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Wednesday, 3 June 2009.
3 pm
Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Norwich.
Personal Statement: Lord Moonie
Lord Moonie: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I would like to make a personal statement about the matters raised in the second report of the Committee for Privileges. If any conduct of mine has demonstrated an inappropriate attitude to the rules governing the conduct of Members of this House, I bitterly regret any such conduct, and I am deeply sorry if this has caused embarrassment to this House.
Schools: Primary School Places
Question
3.08 pm
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their role in dealing with the current and projected shortages of primary school places.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Children, Schools and Families (Baroness Morgan of Drefelin): My Lords, statutory responsibility for providing school places rests with local authorities, supported by funding from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. To provide for growth in pupil numbers, the department has allocated more than £1.2 billion to fund extra school places between 2008-09 and 2010-11.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I declare an interest as joint president of London Councils, representing the London boroughs. The Minister will be aware that the shortfall in places for reception-age children over the next five years is predicted to be more than18,000. While the funding that she has announced is extremely welcome, it is a short-term measure. The London boroughs are concerned about the likely postcode lottery, since some authorities will not even be eligible to apply for emergency funding. Will the Minister give us some comfort over the long term by, for instance, relaxing the rules so that loans can be given by central government, to be repaid when property prices have risen and local authorities are able to realise assets and repay them?
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, I reassure the noble Baroness and all those concerned about the provision of school places for reception-age children—and even London Councils agrees—that in September there will be plenty of places available for children starting school. Obviously, with changes in the birth rate, there
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Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: Excuse me, my Lords. The Government accept that there have been some unpredictable rises in some places, and we are committed to working with local authorities to deal with the issue.
Baroness Verma: My Lords, what measures are the Government taking to ensure that the projected shortfall of 5,000 primary places next year will be addressed? How confident is the Minister that concerned parents will have places for their children this September?
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, as I have just said, I have confidence that this September school places will be made available to all those children starting school who need them. However, as I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, this is a complex issue. The birth rate is predictable; there is a four-year lag between birth and starting school. Local authorities have a responsibility to make their assessments, but we recognise that in some parts of local authorities there have been very unpredictable changes in the number of children needing to start school.
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, how are the Government planning for sufficient primary teachers to take account of this unexpected bulge in the number of children starting school?
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, as the noble Baroness is aware, we are working very hard on teacher recruitment. We will make the most of changes in the economy to encourage all those who are interested to come into teaching. We are making the funds available. The number of teachers that we have in staff now compared with 10 years ago has increased substantially. We have 41,000 extra teachers in the workforce, so I am confident that we will be able to meet the increasing need.
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood: My Lords, are there contingency plans in place to provide additional funding, be it for staff or for finding premises that may be necessary at short notice?
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, local authorities are working hard. They have met with my right honourable friend Jim Knight. Detailed plans are being put in place, and the need for 2007 will be met. It is important to make sure that the systems are in place for future resource allocations, so that where there are changes in the birth rate and in particular hotspots, these challenges are met adequately.
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Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I am a joint president of London Councils. In my 15 or so years in that role, I have never known that body more anxious and expressing stronger views about what it sees as the inadequacy of the provision for children starting school over the next two or three years. Will the noble Baroness take on board the fact that for some of the London boroughs this is an extremely serious issue? I hope that she and her colleagues will recognise this.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, I do take this issue very seriously. It is an issue in London, and I know that London Councils is very concerned, but it is also an issue in some boroughs outside London. The Department for Children, Schools and Families is working hard with local authorities to make sure we come up with the right solution.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, are we recruiting and retaining sufficient secondary school head teachers? How are the vacancy rates looking? Are we giving head teachers the support they need?
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, I think that tomorrow we have a discussion about head teachers. There is an enormous amount of work to be done to make sure we recruit and retain enough high-quality head teachers for primary and secondary settings. An enormous amount of work is going on to ensure that that happens.
Lord Elton: My Lords, will the Minister ensure that the current difficulties do not result in reducing the proportion of teachers able to identify the presence of dyslexia and other related difficulties in children in primary schools?
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, the noble Lord is right to use this as an opportunity to draw attention to the need for a broad mix of skills in primary schools. I will certainly ensure that this issue is considered.
Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland: My Lords, is not one of the reasons for an unexpected increase in the need for primary school places the increasing popularity of the state sector rather than the private sector? Will my noble friend comment on that?
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, my noble friend raises an important point. There is rising confidence in the standards of state education throughout the country, which is obviously to be welcomed. It has many effects. There is also, of course, the impact of the recession on some parents’ ability to pay for private education, meaning that some are having difficulty and are drawing on the tremendous resources of the state education system and the tremendous results from our primary schools.
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Employment: E2E
Question
3.16 pm
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many young people will be turned away from E2E courses between now and September 2009.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Children, Schools and Families (Baroness Morgan of Drefelin): My Lords, we are already making additional entry to employment places available in England where there is evidence of demand from young people. This will be supported through the £655 million extra funding secured in the Budget to ensure that demand for education and training is met.
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply and welcome the emergency funding that the Secretary of State has recently announced. However, is the Minister aware that a number of young people were turned away from these courses before that emergency funding was announced? What will the Government do to bring them back into the fold, as it is important that they have these entry to employment courses? Since no one knows how long the credit crunch and inflated demand will go on, is she confident that the budget for next year and the year after will be big enough?
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an extremely important question. The additional funding made available in the recent Budget announcement will be about creating an extended September guarantee, which will make available to all young people the opportunity of education or training from September. Of course, the noble Baroness highlights the many young people who want to access these programmes before September. The Learning and Skills Council and others are working hard to see how we can build flexibility into the system so that that can happen.
Baroness Verma: My Lords, what is the cost per student on this scheme and what is the drop-out rate?
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, I am sorry but I cannot say what the cost per student is, but I will be happy to write to her with that information and put a copy in the Library. We know that 54 per cent of those who take part in these entry to employment schemes—some of the most disadvantaged and disengaged young people—go on to have a positive outcome, going into further education, an apprenticeship, work with training or, indeed, a job. We can see from that there are some very good results coming from these entry to employment programmes.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, given the point that the Minister has just made, does she accept that, since the recession has eliminated jobs that some of these young people with no or very low qualifications might have gone into, there is an opportunity for the
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Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right. This chimes well with our aspiration—in fact, our commitment—to raise the participation age so that all young people have the opportunity to access education, an apprenticeship or work with training as an integral part. It is vital that, as the economy strengthens in the coming months, we ensure that we support young people, because they are one of the most important sections of our society. We need to equip them with the skills to be a part of our recovery.
Baroness Sharples: My Lords, will the noble Baroness please tell us what E2E is?
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, entry to employment is a level 1 learning programme for young people aged 16 to 18 targeted at those not yet ready or able to enter an apprenticeship, employment or further learning opportunity.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, what is the current level of young people not in employment, education or training? Is that figure going up or down?
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, the number of young people who are NEET has remained reasonably stable in the past couple of years, although obviously, with the challenging economic climate, keeping that number of young people engaged in positive activities is a real challenge. That is why it is so important that we use all our resources—including the September guarantee and the additional investment of £655 million that was announced earlier this year—to ensure that young people are positively engaged.
Disabled People: Violence
Question
3.21 pm
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what provision has been made to prevent violence against disabled people.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): My Lords, the Government have a comprehensive programme of action to tackle all violence. Violence against disabled people, when motivated by that disability, is a hate crime. The Home Office is leading the development of the cross-governmental action plan to tackle hate crime and the Race for Justice Programme, led by the Attorney-General, is developing a cross-governmental approach to the way the criminal justice service responds to it.
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Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I know that my noble friend’s department is trying very hard indeed, but the fact remains that nearly one-half of disabled people are subject to violence. We must be far more active in preventing that violence by working with them. Does he agree that many organisations representing disabled people in Britain have great skills, knowledge and information but their work is not being harnessed properly? Will my noble friend consider inviting all these organisations—or at least the leading ones—to discuss the matter so that the Government can co-operate with them as strongly as they can?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point. This is not an area I had looked into in any great detail and I was absolutely horrified when I began to do so and saw some of the percentages of disabled people who are subject to violence. For example, 71 per cent of those with mental health needs had been subjected to a hate crime at least once in the preceding two years. Such figures are quite awful and quite horrible. We do talk to the various groups and initiatives are being undertaken such as the No Secrets review, to which we are responding, and the Getting Away with Murder review. I absolutely commit the Government to talk more with these groups because more needs to be done.
Lord Rix: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in 2007 to 2008 there were approximately 7,000 prosecutions for racially motivated crime and yet only 141 prosecutions for disability hate crime? Does this mean that disability hate crime is much less of a problem, or is it simply that the CPS and the police are failing to take it as seriously as other hate crime?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I hesitate to say that they do not take it as seriously as other hate crimes; I think that they do. One thing that is absolutely true is that we have not collected the statistics as well or as accurately as we should. We are now resolving that. It was done on an intelligence basis through ACPO. I do not think that the numbers of crimes that were seen as hate crimes against the disabled accurately reflected the full scale of what was happening. I will give an example, because some of these incidents are so horrible. Steven Hoskin, who had learning disabilities, was assaulted by three individuals, who made him wear a dog collar, fed him an overdose of painkillers and forced him to fall off a viaduct to his death. These are the sort of appalling things that are done. It is absolutely right that we should focus on this and the statistics do not show the scale of it. We are getting to grips with those statistics and we absolutely must do more about it.
Baroness Billingham: My Lords, is it not the case that police forces up and down the country are actively recruiting people with a background of working with people with disability? Those people are now working within police forces and are acting as centres for advising disability groups on how to help their members. Are not those centres already proving to be very successful?
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Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. This is one of the areas in which we are moving forward and it has made a great difference. The response to the Getting Away with Murder review took rather longer than it should have. We are now taking forward its 40 recommendations. The organisational set-up, as my noble friend said, has made a great difference, but we must do more here. We are focusing on it—and we will.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, twice as many disabled people at work face violence against them than those who are not disabled. Does the Minister agree that there is a case for making sure that the police also take action against employers, who have a duty of care, if they are allowing this sort of thing to happen in their workplaces?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I hope that that police action already happens. Perhaps I may get back to the noble Baroness in writing on that because I do not have at my fingertips enough details to say for sure. However, I absolutely hope that it already happens because it clearly is against the law and action should be taken.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, do the Government accept that their policy of inclusion, at school and among adults, can leave disabled people—particularly the intellectually impaired—vulnerable to bullying and violence? If so—and I think they must—will the Government promote special schools and intentional communities where this problem largely disappears?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I do not think that I will go down the route of saying exactly what else should be set up. All that I would say in response is that including people with disability within normal society and normal groups is absolutely the way that any civilised society should behave. It is right that we should try to do that, unless the disabilities are exceptional. We must ensure that people understand that cases such as the example I gave should not be the way that any civilised person behaves. Some of these things are horrendous. I find it quite remarkable and I am appalled that things like that can even happen.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes: My Lords—
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change & Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): My Lords, perhaps we should hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell.
Baroness Campbell of Surbiton: My Lords, the Minister explained why the murders of disabled people such as Steven Hoskin and of course Brent Martin have failed to trigger a root-and-branch review of our approach to disabled people’s access to justice, equivalent to the review taken in the light of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Why is the approach not the same?
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