Period Poverty
Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
My noble friend makes a good and poignant point about talking to young people in their own language and on their own terms and, as he says, using social media to reach them. We know that part of the issue with period poverty and wider women’s health matters may be a financial one that is a barrier to accessing products, but equally if not more important is the stigma associated with raising issues like this, which we need to try to remove as quickly as possible.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, according to the pressure group Bloody Good Period, in the workplace, two-thirds of people who menstruate do not have access to the basic essentials they need, costing British industry £3.3 billion in lost workdays. We often feel a bit squeamish talking about these matters, but what will the Government do to make employers aware of the inequality that so many of their employees face, and of how easily and cheaply productivity could be increased?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The department is well aware that women in the workplace miss extra days of work, suffer pain and stay in the workplace in considerable discomfort. Our experience is that employers often want to help but are not always very confident about how to do so, be it period-related or menopause-related issues. We are working with a range of businesses and professional membership bodies to identify how employers can best support women’s wider reproductive health and share their good practice.
Faith Schools: Impact of Removing Admissions Cap
Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Burt of Solihull
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of removing the admissions cap on state-funded faith schools on community integration and cohesion.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, the admissions cap has not significantly increased the diversity of intake in faith-designated free schools, and it has prevented providers such as the Catholic Church, which attracts a more diverse intake, opening new schools. All faith-designated free schools are required to demonstrate their commitment to community cohesion and how they promote fundamental British values.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, this policy would increase religious discrimination in schools that the British taxpayer is paying for. Many parents will be paying for local schools from which their own children will be excluded. It will diminish diversity and inclusiveness, increase racial segregation and further disadvantage poorer families, non-religious families, and families of the “wrong” religion. It is hard to find an upside to this, so why are the Government proposing such a retrograde step when they supported the 50% cap until only a short time ago?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The Government do not see it as a retrograde step and I do not accept the description that the noble Baroness makes of our faith schools, which are extremely inclusive, many working with other schools in their local area, and which produce some of the best academic results in the country.
Ethnicity Pay Gap
Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts(7 months ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
As I said, the Government have done extensive work engaging with employers in this area. We have the important work of the Inclusive Britain report. An employer of, say, 250 employees would typically have 25 ethnic-minority employees, if it was in line with the national average. With 18 separate ethnicities, the noble Lord can do the maths on the sample size.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s agreement to take this matter back. As I have said before, what you do not measure you cannot manage. I appreciate that the ethnicity mix of one’s workforce is a bit more complex than with compulsory registration of gender pay gaps, but that policy works very well. I hope the Minister will agree that it would be a worthwhile requirement for any larger employer that sees the benefit of having a more diverse and inclusive workforce.
Baroness Barran (Con)
The Government agree that it is worth while but not that it should be mandatory. We have developed clear guidance for employers and are seeking case studies from employers monitoring ethnicity pay data—but also, crucially, their diagnosis of any gaps and their action plan to address those gaps—so that other employers can benefit from their experience.
Gender Pay Gap
Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts(8 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
In response to the noble Baroness’s first question, as she understands very well, a number of factors influence how quickly the gender pay gap will decline. Obviously, there is so much research now on the value of a diverse workforce and how that improves profitability and competitiveness; we hope it will accelerate. In relation to ethnicity pay gap reporting, the noble Baroness will be aware that this gap is 2.3%, much smaller than the gender pay gap. We are working on promoting our guidance on how to address this through employer groups. In relation to disability reporting, following the successful court action we are reviewing our responses to the consultation.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the value of any employee should be based on the contribution that they will make to the organisation, not what they were earning before? Research by the charity Fawcett found that 61% of job applicants asked about previous salary history said that it damaged their confidence to negotiate a better salary. Does she not agree that this requirement bakes in gender, race and disability inequality and prevents people on lower salaries ever making the salary strides they need?
Baroness Barran (Con)
Those were some of the questions we explored in our pay transparency pilot, which looked at the impact of requiring employers to put salary information into their job recruitment advertisements and not asking about previous salaries. We plan to publish the methodology for that so that employers can adopt it. We will also do more work to look at the challenges of implementation.
Schools: Gender-questioning Children
Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, my understanding is that the existing review is still out for consultation, so the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, might be jumping the gun a bit by asking whether the Government plan a further review. All her concerns are, of course, noted. While we are waiting, I ask the Minister: were children and young people consulted in the creation of the guidelines that are out for consultation now?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The department typically works through a range of stakeholder groups, including those that represent the voice of children. There have been direct conversations with children on these issues.
Schools: Admissions
Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Burt of Solihull
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child’s recommendation that the United Kingdom should prevent the use of religion as a selection criterion for school admissions in England.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, the UK is a proud signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, the Government support faith schools’ ability to set faith-based oversubscription criteria. This allows parents to have their children educated in line with their religious beliefs. Faith schools can give priority to applicants on the basis of faith only when they are oversubscribed. Where places are available, they must admit all children who apply.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, I am not sure that is quite correct. Not a lot of people know this, but children from non-religious families may experience double discrimination when it comes to selection at schools. Approximately 40% of all faith schools and 60% of Catholic schools give priority to children of families of any religion against those of no religion. As the equalities spokesperson and a humanist, I agree with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which has urged the UK to end the use of religion as a selection criterion for school admissions in England. Does the Minister agree that all children, irrespective of faith or belief background, should have equal right to access schools funded by taxpayers’ money?
Baroness Barran (Con)
As I tried to set out in my initial Answer, we believe that all children have equal access. Only when a school is oversubscribed can the admissions authority introduce additional restrictions. Indeed, many faith schools do not restrict on the basis of faith.
Unregistered Schools
Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Baroness rightly cited the seven prosecutions; however, she did not repeat the statistic that 129 of the schools investigated have either closed or changed their operations so that they comply with the law. By definition, it is difficult to track illegal unregistered schools, but there are a number of routes—for example, a member of the public or others can report concerns around extremism directly to the department.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, like the noble Baronesses, Lady Blackstone and Lady Whitaker, one of my big concerns about the delay in dealing with these schools is the toll it is taking on the children. They report being unprepared for modern life, forced to study a narrow curriculum from dawn to dusk with no English, maths or science available and not even speaking English. This has been delayed for years. What does the Minister have to say to them?
Archbishops’ Commission on Families and Households: Love Matters Report
Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, on a slightly less serious note, the Beatles sang “All You Need Is Love”, but does the Minister agree that while love matters, we need more than that to achieve the worthy recommendations in the report? Does she agree that, specifically, we need more compassion, more political will and more hard cash? Can she tell the House which, if any, of the recommendations the Government are minded to implement and how much additional hard cash they have set aside to achieve that?
Baroness Barran (Con)
In terms of which recommendations we plan to implement, I refer the noble Baroness to my original Answer, which is that we will be responding as part of our response to the Family Review by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and will reflect at that point on the recommendations in this excellent report. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness about compassion, and I agree with her about hard cash. That is why we are making such a significant investment in the children’s social care system, in our support for early years and in children with special educational needs so every child in this country has the best start in life.
Education (Non-religious Philosophical Convictions) Bill [HL]
Baroness Burt of Solihull ExcerptsFriday 3rd February 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, I am delighted to see so many noble Lords here today. Last business on a Friday is hardly a propitious time to start a Second Reading, and I know even more noble Lords would have been here had it not been for the rail strike. I thank everyone who has managed to get in and turn up today—I presume that most will be giving their support to the Bill. Indeed, its predecessor, which I introduced last year, which aimed to introduce inclusive school assemblies, received the support of your Lordships’ House and went on to the next stage in the Commons, where unfortunately it ran out of time before it could progress further.
I believe that noble Lords appreciate the vital importance of education in developing an individual who is able to understand that, in this diverse society that we live in, other views exist and can be valid. There is room for everyone to have a view, and the more that we know about how other people think, the more we can appreciate how we can all fit into an inclusive and tolerant society.
I shall explain the reason for the title of the Bill, which I have to admit is a bit of a gobful. The term “philosophical conviction” is found in case law in the European Convention on Human Rights, which noble Lords will know that the UK is signed up to. The convention states that the education and teaching of children must be in line with their parents’
“own religious and philosophical convictions”.
Therefore, when teaching religious education, non-religious philosophical convictions or views must be given equal respect to religious views. Those non-religious views are termed “worldviews”, and the Bill would rename the subject “religious education” as “religion and worldviews”, or RW for short.
Why is it necessary to include worldviews in the syllabus? Because the British Social Attitudes survey consistently shows that half of British adults, and two-thirds of 18 to 24 year-olds, say they belong to no religion. Around half of non-religious people have beliefs and values that match the humanist outlook on life: crudely summarised, that means living their lives in the here and now because they believe it is the only life we have.
In terms of the law, the Bill would ensure that statute kept pace with case law. The 2015 judgment of Fox vs Secretary of State for Education, a case taken under Article 9 of the convention and Article 2 of the first protocol, stated:
“The State must accord equal respect to different religious convictions, and to non-religious beliefs: it is not entitled to discriminate between religions and beliefs on a qualitative basis: its duties must be performed from a standpoint of neutrality and impartiality as regards the quality and validity of parents’ convictions.”
This approach is supported by the subject association for RE, the Religious Education Council of England and Wales. It is also in line with the recent commission on RE, chaired by the then Dean of Westminster. The commission recommended that the subject be renamed religion and worldviews, and this has been RE council policy since 2018. Wales has already led the way and reformed its curriculum to match case law.
However, I can assure the Lords Spiritual Benches and all noble Lords of faith that faith schools’ right to teach faith-based religion will be untouched. Voluntary-aided faith schools and academies which were previously voluntary-aided schools will still be able to teach RE in line with the particular faith of the school and, just as now, parents will be able to request the locally agreed syllabus as an alternative. The remaining two-thirds of schools, which do not have a religious character, will be able, as now, to get their agreed syllabus from their local council or, in the case of academies, devise their own. RW will replace RE, as currently set out in the agreed syllabus conferences, which will be reformed to also include representatives of non-religious worldviews.
The way that the state school system has evolved over many years has meant a great deal of legislation has to be amended in this Bill, leading to a relatively long Bill but with a straightforward, clear message throughout. Where RW is taught in schools of a non-religious nature, it will cover religions as before: impartially. All religions and beliefs will be afforded equal respect, grounded on the principles found in common law and respecting the fact that religious traditions in Great Britain are, in the main, Christian.
Finally, noble Lords may remember an amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who I see is in her place, to the Government’s Schools Bill, which would have introduced RW to academies. The Minister responding, the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, pointed out that the change was unnecessary because schools are already able to teach RW. However, being able to do something and being required to do it are not the same thing. Too many schools, and too many locally agreed syllabuses, still fail to afford equal respect to non-religious worldviews. These schools are going against the judgment in the Fox case and the consensus of the subject community. But who can blame them, when the current statutory position is unclear on this point and they are expected to follow a non-inclusive locally agreed syllabus?
The law needs changing, otherwise the Government need to be able to justify why they think that the beliefs of half the adults and two-thirds of the young people of this country should be disregarded. I beg to move.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. It has been really stimulating and I feel somewhat humbled by some of the eloquence and strength of what people have said. I have learned about Milton. I have learned about the spread of humanism. I have learned a lot about humanism—the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, spoke very eloquently, and much better than I could. For the understanding of noble Lords, I do not want to proselytise about humanism, because what I am looking for in the Bill is something that is inclusive and respectful of other people’s views, so I was a little disappointed in the Minister’s response; I will take it away and lick my wounds. Nevertheless, the overall response of noble Lords today has been tremendously positive and supportive, so I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Schools: Transgender Guidance
Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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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.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, as the Minister says, this is clearly a sensitive and complex issue, and schools are clamouring to know what to do. All kinds of stories abound about “woke policies” and “political correctness gone mad”, but the Cass review said that “doing nothing” for a child in distress is not a “neutral act”. Pending guidelines arriving, will the Minister agree that all school policies should be as sensitive and inclusive as possible?
Baroness Barran (Con)
We absolutely want our policies to be sensitive, and we need them to be practical, clear and trusted. The noble Baroness quoted one element of Dr Cass’s report, but I did not hear her also say—forgive me if I missed it—that any decisions about social transition are not neutral either.