Higher Education (Industry and Regulators Committee Report)

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow so many colleagues who have, or had, positions in universities. I have enjoyed listening to their detailed knowledge. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor. In a sense, her opening remarks absolutely hit on my understanding of the situation. I was slightly concerned when she used a one-word judgment about the Office for Students—I have written it down somewhere and forgotten it. I thought we were against one-word judgments and that, like Ofsted, we did not want to go down that route. I am just teasing. All the issues were very carefully and considerately focused.

We have world-class universities and we ought to be proud of them. They have amazing leadership and staff, but that should not blind us to the fact that there are major problems in some of our universities. There is a great danger that we wallow in praise but do not tackle some of the issues happening around us. One has only to look at the private higher education sector to know that there are big problems, or to listen to students talk about their experiences of simple things such as chasing up and trying to get back a thesis or assignment, or their complaints of there being hundreds of other students in lectures. Those issues may be small and insignificant to noble Lords in this Committee, but to students themselves they are really important.

I have a background as an ordinary primary teacher and headteacher. I did a certificate of education and then went on to university because I realised that I needed a university degree if I were to get a promotion. Like probably everybody in this Room, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at university. University is not just about learning; it is about playing as well. How sad it is that, these days, many students cannot afford, for example, to go to university away from their home. Students increasingly stay in their own locality. I do not know the exact figures but at Liverpool University the students increasingly come from Liverpool, Merseyside or the north-west. When I went to teacher training college, my friends came from the north-east, Northern Ireland and all over the country. I gained so much from that experience of talking to people from different regions and cultures. We have lost that. Universities also provide the opportunity to learn different things and offer extracurricular activities. We talk about the importance of extracurricular activities in schools but they are equally important in universities.

I will come to the issue of funding in a moment. I want to single out a few comments that I feel must be addressed at some stage. The noble Lord, Lord Agnew, was either bonkers or brave—or both—to raise those hugely important issues. Somebody has to address them. We cannot just say, “He would say that, wouldn’t he?” I want to know the answers to his questions. Similarly, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, went on and on, quite rightly, about linking higher education, schools and student satisfaction, but we never get any answers on that. At some stage, I would like to hear the answers. Finally in my general comments, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, that yes, I like the title, “office for lifelong learning”, so let us try to make that happen. It seems to be the right phrase.

When student loans were introduced—we remember all the furore about them; I had forgotten that they were introduced by a Labour Government, of course, although the coalition Government increased them enormously—my party leader and others signed pledges that they would abolish them. However, I thought to myself, “Do you know what? If students are getting a loan and paying for their university education, they will be in the driving seat. They will actually have a say in what is going to happen”. Similarly, when the Office for Students was established, I thought to myself, “Ooh, this is good: it has ‘students’ in its title. It will mean, again, that students are in the driving seat”.

The report is quite worrying but, actually, I can look at it in a positive way. You have to know where you are to find out where you are going. Remember, the Office for Students has as its mission

“to ensure that every student, whatever their background, has a fulfilling experience of higher education that enriches their lives and careers”.

I can tell noble Lords that, as a city councillor, I have referred three cases to the Office for Students. The first was that of a PhD student who was awarded only a master’s degree, not a PhD. She complained and said, “Hang on a second. I didn’t see my supervisor for three years. Covid came along and nobody from the university contacted me”. The university was not at all interested. I contacted the Office for Students and it was very proactive for that young woman. It ensured that she got a year’s extension and was paid some compensation. That would not have happened without the Office for Students, I guess.

The second case involved a mature student who had special educational needs and wanted another year. She had already delayed her degree by two years, and she wanted a third year. The university said no. The Office for Students sorted it out.

The final case was a failure. It involved a student at a Russell Group university. On the day of her final exam, her father died. Imagine that. The university said, “Well, we’re very sorry about that”, but nobody contacted her; I mean, nobody actually said that. Her personal tutor did not contact her. What is that all about? That is another complaint from students when you talk to them. She was told that she could sit the exam in the summer. How crazy is that? She was not given a date; she just had to wait until summer came along. Then, sometime in August, she was allowed to re-sit the exam. That is not the way to treat a young woman whose father has just died. I contacted the Office for Students but, sadly, nothing happened on that occasion.

As we have heard from so many colleagues, the higher education sector faces a looming crisis. It is mainly to do with long-term financial sustainability, compounded by Covid; the freezing of student fees; inflation leading to higher costs for institutions, staff and students; a lack of EU research funding; and ongoing industrial action, as we have heard from a number of colleagues. The financial sustainability of the funding system for the higher education sector clearly needs to be sorted. Has the Office for Students paid sufficient attention to this challenge? It should be questioned on a number of issues. Has it lived up to its promise? Is it trusted by the providers it regulates? Has it acted in the real interests of students? On the last point, my experience is that it has. Have the Office for Students’ duties been applied consistently and equally? Should it focus more on communicating with institutions, rather than relying on data from those institutions?

The freezing of the cap on tuition fees for domestic students and the loss of EU research funding have led to higher education providers becoming reliant on cross-body subsidy from international and postgraduate students. This dependency comes with huge risks. It will be interesting to read Robin Walker MP’s inquiry into university funding’s reliance on international students. As Simon Marginson, a professor in higher education at Oxford University, says:

“If today’s decline in the real-terms value of fees continues … then within a decade even the UK’s most elite institutions will find themselves diminished. This could be further exacerbated as countries such as China … pour money into their own higher education systems”.


Vivienne Stern, the chief executive of Universities UK, says that there is a

“need to have a … conversation about how universities are funded”.

Over 100,000 more young people will be seeking university education by 2030, when there is little space or incentive to accommodate them. Let us get to the real issue. Political parties, particularly in an election year, are unwilling even to acknowledge or to face up to the problems in this field. At the moment, they would rather keep quiet. Can you blame them? “Well, Mr. Starmer, Mr. Sunak and Ed Davey, how are you going to deal with the matter? Are you going to put the funds or the loans up?” Of course they are not going to say anything now. Once the election is over, whoever is in Government, whether it is a coalition Government or whatever else, I hope that those political parties will have the honesty and the integrity to realise that the funding issue is crucial to the continued success of our universities. If they do not do something about it, we will see our world-class universities become second-class universities.

We can already see how this lack of action is affecting universities. Just one recent example, if your Lordships remember, was the University of Essex, which forecast a £13.8 million shortfall, blaming the 38% drop in applications from overseas students for its plans to freeze pay and promotions. In response, the plea for more government assistance puts universities at odds with government. It is argued that the sector has become bloated, providing too many courses that do not offer a return on student investment. But we cannot just leave silence to rule. Perhaps we need to find a new funding model. Is it increasing the level of fees or allowing universities to charge what they want, or do we just let the weak wither and close, and the strong and successful prosper? Do we look—dare I say it—at Vince Cable’s idea of a graduate tax? I do not know, but we have to do something about it. I hear only one or two voices, and they are not from political parties, saying, “Universities need more money”.

Returning to the Industry and Regulators Committee report, I hope the Minister in her reply will want to comment—I am sure she will—on some of the quite concerning conclusions of that report. The Office for Students

“does not engage with its stakeholders”,

whether students or providers; its approach to regulation seems

“arbitrary, overly controlling and unnecessarily combative”;

and,

“there have been too many examples of the OfS acting like an instrument of the Government’s policy agenda rather than an independent regulator”.

Faith Schools: Impact of Removing Admissions Cap

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am very happy to confirm that.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that we are developing, one hopes, a successful, multicultural society, with children of different faiths and none having the opportunity to learn and work and play together. Does she not think it important that in all our faith schools there should be children of different faiths?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The vast majority of our faith schools have children of different faiths. It is typically only in schools for the smallest-minority faiths that one has a concentration of children of those faiths. This is a longer debate that I am happy to have with the noble Lord, but parental choice is fundamental. We are very pleased to see the volume of activity that faith schools undertake with other faith schools of different denominations.

Higher Education: Arts and Humanities

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is aware that we remain absolutely committed to our international education strategy, which has been extremely successful in terms of both the number of students who study in this country and their contribution to the economy. I cannot comment on the specifics of individual towns, but we absolutely recognise the value that those students bring.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister quite rightly pointed out the importance of the arts to our cultural and creative industries, but they are also important to soft power. We are seeing 15 universities making job cuts in their arts and humanities departments and 35 others considering it. I do not need to go through the individual universities, but drama, film, music, dance and entire theatre departments are at risk. Two problems need to be addressed. The first is funding, if we want to keep these creative and humanities subjects at such a high level. The second is the pipeflow. We have talked about the EBacc before, but would the Minister now care to consider what damage it is doing and the danger it poses to the pipeflow to our university and FE sector?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, I really do not follow the logic of how the EBacc is damaging the flow to our universities. Humanities and modern foreign languages are absolutely central and at the heart of the EBacc, but we are building on that with our higher technical qualifications and T-levels in areas such art and design, which will be introduced this year. I remind the House that bursaries and scholarships for, say, modern foreign language teachers are at the same level as for physics teachers.

Educational Trips and Exchanges

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I say a huge thank you to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for securing this debate. The importance of educational trips and exchanges between England and other countries cannot be underestimated from an academic, educational, cultural or economic perspective. They are often life-changing for the pupil or student, who establishes bonds of friendship that can last a lifetime, and of course it develops our soft power.

Universities report that the amount of funding through the Turing Scheme is only a fraction of what the last combined Erasmus+ award was. As a consequence, the opportunity to undertake creative study and work abroad is limited to students on a course with a mandatory period of exchange or students who are able to fund their period abroad themselves. The former is already troubling, as we are aware of the importance of exchange, but the latter is especially detrimental to the Government’s commitment to equal opportunities. This funding shortfall is, unfortunately, not the only issue impeding equal opportunities.

In the first analysis of the Turing Scheme, fewer than half of university students felt that the funding covered half of their costs on placement. Additionally, many described worrying a lot before funding was confirmed, then struggling with day-to-day living costs while waiting for funding to come through. More students reported significant delays in response to their application to the scheme. This means that students who rely on funding to start their exchange will feel forced to drop out of it when delays in funding occur.

Although the Turing Scheme was promised to be a real game-changer for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, it is especially those students who will be negatively affected. I have no objections to the Turing Scheme but, in departing from the Erasmus+ funding, we ought to ensure that the Turing Scheme is equal, if not better—as of course was promised by the Government and Ministers.

The number of students coming to the UK on trips and exchanges is on course to decline for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic. We should all be concerned about this. A report by Universities UK emphasises the importance of international students to local economies throughout the UK. It states that the economic benefits associated with students coming to the UK on exchange programmes are currently being underestimated. Unlike the former Erasmus scheme, the Turing Scheme does not provide for this reciprocal funding. This cut in funding for inbound students raises concerns not just for them and local economies, but for how universities are to sustain relationships with other institutions, say, in research and other educational projects. Moreover, it begs the question whether this reflects the inclusive and welcoming image that we aim to portray as a nation.

Although the Government are clear that they do not intend to establish reciprocal arrangements, I urge them to re-evaluate that stance. Whether it is for languages, music, education, understanding or just plain old-fashioned friendship, a new Government need to work either to restore Erasmus or to develop, as was promised, a Rolls-Royce alternative.

Childcare Entitlements

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity for us to discuss the Statement made yesterday in the other place. I thank the Minister for repeating it today in your Lordships’ House. Noble Lords present are probably united in thinking that the Government’s aspiration in expanding free childcare is welcome. However, unfortunately, it appears that currently only the Government believe that their flagship policy is on track.

My first question to the Minister is: why are Ministers proactively bringing a Statement to Parliament to say that everything is on track, when the Government’s own auditors are now saying otherwise, without the Government acknowledging that there are issues? When I suggested yesterday at Oral Questions that the policy was in trouble, the Minister stated that

“it is a huge success”.—[Official Report, 23/4/24; col. 1369.]

I woke up to headlines that indicated that I was not far off. In light of the report published today by the National Audit Office, will the Minister accept that the policy is, at the very least, at risk of not going to plan? Even the Telegraph is reporting that parents are facing worse childcare under this Government’s childcare expansion.

Are the Government still guaranteeing that every eligible child has a spot now, that every eligible child will have a spot later this year, and that every eligible child will have a spot in September next year? Are parents getting the savings that they have been promised? Why have the Government repeatedly dismissed genuine concerns about the rollout of the plan, when the problems are so clear and stakeholders across the board are highlighting the same problems?

Even the DfE has the expansion as its top programme risk, with risks including insufficient places, operational infrastructure not being ready, insufficient parental demand and an unstable market. When will the Government make a formal response to the NAO’s report? Furthermore, could the Minister confirm that the DfE has itself

“assessed its confidence in meeting milestones beyond April 2024 as ‘problematic’”?

Does she agree with the NAO that the extension does not “achieve its primary aim” or demonstrate “value for money”? How did the DfE think it was appropriate to set dates for expansion without engaging with the sector or understanding local authorities’ and providers’ capacity? Will the Government act on the NAO’s recommendations about continuously reviewing the achievability of the 2025 milestones and will they now publish interim performance thresholds?

I return to the point I made to the Minister yesterday: the DfE’s own pulse survey from last week found that 45% of childcare and early years providers said it was unlikely that they would increase the number of places they offer to under-threes as a result of the Government’s childcare expansion. The NAO estimates there is in fact a net reduction in places—albeit just a 1% reduction —since 2018, but this is at a point at which we need a significant increase in places. Could the Minister outline what the DfE’s plan is if it accepts that it will struggle to reverse this trend, if it finds that the providers simply cannot afford to offer free places, or the one in three nursery and pre-school providers that the Early Years Alliance says are at risk of closure simply do not survive? This would potentially put 184,000 places in jeopardy. How does the Minister explain the disparity between what the Government say and what the sector, parents and councils, and now the NAO, are saying?

The Statement repeated today states confidently that

“no local authorities are reporting that they do not have”

sufficient “places to meet demand”. This is very different from the National Audit Office view that only 9% of areas are confident that they will have enough places. To clarify this point, I contacted the Local Government Association, which told me that councils have reported greater concerns about the next stages of the expansion, where it will extend to children and families who would not previously have accessed childcare to this extent. It is deeply concerned about provision for families that require a different range of childcare options, such as outside traditional hours, or families for children with SEND.

The Coram Family and Childcare survey found that England has seen reductions in the availability of childcare in all categories. Worryingly, the greatest reductions have been in childcare for disabled children, which I understand is now at 6% sufficiency. Can the Minister say why this is the case and what the Government will be doing to remedy this? Local authorities are also concerned about recruitment, particularly because of the higher ratios required for under-twos. They are concerned about the lack of sufficient level 3 qualified staff in the sector. Is the Minister confident that recruitment is on track?

There is broad consensus on the need for a decent childcare and early years offer, including increasing free hours. It is a shared ambition across political parties to have an improved system that works for parents and carers and delivers the best start in life for children. Labour genuinely wants better childcare and early years provision. We have commissioned a review by Sir David Bell to assess a way forward. We want a well-planned, well-designed system that delivers for children and improves the offer to parents.

I am confident that the Minister also wants a system that works, but the first step in this instance to getting that has to be for the Government to accept that there are problems, and work to get this scheme back on track. I look forward to her response as to how, in light of the serious risks facing this flagship government policy, the promised expansion in free childcare and early years provision will be delivered.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her detailed Statement. I would guess that all of us aspire to the aspirations that she espoused on childcare. The issues that we are concerned about—and they concern a number of people—are around whether this can be delivered. I listened to the Statement with great care and the words that were missing were not about numbers but about quality. I have always believed, as my party always has, that it is not just about providing childcare. It has to be quality childcare—and I did not get a sense of that in the Minister’s Statement. There are a number of issues. She mentioned pay, quite rightly, but it is about training as well.

As we have heard, the National Audit Office has raised concerns that plans to extend free nursery provision could compromise—again, that word—the quality of childcare as the sector expands to meet demand. The NAO cautioned that hiring inexperienced staff and a lower supervision ratio for two year-olds could undermine childcare quality. There are also worries about whether inspections by Ofsted would identify issues early enough. The NAO has highlighted concerns about the Department for Education’s confidence in delivering required places, with only 34% of local authorities expecting to have enough places by this September. On the other hand, the Minister has painted an extremely positive picture of rollout. It will be interesting to see who is right.

This ministerial Statement did not mention or address the up-and-coming report and findings, which have been described as utterly damning by the early years sector. The Government must address the findings of this report urgently. The report concludes that there is a risk posed by

“the lack of contingency and flexibility”

in the Government’s “fixed, ambitious timetable”. It is therefore important that clarity and reassurance is provided quickly on how they will address the report’s findings. Families across the country will struggle to plan their arrangements if certainty over the next phase of the rollout is not provided.

Only 17% of nursery managers said that they could offer the extended entitlement, due to the crisis of recruitment and retention. What will the Government do to address this recruitment and retention issue?

Finally, I was interested to hear about the campaign to use unused schools. The Government want to set up what I think they call “in-home nurseries” to create some of the 85,000 places needed. How many schools will be used in the pilot scheme that the Minister told us about? If the scheme is successful, how many schools do they think they will be able to finally use?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank both noble Lords for their questions and for sharing, as we all do across this House, the ambition for all children, as we know the importance of a great start in life.

I will start, if I may, where the noble Baroness did in relation to the National Audit Office report and her question, which was echoed by the noble Lord, about when we will respond to the National Audit Office formally. I can give the House some sense of that today but, in terms of timing, we will also be giving evidence on this subject to the Public Accounts Committee on 8 May—so our plan is to respond to both the NAO report and the Public Accounts Committee in the normal way.

On the NAO report itself, I absolutely understand why both noble Lords rightly raise its challenging aspects, but it is also worth noting some of the more positive aspects. The NAO report identifies that the programme has been fundamentally successful in the rollout so far, meeting and actually surpassing the April 2024 objective. It confirms that the trajectory and take-up of this expansion in entitlement is the same as previous expansions. It also notes that it expects that the number of places being taken up will continue to grow and notes the phased introduction of the new entitlement.

On the recommendations, the noble Baroness opposite raised the achievability of the September 2025 milestone, whether the department would be setting interim performance thresholds and how we would respond with corrective action, if needed. Of course, we continually review the deliverability of the programme. We have a local authority delivery team; we have our insight unit, which analyses the data; and we have pulse surveys, stakeholder groups and provider groups, so we are really well connected into the sector. We have set a series of milestones that cover local authority readiness, sufficiency and workforce and, by the end of June, we will set regularly spaced performance thresholds. We will use those to assess the growth of capacity places and the workforce. Of course, those can and should be updated as needed, as we get live data in.

By the end of June this year, we will agree a set of staged corrective actions, if those actions are needed. To support that, we will also use our data better. We regularly update both our supply and demand modelling, and we share that directly with local authorities. We have a set of KPIs for the programme, which we monitor regularly.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, raised a point about the quality of staff and the risk that, with less experienced staff, the quality might suffer. We do not really accept that. Back in 2021 we made major reforms in early education, which the noble Lord will remember. These were designed to improve outcomes for all children, but particularly for disadvantaged children and children with special educational needs. In October last year we published the evaluation report of those reforms, which showed that practitioners have really benefited.

As we continue with the rollout, we will be looking at the availability and quality of places for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Similarly, for those with special educational needs and disabilities, we will be looking at what the impact is if we see new providers and staff entering the market.

We have also commissioned and funded the children of the 2020s study, which collects longitudinal data on elements that influence cognitive and social and emotional development during early childhood. Obviously, we will share that data.

Deliverability was a key part of both noble Lords’ questions, and the workforce is a critical part of that. It is fair to say that, where we are further away from a delivery deadline, it is not unreasonable that confidence in readiness might be lower. Looking at where we were in November in our pulse survey and what providers were saying about their readiness for April, 65% of them said that they were ready. By the March survey, one month ahead of the extension, that figure had risen by 16 percentage points to 81%. That is just normal.

It is also important to note that all types of providers that took part in our pulse survey have increased their capacity in the last year by over 20% for group-based and school-based providers. The figure is rather more for childminders although, as your Lordships know, they represent a smaller part of the market. On applications, for group-based and school-based providers, the number of applicants to vacancies is now on average five to one, which is a really healthy and promising indicator for the future.

The noble Lord also talked about retention, which is clearly critical. It will be important to improve retention in order to reach our objectives. The additional funding, the visibility of funding and the ability of providers to plan will make recruitment and opportunities in this sector more attractive, but there is work to do to deliver that.

The noble Lord also asked about the number of schools. We are working in a small number of areas with those schools to build a template of what might work. We will test that and, if it is successful, roll it out.

The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, asked about wraparound care outside formal hours. In the Spring Budget last year, we announced £289 million to support the expansion of wraparound childcare for primary school-aged children.

Finally, the noble Baroness rightly raised concerns over this programme delivering for children with special educational needs. She will remember from my remarks yesterday that we are conducting a review of how the special educational needs inclusion fund works to make sure that it is as good as it can be.

We have chosen a phased approach to make sure that we learn as we go along with the implementation of this expansion, but we are doing everything we can to make sure that it is a success.

Free Childcare Scheme

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

It is slightly curious to say that delivery is falling short when the new entitlements start in April of this year. The noble Baroness knows that we have made a significant investment in capital to support local authorities. We have made a number of innovations in relation to the workforce and the uptake of the scheme has been very encouraging. Most importantly—I think the Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed this—we have announced very generous funding rates, particularly for younger children.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I think we are surprised at the confidence of the Minister, given that we have seen a 50% increase in the number of nurseries that have closed in just the last year, that 40% of nurseries say they are undecided as to whether they will deliver the new funded offer for two year-olds, and that 20% say that they will but that places will be limited. Why is the Minister so confident about this scheme? We hope she is right, but can she give us more reassurance as to why she thinks it will definitely happen?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The first thing I would say is that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord are right that this is a very ambitious expansion of childcare. However, the really significant increase in capacity will be in September 2025, so we have some time to put in place what is needed to deliver on that. The noble Lord talked about the number of nurseries that have closed. I know he is also aware that the childcare workforce has gone up year on year, over 2022-23, and is up by 40,000 places—I mean that the number of places has increased in the past five years by 40,000, while there has been a 1% annual decline in nought to five year-olds.

School Meals for Children

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Cooking and nutrition are firmly within the national curriculum: in design and technology they are compulsory between key stages 1 and 3, they aim to teach children how to cook and the principles of healthy eating and nutrition. It is also picked up in the science curriculum; indeed, through the Oak National Academy, we funded a module on cooking and nutrition that will equip children leaving school to be able to cook at least six predominantly savoury recipes that will support a healthy diet.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, is not the problem that the tendering process for school meals is based on cost and not quality? Of course, there is another side to school meals, and that is the famous packed lunch. The experience of teachers and head teachers of packed lunches is that they are mainly filled with bags of crisps, chocolate biscuits, fruit drinks et cetera—not necessarily fruit drinks but canned drinks. Has the Minister any idea how we can ensure that packed lunches as well become a healthy nutritional meal?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord touches on issues relating to how parents bring up their children, which is obviously delicate territory for the Government to pronounce too firmly on. Our messaging around the risks of obesity and on healthy lifestyles more broadly is obviously picked up by parents. Our family hubs also look at things such as nutrition. On the first part of his remarks, I should say that the department centrally offers a service called Get Help Buying for Schools that supports schools to negotiate high-quality and affordable catering arrangements.

Higher Education

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for securing this debate and for his thoughtful comments.

I look back with affection to those heady days of the 1980s and 1990s when the higher education sector in general and the university sector in particular were going through a period of transition and growth—the establishment of new universities and the evolution of polytechnics to university status—although before that the Wilson Government had formed the Open University, which was a pioneering world first. It gave students of any age, background or, indeed, geographical location the chance to study for a degree. Its partnership with the BBC was quite unique.

We saw in the late 1990s how universities released their validating powers and other institutions became stand-alone colleges and/or universities. The higher education sector blossomed and flourished. In my own city, the University of Liverpool was joined by Liverpool John Moores University, and then Hope, Europe’s first and only ecumenical university, was established—joining together two former Roman Catholic colleges and an Anglican teacher training college. More recently, the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, Paul McCartney’s and John Lennon’s former grammar school, has become a performing arts higher education college.

The universities complement each other, as they have worked together on many collaborative projects. The old notion of town and gown is very much still alive in Liverpool; for example, in working together with Liverpool City Council on a science park.

Britain is home to 137 Nobel Prize winners, second only to the United States, a fact that should be of great pride to us all. We are a land of academic progress and innovation. Our physicists pioneered atomic and nuclear physics and our economists designed the liberal world that we live in. Today our universities keep producing world-class, ground-breaking research that shapes our country and our world. Research briefings and research papers of our doctors and professors have inspired policy at the United Nations, the White House and the European Commission, as well as leading innovation in some of the largest global corporations, in the fields of engineering, information technology, artificial intelligence, medicine and much more. But the impact of research carried out in our universities is not limited to the grandest history-shaping excellences. For every history-shaping innovation, there will be millions of attempts by dedicated students and individuals contributing each day to moving the frontier of knowledge one step ahead. These are the students and people we need to support as, without them, there would be no innovation.

But what now? Student fees have not gone up in eight years, and costs have doubled. Student numbers are down, and some universities are facing recruitment problems, as we have heard. Universities are facing severe financial difficulties. Staff salaries have declined, and the brightest and the best are regularly poached from overseas, particularly by universities in the USA. Many staff are now appointed only on fixed-term contracts—try getting a mortgage when you are on a fixed-term contract. Like all of us, universities have been harshly hit by the pandemic and the recent higher costs of living crisis. Universities reporting year-on-year deficits jumped by 5% from 2015-16 to 32% in 2019-20, according to Universities UK.

We need to financially support our universities to keep producing the high-level research that we pride ourselves on and to keep leading in the world of innovation. The plummeting value of domestic tuition fees is forcing universities to rely more and more on overseas students—that is a good thing, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, but they are increasingly hard to recruit. We need to recognise that foreign universities have increased competitiveness and are gaining in popularity. Europeans were once charged domestic fees in UK universities. Now, facing triple the yearly tuition fees, most of them are diverting to new destinations, with the Netherlands scoring highest. Others are finding US universities better value for money, as fees in American colleges have almost come to match tuition fees in the UK.

All this is not to say that our universities are perfect. They always need to support and value the best staff, and the staff always need to put the best interests of the students first. As a society, we need more than ever to have high-level skills, to support our higher education sector and to see a new renaissance in learning and research.

Schools (Mental Health Professionals) Bill [HL]

Lord Storey Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 1st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I obviously start with a big thank you to my noble friend Lady Tyler for this Private Member’s Bill. She is a worthy parliamentarian to take up this issue and to stick with it until she gets the result that is so needed for our children, schools and colleges.

I have rarely been in a debate where I have agreed with every single point that colleagues have made, whether it is about eating disorders, gardening grannies or Tourette’s. I was so glad the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, talked about it, because I had not thought of the effect on children themselves. I suppose that, in some respects, it has all been said before. Indeed, we had the precursor to this Private Member’s Bill last week. Good: the more we talk about it and the more we raise these issues, the more we all learn, and Governments of the day take action.

I look back on my 23 years as a head teacher, and mental health was not talked about in schools. Yes, there was bullying, and schools had bullying policies. Yes, there were behavioural problems, and schools had behavioural policies. Yes, there were children who perhaps behaved in odd ways, and did not turn up for school, et cetera. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester and the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, were absolutely right to say that you do not deal with non-attendance by penalising but by finding out the reason why pupils are absent—it might well be because of a mental health problem. The last thing that we want in the world is for those people not attending school to suddenly decide to be home educated so they will not be penalised.

So these things did not happen and then gradually local authorities and the health service started establishing CAMHS. That was a lightbulb moment for all of us; we saw how effective CAMHS could be in supporting children and young people. And then, sadly, through no fault of politicians perhaps, along came the recession and Covid. Everything ground to a halt. Cuts were made and services suffered. I look back, as I have said many times before, to my local authority of Liverpool. We lost a third of our budget and so looked for things that had to go. Some support services were lost.

I will make a few brief points. We talk about mental health support for children and young people, but get this: it is also needed for teaching and non-teaching staff in schools. Two months ago, I met a head teacher of a very large primary school who had had a serious mental breakdown. He was so busy being concerned about and supporting his staff and pupils that his own health suffered. He should have had support readily available.

As my noble friend Lady Tyler said, across the political divide, we all want the same result: qualified and readily accessible mental health support provided in our schools and colleges. There are variations in what we can provide and how we make that provision. We on these Benches feel that it should be for all schools, not just secondary schools, although we recognise that it may make sense to share that provision across smaller primaries. As my noble friend points out in her Bill, we need properly qualified staff, with wraparound support from other professionals. We understand that there will have to be a rollout, but this should not be an opportunity for delay and penny-pinching.

I also make the obvious observation that early intervention by proper diagnostic support is the most effective provision. The earlier the support needs are identified, the better the pupil, student or staff member can be helped.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, used the term “lobbying”—well, the more they lobby me, the better. We have had important briefings from a number of organisations, such as the Mental Health Foundation, Barnardo’s and the Centre for Mental Health. The Mental Health Foundation makes the important point that levels of mental health awareness within education settings remain highly variable. It calls for a minimum level of provision and qualified mental health professionals in every school. It also stresses how important anti-bullying programmes are to young people, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, pointed out. Mental health issues often start with low-level bullying.

The Centre for Mental Health called for the full rollout of mental health support teams in schools and colleges and a fully resourced national implementation programme to support every school, college and university so they can adopt a whole-education approach to mental health and well-being.

Barnardo’s backed the call for mental health support in all schools, but made the important point, as did my noble friend Lady Tyler, that mental health support teams do not work for all children. Many with moderate or complex needs cannot be supported by MHSTs and do not meet the criteria for child and adolescent mental health support—CAMHS. It believes that the model should be expanded to include counsellors to allow children to access a consistent offer of support.

I think we were all moved by the personal tale from my noble friend Lord Russell. Perhaps “courage” is the wrong word for it, but good on him for being able to stand up and use his own personal experience.

I have two questions for the Minister, which may already have been raised. First, where does mental health figure in the training of teachers, if at all? I think the right reverend Prelate mentioned that. If it does not, why not? Secondly, we are talking about schools but there has been some mention of universities and higher education. I am conscious that universities and the higher education sector are either wholly autonomous or semi-autonomous, but how do we make sure that the necessary support and provision are there? Is it just left to those stand-alone institutions to provide it?

Finally, we must all hope that my noble friend Lady Tyler is successful with her Private Member’s Bill, and I once again say a big thank you to her.

Skill Shortages in Business and Industry

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Storey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the skill shortages affecting business and industry.

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

My Lords, one-third of UK vacancies are due to skills shortages. Sectors with large shortages include construction, information technology and communications. This Government have committed to developing a world-leading skills system that delivers the skills that employers need through T-levels, apprenticeships, skills bootcamps and higher technical qualifications. Where there are key shortages, we have introduced programmes such as the construction and digital bootcamps to increase the supply of people with the right skills.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that helpful Answer. Since this Oral Question was tabled, I have been shocked by the number of employers who have written to me. The Heat and Building Business Council says the UK has faced significant challenges in attracting engineers, despite substantial salary increases of up to 35%, which of course contribute to rising costs for the clean heat sector that are ultimately passed on to the consumer. How do we encourage young talent to consider engineering and green technologies as a secure path for the future?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am sure the noble Lord will agree that many young people are attracted to working in areas that will address climate change, environmental issues and sustainability, but they might not always make the association with those engineering roles as opposed to some others. We are working with business through our Green Jobs Delivery Group, and with the Green Apprenticeships and Technical Education Advisory Panel, making sure that our standards map on to those occupations and that that is backed by great careers advice for young people.