Boarding School Partnerships
Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Farmer
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the Boarding School Partnership information service; and how many children who would otherwise have been taken into local authority care have been given places in state boarding schools as a result of the service.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, Boarding School Partnerships launched last July and it is independent of government. The service provides information to local authorities on how to make placements in boarding schools. Statistics on referrals into boarding are not collected centrally, but I can report that this year the web portal averaged 700 regular users, 44% up on 2017. Between May and June this year, there was a 50% increase in unique visitors to the website.
Lord Farmer (Con)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for that encouraging reply. What plans do the Government have to stimulate further the use of boarding schools as an alternative to local authority care?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, Boarding School Partnerships, working with Norfolk County Council, has recently published its findings on the outcomes achieved by vulnerable children following boarding placements. This showed benefits including improved educational outcomes and a reduction in risk of children going into care. Earlier this month, we organised a conference to bring boarding schools and local authorities together to publicise these research findings. Over 50 local authorities were represented at this conference and, while it is not suitable for all children, we strongly urge local authorities to consider boarding as an option.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I commend the Minister and his predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Nash, who I see in his place, for their excellent work in promoting state boarding schools. They offer outstanding opportunities, particularly to children from vulnerable backgrounds or from military families or other mobile occupations to have a high-quality and stable education. Does he have any proposals to increase the number of state boarding schools? There are 40 at the moment. It would be great if the country had at least twice that number. Would it be a good idea to increase that number, with an emphasis on providing places for children from vulnerable families or whose parents have highly mobile occupations?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
I thank the noble Lord for his question. It is extremely important. Indeed, in the study that was recently carried out by Norfolk County Council, a third of the children were placed in state boarding schools. Boarding schools can offer a holistic environment in which to grow and develop, and it is this stability that can have long-lasting, positive effects on children’s outcomes. We are open to proposals from the state system to consider more boarding facilities. From my own experience in a boarding school, I can say they are very important, particularly if one comes from a broken family.
Lord Nash (Con)
My Lords, can my noble friend say how many of the 52 young people funded in boarding schools by Norfolk County Council were able to be taken off the local authority’s risk register completely, as a result of their experience and the benefits of attending a boarding school?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
I thank my noble friend for this question and pay tribute to the important role that he played in setting up Boarding School Partnerships last year. Almost three-quarters, 37 of the children, showed a reduced level of risk and nearly two-thirds moved out of a high-risk category into universal services. Overall, 33 children were taken off the council’s risk register. These outcomes can only be described as very encouraging. For the right child, at the right time and in the right school, boarding can present an excellent opportunity.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that many local authorities had their own boarding facilities in the 1970s and 1980s, and sadly they were closed down over cases of safeguarding concerns. This scheme and the effect it can have on young people in care can be transformational—there is no doubt about that—but the numbers taking up the provision are very small. The Minister suggested how we might increase them. Local authorities have concerns and the Norfolk study, good as it is, followed only 50-odd young people. Do we not need to have a proper look at the cost benefit and the change it makes to young people, and then crusade about this and sell the idea to local authorities?
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”.
Grammar Schools
Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Bassam of Brighton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the findings of Professor John Jerrim in his paper The association between attending a grammar school and children’s socio-emotional outcomes, published in May, that grammar schools do not promote social mobility; and what continuing benefit they anticipate from the increased funding recently announced for grammar schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, the paper attempts to explore emotional outcomes of selective schooling and finds little difference between grammar school pupils and their peers at 14 in terms of well-being. It draws no conclusion about social mobility. Other research indicates that a grammar school education significantly reduces the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils. It is a condition of approval under the selective schools expansion fund that schools seek to admit more disadvantaged pupils.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, the £50 million extra for selective schools comes at a time when cash-strapped schools are asking parents for donations to make up funding shortfalls. Given that the noble Lord conceded in a written reply to me that there were no set numbers of places reserved for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, can he explain how the funding will benefit disadvantaged students? Does he also agree that, since the money provides just 4,000 extra places, it would be better spent reversing cuts to teaching assistant posts in primary schools, where research shows that the money would make a difference to social mobility?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, the amount of capital allocated to the grammar school expansion fund is, as the noble Lord says, £50 million against the context of over £1 billion allocated to the mainstream state system, so the sums are not big. However, we should discriminate between capital and revenue funding. While there is some pressure on schools on revenue funding, they receive 6.5% more per pupil in real terms than under the highest level of Tony Blair’s regime.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I welcome the additional funding that the Government are putting into pupil premium and pupil premium plus, to assist disadvantaged children. Is the Minister keeping his eyes front and foremost on the need to address the deficits in teachers, particularly in mathematics? We need the best teachers to help our most disadvantaged children to do the best they can. Does he agree?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, it is a top priority of the Government to ensure that we have enough good maths teachers. Indeed, the noble Lord may be aware that we have now opened two specialist maths schools linked to universities, and are about to announce another one. They are producing some of the best mathematicians for the future generation, and I hope that they will go into teaching themselves.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that wide public attention could usefully be given to the Government’s recent memorandum of understanding with the Independent Schools Council? It stresses that its own bursary support, which amounted to nearly £400 million last year, should be targeted on families,
“on the lowest incomes as well as looked after children, to increase opportunities for these children and to support social mobility”.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point. We have recently signed this memorandum of understanding with the Independent Schools Council, which is reflective of its changing attitude to try to help more children from disadvantaged backgrounds into its schools. But it is also relevant—and I thank the noble Lord for his prompt—that we have just signed a memorandum of understanding with the Grammar School Heads Association. This is all about sharing the aims of seeing more pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds sitting the entrance test, applying to grammar schools and being admitted. That is already happening, and more than 90 of our 160 grammar schools are already prioritising pupil-premium children where they can.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, how on earth can grammar schools promote social mobility when, on the Government’s own figures, only 2.6% of pupils are on free school meals? By extending grammar schools, all that will happen is that you will take pupils from successful academies and maintained schools and make the situation even worse.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, first, grammar schools make up only 5% of the secondary cohort in the country, so I do not believe that they can have a very detrimental effect on mainstream secondary schools. Also, for those children from disadvantaged backgrounds who are admitted to grammar schools, the impact can be substantial. The Education Policy Institute recently found that disadvantaged children attending grammar schools see the attainment gap significantly reduced from 7 percentage points in non-selective to 1.7% in their own schools. The aim is to get more disadvantaged children into grammar schools, and we have some great case studies where that is already happening. King Edward VI in Birmingham has an open-doors campaign, and in January last year had 191 children eligible for pupil premium, an increase on the previous year, which was 123. It is now up to nearly 12% of its cohort with pupil premium.
Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)
My Lords, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, said about public schools, does the Minister not agree, on the record, that the position of public schools with regard to social mobility is not at all ambiguous? It is totally unambiguous.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I am not entirely sure of the noble Lord’s question, but I reassure him that I have had a number of conversations with the chairman of the Independent Schools Council, which is committed to opening access for disadvantaged pupils. My noble friend behind me made the point that those schools are shifting the bursaries from scholarships, which are non-means-tested, to bursaries, and the number of means-tested bursaries has increased substantially over the last five years.
Lord Hussain (LD)
My Lords, according to the BBC, 68,000 new teachers need to be recruited from the ethnic minorities to reflect the population. What are the Government doing to encourage teachers from the ethnic minorities?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, we encourage applicants from all parts of this country.
Children: Special Educational Needs
Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Storey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of education, health and care plans on children with special educational needs.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, more than 98% of statements of SEN were reviewed by 31 March of this year, this being the deadline for introducing education, health and care plans. A survey of 13,000 people who received an EHC plan during 2015 found that 73% agreed that it led to the child or young person getting the right support. Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission are undertaking joint SEND inspections in all local authority areas. These are providing evidence of progress, including positive feedback on the impact of these plans.
Lord Storey (LD)
I think we all had high hopes when education, health and care plans were introduced. However, with vacancies in and shortages of educational psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists and SENCOs—and, added to that, schools having tough budgets and spending less on educational needs—young people and children often do not get the support that they need. A family from Liverpool wrote to me about Eva, who is at nursery. The nursery staff think that she is autistic, but she will have to wait 12 to 18 months because there is only one occupational therapist at Alder Hey Hospital to put her on the pathway. What would the Minister advise on this?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, in 2018-19 the high needs block will rise by £142 million, to a total of £6 billion across England, which is up from £5 billion in 2013. Just last week we announced an additional £50 million of capital funding, bringing the total to £265 million of capital funding, to help build new places at mainstream and special schools. I would be happy to meet the noble Lord on the specific request he makes to discuss the case and, if necessary, I will ask the Minister for Children to write to the local authority.
Lord Morris of Handsworth (Lab)
My Lords, there is a group of children whose interests are hardly ever mentioned in your Lordships’ House, and those are the children whose mothers are being detained in Yarl’s Wood detention centre. How are these children being educated, and what progress is being measured in respect of their detention?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I do not have that information to hand, but I am very happy to write to the noble Lord with it.
Lord Cormack (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that some of the reports last week of young children being badly educated in basic hygiene point to the need for parenting classes? What is being done to increase those?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I cannot speak about the increase in the Sure Start programme. I am sorry to disappoint Members opposite me. We have made a huge investment in early years education, both for two and three year-olds and for slightly older children. This takes pressure off families from poor backgrounds, enables them to go to work and generally makes their lives easier. That is the policy that we are pursuing.
The Lord Bishop of Carlisle
My Lords, in Cumbria where I live, a huge proportion of schools are classified as small and are often very small. Their funding, especially for children with special educational needs, is greatly limited by their ability to access economies of scale. Does the Minister agree that in smaller schools educational outcomes can at present be disproportionately affected by current funding models?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, as I mentioned in answer to an earlier question, we have increased the overall funding for children in need to £6 billion, up from £5 billion in 2013. When we brought in the specific changes to the SEN process in 2014, we allocated some £391 million to this programme, which includes the burdens on local authorities and help for other partners involved, including schools.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as co-chair of the All-Party Group on Speech and Language Difficulties. Do the figures the Minister gave for those on plans include young people in custody?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I cannot answer specifically for young children in custody, but I will add that to the answer to the other noble Lord.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it has been something like more than two decades since we brought in the statement system? The statements or plans often deal with very commonly occurring conditions which we know are going to be there. Why are we dependent on something outside the school to deal with a condition which we will know will occur? Should we not be investing in better teacher training and in support within schools?
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?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, we have introduced a number of improvements in teacher training over the past six years, including changes to teacher standards in 2012 to require that teachers have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND. In 2016, we changed the content of initial teacher training to require training providers to include modules on specific types of SEND. Each school must have a SEND co-ordinator, who must hold qualified teacher status. They must usually undertake a master’s-level national award in SEND co-ordination within three years of being appointed. Awareness of these conditions is becoming much wider.
Restriction on the Preparation of Adoption Reports (Amendment) Regulations 2018
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 16 April be approved.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, the Adoption and Children Act 2002 provides that only a person within a prescribed description can prepare a report on the suitability of a child for adoption or a person suitable to adopt a child. The Restriction on the Preparation of Adoption Reports Regulations 2005 prescribe, for the purposes of the 2002 Act, those persons who can prepare adoption reports and in what circumstances. Those persons are social workers employed by, or acting on behalf of, an adoption agency or a person who is participating in a social work course and is employed by, or placed with, an adoption agency as part of that course, subject to certain conditions.
This draft statutory instrument will make consequential amendments to the descriptions of persons who can prepare reports and update the references to the register of social workers in England and Wales. These changes are purely consequential in nature and do not provide for any new categories of persons who are able to prepare adoption reports. Given the consequential and technical nature of these amendments, no impact assessment has been prepared.
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 requires all social workers in England to be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council—the HCPC—and the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016 now provides for the keeping of a register of social workers in Wales. This statutory instrument will bring the 2005 regulations up to date by amending the references to the regulators in line with these two Acts. Although the Welsh Government would have been able to amend the 2005 regulations to update the references relating to Wales, they would not have been able to make the amendments relating to England using the powers in their 2016 Act. With support from the Welsh Government, it made sense for the department to make all the necessary changes in this set of amending regulations.
We of course have ambitious plans for a new social work regulator in England: Social Work England. This is a fundamental part of our social work reform programme, which will develop an in-depth understanding of the profession and set profession-specific standards that clarify expectations about the knowledge, skills, values and behaviours required to become and remain registered as a social worker in England.
We will have to amend these regulations again when Social Work England takes over as the regulator. However, it is important that we make these amendments now to ensure that the 2005 regulations continue to operate effectively and without confusion in both England and Wales. I beg to move that these regulations be approved.
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.
Child Safeguarding Practice Review and Relevant Agency (England) Regulations 2018
Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 19 March be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 9 May.
National Autism and Education Strategy
Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts(6 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, we welcomed the publication in November of the report Autism and education in England 2017. We are carefully considering the recommendations, including creating a national autism strategy. Some recommendations reflect existing policy, such as our funding of extensive autism awareness training for school staff, improving local accountability and providing additional funding. The report is informing our thinking about the next steps in achieving our vision for the SEND system that we will confirm later this year.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, that is a very welcome response because I think we all agree that every child has a right to a good education and to reach their full potential. The National Autistic Society supported the report of the all-party group, which was chaired by two Conservative Members of Parliament, who did fantastic work. The report said that three things are needed: teachers should have autism training, schools should know how to make reasonable adjustments for youngsters who are autistic, and councils should make provision for school places now and for the future. Given that optimistic hope and the Minister’s response, will he agree to meet with colleagues across the House so we can press it further with him?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I am very happy to meet the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and other members of that committee so we can discuss the recommendations and try to include them in our future strategy.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
My Lords, I have an interest in this via Motability and also because my little grandson is on the spectrum. I congratulate the Government because there is interest in and support for the subject on all sides of the House, including from Ministers. The National Autistic Society has done a marvellous job over the years. There has been a lot of research, there are a lot of statistics and more work is being done in different areas. We know the answers now—there is a huge amount of knowledge. We need the money now. Can the whole system be brought forward so we can get on and give these youngsters the chance they deserve?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, we have invested £373 million for local areas to implement SEND since 2014 and have just renewed a grant to the Autism Education Trust to help improve the training of education staff. It has trained some 150,000 staff since 2011-12. Awareness is very much rising in the education sector.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, the Minister talked about awareness. Awareness only goes so far. Have the Government identified how many specialist support teachers they need—people trained specifically to meet the needs of this group—and at what density? Without that, you can have all the awareness you need but not know how to implement it properly.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, the approach has very much been to include autistic children in mainstream education, and 72% of autistic children are. As I mentioned a moment ago, we are rolling out the training to staff to ensure that awareness of the condition is more widespread. That is certainly the intention. We have also invested substantially in the creation of special schools. Some 600 local authority maintained schools have a specialism for autistic children.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)
I welcome the fact that all teachers are going to be given autism awareness training when the new teacher training starts in September. Can this also include classroom assistants, who are often the first to see children who may have problems? They too need to have training to know how to deal with this.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, as I mentioned in an earlier reply, the great work that the Autism Education Trust is doing extends not just to teachers but to all those involved in schools. I reassure my noble friend that that is very much part of our strategy.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord will no doubt be aware that girls on the autism spectrum are often more adept than boys at concealing their difficulties and often go undiagnosed and untreated. What special arrangements are in place to improve the diagnosis of girls with autism?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
I cannot reply specifically on the condition in girls, but I am aware that the highest proportion of education, health and care plans are for people on the autistic spectrum. There is comprehensive acceptance that the new EHC plan system is working. In 2015, we carried out a detailed survey and found that 75% of parents and users thought that the young person was getting the help they needed, but I accept that we need to continue learning and improving in this process.
Lord Christopher (Lab)
My Lords, not in any way to underestimate the importance of education, but it seems to me that this extends quite a bit beyond that, and relates very much to the households of autistic children, not least when the autistic child is a boy and the other siblings are girls. I suggest that perhaps some attention be paid to the benefit of dogs in many of these households. I am sitting next to a dog now, who is wonderful at dealing with the difficulties my noble friend has, and I can see one sitting opposite me. I am aware of a number of families in which dogs have made a world of difference to the behaviour of these children in their homes. Although there are one or two small charities doing work in this direction, some expansion and co-ordination would be extremely helpful.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I completely agree with the noble Lord’s comments. I know of a vivid example in the academy trust I founded. We had a child on the autistic spectrum who was literally unable to speak to either pupils or staff in the school, although he was very bright. One of the teachers had the inspirational idea to bring a dog to the school. Within a month, that child was talking happily to the dog, and a few weeks beyond that was interacting with the children and teachers in the school. It might be useful to finish on the positive note that many people on the autistic spectrum go on to have remarkable lives, and I will give just a few examples: Hans Christian Andersen, Susan Boyle, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Thomas Jefferson, Steve Jobs, Michelangelo, Mozart and Isaac Newton. The whole spectrum of life can be enriched by people with this condition.
Schools that Work for Everyone Consultation
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the response by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education to an Urgent Question in the other place on the Government’s response to the Schools that Work for Everyone consultation. The Statement is as follows:
“By 2020, core school funding will rise to £43.5 billion a year, the highest ever figure and 50% higher per pupil in real terms than in 2000. Last Friday, I announced important measures that create more good school places. This includes our response to the Schools that Work for Everyone consultation.
As previously announced to the House, we will not be enabling the creation of new selective schools. However, selective schools are an important part of a diverse education system and it is right that they can expand where there is need, as others can. The Autumn Statement 2016 announced funding for the expansion of existing selective schools, and on Friday I launched the selective schools expansion fund for existing selective schools that commit to improving access for disadvantaged pupils and working in enhanced partnership with local non-selective schools. Fifty million pounds is available in 2018-19.
We are retaining the 50% cap on faith-based admissions in free schools. I do recognise the positive role that faith providers play, and also recognise that some feel unable to establish new schools through the free schools programme. We are developing a capital scheme to support the establishment of new voluntary-aided schools. We will continue to work with universities and with independent schools to encourage them to work in lasting partnerships with the state sector. Our joint understanding with the Independent Schools Council sets out how independent schools will support this. Overall, this package of reforms will help to ensure that we are delivering a diverse education system providing choice and opportunity for all”.
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.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, in terms of the Statement there are two important issues. The first is on the issue of selection. As a party we are totally opposed to the expansion of grammar schools, and I guess quite a large number of the members of the Government are too. The Minister knows perfectly well that had this been done in a different way, as was originally planned, he would not have been successful in getting it through the Commons, so this is a back-door way of trying to achieve that.
Why are we opposed to grammar schools? Every single study—whether by the Sutton Trust, Durham University, Education Datalab, the Education Policy Institute or the Institute for Fiscal Studies—says that it fails to find any evidence that grammar schools increase social mobility. In fact, it seems that children in a selective area who do not pass the 11-plus do worse than they would have done in a comprehensive area. We also know the effect the grammar schools often have on a community: they often take the best teachers, who want to teach in the grammar school, and of course they cream off pupils as well.
The Minister talked about developing a capital programme for grammar schools. Let us remind ourselves that only 5% of pupils go to grammar schools, and these plans will do nothing for the 95% of children who go to a local secondary school. In fact most grammar schools are in better-off areas; pupils in the north-east, most of East Anglia, the south coast and the west coast will not benefit from one penny of this money. We should also remember that when the Government increased the schools budget after the election, they did so by taking money away from local schools’ capital budget. They took money away from the capital programme of those schools, including PE facilities and other central projects. So what we are seeing here is money being taken and used for a small group of people, not even a geographical spread across the country.
If every single place at these expanding grammar schools went to children who were on the pupil premium, we would be talking about a very small number. However, if these grammar schools do not take children from disadvantaged backgrounds, what will the Government do about it?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, raises some important points. On the benefits of grammar schools, we know that pupils attending selective schools make better progress. On average, they achieve around half a grade better in eight GCSEs across core subjects compared to pupils with similar prior attainment in other schools. When disadvantaged children attend selective schools, the attainment gap is significantly reduced. So it is worth remembering that.
I want to tackle the issue of the low proportion of disadvantaged, free-school-meals children attending grammar schools at the moment. Launched in conjunction with the announcement on Friday were two important initiatives. First, to be eligible to apply for what we are calling the selective schools expansion fund, the grammar must submit a fair access and partnership plan. It has to set out very carefully what it is going to do about increasing the vulnerable group that the noble Lord refers to. Secondly, we also announced a memorandum of understanding with the Grammar School Heads Association, which represents 90% of all grammar schools, for it to take steps to widen access to all the other grammar schools. So they know where the wind is blowing on this. We are very focused on it.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
I was just going to finish my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on his question about capital. To put the £50 million sum in perspective, we are spending over £1 billion a year on basic-need increases across the country. I am not saying it is a trivial sum but I do not want people to think that we are literally raiding the pot for ordinary schools. Against that also, the capital allocation for schools in this spending round is £23.5 billion.
Baroness Morris of Yardley
My Lords, that was a pretty poor Statement and a poor response to the original consultation paper. In the original paper, the Minister talked about selective schools having to help with non-selective education if they were to justify their position. In that consultation paper, he outlined the possibility of a number of sanctions that would take place if grammar schools did not do their bit to help non-selective schools in the area. In the Statement that he has just made, there is no mention of sanctions. If selective schools that are expanding do not play their part in raising standards across their area, will he impose sanctions, as was his intention in the original consultation paper?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, there is no intention to impose sanctions at this stage, but the very fact that we have made a short-term announcement on the allocation of capital is sending a message to the grammar school sector that if it does not play by the unwritten rules of increasing its access, it will not be able to carry on with any future expansion. I think this follows the approach that we have taken with universities, with the very big programme of universities spending nearly £200 million a year on widening access, and similar principles apply in this situation.
Child Safeguarding Practice Review and Relevant Agency (England) Regulations 2018
Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
That the Grand Committee do consider the Child Safeguarding Practice Review and Relevant Agency (England) Regulations 2018.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, these regulations are essential to implement the safeguarding reforms set out in the Children Act 2004, as inserted by the Children and Social Work Act 2017. I welcome the work of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in drawing these regulations to the attention of the House as an instrument of interest.
These reforms aim to improve the protection of children. As noble Lords may recall, they were based on the findings of the 2016 Wood review, which found widespread agreement that existing multi-agency working arrangements should be replaced with a stronger, more flexible statutory framework. Alan Wood also recommended a learning-focused system of reviews to replace serious case reviews. The Act enables the establishment of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel. The panel will identify and commission reviews of serious child safeguarding cases which are complex or of national importance.
I am glad that, following a recruitment exercise conducted in accordance with Cabinet Office procedures, Edward Timpson has agreed to take on the role of panel chair. Following his advice and that of a skilled and representative assessment panel, we last week confirmed five appointments who will bring a range of experience to support him in this important work.
The Act also requires the three safeguarding partners —police, clinical commissioning groups and local authorities—to work together to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their area. As part of this, they must determine the agencies with whom they intend to work. They must also identify and commission reviews of serious cases which raise issues of local importance.
These regulations will enable these provisions to operate effectively. The regulations set out the criteria which the panel must take into account when deciding whether to commission a national review. The panel must also set up a pool of potential reviewers. This arrangement will support our aim of improving the speed and quality of reviews. The panel may, however, select other reviewers if no one in the pool is available or suitably experienced. The panel may also remove potential reviewers from the pool.
As the panel cannot let its own contracts, the Secretary of State will hold the contracts with reviewers. Therefore, these regulations require the Secretary of State to appoint or remove reviewers from national reviews based on the panel’s recommendation. The regulations also specify details of the panel’s supervisory powers during a national review and of its final reports, including publication. Requiring public availability of reports for at least three years will ensure that national-level learning can be spread throughout the system, the key purpose of these new provisions.
The regulations also cover local reviews—the responsibility of the safeguarding partners. As for national reviews, the provisions cover review criteria, the appointment and removal of reviewers, reports and publication. Like the panel, safeguarding partners must make decisions on when it is appropriate to commission a local review, taking local review criteria into account. This includes any advice from the panel on whether a local review may be appropriate. The regulations support the timeliness and quality of local reviews. The safeguarding partners must monitor the progress and quality of local reviews and may seek information during the review to enable them to assess this. The regulations also specify some details that final reports must include and require reports or findings to be available for at least one year.
The regulations set out a list of agencies with which the safeguarding partners may choose to work. The Government first published the list in indicative regulations during the passage of the Bill. Safeguarding partners should select agencies relevant to their local areas. The list of those selected may change from time to time, although we expect schools always to be involved. The safeguarding partners should consult the agencies selected, and the published arrangements should include a list of those agencies. Duties on relevant agencies apply only to agencies included by the safeguarding partners in local arrangements. The Government consulted on these regulations and the associated statutory guidance last autumn. Consultees were largely positive, although some clarifications were made to the regulations as a result.
The panel will begin work on 29 June 2018, when the transition to the new multi-agency arrangements will also commence. Safeguarding partners will have 12 months to prepare and publish their arrangements, including selecting relevant agencies, and a further three months to implement them. Provided that the regulations are agreed, we will publish the final version of the statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children within the next few weeks. This will support the new arrangements and complement these regulations.
I thank all those who have contributed to work on these reforms, including noble Lords present. These regulations will support more flexible joint-working arrangements, as well as promote better and more timely learning from reviews, and I commend them to the House. I beg to move.
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 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?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I agree that we should keep an open mind on the size of the panel. We have made clear through the statutory guidance that all the published local safeguarding arrangements must set out how relevant agencies, including schools and education providers, will be engaged with the multiagency working. The multi-academy trust member that we referred to, Dr Susan Tranter, has had experience as a head teacher and has had long service in the education sector, so she is not just an administrator but someone who has been involved in education.
These regulations underpin important safeguarding changes, as we discussed. They will give the safeguarding partners a framework to identify who is most appropriate to work with in order to support the safeguarding of children in their area and will give force to these decisions. The new child safeguarding practice review panel will be high profile, operate independently of government and promote genuine change in the safeguarding of children. The new arrangements for local and national child safeguarding practice reviews will enable the clear identification of any improvements that should be made to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. National reviews will also identify improvements at the national as well as local level, and the panel will follow up progress on implementation. The regulations enable these changes to function as intended and I sincerely hope that noble Lords will be willing to support them.
Manifesto to Strengthen Families
Lord Agnew of Oulton Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Lord Farmer
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the policies recommended in the Manifesto to Strengthen Families, published on 6 September 2017; and what steps they plan to take in response to those recommendations.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, it is crucial that we seek to ensure that all children grow up in stable, nurturing families. As my noble friend knows, this is a wide-ranging, cross-cutting area. This Government have a broad set of policies to support families, including our childcare and early years offers, through to the DWP’s programme on parental conflict. We are considering the manifesto’s recommendations and will respond in due course.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I know he is enthusiastic about family support. He spoke about it in his maiden speech during the debate on it. In my efforts to rally support for a strengthening family strategy, I have had several conversations with Ministers and civil servants who have expressed frustration at the lack of clarity about who leads this vital agenda. They are concerned that they are stepping on to other Ministers’ territory, which is preventing any real progress being made. When will the Government appoint a Cabinet-level overlord who can co-ordinate family policy across government?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, as I mentioned, the Government are actively considering the recommendations set out in my noble friend’s manifesto. In my preparation for this Question, I spoke to an official in Downing Street who had had at least six conversations with my noble friend. Officials are treating this very seriously. The model of a specific brief—such as an equalities brief—being attached to a Cabinet Minister is a good one and deserves careful scrutiny. We shall continue to engage with my noble friend on this issue. I know he has also recently met my honourable friend the Minister for Children and Families Nadhim Zahawi and discussed elements of the recommendations with him.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, we know that the stress created by poverty and hardship can undermine families. Can the Minister explain what the Government’s policy of abolishing benefits—tax credits and universal credit for children after the second child—will do to strengthen families?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, since the coalition and this Government took office, we have focused on the more disadvantaged families. For example, the troubled families programme is budgeted to spend £920 million helping nearly 290,000 families in most need. What is interesting is that the number of children defined as children in need has declined by 14% after they have been involved in this programme for 12 months.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
Will the Minister say what specific steps the Government propose to take to support the mental health and well-being of children affected by high-conflict parental separation, particularly those who have experienced or witnessed domestic violence and abuse?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, this Government have committed £1.4 billion to the mental health of families and children. We know that this is extremely important. Parental conflict is three times more likely to occur in poorer families than in those who are better off. This is why we are focusing on this area.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, prior to publication of the manifesto, the previous Prime Minister declared that a family test would be applied to all government policy. Would this not require not just a Cabinet-level overseer but for each department to have someone responsible for applying the family test? Does that exist?
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.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, do the Government recognise the need for an alcohol strategy as part of maintaining family integrity, given the figures showing that when there is dependency there is physical abuse in over one-third of families, which falls to 10% during recovery programmes, while mental health issues in other family members presenting to clinical services fall from two-thirds of families to one-third when there are adequate programmes in place?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, we recognise the damage that alcoholism can do to families. We estimate that there are some 200,000 children living in households where alcohol dependency is a problem. We have launched a number of initiatives: the DWP has announced a £4.5 million innovation fund aimed at local authorities to support them in implementing evidence-based interventions; there is a £1 million fund for the voluntary sector and not-for-profit organisations to take forward projects to build capacity nationally; and there is a £500,000 fund for the expansion of an existing helpline to increase the support available to children with alcohol-dependent parents.
Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL]
Lord Agnew of Oulton ExcerptsFriday 27th April 2018
(6 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL] 2017-19 View all Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill [HL] 2017-19 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 11-I(Rev) Revised marshalled list for Committee (PDF, 80KB) - (26 Apr 2018)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, on 24 November at Second Reading I made it clear that we understood the concerns that have led the noble Lord, Lord Soley, to bring this Bill forward. That remains the position. We are interested in it and welcome the debate it has engendered in this House and elsewhere, but the position remains that the Government are not formally supporting it. I made a commitment to consult on drafts of revised departmental guidance, and that consultation started on 10 April. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, the guidance looks at specific issues such as the role of safeguarding by local authorities and whether that extends to this area.
We know that there are concerns about the efficacy of the current framework and the lack of hard information about numbers to address the actual needs of children being educated at home. Indeed, at Second Reading noble Lords spoke about the need for more evidence. We know that involved in this is the potential of increasing exclusions or, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, referred to it, “off-rolling”. I would welcome a meeting with him and other noble Peers on that subject, but we should not get it too tangled up in the simpler issue of the Soley Private Member’s Bill. This is why we published a call for evidence on 10 April. This seeks information and comment about a wide range of issues within the broad headings of registration, monitoring and support for home education.
I take this opportunity to reassure my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Lord, Lord Bird, that we support home education that is done well. We want to find ways to support families that are achieving this. I am very conscious of the amount of work needed to educate a child properly at home. It is entirely consistent with our aim of ensuring that every child has a good education within a diverse system that allows for maximum parental choice. We should aim to help good home education, but also to ensure that poor home education is dealt with quickly. To address the queries of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about the Government’s position, the consultation is open until 2 July and we hope for responses from a wide spectrum of families, local authorities and others. This will give us a much firmer basis for considering whether any changes are needed. In the meantime, I shall listen to today’s proceedings with interest and note the points raised. It is of course open to the noble Lord, Lord Soley, not to progress his Bill further until the Government’s consultation has concluded.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am very encouraged by that reply from my noble friend, particularly his last sentence. I very much hope that the Government are thinking of taking advantage of the Bill to take forward the results of the consultation when they are available. In that context, I think the noble Lord, Lord Soley, need not worry about the Bill failing if we run out of time today. Today is about talking to the Government, even though they do not answer much: it is about getting them to listen to us, as an input to the consultation and to inform their intentions for the future of the Bill more generally. I very much hope that if we run out of time today we may find space on a subsequent Friday to complete its passage before the Government have to let us know their opinions, which will presumably, with luck, be in September or October. Without government support, the Bill will fail; with government support there will not be any problems, so I hope that although we will not waste time today, we will none the less make sure that the Government have heard our opinion on things.
On the interesting suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, I think Skillforce would find very good relationships, certainly in some areas, between local authorities and home educators, which would give wide access to the home educating community. It is not true in every area, but there are some where you will get pretty complete coverage from what is there already.
I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, is a Member of this House. Every time I listen to him, he adds to my understanding of the world. I am just an observer of home education; I honour him as someone who has done it. I do not think I would ever have the strength of character and energy to finish that. I am entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, in tackling this problem in the round and very happy to line up behind him in any meeting or effort. These children are our children; they are part of our community and we absolutely ought to treat them that way. It hurts us all that we do not. I am going to pursue the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, on the matter of his daughter. I have a project running in Eastbourne which would benefit from her advice.
There is much to be done here but, generally, I am delighted by the reaction to this amendment. I hope the Government will see it as an example of how the Bill might be used to address the wider problems. It trespasses into the whole area of safeguarding, trafficking, abuse and radicalisation, which concern us all so much. That is not the same as home education but the two get mixed up. There are educational concerns but enforcing educational orthodoxy ought not to be seen as a way of tackling safeguarding concerns. They are separate. Both need to be addressed but we need to think of them separately, particularly in the context of home education. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, perhaps I may speak briefly to my amendments in this group. I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and hope that the noble Lord, Lord Soley, and my noble friend the Minister will agree to suspend the Bill between Committee and Report until we have the results of the consultation. We will then be able to see in context what this Bill says because this clause in particular will work much better when we have a more expansive sight of the full-blown draft guidance to go with it. As it is, I have real concerns and I would definitely join the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on Report. To allow legislation like this to go forward beyond Report would be a great mistake because we need to know much more.
In particular, in Amendment 24 I seek to leave out the words “supervised instruction”. It is just not appropriate for many of these children. It is not the way it is done or the way they learn. They may well be learning entirely by themselves, but what matters is that they are learning. Numeracy, literacy and writing are absolutely core and we should not let children come out of home education illiterate, but we ought not to be prescribing the process; we ought to be prescribing the outcome.
In framing the guidance we must have regard to the whole range of support. The fact that support is available makes much clearer guidance possible because we are not trying to push parents back into taking up patently unsatisfactory school provision; rather, we would be giving them a clear and supportive alternative. Under those circumstances, it is reasonable to make demands of them, but it very much depends on that.
Lastly, I want to draw attention to flexi-schooling, which is one of the possible answers to this issue. I had a helpful conversation with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely. The Church of England is willing to be extremely supportive of this proposal. It has a lot of small rural schools and many of them would really like to become involved in the provision of flexi-schooling, which would suit them well. They are small enough to be flexible and they can provide an environment with space and freedom which will suit many children who feel oppressed by a more restricted city school environment. Also, not many of those schools, in particular the good ones, have the time and space available to do things slightly differently for home-educated children. It also fits well with the provision that these rural schools are already making for Travellers and others for whom a non-traditional education pattern works well.
I would really encourage my noble friend the Minister to talk seriously with the Church of England to see what can be done to establish a pattern for the support of flexi-schooling. Indeed, I do not think that much is needed other than the comfort of knowing that it is a form of education of which the Government approve. Frankly, if a child is receiving flexi-schooling for a couple of days a week, all the worries about whether that child is visible would disappear along with knowing about the quality of their education because they would be closely and properly observed by educational professionals. It is a very good solution to many of the problems that this Bill sets out to tackle. It will not apply in every case, but it is a facility that we should encourage.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, it may be helpful if I offer to have a meeting with the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Soley, and indeed with my noble friend Lord Lucas to discuss Amendment 23 in particular. I consider this to be part of our broader call for evidence and feedback on the draft guidance that we have issued.
Lord Soley
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that helpful intervention and I welcome it.