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Children’s Plan

My Lords, I am very grateful to both noble Baronesses for their broadly supportive welcome for the Children’s Plan. I sense that they are both trying to set themselves up as the Spice Baronesses. I shall not volunteer them for particular roles in that regard, but I am sure that Members of the House will be glad to take offers. We could even set up an adjudication panel for later, as I sense that the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, in particular is keen to steal my right honourable friend’s limelight, and perhaps even the limelight of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, whom we are sad not to see in her place this afternoon. As I said, I was particularly glad that the two noble Baronesses supported the broad thrust of the Children’s Plan: the importance of improving children’s lives; the importance of supporting parents—although we recognise that the prime responsibility for bringing up children must of course reside with the parents, who need help, information and support, and parents in more deprived circumstances need a great deal more support than others; and the importance of narrowing the gap between the affluent and the poor. The latter has been a consistent strand of government policy in the past 10 years, and we need to take that further forward. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, was in acute danger of becoming party political in a less productive sense when she said that the proposals were gimmicky or lacking in ambition in many places. I was not quite sure which proposals she thought were gimmicky or lacking in ambition. Did she think that the 3,000 new or upgraded play centres are gimmicky or lacking in ambition, or the £160 million spent on new facilities, the expert parent advisers in every local authority area, the 20,000 new nursery places for two year-olds in disadvantaged areas, the expansion of short breaks for the parents of disabled children, the new masters qualification for all new teachers or the ITT training for teachers in special educational needs? I could go on. There is nothing gimmicky or lacking in ambition in the Children's Plan. It is a whole set of interlocking measures that will substantially improve the support available to parents and schools in the raising of children. I look forward to her support on the specific measures as we roll them out. The noble Baroness asked a whole series of questions about schools and I will address myself particularly to those because, as Minister for Schools, they are causes that are within my own direct area of responsibility. She asked me straight out whether we were happy that, among 11 year-olds, two out of 10 of them are not up to the standard expected of their age in literacy and numeracy. I tell her absolutely straightforwardly that we are not happy with that situation. The number and proportion of 11 year-olds reaching the standard expected of their age has risen very substantially in the past 10 years. There are now 100,000 more 11 year-olds reaching level 4 in English than was the case 10 years ago, which is a 17 percentage point improvement. We have seen significant improvements, but we are not satisfied with the status quo and we wish to see it improve further. That is why, for example, two years ago we appointed the Rose review. Sir Jim Rose recommended to us that best practice in the teaching of reading included much more systematic use of synthetic phonics. We are in the process of implementing that recommendation at the moment. The new letters and sounds materials, which exemplify Sir Jim’s recommendations, have gone out to every primary school in the country. We have changed the national curriculum to give primacy to synthetic phonics, and Sir Jim Rose himself, who is an acknowledged expert in the whole area of the primary curriculum, is leading the primary curriculum review that we announced today. Sir Peter Williams, an eminent mathematician, is leading the review into mathematics teaching, which will also report in the spring, to see how we can improve the quality of teaching in that area. Therefore, I do not believe that we have been slow in taking forward the measures that are necessary to reach those two in 10 who have not been achieving the level expected of their age in literacy and numeracy. In respect of failing and successful schools, where the noble Baroness raised the issue of too many schools underperforming, here again there has been a substantial improvement over the past 10 years. The number of seriously underperforming schools below the 25 per cent baseline figure of five or more good GCSEs has fallen from more than 600 in 1997 to less than 30 this year. We actually raised the baseline targets that we set to 30 per cent including English and maths, so we are much more ambitious for our schools as a whole. The number of successful schools is therefore improving. We have been very robust in the setting up of new schools in areas where the schools are not good enough at the moment. We debated that at length last week when I set out the progress that we are making in the improvement of underperforming schools and in the establishment of new academies, of which I know that the noble Baroness has been supportive. I do not believe that we are lacking ambition at all in this area. Our ambition is that every community in the country should have outstanding primary and secondary schools and that every parent should have the opportunity to choose a good school for their child. That led us to take some radical and controversial decisions about school organisation, which we have debated in the past two years, to make that possible. It is also backed up by a capital programme for schools now running at £6 billion a year up from a capital programme of barely £600 million a year 10 years ago. Therefore, the investment necessary to create these new schools is also there and that is making possible the reforms that are described. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked me about the importance that we were giving to collocation, which she rightly recognised as crucial in improving the relationship between special educational needs provision and mainstream provision. Collocation and promoting proposals for collocation are at the heart of the Building Schools for the Future programme. Area by area, as BSF is being rolled out, proposals are coming forward for the enhancement of special educational needs provision in mainstream schools with, for example, the building of dedicated units in particular areas of special educational need but also for the collocation of special schools with mainstream schools so that the expertise can be shared between the two institutions. This is a central theme of BSF. The noble Baroness asked about the 20,000 places we are providing for two year-olds and how these would be selected. Let me make it absolutely clear that this will be done only with the consent of parents; it will be parent-led. We will not be seeking to oblige children to spend time in nursery classes at the age of two without their parents’ consent. Of course, as an increasing proportion of parents now develop strong links with their children’s centres from the birth of their children, we expect there to be demand to increase that number over time, and to have no difficulty in filling the places. The noble Baroness asked about the two parenting advisers planned for each area. We see health visitors as having a role in the provision of these parenting advisers, but do not believe that they will all be health visitors. We will seek a balanced recruitment of professionals who offer expertise in this area. On the review of special educational needs, we will seek to meet unmet needs. I should flag up that, for example, we have announced £330 million of extra provision for disabled young children, including a big national scheme for short breaks, so we are investing significantly in this area. Communications weaknesses and difficulties among children need addressing. We have the Bercow review; we will look at whether additional investment is needed in this area. The behaviour partnerships referred to in the Statement are not punitive at all. Their main focus is to see that there is proper provision in each area, through co-operative activity between schools, for children who are excluded from school, so that they are not out of the system. The schools themselves may, perfectly appropriately, have had to exclude pupils in certain instances, but should then make collective provision for them. This is much better than the existing provision, and will both enhance the quality of their education and make it easier to reintegrate the children afterwards. I hope that that answers most of the questions, but I will respond in writing to the others.