Covid-19: Educational Settings

Lord Bishop of Durham Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, school staff did a sterling job of setting up testing facilities in secondary schools over the Christmas holidays. The testing will be used for staff, vulnerable children and children of critical care workers attending school. This is also part of looking forward to the reopening, for which this testing may be needed. We are looking at extending it to primary schools, and there are specific arrangements for specialist settings. I have outlined the arrangements we have made on mobile phone coverage for internet access. Also, if there is a particular problem for children with connectivity, at the moment schools can bring them in as a classified vulnerable child.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham [V]]

I declare my interests as chair of the National Society. I thank the Minister for the Statement and the commitment on the delivery of laptops and 4G to children. Some schools are reporting over two-thirds attendance today, due to children of key workers and vulnerable children. This runs counter to the policy of children staying at home as much as possible and, as such, is seen by school staff as highly risky to them. I have been in touch with a number of them just this afternoon with regard to this. What proportion of school attendance do Her Majesty’s Government think is needed to reduce schools’ role as a virus vector, and what more can be done to enable more vulnerable children to learn from home where hardware and 4G are the issue?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the position was not that there was any increased risk for staff in these settings; the closure reflected the fact that the levels in the community generally were such that we had to close schools to reduce contacts. On attendance, schools are legally obliged to offer those places, but we have seen situations in which they have worked pragmatically, adopting hub models so that they can arrange for all pupils who should have a place in the school to have one. There is no evidence that staff are more at risk. We do not anticipate a public health issue in allowing all this; the guidance—which was cleared by public health—was given to the sector so that we could allow vulnerable children and children of critical care workers into our schools.