Primary Schools: Mental Health Problems

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate makes an important point about the challenges for schools in rural areas to access the mental health support that we will make available. He identified the considerable difficulties for young people who really need child and adolescent mental health services in accessing them. That is why this Government will fund an additional 8,500 mental health workers to support both children and adults. As we continue to develop the policy to ensure that there is access to a mental health professional in every school, we will certainly bear in mind the important points that he made about the particular needs of rural schools.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree with me—going back to a point that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, raised about bullying—that children with observable mental health problems, or who are on the autism spectrum, are very often vulnerable to bullying in schools, and sometimes that will exacerbate the challenges that they already have? In what way are the Government supporting schools to ensure that children who have those difficulties are supported, particularly in the playground?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

That is an appropriately wide-ranging question from my noble friend. First, on the topic of bullying, it is enormously important that every school has a strong policy and strong action to tackle bullying and to support children. She raised the issue of children with autism and other needs, and we are making progress there with the national framework for autism assessment services. We are also very clear that no child should need to wait for an assessment to receive the necessary support from schools. That will include support with learning and, as she rightly said, support for them to play a full and safe part in the life of the school.

Children and Young People: Literacy

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that we have seen significant progress in the teaching of early reading, and I congratulate all those involved in that. I remember how in 2006 the then Secretary of State, Ruth Kelly, adopted the recommendations of the Rose review on the teaching of early reading, especially phonics. The noble Baroness makes an important point that, although the ability to read is a fundamental basis for all children, it is also important that we find a range of ways, including using other partners in the creative area and elsewhere, to engage a passion for reading. That also has to start before children even get to school, with the support of family hubs and some of the campaigns that are already available there.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, following on from the answer that my noble friend has just given, does she agree that the most important starting point for children to allow them to go on to enjoy reading in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, described, is if they are read to when they are very young? Nearly all of us probably had that experience and have probably gone on to deliver it to our children and grandchildren, if we have them. What efforts are the Government making to explain more clearly to people who might otherwise not understand the benefits of reading to children how important it is, and how important it is to start really early, long before children can speak?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. I still remember my mother’s excellent Winnie the Pooh voice, my children—I think—benefited from my reading to them, and I very much hope that at some point I will be able to read to some grandchildren. My noble friend is also absolutely right that we need to provide support as early as possible to parents who perhaps do not find it as easy to understand how to do that. That is why, alongside services in family hubs, the development of the campaign Little Moments Together, which is providing that sort of advice—including to those who perhaps have not received it from their own parents—is important in order to support children’s early development and that joy of reading, which is so important.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th November 2024 Grand Committee

Amendments 25 to 36B not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I inform the Committee that, were Amendment 37 to be agreed, I would not be able to call Amendments 38 or 39 by reason of pre-emption.

Clause 9: Power to make consequential provision

Amendment 37

Moved by

Early Years Provision: Bell Review

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right to identify that disadvantage —in fact, special educational needs impact on children at a very early stage in their development. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education, alongside the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is absolutely committed, through the work of the child poverty taskforce, to looking at precisely how we break that link between poverty in childhood and the ability to make the most of your life later on. That will include elements of the benefits system as well.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

Taking my noble friend back to the question on recruitment, will she consider that a number of the people who will be needed in the workforce are currently in full-time education? Quite a lot are at school, and many are studying BTECs—for example, in health and social care—which can then lead them into careers in childcare. Can she say whether the Government intend to go on supporting the BTECs that will take these young people towards the childcare sector? What else are the Government doing to encourage young people currently in education to see it as a good career path for them?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

We are carrying out a short qualifications reform review precisely to identify the qualifications where there are particular needs for learners or for the economy—in this case, childcare. Unlike the previous Government, we are saying that where we can see for both those reasons that there is a particular need for qualifications, we will continue to fund them in the system. As I identified earlier, we are also supporting the development of a T-level, which will provide a very good and rigorous route for young people into the childcare sector. Also, through the “Do Something Big” campaign we are encouraging more people to consider a career in early years and childcare, which can have such an enormous impact on children’s lives.

Schools: Mental Health and Poor Attendance

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that there is a considerable problem with access to child and adolescent mental health services, at a time when one in five eight to 16 year-olds have a probable mental health disorder, it is suggested, and are seven times more likely to be absent for extended periods of time. When the median wait for these services for children is 201 days, there is clearly more that needs to happen. Alongside access to mental health professionals in all schools, my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care are also committed to recruiting an additional 8,500 mental health staff, with a priority for enabling them to work with children and young people.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister comment on what further work the Government plan to do specifically for young people with spectrum disorders, such as autism and ADHD? They can do well in mainstream schooling, but often do not because their needs are not recognised soon enough, and they can then present with mental health disorders on top of their spectrum disorders. What is being done to help teachers understand how to manage those children and keep them in the classroom, which is often not easy?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is of course right. There are a whole range of reasons why children may be absent from school. Special educational needs and particular disabilities, as she identifies, are a key reason. That is why, in a system that is not properly serving children, this Government are committed to improving that and working to ensure, across the whole spectrum of special educational needs and disability, that children get the support they need to remain in mainstream schools. As she also rightly says, teachers are getting the support they need, along with other staff within the school, to both identify and then support those children, so that they can achieve and succeed in a way that will be an important foundation for the rest of their lives.

King’s Speech

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure and privilege to be speaking from these Benches again. In doing so, I remind the House of my relevant interests as a member of Middlesex Learning Trust, a patron of the Artis Foundation, and an adviser to the Backstage Trust.

I congratulate my noble friends on the Front Bench today, and all their colleagues, on their new appointments, and I wish them well as they take forward the ambitious programme outlined in the gracious Speech. I particularly congratulate my noble friend Lady Smith of Malvern on her excellent maiden speech. Like others, I am sad that we are losing the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly—this was all unexpected—but I am very glad that we have not lost the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, whose work in office has been so deservedly praised. I hope she is glowing from that praise as this debate continues.

Concision is the order of the day, so I will make my points concisely. First, as another member of the pre-legislative committee that looked at the previous Government’s draft mental health Bill in 2022-23, I am glad to see that a new Bill is planned that will incorporate a lot of what that committee recommended. It will be challenging to find the necessary resources, financial and human, but the proposed changes to current legislation are long overdue and much needed.

I welcome the inclusion of the children’s well-being Bill. In taking forward the proposed review of curriculum and assessment, I hope that despite warnings from my noble friend Lady Morris the Government will make good on their declared intention to restore arts subjects to their proper place in the curriculum. I also support everything said by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, on how engagement with the arts outside the formal curriculum can contribute to the well-being of all students from early years to A-level.

Much of the arts sector is already extensively involved with education—just look at what is being achieved by the RSC and many other organisations, large and small—but it is doing so in an increasingly precarious funding environment. The recent successful championing by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay—he is not in his place today—of tax reliefs for the performing arts is one of the few bright spots on a darkening horizon for the sector, and I hope my noble friend can confirm that they will be maintained. However, the current crisis in many local authorities, and the reduction in support for Arts Council England over the past decade, has already done serious damage. This is another problem that will not be easy to solve when there are so many calls on scarce resources, but we ignore it at our peril.

The plan to increase teacher numbers is also welcome. Recruitment and retention remain critical issues, but there is also huge pressure on school budgets, partly as a result of the underfunding, or non-funding, of recent pay awards, which is resulting in staff reductions in some schools. This needs urgent attention, which I hope it will get from my noble friends.

Finally, I hope that we can now look forward to a less adversarial relationship between government and the education sector. Over the past few years there has been too much hostile rhetoric, although never, I hasten to add, from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. We should, of course, have high expectations of our schools and their leaders, and they must be held to account. But let us also trust them, support them and acknowledge what it takes to do what they do.

In the gracious Speech, the Government have set out a bold programme that I am proud to support. Delivering it will require courage and determination, because, despite recent appearances to the contrary, politics is not actually a branch of the entertainment industry, entertaining though it can sometimes be. It is a complex, contradictory, unpredictable and deeply serious business within which setbacks and even occasional failures are inevitable. However, in the words of that great master of concision, the playwright Samuel Beckett:

“No matter. Fail again. Fail better.”


Onwards and upwards, my Lords.