is that we were born in the same year. I am not about to divulge the year, but we were born just five weeks apart—and that provides me with both good news and bad. The good news is that the Minister was born first. The bad news is that it does not show.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to government Amendment 20 concerning communication with parents, the opposition amendments on that and Amendment 27A.

Our amendment is all about ensuring that parents are informed about the action being taken to improve a school. I know that what any parent wants for their child is for them to attend a good school and for there to be quick, effective action if there is significant concern about that school. Where a school has failed, it is right that we take the action that we know will have the best possible impact on improving the school’s performance, and that we make sure that this happens as swiftly as possible. We are clear that becoming a sponsored academy will always be the solution for a school judged inadequate by Ofsted.

That does not, of course, mean that parents do not have a right to know what will happen in their child’s school. Once a sponsor has been identified for a failing school, it is already common practice for it to engage with parents about their plans for the school, ensuring that parents know what to expect and that they understand the process of converting from a local authority maintained school to an academy, and to give them the opportunity to share their views about the changes that the sponsor proposes to make.

We have tabled Amendment 20 to ensure that there is greater consistency for parents on this matter. The amendment will provide assurance that when under- performing maintained schools are becoming sponsored academies, parents will always be kept informed.

To support the amendment, we will also make changes to the Schools Causing Concern guidance to reflect the new requirement. We will use that guidance to provide more information about what the communication from sponsors could typically look like in practice; for instance, to suggest that sponsors might want to write to parents when they are first matched to the school to provide more information about them as sponsors—although, as we have heard, it might be appropriate in some cases for the governing body to make the first communication—to explain their ethos, what parents can expect to happen next, and hold meetings with parents to share information and answer questions. We think it more appropriate for this to be set out in guidance rather than in legislation, ensuring that sponsors have flexibility about precisely how they communicate with parents, to allow them to tailor their approach to the specific circumstances of the school.

We will also reflect the new requirement on sponsors in the notification letters that are sent to the school governing body, the head teacher, the local authority and, where appropriate, the trustees of a foundation school, the religious body responsible for the school, where it is one with a religious character, and to the sponsor itself where one has been identified, where a school is being required to become an academy. We will specify as standard in those letters that the sponsor identified by the RSC will communicate to parents information about its plans to improve the school. This will ensure that all parties are aware of the duty on sponsors.

I spoke earlier about the commitments we have made to ensure that parents are kept informed specifically when a school is coasting. As I committed earlier, we will use the Schools Causing Concern guidance and the notification that RSCs will send to the governing bodies of coasting schools to make very clear our expectation that governing bodies must inform parents when the school has been identified as coasting.

In the light of the amendment that I have tabled and the other commitments we have made to ensure that parents will be kept informed when their child’s school is eligible for intervention, I hope noble Lords will be in no doubt that we recognise the importance of ensuring that parents know what is happening in their child’s school, and will therefore support the government amendment.

Noble Lords have tabled Amendments 21, 22 and 23 to alter what I have proposed. Rather than requiring sponsors to communicate to parents about their plans to improve the school, the sponsor would be required to consult parents about their plans. As I have already set out, I cannot accept the reintroduction of a statutory consultation process. That absolutely does not equate, however, to a belief that parents should not have a right to know, or be involved in, changes that affect their child’s school. I believe that the sponsor, who will be responsible for transforming the school, should have the duty to communicate to parents. We know that sponsors already put a lot of effort into explaining the steps that have been taken. Our amendment will ensure that this will apply consistently.

We expect that in many cases, sponsors will want to go considerably further than the minimum requirement and seek views from parents about specific changes they intend to make to the school—for example, if they plan to change the name of the school or the school uniform, they may ask for suggestions, views or designs concerning their proposed options. However, requiring sponsors to engage with parents through formal consultation, which the amendments propose, is not appropriate. As I said, a formal consultation process is inflexible and in too many cases will unnecessarily raise the temperature of the debate. The arrangement that I have proposed is a much more appropriate approach and gives the sponsor flexibility to tailor its communications to parents to best suit the circumstances of that particular school.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked why this does not apply to academies. Amendment 20 addresses the specific concerns raised by noble Lords about the requirement for failing schools to become academies and to share information about the process involved when a local authority maintained school changes its status to an academy. In cases where an academy is moved to a new sponsor, I am happy to reassure the noble Lord that we will consider in our revisions to the Schools Causing Concern guidance how to make it clear that regional schools commissioners will ensure that parents are kept informed.

The noble Lord also asked what would happen if the sponsor fails to communicate with parents. The duty is clear: the sponsor must communicate to parents information about its plans to improve the school before it is converted to academy status. If the sponsor were to fail to comply, we would not enter a funding agreement with that sponsor in respect of that school, and would look for an alternative sponsor. I am very happy to place that on record, and I hope that that reassures the noble Lord.

Amendment 17A proposes a requirement for staff to be kept informed of the changes in a school being required to become a sponsored academy, in addition to parents. While parental engagement is clearly critical, communication with others is already guaranteed through existing legal provisions. Clause 10 is explicit that the governing body and local authority should work with the named sponsor. The governing body will include the head and representation from parents, staff and the local authority, so those parties will also be kept informed via that route. The local authority will be further intimately involved in the detail of the transfer process of the school to academy status.

Amendment 17A proposes that staff at the school should be included in communications from sponsors, but the existing TUPE process means that employees will be notified about the transfer by their employer or the academy trust. Where the academy trust proposes any changes which affect the employees, there must be consultation about them. This means that there is already a legal obligation for staff to receive information about the incoming academy trust and be consulted on any proposed changes to their terms and conditions prior to any academy conversion taking place. This is comparable to what my amendment now proposes to introduce for parents. It is unnecessary for staff to be additionally included in the new requirement, and therefore Amendment 17A is unnecessary.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

Before we leave this amendment, I asked in my opening remarks what would happen if local authorities or governors declined to co-operate. I am not necessarily talking about them being obstructive—just about them saying that they were not going to do anything. What would the Minister anticipate would be the response to that?

[Lord Nash]

I think we have the power to bring forward directions to the local authority and, eventually, I guess that we could go to court. But I shall write to the noble Lord to clarify that point.

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for his supportive words about our Amendment 20. As I said, the Church of England is very skilled in community cohesion, and I take great comfort from his support for our proposals for communicating with parents. I also take this opportunity to say more about my assurances about how we will ensure that the religious character of a faith school will be protected when any interventions are necessary. The Government are firmly committed to enabling schools with a religious character to protect and sustain their ethos. There are already provisions in the law that ensure that, when a school with a religious character requires intervention, the religious character will be protected. When a faith school becomes an academy, it retains its religious character by virtue of Section 6 of the Academies Act 2010. The academy’s religious character is protected through provisions within the academy’s funding agreement with the Secretary of State and the academy trust’s articles of association.

When a Church of England school joins a non-faith led trust, we intend to insert the following within the trust’s articles of association: a faith object, which requires the trust to ensure that the Church of England character of the church school is maintained; an entrenchment clause that requires written consent of the diocese for changes to articles relating to the maintenance of the church school’s religious character—for example, those relating to the local governing body of the church school and appointment of staff; a requirement that members and trustees are appointed to provide proportionate diocesan representation on the MAT; and a requirement on the MAT to establish an LGB and for the creation of a scheme of delegation relating to the religious character of the school, agreed between the MAT and the diocese. The supplemental funding agreement for the church school will include a clause requiring the establishment of a governing body with the purpose of honouring the characteristics and ethos of the school. The master funding agreement for the MAT will also include a clause to prevent the MAT amending articles relating to the church school’s governing body and the scheme of delegation. A provision within the church supplemental agreement will ensure that the MAT cannot make amendments to the articles as they relate to the governing body of the church school without diocesan consent. This will agree the best academy solutions for any failing church schools, and we are reviewing and updating the non-statutory memoranda that set out the roles of dioceses and RSCs as they relate to the academy programme, to reflect the changes in this Bill and the wider evolving policy landscape. We expect that regional schools commissioners will work closely with dioceses. We will ensure that the RSCs will comply fully with the terms of the memoranda, and we support diocesan directors of education in upholding those terms.

Finally, Amendment 27 proposes that the education provisions of the Bill will be repealed after being in force for five years. The Government are focused on driving up standards of education in this country and giving children the best possible future. The Bill is an essential part of that; it will ensure we have the necessary powers to swiftly tackle underperformance, but it will also ensure that underperformance can be tackled whenever it occurs. It addresses not only schools that are failing right now, but will also ensure that any schools that slip in future will get the support and challenge they need to improve. The Government’s ambition is for every school to become an academy. Until the point when all schools have become academies, it will be necessary to have powers that allow swift and robust intervention in maintained schools that are causing concern, therefore it is right that we have the powers and duties introduced by the Bill for the foreseeable future.

What is in question here is a fundamental undermining of this Government’s commitment to drive up standards of education. It is not in the spirit of this House’s role to make legislation with a built-in expiry date, and I do not consider it necessary in this case. If and when we reach a point where all schools have become academies, we will of course consider what legislation it is necessary for us to repeal at that time. We will, anyway, review and report on the impact that these provisions are having through the academies annual report, which the Academies Act 2010 requires us to produce—or, if in five years’ time this House does not consider the provisions in this Bill necessary, as this amendment specifically anticipates, for whatever reason, this House should have a full and thorough debate on that matter in five years’ time. I do not want to see noble Lords tie our hands on this matter now through this clearly inflammatory amendment. Amendment 27 is not only unnecessary but not in keeping with the long-standing principles of this House, and I urge the noble Lord not to press it.

Following this debate, I hope that the noble Lords will appreciate that we have listened to concerns here and will support our government amendment and the right balance it achieves between decisive and clear action, while ensuring that parents are informed. I therefore hope that the noble Lords will support my amendment ensuring communication to parents and would urge the noble Lords not to press their other amendments.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that comprehensive response. I would like to say a word or two about some of the other contributions. I am not sure whether the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, was here when I made my closing speech on the second group of amendments, but I think that I answered most of the points that she raised then. I shall briefly repeat them. The fundamental point is that doing nothing was not an option; it never has been and it has not been suggested. I outlined other possibilities at that time, and that remains our position. Secondly, we have not advocated a ballot, so it is not about having a vote on the matter. Thirdly, the emphasis, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, will be on convincing the parents that what is being proposed is in the best interests of the children. To me, that is always the best way forward, if possible. Finally, Amendment 23 says that the Secretary of State will have the final say by being obliged to “take into account” what has happened. I hope that that answers her points—it is not all or nothing.

I think that I heard the noble Lord, Lord True, correctly when he said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that in this democracy the people decide. That is exactly what we are calling for—but it seems that that does not happen with academisation.

The noble Lord, Lord Nash, said that parents have the right to know of and be involved in the plans. Involvement is a rather elastic concept, and what it means to one set of parents may not be what it means to another. I certainly appreciate the value of Amendment 20, as I said in my opening remarks, and parents will be pleased that they will at least, I imagine, be summoned to a meeting in the school hall, given a presentation and able to ask all sorts of questions, but there is no way for any rethink on the sponsor. That is the fundamental issue from my point of view. There may well be a number of reasons why the sponsor is deemed to be unfit as a result of what they say to the parents, but there is no way of dealing with that. That is a problem.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I shall speak to the amendments to Clauses 7 and 8, which seek to undermine the core intentions of the Bill. The Bill is focused on delivering a manifesto pledge, which is an essential part of the Government’s commitment to ensuring that every child receives an excellent education that sets them up to succeed in modern Britain. That manifesto commitment was that we would ensure that any failing maintained school becomes a sponsored academy, to completely transform that school and its educational performance, as my noble friend Lord Harris has just outlined so eloquently and passionately. I pay tribute to the great work that he does in this area. That is why Clause 7 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to make an academy order in respect of any maintained school that Ofsted has judged to be inadequate. That duty means that there will be no question and no debate about this, which is why Clause 8 removes the requirement to consult on whether such a school should become a sponsored academy. It would be meaningless to consult when our manifesto was absolutely clear that failing maintained schools would become academies. That mandate means there is no question about what will happen, and no decision being made. It does not make sense therefore to consult on whether schools should or should not convert.

Amendment 15C fundamentally undermines our manifesto commitment to turn every failing maintained school into a sponsored academy, and we consider this amendment to be a breach of the Salisbury convention. As I have set out, I cannot accept the reintroduction of a statutory consultation process on whether a school should convert—a question that makes no sense in failing schools, when we have been so clear. The Bill puts children first, not the vested interests of adults who would seek to delay this action. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, for her strong and brave words in that regard. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, referred to a situation that was not a pretty sight some 30 years ago, and I assure her that, sadly, there have been plenty of not a pretty sights much more recently. My noble friend Lord True referred to some, as did my noble friend Lord Harris.

The noble Baroness also talked about the opportunity for representation when a school becomes rebrokered as a sponsor. This is a completely different situation. I attempted to explain to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, that that is because of how funding agreements work, and we are trying to change funding agreements as little as possible, because no Government want to interfere with contracts entered into willingly between two parties any more than they have to.

The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, cross-referred the situation to the coasting schools situation, whereby a school may be able to improve on its own, and said that it was relevant to thinking again about whether one should make an academy order in relation to an inadequate school. This is a completely different situation. I have been very clear that the default position for a coasting school is not to become an academy, because the school may very well improve, as I am sure many will be able to, on their own or with limited help. But here we are talking about a school that is demonstrably failing and unable to sort itself out on its own. As I say, it is a quite different situation.

However, our position absolutely does not equate to a belief that parents should not have a right to know, or be involved in, changes that affect their child’s school. This is the matter that Amendment 17 is raising. My government Amendment 20 already proposes to require parents to be informed. When a school is required to become a sponsored academy, the sponsor would be under a duty to communicate to parents about their plans for improving the school. This would have to take place before the school converted into a sponsored academy. That amendment therefore already provides robust assurances to parents that they will be kept informed. However, going further and requiring parents to be engaged through formal consultation is just not appropriate. Consultation is overly formal and inflexible. Formal consultations can unintentionally raise the temperature of the debate, rather like when one gets lawyers involved in a divorce settlement, and too often can be used to create delays to the process.

Amendment 16A would prescribe a list of various additional parties who must be included in the consultation exercise. There are already provisions in legislation that will ensure these parties are informed about changes when a school is required to become a sponsored academy. Our proposed Clause 10 is already explicit that the governing body and local authority should work with the named sponsor. The governing body will include representation from parents, staff, the head teacher and the local authority, so those parties will all already be kept informed via that route. The local authority will be further, intimately involved in the detail of the transfer of the school to academy status. The existing TUPE process already ensures that, as a minimum, staff at the school who will be affected by the transfer of the school to the academy trust will always be notified about the transfer by their employer or the academy trust. Where the academy trust proposes any changes that affect the employees, there must be consultation about those. This means that there is already a legal obligation for staff to receive information about the academy trust and be consulted on any proposed changes to terms and conditions, prior to any academy conversion taking place, comparable to what my amendment now proposes to introduce for parents.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked whether regional schools commissioners would write to parents. We do not want to be that prescriptive. In many cases, it may well be best for the governing body to write to parents to invite them to come to a meeting with a sponsor because parents may be much more likely to listen to the governing body. I am very happy to discuss the precise contents of the Schools Causing Concern guidance with the noble Lord in that regard, and to discuss why it may not be appropriate to be too prescriptive.

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for speaking in favour of my amendment on communication to parents, and I pay tribute to the great work that he does in Ely and across the country in education. Faith schools have an excellent track record on community cohesion. I attended only last week the Church of England’s Living Well Together conference, which brought together students, teachers, faith leaders and others to share ideas about how we live well together and promote peaceful coexistence. I was very impressed by what the Church of England is doing to promote these discussions within schools, and I would very much look to the church’s view on these matters and the appropriateness of our amendment on communicating with parents. I also take this opportunity to reiterate my assurances on how we will ensure the religious character of a faith school will be protected when any intervention is unnecessary, and I shall give more detail on that later on.

I cannot allow a formal consultation exercise to be introduced that requires governing bodies and local authorities to be given a say in whether a school causing concern should become a sponsored academy. We are talking about the same governing body and local authority that, as my noble friend Lord True remarked, has already allowed the school to fail, and not taken the necessary action to halt its decline at an earlier stage. Amendment 16A takes us back to a position that is more inflexible than the current process, and I hope all Peers will accept that that is a retrograde step and a step towards delay and inaction, which would undermine the fundamental principles behind the Bill.

Let us be clear: Amendment 15C would drive a coach and horses through the core purpose of the Bill, which is to turn failing schools into academies. That was a manifesto commitment, and therefore not only would the amendment fundamentally undermine the Bill but we consider that it would be a breach of the Salisbury convention, as I said earlier. Further, we do not consider Amendment 16A to be consequential to Amendment 15C. However, I have already shown that we are prepared to listen to the concerns raised about ensuring that parents are informed about what changes are being made to improve their child’s school, and that is why I have tabled government Amendment 20, to that effect. I hope noble Lords will agree that I have listened and achieved the right balance between responding to Peers’ valid concerns about parents having a right to know what is going on in their child’s school and not undermining the Bill’s core purpose, which is to ensure that there is no scope for delay in transforming every failing school. I hope noble Lords will recognise that the Bill is delivering a manifesto commitment. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate, with many speakers and many opinions—which can only be a healthy thing. I will be as quick as I can in picking up just one or two of the major points. My noble friend Lady Morris made the point that you need to make a very strong case for excluding parents in this situation, and that case has not been made.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that the consultation is not detailed. The amendment does not state exactly what it should include. The terms, including the time allowed, will be for the Secretary of State to set out in regulations. She will be obliged to take into account only the views expressed in that consultation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, made an important point, and I think that I owe her and other noble Lords an apology because I clearly did not make it evident in my remarks when moving the amendment that the alternative to academy status is not to do nothing and just carry on as before. That never was the case, and I very much hope it never would be. I would certainly never advocate it, but there are alternatives. Academy status is not the only alternative. For instance, the local authority has a role, a new head teacher can be brought in—which has been successful on other such occasions—and new governors can be appointed. Another successful school in the locality could take the school under its wing—again, there have been several examples of that having been done successfully, short of academisation. So the idea that it is one or the other is simply not true, and I am not for one moment advocating no action.

I think that parents at an underperforming school would be likely to want change—perhaps even to academy status. Who knows?

[Lord Nash]

The approach to trying to improve schools which the noble Lord has just referred to has been tried for years. Bringing in a supportive school from nearby to get the school better and then move off is not a permanent solution. We have seen this for many years in some of the schools to which that my noble friend Lord Harris referred. It is a temporary solution, a quick fix, and it does not work. Here, we are talking about a permanent solution under a sponsored academy arrangement.

Schools: Special Measures

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

Local authorities have been judged by Ofsted as being inadequate to run education. We are talking about two totally different things. We believe that we have set up a very effective system for intervening in schools that is working well.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that by forcing ever more schools to convert to academies, he is in effect making a rod for his own back? If the only role remaining for local authorities is to facilitate those conversions, in the period after that all responsibility for failing schools will fall on the Government, and Ministers will be forced to come to this House and explain to noble Lords why those schools are failing and what they are going to do about it.

[Lord Nash]

I hope that Ministers on this side of the House will never be frightened to come to this House and explain themselves. I conceive local authorities as being responsible for place planning, basic needs, admissions, safeguarding and SEN for the foreseeable future.

Schools: Faith Schools

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I would be delighted to expand on that as the right reverend Prelate mentions. We intend to insert within the articles of association a faith object, which requires the trust to ensure that the character of the church school is maintained. There will be an entrenchment clause, which requires written consent of the diocese for changes to the articles relating to the maintenance of the church school’s religious character—for instance, those relating to local governing bodies or the church’s power to appoint staff. There is a requirement that members and trustees are appointed to provide proportionate diocese representation on the MAT, and to establish a local governing body, and for the creation of a scheme of delegation relating to the religious character of the school agreed between the MAT and the diocese. This will be protected.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister will have time to answer this question from me. I am sure that he will be aware of media reports over the weekend concerning Highfield Humanities College in Blackpool, where parents were very concerned about its conversion to an academy by the Tauheedul Education Trust, which already runs 10 Muslim faith academies—yet only 2% of the pupils at Highfield are Muslim. Will the Minister provide an assurance that there will always be full parental and community consultation when an academy changes from not having a religious character to having one—and, indeed, when it changes between faiths?

Education: English Baccalaureate

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I suspect that the Minister did not give us all the information. At A-level, although there has been a welcome increase in the number taking maths and science, what he did not tell the House was that the trend for increased numbers in those subjects significantly predates the introduction of the EBacc in 2010, and the pace of increase since then has actually slowed. Between 2002 and 2009, numbers in maths increased by 58%; since the introduction of the EBacc, they have increased by only a further 13%. In physics, between 2006 and 2010, numbers increased by 18%; since then, by 16%. The Minister also did not reveal that English and modern languages are also EBacc subjects, but take-up has fallen since 2010.

Last year, the director-general of the CBI said that,

“we have no debate at all about the 14-18 curriculum—only a debate about exams … we need curriculum reform, not just exam reform”.

Was not he right?

[Lord Nash]

I am delighted that the noble Lord supports our belief in the importance of those subjects.

Vulnerable Children: Kinship Care

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, for calling a debate on this important subject. I am sure that the whole House would agree that kinship carers, many of whom are grandparents, play a pivotal role in caring for children who cannot live with their parents. I welcome the opportunity to answer for the Government in this short debate.

First, I make it clear that the Government do not see a hierarchy between adoption, fostering, residential care or kinship care. We are interested not in favouring one type of care over another, but in what is right for each individual child. Over the last five years we have made significant strides in this regard. I am grateful for the supportive remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, my noble friend Lady Bottomley and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey.

For a majority of children, kinship care will be the first and best option. This is not just because it is what the law requires, but because we know kinship care offers children a vitally important bond of familial love and belonging. That is why we applaud kinship carers who step in, often in a crisis or emergency, to take on the care of a child, as my noble friend Lady Bottomley and the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, said. There will, of course, be many children being looked after by relatives where care proceedings are not an issue but where the primary carers are ill or in distress and cannot easily care for the child. However, the Government recognise that kinship carers take on a role that might otherwise have to be performed by the state. Kinship carers enable vulnerable children and young people to remain with their families, with people they know and trust who can provide the right commitment, security and stability they need to thrive.

We know, through voluntary sector research, that children benefit from living with their extended family and that placement stability is a factor in children’s later achievement. Children in placements with relatives are likely to be more stable than ones in unrelated fostering or residential care. In particular, research indicates that children in these arrangements have fewer emotional and behaviour problems and achieve more academically. As the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, said, an analysis carried out by researchers at the universities of Oxford and Bristol and published only last week found that, among the cohort of looked-after children who were eligible for GCSEs in 2013, children in kinship care had higher GCSE point scores on average than children in other types of care. That is why, through the discretionary housing fund and through funding the advice line provided by the Family Rights Group, we are trying to help kinship carers to safeguard children’s futures by keeping them within the wider family and community.

I welcome the chance, through this debate, to consider the support available to kinship carers and what we are doing to improve this. We know they need better information and support. That is why, during the previous Parliament, we issued family and friends care statutory guidance for local authorities. This makes clear that every council should publish a family and friends care policy, setting out how it will support the needs of children living with kinship carers, whether or not they are looked after. In particular, we made a commitment to increase the number of local authorities that have published their policies for supporting family and friend carers. Following national sector learning days organised by the DfE with local authorities, 83% of English local authorities have now published a policy, compared with 42% in 2012. We intend to write again to councils on this issue.

We recognise that kinship carers are not always accessing the support they should have. Although most authorities have policies in place, we now have to focus on the quality of the support they offer to family and friends carers. To this end, the department has been funding the voluntary sector organisation Grandparents Plus to develop models of best practice in early help and to identify how to overcome the barriers to providing good, well-structured services and early support for kinship carers. Also, we have seen the use of special guardianship orders increase year on year since their inception in 2005. Special guardians are mainly family members, often grandparents, who provide loving, permanent homes for children. This has largely been a positive development and we welcome it. My department has recently completed a review of special guardianship. Evidence from this suggests that special guardianships are, in the main, positive relationships which protect children’s welfare and improve their outcomes into adulthood. We are currently considering the results of the review, including looking at how we might improve appropriate support to special guardians.

We have been working closely with the key voluntary sector organisations, the Family Rights Group and the Kinship Care Alliance. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, I can say that we plan to publish the report of the review before Christmas. The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, referred to the important work done by the Family Rights Group, and we are providing financial support to it for its work with kinship carers through, for instance, its helpline and promoting the use of family group conferences. My department has been funding them for more than seven years. That clearly demonstrates our commitment to the valuable work that they do for kinship carers.

We are currently reviewing our grant payments to voluntary and community-based organisations beyond the end of this financial year in the light of the spending review. We will have more information on this in the new year. In the mean time, I express my thanks to the Family Rights Group for its support to families and emphasise that the Government recognise the important work that it does.

The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, mentioned the concept of a presumption of kinship care. The law already states that children should be looked after by their families wherever possible. She also mentioned mental health. Improving access to CAMHS for vulnerable children is a priority of this Government. We have committed £1.4 billion to improve mental health services for children and young people over the next five years and we are working closely with the DoH and NHS England. The transformation to services we expect is set out in the Future in Mind report, which makes suggestions about what more can be done to improve access, develop better partnership working with parents and carers and provide the right support for children who have suffered trauma.

Many family members make great sacrifices in order to care for children. Local authorities have a legal duty to support children who leave care under other legal orders, and carers should discuss any needs with their local authorities. Children who have left care for a friends and family placement underpinned by a special guardianship or relevant child arrangement order have access to priority school admissions, pupil premium and free early education for two year-olds.

In relation to support for adopters and whether this should be extended, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, the Adoption Support Fund has been set up to address the serious gaps in specialist services for adopted children. It is still in its infancy. If it proves successful, we will look to apply the learning in other areas. We are considering how to improve support for special guardianship as part of the special guardianship review, which, as I said, will be published before Christmas. However, given the wide range of needs and circumstances of family carers, it would be inappropriate as well as complex to provide a national allowance which is both equitable and simple to administer. Children placed in a kinship care arrangement by a local authority are looked-after children, in which case their carer must be approved as a foster carer. In these circumstances, kinship carers must receive the same support as all other foster carers, including financial support. However, the majority of kinship carers will be caring for children who are not looked after. Relatives caring for a child in these circumstances are entitled to support such as child benefit and other benefits available to parents, subject to the usual eligibility criteria. It would be difficult to require local authorities to provide a dedicated support service solely for relative carers, as most of the services required will be the same as those needed by other families.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned that our recent focus had been on adoption; our recent focus has indeed been on improving one area in relation to it. As we have mentioned in other debates, we have done a great deal of work over the last five years on improving the provision for all children in care. The Children and Families Act was a substantial piece of legislation which has substantially improved the fostering arrangements and introduced early placements. Long-term foster care has been recognised as a distinct placement. We have invested £100 million in Pupil Premium Plus. We have virtual school heads and we are currently conducting a review of children’s homes.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

The Minister mentioned other pieces of legislation that have recently gone on to the statute book. I do not expect him to comment specifically on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, but I wonder if he and his department are considering the impact of the decision not to exempt adoptive parents from the two-plus children tax credit limit, because there will undoubtedly be an effect on his department, and indeed on the ability of the number of adopters and kinship carers to be extended in the future.

[Lord Nash]

Noble Lords will be aware that this was discussed last night. I know that my noble friend Lord Freud will have listened carefully to those arguments and will be considering the response. I will discuss it with him.

Finally, I know that the House recognises the crucial role that working grandparents play in providing childcare and supporting working families, as my noble friend Lady Bottomley mentioned. That is why we have announced plans to extend the current system of shared parental pay and leave to cover working grandparents, thereby providing much greater choice for families trying to balance childcare and work. We will bring forward legislation to enable the change to be implemented by 2018.

I am sure the whole House agrees that kinship carers —grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings and friends—fulfil a vital role in the care system and deserve the continued support of the Government. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate.

Adoption

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We believe this may have been misinterpreted by some social workers with, I am sure, the best interests of children in mind. The president of the Family Division has clarified the meaning, particularly in Re B-S and in Re R, where he made it absolutely clear that the law on adoption had not changed. However, it seems that these decisions have sometimes been misinterpreted as raising the legal test for adoption so that adoption should not be pursued unless there is no other option. We are particularly concerned about this.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the greatest shortfall in adoptions is among harder-to-place children. What assurances can he give to people willing to adopt children in that category that they will have full support to enable the adoptions to become permanent?

[Lord Nash]

We have made £30 million available for the central agency fees, specifically for this category of children. The regional adoption agencies, which the noble Lord will know about because we debated them, will give these harder-to-place children immediate access to a larger pool of potential adopters.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 2, 6 and 7, which aim to ensure that voluntary adoption agencies play an important role in the move to, and the future services provided by, regional adoption agencies. Broadly, the amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, and the Government’s intentions are in the same place.

First, I take this opportunity to again set out our commitment to the voluntary adoption agency sector. Its expertise and the services that it provides have already been central to the improvements we have seen in the adoption sector. We absolutely want this to continue. As I have previously told the House, these organisations have a central role to play in regionalisation, as referred to in the letter that my honourable friend the Minister of State for Children and Families recently sent to the chief executives of all VAAs, reiterating our commitment to their involvement.

Voluntary adoption agencies have knowledge and specialist skills that will be crucial in ensuring that the new regional agencies provide the high-quality services we expect to see. That is why all the projects we are funding this year include VAAs. We have also been clear with projects that VAAs should not simply be involved once decisions about the design of the new regional adoption agency are made. We have required all projects to commit to involving voluntary agencies in the early design phase of their work.

Amendment 2 would mean that local authorities and VAAs would jointly decide who should deliver the adoption functions on behalf of the local authorities being directed. I absolutely agree that it is important that VAAs have a role in any conversations about using the power introduced through the Bill, and I assure noble Lords that this will be the case. As I set out in our last debate, where the power is needed, decisions about its use will be made following extensive discussions with all those involved or affected, including VAAs. All relevant agencies will have the chance to comment on the proposal before a final decision is taken. In addition, the Adoption Leadership Board, of which the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies is a key member, will have an important role to play in shaping any decisions about regionalisation.

It would, however, be impractical and unbalanced to give a VAA joint decision-making power with the local authority in relation to the question of which agency should carry out the functions on the authority’s behalf. The local authority has statutory responsibility for delivering its functions. Although it is appropriate for the Secretary of State to make a decision, instead of a local authority, about who should carry out those functions in the limited circumstances where this proves necessary, it is not appropriate to give a VAA the power to make that kind of decision on behalf of a local authority or to veto a local authority’s proposed course of action. Instead, we need to use the mechanisms I outlined above to ensure that the views of VAAs are taken into account when decisions are made about how the power will be used.

Amendment 6 would allow the Bill to be used in relation to particular groups of children. This would enable the legislation to be used to make specific arrangements relating to hard-to-place groups of children. Over the last few years we have made significant strides to improve things for this section of children but there is a lot further to go. I completely agree with the motivation behind this amendment. We know that certain groups of children wait much longer for adoption than others. In 2014-15, hard-to-place children waited, on average, almost seven months longer for adoption than other children.

I am pleased to be able to clarify that subsection (5) of the clause is intended to enable it to be used in exactly this way. Subsection (5) enables a direction to be made in relation to certain categories of children. If, for example, arrangements between a group of local authorities are not working well enough for disabled children, this legislation could be used to direct those authorities to make different arrangements for them. This could, for example, include requiring local authorities to make arrangements for their family-finding functions in relation to those children to be undertaken by a specific, specialist VAA.

Finally, I turn to Amendment 7. When we discussed this issue previously, and again today, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, expressed his concern that VAA adopters would not be used by regional adoption agencies in the future because of financial considerations, and that this would lead to a continuation of the practice of sequential decision-making, which we are all keen to see end. First, I can clarify that VAA adopters do not represent a higher cost than adopters recruited by a local authority. A report by the University of Bristol in 2009 found that interagency fees were perceived as excessive by local authorities, despite the fact that they were found to be lower than what local authorities spend on placing children internally. It is crucial that we address this myth, as it is damaging to VAAs and drives the poor practice of sequential decision-making. I emphasise again that one of the key objectives of the policy is that each regional adoption agency will have a single pool of adopters. This is key to ensuring that swift, non-sequential matching decisions can be made. This is what we all want to see.

The local authorities and VAAs which make up a regional adoption agency will need to come to an agreement about which adopters are part of their central pool, and how the VAAs are remunerated for their investment in recruiting and approving adopters. The department is not prescribing the financial arrangements that will underpin new regional agencies, as we want to be led by what VAAs and local authorities think works. However, we are providing a comprehensive package of support to help local areas work through issues such as these, and come up with models which enable VAAs and local authorities to work together seamlessly and fairly.

Some regional adoption agencies may have the VAA partners doing all the adopter recruitment, given their skill and track record in this area. This would certainly be an interesting model. We will be working with VAAs and local authorities to develop fair and robust financial models which ensure that VAAs are not disadvantaged. However, I note the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about the financial drivers in this. He raised a number of points that we want the sector not to be nervous about. I think that it would be helpful—if the noble Lord is willing to do this—if I organised a meeting with the noble Lord, the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, Minister Timpson and officials, to discuss these issues in greater detail. I am glad to see that the noble Lord is nodding in agreement to that.

Finally, I remind noble Lords that regional adoption agencies will not be, and are not intended to be, entirely self-sufficient. There are, of course, some children for whom even a regional agency’s larger pool of adopters will not suffice, either because the child has particular needs or because the agency does not have an appropriate approved adopter ready at the point the child needs a match. Social workers in regional agencies will be expected to identify these children quickly and act promptly on their behalf by engaging with the national pool of adopters using national matching tools.

In view of my comments, I hope that the noble Lord will feel reassured and will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for that comprehensive reply, much of which I welcome. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, commented on the Yorkshire pilot and the support for voluntary adoption agencies. Given the very sad episode that she related, I could not agree more that permanence has to be the aim when children are being placed. It is not just a question of finding a place fairly quickly but of finding one that both the child and the family have a good chance of making sustainable and, ultimately, permanent. That is what we are looking for. That is why I raised concerns about the Prime Minister’s comment that we should simply look to double the number. It is not a numbers game in that sense. I will raise this issue again in the next group of amendments, but I point out that Clause 13, on the terms of adoption, concerns only 5% of the children in care.

I was pleased to hear the Minister stress what he called the essential role of voluntary adoption agencies—those agencies will also be pleased to hear that—and that he foresees them having a role at the early design phase. That is what they are looking for. I do not doubt the Government’s will in this regard, and nor do the voluntary adoption agencies, but it is a question of how they intend to make it happen. This is a case of walking the walk and talking the talk, and doubts remain about how they will match the intention with the reality. Of course, it is not me, my colleagues or, indeed, the other opposition parties that the Minister needs to reassure on this point, but the CVAA and its member organisations. The CVAA was obviously centrally involved in the Adoption Leadership Board and those discussions can—and I am sure do—take place, but I simply reiterate that that the voluntary adoption agencies need that reassurance.

The Minister said that he agreed with the motivation behind Amendment 6. It is helpful to have his comments on the record that subsection (5)—if I am quoting him correctly—is designed to enable the measure to be used in the way the amendment suggests. That is useful and will be welcomed by organisations such as Barnardo’s, which has real concerns about harder-to-place children and the fact that the numbers are increasing and the resources to tackle that are at least in doubt, although the hope is that additional resources will be made available. The Minister may be able to reveal that in the near future.

I understand what the Minister is saying on the sequential decision-making issue but am slightly puzzled when he says that there is no difference in cost between voluntary adoption agencies and local authorities in this regard. He referred to the Bristol University study. I had not heard of that but, even more surprisingly, it seems to have eluded the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, which is saying there are situations where local authorities may have—I will put it no more damagingly than this—a back-scratching operation whereby there might be a bit of a trade-off, such as the whole interagency fee not being required to be paid in certain situations or an understanding about some future arrangement between the two. Voluntary adoption agencies are effectively excluded from that. The new arrangements will certainly make that more difficult but they may not rule it out and that needs to be taken into account. I will look at the Bristol University survey and see what it says. I very much hope that that is the case but it may not be. Finally, I thank the Minister for the offer of a meeting and I would certainly be pleased to take that up.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, Amendment 33A seeks to ensure that adoption agencies match children with the right parents for them, regardless of which agency recruited and approved those parents. The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, also oppose the inclusion of this adoption clause within the Bill.

Clause 13 introduces powers to direct one or more local authorities in England to have certain adoption functions carried out on their behalf by another adoption agency in order to create regional adoption agencies. Regionalising adoption is necessary if we are to remove delay from the adoption system and ensure all adopted families have access to the support services they need wherever they may live.

We have already made significant improvements to the adoption system, with record numbers of children finding permanent loving homes, but there is still more to do. The system remains highly fragmented, with around 180 different adoption agencies currently recruiting and matching adopters. We do not think such a localised system can deliver the best service to some of our most vulnerable children. This is starkly illustrated by the almost 2,500 children who are still waiting for their forever families despite there being enough approved adopters across the country. Forty-five per cent of these children have been waiting longer than 18 months.

That is why we are proposing the measure in this Bill to increase the scale at which adoption services are delivered. Actively encouraging local authorities to join forces and work together will give regional agencies a greater pool of adopters, enabling them to match children more swiftly and successfully with their new families. It will also ensure vital support services are more widely available as these will be planned and commissioned at a more effective scale.

The noble Lords raised important issues about how decisions on matches between children and prospective adopters are made. The amendment seeks to remove the practice of sequential decision-making, where agencies seek first to place children with adopters they have recruited and approved before looking more widely. I appreciate the intention behind the amendment and can reassure the Committee that one of the primary motivations in introducing regional adoption agencies is to prevent this sequential practice and to encourage agencies, both local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies, to work much more closely together, always putting the interests of the children first.

The Government will also continue to invest in national infrastructure to enable matches to be made between children and adopters from different regions. We will also continue to use data to bear down hard on any delay so that regional adoption agencies are incentivised to find the right family for a child as quickly as possible, regardless of which agency recruited and approved the family in question. The proposals in the amendment would be difficult to make work in practice and could have unintended consequences.

Effective agencies will plan their pipeline of adopters so that they match well with the children coming through the system. This means links can be made early in the process to avoid any delay. This good practice would be difficult to maintain if the agency was discouraged from shaping its own recruitment to match the needs of the children it knows are coming through the system. If we break the link between the children waiting and the adults being recruited, the opportunity for strategic targeting of recruitment will be weakened.

Furthermore, if agencies have to consider all adopters available nationally in every single case, it is likely to increase delays as they try to filter and sort a large number of potential adopters. It could also impact negatively on adopters who are considered and rejected for a large number of potential matches.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I was not arguing that all national agencies should be considered in each case—it is more local to whatever the region happens to be—but the amendment would make sure that nobody was excluded. That may be the intention—I heard what the Minister said and, no doubt, reading that in Hansard tomorrow, a number of agencies will be encouraged—but what about the future? That cannot be guaranteed. The purpose behind putting it into the Bill is to make sure that all local options are considered—not nationally. It need not slow the process down if that is kept within the region in which the agencies operate.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Nash]

The consultation will close on 18 December and we will announce the findings in the spring. Unlike in failing schools—

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

In looking at the document, that is indeed what it says. The Minister, I am sure, would expect the Bill long before then. Would he not?

[Lord Nash]

We will, of course, take into account the responses to the consultation before finalising the regulations.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

If that is the case, if the Bill did not become law, what would apply with regard to “coasting” in the interim?

[Lord Nash]

The definition is in the regulations, not in the Bill. That is what we are talking about in the consultation.

Unlike failing schools, intervention on coasting schools will not be automatic, as I have said. Schools will be given time to demonstrate their capacity to improve sufficiently, either on their own or with assistance. There will already have been a dialogue, likely over quite a long period of time, about a school’s plans to bring about improvements and an opportunity to share views with parents and others. I think that I have finished. In view of what I have said, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

I fully accept that on both sides of the House we want to put the interests of children first. Maybe we have a different approach to doing that. I have already described to the House that once a sponsor has been identified for a failing school, sponsors will be keen to engage with parents about their plans for the school, ensuring that parents understand what will happen next and have the opportunity to share their views on the sponsor’s approach. Widnes Academy is just such an example. The performance of the predecessor maintained school, West Bank Primary School, had declined and in May 2013 it was put into special measures by Ofsted. The Innovation Enterprise Academy, a high-performing local secondary academy, was named as the sponsor for the school, and its first action was to engage with parents, pupils and staff to seek their views about how the new academy should operate.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

But all this is after the event. He says that sponsors will be keen to engage with parents; yes, I would think they should be, but it is then too late for parents who disagreed with the decision in the first place. Why not do it the other way round?

[Lord Nash]

As it said in our manifesto, a school will become an academy in these circumstances.

I go back to the excellent work that the Innovation Enterprise Academy did in the case of West Bank Primary School. It had drop-in sessions at the school for parents and appointed a parent champion to the interim executive board. Parents and pupils were invited to name the new academy and design the new uniform and logo. As a result, parents were much more supportive of the school becoming an academy.

Noble Lords who attended last week’s meeting heard from Martyn Oliver, chief executive of one of our most successfully performing academy trusts, Outwood Grange. He said:

“A prospective trust does not just ride roughshod over a school and its community. Outwood Grange has a clear vision and we are passionate about engaging staff and parents on that vision. The advantage of our model is that alongside the clear vision of the trust, local governing bodies are left with more space to focus on things like engaging with the local community. Ultimately parents are happy, especially when they start to see the dramatic improvements in results for their children”.

Examples such as this show that parents will still have opportunities to have a say in the future of their children’s school if it has failed, even if there is no longer a question of whether or not a failing school should convert.

Looking at coasting schools, we debated at length last week the importance of parents being aware when their child’s school is identified as coasting so that they can then understand and challenge how the governing body and leadership team intend to improve sufficiently. As I said earlier, unlike in failing schools, intervention in coasting schools will not be automatic, and schools will be given time to demonstrate their capacity to improve sufficiently. There will therefore already have been a dialogue, likely to have taken place over a long period of time, about a school’s plans to bring about improvement and an opportunity to share views with RSCs, the community and parents before any decision for the school to become a sponsored academy is made.

As discussed, we already expect that governing bodies in schools identified as coasting would share relevant information with parents, but we have committed to consider whether there is anything further that can be included in the statutory Schools Causing Concern guidance to ensure that such engagement with parents consistently takes place.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, asked about the circumstances in which governing bodies were obliged to notify parents. The legislation in this area is quite complex, depending on the status of the individual school. I am happy to write to her to explain that in some detail.

We feel confident that what parents want most is for their child to attend a school that is performing well. The Bill is all about ensuring that we have robust powers to challenge underperformance wherever it occurs, enabling us to tackle not just failing schools but now also coasting schools.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, again referred to my tendency to talk about only academies and not schools in the maintained sector. There is an excellent example of cross-academy and local authority maintained work in the Birmingham Education Partnership, which the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, chairs. Of course we recognise that there are many excellent schools in the maintained sector, but this Bill is about failing schools. We are not here to talk about excellent maintained schools.

As for the local knowledge that regional schools commissioners have, it is excellent. I look forward to introducing the noble Lord, Lord Watson, as part of his essential due diligence on this Bill, to some of the regional schools commissioners. He can discuss with them how close they are to the coal face. I hope that he will engage with them and be very impressed. As he said, a list of RSC decisions is already published on the GOV.UK website and we are making the decision-making of RHCs and HTBs more transparent. From December, a fuller note of head teacher board meetings will be published to cover all meetings from October this year, and will contain information on the particular criteria that were considered for each decision.

I turn to Amendment 19, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, which relates to where a governing body is proposing that a school should convert to an academy voluntarily where it is a school that is performing well and is not eligible for intervention. The amendment proposes that rather than consulting whoever it deems appropriate, the governing body should specifically be required to consult certain persons, including parents and guardians, teaching and support staff at the school, the local authority and also itself.

The purpose of Clause 8 is to ensure that we have robust powers to take action in schools that are failing, coasting or otherwise underperforming. I want to ensure we remain focused on that very important issue. The Bill does not have any impact on schools that are performing well, but I will gladly address the amendment. As I have set out, that is why Clause 8 removes the requirement for the governing body to consult on whether a school should become an academy. It is crucial to remember that we are talking about removing consultation only in the most serious cases.

The amendment proposes that, rather than the governing body having the flexibility to consult such persons as they think appropriate in cases where they convert voluntarily, it should be specified that the governing body must consult certain people. This very matter was discussed in detail, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said, when the Academies Act 2010 was a Bill under consideration by this House, where we first introduced the prospect of schools that were performing well voluntarily converting to academy status.

Where schools are performing well, we must trust professionals to do their jobs without the unnecessary interference of central government—a fundamental principle underpinning the academies programme—and therefore it is right, as my noble friend Lord Deben said, that we leave it to those professionals to decide exactly who should be consulted on the matter of whether a good school should convert to an academy. In our view, it would not be right for us to dictate an inflexible checklist in legislation, which would not in itself ensure that consultation was any more thorough or meaningful. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, it might essentially consign some people to being second-class consultees. Having said that, we have very clear guidance to prospective converters, available on GOV.UK, setting out expectations that the consultation will include staff members and parents and should also include pupils and the wider community, but anyone with an interest can share their views.

I therefore do not believe that the amendment is necessary. The process for good schools converting to academy status is working well. In practice as opposed to theory, we have had no significant challenge or any real pressure to change the current requirements. Interest in conversion remains high: since 1 September 2014 we have received over 500 applications to become a converter academy. Converter academies continue to perform well: 2015 results show that the key stage 2 results of primary converter academies open for two or more years have improved by four percentage points since opening. Secondary converter academies continue to perform well above average, with 63.3% of pupils achieving five good GCSEs in 2015, 7.2 percentage points above the state-funded average.

While we have made the case for the need for a swifter academisation process in the case of underperforming schools, the Bill does not intend to change anything about the very successful process of converting strong schools. I hope, however, that this debate has clarified just why Clause 8 is so integral to the Bill. We still believe that sponsors and governing bodies should engage with parents about plans affecting their child’s school, and of course they do, but to mandate through legislation such consultation and what form it should take would be disproportionate and would only lead to delays in schools whose performance requires quick redress. I therefore urge noble Lords not to press their amendments and to let Clause 8 stand part of the Bill.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Thursday 5th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to an excellent and very informed debate. At Second Reading, two weeks ago, I commented on the fact that sitting behind me were two Secretaries of State for Education and a former Minister for Schools. Today we have had another former Minister for Schools and a head of Ofsted, so we have had impressive depth in our debate, which has shown in the contributions of those noble Lords and of others who have participated.

The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, made the point that there needs to be a more rounded definition of what should contribute to how a school may be categorised as coasting. I enjoyed the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, who had to leave for very sound reasons. It is not the first time that he has been involved in a debate looking at sport and education. The last Bill in which I was involved was the Charities Bill. He got involved in that, to some effect, to ensure that independent schools are obliged as charities to make available their sporting and arts facilities, as well as their teaching resources, to maintained schools. He was very effective in that, and I am sure that what he says on any aspect of sport, particularly with regard to education, is listened to with great interest. As he was until quite recently the head of the British Olympic Association, I wonder whether he has enough time on his hands now to cast his eyes rather more widely and, perhaps, look at the job that has become available at the head of the international football organisation, FIFA. I would certainly like to see him enter those portals—it would shake up quite a few people and I am sure he would quickly sort it out. But that is something for the future, and I hope that he will participate in another sitting of the Committee.

The more rounded definition is important. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, talked quite tellingly about outcomes. We hear a lot about inputs and outputs, but it is outcomes that really matter, particularly in schools but also in sporting terms. I liked the noble Lord’s mention of the fact that, ultimately, it is not trophies that count but participation levels. That is a point that I subscribe to very strongly. It seems odd that the Minister said, if I quote him correctly, that he was not in favour of broadening the concept of coasting because it would remove certainty and transparency about what constitutes coasting. I do not see why that should be the case. Surely, it is about setting down criteria clearly, and making it known and making it clear that not every school can be measured against the same criteria at the same time. There are some schools that excel in different subjects—that is natural—and I do not see how broadening it necessarily has to weaken any kind of definition.

My noble friend Lady Morgan talked about schools that were floating along despite good SATs and exam results. I am sure that there are quite a few of those, and floating might be a better term than coasting, although there is not that much difference. But the quick progress that schools make is the key here. I do not want anybody to get the impression that Labour is in any way opposed to the concept of coasting: it is not the concept but the term that we have objected to. That may seem perverse in some circles given that I think the Labour Government were the first to use the term, in 2009, although it had a slightly different meaning. It is about the concept rather than the terminology.

A number of noble Lords mentioned resources. The question of whether additional pressure is put on head teachers, as my noble friend Lady Morgan said, is an important one. The vast majority of head teachers work very hard for very long hours, and the inspiration that they provide for their teachers and indeed their pupils is almost always a deciding factor in how successful a school is. However, I have to say that I disagree with my noble friend when she says she does not want to put extra pressure on head teachers, because if a school is in a position where it is not progressing, I would have thought that a head teacher who knows that that is the case would not be satisfied. Otherwise, that should set lights flashing not only at Ofsted but among parents and indeed school governors. So to some extent we have to balance the pressure that we expect head teachers to be under against the point at which that crosses a line and the first thought in the head teacher’s mind is, “I just can’t go on like this; it’s just too much”, whether as a result of pressure from the bureaucracy, as we hear has been an issue, or whatever. If the pressure becomes too much, you can understand that head teachers have a limit. We have to bear that in mind when it comes to using the word coasting because, as I said, it has a pejorative sound to it that does not necessarily suggest to teachers or head teachers that what they have done has been adequately recognised.

I also noted the point from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that coasting is a relative measure. Of course it is, but whether we should cast the net wider in trying to find a proper definition for coasting and a proper way to measure it effectively, while bringing schools into a position where they can improve, is difficult to say at this stage. Perhaps the consultation that is under way will provide some clarity on this. I certainly hope so.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, talked about a cadre of heads, which is interesting. The pressure that I just referred to on some head teachers and indeed on classroom teachers, because of the amount of bureaucracy that they are obliged to deal with these days, is not necessarily something that will encourage people either to go into teaching or to stay there for too long. That is something that we have to look at. Of course it comes back to resources, but it is also an issue that we have to address in terms of the overall performance of the school.

In response to the Minister, I have to start off with two apologies. The first is that if indeed he did write to all Peers on 21 October with the consultation document, I apologise; for some reason it did not reach me. I would not have made that comment if it had. The second is that last Monday I was in transit from Scotland and could not come to the meeting with the regional schools commissioners. I would have liked to have been there because I would have liked to have had a much greater understanding of just what it is that they do, so perhaps we can look at that at some time in the future.

[Lord Nash]

I would be delighted to write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for that. I referred earlier to the fact that he talked about the need for certainty and transparency, which is why he is minded to reject these amendments. At a stage like this, when we are dealing with a dearth of teachers coming into the profession or indeed staying in it, there has to be some feeling that teachers themselves are valued more than they appear to be at the moment. This kind of legislation, in which, as I said at Second Reading, there is no mention of teachers, is not designed to show that they are valued in that way. That is unfortunate.

The Minister talked about the Constitution Committee and his reply to its suggestion that the term coasting was vaguely defined. Will the Minister furnish the Committee with his response to the Constitution Committee? That would be very valuable when it comes to increasing our understanding of how he sees the comments of that important committee.

The main issue here is that schools that for whatever reason are not doing as well as they might should improve. I cannot imagine that anyone does not want to see that happen. I certainly want to see it happen, but it is a question of how we do it. I am a firm believer in carrying people with you, which is why I am opposed to the nature of this and other aspects of the Bill where the Government are determined to have their way without consultation or taking people with them. Saying, “We know best—this is what must happen”, is not a means by which you improve anything. You have to win people to your arguments and make them part of the solution. These particular aspects of the Bill are not designed to do that. We will be looking at other aspects of the Bill later today and indeed on Tuesday, which I look forward to. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, Amendment 4 touches on an issue that I dare say will be explored in greater depth when we come to consider amendments to Clause 8. For the moment, this is an appropriate place to highlight the fact that the Bill removes parental rights in almost every clause. Schools are deeply rooted in their communities. Parents and other stakeholders need to be—and, I would argue, have a fundamental right to be—fully engaged in decisions that affect their children’s education. Fast-tracking the process of academisation and removing any discussion with head teachers, teachers, support staff or parents about any of the classification as coasting or the decision to become an academy are short-sighted moves that are likely to breed mistrust and resentment. I cannot understand why the Minister thinks it appropriate to disfranchise parents in this way.

I was going to put a question directly to the Minister. I do not normally regard it appropriate to indulge in questions of a personal nature, and it is not my habit to do so, but the Minister personalised the debate on Second Reading to some extent when he referred more than once to his involvement with Pimlico School. I have no problem with that; it is perfectly legitimate in illustrating his point, so I trust that he will allow me to do the same on this occasion. My son attends a maintained school in London. Why does the Minister think that I, as a parent, should have absolutely no right to even as much as comment, far less express an opinion, should a proposal be made to classify my son’s school—I trust there is no sign of that happening—as “coasting”, or worse, to take steps to remove the school from maintained status to become an academy? I am more than willing to sit down and enable the Minister to answer that specific question as to why he feels that it is appropriate to disenfranchise me, my wife, and, indeed, millions of parents throughout the country on the rather important question of the type of school that my son should attend.

[Lord Nash]

We had some banter on the floor of the House on the question of democracy. The democracy in this is that it was clearly in our manifesto and in the Queen’s Speech, when a school reaches a certain point it is not in the interests of the pupils in that school. I said in my opening remarks that we must put children first. The democracy is that we have been elected to enact this legislation—but, of course, as we have discussed, coasting will take place over a long period of time. It is not a sudden event. Schools commissioners will give coasting schools time to uncoast, if that is a word. There will be plenty of time for parents to be fully aware and informed of what is going on. I do not think that it is quite the dramatic event that it might sometimes be portrayed as.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I have to say that a number of people I have spoken to were concerned by the Minister’s comment on Second Reading that,

“democracy can be suspended where it is in the interests of the children”.—[Official Report, 20/10/15; col. 634.]

In what other situations can it perhaps be suspended? The fact that it was a general commitment in a manifesto does not mean that parents should be disenfranchised in this way. It is indicative of a frankly rather authoritarian approach that the Government have begun to exhibit in not just this Bill but others currently going through Parliament. That is a worrying trend.

Amendments such as this should not be necessary in an education Bill in an advanced democracy, yet we find that they are. I warrant that the Minister will say again why he is unable to accept it. It is not a good enough reason to give that some people, in exercising their democratic rights, may slow down the process. We are dealing with a very important issue. Yes, of course, the education of children is important, and any day lost cannot be regained, to echo the Minister’s remarks on the previous group of amendments. Yes, that is true, but at the same time wider issues have to be considered on the behalf of children themselves. They cannot speak for themselves. Parents, governors and local authorities have views that should be fully taken into account. As the Bill stands, that will not happen. I believe that the Minister’s argument lacks any form of intellectual rigour because it undermines the hard-won and long-held democratic traditions of this country.

I have very real concerns about the curtailment of rights and responsibilities of governors in respect of the schools for which they have legal responsibility. Consultation with local stakeholders before a school is classified as coasting or becomes an academy is an essential part of community engagement—a concept that I believe the Government should embrace, not repel. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

We may bring this up again in Amendment 16, but I cannot really say more than I have already. I was about to give an example of a very successful academy. I shall move on but will address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about Ofsted results for academies and local authority maintained schools. As I tried to explain at Second Reading in relation to Ofsted ratings, over the last five years—or less than that—we have taken more than 1,300 failing schools off local authorities and turned them into academies. That is clearly why there are many more schools rated as failing among the more limited number of academies than there are among local authority schools, because we have dealt with the matter in that way. I am sure we will return to this, but I reiterate our belief that regional schools commissioners are driving up standards and issuing warning notices much more stringently than many local authorities. Following this discussion, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

The first thing that I have to say to the Minister is that I am amazed at his comment about the Ofsted figures. He says they have turned 1,300 schools that were deemed to be failing in the maintained sector into academies and a large number of them are still failing. That seems to be what he is saying, and, in a sense, that was my point. I do not take any pleasure in saying that, but the figures do not lie.

[Lord Nash]

They are failing because we took them over only very recently. As we have already discussed, you do not turn around a school that has been languishing in failure for years overnight.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I cannot imagine that they would be inspected that soon. If they have been moved into, effectively, special measures—special measures in this case meaning becoming an academy—of course it is going to take time. However, if that is included in the Ofsted figures—I would like to see the figures in more detail—that gives a distorted picture. The idea is that schools improve with academy status, but that is not the pattern to anything like the extent that the Government like to suggest.

In response to the Minister’s comments, I note what he says about 58 formal notices being issued to academies in the past year since the regional schools commissioners took up their posts. My question on how those decisions are arrived at returns to the point I made in introducing this amendment. Where does the local intel come from that informs those kinds of decisions? A lot of local issues are going on that are defined as regional, but regional schools commissioners cannot have their ear close to the ground in the way that a local authority would have.

[Lord Nash]

If the noble Lord had come on Monday and met the regional schools commissioners, he might have been better informed about how they will gather their soft intelligence. I suggest that I set up a meeting with some regional schools commissioners and they can tell him for themselves. Having sat on every single head teacher board while they have deliberated over the last year and heard the level of soft local intelligence that they are receiving, it is absolutely clear that they have their ears extremely close to the ground.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I look forward to getting that briefing when I am able to attend. That would be helpful. But that sort of impression—that the local information required in situations like this is being made available—is not out and about at the moment. Perhaps that will change when we meet the regional schools commissioners.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I support Amendment 14. We recognise that church schools have an integral role in the education system, comprising, as they do, around one-third of all maintained schools.

One of the reasons the church academy model has been a success is because dioceses are at the forefront of decisions concerning these schools, which means that decisions are made at a local level after consultation with communities. But as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, mentioned, the Bill is at risk of cutting across this local decision-making, and this amendment addresses one of the areas where changes are necessary to ensure that adequate safeguards are put in place.

If decisions about the people who are nominated to interim executive boards are not acceptable to a local bishop, they do not carry his support. Therefore, that could undermine the whole raison d’être of the school. It would also, I suggest, undermine the whole raison d’être of an interim executive board, which is to prevent the closure of the school as well as to bring about necessary improvement. The amendment ensures that the appointment of an interim executive board does not undermine the faith character of a school. Surely the Government do not intend to affect faith schools in any way that would be seen as damaging and I hope the Minister will be prepared to recognise this in the Bill.

We believe the amendment provides the safeguards that the churches are seeking, without detracting from the process of school improvement that everyone wants to see.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, Amendment 14, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Sharp, concerns where the Secretary of State makes directions about an interim executive board in respect of a school with a religious character. I believe I will be able to offer considerable reassurance on this point. The churches and other faith bodies are important partners in our education system but sometimes schools with a religious character fail, so we must be able to respond decisively and robustly in such cases.

Proposed new Section 5B(1)(a) and (b) propose a duty for IEBs in schools with a religious designation to ensure that the religious character of that school is preserved and developed. They would also be placed under a duty to ensure that the school is conducted in compliance with the school’s instrument of government and the foundation’s governing documents, including any trust deed.

First, I offer reassurance that while we are committed to tackling failure swiftly and robustly wherever it occurs, we fully recognise the importance of ensuring that the ethos of schools with a religious designation is preserved. I really think that the Catholic Church’s concerns on this are unfounded. I look forward to being able to reassure it on this point. I believe that I have already reassured the Church of England on this point, and I look forward to engaging further with both churches as we develop our memoranda of understanding, which the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, referred to. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that we have no intention of damaging or affecting church schools in any way. To support that commitment, as I said, we have already begun discussions with the churches about reviewing and updating the memoranda of understanding that set out the roles of dioceses and government as they relate to the academy programme, in order to reflect the changes in the Bill and the wider evolving policy landscape.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

The Minister says he has had discussions with the Roman Catholic Church. Does he recognise that it is not satisfied with the outcome of those discussions? Certainly, the Catholic Education Service is making it quite clear that it supports this amendment because it is not satisfied with where the discussions with the Minister have led.

[Lord Nash]

If the noble Lord would let me finish, he would understand that these discussions are at a very early stage. We have just issued a draft of the memoranda of understanding and I believe that the churches are considering the detail. I will refer to this in more detail in a minute.

Under paragraphs 3(3), 10(2) and 13(2) of Schedule 6 to the Education and Inspections Act 2006, IEBs are already required to comply with the same duties that applied to the previous governing body, which includes any duty to comply with a trust deed. Members of a church or faith school’s IEB are therefore already bound to preserve and develop the school’s religious character. This is the case even where the new powers under Clause 5 of the Bill have been used to direct the local authority to appoint specific IEB members. The first part of the amendment is therefore unnecessary because it is simply restating a requirement that already exists in law.

Additionally, we are currently consulting on the revised Schools Causing Concern guidance, which describes how we propose that the new and strengthened powers in the Bill will work in practice. This includes how we propose IEBs will operate in practice, and it sets out the role and duties of an IEB. To avoid any further doubt on the matter raised in this amendment, we have specified in the guidance:

“Any obligations on the governing body in relation to maintaining the religious ethos of a school will also apply to the IEB”.

The second part of the amendment proposes that RSCs, where they are exercising the Clause 5 power to direct the local authority to alter the make-up of an IEB in a church or faith school, would be required to protect the continued involvement of the relevant diocese or faith body. That would mean that they would have to comply with an existing agreement between the local authority and the diocese about the membership and operation of the IEB. Such agreements between local authorities and dioceses about the membership and operation of IEBs are not required by legislation, nor are they legally binding. It would therefore be inappropriate to require RSCs to comply with such agreements through this amendment.

However, we are currently working with the churches to agree a memorandum of understanding. We are fully committed to agreeing these MoUs; it will enable dioceses and RSCs to work together for the benefit of pupils in church schools. In particular, we want to make sure that, as the draft MoU states:

“Where RSCs wish to exercise their power to establish an IEB to a church school, they must consult the diocese”.

We would expect the consultation to provide an opportunity for the diocese to nominate one or more IEB members and for RSCs to accept the diocese’s nomination, providing they agree that the proposed member has the capacity and skills required to fulfil their role on the IEB.

Where any IEB established by either the local authority or the RSC is established in a church school and the RSC has concerns about the capability of an IEB member to fulfil the role, the diocese will be asked if it wishes to nominate a replacement IEB member. Our expectation is that RSCs will accept such a nomination, provided they agree with the diocese’s assessment that the individual has the capacity and skills required to fulfil their role on the IEB.

Furthermore, the purpose of the power in Clause 5 is to enable the RSCs to intervene swiftly where they are not convinced that the IEB constituted by the local authority will secure necessary improvements in the school. Accepting the amendment proposed here would require RSCs to endorse an IEB whether they had confidence in it or not. That would undermine the purpose of the clause and may prevent RSCs from acting decisively to address underperformance.

In view of what I have said about making sure that we preserve the faith status of any church schools—which we are absolutely determined to ensure, and I am sure that we will be able to satisfy the churches on this—I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

Schools: Free Schools

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Monday 26th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I assure the noble Lord that we are very focused on value for money. Those figures are very deceptive because quite a few pupils in alternative provision are on the register of the school, so it appears as though there are fewer pupils in the alternative provision school. Pupils in alternative provision get much higher funding, as they do in pupil referral units run by local authorities, so the figures are quite confusing.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been decided that new free schools will now be inspected in their third year of operation rather than in their second, although it is not clear whether that is due to funding cuts to Ofsted or perhaps, given that around 25% of them are deemed to be underperforming, it is to save the DfE from further embarrassment. Will the Minister explain how this new decision will help to ensure that underperforming free schools are identified and their failings addressed as soon as possible?

[Lord Nash]

This is to bring free schools in line with all other new schools, which are inspected in their third year in the same way. Of course, free schools are monitored closely by education advisers in their early years and, as I already said, by the regional schools commissioners.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Nash

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate this evening; it has been incredibly valuable. It is very clear that the House is immensely passionate and knowledgeable about education and adoption.

I have heard many helpful points this evening—so many that I have, in fact, entirely rewritten my closing speech in an attempt to answer all the points made. I am sure that I will not manage that—I apologise if I do not—and I hope people understand that, as a result of my rewriting, there may be a certain amount of paper shuffling during my closing remarks.

Most of the opening remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, were nothing to do with the Bill so I will not waste noble Lords’ time by rising to all his comments. However, I will refer to a few. He made a point about the Ofsted ratings for academies versus those for local authority schools, and a similar point was made by the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Touhig. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, was very quick to point out that many academies were failing schools that were then taken off local authorities. Academies have a far higher proportion of children receiving free school meals than other schools and, of course, many of these schools are in those sad, sad areas—of which we have too many in this country—of intergenerational unemployment, such as some coastal towns. In such areas, the statistics cannot take account of the drip-drip of negativity that these pupils experience when going home to a household where nobody works and where they know very few people who are in work.

Another point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was the question of teacher recruitment. The Labour Party does like to make a crisis out of the perennial challenge of recruiting teachers. The reality is that the teacher vacancy rate has remained stable at about 1% or below for the past 15 years and, on several occasions during the last Labour Government, was higher than it is now. However, I will write to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about our teacher recruitment strategy.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, had certain concerns about voluntary adoption agencies. Personally, I think the fact that 140 of 152 local authorities have bid for the regional support fund shows the enthusiasm with which local authorities are embracing this approach.

I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, that the interests of all children will be critical to what lies behind the regional adoption agencies. Concerning her more general remarks about children in care, I reply that under the last Parliament we took many steps to improve the support for looked-after children. This included £99 million in funding through the Pupil Premium Plus grant, a new duty on local authorities to appoint a virtual school head, strengthening quality standards for residential settings and launching a cross-government strategy for care leavers. At the moment, we are looking at how we might build on this and do more to support care leavers, particularly those not in education.

The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, spoke about the democratic deficit caused by removing consultation when a school becomes an academy. What we on this side of the House are concerned about is the education deficit that takes place in failing schools by the frequent exploitation of the democratic process and the fact that it takes, on average, a year for a failing school to become a sponsored academy. This is often because of roadblocks put in the way by dogmatic influences and people putting the interests of adults ahead of those of children.

We heard from my noble friend Lord Harris, whose academy group is one of our top-performing sponsors. I pay tribute to the remarkable achievements of his group and the thousands of children’s lives that he has improved as a result. When the Harris Federation took over the failing school Downhills, opponents tried to block the change through judicial reviews and various other tactics—they even made a film about their opposition. However, their attempts failed. Members of the Harris Federation did not let this deter them. This was not a popularity contest but something that was absolutely needed to help the children of Downhills.

In my experience, it took almost two years for the Pimlico Academy to open as a sponsored academy from the point at which it was judged to have special measures. The transformation was delayed by various objectors. People resorted to tactics that included consistently lying about us in the press, lying to pupils about our plans, breaking into my office, finding someone who had no real interest in the project but who qualified for legal aid to front up a judicial review application all the way to the Court of Appeal—all the applications along the way were thrown out fairly quickly by judges at huge cost to the public purse—and even resorting to having Pimlico pupils lying in coffins on the pavement so that my wife and I had to step over them on the way to a meeting. This was all done to further the interests of adults and for petty dogmatic principles rather than worrying about the education of pupils. These delays cost hundreds of children lost educational opportunities, yet when after just two years, which was a record time, the school was transformed from special measures to outstanding, many of the same people asked to become the friends of Pimlico Academy. Also, while many of the original teachers had left, many others stayed. Others who had objected to the original proposals were lifted by the oxygen of success and have now transformed their own performance.

I am big enough and ugly enough to put up with the kind of nonsense we experienced at Pimlico, but I do not see why other sponsors should. More importantly, as the Secretary of State for Education has said on a number of occasions, a day spent in a special measures school is a day too long for the pupils in that school. Parents do not want their children in a failing school, and that is why we are bringing in proposals to speed up the process by which failing schools become sponsored academies.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, it is all very well for the Minister to blow his own trumpet, and I am glad that he has had success in Pimlico. But he is using that and other arguments to say that, if democracy is too much of an inconvenience, we can just set it aside. Is that what this country is really about?

[Lord Nash]

Consistent with our manifesto pledge and the Queen’s Speech, we are bringing forward proposals in this Bill, if it is passed, whereby in certain circumstances a school will become an academy, and we feel that there should be no delays in that. All too frequently there are delays.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

Yes—

[Lord Nash]

Yes to what?

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

So democracy can be suspended when it is an inconvenience.

[Lord Nash]

No, democracy can be suspended where it is in the interests of the children. Rather than us proposing a democratic deficit, we are seeking to stop the abuse of the democratic process that takes place by vested interests. In addition to Downhills and Pimlico causing vast loss of educational opportunities, delays happened in the cases of The Warren, Camden Juniors, Twydall Primary, Roke, Bydales, Eton Porny, Manor Primary and many, many others.

The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, expressed their views about the inspection of academy chains. I agree that it is critical that multi-academy trusts are held to account for their performance. At his most recent appearance before the Education Select Committee, the Chief Inspector of Education, Sir Michael Wilshaw, was clear that the current arrangements, whereby Ofsted can inspect batches of schools within an academy trust at the same time, are appropriate. The Government do not consider that Ofsted should have an additional role in judging a trust’s central functions or operating model. As part of its assurance role, the Education Funding Agency already assesses the financial and governance arrangements of academy trusts to ensure that they are operating in line with the Academies Financial Handbook and the terms of their funding agreement. A point was made about parents. Through our free schools programme, parents are driving this and free schools are more accountable to parents than any other kind of school. Parents have often fought for the development of a school of a certain type or with a certain ethos.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, who cut swiftly to the chase in his speech. I was impressed with his concept of pace and impatience because it is the feeling of pace and impatience which characterises our most successful sponsors. Regional schools commissioners will identify as soon as possible those schools which are coasting, seeking to bring about change for the better as quickly as possible. The five years he referred to of course include two years of history which have already passed, and sadly we cannot put the clock back. As far as his comments about IT are concerned, I wholly agree with the importance of this area in helping to assess the progress and attainment of pupils, and in identifying those pupils who are not being properly served.

I pay particular tribute to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for his work in the Diocese of Ely Multi-Academy Trust; he knows that I share his interest in the importance of character development. I also share his concerns about consistency of practice, and I hope that the Schools Causing Concern guidance will provide considerable clarity on this. I also look forward to working with him on refreshing the memorandum of understanding that we have with church schools. We had a helpful meeting this morning and I will work with him to ensure that we achieve the consistency that he desires. The right reverend Prelate succinctly summarised the importance of school-to-school support, as did the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes.

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, made an extremely eloquent maiden speech and I welcome him to your Lordships’ House. I had the very great pleasure of meeting him for the first time this morning and sharing some thoughts. I am delighted that he has become the chair of the David Ross Education Trust, which sponsors more than 30 academies. I am sure that the trust will benefit greatly from his involvement.

During the last Parliament we created hundreds of local multi-academy trusts based around one local outstanding school and we focused national chains on local hubs. It is acknowledged that the best way to improve failing schools is through local school-to-school support. The Government believe that the evidence is clear that the best way to provide such support—the most rigorous, the most permanent, the most efficient and the most accountable support—is through a multi-academy trust. People who run multi-academy trusts, some of whom were very against academies in the first place, talk glowingly about their advantages: a sense of being in control of their own destiny; the ability to retain staff they know they would have lost if they were running only one school; the career development opportunities through the ability to move staff around schools; the enhanced CPD opportunities; the ability to finance far higher-quality people; the economies of scale achieved through purchasing efficiencies, standardisation of assessment, and many more.

We now have enough multi-academy trusts performing really well to know that there is a gold standard out there to which all can aspire. This has been recognised by many commentators, including the Sutton Trust. People such as Outwood Grange, REAch2, Harris, the Inspiration Trust and smaller groups such as WISE and Tudhoe are setting the bar really high. With strong oversight from the RSCs, we will ensure that poor performing groups up their game, and the RSCs are holding many events where strongly performing groups such as Outwood Grange share their experiences and methodology. Outwood Grange’s record is superb. It has been holding a series of roadshows around the country and it has put its entire school improvement methodology on to a memory stick. We want to do far more of this kind of development. The Sutton Trust has said that the best academy chains are outperforming and some are substantially outperforming. The job of the regional schools commissioners and my job is to spread good practice and intervene in failure so that all groups raise their game towards the standards of the very good, and this Bill is about helping them to do that.

I was very interested to hear that my noble friend Lady Eaton is a trustee of the Sir Simon Milton Foundation because Sir Simon was a truly great man whose ambitions for the academy programme and for the children of Westminster were enormous. He was also extremely courageous. I am grateful for her words of support in relation to our adoption proposals because I know that she is extremely experienced in that field.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, spoke eloquently on a number of points. I am always very interested to hear her remarks because she is always worth listening to. We had many constructive discussions during the passage of the Children and Families Act 2014, and this is our first discussion since then. I have to say that I have missed her. I agree entirely that structure is not the be-all and end-all. What really matters is what is taught in the classroom and how. She also talked about the advantages of collaboration. We believe that the freedoms provided by academy status in a MAT structure as I have just outlined are the best way to ensure such collaboration. Why do we need a power to issue our own warning notices when we can direct local authorities to do so? Unless a school is in category 4, it is because the regime that follows the warning notice is entirely at the discretion of the local authority. As Ofsted has reported, there are many examples where local authorities’ use of warning notices has been found wanting.

On the comments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Morris, about the only route out of failure being academies, I must respond by saying no. As I said in my opening remarks, we may well encourage many schools to stop coasting by using NLEs and seeking support from other schools which may not be academies, and as far as devolution is concerned, we see the regional schools commissioners and their elected head teacher boards as giving control over the school system to school leaders. On co-operating with other areas of the school system, we have a very good model in Birmingham through the Birmingham Education Partnership under Sir Mike Tomlinson, which is across all sectors.

The noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, talked about the capacity of regional schools commissioners. I can assure her that we will be very focused on the capacity that they have and on the capacity of sponsors. The noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Northbourne, talked about the coasting definition. On 30 June, the Government published illustrative regulations setting out how we propose to define coasting. This sets out the database definition which will be used to identify coasting schools. As I have said previously, this is focused particularly on secondaries and will be increasingly focused on Progress 8. I was very pleased to hear the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, about that, as we move away from what Tristram Hunt called the “great crime” of the C/D borderline. Shortly, we will launch a consultation on this definition and the Schools Causing Concern guidance, setting out how we propose that RSCs will tackle failing coasting schools. I reassure the House that this document and the consultation will be available for Peers to scrutinise during Committee stage.

This Bill is about schools causing concern but a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Morris, raised points about the performance of converter academies; that is, schools which are approved to become academies without a sponsor. The latest data from Ofsted show that almost 90% of converter academies are good or outstanding, which is a greater percentage than local authority maintained schools. The latest primary and secondary school results also show that the performance of converter academies is continuing to rise. In particular, secondary converter academies have improved their performance by double the rate seen in maintained schools.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, talked about teacher retention. Almost 90% of teachers continue in the profession following their first year of teaching. This rate has remained stable since 2006. Recent reports suggesting a 40% leave ratio are completely inaccurate. Almost 75% of new teachers are still in the profession after five years. More than half of teachers who qualified in 1996 were still teaching 18 years later. The proportion of the teacher workforce that leaves each year has remained low over recent years. Just 10% of those teaching in 2013 were no longer in the workforce in 2014. Teacher retention has remained stable over time with very little variation over 10 years. I am delighted to arrange for the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, to visit a sponsored academy soon.

As regards governing bodies and parents, all academies and multi-academy trust boards must have two parents on them. My noble friend Lady Perry talked about leadership, which is incredibly important. We have developed the future leaders MAT CEO course, which the department sponsored across 24 CEOs. This is being rolled out with 30 more going on the course this month and 30 next month. I am delighted that the Church of England is developing its own leadership development programme, which is so important.

The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, talked about mental health support for children in care. All children and young people deserve to grow up feeling safe and supported, and the Government are committed to improving the mental health of the most vulnerable. I assure noble Lords that the Government are determined to deliver the transformation we need to see if we are genuinely to improve children’s mental health. We are working across government departments to respond to the challenges set out in the Future in Mind report. The Department of Health has identified £1.25 billion to improve mental health services for children, young people and new mothers over the next five years.

It is vital that we provide the best possible start in life for every child. That is why we are here today and why we need these reforms. The measures in this Bill are essential to ensuring high standards of education across the country and permanent loving homes for some of our most vulnerable children. I know that Members of this House have considerable expertise and have passionate views on how we should tackle these issues, which has been shown by tonight’s debate. I also know we agree on the objective that lies at the heart of the Bill and that every Member of this House has high expectations for our children.

The Bill demonstrates the Government’s commitment to real social justice and making a real difference to giving children the chance to aim for a brighter future. We have heard so many noble Lords speaking passionately about their own journey. This is an ambition which I am sure is shared by all who are here tonight. I look forward to debating this Bill further and I hope that all noble Lords who are interested will accept my invitation, which I will issue shortly, to attend a meeting on 2 November at 3 pm to meet with some regional schools commissioners and chief executives of academy trusts. Some noble Lords in particular might find that helpful.

I commend this Bill and I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.