Higher Education: Affordability and Quality
Baroness Deech Excerpts(3 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Baroness Deech
That this House takes note of the future affordability and quality of higher education.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a former Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education and principal of St Anne’s. Let me say at the outset that our universities are a brilliant global asset and, in order to carry out the innovation and research that they do, they must be free to be elite and not be held back by manipulative regulation or excessive preferential diversity targets. In my maiden speech 20 years ago, I pointed out that it was taken as axiomatic that students see themselves as consumers, with rights and outcomes, mainly that higher education is mostly about higher earning power over a lifetime. I begged to differ.
I understand this quantifier now, because the burden of loan repayments is so heavy, but it remains true that HE is not simply about equipping students with skills for employment. It involves unmeasurable assets which add up to a public benefit: induction into citizenship, leadership and employment, instilling ambition and motivation, the ability to savour work and leisure, independence of thought, intelligence and intelligibility, having a stake in the future and control over one’s destiny, and an informed interest in politics. The difficulty in gaining employment is not a weakness of HE; it is the result of this Government’s own policies and the expectations of arguably too many graduates.
Studies show, none the less, that only 8% of graduates regret going to university, and far fewer of them are out of work than in the non-university population. The quantity of a graduate salary should not be taken as a marker of success. Counting success by salary level undervalues the public good of teaching, nursing, social work and the arts—traditionally not so well paid. I profoundly disagree with the ranking of subjects according to how much graduates will earn, with creative arts at the bottom of the table. Is it seriously considered that creative arts, one of the glories of our culture, are to be axed because students will, and they know it, be precarious wage earners?
In sum, the sector faces a significant funding and quality crisis. Without sustainable funding and the maintenance of the standards which have put Britain at the top of the international league, there will be closures, further reliance on international students, who may well find that what they came here for no longer exists, a revolt against fee paying and loans, and lower research input and success.
The Government’s 2025 White Paper, Post-16 Education and Skills, categorises courses rather than institutions. Noble Lords should also read the Policy Exchange report, Tarnished Towers. I propose fewer universities, with a type of return to the former division of universities and polytechnics, and a fee differential. As an aim, I suggest that outstanding quality and differential are to be valued, in contrast to the universality of admission and outcome grades that we have at the moment.
There are some lessons to be learned from Europe. There, lower-ranked universities supply teaching and training and make contracts with local industries. Nearly all have far fewer luxury facilities and buildings than British universities. The pay of staff and leaders in Europe is about one-third that of their UK counterparts and ranks with civil service pay. I urge emulation of the ratio of European university leaders’ salaries, where they earn no more than three or four times what ordinary lecturers get, whereas here it is 13 or 14 times more, a ratio that destroys loyalty and replaces it with distance.
In Europe, grants are more often for living costs than tuition. This is excellent because, as the Sutton Trust has shown, social mobility is achieved here by students leaving home to mix with others who have the same ambitions and where the course is the best in their subject, rather than having to stay at home and going to the local university. The White Paper is right to reintroduce maintenance.
Our great quality is under threat. This is due to the low admissions requirements, the inflated degree results and the lack of data about or requirement of student input. The proportion of Firsts, which is 30%, and 2.1s awarded by each institution should be capped. The National Student Survey asks detailed questions about the education provided to the students and their opinion of it. It asks nothing about how much work they do and whether they have done it as required and on time; in other words, they are treated as passive consumers. The OfS is right to consider the credibility of the inflation of Firsts and Seconds, which does nothing to help employment prospects and contributes to the number of students complaining to the authorities that they have not received the grade they thought they were buying or that they should have received, if their disabilities were taken into account.
The figures about entrants’ lack of qualifications are shocking. Some 8% of UK undergraduates starting in 2024 had no formal qualifications and 75,000 students did not have a single A-level. This lack is concentrated in certain universities, which, I suggest, are ripe for transition to distance learning and skills provision. Ravensbourne, Bath Spa and Leeds Trinity took in more than 60% of students without qualifications. I recommend national entry qualifications; I leave aside mature students. There is a decline in standards of admission and assessment for both undergraduate and master’s degrees in response to many universities’ dependence on foreign student fees and pressure to widen access and close performance gaps in favour of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Some universities should transition to being different, low-cost digital institutions, making use of AI learning or merging with further education institutions. This may make room for higher grants for higher-quality institutions. Places should be gradually reduced, student loans tailored, and foundation years and access schemes reviewed for their worth. The OfS has the power to downgrade—although I would not call it that—an institution, or the institution can change itself into a different one.
As the White Paper acknowledges, international students are as much a problem as a benefit. I have no doubt that international students who come here for graduate work are not a problem: they have already proved themselves and are likely to be funded by external sources and collaborating with established colleagues here. So I welcome the Government’s global talent fund. However, universities are far too dependent on international undergraduate student fees. If China, for example, were to reverse its policies—or, as is already happening, the Chinese student-age population reduces and China’s own universities are doing so well that they might even attract non-Chinese students—the financial consequences here would be clear.
It is time for our universities somehow to wean themselves off that reliance, not only for the reasons I have given but because of the integration problems. I know from my time dealing with complaints that some foreign students felt that they were cash cows. They were not given orientation, they clustered together, their English was not good enough, and they had visa and funding problems, and so it was difficult to integrate them into academic work for those reasons. International students have long been overrepresented as complainants to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. It is also possible that the entry regulations are being abused by those who seek to remain here rather than study in the short term.
I agree with the Policy Exchange recommendation that there should be a cap of 30% foreign undergrad students at each institution. We have universities in the top 35 of the world league tables, and the European Union has none. It is also the case that this top quality brings many more foreign students here than British ones going abroad, where, in my experience, they were disappointed by the lack of pastoral care and face-to-face contact with lecturers. So I am wary about giving any loans to international students as the record of repayment is very bad. They should, of course, pay full fees. Now that Erasmus is being restored, the cost to our Government will increase, because it has always been the case that three times as many overseas students came here as ours who went abroad. The Government have proposed an international student levy, which seems a good idea. However, there are complex issues, given that the number is likely to reduce in any case, while the attractiveness of the UK will remain.
The loans system is a real blot on the landscape. The average student debt is over £47,000. Most graduates will never repay it in full—and if they do, it can take 31 years. Those fees are insufficient in any case. The balance is £492 billion, and less than one-third are likely to repay. The issue is the high levels of unemployment undermining the repayment aim. The scheme is complex and not at all understood by the teenagers who sign up to it without full knowledge or understanding. Unbelievably, they may end up paying more than they borrowed, over decades, with shifting rules. The interest rate is excessive. It pushes graduates into very high tax rates, and it is a regressive system. They see it as a tax on ambition. The way out for women is to get married right after university and not work.
I predict that the outstanding debts will have to be written off sooner or later. After weighing it all up, I have concluded that the way forward is indeed a graduate tax for several decades. It is relatively simpler and easier to understand, avoids huge debts and can be progressive. Still, we should await the report of the Treasury Committee inquiry into the scheme.
I cannot leave this topic without looking into freedom of speech, which lies, or should lie, at the heart of higher education. There was a fight for centuries over freedom of speech in all arenas—freedom from religious domination. Just as it seems to have been won, there have re-entered a new religious repression, gender issues and racism. Because of the misuse of human rights and loss of liberal leadership, respect for divergence, curiosity, courage and tolerance is vanishing. This is a serious rot at the heart of the system. Universities have failed to uphold free speech and have tolerated extremism and antisemitism—which I have spoken about many times here—as if they are frightened of their students’ excesses. The OfS must take this on if the vice-chancellors will not.
The Government have finally implemented the complaints process for freedom of speech complaints, as mandated in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 so long ago. The jurisdiction is rather awkwardly split between the OfS and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. The latter can deal only with students, and then only after the university’s internal procedures have been exhausted. The OIA would look to see whether the university’s procedures have been followed, not at the substantive issue of whether freedom of speech was actually threatened and whether it was permissible. The Office for Students, on the other hand, will deal with academics, staff, external speakers and student unions, and has more substantive enforcement powers.
The danger with both is that they may be too slow. After all, if a free speech issue manifests itself in May, the students and others will be long gone by the time there is a decision, and the costs will be high. There is no mechanism for immediate injunctive relief so, unless university authorities show muscle, we can expect more of the crowd and intimidation tactics that stop a speaker in his or her tracks.
It is time for an overhaul, with fewer, more diversified universities, more skills and technical ones, and a lifelong learning entitlement, and of quality of admission and grades, with caps on numbers, with the courage to deliver quality and free speech and to tell the world about the public good that our excellent system delivers. Will the Minister push for fewer, recategorised universities; capping Firsts and Seconds; the National Student Survey asking students how much work they have done; a national entry qualification; and a cap, even on undergraduates? Will she reconsider a graduate tax to keep our system at the front of the world, as it has been for so long?
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, this debate has sounded the alarm to the Minister and the department about what is going on in our universities. In fact, ever since Prime Minister Tony Blair, the attitude of successive Governments has been somewhat “light the blue touchpaper” in relation to numbers and “stand back and see what happens”.
There is a real crisis, and the fact that we have gathered this afternoon such a galaxy of leading academics of this country is in itself a tribute to the effect of higher education. In fact, there are dozens of other Members of the House—maybe more than that—who could not be here this afternoon but who are also the most distinguished academics. However, I hazard a guess that many of them, like me, and as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, benefited from free tuition, maintenance grants and a smooth passage through higher education.
Not least of our luminaries in this House is the noble Lord, Lord Rees. If ever there was an exemplar of scientific research at the highest level, recognised around the world, it is him, and it is a privilege that he sits here. I think he stands in himself for a more flexible attitude to higher education, less of a division between humanities and science, and the contribution that scientists can make to the general well-being of the country. We should learn from that and adopt a more flexible approach, whether it is allowing students to have more of a mixture of subjects or turning some universities into places that offer a different sort of learning, or even over a shorter time. I would call the noble Lord, Lord Rees, the CP Snow of our age, because that is what he has expressed to us in his time here.
There were some disagreements among us, but I think there has been very broad division on the fact that AI needs careful attention, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Cash, and the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, said. Many of us agree that salary is not the main issue. How many of us said to ourselves, “What’s the salary going to be?” when we went to education? I am sure we did not say that. When I was choosing students at admissions and said to them, “Why have you chosen this subject?”, if they said to me, “Because of the salary”, I can assure your Lordships that it would have been an immediate thumbs-down. It is the morality, as the right reverend Prelate said, and the personal qualities that are drip-fed into you by those precious three or four years, and many of us have agreed on that—the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman, and others.
As people spoke, I was thinking, “Is it not such a good thing now that members of the Royal Family go into higher education, and even the women?” That was not the case so long ago. The values of higher education will indeed show themselves out in the attitudes and benefits that the Royal Family can bring to us.
Access remains important. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, who herself did so much for the higher education sector, that access is important, but, putting it rather crudely, I think access should now swivel to class rather than ethnicity. I think the problem is with poor students, especially poor white students, rather than focusing all the time on diversity of ethnicity.
As I have already mentioned, research is vital. We led the way with the Covid vaccination and AI. Unless research is supported, as the noble Lords, Lord Patel, Lord Bew and Lord Stevens, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, Britain will sink back. Our research is world beating and it benefits us personally.
Freedom of speech has been a passion of mine for a long time. I was pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, express their anxieties. It is something that we absolutely must all promote, lest our universities sink down.
Student loans remain a real problem. I confidently predict that they will topple over and the whole system will not survive. It cannot. Something else will have to take its place. My bet is on some form of graduate tax. One can see student loans becoming unaffordable and the debt to the country mounting up and being a deterrent.
We are all keen to see the arts flourish regardless of salary, and we hope that the Government will recognise that. We need to see vocational education flourish, whether through apprenticeships or different types of universities, as the noble Lord, Lord Trees, said, so there is much that unites us. I remain troubled about international students as they will be a great cost to the system, especially if, as was formerly the case, three times more EU students come here than our students go there, and they are not paying their full whack and not repaying. That is a real problem.
We have a wonderful system. All of us here implore the Minister to listen to what the academics here have said and to preserve that system with special attention to the arts and the fragility of the loan system.
Motion agreed.
Reforming the Child Maintenance Service (Public Services Committee Report)
Baroness Deech Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, it is a heartrending statistic that 4 million of the UK’s 14 million children live in separated families. That is a higher proportion than in many European countries. The drawbacks of that situation are well known. Children from one-parent families show lower average educational attainment, reduced social mobility and a higher likelihood of becoming young parents themselves. Almost all these patterns are driven by poverty—44% are living in poverty and instability, with reduced social capital—rather than by single parenthood as such. I add in parentheses that I hope this Government do not plan on any legislation that will cause more cohabiting parents to split, for that is what is likely if financial claims by one cohabitant against the other are enabled after three years, as has been suggested, because the parents will separate before those three years are up.
It behoves us to do all we can to make sure that absent parents, usually fathers, pay their fair share of support for the children they have left behind. The figures in the Public Services Committee report show otherwise. Some 31% of liable parents in the collect and pay scheme paid nothing. Some £28.1 million was due in one quarter. Enforcement is slow. The process and the calculations breed distrust between parents, and many of the families involved have suffered domestic abuse.
It is a matter of regret that the Government have rejected some of the committee’s recommendations, especially those at the heart of the system relating to the retention of direct pay and the treatment of victims of domestic abuse. The CMS is a vast service, employing over 5,000 people, and it suffers from what we are used to with national government services: lengthy waits on the phone and poor communication. That is why it seems to me that we have a troubling dissonance between the principle of child maintenance and the reality.
In family law, the interests of children are paramount. This principle permeates our legislation, court determinations and public debate. But, when we look at the practicalities of our system for securing support for those children left behind by one parent, there is little reflection of that principle in reality. The report of the Public Services Committee on reforming the CMS exposes that breach. It describes a system where, despite the paramountcy of the child’s interest, the delivery of support is complex, enforcement is weak and too many children are not getting what they need and deserve.
Child maintenance is not discretionary. It is a moral and legal obligation. Parents are under a continuing legal duty to maintain their children. Under the CMS, maintenance is due to children usually only until they are 16, or 20 if they are still in certain types of education, oddly excluding university education. Again, I add in parentheses that the Financial Provision Bill I have introduced in this House on several occasions would make maintenance mandatory to age 21 as the default position. The duty of parents to support is regardless of whether they were married, and the CMS is the infrastructure for where court or family payments are not working.
There is a striking contrast between the flimsy support for child maintenance and the vast legal structure of payments to divorced spouses, something lawyers are heavily focused on. Payments to divorced wives occupy large amounts of court time and chalk up disproportionately expensive costs going to the lawyers who represent them. Spousal maintenance is based on need, compensation and the ending of a partnership. It involves significant calculation and disclosure of all assets and income. Amazingly, however, assets and property, unearned income and overseas income are not taken into account in calculating child maintenance. On paper, children’s claims are paramount, while spouses’ claims are contingent. But children’s maintenance is compulsory and spousal maintenance is conditional in law. The way the system works shows something very different in the order of priorities.
The Public Services Committee’s report shows that non-payment of child maintenance is widespread. Much has been said about that by speakers already. If custody is shared, there is a reduction in the amount paid to the person who, in common sense, is the caring parent. Claims for more custody may serve to reduce the amount that the largely absent father pays. Even when attempts are made to enforce the payment, compliance is only partial. Too many children are left in poverty, which this Government want to end. So often we have heard that this Government are lifting children out of poverty. Are they? I would go so far as to call the system a national disgrace, in part because taxpayers are left to fill the gap that absent fathers have left.
This has come about because child maintenance is often, unusually, not a matter for the courts. Even in divorce cases, the amount paid to children is often an afterthought, tacked on to the end of a judgment which is all about the needs of the ex-wife and the ex-husband’s ability to pay. For others not in the court system, as we know, the CMS operates. But the courts focus on individual cases, while the CMS has to deal with hundreds of thousands of cases, so the CMS relies on formulaic processes and standard arrangements. One can see that AI will take over this process one day, and it might well be a much better outcome.
In the direct pay system, the payer and payee are left to deal with each other once a calculation has been made, so there is little evidence as to whether it is really working. Enforcement is slow and reportedly not vigorous enough. This is such a contrast to the way divorced wives are treated. For them, there is individual scrutiny. The entirety of the couple’s finances is set out. If payment is not made, one can go back to court. There is professional representation on both sides. I am not saying that all children’s support orders can be handled like that, because there are, sadly, so many. But it is a bad contrast of the two systems. Divorce maintenance can be an expensive protracted struggle, and it too is having to face up to new emphasis on domestic abuse. But divorce gets the level of judicial scrutiny, comprehensive treatment and enforceability that children do not get. A single parent might be better advised to claim maintenance through Schedule 1 to the Children Act 1989, which applies to them in court.
The committee’s report would improve matters for children. It is a matter of regret that the Government have disagreed with some of its central proposals, and I hope we will hear why. The Government have agreed to stronger enforcement tools and faster appeals. They have agreed to improved staff training, especially relating to domestic abuse cases, and to improve communications. The Government have accepted that the calculation of maintenance should be reviewed, but there is no detail. This needs improved income assessment and stronger investigation of the ability to pay. In contrast to the committee’s report, the Government want to move to a single system of collect and pay, replacing direct pay. This may protect payees whose relationship is troubled, but it may at the same time increase hostility and disturb arrangements that were working.
Before 1991, child maintenance was largely a matter for the magistrates’ courts. After all these years of a state child maintenance service in different guises, one wonders whether it was right to remove it from the supervision of the courts. Has the pendulum swung too far to an administrative, impersonal system at the expense of trust, openness and enforceability? Perhaps more oversight by magistrates would help. In the meantime, we are letting down children, and the consequences of this will carry on down the generations. Studies have shown that the effects of poverty on a child continue through their life and pass on, in turn, to their own children.
I ask the Minister: will the Government get on and reform those limited parts of the system that they have agreed to reform? They have said that they want to end child poverty. Here is an opportunity for them which they must seize immediately; there can be no reason why they should not. I conclude by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, for the wonderful work that she and the rest of the committee have done on this neglected, complicated but vital system.
Masculinity and Misogyny in Schools
Baroness Deech Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend raises an important point—we want girls to be able to feel safe and to report, as she suggests. However, it should be not only the responsibility of girls to stand up for themselves in the face of misogyny; it should be part of the whole-school approach to challenge that and part of a school’s safeguarding process. Support for that is clearly spelled out in the Keeping Children Safe in Education statutory guidance, for staff to understand how to support girls when they report incidents and how to identify what is happening even if those incidents are not reported.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, is there any evidence that the problem is worse with a decline of single-sex schools? Would things be better if there were more single-sex schools, at least for girls?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The truth is that I do not know whether there is any evidence that supports that contention. The vast majority of children in this country do not go to single-sex schools. We need to ensure that every school, single-sex or not, recognises the need to tackle misogyny and is supported, as this Government will do, with the resources to be able to do that.
Child Poverty Strategy
Baroness Deech Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I will say two things. Children did not fall into poverty overnight and they will not all come out of it overnight. Poverty has a range of drivers. We are determined not simply to address this problem now but to find a way of tackling it in the long term. However, since the noble Lord wants examples of action, I will give him some. What have we already done? As we have made clear, we are going to put £39 billion into social and affordable housing. We are expanding free school meals to all families on universal credit, putting £600 million into the holiday activities and food programme, extending the warm home discount scheme to an extra 2.7 million people, and removing the two-child limit to lift 450,000 children out of poverty in this Parliament. That is action, and this Government are taking it.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, may I ask the Minister what the definition of poverty is? If it is “below the average” then there is no hope of getting rid of poverty. Is it an absolute standard? Secondly, has she calculated the amount owed to the Child Maintenance Service by absent fathers? Why should the taxpayer fund maintenance for children that the father owes and is not paying?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, the Government are using two metrics. We are using relative low income after housing costs, which is the international standard measure, but we are also using deep material poverty. That is a new measure that has been devised based on material deprivation, which reflects our commitment to addressing deeper child poverty. Material deprivation is traditionally calculated by asking the public what essentials they think families should have and getting a list of them. They are things such as warm homes, appropriate housing, enough food to eat, et cetera. The measure shows that if a family cannot afford at least four of those then they are in deep material deprivation. Having both those metrics helps us to measure what is going on in families.
I completely agree with the noble Baroness about child maintenance. Everybody should pay for their children, whether they are still with the other partner or not. The Government have done a lot to drive up the rate of support for child maintenance. We are taking reform steps to make it even better, and we will keep doing that.
Student Loans: Review
Baroness Deech Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I wonder whether the noble Earl has had the opportunity to discuss with some of his colleagues whether they believe that the system that they introduced is a scam. This is a system that was introduced by the previous Government. Plan 2 is no longer in operation for students starting today. Finally, if the leader of the Opposition is trying to suggest to students that they will repay less through a cap on interest, she would, of course, be misleading them, because that would not be true.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, the Sutton Trust, which has done wonderful work in this area, has shown that students who cannot afford to leave home do worse in their studies and throughout life. Will the Minister give student maintenance top priority and make it open to everybody, as it was in my time? I hope she will be brave enough not to shy away from the possible need to cut university places, have some mergers and make sure that we are not oversupplied with courses and universities that are not worth the money that students are paying.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I am afraid that I do not agree with the noble Baroness that reducing the numbers of people who can benefit from higher education is the most effective way to address this issue, although I agree that we need to address the cost of living crisis that current students face. That is why we are increasing the support available through maintenance loans, and it is why this Government will reintroduce the maintenance grants cut by the previous Government.
Universal Credit: Two-child Limit
Baroness Deech Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I think I have made my views clear on the impact of this policy. It is, in essence, a failed social experiment which has been pushing 100 children a day into poverty. We simply cannot allow that to happen. We want to support families. Most parents want to work to support their kids. Already, 84% of parents are in work—that is what people do. I used to work with single parents, who would say, “Even when it’s really a struggle, I want my kids to see this is what you do when you grow up”, but many people face barriers to work, and it is our job to make that possible. If you cannot afford childcare, how can you get to work? If you are not paid enough to be able to make life even bearable, how can you do that? The social security system should be there to support those who cannot work, but for those who can, to make it possible and to help them have a decent standard of living when doing so.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, around £450 million is owed to the Child Maintenance Service by absent fathers and some absent mothers. Some 160,000 children would be lifted out of poverty if the defaulting parents paid what they owed to the Child Maintenance Service. Does the Minister agree that is not right for the taxpayer to pick up the burden owed by defaulting parents and that the Child Maintenance Service must get that money from the parents?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, the great advantage is not an either/or. The wonderful thing about child maintenance is that it does not impact on somebody’s social security, so if someone is working and getting some universal credit, maintenance tops that up further. The Child Maintenance Service does an astonishing job in many, sometimes very challenging, circumstances. Here is one simple statistic: since the Child Maintenance Service was set up in 2012, it has collected 93% of all the maintenance owed, but I am sorry to say that there are some parents who simply do not want to pay for their children. The Child Maintenance Service has astonishing powers. It will go after them, and it will keep after them, but we should encourage everybody to do the right thing: pay for your children, go out there and make it possible for them to have a decent life.
Schools: Funding
Baroness Deech Excerpts(8 months ago)
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Baroness Deech (CB)
Has the Minister witnessed what I and some of my acquaintances have witnessed, which is a failure of social engineering because very rich parents and many foreign parents can still afford private schools but a larger number of the middle class and the less well-off will be going to state schools, hence a much bigger chasm between the privately educated and the state educated?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I am not sure that is unusual. It has always been the case that in order to benefit from a private education, you need to be able to afford it. The vast majority of children in this country attend state schools. That is why this Government are focusing our investment and our reform on those schools. That is the way to solve the problem of children from whatever background not receiving the education that they deserve.
Labour Market
Baroness Deech Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I presume the noble Lord is referring to the stories about universal credit. The structure of universal credit was created by the last Government. It was designed to operate in and out of work. We have become aware that there were some imbalances in the system. As the noble Lord will be aware, the Universal Credit Bill that we put through just before the recess has rebalanced the rates of universal credit by halving the amounts that will be paid in future to those who are out of work on grounds of illness or disability. It will increase the standard allowance to help raise incentives to work. I think most people want to work and have a fulfilling life. Our job is both to put the incentives in the right place and to make sure that the jobs are there and that people are skilled to do them. We are determined to do all this.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, thousands of workers who want to go to work today are unable to do so because of the Tube strike. Thousands of Tube drivers who should be at work have stayed at home. Will the Government reverse their policy of giving in to every trade union demand, thereby putting up prices, encouraging inflation and making more people stay at home and not go to work?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, as I am sure the noble Baroness knows, transport in London is devolved to the Mayor and Transport for London.