Schools: Catering Facilities and RAAC

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

It is not so much that I cannot give an answer now or in writing, but rather that the arrangements schools have put in place change frequently, as the noble Baroness will recognise. For example, a school might be delivering classes in a leisure centre this week but will be back in its buildings next week. Our overarching efforts are to get children back to normal education as quickly as possible.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

On league tables, will the department at least conduct some research on the impact of this issue on the children and their long-term future? Just as we have seen the devastating impact on children of Covid and being shut out of schools, surely it would be worth the Minister’s department focusing on and tracking through the young people affected.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We have data that tracks young people, through the LEO survey, and I can check whether we can do that for schools. While this is not in the spirit of the noble Lord’s question, which I completely recognise and agree with—that we want to make sure that these children are given every support to succeed—what I would say is that genuinely, every single case is different. There will be one school that can use two out of their five science labs and another that cannot use any of them, while a third has a neighbour that lends them all theirs, so each one will be different.