Schools (Mental Health Professionals) Bill [HL]

Baroness Barran Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 1st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I also offer my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, on securing a Second Reading for her Bill. I thank all those noble Lords who shared their personal experiences of how the mental health issues of their children and wider families have had an impact on them. I join noble Lords in recognising the extraordinary job that our schools do in supporting pupils every single day and, of course, I thank those charities that work in our schools and outside them to support young people.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Wyld for stressing the importance of good attendance as a protective factor for children’s mental health. As she rightly said, the Government approach this with a very caring intention. There must be boundaries around it as well as consequences in certain cases where children do not attend and parents facilitate that without good reason. The intention is clear. Of course, enabling children and young people to thrive is a priority for this Government, which is why we actively explore approaches that could improve young people’s mental health and well-being.

Of course, I welcome the noble Baroness’s tireless commitment to ensuring that mental health support is available for all children, but I must express reservations about this Bill. As the noble Baroness acknowledged, most schools already have in place mental well-being provision, including counsellors, educational psychologists and pastoral support staff. All of those can play a valuable role, but maintaining a school’s flexibility to choose what works best for its pupils is paramount. For instance, depending on their needs, not all children will benefit from specific mental health interventions such as psychotherapeutic counselling. Schools are well placed to decide which approach will be most effective, drawing on specialists where necessary.

Beyond this, it is important to reiterate that schools are not health services and should not be expected to act like one in terms of managing specialist staff. They may choose to do so where they have appropriate expertise, but we believe that our current approach, which encourages collaboration with specialist services where appropriate, avoids putting the extra role and burden on schools that the Bill would involve.

On the co-ordination between the health service and schools, my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough asked, specifically in relation to Tourette’s syndrome, whether there is co-ordination between the two departments. We are more broadly taking a joint approach to workforce planning and reforms to the special educational needs and AP systems. There is an implementation board, chaired jointly by Education Ministers and Health Ministers.

Returning to our schools, our aim is for schools to be a place where positive well-being is promoted and mental health difficulties are picked up on early, with referral to specialist services as needed—an aim that is being pushed forward through our programme of grants for senior mental health leads in schools and colleges and the continuing rollout of mental health support teams. My noble friend Lady Berridge asked about the take-up of grants for senior leaders in different areas, including whether schools with particularly high levels of disadvantage had lower take-up. I do not have that specific data for her, but we know that lower take-up has been seen in London, the east Midlands and the east of England, so we are working hard there to encourage higher take-up.

The Government’s focus, as many noble Lords have advocated, is to support schools to develop a whole-school approach. That wider approach to well-being works alongside more specialist support, which is why we agree with the spirit of the Bill, if not its specificity. That is why we have a comprehensive plan to roll out mental health support teams, including access to education and mental health practitioners, who deliver interventions and support schools to develop their whole-school approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked whether there was more focus on mental health in the initial teacher training and early career framework. The very recently updated framework, published in the past few weeks, has a much greater integration of special educational needs and disabilities, including mental health within that. We expect these teams to cover at least 50% of pupils by April 2025.

We come to the issue of funding, which a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, mentioned. He will understand very well that it takes time to train mental health professionals. Although I absolutely acknowledge and share the urgency that noble Lords have expressed this afternoon, it is important that we learn from early intervention to make sure that the support team model is as effective as possible—but we are also trying to co-ordinate and take a responsible approach to rollout, working with NHS England to make sure that we do not draw professionals away from the wider mental health workforce, which clearly would not be desirable.

We are also building on the learning from the independent evaluation of the Green Paper programme and data and intelligence from the ground, which will help to shape future delivery. One of the strengths of the mental health support teams is that they are an NHS service focused on supporting schools and pupils in a responsive way. That need for it to feel human, as I think my noble friend Lady Wyld phrased it—the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, also referred to the difficulty that people sometimes have in navigating these systems—is absolutely critical. They are specifically trained to do that, and to build those links between sectors.

It is also true that even a significant number of additional staff in mental health support teams cannot provide all the help that pupils need, which is why the range of pastoral support and early interventions that schools already provide, including drawing on counsellors and educational psychologists, is so important. We have been working with the mental health support teams to make sure that they support that provision and do not displace it. But we are concerned that, by specifying just two types of professional support, the Bill is likely to constrain the range of support options that pupils can benefit from, which I know is not the noble Baroness’s intention.

We have also committed to offering all state schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead by 2025, enabling them to introduce effective whole-school approaches. More than 15,000 settings and the great majority of secondary schools have claimed a grant so far. This training and associated support equip schools to offer the right support from the full range of sources, making the best use of their funding.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I do not know whether I picked this up correctly, but I think the Minister said that all schools would have access to mental health support teams by 2025. I thought the figure the Government were aiming for was 50%. Have I got that wrong?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

There are two different elements, and I apologise to the noble Lord if I was not absolutely clear. He is quite right that with the mental health support teams we aim to cover 50% of schools by April 2025. What I was referring to just now was the senior mental health lead training, so that there will be a senior mental health lead in every school, supporting staff in their response and giving them confidence to respond to children, which we know is so vital.

My noble friend Lady Berridge referred to children in secure mental health institutions. I will write to her. We are reviewing and redesigning provision to support the move to more community-based provision closer to home—a concern that my noble friend rightly raised. I am not aware of whether there is updated data on this but if there is, I will share it with my noble friend and put a copy in the House Library.

In conclusion, we believe that, to continue to support children and young people, rather than having a new set of requirements in schools, we should continue with the rigorous implementation of the evidence-based approach exemplified by the mental health support teams and the senior mental health leads. For that reason, we cannot support the noble Baroness’s Bill.

Skill Shortages in Business and Industry

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the skill shortages affecting business and industry.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, one-third of UK vacancies are due to skills shortages. Sectors with large shortages include construction, information technology and communications. This Government have committed to developing a world-leading skills system that delivers the skills that employers need through T-levels, apprenticeships, skills bootcamps and higher technical qualifications. Where there are key shortages, we have introduced programmes such as the construction and digital bootcamps to increase the supply of people with the right skills.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that helpful Answer. Since this Oral Question was tabled, I have been shocked by the number of employers who have written to me. The Heat and Building Business Council says the UK has faced significant challenges in attracting engineers, despite substantial salary increases of up to 35%, which of course contribute to rising costs for the clean heat sector that are ultimately passed on to the consumer. How do we encourage young talent to consider engineering and green technologies as a secure path for the future?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am sure the noble Lord will agree that many young people are attracted to working in areas that will address climate change, environmental issues and sustainability, but they might not always make the association with those engineering roles as opposed to some others. We are working with business through our Green Jobs Delivery Group, and with the Green Apprenticeships and Technical Education Advisory Panel, making sure that our standards map on to those occupations and that that is backed by great careers advice for young people.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, last week, the Labour Force Survey had a set of statistics that I find staggering—namely, that 850,000 16 to 25 year-olds are not in education, employment or training. Do the Government have any plans, perhaps next week, to give flexibility to the apprenticeship levy, so that we can train and employ these young people?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

About half of apprenticeships are taken up by young people under the age of 24. I think the noble Lord referred to 21, but it splits at about half under 24 and half above that. The Government have done a great deal: investing in 16 to 19 education, improving the range of options and introducing qualifications that are directly linked to the careers that young people need.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I did not hear the Minister mention the creative industries, which certainly suffer from skills shortages in many areas. Looking at this issue in the round, does the Minister agree that cuts to the arts—such as, for instance, the proposed 100% cut in local authority funding for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra—are the worst possible advert for attracting skilled workers into the creative industries?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the noble Earl knows, one reason why there are skills shortages in the creative industries is their very rapid growth rate. Between 2010 and 2019, they grew one and a half times faster than the wider economy, and in 2021 they employed 2.3 million people, which is a 49% increase on 2011. We have created flexi-job and accelerated apprenticeships, and improved the transfer system, particularly aiming to support our world-beating creative industries.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the United Nations International Labour Organization warned that a

“temporary … shortage … of trained native workers, can … be made … permanent by the attempting a quick fix from migrant labor. Any program which imports migrants into a sector whose employers are complaining of insufficient trained natives, can be expected to exacerbate (rather than alleviate) its native shortage”?

Since Tony Blair ignored that warning, we have imported millions of workers—

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

We have. As the ILO predicted, shortages have got worse, even though Members opposite want to deny the facts. When will we abandon this failed policy and start training and paying our own people better?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As my noble friend well knows, we have introduced a points-based immigration system, making sure that we can focus on the brightest and the best to make a positive contribution to our economy. But my noble friend is quite right that we need to invest in a way that promotes productivity and creates great careers and livelihoods for all our people.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that one part of the answer to this is to stop losing so many of our best and brightest young people, who may be emigrating to look for work? Do the Government have any system at all for tracking such people to make sure that they have opportunities to come back for the appropriate jobs when those jobs are available?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am aware that we are doing a great deal of work to try to understand some of the issues that the noble Lord rightly raises, and which are particularly acute in some of our shortage occupations. I am not aware whether we track specifically how to encourage people to return, but I will take that back to the department.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

Apprenticeship schemes are essential for developing vital skills in young people, yet in the last decade apprenticeship starts have fallen by one-third, while over £1 billion raised by the apprenticeship levy goes unspent every year. Does the Minister accept that the apprenticeship levy requires a total revision of how companies are encouraged to offer apprenticeships?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Apprenticeship starts fell because we had to do so much work with what we inherited as an apprenticeship system to make sure that we offered the quality that employers required. I do not agree that the apprenticeship levy requires a major overhaul. In the last two years, the levy has effectively been fully spent; where it is not spent by levy-paying employers, either they can spend 25% of the levy on companies within their own supply chains, so enhancing that productivity, or it can be spent by small and medium-sized enterprises. I wonder what the noble Baroness would say to them if her party was to be elected and go through with its proposed policy.

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)]

My Lords, as chair of the East Midlands Institute of Technology and of the national Careers & Enterprise Company, I think my noble friend is somewhat selling this Government’s achievements short in support for training, skills and careers advice. Does she agree that the important thing now is to make sure that the system—a strengthening system—continues, including working with the local skills improvement partnerships?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would never want to sell this Government’s achievements short. I absolutely agree with my noble friend’s point about working with local skills improvement partnerships and getting a sense of where the emerging opportunities are in each area of the UK.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, would the Government agree that we have a shortage of traditional level 4 and 5 skills in our skills package? This is dealt with by local skills partnerships, but we have a national problem. What are we doing to make sure that people become aware of training opportunities on a national level, not just locally, because there are well-paid jobs to be had?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I have already talked about some of the things we are doing. It is important that people know what options and opportunities are available in their local area, and the LSIPs are critical for that. In particular, the Government have invested up to £300 million in a network of 21 institutes of technology, which are providing exactly the kind of higher technical education to which the noble Lord refers.

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

My Lords, the Government’s figures indicate that fewer than one apprenticeship in five is in a shortage occupation. Given those figures, is it really plausible that no changes are needed in the apprenticeship levy?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I hope I did not suggest that no changes are needed. What employers need and want is a degree of stability in the apprenticeship system. We have done a huge amount of work, and the noble Baroness has been a critical part of achieving that, in improving our apprenticeships system. I am not suggesting that there is not some tweaking required—the noble Baroness is a great expert on that. Broadly, stability for our employers is vital, so that they know how they can use the levy and that it will be here to stay.

Gender Pay Gap

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to speed up progress on closing the gender pay gap.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, the gender pay gap has fallen by approximately a quarter in the last decade. It was a Conservative Government who introduced gender pay gap reporting, building on the robust equal pay protections already in the Equality Act. This has motivated employers to look at their pay data and improve workplace equality. To accelerate progress we have supported legislation to enhance flexible working, extend redundancy protection for those on maternity leave and introduce carers’ leave.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer and particularly welcome the flexible working initiative. Given those endeavours, have the Government made any assessment of how quickly we might bring forward the expected date of 2044 for getting to equal pay? I invite the Minister to support the Labour policy that we should enshrine in law a full right to equal pay for black, Asian and ethnic-minority people, and disabled people, phasing this in to help employers. Does the Minister think that is a good idea?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

In response to the noble Baroness’s first question, as she understands very well, a number of factors influence how quickly the gender pay gap will decline. Obviously, there is so much research now on the value of a diverse workforce and how that improves profitability and competitiveness; we hope it will accelerate. In relation to ethnicity pay gap reporting, the noble Baroness will be aware that this gap is 2.3%, much smaller than the gender pay gap. We are working on promoting our guidance on how to address this through employer groups. In relation to disability reporting, following the successful court action we are reviewing our responses to the consultation.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the value of any employee should be based on the contribution that they will make to the organisation, not what they were earning before? Research by the charity Fawcett found that 61% of job applicants asked about previous salary history said that it damaged their confidence to negotiate a better salary. Does she not agree that this requirement bakes in gender, race and disability inequality and prevents people on lower salaries ever making the salary strides they need?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Those were some of the questions we explored in our pay transparency pilot, which looked at the impact of requiring employers to put salary information into their job recruitment advertisements and not asking about previous salaries. We plan to publish the methodology for that so that employers can adopt it. We will also do more work to look at the challenges of implementation.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

Does my noble friend the Minister share my concern about the gender pay gap in pensions, which just accumulates in historical terms to create a very serious problem in the future?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Last June, DWP published an official measure of the gender pensions gap, which is currently 35% in private pensions. The reforms that we brought in will mean that 3 million women will benefit by more than £550 per year by 2030 and that the gender pensions gap will equalise by the early 2040s—more than 10 years earlier than under previous legislation.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, following the previous supplementary question, I think the Minister was referring to achieving equality in state pensions. The big problem—and what is leading to most of the gender pension gap—is the difference in the caring responsibilities, with most unpaid care undertaken by women. The Minister is correct that the Government have identified the problem; can she give a commitment to come up with a worthwhile solution?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As I have already said, the Government are working on a number of different aspects of this. Obviously, a critical part in relation to maternity leave—and the impact that, as the noble Lord rightly says, one can see on the gender pay gap —is our huge commitment to expanding the childcare offer, so that no women will be unable to return to work for lack of childcare support.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have just produced a list of employers that paid below the minimum wage, in some cases for many years. Does this not show that we need stronger enforcement powers and more people checking that employers are doing their duty and paying their workers correctly?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

If I have understood correctly—forgive me if I have not—the noble Lord is potentially conflating different things. Obviously, the minimum wage is a legal requirement, and the equal pay legislation addresses the same in relation to gender and other aspects. What we are seeking to do, through enabling activities around flexible working, for example, but also maximising transparency and celebrating the success of employers that have a truly diverse workforce, is to use multiple levers to get to the same goal.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, since we have made such progress in dealing with the gender pay gap, might we also turn our attention to trying to persuade employers of the importance of helping parents, most of them women, who have taken time out from their careers to bring up children, to get back into the workforce with the same status at which they left it?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Part of that is about the time it takes for working parents to get back into the workforce. Our commitments—starting this April and building up, so that there will be 30 hours of free childcare for every family with a child nine months old and above—will be crucial for achieving that.

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

There is mandatory reporting —although there needs to be more—but when are the Government going to get tougher about taking proceedings against companies that do not report in their annual report or ensure that the Equal Pay Act is committed to? No companies are really being taken to court on this issue, so the Government need to step up on this.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am more than happy to take that back to the department. The mandatory reporting applies to companies with more than 250 employees. I was not aware of the cases that the noble Baroness refers to, but I am happy to pick that up.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, the right to request flexible working has made major strides for women since it was introduced, but what if companies of a certain size were also required to include possible flexible working options in their recruitment when advertising for these posts? The Minister may be aware that a recent trial in Zurich led to a massive one-third more women being hired for senior positions. Does the Minister agree that a similar trial in the UK would be worth undertaking?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

A number of businesses offer flexible working from day one, and obviously there is a legal duty to do so from 26 weeks’ employment. As all noble Lords will recognise, we have seen a tremendous change in patterns of work following the pandemic, particularly flexibility between the workplace and home, and there is an increasing natural adoption of those approaches.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, in relation to the gender pension deficit, is it the case that, when women are getting divorced and may not have legal advice, they are not taking the correct decisions—for example, they assume that the former matrimonial home is the largest asset—and not getting the pension split on divorce? Could we have some data to illuminate that and better communication to women in those situations?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As ever, my noble friend makes a very good point. I would be happy to meet her afterwards to explore how we could make that a reality.

Pupil Mental Health, Well-being and Development

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on securing this important debate and thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I feel a long letter coming on, so I will do my best to cover the points raised, but I feel pretty confident that I will not get through all of them.

I felt very uncomfortable and was trying not to be defensive while listening to the opening speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the other speeches. What I heard from your Lordships today is what I often hear going around the country, which is that “My school, my children’s school, my grandchildren’s school and the school I teach in are fantastic” but “the system is broken”. “The system” is made up of all those brilliant schools, with brilliant teachers and a heroic generation of children, and I think at our peril do we have such a negative tone about our education system and our schools, which are doing an amazing job all around the country.

There are many reasons why they are doing so well, but I will pick just on a few. The first is that this country has been the first to really be led by the evidence of what works—not what we think or feel might work but what the evidence actually shows works in the country. All of us in this House know that it is a great deal easier to write policy than it is to implement it well, and the focus that has been placed on what actually works in practice is absolutely critical. I encourage your Lordships to look at the difference in what is happening in our schools in England and those in Scotland and in Wales, and I think my case rests.

We used evidence in relation to curriculum and extracurricular activities, and in relation to pedagogy and behaviour. For those noble Lords who question the importance of attainment, that in itself is an incredibly important protective factor for our children’s mental health. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, talked about a sense of music and other cultural activities having been lost in our schools. As your Lordships know—I mention it often at the Dispatch Box, because it is true—every week I visit schools and I see what is happening on the ground.

The noble Baroness talked about schools being forced into trusts. The schools that go into trusts because they are sponsored schools have failed the community of children that they are serving and, for whatever reasons, therefore need support. I am well aware that parents, children and staff are frequently concerned at the time of transfer, but they should visit those schools a year later. I went to a school in Liverpool and a year to the day since they had been sponsored, I said to the children, “Tell me what it was like a year ago. What’s the difference?” A child said to me, “You wouldn’t have felt safe in the corridor, Miss”. Our children need to feel safe, not only in the corridor. She also talked about what mountains she was going to climb, metaphorically, so it was not just about corridors.

I want to pick up on the sense of this very critical and forbidding tone that your Lordships suggest that schools apparently use in communicating with parents and children. Again, I absolutely understand that there are times when enforcement is important, but everything we are doing and everything that I see in schools starts with support and encouragement to work out where a child will thrive and flourish, and what their individual strengths are that can be built on. I sense that the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, had the same sense when she met the children from the Ark school the other day. I will do my very best to ensure that they get a speedy response to their letter.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, talked about attendance. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, for underlining how attendance is so important for the safety of our children. I urge those noble Lords who are worried about the policy in relation to fines: look at the guidance that we have produced for schools and its emphasis on support. I urge them to talk to schools. Their concern, when I talk to them, is about inconsistency in the implementation of fines for non-attendance rather than the policy itself.

I absolutely agree that mild anxiety becomes much greater anxiety for the majority of children if they miss significant amounts of school, so we are working incredibly hard on attendance. For the most vulnerable children, we have extended our attendance mental programme and we will have 32 attendance hubs, meaning that 2,000 schools will be helped to tackle persistent absence with that peer-to-peer support. We are also doing a great deal of work analysing the data around attendance. As I said in response to a Question earlier this week, we are seeing green shoots in relation to attendance this term, particularly in primary but also in year 7 in secondary.

I always enjoy listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and her reflections on education. We need to focus on what schools can do and not ask them to do things they cannot do. The noble Baroness talked about giving confidence back to children, but we also need to make sure that teachers and school leaders feel confident in their approach.

I turn to some of the wider issues in the debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, anticipated well that I would acknowledge that there has been a worrying rise in mental health issues that need specialist support. Of course, teachers and school staff are not mental health specialists. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, referred to the rollout of mental health support teams. We are extending those teams to an estimated 44% of pupils and learners by the end of this financial year and to at least 50% by the end of March 2025. To address the noble Earl’s question, our original plans have been accelerated, but these are genuinely new and additional staff, so it takes time to recruit and train them, but we see this as an absolute priority.

This debate shows how crucial it is that we support schools. We also recognise that they have a real role in creating a safe, calm and supportive environment for pupils, where they want to attend and where they are able to learn and flourish. That is particularly important for the most vulnerable children. Here I acknowledge the remarks of the noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler and Lady Hollins, whom I thank for all the work she does, particularly in relation to children with learning difficulties.

Our schools’ role in promoting this environment and offering a rich and varied experience that encourages the creativity that your Lordships talked about, the activity and development, through a broad and balanced curriculum, and a high-quality enrichment offer, is incredibly important. Schools are and should be places where children can experience joy—it does not say “fun” in my speech, but I agree about fun—find good and respectful communities, and have experiences that build their resilience and sense of well-being.

The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, asked how we can flex that to make sure that it always reflects particular needs and individual pupils. That is rooted in having a culture that watches out for every child, every day, and makes sure that the relationships that the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, talked about are in place, so that children feel able to come forward and talk and teachers can spot their needs.

Good behaviour is critical to ensuring a safe environment that children will feel happy to go to. That is why the Government have put such emphasis on high expectations of behaviour. Many of your Lordships quoted the Children’s Commissioner and I know from speaking to her that it is particularly children with special educational needs and disabilities or children who are vulnerable who need to feel safe in school. They thrive when they feel safe in school. School leaders with whom I have talked emphasise that it is not just in lessons but, crucially, in unstructured time—when the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, is standing by the edge of the playground, spotting stuff—when children need to feel safe and need to know absolutely what the expectations are of their behaviour.

Also, on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, children need to feel that they have a part in this and a sense of agency. The noble Lord referred to the work of Place2Be, which I know well and admire even more. That sense of pupil leadership councils and so on contributing to the culture of a school, particularly around behaviour, is extremely important. We have set those things out in our behaviour guidance; established behaviour hubs, which are supporting 750 schools; and introduced a behaviour and culture national professional qualification for teachers.

A number of your Lordships, including my noble friends Lord Sterling and Lord Wei, spoke about children with special educational needs. They are right that we absolutely need to emphasise earlier identification. We are working to reduce the adversarial nature of the system and are putting in support for school staff, integrating in the initial teacher training and the early careers framework a much greater focus on special educational needs and disabilities in teacher training. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, spoke about speech and language, which is an important area of focus and obviously one of the priority areas for the practice guidance in the SEND improvement plan. I would be delighted to meet with Speech and Language UK.

My noble friend Lord Sterling and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, among others, spoke about access to CAMHS. The young people’s mental health workforce has increased by 46% since the NHS long-term plan started in 2019, but I absolutely accept your Lordships’ reflections, and the feedback I get when I talk to schools, that that may have increased but schools still feel that it is a very hard service to access.

I turn to enrichment. The department is committed to ensuring that young people have access to great extracurricular opportunities. The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, talked about the importance of partnerships. She will know that we are testing ways to increase local co-ordination of enrichment activities across schools through our enrichment partnerships pilot, which is a giant project between the Department for Education and DCMS. That is in addition to our work with DCMS to make sure that children get the most from the national youth guarantee, which supports children to have access to regular out-of-school activities. In particular, we are working together to offer the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to all mainstream secondary schools in England by 2025, which perhaps offers some of the blood, sweat and tears that the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, referred to—hopefully no violence, though.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester spoke about the importance of cultural education, as did my noble friend Lord Vaizey. That is obviously part of a rich school experience, including wider arts, music and creative subjects. That is why we are investing £115 million in cultural education up to 2025.

Turning to sport, I absolutely hear the importance that my noble friend Lord Effingham and the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, place on sport. We are going to publish non-statutory guidance this spring, illustrating how schools will be able to provide two hours of PE and equal access. As someone who swam in very cold water this morning and tries to every morning, I totally agree with the noble Lord about the impact on one’s mood. It is hard to get out of cold water without feeling better—unless you stay in too long, of course, but that is for another debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, raised the importance of school food, as did my noble friend Lord Effingham. I offer the noble Lord a meeting outside the Chamber to update him on some of the work the department is doing on this. We now include cooking and nutrition as part of the national curriculum in design and technology, and it is mandatory in key stages 1 to 3. A new GCSE in food preparation and nutrition was introduced in 2016.

My noble friend Lord Wei asked what we are doing to support home education. We remain committed to introducing statutory local authority registers for children not in school, and a duty for local authorities to provide support for home-educating parents. I absolutely recognise some of the issues he raised relating to children with special educational needs and disabilities.

I will also just mention, in honour of her green genes, that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, knows, we are doing a great deal in schools with our climate change and sustainability strategy, which sets out a number of initiatives from early years, through school and into college that are designed to get children into nature and inspire them by spending time in nature, giving them the tools to plan and develop climate action plans for their school and their community, and then act on them. We really believe that that connection with nature is so important to their mental health.

I think your Lordships will have felt quite how strongly I feel about how much our schools are doing to support our children and their mental health. As your Lordships’ speeches underlined, no single thing will address this problem. There is no silver bullet, but that combination of engaging curricular and extracurricular activities and making sure that we protect avenues for student voice and agency will all contribute, combined with having specialist well-being and mental health support. That needs to be underpinned by a firm and supportive behaviour policy where children feel safe and thrive, and where teachers feel fulfilled.

The bit I really do agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is on Yeats and lighting the fire. We do that through those things and through the relationships that the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, alluded to, but unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, I think that is exactly what our schools are doing.

Schools: Gender-questioning Children

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they are planning to issue further guidance to ensure that schools support gender-questioning children.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, following calls from schools, teachers and parents to support schools and colleges in relation to children who are questioning their gender, on 19 December 2023 we published draft guidance for consultation. The consultation will close on 12 March. Relationships, sex and health education statutory guidance is also under review, and we will launch a consultation shortly. As part of this, we are looking to strengthen the guidance to schools on how to teach this sensitive topic.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I thank the Minister for her reply and the department for the clear guidance on working with gender-questioning children. Parents really were so relieved to hear that they should be fully involved if their own children decide they want to change gender, and it is so useful to have clarity that schools should not automatically socially transition pupils and that teachers and children should not be compelled to use opposite-sex pronouns. However, does the Minister find it troubling that, since publication, a variety of lobby groups and commercial providers are targeting school SLTs, advising them to ignore and even resist the guidance? Can the Minister assure us that the DfE will counter misinformation circulated by the likes of Mermaids, Just Like Us, Stonewall, The Key and even trade unions that wrongfully alleges the guidance is in breach of equality law, discriminatory and transphobic? Will she condemn attempts to scare teaching staff by suggesting that following the guidance puts them at risk of action by regulators and litigators?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Schools are expected to consider all the guidance from the department, and this is no exception: we would expect them to follow the final published guidance. As the noble Baroness says, the anecdotes we hear are that the guidance is already having an impact on parents, who feel able to ask schools to account for their decisions. Once the guidance is published, if individuals are worried, they should talk to their school about it. I looked at some of the campaigns being run and some of the templates that charities have published. Personally, I share the noble Baroness’s concern that they are quite oppositional in tone and are pitting parents against schools, which the guidance explicitly tries to avoid.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, my understanding is that the existing review is still out for consultation, so the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, might be jumping the gun a bit by asking whether the Government plan a further review. All her concerns are, of course, noted. While we are waiting, I ask the Minister: were children and young people consulted in the creation of the guidelines that are out for consultation now?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The department typically works through a range of stakeholder groups, including those that represent the voice of children. There have been direct conversations with children on these issues.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that schools must strongly discourage school-age children from taking any steps towards gender transition until their late 20s, by which time the decision-making part of their brain—the prefrontal cortex—will be fully developed?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The guidance is very clear that each case should be taken individually. The safety and well-being of children must always be our primary concern, which is why that is at the heart of the guidance. Some of the medical steps to which the noble Baroness refers are implicit in that safety and well-being focus.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, Labour welcomes the consultation on the guidance. It is clear that schools want greater clarity on how to approach what is, as the Minister said, often a sensitive and difficult issue. As someone who has two honorary nieces who are trans, I find that the tone of the debate often ignores the fact that this is about individuals and how we treat them. It is hard to ignore the fact that transphobia was an aggravating factor in the horrific murder of Brianna Ghey. I am confident from her response so far that the Minister agrees, but can she confirm that the guidance will ensure that dignity and respect are at its heart?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness will have seen from the guidance the principles that underpin it. It is absolutely clear that schools and colleges should be respectful and tolerant places where bullying is never tolerated.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that the need of parents to safeguard and guide their children, as provided for in instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, will be preserved, and that compliance with the guidance should be made statutory? Finally, can she assure the House that the operation of and compliance with the guidance will be subject to Ofsted inspection?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a number of points. Schools already have very clear statutory duties in relation to safeguarding. Although, going back to the initial Question of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, this is non-statutory guidance, all our non-statutory guidance seeks to support schools in their statutory obligations, where the safety and well-being of the child are paramount.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister join me in condemning Mermaids’ practice of going into primary school reception classes and suggesting to four year-olds—including my own granddaughter, in a rural Suffolk primary school—that if they wish to, they can change their gender at any stage? This is inappropriate for four year-olds.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend. Again, the guidance is clear that schools should not agree to support any degree of social transition for a primary school child unless it is explicitly required to safeguard and promote their welfare.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I commend the approach of my noble friend on the Front Bench, and I have some sympathy with the Government. In 2000, when we issued the first ever Sex and Relationship Education Guidance, it caused all kinds of division. I hope the Minister agrees—and this applies to politics more broadly— that we must try to come to a consensus and find agreement, rather than following the terrible current trend of looking at what divides us.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I agree entirely with the noble Lord.

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

My Lords, following on from the observation of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, does my noble friend agree that for 90% of children suffering from gender dysphoria, it passes once they mature, and that maturation comes in their very early 20s?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The honest answer to my noble friend is that there is still insufficient evidence to make such a definitive statement. My right honourable friend the Minister for Women and Equalities, in her letter to the Women and Equalities Select Committee, wrote that

“studies have found a link between gender non-conformity in childhood and someone later coming out as gay”,

and certainly that

“A young person and their family may notice that they are gender non-conforming earlier than they are aware of their developing sexual orientation. If gender non-conformity is misinterpreted as evidence of being transgender … the child may not have had a chance to identify, come to terms with or explore a same-sex orientation”.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, if, as the Minister has accepted and as has been expounded by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, a forceful lobbying campaign by groups is anticipated, why have the Government decided to make this guidance non-statutory? Surely, if the Government anticipate widespread resistance to it, at least from these lobbying groups, the answer would be to make the guidance statutory.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I understand the noble Lord’s point, but our expectation is that schools, as I said in my response to the noble Baroness, will comply with the guidance. The guidance is very clear, so parents and teachers can take confidence. Obviously, the point of the consultation is to give all parties a voice, but we will make sure that our statutory safeguarding guidance is completely aligned with this non-statutory guidance.

Ofsted: Pupil Absence Rates

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to empower Ofsted to review pupil absence rates as part of their school inspections.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, improving attendance is a top priority for this Government, because it is vital for children’s learning, well-being and long-term development. As part of its existing framework, Ofsted expects schools to do all they reasonably can to achieve the highest possible attendance. Inspectors will check that schools have a clear understanding of the causes of absence in their school and that the necessary strategies are in place to improve attendance.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. She knows that a child is deemed to be persistently absent if they have missed 10% or more of lessons. Across the two school terms prior to the current one, around one in five children were persistently absent from primary and secondary schools, which is more than double the figure five years ago. So there is an existential crisis and a safeguarding issue, because the link between absenteeism—children missing from school—and children taken into home education is strong. Ofsted and the Children’s Commissioner want to see a register of children not in schools, which the Government have said they support, so why was that measure not included in the King’s Speech, which was not exactly overloaded with legislation?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government remain committed to legislating to set up a register of children not in school. The noble Lord may be aware that the honourable Member for Meon Valley has introduced a Private Member’s Bill, and we will be working hard with her as she progresses that.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, when children of 14 decide to leave their school and go to a university technical college, their absence rate falls dramatically compared to that at their previous school. They like going to a UTC because they can work in workshops as well as classrooms, they can learn by their hands as well as their brains, and they visit companies looking for jobs. I assure your Lordships that, unless that sort of education is deeply embedded, the absence rates of disadvantaged students will not fall, because they are told all the time by the Department for Education that they must study eight academic subjects. We need a curriculum fitted to this century.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend needs to consider also the patterns of attendance before the pandemic. The curriculum was the same before the pandemic as post-pandemic, but attendance rates are very different. Linking absence entirely to the curriculum may require further consideration.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will recall that in the Children’s Commissioner’s latest report, on absenteeism, she says:

“For some, the pandemic has led to disengagement. Schools and families have said that they feel like the social contract between parents and schools has been broken”.


Could we be assured that an Ofsted report will consider also the positive and creative engagement of parents in school life?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a good point. We need not wait just for Ofsted in order to look at the positive engagement of parents. Many of the schools I visit are focused substantially on that and on making sure that parents get positive feedback about their children in school—not just a call when their child is not there.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, what are the Government doing about people who attend unregistered —effectively illegal—schools, often of a very dubious religious nature? What are they doing to eradicate this and to make sure that children receive an education that enables them to stand on their own two feet outside closed communities?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that Ofsted has been involved in a number of prosecutions of illegal schools. We remain very concerned about those—indeed, the Private Member’s Bill to which I referred earlier will go some way to addressing this issue.

[The Lord Bishop of Lincoln]

My Lords, I express gratitude to the Minister for the way in which the data has been produced; I understand that more is to come, and that will be examined in great detail. As an unrepentant pedant, though, I am as interested in the adverbs as the nouns—in how the data is to be applied. How do we get more children across the line in terms of the culture of school? Some years ago, the Children’s Society’s Young Commissioners looked deeply into child poverty in school and how children are identified as those, for instance, receiving free school meals or who are not able to purchase the very expensive school uniforms from the agreed seller. How is school culture being encouraged by government further to change in order to get children across the line? How, indeed, do we expect Ofsted to become the “office of encouragement”?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the right reverend Prelate knows, Ofsted is about to start its Big Listen exercise, so maybe that is one of the questions that could be asked. He asks an important question about how the data will be used. There is more we can do within the department on analysing and breaking down the data into more actionable insight for schools, and we will start engaging with trusts and local authorities on that very shortly. We need to be careful to make sure that children who really have major barriers to coming to school and whose attendance is very poor are not conflated with those who are in school nine or nine and a half days out of 10. It is about how we get those ones, too, over the line.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

We have a crisis of attendance in our schools. Research from the Centre for Social Justice reveals that more than one in four parents think that school is not essential every day. It is essential. What can the Government do to repair the relationship between schools and families, which has deteriorated greatly in recent years?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Again, we have to be very careful not to make sweeping generalisations. We are seeing lots of green shoots in terms of attendance and higher-level attendance, particularly in transition year groups such as year seven, when children go from primary to secondary school. There are important things we can build on, such as having open, honest, regular communication with parents, pointing out if a child has not been coming into school and trying to understand why. But more importantly, celebrating with a parent a child’s attendance or performance in school is to be encouraged.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Con)]

My Lords, it is absolutely right to tackle school absence, but as we approach Rare Disease Day, I draw attention to the huge pressures faced by children and families with rare and undiagnosed conditions in trying to remain in education. The lack of specialist resources and awareness act as barriers. Understandably, in these complex situations it is not always possible to avoid absence. Will the Minister meet with charities and family representatives to see how we can design these policies without increasing the pressures on those families?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would be delighted to meet with the charities and families to which my noble friend refers. She makes an important point, and it goes back to the point made earlier by the noble Baroness—that parents need to feel that the response they are getting from their school is about their child. To every parent, their child is very special.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, we know that children with profound and multiple learning difficulties, physical disabilities and social, emotional and mental health special educational primary needs have the highest rates of school absence. In spring 2023, 384,202 children with some form of identified special educational need were persistently absent. Given what we know about the link between persistent absenteeism and life chances, does the Minister agree that this risks widening the gap between the more advantaged and the less advantaged in our society? What are the Government doing to support children with special educational needs and disabilities to succeed in school?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are doing a great deal, starting with their investment in a dramatic increase in the number of specialist places for children with the kinds of special needs and disabilities the noble Baroness refers to, through our attendance hubs programme in particular. I met a group of chief executives of specialist multi-academy trusts which are working with children with special educational needs and those in alternative provision. We are seeking to identify best practice and making sure it is a shared peer to peer.

Schools: Special Educational Needs

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and remind the House of my declared interests.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, ensuring everyone, regardless of need, gets the best education possible is vital. Our SEND and AP improvement plan will ensure all children get the support they need. So far, we have opened 15 special free schools since September; announced the Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools programme; trained 100,000 professionals in autism awareness; confirmed funding for 400 more education psychologists; and updated the initial teacher training and early career framework, including additional content on SEND.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her Answer. I have just managed to read through the updates and changes for training teachers. If we are now going to use online testing as a major identification tool—as suggested—and use it in the classroom, how will we disseminate that knowledge without having more specialists directly available to the school, so that can have accurate diagnosis when those assistive technology methods are used?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that our whole approach is about meeting the needs of the child and not requiring a diagnosis to get support. That is incredibly important for our focus on intervention and support at the earliest possible stage. All that comes before the online testing, and it is critical that we get it right.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, around 6% of UK children are affected by dyscalculia: a learning disability impacting numerical processing and the ability to learn, understand and perform maths. It has a similar prevalence and impact on education and employment as dyslexia, yet there is no official government recognition of dyscalculia. Does the Minister share my concern that specialist maths teachers are under no obligation to learn about dyscalculia unless they opt for additional modules? Given that the Government intend for maths to be taught to everyone until age 18, surely learning about dyscalculia should be standard for maths teachers?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I understand well the point the noble Baroness makes, but I refer again to the very recently published changes that we are making to the initial teacher training and early career framework, which is bringing much more on identification of special educational needs and specific learning difficulties such as dyscalculia into the early career framework. We are also making sure that teachers get the support from their mentor to develop those skills throughout their career.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Public Services Committee, which has been looking into these matters recently, and I have a great-nephew who has just had his assessment for autism. If I have understood it correctly, there is a massive recruitment issue in respect of assessment staff. What are we doing in national government and local government to improve the situation? I would be very happy for my noble friend the Minister to write to me on that.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As my noble friend knows, for some of the issues with waiting lists for assessment—which I recognise are incredibly worrying for parents and their children in particular—those reasons are complicated. As I have already said, we want to be sure that our mainstream education is inclusive and supports children before they get a formal diagnosis. That is some of the focus of our new national professional qualification for SEND leaders. We are increasing the number of educational psychologists by 400 from 2024. As I mentioned, we are developing the partnership for neurodiversity in schools between local authorities, integrated care boards and schools, supported by £13 million of funding, to make sure that schools respond to neurodiverse children as well as possible.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, notwithstanding the Minister’s Answer to the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, if she had a chance to read an article in the Observer yesterday, she will know that many schools up and down the country are facing deficit budgets and are required to make redundancies of both teaching and non-teaching staff, which means that the capacity to deal with all these issues—as well as others—is significantly reduced. When might the Government consider urgently putting in additional resources?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government have enormously increased support for children with special educational needs. The high needs capital investment is £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025, which will create many more specialist places, which the Government absolutely acknowledge are needed. I remind the House that per-pupil funding next year will be the highest ever in real terms.

[Lord Bishop of Lincoln]

My Lords, I welcome everything that the Minister has said, but we all know that, even with the initial screening online, a full diagnosis for many children with any of these needs can take years to confirm. I am interested in what the noble Baroness has to say about how families—and the children themselves—are accompanied through several years of negotiation with the NHS and with local authorities, especially when, as has already been said, certainly in Lincolnshire, staffing costs outstrip the need that is expressed within our schools.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Again, I stress that not every special educational need requires a diagnosis. Children should get support regardless. If we look at the age at which children get an education, health and care plan as a proxy for diagnosis, we see that around a quarter receive an EHCP under the age of five, with almost half getting one between the ages of five and 10. That has been very stable over the last 10 years. The remaining quarter are above 11. I understand that these can be stressful, difficult times, but there has been relative stability over many years at the age of diagnosis, although there is greater identification of specific issues—in particular, autism.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I note what the Minister said in reply to my noble friend about new provision being made; that is to be welcomed. Ofsted inspections have found a shortage of school places and special school provision locally—that is the key word: locally—for children and young people with complex needs. As a consequence, they are placed out of their locality, away from their families, friends and peer groups. What are the Government planning to do to ensure that there is sufficient specialist provision in local areas?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I can only refer again to what I just mentioned: the £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to deliver additional new specialist places, which will of course be closer to where children are. I absolutely share the noble Lord’s concerns about children having to travel out of area.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, school absences are one of the key issues for our school system, but absence rates are, by one measure, 10% higher for autistic children and even higher for children with a SEND statement? What assessment have the Government made of the interaction between the lack of provision for SEND support and absence rates? How do the Government plan to target the persistent absence of SEND pupils in particular?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness knows that absence rates for children with special educational needs have always, rightly or wrongly, been higher than those for children without special educational needs. In part, there is an assumption that such children may also experience greater incidence of ill health. The Government are focusing on a very detailed analysis, looking at patterns across different schools and identifying which practice is working to make sure that those children are back in school, and then sharing it through our attendance hubs. That is important, because we know that children with special educational needs, more than any other children, thrive when they are in school all the time.

Education: 11 to 16 Year-olds

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to improve the education system for 11 to 16 year-olds.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, we are raising standards and increasing the number of pupils in high-performing schools. Since 2010, we have reformed the curriculum and the organisational structure of our schools. For example, the international PIRL study of 2021 showed that our nine and 10 year-olds are the best readers in the western world, ranking fourth out of 43 comparable countries. However, we want to go further, not just for 11 to 16 year-olds but from early years through to 18 and beyond.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Do the Government agree that the report of your Lordships’ Education for 11-16 Year Olds Committee requires careful study by all political parties in an election year, showing as it does how an overloaded curriculum and an unduly heavy exam burden can be reduced and how declining opportunities for technical and creative subjects can be reversed? Are not such reforms essential for the future of our country?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend that the committee’s report requires careful study and the Government will shortly respond formally. I cannot agree with him, however, about an overloaded curriculum or exam burden. Exams remain the fairest way that we know of assessing a student’s knowledge. The curriculum is critical for ensuring social justice in this country and making sure that disadvantaged children get the same opportunities as advantaged ones. Our reforms to T-levels underline our commitment to technical education.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

Does not the continuing existence of EBacc and its constraining effects on the secondary curriculum for 11 to 16 year-olds, squeezing out creative subjects, as the noble Lord said, mean that the Government are not succeeding in the DfE’s stated second priority of

“ensuring that young people receive the preparation they need to secure a good job and a fulfilling career, and have the resilience and moral character to overcome challenges and succeed”?

That is not done through the EBacc.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I just cannot agree with the noble Baroness. I am not sure which subjects in the EBacc she would suggest dropping. In 2010, 8% of children from disadvantaged homes were doing the range of subjects in the EBacc, compared with 25% from advantaged homes. That is now 27% for disadvantaged children and 43% for children from advantaged homes. The uplift in children from disadvantaged homes doing double science has been from 61% in 2010 to 95% today. We are very proud of that.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, our committee proved that the curriculum is vastly overloaded with knowledge-based things, does not include enough digital or computing, and in a lot of schools the arts are completely neglected. Nor does it include life skills, so our young people are coming out without the skills they need for the future. So what urgent action will the Government take so that our children have a more enjoyable and much more useful school experience than they are currently having?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I appreciate how alluring it is to talk about some of the wider subjects the noble Baroness mentioned. As she knows, we are developing a cultural education plan that will be launched later this year, and I accept that things such as the IT curriculum maybe do not age as well as some other elements of the curriculum. But, in terms of the way in which we all learn, and children learn, the importance of putting down in our long-term memory a really rich knowledge base from which to apply those skills is critical, and we lose that at our peril.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, this is National Apprenticeship Week, during which I have met a considerable number of young apprentices at parliamentary events. Not one of them claimed to have found out about their apprenticeship through their school. This surely reinforces the finding of the Education Committee that the balance of 11 to 16 education is unduly skewed towards academic subjects, rather than technical and practical ones. So what steps have the Government taken to ensure that schools make all 11 to 16-year olds more aware of the range of education pathways available to them, including those leading to apprenticeships?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are very proud of their track record on apprenticeships. I hear the noble Lord’s reflections in terms of technical apprenticeships, but actually 70% of our economy is now reflected in the apprenticeship options, including our service sector as well as more traditional areas of apprenticeships. Thanks to amendments put down in your Lordships’ House, we are expanding the amount of careers education in schools to six days across a child’s secondary career.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Select Committee of this House on 11 to 16 education has come up with very radical proposals, basically replacing the curriculum that she is defending with much more practical training and skills? This is welcomed by British industry; it wants school leavers at 18 to have practical skills, employability skills and data skills, and these are not effectively covered by the present curriculum. Does the Minister not realise that we need curriculum change, otherwise there will be no economic growth?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I respect my noble friend enormously, but I think that the evidence overall does not support that. We need to make sure that children have a really strong grounding in mathematics, sciences, English language and English literature, particularly if we want them to follow vocational courses. We have seen in other countries—for example, in Scotland—what has happened with a very well-intentioned policy. I have no doubt about the motivation of those who introduced the Curriculum for Excellence, which looks very like some of the elements that your Lordships are raising—but look at what has happened to our schools in Scotland.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

Some 80% of secondary schools are not required to follow the national curriculum, which has led schools to prioritise early teaching of GCSE courses over the variety of subjects intended for key stage 3. Can the Minister tell us whether the Government will support Labour’s call to reform the curriculum to deliver a better foundation in core subjects, which will ensure that children do not miss out on creative and practical ones too?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

There is plenty of room in the curriculum; I refer the House to the 2011 review of these matters by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, which made it clear that the curriculum has space within it for all the subjects which the Government value and which the noble Baroness refers to.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, what is not being mentioned is the massive decline in the teaching of foreign languages, at the very point when we are trying to engage worldwide with new trade deals—and, indeed, with our position in the world. What are His Majesty’s Government doing to address this, and can they also look at some of the very creative language clubs and so on that can be added on after school? These are often ways of exploring languages without loading the main curriculum even further.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government’s view would be “both/and”. I think it is critical, for the reasons that the right reverend Prelate sets out, that modern languages form part of our curriculum. We are developing a new language hubs programme and offering significant training bursaries for language teachers and scholarships for French, German and Spanish trainees. We share the right reverend Prelate’s focus on this issue.

[Lord Bichard (CB)]

Is the Minister not especially concerned—maybe even embarrassed—that in 2023, some 35.2% pupils in state schools left without a grade 4 or above in English and maths? Has not the time come, as the Select Committee suggests—and what an excellent report that is—to look to again at whether those subjects as currently defined are the route to ensuring that children leave school with functional literacy and numeracy?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government absolutely share the noble Lord’s concern, and one of the things we announced alongside the introduction of the advanced British standard is a review of how we can improve outcomes, particularly in mathematics but also in English, for those children who currently do not achieve the grades. The noble Lord makes an important point.

Russell Group Universities: Foreign Student Admissions

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, following reporting by The Sunday Times on 28 January, what assessment they have made of admission policies for foreign students at Russell Group Universities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I was concerned to see the allegations of bad practice by recruitment agents and unfairness towards British students. The Department for Education has launched an urgent investigation into university admission practices, including the behaviours of agents involved in recruiting international students. We will take action to ensure fairness between domestic and international students. Every student should be able to benefit from a world-class education.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I am speaking in a personal capacity, but I also serve as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is responsible for compliance with the public sector equality duty. This seeks to prevent discrimination and to ensure equality of opportunity. The Sunday Times investigation has revealed that as many as 15 of our 24 top universities are accepting through the back door foreign students at lower grades than those applied to UK students for the same courses. In effect, they are accepting cash for access. This is unfair at best, and discriminatory at worst, as UK students do not have those choices. I am extremely relieved to hear the noble Baroness’s response about ordering an urgent investigation. Can she give the House a timeline and say what measures they might take to penalise the institutions that are creating this lack of a level playing field for domestic students?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes important points. To be clear, our work will focus particularly on the unscrupulous behaviour of recruitment agents, and whether it is genuinely easier for international students than for domestic students to get places on undergraduate courses. However, there is no evidence that international students are displacing domestic students in England, where UK students make up 85% of the total population. We will be working on this as a matter of urgency, but I do not have as yet a definite timeline to give the noble Baroness.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is participating remotely.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, as someone who benefited from free higher education in France, and in gratitude has remained a lifetime Francophile, I argue that the best way to develop sympathetic international relationships is to invest not by bringing the rich, unqualified undeserving into the United Kingdom just for the money, but bringing instead the brightest and the best from problematic parts of the world, even at our expense? Is that not one of the best investments we can make in developing international understanding?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Developing international understanding is important, but I imagine that universities would argue that there are a number of other potentially greater priorities in terms of the quality of the education they provide. We are very proud of our track record in terms of international students. Everyone, including the Government and universities, need to have a shared interest in upholding the quality of and confidence in the system.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that I am still paying a student loan with an interest rate of 7.6%. I ask my noble friend the Minister: what are the Government doing to ensure that the contact hours offered by university courses represent value for money for all students enrolling on them?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The universities are obliged to provide information about contact hours to students before they go on a course, and there are websites that are UK-wide, such as Discover Uni, where potential students can compare, for example, contact hours and other metrics across courses. The OfS obviously regulates the quality of courses and, although it does not look specifically at contact hours, it does look at continuation rates from one year to the next, completion rates and progression to graduate jobs.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have got themselves into a situation where universities are just very short of cash. When are we going to put enough money into the system so they are only taking foreign students because they are of the right quality, and not because it keeps the universities afloat?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I remind the House of the figures on university income. Over the last five years, it has grown by 24%, from £32.9 billion to £40.8 billion, and over that time UK fees have grown by 19%. The latest data on the staff headcount in universities, which was published very recently, showed another increase year on year, which does not look to me like a sector that is in trouble across the board.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to hear that the Government are taking seriously the Sunday Times allegations, but the truth is that even within the UK there is not a level playing field for admissions to university, with many young people from disadvantaged backgrounds still missing out. In a report from October 2023, the Sutton Trust said:

“Widening participation efforts appear to have been a case of ‘running to stand still’, and where those efforts have not been present, inequalities have worsened”.


What further action will the Government take to address this issue?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government share the noble Baroness’s commitment to making sure that disadvantaged students can access higher education. As the noble Baroness and the House know, our perspective is that there are opportunities at different levels of jobs, such as levels 4, 5 and 6—namely, undergraduate level. We have also put an enormous emphasis on degree apprenticeships so that loans should not be a barrier to access and, as the House knows, we will be introducing the lifelong loan entitlement, which will also unlock potential from those who do not currently access higher education.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, I benefited from a free education and a grant at St Andrews University. Today I would not have a hope of getting into St Andrews University because, while they are free of tuition fees, there is insufficient funding. The result is that children from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot get a place at Scottish universities. The universities have responded to the lack of income from fees by bringing in lots of international students. This is a disgrace, and if the situation in England is bad, north of the border—under the SNP—it is extremely worse.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I have to agree with my noble friend. The figures are very different in Scotland. I mentioned that 85% of undergraduates in England are UK students. In Scotland, that figure is only 66% and has declined from 73% over the last five years.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the proud father of a daughter who has obtained places at university from this September. Can I ask the Minister to focus, in the department’s investigation of this matter, on the stress imposed on students—and, of course, their parents? It is a very stressful process, and it adds immeasurably to the stress if students cannot be confident that universities are applying a fair and transparent procedure.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Absolutely. We focus on that and a sense of confidence in the fairness of the system is vital. However, I would underline universities are autonomous institutions, and we would encourage them to take the initiative to address the noble Lord’s concerns.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I fear the problem is that we have lost sight of what universities are for. Does the Minister agree that it is a con when new university degrees are created as a substitute for high-quality skills training—the latest being estate agents’ degrees—while academic study is suffering? For example, there is the tragic closure of the music department at Oxford Brookes. Is not this university growth propelled by credentialing schemes, leading to the exploitation of overseas students who are effectively buying visas/degrees to pay for this ridiculous, non-academic growth?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think the noble Baroness brings together a number of different issues. However, the essence is: do we need high-quality degrees in this country that are accessible, particularly to those from disadvantaged backgrounds? There are areas where we have clear concerns. We have already expressed our concerns publicly about foundation years and have reduced the funding for classroom-based subjects, as well as regarding franchise provision.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, that concludes Oral Questions for today.

Schools: RAAC

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I echo other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on securing this debate on this very important subject. I take this opportunity to thank all our school leaders, those working in trust, local authority and voluntary-aided schools, for their work if they have been affected by RAAC. As the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, pointed out, this has been less in the public eye recently, and I would like to say that it is because this is being properly addressed. In addition to my thanks to those in schools, I add my personal thanks to officials in the department who have worked tirelessly with schools to try to resolve this problem.

As we can all agree, the safety of pupils and staff in our schools and colleges is of the utmost importance. That is why when new evidence emerged over the summer regarding reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—RAAC—we took immediate action to ask settings to take spaces known to contain RAAC out of use until mitigations were put in place.

I slightly took exception to some of what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, described in the Government’s response. The Government have been working on this issue for a long time with schools and colleges. Indeed, we have been talking to them about the potential risks of RAAC since 2018, when we published a warning note with the Local Government Association which asked all responsible bodies—that is, trusts, local authorities and dioceses—to identify any properties constructed using RAAC and to ensure that RAAC properties were regularly inspected by a structural engineer. Again, I do not think it is fair to describe this as not as clear as mud.

In February 2021, we issued a guide on identifying RAAC. Then we were concerned that not all responsible bodies were acting quickly enough. In 2022, we decided to take a more direct approach by issuing a questionnaire to responsible bodies to ask them to identify whether they had or suspected they had RAAC, and then we started a significant programme of technical surveys. With almost 16,000 schools built in the period when RAAC was used, that was no small task to undertake.

In July 2023, we emphasised the importance of keeping school buildings safe and well maintained in the Academy Trust Handbook. This update included additional content on safety and management of school estates and a new requirement in the Academies Accounts Direction for accounting officers to confirm that they are managing their estates in line with their statutory responsibilities. I am pleased to confirm that responsible bodies have submitted responses to the questionnaire for 100% of schools and colleges with blocks built in the target era. All those which advised us that they suspected that they might have RAAC have had a first survey to confirm whether it is present.

The vast majority of schools and colleges surveyed to date have been found to have no RAAC. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans spoke about a “significant percentage” of schools having RAAC. It is important to be accurate in how we describe this. There are over 22,000 schools and colleges in England, of which 231—around 1%, which it is fair to say is not a significant percentage—have confirmed RAAC in some of their buildings. All education settings with RAAC are in full-time face-to-face education for all their pupils. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, we will publish a full list of all settings shortly.

Every school or college with confirmed RAAC is assigned dedicated support from our team of caseworkers. Project delivery teams are on-site to support schools and colleges to implement mitigation plans. They work with them to put in place bespoke plans that suit their circumstances.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, stressed the immediate need for funding—I think he asked whether we would “punch through” with the Treasury. We did not need to, because the Chancellor has confirmed that we will spend whatever it takes to keep children safe. The Government are funding the emergency work needed to mitigate the presence of RAAC. This could include installing structural supports or temporary buildings.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, talked about disruption. It is important not to generalise and take the most complicated cases of RAAC, such as in some of the largest secondary schools and some of the special schools, which are the hardest cases for obvious reasons. However, the vast majority of schools did not lose any face-to-face education.

All reasonable requests for additional help with revenue costs, such as transport to other locations or temporarily renting a local hall, are being approved. Responsible bodies should discuss their requests with their caseworker at the Education and Skills Funding Agency in the first instance to agree any further support needed. To address the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, we are treating RAAC revenue requests as the highest priority and working closely with responsible bodies to process their requests as quickly as possible and ensure that our processes are not burdensome. We can also arrange urgent payments if needed.

Most importantly, we are funding longer-term refurbishment or rebuilding projects to replace RAAC. To answer the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, schools and colleges will be offered either capital grants to fund refurbishment work to permanently remove RAAC or rebuilding projects where needed, including through the school rebuilding programme. She asked me about a target date for removing RAAC. The critical date is that, today, no child is in a classroom in which they are at risk from RAAC. We could not say that a few months ago, so we should recognise that as the important first milestone on the road to replacing it as appropriate.

The requirements of each school or college will vary depending on the extent of RAAC and the nature and design of the buildings. We will be informing schools and colleges very shortly of our decisions.

The right reverend Prelate asked about the impact of pupil numbers. The House may be aware that we work on a lagged funding basis. If there is a fall in pupil numbers, that is softened by the lagged funding model, but we work with individual schools and if there are schools with particular pressures, of course we will work with them to address those.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked about how we support responsible bodies to ensure that the necessary maintenance and construction upgrades take place. We support them by providing capital funding. We have a lot of guidance and support. We have a team of capital advisers who will go out free of charge and work with schools and responsible bodies. Of course, if there is an immediate and serious concern about a building, we work closely to address that. We have allocated over £15 billion of capital funding since 2015, including £1.8 billion in this financial year. That is on top of our 10-year school rebuilding programme. That programme will transform buildings in 500 schools, prioritising those in poor condition and with potential safety issues. We have announced 400 schools so far, of which we announced 239 in December 2022, and eight have been completed. I think that there was a concern that schools that will be rebuilt as a result of RAAC will somehow displace those that are already in the programme. I assure the House that this is not the case.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about Ofsted inspections. Ofsted did suspend its inspections for schools affected by RAAC last term, but it is now resuming them, given that all children are now all in face-to-face education.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised the issue of cladding standards and fire safety. She pointed out the changes that we have made in the use of combustible cladding. Of course, we are insisting that automatic fire suppression systems such as sprinklers are installed in all new schools for children with special educational needs and disabilities, those with residential blocks and schools over 11 metres or four storeys in height. We have updated our guidance for new school buildings to ensure that we increase the already high fire safety standards in new schools. I am pleased to be able to confirm that our new fire engineer started work in the department on 15 January.

In relation to examinations, we recognise that this has been, for a relatively small number of schools, a tremendous disruption to education. We are doing everything that we can to work with settings to give those schools the financial and practical support to ensure that children in exam years in particular can catch up as effectively as possible. However, the legislation on examinations is very clear. Only with a change in legislation would we be able to make some of the changes which noble Lords suggested. The legislation is clear that exams show what children know and can do and not what they might have been able to do if they had been taught differently or under different circumstances. It is not possible to make changes to exams to reflect the impact of disruption on some groups of pupils. However, we have worked with awarding organisations to facilitate discussions with affected schools. We have asked them to agree longer extensions for coursework wherever possible and non-examined assessments, so that pupils have as much time as possible to complete those tasks.

I am running out of time, but on the question of the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, about contact with our counterparts in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, we have a cross-UK group which makes sure that we have the most effective engagement on these issues.

In closing, I reassure most importantly pupils, parents, teachers and staff in all our schools and colleges that this has been a massive focus for the department over many years, but particularly in the last four months. I particularly thank the leadership of those teachers who are giving real confidence to their pupils to overcome the difficulty with which they have been presented. I thank them personally, from the bottom of my heart.