Higher Education and Research Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, when the noble Lord describes how he has schoolchildren visit his fantastic facilities so that they can enjoy and appreciate them, I delight. What a fantastic experience for pupils to access such great equipment.

I also thank the Minister for helpfully introducing the Bill. I thank the Government for the welcome additional significant investment in research. I declare my interest as a trustee of the Brent Centre for Young People, a mental health service for adolescents—one of uniquely high quality. I am also a patron of the Who Cares? Trust, which works with universities to ensure that they sensitively deal with young people from care.

I join the Minister and other noble Lords in paying tribute to our research assets in this country, the treasure trove of our holy curiosity. Researchers have had a huge impact. Since becoming vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked after Children and Care Leavers, I have seen the huge impact of social research on improved outcomes for such children. Professor Sonia Jackson, Dr Cameron, Professor Petrie and the Thomas Coram Research Unit at the Institute of Education played a huge role in such improvements. I pay particular tribute to the late Professor Meltzer of the University of Leicester, who led research in the early 2000s that was the first national assessment into the mental health needs of looked-after children. That informed the Office for National Statistics report in 2004 which identified 78% of children in children’s homes and 45% of those in foster care as having a mental disorder, compared with about 10% of the general population. That successfully highlighted the issues, which I am afraid we have been slow to address, but I am grateful for the work of the Minister’s colleague, the Minister of State, Edward Timpson, in really getting a grip on this issue now. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, for her campaigning on the mental health of looked-after children.

In Committee, I will look at access for disadvantaged and BME children, particularly care leavers. In the early 2000s, 2% of care leavers accessed university. About five years ago we reached a high of 8%. The latest information I have is that the figure is now 6%. I would be grateful if Minister could let me know the very latest information on care leavers’ access to higher education. He might care to write to me.

I pay tribute to the Frank Buttle trust, particularly the chief executive, Gerri McAndrew, who introduced a kitemark which identified the universities that were most successful at supporting care leavers and has proved to be a real trailblazer in improving the quality of care for care leavers. It has been an honour for me fairly frequently to meet care leavers in higher education or who are graduates. I hear about the challenges but also some of the excellent pastoral care that universities offer. I am grateful to have colleagues who are graduates; one of them has just received a doctorate for his work.

Returning to research, it demonstrates that the most effective intervention we can make is in the earliest years. The longitudinal research of Professor Melhuish of the University of Oxford and the University of London—the EPPE research into the impact of high-quality early-years education and care—demonstrates the huge benefits of that care, particularly for disadvantaged children, for their education but also their non-cognitive skills. That is an area that we really need to concentrate on. I know the Government are attending to it but I have a suggestion for the Minister and particularly for his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Nash. An inexpensive, effective way of ensuring that more disadvantaged and BME children get to university is to ensure that children who have not had preschool experience are identified as they come into primary school. Schools arrange a day or two before they start primary school and teachers spend time with those children and simply explain the rules, because often these children have had no rules explained to them. They have no idea how to behave and when they encounter other children who have been to preschool they simply do not know how to interact with them or their teachers. The risk is that their behaviour becomes bad and the further risk is that they may eventually be excluded. I ask the Minister to take that suggestion back to the noble Lord, Lord Nash. I look forward to working in Committee with your Lordships, particularly on this issue of access. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.