Children: Drugs
Lord Nash Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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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.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, does the PSHE curriculum include comparisons of the health harms of drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, heroin, cocaine and cannabis, including the numbers of people who die every year from their use? If the Minister does not have the figures to hand, I would be grateful if he wrote to me.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will be well aware of the importance of work with families, and that there has been a substantial increase in respect of Section 47—child protection—and Section 17, which concerns children in need. I quote the sections to underline the statutory nature of the work for local authorities. We understand that, because of this increase, Section 17 work—the preventive work—is being reduced by local authorities. Is that not just the work that is needed for children living with families where drug abuse is high?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has said that teachers are best placed to take this work forward and to use the resources available. The point being put to him is that those resources are simply not available. What are the Government going to do about it?
Lord Nash
I do not agree with the noble Lord. A massive number of programmes are available. The FRANK website receives millions of hits, and Public Health England is about to launch its new online resource for young people, Rise Above. I have already referred to ADEPIS and the PSHE Association, and we have many other resources available for teachers.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, given that, as the Minister has just said, teachers are best placed to know the needs of their pupils, what are the Government doing to ensure that teachers are properly informed and supported in helping pupils to deal with such issues?
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, on the point that has just been made, a former American drug chief, General McCaffrey, coined the phrase “Prevent tomorrow’s market” as the theme of all the education that should be given in schools, but he found that unfortunately there was a lack of skilled teachers who were able to make the point. Therefore, it is very important that any programme is accompanied by the resources; namely, the people who can actually get the point across. Is the Minister satisfied that there are sufficient people with the knowledge and ability to carry out that task in our schools?
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that children who live in households where there is much drug use are at risk not only from the drugs but of becoming young carers for their parents, who are addicted? What is the Government’s policy on helping those young carers?
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?
Schools: Funding
Lord Nash Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Borwick (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Eaton, and with her permission, 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, the current schools funding system is not fit for purpose. A secondary pupil with low prior attainment would attract over £2,200 of additional funding in Birmingham, compared with £36 in Darlington. The Government are committed to addressing this unfairness by introducing a national funding formula from 2017, based on pupils’ needs rather than purely historic calculations. Fairer funding will mean that every pupil, whatever their background and wherever they live, can achieve to the best of their potential.
Lord Borwick
My Lords, how many different local authority funding regimes are there at present? How many basic funding streams will be present after this change? May I also take this opportunity to wish my noble friend a happy birthday today?
Lord Nash
I am grateful to my noble friend for his good wishes. As local authorities are currently responsible for setting their own funding formula for schools, there are 152 varying local funding formulae. We are currently consulting on our proposals to introduce one single national formula for schools. From 2019, funding will be allocated directly to schools on the basis of that formula. This means that, for example, a secondary school pupil with lower prior attainment will attract the same amount of additional funding wherever they are in the country.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that deprivation and need must be part of fairness?
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister also share my concern about services for under-fives, which I know he has come across, where specialist services are funded by local authorities at their whim? I hope that when he is reviewing the schools programme he will also look at under-five services and ensure that they get an equal proportion of funding.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, will the Minister share his initial thoughts on the weighting for each of the fair funding criteria, which are outlined in the government consultation, so we can understand his definition of “fair”?
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, without suggesting that the current funding formula is beyond improvement, the proposed national formula is another example of the Government’s centralist mindset. It is not the latest because, since this was announced, we have also had the White Paper on academisation. However, the national funding formula proposes to remove from head teachers the ability to have any say in the distribution of funding within their local area. Why does the Minister believe that civil servants are better placed, and know more, than head teachers about the funding needs of each area of the country?
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, the Government’s announcement of a national funding formula, and its implementation in my own county of Cambridgeshire, is extremely welcome. Following the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcement in the Budget last week of an additional £500 million to support the introduction of the national funding formula, can my noble friend give an indication of how quickly the transition from the present situation to meeting the target allocations in each part of the country will be achieved?
Lord Nash
We will introduce the national funding formula for schools in high need from 2017-18 but the length of time it will take for all schools to reach their formula will be considered in the second stage of the consultation. We want areas that appear to be underfunded—I am aware that that is the case in Cambridge—to have their funding improved as quickly as possible, but also to move at a pace that is manageable for all schools.
Lord Kinnock (Lab)
My Lords, what contribution to fair funding will be made by forcing all schools to become academies, whether they want to or not, and getting rid of parent governors?
Lord Nash
The answer to the first point is that the contribution will be massive efficiency savings as schools collaborating in groups will be able to hire much higher calibre financial people and make purchasing savings. We are not getting rid of parent governors; we are merely saying that governors do not have to be parents. Schools can have as many parent governors as they need. We will also ensure that schools engage with parents on a much more consistent and effective basis than having the odd parent governor if they want it.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that the historic underfunding of counties such as North Yorkshire will be rectified by having regard to rural depravity, isolation and rurality factors?
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, need and deprivation—I think that that is what the noble Baroness meant—are going to be at the core of the new system. Will the Minister give us an assurance now that in, say, four years’ time, when we look back at how this new formula has been applied, it will not simply have benefited Conservative-controlled areas?
Lord Nash
I can give the noble Lord that assurance. It is quite clear that the formula will benefit many areas that are Labour controlled, and it is being driven entirely on the basis that we have a level playing field for all pupils so that we can deliver educational excellence everywhere.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister think that the very high salaries paid in some instances to the heads of academy chains—some are reportedly paid three times as much as the Prime Minister—is a good use of public funds?
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, from the dubious areas of Yorkshire to the elevated areas of Lincolnshire, surely all schools can benefit from having parent governors. Can my noble friend be a little more encouraging than he was in his answer on that subject?
Lord Nash
I entirely agree with my noble friend that all schools can benefit from that, but we are trying very hard to focus governance on skills, so that people must have the relevant skills. But they may represent all sorts of different groups, and parent governors have a great deal to contribute.
Children: Maternal Care
Lord Nash Excerpts(10 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Dundee for calling a debate on this important subject and congratulate him on an excellent speech. I also thank other noble Lords who have contributed. My noble friend had a number of suggestions about how the overall system could be improved. Our provisions for flexible working and for parental and shared parental leave are now substantial. We have one of the longest periods of paid maternity leave in the EU and our rate of maternity pay exceeds the requirements of the EU directive. I am tempted to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about the point my noble friend made about financial incentives, but it is rather beyond my pay grade. On the tax incentive to which he and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester referred, I will write to him and refer the matter to Her Majesty’s Treasury.
I think we all agree on the importance of maternal care and attachment in early childhood and its implications for longer term social and emotional development. International and UK studies have shown that the foundations for virtually every aspect of human development—physical, intellectual and emotional—are laid in early childhood. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred to the importance of this. What happens to a child from the womb to the age of five has lifelong effects on many aspects of health and well-being from obesity, heart disease and mental health to educational achievement and economic status.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, referred to the importance of health visitors, and I am pleased to report that there are now 4,000 health visitors, which is nearly double the number there were in May 2010. This expansion supports effective, sustainable services that help families to give all children the best start and promote local communities’ health and well-being.
The evidence-based healthy child programme is the key universal public health service for improving the health and well-being of children. It aims to prevent problems in child health and development and to contribute to a reduction in health inequalities. The healthy child programme is the overarching service for the provision of interventions to strengthen parent-child relationships. Health visitors’ support can identify families who will benefit from extra help, including support for parents and children early in life. This can include referring families to specialist services, arranging access to support groups and practical support. I should mention here our extremely successful troubled families programme.
The noble Baroness asked about the introduction of personal budgets and the impact on midwives and on access to training for student midwives. The Department of Health and NHS England are considering all the recommendations of the maternity review and more detail on implementation will follow shortly. She also asked how the healthy child programme will be implemented and monitored post its transfer to local authorities and when we will get the initial results and figures, especially in relation to child poverty. The Department of Health has commissioned Public Health England to review mandation arrangements for the healthy child programme. Post transfer to local authorities, Public Health England is expected to report its findings later this year. The life chances strategy is expected to be published in July and will set out the Government’s plans for improving the life chances of all children. The strategy will introduce new indicators for measuring children’s life chances. The noble Baroness referred to childcare and I am delighted to report, as I have in the House, that 96% of three and four year-olds are accessing it and, of course, we have had a massive increase in childcare places over the past six years, an increase of nearly 250,000 places. I assure the noble Baroness that we will continue to push for more quality, available and flexible childcare.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, made a number of points in relation to this Government’s policies ranging from sugar tax to academies. I am extremely grateful for his support, and I share his great concern about absent fathers, a problem I see constantly in our schools. He also referred to obesity, and I was pleased that the Chancellor yesterday doubled the pupil sports premium for primary schools and created an extra fund for all schools to extend their day for activities, particularly sport.
There are also opportunities through schools for parents to learn more themselves and to work with their children. Good schools have been particularly good at involving parents in school life and bringing them in for assessment, and an effective use of IT can be helpful in this regard. The noble Earl referred to family learning, which is obviously integral to strengthening paternal relationships and widening horizons. I am delighted that following the spending review, the Government are protecting funding for the core adult skills participation budgets—in cash terms, £1.5 billion. This will support families that are socially disadvantaged and will build confidence and resilience.
I am grateful to the noble Earl for his comments on family and child homelessness, and I share his concern in this regard. The Government believe that the most important thing for a family who have become homeless is to resolve their housing crisis and get them into settled accommodation as soon as possible. To do this, the Government have invested more than half a billion pounds in the past five years, enabling local authorities to help nearly a million households in becoming homeless. I also remind the noble Earl that the number of children in temporary accommodation is just over 100,000, which I agree is far too many, but it remains well below the peak achieved in 2006, when it was more than 130,000.
The Autumn Statement announced real-terms protection for central funding for homelessness, demonstrating our commitment to this area. Further support was available in the Budget, which included £100 million to deliver low-cost, second-stage accommodation for rough sleepers, £10 million over two years to support and scale up innovative ways to prevent and reduce rough sleeping, doubling the funding for the rough sleeping social impact bond announced in the Autumn Statement from £5 million to £10 million, and other action to decrease the number of rough sleepers. I pay tribute to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester. He referred to the work of the church in improving parenting skills and, of course, I pay tribute to the church’s work in the whole area of schools.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred in detail to children’s centres. The Government are considering their policy in this area as part of the development of the cross-government life chances strategy and plan to publish details in the summer. At that point we will make clear how stakeholders and members of the public can contribute. We want a strong network of children’s centres, and we believe the debate should be about the effectiveness of those services. Quite a few centres have merged, and some have closed. The debate should be about the effectiveness of the services, not purely about counting buildings.
We have also substantially increased the money available for childcare. The 4Children’s survey of children’s centres suggested that more than a million families frequently accessed children’s centres in 2015. This estimate is unchanged since these statistics were first published in 2013. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, the latest Early Years Foundation Stage profile data reveal that an increasing proportion of children are achieving a good level of achievement at the age of five, 66% in 2015 compared with 52% in 2013, which is a substantial and impressive increase. I thank all noble Lords for contributing to today’s very stimulating debate.
Education: Henley Review
Lord Nash Excerpts(10 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, the Government accepted the vast majority of the recommendations in Darren Henley’s review. Our response was published in 2012 and was followed by a cultural education document in 2013. Since 2012, we have invested almost £0.5 billion in music and cultural education programmes. This includes £270 million for music hubs, more than £100 million for the music and dance scheme, £57 million for the dance and drama awards and almost £20 million in a portfolio of cultural education programmes. A further £75 million has been announced for music hubs for 2016-17.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)
I thank the Minister for that Answer, but we have a skills crisis in the creative industries and it starts at school. Why in their written response to the Henley review four years ago did the Government list second of,
“those issues that we will address immediately … A National Plan for Cultural Education”,
and why has this “immediately” still not happened? Can the Minister say when the promised national plan will happen?
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Royal College of Music. It is very clear that music does more than merely help to educate people; it provides all sorts of added benefits to education in general and collaboration between people. Have the Government considered helping the conservatoires in the way that Darren Henley has suggested, by doing more outreach in schools and supporting that sort of work which goes on but at the moment is very inadequately supported?
Lord Nash
The noble Lord makes a very good point. It is well documented that music helps not only the cultural development of pupils but in matters such as working together in teams when they work in orchestras and choirs. I shall take back the noble Lord’s point and make sure that it is looked at.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that arts and music have long been at the centre of partnership schemes between independent and state schools, schemes which are now increasing in number as a result of the recent Schools Together website launch?
Lord Nash
I do. It is true that of the approximately 2,000 independent schools, nearly 800 of them are engaged in activities with state schools—of course, many of those which are not are very small. It is something which should be encouraged and we are doing everything we can to do so.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, the joint ministerial board that the Government said was an immediate priority in response to the review and that was set up in 2013 is an entirely separate body from the cultural education partnership group, which Ministers do not attend. Can the Minister tell us whether Ministers on that board have met since the general election and explain to us why the future of this board is under consideration rather than getting on with this all-important work?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness is quite right that the board has not met since the general election, but it has achieved a great deal. It has monitored progress against the recommendations from the Henley review; it has evaluated the impact of the programmes which have been funded, some of which I have referred to; and it has been involved in making sure that best practice is shared across the industry.
Baroness Nye (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that government policy has impacted on the value given to art and design in schools and colleges? The National Society for Education in Art and Design survey report shows that learning opportunities in art, craft and design across all key stages have reduced significantly in the past five years and that teachers thought that the introduction of the EBacc was responsible. Will he therefore review the time allocated for the teaching and learning of art and design within the curriculum, which could then be part of the national plan for cultural education, as proposed by Darren Henley?
Lord Nash
I have to take issue with the noble Baroness on this point. The percentage of pupils at state schools entered for at least one GCSE in the arts has actually gone up by 10% since 2011, while the numbers of pupils entered for GCSEs in art and design, music and the performing arts have all increased. Indeed, last year thousands more students took GCSEs in art and design.
Lord Cormack (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that a great deal depends upon our cathedrals for the excellence of choral music in this country, and will he take this opportunity to acknowledge that? Also, can he say whether the Government have anything in mind to assist and encourage in this area?
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that there is a problem—I know that he is not terribly willing to accept it—which is to do with the extent to which teachers in both primary and secondary schools are under pressure to deliver a fixed curriculum that crowds out opportunities for students of all ages to participate in cultural activities of various kinds, despite the fact that quite a wide range of such activities is available for them to participate in? Is he content that this crowding out is what was intended when the cultural plan was developed?
Lord Nash
I think that noble Lords sometimes forget the appallingly low base we started from in 2010 where fewer than one in five pupils in comprehensive schools were doing any kind of cultural course. The EBacc has within it two very well-known cultural subjects: history and English literature. Moreover, many pupils study drama, music, art and dance without taking exams in them. That is all part of a broad and balanced education.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, in July 2013 the Government defined six ambitions for world-class cultural education. Can the Minister tell us something more about how they are monitoring progress towards achieving those ambitions and what has actually been achieved, particularly, for example, in targeting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds?
Lord Nash
I think that in order to answer all six points, I will have to write to the noble Lord, which I will happily do. Our pupil premium awards have been particularly focused on the arts. They have involved the Royal Shakespeare Company, the royal schools of music, the Royal Society of Arts and the Arts Council.
Schools: Food Nutrition Standards
Lord Nash Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Storey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to legislate to ensure that food and drink provided in all types of schools follow Food Standards Agency food and nutritional guidelines.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, last year the Government introduced new statutory school food standards as a result of the school food plan. They were based on food groups to make it easier for cooks to prepare healthy, tasty dishes without needing a computer program to determine the necessary level of nutrients and are easier for parents to understand. They severely restrict foods high in fat, salt and sugar and have resulted, for instance, in children eating more vegetables.
Lord Storey (LD)
No doubt the Minister will be pleased and delighted with the success of free school meals at key stage 1. Will the Government consider extending that to key stage 2, perhaps paid for by a sugar tax—which, incidentally, would help the 84% of young people in the north-west who suffer from dental decay and would save the National Health Service £30 million a year on teeth operations?
Lord Nash
I entirely agree with the noble Lord’s comment about the success of universal infant free school meals, which is resulting in 1.3 million more children getting a healthy meal every day. We have funded that considerably, including for new kitchens. In secondary schools healthy food is generally available and we are doing all we can to make sure that, where it is not, it is made available.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
Which guidelines are schools following? They cannot be following the Food Standards Agency nutritional guidelines because one of the first acts of the coalition in 2010 was to remove from the Food Standards Agency any and all work related to nutrition. Who is doing the guidelines? Is it now done behind closed doors in the Department of Health, where policy is not done openly as it is in the FSA?
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
The Government are undermining free school meals for up to key stage 1, which was a Liberal Democrat achievement in the coalition Government, by starving the programme of cash. Why are the Government going to remove the grants to small primary schools that enable them to deliver these hot meals to children? How will that help nutrition for those children for whom this is the only decent, nutritional meal they get in the whole day?
Lord Nash
My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right that we have paid an extra £33 million to small schools to enable them to engage in this programme. It was always intended as transitional funding to help schools put their service on a sustainable footing and we believe that that has been done.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, in view of the widespread desire to help our milk producers and of the nutritional benefits, has the time come to consider reintroducing compulsory milk in our schools, which helped to make so many of us healthy?
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that many children come to school without having had breakfast? What is the provision of school milk? Some children are even getting rickets.
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness raises an extremely good point. It is deeply concerning that many children seem to come to school not having eaten properly, which cannot help their concentration in school. We have funded a Magic Breakfast programme which has resulted in nearly 200 new schools in disadvantaged areas offering breakfast clubs. It is focused on areas where free school meals are 35% or more in the schools. The programme has been very successful and we are looking at it further.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, academies established prior to 2010 and those established from June 2014 have clauses in their funding agreements stating that their schools must comply with national food standards, but those academies established in the years in between do not have such clauses. Can the Minister explain that anomaly and inform noble Lords what he intends to do to end it?
Lord Nash
The noble Lord is absolutely right: academies opened between September 2010 and July 2014, of which there were 3,900, do not technically have to follow the school food standards. But those standards were introduced only a year ago. Over the last year, 1,400 of the schools have voluntarily signed up to them, and we are encouraging many more to do so. We believe that most academies follow a healthy eating strategy. Indeed, the School Food Plan authors said that some of the best food they found was in academies. We do not think it is necessary to legislate further.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, if free milk is to be made available again in schools, with the Minister confirm that it would not be compulsory? For some of us it contains memories of a cruel and unusual punishment.
Lord Mawhinney (Con)
My Lords, in his first response my noble friend talked about new guidelines coming in last year that reduced the amounts of fat, salt and sugar in school diets. Could he tell the House what percentage reductions occurred in each of those three categories?
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister join me in paying tribute to dinner ladies, who provide a very important relationship to children, and who, perhaps through that relationship, can encourage children to eat well and healthily?
Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Nash Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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“(5) In section 69B (power of Secretary of State to direct local authority), in subsection (3)—(a) omit paragraph (c);(b) in paragraph (d), for “60A(10)” substitute “60A(1)(b)”.”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to be opening the Third Reading of the Education and Adoption Bill. I take this opportunity to express my thanks for the support, challenge and rigorous scrutiny that the Bill has received in your Lordships’ House. It has been a pleasure to see the expertise that Peers from all sides of the House have brought to bear on the important matters of ensuring that our children receive an excellent education and improving our adoption system. I hope noble Lords will agree that our debates have been constructive and that the Bill has been improved as a result of the comments and contributions of your Lordships’ House.
Turning to the amendments the Government have tabled, Amendment 1 would make it explicit that two further sections of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 will be amended as a consequence of the Bill. The purpose of Amendments 4 and 5 is to tidy up the drafting of the Bill by removing and replacing a cross-reference which would misdirect the reader of the Bill and lead to confusion. Our aim in tabling these amendments is to ensure correct cross-referencing within the Bill and that consequential amendments to other Bills are identified. I hope noble Lords will agree that these amendments are straightforward and I beg to move.
Lord O'Shaughnessy
I have no idea. I was referring to the fact that schools of low quality were taken away from E-ACT.
The Select Committee report, to which noble Lords have referred, talks about in a specific recommendation the importance that,
“the Government reflect on the need to improve understanding of the role of the RSCs”.
I think that is what lies behind the amendments, so I welcome the sentiment, if not the vehicle itself. Our own experience at Floreat is from dealing with two RSCs: Dominic Herrington in south London and the south-east and Martin Post in south-central and north-west London. As a new provider, we found them open and responsive in a way that dealing just with the department would not have been by dint of the capacity at the department. So far, there has been just the right amount of support and challenge, which is at the heart of the role.
An example of the support offered—in this case, by Dominic Herrington’s schools commissioner region—was for multi-academy trust leaders’ training sessions: getting together with others, learning what works, being exposed to the new Ofsted framework, and so on. An issue of challenge would be around understanding the capacity and capability of a multi-academy trust to take on new schools and open new schools, and whether we have the finance and the expertise for doing so. That is a conversation that I had with our commissioner, Martin Post, on Friday.
So far, the experience has been of a productive relationship based very clearly at all times on raising standards for pupils. That shared purpose comes through clearly at all times. While I agree that it is necessary, given the importance of RSCs, to continue to explain in more detail the importance of the role and what it can and cannot do, I do not see that it requires an amendment to the Bill to achieve this, and I hope to hear positive news from the Minister about how the Government will actively promote the regional schools commissioners from now on.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 2, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and Amendment 3, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt. Both concern the responsibilities and powers of regional schools commissioners. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, has proposed that the Secretary of State should be required to publish a document that would describe the powers and responsibilities of RSCs arising from the provisions in the Bill and other Acts of Parliament. Amendment 3 would extend this requirement to specify that the document must include a guide for parents and any other information to do with the powers and responsibilities of RSCs as may be appropriate.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for raising this issue once again, following the exchanges that he had with my noble friend Lady Evans on this matter on Report in this House. Since the last debate, he has also met officials from the Department for Education and he and I have had a number of exchanges on the matter. I hope that he has found these discussions helpful and has been reassured that the Government are committed to meeting the objectives of his amendment.
As my noble friend Lady Evans explained in the previous debate, RSCs are not defined in legislation: they are civil servants, and exercise only the powers and duties of the Secretary of State that he chooses to delegate to them. Accountability for the decisions made by RSCs rests with the Secretary of State, who remains fully accountable to Parliament. It is important to emphasise that the role of RSCs is very different from the role of local authorities. RSCs operate within a clearly defined framework, with the focus on monitoring and tackling educational underperformance in academies and free schools, approving new academies, advising on free school applications and approving changes to open academies, such as expansions or age-range changes.
To support these functions, RSCs also work to develop the sponsor market in their regions. Subject to the passage of the Bill, RSCs will also take on responsibility for formal intervention in underperforming maintained schools. RSCs carry out their functions within a national framework and individual decisions are made in accordance with the relevant legislation, academy funding agreement and/or published criteria.
Information on the work of RSCs is already publicly available. We have already set out the remit of our RSCs and the membership of each head teacher board, published registers of interest and made available the criteria for RSC decision-making. Academy funding agreements are publicly available, as are the criteria for other individual RSC decisions. For example, the criteria that RSCs use to assess schools applying to become academies are set out online in the guidance document, Convert to an Academy: Guide for Schools. Notes of board meetings that detail each decision made are also published on a monthly basis.
In addition, we have recently consulted publicly on revising the statutory Schools Causing Concern guidance that describes the responsibilities and powers delegated to RSCs resulting from the provisions in the Bill, and how they will be used in practice by RSCs to intervene in failing and coasting maintained schools and academies. Alongside this document the Government are also required, under the Academies Act 2010, to provide an annual report to Parliament on the expansion of the academy programme and the performance of academies during the year. This year’s report will include commentary on RSCs.
We recognise, however, that we need to go further. We acknowledge that RSCs are a new concept and that, as more schools become academies and the RSC remit expands, we need to clearly articulate the role, improve understanding of its responsibilities and increase transparency. Noble Lords will be reassured to hear that the new national schools commissioner, Sir David Carter, considers raising awareness, particularly among parents, as one of his top priorities and he made this clear in a Radio 4 interview last month.
As with any new system, we expect the level of awareness to increase over time, but to expedite this I am today making a clear commitment to the House that the Government will publish a full description of the RSC role and a guide to all RSC powers and responsibilities. We will ensure that this more detailed information is in understandable form, includes a succinct summary of the role and has clear links for the public to find more detailed information should they require it. We will make clear that this information is for parents and the sector.
The information will be published on the education pages of the government website, GOV.UK. This is the website where all government policies, publications, statistics and consultations are published. It is already used by parents to find information on matters such as school admissions, school performance and childcare. It is used extensively. In January of this year alone, there were nearly 1.3 million visitors to the education pages of GOV.UK. The website is designed for the public and is intended to be simple, clear and quick to find information. We will make sure that the information is collated and published in good time for the Bill coming into force. Furthermore, I assure noble Lords that we will keep the information up to date and revise it as necessary, following any changes to legislation or to RSCs’ non-statutory responsibilities.
Alongside publishing more detailed information, we recognise that it is equally important to ensure the public know where to find it. Once the new information is published, we will alert parent and governor groups such as the National Governors’ Association and the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations and encourage them to direct their members towards it. We will also publicise the information through the email which the Department for Education issues direct to schools at the start of every term and which sets out important changes. RSCs will also be carrying out a range of activities within their regions to improve awareness, to raise their profile and to ensure the sector understands and is prepared for the new legislation.
As the noble Lord has described, since we last debated this matter the Education Select Committee has published its report on the establishment of RSCs. While the committee welcomed the introduction of RSCs as a pragmatic approach to the expanding workload of academies oversight, the report also made a number of recommendations, including that the Government should reflect on the need to improve understanding of the role of RSCs. I assure noble Lords that the Government take this issue very seriously and will increase and improve the information available to the public on RSCs, with a particular focus on simplifying and improving the information for parents.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred to the situation in relation to E-ACT and parents. I can assure him that we regard the involvement of parents in education as crucial. The best way to do this is not necessarily through having two parents on a governing body. An equally good or better way may be to have parent forums. I understand that E-ACT has plans to do this and is meeting with Sir David Carter this week to discuss this further.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
I certainly accept what the Minister is saying about parent forums, but why should that be to the exclusion of parent representatives from governing bodies? Can the two not exist equally well together?
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
Perhaps I may follow that up. That is two parents in a multi-academy chain board. E-ACT has been mentioned by me. As I understand it, it has 23 schools and one academy chain board. Out of all those schools, only two parents would have any kind of representation. They could not possibly be representative in any way of the views of the parents in 21 other schools.
Lord Nash
That is why, as I understand it, they will have advisory bodies, which will consist of parents. As I have said, the same point can be made about individual schools. Two parents cannot necessarily be representative of the body of parents, which is why a parents’ association may be a much better way of engaging with parents across a broader church.
I hope that, given the further explanations and reassurances I have been able to give in relation to information about the RSCs, the noble Lord will be assured that we are committed to improving understanding and increasing transparency relating to RSCs and will be content to withdraw his amendment.
Before I sit down, I would like to take this opportunity to put my wider thanks on the record for the careful consideration the Bill has received throughout this House. First, I thank my noble friends on the government Benches, in particular my noble friend Lady Evans, who has provided strong support and kept the Bill on track over the past few months. I also thank my noble friend Lady Perry for her continuing support and advice and my noble friend Lord Harris for his passionate words on Report about the difference that becoming a sponsored academy can make.
I also thank my noble friends Lord O’Shaughnessy and Lord True. I would particularly like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, for ensuring that the best interests of children are always at the forefront of all our considerations. Of course, I must pay tribute to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education who is committed to taking forward essential reforms to achieve real social justice for all children and young people.
I also particularly thank the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, who have provided strong and thorough opposition alongside their colleagues the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Addington, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Pinnock. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Hughes, for their contributions. While we may have crossed swords on many things, their challenges have been constructive and it has been clear throughout our debates that across the House we are united in our belief in the life-transforming power of education and in the desire to give every child the best start in life.
There have been very important contributions on this Bill from all sides. On the Cross Benches, I am grateful in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, for bringing his extensive knowledge and experience of our education system to bear on this Bill and to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for his considered comments and amendments on children in care and mental health issues. I also thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for supporting the Government’s ambitions with the important role that church schools play in our education system.
I also thank the organisations that have engaged with the Bill and contributed to ensuring that its content will benefit children waiting to be adopted and pupils in our schools. In particular, I wish to thank the individual head teachers and MAT CEOs who freely gave up their time to share with Peers their experience of school improvement at the outset of the Bill entering this House. They have improved our understanding of the very real issues that the Bill seeks to address.
Finally, I would like to put on record my thanks to the officials from the Department for Education, the Bill team, in particular Louise Evans and Kayleigh Walker, the lawyers, including Caroline Chalmers, the policy officials and others who have worked on this Bill and helped to ensure the good progress we have made in this House.
As noble Lords will have heard me say previously, the Bill has one essential principle at its heart: that every child deserves an excellent education and a secure and loving home. This Bill is about social justice and about building a fairer society in which every child has the same opportunities to reach their potential regardless of their background. To ensure that adoption is always pursued when it is in the child’s best interests, we have recently announced increased funding totalling £200 million over the course of this Parliament to further develop regional adoption agencies, fund the interagency fee and extend the adoption support fund.
To achieve a world-class education system, we need a school system that consistently and universally delivers high academic standards. To help deliver that, this House has accepted an important amendment to the Bill to give more consistent and effective powers to regional schools commissioners when academies underperform. The amendments we have made, alongside the original Bill provisions to strengthen our ability to turn around failing and coasting maintained schools, mean that I am confident that the Bill leaves this House with the potential to ensure that many more children and young people will have the opportunity to make the best start and succeed in life. I commend it to the House.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I did not expect the Minister to make those remarks at this stage—I thought he would do it at the Bill do now pass stage. I would like to say a little more about my amendment on the question of regional schools commissioners. The Minister was kind enough to facilitate a meeting with the regional schools commissioner who covers the area in which I live. In a sense, that encapsulated one of the anomalies of regional schools commissioners—the way that they are divided geographically. The Education Select Committee report highlighted the fact that London is covered by three regional schools commissioners. The committee suggested that there should be a ninth commissioner for London, to mirror Ofsted regions, which is a very sensible suggestion. The fact that I live in a region that covers places as diverse as West Ham and Great Yarmouth suggests that there is room for improvement.
There is also room for improvement in the role of parents in education. That must be about the hundredth time I have mentioned it in our many hours of debate. I believe that the Government are plain wrong in trying to say that parents do not have a meaningful contribution to make—and not the token that the Minister recently mentioned of two parents on a board that covers 23 schools. Most parents care passionately about their child’s education. The fact that they have effectively been brushed aside by much of the Bill is unfortunate, to put it mildly. It is also grossly unfair. Many people who want to have that input are now going to be unable to do so. So even a parents’ guide to regional schools commissioners would be a step forward, to at least make sure that people know where to go and who to speak to when they have a complaint, and how to forward it. I regret that it has not been possible to get agreement. Perhaps we should await the Minister’s response to the Education Committee report; I do so with some interest. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, we have now reached the point where this Bill must return to the other place. From these Benches we have to say that it is regrettable that it will take so little in terms of amendments with it. As has been outlined, it has many faults, and despite claims by both Ministers that it is all about rescuing children from underperforming schools, many noble Lords believe that there is rather more to it than that.
I should say that I do not doubt the bona fides of either Minister. The relish with which they have advanced their arguments during the Bill’s time in your Lordships’ House reflects their own backgrounds and motivation. I understand that the noble Baroness has a history in the free schools sector and that the noble Lord has a history in the academies sector, each with some success. If I may draw an analogy, to be handed this Bill is tantamount to a girl and boy being given the keys to the toy shop. It is clear that they are in their element, because it allows them to pursue their personal and particular priorities. But it has to be said that their priorities are not necessarily those of wider society, judging by the briefings we have had from a very wide range of organisations, all of whom I thank, and not to any significant extent those of the education professionals, all of whom also have as their raison d'être providing the best possible education for our children.
We have spent almost 24 hours in debate on this Bill—a full day. I wonder whether we might ask ourselves whether we might have put it to better use—some may say yes—and I am sure that we are now all ready to move on to other things. But before we do so, I want to thank the Bill team. We on these Benches have worked rather hard. On my behalf I pay tribute to my assistant, Molly Critchley, who did the heavy lifting when it came to negotiating over amendments. She did much more besides, and both I and my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath are indebted to her for her tireless efforts. This is the first piece of legislation for which I have had Front-Bench responsibility and I have leaned much and often on the experienced shoulders of my colleague Lord Hunt, for which I am most grateful. Having leaned much, I like to think that I have now learned much—but I suppose time will tell.
I think I am correct in asserting that this is also the first Bill as a Front-Bencher for the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park. She has perhaps had a slightly tougher baptism than she might have hoped for, but through it all she has retained an upbeat manner and an ability to assure—or at least attempt to assure—those on these Benches that the Bill was much more benign than we believed.
The noble Lord, Lord Nash, and I have had—what shall I say?—our moments throughout those 24 hours. It seems that neither of us is ever going to convince the other of the veracity of our respective arguments, but at least we have given it our best shot. I have made a discovery about the noble Lord and, in spite of the fact that he has offered precious little in terms of concessions on the Bill, I am about to offer him one of my own. I think he and I have only two things in common. One is clearly membership of your Lordships’ House. The other, I have learned, is that we were born in the same year. I am not about to divulge the year, but we were born just five weeks apart—and that provides me with both good news and bad. The good news is that the Minister was born first. The bad news is that it does not show.
Education: English Baccalaureate
Lord Nash Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for securing this important debate and I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions. I welcome the chance to explain our thinking behind the EBacc and to share what we are doing to ensure that all pupils, regardless of their background, have the right to a balanced and rounded education that opens doors to their future, prepares them for realising their potential in adult life, whatever their ambitions may be, and, as the noble Earl said, responds fully to a child’s natural curiosity, which is so important.
The Government expect that all pupils should have the opportunity to study a range of subjects at primary and secondary school, including the creative arts. Art and design and music are compulsory subjects within the national curriculum for five to 14 year-olds. The national curriculum also sets the expectation that pupils will have opportunities to study drama as part of the English curriculum, and dance as part of the PE curriculum.
Every child deserves to leave school fully literate and numerate, with an understanding of the history, geography and science of the world they inhabit and a grasp of a language other than their own. These elements form the core of a rounded academic education. I have to say, I found quite a bit of today’s debate extremely depressing—it seemed to infer that we are moving away from some kind of golden age of education in this country. We must realise the appallingly low base that we started from in 2010. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said—I have a great deal of respect for her—we all know that schools respond to incentives. That is why we have to look so closely at the incentives that we put in the school system at this point in time.
In 2010, many pupils, often those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, were being denied a basic education in the core academic subjects. Only 31% of pupils took a GCSE in history, only 26% took a GCSE in geography and only 43% took a foreign language GCSE. These figures are shocking. Between 1997 and 2010, the number of pupils taking the core suite of academic subjects fell from 50% to 22%, as vocational subjects were rated as equivalent to GCSE. I have mentioned some of these subjects—cake decorating, hazard control and fish husbandry—in the past. Some of them were rated as equivalent to four GCSEs. When you take out grammar schools, which account for 5% of education in this country, it means that, in 2010, fewer than one in five pupils educated in comprehensive schools were receiving a core, basic education that one would expect in any country—and certainly in any independent school.
The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, talked about social justice. To get social justice you need social mobility; to get social mobility you need social immobility—you need to give pupils from a disadvantaged background the core suite of cultural knowledge they need to compete with pupils from a more advantaged background. This has been acknowledged across the board, including by Diane Abbott and in studies by Edinburgh University.
The Government had to act and, in 2010, the EBacc was announced as a measure in the school performance tables. The EBacc recognises the success of young people who enter and achieve good GCSEs across core academic subjects. The success of that strategy is clear: the proportion of pupils entering the EBacc has risen nationwide from 22% in 2011 to 39% last year. We have made considerable progress in our school system over the past five years: we now have 1.4 million more pupils educated in good and outstanding schools; last year we had 120,000 more pupils than in 2012 achieving the core phonics ability in reading; and we have many more pupils leaving primary school with the literacy and numeracy skills they need.
Pupils who are eligible for free school meals are half as likely to be entered for the EBacc as those who are not. It cannot be right that where a child goes to school or the wealth of their parents should determine what they study. So, last year, the Government announced that, in time, 90% of pupils would be entered for the EBacc. Proposals to achieve this goal are set out in the public consultation, referred to by noble Lords, which closed at the end of January and to which we will respond in the spring.
As the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, mentioned in his speech, as did many other noble Lords, there are concerns that this ambition will damage the creative arts. However, on average, pupils in state-funded schools enter nine GCSEs and equivalent qualifications, rising to more than 10 for more able pupils. This means that there still remains room for other GCSE choices, and Progress 8 will be the key accountability measure going forward. As noble Lords know, this will be the key deciding accountability measure in deciding whether a school is coasting. I certainly do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, that we should abolish accountability measures—all the international evidence is that autonomy and accountability is the right balance.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
I did not say that we should abolish them but that I was in favour of them.
Lord Nash
I am sorry; I agree entirely with the noble Lord—we should not. One only has to look at Wales to see what abandoning accountability does for an education system.
I reject suggestions that music and arts are not core subjects. We believe strongly that every child should experience a high-quality arts and cultural education throughout their time at school, which is why at key stage 4 all pupils at maintained schools have an entitlement to study an arts subject if they wish. Our commitment to rigorous arts qualifications is a reflection of the significant and ever-increasing contribution the creative industries make to our country, as my noble friend Lord Freyberg mentioned, bringing in £84 billion a year and outpacing growth and job creation in many other industries. EBacc qualifications help support this growing creative sector, and of course we have introduced computer science.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, mentioned music education hubs. The network of music hubs provides valuable extra-curricular activities, after school and at weekends. These hubs also play an important role in supporting music within the school curriculum. One of their many roles is to ensure that every child has the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument through whole-class ensemble teaching.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich talked about religious education, which of course counts towards Progress 8. In 2011, 32% of pupils in state-funded schools took a GCSE in RE; the figure is now 46%. I entirely agree with the right reverend Prelate that we need to increase our pupils’ religious literacy, which is so important, particularly in the modern world we live in. I know that the Church of England does a great deal of work on this; I attended an inspiring event recently called Living Well Together, and I know that it has a great deal of plans in that regard. As regards international links, quite a lot of work is done by the British Council on this, and I would be very happy to discuss this further with the right reverend Prelate.
I found some of the things the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, particularly depressing. A head teacher said:
“‘The EBacc is not appropriate to the modern world. It is not appropriate to modern learning.’ Oh dear. It sounds like the sort of person who would say that you don’t need knowledge because you can look it up on the internet”.
That is an exact quote from another head—I know it is not from the noble Baroness.
Lord Nash
It was not you, but that was what someone said. Modern cognitive and neuroscience makes clear that you need knowledge to develop skills. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, wants evidence. He mentioned ED Hirsch; if he would care to look at the effect of the Core Knowledge curriculum on the “Massachusetts miracle” in schools there, he would see what an effect such a curriculum can have, particularly on disadvantaged pupils.
Some students at key stage 4 may wish to start an element of technical or vocational study alongside the EBacc. We have of course reformed vocational education. Following the review from the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, which we instigated immediately after being elected in 2010, we abolished 96% of vocational qualifications so that we now offer high-quality and valuable qualifications, which employers value. That is also why we also focused on dramatically increasing the quality of apprenticeships.
I hope the noble Lords will recognise that enabling more pupils to leave school having studied a basic academic core is a commitment of the Government—and why we are doing this—which does not preclude the study of additional subjects, particularly creative ones. I am quite sure we can have 90% of pupils taking EBacc; I have absolutely no doubt. I know the noble Lord, Lord Watson, does not like me referring to anecdotes, but when we first arrived at Pimlico Academy in 2008 I remember asking the teachers why so many pupils were doing BTECs. Although the answers came couched in a lot of very politically correct words, they basically said that the pupils could not manage “study” subjects. Well, the same kind of pupils are now managing big time and getting into universities and on career paths which were not previously available to them. From my own experience, children never disappoint if you give them enough challenge and satisfy their curiosity. It may be that when we have 90% of pupils taking the EBacc that we can look again at the incentives that we place in the system and we will, of course, respond to the consultation, but I am satisfied that broadly, for the moment, we have our incentives right and I thank all noble Lords for participating in today’s debate.
Childcare Bill [HL]
Lord Nash Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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“(4A) For the purposes of assisting the Secretary of State in the discharge of the duty imposed by subsection (1), the Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs may carry out functions in connection with the making of determinations as to whether a child is a qualifying child of working parents.”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased that the Bill brought back to this House today for our consideration is in such good shape. As a result of the scrutiny in both Houses, I believe that the Bill now presents the right framework to deliver the 30 hours of free childcare for working parents of three and four year-olds.
As we have discussed at length in this Chamber, for too long childcare has been the issue and the barrier for parents deciding whether to return to work or work more hours. The Bill, and the entitlement that it creates to 30 hours of free childcare, will support working parents to make real choices about how they balance raising their children and working to provide for their families. We are clear that parents need and expect the childcare provided under this Bill to be high quality and delivered in settings where they know their children are safe and well cared for.
I hope that after the debate today noble Lords will agree that this Bill is fit for purpose and that, while our discussions should continue, our focus should move on to implementation and ensuring that the details of regulations and statutory guidance are right. I hope noble Lords agree that turning this Bill into action is an exciting opportunity for parents, providers and local authorities, beginning later this year with early implementation.
I am delighted that today the Department for Education has announced the areas that will benefit from 30 hours of free high-quality childcare places a year earlier than planned, taking pressure off parents and helping children to fulfil their potential. Around 5,000 children residing in York, Northumberland, Newham, Hertfordshire, Portsmouth, Swindon, Staffordshire and Wigan will benefit early from this entitlement. In addition, the department has announced today that it has set aside £4 million to support an additional 25 local authorities to develop innovative flexible childcare for working parents, and to ensure that we can meet the needs of children with special educational needs, in homeless working families and in rural communities.
Amendment 1 in this group removes the funding review clause that was inserted as Clause 1 to the Bill on Report in the Lords. Debate on funding in the other place prompted by the clause was extensive. Members in the other place were able to use all stages of the Bill to scrutinise, challenge and support the evidence presented by the Government’s review into the cost of providing childcare and the outcome in the spending review settlement. The amount of detail and certainty about the funding settlement for early years has increased significantly since your Lordships last debated this Bill, most notably the announcement in November’s Autumn Statement that the Government will invest an additional £1 billion per year by 2019-20 to fund the free entitlements in the early years. This funding includes £300 million per year for a significant uplift to the rate paid for the two, three and four year-old entitlements, fulfilling the Prime Minister’s commitment to increase the average hourly rate that providers receive to deliver the free entitlement.
These decisions on funding are underpinned by the review into the cost of providing childcare, published on 25 November. I hope that noble Lords have been able to look at this review document and the wealth of evidence and information it provides. I hope noble Lords agree that this is a thorough and comprehensive piece of work, and that all Peers who were able to meet the funding review team in October and again in January found these discussions helpful.
It is really important that the department is now able to build on this generous settlement and ensure that every pound is used as effectively as possible. This is why the Government have committed to introduce a new national funding formula in the early years to ensure that funding is fairly and transparently distributed across the country. It is also why we will also be ensuring that as much funding as possible reaches providers and that it is fairly distributed between different types of provider.
I am also pleased that the Government have confirmed that £50 million of capital will be allocated to support the creation of early years places for the free entitlement. We believe strongly that the childcare market will grow to deliver the extended entitlement, but we are not complacent and are taking steps to build capacity—for example, through the free schools programme, which could create at least 4,000 places, building on provision available in free schools such as Reach Academy in Feltham, which offers free entitlement places for two, three and four year-olds. This capital investment, combined with an attractive increased rate to providers, will enable providers to seek investment to expand if they want to.
I hope that based on this significant amount of new information and detail, noble Lords will agree that the funding review clause inserted on Report is no longer required. That clause prompted debate in the other place on the important issue of funding but Members have signalled clearly that they do not believe that a further funding review upon Royal Assent is necessary, nor should it hold up the important next steps needed to ensure that early implementation can begin this year. The sooner we can tell local authorities about their funding allocations, the sooner they can begin to plan with their local childcare providers. A further review would simply delay this whole process. I hope your Lordships agree that this is the best way forward.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the work that has been put into this Bill and I welcome it. I also thank him for the meetings that he arranged, which were extraordinarily informative and helpful, together with the documentation, which I have looked at but needs quite a lot of study to get a grip on the numbers.
I have two points. Like the Minister, I am keen to see implementation, so I am delighted that there will be projects moving forward early. How will the lessons that are learned from these early projects be applied to looking again at regulations, and how can we improve any further projects, which look rather like pilots, if I can use that word? I should be pleased to know how that learning is carried forward.
Listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, I, too, have a concern that some of the poorest and most disabled children will not gain access to this funding. I have spoken to the Minister on a number of occasions about autistic children and children in specialist care provided by the non-governmental sector where it is very much at the whim of the local authority as to whether someone gains funding for their project. Can we at some point look at that? As far as I can see, the eligibility criteria have been changed because of the financial ceiling that is available for this work to go forward. Knowing how keen the Minister is on children and their education, and on giving them a good start, maybe in the lifetime of this Parliament, more children will be able to enjoy the benefits of early childcare places. When we learn about the benefits, maybe another childcare Bill will be introduced in the future.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones, Lady Pinnock and Lady Howarth, who have spoken in the debate. Their contributions in today’s debate emphasise the extensive knowledge and experience of childcare policy across the House. This is a widely supported manifesto commitment, much anticipated by parents who want the Government to provide more help with their childcare costs. It is very pleasing to hear support across the House and the other place for the aims of the Bill and the Government’s commitment.
As has been highlighted during the passage of the Bill, we all recognise the benefits that free childcare can bring. This includes supporting those who are most disadvantaged by increasing their social mobility through providing opportunities to work or work more, rather than the availability of quality affordable childcare being a barrier to getting on. The amount of detail and certainty about the funding settlement for early years has increased significantly since noble Lords last debated this Bill, as I said earlier. As we have heard today from the announcements of the spending review, we are looking at a really positive position for early years. We have gone over and above our promise by investing a record amount in childcare and making a clear commitment to paying more to those providers who wish to deliver the free entitlement.
We want the increased rate to enable and encourage providers to deliver the entitlement. Following our comprehensive review of the cost of childcare and our significant additional investment, we are confident that this will happen. We firmly believe that we have established a sustainable rate for providers, taking into account the evidence that we gathered throughout our cost of childcare review. The upfront nature of our funding uplift, coupled with the introduction of a national funding formula, will help providers to manage future cost pressures, such as the introduction of the national living wage. We are confident in the work of the cost of childcare review, and there is no case for establishing a bureaucratic and costly process that repeats the review on an ongoing basis. The Government will monitor the implementation of 30-hour free childcare, for example, through the early implementers, and if any issues arise relating to funding they will be considered in the context of delivery of the whole policy.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Pinnock, talked about eligibility. Parents will be eligible where they work the equivalent of 16 hours at national minimum or national living wage, whichever applies to them. The Government have also taken the decision to introduce a higher earnings threshold, so that where parents earn more than £100,000 per year each, they will not be eligible for the additional hours. I remind noble Lords that all three and four year-olds remain eligible for the first 15 hours of free childcare, which remains universal. We estimate that the additional 15 hours will benefit around 390,000 children.
As noble Lords will be aware, the free entitlement hours sit within a wider package of childcare support available to parents. This package includes the universal 15 free hours for three and four year-olds and disadvantaged two year-olds, tax-free childcare, and universal credit, under which parents can receive up to 70% of their childcare costs, increasing to 85% from April this year.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is quite right about the 600,000 figure. This was the original estimate of the families who could benefit from the extended entitlement, but that included children in reception classes who could choose to stay in an early-years setting. The effect of the revised eligibility criteria is nowhere near as dramatic as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, referred to. It is a reduction of 50,000 places, of which 9,000 are as a result of the income cap. Parents on zero-hours contracts will be included if they meet the minimum income requirement. In addition, part-time workers may well be able to access the entitlement and remuneration. It is important to note that they will all access the existing early education entitlement.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, for her remarks. The intelligence from early implementation will inform us about operational issues and market challenges as we finalise the functioning of the operational delivery system, enabling us to adjust our plans as we move towards full rollout in September next year. Shared learning from early implementation will provide us with early intelligence on how we can refine the system ahead of that time. The department has established a local authority working group, which the Minister, Sam Gyimah, met with in January. It will feed real-time intelligence back to the department on learning from the early implementers.
The noble Baroness also raised the case of disabled children, which is obviously an extremely important issue that was discussed at length by the Bill Committee in the other place and which I know is of interest to many noble Lords. The review found that the nature and level of support required by children with special educational needs and disabilities can vary significantly for each child, as does the prevalence of additional needs across each setting. The cost estimates reported in the review made allowances for these factors, but the review is very clear that funding for children with additional needs in the early years cannot be solved with a one-size-fits-all approach. In response, the Minister for Childcare has committed to consider early-years funding for children with special educational needs and disabilities as part of our wider consultation on allocation and a fairer funding system. The department is now working with the sector and local authorities on how this might work.
The message is clear: the Government are on the side of working parents, helping them to get on and supporting them at every stage of their life. That is why we are pressing ahead with these reforms, going further than ever before to help with childcare costs, help hardworking families and give people the choice to get into work or work more hours. This will all lead to having the right childcare in place, which will mean more parents can have a genuine choice, security and peace of mind when it comes to being able to support their family. The Bill clearly delivers on those objectives, and I hope that noble Lords will support the Government’s amendments.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 4 and 4A in this second group. Amendment 4, and Amendment 4A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, relate to flexible childcare provision for working parents. When we debated the amendment on Report, I was clear that the Government are fully committed to ensuring that sufficient flexible provision of childcare is made available to support hard-working parents. Indeed, if the new additional free hours are to support parents to work, they need to be delivered in a way that meets parental demand. We know that a large number of parents, particularly those on low incomes, work all year round and outside nine to five. We want to ensure that the new entitlement provides childcare to support their working patterns.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, briefly, I support Amendment 4A. I reiterate my strong support for the principle behind the Bill: to help parents, particularly mothers, to enter and stay in the workforce by ensuring that their children have access to high-quality and affordable childcare.
My key concern today, which is something that we have pressed throughout the passage of the Bill, is that the extended free childcare should be available to everyone who needs it including those who work atypical hours. As we have heard, those might be early in the morning, late in the evening, at weekends and during the school holidays. The question that I ask myself is: does this Bill help low-income families and single parents—usually mothers—to enter and stay in the workforce? To be able to answer that with a resounding yes, we must be confident that the free childcare will be available on a flexible basis which matches the working patterns of all parents. I am thinking particularly of those people struggling at the very bottom of the income scale, who are generally in no position to negotiate their working patterns in the way that, thankfully, many parents working in professional and managerial positions or those in more stable jobs can.
We know from all sorts of surveys that there is much demand for flexible childcare outside of standard hours. We also know that the supply of it is currently very scant. The only figure which I will quote is from the Family and Childcare Trust’s annual childcare costs survey of last year. It found that only 14% of local authorities in England said that they had sufficient childcare for parents working atypical hours.
I know that the Minister understands this issue very well and I welcome the plans that he outlined earlier in this debate to ensure that low-income families needing flexible childcare will actually be able to find it at hours that suit their needs. It will be vital that the strong focus on flexibility of hours is reflected in the pilots and the regulations, and the Minister has made clear that it will be. I am pleased about that, but would press him to go a little further. He talked about transparency and the monitoring arrangements, all of which I welcome, but at what point will he decide to review whether those things have worked and whether the approach he has set out has delivered the intended results?
Lord Nash
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate for their contributions. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who has provided scrupulous challenge from the other side of the House throughout the passage of the Bill. She has seen the Bill through to the end of its passage, even though she has changed her responsibilities during that time. I also welcome the meetings and sessions we have held outside the Chamber, particularly on the funding review, which I hope noble Lords found useful.
I also pass on my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Tyler, who have provided a constant source of challenge to this policy, as they have today, always with the best of intentions. I pay special thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, who provided support throughout the passage of the Bill, ensuring the relevant Peers were involved in the crucial steps we took to guarantee the Bill is the best that it can be to deliver this well-intentioned policy to support working parents. I look forward to continuing to work with him and other noble Lords as we produce regulations to make this policy a reality, and I welcome the important scrutiny I know they will provide.
Although we have not had an extensive discussion today on the quality of the entitlement and the workforce, I am thankful for the discussions I have had on these throughout the passage of the Bill, particularly with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Childcare and I also thank all the officials in the Department for Education who have supported the passage of the Bill. Our particular thanks go to the excellent Bill managers who have so ably supported the Bill through both Houses: first Jenny Preece, then Katy Weeks.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked me to be a little clearer about what I meant by flexibility. She is always very suspicious and I am sure she thought that I was trying to use some mealy-mouthed words in that definition—I had hoped she would know me better by now. It covers all the things that she mentioned and others. It will of course depend on the particular needs in the area but it is meant in the widest sense: we are not trying any fastballs here. We believe that the funding we have come up with will be sufficient, including in terms of flexibility, but I note the quite technical points that she makes about the workings of this in relation to flexibility, as well as those made by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. I would be very happy to host a meeting when we have had feedback from the early implementers, particularly on this point, and to have further discussion about this. The points they raise are very important to making sure that this does actually work in practice.
As for the points made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Tyler, the summary given by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was spot-on—it is delightful to see that the art of precis is still alive and well. As I have said, noble Lords will be involved in drafting the regulations in this regard. As to the money, £30 million has been announced for the eight areas mentioned to deliver the 30 hours of free childcare to 5,000 children from September 2016. Four of these, as I said, will focus on flexibility. In addition, we have announced £4 million to support an additional 25 local authorities in testing innovative approaches to flexibility. We agree and understand that balancing capacity and flexibility is complicated, which is why the Government have announced these issues today. I hope that the noble Baroness does not have to think very long and hard whether what I have said today and the assurances that have been given will enable her to withdraw her amendment to the Motion.
Baroness Pinnock
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this amendment on a flexible approach to the childcare offer and I thank the Minister most sincerely for the important offer that he has outlined today, which will take us very much in the direction of travel that I hoped we could achieve. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“(4) A statutory instrument containing (whether alone or with other provision) regulations mentioned in subsection
(5) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament. (5) The regulations referred to in subsection (4) are—
(a) the first regulations made under section 2;
(b) the first regulations made under section 3(1); (c) any regulations under section 3(7);
(d) any other regulations that amend or repeal provision made by an Act.
(6) Any other statutory instrument containing regulations is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”
Education: Polish A-level
Lord Nash Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Lexden
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to preserve the A-level examination in Polish.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords—or Moi szlachetni Panowie—we remain committed to securing the future of the existing range of language qualifications, including the Polish A-level. We are therefore continuing to work closely with relevant organisations and others to explore how best to enable these qualifications to be offered in future years.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Polish is the second most spoken language in our country. Deep historic ties exist between Great Britain and Poland. Is not the number of candidates sitting A-level Polish increasing, not falling, as is sometimes alleged? Does my noble friend agree that the Conservative Party has given an unambiguous commitment to preserve the Polish A-level exam? Does he also agree that the highly respected Polish Educational Society has put forward effective solutions to the small number of practical difficulties—such as the need to recruit more senior examiners—that have been raised by the AQA and Ofqual?
Lord Nash
Not only are A-levels increasing, but the number of entrants over the last five years for GCSE Polish has gone up by 50%. I agree entirely with my noble friend’s sentiments. We have given a clear commitment. We are determined to ensure that these courses continue. They are very important to us as a trading nation and an outward-facing country, but as my noble friend says they are also particularly important for communities to enable their children to engage with their rich cultural history.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, of course it is important for immigrants, not just Muslim ones, to learn English, but is it not also important for this linguistically challenged nation to maximise its language resources? Do the Government have a strategy to support the retention and flourishing of what one might call family heritage languages as a source of strength for the economy and trade—indeed, the Minister just referenced that—as well as social, cultural and intellectual enrichment?
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, the Government’s commitment to the continuation of Polish is welcome, but will the Minister also assure the House that the Government’s injection of £10 million into teaching Mandarin in schools will not be at the expense of other languages identified by the British Council as the 10 most vital to the UK for economic, cultural and diplomatic reasons, including French, German and Spanish, as well as lesser-taught languages such as Arabic and Turkish?
Lord Nash
I am happy to give the noble Baroness that assurance. China is obviously a country of huge strategic importance to this country and education is very important in that. A great deal of activity is going on. In addition to the £10 million that we have given to boost Mandarin teaching in schools, excellent work is being done at the IOE Confucius Institute, supported ably by organisations such as HSBC and Swire.
Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister tell us what progress has been made on teaching foreign languages overall at A-level? In particular, to what extent are we reversing the trend in the teaching of German, which has shown the sharpest decline in recent years?
Lord Nash
My noble friend makes a very good point about the decline in German, but as I said, we believe that, with our expectation that 90% of pupils will take the EBacc, this will further increase the number of pupils taking GCSEs in modern languages. Certainly, the number of pupils taking languages in the EBacc has gone up by 25% over the last five years. We hope that this will have a compounding effect on A-levels.
Lord Taverne (LD)
My Lords, do the Government not agree that, while traditionally our relations with Poland have been extremely close, one or two statements recently made by the Prime Minister have not improved them? Would not the encouragement of the learning of Polish by British, as well as other, students be of considerable importance at a time when our relations with Poland are so important?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, spoke of the deep historic ties between Britain and Poland. I recall that the Poles produced the largest non-British contingent of pilots in the Battle of Britain, and several squadrons in the RAF and at least two armoured divisions in the Second World War. Britain seems almost entirely to have forgotten about that. I understand that the Prime Minister was unaware of it when he visited Warsaw last time. Could we not do something to symbolise the contribution that Poland made to the British victory in the Second World War, for example by encouraging a visible Polish presence at the next Remembrance Sunday commemorations?
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, most British citizens are likely to respect the Poles who live and work in this country not for having obtained A-levels in English, although that is greatly to be encouraged, but for providing the skill levels in crucial trades—plumbing is an obvious example, but there are many other such trades—which we are clearly not matching. Are the cuts in further education defensible, given that we clearly have low skill levels in this country in crucial areas?
Lord Nash
The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. Of course, we have a lot of Polish labour here, particularly in certain skills where there are shortages—partly as a result of the booming economy—such as construction. However, our apprenticeships programme is very much focused on rectifying this.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, I do not think our war-time connections with Poland have been forgotten in any way, and they never will be. On the contrary, I think we are constantly reminded of them. However, in considering the teaching of the Polish language, does he agree that Poland recognises the need for the major reform that Europe is now undergoing, and that, despite some differences over the handling of migrant benefits, our relations with Poland are very close indeed and will form a major force in the reform of the European Union which we are now seeking?
Education: Unregistered Schools
Lord Nash Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Storey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for regulating unregistered schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, we are taking robust steps to tackle unregistered schools. We are working closely with Ofsted and are pleased that it has agreed to take forward prosecutions in relation to settings operating illegally as unregistered independent schools. We have also consulted on introducing a new system to regulate out-of-school education settings which teach children intensively, and we will intervene and impose sanctions where there are safety or welfare concerns.
Lord Storey (LD)
I am grateful for the Minister’s reply. He will be aware of the unannounced inspection of the premises of three unregistered schools in Birmingham, where some frankly appalling practices were found, including health and safety issues, safeguarding issues, homophobic and misogynistic material et cetera. First, can he assure us that the advice letter from the chief inspector in which he suggests that there should be an urgent meeting between Ofsted and local authorities to review policies and procedures will be followed through? When that meeting has taken place, can the results be shared with Members so that we can see that this matter is being put right? Secondly, can the Minister indicate how we should deal with Sunday schools and communion classes, which may fall into the category of unregistered provision?
Lord Nash
On the first point, I assure noble Lords that we are working very closely with Ofsted and I would be very happy to write to the noble Lord about it. We do not propose to regulate institutions such as Sunday schools and one-off residential settings which teach children for a short period every week. We are looking specifically at places where children receive intensive education, which we think will be defined as more than six to eight hours a week.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, are the Government looking at madrassahs that teach fewer than 12 children? I gather that 12 is the number which means that some inspection can be done but, as the noble Lord will know, many madrassahs have fewer than 12 children.
Lord Nash
We are not specifically looking at madrassahs but we will be covering institutions such as those to which the noble and learned Baroness referred in our call for evidence, which has just closed. We will consider all this in the legislation we propose to bring forward in relation to institutions teaching above six to eight hours a week.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend is looking for bad conduct. Does he agree that he is also seeing a good deal of very valuable instruction given to children who need to be integrated into our society and are handicapped in many ways because of their ethnic or geographic origin?
Lord Nash
We are concerned about the point my noble friend makes and about isolated communities, which is an area that Louise Casey has been asked to look at to see how we can improve integration. We are very active in our whole-school approach to making sure that children are brought up to understand enough about the different religions and beliefs in this country that they can be prepared for life in modern Britain.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Will my noble friend ensure that independent schools that intend to become members of one of the independent schools associations do not have registration procedures that are unduly burdensome, while at the same time providing for the full inspection that is required?
Lord Storey
Are there plans to review the arrangements for home education to ensure that they cannot be exploited in order to avoid registration?