Times Education Commission Report

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a real pleasure to take part in this debate. I do not know about A-level physics, but getting women to take part in education debates on a Thursday afternoon might need a little work as well.

It is also a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Storey, although I am not quite as miserable about the whole situation as his speech implied that he is. I am sure that he has some moments of optimism and celebration about what is happening in our schools too. I particularly echo his support for teachers. I do not know whether this is compulsory, but I declare that my son has just started a four-year course learning to be a primary school teacher at Nottingham Trent University. I could not be prouder of him. However, my friends who are primary schoolteachers were not exactly encouraging and tried to talk him out of it, which says something a little concerning about teachers who have been in the profession for some time.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, particularly on his introductory speech and on securing what has been a very good debate. I will leave his comments on the internal workings of the Conservative Party to the Minister. I am sure that she has noted the remarks on that subject from the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, which I enjoyed.

Many noble Lords bring professional and personal experience to this Chamber, and that expertise has been most valuable in our considerations this afternoon. However, a thread of frustration ran through the debate. It was not directed at this Minister, but clearly we all want the Government to do much better in education than most contributors agree that they have in recent years. It is a mark of the quality of the debate that no one has claimed to have all the answers to the challenges faced by our children and young people in 2022, except perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Baker, who had rather a lot of the answers. He tested the patience of his Whip but he had something to say. His contribution was well worth listening to.

However, no one will have all the answers until we properly understand the challenges and the problems. That is where the Times report is so valuable. If we are to have a 15-year strategy or anything like that, we must have a shared understanding of the reality as it is today—not how it was when we were at school, how we imagine it might be now or what we pick up from our children, but how it is and what the evidence and experience of people currently in the education system tells us. That is where the report is so helpful.

Of course, what is also needed is a Government with a laser-like focus on this topic, and we do not have that right now. Two politicians have been raised rather a lot: Tony Blair and Michael Gove. Much as I fundamentally disagreed with Michael Gove on many of the things that he did—the one that stands out was the rebanding of the grades in GCSE English one year, which was dreadful—we had a sense that somebody was in charge and that there was a direction of travel at that time. We have missed that since then. I did not like the direction of travel but at least there was one.

This commission has highlighted some of the worst shortcomings of the UK’s education system in recent years. It tells us what many of us already know: that our system is not preparing children adequately for life, never mind employment. Some 22% of adults lack the digital skills to take part in the modern world, and 75% of employers say that they have had to give staff extra training in basic skills. Employers should, of course, invest in their workforce and constantly improve their employees’ skills, but they should also be able to recruit staff with solid basic skills.

As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, reminded us, this is an issue of global competitiveness. I should tell him that I make a point of reading many of the reports from the Tony Blair Institute, not just those on education and skills; I think I was probably a Blairite before it became fashionable in my party again. As the noble Lord, Tony Blair and many others have often observed, a failure to address these challenges and to invest in the skills needed—in engineering, pharmaceuticals or design, for example—will leave the UK unable to lead the industries of today, never mind tomorrow.

I remember being in Sedgefield Labour club around 1998 listening to Tony talking about China. He said that China was not about poor people on bicycles anymore; it was a country that was investing heavily in its workforce and it would be globally competitive as a consequence. He was trying to argue that we should be doing the same. That we have not managed to do that sufficiently is harming our position internationally. It is leaving our country, and our young people in particular, trailing behind other nations.

My noble friend Lord Knight was right to remind us that our education system is a place of hope. We must never forget that: it is an investment in our collective, as well as individual, futures. I always feel more positive and optimistic after listening to my noble friend, because of his day-to-day involvement in schools. The innovation he leads gives some cause for optimism.

Pleasingly, the report seems to have received a warm reception from practitioners and experts, and across party lines in this House. This has not been a party-political debate and it has been all the better for it. I hope we will better understand what the Government make of the report after the Minister closes this debate, but I wonder whether she can tell us whether the Government will publish a formal response. I know the Government do not publish formal responses to every report published by every random think tank, but this report is rather special and it might be worthy of something more substantial from the Government than we have had so far. It is an important piece of work and it would help to know the Government’s view on it. Maybe what we get from the Minister this afternoon will be enough, but it would be good to have something of substance.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Watson on his well-informed comments on early years, and on the emphasis he placed on chapter 2 of the report. We have heard a jumble of comments from the Government about how early years and play-based education are regulated and funded. One product of the rapid turnover of Secretaries of State and Ministers is that we hear random musings from the Government and we do not know how to treat them. It is the opposite of good, clear leadership. I am sure the Minister knows that parents and providers of early years need clarity and certainty to plan. I hope we will get some detail from the Minister shortly, if not necessarily today.

The Minister is familiar with concerns about the impact on the cost per place from direct childcare payments. That is one of the ideas of which the Prime Minister is quite fond. Of course we all want a simplified system, but undermining providers and risking a reduction in places or an escalation in costs, pricing many parents out of childcare altogether, is not the answer. Could she assure us that she understands these concerns and let us know what the current thinking is? Could the Minister also give us an idea of when we might have a fuller Statement on the Government’s childcare reforms, so that we can have an informed debate on the issue?

Talking of informed debate, many noble Lords present spent days working to improve the Schools Bill in Committee, before the Summer Recess. What is the Minister able to say on that topic today? To be fair, the Minister at the time was very understanding of our concerns, and set up a process to examine some of the problems that we identified with the Bill. There were some measures that were broadly welcomed—those around home education, for example—so we would like to know what the current thinking is. We do understand that a new Secretary of State will perhaps want to reconsider the approach; that is only to be expected. If that is what is happening, it would be reassuring to know, as well as an idea of how long that might take.

Some of the proposals in the commission sit well with existing Labour Party policies, such as in-school counsellors to support well-being, a focus on career development for teachers and a collaborative approach from Ofsted. Others are really exciting propositions that we would love to explore further, such as ideas to address higher education cold spots, and the work to improve participation in music, drama and sport. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, made some excellent points about flexible higher education, and his comments chime well with the commission’s recommendations. I hope that we can explore them a little further.

The commission has been creative, curious, and open-minded. That is the approach that I think we want to see from our Government too. I have to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies, though, and the National Education Union, when they say that this report is sadly another indicator of the gulf between the Government’s policies and the needs of our education system today. That is how, I am afraid, it does feel to parents and teachers who are dealing with the day-to-day reality of underfunding and lack of leadership. Despite wanting to centralise everything all the time, there is a lack of central leadership from the Government and of clarity of direction. And now we have the threat of strikes from an exhausted, overworked and undervalued workforce, which will not make things any easier at all.

Things have not been going well in recent years; I think that is fair to say. Difficult though it may be, Education Ministers are going to have put aside the broader chaos—if I can put it that way—engulfing this Government and focus relentlessly on the needs of our youngest citizens. I will finish by repeating the noble Lord, Lord Rees, when he said that the upheaval of Covid should energise us. I hope—perhaps more than expect, in the current political context—that that is what is about to happen.