School Inspections: Funding
Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts(1 week, 1 day ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
It would be up to the trust, in relation to an academy, or the local authority to address those specific weaknesses. The department has led on the development of a framework of professional qualifications: leadership qualifications for heads, executive leaders and senior leaders. All those frameworks are clear about the role of leaders in complying with the law in relation to safeguarding and statutory guidance. As my noble friend knows very well, that statutory guidance, Keeping Children Safe in Education, is extremely clear on recruitment practices, DBS and wider appointment checks, but also on referrals back to the Disclosure and Barring Service if someone is dismissed or removed.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
Ofsted reports have seen a sevenfold increase in references to sexual assault since 2017. Mentions of safeguarding issues have doubled and mentions of sexual harassment have risen from zero to 106. How are the Government ensuring that the regulator is able to identify where safeguarding problems exist on a regular basis if further funding is constrained?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The fact that Ofsted is identifying more issues of this type reflects a few different things. Clearly, as in society more broadly, sadly, we do not know whether some of these issues are increasing in volume or whether we are just getting better at identifying them. For the safety of children, it is crucial that Ofsted identifies them, but it is even more important that the schools identify them, and do so early, because Ofsted inspections are periodic and children need to be safe every day.
Independent Schools
Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
I agree with the noble Earl. Independent schools have shown themselves to be areas of great innovation, but we also see important innovation in our state sector. Particularly where the two come together, we see some of the best results.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
Over nine in 10 students study at state-funded schools. Teacher recruitment is in crisis, there is poor mental health support for pupils and school buildings are collapsing. If the Government will not support Labour’s pledge to end tax breaks for private schools, can the Minister tell the House how they intend to fund solving the multitude of problems facing the state school sector?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I remind the noble Baroness that teacher numbers are at an all-time high. I do not deny that there are recruitment challenges, but it is important to be fair about the context. I also remind her that pupil funding next year will be at an all-time high in per-pupil terms. I refer her to the recent results of our pupils in the international leagues tables for both reading and maths, and the dramatic improvement in their performance over the last 14 years.
Higher Education
Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted that my noble friend has brought this debate to our Chamber today. I commend him for the decades of work he has dedicated to the pursuit of better educational opportunities for all. I have the distinction of having been a serving teacher under his stewardship of the portfolio: prior to devolution of education to the Welsh Government in 1999, I had two years of working for the dynamic Secretary of State, now my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who was determined to ensure higher standards in literacy and numeracy and the introduction of the inspirational Sure Start programme, bringing together early education, childcare, health and family support. Unfortunately, this model was disbanded in England in 2011, but I am pleased to say that we kept it in Wales, under the banner of Flying Start. It is still running today, helping the most disadvantaged children and supporting their parents.
I cannot cover all the excellent points made by my noble friend, but some of his most salient are about an holistic approach to the young people of the future, getting them into the right place and giving encouragement. Higher education is indeed for them. It is about breaking the cycle of disadvantage, and lifelong learning is indeed at the root of this.
Many noble Lords have already commented on how higher education institutions play a critical role in driving innovation, producing a skilled workforce and facilitating regional development across the nations and regions. By operating sensitively and in close connection with the places and communities in which they are situated, universities have a distinct role to play in intraregional equality. They can serve as crucial social and cultural infrastructure, offering spaces, services and structures that foster community cohesion and strengthen social and cultural ties, as noted by my noble friend Lady Blackstone, and humanities are indeed a vital area of study.
When I taught for many years at Hawthorn High School in Pontypridd we gained the status, through a series of collaborations, of a university school. For many of our pupils, although the University of Glamorgan—later the University of South Wales—was physically situated in their community, it was as alien a structure to them as any other building in the town. Through various joint schemes and use of the campus facilities, including a wonderful radio studio, it gradually dawned on our pupils that the university was a place to continue their studies after leaving school, and that they could—in most cases, and as I was—be the first family member to go to university.
Universities provide a strong return on investment. We have an uncertain future ahead for our economy and labour market, and high-skilled jobs will be essential to guarantee the United Kingdom’s success. Demand is growing for individuals to be equipped with higher-level skills, as discussed by my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport and the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone.
London Economics estimated, based on the 2021-22 academic year, that the economic footprint of higher education providers contributed 768,000 full-time jobs, £71 billion of gross value added, and £116 billion of general economic output. This does not take into account the wider economic benefit of higher education on productivity, innovation from world-class research, increased wages and so forth. I am sure that my noble friend Lady Chapman demonstrated the value of her university education with so many erudite and insightful comments; I have no doubt that her sons will eventually be persuaded by her to attend university.
The Government report in July 2023 on higher education set out certain reforms, such as improving access to level 4 and 5 courses, and reducing fees for foundation courses which are classroom-based. Some issues that resulted from the report were that, in terms of limiting recruitment to certain courses, academics argued that these courses are accessible for disadvantaged students and important for social mobility and supporting the local economy. Labour argued that basing the outcome of courses on earning potential was limiting, and would restrict opportunities for disadvantaged students.
Many commentators have highlighted the lack of reference to universities in this Government’s levelling-up agenda. It has been reported that building a university in a town is the
“best way to level up a locality”.
There is a pool of graduates, many jobs, and a large influx of spending.
Education is at the heart of Labour’s mission to spread and expand opportunity. From our earliest years, through to learning or retraining as adults, gaining knowledge, skills and qualifications and exploring our interests and abilities enables us to build the lives that we want and the society we share. There was an excellent reminder by my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie of the depth, breadth and success of the Open University in lifelong learning.
Today, the best education that our country has to offer is not available to every young person. The opportunity to learn and train as an adult is limited and available to too few. Our mission to spread opportunity means both enabling everyone to access the opportunities that excellent education brings and giving everyone opportunities throughout our education system.
Our world-leading universities and the research they undertake should be a source of pride and are one of Britain’s great strengths. The 2021 Research Excellence Framework found that the vast majority of UK university research was either “world-leading” or “internationally excellent”. University spin-outs, which commercialise this innovation, can directly drive up economic growth. However, we lag behind countries such as the United States in generating and scaling spin-outs. A Labour Government will track spin-outs from universities with a dashboard to identify what is working and where there are barriers. As recommended by Labour’s start-up review, we will work with universities to ensure that there are a “range of options” on founder-track agreements, helping boost spin-outs and economic growth.
Universities are anchor institutions and, at their best, are civic actors working with partners across local and regional communities to respond to the needs of that place. We welcome the work of the Civic University Network to establish peer review learning to support and expand the work of universities in responding to the needs of their local communities.
Will the Minister say whether limiting recruitment on certain courses reduces the accessibility of university education for disadvantaged young people? As I said earlier, universities are central to breaking down barriers to opportunities for young people, by exposing them to new communities, new people and new experiences, as I saw with my pupils when they engaged with university life. It is therefore, as many noble Lords have mentioned, a shame that the levelling-up agenda gives little recognition to the effect that universities and colleges have on local areas. Why do the Government neglect due recognition for the levelling-up qualities of universities and not want to incentivise more young people to take part in higher education? It is a wasted opportunity, and one which we will hope to redress. Our desire is to build on the legacy of the previous Labour Government’s target for 50% of young people to go to university to reverse the trend of declining numbers of adults participating in education and training. We will press on and ensure that the ambition of any young person to pursue higher education regardless of background or geography is realised.
Skill Shortages in Business and Industry
Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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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.
Ofsted: Pupil Absence Rates
Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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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.
Schools: Special Educational Needs
Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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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 Wilcox of Newport Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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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.
Schools: RAAC
Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for securing this short debate on a most pressing issue affecting our most precious resource—our children and young people.
In the answer the Minister gave to me during Oral Questions last October on this subject, she told me that the Government’s
“overarching efforts are to get children back to normal education as quickly as possible”.—[Official Report, 23/10/23; col. 383]
However, the drip-drip of schools being added to the RAAC list is yet more evidence of chaos from this Government, which have no grip on the extent of crumbling school buildings. One of the defining images of 14 years of Conservative Government is children cowering under steel props to stop the roof falling in. What an unhappy metaphor.
Can the Minister say when a full list of schools affected will finally be available and how much her department expects this remedial work to cost? Parents, children and school staff need urgent reassurance and answers on the steps being taken to support schools, to ensure children can get back to their normal classrooms and to rebuild classrooms riddled with unsafe, crumbly concrete. In early December, the number of schools and colleges with RAAC stood at 231, when the Secretary of State announced that a deadline to remove RAAC from every school would be confirmed in the new year. Is the Minister able to confirm here what the deadline will be, and when will it be announced?
School leaders remain worried about the disruption to learning, with children taught in marquees, portable classrooms, sports halls or off-site. There is a further worry about specialist spaces, such as science labs, drama studios and design and technology rooms. There is a call, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans noted, for examined students to be given special consideration. As a former A-level examiner of some 27 years, I can attest to the disruption that displacement from specialist teaching spaces has on pupil learning. I urge the Government to engage with the examination boards to discuss what we call “mitigating circumstances” for those affected by this disruption.
As noted previously, parents are taking their children out of schools with dangerous concrete and sending them elsewhere. I will give just one example: 100 families have asked a council to move children from two Warwickshire schools affected by unsafe building materials. ASCL said that an unacceptable wait for mitigation works meant that parents were starting to
“lose confidence … and vote with their feet”.
Worryingly, however, RAAC is just one issue affecting schools in England. Some 700,000 children are being taught in unsafe or ageing buildings, according to a National Audit Office report last year. When will this downgrading of the school estate cease? When will real funding be put into making our schools fit for the present and for the future?
I am sure the Minister will expect me to note that, in Wales, we were able to continue with our school building and refurbishment programme over the past 14 years. In terms of RAAC, the situation in Wales was different from that in other parts of the UK, as many schools had been built before RAAC was in use. Since RAAC has stopped being used, we have had 140 new schools built in the first wave, and another 200 schools as part of the current wave of investment by the Welsh Government, in partnership with local government, which runs schools in Wales. This includes both capital maintenance of the existing school estate and a huge transformation programme building new schools and colleges.
In England, I believe there are currently 100 unallocated places on the list for the Government’s 10-year school rebuilding programme, and it is expected that they will be filled by the RAAC situation. The Secretary of State told Members of Parliament earlier this month that she anticipated that there would probably be more than 100 schools that need rebuilding. With schools across England in an urgent state of disrepair and with more than 1,200 originally being considered for this fund, experts are warning that other school building projects are likely to be hit due to the demand from RAAC-affected schools.
The National Audit Office reported that one of the biggest issues facing public buildings is the lack of knowledge of the state of disrepair. The Government have rejected a proposal to have a register of public holdings in a state of serious disrepair. I wonder why the Government are hesitant to have such a register. Last November, the Public Accounts Committee warned that
“the school estate has deteriorated to the point where 700,000 pupils are learning in a school that needs major rebuilding or refurbishment”.
It was shocked and disappointed by the lack of basic information from the DfE on the concrete crisis in schools.
I will end my contribution to this debate by echoing the words of the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Dame Meg Hillier, MP, who said:
“A significant proportion of children in this country are learning in dilapidated or unsafe buildings. This is clearly beyond unacceptable, but overcoming the consequences of this deficit of long-term infrastructure planning will not be easy. The School Rebuilding Programme was already struggling to stay on track, and DfE lacked a mechanism to direct funding to regions which need it most. It risks being blown further off course by concerns over RAAC, and many schools in dire need of help will not receive it as a result”.
Children’s Care Homes: Private Equity
Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
We have announced our new social care strategy. The noble Lord will be aware of the independent review of children’s social care, which we have acted on. We are now starting to implement the initial pathfinder sites to test our new family-led approach to social care. As he said, these are vulnerable children and families, so we need to do this judiciously.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
The Minister previously spoke of bringing in financial oversight to children’s social care. Figures from PoliticsHome show that the average placement now costs £281,000, which has risen by 25% over the last two years. Clearly, swift steps need to be taken to bring down those costs. She has previously alluded to the money going in, but can she be clear about the timeline for a new financial oversight regime and how it will help?
Baroness Barran (Con)
As I said, bringing forward the legislative changes necessary to implement a new regime depends on parliamentary time. However, we are not wasting any time in trying to support the foster market, for all the reasons that noble Lords have already set out.
Coram’s Charter for Children
Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his question. Of course, he is right about the number of closures, but overall, the workforce has increased by 4% in the last year. My noble friend asks about action now: we have announced an increase in the hourly rates paid to providers, to £5.88 for three to four year-olds, and up to £11.22 for the under twos. We are allowing parents to register their interest early in the new free childcare provision, allowing nurseries to expand. We have increased the flexibility for childminders to deliver their services outside the home.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
Improving children’s lives should centre on ensuring that we deliver high standards for all children in all schools. According to an IFS report released last month, schools serving more disadvantaged pupils have seen larger spending cuts since 2010. How do the Government justify this gap in pupil spending?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I do not fully recognise the figures that the noble Baroness refers to. As she knows, we have been adjusting school funding to try to move towards a national funding formula. We have also invested increasingly in the pupil premium to support precisely the children whom she and the Government are most concerned about.