Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to tackle anti-Semitism and holocaust denial on university campuses.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
This Government takes anti-Semitism extremely seriously. There is no place in our society - including within higher education – for hatred or any form of harassment, discrimination or racism, including anti-Semitism.
The Government has recently adopted the non-legally binding definition of anti-Semitism, to help clarify how anti-Semitism can manifest itself in the 21st century.
Universities have a responsibility to provide a safe and inclusive environment for all students. The legal obligation for ensuring that students do not face discrimination, harassment, abuse or violence rests with individual institutions. Universities should have robust policies and procedures in place to comply with the law, and to enable them to investigate and address swiftly any anti-Semitic incidents that are reported.
The Government asked Universities UK (UUK) to set up an Harassment Taskforce in 2015, to consider what more can be done to address harassment on campus, including on the basis of religion and belief. The Union of Jewish Students, Jewish Leadership Council, Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Community Security Trust were part of its wider advisory group. The taskforce published its report: ‘Changing the Culture’, on 21 October 2016.
The Government has asked UUK to monitor progress. UUK plan to establish more baseline evidence, and to assess institutions’ progress in implementing the recommendations and report later this year.
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans her Department has to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department held a Holocaust Memorial event on Monday 16 January. All of the staff were invited to a talk given by Harry Spiro, a Holocaust survivor.
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether it remains her Department's policy to support the Holocaust Educational Trust's Lessons from Auschwitz Project.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department continues to believe that young people should be taught about the Holocaust and the lessons it teaches us today. We are committed to promoting, supporting and funding Holocaust Education.
Since the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz project begun in 1999, it has taken more than 31,000 students and teachers to visit the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The Government announced in April last year that we had renewed our grant for the project for a further three years.
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to reduce the difference in attainment for children under five between the North West and the national average.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Every child deserves the best possible start in life and support to fulfil their potential. A child’s experience in the early years has a major impact on their future outcomes and social mobility. On 20 October, the department published the early years foundation stage profile (EYFSP) results for the 2015 to 2016 academic year, at national and local authority level. At a national level, 69.3% of children achieved a good level of development, which is an increase of 3 percentage points on 2015 (compared to 66.7% in the North West, which also represents an increase of 3 percentage points on the North West’s 2015 data). The latest EYFSP results are available at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results-2015-to-2016
High quality early education is key to future outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged children. That is why we are working hard to ensure parents and children - wherever they live in England - have access to high quality early years education places through the funded 15 hour entitlement for disadvantaged two-year-olds and the universal 15 hours entitlement for all three- and four-year-olds. At present, 84% of all two-year-olds (compared with 84% in the North West) and 86% of all three- and four-years-olds (compared to 88% in the North West) take up their entitlement in a good or outstanding setting.
From September 2017, working parents who meet the eligibility criteria will also have access to an additional 15 hours of funded early education. Our proposed early years funding formula includes an additional needs factor - to better target funding towards local authorities with a higher relative proportion of children with additional needs - and an area cost adjustment to reflect local operating costs. This will help to ensure that all children can access quality early education in their area.
The government is taking further steps to understand the regional attainment gap. In May 2016, the department commissioned a feasibility study to investigate the regional gap in early years at age 5, including recommendations to undertake a further study through longitudinal analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study (MSC) to assess variation in attainment and evaluate the potential drivers of a regional gap.
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to reduce the budget for the education and training of 16 to 19-year olds to meet the £450 million savings to be found in her Department in this financial year.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The savings announced by the Chancellor will come from a variety of measures including expected departmental underspends in demand-led budgets, efficiencies and some small budgetary reductions.