Faith Schools: Impact of Removing Admissions Cap
Baroness Twycross Excerpts(1 day, 21 hours ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his comments and echo his remarks about the ethnic diversity in our faith schools. I agree with him that faith schools can and do offer the very important tenets of our major religions including, of course, tolerance.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, the rationale behind the proposed change to the state-funded faith schools admissions cap by the Government is in large part, as the noble Baroness has said, to increase the number of school places available. Has the department made any estimate of how many more places will be made available and when? What will the Government do to ensure that school places are established where they are needed most and for families whose children most desperately need the best start in life?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The number of additional places will depend on levels of basic need where there are not enough school places available. The noble Baroness well knows that in some parts of the country we have the opposite challenge at the moment. That also answers the second part of her question; it will be where there are population pressures.
I would like to take the opportunity in answering the noble Baroness’s question to pick up on the second part of the consultation. If agreed, it would mean that faith schools were able to have a faith designation. I know the House agrees with me that we need to move faster to make sure there is provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Childcare Entitlements
Baroness Twycross Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity for us to discuss the Statement made yesterday in the other place. I thank the Minister for repeating it today in your Lordships’ House. Noble Lords present are probably united in thinking that the Government’s aspiration in expanding free childcare is welcome. However, unfortunately, it appears that currently only the Government believe that their flagship policy is on track.
My first question to the Minister is: why are Ministers proactively bringing a Statement to Parliament to say that everything is on track, when the Government’s own auditors are now saying otherwise, without the Government acknowledging that there are issues? When I suggested yesterday at Oral Questions that the policy was in trouble, the Minister stated that
“it is a huge success”.—[Official Report, 23/4/24; col. 1369.]
I woke up to headlines that indicated that I was not far off. In light of the report published today by the National Audit Office, will the Minister accept that the policy is, at the very least, at risk of not going to plan? Even the Telegraph is reporting that parents are facing worse childcare under this Government’s childcare expansion.
Are the Government still guaranteeing that every eligible child has a spot now, that every eligible child will have a spot later this year, and that every eligible child will have a spot in September next year? Are parents getting the savings that they have been promised? Why have the Government repeatedly dismissed genuine concerns about the rollout of the plan, when the problems are so clear and stakeholders across the board are highlighting the same problems?
Even the DfE has the expansion as its top programme risk, with risks including insufficient places, operational infrastructure not being ready, insufficient parental demand and an unstable market. When will the Government make a formal response to the NAO’s report? Furthermore, could the Minister confirm that the DfE has itself
“assessed its confidence in meeting milestones beyond April 2024 as ‘problematic’”?
Does she agree with the NAO that the extension does not “achieve its primary aim” or demonstrate “value for money”? How did the DfE think it was appropriate to set dates for expansion without engaging with the sector or understanding local authorities’ and providers’ capacity? Will the Government act on the NAO’s recommendations about continuously reviewing the achievability of the 2025 milestones and will they now publish interim performance thresholds?
I return to the point I made to the Minister yesterday: the DfE’s own pulse survey from last week found that 45% of childcare and early years providers said it was unlikely that they would increase the number of places they offer to under-threes as a result of the Government’s childcare expansion. The NAO estimates there is in fact a net reduction in places—albeit just a 1% reduction —since 2018, but this is at a point at which we need a significant increase in places. Could the Minister outline what the DfE’s plan is if it accepts that it will struggle to reverse this trend, if it finds that the providers simply cannot afford to offer free places, or the one in three nursery and pre-school providers that the Early Years Alliance says are at risk of closure simply do not survive? This would potentially put 184,000 places in jeopardy. How does the Minister explain the disparity between what the Government say and what the sector, parents and councils, and now the NAO, are saying?
The Statement repeated today states confidently that
“no local authorities are reporting that they do not have”
sufficient “places to meet demand”. This is very different from the National Audit Office view that only 9% of areas are confident that they will have enough places. To clarify this point, I contacted the Local Government Association, which told me that councils have reported greater concerns about the next stages of the expansion, where it will extend to children and families who would not previously have accessed childcare to this extent. It is deeply concerned about provision for families that require a different range of childcare options, such as outside traditional hours, or families for children with SEND.
The Coram Family and Childcare survey found that England has seen reductions in the availability of childcare in all categories. Worryingly, the greatest reductions have been in childcare for disabled children, which I understand is now at 6% sufficiency. Can the Minister say why this is the case and what the Government will be doing to remedy this? Local authorities are also concerned about recruitment, particularly because of the higher ratios required for under-twos. They are concerned about the lack of sufficient level 3 qualified staff in the sector. Is the Minister confident that recruitment is on track?
There is broad consensus on the need for a decent childcare and early years offer, including increasing free hours. It is a shared ambition across political parties to have an improved system that works for parents and carers and delivers the best start in life for children. Labour genuinely wants better childcare and early years provision. We have commissioned a review by Sir David Bell to assess a way forward. We want a well-planned, well-designed system that delivers for children and improves the offer to parents.
I am confident that the Minister also wants a system that works, but the first step in this instance to getting that has to be for the Government to accept that there are problems, and work to get this scheme back on track. I look forward to her response as to how, in light of the serious risks facing this flagship government policy, the promised expansion in free childcare and early years provision will be delivered.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her detailed Statement. I would guess that all of us aspire to the aspirations that she espoused on childcare. The issues that we are concerned about—and they concern a number of people—are around whether this can be delivered. I listened to the Statement with great care and the words that were missing were not about numbers but about quality. I have always believed, as my party always has, that it is not just about providing childcare. It has to be quality childcare—and I did not get a sense of that in the Minister’s Statement. There are a number of issues. She mentioned pay, quite rightly, but it is about training as well.
As we have heard, the National Audit Office has raised concerns that plans to extend free nursery provision could compromise—again, that word—the quality of childcare as the sector expands to meet demand. The NAO cautioned that hiring inexperienced staff and a lower supervision ratio for two year-olds could undermine childcare quality. There are also worries about whether inspections by Ofsted would identify issues early enough. The NAO has highlighted concerns about the Department for Education’s confidence in delivering required places, with only 34% of local authorities expecting to have enough places by this September. On the other hand, the Minister has painted an extremely positive picture of rollout. It will be interesting to see who is right.
This ministerial Statement did not mention or address the up-and-coming report and findings, which have been described as utterly damning by the early years sector. The Government must address the findings of this report urgently. The report concludes that there is a risk posed by
“the lack of contingency and flexibility”
in the Government’s “fixed, ambitious timetable”. It is therefore important that clarity and reassurance is provided quickly on how they will address the report’s findings. Families across the country will struggle to plan their arrangements if certainty over the next phase of the rollout is not provided.
Only 17% of nursery managers said that they could offer the extended entitlement, due to the crisis of recruitment and retention. What will the Government do to address this recruitment and retention issue?
Finally, I was interested to hear about the campaign to use unused schools. The Government want to set up what I think they call “in-home nurseries” to create some of the 85,000 places needed. How many schools will be used in the pilot scheme that the Minister told us about? If the scheme is successful, how many schools do they think they will be able to finally use?
Expansion of Free Childcare
Baroness Twycross Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Baroness Twycross
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the implementation of the expansion of free childcare hours.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, I can confirm that over 200,000 parents of two year-olds are now benefiting from the Government’s help with childcare costs as part of the largest ever expansion of childcare support in England. From September 2025, our full expansion will save parents up to £6,900 a year. Our investment will be over £400 million in 2024-25 alone, and by 2027-28 we expect to spend in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education, doubling our current spending.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, the DfE’s own pulse survey from last week found that 45% of childcare and early years providers said that it was unlikely that they would increase the number of places they offer to under-threes as a result of the Government’s childcare expansion. The maths does not add up for providers and there is patchy provision across the country, with the sector still losing staff. Despite the confidence of the Minister and in the Statement earlier today in the other place, is this not simply a good idea that is going disastrously wrong?
Children and Young People: Local Authority Care
Baroness Twycross Excerpts(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Laming, for securing such an important debate and for his insight based on a huge amount of experience and expertise in this subject. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, there is no person better placed to lead this debate. As my noble friend Lord Wood said, this debate is timely because, regrettably, it is always timely.
I recently had the privilege and pleasure of hosting an event with the charity Become, which has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords. They brought with them a group of young people who spoke clearly of their experience in the care system and the need for change. As has come through strongly in all the speeches, there is no greater responsibility of any government at whatever level than to ensure that looked-after children get what they need to be happy, feel loved and thrive; and that these most vulnerable young people—now numbering, shockingly, around 84,000—are actually looked after and cared for.
As the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said, it is the responsibility of a local authority to be a good parent. As the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, clearly children who are care-experienced can end up with a life-long adverse impact. They are disproportionately more likely to have special educational needs; they are disproportionately more likely to be represented in prison populations and disproportionately more likely to suffer from poor mental health and low employment rates. There is an intergenerational legacy of poor outcomes.
I want to make it clear that I recognise that Ministers have repeatedly made heartfelt commitments to dealing with the issues facing children in social care. I genuinely do not doubt the Minister’s concern to ensure that children and young people get the care and support that they need and have a right to. However, the fact remains that they are not currently getting this. As the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, said, we are facing a perfect storm. That is despite the Conservative Party’s clear manifesto commitment, the findings of the excellent independent review led by Josh MacAlister, which the Government commissioned, and the government strategy that is being rolled out.
There is still too little funding in the system to support the aspirations of the strategy. There are too few people—too few social workers, foster carers, and adoptive parents. That is not to say that we do not have phenomenal people working in this field or that every privately run care home is careless with those children in its care. However, the system is flawed. Children and young people are paying the price, with too many moved too far, in some cases up to 500 miles away; as my noble friend Lord Wood said, they are moved an average of 18 miles away from home. Too few children and young people are supported by foster parents or kinship carers, and too few are getting the consistency of care they need from social services or social workers. The model of provision is simply broken, and unless the Government provide the radical reset which the independent review they commissioned called for, the problems the review identified, both current and future, will not be addressed.
One of the key points made by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and others, including the noble Lord, Lord Meston, was that leaving intervention to a crisis point is too late. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, said, we should not allow children’s social care to become solely a blue-light emergency service.
Countless noble Lords raised the fact that rising costs of children’s social care placements and the pressures on local government funding mean that funding has been diverted away from early intervention and into services for children already in care.
A number of noble Lords gave some tragic examples of how a failure to intervene and support families can play out. With local government funding already at breaking point, how do the Government expect local authorities to deal with the crisis in children’s social care and invest in early interventions, and how soon will the DfE roll out the pilots intended to support early interventions, including family hubs?
The noble Lord, Lord Young, highlighted the continued significance of adoption in the context of falling adoption levels, and the government strategy has some welcome commitments on foster care, recruitment and retention, and support for kinship carers. The right reverend Prelate spoke passionately about foster care from his own experience, and the noble Lord, Lord Young, highlighted the fact that more foster carers are deregistering than registering, describing some of the reasons for this and the loss of experienced foster families that this causes.
My noble friend Lord Wood highlighted the benefits of kinship carers, in particular the cost savings to the state and the earnings benefit to children and young people later on in life. What is the Government’s assessment of efforts to provide greater support to kinship carers, and has their number increased in practice?
The Local Government Association highlighted in its briefing for this debate that the current vacancy rates of children and family social workers leaving during the year, and sickness absences, are the highest in the DfE’s data series. There are thousands of vacancies, and social care is reliant on agency workers. What impact has the Government’s strategy had so far on recruitment and retention of social workers? Does the DfE indeed have a children’s social care workforce strategy?
Children and young people who are care-experienced come disproportionately from the most disadvantaged and deprived backgrounds. As the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said, black children are also disproportionately represented in the care system. Once in care, around three-quarters of all girls are fostered compared to just over half of boys. What is the Government’s assessment of the long-term impact of this inequality?
I commend the comments from a number of noble Lords who highlighted the broken nature of the market model. The Competition and Markets Authority social care market survey was raised by several speakers, including the fact that resources are therefore diverted away from prevention to cope with rising costs. As my noble friend Lord Wood said, 85% of children’s homes are currently in the private sector. The Competition and Markets Authority also raised concerns about the level of debt carried by some private providers—that point was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. What is the Government’s assessment of the viability of the sector, do they have contingency plans for market failure, and what conversations have the Minister or the department had with Ofsted about the failure to prosecute illegal and unregulated care homes in England, as highlighted by the recent Observer newspaper article?
This subject is worthy of a much longer debate. As I have been going through my speech, I have been crossing bits out because I do not have time to say everything I would like to. What is needed is not another debate but action. Good intentions and heartfelt words on a Thursday afternoon are not enough. Too many children and young people are being failed, and unless the radical reset called for in the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, becomes a reality, the situation will not be resolved. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Schools and Colleges: Special Educational Needs
Baroness Twycross Excerpts(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
I can genuinely reassure the noble Baroness that teacher workload and teacher retention are incredibly high up our list of priorities within the department. It is a central focus of the team. In addition to workload, it is critical that we equip our teachers with the skills, experience and confidence they need to deal with what they are facing in the classroom. That is why, for example, the inclusion of much more content on special educational needs and disabilities in initial training and the early careers framework is so important.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, pupils with special educational needs are more than four times more likely to develop a mental health problem than other people. This means that one in seven young people with a mental health difficulty will also have another special educational need. Given the huge and increasing backlog for mental health support in schools, will the Minister tell us whether the Government will support Labour’s plan to place a mental health professional in every school?
Baroness Barran (Con)
As the noble Baroness knows, the Government have an ambitious plan in terms of the creation and development of mental health support teams in schools. We estimate that, from April 2024, those support teams will cover 4.2 million children and young people, and we think that will rise to about half of all children and young people by spring next year. The challenge, which the noble Baroness will recognise, is to make sure that the demand for mental health practitioners is balanced between the health service, schools and other parts of the economy.
Student Loan Interest Rates
Baroness Twycross Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
Of course, those who go on to much higher earnings end up repaying much more than those on lower earnings, but no additional consideration is currently being given to the suggestion from the noble Baroness.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, the Student Money Survey last September found that 18% of students had used a food bank in the 2022-23 academic year, up from 10% in 2021-22. The annual inflation rate peaked at 9.6% in the year to October 2022, yet for the 2022-23 academic year, the value of student maintenance loans for living costs rose by only 2.3%. What are the Government doing to ensure that students can focus on their studies and not worry about how they are going to feed themselves?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I understand why the noble Baroness raises this point, and I am aware of the concerns around affordability. We have continued to increase the maximum loans and grants for living costs each year, with the most support going to students from the lowest-income families, and benefits for lone parents and disabled students. We have made wider cost of living investments as a Government and, in addition, have made £260 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023-24 academic year.
School Meals for Children
Baroness Twycross Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
As my noble friend hints, exercise has a very positive impact on physical health and, crucially, on mental health.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, anyone who saw the pictures in the newspaper article to which the Question refers will be fairly appalled at the quality of the food offered to the children. The head teacher concerned asked how hard it was to bake a potato. Is the real problem that children do not learn how to cook any more and therefore do not see jobs in institutional catering as a viable career? What action is the DfE taking to ensure that the skills exist to meet government guidelines that state that school food should be nutritious, look good and taste delicious?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I am not sure whether I have to declare my interest as the mother of a chef. I think careers in hospitality are great, but I might be slightly biased. I have already responded on where food and healthy eating fit within the curriculum. We take this very seriously. The specific case that was alluded to in the media related to a PFI contract. Obviously, that gives greater constraints on the ability of a school to negotiate with, or potentially even change, suppliers.
Free Childcare Scheme
Baroness Twycross Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Twycross
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the availability of additional funded childcare provision, ahead of the expansion of the free childcare scheme in April.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, we are delivering the largest expansion of childcare in England’s history. Latest projections show that more than 150,000 new funded places will be secured by April. We expect that number to grow, collectively saving parents more than £500 million in costs. We continue to support the sector’s expansion, with £400 million of additional funding to uplift hourly rates next year and a guarantee that rates will increase in line with cost pressures for two years after that.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, on these Benches we agree with the ambition of the policy, but delivery of the expansion of the free childcare scheme is falling short. With the charity Coram Family and Childcare finding that parents in some parts of the country are spending over 50% of their income on childcare, and with children needing to be registered for nurseries before they are born, what more are the Government doing to ensure that parents and children get the expansion of free childcare that they have been promised?
Baroness Barran (Con)
It is slightly curious to say that delivery is falling short when the new entitlements start in April of this year. The noble Baroness knows that we have made a significant investment in capital to support local authorities. We have made a number of innovations in relation to the workforce and the uptake of the scheme has been very encouraging. Most importantly—I think the Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed this—we have announced very generous funding rates, particularly for younger children.
Schools: Special Needs Pupils
Baroness Twycross Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Lord raises a very relevant point—the wider issue of how parents can be aware of how our special educational needs system works, feel confident in it and understand how to have conversations with their children’s teachers about any concerns they might have. That is why we have altered the initial teacher training and early career framework for teachers, as well as introducing a new national professional qualification for special educational needs co-ordinators. This is to make sure that schools can be really proactive with parents and give them the confidence to address their children’s concerns.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness has outlined a range of measures, but the truth is that there is insufficient capacity in the system. I spoke to one parent—I do not think she would mind me referring to her as a pushy parent—who has waited for 18 months and has still not had her child assessed. Given the social and the ethnic disparities mentioned by noble Lords, is the noble Baroness 100% confident that government policy and what is on track at the moment will actually meet the growing demand?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The Government have made a huge amount of progress, and a very significant financial commitment working closely with those on the ground. As I said, we have announced £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to fund new special educational needs and alternative provision places. Together with the new free schools we have already announced, it will add 60,000 new specialist places to the system. I know the noble Baroness will appreciate that this is a very significant increase.
Pupil Mental Health, Well-being and Development
Baroness Twycross Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, this has been a truly interesting and varied debate. I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on securing it. There can be nothing more important in a child’s development than ensuring that they have good mental and physical health, not least in what many noble Lords have noted is a complex and often confusing world.
Children need a healthy, caring, constructive, lively and varied school environment, of the type to which the noble Baroness referred in her opening remarks. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, good mental health is a prerequisite for learning. My noble friend Lord Touhig powerfully articulated the need for children to have the confidence to succeed.
I also agree wholeheartedly with my noble friend Lady Morris that academic education and mental health and well-being should not be seen as being in competition with each other. I am very much in the camp which believes that schools should prepare children for life and work, and liked how my noble friend Lady Morris articulated how this might be balanced in relation to exams, and how people view exam success and failure.
I do not, however, think that this excludes fun or creativity. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, on the need for creative arts to be a key part of school life and the lives of students. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester also spoke powerfully to this point, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, on the work of the charity, Books Beyond Words.
My noble friend Lady Blake did not speak in this debate, but I understand she did great work as leader of Leeds City Council in ensuring that all children had access to learning a musical instrument. This is the type of thing that can enrich children’s lives and make school life much more rewarding.
I found the contribution of the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, on physical activity and food very compelling. Clearly, the quality of food in school is an issue that my noble friend Lord Brooke has campaigned on with vigour, not least on sugar, and will continue to do so.
From what we have heard today, none of us can be in any doubt that we have a huge mental health crisis among children and young people. As the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, also made clear, schools have a very distinct role in identifying and triaging issues. Schools and teachers do incredible work in a difficult environment. Schools sometimes struggle to meet the needs of their students, and teachers do not always have the support they need, or the time or expertise to identify and deal with student mental health issues. CAMHS cannot deal with the scale of the demand, with unacceptable delays for treatment that risk an individual’s mental health issues escalating.
I return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, about the focus on fun. I think that we all now want to visit his school, so he should expect a queue for us to do that.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
He does not have to become a primary school teacher; he can carry on as he is.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, mentioned the need for a whole-school approach, as did others, but what we really need is an understanding of how we get a better whole-system approach—I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on that. Surely, that is what is needed to address the issue. There is a clear need for the Government to drive forward and work much more on a cross-departmental basis. The NHS, individual schools, charities and local authorities cannot solve the child mental health crisis alone. The noble Lord, Lord Wei, discussed the need for school pathways to be made clearer and simpler for parents and children, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s reflection on his point about the correlation with decisions that parents might make on home schooling.
I will give a personal view of an amazing meeting I had this week with a fabulous group of students from the Ark King Solomon Academy near Edgware Road. It was a reminder of how a good school can provide a truly nurturing environment. The students spoke to me about the mental health provision in their school with their vice-principal and the charity Place2Be, whose services the young people had accessed. They told me that Covid had led to isolation, that they needed more clubs and activity to improve their well-being, and that PHSE could do so much more than it does currently to help young people understand their mental health and how to deal with any issues they might face. They also said that their parents often did not know how to help, so the parents also needed additional support to help deal with the issue.
The provision that the students had accessed had given them a sense of belonging and a trusted space. But they said that there was a need for more provision, so that students did not have to wait to access services. The students were hugely articulate in how they spoke about their experience and the need for young people to build resilience. I have no doubt that their school and their parents are incredibly proud of them. After they met me, they went to No. 10 to deliver a letter to the Prime Minister; I would be very grateful if the Minister could ensure that it reaches the right person for a response.
We cannot talk about the role of schools in mental health without discussing the wider context. The scale of the problem was mentioned by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, who noted that the rise means that, on average, five children in a class of 30 are likely to have mental health issues. He also noted the recruitment crisis in specialists.
The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, asked what was probably the most valid question of the whole debate: what is going on? In 2022, 1.4 million children were referred to CAMHS, with 270,000 children waiting longer than three months to begin treatment. The Local Government Association has found that at least one in six children and young people aged seven to 16 has a probable mental health disorder, which increases to one in four for young people aged 17 to 19. The Children’s Commissioner, who has been quoted several times, has raised particular concerns around older teenage girls; she found in her report last year that nearly two in five of 16 to 17 year-old girls were unhappy with their mental health. Things going wrong— such as when children and young people do not get support in a timely way—can lead to forced hospitalisation. In the worst cases, unresolved mental health issues lead to self-harm and attempted or successful suicide, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, highlighted in his remarks.
Children living in poverty, where parents separate or have a financial crisis, or children whose own parents have poor mental health or poor health, are even more likely to have poor mental health themselves. As my noble friend Lord Touhig said, children with speech and language difficulties are twice as likely to have a mental health issue than their peers—the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, also highlighted this point. This is also the case for children and young people with a wide range of other special needs, physical illness or disabilities.
Can the Minister say what the government view is on how provision is currently tailored towards the needs of different groups of children, and what more can be done to ensure that children and young adults get access in a timely way? To tackle an issue of this scale, you surely need a thorough understanding of what needs to be addressed—and with apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, I do not think that policy should be made routinely at London dinner parties.
Can the Minister clarify whether the Government intend to start to routinely collect statistics on mental health provision in schools, including the type of provision and therapy provided? As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, this should include a cross-referencing of this with other data, including absenteeism. If not, can the Minister tell the House when the Government at the very least intend to carry out a new survey, given that it is almost a decade since the last one found that only 62% of schools offered counselling services? However, I understand that that figure has risen. Can the Minister provide information on how many schools now have counselling services? Are the Government, like Labour, committed to specialist mental health support for children and young people in every school? Furthermore, can the Government provide a demographic breakdown of the number of children accessing mental health services in schools and through CAMHS?
Finally, I acknowledge that I am clear that the Government know that there is a problem. However, I do not feel that they have yet managed to introduce a comprehensive solution—the proposed ban on phones in schools is evidence of this. Many noble Lords referenced social media and phones. However, many schools have introduced this, and head teachers have noted that they cannot control their use out of school. Having heard today’s debate, what more is the Minister able to commit to the Government doing to address this epidemic of mental health issues in children and young people, both in and out of school, to ensure that our young people get the support they need to thrive both socially and academically through their childhoods to successful adult lives?