Schools

Debate between Lord Howarth of Newport and Lord Nash

Monday 12th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with my noble friend’s point that the academic and the vocational routes should be equally valued. All pupils should have a basic grounding in academic subjects such as English, maths, science et cetera, but there is no doubt that we need to do more to improve vocational education in this country.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, at a time when, surely, the great challenge for political leadership is to unify a country which the Brexit vote exposed as being deeply divided by age, class, region, skills, income and wealth, the Prime Minister is insisting on introducing this most divisive of policies. The Government say that their concern is for ordinary, working-class people. Will the Minister acknowledge that the evidence we have indicates that although the policy could be beneficial to some of the 20% of children who may have the aptitude to qualify for grammar school education, it will clearly be to the detriment of other schools in areas where the new grammar schools are established or existing grammar schools are expanded, and to the detriment of the interests of the 80% of the nation’s children who will not go to a grammar school?

[Lord Nash]

I invite the noble Lord to read the consultation document carefully. There are some very well thought out plans there as to how we believe we can ensure that this has a much wider benefit, particularly for less advantaged pupils. Just because something has not worked in the past does not mean that something with the same kind of principles cannot work in the future. We are determined, as I have said, not to go back to the previous, binary divide.

Children: Drugs

Debate between Lord Howarth of Newport and Lord Nash

Monday 11th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, nothing is more important than keeping children safe from harm, including from drugs. The Children Act 1989 places a duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Social workers assess children’s needs and work with other agencies to provide help and support to meet those needs. Reducing drug misuse is a key part of our evidence-based drug strategy. Education plays an important role in supporting children to make healthy choices.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, I welcome the sentiment uttered by the Minister. However, is he aware of the testimony of the charity Mentor to the Home Affairs Select Committee:

“We are spending the vast majority of the money we do spend on drug education on programmes that don’t work”?

Given the very serious risks for young people exposed to unscrupulous drug dealers, should the Government not rise to their proper responsibility and ensure that the evidence-based and effective drug education programmes that do exist are provided for every child in every school?

[Lord Nash]

Drug education is a statutory part of the new curriculum for science at key stages 2 and 3. Teachers are best placed to understand the needs of their pupils and it is for them to develop their own PSHE programmes, drawing on resources and evidence-based tools such as ADEPIS, which provides accurate, up-to-date information and resource on what works. In March last year, we published a PSHE review of what works best in drug education and the PSHE Association has an excellent programme of study on drugs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness makes an extremely good point. Certainly, this is something I have seen on a number of occasions. Last month we launched a new campaign—“Together, we can tackle child abuse”—to encourage members of the public to report child abuse and neglect and just this kind of situation. I hope this has some effect on the point the noble Baroness makes.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, will the Minister enlarge on the obligations on teachers in schools that are not required to deliver the national curriculum, and the Government’s expectations of them?

[Lord Nash]

All teachers are required to keep their children safe. Our expectations are just the same across all schools.