King’s Speech

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, my contribution will be to the education side of this debate. As the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, will reply to the debate, I hope that the Education Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, who is most welcome to this House—might be kind enough to meet me soon to follow up on what I shall highlight. I declare my interests in languages, as set out in the register.

Much needs to be done to reverse the damaging decline in the UK’s language skills but, in the short time I have today, I shall flag up just one of the barriers to the teaching and learning of languages: the viability of educational trips and exchanges. Some 50% of schools are now cutting them, with that figure rising to 68% in deprived areas, but the good news is that this can be fixed, and quickly—a perfect early win for an incoming Government committed both to tackling regional and other inequalities and to creating opportunities.

The new Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, has already said that he is determined to do more to champion school and student exchanges as a vital part of resetting the UK’s relations with our European allies. He told his German opposite number that he hopes

“we can fix that school visits issue”,

and he appeared willing to consider the EU’s proposal to establish a youth mobility scheme for 18 to 30 year-olds to study and work, in welcome contrast to the immediate dismissal of this idea by both Labour and the then Government before the election.

One of the problems is the lack of co-ordination between the three relevant departments: the DfE, the FCDO and the Home Office. We know that the FCDO is alive to the issue, and the Minister knows all about the Home Office, so I hope she will feel happy to take the initiative to create the cross-departmental leadership for the dismantling of the barriers that are short-changing our young people.

A plan of action was submitted by the All-Party Group on Modern Languages to the then Schools Minister in February, so I hope the new Government will support this and start notching up some early changes and successes, knowing that the benefit of trips and exchanges not only applies to the take-up of languages but enhances many other areas of the curriculum, including geography, history, STEM subjects, art and sports. There is also an important positive impact of reciprocal mobility schemes on the supply chain for MFL teachers, and we know from DfE figures that we are looking at a chronic shortage there, second only to maths.

Teachers have told us that the problem is a combination of post-Brexit paperwork for travel and border checks, the burden of DBS checks, missing or conflicting official guidance, and access to opportunity and funding. The paperwork and costs must be reviewed, including bringing back the list of travellers scheme and the group passport scheme. At the moment, trips can face being aborted or delayed at the border because a coachload of children must have their passports individually checked, and coach drivers can reach legal drive time limits. One school I know missed its ferry home two years running because officials insisted on every child getting off the coach to be checked. One year they did not arrive home until 3 am. That was a school in London; it would have been a lot later for a school further away from Dover. Many trips go well, of course, but teachers are acutely aware of the potential for things going wrong.

Where passports are necessary, the cost must be reduced; £53.50 for under-16s is just too much for many families. Then we need clear and consistent guidance to help teachers plan. FCDO travel entry information needs to cover school groups that include both UK and non-UK nationals. Discrepancies between advice to schools from local authorities and from the FCDO must be ironed out. All this could and should be done cost-free and is quickly achievable. DBS checks are now less onerous but the changes are not yet common knowledge in schools, so much more needs to be done to communicate them. That is another quick and cost-free fix.

Finally, I urge the Minister to review the Turing Scheme. The more streamlined application process is welcome but schools have told us that they want a multiyear funding cycle, because a single-year cycle is impractical for many schools and colleges, and for their international partnerships. We also know that reciprocity helps the future MFL teacher supply chain. The easiest way of doing this, of course, would be to rejoin Erasmus+ as a non-EU associate country. I implore the Minister to reopen negotiations on this out of sheer enlightened self-interest for the UK. I look forward to an early opportunity to discuss all this with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Malvern.