Children’s Social Care Implementation Strategy (Public Services Committee Report)

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, for her excellent introduction and the brilliant way in which she chairs the committee. I also thank her predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, for her continued commitment to child social care. It is very rewarding to see.

Oddly for me, I also thank the Government for recognising that there is a crisis and for their willingness to take on board the urgency of the findings of the plethora of challenges outlined in Josh MacAlister’s independent review. Unfortunately, despite some positive recommendations, the Government’s response is neither radical, urgent or financially credible considering the scale of the challenge. Far too many calls for further evidence is incredibly disappointing.

The challenge was illustrated to me when the committee had the opportunity and privilege to meet a number of young people with direct experience of the current social care system. One highly articulate young woman, now aged 20, had, together with her twin sister and younger sibling, been placed in care at the age of 11. Her grandmother had previously cared for the children but was deemed unsuitable due to financial reasons—an issue for kinship carers that we highlighted in our report. After a year, the children were split up. The youngest child stayed, but the twins were put into residential care, only to be moved through four different foster homes before eventually being separated. “Stable homes built on love” is a distant dream.

On her journey, our witness was moved without explanation from inner London to a rural setting, where she felt totally out of place and was bullied. She regularly asked social workers to move her back to London and an urban environment, which did not happen until post-16, when she was moved to a hostel in London. To the committee’s amazement, she was not bitter. She recognised the challenges of the care system, but urged the committee to plead with the Government for the voices of children to be heard and for changes to be explained by those making decisions before the changes actually happened.

She commented to the committee:

“I am not a number, I am a person … we are all humans”,


as she reflected on the inability of the system to act as corporate parents and the lack of time that social workers have to work with individual children. What was so rewarding for me was that, despite the frequent changes, she had really enjoyed her schooling, had now secured a care leavers’ internship and was able to articulate her concerns just a few weeks ago on an ITV programme.

I have spent most of my adult life, 36 years, working in the most deprived areas of Leeds and Cleveland as a youth worker, teacher and head, and I know the price that society pays for its lack of investment in our most at-risk young people. More than half of children in care have a criminal record by the age of 24—four times more than those not in care—with 18% receiving a custodial sentence before they are 16. That is a staggering set of statistics. Only one in 50 of these children gained five GCSEs, and 92% had special education needs and disabilities.

It is so important to recognise that, to children in care, education is a vital key to help solve so many problems. But, as the recent findings of Action for Children reported, between 2019 and 2021 more than half of children with social care referrals failed either English or maths at GCSE. Trying to separate school from social care, when a third of a child’s early life is spent in education, is a gross mistake. They are part of the same. It is this need to fundamentally change how we approach the education and support of children in care that makes me urge the Government to think again about their funding proposals.

It is difficult to know what to think when an inquiry which looked at the whole detail looks for £2.6 billion, and we end up with £200 million to be spent over two years. It is really quite insulting to all the people who made such a commitment not only to our inquiry but constantly to the issue of trying to make a better life for children.

My worry with regard to this report, which I think has been well received not simply by the Government but by all the organisations involved in child social care, is that next year when we have a general election and things get knocked even further back, there will be yet another set of reports and ideas. What we will see is not 2026, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, indicated, but 2036 coming without a great deal of change. This is far too important for party-political diversity. It is such an important issue and we all, whatever our backgrounds and political requirements, must get behind this report and seek from the Government the sort of commitment they have. I plead with the Minister to ask young people what they think when they are in care, because that is one of the key principles that should be added to the six principles that they have quite rightly put in their answers.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I think that my noble friend is making an assumption that 20% represents bronze. The gold, silver and bronze system is a good thing and we should look at it positively. For example, if a new provider opens its doors, as it were, after three years and is already at the bronze level, with the opportunity to go up to silver and gold, surely that has to be a positive thing, and it is also something that students from here and abroad can look at.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

Does the Minister accept that he is missing one of the key points of this debate? A university is made up of a whole host of different departments that contribute to teaching. There may be one lecturer who is excellent but in the next department there may be a lecturer who is pretty poor. You cannot classify all the staff in an institution simply on the basis of a gold, silver or bronze rating. Students apply for courses within those institutions and, unless a course has some badge of honour in terms of its teaching, we will be missing the point altogether. This is about people; it is not simply about institutions.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I respect the noble Lord’s experience. We have had discussions outside the Chamber about the data aspect and I will be coming on to speak about the data and about how the assessments are made. I would argue that this is not just looking at the high levels—the gold, silver and bronze—

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

100A: After Clause 37, in subsection (1)(c), leave out “may” and insert “must”

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I thank the Minister for Amendment 100. We had a quick gloss over this the other day, and I sought a device to bring Amendment 100 back because in our heady and heavy discussions, sometimes we have lost sight of the other side of higher education and, in particular, of students who are working part-time and the significant number of students who drop out of higher education. Every year, approximately 8% of students drop out of their courses; for some courses the figure is as high as 30%. I am doing some work on nursing degrees, and research is showing that as many as 35% of students start a degree but do not finish it. That is a huge waste of talent. Some of those people—albeit very few of them—come back to complete their degrees, but the whole system in the UK is very much geared against that. If you fail, you fail: that is the maxim throughout our education system. It applies at GCSE and A-levels and certainly at university.

The Government are to be hugely congratulated on Amendment 100 which, for the very first time, accepts that this is a real issue. One of the problems is that if students are on the wrong course, how do they transfer to another one, particularly one at another university? Students often enter vocational degrees later in life, and there are changes in their lives. A student marries, or their partner needs to move for their career, so the student needs to go to another institution to complete their studies, and there is a host of problems in doing that. Very few institutions have a robust, well-advertised, student-friendly system whereby students can leave and come back, or leave and go to another university.

The trouble is that we have a higher education system that prizes its autonomy above everything else. It is one of the great strengths of our education system. In the short time I have been in your Lordships’ House and the time I was in the other place, I have seen nothing excite people more, be they MPs or Peers, than attacks on the higher education system. Everyone comes out, as your Lordships have seen this afternoon.

I want to make sure that we do something about it when students, for whatever reason—sometimes it is for personal reasons; sometimes it is because they are just not coping with the course—drop out of the system. The first step is to make sure you have a robust system whereby students know they can transfer somewhere else if they are not succeeding, or if they drop out, they can either return or transfer somewhere else if they need to. Amendment 100 deals with a lot of those issues, but the Government have slightly let us down here—I say “slightly” because I very much support what they are trying to do. New subsection (1)(a) says that the Office for Students “must monitor the availability”, while new subsection (1)(b) says that it,

“must include in its annual report a summary of conclusions drawn … for the financial year”.

But when it comes to the vital part—ensuring that universities have robust systems in place to enable students to arrange transfers—the amendment brings in the word “may”. New subsection (1)(c) says that the OfS,

“may facilitate, encourage, or promote awareness”.

Your Lordships know full well what “may” means—it basically means you do not have to do it. That is the problem with this.

The previous Labour Government, in 2009, brought in some similar regulations, which were advisory. The current Government, to their credit, did a piece of research in summer last year on what was happening with student transfer in various universities. I read the results, which were published in December, and they were hugely disappointing. It is not this Government’s fault, the previous Government’s fault or the previous Labour Government’s fault. The reality is that this is not taken seriously by most universities. I have the most enormous regard for the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, but we had a slight spat in Committee when I said that the Russell group universities were the worst offenders. I stick by that, although in actual fact I do not know. She took me to task, but the reality is that she does not know either, as they do not publish anything to back up the case.

Through Amendment 100A, I want to change the word “may” to “must”, so that the Office for Students must facilitate, must encourage and must promote awareness of the provision of arrangements. Universities would then have to have a system, because that system would be reported back to the OfS and would appear in the annual report. It is a very simple change. I am sure that the Minister, in his wisdom and in his love and affection for all that is happening in the higher education system, will agree to this very small amendment, which would make a huge difference to the very significant number of students who, for whatever reason, drop out. We want them back.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment for all the good reasons that he has given. In addition, given that the Government are making provision for some providers to fail, it is important that measures are in place for students to have records of the credits they have accumulated from their studies, so that they are best placed to find an alternative provider without going back to the start and can get credit for partial awards they have achieved. I know that even in the days of the polytechnics, with their single validator, the CNAA, it was not always straightforward for students to take their credits from one polytechnic to the other; with different and varied providers, it will be even less straightforward. It is a time-consuming process, as providers need to be able to match the credits from an organisation to bring them across into their own systems. But it is still well worth doing, and the Bill could help by making it mandatory for institutions to set up systems to,

“facilitate, encourage, or promote awareness of … arrangements … for student transfers”.

Changing this one word, “may” to “must”, should enable that to happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, the Government take the views of the noble Lord, Lord Willis, on student transfer very seriously, and I have appreciated the short discussions I have had with him. This is why, as we discussed on Monday, we have proposed Amendments 100, 139 and 141. I appreciate the warm words expressed on our amendments by the noble Lord, albeit they were perhaps rather lukewarm on Amendment 100.

The new clause will place a duty on the OfS to monitor arrangements put in place by registered higher education providers to enable students to transfer within or between providers and monitor the take-up of those arrangements. Furthermore, the OfS will have a duty to report annually on its findings. As my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay said, the government amendment will also enable the OfS to facilitate, encourage or promote awareness of arrangements for student transfer, so that the OfS can help ensure students understand the options for changing course or institution and so that best practice is promoted among higher education providers.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for his Amendment 100A, which reflects the importance he attaches to this issue. It is well intentioned, and we have genuinely considered it. However, given the Government’s assessment of the evidence of barriers to student transfer, it is not desirable to adopt the amendment, some of the reasons for which were put rather eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. Such an approach would reduce the flexibility available to the OfS as it develops its understanding, particularly through its monitoring, and could be overprescriptive, burdensome and interfere with institutions’ autonomy.

The government amendment will achieve our shared aims without interfering with or overly mandating how the OfS responds to its findings on student transfer, so, with respect, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken in this brief debate. It was certainly worth raising the issue. In particular, I thank my noble friend Lady Garden for her support. I never like to disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, because he is usually right on this matter. The reason I wanted a “must” is that otherwise, this issue will go into the long grass. I hope I am wrong and that the Office for Students, when it reports, will be able to keep a close eye on what is happening. That will be the real test.

I listened with interest to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. Again, I was disappointed, because I value her comments enormously. It saddens me that we are unable in this country to adopt what we see working incredibly well in the States, particularly with community colleges, where with sufficient credits students can move to Ivy League universities where they show real talent. We seem to have a silo-based higher education system, and this was an attempt to move away from that and ensure that all learning gained in higher education systems can be accredited and used as a credit for further learning. With those few comments, I thank the House for listening, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 100A (to Amendment 100) withdrawn.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 6th March 2017 Lords Chamber

I know from previous exchanges in our debates that the Government are somewhat reluctant to go down the road of a criterion or classification that might depend on self-description. That could apply to disability. I would prefer that it was not included but age is clearly objective. There cannot be any question of self-description in that—or one would hope not. Given the importance of encouraging people to pursue courses in later life, this point is important. I know that the Open University—I declare an interest as an honorary graduate—has sent round a briefing that emphasises the importance of having reference to age. I very much hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to that and, if possible, come back with an amendment at Third Reading if he thinks my amendment goes too far.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

My Lords, briefly, I support Amendment 17 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. This is an issue that will be referred to in later amendments in the passage of the Bill. Like the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I am particularly concerned about the mining of data which are available through all organisations that support students. That refers not only to organisations such as HESA but will obviously refer to the Office for Students in the future and to the universities themselves. It seems quite remarkable that we can ask for information.

I shall give the Minister and the House a clear example. You could ask a university to supply you with the number of students who have left a particular course over a three-year period. You could be told that you can have that information but it has a confidentiality clause linked to it, so you cannot publish or use the material without the express permission of the university or the individuals concerned. Most students are not interested in the individuals concerned; if they apply for a course in a subject or vocational area, they are interested in finding out how many people left during the course, how many qualified at the end of it and how many got jobs. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and subsequent amendments tabled on Report would make that information available not only to students but to people who want to advise students on where to go for their degree courses.

It is essential that we stop this nonsense of universities being able to protect information purely on the basis of confidentiality when there is nothing confidential in it at all. I can understand universities being asked not to release the names of individual students who have failed to complete, but this is a totally different issue of putting information in the public domain. It is high time that universities were held to account for making vital information available to students, and indeed to employers who may be using students from those courses.

[Lord Triesman (Lab)]

My Lords, I also support the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in this and would go a little further than the noble Lord, Lord Willis, with whom I profoundly agree. Over many years I have found that when you seek information in any of these areas in a general sense, you are told that it is essentially proprietary information owned by the universities rather than information in the public domain. That has several significant consequences. The first is that referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Willis. Many aspirant students or students who are on courses cannot get information to which they should be reasonably entitled.

As the noble Lord, Lord Willis, said, it is also true that this situation makes things more difficult for employers. However, the third category for whom this situation makes things very difficult are those who are trying to do research on universities’ performance, on what works and does not and on what might be learned between universities. Provided that the identity of individuals is protected, there is no conceivably good reason not to have all that information available in a public sector as important as higher education and, indeed, in many other sectors as well. I suspect that in many other sectors it would be regarded as an extraordinary denial if this information were not made available for all those purposes—for users, those advising users and those doing research. I cannot see why in higher education this is regarded as private information not to be used for those purposes. That is wholly unsatisfactory.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I wish to clarify an issue. When the Minister introduced this group of amendments, he said that he would ask for Amendments 15, 16 and 17 to be spoken to before he replied. Does that mean that we cannot speak to the rest of the amendments? I have other amendments in this group.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve]

My Lords, I have some sympathy with getting the age statistics right. That is a crucial example because it is objective and not highly sensitive, at least in my view. However, most of the other protected characteristics are not susceptible of statistically robust estimation. People do not always want to declare whether they are pregnant or to declare their ethnicity. I discovered that young people of mixed background did not wish to take sides between their parents, as they put it. People do not always wish to declare their sexual orientation, particularly when they are very young. The result is that one has an enormous number of “no information” entries in these statistics. To use this information in a statistically responsible way is not a simple matter. However, I exempt age. I would, until recently, have exempted gender because I think most people will give a simple answer on that. However, I fear that the information one actually records is not always robust.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I will certainly reflect on what the noble and learned Lord has said. He has been in touch with me outside the Chamber, and I will read Hansard carefully and reflect on this matter before the next stage.

I now turn to student transfer. It is an issue that noble Lords raised in Committee and we have reflected on this as well. There is a vast array of reasons why a student might need or want to transfer between courses or institutions, be they personal, financial or academic. We received over 4,500 responses to our call for evidence on this issue last year. These told us that transfers do indeed already occur but the opportunities to do so are not well known and could be developed further. We believe that students should understand the transfer options available and know how to readily take advantage of them. That is why we are proposing Amendments 100, 139 and 141.

The new clause proposed in Amendment 100 would place a duty on the OfS to monitor arrangements put in place by registered higher education providers to enable students to transfer within or between providers, as well as the take-up of those arrangements, and the OfS would have a duty to report annually on its findings. The proposed new clause would also enable the OfS to facilitate, encourage or promote awareness of the arrangements for student transfer so that the OfS could help ensure that students understood the options for changing course or institution and that best practice was promoted among higher education providers.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, for their amendments on this important issue. However, given the Government’s assessment of the evidence of barriers to student transfer, I do not think it is desirable to adopt these amendments. Such an approach would reduce the flexibility available to the OfS as it develops its understanding, as well as being overly prescriptive and potentially burdensome on institutions. I believe that the government amendment will achieve our shared aims without interfering with or overly mandating how the OfS manages its information-collection processes.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I want to clarify with the Minister whether I can make an intervention to ask him something or whether I can speak to these amendments.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My understanding of the rules in the Companion is that the noble Lord is able to ask a short question for clarification.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

In that case, I shall do so. It must be clear to any Member of this House who has followed credit transfer and accumulation and linked it with transfer between institutions that, when transferring to another institution and using prior learning to shorten a course or indeed continue with a course, it is essential to have in place an effective credit accumulation system. Unless there is some movement in that direction then, quite frankly, just being able to publicise whether you can transfer between institutions is rather meaningless.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I hope I have made it clear that it is very much a priority to enable students to do so, in that we want to make sure that, practically, this can work. I hope I have given enough reassurance that this will work—it will need to work, otherwise it will not work.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that the people who will pay these fees that the regulator is charging will be the students. Therefore, we very much need to make sure the regulator is charging the absolute minimum it can to perform its duties effectively.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 371. I hope that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, will not get lost in this group because what he raises is fundamental to the Bill and to the way we are going to improve the offer we make to students and the veracity with which we look at the higher education sector.

I have written to the Minister on this issue and raised it as a question earlier. I am referring again to the role of HESA and the role of data. Unless you have accurate data with which to interrogate, and unless they are consistent across all providers, quite frankly, they are pretty useless. At the moment, it is not simply that you cannot get at some of HESA’s data. I gave the Minister an example just this week. You cannot get the data because HESA simply says, “Different institutions collect them in different ways”. That is a brilliant cop-out for saying, “We can’t let you have it”.

The other cop-out, which occurs quite frequently, is to say that data are sensitive to the universities because they own them, and therefore could be damaging to their reputation. If we are to give students the sort of offer they rightly should have, and if we are to give taxpayers the confidence they rightly should have, data should not be hidden. Data are absolutely key to delivering a higher education system of the highest possible quality which will maintain the high quality we already have in the future. I urge the Minister, in reference to Amendment 371, to reflect on how we are to ensure that data are not just left to HESA, but that the Office for Students has powers to ensure their consistency and effectiveness to be interrogated.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I thank all noble Lords who have raised these important issues. I agree immediately with the noble Lord, Lord Willis, about the importance and quality of data. I will make one overarching point, in the interest of brevity, before addressing individual amendments. We are not seeking to determine in the Bill exactly which data must be collected or exactly who must be consulted. Data requirements and needs evolve over time, and the body needs to maintain the ability to adapt to changes.

In response to comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, I appreciate what he said. We do not feel it is appropriate, for example, to specify workforce data when all other data will—very importantly—be agreed under the duty to consult. The relevant body will have the duties to plan data publication in conjunction with the full range of interested parties, with sufficient flexibility to take a responsive approach.

Turning to Amendments 376, 377 and 383, given the OFS’s duty to have regard to the need to promote greater choice and opportunities for students, just to reassure my noble friend Lord Lucas, there is, to my mind, no question that under Clause 59(5), considering the needs of people thinking about undertaking higher education courses must include considering what would be helpful to prospective and potential students from a diverse range of backgrounds.

In considering Amendments 368, 379, 384, 396 and 406, it is expected that the views of higher education staff will be considered as part of the voice of the sector institutions. The OfS will also have the discretion to consult persons they consider appropriate, including any relevant bodies representing the staff interests. I think the noble Lord, Lord Watson, foresaw the words that I have just spoken.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 16th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and, in his absence, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for bringing forward these amendments, which would expand the scope of the transparency duty. The amendments raise important issues, and the Government recognise that there has been considerable interest in including the categories of information proposed.

As noble Lords know, we must always seek to ensure that new legislation is balanced and proportionate. This is paramount where we are introducing a new duty on independent and autonomous bodies such as HE providers.

We know that the numbers of students with the characteristics covered by the amendments progressing to higher education are too low. I can see that the amendment is about changing those statistics, but imposing further requirements under the transparency duty is not the best way to achieve it.

The transparency duty is designed to be a minimum requirement, and we are prioritising those areas that we recognise as having the greatest need for a renewed focus in widening participation, where the data are comparable and the publication of those data is not too intrusive. We are mindful, too, of the importance of accurate data—a point to which I referred in my previous comments to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness—to ensure that the transparency we are aiming for is successfully achieved. The data also need to be readily comparable so that we know that comparisons drawn between institutions are fair.

Universities are taking a number of steps to address the important issue of the low number of care leavers in higher education through measures such as all-year-round accommodation, substantial cash bursaries and tuition fee waivers, and providing a named contact. Care leavers are a priority group for the Director of Fair Access, and four-fifths of access agreements detail the activity that universities are undertaking to support care leavers into and through higher education.

However, in terms of the transparency duty, the data collected on care leaver status are self-declared and so are not completely comparable, which makes it difficult to draw reliable conclusions from the data available. In addition, individuals do not necessarily wish to disclose their care leaver status when they apply for university, which is their choice. Furthermore, they may not wish to have that information published where it may be possible to determine who that individual is because of the relatively small numbers involved. That is a personal matter, and we must respect their right not to have that information made public. Equally, where this information is suppressed due to small numbers, it would further limit the comparability of the data.

Amendment 115 refers to disability. On disability in particular, we cannot currently be completely confident in the comparability of the data. UCAS and HESA collect data on disability, but again this is self-declared and not exclusively focused on registered disability so it may not provide an accurate depiction of disability across institutions. Additionally, some students may choose not to declare their disability and we must respect that because, again, it is a personal choice.

Amendment 113 covers age. We have chosen not to include age as a category at this time due to the volume of activity in this area already taking place. Many mature students study part-time, so we have introduced tuition fee loans for part-time study and intend to introduce part-time maintenance loans so that the way one chooses to study does not impact on the support available. It is worth noting that HE providers are already subject to specific legal duties in relation to age and disability under the Equality Act 2010.

The amendments raise important and interesting points and we will reflect on them.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

Will the Minister reflect also on the fact that the HESA statistical database is not available for public scrutiny? Many issues which should be in the public domain are not because one cannot access the information other than through a particular route and by paying fees. Even our own Library here in the House of Lords cannot access that database without paying for it. That information should be in the public domain. When reflecting on these amendments, will the Minister also look at ways in which the HESA database could be made much more readily available?

[Baroness Goldie]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for raising that point; it is something of which I was unaware and it seems an important matter. We will reflect not only on the comments that he has just made but on those made by others of your Lordships during the debate. I undertake to write to the noble Lord on the specific point which he raised.

Schools: Careers Service

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I am afraid I cannot answer that question now. I will write to the noble Lord on this very concerning issue. We must break the cycle of the perpetuation of children’s backgrounds, of which this is an example.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

My Lords, an investigation by the Engineering Employers Federation and SEMTA, looking at careers in science and technology, showed that more than 80% of careers advisers in schools come from an arts and humanities background. How likely is it that students who aspire to careers in science and technology will get good advice from people who have no experience of that at all?

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with my noble friend that we do not expect teachers to be careers experts. That is unrealistic, which is why we expect all schools to engage with their local business and professional communities. I was recently in Leeds and Sheffield, where the Glass Academy has been formed by glass manufacturers specifically to engage with their local schools extremely effectively.

Education Bill

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Layard]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the government amendments that have been proposed, and I think the same goes for the noble Lords, Lord Wakeham, Lord Willis and Lord Sutherland, with whom I tabled a related amendment in Committee. Our aim was very simple; it was to ensure that there was a clear route to skill via an apprenticeship for young people who did not want to go down the academic route and, for this to become a well understood reality, that the National Apprenticeship Service had a clear duty to make reasonable efforts to ensure that the provision was there for all who wanted to take advantage of it. That is what this amendment now proposes.

I would have preferred a stronger duty on the National Apprenticeship Service, like the noble Lords who spoke earlier. However, I believe that this government amendment is a major step forward, and I pay a warm tribute to John Hayes, the Minister in the other place who is responsible for this, for his passionate commitment to apprenticeships and his vision in proposing this new clause. It is a major improvement in the Bill and it will be a major improvement in our whole educational system for 16 to 19 year-olds, although an even better one would be that proposed by my noble friends.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I support particularly Amendment 89ZZB in the name of my noble friend Lord Hill. I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Layard, who has done a remarkable job in seeing this all the way through Committee and Report, and I compliment the Minister, and indeed his friend in the other place, John Hayes, for the way in which they have listened to the arguments. To have had an education Bill that did not actually mention apprenticeships was a mistake. It is always good when a sinner repents and comes forward with a confession. This is a confession that is worth noting. The Minister will go home happy tonight in that knowledge.

The whole move back towards an apprenticeship service is something that the previous Government should rightly be proud of. It was supported on all sides of the House, but it was an initiative that was long overdue. The fact that this week we have seen such a dramatic rise in the number of apprenticeships, despite the fact that we have a severe downturn in the economy—I will not say recession—is something that again we should welcome very strongly indeed. Apprenticeships are very much here to stay. I am delighted to be going up to Newcastle on 22 November to open a new apprenticeship centre organised by Siemens, which is trying to work with other employers in the north-east. That is the next step.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I tried to be measured in my words and I do not think that I have been ungracious: I acknowledged the progress that has been made. I do not want to get too much into an argument about the current state of the economy, as we are going to disagree about how it is being handled. On the entitlement question, I changed the date from 2013 to 2015 as an acknowledgement of the difficulties. However, youth unemployment is in a crisis situation, and crisis situations call for crisis measures. That is the point that I am making and I am not going to resile from that. Therefore, I do not think that it is a question of me being ungracious. There is a real difference of approach and—

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I was about to refer to the noble Lord as the honourable gentleman. He is an honourable gentleman. I do not think that anyone in the House would deny the passion and commitment that the noble Lord, Lord Young, has for this area of apprenticeships. That goes without saying. However, I have to ask him a key question. What strategy will he undertake to force—that is what he is talking about—employers to take on apprentices? What will he do?

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I was coming to the noble Lord’s contribution and I was going to address that very word. I do not believe that you can force employers other than in one area. If, as an employer, you bid for a government contract, you have to indicate how many apprentices you are going to take on. That is what we said to those who bid for the Olympic contract and it is what we said in relation to Crossrail. I do not see any problem with that. Why on earth cannot the Government accept that commitment? If you want to do something positive that demonstrates the Government’s commitment, that is it. If I have to use the word “force” in that circumstance, so be it, as I believe that that is an intrinsic part of it.

The noble Lord, Lord Elton, made a very valid point. If we made a mistake as a previous Government, it was that at one point we emphasised the academic side so heavily that that somehow created the impression that the vocational or apprenticeship route was second class. It is not a second-class route; indeed, it is not an either/or choice, because many young apprentices go on to take degree courses as well. I have dealt on previous occasions with the question of ensuring that we give proper credence to the value of apprenticeships— I am conscious of the time.

Once again, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, talked about extra burdens on SMEs. Requiring people to take on apprentices does not impose a burden on them. It is the employers who do not take on apprentices who often live to regret it when they find themselves suffering from a skill shortage. I do not see apprenticeships as some kind of panacea for youth unemployment but I do see them as an essential prerequisite in helping to resolve the problem.

I welcome the fact that the Government have made some progress but in our view it is not enough; more could be done. I make it clear that I shall wish to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 89ZZAA, which refers to procurement contracts, but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 89ZZA.

Education Bill

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

61D: After Clause 29, insert the following new Clause—
“Technology in schools
(1) The Secretary of State shall publish a plan detailing the delivery of the use of technology to aid teaching across all subjects in the curriculum, for pupils of all ages, in all maintained schools and Academies.
(2) The plan must be published and laid before Parliament by July 2012.”

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, I thought we were voting. I wish to speak to Amendment 61D standing in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Puttnam and Lord Knight.

It is rather odd that we have just had a debate about an issue that has divided opinion since the establishment of early state education with the Forster’s Act of 1870 and we still have an enormous amount of confusion as to whether the debate on this amendment is beginning.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

For the sake of clarification, the last vote was nullified because no one called “Content” at the three-minute point, and the Not Contents have it. We are now moving on to Amendment 61D, which my noble friend Lord Willis is moving.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, the history of moving amendments on technology is fraught with danger. It seems rather odd in your Lordships’ House that we can have an hour-long debate about whether we should have collective worship and yet in the most technologically advanced nation on earth we cannot decide whether we have had a vote. Nevertheless, we will move on.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I apologise again to my noble friend, but there is so much noise in the Chamber that it is quite difficult to hear what he is saying. I invite noble Lords either to come in and listen to the debate or perhaps to leave quietly so that we can continue with Amendment 61D.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I am very grateful to my noble friend. The fact that the House is so packed to hear this amendment on technology brightens my soul.

When the noble Lords, Lord Puttnam and Lord Knight, and I raised this amendment in Committee, we were hopeful that the Minister would reflect on the issues raised and the importance of technology in our schools, and bring back government amendments on Report that indicated that this Government listened to one of the most important technologies driving our education system, our society and our economy. However, there is not a word in this piece of legislation about how we empower our young people to enter a technological society where they can take full advantage of all that pertains.

In responding to the debate in Committee, my noble friend the Minister said:

“We are talking to a number of interested parties—school leaders, professional bodies, educational charities, industry, academics and other experts—about how the department should take forward its thinking about technology”.—[Official Report, 13/7/11; col. GC 306.]

Sadly we have not had a single word about where those discussions have led. We have not had a single idea from the Government as to whether technology has a place in a modern UK education system in the 21st century. It is enormously disappointing that we still have from the Government a view that technology, particularly information communications technology, is a distraction from the central aim of raising standards. It is absolutely essential to the raising of standards to have proper technology and technology policies in our schools.

We are not promoting the case for ICT as an alternative to conventional subject matter or pedagogy but as an integral part of delivering a world-class, 21st century curriculum. Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, recently reminded us that,

“Lewis Carroll didn't just write one of the classic fairytales of all time. He was also a mathematics tutor at Oxford. James Clerk Maxwell was described by Einstein as among the best physicists since Newton—but was also a published poet”.

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, who sadly died very recently, said:

“The Macintosh turned out so well because the people working on it were musicians, artists, poets and historians who also happened to be excellent computer scientists”.

This amendment is about digital inclusion. It is about encouraging schools to meet their responsibilities to generations of young people who access ICT as both a tool and a discipline, and not to disadvantage themselves—or indeed the nation—as they move forward. However, it is so much more than just a pious and well-meaning amendment. All the evidence from studies from the Royal Society, the EPSRC, the Times Educational Supplement, the Government’s own department, major corporations, and charities such as futurelab and the e-Learning Foundation, of which the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and I are privileged to be the respective chairs, emphasise the link between the use of ICT, educational motivation and achievement and future economic success and well-being. Not a single reputable study points to our young people or our society being disadvantaged as a result of access to high-quality ICT. You have to go to parts of the United States to get that view.

However, some 4 million people in Britain today are not online and are usually the most disadvantaged. Forty-nine per cent of those without access come from the lowest socioeconomic groups, and 70 per cent are in social housing. Thirty-eight per cent of those who are currently unemployed are not online, despite the fact that 70 per cent of all jobs are advertised online. That is a very cruel deception. Ministers must understand that the majority of those households will have children, who, without our support, will be part of tomorrow’s statistics.

One million children in our schools today cannot get online at home. Yet so much of the work they are being set in schools, and so many of the projects which they are being asked to complete, rely upon them being able to get online and do their work in that way. By encouraging schools to be proactive—particularly in recognising that an IT policy must extend into the home, where often the greatest disparity exists—the Government can make children and their schools part of a solution to support a wide range of government objectives.

This amendment is not a plea for special funding. I have not mentioned funding once, and nor have my noble friends. Encouraging schools to use their pupil premium would go a long way to meet both school and home access requirements. However, it requires the statutory authority of this amendment to say to schools, “Technology should be at the heart of what you do, and you need to report every year on that to the Secretary of State, as well as to your pupils’ parents and to your governors”.

Finally, this amendment would also address one of the real challenges facing our schools and colleges: that of addressing the shortfall in the number of students studying computing across the UK. According to the current Royal Society study, from 2006 to 2009 we saw a fall of 33 per cent in the number of students studying ICT at GCSE level. There has been a similar fall since 2003 of one-third of students studying ICT at A2-level. We have also seen a 57 per cent reduction in A2 level students studying computer science. Such dramatic falls in numbers of students going into our universities to study computer science are having a seriously detrimental effect on our ability to produce the sort of graduates we need for our modern economy. That alone is a reason for us to put ICT and technology at the heart of delivering the 21st century curriculum.

I hope that, as this will not cost the Minister anything but will win him friends throughout the nation, this is one amendment about which the Minister can simply say to the House, “I accept the wisdom of your words”. I beg to move.

[Lord Puttnam]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for keeping this ball on the park. Like many other Members of your Lordships’ House, I have a number of interests in the education sector, all of which appear in the register of interests.

The omission of a clause such as this in the completed Bill in my judgment—and I put this to the Minister—would be literally mind-blowing: not a small omission, not something that has just slipped by, but a truly mind-blowing omission. That is why I support what I think is a very modest, simple and very easily deliverable objective, as laid out marvellously by the noble Lord, Lord Willis.

My contribution will concern the very serious issue of employability, possibly pre-empting one or two debates that will come up later on Report about jobs. During the summer break, I read a book by Jim Clifton, the chair of Gallup, entitled The Coming Jobs War. It is drawn from the largest survey Gallup had ever undertaken in its history. The view expressed in the book, and the conclusion that Mr Clifton comes to, is that the relationship between ICT skills and jobs in the developed world is absolutely everything. There will be winners and losers, and unless this Government —this was to an extent true of the Government previously—get a real grip on this issue, we can only be among the losers in the next 10 to 20 years.

I would like to offer a few statistics that may alarm the Government. If they have different statistics, I would be very happy to hear from the Minister. Only 9 per cent of ICT classes in this country are taught by teachers with any relevant qualifications. That means that 91 per cent of young people in this country are being taught so-called ICT by teachers with no qualifications whatever in the subject. I am not sure what other subjects fall into this category. I cannot believe that there are very many, and I cannot believe that a civilised nation would let this go on for very long when it knows that its entire employability framework for the next 10 to 20 years is reliant upon success in this area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

It would be almost impossible to deliver the curriculum successfully in a 21st-century school without the effective use of technology. I would have to come back to him on chapter and verse, but I cannot think that it would be possible for a school to deliver the curriculum successfully without a good use of technology.

The ideas in today’s debate and previous debates will be passed back to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. As I said, later this year he is planning to say more about technology in schools and the role and work of government in this area. We have had a typically constructive and diverse debate today that has taken in acorns, tadpoles and apples. These issues are under active consideration and I hope, in the light of this, that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful for the contributions of noble Lords on all sides of the House in what has been a fascinating 45-minute debate on a subject which your Lordships clearly feel incredibly strongly about. In his question to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, put his finger on the pulse of this issue: can a school be successful if it does not have ICT and technology at the heart of delivering a 21st century curriculum? The Minister was generous enough to admit that she did not believe that it was possible. In spite of all the research that she might do, she will not be able to point to a single school in the whole of the United Kingdom that is successful without using technology to deliver its curriculum.

I was interested in the short speech of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. It was telling. She said that her grandson was making good progress with his computer and iPad. Sadly, a million children do not have access to either an iPad or a computer, and they are the ones who are the most disadvantaged. The great sadness about the Minister’s response to this debate is that these children will remain disadvantaged unless a benevolent head teacher in a benevolent school decides that ICT is going to be a priority for that school. Unless it is part of the league table culture it will not be part of it at all.

I am not worried about whether or not it is part of the English baccalaureate. I am much more interested in ICT being the electricity—the energy—that delivers, motivates and turns youngsters on to a high-performing education system.

I leave the House with three comments. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, quite rightly talked about employability and I mentioned that most jobs are advertised on line, yet those that need them most cannot access them online. The educational case was made strongly by, among others, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and by my noble friend Lord Lucas, whose passion for technology and ICT knows no bounds. I loved his description of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, sitting on a toadstool somewhere, with frogs all around him spawning. It was a wonderful analogy.

However, my noble friend was fundamentally wrong when he talked about there being only two ideologies: Stalinist or laissez-faire. There is another way and this amendment was neither Stalinist nor laissez-faire. It says to the Secretary of State, “Please take your duties seriously about creating the sorts of framework that allow schools to operate and on which we will judge you”.

This has been an interesting debate. I believe that we will not get much further on this occasion. We have been told that the Secretary of State will make an announcement from on high later. Perhaps he will become the Steve Jobs of government. Or perhaps he will become part of the Amish sect. We will see. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 61D withdrawn.

Education Bill

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

First, I agree very much with the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and with the powerful speech made by my noble friend Lord Willis on Monday, when we last discussed this before being rudely interrupted. My noble friend was absolutely right that the effective use of technology clearly supports good teaching and helps raise standards.

As he argues clearly, it is not an either/or between, for example, Shakespeare and technology. I have had that conversation with the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, before. He made the case powerfully to me that technology can bring Shakespeare within reach of people for whom the traditional way of books would be much harder; it can bring it to life in a way that the Arden set might not.

My noble friend was right to suggest on Monday that there has been too much emphasis on the technology itself, the kit, and the idea that we could transform teaching simply by spending money on computers or whiteboards. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, agrees with that. By the same token, I accept that there are far more exciting ways of learning than just by Latin primer.

One point that was not raised about technology is the fact that we have an extraordinarily successful market in educational technology in the UK. We are a leader, so there are strong commercial reasons why we should support it. We want to encourage sharing of evidence of effective practice in the use of technology and improved teacher skills in using it. My noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, have given me a useful nudge—I think that that is the word—or prod about the importance of that.

We are talking to a number of interested parties—school leaders, professional bodies, educational charities, industry, academics and other experts—about how the department should take forward its thinking about technology. Given the pace of change, we think it important to allow schools and teachers themselves, working with industry, to respond to the changes. We want to give teachers the freedom to choose how to use it to create lessons that engage their pupils and enable them to achieve their full potential. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, gave a powerful example of how that is happening. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and my noble friend talked on Monday about having a conversation with the department. I would certainly welcome such a conversation and invite both of them and any other noble Lords with an interest to help us develop our thinking.

Access to computers and the internet is an important point. Clearly, that can have benefits for the whole family. We know that many schools offer access to ICT before and after normal school hours to help pupils without access at home. Other schools are working with charities such as the e-Learning Foundation and the commercial sector to provide access. We want more of that.

On resources, the financial situation is obviously difficult. We seek to support disadvantaged pupils directly through the pupil premium. The premium enables schools to decide for themselves how best to spend additional resources to support disadvantaged pupils. On Monday, my noble friend gave the figures for the extent to which there is a disparity between rich and poor—unsurprisingly—of access to computers. The premium may well include providing computers and broadband connectivity if the schools think that that is the most effective approach for particular children in the circumstances that they face.

The Government certainly recognise the important role that technology can play in supporting education. We are considering that within government. I ask my noble friend Lord Willis—and, as I said, any other noble Lords who would be interested in such conversation—to help us with our thinking. I certainly accept the fundamental importance of the subject, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State set out in the recent speech to which the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, referred. On that basis, I ask my noble friend to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I warmly thank the Minister for his thoughtful comments and for the way in which he wishes to tackle this issue and take it forward. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Peston and Lord Puttnam, for their support. I confess that the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Peston, reminded me of St Bede, who wanted a book out of the Vatican library and set off walking from St Albans all the way to get it. You can imagine that when Caxton brought the printing press to Britain, people said, “It’s not the same as having to walk to Rome for it”. We have to be careful, and I take the comments that he made.

What excites me about the investigation—having been watching my wife recently, who has just found Google as well as most shopping sites—is the excitement of seeing children find new information and new ideas. That is what learning is about; it is not simply dealing with what you are taught but finding out information yourself. Experiments have been done in Africa where solar-powered computers have just been left for young children to explore them, and they have been able to access Google and information across the world without any further training. Youngsters today are hardwired into this technology, and to be able to use it is important.

I looked, as did the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, at the Secretary of State’s speech and was hugely encouraged by what he had to say. I mentioned in my earlier remarks that I do not believe that the Secretary of State is a Luddite. He sometimes hides his passion for technology under a bushel or behind volumes of Shakespeare but it is important to take it out. He talks about Du Sautoy, the Li Ka-Shing fellowship and Professor Khan’s work; these are remarkable initiatives to bring learning to millions of youngsters around the world. We need to be part of that, but you can do so only if you have good technology in school that is being used wisely and effectively and you have access to that at home as well. As the Government, local authorities and other statutory bodies move forward with delivering more and more on the internet—rightly, in my view—it is children who become the educators of the future. It is for that reason that I hope that this will be taken forward.

I thank the Minister for his comments. We will take up his offer of a meeting with him and his officials. With those assurances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 83ZA withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Peston]

My Alzheimer's is worse than I thought it was. The Secretary of State must be aware of that technology. Other things are in the national curriculum that, when I was at school, I found inimical to education. Geography was the most extreme example. We were made to do geography. I was not persuaded then and I am not persuaded now that geography should be part of anybody's education. If I want to know where somewhere is, again, I go to my computer. These days, I have to type in the name of countries that did not exist in my day, but I can find out where they are.

I believe that education is about finding things out and appreciating them—all that my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said. If we all reflect on what was the best part of our education and schooling, it was things that were not merely part of the curriculum but, in my case, not something I was ever examined on. I was in the economic sixth at Hackney Downs School and the headmaster decided that economics was clearly not part of education. He told the English master to see the five of us who had taken that option in the sixth form. The English master, Mr Brierley, who was the great discoverer of Harold Pinter, introduced us to things that we had never heard of, one of which has become a total obsession of mine—philosophy.

To return to my earlier remarks, I have wasted more time reading about analytical philosophy than I care to remember, but that was part of my education. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten me, but I do not believe that those responsible for our national curriculum have ever said that rational argument and logical reasoning are what education should be about. All that tells me that the last people—having worked at the Department of Education as its first ever special adviser, I include in my admonitions officials as well as the Minister—who should be deciding these things once and for all are Ministers and their officials. We need outside comment.

I partly address my next remark to my noble friend Lady Hughes. The one thing that gives me hope is that, although I entirely support her amendment, the department should know that many of the rest of us still have our views. Therefore, if something comes up that we think is totally crackers, the department will still hear from us on this subject, whether we are officially consulted or not.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I shall take us back to the amendment. I do not have any great love for the QCDA. It was not a perfect organisation; in fact, none of these organisations is perfect. The Government’s aim in terms of the drift of the Academies Bill is that by the end of this Parliament every secondary school will be an academy. That is the reality. One of the powers of an academy is that they are able to have control over their curriculum. Will the Minister give an assurance relating to schools that become academies and this small core of national curriculum subjects? Where will they get their guidance from regarding decisions on the appropriateness of those subjects? That is an important consideration and an important function that the QCDA had.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. An academy will have total control over its curriculum and will not have to consult anyone about the subjects it teaches. While I take his point that most will want to follow the national curriculum, if an academy wanted to substitute creationism for Darwinism in its science curriculum, will it be able to do that without having to ask permission of the Secretary of State or to consult with anyone else? Is that correct?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

It is not the case that the teaching of creationism in science, for example, is possible in academies because I believe that there are safeguards in place to prevent it. Further, there are various ways through the funding agreement by which one can exercise control. The basic point about freedom over the curriculum is that, through the funding agreement, academies need to provide a broad and balanced curriculum that includes English, maths and science. That is the degree of specificity over the governance.

Education Bill

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Rix]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 77 in my name, which is also concerned with teacher training. First, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for being such a gracious and excellent understudy for moving my Amendments 34 and 42 last Thursday week. If I was back in my old profession I fear that she might grab hold of my trousers and take over my part. I am very grateful to her.

The current teacher training programme provides inadequate provision in special educational needs. It is thought that on a typical teacher training course the voluntary module of SEN is provided for less than one day. I do not believe that the Bill builds confidence that the aspirations of the SEN Green Paper will be met. The proposal in the Bill to allow outstanding schools—as judged by Ofsted—to become training hubs is inadequate. This judgment does not factor in a requirement that there be outstanding provision of SEN teaching in such schools.

I had a meeting last week with the Minister of State for Children and Families, Sarah Teather, at which I sought assurances that all teachers in all schools will have access to quality training in SEN issues. I seek similar guarantees here today. I suggest that the proposal in my amendment for a minimum of 20 hours’ training in SEN is still a fairly modest target. For this to encourage effective training, I believe that a 20-hour requirement should be integrated within the newly qualified teacher training framework and that it should seek to transcend all aspects of the training curriculum so that newly qualified teachers have the skills and confidence to adapt all aspects of teaching in order to increase the educational outcomes of children with SEN. The identification and subsequent delivery of a child’s support needs is vital. To achieve this, teachers and other educational professionals need the right skills in place to know when a child is displaying SEN and not bad behaviour so that they can respond appropriately. I hope that the Minister, too, will respond appropriately and assure the Committee that teachers will receive the necessary level of training to meet the educational needs of all students, including those with SEN.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, I question all three amendments. I do so because this is a thread running throughout the Bill. This is a Bill that is all about structures and yet more structures, without looking at the fundamental reason why we are having an Education Bill, which is to improve the lot of our young people, particularly those with the greatest needs.

In terms of SEN, we are moving back from what I thought was the direction of travel which occurred over the past two decades of having schools as inclusive organisations where all members of staff are continually engaged in training in order to meet the needs of children. My worry about these three amendments is that by simply ticking a box which says you have, say, eight or 20 hours of training, somehow that makes you an effective teacher of children with special educational needs. It does not. It might give you some of the rudimentary elements, and for that these amendments are certainly a welcome direction of travel. But in reality I am looking for the Minister to say what the Government intend to do who encounter children with special educational needs in every one of our schools—not simply our special schools and not simply those children who have a statement of special needs—to ensure that all teachers have a required level of teaching and engagement, the like of which, quite frankly, we have never seen in our schools sufficient to meet the needs of those children. That is what we should really be looking for in terms of amendments to the Bill.

I hope that the Minister will give some satisfaction not only to those who tabled the amendments but to the whole of the Committee in order that we can feel satisfied that after the Bill is passed, our children with special educational needs get a better deal than the one they are getting in the vast majority of our schools today.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I hesitate to speak, but the amendments raise very important issues about the teaching profession and the future professionalism of teaching. Will the Minister keep in mind what happened to social work? At one time it was a highly respected profession with high thresholds of entry, but those thresholds were lowered for various reasons. A short while ago one could get on to a social work course with a couple of Ds as qualification. The result has been a highly variable quality in social workers.

While I wish to be as flexible as possible to recruit the right people into teaching, it would be a backward step if we were to lower standards trying to do so. I look to the Minister for reassurance that that will not happen.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

83ZA: Before Clause 20, insert the following new Clause—
“Technology in schools
(1) The Secretary of State shall publish a plan detailing the delivery of the use of technology to aid teaching across all subjects in the curriculum, for pupils of all ages, in all maintained schools and Academies.
(2) The plan must be published and laid before Parliament by July 2012.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, I am conscious of the time and of a message from the Front Bench that I should be as brief as possible, which is always the wrong thing to say to me on these occasions, but I will try. I certainly do not want to be controversial. I hope that the Minister will be able to give me some comfort on both amendments and that on Report he may be able to agree to them.

If I were to ask your Lordships whether it is necessary in terms of delivering every subject on the curriculum to have electricity, most would say that on balance it probably is, whether it is sport, music, the arts or the core curriculum—whatever that is now—or faith, though I gather that the Bishop has left.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I meant the other bishop—the secular bishop.

Electricity is considered a very important part of delivering the curriculum. I have tried to get your Lordships’ support for both amendments. The idea is that to deliver a 21st century curriculum we have to have 21st century methodology and 21st century equipment. To deliver the curriculums to all children, they have to have access to the technologies and be able to take advantage of them. There was a time when technology, particularly information and communications technology, was regarded as an additional extra. If you had the resources you put it into schools. It was certainly a resource that the wealthiest families in this country provided early on, and which most families now provide. In reality, it has now become not simply an additional extra but the lifeblood of schools.

I was in a primary school on Friday last week watching a young teacher teaching the solar system to a group of primary children. She had blacked out the whole room and had her white board and overhead projector and was using the BBC programme on the solar system by Brian Cox. It was very dark and by the time one of the episodes of that wonderful programme had come on, the children’s faces looking at the solar system as they had never seen it before, were remarkable. That is the use of technology today. In every area of the curriculum we can bring countries from the other side of the world into the classroom. Skype can be used to communicate directly with children in other parts of the world. I remember when I began teaching geography back in 1963 that it took three months to get a letter from a school in Sierra Leone. Now children can talk daily. Technology is no longer simply an added extra; it is very important indeed.

It has worried me, and I have said to the Minister that we seem to have messages from the Government, particularly from the Schools Minister, that if you have technologies you are putting books out of reach of children and that somehow it is either/or. You either have books or technology. It is not like that at all. You have to have both. The reality is that most children today, often from the age of three, use Google as a normal part of their activities. As they get older they cannot use internet search engines unless they have a good command of English. They have to be able to read effectively, disseminate and arrange information. This is not an added extra. It is fundamental. It is not an either/or; it is part and parcel of the same activity.

I have another worry. I say to the Minister that this is an impression rather than a reality. We now have a Division, which is a reality.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)]

If the noble Lord is not about to wind up, I think that we probably do not have time to get through this so we will have to come back after the Division. There is a Division in the House. We will adjourn until 7.40 pm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, I have made the case that technology is crucial in supporting the curriculum today and not simply an added extra. I hope that the Minister can give the Committee a clear undertaking that his Government are not luddites, that they are looking at the use of technology, that they are prepared to support its use across the curriculum and that schools will be required to say how and where they are using that technology. This is not a matter of spending a fortune on ICT within our schools. Like many noble Lords, I get quite irritated going into schools to be taken into a room with 20 or 30 wonderful new computers and have people tell me that that is what they are doing for ICT. It is not the computers; it is what you do with them. There are very simple devices, certainly costing less than £200, that can give all the capacity needed to deliver so much of the curriculum as it exists.

If having ICT in school and using technology in school effectively are important in delivering a 21st century curriculum, it is also crucial for children to be able to access the curriculum from home and for them and their parents to be able to communicate with school from home. Amendment 107C states that it is vital that children have 24/7 access in order to be able to complete their national curriculum work, complete their homework and be able to access a broader general education. The Minister’s response to a Question in Hansard about the number of children unable to access the internet at home is therefore quite disappointing. The Minister’s answer is:

“The Department for Education estimates that around 15 per cent of households with children currently lack access to the internet … Take up of internet access remains strongly correlated with household income with only 68 per cent of households with children eligible for free school meals having access to the internet at home”.—[Official Report, 07/07/11; col. WA 110.]

That means that 32 per cent of children eligible for free school meals do not have the internet at home. Can you imagine the difference in opportunity that that denies them compared with those children who have good access, live in homes with a computer in the bedroom and are in schools that can set them homework and projects where they can access all the sorts of learning materials that are essential to 21st century education?

If you look at the IFS study 18 months ago, right across Britain the poorest areas have the least access to the internet. The 32 per cent figure is not across the board. If you go to the north-east, you find that 41 per cent of homes do not have access to the internet. The figure is 36 per cent in Scotland and 31 per cent in Yorkshire and Humber. Some 27 per cent of our poorest households do not have access to the internet at all. According to the IFS study, the correlation between qualifications and use of the internet is equally stark. Some 55 per cent of individuals with no qualifications at all have never used the internet and do not have access to it. That is a shocking statistic if we are talking about a level playing field for learning.

Amendment 107C simply asks the Government to ensure that,

“all secondary age pupils in maintained schools or Academies who are eligible for free school meals, in receipt of the ‘pupil premium’, ‘looked after’ by a local authority”,

and who are the poorest and most disadvantaged on current measures, should have access to the internet at home and at school. I hope that the Minister will accept that amendment. It is something which his Government—I am sorry, I should have said our Government; you get so used to being in opposition in the other place—should feel proud to deliver. At the end of this historic period of coalition government, any Government would be proud to say, “No child living in poverty in this country is denied access to the curriculum because they do not have broadband and do not have a computer at home”. In saying that, I declare an interest as chairman of the e-Learning Foundation.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I have my name to one of these amendments and should have it to the other one as well. I absolutely support what my noble friend has said. In relation to the first amendment in the group, if such a report were made by government, could the Minister look into the technology centres that are closing in a number of local authorities? They are centres of excellence and expertise and are of enormous value to schools that are trying to make the best use of technology not just for children who need assistive technology—that is a very important group—but for every child. Unfortunately, a lot of them are closing. That means that not only is the expertise going but the actual knowledge that helps schools to buy cost-effective equipment and have the technical support they need to ensure that the equipment works properly all the time. I would like to see that issue included in the report.

Amendment 107C concerns a subject which I am pleased to say my party will be discussing at our party conference in September. If the Government are set on reducing inequality and the achievement gap, making sure that every child from a deprived family has access to a computer and broadband is something that we should be prioritising. It is not a luxury. It is a tool for education and in this modern world it is an absolutely essential tool. It is very important for every child, not just, as my noble friend has said in his amendment, those from secondary age upwards, but going downwards as well. Knowing the sorts of deals that government can do with equipment suppliers and with the telecoms companies, I do not think that that would be anywhere near as expensive as it might at first seem given that you would be buying things in bulk. Not so long ago, there was talk of providing children with little laptops for £50. I reckon that you could probably get very basic ones for less than that now. Broadband should be able to be provided very cost effectively given the quantity that government would be interested in. This is an important measure. It is achievable and is absolutely in line with the coalition agreement and this Government’s stated aims in regard to education.