School Absences

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Blunkett]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many children in (1) primary, and (2) secondary, schools in England were absent the weeks commencing (a) 10 January, (b) 17 January, and (c) 24 January.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I declare an interest, in that my 10 year-old grandson, Oscar, currently has Covid.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I am very sorry to hear about the noble Lord’s grandson. I hope that he recovers speedily.

Absence data is collected by the department on a termly basis, but we publish fortnightly data on on-site attendance in state-funded schools. The latest data, from 17 to 20 January, shows that average secondary attendance was 86.7%, unchanged from the previous week, while primary attendance was 89.4%, down slightly from 91.8%. Absence figures specifically for Covid-related reasons are published fortnightly, and were 5.7% and 3.4% in primary and secondary in the week of 17 January, and 3.7% and 3.5% in primary and secondary in the week of 10 January.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I am very grateful for the kind words of the Minister.

The latest ONS figures for last week show over 600,000 primary school children not in the classroom. This would be worrying at any time, but obviously with the statistics relating to the national tutoring programme at a miserable 15% of their target, the remedial action that is needed is clearly not working. Can the Minister go back to the department and work out what has happened with the contract which was relet last September?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord is right to raise the issue of the 600,000 primary-age children not in school, although I remind the House that there is a clear expectation that all schools offer high-quality remote learning. We are working very actively on the national tutoring programme contract and are confident that we will reach our objectives.

Disabled Students’ Allowance Scheme

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am slightly confused by the noble Lord’s question. My understanding is that his point was valid up until 2019, but we changed the criteria then so that any pre-existing dyslexia assessment from any age would be valid in higher education.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, on that very point, will the Minister take back to other departments the immediate expansion of the pilot programme for the passport that allows the assessment to be carried through not just for disabled students’ allowance but to access to work? If this were carried all the way through from school and college this problem would, at least in part, be resolved.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would be delighted to share that with colleagues in other departments.

Children and Families Act 2014: Education, Health and Care Plans

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Blunkett]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to amend the Children and Families Act 2014; and in particular, the eligibility requirements for obtaining an Education, Health and Care plan.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, the special educational needs and disabilities system, established in the Children and Families Act 2014, does not consistently deliver for children, young people or their families. This is why the Government established the SEND review, which will consider all elements of the SEND system, including the effectiveness of education, health and care plans. We intend to publish proposals for full public consultation in the first three months of 2022.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, attention has rightly been paid over recent days to the disappeared children, who have not attended school or anywhere else in the last 18 to 20 months. One of the worst aspects of this is that tens of thousands of children with special educational needs have disappeared because they do not have the support necessary. We have had an NAO report, and a Commons Select Committee report two years ago; we have had an internal review going on for two years. Is it not time that the Government accepted that the simple truth is that, while capital spending is very welcome, what is needed is cash to fund the EHCPs, to make certain that young people can get to school, stay at school and have a decent education at school?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord is right to remind the House of the tragic events of the last few days. I think there are different aspects to addressing this. He is right that the Government have announced £2.6 billion of additional capital funding to provide more places, and those are much needed. The Government are also providing considerably more revenue funding to local authorities—an increase in 2022-23 of £780 million. The review will also focus—I am sure the noble Lord will agree with this—on earlier intervention wherever possible.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, before the Third Reading of this Bill I would like to make a short statement about our engagement with the devolved Administrations. Officials and Ministers have worked closely and collaboratively with their counterparts in the devolved Administrations throughout the passage of the Bill. We are continuing to discuss the requirements for legislative consent from the Welsh Government for this Bill and are grateful for their continued engagement on this issue. I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it is not my intention to delay the House, given the length of the previous debate on procedure, but I want to make three points. First, in the debate in this House on the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill we have had some exemplary and extremely profound contributions from Members. I want to appeal to the Minister, who is new to her post, to take back to her ministerial team and the Cabinet, as this Bill moves to the House of Commons, the genuine feelings of this House and—as has just been displayed in terms of the procedure issues—to think, reflect and not necessarily to move at the speed to which the Government are currently committed on certain aspects of government policy in relation to defunding qualifications.

I know from previous experience in my dealings with the Minister that she does listen and does care. I say to the officials who do not often get addressed in this House, or for that matter in the other House, that getting something done well is better than getting it done quickly—particularly when those who have put through legislation are rarely around to see the consequences of their own mistakes. Sometimes it would be good if those officials working on Bill committees were able—I have put this forward on many occasions in the past, so this is not a knock at them—to take forward the legislation on which they have worked. It would be an exemplar way of using their talent and ensuring that other people simply did not pick up the pieces of something that has been done before.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 12th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I was going to say it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Baker, but actually it is an extremely daunting task after that magnificent speech.

I shall speak to my Amendment 32 and add my support to Amendments 27, 28 and 33, to which I have added my name. But I support all the amendments in this group, which, as has been so powerfully set out by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, address a key concern over the Government’s policies on technical—or can I still say vocational?—qualifications.

I remind the House of my interests as a vice-president of City & Guilds, an organisation for which I worked for 20 years on practical, work-based technical and craft qualifications. BTEC broke away from City & Guilds in the 1970s, originally separating the business from the technical as BEC and TEC, but then coming together to offer both types of qualifications, particularly but not exclusively for secondary schools and further education colleges. Over nearly half a century, BTEC has built a reputation which is recognised, understood and valued—or, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, respected—by candidates, employers and academia.

It would be an act of extreme folly and damage for the Government to undermine, let alone cease to fund, a set of qualifications which have had a profound influence on the work skills of the country, especially, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, pointed out, for disadvantaged groups, and especially at a time when the country needs all the skills it can muster. We need skilled people to replace all the skilled workers which Brexit has seen return to their countries of origin. Do you know, I do not remember seeing that in the Leave campaign materials: “Vote Leave and be deprived of all the skilled workers you need.” We have shortages of farm workers, HGV drivers and butchers. My grandfather was a butcher. He had no problems in those far-off days in encouraging young people into an essential and respected trade.

Successive Governments’ relentless focus on universities and academia has led to a generation believing that actually doing things is less worthy than thinking things. We must urgently work to address the academic superiority which has so beset this nation for generations.

This Government have invented T-levels. Previous Governments, academically minded, have tried to invent different sorts of vocational qualifications. We had NVQs, which were going to be the vocational qualification to end all vocational qualifications—they were brilliant. We had GNVQs, we had CPVE. I looked after CPVE for a while. It was a brilliant secondary school practical programme. It was done away with by the academic superiority, who said that it lacked intellect. We had diplomas. They were all designed to break through this country’s unwillingness actually to do and make things. T-levels are untried and untested and will pose real problems, particularly, as has been mentioned, in the work element.

In proposing those shiny new toys, the Government chose to ignore City & Guilds and BTEC, with well over a century of expertise. They need now to put their weight behind those schemes which are proven and to encourage candidates to work with colleges and employers to fulfil their potential and fill the skilled jobs which are so crucial to the country’s well-being, indeed to its survival as a 21st-century force for good.

I support all the amendments in this group. Mine insists that the institution must publish specified criteria before it can withdraw funding, or approval, from an existing qualification. That of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, insists on public consultation; that of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, promotes the combination of academic and vocational education; and that of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, also calls for public consultation and the consent of employer representative bodies. On all sides of the House, we express concern that the Government’s blinkered support for their own invention threatens to undermine all that has been good and valuable in the past.

I wish the Minister well in her new post and hope that her own academic background will enable her to see just how important it is that we protect all that has been good and successful in the vocational field and support both BTEC and City & Guilds qualifications, which have been the bedrock of work-based skills for so long.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak extremely briefly, otherwise I think we will lose the amendments that we want to support. I declare an interest, because I have assisted Pearson’s with its consultation, including attending workshops chaired by the former Conservative Skills and Apprenticeships Minister, Anne Milton.

I have never met anyone outside the DfE who thinks it a good idea to do away with BTECs. I have not met anyone who thinks it impossible to promote the quality and worth of T-levels without having to demonstrate that they must do away with, defund or have a hard stop on BTECs and associated general qualifications. It is perfectly feasible to square this circle, and that is why I have put my name to all the amendments before us. I thank my assistant, Joanna Firth, who has been liaising with noble Lords and those outside who are campaigning on this critical issue.

It would be a great shame if—perhaps I may just refer to myself here—ageing Peers did not actually protect the interests of the young people we so often talk about, the vocational qualifications and drive for good-quality vocational opportunity that we so often talk about on the back of the Augar report and beyond: if we did not tonight help the Government to help themselves. The new ministerial team will need time to absorb what is being put in front of them and what they have inherited from their predecessors. The civil servants have worked extremely hard on this aspect, including in the Bill, but—I say with some temerity —they need to avoid the syndrome I found all those years ago, which is that once people have got on a trajectory, they cannot find a way of getting themselves off it. Tonight, we have the opportunity of helping both officials and Ministers to get themselves off what could be an absolute disaster. It is not often that I offer to help the Conservative Party out of a hole, but on this occasion, it matters. If a quarter of a million-plus young people are denied a route to a good qualification simply on an ideological whim, it would be a great shame not just for them but for our economy and our nation.

At this moment, we have never needed training in vocational qualifications more; we have never needed more opportunity to succeed outside A-levels. We know that; we know the gaps; we can feel them; we have seen them in the past month, not just at petrol pumps but on the shelves, in abattoirs and other key areas, including in the steel industry in my city and beyond. We need to support T-levels as a really good opportunity to develop quality, but not position them against good quality, high-level vocational BTEC qualifications. If T-levels are good, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and my noble friend on the Front Bench said, they will stand on their own merits.

An interesting document was circulated for this evening’s debate. I shall quote only two bits of it. It is very interesting, as was the document to which the noble Lord, Lord Baker, referred, published on 14 July and placed in the public sphere on 15 July. Here is a question for the Government.

“Why are you defunding qualifications when we don’t yet know if T Levels will be a success?”


This is the answer:

“The government is committed to ensuring that T Levels are accessible to all”—


I stress, all—“young people”. But of course, they are not, for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, spelled out. If you have to get a particular GCSE at level 6 or above to be able to take part in them, those who currently get levels 4 and 5 and go forward to BTEC are disqualified. We are talking here about tens of thousands of young people.

Education: Special Educational Needs Budget

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I cannot answer that specific question but I am happy to write to my noble friend on the matter. As I mentioned earlier, we are carrying out a review of the SEN code of practice, which will be completed by the end of next year, and I will ask the relevant Ministers to ensure that that is part of that review.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, the modest increase in funding and the review are welcome, but very many parents and young people are extremely worried at the moment, as are the institutions they are applying to. Would the Minister, with his department, take a look at the serious financial situation of the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford and its potential lack of viability? I declare a historic interest in that I went to the Royal National College in its previous guise.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am very happy to accede to the request of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, to do that, and I will carry out some inquiries.

Multi-academy Trusts

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am not familiar with the love-nest situation, but I assure the noble Lord that scrutiny of the sector is robust. From 1 April this year, we brought in a requirement that any related-party transaction in excess of £20,000 had to have pre-clearance with the ESFA, and all other RPTs needed to be disclosed. It is frustrating that I am often attacked about governance in the academies sector while there are also a lot of transgressions in the local authority sector. While researching this Question today, I discovered the 2009 case of a so-called super-head in a local authority school, who was knighted by the Labour Government, was then charged with false accounting and has recently lost his knighthood, been convicted and must repay some £1.5 million.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will agree that mistakes have been made in allocating knighthoods by Governments of all persuasions. But would he not acknowledge that the greater transparency and probity in academies and schools today builds confidence and trust in the system as a whole, and that when he and I gave evidence to a House of Commons Select Committee a year or two ago we both agreed that there was insufficient capacity in the system to oversee the present structure? Will he not go back to the Secretary of State—while he is there—to insist that another look is taken at how we hold to account our academies and schools?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord is right in saying that we appeared together several years ago at an Education Select Committee. A great deal of work has been done since then. Under my tenure, we have rewritten the academies handbook twice—the latest version was released in the past few weeks and includes the change relating to related-party transactions that I mentioned. We updated the academies account direction —the directions for auditors—in March. We have asked for additional scrutiny of new academy trusts to ensure that they have the correct governance structure. We have ensured that there is a scheme of financial delegation that maintains robust controls, that management accounts are shared with the board of trustees and issued regularly and that there is board oversight of capital expenditure and funding to ensure that it is used appropriately for capital purposes. I have written to all auditors in the sector on three occasions during my tenure to stress the importance of many of these issues. The conversation that the noble Lord and I had with the Select Committee a couple of years ago was absolutely right, but a huge amount has been done since then.

Special Educational Needs

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, there is no doubt that there is a serious problem across the country. Has the Minister had a chance to talk to the Secretary of State and his colleagues about holding a round table with local authorities and other stakeholders to try to get to the bottom of the disparity between areas of the country where this is working well and those where it is working extraordinarily badly?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I certainly take the noble Lord’s suggestion on board and will recommend that to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, because we are in a learning period. This is a new and fundamental change to the way that the process is handled. Again, I reassure noble Lords that the process is not dramatically worse than it used to be. It is a huge change. One reason for increasing the number of appeals was that in April last year we extended the scope of tribunals to include health—until then, only education was covered. Before the new regime came into place, between 2008 and 2014 the number of tribunal cases went up every year, except for one year when it dipped by just five.

Education, Health and Care Plans

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the tribunal process is designed to be as accessible as possible. Parents should be able to appeal and present their case without the need for expensive legal representation; local authorities should also not need to engage lawyers. Free advice and support regarding appealing is available from the tribunal and SEND Information, Advice and Support Services, which exist in every local area. To put this in perspective, only 1.5% of cases are appealed through tribunals, so the percentage is not as serious as is often said. However, we accept that this is an issue, and we are looking at how we can improve it.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a danger of us asking similar questions on this issue and goading the Minister into getting his fists up. I propose that he might talk to his Secretary of State about what is clearly a growing problem. While resource is fundamental to it, so is the process adopted by local authorities. Would he suggest to his Secretary of State that all English upper-tier local authorities might be drawn together for a meeting, so that they can examine best practice and ensure that, in the end, the money goes to the pupils, not the lawyers?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

To reassure the noble Lord, I would never take my fists to him under any circumstances. He raises a very important point, because a number of local authorities have literally zero appeals and others have a much higher proportion. It is important that we get them to talk to each other. There are a couple of other points to make. First, under the old regime that ended in 2014, the number of appeals was rising every year, so this is not a new trend. Also, under the new scheme we have two extra areas of potential appeal because we have a much wider age group—we now take them up to the age of 25, instead of just 16. We are also piloting in some areas the ability to appeal on the health and social care element. The main point the noble Lord makes about better collaboration between local authorities is well taken.

Children: Special Educational Needs

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Blunkett]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the resources allocated in the October budget to support children’s services will provide sufficient additional funding to meet the needs of children with special educational needs who are not currently in receipt of support through Education, Health and Care Plans.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, the resources allocated in the autumn Budget for children’s services support were not intended to make specific provision for children with special educational needs. We provide funding for local authorities to support such children through the dedicated schools grant. Core schools funding will be more than £43.5 billion next year. The national funding formula uses a range of factors which estimate the number of children with additional needs to allocate this funding.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the £350 million over the next two years, which the Minister decided not to mention—God bless him. But when we think back to the passage of the Children and Families Act under the coalition, there was all-party and no-party support for the idea that those who did not actually need to get a statement would be supported both in open education and in special schools. Now we have a position where people are desperately struggling, including a blind child going to court here in London this week who is struggling to get into open education. In Sheffield there is an effort to get 18 and 19 year-olds through the barrier that stops them carrying on receiving funding. Surely now it is time for all of us to require the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the forthcoming spending review to meet the £1.6 billion shortfall and ensure that children and parents do not have the fear and the struggle they have at the moment to get the support they need to be properly educated.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, first I compliment the noble Lord on all he has achieved in his career, starting with a disability. It should be an inspiration to all the children in the system at the moment. I can confirm that the Government are completely committed to helping these vulnerable children. Spending plans beyond 2019-20 will be set at the next spending review, but we are committed to securing the right deal for education, including for those children and young people with special educational needs. More specifically, we are providing education, health and social care teams with legal training. SEND inspections are identifying good practice and where improvement is needed. Parent/carer forums are promoting the engagement of families and putting them at the heart of this issue.