Queen’s Speech

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I want to confine my remarks to the area of education, of which the Queen’s Speech says basically, “Motherhood and apple pie”. Could anyone have cause to disagree with the statement that all young people will,

“have access to an excellent education, unlocking their full potential and preparing them for the world of work”?

Perhaps the Minister will shed some light on the actual Bills that the Government will bring forward to make that happen. I hope that it will not be a further narrowing of the curriculum—we have seen how that stifles creative talent—and that it is not the further expansion of unaccountable free schools, when many parts of the country are urgently in need of building new schools to provide for much needed school places. Can we hope that the important Augar report on 16 to 18 year-olds will be translated into a Bill? After all, it was very close to the heart of the former Prime Minister. Can we also hope that the Government will bring forward changes to the EBacc?

By narrowing the curriculum, we have seen creative subjects decline in the state system year on year while flourishing in the independent and private schools sector. This year, we have seen GCSE entries decrease even further in design and technology, drama, media/TV studies and music at a time when the creative industries have become hugely important to our economy. Employers are consistently clear that the biggest drivers of success for young people are attitudes and attributes such as resilience, enthusiasm, and creativity. As the Edge Foundation says, young people need,

“a truly broad and balanced curriculum, linked directly to the real world and focused explicitly on developing the wide range of skills required to succeed in the twenty-first century”.

It has always fascinated me how Governments of the day and so-called spin doctors manipulate certain situations to persuade the media to follow a particular news agenda. Do your Lordships remember when Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, told us repeatedly how badly as a country we were performing in the international league tables in maths, English and science? They are called the PISA tables—the Programme for International Student Assessment. Mr Gove used the PISA tables constantly to show how badly we were performing against our overseas competitors. Finland and Singapore were heralded as shining examples. Our failure in the PISA tables became the raison d’être for Mr Gove’s cataclysmic changes in education policy. So what about looking at the PISA tables, 10 years on, to see how we are performing? Singapore still heads the tables in maths, science and reading, and Finland is still among the top European countries. In fact, 14 European countries outperform us in maths and 13 in reading. Over that 10-year period, the UK saw schools drop in all those subjects. Need I say more? I do not think we will hear much from the Government about the PISA tables any more.

Never mind our failure in the international tables, figures released by the Department for Education reveal that, this summer, 35.6% of pupils did not get grade 4 or above in GCSE English and maths, while half—57%—failed to get a grade 5, which is considered a strong pass. That 35.6% of pupils did not achieve a grade 4 might not mean anything to noble Lords, but it means that 190,000 young people were judged to have fallen short after 12 years of teaching. At the other end of the education system, the Department for Education also revealed figures that show that over a quarter—28.2%—of children are already falling behind in their education by the age of five.

Time is always tight in these debates, and I want to quickly mention two other issues that are close to my heart. Children in care and children who have struggled with schools and schooling are often placed in what is called alternative provision. These are the most vulnerable people in our society, and they need all the support and protection that we can possibly give them. Yet a large number of these pupils are put in unregistered schools which, because they are unregistered, are not subject to inspection and scrutiny. In many of them, the most unacceptable educational practices take place, including for example a lack of proper child protection procedures. Why are we allowing this to happen? Why, for example, are local authorities placing as many as 2,600 pupils in these unregistered schools and paying for them to go there? Why is the Department for Education unable to say how many unregistered providers there are? And why do the Government not listen when their own chief inspector of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman, warns that inspectors and the Department for Education do not currently have the powers to shut down unregistered schools, even when they are breaking the law? Does the Minister agree that we should give them those powers?

Another area that I have been concerned about for a few years is essay mills and contract cheating. This is when students pay for their essay or dissertation to be written by someone else. It is a flourishing, multi-million-pound industry that preys on the vulnerability of students. The problem is growing year by year and affecting the academic integrity of our higher education system. When I put down an amendment during the passage of the Higher Education and Research Bill, I was assured by the then Minister, Jo Johnson, that the Government would try to deal with this problem by working with universities and the National Union of Students, and that if they failed, they would consider bringing in legislation. They have failed. The problem is getting bigger and bigger every year, with some 50,000 students using essay mills and contract cheating. More than 40 university vice-chancellors have written to the Education Secretary asking for essay mills to be banned. Will the Minister now give an assurance that these actions will be taken?

We all want all our children and young people to have the best possible education, and none should be left behind. When bringing forward legislation, I hope the Government will consider the important points that all your Lordships make in this debate.

Mental Health of Children and Young Adults

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for this debate and for her opening speech, which was fantastic.

As the Royal College of Psychiatrists says:

“A mental health crisis in our children is developing”.


So let me ask the Minister straight off: why then are we seeing a 3.7% fall in the number of child and adolescent mental health services providers in our schools?

The Government have responded to the mental health crisis in much the same way that most Governments react to problems or crises. The NHS Long Term Plan, which includes children’s mental health, is excellent. The Government have set targets in their Five Year Forward View for Mental Health. The Green Paper proposes to bring schools and NHS services closer together. Mental health support teams have been set up and pilot schemes rolled out. Champions have been appointed. Targets have been set. That is all very laudable, but we need action for all children and young people.

As we have heard, one in eight children and young people aged between five and 19 has a mental health disorder in England, and 400,000 children and young people are not getting any professional help or support at all. We can establish mental health champions in schools, train staff to be able to identify mental health issues and embed mental health in teacher training programmes, and it is vital that we do so, but if the resources are not there it is all for naught. It is like pulling a lever and it does not connect with anything. Nothing happens. If a child or young person is diagnosed with a mental health problem, we must have the resources to respond and to support them immediately.

The NHS Long Term Plan says:

“Mental health support for children and young people will be embedded in schools and colleges”.


The Government claim a success in that,

“We are delivering on our commitments to expand mental health services for children and young people”,


as set out in the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health. That may be true, if success is defined as 30% of those with mental health conditions being able to benefit from treatment and support, which is still less than one-third of those who need treatment. Could noble Lords imagine the headlines and the outcry if only 30% of people with serious heart conditions were being treated?

I go back to the NHS plan. The NHS will be funding new mental health support teams working in schools and colleges, which is welcome, but not until 2023—nearly five years from now. Only one-quarter, at most, of schools and colleges will have such a team. There is no indication of when, if ever, there will be a team in every school and college. Will the Government be encouraging schools to add a section to their school prospectus and website along the lines of, “Our academy is the only one in this area to have a Mental Health Support Team. If your son or daughter has a mental health problem, or you think that he or she may develop a mental health problem in the next five years, make this academy your choice”? While this idea is obviously ridiculous, what will the 75% of schools without a mental health support team be able to tell parents when a student needs support? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

The lack of robust data about the mental health of children and young people is a matter that should shame the Government and, indeed, all of us. The teenagers who were part of the last exercise in, I think, 2004 are now in their 30s. The Department of Health claimed repeatedly that there was not enough money to undertake a full-scale assessment, and undoubtedly money was tight. Another explanation of failure to collect robust data is that the Government were content for the true picture to remain a “known unknown”, because knowing the extent of the challenge would have proved uncomfortable and expensive.

The past decade has seen a whole range of new pressures on children and young people—we have heard some of them from the noble Baroness, Lady Royall—many of which contribute to more of them suffering from mental health issues. The internet, which admittedly has opened up the world to children and young people, also has a dark side. The ubiquity of social media can lead to children being bullied by their friends or groomed by predators. Social media also promotes an image of perfection to which no ordinary person can aspire. Those who have a poor image of themselves can easily find “help” in self-harming and encouragement to starve themselves. All of this, of course, is available 24/7 since the internet never closes, even on bank holidays.

I would like to move from the macro picture to the micro picture. We have all read what reality is like for many mentally ill children and young people, with suicide a too common occurrence. I cannot imagine what it is like to have a son or daughter with a developing mental illness, for whom support only becomes available when a crisis occurs, and only then if you are a danger to yourself or others. For those acutely ill and needing in-patient treatment, a bed is often only available hundreds of miles away, which can make it almost impossible for family and friends to be in contact at the very time when these contacts are most needed.

Training school staff to spot the early signs of mental illness—and the new programme to train all sports coaches—is welcome. However, if there is not the support needed to follow up the issues identified, it will lead to even higher levels of frustration by those teachers and other professionals who work on the front line.

The need to provide better support services is universally acknowledged. Noble Lords will probably have seen from the Treasury minutes in the briefing pack that every single recommendation in the Public Accounts Committee report on the mental health of children and young people was accepted by the Government. Let us hope that the actions really will speak louder than the words.

In concluding, I would like to say a little about what should be done to try to promote well-being and good mental health among children and young people. In February, the Secretary of State for Education and the Secretary of State for Health announced,

“one of the largest trials in the world to boost the evidence about what works to support mental health and well-being”.

This is a welcome development in prevention, and will be much more effective than even the most effective cures. However, what we really need is a study that looks at the multitude of pressures which contribute to mental illness and young people. This study could then make radical recommendations for strategies to minimise those pressures. We have heard about pressures of young people at universities and colleges, but there are pressures right—

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, we are tight for time. I would be grateful if your Lordships could keep an eye on the clock. Is the noble Lord about to conclude? The allocated time is six minutes.

[Lord Storey]

I have misjudged my time; I apologise profusely. I do not know where I got 10 minutes from, I must have been looking at the next debate. I will conclude now—my apologies.

Children and Young People: Obesity

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley for initiating this debate. It is interesting that in today’s press there are a number of articles on childhood obesity, including one on teaching pupils how to be healthy parents and one, which the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, mentioned, on how sleep deprivation increases the risk of childhood obesity.

It is with considerable sadness that I rise to speak in this debate. In a perfect world such a debate would not be necessary. In a perfect world we would certainly not be discussing child obesity in England when in too many other countries children and young people are literally starving to death.

One of the most disappointing and weakest documents produced by this Government recently was Childhood Obesity: A Plan for Action, which was published in August 2016. It had been seriously diluted from what we had expected and had few teeth. It had that in common with too many children, who have few, if any, teeth left but far too many pounds—in weight, of course.

While we must do all that we can to educate children about eating proper meals, not snacking continuously, not drinking fizzy drinks and taking proper exercise, we cannot just leave it to children to make the right choices. From birth it is parents who set eating patterns for their children: patterns that can be in stone—not weight—at a very young age. If parents are not well informed about eating habits and exercise, how can they ensure that their children are neither overweight nor minus their teeth?

In addition to making sure that parents are properly educated, we should recognise that there are a number of other key influencers whose interest seems to lie in developing unhealthy eating habits purely for profit. How many of us have heard young children demanding the chocolate that is placed conveniently at trolley height at supermarket checkouts, or the bargain chocolate bars that are always on the counter in major newsagents? Can anyone have escaped those adverts for a fast-food chain that encourage you to play Monopoly to win a bigger burger? I assume Park Lane is a Big Mac slathered with tomato ketchup. How many big bags of fries do you have to eat to get an Xbox, which will ensure that you eat more chips while becoming more of a couch potato? I still have horrible memories of children in my family demanding another Happy Meal so they could collect yet another plastic figure.

By the time children get to school, the die—I use the term advisedly—is already cast. Running round the playing field and having your lunchbox inspected will have little effect if you have spent your early years consolidating a junk food diet. Too many young children’s diets are totally lacking in fresh fruit or fresh vegetables, and the chicken and fish will be covered in breadcrumbs and deeply fried.

Coincidentally, a series of papers was published today in the Lancet, dealing with nutrition and lifestyle in the pre-conception period and its importance for future health. To quote from the introduction:

“This Series … makes the case for preconception health as a key determinant of pregnancy success and next generation health”.


Earlier today I was in touch with Professor Judith Stephenson of the UCL Institute for Women’s Health, the lead author of the Lancet papers, who said:

“Mothers (and fathers) who have a healthy weight before becoming pregnant have smoother pregnancies and healthier children. Across the globe, obesity and poor nutrition are rife, but maternal motivation to improve health in the period before conception can be very strong. We call for better resources and leadership at all levels to help women achieve a healthy weight for the benefit of all family members”.


Keith Godfrey, professor of human development at the University of Southampton, said:

“Socioeconomic disparities are hugely concerning in the child obesity epidemic and scientific evidence points to more than 80% of these disparities arising around conception through parental smoking and obesity. Engaging with children and teenagers to promote preparation for healthy parenthood offers a real opportunity to reverse one of the most pressing problems of our time. If we grasp the opportunities in schools and communities we can improve the health of the next and future generations”.


If we start early enough and develop the principles and practice of healthy eating, the next generation will at least inherit a better lifestyle from their parents—an inheritance that is of course tax free. The obesity strategy that we expected was in fact a plan of action that in all honesty looks more like a plan of inaction. As we have heard today, there is an abundance of evidence about the extent of child obesity and its causes. The noble Baroness, Lady Mone, is right: we need to ensure that parents are educated. Sure Start centres are one way of educating young parents about the importance of a healthy diet for young children as they grow up. With 1,000 children’s centres gone, how many hundreds of thousands of young mothers, fathers and young children have not benefited from such advice?

We need a proper government-wide strategy that takes a co-ordinated approach to tackling obesity. A bit of education here, a bit of sugar tax there and a bit of preventive health now and again is not the answer. We need to look at some key factors. I am sure that if we do that we will see a real change.

I will end on the question of teeth. I am sure that the Health Minister is concerned about pressures on the National Health Service. We know that one-quarter of five year-olds get tooth decay and that 90% of that is preventable—nearly 26,000 young people being admitted to hospital. So I have three questions for the Minister. First, why do we not bring back dental inspections in schools? Secondly, when are we going to get the assessment on children’s centres? Thirdly, does he not think that we should go back to the days of two hours of timetabled sport in primary education?

Children and Young People: Mental Health Services

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I know that the noble Baroness speaks with deep experience and passion on this subject and I completely agree; it is about making sure that those children’s voices are heard. We recognise that the picture of fragmentation described in the CQC report is not good enough and that is one of things we are trying to fix. It is a historic issue and it cannot be done overnight but we are working on it.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the awareness is very important. Will the Minister ensure that mental health awareness is part of teacher training and part of the qualification of special needs co-ordinators? I have to correct him: psychotherapists are not the same as school psychologists and there has been quite a substantial reduction in the number of school psychologists who are available and able to identify mental health problems.

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I will take the issue about the specifics of teacher training to colleagues in the DfE. I was talking about therapists in the broadest sense of the word: I think there is a recognition that we need more therapists of all kinds in all settings as we expand these services for young people.

Young Women: Self-Harm

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Lord Storey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they propose to take to reduce the number of young women who are self-harming.