Boarding School Partnerships

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I very much take on board what the noble Lord has to say, and I respect his great experience in this area in particular. I believe my role in the Department for Education is that of exhorting local authorities to encourage them to consider this option. That is why we had the conference the other day. What was so uplifting about that conference was that, after the address from the panel members from Norfolk council, questions were asked for and a forest of hands went up. None of those questions was directed to me; they were all directed to the council representatives, who could speak of their experiences and show how they have overcome a lot of the problems the noble Lord mentioned—safeguarding has moved on enormously in the last 20 years. My role will be to continue to promote, and if there are blockages in the system that I or the Government can sort out, I will do my best to unblock them.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I met last year with the Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation and acknowledge the good work it does with Boarding School Partnerships. In many cases, there are positive social, care, educational and financial outcomes, but most children in care will have experienced some kind of trauma, and many have unmet mental health needs. The question needs to be asked: are boarding schools equipped to provide the sort of wraparound support that these children may need? Many boarding schools have an established culture of bullying, and the arrival of a pupil who is demonstrably different may play into that. What assurances can the Minister give that he will insist that all care placements are based on the best interests of the child, not the cost to the local authority, and certainly that they should happen only following a full assessment of the child’s needs?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord is quite right that this is not a catch-all solution for some of the most vulnerable children in our society; I completely agree with him. That is why this cannot be a centrally directed government initiative. The decisions lie with the directors of children’s services in individual local authorities. That is what I am saying and why I am encouraging them to talk to one another and ensure that they understand both the advantages and the challenges that they face. I will finish on a quote given by a young person to my noble friend Lord Nash last year, when we launched Boarding School Partnerships:

“What is clear from my experience is that the placement at a boarding school, away from all familiarity was, arguably, a gamble. But this gamble became the most successful move of my 20 years in care. It changed me forever”.

Children: Special Educational Needs

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

To answer the first part of the noble Lord’s question, the changes we brought about were to join the system up so that we were not dealing in silos for children who often have complex needs. One of the most important changes was to ensure that there was cross-agency working, not just with education but with health and social care. The other important change was to be much more focused on outcomes for children in need of this sort of support with flexibility in, for example, being able to provide a personal budget for children and families who need this support.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, autism is the most common type of special educational need of children who have an EHC plan or statement, with 27% of those children having autism as their main need. Despite these numbers, too many children on the autism spectrum are held back from getting the support they need to succeed and 43% of appeals to the SEND tribunal are on behalf of those children. The Minister spoke earlier of the £50 million funding to create more places for SEND children. Capital funding is not the most pressing need. What will the Government do to ensure that the necessary staff capacity is provided to prevent so many children with autism falling through the cracks in the support system?

Restriction on the Preparation of Adoption Reports (Amendment) Regulations 2018

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches are very concerned by the significant drop in adoptions since 2015. Action is urgently needed to improve permanency planning for vulnerable children. During debates on the two most recent Bills covering adoption law, we have raised concerns that the time taken to find a match between possible adopters and children remains far too long, particularly for hard-to-place children, disabled children, older children, sibling groups and children from BAME backgrounds. We also feel that more support should be given to children after they have been adopted, particularly if they have poor mental health.

Powers have to be given to Ministers to force local councils to combine their adoption services into regional agencies. These must be exercised transparently, with accountability to Parliament, and must be in children’s best interests. The Government must not focus exclusively on adoption when amending legislation on looked- after children. Recent legislation has so far ignored issues that affect a wider number of children in care, including fostering, access to personal advice, and mental health.

As I have said time and time again, childhood lasts a lifetime. That applies to all children and includes the emotional turmoil that many children suffer, having had unfortunate, turbulent starts in life. Let us do everything in our power to ensure that these children are considered when we make legislation and rules so that they have fair, just, happy experiences to take forward into adulthood.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. I stand at the Dispatch Box representing Her Majesty’s Opposition. It is therefore my job to oppose the Government, which I do with regularity and, I hope, with reasoned argument and some good humour. So by dint of habit, I want to oppose these regulations today, but I am unable to do so, and no matter how hard I try, I can find nothing remotely contentious in them. I therefore say two things to the Minister. First, Her Majesty’s Opposition are content with his Motion, and secondly, normal service will be resumed shortly.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am most grateful to noble Lords for the comments and questions on the regulations. The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, raises important points about adoption. We are very focused on ensuring that adoption times are reduced as much as possible. We have seen a reduction in the last couple of years—of six months from the peak of 2012-13—but of course we are not complacent. I also take on board the noble Baroness’s comments about regional adoption agencies. That process is ongoing: we now have nine regional adoption agencies that have gone live, which cover 44 local authorities, and 16 other projects are in development. We hope that we will not have to use legislative power to coerce, but it is there as a final option if we need to consider it.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for his gracious response. He certainly holds me to account on a regular basis, but I am pleased that there are no more issues to be raised. We wanted to ensure that the changes were flagged up to noble Lords with time to consider them. I therefore commend these regulations to the House.

Schools that Work for Everyone Consultation

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Secretary of State’s Statement. Perhaps I may ask him, first, whether he can say when a breakdown of those who responded to the consultation will be published. Despite the fact that the Secretary of State has in the past stated that grammar schools were “not the answer” to social mobility and were “divisive”—both of which statements are beyond contradiction—we now have a situation where he and his department are standing logic on its head, for reasons that he himself was unable to explain in another place earlier today.

With regard to funding to allow grammar schools to expand, as the Minister has just mentioned, can he say whether they will be permitted to open so-called annexes across county borders, as has been suggested with regard to a school in Buckinghamshire opening an annexe in the Prime Minister’s constituency in Berkshire?

We welcome the fact that the Government have accepted our arguments for retaining the 50% cap in faith schools admissions, but perhaps the Minister can elaborate on the point made in the Secretary of State’s Written Statement published on Friday, which stated:

“we are also developing a capital scheme to support the establishment of new voluntary-aided schools for faith and other providers”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/5/18; col. 25WS.]

What effect do the Government expect that development to have on the number of faith schools and/or the number of pupils admitted on the basis of their faith?

I reiterate a point that I made when the consultation document was published. Its title is not just a misnomer; it could even be said to be a deception because it is categorically not concerned with schools that work for everyone. The document itself has 36 pages but the number of times that those pages mention special educational needs and disability is zero. The Government’s belated response to the consultation has 16 pages but the number of times that those pages mention special educational needs and disability is, again, zero. So this is not about schools that work for everyone: it is about schools that work for everyone without special educational needs or disability.

So the Government’s commitment to selective education apparently extends to selecting the kind of children who are eligible for selective education. That is just not acceptable, and I invite the Minister to explain why children with SEND have been written out of the Government’s plans that were announced last week. If he is unable to do so now, I ask that he write to me, because that is an omission for which thousands of children and their parents deserve an answer.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Lord has asked a number of questions. I hope I have been able to write them all down. I will have to write to him to give him a breakdown of the response to the original consultation.

On the annexes of existing grammar schools, we are very clear that for any grammar school applying for this fund it has to be a bona fide extension of an existing school. I cannot give the noble Lord exact distances but the spirit of the intention is very much that they are here for existing good grammar schools.

The capital scheme that we are talking about is a £50 million sum in the current year. I think it is important to put it into perspective: we envisage that it might create about 4,000 places. We have so far created 825,000 places since 2010 so it is a small amount in the overall context. However, it recognises that it is much more efficient for us to create good places in existing good schools. That is the logic that underpins it.

In relation to SEN, I do not have the detailed information here but I can say we have just announced 14 free schools specialising in special educational needs, including autism and mental health. I think we have opened something like 70 free schools over the last five years that, again, focus on special educational needs.

Child Safeguarding Practice Review and Relevant Agency (England) Regulations 2018

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the protection of children is perhaps one of the most important things that we should be doing. We welcome the safeguarding practice panel; if noble Lords do not mind me saying so, what an inspired choice Edward Timpson is as its chair. His work on the Children and Families Act was second to none.

I want to raise a particular issue that I hope the Minister will address: self-employed tutors. Unlike tutors employed by agencies, they are not legally obliged to apply for a Disclosure and Barring Service, or DBS, check. Accountants, vets, even traffic wardens are required to have such checks, despite the fact that their jobs do not involve regular access to children, yet private tutors who regularly work and are involved with children do not. In a Commons Oral Question, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education said:

“It is ultimately the responsibility of parents to assure themselves about the suitability of any private tutor they might choose to employ before they engage them, for example by seeking and checking references, and asking to see a copy of any Disclosure and Barring Service certificate”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/3/18; col. 12.]


As it stands, self-employed tutors cannot apply for a DBS check. Instead, they can apply for a subject access request, containing similar information, for a fee of £10, but they are not legally obliged to do so. I hope that the Minister will use this opportunity to deal with this rather strange anomaly. Either we insist that all tutors, whether self-employed or employed by an agency, have the correct requirements or, as a second-best option, they can apply for the certification, as suggested by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these important regulations. We recognise the paramount importance of child safeguarding, which should never be compromised, no matter the circumstances. We further recognise—in doing so, we are confident that we reflect public opinion—the need for a revamp of the system of serious case reviews following a number of deeply disturbing cases in recent years, compounded by the often inept handling of reviews into how such crimes were allowed to occur.

Many of those concerns were articulated during the passage through your Lordships’ House of the Children and Social Work Act and I do not intend to revisit them. Revised regulations and a new system of reviews was necessary and, in clearly outlining the requirements for such reviews at both local and national levels, these regulations perform an important function—no less so the requirements being placed on the relevant agencies to ensure the kind of joined-up action that was often absent in the past.

That said, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this is another incursion by central government into what is properly a local government responsibility, yet more resources are being found to establish yet another ministerial body—or are there? Just what resources, in the form of new money, will be made available is less than transparent. Yesterday, when these regulations were considered in another place, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Nadhim Zahawi MP, said:

“The funding should be sufficient to cover all elements of the arrangements. We do not expect the new arrangements to cost more than existing structures”.—[Official Report, Commons, First Delegated Legislation Committee, 8/5/18; col. 5.]


That suggests that the Government do not treat this serious matter seriously enough to commit to additional resources, should they be necessary. The existing system was not performing adequately, hence these regulations. To suggest that this revamp, and the appointment of a new body, will not add to costs is surely not realistic.

We know that the former Children’s Minister, Edward Timpson—he of the shoe shop family—will chair the new Child Safeguarding Review Practice Panel. I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that, with his record, he is a man in whom we have some confidence to carry out the task effectively. He will bring experience and authority to the post and we wish him well. However, he will be a busy man because he was also appointed last month as chair of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. He will receive £500 a day as chair of the panel, and his members, £400 plus expenses. Those rates do not sound unreasonable but if I have a concern, it is over the number of times that the panel will be required to meet and the number of panel members that it will require. I suggest that the cost remains an unknown, but perhaps the Minister can give us the Government’s thinking on this and how much, in rounded figures, it is expected to cost. As I said, it is not realistic to think that establishing a new body will not involve additional costs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I am most grateful to the noble Lords for their comments and questions on these regulations. I can address some of the points raised. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, raised an important point about the role of tutors and how they should be checked. I will write to him on that, as it is a technical matter.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised several other points and I will try to address those. In terms of funding, it is important that the local areas have the flexibility to fund the arrangements that they design. The safeguarding partners should agree the level of funding secured from each partner, which should be equitable and proportionate, and the contributions from each relevant agency to support the local safeguarding arrangements. The funding should be sufficient to cover all elements of the arrangements. Any requirements for the national panel will be funded from the centre. We do not predict that there will be additional costs because we are hopeful that this will remove a lot of the overlap that there is in the system at the moment.

I am pleased that there is strong cross-party support for the appointment of Edward Timpson. He is very experienced in this area, but I take note of the noble Lord’s point about him being overstretched. The exclusion inquiry that he is looking into at the moment is a relatively short inquiry and should be completed within a few months, so I do not think that there will be significant overlap.

On costs, the fees and expenses of the members and chairs will be published and will be in line with the rates paid to other, similar expert panels.

The panel member that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred to is from an academy trust. We would also consider someone from a local authority who has experience at senior level. Both the Chief Social Worker and Mark Gurrey will bring that as well to the team.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I accept the local authority involvement regarding those named, but I was particularly talking about local authority education, because there has been some concern expressed that education has been left out of the loop, as it were, in terms of those involved. For education to be introduced only in the form of what appears to be a businessperson from an academy trust—I do not know her experience beyond that—without anyone from the maintained sector is a concern. Can the Minister answer the question that I posed earlier, that the figure of five on the panel is just the opening number and that it can be—and probably will need to be—increased?

Manifesto to Strengthen Families

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the family test was introduced in 2014. It includes five questions. I will not go through all of them but I will mention a couple just to illustrate what we are trying to do: first, what kind of impact might the policy have on family formation; and, secondly, what kind of impact will the policy have on families going through key transitions such as becoming parents, getting married and so on? So the test is already operating on a voluntary basis. We are cautious about making it statutory because that would very much remove flexibility in how it was used.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the document in question seems to yearn for a return to an age when the nuclear family was ubiquitous. Social norms have moved on a bit in the past 50 years, and to advocate, as the document does, tax benefits for married couples alone unfairly stigmatises not just single parents but the children in such families. The manifesto of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, also advocates family hubs. These already exist; Labour created them with the Sure Start programme, and by 2010 there were some 3,600 children’s centres, reaching almost 3 million children and their families. Those figures are now halved as the result of a succession of budget cuts. Will the Minister explain how that squares with the Conservatives’ claim to be the party of families?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we recognise the value of family hubs. We have perhaps slightly shifted the emphasis with, for example, the introduction of 15 hours’ free childcare for the most disadvantaged children in this country. In the last two years participation has gone up from 58% to 71%, and 500,000 children now benefit from it. We believe that is a very effective mechanism to work alongside children and family hubs.

Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 27th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I note my noble friend Lord Soley’s request to be mindful of time constraints and will say that this is the only time that I intend to speak today. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that I recognise the amount of time and effort that he has put into framing the amendment. We support it, although I would not wish it in any way to detract from the key aim of the Bill, which, as my noble friends Lord Soley and Lady Morgan said, is ensuring a form of registration.

I shall repeat what I said at Second Reading, in so far as we support the Bill and are concerned about the situation regarding children in non-school settings. Elective home education is a right established under the Education Act 1996. I am certain that in the clear majority of instances, such a decision is right for the children involved and is supported by parents who have an understanding of the educational needs of their children and the ability to ensure that they are met. Many work well with their local authority to ensure that a good education is provided. In those cases, home schooling is appropriate and such out-of-school settings do not present cause for concern. I say to noble Lords that these are not the people at whom this Bill is primarily aimed, nor is it aimed at the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and his family, because nothing in the Bill would have prevented the rich home education that his children and grandchildren clearly had.

The problem that must be addressed is that many children who are either never presented to school or subsequently withdrawn do not enjoy such a benign experience. For the few parents who abuse their children, home schooling offers the perfect environment to keep that abuse and those children hidden. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, the question of exclusions is a further concern in this regard. I listened with great interest to the comments of my noble friend Lord Adonis, particularly informed by his visit to Gateshead yesterday. Pupil referral units, which I mentioned at Second Reading, are often very much part of the problem and very rarely part of the solution.

Academies: Gender Pay Gap

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, is correct that academy pay is set by the trusts themselves. However, we have taken action on high-end pay. One of the first things I did when I took on this job in September was to ask officials to write to 29 single-academy trusts where there was high pay. Since then, we have resolved that 16 of them no longer pay the levels that were indicated in their returns. We have now also written to a number of multiacademy trusts, and in the last couple of weeks we have written to all trusts which pay more than £100,000 or which have more than two people in their trust who are paid more than £100,000. So we are alert to it, I am bearing down on it where we see excesses, and I will continue to do so.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we have known for some time that senior pay in multiacademy trusts is out of control. Now we have evidence that, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, women working in academy chains suffer some of the worst gender pay gaps. Is this not public funding, which is being used to entrench inequality in the education system? I have to say that the Minister is personally associated with this issue. The website for the Inspiration Trust, which runs 14 academies in East Anglia, lists him as a trustee and a person with significant control. Noble Lords may wonder why, seven months after being appointed as an Education Minister, he is allowed to continue to hold those posts. But for now, can the Minister say that, despite the fact that trusts have the right to set their own salaries, the size of those gender pay gaps is a scandal, and are he and his department prepared to give advice to trusts to begin to close those gaps?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, perhaps I should address the Inspiration Trust first, as I was indeed its founder. The chief executive took on 14 schools, seven of which were in special measures when we took them on. All are now out of special measures. Thousands of children are getting a better education than they were five years ago, and that is the essence of what autonomy of pay is all about. Where we have excess pay and there is poor performance, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, I am bearing down on that. No one is more messianic about the misallocation of taxpayers’ money, but we need to strike a balance between autonomy, where good teachers and good leaders are given the chance to develop and improve schools, and those who are not good are held to account.

Schools: Integrated Communities Strategy

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, most dogma is based on ignorance, therefore a good education system is important because it tackles ignorance. All state-funded schools, including faith schools, have a legal obligation to promote community cohesion and to teach a broad and balanced curriculum. They are required to promote the fundamental values of democracy, the rule of law and individual liberty, as I mentioned in answer to an earlier question. We are looking at the moment at how faith free schools can pay more attention to how they attract pupils from different faiths and backgrounds.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Green Paper highlights the fact that 60% of minority ethnic pupils are in schools where they are in the majority. It goes on to say:

“This reduces opportunities for young people to form lasting relationships with those from other backgrounds and can restrict pupils’ outlook and education”.


Yet last year’s Conservative manifesto contained a pledge to remove the 50% cap on faith schools admissions. Surely all our state schools must be open, inclusive, diverse and integrated, and never exclusive, monocultural or segregated. The duty of the education system should not be to emphasise and entrench such differences in the eyes and minds of young people but rather to emphasise the common values, to which the Minister himself referred and which we all share. Will the Minister give an assurance now that the backward step of removing the faith schools cap is no longer government policy?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the matter of the faith cap is still under consideration, so I am afraid that I am not able to give the noble Lord the assurance he seeks at this moment. However, referring to the recent Integrated Communities Strategy document; on education specifically we are addressing eight separate issues which all link to integration: admissions, the free school point I made a moment ago, school linking, fundamental British values, independent schools and registered schools, out-of-school settings and home education. All of them are addressed in this document, and we seek to ensure that integration remains at the heart of our policy.

Schools: Free Lunches and Milk

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they intend to undertake a full impact assessment of the Free School Lunches and Milk, and School and Early Years Finance (Amendments Relating to Universal Credit) (England) Regulations 2018; and what further action they intend to take regarding those Regulations.

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

My Lords, the Government listened carefully to the views that arose in the debate last week. I can confirm that our changes will help those on the lowest incomes. The Government have published an equalities impact statement, which was updated following our public consultation. We are committed to ensuring that at least 50,000 more children will benefit from free school meals by 2022, compared to the previous system, and that no child will lose out during the transition to universal credit. We have also reviewed the threshold following the rollout of universal credit to ensure that those who need support are benefiting.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, last week your Lordships’ House voted in favour of a regret Motion in the name of my noble friend Lord Bassam, calling for a delay in the implementation of regulations which, by the Government’s own admission, will result in more than 100,000 children receiving free school meals under the existing benefits system losing that right under universal credit. In passing, I should say that the vote was carried by 52% to 48%—a margin that may be familiar and one that the Government have consistently told us is decisive and must be respected. But the Government showed your Lordships’ House no respect, because, as the Minister said, guidance was issued two days later.

Ministers have been unable to explain why there has been no full impact assessment on such a controversial issue, not just the equalities impact assessment that the Minister mentioned. It is surely inconceivable that the Department for Education would not have undertaken an internal impact assessment on such a controversial issue. Will the Minister confirm to noble Lords that the outcome of that assessment was so damaging to the Government’s plans that it was suppressed, and will they now either publish it or undertake a proper, public, full impact assessment?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I want to reassure the noble Lord that we take very seriously the concerns raised about this important policy issue. As I mentioned, we published an updated equalities impact statement on 7 February. The majority of respondents agreed that there would be no adverse impact on the protected characteristics. The reason, really, is because we are improving the system, basing eligibility on income rather than the number of hours worked. All the existing recipients of free school meals whose parents move to universal credit will be protected for the full rollout period.