Education: Recovery Package and Catch-up Programme

Debate between Lord Woolley of Woodford and Baroness Berridge

Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question in my name on the Order Paper, and I highlight my interests in the register.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, this Government are taking steps to level up educational outcomes for all pupils, regardless of race, class or background. The support that we are providing includes £2.5 billion of pupil premium funding this year, £220 million for the holiday activities and food programme and £400 million for internet access and laptops. We have also committed over £3 billion to help children catch up on lost education.

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB) [V]]

I thank the Minister for that response, but is she aware that some headteachers feel forced to use the education recovery funds not for that purpose but to plug serious financial gaps? Given that this money is supposed to target the most vulnerable children in our society, are there ring-fenced, targeted funds for Caribbean, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Gypsy and Roma children?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the catch-up funding and the pupil premium funding are aimed at all disadvantaged children regardless of their racial or regional presence in the UK. On the overall funding package, an extra £2.6 billion last year and £2.2 billion this year went into the core schools budget. If the noble Lord wishes to give me the names of the institutions concerned which are struggling, we can direct them to the plethora of resources available from the department to ensure that schools can get the best deal available for their money, such as the free teacher vacancy service and the risk protection arrangement, which many schools are now using as their insurance policy.

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Debate between Lord Woolley of Woodford and Baroness Berridge

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, it will be a matter for the parliamentary authorities and the usual channels as to whether time is allowed for debate, but of course, noble Lords have that opportunity as well. Yes, the response will take seriously the recommendation —I think it is framed as a “Support for Families” review—to look in more detail at the effect that family structure can have on someone’s outcomes, particularly educationally and economically.

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB)]

My Lords, yesterday was a momentous day. Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd. President Biden responded by stating that we must acknowledge and confront systemic racism. In spite of the overwhelming evidence from many, including the medical association, representing 150,000 doctors, Dr Sewell’s report stated that the evidence they found did not show systemic racism. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of black and white young people who took to the streets to protest for Black Lives Matter were dismissed in the report as well-meaning idealists but wrong in their assertion of systemic racism.

Yesterday the government Minister Kemi Badenoch, who seemed to attack anyone who did not agree with her, including the excellent race equality organisation the Runnymede Trust, none the less stated, to my great relief, that no one, not least the Government, is denying institutional racism as distinct from verbal racism. She went on to say that it is not everywhere, and I think we can all agree with that. But the report said, and the Minister confirmed, that Dr Sewell and his commissioners did not find systemic racism in this report from the deluge of evidence, including from myself. Given that dramatic but welcome U-turn in acknowledging systemic race inequalities, were the commissioners incompetent or in wilful denial?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, as I have outlined, the evidence that was considered by the commissioners, as we understand it, is that they did not find institutional racism in any of the sectors. I will come back to the specific comments from the other place that the noble Lord has raised but I understand that context to be, as I have outlined, that institutional racism is a concept that we respect and understand, and the commission stood by the Macpherson definition, but there was not the evidence base here. Of course it is difficult when feelings are running high—obviously, I note that it is an important day today, particularly for the criminal justice system in America—but when the evidence does not lead you to that conclusion then we have to respect that. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, a critique of the methodology may be wanted, but these are the conclusions of 10 respected commissioners: that the evidence did not lead to that conclusion, as uncomfortable as that can sometimes be.

Free School Meals

Debate between Lord Woolley of Woodford and Baroness Berridge

Tuesday 27th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woolley of Woodford]

To ask her Majesty’s Government, following the announcements of the Welsh and Scottish Governments, as well as local councils, whether they will end the free school meals postcode lottery and provide free school meals for eligible children in England during the school holidays until Easter 2021.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are determined to ensure that children are supported throughout this pandemic. We recognise that these are unprecedented and difficult times for some families and that is why the Government have significantly strengthened the welfare safety net. We have put in place additional measures worth around £9 billion this financial year. Further to that, we have provided £63 million in welfare assistance funding to local authorities to support families with food and other essentials.

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[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB)]

My Lords, as a humble Cross-Bench Peer, I passionately believe that the issue of 4.1 million children living in poverty—the vast majority in working families and the subject of free school meals—should not be embroiled in this presently poisonous political space. While we entrench our political positions and are afraid to say on either side that we might have got this wrong, our kids go hungry, families descend into despair, and, as my good friend Dame Louise Casey has stated, destitution beckons. Does the Minister agree with me that as a matter of urgency in this Covid crisis, we must show leadership and create a unified party group to form a strategy—for today, tomorrow and, indeed, the long term—which includes young, dynamic men such as Marcus Rashford and organisations such as FareShare, the Trussell Trust and others?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords, whether politically aligned or not, will agree that we want to help those children who are in need and that working together is the way to find a solution. The suggestions and recommendations put forward by the new child poverty task force convened by Marcus Rashford, whose activities we commend, will be considered as part of the forthcoming spending review.

National Curriculum

Debate between Lord Woolley of Woodford and Baroness Berridge

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woolley of Woodford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that the national curriculum reflects the diverse history of the United Kingdom.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, as part of a broad and balanced curriculum, pupils should be taught about how different groups have contributed to the development of Britain. The flexibility within the history curriculum means that there is the opportunity to teach about the United Kingdom’s diverse history across the themes and areas in the curriculum. Events such as Black History Month can support teaching all year round and help schools celebrate the contribution black Britons have made to society.

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB) [V]]

Does the Minister agree that we can have a truly inclusive 21st-century British patriotism built into our national curriculum, one that is honest about our history: the good—of which there is a lot—the bad and the very ugly? To prepare our children for the global stage and to ensure that they are comfortable with themselves, all students, including those from black, Asian, Roma, Traveller and white working-class communities need to read books with their experiences from our teeming diversity. More than half a million pupils will sit AQA GCSE English literature exams. Sadly, there are no African or Caribbean writers on the syllabus. In Black History Month, will the Minister commit to convening a series of meetings so that we can have an honest dialogue that will review and fantastically reform our national curriculum?

BAME Students: Pupil Referral Units

Debate between Lord Woolley of Woodford and Baroness Berridge

Monday 23rd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising a number of issues there. If I may begin with the current policy, yes, AP is included within the request to schools, so that, if at all possible, head teachers should keep that provision open. We believe that about half of the pupils within AP will qualify under the definition of “vulnerable” but we trust that the head teachers will make the correct decisions on the ground. It is of course correct that education is one of the strongest protective factors for young people, and it is this Government’s ambition that there should be an expansion of alternative provision and that being excluded from mainstream education settings should not be an exclusion from excellent education. We have the same aspirations for those in the AP sector as we do in other educational settings.

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB)]

My Lords, Diane Abbott said many years ago that once you have excluded a black child from school you can almost put a time and date on when they will turn up in prison. That is still true today. According to the excellent coalition of BME education practitioners, there should be no more exclusions. School exclusions cost the taxpayer an eye-watering £2.1 billion a year. Many children go to pupil referral units, but only 1% of them go on to achieve good GCSEs. However, two-thirds of pupils in PRUs will at some point go to prison. Clearly PRUs are not fit for purpose. Does the Minister agree that we should stop all school exclusions, as some places do, such as Northampton? I witnessed that when I was a children’s commissioner. Given that BME and other disadvantaged children are more likely to be excluded, I say, as I did last week, that we must recruit more black teachers and teachers from other disadvantaged backgrounds, including Roma, Gypsy, Traveller and white working-class. I apologise for going on.