Queen’s Speech

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I also take this opportunity to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, to the Labour Front Bench, and to offer my best wishes to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, who was excellent on the Front Bench: sincere, genuine and hard-working.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, was absolutely right when she said that all the work had been done by others: as people spoke, I crossed out parts of what I was going to say. All noble Lords have made amazing contributions—you just wish that people had more time—but there were some stand-out moments for me which resonated with some of my own thinking.

The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, kicked off the debate, reminding us about British Sign Language and how important it is. Of course, it was the subject of my good friend Rosie Cooper’s Private Member’s Bill in the Commons.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, said virtually everything that I was going to say, which I found a bit difficult, but she raised the issue of dentists. I can remember when children in school would have a regular—yearly—dental check. What a pity that does not happen any more. Surprisingly, she also said that the Opposition would hold the Government to account with late-night sittings. I hope the votes are more successful at those late-night sittings than they have been in recent months.

My noble friend Lady Brinton rightly reminded us of the difficulty that many families are facing, and again highlighted the need for some sort of emergency Budget or action—particularly, perhaps, on VAT—a windfall tax and other measures to help many families facing very difficult circumstances.

I was quite taken with the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, who talked about AIDS. He commented how wrong it is to say that nobody dies when in fact, in the UK alone, 700,000 people die every year.

My noble friend Lady Walmsley talked about the delay in the obesity strategy and, rather than the Minister writing to her, I hope she might raise it here. I too read the piece by the noble Lord, Lord Hague, in the Times on the U-turn on the obesity strategy: “immoral”, “shallow” and “weak” were his comments.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, who I always have time to listen to, quite bravely raised the issue of academic freedom. There is a problem—she is right—and how we deal with it will be the issue. She mentioned teacher retention; currently, 44% of teachers polled say they will leave the profession in the next five years. I really wanted to take up the point about academies, but I do not have time.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, talked about medical students who went to Ukraine to train and the barriers they faced. My goodness, we need them. I do not know whether anybody has tried to phone their GP; I phoned my GP today, it took me 101 recall presses to get through and when I got through to my GP, the receptionist said, “What’s the matter with you?” —whatever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?—and said they would call me back. The doctor called me back and was excellent; the problem is a lack of GPs and we need to sort that out.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, talked about government action on skills. He was encouraged by progress on apprentices and T-levels and quite rightly asked how it all fits together. He talked about the importance of careers education and said we need to develop a programme of work experience. I could go on. I just want to mention the noble Lord, Lord Jones. Every time I listen to him, I get enthused. I loved the comment that Tony Blair’s shortest speech was his best: “Education, education, education”.

I want to start my contribution by repeating the words of my noble friend Lord Shipley, who said in the debate on levelling up last week:

“I say to the Minister that you do not level up places without levelling up people first.”—[Official Report, 11/5/22; col. 36.]


I want to say to the Education Minister that we do not level up schools without levelling up the opportunities for all children. We spend so much time talking and legislating about structures and the type of schools we want. I personally do not care if it is an academy or a maintained, free, state or independent school. What I care about is that all the children, to whatever school they go, get a first-class education; that they all have the same opportunities and support they need to grow and develop. Yet the Government seem obsessed with school types.

The first three pages of the Bill are entirely dedicated to implementing new standards for academies, yet remarkably manage not to specify what these standards will be. And by the way, after years of ruthlessly dismantling the maintained sector schools, we now find that schools that do not convert to academies are more likely to achieve higher ratings from Ofsted.

I care about the quality of teachers and teaching in our schools. I was interested that somebody mentioned Finland. To be a teacher in Finland, you have to have a master’s degree—and, by the way, you are respected and paid a really good salary. We all remember those special teachers, whether in primary or secondary school, who were able to ignite our imagination, so we should be providing our teachers with the best possible training and with first-class continuing professional development.

Our schools and school pupils have, through Covid, had the biggest shock to the system probably since the Second World War. We must do absolutely everything to help pupils catch up—a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. Yet we have heard time and again as we emerge from the pandemic that schools, parents and pupils are struggling with a lack of catch-up funding. The Sutton Trust found that the vast majority of school leaders are struggling to help children due to this lack of catch-up funding. The Queen’s Speech missed an opportunity to invest in our children’s future. We are calling on the Government, as was proposed by their very own “Catch-up Tsar”, Kevan Collins, to urgently provide the full £15 billion for the catch-up programmes that schools so desperately need.

Let us remind ourselves that virtually every child has been affected during the pandemic, with almost 1.8 million children missing at least 10% of the last autumn term and 122,000 children missing at least half of school time altogether. The pandemic had a huge effect on the well-being and mental health of our children and, indeed, some teachers, yet the Queen’s Speech failed to mention the mental health crisis in our schools. The legacy of the pandemic cannot be a severe mental health crisis that goes unchecked across vast swathes of the country. According to our own NHS, one in six children is currently experiencing a mental health issue—one in six—yet, despite this, there was no more help provided in this year’s Queen’s Speech than in last year’s. We need urgent investment to provide a dedicated and qualified mental health professional in every school or group of schools. No parent should be struggling, as is now the case, to get meaningful and immediate access to mental health care for their child.

The Minister knows that I have highlighted time and again the problems of children missing from our school system, which the pandemic has exacerbated. I do not really understand the issue about daily registration because a register was always marked in the morning and the afternoon. As my noble friend Lady Brinton pointed out, if a child was absent for health reasons you put an “H” with a circle around it in the register and pupils had a particular number. That might be by the by, but the solution is certainly not to punish parents for their sons or daughters not attending. It is to understand and identify the reasons why a child is not in school, including addressing inclusion, mental health and special educational needs challenges. We welcome the fact that councils will be encouraged to adopt a case-by-case approach to absenteeism, rather than a blanket policy of fines. The Government’s zero-tolerance approach to school attendance perhaps makes for a good tabloid headline but risks antagonising parents of children with a medical condition-based anxiety, for whom getting their children out of the front door to school is often a major achievement in itself.

The environment that our children and young people work in is important. In 2010 Michael Gove, as Secretary of State for Education, axed the school-building programme, saying that Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme was not as efficient as it could have been. We urgently need now to increase the number of school rebuilding programmes from 50 a year to more than 300. As part of their weekly update to the ministerial team, senior officials have cited the problem of deteriorating school buildings. They say that

“the deteriorating condition of the school estate continues to be a risk, with … funding flat for … 2022-23, some sites a risk-to-life, too many costly and energy-inefficient repairs rather than rebuilds”.

Can the Minister urgently advise the House what action the Government intend to take?

Finally, this year the BBC celebrates 100 years of broadcasting. During those 100 years, its contribution to education has been enormous. As a young primary schoolteacher, I well remember Harry Armstrong’s TV science lessons, as well as “Movement and Drama” on the radio. Bitesize increased by 40% across 2021-22, with three out of four secondary schools using it. Tiny Happy People is supporting parents and carers post pandemic in developing the communication skills so desperately needed. The BBC provides outreach and training to schools and FE colleges—not forgetting the 1,000 apprentices, of whom nearly 30% come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Bill was the opportunity to broaden the offer of the academic achievement and broader life skills that parents and employers want. It was an opportunity to address widespread well-being problems for children and young people, as well as to give them the support they need to recover lost learning. The Bill has addressed none of these issues, choosing instead to tinker around the edges of the management of schools. Children need catch-up funding, not more upheaval. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, we will certainly be holding the Government to account on many of these issues. We will be supportive at times but very robust as well.