King’s Speech

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I will focus on three areas in relation to the gracious Speech: children who are not in school; the quality of courses in higher education; and mental health inequalities.

I support having a register for children who are not in school. As the recent case of Sara Sharif highlighted, children being home-schooled drop off local authorities’ radar and become invisible. However, a register alone will not solve the problem of safeguarding the well-being and healthy development of children. Although many parents provide a stimulating and safe learning environment at home, not all do. For example, children with special educational needs may not receive the educational support that they require. Furthermore, the surge in online schooling that accelerated during the Covid pandemic poses additional risks to children. Who is monitoring the quality and content of these online courses?

Legislation should be strengthened to include: the establishment of a regularly updated register; the authority routinely to monitor children’s educational progress and well-being; and the power to scrutinise reasons for home-schooling and even relocating to a different jurisdiction, including overseas. For example, some girls from ethnic-minority communities could be at increased risk of female genital mutilation and forced marriage.

It is really important to understand the current situation and fully establish the facts. The Government should therefore publish the rates of home-schooled children over the past several years, the demographics, the hotspots and the reasons for home-schooling. No doubt some of the reasons may include bullying, mental health, subpar education or curriculum-related apprehensions. How do the Government propose to address these concerns? If they are not addressed, we will see a further rise in home-schooling.

Next, I want to address the quality of university courses. The Government want to tackle the growth of low-quality courses, apparently, but I am concerned about the criteria used to determine what these are; they might even take away opportunities from minority-ethnic students who are already disadvantaged in higher education. For example, the criteria might be the ability to be employed. Some students may live in areas where there is a lack of jobs or wages are low and may not have the means or the freedom to move away to a different locality. In some communities the burden of caring is much higher, which may hinder a student’s ability to move away or go into full-time employment. Some people study courses because they enjoy the subject and it may be a way for them to stay local, have some freedom from home life and socialise.

Finally, I want to talk about mental health. I too am disappointed that a mental health Bill was excluded from the King’s Speech. As has been mentioned several times already, a higher proportion of black and Asian people have poor mental health outcomes and they are more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act. Under the Equality Act, health and social care providers have a legal duty to reduce inequalities between patients in terms of access to health services and the outcomes achieved. There is enough existing data and information telling us that minority-ethnic people are overrepresented in secondary care and underrepresented in primary care. If they get the care they need at an earlier stage, they are less likely to be detained.

We do not need to wait for a new Bill. The Government can act now, implement policies and put greater effort into the following: improving access to primary healthcare; increasing trust and confidence in mental health services; improving educational awareness in minority communities to recognise poor mental health symptoms and know how to get help; tackling the stigma associated with mental health, which may be greater in some communities; improving training and capacity so that mental health is not dismissed due to stereotypes; and improving the availability of culturally sensitive counselling rather than limiting treatment to medication only, the rate of which seems to be higher in ethnic-minority communities.

The final point I want to make is about people with autism, and I declare an interest here: I have a teenage son who has autism. He developed severe anxiety over the summer and also self-harmed. I had to take him to mental health professionals, and I was really appalled by the way he was treated. He was routinely dismissed, and more than once I was told, “Take him to an autism charity”. I then asked whether the health professionals had autism training; most had not. It makes a difference, because when I finally came across a doctor who understood autism, she understood that you can have autism and anxiety, which a lot of the other health professionals did not understand. I want to mention her by name: I thank Dr Lily Abedipour. Because of her, my son received the right treatment and is doing better than he was in the summer. So autism training matters; it makes a difference. I finish my contribution with a question to the Minister: when will all health professionals receive autism training according and appropriate to the needs of their roles?