Children’s Care Homes: Private Equity

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[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

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[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.

Schools: Safeguarding

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and I associate myself with much of what she said, including on the importance of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. I would also like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, on securing this debate on such an important subject: safeguarding children in schools. Safeguarding has a set of specific meanings regarding the protection of children and vulnerable adults from abuse, neglect and harm. Although I am no longer a working teacher—unlike the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, who made many excellent points in his speech—I did do 35 years at the chalk face, so I know a little bit about it.

The Times Educational Supplement recently identified seven key safeguarding areas that schools should be concerned with now, as mentioned earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. On child sexual abuse material, a recent report from the Internet Watch Foundation found a 64% increase in reported webpages containing confirmed child sexual abuse images in 2021 compared to 2020. Almost seven out of 10 instances involved children aged 11 to 13, and 97% of the images were of girls. It is absolutely vital that everyone working with children is aware of the online risks, has appropriate training and ensures that children have suitable routes to support and reporting.

Next, there is child-on-child sexual violence and harassment. The excellent organisation Girlguiding released figures in 2021 stating that two thirds of their members who were girls and young women experienced sexual harassment in school. Schools should maintain the attitude that such behaviours could already be taking place, and foster environments where children feel safe and empowered to report abuse.

Turning to extremism and radicalisation, the number of children arrested in relation to terrorism offences has reached its highest level since records began. According to the Home Office, 16% of arrests under the Terrorism Act 2000 in the year ending 2022 were of people aged under 18. Young people are particularly vulnerable to radicalisation, and schools need to be aware of key factors: social isolation, precarious emotional ties, and violent peers. Labour have called on the Government to provide an update to the counter-extremism strategy because it has not been updated since 2015. Although the Prevent strategy has been updated, there is a need for a wider counter-extremism strategy.

A growing issue, one that we have talked about many times in this place, is domestic abuse. It has been reported that 62% of children living with domestic abuse are directly harmed by the perpetrator of the abuse, while one in five children has lived with an adult perpetrating domestic abuse. By witnessing the abuse of others, or by being harmed directly, children may experience a wide range of severe and long-lasting effects. All school staff must follow their school’s child protection policy and contact the police if they suspect that a child is in danger.

A term that has become increasingly used to describe safeguarding issues but did not exist when I began my teaching career in Brixton in the 1980s is “adverse childhood experiences”, usually shortened now to the acronym ACEs. These include a range of experiences, such as being the victim of abuse or neglect, parental abandonment through separation or divorce, or having a parent with a mental health condition. Several studies have shown that if a person has experienced four or more ACEs, compared to someone with none, they are more likely to experience poor health and well-being into adulthood.

Another safeguarding issue is trauma, which can occur when a child witnesses or experiences overwhelming negative events. Developmental trauma includes children who are neglected, abused or forced to live with family violence, or who experience high parental conflict. It affects all aspects of a child’s development, including the brain, body, emotions, memory, relationships, learning and behaviour. Schools provide the opportunity for children to experience safe and predictable environments and to interact with staff and peers with kindness and compassion.

Another issue that has grown hugely in the past decade, particularly during and after the experiences of the pandemic, is mental health issues in children and young people. In July 2021, the NHS identified one in six children aged five to 16 as having a probable mental health problem—an increase from one in nine in 2017 and equivalent to about five children in every classroom. Schools should help children develop good relationships and build resilience when dealing with setbacks, and all staff need to be given training on common issues, including anxiety, low mood and depression, self-harm and conduct disorders. The Government’s education plans aim for mental health support for children in only half of their schools, but Labour’s plan is to ensure specialist mental health support in every school to stop problems before they escalate.

Five years ago, the Government committed to producing guidance for schools to support children who are questioning their gender. There are a range of views about how best to support young people, and we have heard them here today, but the clear consensus is that guidance is needed, as mentioned by my noble friend Lady Morris and, in fuller detail, by my noble friend Lord Cashman. I support many of his comments, particularly his observations about his personal experience, of which he spoke most movingly.

During the passage of the Schools Bill, which did not complete its journey through the legislative process, one area that should have made it into law was the provision of a home-school register, a long overdue addition to the safeguarding measures. During the passage of the Bill, I spoke about the increasing number of children receiving an education outside the classroom and how they could be missing out on the benefits a school environment brings. Safeguards are vital in helping to make sure children are not being taught in unsuitable or dangerous environments. Allied to the register is the large numbers of children who have not returned to school since the pandemic: last year more than one in five children were persistently absent.

It was therefore quite disturbing to hear on Tuesday from a Permanent Secretary in the Department for Education that Downing Street blocked its legislating for a register of children not in school. This Government have consistently failed to get them back to school, even though every day of learning matters. It appears that the block on this legislation came directly from No. 10, despite cross-party support and a request from the DfE.

I can clearly state that the next Labour Government will legislate to identify children out of school, and ensure that families and schools get the support needed to guarantee an excellent education for every child and seek to safeguard those children and young people. We will bring an annual safeguarding review in for schools in England, as concerns about children’s safety and well-being are being missed due to infrequent Ofsted inspections. There has been a promising, positive reaction to this idea of annual safeguarding reviews and we will consult closely with the education community. Safeguarding is the number one priority of everyone in education.

Universities: Nuclear Energy Sector Skills

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely do not accept that the UK Government are not on track to meet their climate targets. We are ahead of every other major nation, as the noble Earl knows. We are also doing a lot of work in relation to green skills. Again, we will publish a green jobs plan in the first half of 2024, but we have very attractive green skills offers across every level, from skills boot camps up to the highest possible qualifications.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, when I questioned the Minister on skills on 27 November, she replied that the Government had announced £200 million of funding for local skills innovation funds. Are the Government aware of any examples of these local funds being available or currently used in the nuclear energy sector?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

It depends what the noble Baroness means by the nuclear energy sector. There are some big and strategic employers, and we can see regionally—in places such as Cumbria, unsurprisingly, and Bridgwater—that there is a concentration of activity, particularly in higher education and apprenticeships. If we think more broadly of the supply chain for nuclear, I can be very confident that it is included.

Jobs Market: Graduates

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are committed to the development of apprenticeships at all levels, including, for example, degree apprenticeships for nurses in the NHS. In relation to the earlier question, we are also exploring teacher apprenticeships. I will have to write to the right reverend Prelate on the specifics of the funding of backfilling.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

Can the noble Baroness tell us why the Secretary of State has cut the higher technical education skills injection fund by one-third, down from £32 million to £21 million, at a time when the country is facing major skills shortages? It is just another example of short-termism, selling the country—and graduates—short.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness talks about £32 million; our skills reforms are backed by an investment of £3.8 billion over the course of this Parliament to strengthen higher and further education. In particular, we announced £200 million of funding for local skills innovation funds, supporting the local skills partnerships led by employers.

Children’s Care Homes: Reform

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

To be fair, we need to be careful not to generalise too much. We have had some egregious examples, of which the most notable recently was the Hesley Group, with terrible abuses happening in children’s homes. We also have some very high-quality providers which are focused on many things, including the transition to which the noble Lord refers.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

Local authority budgets are absolutely squeezed; profiteering is eye-watering; there are reports of horrendous abuse; and vulnerable children are being sent half way across the UK. What will the Government do to end the profiteering and ensure that children in care receive the best the system can offer?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I have already talked about the change to the financial oversight that we want to bring in the children’s social care market. The noble Baroness will also be aware that we are introducing a regional model for providing homes for children and we are working with partners both within the sector and in health and justice to co-design this. We will be piloting two regional care co-operatives, which we hope will rebalance that power dynamic between the providers and the local authorities.

Schools: Special Educational Needs

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Obviously, the ESC report to which the right reverend Prelate refers is very recent, so the department is considering very seriously the recommendations from the committee. However, I absolutely recognise that behind the right reverend Prelate’s question is a concern about the quality of alternative provision; but, used well, it can provide an opportunity for early intervention and to return children to mainstream education.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

Can the Minister tell the House what subsequent measures the DfE will put in place following reports from Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission, and from Hertfordshire County Council this week, identifying widespread and systemic failings in SEN provision?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Obviously, we take those reports extremely seriously, and that is the value of having an independent inspectorate. I cannot comment on the specific Hertfordshire case, but we work with the local authority or the trust in question to ensure that those issues are addressed.

Schools: Catering Facilities and RAAC

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

I appreciate that the Minister may need to give a written response to this, but how many children are currently being schooled online in temporary or non-classroom settings because of RAAC? Notwithstanding the Minister’s earlier response, how long do the Government estimate it will take to completely investigate all schools?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

It is not so much that I cannot give an answer now or in writing, but rather that the arrangements schools have put in place change frequently, as the noble Baroness will recognise. For example, a school might be delivering classes in a leisure centre this week but will be back in its buildings next week. Our overarching efforts are to get children back to normal education as quickly as possible.

Cultural Education Plan

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord speaks with great authority on this. I absolutely agree with him that art and culture, as well as other extracurricular activities such as sport and other opportunities, are critical for young people at risk of offending or in prison.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the number of creative studies teachers is on the decline in England: between 2011 and 2022, there was a 20% drop in drama teachers, 15% in music and 11% in art. The Government are still missing targets for recruitment to combat this decline. The impact is that fewer students are studying creative subjects, limiting children’s creativity and risking future talent pipelines for our creative industries. Notwithstanding the answer the noble Baroness gave to my question yesterday, what are the Government doing now to improve the picture for creative education in schools?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Well, unfortunately, my recognition of the noble Baroness’s figures has not changed since yesterday. My understanding is that, since 2014-15, the number of qualified music teachers has risen from around 89% to an average of about 95% in the last couple of years. Similarly, for art and design, 96.5% of lessons are taught by teachers with post-A-level qualifications. However, since yesterday I can share with the House that there will be a new survey on extracurricular music uptake, which will be published later this year, which shows much higher levels of participation in June 2023 in relation to singing and instrument lessons, access to live music performances and participation by children in live music performances. So the Government are not talking about it—the Government are delivering.

Schools: Music, Art, Craft and Dance

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

To put the noble Baroness’s concerns in perspective, I point out that if one takes into account both GCSEs and technical awards, which I know she values, just over half of students—52%—take either a GCSE or technical award. We are funding the music hubs with £79 million per annum for delivery but there is an additional £25 million fund for the purchase of musical instruments. In my Answer I gave an indication of the bursaries we will be providing to encourage recruitment.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, as a former drama teacher and current chair of trustees of the Council for Dance, Drama and Musical Theatre, I know how important studying the arts is to children’s lives. When such access is limited in schools, it is the poorer students who are denied the benefits. Surely we all want young people to carry a love of learning that sets them up to achieve and thrive, and the arts are central to this. Can the Minister give an update on the progress of the cultural education panel? When can we expect its report?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government would not disagree with anything the noble Baroness said on the importance of arts and other wider curriculum subjects. She will be aware that we published our new music education plan in June 2022. We will be publishing the cultural education plan in the coming months.