Inclusive Society

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Lister, who has done so much to bring real poverty into the limelight, has indeed started an important conversation.

I shall focus on education. I declare an interest as chair of a DfE stakeholders group, patron of the Runnymede Trust and holder of several positions in Gypsy, Traveller and Roma organisations. But first I want to say that the equality which we have enshrined in law is a purpose of inclusivity, but it cannot be achieved without specific measures to overcome specific disadvantages. The old mantra that equality means treating everyone the same is one of the causes of massive inequality in the UK—the unfair society. It is inclusivity which can remedy the unfair society.

One of the most long-lasting effects of the pandemic has been the impossibility of children excluded from digital technology being able to catch up with their education, as my noble friend Lord Whitty pointed out. A post-pandemic world will still have done nothing to reduce the number of exclusions from school, driving children to worlds outside what a proper education can help them achieve—into county lines selling drugs, into gangs and into exploitation; nor will it have it done anything to increase the self-respect that comes with recognition at school of the value of different cultures and heritages.

The Government point to their general investment, but this does not yield a true account of what is happening in the unfair society. It ignores the clear disparities between outcomes for different ethnic groups, also ignored or misunderstood by the widely discredited recent report by the Government’s commission. The pattern continues in further and adult education, including apprenticeships. As former chair and current fellow of the Working Men’s College, I ask: where are the access requirements that are tailored to those so ill-served by their secondary education that they cannot meet the current standard of entry, even though they are capable of doing a good job and earning a living?

The underlying principle for change must be to target policies at those groups which are losing out. This means proper research. It means post-Covid catch-up arrangements which work for disadvantaged groups. It means liaison structures with the parents of children who are vulnerable to failure. It means school libraries and teaching with items which celebrate the different cultural heritages of their pupils. Anti-bullying policies must match the specific race hatred experienced by children. The Government must empower local authorities to get a grip on the disaster of home education carried out by parents who cannot properly educate their children.

Another way to describe this is to inform any drive to level up with compassion and understanding; otherwise, the Government will continue to exacerbate the unfair society, to the great detriment of its citizens and leading to damage to the economy, safety and security of all of us.