Schools: Gender-questioning Children
Debate between Baroness Barran and Baroness Fox of Buckley(9 months ago)
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Baroness Fox of Buckley
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they are planning to issue further guidance to ensure that schools support gender-questioning children.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, following calls from schools, teachers and parents to support schools and colleges in relation to children who are questioning their gender, on 19 December 2023 we published draft guidance for consultation. The consultation will close on 12 March. Relationships, sex and health education statutory guidance is also under review, and we will launch a consultation shortly. As part of this, we are looking to strengthen the guidance to schools on how to teach this sensitive topic.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
I thank the Minister for her reply and the department for the clear guidance on working with gender-questioning children. Parents really were so relieved to hear that they should be fully involved if their own children decide they want to change gender, and it is so useful to have clarity that schools should not automatically socially transition pupils and that teachers and children should not be compelled to use opposite-sex pronouns. However, does the Minister find it troubling that, since publication, a variety of lobby groups and commercial providers are targeting school SLTs, advising them to ignore and even resist the guidance? Can the Minister assure us that the DfE will counter misinformation circulated by the likes of Mermaids, Just Like Us, Stonewall, The Key and even trade unions that wrongfully alleges the guidance is in breach of equality law, discriminatory and transphobic? Will she condemn attempts to scare teaching staff by suggesting that following the guidance puts them at risk of action by regulators and litigators?
Baroness Barran (Con)
Schools are expected to consider all the guidance from the department, and this is no exception: we would expect them to follow the final published guidance. As the noble Baroness says, the anecdotes we hear are that the guidance is already having an impact on parents, who feel able to ask schools to account for their decisions. Once the guidance is published, if individuals are worried, they should talk to their school about it. I looked at some of the campaigns being run and some of the templates that charities have published. Personally, I share the noble Baroness’s concern that they are quite oppositional in tone and are pitting parents against schools, which the guidance explicitly tries to avoid.
Russell Group Universities: Foreign Student Admissions
Debate between Baroness Barran and Baroness Fox of Buckley(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
Absolutely. We focus on that and a sense of confidence in the fairness of the system is vital. However, I would underline universities are autonomous institutions, and we would encourage them to take the initiative to address the noble Lord’s concerns.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I fear the problem is that we have lost sight of what universities are for. Does the Minister agree that it is a con when new university degrees are created as a substitute for high-quality skills training—the latest being estate agents’ degrees—while academic study is suffering? For example, there is the tragic closure of the music department at Oxford Brookes. Is not this university growth propelled by credentialing schemes, leading to the exploitation of overseas students who are effectively buying visas/degrees to pay for this ridiculous, non-academic growth?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I think the noble Baroness brings together a number of different issues. However, the essence is: do we need high-quality degrees in this country that are accessible, particularly to those from disadvantaged backgrounds? There are areas where we have clear concerns. We have already expressed our concerns publicly about foundation years and have reduced the funding for classroom-based subjects, as well as regarding franchise provision.
Schools: Transgender Guidance
Debate between Baroness Barran and Baroness Fox of Buckley(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Lord obviously brings extensive experience and wisdom in these areas. As he is aware, the Government will publish a draft Bill to ban conversion practices, and we are committed to protecting all who are at risk of harm from them. On listening to the voices of all pupils, including trans pupils, I stress that the Government are committed to a very full and open consultation so that the guidance we produce reflects the views of all those affected.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, puberty is a difficult time, especially for young women. For example, a dread of sexualised stereotypes can lead to anxiety about the body, sometimes expressed as dressing as a tomboy and sometimes pathologised as anorexia. Therefore, can the Minister ensure that schools do not automatically affirm the fashionable gender dysphoria as a catch-all solution, which is particularly difficult for young lesbians? Can she assure teachers who do not endorse social transitioning associated with gender ideology that their employment and reputation will be protected from false allegations of transphobic bigotry?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Baroness raises important points, but she paints a picture that I do not fully recognise. The vast majority of schools realise that these are incredibly sensitive issues for staff, pupils and pupils’ parents, and do their absolute utmost to keep that level of trust with all in their care and for whom they are responsible.
Higher Education Reform
Debate between Baroness Barran and Baroness Fox of Buckley(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
I absolutely agree with my noble friend about the importance of autonomy, but I hope he agrees with me that there is also a real responsibility to have transparency and for students to be really clear on the impact of this major decision and financial commitment they are making and what their future career and further education prospects are, based on the choice of course. We are not aiming to restrict university autonomy. We are aiming to improve transparency and, through transparency, to see that autonomy translate into even higher quality than we have today.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I welcome HE reform and have no objection to, for example, introducing minimum academic eligibility requirements to go to university, although linking access to student finance seems a cheap avoidance of winning the arguments for the virtues of the academic purpose of university. Is linking the value of a course’s quality to good jobs not a philistine undermining of knowledge for its own sake, turning universities into glorified job training centres? Is there a danger of a technocratic version of social mobility that instrumentalises the purpose of university, confirming that the only way to improve your social standing is to get a degree or go to university—the very opposite of what I assume the Government intend?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I apologise to the House if I was not completely clear in my earlier answer. I hoped and intended to refer to both the quality of jobs and the further education opportunities. Absolutely, our R&D is critical for the future of the country, and the quality of our thinking and debate, which I know the noble Baroness supports profoundly, is also really important. This is not just about jobs. But equally, I was made aware of six computing courses where the dropout rate is over 40%. Is that not something we should look at, compared with other courses where the dropout rate is much lower?
Education: Return in January
Debate between Baroness Barran and Baroness Fox of Buckley(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his question. He will have seen the same figures that I saw about the extraordinary efforts over Christmas on the vaccination booster campaign, with remarkable numbers—900,000 people a day—being vaccinated. I know that he was talking about staff but it is also really important for pupils. Almost half of 12 to 15 year-olds have now had their first vaccination, so extraordinary progress is being made but he makes a valid point: we need everybody to be vaccinated who is able to be. In relation to the availability of devices and data, he will be aware that we distributed more than 1.3 million devices and, where needed, data dongles so that children working from home were able to do so if they did not have access to them. We keep that closely under review.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I was glad to hear in the Statement that face-to-face education is the best way for children and young people to learn and develop—I agree—but face mask to face mask is not face to face. There is a lot of concern that face masks are really not necessary but are a bit of theatre and performance when the young are not under threat from this variant and when the Education Secretary’s newly published evidence is being widely described as not fit for purpose, as very thin and even as misinformation, which is leading to a lot of cynicism. Will the Minister comment on the fact that, according to the BBC and the NASUWT, a huge number of north-west secondary pupils are not following guidance because they just do not believe in it? They are refusing to do LFTs or wear masks. In one school, 67 out of 1,300 pupils are not following guidance—I do not want them to be punished, by the way; I rather admire it. Can the Minister indicate how the young can be convinced when the evidence just is not there that face masks will protect them in schools? Other things might, but not face masks.
Baroness Barran (Con)
To pick up on the noble Baroness’s final point, face masks—as she puts her face mask on enthusiastically—
Baroness Barran (Con)
Face masks are part of the answer. As the noble Baroness well knows, it is a mixture of a number of elements, including—importantly —vaccination, ventilation, hygiene, testing and face masks. She may have heard my right honourable friend the Secretary of State say yesterday that face masks will not stay on a day longer than they need to, and we will review them on 26 January.
I want to make two points. First, beyond the evidence that we have gathered from 123 schools—I am surprised at the noble Baroness’s remarks, which I think are harsh; having read it myself, I would not agree with her—there is also advice from Sage, there are randomised control trials from UKHSA and there is international evidence, all of which build a picture of this being part of an effort to control infection at a time when the virus is rampant.
Secondly, I guess it depends on which kids you listen to but based on the interviews with young people that I have seen, they are really pragmatic. They say they would much rather not wear face masks, but they understand, and they feel a bit safer. They will put up with it, as they have to. It is not what anybody wants, but it is part of making sure that schools stay open and parents feel confident that their children can go.
School Openings: January 2022
Debate between Baroness Barran and Baroness Fox of Buckley(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
My understanding is that systems are already in place for achieving that.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, this morning we discussed children in care. For them, the in loco parentis role of schools is especially important. We also mentioned the awful murder of young Arthur, and we know that teachers might well have picked up on the horrors he endured that social services missed. Will the Minister ensure that some communication is not just about vaccines but about the role schools play as community hubs of social solidarity for children, as well as in educating them? Will the Government also note the serious collateral damage when education policy organises everything around Covid, neglecting all those other negative impacts so vividly demonstrated in the Ofsted reports and the devastating stories of year 7 pupils?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Baroness is right. In our communication with schools and multi-academy trusts last week, we again pointed to the important role they play in identifying vulnerable children.
Public Representatives: Online Abuse
Debate between Baroness Barran and Baroness Fox of Buckley(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
The Government aim to make sure that people can operate in the public sphere safely at all levels, as the noble Lord rightly highlights. We expect the Bill to make a great difference to that when it becomes law. It is clear that, when the police use their existing powers, particularly under the Investigatory Powers Act, they are successful in identifying anonymous users online in particular.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I declare an interest as someone whose receipt of online abuse is somewhat off the scale but who feels uncomfortable with public figures playing the victim card on this. I feel even more uncomfortable with the implicit conflation of a brutal murder with a Twitter pile-on. Does the Minister agree that there is a danger in principle of confusing physical harassment, such as was horribly meted out to the BBC journalist Nick Watt, with online trolling, however unpleasant it may be? Does she note free speech activists’ concern that online abuse is being used to justify censoring lawful content? My fears about the online safety Bill outweigh any fear of harassment.
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Baroness is right to raise the unacceptable abuse that Nick Watt received the other day. I highlight that we have just published our National Action Plan for the Safety of Journalists and a call for evidence is live at the moment. I encourage your Lordships to contribute to that as appropriate.