Independent Schools: Tax Changes

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

No, because I am proud that this Government are prioritising investment in the 93% of our children who attend state schools. On the point about the legal action that the noble Lord started his question with, that was a legal case won by the Government. It was found that the Government had not, as was asserted during the debates on this, acted in contradiction to human rights legislation.

On the final point about the numbers, the Government always said that they thought there would be an increase in the numbers of children potentially coming into state schools. That has been around 3,000, which is exactly in keeping with what the Government said at the time of introducing this legislation.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the last Tory Government cut school budgets for 93% of pupils, let our schools run down and end up in a bad state of repair and refused to pay our teachers a proper wage to work in our schools, and yet they have the cheek to worry about a few people in private schools. Does the Minister agree?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, this Government worry about people in all schools. My noble friend is right that as a Government we have a job to put right some of the underinvestment of the last Conservative Government and to deliver our pledge to ensure that there are 6,500 new specialist teachers in secondary and special schools. That is what we are focused on, and that is what we will be investing in.

Primary Schools: Swimming Lessons

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness identifies probably one of the many barriers that prevent parents and their children being able to swim if they are living in poverty. I am not aware of whether expecting branded swimming items is a barrier to children being able to swim, but if it is that is clearly wrong. I suspect that would be covered by the provisions in the Bill that we will receive in the near future to ensure that school uniform is not a barrier to children being able to learn, in this case, a very important skill.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, as we have heard, under the last Tory Government a lot of swimming baths were closed. The failure of that Government is a fact that they do not like to be reminded of. Is it not the case that deprived areas had their pools closed? Should we not look again at whether we should provide new swimming pools in the most deprived parts of Britain?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right. I have already identified the decrease in the number of public pools, as others have. He also makes an important point about ensuring that there is access to public leisure facilities on a fair basis. The responsibility for that lies at the local authority level. We are continuing to encourage local authorities to invest in leisure facilities, notwithstanding the considerable pressures on their funding that they have faced over recent years.

School Funding: Special Educational Needs

Lord Watts Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am delighted to join my noble friend in celebrating that success. That matter will be for individual parents in independent schools to work through. Independent schools have focused very much on supporting children and their parents where bursaries are required, but that is up to the parents and those schools.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government always ignore the fact that they have had 14 years of cuts before they then make an announcement of some extra funding—which normally works out to about £3.50 per school. When will the Minister take a realistic view that schools need massive improvements and massive increases in their budgets if they are to deliver a good service?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am not sure where £60.7 billion relates to £3.50, as they are quite a way apart. I point the noble Lord to where our children are in the international league tables and the improvements we have made. He can roll his eyes, but facts are facts.

Schools and Colleges: Special Educational Needs

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the noble Baroness knows, the Government have an ambitious plan in terms of the creation and development of mental health support teams in schools. We estimate that, from April 2024, those support teams will cover 4.2 million children and young people, and we think that will rise to about half of all children and young people by spring next year. The challenge, which the noble Baroness will recognise, is to make sure that the demand for mental health practitioners is balanced between the health service, schools and other parts of the economy.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, children with special needs are expelled from popular schools and transferred to less performing schools. What will the Minister do to make sure that that situation is addressed so that schools are not allowed to dump their children on another school?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We have to be very careful about talking about dumping children. I have not met a school yet that behaves like that. I want to pick up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. Some of the best practice I have seen is where schools are establishing small units within the school campus for children with the most disruptive behaviour and only the best teachers in the school are allowed to teach in that unit, thereby sending a strong message about how they value those children.

Free Childcare Scheme

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We are aware of the concerns to which my noble friend refers. The House knows that we are doing a great deal to create a fairer special needs system. One of the key things here is the phased implementation of the expansion to the 30-hours offer, to make sure that we develop and continue to monitor the capacity for children with special educational needs.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, why does it take a crisis before the Government act? Is there no forward planning in her department to identify need and do something before it becomes a crisis?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Some people might recognise that the Government are making a very substantial investment in this area. We have already spent more than £20 billion over the past five years to support families with the cost of childcare, and this next step will be another major one.

Gender Pay Gap

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As I have already said, the Government are working on a number of different aspects of this. Obviously, a critical part in relation to maternity leave—and the impact that, as the noble Lord rightly says, one can see on the gender pay gap —is our huge commitment to expanding the childcare offer, so that no women will be unable to return to work for lack of childcare support.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have just produced a list of employers that paid below the minimum wage, in some cases for many years. Does this not show that we need stronger enforcement powers and more people checking that employers are doing their duty and paying their workers correctly?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

If I have understood correctly—forgive me if I have not—the noble Lord is potentially conflating different things. Obviously, the minimum wage is a legal requirement, and the equal pay legislation addresses the same in relation to gender and other aspects. What we are seeking to do, through enabling activities around flexible working, for example, but also maximising transparency and celebrating the success of employers that have a truly diverse workforce, is to use multiple levers to get to the same goal.

Children’s Care Homes: Private Equity

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend pointed to a more fundamental question, namely: why have local authorities and charities, which used to provide these services, stepped back in a world where the private sector can make a decent return on them?

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, let me be clear: it seems from the Minister’s answers that the Government are quite happy for these companies to rip off the taxpayer. When will they do something about the taxpayer being ripped off by companies that are adding to debt and making huge profits?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am not aware of the specific cases the noble Lord referred to, and it is dangerous to generalise in this area. We have seen disgraceful behaviour by some providers—noble Lords will remember the case of the Hesley homes where unforgivable child abuse went on—but that is not what we are seeing across the whole sector. What we need is to move those children who do not need to be in children’s homes out of them and into foster care or kinship care—and that is where we are focusing.

Unregistered Schools

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We are obviously extremely concerned on their behalf. Children who receive the kind of exclusive religious education that the noble Baroness refers to often receive the rest of their education at home—not exclusively but frequently. The noble Baroness will be aware that we are tightening up and reinvigorating our efforts in relation to elective home education registers so that every local authority can track whether every child is getting a suitable and safe education.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the first job of the state is to protect its citizens and it is quite clear in this area that the Government have failed to protect those children. Is it not about time that they stopped talking and started doing?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

It is probably not a good use of the House’s time for me to repeat what the Government are already doing, but I reiterate that we are working closely with local authorities, Ofsted and parents to make sure that we can get the best possible response. When legislative time allows, we will bring forward legislation in this area.

School Buildings: Risk of Collapsing

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her question; I hope I heard it okay. The department works very closely with responsible bodies—academy trusts and local authorities—in managing the school estate. We undertook the first comprehensive survey—the condition data collection survey, known as CDC1—which gave us a picture of the state of every building. I reassure the House that 94% of buildings were found to be in a good condition. We are currently running the follow-up survey, which will allow us to compare the two results and target our condition funding further. We work very closely with schools on advice. The department has now launched a scheme of capital advisers, who go out to schools and support them, and we will be scaling that up in the current year.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister seems to believe that more research needs to be done in this area, but we have heard that there are schools falling apart in the UK now. Will the Government accept personal responsibility for any schools that cause problems and endanger children and staff?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am not sure but I think the noble Lord used the word “complacency”. We are far from complacent. There are elements of the school estate that require further exploration. For example, the CDC survey was not a structural one, so where it identifies issues the responsible body, where appropriate, is beholden to carry out a structural survey. The department is absolutely being proactive and supportive. I meet with trusts and local authorities very regularly regarding these issues. The tone of those meetings is always one of collaboration and working together to address the issues they identify.

Children’s Private Information: Data Protection Law

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I tried to be clear that the department has made very significant changes in its approach to data protection and privacy in relation to our internal systems and processes, to our communication with data subjects about their privacy, and to the culture of the department and the training and support that we put in place for colleagues.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

Are the people who oversee this new model the same as those who oversaw the previous one? Where is the accountability in the system? What happened to those people, who should have known better and should not have let this happen?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My understanding is that we relied on an existing advisory service at the time of the data breach and that those functions have now been brought in house. We have a dedicated data protection officer, who sets policy for the whole department.