Covid-19: Education Settings

Baroness Henig Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, for their thanks to the hundreds of thousands of teachers and support staff, and for the work of parents who have been home-educating during this time, to see our children come to the end of term.

To deal first with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about why we have not left all this until the end of term, the Government made it clear that schools should be in line with other public health restrictions, so that they were neither more nor less restricted, based on the scientific evidence. The release of restrictions in line with step 4 is the point at which to change the situation for schools. Also, as the noble Lord later outlined correctly, there is no one date on which schools break up, so that would have meant different dates in different parts of the country. I believe that schools start breaking up tomorrow and that the finish date is 28 July. The fact that this is in line with step 4 will mean that it is a consistent date with the other restrictions being released in our country.

Regarding the situation of school attendance as of 1 July, 83.4% of children were actually in school at that time. On the levels of disease that we are seeing in the population, that is why the department Ministers, Nick Gibb and Gillian Keegan, wrote to schools and colleges last Monday to outline the situation on school activities over the summer—summer schools and other out-of-school settings that use their buildings. Testing for those purposes will continue over the summer, but most pupils, who will have been out of school, will not be subject to testing over the summer. That is one of the main reasons why we have made it clear to schools that they should set up the ATS at the beginning of the autumn term and that, up to three days before term begins, they can begin the two lateral flow tests for secondary age pupils, primary staff and secondary staff. They will not have been tested over the summer period, of course. This is the action that we are taking to take account of the level of disease in the population at the moment. There are obviously some controls, and we have given guidance to schools and colleges that they should leave in place the regular cleaning, handwashing and ensuring that inside spaces are well ventilated, leaving doors and windows open as appropriate.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised school transport. Again, we are bringing that advice in line with the situation as it will be for the population in England on 19 July, which is that it will be a matter of choice whether to use face coverings on public transport. That will be the same for dedicated school transport.

On the specific questions that the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, raised about the daily contact testing pilot, over 200 secondary schools and colleges participated in the independently monitored, voluntary trial, which was given approval by Public Health England’s independent research ethics and governance group. The trial concluded only on 25 June, so its findings are expected shortly. Those findings will need to be evaluated before any decisions can be made by government on how DCT can be used, if at all.

On the question from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about vaccination infrastructure, no decisions have been made yet on whether young people from the ages of 12 to 17 should be routinely offered a Covid-19 vaccination or how this should be implemented. The MHRA has licensed two vaccines for that age group, but then it is a separate decision for the JCVI about whether there should be routine vaccination. We have asked the JCVI to advise whether it should be offered to young people aged 12 to 17; we will be guided by those experts’ advice and provide an update in due course.

We have already confirmed that exams and vocational and technical qualification assessments will go ahead next year. We recognise that students taking those examinations have had significant disruption to their education and we are considering with Ofqual what we need to do to ensure that the grades students receive for exams next year are fair. We understand the need for the education sector to have certainty and we will announce further details shortly.

Regarding the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on the prevalence of the disease, the strategy is clear that those who have been most at risk from the disease will have been offered the vaccination and a large proportion of the population will be double-vaccinated. On his specific questions about ventilation, we are doing a pilot study with Public Health England and SAGE to look at CO₂ levels in our classrooms. Obviously, when we have the results of that we will update your Lordships’ House. It is still within the guidance to schools about how they should manage those spaces, but we envisage that music lessons in all forms, assemblies and collective religious worship will be back in schools without restrictions.

We also want to give schools and children back their freedoms, in line with those that will be given to the population in step 4. In terms of the risk to the population as a whole, those who are most at risk from the disease will have been offered the double vaccination. We have of course asked schools to have contingency plans and have updated the guidance on them, should there be an outbreak either in that school or in an area of the country where there is a particularly high prevalence of disease, outlining whether further restrictions should be in place. There will be individual circumstances around whether bubbles or masks are reintroduced, but all that is to be balanced with the particular circumstances of any outbreak, and bearing in mind that we now know the effects that having to be in bubbles or wear masks has on children’s education.

One of the few silver linings of the cloud that has been over us in Covid—I must take issue with the concluding statement of the noble Lord, Lord Storey—and something for which we can be grateful is that the evidence has been consistently clear that overwhelmingly children do not get this disease seriously, unlike the older members of the population. That is why the vaccination programme has gone down the age ranges, including in the beginning NHS and social care staff. We must be really grateful for that, and we look forward to seeing our children back in school without these restrictions as of 19 July.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

We now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I call the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I join the noble Baroness in thanking the staff at the school she mentioned. We know that many have gone above and beyond, particularly in supporting disadvantaged children in their community. Dropping food parcels and workbooks at the door has been pretty commonplace for many of our school staff, which is amazing.

Upon the return of schools, attendance has been compulsory but we have given specific guidance to schools if they have pupils absent due to parents or carers being concerned about Covid, or about their own health if they are clinically extremely vulnerable. In fact, there is a particular X to mark in the reasons for non-attendance. We hope that schools have encouraged parents to keep their children on the school roll in that situation, because we are concerned to see the rise in the numbers of children being electively home-educated in these circumstances—obviously, many parents do that job really well. On breakfast clubs, I think we have provided funding of £24 million through Magic Breakfast and other charities to deliver breakfasts. Over this summer holiday, in addition to the summer schools there will be, as there have been since Easter, holiday and activity clubs operating in every local authority area for disadvantaged families.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

My Lords, all questions have now been asked.

House adjourned at 7.19 pm.