Education: Recovery Package and Catch-up Programme

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, in relation to BAME children, when the statistics are broken down it is clear that one has to look very carefully within that cohort. White Irish Traveller families and Gypsy and Roma families are very much at the bottom of achievement levels, with Asian and particularly British-Chinese students outperforming every other group. One has to look carefully within that group, but that is not to say that there are not some issues there, particularly for black Caribbean children and for boys. It is not appropriate to do a per-pupil comparison, because significant parts of the Government’s recovery package are not on a per-pupil basis. For instance, £200 million has been made available to secondary schools to run summer schools only for year 6 pupils going into year 7. Those comparisons are not possible between jurisdictions.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con) [V]]

My Lords, while recognising the Government’s commitment to addressing racial equalities, can I ask my noble friend the Minister, who has just mentioned Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, what we are doing to support youngsters from those communities, who have the poorest life chances? What are they doing to support the recruitment of members of minority communities to school governing bodies?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, there are two organisations that the Government contract with to deliver new governors, Academy Ambassadors and the National Governance Association. We have set them specific targets which they have both exceeded in relation to recruitment from those communities. The Government are announcing—or have announced; I shall double-check that—the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller strategy, but my noble friend is correct that those groups have the highest prevalence for free school meals and some of the lowest educational attainment. We need to act to help change that.