Further Education: Teachers’ Pay

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to fund further education teachers’ pay increases.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, all teachers are equally important to us. However, further education providers, including sixth-form colleges, are private sector institutions, independent of government. It is for individual FE employers to agree local pay structures, with unions, based on local needs. We are currently considering the efficiency and resilience of the FE sector, and assessing how far existing funding and regulatory structures meet the costs of delivering quality further education, ahead of the spending review.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

But, my Lords, the Government do have an input into this. This is Colleges Week and we should acknowledge the part which further education colleges play in education and English education, with apprenticeships, with further technical and academic qualifications, and with adult learning. They have been lumbered with the wretched GCSE and maths resits, which really are an abomination that the Government need to reconsider. Can the Minister say why, in the last 10 years, college funding has been cut by around 30% and the value of staff pay has fallen by 25%? Why has the recently ring-fenced teachers’ pay grant for schools not been extended to FE colleges? The Government after all do have a part to play in this.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, to reiterate our acknowledgment of the great role FE colleges play, more than eight out of 10 are judged “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted and, in the most recent data, 58% of pupils leaving go on to jobs and 22% go on into further learning. We absolutely recognise that. There are a couple of figures that might interest the noble Baroness. According to the ONS earnings data—which is, of course, only a survey—when accounting for inflation, FE teacher pay in England has remained stable since 2013. The other point—to pull on some of the broader strands that the noble Baroness mentioned—is that, by 2020, funding available to support adult FE participation, including the adult education budget, the 19-plus apprenticeship funding and advanced learner loans, is planned to be higher than at any time in our recent history.

Education and Training

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, has the Minister had any further thoughts about giving more support to careers education, so that young people are more fully aware of the range of work opportunities in the world of tomorrow?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

Again, the noble Baroness asks a very important question. We have our careers strategy, underpinned by the Gatsby benchmarks, which among other things help students to learn from the career and labour market information available. The curriculum should be linked to careers, for example by bringing STEM subjects to life, and young people should have real engagement with employers and receive personal guidance. The performance of 3,000 schools and colleges has now been diagnosed against the Gatsby benchmarks, and awareness in schools is increasing all the time.

Primary School Children

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to increase knowledge of work skills, careers and jobs amongst primary school children.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, it is crucial that we inspire children about the opportunities ahead from an early age. The Government have allocated £2 million in the careers strategy to test new approaches to careers provision in primary schools. Our aim is to learn more about what works so that children can develop positive attitudes about work by meeting employers and learning about different career options. We will share the results widely so that other schools can benefit and build their own expertise.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, the National Association of Head Teachers, to which about 98% of primary head teachers belong, has over the past five years developed a brilliant programme, Primary Futures, which has attracted international recognition—it even gets a mention in the DfE’s careers strategy. It gets volunteers from the world of work to go in to schools to inspire and motivate children and open opportunities for them. The noble Lord has mentioned the £2 million, but why have the Government given it to the Careers & Enterprise Company to replicate this work, instead of ensuring that the NAHT’s brilliant programme is rolled out across primary schools in the country?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is correct about the wonderful work that the Primary Futures programme is achieving. More than 3,000 primary schools are registered, and there are 37,000 volunteers and 10,000 employers. The reason we have allocated the money to the Careers & Enterprise Company is simply to broaden the research base for careers training, or at least awareness in primary schools, which is very important. When I ran into the noble Baroness in the corridor last week ahead of this Question, she said, “I do hope you will come up with something useful in your Answer”. What I can say today is that we are now extending the Gatsby benchmark programme—research that has wide support—to take it into primary schools. In January next year, a pilot involving some 70 primaries will translate these benchmarks for use at that stage.

Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL]

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 27th April 2018 Lords Chamber

That is a reflection of something that has not gone right in the education system and we should absolutely try to put the underlying education right. But a lot of people who have been forced into home education and, as it were, made their own decision to take their children out are doing an extremely good job. Many of the stories of home educators I come across are of people in those circumstances, so Amendment 28 would just recognise that. It is about not only initial choice but a reaction to doing the best for one’s child in the knowledge that one can. I beg to move Amendment 5.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, if Amendment 27 is agreed to in this group, I cannot accept Amendment 28 by reasons of pre-emption.

[Lord Soley]

I am quite interested in the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has put. We have had a number of discussions on areas such as this and he has been extremely helpful. The only point that I have had made to me is that there is a problem with the definition of full-time and part-time. However, the noble Lord has made the point that this is something the Minister’s consultations and discussions should take into account. That would be helpful and I have no objection to it in principle, although there may be difficulties about definition.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, I must inform the Committee that if Amendment 7 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 7A or 7B by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I strongly oppose the amendment. I do so because the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seems to be arguing that because we cannot have the perfect system, we should not take a few steps along the road towards such a system. There have been long-standing problems in the whole area of vulnerable children, which the Children’s Commissioner has identified, which would be helped a great deal if the Government could press on with a common identifier for children. The Minister has heard me banging on about this from time to time—I never miss an opportunity to bang on about it—but there is an issue of how the state joins up information about children who may be vulnerable in a number of ways.

Anyone who has been involved in public policy and seen the growth in the number of children claiming to be home educated would be worried whether there was abuse in that system. The sheer growth in numbers and its rapidity should make you anxious as a public policy person, whatever your politics, whoever the Government in power are. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, is trying to address that issue. He may not be solving all the problems of childkind, if I may put it that way, but he is trying in a practical way to tackle one element of the area of vulnerable children. We should not handcuff him in that effort by supporting the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I appreciate that we are near a borderline and that this is a matter for discussion, but a lot of the people whom a home educator leaves their children with are other home educators, as it is a way of sharing the burden. On many occasions I have sent my child off to spend a play day or night in the company of a friend’s child without having the parents checked to see whether they have any relevant convictions. One should be conscious that this is an area where we are quite comfortable to rely on personal judgment. It tends to be when you are putting your child in the company of strangers that you want to know that they have been properly checked, particularly those who are part of an institution where they might expect to deal with children on a regular basis. I am very comfortable with that system but I do not think we should start letting that intrude into personal decisions about with which of one’s friends one should let one’s child spend time overnight in their house or spend time with their children being educated by the parent.

A border seems to be being drawn here on the basis that in some way home educators are worse or more risky than the rest of us. Not only is there no evidence for that but it is entirely unjustified to say it. I keep feeling that people say it because they are different: “They are not people like us and therefore we’re suspicious”. I hope that in many aspects that is something that we can educate ourselves out of—we should not allow ourselves to slip in that direction. Therefore, I feel that the noble Lord’s amendment goes too far, although I understand what he says about it. However, I do not think that it fits with the general pattern of home education.

We will come to the subject of unregistered schools in a later group, and that seems a substantial problem to address. Effectively there are institutions run by strangers that purport to provide education. Children are dropped off and collected later and, because the institutions are not registered or formally classified as schools or other institutions, there may be no DBS or any other checks on them. That is a problem that the Department for Education needs to deal with. We know that there are a lot of such places and that they need attention, but we do not seem to have given ourselves the tools to deal with them.

However, I do not think we should trespass on the privately run institutions, where parents are permitted to drop their children off with friends and acquaintances to receive a bit of education. We all do that at the weekend but we do not for a moment consider that formal checks have to be made. We should recognise the difference between the need to check in the public realm and there being no need to check in the private realm. We should draw a rational and natural division between the two and not let the checks of the public realm bleed into the private. I do not think that that would work. We should trust parents to educate children in the same way as we trust them to bring them up outside school hours and we should be comfortable with the processes around that.

Coming back to the main amendment, I am comforted by what the Minister effectively says in the draft guidance that he has published about how a local authority should establish whether a parent is providing a proper education for their children. I again urge him to accept that this will all work much better if he can find a way of providing a proper level of support. Then, in almost all cases, that assessment can be carried out in the natural way—in the same way as it is carried out by a teacher, observing a child over a period of time and forming a professional judgment.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, the noble Lord has made some very valid points but I am concerned by the length at which he is speaking. The Committee would much appreciate being able to finish Committee stage today. If he could possibly curtail his remarks, the Committee would very much appreciate that.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I do not think that with the point that we have got to there is any great danger of running over the time. I am taking a bit of time on this group because it is the last important and substantive group. There is only one other point that I wish to make at length and that is on flexi-schooling, but I will not speak about that at great length and I do not think that it is contentious. However, I believe that the whole business of assessment is a point of great concern for home educators. Many of them undertake education in their own way. Helping them with that—giving them support, direction and information so that they do it better—seems to be an entirely good idea. However, trying to corral them into a system of education which has largely evolved to make schools work but which is not followed in many schools of which we approve, as well as a lot of schools abroad, seems to be entirely inappropriate. Therefore, if we are to have something that works, and if we are to support and accept home education, we have to be very careful what we say on assessment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Children: Missed Education

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, some groups particularly at risk of missing education include disabled children, those with special educational needs, young offenders and children in care. Surely these young people should be known to social services, the police, doctors or other authorities. Will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to encourage these authorities to liaise with the education authority to ensure that these children get the education that they need and deserve for a better life?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it is already a requirement following the issue of our guidelines in 2016 that, for any child registered as SEN, permission must be sought from the local authority to move them to home education. We are strengthening that guidance, as announced yesterday, and have indicated that we will carry out an exclusion review, which will of course begin with these vulnerable children.

Schools: Indoctrination

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, between January 2016 and August 2017, with additional funding from us, Ofsted identified 125 unregistered schools. It visited 38 of those, 34 of which have now closed. Two more have closed since they were investigated and two are still under investigation. We have appointed I think 36 Prevent officers at the last count to support local authorities in areas of concern to provide advice to schools on exactly these areas. I am concerned about this. I am the department’s Minister with responsibility for extremism, so it is one of my main briefs. I believe we are doing a lot, and we continue to be alert to where more needs to be done.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, could the Minister say what support the Government can offer to head teachers who face difficulties when they come across extremism and indoctrination in their schools? There have been cases of intimidation and heads being prevented from doing their jobs. Could a support network and a hotline perhaps be set up to help them?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, in April 2015 we established a counterextremism helpline to avoid exactly the situation that the noble Baroness raises. Teachers can contact it for confidential advice. We have had more than 450 uses of this helpline from educationists and other members of the public.

Apprenticeships: Disabled Students

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, there seems to be some inconsistency between the theory of the Minister’s replies and the practice that we are hearing about from those who work with these people. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, said, many who find English and maths difficult have the practical skills that we really need in apprenticeships, and the country has an acute skills shortage. Will the Minister say what is being done by the Government to address the inconsistencies in support for these people across the country?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we are very conscious that many able people struggle with maths and English. I come from a family of seven children; only two of us managed maths O-level, so I am very sympathetic on that. But we have made available additional skills training. There are individual courses where additional funding of up to £471 a course is available. As I mentioned earlier, there is the facility to have extra time in exams. Through some of the areas of support that I referred to in response to the supplementary question of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, there is additional funding for things such as equipment needed for British Sign Language, for example, or more technical equipment for other disabled apprentices.

Education and Society

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Friday 8th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I join in thanking the most reverend Primate for introducing this debate and for his insightful words. Education is not only essential in building a flourishing and skilled society but for maintaining it. Increasingly, there is an economic and social imperative for lifelong learning. Education has a seminal role to play in ensuring that children and young people acquire the skills for life and work. It should engender a love of learning, a sense of excitement and self-worth in young people as they explore and develop.

Children’s education starts in the home. We have all seen the joy on the face of a young child who takes its first step, catches its first ball or recites its first nursery rhyme. That is the sort of satisfaction which education should continue to generate, building confidence and aspiration. Sadly, our education system is not always the happy and productive experience it could and should be.

I pay tribute to the Church of England, which plays a key part in education at all levels but a particularly valuable part at primary level, where C of E schools tend to be sought after by those of all faiths and none, as the most reverend Primate has set out. They have an ethos of care and encouragement, which makes for a good start for little people and certainly plays its part in helping to fight embedded squalor.

When formal schooling starts, the Government should ensure that this love of learning continues. Too often, curiosity and enthusiasm are trumped by testing and assessment, with children measured not against where their talents and interests lie but against academic yardsticks, which for many prove difficult and a source of failure. I have asked Ministers before—without getting a satisfactory answer—what importance the Government give to love of learning and fun in the curriculum. What credit are teachers given for stimulating ideas and aspiration in the young, particularly in those who prefer doing and making to thinking and studying?

Constant assessment and measuring play havoc with building skills and knowledge, and can generate feelings of failure even in the very young. If education becomes associated with hopelessness, it becomes increasingly challenging to build up self-respect and aspiration. I taught in numerous secondary schools in England and Germany during a peripatetic life as an RAF wife. I remember only too well the challenges of capturing imagination and encouraging even the slowest and the worst behaved. Teaching can be very satisfying but, my goodness me, it is hard work.

Enthusiasm for learning can be generated in the most unlikely pupil if they can see a purpose in a practical pathway and grow in self-respect with the confidence that they too can be achievers. Dare I ask the Minister to impress on his colleagues the immense value of good careers information at the earliest stage in education? If young people are intrigued by cars, cooking, care or computers, they will see a purpose in learning. Engagement in a practical subject can lead to grasping its academic counterpart. Calculating measurements for building or cooking can clarify the purpose of maths when maths lessons have previously been impenetrable.

Schools can, and do, aim to encourage learning of all sorts but are often held back by oft-changing Ministers and policies—the remorseless “churn of government”. It is pernicious that incoming Secretaries of State seem to feel it imperative to enforce their own new bright ideas, regardless of the impact and unproductive workload on teachers. Can the Minister persuade his education colleagues to hold fire, to consult and to undertake cost and benefit analyses before introducing changes which all too often are politically driven and have little to do with improving the life chances of young people?

I worked for City & Guilds for 20 years. I have asked before and ask again: what steps are the Government taking to incentivise schools to promote apprenticeships and other work-based skills by celebrating pupils who achieve in those areas? League tables and financial incentives lead schools to channel students into GCSEs, A-levels and university, even when their talents, skills and motivation are practical and work based. We face acute skills shortages. We need people with those practical skills.

I recall years ago writing a pretentious A-level essay on Adam Smith’s comment that every man is a student all his life and longer too. This of course was well before political correctness, when “man” was deemed to embrace “woman”—I think that that is how the Romans put it. Education should be lifelong. Adult education and our wonderful and hard-pressed further education colleges have such an important part to play.

The overall number of students from lower participation areas entering higher education in England has fallen by 15% since 2011-12. While figures for full-time students have risen by 7%, there has been a simultaneous 47% fall in part-time students from those same areas. Therefore, overall, fewer people from disadvantaged backgrounds are now going to university.

The adult skills budget has been reduced. Gone are many of those life-enhancing evening classes which could broaden minds, enrich lives and promote aspiration in a wide variety of ways, leading to the flourishing and skilled society we are addressing. It is well proven that learning as an adult brings benefits such as better health and well-being, greater social engagement, increased confidence and better employability, as well as benefits to family and community life. Further education colleges are essential to this progress, with valuable contributions too from great institutions such as the Open University and Birkbeck. The services which they provide enable adults to fulfil their potential and to contribute to the economy. However, all of them are concerned about funding, qualified teachers and certainty about the future to enable them to plan their work to full benefit. Part-time learners have been heavily hit in changes to funding, and colleges have struggled to keep up staffing numbers, along with the wide range of courses they are expected to provide.

I hope that the Government will listen to all those who work to enhance learning, and that they will provide more generous and more reliable funding to ensure the fulfilment of individual potential and the prosperity of the country. I look forward to hearing the other speakers and, again, thank the most reverend Primate for giving us the opportunity of this debate.

Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL]

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 24th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Soley, for introducing this important debate and to noble Lords for their insightful and caring contributions around the House. Home education arouses strong feelings, not only between those who support school against home education, but within home education supporters, where there are significant differences of opinion, as we have witnessed from the briefings we have received for this debate. This is hardly surprising considering that every home-educated child will have a slightly different reason for being home educated. As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and others have said, this is a cloudy and murky issue. On these Benches we would wish to accentuate the positive about home education

It is interesting to note that there is little information on the Government’s website bar a referral to your local council, and there is little uniform advice from local councils. As has been mentioned, there appears to be no central register of home education of children and no record of how many home-educated children there may be. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, quoted some figures, but as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, we need evidence. We need to be sure of it.

I was struck by a comment from the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, who said that as a society we now feel more responsible for children. This may be one reason why this issue has surfaced again, but there is also an underlying feeling that the Government do not wish to know what might embarrass them or cost them money.

We know that if parents inform a school that they are taking their child out of the school, it is required to remove the child’s name within three working days. They may inform the local authority, but then what? As has already been mentioned, if the child is below compulsory age and has never gone to school, parents do not need to inform their local authority; they do not need to inform anybody. There will be no record for that child, who could remain for ever unacknowledged. Various noble Lords set out the iniquity of this position.

I welcomed the intervention from the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, about Gipsy and Traveller children. She is a great champion of these people and she understands the issues well. I hope the Minister will heed what she says and give a positive response.

We could all surely agree that the option of home schooling must always be chosen because it is in the best interests of the child. I have some sympathy for the wish of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that school should be compulsory for everyone. I feel that parents’ wishes and interests should never be allowed to prevent a child attending school where that is the child’s preferred option. Yet we have heard of children being home educated because the parents insist even when the child would prefer school. That is surely not right. The noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, eloquently raised concerns about such children. After all, schools have the resources, professionalism and skills to provide young people with the full range of learning opportunities. These include access to not only academic, and, I hope, vocational learning and skills, but sport, music, drama, art and social interaction with their peers, learning to be part of the community. But as we have heard, and as we know, there is a wide variety of reasons why, for some children, the advantages of attending school are outweighed by the disadvantages, and home education is deemed to be the preferred option.

We have many examples of excellent home education which does the students proud and equips them very well for life. I heard the other day of a five year-old excluded from school for biting, hitting, shouting and generally being out of control. His parents find themselves having to home school because their little person is showing every sign of being a little monster. What support and advice is available for those who find themselves unwilling home educators in such circumstances? As the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Richardson, referred to, what if no place can be found and the parents, who do not wish to home educate, have no option but to do so? What is the Government’s response to that?

The two main issues at stake are the quality of the education and safeguarding. On safeguarding, we know that it is possible for children to fall off the radar of any authorities. If they never attended school, they will not have a pupil number and tracking their whereabouts and their progress will be difficult, if not impossible—although it was interesting to hear that the NHS ought to be able to track them.

Alongside home education is the issue of unregulated schools. The noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, made reference to Muslim schools, and we know there are some, but there are other faiths and, indeed, unregulated schools of no faith at all. where the quality of the education is unknown. There is a much greater possibility of physical and mental abuse of children who are outside the remit of anyone with a duty of care and where the staff, as has already been mentioned, may not be qualified in any way or may have no safeguarding qualifications. What action are the Government taking about unregulated schools?

We are in the strange position, as has been mentioned, that councils retain duties to oversee home school arrangements, yet lack the necessary powers to check unregulated schools or the nature of home education that children are receiving. This is one of the key issues in the Bill. There is case law, such as Phillips v Brown of 20 June 1980, where we hear that local authorities may make informal inquiries of parents who are educating their children at home but,

“parents will be under no duty to comply. However it would be sensible for them to do so.”

Indeed, the noble Baronesses, Lady Morgan and Lady Richardson, pointed out that parents are under no legal duty to respond to inquiries from local authorities and that perhaps they should be.

There is much evidence of parents who home educate and do a great job in ensuring that their children develop and learn in a happy atmosphere where they can flourish. Most parents work closely with their local council to ensure that they can take advantage of all the opportunities for their children to access academic learning and socialise with their peers. The concerns will always be with those who do not engage or communicate. How can local authorities ensure that those children are receiving suitable education, are not subject to neglect or abuse and that their future achievements and prospects are not being put at risk? We believe there is a case to be made for visits, as set out in the Bill, but agree with the noble Lord, Lord Soley, about the deletion of the physical and emotional parts and question the value or feasibility of these being “assessments”.

I note my noble friend Lord Addington’s concern over those with special educational needs. Assessment would need specified criteria and benchmarks, which may not align with the method of home education being followed or with special educational needs. I also note the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Richardson, that specialist assessors would be needed to undertake this and that there would be associated costs. Formal assessment would take time and expertise, which could put considerable burden and costs on local authorities. Home educated children may acquire skills and knowledge in a different order and timescale from those in mainstream schools; they may still be learning and developing, but of course, with no requirement to follow the national curriculum, this could be in a completely different way and in a completely different order.

It would be more productive for the visits to be supportive and advisory. That could be done alongside investigating, if it appears that no education is taking place. If that is the case, it should trigger further inquiries and action, but building positive relationships between home educators and local authorities is more important than tasking hard-pressed officials with attempting to undertake formal assessments of educational development. We certainly support what the noble Lord, Lord Soley, aims to do with his Bill, and look forward to amendment and clarification in Committee to ensure that it achieves its aims to provide a safe, supportive and educationally fulfilling environment for all those children for whom school is not the answer and whose families can meet all the demands and requirements—and the costs—of learning and developing from within their own resources.

The briefings we have received indicate that this is an area of very differing views, with some excellent work but some worrying gaps in provision. In January the noble Lord, Lord Nash, said that the Government were looking at this issue carefully. Can the Minister update the House on this careful consideration? The noble Lord, Lord Soley, has done a service in allowing us to debate home education and to help to support all that is good in this area as well as throwing light on the areas of concern.

Dyslexia: Disabled Students’ Allowance

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I will need to write to my noble friend on that.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, there is proof that students who use computer assistive technology do better than those who are eligible for it but do not, but it appears that the additional charge of £200 is having a detrimental effect on take-up. What measures are the Government taking to ensure that all those who need it have access to it, regardless of their means?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, once an assessment has been carried out, and there are 180 assessment centres in the country, they will produce a package that is relevant for the individual sufferer of the condition. There are four bands of assistance graded by the assessor when they meet the person needing the help.