Children in Public Care: Unregistered Accommodation

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Baroness Manzoor

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I completely agree with the noble Lord. Any cases such as those he has just cited are tragedies. We are doing a great deal to try to help local authorities. We are funding a programme called “staying put”, where a young person continues to live with a former foster carer, and are providing funding for “staying close” to be piloted in eight areas. To date, we have provided over £110 million to local authorities to support them in implementing “staying put”, which has helped thousands of care leavers to transition more smoothly from care to independent living.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, there have recently been reports in the media that cared-for children of 16 and over are being placed into accommodation with young offenders. This cannot be right. Can my noble friend say exactly what numbers we are talking about and whether this is accurate?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I cannot give a specific answer to the noble Baroness, but I will write to her if the numbers are available. I certainly agree that it is a tragic error to place a vulnerable 16 year-old in accommodation where they can be subject to any harm. The idea of the post-16 provision is to try to provide a pathway to more independent living. That is why we have a slightly different arrangement for those children or young people.

Schools: Free School Meals

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Baroness Manzoor

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, if the noble Baroness would like to write to me with examples of this, I will certainly look into it.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, I passionately believe that good nutrition is a human right. What are our schools doing to ensure that parents are educated in good nutritional value? Without good nutritional value, those children are prone to heart disease, obesity and related diseases later in life.

Apprenticeships: Disabled Students

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Baroness Manzoor

Monday 15th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, through the SEND reforms we have introduced since 2014 we have made available more than £220 million to help. This includes a package of £20 million for councils, £9 million to establish local supported internship forums and £4.5 million for parent carer forums. In the Children and Families Act 2014 we included the FE sector in a single SEND system. We put four duties on to the sector: to have regard to the SEND code of practice; to use best endeavours to meet special educational needs; to co-operate with the local authority; and to admit a young person if the college is named by the local authority.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend say how the Government are monitoring and evaluating the quality of apprenticeship schemes? How are women and ethnic minorities being encouraged into the higher-paid and better-trained apprenticeship schemes?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, at the heart of the reforms that we have introduced over the past year has been listening to the needs of employers: they have a strong voice in the way in which the apprenticeship courses are created. We now have a system of standards that has a much higher level of rigour than existed beforehand. We have end-point assessments, which mean that employers are able to see that the quality of individual apprenticeships is to a standard that meets their needs. This is assisted by the new institute that we have created, the Institute for Apprenticeships, which has a direct mandate to listen to employers. In relation to disadvantaged groups in society, one of the most impressive statistics is that there are 530,000 more disabled people in work today than in 2014.

Dyslexia: Disabled Students’ Allowance

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Baroness Manzoor

Monday 13th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, specific learning disabilities are treated separately. In a working paper in 2005, where the British Dyslexia Association was part of the consultation group, the view then was that progress into higher education represented a major transition and that more adult-based assessments should therefore be used.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, would it be possible for the Minister to take this back? There are some concerns around equality and it would be worth readdressing this issue.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I will need to write to my noble friend on that.