Education Recovery

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I am pleased to assure the noble Lord that this third chunk of money for tutoring is being distributed in a different way. One reason is as he outlined. Some £579 million will go to schools for what we are now calling school-led provision. Schools may want to use their existing staff, make part-time staff such as TAs more full-time and use local tutoring, such as retired teachers and so on, in their workforce. The noble Lord is right to say, particularly in the case of many SEN students and vulnerable children, that the existing relationship with a TA, for example, might be the best provision for a student.

Therefore, this £579 million, which is separate from academic mentors and tuition partners through the NTP, will now go to schools. As I said to the noble Lord yesterday, that will provide even greater flexibility to schools that might want to fund other subjects that the tuition partners are not providing in support. More of the arts subjects, for example, could therefore be covered, so there will be flexibility. Around £1 billion is going into tutoring, which is a large sum. I would not want to say precisely in relation to each jurisdiction that it is the top amount, although we are spending a considerable amount on tutoring because the evidence tells us that it will help children to catch up.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I applaud the noble Baroness for her defence of a policy that I think she recognises is entirely indefensible. She calls for more evidence but have the Government thought of looking at the US, which is spending £1,600 per child, or the Netherlands, which is spending £2,500 per pupil? When she talks about fiscal consolidation, has she thought about the competing pressures on a global Britain, the future of work and the technological changes that will happen? They will require a little bit more spending than £50 per pupil per year.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

On technological advance, I will be in front of noble Lords next week talking about schools and post-16 education, which is part of the Government’s skills policy. As I previously outlined, I am nervous about international comparisons. It is appropriate in relation to some of the money distributed, such as the £650 million, which, from memory, is £80 per pupil, and £240 for SEND or AP pupils, because it relates to general schools money. However, one cannot look at the £200 million on a per-pupil basis because it is for summer schools and available only to year 7.

The £1 billion for tutoring is targeted at disadvantaged students and we do not know whether the figures that the noble Baroness outlined include the £400 million that has gone into technology and remote learning for the 1.3 million laptops. Per-pupil funding is not always comparing apples with apples. That is a key part of our strategy. I agree that the pandemic has affected all children and there is a case for amounts such as the £650 million to go to all schools but the evidence that we are getting from different areas of the country on disadvantaged students is why a huge proportion of the money is targeted at them through the tutoring programme.