Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Lord Storey Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

That was well said: get on with it. We very much support this Bill. It is hugely important for our nation but, as has been said, particularly by the noble Baronesses, Lady Neuberger and Lady Shephard, and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, this will work only if we take it seriously in schools. It is no good putting up a poster on core British values, ticking that box and thinking, “Yes, I’ve done that”. It is no good saying, “Well, who will take the lesson on citizenship this week? Oh, we’ll give it to the PE teacher or the French teacher”. Do we train people to do these subjects? It will end up, as often happens with subjects that are not exam assessed, just something that is pushed to one side. If we are really serious about this, we have to be serious about it in schools.

If we want schools to develop it further so that it is part of their ethos, other things will have to be considered. We cannot just do chalk and talk—actually, that is the wrong phrase now; it ought to be laptop and learning. We should not just do laptop and learning. It should be about teamwork, team sports, drama productions, summer camps, visits to museums and galleries, and all the other things that bring pupils together so that they have common experiences together.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, will be pleased to know that, when I spoke to my Swiss cousin about our core British values, she looked at them and said, “Yes, those would be our values, too”. There was a long pause, then, “But what about the environment, looking after the environment for future generations? You English”—not British—“are not very good at that and look how dirty your streets are”. She has a point there.

While we recognise and celebrate the values of the UK, the interpretation can cause stresses and strains on different sections of our society, reflecting broader tensions and debate about identity and diversity. Collective values should strengthen communities, not divide them. The promotion of values should contribute positively to the UK as a diverse and dynamic country. There is a debate to be had and considered about whether the emphasis on British values might unintentionally alienate individuals and communities who feel that their own cultural and religious values are being marginalised or viewed as not being compatible with so-called British values. There is a concern, strong among ethnic minorities and immigrant communities, about the imposition of a monocultural agenda. There is a continuing debate about how British values align with the UK’s multicultural policy, with some arguing that promoting British values is essential to fostering integration, while others believe that it undermines the successful multicultural fabric of British society by fostering certain values at the expense of cultural diversity.

Regional differences on what contributes to British values can significantly vary across the UK. While older people might emphasise tradition and historical achievements as core components of British values, focusing on continuity and preservation, young people would perhaps be more inclined to stress the values of inclusivity, social justice and tolerance. As was said— I have forgotten who said it now—let us ask young people what they think and what they would regard as their values. I bet we would get a shock and be surprised at what they would say.

I will end with two things that I think are important to our values. Tomorrow, I am travelling to Coventry. I am patron of the Royal Life Saving Society. Up to 1,000 people, from teenagers to people in their 70s, give up their time completely free to help teach people to swim and do life-saving, and talk about water safety. They will be there to receive honours and thanks for their service to that community. They are one example of nation that takes volunteering and charity work seriously.

Whenever there is a problem or tragedy, people in this country from every walk of life will dip into their pockets and make a contribution. In my home city, a charity called Zoe’s Place for terminally ill babies found that it could not build the centre it wanted because the costs had doubled. It announced that it was not going to go ahead with it. Suddenly, there was a campaign to raise the difference in money. Within literally 24 hours, £1 million had been raised in that community. We are a nation—I am told, but I do not know whether it is true—that gives more in charitable donations per capita than any other country in the world. That is a value that we should be proud of. Volunteering and charitable work are really important.

I will end by saying something that noble Lords might perhaps not like. It should not just be left to schools to promote values. Should it not be about the leaders in our society, whether in politics and public life, industry or the media? Sadly, far too often, they are the ones who let us down.

Ofsted

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

In response to the noble Baroness’s first remarks, I agree that teachers and school leaders deserve enormous congratulation on the improvements that they have made in schools, and this Government are committed to supporting them to achieve even higher standards for all our pupils.

The announcement that the Government have made alongside Ofsted is the removal of the single headline grade for Ofsted inspections, something that provided a relatively low level of information but of course had enormously high stakes for schools. In doing that, we are absolutely committed to ensuring that parents have the information they need to be able to make decisions for their children, and that schools have the information to enable them to improve. That is why we will work with schools, parents and young people themselves, and Ofsted will lead this to help to develop the report cards that will provide more useful information.

The noble Baroness was, understandably, particularly interested in the impact on intervention. To be absolutely clear, where Ofsted identifies serious concerns with a school, the current situation whereby the Secretary of State can ensure that a maintained school becomes an academy or a failing academy is forced to become part of an academy trust remains. There is no change there but where schools could benefit from improvement, the development of regional improvement teams, apart from an early structural intervention in the management of schools, gives us an additional way to promote improvement in our schools and make sure that all children, wherever they are learning, are gaining the highest standards and schools are being held to account for delivering those.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, these Benches welcome the changes to Ofsted inspections and applaud the Government for the speedy way they have acted. Following the tragic suicide of Mrs Perry, noble Lords will recall that the review of what happened found that Ofsted had acted in a way that was

“defensive and complacent rather than reflective and self-critical”.

For us, school improvement is not about wielding a big stick—it is about collaboration, support and valuing schools and helping them to get better. How does the Minister see well-being and mental support of staff being provided during an inspection?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right to outline the comments made by the coroner in the case of the tragic death of Ruth Perry and by the Education Select Committee in another place about the impact of the single headline grade in those circumstances. That is part of the reason for the Government’s decision to remove that single headline grade, while maintaining a wealth of information from the Ofsted inspection in the report card that is being developed.

I will be frank with the noble Lord. Having been on the receiving end of an Ofsted inspection both in schools and children’s social care, I think the inspections will always bring pressure on to schools and other settings, and so they should. The point is whether they are bringing pressure to good effect. During its Big Listen process, Ofsted has also had the opportunity to consider how to maintain that rigorous inspection and accountability process but to do that in a way, as the noble Lord says, that focuses on accountability and improvement but does not put undue stress on to schools and head teachers.

King’s Speech

Lord Storey Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I too offer my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on her maiden speech. I am sure that the portfolio she will be responsible for is in safe hands. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for her time as Minister; if there was ever an example of service, I think she fits that bill. I am also looking forward to the valedictory speech from my noble friend Lady Jolly, who joined the Liberals back in 1984 in Devon and Cornwall and has had a distinguished career as our spokesperson on health, social care and defence, and outside interests on the Citizens Advice Bureau and Credit Union. She was on the board of the Diocesan Synod and was interested in regeneration organisations.

I congratulate Labour on its success, and my party looks forward to working with it. I think the things that it has said so far, both in its manifesto and in the King’s Speech, broadly accord with many of the things we have been pushing for over the last period. There are a few things missing, and we will highlight those in due course.

The general election created two records. The first record was not for us but, sadly, for the Conservatives, with the lowest share of the vote, at 24%. The second was for the governing party getting only 34% of the vote. I do not want to rub that in, but it shows that there has to be a consensual approach to the way we work. We do that in any case in the House of Lords, so hopefully that will not be a problem.

I will talk first about schools and about teachers. The Government have talked about recruiting an extra 6,500 teachers, which is fine. We need to be clear that these teachers are just for England. Currently there are 20,227 primary and secondary schools, so 6,500 teachers, if my maths is correct, means that they will get 3.1% of the schools.

We have a crisis in our teaching profession at all sorts of levels: we have the highest number of vacancies, the fewest number of people wanting to train as a teacher, and the highest number of teacher shortages in shortage subjects. Those issues need to be addressed urgently.

How do we address those issues? First, we have to make the training of teachers first class. I do not believe that you train a teacher by their doing a 10-week crash course. Does a 10-week crash course look, for example, at a primary teacher understanding child development? Does it look at how teachers can identify special educational needs? We also need to make sure that teachers are properly rewarded for the job—properly paid, properly rewarded, and properly inspected. Over the years, I have been sick to death of hearing the phrase “the workload of teachers”. We never seem to grasp that issue. Let us actually grasp the issue of workload, because that is a problem that teachers and schools face.

Finally, we talk about mental health in schools, and I want to come back to that, but there is also the mental health of teachers and non-teaching staff in schools themselves. Some of the things we do in schools aggravate that mental health issue, whether it is the pressure of SATs or of Ofsted, or of having to do that job with very poor funding.

I now turn to pupils. In many ways, schools are facing a crisis. We have the highest number of pupils missing from our schools, the highest number of pupils being home-educated, the highest number of pupils being unregistered, the highest number of pupils who have been suspended from school, and the highest number of pupils who are permanently suspended from school. What are we going to do about that? In my and my party’s view, no child or young person should go to an unregistered provider in any form. Why? Because unregistered providers are not inspected. Who knows what is going on? There are safeguarding issues. Home educators should be registered, supported by the local authority, and visited by their local authority.