Education Settings: Wider Opening

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, from speaking to many teachers and multi-academy trust leaders, I know that they are concerned about the emotional stability and well-being of children when they re-enter school, particularly of those who are vulnerable. On mental health support, certain teams are on the ground, particularly in secondary settings, and we are doing the remote training-up of the allocation that we had hoped would be in schools by now. We have also funded a coalition of charities for vulnerable children to the tune of £7 million, being led, I believe, by Barnardo’s; it is a “see, hear, respond” service, because we are acutely aware of what will walk through the door of a school when vulnerable children are back in that setting.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

There are a lot of warm words from the Government about this, but it really has been a totally inappropriate response to what is fast becoming a crisis in a critical area of our society. In particular, how can the Government think it is acceptable to present a Statement at a time like this that is nothing more than a list of things which cannot be done? It does not contain one new idea and makes no response to the many ideas that have come from people across society. I want to push the Minister to say why she is not encouraging primary schools to use the space that is available—she just made that clear in response to a previous question—to enable secondary schools to provide access to outdoor space and classroom space, to ensure that they could offer the sort of education to children that we all want to see.