Education Sector: Equality of Opportunity

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, who unfortunately is unwell.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, this Government are committed to promoting equal opportunities and breaking the link between young people’s backgrounds and their future success. Breaking down barriers to opportunity is one of our five missions, ensuring that every child thrives in education and achieves their ambitions, no matter their background. That is why, as first steps, we are committed to delivering 6,500 additional teachers and rolling out free breakfast clubs in every primary school.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that response. She will be aware that education provision all too often does not meet the needs of all children, particularly those with special educational needs and disabilities. The Government are committed to a community-wide approach to school inclusivity, so does my noble friend agree that there is a need for all state-funded schools to be required to co-operate with their local authorities on school admissions, SEND inclusion and place planning?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that children with special educational needs and disabilities are not receiving the sort of education that they need and deserve, despite the enormously hard work of our teachers and others in supporting them. That is why we are committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring that special schools cater to those with the most complex needs. As announced in the King’s Speech, we intend to legislate to require schools to co-operate with their local authority on admissions and place planning.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that women and girls with special educational needs have a history of being underidentified because they tend to cope in the classroom by hiding and disappearing, as opposed to disrupting? When do the Government reckon they will have enough trained teachers to spot the girl who has her head down and is desperately excluding herself from the classroom by being quiet, as opposed to the boy causing trouble at the back?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point about early identification of children with special educational needs or some form of disability—he is absolutely right. In the early stages, that needs well-qualified teachers, with the support of inclusive practice and expertise developed throughout the school, to recognise that. This Government are determined to improve that provision in mainstream schools.

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

My Lords, earlier this year, schoolteachers got a fully funded 5.5% pay increase, but no such award was made to college staff, even though most pupil-premium students in the 16-plus age group are in colleges. How do the Government propose to address the impact of this unequal treatment on colleges, including the haemorrhaging of skilled staff?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will understand that in FE there is no pay review body in the same way as in schools. The Government were pleased to be able to fund the 5.5% pay increase for schoolteachers. The noble Baroness is right that, although we recognise the enormous contribution of FE staff, we were not able to match the pay for FE teachers on that occasion. This week, we have for the first time extended the retention incentive to teachers in the first years of their careers in FE. Applications for that opened on Monday, and lots of FE teachers have already applied for that. In our discussions on the spending review, we are thinking about and arguing hard for the support that further education needs and deserves, as the noble Baroness rightly said.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Could this mission to promote equal opportunity in schools include much greater encouragement of teaching financial literacy in schools, in line with several ideas put forward by Members of your Lordships’ House?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Having spent 11 years teaching economics and business studies— I am not sure my personal financial literacy quite matches up to what might have been expected from that—I think the noble Lord makes an important point. A whole range of schemes and important initiatives already help in that area, and I am sure that teachers and schools would be keen to support others, as well as what they are able to deliver in the curriculum.

[The Lord Bishop of Sheffield]

My Lords, according to data published by the Education Policy Institute, disadvantaged learners in Yorkshire and the Humber are typically 21.4 months behind their more advantaged learners by the end of secondary school. This is opposed to a disadvantage gap of half that size, at just 10.4 months, in London. What steps will the Government take to reduce such perniciously stubborn regional inequalities in educational outcomes?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right that regional inequalities at key stage 2, GCSE and A-level are not just persistent but, certainly in some of those cases, have become worse. That is why the Government and the Department for Education are absolutely committed to ensuring that, wherever you live in England and whatever your background, you will have access to the highest-quality teachers and the best possible curriculum. This is the reason for our launching the curriculum and assessment review. That is absolutely at the heart of the Government’s opportunity mission.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the latest figures show that 65% of Asian girls and 61% of black girls on free school meals go to university. That is fantastic, and a credit to them and their parents. But the comparable figure for white working-class boys on free school meals is just 15%. Getting on for 70% of young people from some wealthy London boroughs go to university, but the figure is less than 20% in places such as Barrow, Blackpool, the south Wales valleys and Grimsby, for example. What will the Government do to deal with this massive problem of educational inequality?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that white working-class boys are among the lowest-attaining groups in our schools. That links to the point about regional inequality made previously. It is why the opportunity mission is absolutely clear that we need to break the link between background and success. That means more highly qualified teachers in front of our students. It means making sure that children, whatever their background, get to school, are well-fed and are able to learn, which is the reason for our rolling out breakfast clubs in primary schools. It also means that this Government are absolutely focused on raising standards in all our schools for all our children.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Minister talked about regional inequality. Of course, the region, or country, with a severely underperforming educational system is Labour-run Wales, which has seen standards decline and where the OECD has described the education system as having “lost its soul”. That is in contrast to England, where we have seen international rankings improve in reading, maths and sciences. What will this Government do differently from Wales to make sure that we do not see the same decline here?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am surprised, given the efforts that the noble Baroness made when she was a Minister in the Department for Education, that she is quite as complacent about performance in England as she appeared to be in that question. We are still in a situation, in 2024, where at key stage 2 the gap between the highest-performing and the lowest-performing regions remains the same, at 10 percentage points, and where at GCSE, the distinction between the best-performing and worst-performing regions has grown by 0.7 percentage points. So not only are all standards not high enough but we have ongoing, persistent inequality in our system between regions and between people, dependent on their background. With respect to England, this Government will not rest on their laurels in the way in which the noble Baroness seemed to suggest the previous Government would have done. That is why, as I have outlined, whether it comes to teachers in classrooms, getting children into our schools or making sure that we have a curriculum fit for them, we will take action, which the last Government failed to do.