Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Whitaker]

309: Clause 31, page 61, line 2, leave out from beginning to “provide” on line 3 and insert “A local authority must offer to”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require local authorities to offer appropriate support to the parent of a child on the register.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 309 and 310 in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for whose support I am grateful. I also support Amendment 309A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, on language accessibility, and Amendment 426C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, on access to sport and recreation. I can see that the practical implications of that are a little complicated, but it would be really important for home-educated children to have the same encouragement for physical activity.

My amendments would alter the behaviour of the registering authority in that it would have to offer, not wait for the home education parent to request, support. This is, first, because parents in marginalised communities, remote from the digitalised world and in some cases low in literacy, may not know that support is available, and, secondly, because, Gypsy, Traveller and Roma parents may have learned to distrust public authorities because of the widely attested discrimination and prejudice they will have experienced.

Requiring local authorities to make the first move would enable the authority to identify more clearly what kind of support is needed and, further, find out what problems the child experienced in school so that these can be addressed. I hope my noble friend will accept these amendments.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 313 and 314 in my name. I originally thought I was going to speak for rather longer on this, but so much has already been covered, including the fact that I was looking here for some very positive statements from the Minister about home education generally. Such statements have been coming throughout this debate, which is extremely good.

I am also totally supportive of the fact that the Minister needs to send out some very firm messages about the people missing school. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, there are more than 100,000 home-educated children but also a missing 100,000 and we do not know where they are, so there is a balance to be drawn between both of those.

My two amendments try to pick up on the point about rebuilding trust in the system among home-education parents, and indeed perhaps among local authorities, which has been quite badly damaged by the original presentation of this Bill. As has been said already today, there is a common endeavour here to secure the education, welfare and future of children and young people, some of whom are among the most vulnerable in the country. Those are the young people we are talking about. Throughout the Bill, we need to get the balance right between safeguarding and necessary bureaucracy, between parental and state responsibility, and between necessary assessment and support. I do not think that is being achieved at the moment.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am not convinced that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is the reason why there are difficulties in the way that the noble Lord outlined, but I take his point that we could make progress on this were there to be some brokering of arrangements. I would be willing to give further consideration to information about access to examinations and how to overcome some of the issues.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and I appreciate my noble friend the Minister’s sympathetic response. Perhaps I could discuss with her later some aspects of the approach to marginalised parents. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 309.

Amendment 309 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this is the briefest of brief debates, so I think the Committee hangs on the Minister’s every word at this point. The group contains a large number of probing amendments, and my concern about the majority of them is that, again, they would introduce too great an element of variability in the application of school attendance orders, with the concomitant risk of perceived inconsistency and unfairness that I mentioned on the earlier group. I will not repeat those arguments. Suffice it to say that the data published by the department shows considerable disparity in the use of notices and school attendance orders, even between neighbouring local authorities such as Portsmouth and Southampton or East and West Sussex. There is a genuine issue that needs to be resolved in terms of bringing clarity to the criteria and the use of school attendance orders.

I also understand why several noble Lords have sought to lessen the penalties on those parents who fail to comply with the terms of school attendance orders, but I do not agree that it is appropriate, given the negative impact on children of missing out on a suitable education. Rather, I think we should support the Government to offer the most streamlined response so that decisions are taken transparently, consistently and speedily. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I think I should fit in Amendment 368—I apologise; I thought the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, was going to speak again—which is in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for whose support I am again grateful. It recognises that higher fines, and especially imprisonment of the often lone parent, in fact betray the interests of the child. The Government do not collect information on the protected characteristics of those who are subject to these penalties, so they cannot assess their impact.

All the cases I saw when I was a magistrate were of people in poverty, and we know that Gypsies and Travellers have the lowest rate of economic activity of any ethnic group—47%, as opposed to 63% for England and Wales overall. A Prison Advice and Care Trust survey of 2023, apart from confirming the poverty I have alluded to, points to a range of research showing increased risky behaviour among prisoners’ children, poorer mental health outcomes and the potential lifelong negative impact of parental imprisonment. When a mother goes to prison, 95% of children have to leave home. This amendment would serve the interests of the child, which should of course be paramount, and I urge my noble friend the Minister to accept it.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

I join my noble friend Lady Whitaker on removing the threat of imprisonment: it would be entirely inappropriate, and there are enough people already in prison.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

Amendment 318 from my noble friend looks at the difficulty and concern about people who are distant from maintained schools. Amendment 321 is looking, again, at people who are clearly succeeding. Amendment 322 looks at how you deal with nomadic families. All these are details on which I hope to hear from the Minister or, later, from her officials. We need to understand how these things work. But if there is the basic arrangement of quality local authorities supported by clear direction from the Government, a lot of these difficulties are clearly superable without getting too fussed about them in legislation. I beg to move.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, as this is the first time I am speaking in Committee, I declare various unremunerated positions in Gypsy, Traveller and Roma organisations. I wish just very briefly to comment on Amendment 322, on nomadic organisations. I should say that all the evidence I have seen, and many conversations, attest quite firmly to the fact that most Gypsies and Travellers, that small minority who lead a nomadic life, welcome registration and the offer of support from local authorities—although I shall have something to say about that later. This amendment does not correspond to the experience of Gypsies, Travellers, boaters or showmen. I just briefly add that it seems that most of these amendments are at odds with the reality of the situation of most children who are not in school, and with the intentions of the Bill, but I will not prolong the debate at the outset at this stage.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have the chance to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and his eloquent and rather moving statement to the Committee about how he sees this. Echoing those important points, in the end this is about relationships, and about children and their needs and relationships. As the noble Lord said, with the Bill there is a real danger that this will be hugely disruptive for local authorities and parents, and in many ways could be a recipe for trouble to come if we get this wrong. But there are ways in which we can get this right and get proportionate reporting around the Bill. So there is a lot to get right here.

I will come back to various of those points later, but the simple point I wanted to make here was in relation to Amendment 238, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which is about the requirement to know which parents are educating, how and for how long. We will come back to that point in various ways in later groups. There are two key points here. One is about safeguarding, where there is an issue with at least one of the parents, which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has an amendment on, and there is one about the division of time between parents educating, which the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, has an amendment on.

This whole section needs to be rethought. What do we really need to know? We need to know which parents are taking responsibility, and where they are and how they can be contacted, but it seems that the rest of it is superfluous. I simply make those points in response to Amendment 238.

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[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I want to say a few words about Amendment 254A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, to which I have added my name. I want to spell out what I suspect noble Lords understand fully, which is that there are issues here. In certain cases, where perhaps one parent has been abusive to their child, partner or spouse, it is vital that addresses are not made available to that parent.

Perhaps I could just go back two or three steps and preface my remarks by saying, first, how much I appreciate the warm remarks on home education made by the Minister in opening. They set a much better tone than has tended to come through in this debate. Something else that I omitted to say at the beginning is that my thanks go to the Minister and her officials for the excellent meeting we had. It lasted much of the day and, frankly, they were very open and willing to discuss things; that was very helpful. I do not know how much movement we got out of it—we will see during the course of today—but it was helpful to have that meeting and to understand things clearly.

As all noble Lords have said, there is an issue of balance here between supporting the good people who are providing home education because it is best for their children, or for another good reason, and supporting the missing children who are abused or neglected or have missed out. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, made an important intervention on this. We need to get that balance right.

We discussed with officials the issue dealt with in Amendment 254A. It was said that this could be picked up in regulations or whatever, but there needs to be something in the Bill to help parents who are specifically worried about safeguarding. This amendment is probably as simple as it gets in pointing out that where there is a concern about abuse, or an order standing against one parent, this should be handled by an authority in an appropriate fashion.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 267 in my name and in those of the noble Lord, Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, whom I thank for their support.

This amendment mandates local authorities not to keep the information they have on the register after the child has grown up, for two reasons. First, it is not necessary after the age of school education has passed. Secondly, many Gypsy, Traveller and Roma families have a well-founded mistrust of unnecessary scrutiny, targeting and intervention on the part of authorities. This amendment would allay their fears and ease liaison with the registering authority. It may be that discretion should be used in the case of SEND children, perhaps until the age of 25, but that is for discussion later. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will understand the need for this amendment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 254A, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for his comments. As a society, we can be proud that, over the years, we have carefully and proportionately brought in safeguarding procedures which really make a difference to the lives of children and young people. We know that, by and large, our children are safe. Occasionally, we find a gap in the regulations or in the provision, and we come together to try to sort that out.

In a sense, safeguarding information can be shared with parents. This amendment comes out of conversations with a number of organisations that have given thought to how, in some cases, this can be harmful for the child. If there is a safeguarding concern, details can be shared with both parents, but my amendment questions whether it is appropriate if it risks further harm to the child. In a sense, this is a probing amendment, and I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say as it will impact my thoughts when we come to Report.

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[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly in support of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. I added my name to his original amendment. I am afraid I was a bit slow off the mark in adding it to his revised amendment, to which the noble Lord has just spoken. I strongly support it. The noble Lord has set out the case for it extremely well.

I want to emphasise a couple of points. I have always had concerns about young carers being withdrawn from school for home-education. I am concerned that they do not get the necessary breaks from caring responsibilities. We all know how important respite care is for all carers, particularly young ones. Young carers can find themselves taking on ever-increasing levels of caring responsibility. Some of the case studies I have been looking at may well be at the extreme end of the spectrum, but they were talking about young carers who were looking after mum and dad with multiple physical and mental health needs, as well as looking after two or three younger siblings. I really do not know how on earth they can take on that caring responsibility and still ensure that they are educated.

I was also very struck by the statistics mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Young. He said that over 15,000 children were caring for 50 hours or more per week. This is not compatible with a child receiving the degree of education that we would all want them to have for their own life chances.

I am also concerned that they will be missing out on the support that can be provided for young carers just because they are not in school. I know that some schools are very good at running groups for young carers, such as peer support, mental health support and additional academic support. It is critical that young carers can still access this kind of support if they need it and are being educated at home.

My main concern is the inappropriate or excessive levels of care that these young people are being asked to take on, because of the feeling of isolation and the emotional impact it has on them. This amendment is essential to protect them. The word the noble Lord, Lord Young, used was “safeguards”. We need strong safeguards if we are to be satisfied that young carers with significant caring responsibilities at home are also being home-educated.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 250 in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, whose support I greatly value. This amendment would oblige schools to ask for and record why the child is to receive home-education. This is not done at present and the Department for Education lists the reasons as “unknown” in 42% of cases. The current census estimates that 111,700 children are being home-educated, a 20% rise since last year—hardly an endorsement of what has been going on in some schools. The reasons must be collected to get a better understanding of why children abandon the advantages of school and where feasible, deal with them. We know there are many reasons, some of which, like the bullying which so many Gypsy, Traveller and Roma children endure, must be more effectively and specifically tackled; among those reasons, regrettably, is the desire of some schools to ensure their exam pass rates reach a certain level, thus neglecting the children who most need their education to work. I hope my noble friend the Minister can accept this amendment.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will contribute very briefly to this debate. I thought that the amendments by the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Crisp, showed the difficulty of the Bill in that very different groups of young people are being referred to and both sets of needs need to be met. Therein is the difficulty of getting the legislation right. I very much took the point about children with caring responsibilities and hope that we can take this opportunity to improve that; it is something about which I have been concerned for a while.

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Some very important, broader points were made in the debate about support for young carers, some of which are outwith the remit of the Bill. I think all noble Lords will have recognised the important case being made for maintaining and improving support for young carers. The point here is whether these bits of information should be mandated through the amendments in the way in which they are. My noble friend Lady Whitaker seeks to require local authorities to include the reasons why a parent of a child has chosen to home educate. I know that she is aware—

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

I apologise for interrupting my noble friend in her very helpful answer. My amendment would require that schools get this information so that they can learn how they could educate children better. Of course, it is excellent that the local authorities have it, but should not schools have it too?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I understand the point my noble friend makes. When children’s parents ask for their child to be taken off the roll of a school, which of course is absolutely their right, and the school should do that, it should also, as my noble friend says, reflect on the reasons why the parents are wanting to home educate that child. More broadly, in policy terms, I think we all need to reflect on the points made by my noble friend and others about where the reason is less a positive decision about home education and more a concern about provision for children with special educational needs or otherwise. I think my noble friend is aware that the department already collects information on reasons for home education, but, as she has highlighted, there are gaps in the data. That is why the Bill already allows for this information to be prescribed for inclusion.

For example, recording whether a child is a young carer could be prescribed under new Section 436C(2)(m) of the Education Act,

“any other information about the child’s characteristics, circumstances, needs or interactions with a local authority”.

If prescribed, local authorities will need to record this information if they have it or can reasonably obtain it. We will consult on the content of these regulations, and they will be subject to the affirmative parliamentary procedure. I hope that this will help to ensure that the information prescribed for inclusion in local authority registers is appropriate and useful. However, it is necessary that the information outlined in the noble Lord’s and my noble friend’s amendments remains voluntary for parents to provide. For some parents, the reason they have chosen to home-educate is deeply personal. Requiring it could cause parents to try to avoid registration altogether, making it more difficult for local authorities to identify and support those children who need it.

Amendments 260 and 261 in some ways reverse the argument being made in the previous two amendments, a point also made by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. These amendments aim to restrict any further information being prescribed for inclusion or recording by local authorities on their registers other than that which is set out in the Bill. To be clear, the purpose of these powers is to ensure that local authorities can include useful information in their registers that has not been explicitly mentioned in primary legislation or prescribed through regulations. It will allow that information to be recorded. We do not want local authorities prevented from making their registers a productive tool due to a lack of flexibility but, just to reiterate once again—

Apprenticeships: Entry Requirements

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Whitaker]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how they support people enter the apprenticeship system who have not been able to meet the entry requirements, including on literacy.

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

My Lords, apprenticeships are jobs with training, so it is employers who make recruitment decisions. But we have introduced flexibilities, so that adult apprentices no longer need to achieve stand-alone English and maths qualifications, while strengthening job-specific English and maths training. This will allow more adults to access apprenticeships and support thousands more to achieve them, helping to meet skills shortages in sectors such as construction and healthcare. Apprentices under 19 must still achieve these qualifications, putting them in the best possible position to progress in life and work.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to hear that Answer. But the potential of a very large proportion of 16 to 18 year-olds in the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities—a larger proportion than for any other minority ethnic group—to enter further education and/or to gain the apprenticeship status which could get them employment is still not being realised. In the years 2019-24, their entry into apprenticeships was never more than 170 per year. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the main reason, the significant drop-off in secondary school attendance and attainment for these children, needs targeted research into the many causes, encouragement of schools to sign up to the pledge to create a Gypsy, Roma and Traveller-friendly environment, and specific interim action; for instance, to expand the relaxation—

[Noble Lords]

Question!

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

It is coming—to expand the relaxation of the requirement for level 2 maths and English for young people judged to be capable?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is a valued advocate for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and her work is important in helping us to understand what more the education system needs to do to enable their achievement. We recognise the issues faced by young people in those communities and want them to thrive, whether at school or in work. I want more people from underrepresented backgrounds to be able to access apprenticeships. I attended a very useful round table with some of our largest employers just this morning to talk about this issue. We are developing new foundation apprenticeships for those starting their careers. This is also an important step towards our youth guarantee of education, employment or training for every young person.

Schools: Citizenship Education

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right about the challenge of engaging young people in politics—a challenge that rests with the political parties represented around this Chamber as well as with our schools and broader civic society. I was very proud to be the Minister, under the leadership of my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who introduced citizenship into the curriculum in the first place when I was last in government. The noble Lord makes a fair point about the need to ensure that there is sufficient quality of resource and teachers to make sure that it is effective in our schools. I and my colleagues in the department will certainly bear that in mind.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for jumping the gun, but the experience of my grandchildren does not tally with those of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, since they seem to engage in quite a lot of citizenship— but maybe that is to do with the school, which is a comprehensive. Does my noble friend agree that one of the elements which might bring more 16 year-olds into full participation in our democracy is to educate them in our shared culture of human rights? There is something in it for them and something in it that they can do.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that, although there are challenges, many schools and teachers are facilitating an enormous amount of knowledge, discussion and consideration of a wide range of issues under the heading of citizenship. She is also right that we should include knowledge about our human rights and our responsibilities as citizens within that. Not only is that part of the curriculum but it is being delivered in the very best schools—and, in fact, broadly across schools.

Home School Education Registration and Support Bill [HL]

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has form on this. I congratulate him on his determination, ever since he picked up the baton from my retired noble friend Lord Soley to rescue many vulnerable children. Despite the promises of the previous Government, nothing ever materialised, yet the number of children missing from school has clearly significantly increased, even though we do not know the exact number. So, alarmingly, has the number of children recruited on to county lines to deal in drugs under the intimidation and violence of criminal gangs. Was it not a dereliction of duty for the previous Government to abandon these children for so long without recognised education?

I should first say that it is still of prime importance to make it easier for all children to attend proper registered schools and thrive there. That has not always been so, and of course, as has been said, there have always been parents who educated their children at home well—often very well. Such parents have nothing to fear from the Bill, nor will the parents of children in registered religious schools. I hope that, in the interests of the large number of children who have massively missed out by being out of school, all parents will understand the need for the register.

This Bill will provide the lifeline of a proper education for some groups of children in particular. I first mention children of the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities, who drop out or are expelled or encouraged out of insufficiently inclusive schools in larger proportions than any other ethnic group. Their parents may have chosen home education because the bullying their children faced is intolerable, but they may not be equipped or have the time to home-educate properly.

However, there are also the children who have been made to attend those unregistered illegal schools whose narrow curricula and harsh punishments do not enable them to thrive. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse found cases of physical and sexual abuse in some of those schools. This also needs to be dealt with

I have a few small concerns with the noble Lord’s Bill. In new Section 436D(1)(a), the obligation on parents to inform the local authority of home education may be impracticable for marginalised parents. Perhaps it should be the schools which inform the local authority, at least in the case of expulsion or the choice of elective home education. Also, I cannot work out what the difference is between new Section 436C(2)(j) and (k). That is only a detail, though.

Finally, a small number of families travel for work and in observance of cultural tradition, but local authority transit sites allow them to stop for only three months at a time, which disrupts their children’s education. They do not want that, but it predisposes them as a family to choose home education when they might not have the capacity. If the Department for Education were to continue its very welcome support for Open Doors Education & Training’s distance learning scheme, partnered with the Traveller Movement, this gap in home education could be filled. Can my noble friend guarantee that?

I hope that our Government can give this Bill a fair wind or provide their own version of its promise.

Education: Early Years Attainment Gap

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

With respect to services delivering healthcare, my noble and honourable friends in the Department of Health and Social Care are considering the implications and will bring them forward. I point out to noble Lords opposite that there is no point demanding improved provision and arguing for, for example, a childcare entitlement that will involve considerable additional spending—which this Government have found in last week’s Budget—while being unwilling to find the money necessary to fill the £22 billion black hole that we inherited from them.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a certain amount of research which shows that children who attended early years education thrived more. They had higher incomes and they certainly benefited from higher and tertiary education, and I think they kept out of prison a bit more. Will my noble friend keep an eye on the continuation of this research, which might even help her get more funds for early years care from the Treasury?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that investing money in our youngest children demonstrably improves their outcomes later in life. It is the most effective place in which to invest that money. That is why my honourable friend the Secretary of State has made it her number one priority for the Department for Education and why we were pleased to receive from the Treasury additional money to enable us to make progress in this last week. I will certainly keep an eye on the evidence that my noble friend identifies, and I am sure my noble friends—including my noble friend Lord Livermore sitting next to me on the Front Bench—will be keen to hear about it when they find additional resources for this very important area of work in the future.

Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I welcome this Bill, so comprehensively and eloquently introduced by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth. It is indeed time to pay more attention to what citizenship consists of and what our society stands for. We benefit from a diverse society but its cohesion has deteriorated during the past years. The Bill would improve cohesion by affirming common and positive values. In general, it would give our children—and others—firm ground on which to develop the standards of behaviour that we need to live together peacefully and creatively. It covers the important elements that make our social norms.

I would like to highlight one provision. A principle from which we would particularly benefit from promulgating is that underlying the Bill’s inclusion of individual worth: the value of respect for and acknowledgment of the dignity of each of our fellow citizens. We have expressed this in our laws of human rights. They essentially enable tolerance; if we are to be tolerant, we need to be aware of what we tolerate and what the enemies of tolerance are. Both democracy and the rule of law underpin freedom but, without respect for individual worth, freedom is undermined and, in particular, minorities suffer from majority decisions. It is also time, I think we all agree, that respect for the environment took its place among our ideas of how we respect each other.

We should take pride in a degree of ownership of modern ideas of human rights. It is true that the ideas of respect and tolerance have an ancient pedigree—the code of Hammurabi and the edicts of the fifth century BC Indian king Ashoka are often quoted as the origins of human rights concepts; perhaps they are inherent in the way human nature has developed—but the European Convention and the post-war United Nations instruments have had substantial British input. Whatever some eccentric politicians might say, they have been universally adopted and underline our sense of common humanity. I would like to see the words “human rights” on the face of the Bill, therefore; I hope that, nevertheless, our Government can give it, or their own version of it, a fair wind.

King’s Speech

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I too shall underline the role of further education. I declare an interest as a past chair and current fellow of the Working Men’s College and a former chair of the Department for Education stakeholders’ group for the education of Gypsy, Traveller and Roma people. May I also say, after my new noble friend Lady Smith of Malvern’s inspiring maiden speech, how good it is to see her in Parliament again, and in one of her many areas of expertise: education?

The nation has voted for change. Adult and further education are essential to change. Closing the substantial gap in our level and spread of skills would go far to achieve the improvement in productivity that we need to fund services, security and well-being. Of course we need investment in technology itself but we need, crucially, investment in people. It is no coincidence that our competitors have better productivity, together with higher status and capacity for technical education. I welcome the comprehensive strategy for post-16 education in the Labour Party manifesto, referred to in the gracious Speech.

The British neglect of technical education is long-standing. Changing it requires a new mindset: parity of esteem in engineering, for instance, valuing design and all the skills which require problem-solving, collaboration and multidisciplinary approaches far more highly, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, noted. We were good at this when our great 18th and 19th-century inventors flourished—though, interestingly, few of them had an elite education—and we remain good at high-level scientific education, invention and discovery. But where technical education kept pace with scholarship on the mainland of Europe, here it lagged, perhaps outgunned by the prestige of classical public school education and ideas about the needs of governing an empire.

In further education, so we have inherited confusion, a welter of qualifications and a failing apprenticeship system. The new comprehensive approach should rely on destination data to monitor that it is getting people into the jobs we need for a modern, high-skill economy.

The personal satisfaction of worthwhile work, cited by our Prime Minister, is also a force for social cohesion. When I was chair of the Working Men’s College, the sense of achievement among students who were retraining, repairing the gaps in their secondary education, or bringing the motivation which moved them to emigrate to the United Kingdom to inspire qualifying for work, brought home how precious personal fulfilment is. Women who had never finished school were able to provide for their families; young men whose school education had left them apathetic and unconfident found their feet in society.

But education think tanks have estimated that a missing third never get on to the skills ladder. Further education can return them to the path to worthwhile work. For that, what goes on in secondary schools is crucial; early careers guidance for all, steering towards examination subjects, the essential ensuring of basic literacy and numeracy to gain entrance to the next stage, bringing back the children who have dropped out—all these are passports to personal fulfilment and economic contribution for the missing third. Can my noble friend assure me that the path to further education will start in schools?

Finally, a shameful reason for dropout is the alienation which comes from discrimination and prejudice. The proportions of some black and minority-ethnic groups who enter and complete further education are far below the numbers of their populations. This is starkly obvious for Gypsy, Traveller and Roma people and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for her support for efforts to tackle their disadvantage. I have been working with the Association of Colleges on a campaign to widen access to all black and minority-ethnic people. Since April, 40 colleges have pledged action, which we shall celebrate in Parliament on 9 September. Will my noble friend join with me in congratulating those colleges and the association on a project which will improve lives and help to power our economy?

Ethnicity Pay Gap

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government agree that it is worth while but not that it should be mandatory. We have developed clear guidance for employers and are seeking case studies from employers monitoring ethnicity pay data—but also, crucially, their diagnosis of any gaps and their action plan to address those gaps—so that other employers can benefit from their experience.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the ethnicity pay gaps is the difference in income that arises from art awards. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Delaine Le Bas, who has just been put on the Turner Prize shortlist for her art deriving from her Romani heritage, as well as the other distinguished members of the shortlist from minority-ethnic backgrounds?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am delighted to celebrate with the noble Baroness.

Schools: Admissions

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As I tried to set out in my initial Answer, we believe that all children have equal access. Only when a school is oversubscribed can the admissions authority introduce additional restrictions. Indeed, many faith schools do not restrict on the basis of faith.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

How does the Minister respond to these remarks from a parent in Oldham who told Humanists UK that

“the 2021 Census found that those of no religion, and those of other faiths than Christianity, now form a majority of the population in our town. So it is a great injustice that one of the best schools in Oldham actively prevents local children from benefiting from its excellent teaching”?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

If there is a specific example where the noble Baroness believes that the admissions code is not being followed by a school, I will be delighted for her to refer it to me.