Report stage, 3rd reading in the Commons
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (Sarah McCarthy-Fry)Labour- Quote
- I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
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Mr. SpeakerCrossbench- Quote
- With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 15—Detention of child or young person: local education authorities to be notified. Government amendments 10 and 11.
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- New clause 14 inserts new chapter 5A into part X of the Education Act 1996. It further strengthens the provisions in the previous clause, particularly for young people with special educational needs, and with regard to information sharing. The new chapter 5A continues to place a duty on the child’s or young person’s home local authority to take steps to promote the fulfilment of the person’s learning potential while they are in juvenile custody and on their release. The new clause is an important mechanism for ensuring that one local authority—the home local authority—remains involved in the person’s education and training, regardless of where they are in the system, and can promote continuity and consistency of learning for the child or young person. For persons in juvenile custody with special educational needs, the new clause provides a framework of duties that significantly strengthens requirements and that will, we believe, provide the most practical of arrangements to ensure their needs are met in custody and on their release. If a person had a statement of special educational needs prior to their detention, new section 562C requires the host LEA to use its best endeavours to secure that appropriate special educational provision is made for the detained person.
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Mr. Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- Will the Minister explain why the Government have chosen to make the host authority use “best endeavours” rather than a rather stronger duty? While she is answering that, will she also deal with the position whereby the home authority is required to “take such steps as they consider appropriate”? Both these phrases seem rather understated given that those currently in custody so rarely get the educational support and time that they need.?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- I take the hon. Gentleman’s point and I shall come on to the detail of his intervention later. The point I made earlier about making practicable arrangements to ensure that needs are met is relevant; young people normally spend only a short time in custody, so the practicality of extending arrangements is important.
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Mr. David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- Taking the idea of “best endeavours” further, is it not the case that such endeavours will count only when the local authority has the budget to deliver ongoing support and education for a young offender in custody? Does the Minister welcome the Youth Justice Board’s moves to provide full information on budgetary costs of the custody of young offenders in the home authority? Would not the next step be to look at devolving those custodial costs so that the home authority has a sufficient budget to be able to deliver when offenders are out of custody, in custody and after custody?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- Under the Bill, the budget currently held by the Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for education in custody at the moment, will be transferred to local authorities, and detailed guidance will be issued on how it will work in practice. Section 562C also requires the authority that was maintaining the statement to keep a copy of it while the person is detained. Clause 51, which amends part 4 of the Education Act 1996, makes provision for the statement of special educational needs that was maintained before the person’s detention to be revived and reviewed on release. The new clause also strengthens requirements in relation to the transfer of information about a person’s education so that that relevant parties can exchange relevant educational information to help to ensure that education and training in juvenile custody can be tailored to meet the person’s needs.
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Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- The provisions may well be in the new clauses, but it has been a particular problem with young people in the secure estate that if they are moved, their educational records can take so long to catch up with them that they end up having to start all over again. If that happens twice—given that most of them have short sentences—they end up completing their sentence when they have had three first bites at the cherry but have never been able to complete a course, even though they would have had time to do so if the records had followed them promptly from one institution to another.
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- Information sharing is going to be particularly important. Because of a previous split in responsibility between the Ministry of Justice and local authorities, which applied before a young person went into custody and after, there was far more likelihood of what my hon. Friend referred to happening. We hope that under the new provisions, that process will be speeded up and will form part of the guidance that develops as we go forward. The guidance will include expectations of how LEAs should support the special educational needs of children and young people in juvenile custody, and we will use the guidance to be clear about the respective roles of the different local authorities involved in order to assure clarity of roles and expectations. Concern has been expressed that all the needs of young people with special educational needs should be met while they are in custody, but it is necessary to be mindful of the significant constraints within the custodial environment and of the fact that, as I said earlier, young people generally spend only a short time in custody. It would be impractical to require local education authorities to commission specific provision to meet every need of every young person while they are in custody, because it would take time to commission that, and would be difficult within the context of delivering complex custodial regimes for an ever changing population. However, we consider the provisions in the Bill a significant step forward. Our requirements for and approach to education and training for children and young people in custody will result in real improvements and better outcomes. This is the first time that requirements for education in custody will be set out in primary legislation, which will allow us to be clear about roles and expectations in statutory guidance. It will mean clear duties on a young person’s home local authority to maintain involvement in the person’s education and training, which we believe will promote greater consistency in young person’s learning and the support that they receive to help them to engage, progress and achieve. With regard to young people with statements of special educational need, there are significant constraints to continuing SEN statements in custody, which outweigh the potential benefits. The SEN statement is a legally binding document that sets out the specific special educational provision that the young person must receive. The statement would be likely to include the name of the school the young person must attend and details of all the special educational provision the young person must receive. Therefore, if the statements were to be continued when a young person entered custody, the statement would have to be reviewed and reissued upon the child’s entering the custodial establishment and again on the young person’s release. As I said, the average time spent in custody for young people is three to four months, which means that by the time the SEN statement had been reviewed and appropriate provision commissioned and provided, the majority of young people would be leaving the secure estate and the SEN statement would need to be reviewed yet again. There are significant constraints on host LEAs being required to conduct SEN assessments for young people entering custody without a statement, if they consider an assessment might be needed. Again, that is because young people generally spend a short time in custody and may also move establishments mid-sentence, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris).
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- Mr. BurrowesConservative
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- Does the Minister share the concern about constraints for home authorities in relation to the increasing distance between the home authority and the locations in which young people are housed in custodial establishments? Will she consider how the Bill squares with the decision of the Youth Justice Board to remove contracts in relation to secure children’s homes, which often house some of the most vulnerable young people? Indeed, in London there will be no secure children’s home; the nearest is in Southampton.
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- Again, information sharing between home and host local authorities will be really important. I still maintain that bringing the education system back under the local authority so that it, as a body, rather than the Ministry of Justice, bears the responsibility between a child’s entering and leaving custody, means that that continuity is much more likely to be maintained.
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- Mr. StuartConservative
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- I am extremely grateful to the Minister, who is being most generous in giving way. Did she consider putting a time limit on the period during which either the host authority or the prison fails to provide for the educational needs of the child? Rather than just leaving it to best endeavours, did she consider putting on a limit of some sort, so that if the child does not move rapidly through the system but stays for some time, there will be some guarantee that they get the educational support that, probably, they badly need?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- That is a valid point and something we could consider when we are putting the statutory guidance together. It is obvious from all the interventions by hon. Members that we all have the best interests of those young people at heart. We propose that the best practicable solution is for a person’s SEN statement to be suspended while they are in custody and picked up and reviewed on their release, but I should point out that our current requirements for education and training for persons in juvenile custody already require that learning assessments of young people’s needs be conducted and used to inform individual learning plans and to meet personal needs. That will continue under the new arrangements.
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Annette Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole) (LD)Liberal Democrat- Quote
- I thank the Minister for the comment that was made on this very point in the letter sent on 29 April, but I should like to be reassured that that definitely happens in the case of every young offender. I should also like to know what monitoring is conducted to ensure that an assessment is made at what I consider to be the most important stage of the process.
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- I think we all want to ensure that this actually happens for young people. As in many cases, a statutory requirement is possible, but we need to establish how such a requirement is implemented in practice. I think that that, too, can be explored through guidance.
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Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- Of course we all have the best interests of young people at heart, and “best endeavours” matter immensely but, given the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes, will the Minister tell us specifically what mechanisms and procedures are in place to facilitate the communication that will be essential to the working of the new regime?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- We will consult on the guidance, and we will ensure that all parties—including the Ministry of Justice and anyone concerned with children’s education—are involved in drawing it up.
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Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind)Independent- Quote
- I am a little worried about subsection (4)(c) of new subsection 562C. I fear that host authorities may use it to further their own interests rather than those of a child with special educational needs, and avoid their responsibility to provide appropriate special care. What guarantees can the Minister give that that will not happen?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- It is certainly not the intention of the legislation that that will happen. While we do not accept that it is practical for the entire statement to be implemented while the young person is in custody, we interpret the phrase “best endeavours” to mean that the host authority will have to share information with the home authority, which will have to pick up the process when the child comes home. In the case of someone who has been a looked-after child immediately before or at any time since the period of detention, the home authority will be the authority that has looked after the child most recently. Our policy is that the local education authority responsible for looking after a child should be responsible for the child, and we do not want the new duties in new clause 14 to interfere with that responsibility. We believe that the information-sharing provisions will provide a consistent learning experience for young people, which will build on their earlier learning and educational experiences. Many youth offending teams and local partners already have information-sharing protocols which inform young people’s assessments, sentencing and sentence plans. However, the provisions in the new clause provide a clear legal framework to support those arrangements.
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- Rob MarrisLabour
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- Inasmuch as new section 562E—entitled “Provision of information about detained persons”—relates to people under the age of 18, it provides for information sharing, but I cannot find any provision that enables parents to receive information about, for example, what training or education a child was or was not given while in the secure estate. Is that an oversight, or is the matter covered elsewhere in the Bill? It seems to me that parents ought to be able to obtain such information.
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- My hon. Friend has made an excellent point. I cannot say off the top of my head whether the matter is covered elsewhere in the Bill, but I shall try to find out for him. New clause 15 inserts a new section 39A in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, requiring youth offending teams in England and Wales to notify a child or young person’s home and host local education authority when it becomes aware that that person has been detained in, transferred from or released from relevant youth accommodation. There is no pre-existing legislative provision requiring a youth offending team to be notified when a young person is detained in custody pursuant to a court order. However, youth offending teams have a pivotal role in the youth justice system, and in particular in arranging the placement of a young person who is sentenced or remanded in custody. In practice, a custodial placement could not be arranged without the youth offending team’s involvement. A member of the youth offending team must be in attendance in court when a young person is sentenced to remand or custody, and if for any reason a member of the team is not present, the court is required to complete a report on the outcome of the hearing which must be sent to a range of partners including the youth offending team. Therefore, in practice a young person could not be placed in custody without the youth offending team being aware of it.
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Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Devonport) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- I welcome this new clause, but does my hon. Friend the Minister not share my concern that some local authorities do not follow up on much of the information they receive, in this case from youth offending teams? There has been clear evidence of that. The man in charge of Wandsworth prison recently told an all-party group that Wandsworth council simply does not respond when adults leave prison; it does not support them. What can we do to ensure that local authorities respond appropriately?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- That is a similar point to one raised earlier about what we would do if a local authority did not put the interests of a child first. If it did not do so, it would be in breach of a statutory duty, and the Secretary of State has direction powers to compel an authority in that respect, which would be enforceable by the courts.
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- Mr. BurrowesConservative
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- On the requirement for notification when a young person has been subject to a detention order, will the Minister confirm that young people on remand and not subject to any sentence of detention or training are also covered?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- It is my understanding that that applies whenever a young person is within the secure estate, but if that is not right I am sure that someone will correct me before we conclude our proceedings today. I hope that Members will agree that the new clauses significantly strengthen requirements in respect of young people in juvenile custody—especially those with special educational needs—and that they provide a robust and practical framework to ensure that the needs of children and young people in juvenile custody can be appropriately supported.
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Mr. Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- There is an element of déjà vu to this debate. The Minister is moving precisely the same new clauses that she moved in Committee on 17 March. Her arguments are the same, too; in fact, many of the words and phrases she has used are very similar, albeit today she has sought to explain matters more expansively. In a few moments, I will raise with her some of the questions that we raised in Committee on the new clauses, and I do not doubt that the Minister will respond with the same, or similar, answers to those that she gave on 17 March. Why are we repeating a debate we had in Committee? Why is the Minister moving exactly the same new clauses that she argued for in Committee? She is doing so because the management of the Committee stage by the four Ministers charged with that responsibility was not handled with the deftness of touch that might have been expected; it was a case of too many Ministers spoiling the broth, and an example of the chaos that can occur on considering a joint Bill when there is no clear sense of who is responsible. The following is what happened in Committee. New clauses 14 and 15 were meant to replace clauses 49 and 50, which meant that the Government Members of the Committee should have voted against their own clauses in Committee, but instead they inadvertently voted for them. However, a very kind Chairman of the Committee realised the Minister’s oversight and gave the Committee a second chance to vote; but, alas, those Members again voted the wrong way and voted for their own clauses. So, here we are repeating the Committee stage and voting on whether to undo the errors of wayward Ministers—and we will have to do that again later this evening as the Government try to reverse three defeats incurred in Committee on three technical Government amendments. Those defeats were caused by the fact that a number of Labour Members failed to turn up in time for a 9 am start. On the substance of the new clauses, these are important provisions—[Interruption.] Well, we would not have to waste any of this time had this been handled properly in Committee.
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Bill Wiggin (Leominster) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My hon. Friend is rightly teasing the Government for wasting the House’s time. Does he know where the Government deputy Chief Whip is—he was omnipresent in Committee, so is he ill?
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- Mr. GibbConservative
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- My hon. Friend makes a good point; the deputy Chief Whip was present throughout the later stages of our discussions. I have seen him today, looming around the Palace, so I am pleased to say that he is not ill; no doubt he will be joining us later. There is no doubt that education is key to the rehabilitation of young offenders and, indeed, of all prisoners in our jails. Statistics for 2007 reveal that nearly half of prisoners had a reading age of 11 or younger, 65 per cent. had maths skills below those of an 11-year-old and 82 per cent. had handwriting skills at or below those of an average 11-year-old. Action for Children, which is a voluntary sector provider of children’s services, shares our concern about the quality of education for young people in custody, and it has stated: “Within the secure estate, education and training provision is patchy. There is a commitment of 30 hours per week of education and skills provision, but figures suggest that the average amount of time spent on education and training is much lower.” I wish to raise with the Minister the concerns about the wording of these new clauses that some of my hon. Friends have touched on and that were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) in Committee. The first relates to proposed new section 562B(3) of the Education Act 1996, which new clause 14 would insert. Proposed new section 562B would introduce a duty on the home local authority of the young person in custody to ensure that both during the period of detention and on release it took steps to promote that young person’s educational potential. Subsection (3) would provide that the home authority must make arrangements for the provision of education or training for the young person when they are released, but includes the words “where it appears to the home authority appropriate for them to do so”. I want the Minister to answer the following question. Given the importance of education to young offenders in ensuring that they do not continue on the road to a life of crime, when might it not be “appropriate” for that young person’s home authority to make arrangements for the provision of education or training on that person’s release from detention? Is not the danger that the phrasing will provide a get-out clause that will allow indolent local authorities not to bother?
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- Rob MarrisLabour
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- I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern, but may I suggest that one point where it might not be appropriate for the home authority to act is mentioned in the new clause: in respect of people who are “over compulsory school age.”?
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- Mr. GibbConservative
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- I do not accept that. Given the statistics that I have just read out, we need to put more effort into ensuring that prisoners who leave custody have those basic skills to enable them to get a job and to have a decent life. Local authorities should not be given an easy get-out from providing that education to those people.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- I, too, am interested by the use of the term “over compulsory school age”. I thought that “compulsory school age” was a historical concept and that what we now have is compulsory education to the age of 18. Thus, this usage would appear to be inappropriate or at least ambiguous. Where does it leave 17-year-olds and 18-year-olds?
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- Mr. GibbConservative
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- My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is an anachronistic phrase—if one is to believe the rhetoric of Labour Ministers. Our second concern relates to proposed new section 562C(3) of the 1996 Act, which new clause 14 would insert and which deals with young offenders who had a statement of special educational needs prior to going into custody. The provision says that the local authority where the young person is detained must use its “best endeavours” to secure special educational provision for that person while they are in custody. Again, it is the phrase “must use its best endeavours” that concerns us. Is not that another get-out clause for a local authority that does not want to incur the expense of ensuring that the youth custody facilities in its area provide that type of quality education? Our third and final concern also relates to the proposed new section 562C and concerns the definition of what is to be regarded as appropriate special educational provision. In new subsection 4(c) it says that if it appears to the host authority that the special educational provision specified in the statement is no longer appropriate for the young person in custody, the host authority can simply provide that element of special education that it deems appropriate. Given that the new section does not provide for a new statement or assessments to be made, that also appears to be a widely drafted get-out clause for local authorities that do not wish to provide high- quality special education for young people in custody. Policy in relation to children with special educational needs has not been well handled over the last 10 or 20 years, and much needs to be done to right those wrongs. Indeed, one might be forgiven for making a connection between poor policy making, the Warnock conclusions about inclusion and the fact that we are now discussing educational provision for young people in custody with special educational needs. Given the strong correlation between poor educational achievement and prison, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that poor special education provision is having a similar consequence for some young people who have special educational needs. These are important issues and I hope that the Minister will address them appropriately. I wish her all the best with voting these new clauses and amendments on to the statute book without any hitches.
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Mr. Gordon Marsden (Blackpool, South) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- I apologise for not joining the debate earlier, but I have been in a Select Committee meeting. I have taken some interest in new clause 14 as part of my overall interest in special educational needs. I congratulate Ministers on these amendments. This issue is very important. Last year, on the Second Reading of the Education and Skills Act 2008, I pointed out the importance of trying to ensure that children with special educational needs were not excluded unnecessarily. This Bill follows through that aim very positively. One of the problems that sometimes occurs when we legislate is that the different Departments do not always get their act together. Given that this issue relates to the Ministry of Justice as well as to the Departments for Children, Schools and Families and for Innovation, Universities and Skills, one might expect that problem to occur, but it has not.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I am reluctant to interrupt the hon. Gentleman as I know that he takes a great interest in these matters and speaks with authority, but I thought that the House might wish to note that the deputy Chief Whip has now joined us—I presume in order to ensure that proceedings go more smoothly than they did the first time.
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- Mr. MarsdenLabour
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- I have nothing to add to that intervention and I shall continue my train of thought. These amendments have rightly been informed by the concerns that have been expressed on other occasions. I refer especially to the Westminster Hall debate on adults with learning difficulties that took place earlier this year and to the comments on that occasion made by my hon. Friends the Members for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) and for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) about the number of adults in the system who did not get the right sort of advice or assistance. I raised that issue with Ministers subsequently in Justice questions. These amendments are a strong attempt to join the circle through further provision and to link the concerns that have been expressed by the DCSF about the need to ensure that children with special educational needs are not unnecessarily excluded—as that might set them on a path that leads to delinquency and further criminal behaviour—with the situation in prisons. This is a very important step, which is widely welcomed. I expect—and very much hope—that it will make a significant contribution to what the Government have already been trying to do about prison education.
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- Annette BrookeLiberal Democrat
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- I, too, hope that our considerations today proceed smoothly and without a hitch. On the subject of these new clauses, it is really important to identify the roles of the home and host authorities. I believe that the Government basically have it right in their definitions of what the home authority should be doing and what the host authority should be doing. The difficulty, as all hon. Members acknowledge, is promoting liaison between those two authorities. It is important that the Government recognise clearly that a high proportion of young offenders have special educational needs and, perhaps unrelated to that but possibly related to it, that many young offenders have been excluded from school. Obviously, education is key in rehabilitation and in tackling reoffending. Equally, we are aware of the particularly high rate of reoffending among young people, which can be as high as 80 per cent. I cannot emphasise enough how important I think that the proposals are, but I am concerned about their implementation, as I have already said. I, too, share the concerns of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) that the proposed new section 562C offers some convenient opt-outs for local authorities that mean that they might not endeavour to take the required steps to promote a person’s fulfilment and learning potential. Given the existence of those opt-outs, it is crucial that their use be tightly defined in guidance. I would also repeat the point I made earlier: it is important that an assessment be made for all young people if they come into the youth justice system. That must be put on the record. I do not think that it is happening now, so it does not reassure me to have in writing, “Well, that’s all right because it is in such and such a plan.” The Government must come up with some firm schemes for monitoring the whole system implied in the new clauses; otherwise, they will be totally worthless and we will not make progress on this important matter, on which I think that the Government would be proud to have success.
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Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North) (Lab)Independent- Quote
- I was not privileged to be a member of the Public Bill Committee, so I hope that what I say has not already been well debated before. The concern is about young people in custody with special educational needs. Is it not the case that had we intervened sooner, they might not be in custody? I have argued many times, in this House and elsewhere, that we ought to provide better for younger people who clearly have special educational needs, and to do so at an earlier stage. I have some knowledge of this subject from relatives who have been teachers. Local authorities have been reluctant to statement young people, because it then costs money to do something about it. Even when those young people have been statemented, there is often a long delay before any action, during which time youngsters can fall more and more into trouble and difficulty. They might, perhaps, be excluded from school and then get into trouble. The end result is that they finish up in custody, with a criminal record or a custodial record and with a very poor educational experience.
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- Bob SpinkIndependent
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- The hon. Gentleman has just shared with the House his scepticism about local authorities’ willingness to go the extra mile for people with special educational needs. Does he share my concern that proposed new section 562C(4)(c) states that special educational needs provisions do not have to be applied by the host authority if that host authority feels that they are “no longer appropriate for the person”? My concern is that the host authority might consider the situation from the point of view of its own convenience, rather than from that of the interests of the individual. The authority might withhold the special educational needs provision because it is inconvenient for the host authority rather than because it is not in the individual’s interests. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government should make sure that they monitor the situation carefully, and should ensure that they give extremely strong guidance on the matter?
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- Kelvin HopkinsIndependent
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- I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I shall come on to make the point that there is always a resource implication of such actions. The resource constraint sometimes deters local authorities from doing things that they ought to do. I have had cases in my constituency of people who really should have been in residential educational care, or whatever one likes to call it, at an earlier stage in life. The local authority resists, usually arguing that it is better to have the principle of inclusion to the fore, when the real concern is about the cost. If central Government were prepared to fund local authorities to provide that very expensive special provision for certain young people, local authorities would be much more enthusiastic about pursuing that option. That is, of course, true of the new clauses that we are discussing, too. I support the clauses in principle, but if local authorities find ways of not doing what those clauses imply because it is “not appropriate”, it may be a resource constraint that is the problem. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), and the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon)—to look seriously at making sure that local authorities have the resources to do what the clauses imply should be done. I have argued on many occasions that there ought to be more residential provision for those with certain sorts of special educational needs, and particularly for those with serious behavioural needs that are difficult to accommodate in school. The young people concerned have difficulty coping with school. I am not suggesting that every time anybody misbehaves, they should be sent off to a boarding school, but some people’s behavioural difficulties are so serious that they really need a calmer experience in a residential setting, with specialist provision. I know that schools and colleges of that kind do exist. Some of them are private, and some are very expensive. If local authorities, in regional consortiums, made that sort of provision for those with special educational needs at an early stage—if intervention were quick and early—it would make an enormous difference to whether those people finished up in a custodial environment, and then went on to a criminal life, which would be wholly regrettable. Early intervention is absolutely crucial in such cases, as it is in the case of so many special educational needs. If we invested more in such special educational provision when people were very young, we would finish up with fewer people in custodial situations, and fewer people leading a life of crime.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins). Uniquely, I found myself agreeing with almost everything that he said, particularly on early intervention. If one wants to look at the matter in purely financial terms, from the state’s point of view, early intervention and investment in young people who are clearly coming off the rails, as they are when in custody, will pay back. It will pay back handsomely if we can provide the educational opportunity to allow at least a decent percentage of those young people to get on to the straight and narrow, increase their confidence and so on. I also agree with what the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) said about the need for visibility on performance. We need transparency. Young people who go into custody often move between institutions. Sometimes they are moved far away from their home authority, and they are out of sight, out of mind. That is why the fact that the Government are today making an effort to improve the education of those young people is to be welcomed, but it is also why so many Members from all parts of the House have concerns about whether the measures that the Government are taking are strong enough. I have already raised issues about the wording. The home authority must “take such steps as they consider appropriate”, and the host authority “must use best endeavours”. To say that an authority has failed in such a statutory duty is pretty hard to do. I therefore urge Ministers to consider tightening up that wording, even if, for now, it appears only in guidance. If we are to ensure that those young people receive education where it is practical to deliver it, perhaps we need a stronger commitment. That also picks up on another important point, in addition to transparency, about money; this is often a question of resources. Given plentiful quantities of money, host, home and custody authorities would be only too happy to provide more educational support for young people and, if they had the resources, perhaps they would be able to ensure a more settled time in custody, the better to provide them with education. I am concerned about the way in which the host authorities will access the money. I understand from the Minister that money will be transferred to local authorities, but will transparency apply to requests from host authorities to home authorities and to the responses that they receive? I should be grateful if the Minister explained to the House and to me exactly how the host authority may claim funding to ensure that the person it has assessed receives the education that that authority thinks is right. On the subject of visibility, are the Government, like many on both sides of the House, keen on league tables? If necessary, could league tables on performance in looking after the education and the progress of young people in custody be published to shame authorities into improving their performance? At the very least, if they discovered that other authorities were doing a much better job, they could make contact with those authorities and try to find out what was required to help them improve.
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Anne Main (St. Albans) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- It is important that we look at added value. People often start at a low base when they enter into the care of those education authorities, so we need to look at that component. Those people have already been failed by the system, so we must ensure that it then brings them up, at least to some extent. That may not be as measurable as some people would like, but it is important that an assessment is made.
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- Mr. StuartConservative
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- I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and it brings me to my final point, about subsection (4)(c) of proposed new section 562C, which states that where “it appears to the host authority that the special educational provision so specified” by the former home authority “is no longer appropriate” it can be set aside, as hon. Members have said. However, if it is set aside, some form of formal assessment should be carried out by the host authority. That authority should not be able simply to declare that it deems that that provision is no longer appropriate. A formal process should be conducted to ensure that that decision is reached after a rigorous assessment, and is not made purely to suit the authority’s financial situation.
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- Mr. BurrowesConservative
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- My hon. Friend has made a very good point. Given the indication that the statement of special educational needs would effectively be suspended, does he share my concern that not only does that change the duty of the home authority and put the onus on the host authority but it takes away parents’ rights regarding statements? No longer will they be party to any reviews or appeals: they will be cut out of the process of SEN provision for their child while he or she is in custody. Does he share my concern that the Minister has not adequately thought through that loss of contact and representation for parents?
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- Mr. StuartConservative
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- My hon. Friend is quite right, and he has picked up a point made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris). It is ironic that we should consider these new clauses, which make no mention whatsoever of parents, on the very day on which the Prime Minister has declared that parent power should be the driving force to raise educational standards. That irony will not be lost on the Secretary of State who, in this particular regard, has failed his master. Perhaps he is about to catch up, and fall into step with him, and we will hear about that from the Minister at the Dispatch Box.
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- As hon. Members will know, I spoke on Second Reading and served on the infamous Public Bill Committee. A lot of fun was had, and I enjoyed spending a great deal of time with Members from all parts of the House—probably more time than I would have liked at times. It was an occasion that I will not forget in a hurry, and it will give me many happy memories in the years to come. I wish to speak in support of new clause 14, and seek clarification from the Minister on a couple of aspects of the Bill’s implementation. As we know, a large proportion of young people who are detained have special educational needs and many of those are identified, but as the Minister is well aware, many are not. I am pleased that the new clause pays significant attention to children with special educational needs.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I know that the hon. Lady feels passionately about these subjects, as do I. Would she acknowledge that one of the key aspects of that information is the specificity and quantification of the provision that is put in place to meet the statemented need? There seems to be some variability about that between authorities, and some problem with passing on that information in detail from one authority to another as a child, and later a young person, goes through the system?
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Mrs. HodgsonLabour- Quote
- I agree. As hon. Members know, I introduced a private Member’s Bill on special educational needs and the collection of information. The problem exists not only for children in custody, but for children as they move around the country, even when their parents are totally responsible for them. Often the information is not passed on from one local authority to another with regard to the specific needs of that child. I have had personal experience of starting again, in effect, when one moves to a new local authority. The amendment is welcome because, when a child or young person moves into a local authority area it will help inform the authority that they may need an SEN assessment or a statement.
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- Rob MarrisLabour
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- I refer to new clause 14 and to what, if it is passed, will become section 562B of the Education Act 1996. Subsection (2)(a) reads: “The home authority must— (a) during the period of detention in relevant youth accommodation. . .take such steps as they consider appropriate to promote the person’s fulfilment of his or her learning potential.” I wish to probe the Minister a little on resources for the fulfilment of that statutory commitment. I confess that the last time I looked at per capita annual spending on the education of young people in the secure estate, compared to per capita annual spending on a pupil at a state secondary school, was probably five years ago, in the previous Parliament. Let us add to the equation the amount spent by many local authorities on a tiny minority of children with very severe emotional and behavioural difficulties who are put in secure accommodation not necessarily because of criminal acts of any sort, but because they are so disturbed that they need a very high level of support, to the extent that it is residential and often geographically outside the home local authority area. For example, Wolverhampton used to send children to somewhere in Devon. It is debatable whether that is good for the child. For most of them, it is better that they remain nearer where they live, although not in every case if they have a very disruptive family. I would not want anyone to think that these are exact figures, but for purposes of comparison let me give the figures, very roughly, from a few years ago. For a child from Wolverhampton who was placed in such secure residential accommodation because of their emotional and behavioural difficulties, the average cost was £150,000 a year. For some, however, the cost was £250,000 a year, meaning that, if a child went into such an institution for four years, they could cost £1 million. It drained a huge proportion of the health budget and the local authority budget, albeit for children with very severe difficulties. Those were extreme figures. The approximate spending per capita per year—I am talking about five years ago—on an average child in a secondary school was £4,000 a year. That was for a child who went to school for roughly six hours a day, five days a week, 39 weeks a year. By contrast, the figure for a young person in the secure estate was lower; it was in the low £3,000s. It was difficult to form an idea of the figures, because, frankly, the Government did not keep them and one had to try to work them out as best one could. It was a bit of a back-of-an-envelope calculation, because the figures that the Government started with involved taking the number of places in an institution, such as Pucklehurst where Stephen Fry was as a teenager, and dividing that by the budget. Then one had the per capita figure, but of course that included accommodation—food, heating, lighting, security and so on. The comparative figure was just over £3,000 a year, as far as I could tell, for a young person in a secure estate, as opposed to someone in a regular secondary school, who cost about £4,000 a year. That struck me as absolutely potty, given that, as I understand it, a large plurality, if not a majority, of young people in the secure estate have severe difficulties with basic learning—with the three R’s. It is one of the factors that can become an indicator of someone’s being in the secure estate. I must stress that I do not suggest that a young person aged 13 or 14 who is not functionally literate will necessarily end up in the secure estate, but a disproportionate number of young people who are not functionally literate do.
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- Kelvin HopkinsIndependent
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- I am sure that my hon. Friend saw a recent documentary about young people being taught to read, and the transformation in the behaviour of one young person who had caused massive problems in school. They were successfully taught to read, and they were transformed as a person. They became happy and well integrated, and they led a productive life at school and beyond.
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- Rob MarrisLabour
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- I agree because, at base, this is partly about self-esteem. It is also about whether such people are likely to offend upon their release because of their emotional state, their chances of getting a job and their level of basic skills. Proposed new section 562B(2)(a) has resource implications and I hope that the Minister will assure me that those approximate figures from five years ago have been superseded. The Government have taken the issue in hand over the past five years, because of pressure from all parts of the House, and they have done much better on education for young people in the secure estate. However, I want reassurance from the Minister—perhaps not today, because it can be difficult to unravel such figures—that, per capita per annum, spending on the education of young people in the secure estate is more than what is spent on children in a regular state secondary school.
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- That was an interesting debate. There were some very good contributions by Members on both sides of the House. It shows the great interest that Members have in the issue. On the specific points, I turn first to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb). He asked when it would not be appropriate for the local authority to make arrangements for persons released from detention. That would be when the young person or their parents had already made arrangements for their continuing education and training. In that case, the local authority would not have to step in. There was another question about compulsory school age education and training. Obviously, there is compulsory schooling up to 16. Post-16, there is education or training, so, as the issue moves with the recommended participation age, the relevant provisions will apply. Many of the other points come back to the answers that I gave before, in response to interventions. The issue is about getting the balance right between what can practically be achieved within the secure estate and our wanting the best for young people. As I said, in many cases, practical difficulties mean that it would not be possible to replicate the exact provision that young people enjoyed outside the secure estate. A special educational needs statement often includes a particular school that a young person should attend; obviously, that would not be possible in respect of a young person in the secure estate. Another point, which came up time and again, was about monitoring and inspection. Ofsted will be responsible for the inspection of educational standards and the education that young people receive in the secure estate. On young people coming out of the secure estate, I should say that there will be a national indicator for local authorities to ensure that young people supervised by youth offending teams are in education or employment at the end of their sentences. A lot of that will be put together in the guidance. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) was an assiduous Committee member who made some very good contributions. I thank him for his support for the new clause. I agree with what the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) said: it will be for us to define tightly in the guidance what we mean by “taking steps” and what is appropriate. The issue of monitoring was also raised. In the youth crime action plan, we committed to review the performance management arrangements for young offenders’ education in custody as part of these education reforms. We are working with our partners so that that is taken on board. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) said that prevention was better than cure, and I agree absolutely. Again, the issue is about getting the balance right between what can practically be achieved within the secure estate and our wanting the best for the young people. On my hon. Friend’s comments about special educational needs as a whole, I should say that there has been considerable investment in education for youngsters with special educational needs. Furthermore, Ofsted is about to undertake a review, which will guide us on how we can go further on that.
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- Kelvin HopkinsIndependent
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- I thank my hon. Friend for her reassurance on these matters. Has her Department made any attempt to look at the extent to which local authorities have prejudices or views about special educational needs which are now being shown to be inappropriate? I am thinking, for example, of those who believe in blanket inclusion rather than special provision when medical or mental health problems are clearly involved. Is the Department looking at local authorities and local authority officers who have particular prejudices on such matters?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- I take my hon. Friend’s point. He will be aware that we have employed Sir Brian Lamb to review parental experience in the special educational needs system. Last week, we specifically asked Sir Brian to look at the exact issue that my hon. Friend has raised: whether local authorities are discharging their responsibilities and duties in a more consistent manner. Some local authorities work well in that regard, but others do not. The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) made points about parents. Parents are fully engaged in the sentence planning process. As for educational requirements, we will make sure that we put into the local authority guidance the fact that the current process by which parents are involved in the sentence planning also implies their involvement in the education.
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- Anne MainConservative
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- Does the word “parents” include grandparents, or people who are in a parenting role? Sometimes people who are not the immediate parents take on a parenting role, and they are often excluded when decisions are made about the young people involved.
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- In general, the parent or guardian will be the statutory person, but there is no reason why we cannot look at that when we consider the more detailed part of the guidance.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- Can the Minister explain at exactly what point in the process parents will be involved?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- As we work with partners on the guidance, we can consider at what level parents will be engaged in the education process—whether it will be a replica of what happens in the sentence planning process or whether we want to do something particularly for young people with special educational needs. Parents are closely involved with those provisions. Two questions were asked about funding. Funding will go to the Young People’s Learning Agency and then to the host authorities. We are considering how best we can ensure that the funding designated for education in custody is spent on that and how we get equality of spend across the system. We will work closely with all the partners to agree a model for how we can make that happen. In England, the funding will flow from central Government to the YPLA to the host LEAs, which will then use it to secure education and training for juveniles in custody. In Wales, it will be slightly different—the funding will be re-routed from the Youth Justice Board’s budget to the Welsh Assembly Government and then distributed to host LEAs, which will receive additional funding to carry out their new responsibilities of securing education and training in juvenile custody.
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- Mr. StuartConservative
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- I am trying to understand this process. I thought that the home authority was going to play a role, but obviously not—the money will flow between the YPLA and the host authority. Will the allocation to the host authority be based on a standard assessment of need, and to what extent can that be constrained by the budgetary position of the YPLA?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- We are looking forward to agreeing that model as we bring it forward. The home LEA is involved because the Bill proposes that host LEAs should be able to recoup the cost of SEN provision from home authorities, because they are not providing it while the young person is in custody. We need to get the model right and ensure that all the partners are involved. My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Mrs. Hodgson) is a seasoned campaigner on behalf of young people with SEN. Her Bill was very important because, as she rightly says, information flows are vital.
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- Rob MarrisLabour
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- Can my hon. Friend assure me that the YPLA, which will be the funding body for the host authority, will have sufficient funds? Will it be charged with the responsibility of providing a higher per capita annualised figure for the education of a young person in the secure estate than the average figure for what one might broadly term a regular secondary school student, so that extra moneys will go into the education of young people in the secure estate, many of whom, although they do not have statemented special educational needs, have what we might call, in lay terms, particular educational needs, often in catching up with the basic three R’s?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- I cannot give my hon. Friend an assurance on whether that average is right without having the figures in front of me. It is certainly something that we are looking into. We expect that host LEAs will receive additional funding to carry out these responsibilities. I cannot comment on the figures that he quoted, which are from five years ago. I undertake to write to him with the information. [Interruption.] I have just seen that the amount of funding that the Government give to local authorities for the education and training of young people in custody will be based on a per-bed price that is agreed centrally by national partners at the start of the commissioning process. Funding for special educational needs is relative to the child, which is why we have to get the model right to ensure that they get the appropriate amount. I hope that hon. Members will agree that the new clauses are an improvement, and that the whole Bill is an improvement, for young people in custody. We hope that if we can get education and training right, that will prevent the reoffending that hon. Members have mentioned. Question put and agreed to. New clause 14 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill. New Clause 15 Detention of child or young person: local education authorities to be notified ‘After section 39 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (c. 37) insert— “39A Detention of child or young person: local education authorities to be notified (1) Subsection (2) applies where a youth offending team becomes aware that— (a) a child or young person has become subject to a detention order and is detained in relevant youth accommodation, or (b) a child or young person who is subject to a detention order has been transferred from one place of accommodation to another which is relevant youth accommodation. (2) The youth offending team must as soon as practicable notify— (a) the home local education authority, and (b) the host local education authority, of the place where the child or young person is detained. (3) Subsection (4) applies where a youth offending team becomes aware that a person has been released having immediately before release been— (a) subject to a detention order, and (b) detained in relevant youth accommodation. (4) The youth offending team must as soon as practicable notify the following authorities of the release— (a) the home local education authority; (b) the host local education authority; (c) any other local education authority in whose area the youth offending team expects the person to live on release. (5) Nothing in this section requires a youth offending team to notify a local education authority of any matter of which the authority is already aware. (6) In this section— “home local education authority”, in relation to a child or young person, means the local education authority which is the home authority in relation to that person within the meaning of Chapter 5A of Part 10 of the Education Act 1996 (persons detained in youth accommodation); “host local education authority”, in relation to a child or young person who is detained in relevant youth accommodation, means the local education authority for the area in which that person is detained; “young person” includes a person who is aged 18; and references in this section to a person subject to a detention order and to relevant youth accommodation have the same meanings as they have in the Education Act 1996 (see section 562(1A) of that Act).”’.—(Sarah McCarthy-Fry.) Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill. New Clause 21 Further education corporations in England: co-operation and promotion of well-being ‘(1) The Further and Higher Education Act 1992 (c. 13) is amended as follows. (2) In section 19 (supplementary powers of a further education corporation), after subsection (8) add— “(9) A further education corporation may provide advice or assistance to any other person where it appears to the corporation to be appropriate for them to do so for the purpose of or in connection with the provision of education by the other person.” (3) After that section insert— “19A Duty in relation to promotion of well-being of local area (1) This section applies to a further education corporation established in respect of an educational institution in England. (2) In exercising their functions under sections 18 and 19, the corporation must— (a) have regard, amongst other things, to the objective of promoting the economic and social well-being of the local area, and (b) in doing so, have regard to any guidance issued by the Secretary of State about co-operation with a view, directly or indirectly, to advancing that objective. (3) In subsection (2)— (a) the reference to the well-being of an area includes a reference to the well-being of people who live or work in the area; (b) “co-operation”, in relation to a further education corporation, means any form of co-operation, including consulting, seeking advice or assistance from, providing advice or assistance to, or collaborating or otherwise participating in joint working with, other educational institutions, employers or other persons (who may be, or include, persons outside the local area). (4) In this section, “the local area”, in relation to a further education corporation, means the locality of the institution in respect of which they are established. (5) Nothing in this section is to be taken to affect the operation of section 49A.”’.—(Ed Balls.) Brought up, and read the First time.
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- I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal)Labour- Quote
- With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 22—Targets for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. Government new clause 23—Local Safeguarding Children Boards: lay members. Government new clause 24—Local Safeguarding Children Boards: annual reports. New clause 20—Children visited by key workers— ‘After section 16 of the Children Act 2004 insert— “16A (1) A Children’s services authority shall secure that, when any child who is the subject of— (a) an investigation under section 47 of the Children Act 1989; or (b) a child protection plan agreed by the Local Safeguarding Children Board is visited by his or her key worker, the child shall, if practicable and reasonable in the circumstances, be seen separately from his or her parent or care-giver. (2) The key worker referred to in subsection (1) is— (a) in the case of subsection (1)(a) of this section, the lead social worker appointed by the children’s services authority; and (b) in the case of subsection (1)(b), the key worker appointed by the Local Safeguarding Children Board.”’. New clause 29—Chairman of local safeguarding board— ‘A Children’s Services Authority in England must ensure that the Local Safeguarding Board established by it has a chairman who is independent of that authority.’. Government amendment 18. Amendment 54, in clause 187, page 100, line 26, at end insert— ‘(ff) a short stay school within the area of the authority; (fg) a Sure Start Children’s Centre within the area of the authority; (fh) a representative of an extended school provider with authority; (fi) general medical practitioners within the area of the authority.’. Amendment 15, in clause 188, page 103, line 43, at end insert— ‘(6) A Children’s Trust Board must have regard to the need to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child when preparing a children and young people’s plan.’. Amendment 67, page 104, line 7, at end insert— ‘( ) allocate clear areas of responsibility and accountability for each section of the plan to relevant persons and bodies;’. Government amendments 19 and 20.
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Ed BallsLabour- Quote
- Over the past few days, people around the country will have been horrified to read that one of the defendants found guilty in respect of the death of baby Peter has also committed another vile and disgusting crime against a small and vulnerable child. There is nothing that we can do to take away the suffering caused by such terrible crimes, but it is our responsibility to do everything that we can to ensure that there are the best possible child protection arrangements—in Haringey and across the country. In November last year, I asked Lord Laming to provide us with an independent progress report on child protection across the country. In my statement to the House on 12 March I confirmed that we would accept all Lord Laming’s recommendations and set out the immediate action that we were taking to implement them. In his report, Lord Laming concluded that the Every Child Matters reforms provided “a sound framework for professionals to protect children and promote their welfare.” However, he also stated that there now needed to be “a step change in the arrangements to protect children from harm.” He challenged us to do more to ensure that leaders of local services accept their responsibility to “translate policy, legislation and guidance into day-to-day practice on the frontline of every service.” As I said in my statement to the House a few weeks ago, in that report Lord Laming made a series of detailed recommendations to ensure that best practice is universally applied in every area of the country, to improve local accountability and to provide more support for local leaders and the front-line work force. Tomorrow we will set out our detailed response to Lord Laming’s report and our new vision for the new national safeguarding delivery unit, as well as the first recommendations of our social work taskforce to improve front-line social work practice. Today, we have tabled three new clauses that will help us to go further towards implementing Lord Laming’s recommendations in this Bill, and I thank Opposition Members for their co-operation in agreeing to the new clauses coming forward on Report. They will introduce new statutory targets for safeguarding and child protection and require local safeguarding children boards to appoint two members drawn from the local community and to publish an annual report on their effectiveness. New clause 22 will insert a new section into the Children Act 2004 to allow us to introduce the statutory targets that Lord Laming recommended in his report, to ensure that safeguarding and child protection are the top priority in every area. Of course, there is a national role in the setting of those targets, but the vital thing is for local agencies to be consulted on those targets and then to ensure that they are properly driven forward locally. That is why they must take account of local performance and circumstance and why we expect local authorities to consult all local agencies and to propose challenging targets to us. We will bring forward secondary legislation to address the details of how those targets will be set, alongside the review of the range of safeguarding targets, and will publish a new framework in the autumn.
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- Annette BrookeLiberal Democrat
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- I have some concerns about consultation. The Secretary of State has just made it clear that there will be consultation on the details, perhaps following the enactment of the new clauses, but how much has he undertaken in advance of their introduction?
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- In preparing his report, which I asked him to begin in December, Lord Laming held a wide range of meetings all round the country with practitioners and professionals. It was on that basis that he recommended the proposed statutory targets. We have obviously consulted our key partners, as well as Opposition Members and Departments, on the fact that we intend to implement that recommendation. When Lord Laming issued his report in March, I said that we would implement his recommendation, and today we are taking the power to do so. The detail of how we will do that—that is, both the content of the secondary legislation and, importantly, the detailed statutory targets—is something on which we will consult over the coming months and in the autumn. There will therefore be a full consultation on how we enact those powers, but the fact that we are enacting them is a consequence of Lord Laming’s consultation and his report. Government new clause 23 amends the Children Act 2004 to require local authorities to open up the child protection system to greater public scrutiny by ensuring that two members of the general public are appointed to every local safeguarding children board in the country. An important part of our response to Lord Laming’s report was to say that we needed greater transparency and public involvement, not least because safeguarding children is the responsibility of us all, not just professionals. Government new clause 23 will allow best practice to become common practice and will ensure that we can implement that recommendation in a sensible manner. In line with Lord Laming’s recommendations, we have already said that we will revise our statutory guidance in “Working Together” to set out our presumptions that the director of children’s services and the lead member for children’s services will always be members of both the children’s trust board and the LSCB. The chief executive and the leader of the council will have an obligation to confirm annually that their local arrangements comply with the law. Government new clause 24 will require the local safeguarding children board to publish an annual report and to submit it to its local children’s trust, in order to provide an honest assessment of how those arrangements are being implemented and ensure that resourcing, organisation and co-ordination issues are being properly addressed by all agencies in the children’s trust, thereby allowing proper and effective scrutiny.
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- Rob MarrisLabour
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- I display my ignorance here, but I see that the annual report will go to the local children’s trust board. I appreciate that some matters covered may be delicate, but to ensure the scrutiny to which my right hon. Friend has referred, will those annual reports be publicly available, so that people can read what is going on in their area?
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- The reports will be public reports, issued by the safeguarding children board. All the experts who are involved in overseeing safeguarding arrangements in an area are on the safeguarding children board. They will report to the children’s trust, which is responsible for ensuring that those responsible in every local area for leading individual agencies—whether the local authority, the police, health services or other agencies more widely—are putting in place both the senior management time and the resourcing to ensure that the challenge of safeguarding is being properly implemented. That allows the children’s trust to ensure that safeguarding is being done properly and it allows the safeguarding board to ensure that individual agencies are playing their proper role. That must happen in public. An important part of our proposed new clauses is opening up the process to proper scrutiny.
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- Bob SpinkIndependent
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- I fully accept the Secretary of State’s good will in bringing forward the Government’s new clauses, which I welcome. However, does he agree that they rely to some extent on his issuing strong guidance and on monitoring performance to ensure that local authorities comply with that guidance? What assurances can he give that he will indeed give that strong guidance and conduct robust monitoring?
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- The recommendations in Lord Laming’s report challenge us to do just that. The combination of the new national safeguarding unit and the strengthened inspection regime through Ofsted is important. In the end, however, the issue is about ensuring that we have proper leadership, resourcing and scrutiny, both locally, in every one of the 158 areas where safeguarding is co-ordinated, and across a range of different agencies. Our challenge is to make best practice universal, across all parts of the country. As I have said, we will revise our new guidance on safeguarding to each area to reflect not only the changes in the law, but the wider recommendations in Lord Laming’s report. It is vital that we have clear direction from the centre, but far more important will be the quality and commitment of leadership at local level, and that is where we must ensure that we have proper and effective scrutiny. That is why the new clause’s proposals to open up accountability at local area level, through lay members and annual reports, is as important as the setting of statutory targets and guidance, for which the Bill also makes provision.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way; I appreciate that he is in mid-flow. We welcome that change. It reflects the discussion in Committee that he described, and reaffirms the cross-party view that the relationship between educators and employers is critical, particularly at this time. I guess that this illustrates our Committees working at their best.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We believe that this is a better way of ensuring that we can have more effective, clear and flexible co-operation between colleges and employers. We are hoping that we will receive a reply today from the shadow Children’s Secretary on whether he and his party will match our September guarantee on funding for sixth forms, because, without that clarity, we will not have proper cross-party co-operation on ensuring that employers and young people get the support that they need.
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Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- I echo the Secretary of State’s sentiment that every right-thinking person in this country will have been absolutely horrified at the further revelations that have come out of the baby P affair. That makes it even more urgent to acknowledge that the measures that we all bring in—not just the Government, but all the other agencies involved—are very necessary. We can always clamp down, but we can never eliminate altogether those people who are intent on doing evil things to children. However, the duty of all of us is to make that as difficult as possible for them by eliminating as many opportunities as possible, and to keep a strong watching eye on the people who are minded to do these horrendous things to children. We are waiting eagerly for the rest of the measures that the Secretary of State will introduce in response to Lord Laming’s report, which he will announce tomorrow. I presume that we will have proper opportunity, through an oral statement, to scrutinise some of those measures. We also await the interim report from the social work taskforce, which forms an integral part of this whole exercise. I want to comment on most of the amendments and new clauses in the group. I shall first comment on our amendment 54 and then on Government amendments 18 and 19 together with the accompanying new clause 21. I shall then comment briefly on new clause 29, tabled by the Liberal Democrats. Subsequently, I will come to the main motions, which I view as Government new clauses 22, 23 and 24, and I shall want to speak to them in greater detail. Amendment 54, which was tabled by my hon. Friends, is about the duty to co-operate. It is effectively about the membership of children’s trusts and the definitions of who constitute the relevant partners that form those trusts. My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) raised the issue in Committee, explaining that in our view, the list of those relevant partners is not as exhaustive as it should be. Hence the purpose of the amendment is to add further names of agencies to clause 187. They are the further relevant partners who should be consulted and form part of the children’s trusts network. The four additional agencies that we would like to see added to the Bill largely reflect the results of the Government’s own consultation. These four agencies are, first, “a short stay school within the area of the authority”— effectively the pupil referral units, which are now being renamed. The second is “a Sure Start Children’s Centre within the area of the authority”. The third is “a representative of an extended school provider with authority”— very much a movable feast in respect of who exactly it will be, as extended schools are rolled out and encompass more and more partners. That is why it is so important for this provision to be built directly into the Bill. Fourthly and particularly—this is another issue that came out of the Government’s consultation—there are “general medical practitioners within the area of the authority.” It was found that engaging GPs with children’s centres and some other partners had proved particularly challenging, which is why we think there is a case for naming them directly in the Bill. Amendment 54 is thus straightforward in making more explicit the relevant partners that should be named within the legislation. Let me turn briefly to deal with Government new clause 21 and the corresponding amendments 18 and 19. I welcome the Secretary of State’s comments and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), who now seems to have dismissed himself, on the pressure he brought to bear in Committee, where it was felt that the burdens placed on colleges were slightly onerous and that the duty to co-operate—not now on a funding condition—was a welcome remodelling of the thrust of this part of Bill, without undermining its credibility. Further education colleges already do a lot to support and promote well-being throughout communities. If anything, we should be giving them more freedom to pursue those aims even more and to promote good practice.
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- Anne MainConservative
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- My hon. Friend is absolutely right that our further education colleges do a really good job, but they are often let down. In my constituency, for example, the Learning and Skills Council has not only wasted £12.5 million on running itself into a lease that it now has to get out of, but has withdrawn £40 million from a huge further education project—at Oaklands college, which will now probably fail. The Government might talk wise words, but they do not always deliver—
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- Madam Deputy SpeakerLabour
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- Order. I remind the hon. Lady that we are discussing the content of the new clause rather than the withdrawal of funding.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- My hon. Friend has done well to make that point, getting in almost under the radar. There is an opportunity to take it further during tomorrow morning’s Westminster Hall debate, when the complete shambles that has been the LSC and the Government’s handling of further education funding can be explored in more detail, and in order. We welcome what the Government have done in respect of the new clause and the amendments, and will support those measures. The Liberal Democrats have tabled a number of proposals, which I will allow them to speak to for themselves, but I want to touch on new clause 29— [Interruption.] The reason why I am letting them speak to those proposals for themselves is that some do not add up, in particular new clause 29.
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Mr. David Laws (Yeovil) (LD)Liberal Democrat- Quote
- You are thinking about yours.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- I would be delighted to defer to the hon. Gentleman to allow him to comment on our single amendment. New clause 29, tabled by the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends, requests that a “Children’s Services Authority…must ensure that the Local Safeguarding Board… has” an independent chairman. Actually, those boards already can, and in many cases do, so I am slightly at a loss as to why primary legislation is required to bring that about. Indeed, when the issue of baby P and serious case review handling by local safeguarding children boards came up back in the autumn, Conservative-run authorities were advised to ensure that they had chairmen or chairwomen of those boards who were independent, and that the boards were no longer chaired by the director of children’s services, as had been the case in many authorities. All Conservative-run authorities had either made moves to bring that about or were in the process of making such moves. They have led the way and pre-empted a recommendation that it became inevitable Lord Laming would make. It will be interesting to hear from the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) how many Liberal Democrat-run local authorities have followed that advice—not that there are many, but we can at least have a good stab at finding out how much they have done already to put their principles into practice. The Government’s main proposals are new clauses 22, 23 and 24, which are important. I think that the Secretary of State would acknowledge that we have been proactive and positive in supporting child protection legislation post-Victoria Climbié, and have been constructively critical in many examples, but we have always supported those measures that we think will lead to greater protection of children. Alas, too many of those measures have not had the desired effect—for a host of reasons that it is not appropriate to go into now. We had a debate on child protection a month or two ago. I am keen to learn from the Secretary of State in greater detail why he thinks that these particular measures will improve the quality of the outcomes, by which I mean that more children will be better protected and fewer will end up meeting the horrific end of baby Peter and other children who have died at the hands of parents or carers in recent years. I am not interested in the quantity of legislation. I think we have concentrated too much on quantity in the nine years since the death of Victoria Climbié. We must focus much more on the quality of the legislation, particularly the quality of the outcomes that it achieves. I have enormous respect for Herbert Laming, who was one of the patrons of the Conservative commission on social worker practices, but part of the criticism has been that the 108 recommendations made in relation to Victoria Climbié have added to the bureaucracy, which can be said to have made the job of social workers rather more difficult. My problem, therefore, is how many of the 58 further recommendations being made in Laming 2 will add yet further to the bureaucracy, with Herbert Laming having himself acknowledged how too much bureaucracy has grown up in child protection and is becoming, in some cases, self-defeating.
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- Kelvin HopkinsIndependent
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- The hon. Gentleman is focusing on the additional bureaucracy arising from Laming 1, and possibly Laming 2 as well, but is not the real problem a massive case overload? We need more resources for social work, and more and better social workers, to ensure that the events that we are discussing are not repeated.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We need fewer case loads heaped on to individual social workers, we need more permanent social workers—as opposed to agency or short-term social workers—and we need to free up more of social workers’ time, so that they can get on with their job of protecting children and vulnerable families and meeting them face to face rather than being shackled to their computers and assessment forms. That is what Laming, Unison and all other dispassionate observers say is now happening. Some surveys estimate that social workers and child protection workers spend up to 80 per cent. of their time in front of computers and doing paperwork for assessments. We must judge the Bill according to the extent to which it helps, or hinders, our ability to counter the problems that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. That is why I want to concentrate on bureaucracy. So far we have heard no details of the targets mentioned in new clause 22 from the Secretary of State, but I fear that that new clause, in particular, will heap more targets, and potentially more bureaucracy, on top of performance indicators, rather than replacing them. The performance indicators currently in use for the safeguarding of children are inadequate to the task for which they were designed, which came across clearly in Laming 2, which said: “Discussion with local authorities suggested that this was because of concerns that current indicators focus on processes and timescales, are not helpful in creating shared safeguarding priorities amongst statutory partners, are unclear in their impact upon positive outcomes for children and young people, and do not drive improved services.” That is what Laming said in the opening of his report. Let us look at what others have said about the bureaucracy that has crept into the child protection system, and which I fear may be behind some of these new proposals. Mick Brookes, head of the National Association of Head Teachers, has said: “Government should immediately act to lift the burden of bureaucracy on our public services, much of it imposed as a result of incessant reform.” Christine Blower, head of the National Union of Teachers, has said: “The solutions to preventing future tragedies such as ‘Baby P’ lie not in top-down bureaucracy but in the provision of proper resources, back-up and training for frontline services such as social work, and in enabling local authorities to construct effective co-ordinated services in the knowledge that they will face tough action if they fail.” That view has been reflected in the observations of a number of commentators who are closely involved in child protection. The 58 recommendations in the second Laming report underlie these new clauses, and will underlie further proposals which the Secretary of State will no doubt unveil tomorrow. Those proposals may or may not require primary legislation, but they will certainly be contained in various regulations. An awful lot of what is being proposed amounts to further bureaucracy rather than the achievement of qualitative outcomes. One example is the establishment of a national safeguarding delivery unit. The national safeguarding delivery unit will report to the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Families, Children and Young People. Earlier, the Secretary of State exalted the merits of greater transparency and public involvement. The problem is that the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Families, Children and Young People is shrouded in secrecy. In response to a question that I tabled to the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), asking what reasons were given “not to disclose information relating to proceedings of the Cabinet Sub-committee on Families, Children and Young People; and when the Sub-committee last met”, the Under-Secretary of State replied: “Information relating to the proceedings of Cabinet Committees, including when, how often and for how long they meet, is generally not disclosed; as to do so could harm the frankness and candour of internal discussion.”—[Official Report, 30 March 2009; Vol. 490, c. 862W.] So we do not know what that Sub-Committee actually does, nor how it will respond to the proceedings of the national safeguarding delivery unit. It therefore seems to be an extra bit of bureaucracy, whose merits in achieving qualitative outcomes are questionable—but in any case we cannot question it, because it meets in secret and its minutes are not published. That is a good example of the lack of transparency that some of these proposals will create. Other recommendations underlying the new clauses include the following: that there should be statutory targets for safeguarding and protection, alongside the existing statutory attainment and early-years targets, to be produced as quickly as possible; that the Department of Health must clarify and strengthen the responsibilities of strategic health authorities; that directors of children’s services and primary care trusts must regularly review all points of referral; and that all directors of children’s services must appoint a senior manager within their team with the necessary skills and experience, and organise regular training and needs assessments. Therefore, a lot of extra bureaucracy will be added to the child protection procedures as a result of following the recommendations of Laming 2, if that is what the Secretary of State is going to do—and given that he has already committed himself to accepting all those recommendations in practice and that we have the first few of them here, it appears that that is the route down which he will go.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- The hon. Gentleman asks for transparency. As I want to respond clearly to his remarks, I must say to him that so far his comments have been obfuscatory and very unclear. He began by praising Lord Laming, but his subsequent remarks have left me very confused, and I need to know the following so that I can respond clearly. Lord Laming has made a series of recommendations, and I said in a statement to the House a few weeks ago that I accepted those recommendations and would implement them. Lord Laming recommended the following: that there should be an annual report to the children’s trust and the local safeguarding board; that there should be a national delivery unit reporting to the Sub-Committee; and that there should be new statutory targets. I am implementing Lord Laming’s recommendations—some of them through this Bill—because I support them. Do the hon. Gentleman and his party support Lord Laming’s recommendations—yes or no? I ask that because what the hon. Gentleman has so far said has been very confusing indeed.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- The simple answer is no. If the Secretary of State had listened, he would know that I absolutely respect the job Lord Laming has done and the objectives he is trying to achieve, but I absolutely question whether these 58 recommendations in full will make the system less bureaucratic and achieve what Lord Laming and I—and, I am sure, the Secretary of State—want to achieve. Many of these recommendations are good, and we will certainly support them. Taken as a whole however, I wonder whether they will add to bureaucracy, which would be counter-productive. I think I have made it absolutely clear that we support most, but not all, of them, and that we question the extra bureaucracy that might be created. I think I have made that clear.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- indicated dissent.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- The Secretary of State does not seem to think that that is clear, however. The fact that I do not support every single recommendation does not make me unsupportive of Herbert Laming. We certainly do not support the setting up of a national safeguarding delivery unit, for all the reasons that I have given.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- Lord Laming makes it absolutely clear in his report that he sees the national delivery unit as central to ensuring that children are safe. He sees its reporting to the Sub-Committee as central to keeping children safe, too. He also sees the serious case review full report being kept confidential, and the establishment of ContactPoint and new statutory targets, as central to keeping children safe. On each of these recommendations, we have heard from the hon. Gentleman that he and his party do not support what Lord Laming says are necessary actions to keep children safe. On this basis, it is clear that the Conservative party does not support the body of recommendations to keep children safe that are in Lord Laming’s report. There is no point in coming along with warm words. Lord Laming has produced a report. We are implementing his recommendations. The Conservative party does not support all the key central recommendations of the Laming report, and it is essential for public scrutiny that that point is laid clearly before us.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- I think that I have made it absolutely clear that we do not support one of Lord Laming’s central recommendations: that there should be a national safeguarding delivery unit. We have said that right from the beginning, so our position should not cause any shock or horror. We just think that that is the wrong way to go about things. Lord Laming does not say that ContactPoint is essential for child protection—he has never said that. If the Secretary of State were to reread the Climbié report, he would find that Lord Laming does not say that ContactPoint is an essential component of child protection; Lord Laming is a supporter of ContactPoint for reasons other than the idea that it is an essential part of child protection.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- indicated dissent.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- I am seriously worried that the Secretary of State is shaking his head, because he now needs to have a very close and up-front conversation with Lord Laming as he has misunderstood the reasoning behind the approach taken by the author of the report that he commissioned. That is seriously worrying—[Interruption.] I do not support some of the recommendations in Lord Laming’s report, and I have detailed those. I could detail all the recommendations that the Conservatives do support, if the Secretary of State would like me to do so. The relevant point that I am trying to make on the three new clauses that we are discussing is that we risk adding to the bureaucracy that has been the biggest enemy of effective social work practice for too many years. We have to get that system right. We already have numerous performance indicators, to which these new clauses, in particular new clause 22, will add targets. One such indicator is that initial assessments for children’s social care are to be carried out within seven working days of referral. That is a good proposal, but the trouble is that in practice what has happened in certain authorities is that in order to meet that performance indicator, certain departments have written an assessment that includes the name and address of the child only—the rest of the assessment is blank, yet that counts as an assessment to meet the performance indicator. The Secretary of State seems to be shaking his head, but that is happening and it is not what he and I want to achieve. He and I do not want to achieve that target if in our doing so the target becomes meaningless.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- That is exactly why Lord Laming proposes that all these targets be reviewed and we come forward with new statutory targets—that is a central recommendation of the Laming review, which the Conservative party does not support. There is no point in the Conservatives coming along with warm words about their support for Lord Laming when it turns out that they do not support any of the key central recommendations, including those in respect of the provisions in this Bill. People will see the difference between the parties on the priority that they put on making the essential reforms to back social workers and make children safe. That stark difference is clear to see in this debate.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- The Secretary of State does not make his point any clearer by simply repeating himself. What does not help us is his coming along today with new clauses in primary legislation that contain no detail. We are expected to pass a new clause that will impose new targets, on top of flawed performance indicators, without knowing the details. I am even more worried now, because he clearly has not been reading the report by the author whom he commissioned. If he were to do so, he would find out that this is additional bureaucracy, not replacement bureaucracy, in too many cases. I could go through a list of performance indicators, most of which he appears to be blissfully aware of; the important thing is that we should not have bland and vacuous targets, which could have unforeseen consequences, one of which I have mentioned. Let me give the Secretary of State a series of questions, so that he can tell me whether these are going to be the targets when we are eventually provided with some of the detail. Are the targets going to be bare targets about reducing the number of children taken into care for child protection purposes?
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- Lord Laming says that we should review the current targets and put in place new statutory targets. I said clearly in my speech that we would have a consultation process with local authorities and the social work taskforce over the coming months into the autumn. Alongside that, we will come forward with secondary legislation to enact the clauses that we are debating today. I am not going to tell the hon. Gentleman what the outcome of that consultation will be; that is for the consultation in the coming months. It will cover the range of targets, including the performance indicators, so that we can come up with new statutory targets. The hon. Gentleman fundamentally misunderstands the Laming recommendations. To ask me that question when I have already said that the consultation will take place shows a lack of understanding combined with a complete opposition to the central recommendations of the Laming report. On the issue of ContactPoint—
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- Madam Deputy SpeakerLabour
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- Order. I understand the Secretary of State’s wish to provide an explanation, but interventions must be brief.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- In other words, the Secretary of State does not know whether there will be a target for the number of children taken into care. Presumably, he also does not know whether there will be a target for the number of children who have avoided being taken into care because of the preventive work done with the families. Will there be a target for how quickly a child deemed to be at risk is assigned a dedicated social worker? He does not know that either. We are being expected to impose a series of new targets, the number and nature of which we do not know. It appears to me that such new targets can only add to the bureaucracy of the child protection system. We do not know whether those new targets will produce a qualitative improvement or just another quantitative addition to the legislation, paperwork and bureaucracy that already tie up too many social workers and keep them from their real job.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- All that we are doing is taking primary powers to implement Lord Laming’s recommendation of new statutory targets, the content of which we will consult on in the coming months and which will be designed to ensure that we put child protection first, not process or bureaucracy. That is what Lord Laming’s report says and that is what we are implementing—without the support of the Opposition, as is very clear from this debate.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- The Government will have—as they always have had—the full support of the Opposition when they can make the case that their proposals will make children safer and add to child protection effectiveness. Those are the simple questions that I am asking the Secretary of State. If we are to be asked to give him wide-ranging additional powers to set targets—which social workers at the sharp end tell us prevent them from doing their job, distort their job priorities and make them spend more time with their computers and paperwork than with the vulnerable families and children that they went into the profession to help—it is reasonable for us to ask those questions at this stage. The Secretary of State has been unable to give us any details of a single target that is likely to be introduced under the new clause that he is asking the House to accept today, and that is very worrying. He has completely misunderstood some of the advice that has been given by Lord Laming and he is unable to give us any indication of the targets he would like to see, notwithstanding the consultation that he says we will have. He says that we have already had consultation, but in terms of the Opposition that has amounted to a two-page letter to my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State. It would appear that we will get no further with the Secretary of State on new clause 22. Either he does not want to tell us or he just does not know. Let us turn then to new clause 23, which deals with adding laypersons to the membership of local safeguarding children boards. As I have said, we are in favour of strengthening them and making them more independent. The Secretary of State needs further to define the role of local safeguarding children boards. There is certainly a degree of confusion among practitioners about the relationship between the LSCBs and children’s trusts, too. We see the LSCBs as punchy, powerful scrutineers of the child protection process within local authorities, and it is right that that should involve bringing together various local agencies. Let us remind ourselves who is already on the LSCBs as a result of the Children Act 2004. We supported the Act and we supported the setting up of the LSCBs that took over from the area child protection committees, which were deemed not to be effective enough. The LSCBs should include representatives of district councils in local government areas that have them, chief police officers, probation boards, youth offending teams, strategic health authorities and primary care trusts, NHS trusts, the Connexions service, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, the governor or director of any secure training centre and the governor or director of any prison in the local authority area. They should also involve the coroner service, dental health services, domestic violence forums, drug and alcohol misuse services, drug action teams, housing, culture and leisure services, housing providers, local authority legal services, local MAPPA—or multi-agency public protection arrangements—services, local sports bodies and services, the local family justice council, the local criminal justice board, other health providers such as pharmacists, representatives of service users, sexual health services, the Crown Prosecution Service, witness support services and so on. The members of the LSCB are already sitting around quite a large table. My simple question to the Secretary of State concerns the fact that the appointment of two lay members to those boards would, in principle, appear to be a good idea. However, they will be two lay members among a cast of thousands. I want to ask the Secretary of State—when he listens—what effect those lay members will have. Will they have different powers from the other agency members around that very large table? Will they have the powers to question serious case reviews? Will they have the powers to publish serious case reviews, if they take issue with them? Will they have the powers—[Interruption.] I am asking a series of questions of which the Secretary of State appears to be taking no notice. Will they have the powers to issue separate serious case reviews if they take issue with the serious case review that has been commissioned by that LSCB? Those questions are important. What we do not want as a response to Laming is tokenism. If placing two lay members on to the LSCBs is tokenism, there are serious questions to be asked about the role of the LSCBs.
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- Kelvin HopkinsIndependent
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- Surely it would depend on the nature of the people who were appointed. On a number of bodies, such as school governing bodies, lay members are sometimes intimidated by professionals—teachers, head teachers and so on—and they do not say anything. If we put on strong-minded people who are capable of speaking up, surely they could be quite effective. Might it not be an idea to have somebody from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, for example?
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- The NSPCC has been mooted as a partner on the LSCBs. Other children’s protection charities have an equal claim to be on the boards. I am in favour of lay members on the LSCBs, but I am trying to put into perspective the role that the Secretary of State expects them to achieve. We are trying to address the loss of authority that the LSCBs have suffered as a result of their role in Haringey and other local authorities where there have been tragedies such as that of baby Peter, which have resulted in the commissioning of serious case reviews that can then not be published— 41 per cent. of which Ofsted has deemed to be unsatisfactory. We need to open up the LSCBs much more. It will probably take more than just the appointment of two laypersons among a cast of thousands to do that. Absolutely key to opening up those local safeguarding children boards is the publication in full of serious case reviews—a move of which the Secretary of State seems to have a pathological dislike. The body of evidence, and the amount of support, for such publication is growing. The publication of serious case reviews, duly anonymised and redacted, where it would not compromise the welfare of a surviving child or his or her siblings, would do more to give credibility to the work of those local safeguarding children boards, and to the idea that things are being looked at, investigated and rectified properly, than anything else. It would certainly do more than just the appointment of two lay members. I do not understand why the Government have an absolute, blinkered hatred for the idea.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- I will in a minute, but I know what the Secretary of State will say. In our last debate, he jumped up and quoted three organisations that are against the idea, but all three of them subsequently contacted me. They wrote to me to say that they did not want to be connected with the comments that the Secretary of State had made, and said that they had been wrongly cited. Those letters were in the public domain.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- The confidentiality of the full serious case review is not supported by the Conservative party, but it is supported by Lord Laming, and by the NSPCC and the Deputy Children’s Commissioner, who both agree with Lord Laming’s recommendation that keeping the full serious case review confidential is essential to keep children safe. That was true three months ago, and six months ago, and it is true today. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his remark, because the fact is that the NSPCC, the Deputy Children’s Commissioner and Lord Laming once again all hold the opposite position to that of the Conservative party on the issue. They say that the Conservative proposals would put children at risk.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- Sue Berelowitz, the Deputy Children’s Commissioner, whom I saw again just this morning, was one of those who contacted me straight after the Secretary of State made his remarks in our child protection debate, as was the NSPCC; its representatives came to see me the day after he made those comments. I do not take any issue with Lord Laming; I know his position on the subject, and we have had a full and frank discussion. I will not withdraw my comment that people whom the Secretary of State had prayed in aid came to me to say that their support had been misrepresented by the Secretary of State. That was the case that they made to me. I cannot withdraw those comments, because that is what they said to me.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- The fact is, as we will see—I will provide the quotes during the course of the debate—that all I did was read out public, on-the-record comments from both the NSPCC and the Deputy Children’s Commissioner, who both say that the full serious case review should be kept confidential. That was the position in November, and it is the position now. Again, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw those remarks. As for the idea that I misled anybody, I read out public statements that make the position very clear. It is the Conservative party that is out on a limb and isolated on this one.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- As usual, the Secretary of State read out selective quotes, and that is why the people who wrote the letters were not happy. That is the point. However, I want to get on to the issue of serious case reviews. Why has the Secretary of State put up such a barrier against looking at the possibility of greater publication of serious case reviews, when such publication would do more to promote the credibility of local safeguarding children boards than anything else? Why does he not take the example of the mental health homicide reports, which are published in full, subject to anonymisation and redacting? Why does he not contrast the 178-page mental health homicide report on the Zito murder, which refers to nurse B or social worker C, and gives a full account of what went wrong, and the action that is being taken, with the 16-page executive summary of the baby P serious case review, which in any case was deemed to be inadequate and misrepresentative? Why does the Secretary of State not think that publishing a fuller explanation of what went wrong, and putting it in the public domain, would give greater confidence to the families connected with the baby P case, to social workers and others involved in child protection, whose names have been besmirched generally because of the tragedies that have happened, and to the public at large, who have lost confidence in too much of the child protection system? Why does he not think that such a measure would achieve that? Let him tell us now.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- I will quote from Lord Laming’s report: “The future of SCRs depends, to a large degree, on the guarantee of confidentiality. Full reports should therefore remain confidential beyond the immediate partners involved in a case”. Lord Laming says that that is because SCRs “inevitably include a great deal of case material that should remain confidential, not only to protect vulnerable people but also because SCRs depend upon the cooperation of witnesses, often in a highly charged situation.” Once again, all I am doing is accepting Lord Laming’s recommendation, supported by the NSPCC and the Deputy Children’s Commissioner, but opposed by the Conservative party. One thing that is clear in this debate is that it opposes all the actions that we are taking to keep children safe. [Interruption.] It is very surprising indeed.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- I would ask the Secretary of State to withdraw the comment that he has just made. We do not oppose all the measures that the Government are taking to make children safe. We never have done, we certainly would not, and we are not doing so now. Perhaps he would like to withdraw that comment, because it does not do him any credit to suggest such a thing. Will he withdraw it?
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- We have had a litany of criticisms from the Conservative party of all the different recommendations in Lord Laming’s report on the confidentiality of serious case reviews, on the national safeguarding unit, and on reporting to the Cabinet Sub-Committee. It is true to say that the hon. Gentleman seems to be supporting our proposal on lay members, but even then he is casting doubt on it. I have heard no support so far for the measures that we are taking in this debate, but if he would like to tell us which recommendations he supports, I will then withdraw.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- The Secretary of State really does himself no credit. Some of us have worked for rather longer than he has been in the House on child protection measures post Victoria Climbié. We have supported every single piece of child protection legislation that his Government have introduced, but we did not do that by failing to question the efficacy of some of it. What we are doing today is questioning the efficacy of some of the legislative proposals for which he is seeking our support. I have made it absolutely clear to him that although I fully support Lord Laming’s dedication and the passion, we just disagree with him on some—not all—of his recommendations, including some of the key ones which, we think, are absolutely flawed. Certainly, in the case of SCRs, the Secretary of State has not been able to tell us why he is against their publication—he just cited Herbert Laming, with whom we disagree. His role is to scrutinise and question those people who give him advice, not blindly to accept everything. We need legislation that has been thought through properly. If that is what we have, and if the Secretary of State can show that it will improve qualitative outcomes rather than just add to the body of legislation, of which we have had rather a lot, we will support him. So far, he has not done anything. I support the new clause— [Interruption.] The Secretary of State is the one who has been playing politics, by making some very wild and unhelpful remarks, on the child protection issue. I have no problem with allowing lay members to be added to local safeguarding children boards—I support that—but what I am questioning is how much it will add in the greater scheme of things. There is one thing that he could do here and now: issue guidance about the full publication of serious case reviews, which would do much more to make those LSCBs fully transparent and accountable.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- It seems clear to me that the Secretary of State has not apologised. He said on the record that the Conservative party opposed all the measures that the Government were taking to protect vulnerable children. There may be areas in which it is appropriate to try to put dividing lines between the Conservatives and Labour for political purposes, but may I put it to the Secretary of State that this is not one of them, and it brings us all into disrepute to pursue this? He should take the opportunity now to apologise.
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- Madam Deputy SpeakerLabour
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- Order. This debate is becoming somewhat fractious, and I suggest that although there is certainly reference to the serious case reviews in the new clauses, it is not just or entirely about that. There are many other aspects to the new clauses, and it may well be appropriate for us to move on and discuss them.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- Absolutely, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was about to conclude, and I shall finish briefly with new clause 24, which requires LSCBs to produce an annual report. Again, I have no problem with that—it is a good thing if it adds to transparency. But again, I would like to know from the Secretary of State what he thinks that will achieve. The publication of 150 brochures by LSCBs throughout the country—what will that include and what is it intended to achieve? The exercise must be about restoring confidence in the child protection system. LSCBs are the guardians of the efficacy of the child protection system around the country, yet we are unable to see their full deliberations when that child protection system goes wrong, as has been shown by the debate that we have just had on the publication of serious case reviews. All I have tried to do is get some details about some very vague new clauses, which on the face of it give wide powers to the Secretary of State to add bureaucracy to the bureaucracy that already exists in the child protection system. I shall finish where I came in. I think that is the biggest enemy of social workers being able to get on with their job. We have been exceedingly supportive of social workers being able to get on with their job. We have made a series of recommendations through “No More Blame Game” and the submission that the commission on social workers made to the Laming inquiry in February, which is about peeling back the bureaucracy from social workers. My fear about the amendments is that unintentionally they may add to it. If the Government and the Secretary of State can show that they will add to the bureaucracy but that that will add to the quality of the outcomes, we will support them. I wait for a proper explanation when the right hon. Gentleman responds to the debate. In his opening remarks, there was no detail at all. The House and all those working in child protection in the country are entitled to rather more detail and a far more substantial explanation than the Secretary of State has given us thus far.
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Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon) (Lab)Labour- Quote
- I shall speak to amendment 15, which stands in my name, as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The amendment was tabled on behalf of the Committee to give effect to one of the recommendations in our scrutiny report on the Bill. The Bill places children’s trust boards on a statutory footing. In its 2008 concluding observations on the UK, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, commenting on the UK Government’s overall strategy for implementing the UN convention, welcomed the fact that the convention was referred to in the children’s plan, but expressed its continuing concern “that the Convention is not regularly used as a framework for the development of strategies throughout the State party and at the lack of an overarching policy to ensure the full realization of the principles, values and goals of the Convention.” We agree with that criticism and we asked the Government what, if any, would be their objection to the Bill being amended to require children’s trust boards, first, to have regard to the need to implement the UN convention when preparing their children and young persons’ plans, and secondly, to consult with children and young people in the preparation of the plans, as envisaged by article 12 of the convention. We welcome the Government’s commitment in relation to the second suggestion that children and young people should be consulted when the children and young people’s plan is being drawn up, and the fact that this will be made a requirement in the new regulations governing the adoption of such plans. However, my Committee is disappointed by the Government’s refusal to adopt the UN convention as the strategic framework for children’s plans. In their response to our question, the Government state that they consider it “unnecessary to have any specific provision falling on the Children’s Trust Board to have regard to the UNCRC when preparing its plan.” The Government’s reason is that they say that the UK complies with its obligations under the UNCRC through a mixture of legislative, executive and judicial action, and they are content that their legislation is consistent with the provisions of the convention. They say that the broader issue of embedding the UNCRC into UK policy and practice is covered in the Green Paper on a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, and they consider that the appropriate way to take the issue forward. Although the Green Paper welcomes public debate on whether children’s rights should be included in any Bill of Rights, and considers that such a Bill “could contain a right for children to achieve well-being, whatever their background or circumstances”, it nevertheless acknowledges that the UNCRC is “the overarching international treaty for children’s rights ratified by almost all UN member states.” However, the Green Paper contains no proposal for further embedding the UNCRC into UK policy and practice. If anything, the Green Paper appears sceptical of the value of such a proposal, preferring to emphasise that the goal of achieving improved outcomes is pursued in distinctive ways across the UK, and indicating that any Bill of Rights and responsibilities should allow for recognition that responsibility for many aspects of child well-being is devolved. My Committee was not persuaded by the Government’s reasons for not taking the opportunity in the Bill to embed the UNCRC in further policy-making. The Bill’s provisions on the drawing up of children and young people’s plans provide an opportunity for the Government to respond positively and constructively to the concern of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child that the convention is not regularly used as a framework for the development of children’s strategies. We recommended that the Bill be amended to require children’s trust boards to have regard to the need to implement the UNCRC when preparing children and young people’s plans, and in our report we suggested an amendment to achieve this, which is the amendment that I tabled for today’s debate. This is, in effect, a more specific version of the duty that now appears in clause 1 of the Equality Bill. It requires the strategic decision-making authorities for children—the children’s trust boards—to have regard to the need to implement the UNCRC when drawing up strategic plans for children. The UNCRC includes a duty to realise progressively various social and economic rights—for example, the right to an adequate standard of living, access to health, education and so on—as interpreted by the UN committee. Both the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on Economic and Social Rights want states to adopt strategic plans for the implementation of the rights, particularly the social and economic rights, in the UNCRC and in the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. The point of our amendment is to require the strategic decision-making authorities for children to have regard to the need to implement the UN convention, including by progressively realising their right to an adequate income and so on, when drawing up strategic children’s plans. Like the Equality Bill clause 1 duty, it could be judicially reviewable if the children’s trust board does not have regard to the UNCRC when drawing up its plans. This is a way of ensuring that the CRC, which protects children’s social and economic rights, is more firmly embedded in strategic decision making about children. That is what the amendment seeks to achieve. It is regrettable that the Government have not accepted it so far, and I hope they will now reconsider, in the light of our amendment.
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- Annette BrookeLiberal Democrat
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- The Liberal Democrats welcome new clause 21 and consider it a good response to the debate that we had in Committee. On new clauses 22 to 24, I shall reflect on the significance of our debate today and the Government’s announcements tomorrow, given the additional shocking news that was revealed in the past week and the “Panorama” programme last night, which had some serious messages for us all. Child protection is the most important issue that we face, and it should not be used as a political football. I shall comment on each of the Government’s proposed new clauses. I have concerns about new clause 22 in particular, and those concerns are deep set, because my reading of Laming’s review is not the same as the Secretary of State’s. I do not think that new clause 22 addresses what Laming had to say. For example, Laming stated: “The performance indicators currently in use for the safeguarding of children are inadequate for this task. Discussion with local authorities”— I do not regard that as full consultation, by the way— “suggested that this was because of concerns that current indicators focus on processes and timescales”— I agree with that, but Laming went on to say that they “are not helpful in creating shared safeguarding priorities amongst statutory partners, are unclear in their impact upon positive outcomes for children and young people, and do not drive improved services.” Laming went on to recommend that the statutory targets “should be reviewed to include safeguarding and child protection targets”, but he said: “These indicators must be specifically agreed by the Department of Health and the Home Office to ensure they are reflected in the performance management frameworks of Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs), Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and Police Authorities.”
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- Alison SeabeckLabour
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- Will the hon. Lady clarify something? I understand why she might want a child to communicate on their own with a key worker, but many such children are very small and many of their problems are physical injuries that would require a physical examination. If a third person, other than a parent or carer, did not monitor such communication, would it not leave the key worker open to all sorts of separate allegations? There are problems with the new clause, so will the hon. Lady talk me through them?
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- Annette BrookeLiberal Democrat
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- I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but it is important to appreciate that the Government’s argument is that the provision in our new clause is already available, so that rather unpicks her remark. I shall revisit the Minister’s remarks on what was technically 26 March, although it must have been the morning of 27 March. Basically, she said that the requirement to see the child separately is already embedded in statutory guidance. Although the guidance, entitled “Working Together to Safeguard Children”, makes strong statements about the principle of listening to the child, about the parents’ needs being subordinate to the child’s and so on, it does not require the key social worker to see the child separately from the parents and carers when visiting the home. One would like to think that, if a key worker visited a home and, time after time, was told that the child was asleep or out, alarms would start to ring, and that is what the new clause is all about—ensuring that the alarms ring. The guidance says that section 47—of the Children Act 1989—inquiries should include separate interviews with the child, but those interviews are conducted to discover whether suspicions of significant harm can be substantiated. A section 47 inquiry can run for several weeks, even if the time limits in “Working Together” are adhered to—and in practice, not surprisingly, they may not be. The key worker will probably make a number of home visits during that period, having already conducted the separate interview with the child, as the guidance requires. Regularly seeing the child separately is about not just trying to detect the risk of harm, but developing the key worker’s relationship with the child as the client and primary focus of attention. The only time Victoria Climbié was seen alone was in two awkward section 47 interviews, both of which failed to establish the truth. That issue was highlighted by Lord Laming in his post-Climbié report. Helpfully, the Minister stated that the Government are planning to revise “Working Together” and may include in the rewrite the issue of seeing the child separately. However, the matter should be put into statute because it is as central to effective child protection as information sharing, which is in statute. Furthermore, in many cases social workers appear to be neglecting to see the child separately. There are many—often understandable—reasons why that may happen, so social workers need a reminder that is more compelling than a new mention in a lengthy piece of guidance that covers many other issues. The Minister emphasised the powers that local authorities have at their disposal if parents refuse to give the social worker access to the child. That does not affect the need for new clause 20, however; the question of using the powers arises only if the social worker has been blocked from seeing the child separately, and that would not happen unless they had tried to see the child separately. I therefore contend that that new clause is more important than some that are being rushed through today. It would highlight to social workers the key priority of building a genuine relationship with the child, to get a whole understanding. We have all heard about the closeness of relationships that can develop between the parent, carer and social worker. The relationship that I am discussing is all-important. I hope that the Secretary of State will consider the issue. I turn briefly to the other amendments in this group. Personally, I support amendment 15. During consideration of almost all the children’s Bills with which I have been involved, I have argued that the United Nations convention on the rights of the child should be embedded in legislation. It would be inconsistent of me not to support the amendment. The issue is so important. As a nation we have signed up to the convention, but we do not fully implement it. I have difficulty in understanding Conservative amendment 54. Clause 187 refers to bodies that are to co-operate for the well-being of children. I welcomed the Bill’s extension of the definition of “bodies” to include schools and academies. That is absolutely first class. I am sympathetic with the inclusion of some of the bodies mentioned in the amendment, including short stay schools and Sure Start children’s centres. GPs are also mentioned; it will be difficult to impose the measure on them, but personally I think it important that we do. However, also mentioned on the list is “a representative of an extended school provider with authority”. That looks like a bit of careless cutting and pasting. If the phrase had been expressed a little better, it might have fitted into an amendment on children’s trust boards. When people criticise amendments that I have written, they usually suggest that they are technically deficient, so it gives me great pleasure to point out that I believe amendment 54 to be technically deficient. I turn to amendment 67; the Secretary of State will no doubt point out that it is technically deficient, as I wrote it. There are to be lots of players on the children’s trust boards and everybody will have lots to say. However, where will the buck stop? I fear that there is no clarity on that in the Bill. The amendment suggests that the children’s and young people’s plan should have sections clearly identified as the responsibility of particular agencies. When there is a joint responsibility, I suggest that a lead agency should be nominated. I appreciate that the amendment may not express those ideas in the best way, but I really think that the legislation is deficient. It is not clear that, whatever happens, the director of children’s services will be ultimately responsible. Why should they be? As far as I can see, they have only one seat on the board. As the legislation stands, why should it all come back to the director of children’s services? The Government need to consider amendments that relate to that issue.
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- Mrs. HodgsonLabour
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- My comments on this cluster of amendments will focus primarily on the role and make-up of the local safeguarding children boards and the children’s trust boards. In Committee, I mentioned one or two concerns specifically about consultation. I am not sure that I received any answers, so I hope that I will today. The Local Government Association has been keen to state the case for ongoing consultation within the role of children’s trust boards. It recognises that it was consulted prior to the Bill’s drafting, but it is concerned about ongoing consultation. Local authorities will have responsibility for a range of commissioning arrangements and accountabilities across a number of aspects of planning and delivery. If local authorities are to fulfil their accountabilities effectively and ensure that young people get the best education, training and support, the Bill must contain provisions for explicit liaison and consultation between local authorities, the Secretary of State, the Young People’s Learning Agency and the Skills Funding Agency, and for the avoidance of any micro-management. I hope that the Minister feels that that point has been reached. It is fair to say that the directors of children’s services will be responsible for the setting up of children’s trust boards. From that point of view, we can be clear that local authorities will have a key role as a consultative partner and in steering delivery. However, these new bodies have to be as democratically accountable as possible. New clause 23 will include lay members, and that is welcome. However, the ongoing inclusion of local authorities will also help.
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Mr. Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- I join other Members in paying tribute to Lord Laming and his enormous interest in and dedication to child protection. Only recently, he gave evidence to the Children, Schools and Families Committee, on which I sit. Even though he said that this would be his last report, it was clear that he remains committed to child protection. Only yesterday, he was commenting on the future of that issue when he said that social services still needed to act more quickly and decisively to protect youngsters on the at-risk register. He also said that “Drift is the enemy of good practice”. That tells us that Lord Laming, as he also made plain in his report, remains exasperated with the lack of progress since the Victoria Climbié case. Although that case ushered in a number of major reforms such as the child protection system, it failed to deal with the problem on the front line of child protection. Since that report, far too much time has been spent on organisational changes and not enough has been spent on the social work force, on whom we rely so heavily for the protection of vulnerable children. The service has remained underfunded, under-resourced and, unfortunately, unable to cope with the demands placed on it. Although it is important that we try to find ways to improve the structure of our child protection system, I have concerns about new clause 22 and how we are going about those changes. The Secretary of State has put his weight behind the statutory targets as a way forward, but I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). The Secretary of State supports the statutory targets, which he believes to be right to protect children, but unless we have some idea of what they may be, it is difficult, particularly for Conservative Members, to fall in step with the new clause. Although my instinct is that targets will not necessarily solve the problem, we can see that some would be beneficial to the child protection system—for instance, on the quality and consistency of social work care, the timeliness of protective measures for vulnerable children and, most importantly, the outcomes for children who have some contact with the child protection system. If we are to have targets, those are the sort that I would have expected the Secretary of State to mention in response to my hon. Friend. Another difficulty is to do with the training, recruitment and retention of social workers. In some local authorities, almost 50 per cent. of front-line child protection staff have less than two years’ experience in their job. I have seen that for myself in the work that I have done in the family courts representing local authorities, children and their parents. On far too regular a basis, a social worker, or even a team manager, working for the local authority has made the application to take a child into care but their experience is woefully short for the extreme complexity of the case that is facing them. That is not their fault: it is the fault of all of us in failing to ensure that measures to improve the status of social workers, to invest in the social work profession and to train social workers better have come to fruition.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- Perhaps, through my hon. Friend, I could appeal to the Secretary of State to consider placements of trainee social workers. Because of evidence that we received in the Select Committee, I conducted a survey of 79 universities around the country and found that although they believed that placements, where they are provided—by local authorities, in the main—are generally good, there is a chronic shortage of training places and that, in a minority of cases, some social workers go through their entire training without ever being supervised by a trained social worker. The Secretary of State needs to do something about that.
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- Mr. TimpsonConservative
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- I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes the case clearly. Unless we ensure that social workers have not only sufficient training but experience through their training and the work that they do on the front line, they will not be able to do the job that we are asking them to do, which is one of extreme importance in our society—the protection of our children. We need to ensure that training is at the forefront of our minds when we look at what we are asking social workers to do. One of the remaining problems that the new clause does not address fully, as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) eloquently told us, is that, although the introduction of children’s trusts was a commendable idea in trying to involve the whole community in dealing with child protection and to ensure that there is an exchange of information about issues that that community faces, it has not—as the Audit Commission said in its report, “Are we there yet?”—resulted in an improvement in child protection. That goes back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham about bureaucracy. One of the reasons why children’s trusts have failed to make the impact that we hoped for is that the complex bureaucratic systems that have been set up to control child protection engender a culture of trying to comply with the bureaucracy and targets, instead of helping social workers and those involved in child protection to see the wood from the trees and to commit to children’s needs, as they are supposed to. I hope that the targets that the Secretary of State is asking social workers to comply with do not exacerbate the situation that they already face, and that they will be allowed to be free to get on with the job that we all want them to do—spending time looking after children to ensure that they are safe and have a happy and prosperous future. That should be achieved through good practice and a universally sound and robust child protection system that protects all our children, not just some of them. I want briefly to mention new clause 23 and put in a plea to the Secretary of State. Although it has been drafted quite widely as regards who could be the lay representatives on trust boards, those who are involved in foster care, particularly foster carers themselves, could play an important role in ensuring that their views and experience, which are often left to one side, are taken seriously and make a positive contribution to child protection in their community.
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- Kelvin HopkinsIndependent
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- I am sure that several hon. Members saw the “Panorama” programme to which the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) referred. I was deeply worried by some of the things that I saw on it, particularly the interviews with Wes Cuell, who was at the NSPCC and, prior to that, head of children’s services at Luton borough council. I knew him well; he is a very good man. He said that, in the past 30 years, there has been very little change in the rate of deaths of children who have been abused. That is an appalling record bearing in mind that we have moved on in so many ways. He said that if things do not change radically, we will have the same death rates over the next 30 years as well. That must not be allowed to happen. I hope that the changes that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench propose—and that we will, I hope, support—will make a real difference. Another worrying factor is that these days in social services in general, and in the health service, there is so much emphasis on budgeting, with officers being rewarded for running a tight ship financially. One wonders whether that underlies some of the problems that have arisen. In the baby P case, it was also apparent that nobody wanted to take final responsibility. The local authority, social services and the police were involved, and the national health service saw the injuries to the child on a number of occasions, yet it seemed that no one wanted to say, “This child must not be allowed to go back home, where it is clearly being abused.” I do not want to prejudice any statement that may come out at a later stage, but that is appalling. If I had been in that situation, I would simply have said, “This child must not go back into that home; it is clearly being abused.”
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Mr. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- That is all very well, but the point is that there were two children in that family and at first we knew of only one. Could not the father have been taken away?
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- Kelvin HopkinsIndependent
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- I find it astonishing that there was apparently so little information and knowledge. The programme suggested that the man around the house was barely evident; although some evidence emerged, it did not seem to figure much in the action that was taken. The financial pressures on funding for local authorities must be a factor in all this. Another worrying aspect that emerged from the programme—I think that finance was a factor in this respect too—is the so-called optimistic future strategy: the idea that people should hope that somehow the family could look after the child in future and look forward to that instead of looking at what was happening in the present. Focusing on a point in the future meant that what was happening to the child at the time was missed or, indeed, ignored. I am concerned that that strategy is yet another attempt to disguise what people are really about, which is trying to keep the child in the family to avoid the expense of taking it into care. The pressures on local authorities not to do that must be financial at root. In future, whatever happens, we should provide the resources to ensure that children are not kept in dangerous families when they should be taken into care. I hope that my remarks have been helpful to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- I start by agreeing with the comments of the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr. Timpson), who has great personal as well as professional experience of these matters, about Lord Laming and his contribution. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s comments and questions, to which I shall return in a moment. I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) probed in a way that was pointed and forensic, but which I hope will allow us to move forward consensually as far as possible.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- May I take the Secretary of State back to the survey that I conducted recently on social care placements? The good news is that 86 per cent. of the universities that I surveyed thought that placements were good or excellent. The bad news is that only 24 per cent. thought that they were sufficient in number. They attributed that to a lack of reward for social workers and local authorities for taking on placements and, critically, to the fact that the Government have stopped making it necessary for local authorities to report how many placements they provide. May I ask the Secretary of State to respond to those points?
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- I am not sure whether that quite fits into the new clauses and amendments that we are debating, but in our statement a few weeks ago we said clearly that we accepted Lord Laming’s recommendations. Tomorrow we will give some more detail—not new policy—about how we will take them forward. The reform of social worker training is being considered by the social work taskforce, and I have made clear commitments about it. If the hon. Gentleman writes to me, I will ensure that his survey of placements goes into the taskforce’s work. I thank him very much for his contribution to the debate. I turn to new clause 22. Lord Laming recommended that the Government should “introduce new statutory targets for safeguarding and child protection alongside the existing statutory attainment and early years targets as quickly as possible. The National Indicator Set should be revised with new national indicators for safeguarding and child protection developed for inclusion in Local Area Agreements”. We are taking powers in the Bill to meet that recommendation. We shall not bring forward any detailed proposals on new statutory targets or which indicators should change until we have had much greater and lengthier consultation with local authorities, social workers and the social work taskforce. I am happy to consult Members of all parties as part of those discussions. However, if we did not take the power set out in new clause 22, we would have to postpone taking that action for many months and also postpone our revisions to “Working Together”. That is why we have decided to bring forward the enabling power now, but it must be followed by debate, consultation and secondary legislation, which will follow in the autumn. We are absolutely committed to delivering Lord Laming’s recommendation that we should have targets that properly support, encourage and incentivise the work of social workers, which is to protect children. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich is quite right: bureaucracy or processed targets that get in the way of proper practice are exactly what we need to remove, as part of delivering that objective and as part of the consultation. We want to reduce bureaucracy and focus social workers on their important task. For me to come along today and give details of what the end point will be before we have even had those consultations would be wrong. We want to deliver Lord Laming’s report on such matters, and the enabling power allows us to do so in due course. The same goes for the role of lay members. The opening up of safeguarding children boards is vital. The power gives us the ability to consult over the next six to nine months on the revisions to “Working Together”, which will include much more detail about how we encourage, bring in, reward and support lay members. Again, the power enables us to take that forward this year, rather than postponing it for perhaps 18 months or longer. As part of openness and transparency, the power in Government new clause 24 for the safeguarding children board to issue an annual report to the children’s trust will be welcomed by experts and professionals, as well as by the wider public, as it will allow them to scrutinise what is being done in their local areas. As I have said, I am keen to move forward consultatively and consensually, as far as possible. I do not want to dwell for too long on the final points that I have to make, but I want to clear up a couple of confusions. On ContactPoint, Lord Laming said in his report: “The new ContactPoint system will have particular advantages in reducing the possibility of children for whom there are concerns going unnoticed.” It is exactly to make children safer in future that we are implementing ContactPoint, as Lord Laming says. Similarly, Lord Laming is clear in his recommendations about the importance of keeping serious case reviews confidential. He said in his letter to me—and repeated in his report—that “there must be produced an Executive Summary for publication that in every respect is a fair summary of the report. However, and I attach great importance to this point, the main report must remain confidential not only to protect vulnerable people, especially the children, but also because all Serious Case Reviews depend upon the willing cooperation of important witnesses often in a highly charged situation.” The deputy Children’s Commissioner wrote to me on 3 February to say: “A system which ensures we can establish the full facts behind any tragedy is essential for keeping children safe. I believe that a confidential process which enables agencies to thoroughly and effectively examine all relevant facts is crucial to securing this goal, supported by a comprehensive executive summary which makes public the key issues and recommendations for change.” On 15 March, the NSPCC said in a statement that full reports should not be made public, as sensitive information must be kept confidential to protect vulnerable children, but that local safeguarding children boards must publish comprehensive summaries of serious case reviews. I agree. I also agree with Birmingham city council, which also made its position absolutely clear.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- Before the Secretary of State moves on, can he point out to me where Lord Laming says that the primary purpose of ContactPoint is child protection? That is not what he has said, but it is what the Secretary of State asserted. Also, can he tell me why he has not given the same reasons for being against the full publication of mental health reports in homicide cases as he is now applying to serious case reviews? Why are the two different?
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- I have tried very hard to proceed on these matters in a consensual way, and I have consulted the hon. Member for Surrey Heath and many others on them. I wish we could have agreement on all of Lord Laming’s recommendations, but all the central recommendations that were put forward are being opposed by the hon. Gentleman. I regret that, but we need to move on. I will read again what was said about ContactPoint: “The new ContactPoint system will have particular advantages in reducing the possibility of children for whom there are concerns going unnoticed.” That is what Lord Laming says in his report—that it will have particular concerns to keep children safe. I believe that keeping serious case reviews confidential is vital to keeping children safe. The reason why I do so, as I have said, is that that is the view of Lord Laming, the NSPCC and the deputy Children’s Commissioner. They have advised me on such matters, and I am taking their advice.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- Will the Secretary of State give way?
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- I will take one more intervention from the hon. Gentleman, but we need to move on.
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- Tim LoughtonConservative
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- Well, I did take rather a lot of interventions from the Secretary of State. He has not answered my question. Lord Laming sees ContactPoint and the database that was envisaged in the Children Act 2004 as a way of keeping track of children who fall out of the education, health or other systems. He has never asserted that its primary objective is child protection, and the quotation that the Secretary of State has given from his report does not say that.
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- Ed BallsLabour
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- As I said, my aim—I think that we can achieve this with hon. Members from most parts of the House, including the hon. Member for Surrey Heath—is to move forward consensually. I regret the tone with which parts of this debate have been conducted by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). Implementing Lord Laming’s recommendations are important, and that is what the Bill does. I repeat: “The new ContactPoint system will have particular advantages in reducing the possibility of children for whom there are concerns going unnoticed.” It is clear what Lord Laming says in his report, “The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report”. I am absolutely confident that he, Barnardo’s, the NSPCC and the Children’s Commissioner, as well as many other organisations, support ContactPoint. I really do wish that we could have a consensus that took politics out of this important issue. I am going to conclude. I am grateful to the House for allowing me to bring forward these new clauses at this stage of the Bill’s progress. It is vital that we lose no time in putting in place the further reforms needed to keep children safe. I wish that we could have a consensus on the matter. I welcome the many speeches that have shown that we can indeed achieve a widespread consensus, and I hope that all the Government new clauses can be supported. I commend new clause 21 to the House. Question put and agreed to. Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill. New Clause 22 Targets for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children ‘(1) Before section 10 of the Children Act 2004 (c. 31) insert— “9A Targets for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children (1) The Secretary of State may, in accordance with regulations, set safeguarding targets for a children’s services authority in England. (2) The regulations may, in particular— (a) make provision about matters by reference to which safeguarding targets may, or must, be set; (b) make provision about periods to which safeguarding targets may, or must, relate; (c) make provision about the procedure for setting safeguarding targets; (d) specify requirements with which a children’s services authority in England must comply in connection with the setting of safeguarding targets. (3) In exercising their functions, a children’s services authority in England must act in the manner best calculated to secure that any safeguarding targets set under this section (so far as relating to the area of the authority) are met. (4) “Safeguarding targets”, in relation to a children’s services authority in England, are targets for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the authority’s area.”. (2) In Schedule 1 to the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 (c. 42) (social services functions) in the entry relating to the Children Act 2004— (a) in the first column, after “Sections” insert “9A,”; (b) in the second column, after “to” insert “targets for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and to”.’.—(Ed Balls.) Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill. New Clause 23 Local Safeguarding Children Boards: lay members ‘(1) Part 2 of the Children Act 2004 (c. 31) is amended as follows. (2) In section 13 (establishment of LSCBs) after subsection (5) insert— “(5A) A children’s services authority in England must take reasonable steps to ensure that the Local Safeguarding Children Board established by them also includes two persons who appear to the authority to be representative of persons living in the authority’s area. (5B) An authority may pay remuneration, allowances and expenses to persons who are included by virtue of subsection (5A) in a Local Safeguarding Children Board established by them.” (3) In section 14 (functions and procedures of LSCBs) in subsection (1)(a) after “the Board” insert “by virtue of section 13(2), (4) or (5)”.’.—(Ed Balls.) Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill. New Clause 24 Local Safeguarding Children Boards: annual reports ‘After section 14 of the Children Act 2004 (c. 31) insert— “14A LSCBs: annual reports (1) At least once in every 12 month period, a Local Safeguarding Children Board established under section 13 must prepare and publish a report about safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in its local area. (2) The Board must submit a copy of the report to the local Children’s Trust Board. (3) For the purposes of this section— (a) the local area of a Local Safeguarding Children Board is the area of the children’s services authority that established the Board; (b) the local Children’s Trust Board, in relation to a Local Safeguarding Children Board, is the Children’s Trust Board established for the Board’s local area.”’.—(Ed Balls.) Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill. New Clause 1 Quality of further education college buildings ‘(1) The Secretary of State shall commission an audit, to be completed by a person or body he considers appropriate, of all further education colleges in England with the objective of establishing the quality of the college buildings and facilities. (2) The audit commissioned under subsection (1) shall be completed within twelve months and the results submitted to the Secretary of State. (3) The Secretary of State shall publish the results of the audit submitted to him under subsection (2).’.—(Mr. Hayes.) Brought up, and read the First time.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)Conservative- Quote
- With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 11—Duty to make an annual report on progress of capital funding— ‘(1) As soon as reasonably practicable after the end of each financial year the Chief Executive of Skills Funding must prepare an annual report on the condition of infrastructure of colleges of further education. (2) The report must provide information about which applications for capital funding by colleges of further education in that financial year have received approval— (a) in principle, (b) in detail. (3) The Chief Executive must send a copy of each report prepared under subsection (1) to the Secretary of State. (4) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a copy of each report received under subsection (3) and arrange for it to be published.’.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- It is good to make my first contribution on Report on this important Bill. New clauses 1 and 11 reflect the profound concerns that exist up and down the country—I will not go as far as to say that there is fear, but there is certainly profound concern, disappointment and uncertainty—about the Government’s freeze on capital projects in further education. They also relate to fundamental principles enshrined in the Bill, the first of which is the ability of providers to deliver an entitlement to apprenticeships. You will understand, with your considered view about such matters, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that apprenticeships are critical to rebuilding the nation’s skills. FE colleges play a crucial role in delivering apprenticeships, and their facilities and resources are central to that purpose. A fundamental part of any apprenticeship framework is the training provided off site, which frequently takes place at an FE college. The 361 FE colleges in England do an incredibly important job. It is perhaps appropriate at this point to pay tribute to them and to the people who work in them because they make such a big difference to so many lives. They educate and train more than 3 million young and older learners each year, including about 750,000 16 to 18-year-olds. That is more than school sixth forms, private schools and training providers. The new clauses are relevant to the transfer of responsibilities resulting from the division of the Learning and Skills Council into three new bodies: the Skills Funding Agency, the Young People’s Learning Agency and the National Apprenticeship Service. Some people have described the Bill as a “bureaucratic muddle”. The British Chambers of Commerce made that very remark during the witness sessions that we enjoyed before the Committee stage of the Bill. Others have described it as “opaque”, “obtuse”, “obscure” and a “missed opportunity”. These new clauses attempt to go some way towards improving a very imperfect product. New clause 1 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to commission a report on the FE college buildings and facilities that are so vital to delivering the training necessary to build the skills that we need. New clause 11 would place a duty on the chief executive of Skills Funding to provide a report on the progress of applications by FE colleges for capital projects. The reasons for the new clauses have become all too clear recently as a result of the gross mismanagement of the FE capital programme. I do not entirely blame the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon), for that. I still regard him as a young man of promise, although many in the House regard him as merely a young man of promises. As he knows, I have defended him, on the Floor of the House and elsewhere, against some of the assaults that have been made on him from all quarters, not least the FE sector itself when it found it was facing disappointment and disillusion resulting from the freeze on FE capital projects. After many months of uncertainty, the Government announced in March that they would be freezing the approval process for 144 college building projects. Seventy-nine of the frozen colleges had already received agreement in principle and were awaiting approval in detail, which is the final stage of the approval process. To be considered for approval in detail, the colleges would already have had to secure planning permission and put together a full project brief. That involves not only the college staff but many other agencies, including those involved in designing the buildings, putting together the necessary infrastructure plans and project managing the process. Many others have been affected detrimentally by this cruel freeze. The colleges have therefore incurred considerable costs in order to reach that stage of development. The other 65 frozen colleges are waiting for approval in principle. Some have already assembled a project team and put money towards preparing their bid. In my area, Boston college is in just that situation. It provides an outstanding service to many young people and adults from my constituency. In the areas neighbouring my constituency on the south side, Peterborough regional college and Stamford college are also both affected by the freeze. The new clauses would go some way towards ensuring that such matters would be identified and dealt with at a much earlier stage than they have been thus far.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- rose—
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I will happily give way to my hon. Friend, who gave such sterling service in Committee.
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- Mr. StuartConservative
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- My hon. Friend knows of the anger that exists in places such as Hull and Beverley as a result of what is happening to our FE colleges. Unemployment is rising fast in Hull and the surrounding area; I think that it has doubled in the East Riding in the past two years. The colleges there could have made more modest investments if they had been guided to do so, but Ministers allowed their expectations to be raised beyond the finances that were available. Hull college, which does not have permission in principle, is therefore just sitting and waiting, and two years on from getting approval in principle, the East Riding college in Beverley is sitting there—with the centre of Beverley looking like a bomb site at the moment—not knowing whether it will be able to proceed.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I note that barely a day goes by without my hon. Friend representing the interests of Beverley and the other parts of his constituency in this regard. Indeed, many hon. Members across the Chamber have raised this issue in respect of their own local circumstances. We have heard similar cries from those on the Labour Benches whose constituents have been affected. Lives have potentially been damaged, hopes have been shattered, and dreams have at least been postponed, and possibly abandoned. What a cruel thing a feeble Government are. It was Edmund Burke who said: “Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.” This Government are certainly feeble, and that is putting it kindly.
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Mr. Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett) visited the Tresham institute in Kettering at the end of last week, and we heard the sorry tale of £60 million of investment in further education colleges in north Northamptonshire—at Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough—being stalled, thus stalling the redevelopment of the town centres in Corby and Wellingborough and potentially imperilling the university challenge bid that north Northamptonshire is putting forward. The whole redevelopment of north Northamptonshire could be put on hold unless the Government get the situation sorted out.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- My hon. Friend makes a telling point. College building projects are often highly regenerative in their nature. They have a much bigger effect than just the immediate impact on learners and potential learners. They can involve land sales as well as work with a variety of other agencies, employers and education providers. The effect of this freeze is devastating for many communities. I know that many Members across the Chamber are feeling that cold chill in their communities and want the opportunity to explain that to the House.
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- Kelvin HopkinsIndependent
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- There have undoubtedly been problems with the LSC, and the Government are now doing their best to pick up the difficulties and to improve the situation. But do not the difficulties derive—in part, at least—from the decision by the previous Conservative Government to throw all the colleges into a competitive business environment, instead of the planned public service environment that I would prefer? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that putting sixth-form colleges back into the Schools for the Future programme is a sensible approach?
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- The hon. Gentleman attempts to take me down a path that I know you would not want me to go down, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because that would take us far from the new clauses before us. Nor am I prepared to have a debate about ancient history. I am rightly drawing the House’s attention to the mess that we are in now, which is directly attributable to the mismanagement that, in the end, finds form on the Treasury Bench. It is true that the LSC has something to answer for in this respect, but the buck stops with the people in Government, does it not? I know that the Minister will take on that responsibility squarely and own up to it. I am hoping for the apology that, so far, we have not had in the fullest, most extravagant form—
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills (Mr. Siôn Simon)Labour- Quote
- rose—
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I hope that this is going to be both full and extravagant. I happily give way.
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- The Secretary of State and I have both said in this House more than once that we are sorry for the situation that we are in. Surely there can be no more extravagant apology than that. It is not really fair of the hon. Gentleman to demand that I come and apologise when I have clearly apologised on the record, and so has the Secretary of State.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has said that, and I take it in the spirit in which it was offered. What he has not done, however, is give an absolute assurance that colleges will not go bust as a result of this crisis. Speaking on the “Today” programme on 19 March, he was specifically asked for such an assurance and said that he could not offer it. Because the Government do not know the full extent of the problem—new cases seem to emerge daily—it is very hard for the Secretary of State to make such an open-ended commitment. Perhaps the Minister will make it for him. Will he now give the House an open-ended commitment that the Government will support all those colleges that have been so badly affected? Will they provide the money promised by the LSC in a full and fair way?
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- I must correct the hon. Gentleman again: we have said it clearly on the record for some time that no college will be allowed to go bust as a result of the Learning and Skills Council’s mismanagement of this situation.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I am delighted that we have extracted both that commitment and—
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- rose—
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I will not give way again until I have made a little progress. As well as that commitment, I hope we have extracted an ongoing commitment that, as new cases emerge, they will be dealt with appropriately. I say to the Minister, and I do not say it lightly, that many of the colleges at a much earlier stage of the process have well-established bids. A number of colleges with which we have been in discussions as a result of their fears about these matters have made it clear that although they have not secured approval in principle—still less approval in detail—they have been planning a capital project for a very considerable time with the knowledge, approval and encouragement of the Learning and Skills Council. If the Minister has a better idea of the scale here—both the breadth and depth of his problem—and is prepared to underwrite the necessary capital commitment here and now, I will happily give way to him again. Certainly what has been offered so far goes nowhere towards that kind of financial commitment.
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- Just to be clear, the Government are on the record as saying that no college will be allowed to go bust as a result of the LSC’s mismanagement of the situation.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- We have heard that once already, Mr. Deputy Speaker. What I was actually asking the Minister for was a further assurance that those colleges that have gone a long way down the road towards putting capital bids and projects together will receive the sort of support they need. If these new clauses were in place and the Government had agreed to their addition to the Bill, we would not, frankly, be in the present position with me having to extract these promises from the Minister, because a report would have been made in good time, anticipating much of the problem that we are now dealing with. I happily give way to the Minister one final time, but then I must make some more progress.
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- I have to explain to the hon. Gentleman that he has not “extracted” anything, as all this information is clearly on the record. The problem is that there is a greater expectation of funding out there than can possibly be met. We obviously cannot commit to funding the unfundable commitments of the LSC; what we have committed to, however, is that no college will go bust as a result of the LSC’s mismanagement.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- We will talk a little bit more about how the Government prioritise funding and how they intend to allocate the money that has been announced. I repeat for the benefit of the House—and, in particular, for the Minister—that many projects that have not received agreement in principle, still less in detail, despite being well worked up, critically important in a regenerative sense to the community and having received encouragement, advice and guidance from the LSC, will not, I suspect, receive any degree of Government help now. That is because they do not fall into the category that the Minister will conveniently identify as deserving cases. I simply do not buy the idea that the Government will get the criteria or the support right or that they will not disappoint a very large number of colleges and learners up and down the country.
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- Mr. StuartConservative
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- rose—
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I will give way to my hon. Friend, but then I really must make some more progress.
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- Mr. StuartConservative
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- I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend and I welcome the Minister’s apology to the House today. Does my hon. Friend agree, however, that what we have not yet heard from Ministers is any explanation of their role in the Learning and Skills Council’s exciting of these expectations around the country? We have seen the LSC blamed and we have seen the resignation of its chief executive, but are we really to believe that Ministers played no part in all this and had no awareness of what was going on? I think that that is incredible and that the House deserves an explanation this evening.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I cannot really answer that in my all too brief contribution. I know that Members will want me to go on and on and on, but the House will understand that others may wish to speak. That point does matter, however, particularly in respect of the new clauses that I am supporting, to which I shall now turn my attention in more detail. If the new clauses formed part of this Bill, we would know, for example, how much money had been committed in preparing capital bids. The Association of Colleges estimates that colleges have incurred costs of £170 million in planning capital bids—and that is just the colleges we know about. As I have already said, many have fallen between the cracks, as it were. Some £300 million was announced in the budget for FE capital funding, but that is not nearly enough to fund the projects that are now in limbo. We are yet to have clarity from the Government about the criteria that will determine which projects go forward. It is clear that where colleges were in the approval process tells us only so much; we need a much fuller picture of the economic value of individual projects, how far advanced in practice they are and how much colleges and other bodies stand to lose if their bid is not approved. This crisis exposes the Government’s inconsistency—I hesitate to use the word “hypocrisy”, Mr. Deputy Speaker—as far as capital spending is concerned. It is a crisis entirely of the Government’s own making. The Government commissioned Sir Andrew Foster, a distinguished commentator, writer and thinker on these subjects, to write a review. It was he, after all who, at the behest of the Government, wrote “Realising the Potential: A Review of the Future of Further Education Colleges” in 2005. Sir Andrew Foster concluded that “senior staff in Dius could have probed more actively the robustness of the forward projections of future funding commitments. Their challenge was insufficiently incisive to uncover ongoing flaws in implementation.” So we know that Sir Andrew Foster’s answer to the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) would be that the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills had a key role to play. When we speak of DIUS, furthermore, do we not speak of Ministers? It would be quite wrong for the buck to stop with civil servants, officials and quangos when it is the politicians and the Government themselves who answer here in this House. You will have recognised, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that new clause 11 refers to “an annual report on the… infrastructure of colleges” and to “information about which applications for capital funding” have been approved, which should be broken down to show which have been approved “in principle” and which “in detail”. The provision also makes reference to the key role of the Secretary of State because the report proposed in the new clause must go to him, making a direct link between what is happening on the ground in colleges and what the Secretary of State knows and does on—
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- Mr. Deputy SpeakerConservative
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- Order. I want to assure the hon. Member not only that I had indeed noticed it, but that I was rather hoping that at some point he might notice it, too, as he has been conducting a rather general debate as opposed to engaging with the more particular points at the heart of his proposed new clauses.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I am grateful, as ever, for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I can assure you that I had noticed the new clauses. Indeed, they are highly pertinent to the exchanges taking place across the Chamber because they tie Ministers to an empirical assessment of where bids are, where they have come from and how much they are going to cost. That contrasts with what has happened over recent weeks and months, where the link between Ministers and those things has been opaque, obscure and obtuse. That is simply not good enough. Since it was established in 2001, the Learning and Skills Council has undergone three major reorganisations. Under the Bill, it will be abolished and replaced, as I said, with three quangos. Perhaps it is not surprising that the LSC took its eye off the ball. The Government are, of course, now keen to attribute blame to the LSC; we hold no candle for that body, but because legislation of the kind we propose in the new clauses was not in place, it is perhaps not surprising that Ministers lost control, were unable to anticipate these matters and were unaware of some of the facts. Indeed, Ministers now claim that they did not know what was going on. They must claim that, must they not? If they did know what was going on, they would take full responsibility rather than partial responsibility for the mess we are in. The projection of costs seems to me to be a pretty fundamental part of managing capital budgets. How can we possibly not know how much we have planned to spend against how much we have got—surely this is bread-and-butter stuff? To be told, in the Minister’s words, that the Government could not possibly meet the ambitions of colleges is extraordinary when those ambitions were fuelled and fostered by the very body charged with that purpose—a body that was, in the end, answerable to Ministers. Despite causing the disruption, Ministers failed to monitor information that their Departments were receiving. The crisis puts into sharp focus the issue of responsibility for capital projects under the new arrangements proposed in the Bill. If the Bill remains unamended, I suspect that we might get into such a mess again, so these new clauses and what we said on Second Reading, in Committee and subsequently are made all the more pertinent by the circumstances that I have described in these few words. The circumstances regarding FE were not entirely known when we began to debate the Bill; the truth has come out gradually. As I say, more and more colleges have made it clear that they, too, were promised the large investments that, clearly, the Government now are not in a position to make available. However, it is not entirely true that Ministers knew nothing until very recently, because an examination of the LSC minutes makes it perfectly clear that, as early as February 2008, doubts were raised about the capital funding of FE colleges. Certainly by autumn that year, it was as clear as crystal that a major crisis was about to engulf the sector and the Government. We did not receive an adequate explanation from Ministers in Committee, and last week at departmental questions, the Secretary of State said: “one of the reasons why our universities are so good is that I do not run them”.—[Official Report, 30 April 2009; Vol. 491, c. 1027.] That is certainly true. If he ran the colleges, I guess that we would have had the same thing repeated in revenue terms as we have had in respect of capital bids. The new clauses, plainly and simply, would improve the Bill. If I were in government in such difficulties, I would grasp the new clauses with both hands and take the view that the Opposition were trying to be helpful. Nothing in the new clauses is partisan. They are entirely consistent with the rest of the Bill. They would provide better lines of communication and better information to Ministers. They would prevent Ministers—whether Labour or Conservative—from finding themselves in the circumstances in which this Government find themselves in respect of FE. At a time of great economic uncertainty, the last thing we need is a Government who create more uncertainty, yet that is what all this has done. We do not think that the LSC is perfect and we know that it needs reform—that is why we have outlined plans for a streamlined agency to fund FE—but we do not think that this is the right time to spend money on restructuring rather than on training. The FE capital funding crisis shows what happens when Ministers are more interested in changing structures than transforming lives. Fallacy follows falsehood, and failure follows both. We need Ministers who mean and do what they say, not pass the buck. We need a structure for the funding and management of skills that is cost-efficient and effective. Most of all, we need a Government who trust FE to deliver the training to build the skills that our people want, our communities deserve and our economy needs.
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Stephen Williams (Bristol, West) (LD)Liberal Democrat- Quote
- I welcome the new clauses that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) has just spoken to. I met the new chief executive of the LSC, Mr. Russell, shortly after his appointment. First, we should thank him for his public service in taking on the poisoned chalice of trying to bring some coherence to an organisation that is not only in its dying days, but is dying in a sense of crisis and much public ridicule. Mr. Russell has already commissioned consultants to develop new criteria for an assessment against which college bids can be assessed. Both new clauses would complement that in-house procedure and review. In DIUS questions last Thursday morning, this issue came up several times and the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon), was unable to say when the review being undertaken by the LSC will reach a conclusion so that colleges can get some clarity and certainty in this area—perhaps he will elaborate on that today—or how far the £300 million announced in the Budget will go.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- The hon. Gentleman spoke well about these matters in Committee and does so again today. The point that I hope he will agree with is that this matter involves not merely the colleges that have received approval in principle, let alone those awaiting detailed approval, but many other colleges and, therefore, many other constituencies across the country. Unless the new clauses are accepted—I think the Minister will accept them—we could get into such a situation again.
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- Stephen WilliamsLiberal Democrat
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- I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I think I said that there are two formal parts to the process: approval in principle and approval in detail. Many other colleges are involved in early discussions, but have none the less incurred costs. Some have commenced work and are part way through their building programme. Many of us have been shown photographs of part-demolished Barnsley college by the hon. Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Jeff Ennis). I could mention many other colleges on the list—for instance, South Devon college, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders). When he was in the Chamber earlier, he told me that the scheme is worked up and ready to go. Work could start tomorrow and all that is needed is approval to proceed. It is not at all clear from the Budget debate, DIUS questions last week or various Westminster Hall debates on the topic how the £300 million brought forward in the Budget will help in the current financial year. It appears from the letter sent by the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills to vice-chancellors and college principals on 22 April that, as well as the £300 million for the current financial year, 2009-10, there will be a planning assumption of a further £300 million a year from 2011-12 to 2013-14. That totals £1.2 billion and rather implies that the capital budget for 2010-11, which is the next financial year—I know that I am mentioning many years—has been raided to bail the Government out in this financial year. Perhaps the Under-Secretary will confirm whether that is the case, because the £1.2 billion over five years clearly does not correspond to £300 million for each year. One year must be missing, and it appears to be 2010-11, which of course is the year straight after the next general election.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on an important point. In many areas, the Government appear to have adopted a scorched-earth policy. They are raiding future budgets in order to bolster their current popularity as they approach a general election which, as they are increasingly aware, they are likely to lose.
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- Stephen WilliamsLiberal Democrat
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- That is an excellent point. It is indeed a political scorched-earth policy. Not only are the Government producing money from budgets allocated for the period after April 2010, but many tax rises are due to be introduced immediately after the next general election. When the Minister replies, he should bear in mind that what the sector needs is more certainty about how the extra £300 million for the current financial year will be spent. A rationing exercise will clearly be necessary. Not all the bids currently lodged with the LSC can possibly be funded from that £300 million. Many bidders, indeed most, will miss out, and the sooner they know that, the better. All of them will have incurred bidding costs and planning fees, and will have commissioned architects to help them to draw up their proposals and submit them to the LSC’s capital board. Following a survey of its membership, the Association of Colleges calculated that 30 of its colleges had spent at least a quarter of a million pounds on bids, and 18 had spent more than £5 million. All that expenditure may be in vain if the capital programme does not go ahead. Many of the bidders will want to know whether their costs will be met by the LSC. The irony is that those costs, not only for the colleges at either end of the range but for the 100 or so in between, will probably be close to the £300 million allocated in the budget. There is an urgent need for an assessment of what is required by the further education sector—which is the purpose of the new clauses—and for clarity from the Government on the funding criteria that they will apply in future, through the LSC. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings began by observing that further education was crucial to our economy, and I shall end my speech in much the same way. The FE college system is essential to helping people to negotiate their way through the current recession, and even more essential to ensuring that we emerge from the other side of it with a world-class, well-skilled work force. We must meet not only the industrial demands that we will face in the future, but the demands of climate change. We shall need skilled engineers to meet the 2020 targets on which consensus has been reached. There is no point in setting such targets if we do not have the engineers and technicians to meet them. The FE sector has a crucial role in bringing those skills to the workplace and the design board, and it deserves rather better than the ineptitude that it has suffered from the Government so far.
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- Mr. Andrew TurnerConservative
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- I want to highlight the problems that the freezing of the college building programme has caused on the Isle of Wight, although I believe that there should be regulated annual audits in all areas to establish what capital is spent. The Isle of Wight College is the only further education institution on the island. For many islanders, it represents the only opportunity to receive further education before entering the workplace. Employers value colleges as a source of training, especially during a recession. As the island has relatively high unemployment, taking a college course can make a real difference to someone’s prospects, but all that is now in jeopardy. The freezing of funds promised to the council has not only indefinitely delayed vital renovation work, but cost the college more than £2.3 million in development fees alone. It would have cost a great deal more had the college not benefited from the common sense and prudence of its principal, Debbie Lavin—common sense and prudence that the Government and the LSC evidently lack. The Government are guilty on a number of fronts. There is evidence that the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and the LSC knew about a possible overspend as early as February 2008. Mrs. Lavin says that the college was encouraged to continue with the building project until as late as December 2008. DIUS and the LSC were too slow to respond, having had a good eight or 10 months in which to flag up a problem. During that period, colleges—blissfully unaware of the impending crisis, and egged on by the national LSC—spent money, made plans and, in some cases, tore down old facilities. Fortunately, that did not happen on the Isle of Wight. If the colleges had known then what the LSC and DIUS knew back in April—or February—2008, they would not have been so hasty. DIUS Ministers and the LSC should not have encouraged colleges to go ahead if they did not have the money to see the projects through. Colleges throughout the country are now paying the price for the delay. Temporary cabins are being hired in which to teach students, and fees for retaining contractors and professional advisers continue to be paid. Adding to all the financial woes, the Government are muddying the waters by further complicating an already complex system. The ineffectual LSC is to be abolished, only to be replaced by three new bodies. That has led to further confusion and worry, especially as there is no evidence that the more complicated system will be any more efficient. The Government are seeking to gloss over the whole issue with their announcement of £300 million earmarked for colleges. We have not been told where the money will go, but it is clearly an insignificant sum in comparison with the scale of the crisis. This is akin to putting a sticking plaster on a disembowelment. We need transparency in regard to further education funding, so that we all know where we stand. New clauses 1 and 11 will help to clarify the situation for the House, colleges and the public. This sorry affair cannot be allowed to happen again. Sir Andrew Foster’s independent and damning report on the college building debacle highlights the existence of Government and LSC incompetence at almost every stage of the process. The LSC chief executive did the albeit late but none the less honourable thing, and fell on his sword. Why have not DIUS Ministers taken their responsibilities just as seriously? Or were they and their officials kept ignorant as well? I can tell the House that it was ignorance. The LSC made decisions—or perhaps it is better to say that it did not even make them—in a state of failure. That is the problem, and we must put it right.
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- Most of the speeches that we have heard have ranged far beyond the scope of the new clauses. I understand why Members wanted a general debate about the further education sector as a whole, and about the FE funding situation in particular. Those are serious matters which are of great concern to Members throughout the country, to their colleges and college principals, and to the corporations of those colleges. Many of them are represented by lay individuals who might feel very exposed and concerned about the position they are in. I understand that Members are constituency representatives—and, indeed, are sometimes Opposition Front Benchers with that job to do—and that they will want to make their points and to seek answers from the Government.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- The hon. Gentleman says he understands why Members have ranged widely. If he does understand that, why have we had no debate in Government time on Sir Andrew Foster’s report, because that would be a more appropriate way of dealing with these matters than by addressing these new clauses?
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- Mr. Deputy SpeakerConservative
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- Order. I think what the hon. Gentleman has just said rather underlines my intervention earlier. I allowed him to make a rather wide-ranging introduction to his amendments, and therefore I owe it to the Minister to let him at least reply. However, I hope that Members of all parties will recognise that there are still quite a lot of groups of amendments to be debated, so we do not want to spend an extended amount of time on this group—although let me stress again that, in fairness, the Minister must be given some opportunity to reply to the general nature of the debate.
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- I am very grateful for that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. New clauses 1 and 11 are not necessary. In terms of new clause 1, an ongoing benchmarking programme already exists. As part of the capital investment programme, almost all further education colleges—some 98 per cent.—are already participating in an existing property benchmarking programme called eMandate overseen by the LSC, and that programme will continue under the chief executive of skills funding. The eMandate programme captures data on an annual basis from all participating colleges in the FE sector. Those data include information on the quality of their estate and their estate management costs. Participation in the eMandate programme is open to all FE colleges and is compulsory for any college that wants to apply for public capital funding for building. We simply do not need the kind of stocktake described in new clause 1, because precisely that process already exists, and because nobody has suggested that a lack of that kind of information caused the problems with the FE capital programme.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- So the hon. Gentleman is saying that, in almost all cases, we know the state of college buildings, yet there was no relationship between that information—which presumably came to the Department and Ministers—and the business of encouraging capital bids. That is inconceivable, is it not?
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- It is not inconceivable at all. The problems with the colleges were to do with financial management, not with a lack of information about the state of the estate, or with the quality or the cost management of the builds themselves. The Foster report came to the explicit and clear conclusion that this was a good policy let down by poor implementation, and the manner of that implementation was not at all of the sort described—or apparently rectified—by new clause 1.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- I simply do not understand that reply. Surely there should have been a needs-based assessment of what needed to happen to the buildings in the FE sector. How else could anyone properly approach this? Without that, it is not possible to assign priorities or to ensure that there is the most prudent use of public money. That is what perhaps most irritates my constituents. They realise that the Government have simply wasted millions of pounds on unnecessary projects, and that now tens of millions of pounds will be wasted on consultants’ fees for projects that will never proceed.
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- As the hon. Gentleman said, one of the key conclusions of the Foster report is that the programme should have been much more needs-based, and it is clear that it must be more needs-based in future. The reason why it was not needs-based was not because good information did not exist about the state of the FE estate; that information was being collected. The problem was that it was not used effectively. New clause 1 would set up the paraphernalia to collect that information, but that paraphernalia already exists. Good information already exists, but the right things were not done with it. New clause 1 is therefore not the answer to this problem.
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- Mr. StuartConservative
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- It seems to me that that form of methodology applied to that level of spend is a strategic issue. Does the Minister therefore accept ministerial responsibility for failing to ensure that, in terms of that fundamental way of dealing with such huge sums, the Government, rather than the LSC alone, failed to do what they should have?
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- No. Foster was very clear that this was a good policy let down by poor implementation. He was also clear that—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman mouths “whitewash” from a sedentary position, but it was a very high-quality impartial report. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) said it was damning. It was not damning of Ministers; it was clear and explicit that the responsibility of Ministers was the direction of policy, and that the policy was a good one, but that the implementation of the policy was the responsibility of the LSC and that is where the policy was let down.
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- Mr. StuartConservative
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- I am extremely grateful to the Minister for being so generous in giving way. Can he share with the House a single report commissioned by this Government, who are now in their 12th year in office, that has been damning of Ministers?
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- I shall move on to new clause 11. The new clause also raises the question of parliamentary scrutiny, but it is also superfluous because its measures already exist in the Bill. Paragraph 7 of schedule 4 requires the chief executive of Skills Funding to publish an annual report and accounts covering expenditure on all areas, including capital. That report will be laid before Parliament. I hope that that, together with the commitment of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to return to the House with a statement in due course, will give Members some reassurance about the level of parliamentary scrutiny. If the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) wants to have a debate in Government time, he will, as he knows, need to come back on a Thursday and talk to the Leader of the House rather than me—my pay grade is considerably beneath considering such matters. We do not need new clause 11 in order to have transparency and parliamentary accountability, and we do not need new clause 1 in order to have good information about the state of the FE estate. Let me turn to the general points that Members have made. The hon. Members for South Holland and The Deepings and for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams) raised the question of colleges that have not received, but have applied for, approval in principle. There are currently 79 colleges that have received approval in principle and 65 that have applied for it and have not received it. The points they make about the great amount of work—and potentially of expenditure, as well as of investment of time and energy—that will have gone into reaching the stage of submitting the application, which is itself a huge, thick pile of documents, are very well understood. We have been very clear in our discussions with the new leadership of the LSC that the colleges in that position will be treated broadly in a single pool with the colleges that have already received approval in principle. All of them will be deemed to have a difficulty which the LSC, under its new leadership, needs to help them to deal with. Several Members—the hon. Members for Bristol, West and for Isle of Wight come to mind—mentioned the £300 million of new cash that was announced in this financial year to enable us to put through some of the most urgent and high-priority cases. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight said that it glossed over the entire issue—I believe that the rich phrase he used was that it was a “sticking plaster on a disembowelment”—whereas the hon. Member for Bristol, West said that it was a political scorched-earth policy. Naturally, I cannot accept any of those colourful descriptions. None the less I am clear about the fact that £300 million will not solve this problem, whose magnitude is much greater. I am not attempting to gloss over the entire issue, and I do not pretend to have solved the problem or put the matter to bed with £300 million. What the £300 million will enable us to do is to put forward, this year, in decisions that will be made in a few weeks’ time—in the early summer—the most urgent and high-priority cases across the country. That will still leave many colleges needing certainty and clarity about their future.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- Interestingly, the Minister, at last, gives us some detail about this matter, for which I am grateful. We should have been given more detail sooner, but I understand the reasons why he has not been in a position to do that; as he says, this is not at his pay grade level. Will he tell us whether those high-priority cases will be drawn from colleges that have already received agreement in principle and colleges that are at an earlier stage of development? If not, what criteria will be used?
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- As ever in this evening’s debate, the hon. Gentleman congratulates himself on having extracted from me something that has been clear and on the record for weeks, if not months, and that I have said dozens, if not hundreds, of times. As I just said, the colleges that have received approval in principle and those that have applied for it but not necessarily received it will all be viewed in the same group when consideration is given to both the urgent and high-priority funding and the later down the line funding. It is probable that colleges that have applied earlier and secured approval in principle are more likely to be further down the road, and I would be surprised if more of them were not more urgent and high-priority immediate cases when compared with those that have yet to receive approval in principle. However, it is clear, and has been for some time, that both those categories will be eligible to be considered for the urgent and high-priority immediate funding, and to go into the second pool of cases that will go through the same process of prioritisation. As for how those priorities were drawn up, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows—I am loth to say this, because I know that he will intervene in any moment to rejoice at having dragged this out of me, although it has also been clear for some time—the LSC, in partnership with the Association of Colleges, set up a reference panel and, between them, they have agreed, or are in the process of finalising within the next week or two, a set of criteria and processes that are to be open and transparent, and that I hope the whole sector can buy into, by which the prioritisations will be decided. The first criteria will be readiness, urgency and whether the case is high priority. In the second round, the same criteria will apply, but without the criterion of readiness. Hon. Members have also mentioned the amount of money already committed in preparing bids. That is a problem for colleges and it is an issue about which college principals and corporation leaders feel worried and exposed. I am sensitive to that, and we have made it clear to the LSC that it will need to be sensitive to the difficulties in which its mismanagement of this programme has put college leaderships. It has retained an independent firm of property consultants, who are currently consulting all the affected colleges with a view to reporting back to them what level of support they could individually expect; again, that will take place within the next few weeks.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- The Minister has done his best to deal both with these new clauses and with the crisis that is not entirely of his making, given that he is a newcomer to his Department. He will understand why Conservative Members and, indeed, Members from across the House, are so exercised about this capital funding crisis. Joseph Conrad said that “reality beats fiction out of sight”, and nobody could have made this up, could they? This is stranger than fiction. The Minister first says that colleges might be allowed to go bankrupt and then says that they will not be able to do so.
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- rose—
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- I shall give way to the Minister, although I was in the middle of my exciting peroration.
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- Mr. SimonLabour
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- I hate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman’s peroration, but I should say that I never said that colleges might be allowed to go bankrupt—not on the “Today” programme or anywhere else.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- What the hon. Gentleman said on the “Today” programme, on blogs and on Twitter is probably not worth dwelling on now because to do so would not be in his interests or those of the House. We certainly know that Sir Andrew Foster, who was asked by the Government to look into these matters because they were so concerned about where things had got to, concluded in his report on the crisis that it had been “predictable and probably avoidable”. We know that 79 of the colleges that have had their capital bids frozen had already received agreement in principle and were simply awaiting agreement in detail, and we know that the £300 million that the Government have committed will not do the job. These new clauses are as clear as crystal. They would help a Government to ensure that the circumstances in which this Government find themselves would be most unlikely to occur—I shall not say impossible, because incompetence can reign regardless of law. However, law must at least be in place to mitigate the results of the sort of incompetence, miscommunication, failure to act and lack of accountability that lay at the heart of this crisis. We propose in our amendments that the House receive reports, with properly collected information from across the country, that match the state of the college estate to the bids for capital funding. It is remarkable that the Minister says that that information is already collected. He says that the Government have all the knowledge that they need about the state of FE colleges and the level of resources they enjoy. My goodness, if they have all that information but do not match it to bids for capital funding, what sort of organisation is the Learning and Skills Council and what sort of Ministers have we had who have not held that body to account? After all, it is a Government agency and there must be some sort of line of report, even if the Minister was not himself in office at the time. It is essential for the good of our colleges that we avoid similar crises in the future. It is essential for good governance that we have the right information, and it is certainly essential for the further education and training needs and skills that our people deserve that we have better Ministers. I wish to press new clause 1 to a Division because I want to test the House’s opinion on whether this sort of thing is excusable or whether it thinks, as I do, that it is unforgivable. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
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- Mr. GibbConservative
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- I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
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- Mr. GibbConservative
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- The Opposition support the establishment of an independent regulator of qualifications and examinations. It was, after all, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) who, when he was shadow Education Secretary—as the position was then known, before the word “Education” was eliminated from the name of the Department—said: “It is not acceptable that the QCA, the guardian of our exams, is not independent of the Government.” By government, we mean the government machine— that is, all those elements of government charged with the responsibility of providing education, training teachers, determining the direction of education policy and the style of pedagogy; all those who determine whether, for example, primary education should be child centred; those who determine whether classes should be mixed ability or set by ability; the independent panels of advisers who advised the Government to remove translation from English into French from the secondary modern foreign languages curriculum; or those who advised that the primary curriculum should no longer teach the multiplication or addition of fractions. The exam regulator needs to be independent of all those groups and of anyone who has a vested interest in demonstrating that educational standards have improved. Ofqual particularly needs to be independent of civil servants in the education world, both departmental and at local authority level. As Sir Michael Barber points out in his book “Instruction to Deliver”: “While the civil service was not party political, it was heavily influenced by the various lobby groups who competed for influence in the Department which thus tended to see issues from the producer angle...Moreover, the lack of ambition which characterised the education service as a whole inevitably affected the Department too.” It is keeping Ofqual independent from that lack of ambition that is so crucial, as well as keeping it independent of the producer angle. That lack of ambition was exemplified by almost the very first act of the newly created Ofqual. In October last year, in response to reports that one of the exam boards, Edexcel, was awarding C grades in its new science GCSE to pupils achieving just 20 per cent., Ofqual was asked to adjudicate after the three exam boards failed to reach an agreement over grade boundaries. Instead of making the three boards rise to the standard of the most demanding, which was AQA, it ordered AQA to lower its grade boundaries to those of the other two—levelling down rather than levelling up. The director general of AQA, Dr. Mike Cresswell, said that he did so under protest and wrote: “AQA is extremely reluctant to adopt a standard for GCSE Science which is less comparable with the past than it needs to be.” Ofqual spectacularly failed, therefore, in its first test. That all goes to the root of the contradictions that lie at the heart of this policy. On the one hand, the Government are saying that standards have been rigorously maintained over the years and between different exams. On the other hand, they say that an independent regulator needs to be created to boost public confidence. In a letter of September 2007, in which the DCSF set out the new model of regulation of qualifications, the Department states: “Over the last ten years, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority…has shown robust independence in its work as a regulator and has developed a system for assuring standards which is recognised internationally for its quality and reliability…The hard work of the QCA, and its fellow regulators, means that we can be confident that standards have been maintained.” If things are so good and rosy, why do we need reform? The document goes on to say: “Yet once again, this summer, we had a public debate about standards in qualifications and tests—even as the QCA provided reassurance that standards had been maintained”. In other words, how dare the public have a debate about standards when the QCA has “provided reassurance”. The reforms are not about ensuring that standards are maintained, but about finding a better way to try to convince the public that standards are being maintained. Kathleen Tattersall, the new chairman and chief regulator at Ofqual, said in her evidence to the Public Bill Committee: “Ofqual has been set up…to ensure that there is a better…understanding of the issues and to assure public confidence.” What Ofqual should be concerned about is maintaining standards—something that its predecessor regulator, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, singularly failed to do. That is why, in amendment 61, we propose adding a specific requirement to maintain standards to Ofqual’s list of objectives.
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Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- Does it not strike my hon. Friend as odd that the chairman of Ofqual should talk about improving understanding of the issues? It seems to me that the public in general understand the issues; what they do not understand is why standards are not kept up. Is not “understanding the issues” code for “Let us explain to people why they should think differently from the way that they do.”?
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- Mr. GibbConservative
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- My right hon. Friend has summarised brilliantly the argument that I was trying to make. It is a huge concern, because as he hints, a huge amount of independent academic research carried out in recent years points to the decline in exam standards over time. To take just one example, Peter Tymms at the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring at the university of Durham has shown that a student who got an E in A-level maths in 1998 would have been awarded a B in 2004. Professor Peter Williams, appointed by this Government, said in The Observer newspaper: “Over 20 or 30 years I don’t think there is any doubt whatsoever that absolute A-level standards have fallen. They have edged south, continuously over a long period of time. I think all university academics and a good proportion of sixth-form teachers would agree with my assertion.” That and other evidence has been available for several years now, but what concerns us is the attitude to such evidence expressed by Ofqual’s chief regulator in her evidence to the Public Bill Committee. When asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker), “Does Ofqual believe that there is grade inflation in A-levels and GCSEs?” she replied: “Ofqual will take the evidence that it has and that comes to its attention to make any pronouncement, one way or the other, on issues of that kind. That is something that we have not particularly explored and I do not think that it would be appropriate for me to come to a view without full consideration of the evidence.” Why is the matter one that Ofqual has “not particularly explored”? When my hon. Friend asked whether Ofqual would explore the issue in future, he received another odd answer from the chief regulator: “What we will be doing as a regulator is looking at the evidence, particularly where there are any issues of public concern. If that issue is a matter of public concern, clearly we will be seeking evidence on it, but there are a range of other issues where our starting point would always be to look at the evidence and to come to a considered judgment on the evidence.” Why have the QCA and Ofqual not been looking at the evidence, including that of Peter Williams and the Durham evidence? What did the chief regulator mean when she said: “If that issue is a matter of public concern”? What did she mean by “if”? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) suggests, of course it is an issue of public concern. We read about it in the newspapers the whole time. When challenged by my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller), the chief regulator’s response was: “Ofqual has been set up to regulate the system, to get better public accountability for the system, to ensure that there is a better public understanding of the issues and to assure public confidence. That is what regulators do. I do not think that it has been set up to address any specific concerns, such as the one that was just mentioned”––[Official Report, Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Public Bill Committee, 3 March 2009; c. 70, Q182 to Q184.]— or indeed the one raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal. The anxiety that that answer provoked was compounded by minutes of Ofqual board meetings that were leaked to a Sunday newspaper. It was clear from those minutes that Ofqual was not sure whether there was any methodology that it could use to compare standards between a non-modular GCSE exam and a modular exam that was being introduced by the QCA. According to the newspaper, the chief regulator said that Ofqual and the exam boards “need...to arrive at a clearer picture of what is meant by ‘maintaining standards’ when the structure of qualifications changes.” That makes one wonder whether Ofqual is the right body for the job, particularly as there are academics, such as Professor Tymms, who could say precisely how to make such a comparison, using a sample of cognitive ability tests. That is similar to the comparison proposed in the second part of the Liberal Democrat amendment 71. Our proposal, set out in new clause 2, is to benchmark comparative qualifications in other countries. New clause 2 says: “The Secretary of State shall commission a comparative study…of the standards of…GCSEs, and…A levels…with comparable qualifications in each of the jurisdictions of the European Union”. Of course, the Secretary of State could extend the study to places such as Singapore and Japan.
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Mr. Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth, East) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. I wonder whether he has considered the concerns that business has about grade inflation. It is now setting its own exams. Where that is not happening, schools in my area—and the area of the Minister for Schools and Learners, who represents the same county as I do—are turning their backs on GCSEs and offering another alternative, the international baccalaureate.
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- My hon. Friend makes a valid point, which I shall come to in a moment. He is right: people across the board are concerned about some of the public exams on offer. McDonald’s, Flybe and other major international companies are taking measures, and we support those measures, but it is interesting that they feel that they have to do so to get the quality that they seek from qualifications.
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The Minister for Schools and Learners (Jim Knight)Labour- Quote
- I did not intend to intervene in this debate, because the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), is leading for the Government on it, but the qualifications that the employers listed are involved in are not in any way supposed to be competing with the academic qualifications that the hon. Gentleman talks about. It is just not reasonable to compare the two at all.
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- Mr. GibbConservative
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- I understand that point, but there is a concern in the private sector—a feeling that it should not rely on the Government to provide the kind of qualifications that it might wish to use, and that it is time that it got on with its own qualifications. I could also have cited academic qualifications that are comparable with GCSEs and A-levels. I will come to those in a minute. Amendment 63 would require Ofqual to publish a report on standards in A-levels and GCSEs over the past 20 years. It is important, if we are to be able to maintain standards over the next 20 years, that we have a proper, honest understanding about what has happened to our public exams over the past 20 years. Amendments 61 and 62 would amend the objectives of Ofqual to ensure that it maintained standards. That phrase is not in the standards objective as drafted, and that is a serious omission. Finally, amendment 60 would ensure that Ofqual conducted its work in a timely manner. It is a frequent complaint of exam boards that delays at regulator level leave them insufficient time to develop their exams. As my hon. Friends have said, public confidence in the integrity of our public exam system is at an all-time low. Those in the independent sector are flocking to the more rigorous exams, such as the international GCSE, the Pre-U, which was developed to deal with concerns about the A-level, and of course the international baccalaureate. The way to deal with that lack of confidence is not public relations and repeated assurances, but concrete work to ensure that standards do not decline. The new clauses and amendments tabled by my hon. Friends and by me will go a long way to helping Ofqual to provide the rigour that is sought by the public.
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- Mr. LawsLiberal Democrat
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- The Bill contains much that is unwanted, unnecessary or both, but the clauses, new clauses and amendments that we are debating should be the most important and beneficial part of it. Unfortunately, we share many of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) regarding the nature of the Ofqual that the Government have chosen to establish. Anyone interested in education ought to seek an objective understanding of what has happened to standards over a period of time. Indeed, it is difficult to have a meaningful debate about education and education policies without having an understanding of and agreement about what has happened to educational standards. We have heard from the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton about the disagreements about what Government statistics mean and about what has happened to standards over the past 10 or 20 years, and those concerns are echoed in the report on testing and assessment by the Children, Schools and Families Committee which was published last year and which received all-party support. I refer the Minister to paragraph 162, in which the Committee concludes that “the measurement of standards across the full curriculum is presently virtually impossible under the current testing regime because national tests measure only a small sample of pupils’ achievements; and because teaching to the test means that pupils may not retain, or may not even possess in the first place, the skills which are supposedly evidenced by their test results”— a damning criticism if ever there was one of the existing testing regime. In paragraph 166, the Committee concludes: “It is highly questionable whether a claim can validly be made that A-levels have remained at a consistent standard over a period as long as 20 years or indeed anything like it.” There are further criticisms in paragraph 171 about the difficulties of reaching a conclusive view on the issue of grade inflation and thus what we should conclude about what has happened to educational standards over the past 10 or 20 years. That is of fundamental importance because the Government’s view, and their gloss on the statistics, is that there has been a staggering improvement in educational standards over the past 10 years, and perhaps even longer. In some parts of the country, the improvement in, for example, GCSE scores is quite breathtaking on paper. If it is true that there has been an improvement in standards of that magnitude, it is extremely important, and it has all sorts of implications for policy. However, if the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton is correct in saying that we cannot rely on those statistics, and if the Select Committee is right in its criticisms, we are in a difficult, and very different, position, which is presumably why, in paragraph 186, the Select Committee recommends that there should be a greater use of sample or cohort testing to establish what has truly happened to educational standards over time, and to make those judgments invariant to changes in the structure of qualifications, and thus to restore public confidence in standards. We discussed in our debates in Committee, and previously, our great disappointment that the Government did not take up the Select Committee proposal and instead, in their response to the Select Committee report, made it clear that they rejected not only the use of sample testing to measure educational standards over time but, as they state in paragraph 50 of their response, that in their view, “Ofqual’s role is not to monitor education standards as a whole; it is to regulate the qualifications and assessments which are one of the means by which standards are measured.” When we look at the measures in clause 126 that deal with Ofqual’s objectives, we discover on careful reading that what at first appears to be an impressive list of objectives—the qualifications standards objective; the assessments standards objective; the public confidence objective; the awareness objective; and the efficiency objective—requires Ofqual to make judgments of levels of attainment in comparable regulated qualifications, and in comparable assessments, which is not in any way a guarantee that, as the nature of those assessments changes, we will have a reliable measure of what is really happening to standards.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech, but may I put it to him that we do not have to go to outside academics or international comparators to gain an insight into the way in which the Government have dealt with standards? We look to the man who was in charge of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which was responsible for protecting standards in recent years. He said in evidence to the Select Committee that “too often boards such as that of the QCA are put into a position where it is expected that they will seek to negotiate…advice in advance. I think that is a pernicious process that compromises integrity and independence, and if we are not careful, in relation to Ofqual, it will cause real difficulties there. I do not think that for Ofqual the runes are propitious at all.” That is powerful evidence that the Government cannot be trusted on standards.
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- Mr. LawsLiberal Democrat
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- It is indeed an important warning of the risk that arises from the manner in which the Government have established Ofqual, the degree of independence that Ofqual will, or will not, have, and in its tightly defined remit, which are designed effectively to stop it making the judgments about standards that it needs to make. Although the Minister herself, in giving evidence to the Public Bill Committee, suggested that it would be possible for Ofqual to use sample testing, she later qualified that by indicating that that could be used only in the context of the specific objectives in the Bill, which prevent such testing from being used to make judgments about educational standards and changes in those standards over time. That is why we tabled a large number of amendments, both in Committee and on Report. Amendment 90 requires comparable international assessments to be made by Ofqual in a way that is similar to what new clause 3, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, would do. Amendments 72, 74 and 75 deal with the need to establish a proper educational standards objective in place of the long list of objectives that the Government have designated for Ofqual, none of which addresses the fundamental issue of standards, and judgments about standards over time. Amendment 71 seeks to address the soon-to-be-topical issue of the introduction of the modular GCSE, and the impact that it is likely to have on results. We heard some interesting evidence from the Minister and others in Committee about the effect that the introduction of modular GCSEs is likely to have. Many of us suspect that when they are introduced, there will be a rise in GCSE results, even though there will not be an improvement in underlying GCSE standards. We heard ambiguous evidence from the Minister about whether a rise in apparent standards as a consequence of changing to modular GCSEs should essentially be suppressed by ensuring that similar-ability cohorts of children end up with similar GCSE results, or whether in fact the modular GCSE will allow the results to rise in a fairly predictable way that, no doubt, will be used by the Government, if they are still in power, to claim that standards have risen. Amendment 73 deals with the need for standardised sample testing, in relation not only to the existing Ofqual objectives, but to the wider standards objective that we believe there should be. Amendment 91 deals with the issue of coherence v. choice in qualifications, a subject that we touched on in Committee. Another fundamental debate is hidden away in the amendments and new clauses before us. That is in relation to what was, when we were debating the Bill in Committee, the famous clause 138, which, under the reordering in the new Bill, becomes clause 139. This is the clause that gives the Secretary of State the ability to determine the minimum requirements in respect of skills, knowledge or understanding that someone must be able to demonstrate to gain a particular qualification or type of qualification. That is a very significant power. It allows a Secretary of State to prescribe, potentially in great detail, what should be in each and every regulated qualification. The example that the Minister gave during our Committee hearing was that particular authors might be considered to have a status that would justify a Minister insisting that they ought to be covered by, for example, a GCSE English qualification. The same approach could no doubt be sustained to justify the study of particular political theorists for a politics exam, or particular parts of history for a history exam.
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- Mr. StuartConservative
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- Was the hon. Gentleman disturbed, as I was, by the contents of the letter of 29 April to the Public Bill Committee in response to his questions in Committee? In that letter, Ministers say: “It would not be in anyone’s interests were Ofqual not to be regulating in a way which recognised its potential to influence the success of Government policy”. It is hard to follow what that means, but it has a rather creeping sense that the Government aim to force Ofqual to stick to their political agenda.
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- Mr. LawsLiberal Democrat
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- The hon. Gentleman underlines effectively the fact that although the Government initially indicated that Ofqual would be a wholly independent body, it is clear to us, both from the Bill and from the initial comments and judgments that have been made by Ofqual, that this is a body which is as yet far from being independent and may remain so for a considerable time. The issue is of great concern to us. That is why, as well as supporting some of the amendments to which the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton referred if they are pressed to a vote, unless the Minister tells us that she has reflected again on the matter, we shall seek leave to press amendment 80 to a Division.
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- Mr. GummerConservative
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- There seem to be two important aspects of the Bill which are addressed by the amendments and new clauses under discussion. The first gives me considerable cause for wonderment. I do not understand why it should be so unacceptable to the Government to want to see, in the context both of history and of our competitors, how good our qualification and examination system is. I should have thought that anybody running a business, a charity or any organisation would want to know whether the process by which they measured their success was, first, constant in the sense that it was comparable with previous measurements, and secondly, whether it was comparable with the measurements used by other people. It seems very peculiar to refuse to do either thing, and I do not understand why the Government find it so difficult, unless they are too afraid that they might have to say sorry. Is it another example of the Government fearing that an objective measurement might mean that they would have to admit that all their statements about standards having not fallen turned out to be untrue? The Minister represents a normal, run-of-the-mill constituency, and I am sure that if she talked to people there she would find that a large number think that standards have fallen. There is no way of reassuring them, except through independent assessment. The Government have recognised that, so they have set up an organisation that, they claim, will be independent. However, they have then proceeded to give to that organisation a series of remits that limit to an unacceptable degree its ability to be independent. Both the Minister’s responses to previous, Committee debates, which I have had the pleasure of reading, and her letters show that she has no intention whatever of enabling the body to set up an independent measurement of the success or failure of a particular means of testing and assessment. If we live in a society in which more and more employers say, “I take no notice of GCSE results and A-level results,” it is a society that properly should address that worry. As an employer, I find it difficult to see any continuity of standards in the conduct of those examinations, so I beg the Minister to take seriously the amendments. They are intended neither to criticise the Government, nor to upset the convenience of her Department; they are designed to ensure that people have confidence in the standards attained. She has admitted that people do not have such confidence, and one does not solve that problem unless one is prepared to enable people independently to measure our present system against what happens in the rest of Europe, with which, after all, we compete, and to see how far it has changed over the past 20 years. I should be perfectly happy to make it a 20-year period, so that it covered the life of another Government, too, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) would agree. It is not a matter of getting at this Government. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws), who speaks for the Liberals, raised an even more worrying point. If it is true that there is widespread concern about the standards of examination and the standards that young people are now expected to reach, there is even more widespread concern about Government interference in how the education system works. One cannot ignore that, and anybody with a constituency anywhere in the country knows perfectly well that people are worried. If the Department and the Minister want to do something about that concern, they must take seriously the amendments that the Liberal Democrats have put forward.
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- Mr. LawsLiberal Democrat
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- I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support. May I encourage him to join us if there is a vote on the issue later?
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- Mr. GummerConservative
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- No doubt if the hon. Gentleman listens to what I have to say, he will be able to make an assessment of what I think about the matter. I must say that his amendments do not go far enough, however, because I do not see any occasion on which the advantage to the society in which we live of the Government being able to detail those arrangements is sufficiently great to overcome the disadvantage that I see. I have a very strong view that Governments should keep their fingers out of what is taught in the classroom—apart from the general principle of ensuring a broad approach that covers the range of history, geography and the like. This Government are the last to whom I would want to give such permission, because they have shown themselves to be incredibly concerned to control and to ensure that what happens in the country fits their particular attitude towards politically correct teaching and the like.
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- Jim KnightLabour
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- indicated dissent.
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- Mr. GummerConservative
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- It is all very well for the Minister to shake his head. He is one of the very few in this Government whom I would trust with anything; that compliment, of course, will do him no good in his party. Do not let him encourage me to be more complimentary, because that would be bad for his future—limited though it may be in a Government whose future is limited. I say to him that we have had too many examples, and too often, of the fact that the Government cannot manage variety, diversity and difference. They are determined to ensure that we all accept a particular view—their view—of almost everything. The Government may have set up the inelegantly named Ofqual to reassure the public, but it would be much better if the public heard from the Government the statement that Ofqual can make its own decisions on what it wishes to investigate, compare and contrast; that its remit will be sufficiently wide for those decisions to be of the sort that these amendments seek; and that it is not a supporter of the pusillanimous and peculiar responses that its chairman gave in cross-examination. I do not like people who are supposed to be running a regulator, but cannot answer a question directly. I would like the Minister to look at the answers from Ofgem and other regulators. They are direct: those regulators say exactly what they are intending to regulate and know precisely what they are trying to do. I do not think that the person about whom I am talking understands at all what she is trying to do—or perhaps she understands all too clearly, but does not want to tell us because it is not what the public want. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that I am pleased with his amendments, although I would like them to have gone further. That is because I think that freedom is better than direction; I would rather have a society in which we might be worried that some people teach rather peculiar things than one in which people are afraid lest the Under-Secretary should come down on them for teaching something that they think important. We are at the very heart of the public’s concern about the Government. The Government cannot say that they are sorry, so they do not want to be measured lest they have to say that they are sorry. They cannot allow people to be various and different, so they have to have reserve powers. They will not say that they are reserve powers; they will not say in the body of the Bill that they will not use them except in extremis. They must have such powers to keep control, because they are a control-freak Government. Lastly, they are a Government who will not listen to the public. I am thinking not only of the Gurkhas, but of everybody in Britain to whom I ever talk on these subjects and who wants to know. If we are wrong and if it is not true that standards have fallen, the Government should be honest and prove it. If they cannot prove it, they should change things so that the situation changes and we can raise standards again. Recently, I tried to buy something in a store. The person serving me did not want the extra money I offered so that the change could be simple, because she could not work out what the change should have been except by using the machine in front of her. When I told her that I would give her the one and thruppence, or whatever it was, she said—[Interruption.] I said “thruppence” because the Minister was asleep at that moment and I wanted to wake her up. In fact, it was 13p extra, so I gave her that money; she could not work out what the change was because it did not tally with what was on her machine.
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- Mr. EllwoodConservative
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- I am grateful to have caught your eye at the last minute, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I had not intended to participate in this debate, but I have been prompted to do so by the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), who made a powerful argument about the Government’s actions and intentions as regards education. The amount of money allocated to the education budget has doubled, but we have to ask whether we are getting value for money. My right hon. Friend has put his finger on the issue. Have there been any improvements to our education system that are worthy of the amount of money that has gone into it? [Interruption.] The Minister says yes, but when we speak to employers, teachers and parents and ask them their views about what has happened to A-levels or GCSEs, they will say, without any prompting, that there has been a degradation in standards, with grade inflation. The Minister shakes his head, but that is what people out there are saying. It therefore defies logic that this Government, so late in the day in their tenure and in this parliamentary season, still refuse to listen to what the public are asking for, employers are calling for, and we are suggesting here today. Let us have a comparison so that we can understand exactly what is happening. We would be happy to stand up and say that we had been proved wrong, but I suspect that we would be proved right in saying that GCSEs and A-levels have suffered. Is it right, in this day and age, that 90 per cent. of people taking GCSEs can pass? There is something fundamentally wrong with that. If someone gets more things wrong than right, they should be heading towards a fail, not a pass, and they should not get a certain number of marks simply for turning up. My right hon. Friend made a valid point: unless we have such a comparison, how can we tell how we are doing in comparison with the people against whom we are competing? There are other yardsticks of measurement to say how we are doing in that competitive sphere, in the sense of who is taking our jobs—who is coming to work in the UK. People educated in the UK are finding it difficult to compete with those educated to the higher levels that we see abroad. That is why schools that choose to examine the current situation and are not happy with it are turning their backs on A-levels and GCSEs and looking towards the more independent, more respected and higher-standard international baccalaureate. I should declare an interest in that I was taught the international baccalaureate, and I believe that it is a superb system.
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- Jim KnightLabour
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- Was that under a Tory Government?
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- Mr. EllwoodConservative
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- It was under a Tory Government and a Labour Government; I am afraid that I had to witness both. I am trying to stress that the levels of education that one receives from the baccalaureate are very different from those that one gets from GCSEs. O-levels have not disappeared from the world that we live in. Someone who goes to an international school in Singapore can still take O-levels—the same exam that many of us here in the Chamber took when we were at school. But if we get students doing GCSEs today to sit the O-levels in the same subjects, we will find that many of them cannot pass because of the difference between the two. I echo the comments made by our Front-Bench team in pleading with the Government to be honest and give us an opportunity to judge and scrutinise the current situation. We are happy to be proved wrong, but I am convinced that we will be proved right. If we are, we owe it to education, our pupils today and the next generation, who will be competing in a very difficult world, to ensure that we have the right level of standards and that we do not have more and more grade inflation.
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- We have had another interesting debate. Many of the points were made in Committee, but I am none the less sure that hon. Members were sincere in their requests. The provisions in the Bill to set up Ofqual and the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency are central to our ambitious programme of education reform. They are part of ensuring that we deliver two things successfully. One is high-quality assessments and qualifications that enable all children and young people to gain the knowledge, understanding and skills that they need to play a full and active part in the economy and society. The other is adults who have, and can continue to develop, the skills that they need to succeed in the workplace.
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- Mr. GibbConservative
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- The Minister uses the term “high-quality assessments and qualifications”. Why does she use the word “assessment” and not “examination”?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- This is about qualifications, but within the QCDA it is also about the national assessments of the curriculum. I was talking broadly about Ofqual and the QCDA. We are changing the qualifications landscape and reforming assessments—reforms that are more urgent and important than ever in the challenging economic circumstances that we face. At a time of qualification reform we need an anchor point, an expert body that people trust, as many hon. Members have said, and that gives us confidence in the standard of qualifications and assessments. That is what Ofqual will be—a credible, authoritative regulator of the system. Fundamental to that credibility is the independence that is enshrined in the Bill, which I shall explain.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- Can the Minister tell me whether there will be observers appointed by the Department on the Ofqual board or in other parts of Ofqual?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- There is no provision in the Bill for Government observers to attend the Ofqual board. If the board itself decided that it wished to have such observers, that would be entirely up to the board, but nothing in the Bill requires that.
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- Mr. StuartConservative
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- Am I right that the Minister has just said that there is a possibility that there will be departmental observers on the board of this supposedly independent guarantor of standards? She seemed to suggest that there could be observers if the board so decided. Perhaps she could tell us who will appoint the members of the board.
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- It will be a decision of the board whether it wishes to have independent observers. It will be an independent body, and there is nothing in the Bill that will require it to have Government observers on the board. I return to a point that many hon. Members have made. We want to get away from that all-too-familiar footage on television every summer when exam and test results come out—the nervous teenagers approaching the board, the whoops of delight, and then immediately the cut-away to the dumbing-down debate. That is not fair on our young people, and it is not fair on teachers.
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- Mr. LawsLiberal Democrat
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- Does the Minister really think that the Bill will do away with that debate?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- Yes, that is the purpose of having an independent regulator, and I will come to why I believe that that is indeed the case.
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- Mr. GummerConservative
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- I am sorry, but the Minister really cannot say that without accepting that if that body cannot compare standards with those abroad and those that we have had before, everybody will continue to believe that standards have fallen. It does not matter how independent it is; it must compare those standards and prove people wrong, or people will go on believing that and we will go on having the nervous scenes that we have had on YouTube and so on.
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- If the right hon. Gentleman will be patient, I will explain what I believe will happen. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent Ofqual from making those comparisons, but we are not requiring it to do things in that way.
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- Mr. EllwoodConservative
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- Will the Minister give way?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- One more time.
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- Mr. EllwoodConservative
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- The Minister has been very generous, Madam—sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker; I am confusing genders. If there has been no grade inflation, why has it been necessary to introduce the A* grade, which I understand many universities are now obliging students to attain?
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- Sarah McCarthy-FryLabour
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- I find it very sad that the hon. Gentleman cannot accept the possibility that the abilities of our young people and the quality of teaching have enabled standards to rise. I was pleased to hear that the setting up of a strong and independent regulator has received widespread support. Most hon. Members in the Chamber would agree that that is needed, but there are inevitably some differences of opinion about exactly what Ofqual’s role should be. Two themes in particular attracted debate in Committee, and they are again the subject of amendments today: first, what Ofqual’s role as a standards watchdog means—there seems to be some confusion about what is meant by the standards that Ofqual must maintain—and secondly, what “independence” means. Ofqual must be free to take the decisions that it needs to take to maintain standards. It will report to Parliament on how it does so. However, that does not mean that Ofqual should operate without reference to matters that are at the heart of Government education policy, such as the content of GCSEs or the purpose of national curriculum assessments. Let me take standards of qualifications first. We spent a good deal of time on that in Committee, and quite rightly so. Protecting standards is the key driver for the establishment of Ofqual. It is essential that we have—I am drawing on the wording of the Bill now—qualifications and assessments that give a reliable indication of knowledge, skills and understanding, and that indicate a consistent level of attainment, including over time. That needs an expert, independent regulator with the powers to ensure that qualification standards are maintained and the credibility so that people trust it when it provides that assurance. The Bill has a range of provisions that are all about delivering on that, including objectives for Ofqual in respect of safeguarding the standards of qualifications and assessments; a power for Ofqual to set conditions that are binding on awarding bodies, so that Ofqual can have all the leverage that it needs to safeguard standards, coupled with a strong set of enforcement powers if an awarding body steps out of line; strong powers to regulate assessments; a reporting line to Parliament, not Ministers; and separation from the organisation that develops the curriculum and delivers and develops related qualifications or tests, the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency. What we do not have, because there is no need for it, is anything in the Bill that tells Ofqual exactly what it should do to safeguard standards. The Bill makes it clear what Ofqual needs to achieve and how it will be held to account. The focus of the Bill is rightly on outcomes and accountability, not on process. Ofqual is not being told how to achieve its objectives. The starting point is that we need to trust Ofqual to get on with the job that it is given and leave it to choose the right tools for doing just that. We would certainly expect Ofqual to publish evidence underpinning its conclusions on the maintenance of standards and—to pick up the point in new clause 2—to consider lessons from other countries. Ofqual will be accountable to Parliament for the way it pursues its objectives, but we will not prejudge the best way for it to gather or present its evidence on qualification standards, or what it should publish and when. That should be Ofqual’s call. Parliament, not least through the Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families, will look to Ofqual for the definitive word on the quality of qualifications in this country. That is what the Bill enables. The Bill gives Ofqual all the powers that it needs to monitor those standards and pronounce its judgments on what it finds without fear or favour. That is why I do not support amendments 61 to 63, 71 and 74 and new clause 2, which relate to standards. I agree with what I take to be the underlying sentiment of some of those amendments—that standards of qualifications need to be as high as ever they were—but we do not need amendments to the Bill to deliver on that. The Bill already gives all the safeguards that we need. Given the time, I shall deal with Ofqual’s independence, on which our message is clear. To be an effective regulator, Ofqual must be fully independent. The acid test is whether Ofqual has the powers that it needs to meet its objectives, the freedom to exercise those powers and the responsibility to report to Parliament and the public on its performance against those objectives. The Bill meets that test in every respect. It has to; there would be no point in establishing Ofqual without making it fully and clearly independent. Being independent, Ofqual might sometimes say things that will be uncomfortable for the Government and others, as we found when it reported on science GCSEs a few weeks ago. Home truths—
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- Jim KnightLabour
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- I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. The high quality of debate so far this afternoon reflects that which has been sustained throughout the passage of the Bill. The contributions of hon. Members from both sides of the House have been productive and professional, by and large, throughout the exhaustive and, at times, exhausting sittings that we enjoyed. The Bill is long and complex, but it is also important. Proper consideration and scrutiny have been essential, so I thank everyone who has contributed both this afternoon and throughout the earlier stages. In November, we achieved Royal Assent for the Education and Skills Act 2008, which took the bold and historic step of raising the participation age in education, employment or training to 18 from 2015, because nothing could be more important than ensuring that young people have the opportunities to get the skills that they need to succeed. Those opportunities must, of course, be open to all learners, not just the fortunate few, so we supported the raising of the participation age, with a broader range of options at 14 to 19. Those diplomas are introducing new areas of study and new methods of study through a combination of theoretical and applied learning. We have also strengthened existing qualifications at 14 to 19. Now, every learner can find something that captures their interest and plays to their strengths. This is a moral cause and an economic one.
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Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)Labour- Quote
- I wonder whether my right hon. Friend will be surprised to learn that I agree that this is an economic and a moral cause. Is there any possibility of bringing this work forward, given the current economic situation?
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- Jim KnightLabour
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- Tempting as it may be, given the compelling case for raising the participation age, I am sure that my hon. Friend, as Chair of the Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families, would not wish me to rush ahead of the ability of the system to deliver. It is important that we get the information, advice and guidance right, that the qualifications consistently work across the country and that we have the work force ready to deliver. I do not think that an accelerated timetable would allow us to do that. As we face the current economic challenges, this is the time to invest in skills and training that will build a strong work force and a strong economy, and that will secure Britain’s place at the forefront of global competition, innovation and productivity. Therefore, in spite of the economic difficulties we face—indeed because of them—this is education’s moment. This Bill not only seeks to put in place the infrastructure that will ensure that the system can deliver the historic changes we have made, but supports the moral and economic ambitions of the 2008 Act. It will open up more learning routes to more people and support fairer access to that learning, through an expansion of apprenticeship places and a new right for adults to request time to train to help them to overcome constraints to their learning and develop the skills they need to progress. It will rationalise the national infrastructure, with lighter-touch bodies that will support local delivery, promote excellence and represent the choices and aspirations of learners. In particular, the Young People’s Learning Agency will be created to support local authorities in their new 16-to-18 funding role, Ofqual as an independent regulator of qualifications and assessment, the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency to take on the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority’s non-regulatory functions, and the Skills Funding Agency as part of a new demand-led system of post-19 education and training.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- I enjoyed the Second Reading of the Bill and sat through Committee, but I am none the wiser about how the right to an apprenticeship place will be guaranteed, given that that requires an employer. How will the new National Apprenticeship Service be able to guarantee that employers come forward, especially at this time of recession? We should be careful not to make promises that we cannot keep. Perhaps the Minister can put my mind at rest.
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- Jim KnightLabour
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- It is Labour which is guaranteeing the funding and putting in place the infrastructure, through the National Apprenticeship Service, so that we can properly mobilise employers, who—as demonstrated by the support of employer organisations such as the CBI—want to see the expansion of apprenticeships. Certainly, we in the public sector will play our part in expanding apprenticeship provision. The Bill will secure more scope for local provision to be tailored to local need. Local authorities will become the single point of accountability for all children’s services from 0 to 19 and children’s trusts will be strengthened to provide a stronger base for partnership working and to better support children’s wider well-being and development, especially those children with additional needs. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State outlined earlier, the Bill will also implement recommendations made by Lord Laming to strengthen practice in safeguarding and child protection.
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- Mr. HayesConservative
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- If employer organisations are so in concert with the Government’s ambitions, why did they describe this Bill in the witness sessions as a “bureaucratic muddle” and a “wasted opportunity”? That does not suggest great faith in the infrastructure that the Minister now advocates with such energy.
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- Jim KnightLabour
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- We can all pull out quotes from the evidence sessions from people who supported or opposed aspects of the Bill. I was referring to the support from organisations such as the CBI for our policy of raising the participation age and for our expansion of the apprenticeship programme. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman would argue with that support. The Bill will help to drive up standards across all schools by strengthening powers to intervene in those schools that are underperforming, creating a lighter-touch inspection framework for those that are performing really well and creating a more straightforward and open complaints system for parents. Fair access, a strong, streamlined infrastructure, more power at local level and a relentless focus on standards are the ambitions at the heart of the Bill, and they are fundamental to delivering a world-class education system, building a strong economy and ensuring that every learner has the opportunity to pursue their talents, realise their ambitions and secure for themselves a successful future. I am pleased to commend the Bill to the House. I am also pleased that it will go to the other place, subject to the vote on Third Reading, in a form that is sure to meet with its approval.
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- Mr. GibbConservative
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- It must come as a welcome relief to the Minister, after all the chaos of the Bill’s passage through Committee, that we have at last come to the Third reading of the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Bill. It is such an appropriately named Bill given that three of the four Ministers responsible for taking it through Committee appear to have been released from their ministerial apprenticeships prematurely—too soon, it seems, to manage the complex responsibility of ensuring that the Committee voted the right way on clause 49. The fourth Minister, the Minister for Schools and Learners, though experienced, appears not to have the skills to ensure that he did not lose four successive votes on the trot. And as for children, that role was amply filled by the Government’s Deputy Chief Whip, whose petulance after losing those votes resulted in his looming presence in the Public Gallery and unnecessarily and expensively running the Committee through the night, finishing the Bill despite there being a full day left in the programme. What about the learning? Well, perhaps Labour Back Benchers on the Committee need to learn that Thursday Committee sittings start at 9 am and that they should get out of bed a little earlier. I want to thank my hon. Friends the Members for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) and for Beverly Hills—[Laughter.] I apologise; I mean for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart). I thank them for their diligent attendance and contributions to the Committee stage, and I also thank our supportive Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin). I also want to thank the two Chairmen, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) and the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) for their patience and expert deliberation, and my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) for her thorough scrutiny of the children and early years elements of the Bill. Finally, I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) for his scrutiny of the DIUS elements of the Bill and for his charm and eloquence, of which all members of the Committee have grown so fond. A Government who were elected on the threefold promise of education will bequeath an education system in which 40 per cent. of children leave primary school still struggling with the basics of reading, writing and maths; in which half the children who qualify for free school meals fail to achieve a single GCSE above a grade D; and in which the number of young people who have left education without a job or a place on a training scheme to go to has soared to a record 860,000. It is an education system about which academics such as Professor Tymms of Durham university have repeatedly provided evidence that literacy tests and GCSEs no longer provide robust evidence of standards, and where a student achieving an E in A-level maths in 1998 would now be awarded a B. Over the past few years, that education system has been beset by poor administration: the SATs marking fiasco, the non-payment of education maintenance allowances, the halting of the further education college building programme and, most recently, the sixth-form funding chaos, when the Learning and Skills Council sent out different letters to schools confirming a different level of funding. Of course, the Secretary of State is quick to blame others—the QCA, the National Assessment Agency or the Learning and Skills Council. It is never his fault, or the Department’s fault. Perhaps his focus has been on trying to become Chancellor, or Home Secretary, or on partisan politics, or on becoming leader of the Labour party after the general election. It is always the quangos’ fault, which is why it is odd that the Bill creates a host of new quangos—the Young People’s Learning Agency, the chief executive of skills funding, and the National Apprenticeship Service. As my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) said on Second Reading, this Bill “reveals the besetting problem of a decaying Government coming to the end of their term: when in doubt, reorganise…Even worse than that, they are now reorganising their own reorganisations, and changing the institutions that they themselves created earlier.”—[Official Report, 23 February 2009; Vol. 488, c. 115.] The Government claim that creating three quangos from one will slim down bureaucracy but in Committee, Ministers refused to guarantee that staffing numbers employed by these new quangos would not exceed the numbers currently employed by the LSC. However, we certainly welcome the Government’s commitment to increasing the number of apprenticeships. My hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings is well known and respected for his advocacy of genuine apprenticeships and, along with our hon. Friend the Member for Havant, he has developed a policy that will mean 100,000 more work-based apprenticeships. We support measures in the Bill that give people the right to request time off to train or study. Raising skill levels in this country can only be beneficial to the individual, to their employer and to our economy as a whole, but it is surprising that the Government want to engage in bureaucratic reorganisations just when our economy is at its lowest ebb and when tens of thousands of people will be hoping to retrain for the jobs that we all hope will come when the economy eventually emerges from recession.
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- Jim KnightLabour
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- I join the hon. Gentleman in thanking all colleagues for their work in Committee. I am resisting the temptation to mention the extra quango that he wants to create to look after academies, which would have been introduced by amendments that we did not get a chance to debate this evening. Will he match our commitments on a September guarantee so that all learners in these economic times can have the opportunities that they need?
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- Mr. GibbConservative
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- That measure was introduced in the Budget as a result of yet another fiasco in the administration of funding by the Learning and Skills Council—fiascos including EMAs, capital funding and now sixth-form funding. The LSC is accountable to Ministers, so it is a little rich for this Minister to ask us whether we support his emergency measure to tackle his crisis caused by his lack of oversight. I shall leave the matter there. I hope Ministers will keep a close watch to ensure that moving chairs and desks in an office block in Coventry does not become the focus of the Learning and Skills Council, the YPLA and the Skills Funding Agency. We support the measures in the Bill that put Sure Start centres on to a statutory footing. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke for the scrutiny that she gave the provisions in part 9 of the Bill, particularly as she did so late into the night on the final Thursday of the Committee, which also happened to be her birthday. She has been, and remains, a firm advocate of Sure Start, but she wants to ensure, as we all do, that its services reach the most disadvantaged and hard-to-reach families in our society—something that the National Audit Office tells us that Sure Start all too often fails to do. We support measures in the Bill that give independence to the exam regulator, Ofqual. Those measures were originally suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) when he was the shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills. A raft of evidence points to falling standards in the rigour and quality of examinations—not in the rigour or quality of the students or teachers, but in the exams. I have already quoted Professor Peter Williams, who said in The Observer in July 2007: “Over 20 or 30 years I don’t think there is any doubt whatsoever that absolute A-level standards have fallen…I think all university academics and a good proportion of sixth-form teachers would agree with my assertion.” However, one of Ofqual’s first acts was to ask one of the three exam boards, AQA, to lower the grade boundaries in its new science GCSE to conform to the grade boundaries of the other two exam boards. I would have hoped that the approach would have been to instruct the other boards to raise theirs. We welcome measures in the Bill to tackle poor standards in schools, particularly those that relate to behaviour. Ofsted reports that 43 per cent. of secondary schools are not good enough, which is a staggeringly high proportion. We know from answers to parliamentary questions that 344 children are suspended from schools in England every day for violence against other pupils. We know that more than 4,000 children under the age of six were suspended from primary school last year. We know that in 2006-07, some 980 three and four-year-olds were suspended for physical assaults against other pupils and teachers. We know that the number of children suspended 10 times or more in a year has tripled over the past four years to nearly 900, and we also know that police have been called into schools 7,000 times to deal with violence. Some of those cases relate to incidents outside the school gates, and some to cases involving disruptive parents, but some cases dealt with incidents inside the school. As we discovered in Committee, the Bill makes the involvement of the police in classroom management more likely. The new powers for teachers to search for weapons, drugs and alcohol require the search to be carried out by a teacher of the same sex as the pupil being searched, in the presence of another teacher of the same sex. That requirement for two teachers could be a problem for a very small primary school where there are no male teachers, or indeed in any primary school that has fewer than two male teachers. It could also be a problem in circumstances such as school trips, where there might be just one male teacher. The response that the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), made to those points early on Friday morning, on the final day of Committee proceedings, was as follows: “our guidance on” school visits “says that if a power to search is required, people should call the police.” I realise that we had been up all night, but it seems absurd for the Minister to suggest that when a teacher needs to search a pupil for stolen items, she should call the police. My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster said: “As a parent of young children, I cannot imagine how horrified I would be if, having signed the consent forms and allowed my child to go off to the Lake district or wherever, I found that the police had been summoned”––[Official Report, Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Public Bill Committee, 26 March 2009; c. 841-43] We are also concerned that the power to search is confined to weapons, knives, alcohol, drugs and stolen items. There is nothing in the provision about pornography, or indeed any item prohibited by the school rules, such as mobile phones and iPods. We need to give teachers and heads the powers that they need to enforce the rules of the school, whether they concern adherence to the school uniform rules, a ban on bringing mobile phones to school, or any other rule, such as those regarding completion of homework or standards of behaviour generally. [Interruption.] I may well come to that. There is nothing in the Bill to clarify the law so that the onus is not on teachers to prove that their actions in maintaining order are lawful and proportional. There is nothing in the Bill to protect teachers from false accusations.
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- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- On Friday I visited Hornsea Burton primary school in Hornsea in my constituency—a lovely school of 90 pupils. The only male member of staff is the caretaker, and the idea that that school, founded on warmth and community feeling, should call the police every time that there needs to be a search is frankly ridiculous. That is indicative of the poor thought that has gone into so much of the Bill.
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- Mr. GibbConservative
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- My hon. Friend makes the point better than I could by citing a specific example from his constituency of Beverley and Holderness. Raising standards of behaviour in schools is key to raising academic standards. Giving teachers the power and protection that they need is key to raising standards of behaviour. While we support the Bill’s new powers for teachers to search pupils, it does not go far enough to tackle the endemic problem of persistent low-level disruption in our schools. Today, the Prime Minister heralded yet another education White Paper and therefore yet another education Bill. However, it is not the number of Bills that builds a quality education system; it is the direction of policy. The Prime Minister says that he wants to give more power to parents, but today’s announcement is not about more power for parents; it is about one particular parent wanting to cling on to power. The Opposition will not oppose the Bill tonight, but it is clear that if we want a real rise in educational standards in this country, what we need is not another Bill from the Government but a change of Government.
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- Mr. LawsLiberal Democrat
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- I, too, begin by thanking all those involved in the scrutiny of the Bill, including Ministers who were, as ever, very patient in Committee. They accepted many interventions and, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) said, gave the Opposition a great deal of amusement on the morning of 26 March as they tripped over a number of their own new clauses and parts of the Bill. I would particularly like to thank all the staff and others in the House, including the departmental staff who stayed for our very long sitting on 26 March, which lasted overnight into 27 March. They could not go home for a few hours in the early morning to clean up, but had to stay in the House because of the rather odd behaviour of the usual channels on the Government side. We very much appreciate the fact that they did so. I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams) and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) for their support and for their proactive approach throughout proceedings on the Bill, although they had the good sense to leave before the overnight sitting on 26 and 27 March; they did not, I think, anticipate the length of that sitting. I should like to make three points in conclusion. First, there was a rather bad-tempered debate earlier on child protection and child well-being. It was a pity that it was so intemperate on both sides, because it is an extremely important issue, which we ought to deal with in the mature way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole dealt with it. We were surprised when we heard that the Government were going to introduce three new clauses at short notice. Two of those new clauses do not cause us particular concern, but new clause 22, which introduces a new targets regime, is very significant indeed. Although we did not oppose it today, we want to find out a lot more about it before deciding whether to support it in another place. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families for saying that he is happy for my hon. Friend and others to sit down with his departmental officials and perhaps Ministers to discuss the measure before it goes to another place, as it is important that we deal with the concerns that my hon. Friend set out very clearly. On the issue of child protection, I am disappointed by the insistence of the Secretary of State on keeping the substance of the serious case review secret. He knows that no Liberal Democrat Member has any problem with the notion that certain parts of serious case reviews should not be published. I can think of one page of the baby P serious case review that I certainly would not want to put in the public domain. When he kindly invited a number of us to look at that serious case review, I made notes on what I considered to be the significant parts of it. When I passed those notes to his departmental officials to find out how much was already in the public domain, or how much was not in the public domain, so I could not use it, all the points that I considered to be significant concerning the way the baby P case was handled, were, according to the officials, not in the published version of the serious case review, and not in the public domain. I therefore question whether on the basis of the selective information that is published we can understand fully what happened in such cases. I believe that there is a middle way whereby the bulk of the reports can be published and small portions excluded. None of the bodies cited by the Secretary of State has commented on that issue. Secondly, I wish to make an observation on the Bill, which includes, particularly in the parts relevant to the Department for Children, Schools and Families, a ragbag of measures, which suggests a lack of direction, particularly in the DCSF education portfolio. I am genuinely disappointed that on the subject of Ofqual, although the Secretary of State has taken a welcome step by introducing this new organisation, the Government have not gone much further in setting up what would be an objective standards regulator, rather than a body that will simply seek to regulate existing qualifications. The Secretary of State must know that if the intention behind the establishment of the body is to end the annual debate where the Schools Minister and others have to pop up on TV in the middle of August to comment on standards of GCSEs and A-levels, it will not work. It will not work because the Government have set up Ofqual in a very limited form and not given it the ability to comment on educational standards in a way that could allow all those interested in the education debate in this country to understand what has happened to educational standards over time. Without that basic understanding, we have little chance of having policy that is informed by fact, rather than dogma. Although we were not able to debate it today, there is an awful lot in the Bill on the children, schools and families side which adds to the bureaucracy of schools. The Secretary of State must know that individuals whom he greatly respects, such as John Dunford of the Association of School and College Leaders, have been highly critical of much that is in the Bill on the new complaints procedures, the regulations surrounding the use of force, and the search powers. All those bring in extraordinary bureaucratic burdens which head teachers object to and which will make their job in schools much more difficult. I ask the Secretary of State to reflect on how those proposals and the impact that they will have on schools square with what the Prime Minister talked of today in his rather drab education speech, in which he spoke about a White Paper that will contain proposals to reduce the burdens on schools, and about rationalising the statutory duties, correspondence and guidance that schools receive. The effect of much that is in the Bill in the children, schools and families area will be to impose new bureaucratic burdens on schools. Issues such as the use of force could make the job of head teachers and teachers more difficult, potentially even making them less willing to intervene in circumstances where the use of force is necessary. Finally, an aspect of the Bill that showed up the incoherence of Government thinking in terms of accountability—I hope this will be dealt with in the White Paper that is to come—is that of school oversight. We were told that the Young People’s Learning Agency was being established to cover the academies programme because, in a nutshell, the Government do not have confidence in the ability of local authorities as commissioners and standard setters at a high level. In the west country there will be a tiny number of academies which, owing to the Government’s lack of confidence in the oversight of local authorities, will have to be monitored by some regional quango because the Government do not trust the local authority commissioning and oversight process. That is not only extraordinarily wasteful, but a terrible indictment of the existing regime that we ought to depend on for the oversight of 23,500 schools in the country. If we cannot trust local authorities to do their job of overseeing schools and as the first tier to hold those schools to account for the standards that they deliver, we have a real problem, not only with the average schools and the better than average schools but with the many schools in this country which are in challenging circumstances and which are performing badly, but which are not academies at present. My final comment is about the context of the debate in education. There is a feeling about the Government that they may be coming to their final months in office. Many of us can remember when the Government started the process of public service reform—the attempt to improve public services in 1997. They started with no cash because they were tied into the spending limits that the Conservative Government set. They started with no reform agenda. Indeed, the early mantra was standards, not structures. After a while the money started to flow, as the Conservative spending plans were dumped. That led to some improvements, particularly in terms of the capital stock and the staffing in schools. Eventually, there was a change in policy by the Prime Minister, who acknowledged the importance of structures, rather than standards. Over the past couple of years, we seem to have gone backwards. The Secretary of State, in his first speech, turned on its head the Prime Minister’s comment about the importance of structures rather than just standards. The whole reform agenda has clearly run into the sand, as confirmed by the Schools Minister’s extraordinary comments the other day on the proposals to extend the academies programme to primary schools. He described the proposals as sending “a chill down the spines of parents and teachers” and leading to an “opting out of the national curriculum in an unregulated free market experiment.” I should have thought that Lord Adonis would have felt shivers down his spine at that description of what is, after all, merely an extension of the existing academies programme. There could be no clearer indication that the reform programme in education has come to an end. Although the Prime Minister claimed today that he wants to be on the side of spending more and continuing to invest in education, as opposed to being on the side of austerity, we know that the Government’s spending plans after 2011 deliver real reductions in total expenditure year on year, and that there will be cuts in capital expenditure of 17.5 per cent. in real terms each and every year beyond 2011. We are almost back to where we started in 1997, returning to an era of austerity in public services, including education, and no reform programme. If we are to see standards continue to improve, and the gap between youngsters from deprived backgrounds and those from more affluent backgrounds continue to narrow, we will require an awful lot more in policy terms than what is now on offer from this Government.
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- 21:45
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- Speaker
- Mr. Graham StuartConservative
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- As we approach the end of the time available to this fading Administration, it seems that the Bill will be the final law on education that they have a chance to introduce before the next general election. It is their SATs test. Does the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families lie awake at night fretting about next year’s constituency league table and what it might mean for his future? Has Labour’s educational curriculum been distorted and narrowed by the test ahead? I fear that this Bill—this flimsy, incoherent Bill—provides evidence that it has. The Secretary of State has introduced it not to improve education but to fulfil the aspiration that he notoriously described to the New Statesman back in March 2006, when he said that he aspired to create political dividing lines, to show up the Conservatives and to score political points. This Bill was the educational equivalent of the 50p tax rate—another example of the vicious, paranoid, clan-based politics that he and his master have used to claw their way to the top. It seems that no smear, no clandestine briefing and no moral outrage is too much for that coterie of the now electorally damned. But the game is up. People are not fooled anymore; they have had enough of Labour. So I appeal to the Secretary of State to accept his fate, recognise that defeat is inevitable and use the time he has left to try to do something constructive. He should work with Opposition Members not to create dividing lines but to do constructive things, such as introducing the apprenticeships that we would all like as a result of the Bill, because time and again Ministers have failed to show how they will make those apprenticeships a reality. They have made the promise, but they have not put forward the mechanisms with which to deliver it. I appeal to the Secretary of State to give schools more freedom and to get apprenticeships going, because politics is not about winning or about power; it is about trying to make a positive difference and trying to make people’s lives better. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State may laugh at such naive idealism, but I suggest to someone so young that, although he may never serve again after next year, despite being so young, he has one year left to try to work positively for the future of education and for our young people, and not to carry on with what is a politically driven, rather than an educationally driven, agenda. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed. Business without Debate
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- 21:56
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