Covid-19: Social and Economic Inequalities

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)]

The Government say they want to level up, yet the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen. There are few areas where this is more apparent than education. Unnecessarily lengthy school closures have magnified the differences, as many predicted at the time. Can the Minister tell the House precisely what the Government’s new educational programme to support school-age children from poor families is? How much is being spent on it, over what timescale, and how is it being evaluated?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, one of the best things we can do for school-age children is ensure that they are back at school and able to stay there, and that is our focus. To help those children who missed out because of school closures during the pandemic, we have a £1 billion catch-up plan, which includes £350 million for a national tutoring programme targeted at disadvantaged children. We also put £100 million into remote learning to ensure that children from disadvantaged backgrounds have free laptops and tablets, and access to the internet, to help them learn from home.