Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, this amendment has wide support across the House, and I look forward to hearing the comments from others who have joined my noble friend Lord Dubs’s amendment. My noble friend apologises to the House for being unable to be present, but he has been asked to be the guest of honour at a Holocaust memorial service in Reading and felt that he could not stand up that occasion. I am sure the House will be sympathetic.

Very briefly, because I am sure others will make the point, the amendment deals with people who are in a bit of a lacuna as far as support for loans and maintenance is concerned. Currently, people with refugee status in the UK are classified as having home fee status for purposes of higher education as well as being able to access student finance. However, other potential university students who have either been given a different form of protection or who, after claiming asylum, have been granted a type of leave other than refugee status encounter restrictions and delays in accessing home fee status and student finance. Therefore, they face a barrier to education that is often insurmountable.

The amendment would rectify this arrangement so that all refugees resettled to the UK, as well as people seeking asylum granted forms of leave other than refugee status, can access student finance and home fees. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak in support of the amendment, to which I was pleased to add my name. Access to higher education represents a potentially important avenue to the integration and strengthening of the life chances of young people forced to flee their home countries by increasing their employability, career prospects and earning potential, and integrating them into the community of students.

These are young people who are likely to be in this country for some time. Access to higher education can enhance the contribution they can make and wish to make to British society. If they are eventually able to return to their home countries, would we begrudge them being able to use what they have learned to contribute to those countries?

When this was debated on Report in the Commons, Paul Blomfield MP, who moved the amendment, suggested there had been some discomfort on the Government Benches when it was voted down in Committee. I believe that the Minister’s arguments there were not found to be exactly convincing. Mr Blomfield focused in particular on the treatment of Syrian refugees resettled under the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme who are granted five years’ humanitarian protection rather than refugee status, thereby denying them the access to student support enjoyed by those with refugee status. Earlier in Committee, he commented that the Government have never explained why this is so. Since then, however, the noble Lord, Lord Bates, explained in an oral answer to me that,

“what we have is people in acute need and we want to get them here as quickly as possible. Humanitarian protection is the vehicle by which we can do so. If we first have to go all the way through the route of establishing refugee status for a lot of people who have no identification papers, it means they are at risk for longer. That is why we have chosen to take that particular route, to ensure that we can get people here and give them the help they need as quickly as possible”.—[Official Report, 10/1/17; col. 1859.]

I can see the logic in that, but it raises the question of why it is not possible to treat humanitarian protection as an interim status that can be, in effect, upgraded to refugee status once it is possible to establish that that is appropriate. The problems caused by the current position were raised by the Public Accounts Committee in its recent report on the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme. It noted the undue stress that those problems cause.

The Government have tended to argue that humanitarian protection is broadly the same thing as refugee status, but among other things, as we have already heard, it does not provide the same access to student support, hence this amendment. When giving oral evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, Paul Morrison, director of the Syrian VPRS, said that they are now aware of these issues and are working closely with DfE officials and others to look at them, and are keeping them under active review. I am not sure who will reply to the debate, but I suspect the noble Viscount will not be in a position to throw any light on what progress has been made in these discussions now. I ask him to relay our concern about the particular implications for access to higher education. If he is able to enlighten us, perhaps at Report or in one of his many epistles, that would be very helpful.

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[Lord Patten of Barnes]

Obviously these amendments are relevant to the debate we have just had, and I do not want to speak at length, but I endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has said. I want to pick up just two points, one of which was made by the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Rees, earlier. It is the huge importance of international students, international academics and postgraduates to the quality of our universities.

The university I know best recently came top of the league tables for universities. We were pleased about that—and of course we believed the methodology wholeheartedly. In previous years, when we did not believe the methodology quite so enthusiastically, we had come second to Caltech. There are more American students at Oxford than at Caltech. Our great universities would not be able to do the spectacular research they do without the academic staff from other countries, without postgraduates in particular, and we are delighted to have so many students from other countries.

The points that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, made are really important to the quality and the vitality of our universities, and that is where Brexit is decidedly relevant. Some people say that we have been ridiculously emotional about the impact of Brexit on our universities. You try talking to an academic from Europe or elsewhere at the university I know best and tell him or her that they are really not citizens of the world or that citizens of the world are second class because they do not really understand where they have come from.

Brexit sent a chill through our universities. We were talking about perception earlier. It is really important to give people the confidence that we are not going to change the rules about students and academics coming here during the discussions on Brexit in the years ahead. It is really vital to the quality of our universities. If Ministers do not understand that in the months and years ahead then we will all be in very big trouble. I think at the moment we are probably underestimating the impact of Brexit on our universities. It is not particularly the money—although that matters. It is not just the research collaboration—although that matters hugely. It is the people. It is whether we are able to attract the postgraduates and undergraduates to our universities because they are an enormously important part of our higher education system and have been ever since the 13th century.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, although I do not have the details with me, I should like to support what the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, said with an anecdote from my university—Loughborough. Immediately after Brexit, an email was circulated around my department, social sciences, with the permission of a prospective postgraduate student from a country within the European Union—I forget which one— who had been offered a very good studentship at Loughborough, which he had accepted. After Brexit, he emailed to say that he did not feel that he could come because he would no longer feel welcome in the UK. That was very sad because it was a loss to our university and a loss to the student. I suspect that such ripple effects are happening all over the place.

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[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I regret that I have to challenge the view that has been put forward by Members here whose views in general I respect greatly, but I pin my remarks to a phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Patten, just moments ago. He said that students come from overseas to this country for a great education in a liberal, plural society. Unfortunately, great damage is being done to precisely that concept. In no way would I dissent from a view expressed that freedom of speech within the law must be allowed. Non-lawful speech—and there are lots of statutes, whether you like it or not, that make speech illegal—should not be allowed, but the universities are not doing their duty.

I shall give a few examples. Jihadi John was a university graduate; Michael Adebolajo—Lee Rigby’s murderer—was at the University of Greenwich; the underpants bomber, Abdulmutallab, was at UCL. There are numerous other examples of killers who were radicalised at university right here. That is because, although the Prevent duty guidance requires such speech that we disapprove of to be balanced, this is not happening. Speakers are turning up and giving speeches to audiences that are not allowed to challenge them. At best, they can only write down their questions. There are tens of such visiting speakers every year—there are organisations that keep tabs. Just over a year ago, at London South Bank University, a speaker claimed that Muslim women are not allowed to marry Kafir and that apostates should be killed. A speaker at Kingston University declared homosexuality as unnatural and harmful, and another—a student—claimed that the Government were seeking to engineer a government-sanctioned Islam and that the security services were harassing Muslims, using Jihadi John and Michael Adebolajo as examples. The problem is not only coming from that area; it is the English Defence League turning up to present its unpalatable views too.

It is incomprehensible to me that the National Union of Students opposes the Prevent policy and has an organised campaign to call it racist—a “spying” policy and an inhibitor of freedom of speech. These are the same students and lecturers—the ones who oppose Prevent—who have been supine in the face of student censorship and the visits of extremist speakers and who will not allow, for example, Germaine Greer or Peter Tatchell to speak, but sit back and do nothing when speakers turn up who say that homosexuals should be killed.

The Home Affairs Select Committee and the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism have identified universities as vulnerable sectors for this sort of thing. Universities are targeted by extremist activists from Islamist and far-right groups. Very often they are preaching against women’s rights and gay people’s rights, and suggest that there is a western war on Islam. They express extreme intolerance—even death—for non-believers, and place religious law above democracy.

Some misguided student unions and the pro-terrorist lobby group CAGE are uniting to silence criticism of their illegal activities. There is no evidence of lecturers spying on students or gathering intelligence on people not committing terrorist offences. Students are conspiring to undermine the policy; they ignore its application to far-right extremists, just as to far left, if there is a difference, and spread the misunderstanding that it targets political radicalism.

The Prevent guidance is necessary, but needs to be limited to non-lawful speech, which is a very wide concept and of course includes the counterterrorism Act, but I would not suggest for a moment that now is the time to lift it, especially when in its most recent report HEFCE claimed that more and more universities —though not all of them—were getting to grips with and applying the Prevent guidance in a reasonable way. I therefore oppose the amendment.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I support the amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, asked me to pass on her apologies, because she had another engagement and could not stay for the debate. During Committee on the then Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, I moved a number of amendments on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, two of which would have excluded higher education institutions from the statutory Prevent duty. I thought it worth reminding noble Lords of the debates that we had then. I was a member of the JCHR at the time. The amendment stemmed from the JCHR’s conclusion—my noble friend Lord Stevenson has already quoted it, but it bears repetition—that,

“because of the importance of freedom of speech and academic freedom in the context of university education, the entire legal framework which rests on the new ‘prevent’ duty is not appropriate for application to universities”.

The JCHR warned that terms such as “non-violent extremism” or views “conducive to terrorism” are not capable of being defined with sufficient precision to enable universities to know with sufficient certainty whether they risk being found in breach of the new duty, and feared that this would have a seriously inhibiting effect on bona fide academic debate in universities. We have heard some of the problems with trying to define that in the guidance.

On Report, I summed up the mood in Committee, saying:

“In Committee, the consensus in favour of amending this part of the Bill was striking. Noble Lords did not consider that the Government had made a persuasive case for putting a statutory duty on higher education institutions—moving ‘from co-operation to co-option’, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, put it”—


and we miss her wise counsel. I continued:

“Where was the evidence base? Until the evidence for the necessity of such a statutory duty is marshalled, to use the Minister’s phrase, it is not possible to assess it. Concerns were raised on grounds of both practice and principle. Warnings were given on unintended consequences and counterproductive effects, including the erosion of trust between staff and students, which could undermine any attempts to engage with students who might be tempted down the road towards terrorism. I do not think that anyone was reassured by ministerial assertions that academic freedom and freedom of speech would not be endangered. Indeed, I think that it is fair to say that the majority of those who spoke were in favour of the total exclusion of the HE sector”.—[Official Report, 4/2/15; cols. 679-80.]


I did not pursue that amendment on exclusion of the sector and focused instead on ensuring that there was a proper duty to protect freedom of speech and academic freedom, but it is clear that, despite what has just been said, the application of the Prevent duty to universities continued to cause real concern.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 23rd January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a few questions stemming from annexe B, which the Minister circulated last week but which unfortunately I did not see until after our debate. I apologise that I was not able to attend the briefings that officials provided; I might have got the answers then. My first question relates to the point made by my noble friend Lord Lipsey. The note that was circulated said that the assessment framework stresses to assessors that they should not overweight the NSS, but of course the only metrics on actual teaching quality—this follows on from the points just made—relate to the National Student Survey. My noble friend suggested looking, therefore, at individual submissions from providers for that evidence of teaching quality, but those submissions are going to be up to only 15 pages for a whole institution. I would be grateful if the Minister would give us some indication of what kind of evidence it is anticipated that providers will present in those submissions that will focus precisely on the quality of teaching.

My second question relates to the statement immediately following—that the assessment framework mitigates the risk that courses could be dumbed down to encourage providers trying to gain the NSS. The document says that, to ensure that does not happen, the Government have included rigour and stretch as one of the criteria for the TEF and explicitly warned assessors that this may be inversely correlated with the providers’ NSS scores. I am delighted: I think it is absolutely right that rigour and stretch should be included. I remember teaching a course on theory and concepts in social policy and I think the students felt they were being stretched like elastic bands and did not always appreciate it. I think it is really important that we stretch students to think critically and assess what they are being taught, but how is this going to be assessed? It is not clear to me. It is very important but how is it going to be assessed?

My final question is: how frequently will this assessment process be carried out? We heard last week about the gold, silver and bronze system and many of us had problems with it. The Minister was not really able to satisfy our concerns. Although the Minister presented bronze as if it was the equivalent of a bronze medal in the Olympics, noble Lords here saw it as the equivalent of failure, because there is nothing underneath it—no kind of “tin” assessment or anything. If someone is classified as bronze, they may well want to try to climb out of bronze into silver as soon as they can. How quickly will it be open to them to have another go and be able to show that they have improved the quality of teaching and can then be reassessed as silver or gold? Has the Minister had the chance to reflect on what was said about the gold, silver and bronze categorisation last week? All we got was the answer that the Government think this is right. That smacked to me a bit of “I told you so” and there was no real explanation as to why, if bronze is the lowest, it will not be seen—to the outside world at least, and to potential students, here and overseas—as something to be avoided.

[Baroness Deech]

I am glad to support the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. I have the National Student Survey in front of me. It raises profound questions about what higher education is and how it has become perverted, in that we see the student now as a consumer, because the student is paying at least £9,000.

I draw attention to some statements in the survey. One says that the workload on the student’s course is manageable. We ought to think about what that means: manageable for whom, whether you are a lazy student or an avid one? Another says that the course does not apply unnecessary pressure on the student. I am not sure about that either. There is another that says that all the compulsory modules are relevant to the student’s course. Even now, 50 years after completing a law degree, I am still pondering whether Roman law was really relevant to my course, but I yield to those who thought it was. That was long before we joined the European Union, which in a way made Roman law and the continental system more relevant. These questions would be better addressed to someone going on a package holiday. I am not sure that as it stands this student survey should play a part in the most profound questions that we face—about what a university is, what sort of young people we wish to turn out and by what process. So I hope that the survey will not be included, or that if it is it is thoroughly revised, bearing in mind the outcomes for which we are looking.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 23rd January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I will have to check Hansard, but I believe I was speaking about the current system and how it is working now. I should stress that there is no quota and it could well be that these percentages are different when operated under the TEF. There is no particular expectation. I believe I was answering the question about how it might be likely to be very different.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for answering my third question, but I had two other questions specifically on the measurement of teaching quality. Can the Minister answer them in his next letter, which we are so eagerly awaiting?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Yes, of course. I reassure the noble Baroness that I will add her points and I will look at Hansard again closely on the issues that she has raised and address them.

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[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, my name is attached to the amendments submitted by my noble friend and I have one that I believe complements his amendments. I remind your Lordships’ House of the amendment on the role of the Director for Fair Access and Participation, when we were debating—and I used as an illustration—the responsibility of the director for ensuring that the responsibilities regarding disabled students were being appropriately delivered by institutions.

It is worth reminding ourselves, going back nearly two years to when the Government began their consultation on the cutting of funding for disabled students’ allowance and transferring some of the funding to institutions, that at the time this was heralded a great thing for better targeting disabled student support. Many of the specialist organisations that work with disabled students provided evidence to the contrary at that consultation. The National Deaf Children’s Society gave a case study of Isla, a young woman at the University of Edinburgh who asked the disability office repeatedly before she arrived for support. The case study says:

“She arrived early for lectures and asked tutors to wear the loop-system microphone, but found that microphones rarely worked or tutors forgot to use them. In a laboratory session she asked to be allowed to sit near the front so she could lipread, but the tutor was not supportive”.


Isla said:

“She said to me, ‘Well, you’ll just have to sit through it for this tutorial, this lab, but for the next time I’ll have you down the front’. Next time I went in, she still hadn’t changed it. I was raging. I was like really angry”.


The case study continues:

“As time went by, Isla realised that she was missing out on most of the content of her course. She dropped out at Christmas”.


Isla said:

“We had a couple of big papers coming up. I had started them. I had no idea where I was going with it. I e-mailed my tutor and said, ‘Look, I’m not coming back. I can’t. I can’t hear anybody, so I can’t’. He said, ‘I’m sorry to hear that’. That was it”.


That may be one example but I know from my time working in an institution some years ago that a lecturer refused to wear a microphone so a deaf student could hear, on the grounds that she might record the lecture and so infringe his personal copyright. I am pleased to say that the university dealt with that matter expeditiously. Putting the responsibilities on universities and reducing funding cause problems. That is why I support the comments made by my noble friend that we are now two terms into the new system and there is no clear guidance for institutions. That is deplorable and lies at the hands of the Government.

I want to go back a step from that to our responsibilities as a state. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is very clear about the responsibilities that we have as a state and as education institutions to provide support for students. It notes a:

“Lack of disaggregated data and research (both of which are necessary for accountability and programme development), which impedes the development of effective policies and interventions to promote inclusive and quality education”.


It also notes that there are:

“Inappropriate and inadequate funding mechanisms to provide incentives and reasonable accommodations for the inclusion of students with disabilities, interministerial coordination, support and sustainability”.


I worry that we are moving into that world at the moment where we do not quite know what is going on between institutions and the department. But the department has already handed over the responsibility for the support of disabled students to institutions.

The convention goes on to say at paragraph 12(i):

“Monitoring: as a continuing process, inclusive education must be monitored and evaluated on a regular basis to ensure that neither segregation nor integration are taking place, either formally or informally”.


Isla’s story is segregation writ large. Later on the convention talks about implementation at a national level. This is the responsibility of the Government, even if they choose to devolve the power down. Paragraph 63(d) speaks of:

“A guarantee for students with and without disabilities to the same right to access inclusive learning opportunities within the general education system and, for individual learners, to the necessary support services at all levels”.


Paragraph 63(g) speaks of:

“The introduction of accessible monitoring mechanisms to ensure the implementation of policies and the provision of the requisite investment”.


Finally, on my personal favourite topic of training, paragraph 73 says:

“Authorities at all levels must have the capacity, commitment and resources to implement laws, policies and programmes to support inclusive education. States parties must ensure the development and delivery of training to inform all relevant authorities of their responsibilities under the law and to increase understanding of the rights of persons with disabilities”.


With the introduction of the new system, there are some real concerns among student assessors about the arrangements for professionals under the new quality assurance framework for the non-medical helper support funded through the DSA. Higher education providers are reporting that it can be difficult to find interpreters for sign language due to the new requirement for freelancers and agencies to have to register with the DSA-QAG. This is an important issue and we are already getting comments, such as this anonymous quotation from a discussion forum of student assessors trying to help deaf students before Christmas:

“Already running into problems finding support that meets QAG requirements – I’m already starting to draw a blank for some students who need e.g. specialist note-taker, language support tutor as agencies – despite listing this in their range of support on the QAG site – are saying they can’t recruit people who meet the required qualifications (as set by QAG). Anyone else having this problem? Any possible solutions on the horizon??”.


The silence from the department is deafening. Unfortunately, the impact for students in our system means that it is not working. That is why I repeat my earlier statement, when we discussed the role of the Director for Fair Access and Participation, that there must be a specific role for monitoring support for students with disabilities. These are probing amendments, but they pick up the point about monitoring and evaluation to ensure that our students are not deserted by this nation state in contravention of the United Nations convention.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I support these amendments and would like to speak briefly about the very important points that have been made. For a number of years I chaired the disability and additional needs committee at Loughborough University, and was very aware of the importance of adequate support for disabled students and how difficult it is when that support starts breaking down. I am very out of touch with it now but I was shocked by what was said about the guidance, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give a firm assurance that there will be no further delay in issuing that guidance.

I have a broader point to make about equal opportunities, as some of these amendments go beyond disability. The staff body is as important as the student body. I am prompted to say that by a report, which I think I read last week, about the complete absence of senior black staff in universities. If there are no senior staff and very few lecturing staff, and all the black members of staff are cleaners or porters, what kind of signal does that send to young black people who might be thinking of going to university, if they see those institutions as purely white ones? When we talk about equality of opportunity and access for students, we must bear in mind what is being done in relation to staff in the examples and role models that are being provided.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

I was an academic for 38 years. Luckily, I am not a vice-chancellor or a chancellor or anywhere, so I do not have to defend my university, but we cannot go on thinking that universities are beyond judgment and should be left alone to do whatever they do. Those days are gone.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not think anybody is suggesting that universities should just be left to get on with it. I preface my remarks by saying how important I believe teaching to be. I went into higher education halfway through my working life. I had never taught, and I was shocked to discover there was nothing to train me how to teach: it was just assumed that an academic could relay their subject and teach it. That is completely different now. All universities have very good support to ensure that their staff teach well.

That said, I accept that it is important that there is some kind of assessment of teaching to balance the research assessment—the REF, as it is now called—to which my noble friend Lord Desai referred. REF is based on a direct assessment of the quality of the research; as I understand it, TEF will not be. I will not repeat the good critique that has been made by colleagues both now and at Second Reading of the metrics currently proposed, and I am not sure what the answer is. I can remember—I cannot remember in which year it was now—something called the TQA, or teaching quality assessment. I can remember quaking in my boots as some independent assessor came in to observe my lectures and tutorials. I am not sure what happened to it. It was a huge bureaucratic burden on the universities, so I am not saying that that is necessarily the answer. I am not sure what the answer is, but it is quite clear from what is being said in the sector, by students and people around the Committee that, as proposed, those metrics are not.

In his summing up, will the Minister explain exactly how he thinks the proposed metrics will tell us anything about actual teaching quality? What will be fed back to individual lecturers about their teaching? At Second Reading he said that,

“The TEF is designed to improve teaching”.—[Official Report, 6/12/16; col. 721]


How will it improve teaching? Will he explain that to us? If I were still lecturing, how would I know how to improve my teaching on the basis of the TEF and these metrics? It is not clear to me at all how that will happen.

Given the widespread disquiet and difficulties of doing this, will the Minister reflect on the likely adverse implications of this traffic light system, which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on Second Reading called a “ranking system for turkeys”? Perhaps that is appropriate in the consumer culture we are talking about, but it is not appropriate for education.

[Lord Willetts (Con)]

My Lords, I shall comment briefly on some of the remarks about the NSS and perhaps try to address some of the concerns and offer noble Lords on both sides of the Committee a bit of assurance about what is happening here.

I should begin by drawing attention to the fact that I am a visiting professor at King’s College London, which sadly scores rather low on the NSS. I will not detain the Committee with a special pleading of why I think that is a completely misleading picture of the excellent work done at King’s. I also chair the advisory board of the Times Higher, which itself produces university rankings.

Surely what we are trying to do is embark on a journey towards what should be reliable metrics of teaching quality and learning gain. Of course, we do not have those yet. The question is whether we do anything now or wait until we have these superior and trusted metrics. The dilemma that one faces is that, back in 2010, there really was only the NSS, and it has been caricatured as simply a question of a student’s kind of, “What’s it like for you?”. We have already seen changes in the NSS and, if I may get into the technical language, it is becoming much more like the National Survey of Student Engagement which does try to get closer to the academic experience of the student.

The measure that will be used in formulating the TEF is not the generic question, “How was it for you?”. My understanding is that that is not what will appear in the TEF. There will be the earlier questions in the NSS. The NSS has more than 20 questions, and incidentally is completed by hundreds of thousands of students. It is the earlier questions that are closest to engagement that will be the ones used in the TEF. They are particularly questions about teaching on their course and on assessment and feedback.

The noble Lord who spoke for the Opposition when he opened said there had been no evidence that anything had been getting better. I can tell him that the fact that many universities have done disappointingly badly on assessment and feedback has led universities to change their practice and give students much more prompt reactions on their essays or other forms of work than they used to receive. I would argue that assessment and feedback are regarded as having genuine value and significance in the world of universities. Those measures are the measures extracted from the NSS which will be part of the overall metric for the TEF. The others which I think will have higher weight are the learning environment and student outcomes.

These are not perfect measures. We are on a journey, and I look forward to these metrics being revised and replaced by superior metrics in the future. They are not as bad as we have heard in some of the caricatures of them, and in my experience, if we wait until we have a perfect indicator and then start using it, we will have a very long wait. If we use the indicators that we have, however imperfect, people then work hard to improve them. That is the spirit with which we should approach the TEF today.

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I have heard concerns that bronze might be considered a negative award, but this is not the case in other areas. For example, for the Athena SWAN awards, recognising the advancement of gender equality, or for Investors in People, a bronze award is clearly seen as a badge of high quality, just as it will be in the TEF. We are not, however, complacent about this, and are working with the British Council and others to ensure that TEF ratings are communicated effectively internationally, emphasising the overall high quality of UK provision. We will have a joint communication plan with them in place by the time the TEF ratings are published. I believe this demonstrates the quality above the high baseline that we expect in the UK.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I am sorry to interrupt, but can the Minister tell us whether there will there be a sub-bronze level, because otherwise, if bronze is the bottom, it is very difficult to see how it will be seen as representing quality?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

As I mentioned, there has been a full consultation on this. It came down to the best way forward, which we believe is to have three ratings. I should stress, and hope that I have stressed, that bronze is a good level and is highly respected. I want to make that quite clear to the Committee, and I hope that noble Lords will accept what I have said.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I associate myself with these amendments and support what has been said so far. I particularly support what my noble friend Lord Blunkett said—I worked with him as a Minister in the Department for Education and Employment, as it then was—and what my noble friend Lady Bakewell said. I was the master of Birkbeck for nearly a decade, and from that experience I will say something about mature students who study part-time. These people give up a huge amount of their leisure time; they sacrifice all that to work and study at the same time. Incidentally, Birkbeck is coming up to its 200th anniversary. It was set up as a working men’s institute for men who worked by day and studied by night. It has continued in that way, but adding women in the 1830s.

We have to get away from the notion that university and higher education is primarily about full-time study. There may be a somewhat higher proportion of students studying full time. But, as my noble friend Lord Giddens has just said, things are changing and we are going to see far more part-time students in the coming years, partly because some students will not want to take on the enormous debt involved today in undertaking an undergraduate programme but also because the changes in the wider environment will require them to return to part-time higher education to improve their knowledge and update their skills. Only if they do that will they be able to truly contribute to the knowledge economy.

My noble friend Lord Winston referred to part-time students being between the ages of 30 and 60. I did a little preparation before I went to Birkbeck. I went to the University of Toronto—the Canadian university that specialises in part-time and mature students—and was told that the oldest student there was 92. I asked whether I could meet her. They said they were terribly sorry but she was travelling in Europe—so I did not get that opportunity. So I say to noble Lords, “It’s never too late, so think about it”.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak in support of Amendments 41, 46 and 172, which all relate to part-time and mature students. The Minister, both on Monday and at Second Reading, assured noble Lords that the Government recognise the importance of part-time education and lifelong learning. But at Second Reading he did not deal with the concerns expressed across the House about the Bill’s failure to address the needs of this group of students. That is all the more surprising given the emphasis that the Prime Minister has placed on social mobility.

It might be appropriate to quote from the Social Mobility Commission’s recent State of the Nation report, which says that,

“if universities are going to contribute to transforming social mobility in this country, they need to embrace a broader, more ambitious social role. For example, they need to look at increasing both access to and availability of part-time study for those who want to access HE while working or fulfilling caring responsibilities”.

Here, in parentheses, I draw particular attention to the needs of lone mothers. The report continues:

“Students from less advantaged backgrounds are more likely to be part-time and/or mature students, as they have had less opportunity to study earlier in life or need the flexibility of earning alongside studying. Adult and part-time study is also important in helping an older workforce”—

as we have heard—

“likely to work longer and across different sectors across their career, to reskill or upskill—as pointed out by the recent report on social mobility by Universities UK. However, the last ten years have seen a significant drop in both part-time and mature student participation in the HE sector. This is not only a huge loss of human potential, but also a loss to the economy”.

It is indeed a significant drop, as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, underlined earlier. Taking slightly different dates, it is a drop of 55% between 2010-11 and 2014-15. When the Minister responds, can he give us his explanation of this drop and say what the Government are doing about it, given its importance to their social mobility agenda? In view of the drop and the Government’s own Social Mobility Commission’s concerns, will he undertake to consider these amendments with a view to tabling a government amendment on Report that will ensure that the OfS has due regard to promoting part-time and mature study?

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[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, the Government wholeheartedly agree that part-time education, distance learning and adult education bring enormous benefits to individuals, the economy and employers. The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, eloquently echoed these points in some detail in her speech. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, happily provided us with useful continuity following her remarks in Committee on Monday on this subject and mentioned the importance of offering and encouraging new learning activities and opportunities for the elderly. Of course, she is quite right on that. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, raised the future needs of the economy, which again is an extremely good point in this short debate. That is not only important now but, as he rightly points out, will be even more important to the economy in the future.

Our reforms to part-time learning, advanced learning loans and degree apprenticeships are opening significant opportunities for mature students to learn. There were also powerful short speeches from the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Bilimoria, on lifelong learning, which is another important area. That was also mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone.

The OfS will promote student choice, and by allowing new providers into the system, prospective students can expect great choice of higher education provision, including part-time and distance learning. For example, we know that in 2014-15, 56% of students at new providers designated for Student Loans Company support are over the age of 25, compared with 23% at traditional higher education providers. The reforms complement the other practical support that the Government are already giving part-time students, including, for the first time ever, providing tuition fee loans. We are also consulting on providing part-time maintenance loans.

On the amendments, I reassure noble Lords that the Bill places a general duty on the OfS to have regard to the need to promote choice and opportunity for students. This duty is broad and intended to ensure that the OfS looks across the whole range of different modes of study and student needs. We have already heard a good part of the range in this short debate. I should include the subject of lone mothers, which was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, who made an important point about work-based students. It is important that we keep the duties of the OfS broad and overarching so as not to overburden the organisation with too many competing and overlapping duties to which it must have regard.

Placing specific duties alongside general duties might also lead a future OfS to assume some sort of hierarchy of student needs where the needs of part-time students outweigh other duties and/or the needs of full-time students. The Secretary of State’s guidance to the OfS would instead be used to ask the OfS to take forward certain policy priorities such as part-time study. It is vital that we maintain and enhance innovative forms of provision in the sector. As the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Winston, said, this will improve the opportunities for students to choose the type of course that is right for them, reflecting their diverse needs. We will of course make clear in our guidance to the OfS that having regard to innovation is part of its general role in having an overview of the sector and the role of providers.

Beyond the Bill, to help answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Rees, we are considering how best to support accelerated degrees following our call for evidence on accelerated courses and switching universities or degree, and how best to support part-time students with maintenance loans which can also support more online learning. The legislative arrangements for the Quality Assessment Committee, which broadly replicates the current role of HEFCE’s quality, accountability and regulation committee, do not specify types of institution or learning that should be represented. Where possible, members should have experience, preferably current, of higher education provision, and the majority of members should be independent of the OfS. It will then be down to the OfS to balance the range of skills and backgrounds it needs to create a successful committee, enabling it to have the flexibility to respond to challenges and priorities now and into the future.

However, I welcome the opportunity to set out how much importance the Government place on part-time learning, lifelong learning, adult education, distance learning and alternative modes of higher education delivery. I should like to answer a point raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Garden, Lady Wolf and Lady Lister, on the decline in part-time student numbers. I will be quite open with the Committee, as I should be, and say that the reasons for the decline in part-time numbers since their peak in 2008 are somewhat complex and there is no silver bullet in responding to that decline. However, our policies go further than ever before in helping hard-working people who want to gain new skills and advance their careers by studying part-time. It was the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf—

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I am sorry to intervene, but while the reasons may be complex, can the Minister give us some idea of what he believes those complex reasons are?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I do not want to go precisely into that at the moment except to say only that the Government continue to look at these complex points. The Bill addresses the issue by making sure that all the groups mentioned in this debate are being considered. In addition, outside the Bill, we are doing much for part-time learning by putting it into a generic form, and we are offering tuition fee loans for part-time students so that they can choose to study. This does not affect the tuition support available. For the first time ever we intend to provide financial support to part-time students similar to that given to full-time students, and in 2018-19 we intend to introduce new part-time maintenance loans, on which we are currently consulting.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria]

I was stressing that it focuses on technology—that is its strength and why it wins all those Nobel prizes—but I acknowledge what the noble Lord says.

I go back to areas of specialisation and the purpose of universities. The mindset of certain people, including in this country, is, “You should study at university what you can apply in a job thereafter”—that is, a sort of vocational mindset. Our universities are not what that is about. My oldest son is reading theology at Cambridge. I do not think that he is going to become a priest, but if he wants to, that is up to him. I do not think that that will happen—he will probably become a management consultant—but what he will learn in that environment is phenomenal. He gets one-to-one supervisions with world leaders in his subject. Not every university does that or can afford to do it, but he has that ability. I consulted Cambridge on this. It said that it recognises the importance of diversity in research and teaching and that the success of global competitiveness of the UK’s universities relies on the core principles of sustainability, diversity and—here is the crux of it—institutional autonomy. That is what worries so many of us about this Bill and why this proposed new clause, right up-front, is so important. It is the spirit of it that I completely support.

The pro-vice-chancellor for education at Cambridge, Graham Virgo, has spoken about the last part of the amendment, which is about being a critic and conscience of society. To narrow down the definition just to teaching and research will be to miss the opportunity to improve our universities and to miss the point. Professor Virgo pointed by way of example to the New Zealand Education Act 1989, which had five criteria for defining a university. The fifth of those was for an institution to accept a role as a critic and conscience of society. That is so important and it is why the amendment sets right up-front the essence of what universities should strive to be about, so that we do not go down the wrong track in this once-in-many-decades opportunity to improve our already fantastic, best-of-the-best, proud, jewel-in-the-crown universities.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, support the spirit of this amendment, and I declare an interest as emeritus professor at Loughborough University and a fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Social Sciences. I apologise that I was not able to speak at Second Reading, but I suspect that my contribution was not missed among the 70-odd people who did speak. I have read the debate, and very thoughtful it was. The clear thread running through a large number of contributions from all sides of the House was the perceived threat to university autonomy and academic freedom. I fear that those concerns were not assuaged by the Minister’s assurances, hence the motive behind the amendment.

The fears have to be set in the context of what is widely seen as the creeping marketisation and consumerisation of universities. As my noble friend Lady Bakewell put it, students are now consumers of a product, as if a university were a department store. Many would argue that all that is precious about universities in terms of the development of critical thinking, and in particular encouraging students to think critically and not simply accept what they are given, is being increasingly subordinated to an instrumentalist, economistic concept of a university as in effect a degree factory feeding UK plc.

I suspect the Minister will say that the amendment is not necessary because the Government have said they are committed to the key principles it contains. But surely there would be no better way of demonstrating that commitment than by either accepting the amendment or, given that a number of noble Lords have pointed to possible weaknesses in the wording—and my noble friend on the Front Bench has made it clear that he is not wedded to the exact wording—offering to bring forward their own amendment setting out what a university is and the principles it should pursue. That would show their commitment and establish a clear framework for our deliberations on the Bill. In doing so, the Government would go some way to reassuring both Members of your Lordships’ House and the many organisations and individual academics who have written to us to express their fears that the Bill is taking us too far down a road that is incompatible with the basic principles of what a university is and what a university should be.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, the amendment begins very well:

“UK universities are autonomous institutions”,

but the rest of the subsection abolishes that effect entirely. I am really worried about the ability in the Bill of a quango to abolish Oxford, to put it in cartoon terms. This proposed subsection gives anybody the right to abolish Oxford. The moment that anybody can argue that Oxford has not upheld the principles of academic freedom, and if that is argued in court and it goes against Oxford, it is no longer a university. That is an astonishing level of control. You really do not need the rest of the Bill. There would be complete government control over all universities just by having this amendment as the Bill. There is so much in here that allows universities to be controlled because it is mostly about telling universities what they have to do.

If we are going to have a clause such as this—and I really support the idea of it—let us have something that gives universities rights, declares that they are autonomous, and other things that we can think of that work, but let us not keep all these unstructured obligations on them, which can go only in entirely the opposite direction from that which is intended by the proposers.

Childcare: Early Years Funding

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

Yes. I am sure my noble friend will be pleased to hear that we are making good progress. Last week, we confirmed our funding, as I said. We have already put in place legislation, through the Childcare Act 2016, with regulations being laid early last month. We have also awarded a new delivery contract worth £3 million to Childcare Works to support local authorities, and our eight early implementers which are implementing a year early have already delivered more than 3,500 new childcare places.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, following what the noble Earl said, the Family and Childcare Trust argued that the new funding, welcome as it is, does not focus sufficiently on improving quality of provision in the settings most likely used for disadvantaged children who particularly need quality care. What are the Government doing to improve quality of care in such settings to ensure that disadvantaged children get that quality provision?

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with the noble Baroness about the importance of ensuring high quality. Our entire focus is on that, particularly for children with SEND. An additional needs element is factored into the early years funding formula to better target funding towards local authorities with a higher relative proportion of children with additional needs, and our final funding policy confirmed last week includes a new disability access fund worth £615 per child per year to support disabled three and four year-olds, and a requirement for all local authorities to have inclusion funds to channel additional support to children with SEND.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment and I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has just said. One other way of looking at the convention is that it acts as a useful nudge for people to remember what it is that they ought to have in mind.

The year 1989 was extremely important because not only did we pass the Children Act, it also saw the United Nations convention. It is extraordinary that for some reason this country, England, is lagging behind Scotland and Wales which have managed to put it into their primary legislation while we are failing to do so. When I was a judge I tried a great many family cases. Whenever I heard a case relating to children, of course I took the United Nations convention into account, and I always thought it rather odd that there I was, applying the statutory law of the Children Act and going outside it to apply the United Nations convention that for some reason the Parliament of our country was not prepared to pass as part of English law. Here we are, all this time later in 2016 and we have fallen behind the smaller parts of this wonderful United Kingdom. It really is about time that we caught up and I find it extraordinary that the Government are not welcoming this with open arms.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment and the arguments that have been put so far. I will not repeat what I said on Report but I did raise two questions that I did not feel were answered. I asked the Minister to spell out what further evidence, beyond the evidence we have from the experience of Scotland and Wales which we have heard a little about today, the Government need to convince them of the practical value of such a duty. They have been arguing that they do not see what the practical value is. I also asked what evidence they had that it would produce box-ticking rather than cultural change. What the Minister did say was quoted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, earlier and I shall repeat it:

“We believe that the way to promote children’s rights is for strong practitioners locally to listen to children and to act in ways which best meet their needs. A duty alone will not do that, and risks practitioners focusing on the wording of the legislation rather than on practice”.—[Official Report, 8/11/16; col. 1089.]

Of course a duty alone will not do that, but surely practice underpinned by a duty is more likely to be good practice than practice that is not underpinned by a duty. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, I am surprised and disappointed that the Government are so resistant to what is, as he put it, such a minimal responsibility that will be placed on them. As we said, it sends out all the wrong messages as to this Government’s commitment to the UN convention.

It is good to hear that the Government have said they are still considering this issue. Given they know that there is so much support in this place it is a shame they have taken their time considering it, but can we have a commitment that when the Bill goes to the House of Commons, a clear statement will be made by the Minister there as to what will be done to reflect the very strong views expressed in this House and which I am pretty sure will be expressed in the other place also?

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I, too, strongly support the amendment, but as a sceptical old Whitehall warrior, I will open up an issue that may suggest it is not the Minister and his colleagues in his department who might be the villains in this area, but other interests across Whitehall. As I understand it, if the Government accept the amendment they will then have to accept amendments relating to all the other services that are of concern to children. It would be very difficult for them to accept the amendment if they have reservations about the cumulative effect of implementing the convention in this way through statute for all the services that may affect children.

My suspicion about Whitehall, because I am of a suspicious nature given my background, is that there are problems around an impact assessment on what the implications of all this may be. Instinctively I feel that somewhere in this mix are our old friends at the Treasury and the control of public expenditure. They are often to be found when we have these long periods of inaction in any particular area. Some of the areas where children could be seriously affected—clean air, benefits and access to health services to name but a few—go much wider than the scope of the Bill.

I do not expect the Minister to divulge the workings of government, but can he throw any light on whether it is necessary to provide across Whitehall an impact assessment on what the costs of implementing this through statute would be? Do the processes by which these things have to be agreed across Whitehall have any chance of being agreed before the Bill completes its passage through Parliament?

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I follow my noble friends Lady Eaton and Lord True in supporting Clauses 29 to 31. My noble friends made many of the points that I thought were important to this debate, so I shall limit myself to the single issue of testing and reiterate the commendation of the Government for their reforming courage, not just in what they are seeking to achieve but in how they are seeking to achieve it.

Few can doubt that reform is needed in national social work practice. The number of children coming into care is soaring. My noble friend Lady Eaton has already mentioned how the complexity of their lives, especially when they are late entrants into the care system, cannot be adequately catered for in the current legislative framework.

Every sheet of Pugin wallpaper on the walls of this Palace could be replaced by policy reports brimming with ideas and care studies about social work and children’s services reform. Many of these ideas have been learned from good practice here and in other countries; they emerged not from a clear blue sky but from grass-roots practice. However, if they are ever to be implemented, they need the leeway referred to by my noble friend. On the subject of learning, modern government increasingly has to draw inspiration from the way corporations innovate but avoid going bust in a highly complex world—without, of course, handing over the core business of protecting the vulnerable to profit-making companies. I welcome the Government’s amendments to Clause 29 that bar local authorities from doing precisely that.

To explain what I mean with a recent example, the Institute for Government published Nicholas Timmins’s highly instructive report on the rollout of universal credit, at the heart of which was a change in approach from the traditional way of managing big projects. Previously, managers operated a “waterfall” approach, where government would legislate on a programme and set the rules, suppliers would then design in detail how these would operate, do some testing and then cascade a finished system out to the regions, either in phases or even on one day. One of the major drawbacks was that any errors, misjudgments or even rigidities factored in early or midway through the design process tended to be, as Timmins said, “baked in”, and end users could find that the project did not meet their needs because requirements were wrongly specified or simply not anticipated early on.

The opposite—which the private sector has increasingly adopted over the last 15 years or so—was known as the “agile” approach. Again to quote Timmins, this is,

“a mindset of humility around how little you should expect to understand about how real people use your service. So you optimise your whole approach by working with them and learning to iterate quickly based on learning in the real world”.

The mantra of test and learn that emerged from the adoption of an agile approach became a welcome hallmark of wider welfare reform, as well as of universal credit. It is a far more realistic and sensitive way to carry out reforms in areas such as welfare benefits and social care, which have such profound implications for people’s quality of life, well-being and even survival.

Obviously, there are many differences between the rollout of an IT-controlled benefits system and an iterative improvement in the responsiveness of children’s services, but the key similarities lie in the words “iterative” and “responsive”. We heard from my noble friend Lord True about the Royal Borough of Kingston and the London Borough of Richmond—Partners in Practice local authorities. They have said that the clauses will enable them to safely test new approaches that their front-line workers come up with and remove barriers to effective work. Leeds City Council is seeking to become an exemplar of a new and more sustainable safeguarding system where children do better, families are supported to do better and the state has to intervene less. One local authority after another is aspiring to become a learning organisation that can be instructed by and instruct others—all within an enabling framework of intense scrutiny from government and those charged to put children at the forefront of all they do.

We are all here with the aim of ensuring that children thrive. But, as anyone who has lived in a family with several children knows, parenting must be nimble if each unique child is to flourish. I suggest that we also need to be agile in how we approach these clauses. We should no longer fetter well-trained professionals but enable them to develop strategies for their patch within the protective envelope of the Bill.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will briefly take up a couple of points made by the noble Lord, Lord True. He said—I may be slightly misquoting him—that we should allow professional social workers to take proper decisions. But is it not telling that, as we heard, only one in 10 social workers in a survey supports the Government’s proposals, and more than two-thirds of them believe that letting local authorities exempt themselves from children’s social care legislation will lead to more children being placed at risk?

The other point made by the noble Lord was that Parliament will be at the heart of the process, but that will only be in so far as we are allowed to debate the regulations. We all know that we have no power when it comes to regulations, and that if we try to use what powers we have we get lambasted for overstepping them. It is not fair to say that Parliament will be at the heart of this process, whereas it would be if there were proper, primary legislation.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

I listened to this debate in Grand Committee in considerable detail and I certainly have a vested interest in securing our social work and the Children’s Act statutory provisions. I think that the provision made in the Bill is misunderstood in some quarters. As I listened to the debate today and on the last occasion, I formed a view that some of those contributing may not have fully understood the purpose of this provision. It is not about allowing local authorities to innovate at their whim; what it does is to ask local authorities that if they have an innovation that they think will improve the lot of children, and they find that that innovation is inhibited or prohibited by some statutory regulation or provision, they should be able to ask the Secretary of State to use the powers—which are strictly limited by the amendments that have been put in—to authorise that amendment for a limited time.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, quoted what my noble friend the Minister said in Grand Committee about there being no limit to this. Of course, it depends what you are looking for. There is a terrific limit to it but it has to be for the benefit of the children. It is not limited in the sense that it may be about a statute or a statutory regulation, or indeed some form of guidance issued by the department, but it is very limited by the necessity to demonstrate that you want to improve. The noble Lord, Lord Low, for whom I have the greatest possible respect, asked what prevents innovation as it is. There is nothing to prevent innovation except that some innovations which you may want to make run counter to a statute or statutory provision. If you are faced with that, you cannot make that innovation unless there is some way of dealing with the statutory prohibition. That is what the Bill intends to do. Having listened to the debate in the summer, I suggested to the Bill team that there might be a slightly better way of framing this to make it a little plainer that that is exactly what it does, but that has not happened—as yet, anyway.

Much of the difficulty for social workers is that there are sometimes a lot of misunderstandings and misrepresentations over what this is about. It is not about destroying the system. I would certainly not support it for a minute if it was. It is to improve the way that the system works and, where you find something in it that constrains you not to do it in the best possible way, you would have a way of dealing with that.

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I strongly support these amendments. The political commitment to give the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child due consideration in policy-making was very important and is welcome, but it is not enough, as the JCHR’s report on the UK’s compliance with the convention in the last Parliament clearly demonstrated.

I declare an interest as a former member of the JCHR, along with the noble Lord, Lord Lester. The duty does not apply, for example, to local authorities or other public authorities. The Government have said that they remain to be convinced that such a duty would make a real practical difference to children’s lives and outcomes, rather than—as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, noted—produce a so-called tick-box mentality and create bureaucracy, rather than change mindsets and culture. Yet Parliament’s own committee, charged with safeguarding human rights, supports these amendments.

As we have the heard, the evidence from Scotland and Wales suggests that such a duty makes a real, practical difference. The criticisms made of this country by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child suggests that what we have at present simply is not sufficient to safeguard children’s rights. Can the Minister spell out what further evidence the Government need to convince them of the practical value of such a duty? What evidence do they have that it would produce box ticking, rather than cultural change? I fear that the current political commitment has not produced the cultural change that I agree we need. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has said, by opposing this very basic amendment, which is doing no more than putting a convention that we have signed up to into our legislation, the Government are sending out the totally wrong message in suggesting that they do not care about the rights of children sufficiently to ensure that they are safeguarded in law.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support this amendment. The Minister will be aware of the fantastic work done at Leeds, one of the leading children’s services departments. It recently presented its work in Parliament and used the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as the foundation of this achievement. It committed itself to all the children in the city in respecting and thinking about the UNCRC. It managed to reduce the numbers of children coming into care and give really good service for those children in care. I know of schools that use the UNCRC in a similar way—as a fundamental approach to what they do—and they have great successes, so I support this amendment.

I have a personal reflection, which may resonate with your Lordships. If we respect the rights of children and give them a secure upbringing, then when they are adults they are far less likely to be swayed by demagogues —I am thinking of today’s election in the United States —and manipulated by people who dwell on their worst fears.

Finally, this would help to answer our problems about productivity in the workforce. If we respect children’s need for family life, education and recovery from trauma, we will have adults who are not missing work because they are mentally ill or depressed; we will have a more productive workforce. There are many good reasons to support this amendment.

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[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham is unable to be here and sends his apologies, but he wishes to add his voice to those that warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to publish the strategy to ensure the safety and welfare of unaccompanied children coming from Europe and beyond.

The UK has been generous in pledging over £2.3 billion to aid those affected by the crisis in Syria and that region. It is evident that in our local communities people are showing great generosity and hospitality in welcoming those, especially families with children, who are brought here for resettlement. We recognise that while local authorities are understandably nervous of the nature of the commitments involved, they are rising to the challenge well. It is very encouraging that the Local Government Association fully supports this amendment.

Clearly, resourcing will be needed as this strategy is brought into play, and the Government have committed to “review funding regularly”. The words of the amendment clearly have more to do with the provision of adequate funding than with the reviewing of it, but no doubt the Government will not allow their strategy to go unimplemented in any respect simply for lack of funds.

The provision of proper care of children through fostering, and of some through supported accommodation, is a key area in the promised strategy. We register that there is a wealth of experience and commitment in community and faith groups, as well as established charities, in this area; it is to be hoped that the Government will draw on that experience as we go forward.

The inclusion of an element of independent oversight through the Children’s Commissioners is another welcome element in the strategy. Whether or not the useful suggestion of an independent guardian for each child is taken up, it is important that, as in other areas where vulnerable people are dependent on statutory bodies for their well-being, there is a significant element of independent scrutiny and advocacy.

We on this Bench are pleased to learn of the Government’s intentions and wish them well in doing justice to the full content of the present amendment.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Government’s Statement on the safeguarding of unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children, which seems to offer a positive way forward.

I will raise just a couple of issues. The first is one I raised back in July: what will happen to these children when they reach the age of 18 and technically become adults? Ministers had been giving mixed messages on this. In response to an Oral Question where I tried to clarify the situation, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, wrote to me:

“We are considering all options and still need to consult with local authorities and other partners such as the UNHCR, which could influence the final outcome. However, where we accept that cases are in need of international protection we would normally grant 5 years’ leave with full access to benefits and services, including education. Unaccompanied children granted a protection status would be entitled to the full level of support afforded to all ‘looked after children’ in the UK, including leaving care benefits when they turn 18”.

That was encouraging, but can the Minister say whether the Government have come to a conclusion, having considered all the options and consulted local authorities? This is such an important issue to the safeguarding of children in the full sense of the term. As the Refugee Children’s Consortium argues, a safeguarding strategy,

“should also be a plan for future permanence and stability. The UK is accepting responsibility for young people under the Dubs amendment on the basis that their future is here. A national plan must be clear about this, and the government should be clear about setting out their views on the status of these children”.

Clarity about their future in the UK is crucial to the psychological well-being of a group of highly vulnerable children and young people, who have undergone the most terrible ordeals. According to a piece in Sunday’s Observer, psychological assessments carried out for Citizens UK have found that nearly all the children who have been in the Calais camp are suffering serious mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress or depression. I therefore also ask what steps the Government will be taking to ensure that the children who come to the UK receive proper support and care through the mental health services.

I am a member of the inquiry of the APPG on Refugees, which is entitled “Refugees Welcome?”. Yesterday we heard evidence of the impact on the mental health of young asylum-seekers, whose lives were on hold for often well over a year until a final decision was reached on their status. We heard about one young man who could think about nothing else, he was so absolutely obsessed with what was going to happen to him—and can you blame him? They do not know what their futures are going to be. As well as impacting adversely on their mental health, it undermines their integration into British society.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, for this amendment on the vital issue of the safeguarding of unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, really wanted to be here tonight but is attending the small matter of a presidential election. He toyed with the question of which one to attend but, as I understand it, could not get a flight home—and that is genuinely why he is not here tonight. I echo the right reverend Prelate’s words about the work that the Churches do—they do sterling work—especially, as I mentioned earlier today, the role they have played in the community sponsorship scheme, a scheme in which the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury also is engaged. Schemes such as that are very beneficial indeed to some of the people coming to this country.

The Government are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and providing help for those in genuine need of international protection. In the light of the events of the past few weeks around the closure of the camp in Calais, we agreed that further action needs to be taken to supplement existing safeguarding guidance and practices and to ensure that we continue to act in the best interests of those children arriving in the UK.

Our priority throughout has been to ensure the safety and welfare of the children, whether they are transferred here or arrive of their own accord. We have already taken significant action. In July, for example, we implemented the national transfer scheme to promote a fairer distribution of care responsibility among local authorities across the country. That was accompanied by very substantial increases in Home Office funding to local authorities. We have also worked closely with France and other EU countries, with local authorities here, and with other partners to transfer eligible children to the UK as quickly as proper safeguarding procedures and other necessary checks will allow.

Since 10 October more than 60 girls—many of whom have been identified as at high risk of sexual exploitation —have arrived in the UK and are now receiving the care and support that noble Lords talked about. In total, we have transferred more than 300 children. More are expected to follow in the coming days and weeks.

We are in full agreement that there is absolute value in a strategy setting out how we will safeguard these unaccompanied children. However, we believe that this intention would be better served through the commitments given on 1 November in the Written Ministerial Statement by the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families and the Minister for Immigration. The strategy that the Government have committed to publish by 1 May 2017 will reinforce the comprehensive protection that we already provide for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in this country and for those who have been transferred here from Europe, whether they are reunited with family members or looked after by a local authority. To reiterate, the care they receive is exactly what we would expect to provide for UK children. These children are no different.

We will also set out plans to increase foster care capacity for those children who are looked after and will consider what further action can be taken to prevent them from going missing. This will ensure they receive the best support possible while seeking refuge in our country. Additionally, we will review what information is communicated to these children about their rights and their entitlements, revise statutory guidance provided to local authorities on how to support and care for them, and regularly review the level of funding that is granted to assist them in doing so. To ensure that we are held to account on our progress, we will provide annual updates to Parliament and more regular quarterly updates to the Children’s Commissioners across the UK.

We believe that the commitments we have given are the best approach to safeguarding the welfare of these children. I fully agree with the spirit of this amendment, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, but primary legislation on this matter would limit our ability to respond to what is a complex and developing situation across Europe and beyond. That is why we set out our commitments through the WMS. This approach also enables us to take proper account of the devolved responsibility for safeguarding matters, which the amendment would not. We welcome the support of local authorities across the UK in dealing with the needs of unaccompanied children and will continue to work closely with them and with the devolved Administrations on these issues.

The Government are determined to do everything we can to protect these unaccompanied children. Their welfare in the UK is our first priority. That is why the comprehensive strategy we have committed to publish will build on the actions that we have already taken and go further to ensure that these children are, and remain, safeguarded.

The Government are also clear that we must do everything possible to prevent children from undertaking these perilous journeys to Europe. That is why we have pledged over £2.3 billion in response to the crisis in Syria and resettled nearly 3,000 people, half of whom are children, under the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme. We remain committed to resettling 20,000 of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees direct from the region and, in addition, we have established a new resettlement scheme focused on vulnerable children in the Middle East and north Africa.

I had some answers to the questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. She said that there was no mention of Section 67. The WMS goes wider than the proposed amendment, and those transferred from Europe includes those under Section 67, as Section 67 is not actually a resettlement route. The other question is about how many Home Office officials were in the camp and supported the clearance. There were several hundred supporting the camp clearance. I have said this many times at this Dispatch Box, but we can operate in France only in ways agreed with the French Government. We cannot just go in and do what we would. I hope that the noble Baroness will be content not to press her amendment.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I did ask two very specific questions, or raised two issues. Maybe the Minister cannot answer them now, but will she undertake to write to me about them, please? They were about what happens to the children when they reach the age of 18 and guardianship.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

On a child reaching 18, obviously the needs of every child who comes here are different, depending on the circumstances. If a child is in local authority care and is in that transition period into adulthood, it would be exactly the same process as a child from this country—and it may be that the child is returning to their country. I can lay it out in more detail for the noble Baroness, but each situation is different. Was there a second question?

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

On guardianship.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I shall write to the noble Baroness on that.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 2 and 9, both of which I have added my name to. Based on my own experience, I believe that the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is extremely important. Too often, in the understandable wish to make children safe, we overlook the importance of previous and sometimes current links to children’s family and a wider group of people who are important adults in their life. That is even where parts of that family have been highly dysfunctional and may not have always treated them well. There is often still a link with that family which is very important to the child.

These children often wish that their immediate family had treated them better, but they do not necessarily wish to sever all their links to family and the wider world outside of what they experience in care. Very often, there are people in their family and among a wider carer group with whom they have made quite a strong bond and relationship and have a desire to maintain that contact. I suggest to your Lordships that it is critical to a child’s own sense of self-worth that they are not given the impression that they do not matter to this wider family and group of people who have been important in their life. I think it is critical that the Government take seriously the spirit of the amendment proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and are willing to incorporate that spirit in some form in appropriate words on the face of the Bill.

I have added my name to Amendment 9, proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, because I strongly support it. I think he has worked extremely hard trying to persuade the department that there is merit in his approach. I think there is very strong merit. Children in residential care are often the most needy and vulnerable. All too often they have a history of failed placements and a strong sense of being let down by the adult world. They are often used to adults walking away from them or dipping in and out of their lives, rather than building strong relationships with them that last over time.

When they come into residential care and find a key worker or a personal adviser to whom they can relate, it is often very important for their sense of self-worth that the system tries to foster that relationship and assists its continuance, not only while they are in care but when the child leaves residential care and moves to independent living, which is a very difficult thing to carry out. Many of us find it difficult to encourage our own children to move to independent living well into their 20s, so imagine what it is like for a young person leaving care. Maintaining that relationship with a key worker, personal adviser or adult who is connected to the child when they are in care may, in some cases, be the ingredient that determines success or failure as they move into independent living.

This is a massive issue for many of these young people, and I think that the Government would do well to listen to both the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and to take seriously their amendments.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to make one simple point in support of Amendment 2, although it probably relates to Amendment 9 as well. In discussing the previous group of amendments, we talked about the mental and emotional health of children, and the Government’s amendment was about the promotion of mental as well as physical health. I cannot think of anything that could do more to undermine the mental health of children than to be torn away from relationships that are really important to them. Therefore, in the interests of making a reality of government Amendment 1, I hope that the Minister will feel able to accept Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 9. Subsection (1) of the new clause proposed in it refers to subsection (2). Clause 1(2)(c) of the Bill refers to,

“persons aged under 25 who are former relevant children within the meaning of”,

the Children Act, and it is that part of the Bill that I wish briefly to address.

I agree completely with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, about the importance of relationships to children and young people. On Thursday last week, I attended a briefing organised by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the Children’s Society at which I heard from two care leavers, both of whom spoke very passionately about their experiences. One young lady, who was 18, has now left care. However, she was removed from her foster placement one day after her 18th birthday, which seems unnecessarily hasty and somewhat insensitive. To date, no personal adviser has been appointed for her and she has no one to officially advise her. She made the very valid point that she and others in care really need advice, particularly on their likely financial responsibilities, before they reach 18 and not afterwards, as all money stops at 18. I will return to this aspect of financial advice in later amendments.

It is important that children in local authority care have someone they can turn to at all times. Children not in care have parents and relatives whom they can turn to and confide in. Looked-after children deserve parity with their peers, and I fully support the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and the noble Lord, Lord Warner.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to include a duty to promote access to legal advice and representation for children in care in order to safeguard and promote their welfare and future life chances. It seeks to do that on the face of the Bill.

Local authorities, in their role as corporate parents, have a particular obligation to promote meaningful access to legal services for the children in their care. Recent evidence presented to the Refugee Children’s Consortium suggests that it is not enough for access to legal advice to be included in a child’s care plan. There should instead be an active duty to promote access whenever needed. For example, children may need access to legal advice in regard to accessing appropriate education in their area if they have special educational needs; to have a voice in family law proceedings that concern arrangements for their care; to regularise their immigration status; or to claim compensation where they are a victim of crime, including human trafficking.

In the concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’s recent periodic report, it was noted that some children in care do not feel listened to, and that unaccompanied, migrant and asylum-seeking children may not receive independent legal advice. I am particularly concerned that children are missing out on opportunities to resolve their immigration status before they turn 18 because of the limited provision of legal advice and the difficulty of finding independent and reliable advice providers. A child without a way to regularise their immigration status in local authority care becomes a young person without support at 18, and now will be able to appeal against deportation only once they have been returned to their country of origin under the terms of the Immigration Act 2016.

My reason for proposing this subsection is that it is yet another example of where the solution does not seem to lie in the hands of the Department for Education alone, but requires co-operation and co-ordination with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. I therefore hope very much that the Minister will feel able to accept the amendment and turn it into a government amendment in due course. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of this amendment, especially in relation to unaccompanied migrant children. I will not repeat what I said in Committee, especially around the regularisation of immigration and citizenship status, but will simply emphasise—here echoing the noble Lord—its importance from the perspective of meeting our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In an earlier report, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I was then a member, underlined the importance of access to qualified legal advice and representation to compliance with Article 12 of the convention, which stresses that children must be,

“provided with the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings”,

affecting them. The Equality and Human Rights Commission highlighted this as a priority issue for implementing the concluding observations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the noble Lord referred. It calls on the Government to expedite the promised review of the LASPO Act to assess its impact on children. Here it is echoing the committee itself.

In yesterday’s Written Statement on the UNCRC the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families encouraged colleagues to reflect,

“the voice of the child fully in the design and implementation of policy”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/10/16; col 23WS.]

In the light of that, I hope the Minister will be able to respond positively to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for this amendment and for his contribution and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.

In local authorities where the ethos of corporate parenting is strongest—for example, in North Somerset and Trafford—the views of looked-after children and care leavers are at the heart of how local services are created and delivered. Along with the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, I applaud the way in which many local authorities, through their children in care councils and care leaver forums, listen and respond to the views and needs of this vulnerable group.

The corporate parenting principles are designed to ensure that the local authority as a whole has regard to the need to act in the best interests of the child whenever it carries out functions in relation to looked-after children or care leavers. Considering this together with the existing functions to ensure that the rights of children and young people are promoted, I do not believe that amending the principles in the way suggested is necessary. However, I am aware of the report on advocacy services for looked-after children by the Children’s Commissioner, which highlighted that 55% of looked-after children were unaware of their right to independent advocacy support. Local authorities have a duty to provide assistance for advocacy services for all looked-after children, children in need and children in care, and this includes making them aware of this provision. I do not believe that further legislation would help here.

We need to work directly with local authorities to improve good practice and raise awareness. I will commit to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that we will do so. Some local authorities are already very good, but others are not; as the Children’s Commissioner made clear in her report. It is about raising the game of the poorer authorities to meet their existing responsibilities. Indeed, while I sympathise with the underlying intention behind the noble Lord’s amendment, I believe that it may risk introducing an unhelpful adversarial dimension to the relationship between children and young people and their local authority as corporate parent, which I am sure the noble Lord would not wish to see.

The framework for care planning and the transition from care to adulthood that exists already gives children and young people routes for voicing their views. These include court-appointed guardians, their social worker and a named IRO who follows their case, meets the child privately before the formal meeting to review his or her care plan, and also advises the court.

A key role of IROs is to resolve problems arising out of the care planning process. Every local authority should have a formal process for IROs to raise concerns and to ensure that those concerns are respected by managers. This is referred to in our guidance as the local dispute resolution process. An IRO has the statutory power to refer the case to Cafcass at any stage if he or she considers it appropriate to do so. He or she may consider it necessary to make a concurrent referral to Cafcass at the same time that he or she instigates the dispute resolution process. There is clear guidance on this point in the Children Act 1989 statutory guidance on care planning and in the IRO handbook. That handbook, which is statutory guidance that local authorities must comply with, also makes it clear that each local authority should have a system in place that provides IROs with access to independent legal advice. Skilled independent advocates who speak on behalf of looked-after children also work with the legal service. They provide the independent advice and assistance sought by this amendment.

Local authorities are required under Section 26A of the Children Act 1989, which deals with advocacy services, to make arrangements for the provision of assistance to looked-after children and care leavers for advocacy and representation support, and local authorities must make these arrangements known publicly, as they see fit. I am not therefore convinced that adding a further principle on a specific area as regards services or support, which is already the subject of a statutory duty, is necessary.

The corporate parenting principles and the needs articulated in Clause 1 are about improving the culture and ethos of local authorities so that, as far as possible, children are treated with care and as a good parent would, so that the children do not feel that they are being looked after by an impersonal corporate body. The way to do that is not to create expectations of legal representation for all looked-after children and care leavers when disputes can be resolved without escalating it to lawyers. That means using IROs and advocates effectively and making better use of children in care councils, which all local authorities will have. I hope that the noble Lord will feel sufficiently reassured to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I support the amendment. However, I would like to put a very specific question to the Minister to which I would welcome a reply. The Minister will recall that, when you stand at the Dispatch Box, you speak for the Government, not just your department. When this Bill began, there was another Government he was speaking for, but he is now speaking for a new Government. That new Government have expressed great concern about helping those who are just getting by. This group of people are barely getting by and in some cases are not getting by. What this amendment does is provide a proposition which this Government—not the previous Government —need to consider. Can the Minister say whether this issue has been put to the new Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions and DCLG? It would be very helpful to know whether this Government have considered this issue at a ministerial level and what their view is.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, what I would like to say follows on very well from the noble Lord’s very pertinent question. I am happy to support this amendment, which was moved so ably by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel.

A recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation document called We Can Solve Poverty in the UK, which was the product of a long and wide consultation, states:

“The prospects for young people leaving local authority care should be an overarching priority for government. Despite positive policy and legal developments, they continue to face unacceptably high risks of destitution and poverty”.

Destitution in 21st-century Britain for an extremely vulnerable group of young people really is unacceptable. As the noble Lord said, they are not getting by. In many circumstances, it is simply not possible for them to get by.

This amendment addresses some of the key policy drivers behind these very serious risks. The Government are rightly requiring local authorities to promote the best interests of care leavers up to the age of 25, yet their own policies fail to do so. I can see no justification for what surely must constitute double standards. There is a degree of acknowledgement of the arguments put earlier during the process of the Bill and of this case in Keep on Caring, which is very welcome, but I urge the Minister to go further today.

As already noted, no doubt cost will be cited. However, the costs are not prohibitive. Also, this needs to be considered in the context of another Joseph Rowntree Foundation report regarding the costs of poverty. It calculated that around two-thirds of total local authority expenditure on children’s services is attributable to poverty-related problems.

At earlier stages of this Bill, I quoted yet another Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, which looked at the links between poverty and the abuse and neglect of children. I quoted that report, which said:

“Poverty often slides out of focus in policy and practice”.

This amendment puts poverty back into focus and it addresses the severe poverty experienced by many extremely vulnerable care leaders.