Children in Public Care: Unregistered Accommodation
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I cannot give a specific answer to the noble Baroness, but I will write to her if the numbers are available. I certainly agree that it is a tragic error to place a vulnerable 16 year-old in accommodation where they can be subject to any harm. The idea of the post-16 provision is to try to provide a pathway to more independent living. That is why we have a slightly different arrangement for those children or young people.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, is the Minister aware of a recent UNICEF report on developed countries which places the UK 16th out of 21 in relation to the well-being of children? Children in care are part of this. Will the Government take account of the UNICEF report and do something about all children so that their welfare is protected?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, the noble Baroness is entirely right that looked-after children are some of the most vulnerable in our society. I mentioned in my Answer to the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Laming, some of the things we are doing, but there are also a number of other initiatives under way: we are providing £5 million from the £200 million children’s social care innovation programme to develop new approaches for care placements and making seed funding available for seven partnerships to test new approaches for sufficiency planning and commissioning in foster care.
Children’s Rights
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Baroness Massey of Darwen
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to develop a cross-departmental action plan to address the conclusions and recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child's assessment of the United Kingdom in 2016, in order to ensure that all public bodies act to protect and promote children’s rights.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, we remain strongly committed to delivering a framework of actions across government and with key organisations. We aim to continue to embed the importance of children’s rights in policy-making across Whitehall. We have successfully delivered the majority of actions, including establishing a UNCRC action group and launching a children’s rights training package and impact assessment template across the Civil Service. We are on track to deliver outstanding actions, including extending the UNCRC to Guernsey.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that optimistic response. Does he agree that children’s rights to health, education, justice, security and so on are of supreme importance? Does he further agree that although these areas do not come under one department but go across departments, only the Department for Education has a team of people working on children’s rights? Would it not make sense if every department had a team of people working on children’s rights so that they could talk to each other and develop a coherent plan? We have been criticised by the UN for not having such a plan. Is it not time for action?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, we do not agree with the substantial machinery of government changes recommended by the UNCRC but we work across government all the time. I have to draw on many government departments for most of the answers that I give to noble Lords in this House. We are well joined up and we continue to emphasise that through initiatives such as the Civil Service learning programme which we introduced last year.
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome these guidelines and thank the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, for introducing the Motion. I am very pleased to see that this topic of education will at last be a requirement for schools from September 2020. Indeed, some schools will pilot the programmes and there is encouragement for some to start them during 2019.
Some schools are ready to go with this but others may need more time. Quite rightly, the Government have sought to stress the issue of consultation. We know that sexual relationship education has been considered important by children, parents, school governors and many organisations for a long time. I pay tribute to those who have worked with such diligence to get us to this point. The noble Lord, Lord Nash, deserves full credit for his determination to ensure that schools engage with the important topic of the rights of children to receive information and develop good attitudes towards sexuality and relationships. He recognised that resilience, confidence and self-esteem are important components of performing well at school and having a fulfilling life.
I congratulate the PSHE Association on its constructive and thorough approach to developing and creating materials for schools. I congratulate those organisations which have been helpful with consultation and have developed training materials for schools. I congratulate, too, those who have had the courage and perception to insist that consideration of the needs of all pupils is important. LGBT pupils have rights, too; disabled children have rights. Attention to such groups is important, not just for them but for their parents and fellow pupils.
Many individuals have helped describe and respond to the climate in which children are living today, as did the Minister just recently. That climate is different from the one in which we grew up. For example, we have social and other media, which may portray unhealthy and dangerous attitudes towards relationships and sexuality. Children and young people need resilience and skills to resist such approaches.
I have a few questions for the Minister and a few matters on which I seek reassurance. Will the decision that academies and free schools will not be required to teach sex education, but simply be encouraged to do so, be reviewed? This will affect a great number of children and leave them disadvantaged in relation to protection from harm and gaining important knowledge.
I was surprised that so few children and young people were involved in the consultation. I hope that any assessment of the effectiveness of programmes will involve them. They are the best judges of what they need. It is most encouraging that children are consulted much more on issues and decisions which affect them, such as in relation to the NHS long-term plan, where there was a children’s panel—and very useful it was, too. Many voluntary and statutory organisations have children’s panels which prove so valuable. I hope that Ofsted inspections will incorporate the views of children among their other considerations.
It is also important that school governors and parents are involved in monitoring these issues. There is a case for local communities to be involved, as envisaged in the guidelines. I note that £6 million has been set aside in the 2019-20 financial year to develop a programme of support for schools. Funding beyond that will be a matter for the forthcoming spending review. What type of support is envisaged? How will funding be decided for individual schools? Will the Minister and the DfE fight for funding to develop and maintain such programmes, monitor their outcomes and share good practice?
Some of us have concerns about discussing certain issues with children and young people and worry about “corruption”. These guidelines make it clear that teaching materials should be age appropriate. I taught, a long time ago now, sex and relationships education in an inner-city, multi-faith secondary school. We were scrupulous about consulting parents and children and had very few difficulties. No child was ever withdrawn from any part of the programme. I remember working with a nun, Sister Mary, on a sex education course. She said, in public:
“I and my Church may not approve of some of the things related to sexual activity. This does not mean that we should refuse to discuss them. Refusal to discuss denies knowledge to children, and the denial of knowledge is against good educational practice”.
I have never forgotten what she said.
We must never forget in the midst of all this that the welfare of the child is paramount, as spelled out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the UK is a signatory and which celebrates its 30th birthday in November this year. The convention is inspirational in envisaging a world where children flourish and where their physical, emotional and social needs are met. With this legislation today, we move a step towards that, and I very much welcome it.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, this is a landmark moment for children and young people in our country and I very much welcome it. I congratulate the Government and the Minister on everything he has said. If there were ever a reason to ensure that our young people had proper relationship and sex education in our school system, it came home to me this morning when I went into my office, where a letter was waiting for me with a card in it. It was a vile piece of information, trying to compare the teaching of relationships and sex education to giving up smoking. It had such comments as:
“Being gay is essentially lonely because the truth is that most gay partnerships are unstable and have a strong tendency to be promiscuous”.
There was more, but I do not wish to read the rest out, because it is so horrible. That sort of warped view about relationships in 21st-century Britain shows how strong is the need for an education system that addresses the issues in the way the Minister explained.
During the coalition Government, Edward Timpson took over the role of Children’s Minister and was looking to develop the PSHE curriculum and the sex education curriculum, as it was then called. My noble friend Lord Paddick and I were asked to meet him—he wanted to talk about that curriculum. I remember saying to him, “This is very good, but the important thing is that we have almost a dual education system here. We have maintained schools, an increasing number of academies and free schools, which of course have a much more relaxed approach to what they teach. Will this be taught in all schools?” He said, “Yes, it will”. Hallelujah, I thought. I asked whether such things as contraception and gay relationship would be taught. He said, “Yes, of course, it will”. And in church schools? He said, “Yes, of course, it will”. That was the breakthrough moment that I and many in this House were waiting for and I think that, alongside the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Nash, Edward Timpson MP, as he then was, deserves a deal of credit in this as well.
When I first started teaching, sometime in the 1970s, we had an eight-week period in which we followed the BBC’s “Merry-Go-Round” sex education programme—eight weeks of watching the television and doing the workbooks. Not one single parent complained, those eight year-old pupils never giggled or sniggered and it actually developed their relationships with each other. That programme continued and was updated over the first 10 years of my teaching. I always thought it was a great pity that we almost became Victorian in our approach to such issues as sex education; we went through those difficult times in the 1980s and 1990s, with some rather nasty thoughts about relationship education.
As well as the praise I have given, there are a few things we need to ensure. I think the Minister said this, but I just want to go through them again. It is vital that teachers get quality training. I am pleased that it will be a rollout; some schools and some staff may be ready, but it is important that we get this quality training for teachers right. It is important that the resources and materials are of the highest calibre. It is also important that when school inspections are occasionally held, Ofsted actually looks at the quality of relationship and sex education.
I have three questions for the Minister. First, the Government used the powers in the Children and Social Work Act to make PSHE compulsory in all schools, including academies, for financial education only. Why not for citizenship and financial education? Let us raise that now while we have the opportunity. Secondly, this matter is also about continuing professional development for teachers. Thirdly, as the Minister knows—he has been very active on this issue—there is a still a large number of unregistered religious schools where the teaching about relationships is horrendous, disgraceful and wrong. So far, only two unregistered schools have had action taken against them. We need to get this right. We need to put in place the legal requirements to close these establishments straightaway because the damage they do to young people and young minds is not to be tolerated.
Schools: Staffing
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, as I said in answer to the Question, funding is going up. It does not help the debate to follow scurrilous articles about food portions. That school was throwing away a large quantity of food. No parent wants to see that happen. It is a huge environmental waste. It was highlighted simply as an area of inefficiency. As a Schools Minister, no one wants more funding into the system than me, but I want that system to be well run so that the money goes to the front line. Noble Lords will have seen the story in the press the other day about the Tolworth Girls’ School, where the head teacher claimed that she was so badly funded that she had to clean the lavatories herself. What she did not tell you was that she took an 8% pay rise, taking her to between £125,000 and £130,000, and increased the cleaning budget by nearly 90%.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, the Government speak a lot about the importance of social mobility for pupils. Does the Minister not think that this is an appalling situation for dedicated professionals to be in, taking salary cuts and doing all they have to do to keep schools running? Are the Government speaking to teachers’ and head teachers’ unions about this situation? If so, what is the response?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, last year we increased the main scale pay rate for teachers by the largest amount in nearly 10 years. Teachers are well paid, and deservedly so. This year, we are increasing the contribution to their pensions by some 43%, one of the largest increases in any pension contribution in the country.
Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating this important Statement. We welcome the fact that the Government are introducing the provisions of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 on the introduction of compulsory relationships education for all pupils in primary schools, and compulsory relationships and sex education for all pupils in secondary schools. In addition, health education is being made compulsory for all pupils in state-funded schools, which is also something that we regard as a positive move in preparing young people for an increasingly complicated world. I have a number of questions for the Minister and will be perfectly content if he wishes to respond in writing if he feels unable to answer them immediately.
The Secretary of State announced that he is making £6 million available for training and resources to support the new subjects, but that averages out at around £250 per school. What does the Minister expect schools to be able to achieve with such meagre additional resources? Can he further provide an indication as to whether these are indeed additional resources or whether they are recycled from within the DfE budget? How many teachers will be trained in the new subjects, and how many schools does he expect to be teaching them, by the date that he mentioned, September 2020?
I agree with the Secretary of State that these subjects are of vital importance, but I suspect I am not alone in wondering what he expects schools to teach less of in order to make room for these new subjects in the timetable.
I understand the Government’s position on the parental opt-out for relationships and sex education, but I have to ask why they would not give a child the right to be included in those lessons at any age instead of selecting what appears to be an arbitrary age at which point the child’s voice will be heard. The Statement says that the parental opt-out could be overruled in “exceptional circumstances”. Could the Minister give examples of what he believes would amount to such exceptional circumstances?
Noble Lords will have read of the dreadful bullying and mental health problems that affect LGBT people. The fact that these issues are included in the draft guidance could be a milestone in ensuring that these people and others can grow up understanding more and living in a safer environment. We are certainly glad that the draft guidance says that these topics must be fully integrated into the curriculum and not taught separately. Does the Secretary of State believe that there are any circumstances in which a school should be allowed to simply not teach LGBT issues as part of this curriculum? Obviously, it would undermine the whole thrust of the provisions if that were the case.
It can be only to everyone’s benefit if we better understand the differing issues that face each of us. I hope these regulations will mean that we can work on a cross-party basis to make that a reality for the next generation.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
I apologise for my earlier interruption. Noble Lords may put it down to keenness, as I am keen on this area of the school curriculum. I very much welcome the fact that this will be a compulsory subject in our schools; it has been a long time coming. The Minister rightly emphasised that teaching on keeping children safe, developing good relationships, self-esteem and sexual education has been recognised in surveys as having an impact on academic performance in schools.
We know that not all children learn about issues such as sex and relationship education and online safety at home. Indeed, many parents say that they are pleased and grateful that their children receive this kind of education from schools and other professionals. I hope the Government will not be swayed by negative impulses from media sensationalism about this, as we have seen already. Such treatment of serious subjects is a disservice to parents and children.
We have talked about funding; I hope that that will be sorted out. I also hope that schools will be encouraged to involve other professionals in delivering this programme, including school nurses, and will work across departments to share expertise and the funding that will be made available.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
I reassure the noble Baroness that we are absolutely firm on steering the middle course that we have tried to achieve over this long period to get to this point. As she will know, the call for evidence generated some 23,000 responses; the response to the consultation generated another 11,000. On top of that, we had two petitions, with 29,000 names in combination. We have tried to steer a way through this and we believe that we have come up with a process that keeps the vast majority of parents happy and comfortable that we are doing this in the right way, but, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, we will keep this under review because we are in a fast-changing world, particularly online.
Young People
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Armstrong for initiating this debate and for introducing it so powerfully. Coming last of the Back-Bench speakers is not enviable, and less so after a debate of such variety, covering so many important aspects. Noble Lords have spelled out eloquently many of the challenges facing young people. I shall not repeat their wise words.
The challenges facing young people are often diverse, complex and not of their own making. It is important both to protect young people and to empower them; these are basic human rights. I believe it is also important to involve young people in defining their own needs and to respond to their concerns with positive and appropriate interventions. That means asking young people and involving their energies in solving the problems. I thoroughly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, about citizenship education and involving young people in education.
We can begin to have an impact on the challenges facing young people only if we listen to them and take their views seriously. Sometimes the biggest challenge for young people is being listened to. I want to give a couple of examples of the way that this might work. Last year, I was involved in a seminar in Portcullis House on child mental health and child-friendly justice, organised and funded by the Council of Europe and the UK Parliament. “Children” means those up to the age of 18. Half the participants were children and some older young people; the other half were European parliamentarians, NGOs and the police. Discussion took place in small groups, feeding back to plenary sessions. The young people were vocal about the challenges that they faced. They were totally involved and the seminar received some moving statements and suggestions for improving services. I will give noble Lords a flavour of what they said.
One said, “We are experts by experience. Policies are often good but badly implemented. There are problems of access, of waiting lists. There are not enough counsellors in schools and not enough mental health services for young people where they are treated in a child-centred way. Early diagnosis is important, otherwise the challenge of mental health gets bigger and bigger. We need key workers who follow the progress of the young person step by step”. I think that noble Lords will appreciate how sensible that advice is.
I shall now relate a few of the comments on child-friendly justice. I am pleased to see that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is here, as he has always supported child-friendly justice. The young people said that the training of professionals needs to make systems more child-friendly; that there are passionate and committed people in the workforce but they need support and funding; that children get passed around and that is not helpful; and that multi-agency work is needed. They said that some children have particular challenges—BME young men, refugees, and lesbian and gay young people, for example; that the justice system is designed for adults but too often applied to children; that the system should be built around the needs of the child and should rehabilitate rather than punish; that a child should be encouraged to grow out of crime; and that the age of responsibility—10 in England—should be raised.
Due to these young people expressing their feelings, a report involving them was produced last November, with follow-up round tables with Ministers—Jackie Doyle-Price and Ed Argar, in particular. The young people’s movement has grown and become more determined. Peer support and self-help are also growing. Can the Minister say how the Government are encouraging the voice of the child to be heard, in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? Can his department perhaps provide examples of good practice? I believe that listening to young children and taking on board what they say is supremely important.
Schools: Funding
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Morris for her passionate, inspired and concerned introduction to this important debate. She is a true champion of true education, as is my noble friend Lord Knight. True education, as someone—maybe one of them—once said, is rounded and grounded. I share their concerns and those of others about larger classes, a narrow curriculum and total school funding per pupil, which has fallen by 8% since 2010, with sixth forms taking a huge hit.
Like my noble friend Lady Morris, I worry about special educational needs, and I salute initiatives such as the London Challenge. I salute schools with hard-pressed head teachers who nevertheless work with classroom teachers on the whole ethos of their schools, trying to preserve art, languages, sport, drama, music, libraries and personal, social and health education. All these are so important to a rounded and grounded education. These schools also spend money on counsellors and pastoral support. But real funding is a depressing problem.
My commitment to education comes from having been a teacher in secondary schools—the best job I ever had—a governor in various schools and the co-founder of a preschool playgroup when my own children were small. I now suddenly see disintegration and an unreasonable focus on passing exams, to the detriment of children and teachers.
In a debate in my name two weeks ago, we addressed life chances and social mobility, including early intervention. I and others put forward the point that early intervention did not just mean in the early years. Adolescents can take advantage of intervention. They undergo massive brain development as well as social and emotional development. This can make them more knowledgeable and aware of the importance of health, education and developing positive relationships. According to the World Health Organization, adolescence stretches from the age of 10 to 19. Schools and higher education institutions can intervene to develop not only adolescents’ academic skills and achievement but social and emotional skills, which employers say they value so highly.
We have a patchy education system, and things are not changing fast enough for many young people who have poor parents, live in deprived areas and go to below-average schools. Successful intervention models such as Sure Start and youth services have been decimated. Between 2012 and 2016, around 600 youth centres and one children’s centre closed every week—a poor record for a Government who say that they care about education and social mobility.
I shall focus mainly on the funding of early years education today. This is not, strictly speaking, about schools, but we all know that education happens in places other than schools, and it happens early. In 2014-15, I was involved in the Select Committee on Affordable Childcare. We carried out a comprehensive review of childcare, which involved a number of providers, both in schools and in the private and voluntary sectors. Government ministries and academics also supplied responses. Some of our findings are still relevant today. Funding systems were complex and often difficult to understand; it is still the same. Provision was piecemeal, with the best being in affluent areas with well-trained staff, and often in school settings; it is still the same.
We know from the Department for Education’s own research that 25% of families earning under £20,000 use their 30-hour free entitlement, compared with 58% of families earning more than £45,000. Only 40% of two year-olds qualify for this provision, yet research shows that two year-olds who have attended nursery have larger vocabularies, are more socially skilled and achieve better in primary school.
My noble friend Lady Morgan spoke in the debate that I have mentioned and highlighted the strange funding disparities in childcare. Government support seems to now focus more on the wealthier: they have moved from supporting vulnerable children to supporting affluent families. Less-advantaged parents, earning under £16,000 a year, are entitled to 15 hours a week of free childcare, and those parents earning £100,000 a year get 30 hours a week of free childcare. Where is the logic in this?
It is rightly pointed out that providing early support to families and children can contribute to preventing anti-social behaviour and crime and support school attainment and good mental health. It makes sense to have the best possible early years education universally, with simple and effective funding mechanisms. Such interventions save enormous costs around later problems. It has been argued, and is mentioned in the report on affordable childcare, that increases in maternal employment of 1% could have a net positive impact on public finances of around £200 million.
We have a great deal of information on all aspects of early intervention, both for children and adolescents. Our superb voluntary sector does a splendid job working with children and provides research that identifies good practice and bears out the need for funding. As I said, funding in early years and adolescence saves later, enormous costs around truancy, delinquency, unemployment and imprisonment. Professionals strive to overcome these problems, but they have a tough job later on.
On 13 November, a debate took place in another place on education funding, and there were many excellent speeches from all sides. I was particularly interested in one from the MP for Burnley, Julie Cooper—I was born, bred and educated not far from Burnley. She pointed out that, in her constituency, the average reduction in school funding is £300 per child, and that the Burnley FE college has had its funding cut by 30% since 2010. She too spoke of early years, and gave examples from her own constituency of deprivation affecting choices and chances. Like me, and like my noble friend Lady Morgan, she is aware of variations in provision and the potential savings for the economy from good-quality provision. Every £1 spent on early years is worth £15 in later years, yet many children have no access to good early years education, and this will get worse unless the Government show a real commitment to sustained support for this vital age group that continues throughout primary and secondary school, and into higher education.
We read in the press regularly, and we have heard today, about per-pupil funding not being protected, and significant cuts so that schools cannot balance their budgets. Schools and further education colleges are having to make dramatic cuts, and local authority funding for the provision of children and family services and youth services is suffering. They are having to focus instead on crises and safeguarding, rather than on creative work with children and families.
The Government have created a volcano and it is beginning to erupt. Teachers are angry, parents are angry and too many young people are feeling the effects of overtesting and stress at school. I am particularly concerned about mental health issues in children and young people. It is a growing problem, and schools are one of the reasons for this. Yet schools should be able to play their part in preventing or defusing such situations. Many do a very good job but, in an insecure early years system, with poorly funded schools and FE colleges and cuts to services for families, it is difficult to perform that function. How will the Government remedy these conditions and do their duty by all our children?
Schools: Mental Health Support
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, that is the reason why we are rolling out mental health training in schools. Since April last year, we have already trained 1,300 teachers across 1,000 schools to increase awareness of subjects such as the one the noble Countess raises.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I understand that the number of school nurses and counsellors has dramatically decreased over the past few years. Can the Minister confirm this? What is the role of school nurses and counsellors, or do they no longer have one because they have disappeared?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, it is up to individual schools to deploy their resources as they see fit. Where school counsellors provide an important role, I am sure they are used, but as I said in answer to the supplementary question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, we are deploying more resources into this area in schools.
Children: Welfare, Life Chances and Social Mobility
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Baroness Massey of Darwen
That this House takes note of initiatives in early intervention in children’s lives that would improve the welfare, life chances and social mobility of young people in the United Kingdom.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to introduce this debate, which involves a variety of interesting and knowledgeable speakers. I hope noble Lords will not get excited when I get to 10 minutes, as on the list, because I have 15 minutes in which to speak; I thank the Clerk for clarifying that. I look forward to hearing the views of this knowledgeable group today, and I think they will say what I hope they will say. I thank them and the many organisations concerned with children and young people which have supplied briefings. The House of Lords Library has also given us valuable insights.
Every day, in the press and on the media, we see stories of knife crime, young people self-harming, levels of obesity and depression, and only yesterday a headline saying “Alarm over the rise in early deaths of northerners”. These deaths were particularly among 25 to 44 year-olds and were related to accidents, suicide, alcohol misuse, smoking, cancer and drug addiction. All this relates to early intervention. We have had the evidence for years. We have statistics on how much could be saved from the public purse by prevention or alleviation measures relating to youth justice, health and educational dysfunction and how much human misery might be avoided.
Of course there are always social determinates of health, achievement and social mobility. Some areas in the UK are under stress: inequality is rife and poverty is not being resolved. Homelessness is a stain on our society. Social mobility will be limited or simply not possible if young people, in particular, are not physically and mentally healthy, have poor education, poor literacy skills or end up in the criminal justice system. Tinkering with tax and benefit systems will not, I am afraid, solve these problems.
I want today to propose some ideas for addressing core elements of early intervention. The first is to propose that there is a life course aspect to this for all of us. Intervention must come in early childhood—indeed before birth—and continue at each phase of life: adolescence, adulthood and old age. There needs to be emphasis on those phases of life when prevention of poor outcomes may be best achieved and lives turned round. These phases are early childhood and adolescence.
I propose further that real intervention takes place best at a local level when communities—including families, schools, local authorities, the police, social services and NGOs working on the ground—work with local populations, involving them in solutions and strategies for improvement and support. This implies, of course, organisations working not in isolation but in collaboration. Communities are where the impact of an initiative can best be assessed. Governments can pass Bills, issue guidance and publish reports; and international organisations can produce conventions, declarations and recommendations, such as the excellent UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. All this is helpful in raising awareness and inspiring action. However, real action—implementation at a local level—is what ultimately counts.
Let me suggest ways in which this might play out. I begin with early childhood. Many reports—including Sir Michael Marmot’s review, those from NGOs and articles in the Lancet—over a number of years have linked early mortality, obesity, mental health problems, low school readiness and the ability to relate and communicate to lack of intervention in children. The recent report from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health refers to,
“the risks over the next decade for child health if urgent, coordinated and holistic action is not taken”.
The Early Years Foundation has underlined the importance of early intervention. As Graham Allen, the former MP, said in his report:
“Many of the costly and damaging social problems in society are created because we are not giving children the right kind of support in their earliest years when they should achieve their most rapid development”.
This development includes language development, social and behavioural development and intellectual curiosity. Research indicates that there can be a six-month developmental gap between higher and lower-income toddlers by the age of two, and children from low to middle-income families start school with skills five months behind those of more affluent children.
A primary school in a deprived area where I was a governor reported children starting without the basic skills to function with other children and adults. They had never handled a book. The school worked mightily to redress those deficits but it was difficult. I recognise and applaud the Government’s efforts to help families to be more skilled in child-rearing. Initiatives such as health visitor services and the Family Nurse Partnerships programme help families at the grass-roots level—the key to successful intervention, as I said. At the same time, we know that there are not enough of such excellent staff, and school nurses and counsellors are thin on the ground.
This morning, I saw in the Guardian a letter to the Public Accounts Committee from the Chief Inspector of Schools. She said that some schools have,
“an endemic pattern of prioritising data and performance results, ahead of the real substance of education”.
We should all stand up and applaud that statement. How very sad it is that pupils and teachers are being put through this. Data is being put above child development. It is crushing the arts, sport and positive relationships in schools. There is good evidence that schools with good pastoral systems, which emphasise personal relationships and put sport and the arts in their curriculum, do better than schools without those things. Schools are obsessed with academic results and data above all else.
Outside schools, between 2012 and 2016, around 600 youth centres closed and one children’s centre closed every week. The Sure Start programme, known for its work with families in neighbourhoods, has been decimated in favour of family hubs that are not necessarily in neighbourhoods; certainly they are not within pram-pushing distance, as they were designed to be. This is a false economy. Research assessment indicates that investment in the early years and adolescents saves billions of pounds a year. For example, one figure indicates that an investment of £428 billion in universal childcare and paid parental leave would deliver a net return of £612 billion. Apart from the main benefits to child and family welfare, do the Government not appreciate the economics of early intervention?
Let me move on to interventions regarding adolescents. Adolescents are sometimes regarded as a bit of a nuisance. We demonise and medicalise them too readily. However, the Lancet commission on adolescent health states that,
“we have come to new understandings of adolescence as a critical phase in life for achieving human potential”.
I should declare an interest. I am writing a report on the health needs of adolescents for the Council of Europe, where I chair the sub-committee on children. Adolescents can certainly be challenging but they can also be creative, enthusiastic and passionate about issues that engage them. They can enjoy being engaged in their own health and social issues.
Recent research indicates that the influence of brain development, together with emotional and physical changes, can be harnessed in adolescents to encourage what UNICEF has called a “second window of opportunity”, where more early intervention is needed. This can encourage thoughtfulness, resilience and a desire to be in control of the physical and emotional world. The key is respecting the views of young people, asking their opinions and genuinely engaging them in decision-making.
It is heartening to see so many organisations now with youth panels: NGOs, Children’s Commissioners, sports clubs and the police. I remember being involved a few years ago with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Children in an inquiry on relationships between young people and the police. Some local forces had youth advisers; often they were young people who had been in trouble earlier. Many of these youngsters were now running mentoring schemes for their peer group. I do not know how much money would be saved by cutting down on youth crime and its consequences. The figure must be enormous. My research for the Council of Europe report indicates that large savings can be achieved by appropriate interventions in mental health, sexual health and obesity—the topics I chose to explore. This is in adolescence.
Let me give a couple of examples. The very successful 10-year teenage pregnancy strategy involved young people and their communities in discussion, examining options, supporting educational initiatives and support. Teen pregnancy rates—very high in England—fell by half in 10 years, saving the costs of dependency on welfare and the potential risks of children having children. City Year has written to me with examples of social action by young people: volunteering programmes in school, communities and hospitals. These programmes encourage confidence, ambition and resilience in young people. Adolescence is a time where there can be different kinds of intervention, but it is still early intervention to benefit young people.
Early intervention means we catch the problem before it starts or tackle it promptly when it appears; use all resources possible, including the involvement of those deemed to be at risk or who have developed a problem; use community-based models to deal with local issues; ensure enough qualified and trained professionals to work alongside communities; monitor and evaluate impact; and share good practice. We have a duty to do all this as a society, not only for the vast sums of money that early intervention would save, but for the benefits it can produce for children, young people, families, communities and, ultimately, society.
I propose a respectful model, inviting the Government to put more effort and cash into approaches which involve people, including young people, in creative problem avoidance and problem solving. Such an approach would prove financially beneficial and raise the confidence and resilience of those involved. Social mobility would follow. The Minister knows about schools. Does he agree that such an approach is valuable and would deliver social mobility and a more rounded and grounded society? I look forward to his response.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response and for his sincerity. He will recognise that too much is not working for families and young people, and that what gets measured does not necessarily get done. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I will not focus on any single noble Lord; they know who they are and they have helped me to develop some conclusions. I said at the beginning of this debate that I thought—rather selfishly—that noble Lords would say what I wanted them to say. Well, they have, and they have done more: they have been brilliant. They have provided many examples and anecdotes of which we should take note. The debate has been thoughtful and powerful. I wish it had been a seminar, rather than a series of speeches. We may have got a lot out of talking to each other.
I have a number of things to say to the Minister; one is a request. First, we should tackle the social determinants of health and education, such as poverty and homelessness, as a matter of priority.
Secondly, we should ensure that young people’s education, at every stage, is broad and balanced—many people have said this—recognising that an over-emphasis on drilling pupils to pass tests is counterproductive and may result in mental health deficiencies. Young people do better all round, including academically, when their education contains, yes, intellectual challenge, but also when it focuses on the arts, physical activity and social skills.
Thirdly, the Minister has touched on how we have loads of measurements and analyses. Can we please look more at what works. The Minister did mention this— I do not think we do enough of it. We have many brilliant and successful examples at a local level of people working with children and parents. Let us look locally seriously; we cannot keep depriving local authorities of funding. They are where it happens. They are currently unable to support young people and their development. They are forced to focus on crisis, rather than creativity and action.
Finally, would the Minister be prepared to talk to me and others about developing a national holistic policy for children and youth, which would be cross-governmental and involve our many excellent NGOs and other stakeholders? Such a policy might provide a holistic focus on action, rather than just words. With that, I beg to move.
Sure Start
Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Massey of Darwen
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many Sure Start centres have closed in the last two years; and what plans they have to maintain the benefits of Sure Start in improving the life chances of young people.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, based on information supplied by local authorities, 142 children’s centres closed between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2018. However, we will be spending a record £6 billion a year on childcare support by 2019-20. Since 2013, nearly 750,000 disadvantaged two year-olds have benefited from free early-years education. We have recently announced new actions to tackle the word gap. Our aim is to improve outcomes in early years, and children’s centres play their part in this vital area.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that over 1,000 centres have closed since 2009? The Government have stated their commitment to social mobility, but social mobility begins in the early years. Is he aware that centres such as Sure Start centres have been evaluated very positively in relation to family stability and child development, which all contribute to future social mobility? Is he also aware that the level of inspections of those centres has gone down dramatically? Hundreds of these centres have not been inspected over five years. That is appalling. Are the Government really committed to early years education, given what is happening to it?