---

Children's Plan

My Lords, the House is indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for introducing this excellent debate on the Children’s Plan. Let me say at once that we have achieved an average eight out of 10 from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who is perhaps my most relentless taskmaster in this House, which demonstrates that the Children’s Plan must indeed be a paragon among government publications. I take that to be high commendation indeed. Earlier this week my noble friend Lady Massey with her customary deftness of touch chaired a large meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Children. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, were also present and spoke, as did I. The all-party meeting was focused particularly on disabled children with many organisations present representing children with disabilities and learning difficulties, as well as parents with disabled children. The cause of those children was mentioned again today by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and as Minister for Disabled Children I begin by saying a few words about this important group of children, whose interests are advanced further as a key part of the Children’s Plan. I was glad to be able to tell the all-party meeting of the radical improvements that we are making to services for disabled children and their families, particularly the new ring-fenced three-year funding of approaching £400 million to transform local short-break and respite services for them. I recently launched the first local authority pathfinders for this enhanced short-break service in the London Borough of Sutton, alongside the Liberal Democrat leader of that borough. I heard at first hand from the parents and young people the difference that this will make to their lives. The all-party meeting was also glad to hear about the amendment that we made in this House to the Children and Young Persons Bill, with all-party and Cross-Bench support, to empower the Government to set minimum standards for short-break services in all local authorities, so that the improvements we are making under the Children’s Plan are sustained beyond 2011 and there is not a postcode lottery of provision for disabled children and their families, leaving some disadvantaged or unsure of their entitlements. The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, raised the important issues of dyslexia and autism in respect of children with disabilities and special learning needs. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, said, we are investing significantly in enhanced training for all teachers about special educational needs. We are looking at the case for more dedicated dyslexia specialists school by school, and are in strong support of the provision of dedicated specialist schools for children with acute needs. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, may be aware, a few months ago I introduced a special educational needs improvement test, which local authorities must satisfy when they engage in any reorganisation of their special educational needs so that they can demonstrate that any change, including the closure of the small special schools she mentioned, must be able to demonstrate that the alternative provision that will be made enhances the quality of provision for the children directly affected and those in a similar position. Unless that test is met, a local authority should not engage in the reorganisation of provision. At the all-party group earlier this week the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, raised the issue of looked-after children, of which he is a tireless champion in this House. We pay tribute to his work. He raised the issue again today. As he said, looked-after children will benefit from the Children and Young Persons Bill, which we have just passed, with its radically improved legal structure to safeguard and promote their interests, particularly in respect of care placements, case reviews, social-worker support and educational attainment. He mentioned, as did a number of other noble Lords, mental health services, in respect of both looked-after children and those in the youth justice system. There have been significant improvements in mental health services in recent years, but we understand the need to improve services further, which is why the Children’s Plan set out a commitment to review those services. The review was launched in December last year. Its main aim was to investigate progress made since the launch of standard 9 of the children’s national service framework and the publication of Every Child Matters in 2004 in delivering services to meet the educational, health and social-care needs of children and young people at risk of experiencing mental health problems, and to see what further improvements we should carry forward in due course. The speech and language therapy review conducted by John Bercow and mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is also reaching a conclusion. We confidently expect that we will be in a position to lay before the House before long specific improvements that we will make in respect of speech and language services, which, as the noble Lord so rightly said, can make a transformational difference to the experience of vulnerable young children who have not had the opportunity to develop speech and language skills in the way that they should have done earlier in life. Our approach to disabled children, looked-after children and children with SEN whom I have just identified—identifying key priorities for reform to improve life chances significantly, setting medium-term objectives and directing investment accordingly—represents the philosophy of the Children’s Plan at large. The Children’s Plan builds on improvements that have taken place in recent years. Over the past decade, Sure Start children’s centres have enabled us to create what is now in effect a national under-five service where none existed before, with nursery places for virtually all three and four year-olds and enhanced provision in deprived communities. I know that it is because provision for under-fives is so dear to the heart of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that we scored particularly highly in her assessments of the Children’s Plan. In schools, pupils and teachers are achieving the best exam results ever. Last year, 61 per cent of secondary school pupils achieved five or more good GCSEs, up from 45 per cent in 1997. There has been a particularly welcome improvement in results in many of our ethnic-minority communities, where the targeting of additional support and the increased recruitment of teachers from those communities themselves has helped us to achieve significant year-on-year improvements in results, to meet the needs identified by my noble friend Lady Howells. The number of teachers and teaching assistants is sharply up, as is their pay, and Ofsted reports that we have the best trained generation of teachers ever. Capital investment in school buildings has increased tenfold over the past decade, and all that has been made possible by significant increased levels of education spending at large. As my noble friend Lady Massey noted, between 1997 and 2007, total spending on education in England rose from £29 billion to £64 billion, an increase of 68 per cent in real terms. That is the basis on which most of the changes have been possible. Having set out some of the improvements that have taken place, as I never tire of saying, my middle names are ““No Complacency”” and much more needs to be done to improve education in children’s services, not only in England but—as my noble friend Lady Gale rightly said—in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Children’s Plan’s objectives for this country being the best place in the world to bring up children referred to the United Kingdom, not just any one part of it—I should hasten to correct the first sentence of the plan. She made a particular point about the development of highly innovative models of provision in a number of areas, including areas of special educational needs. She mentioned autism in Wales in particular. Those points are well taken and I will—and indeed do—pay close attention to developments in Wales and those areas to see how we can improve our practice in England, for which I have responsibility. The five Every Child Matters outcomes, which we set out in our 2003 Green Paper, set out our key objectives across the United Kingdom in respect of children. They are that every child should have the support they need to be healthy, to stay safe, to enjoy and achieve, to make a positive contribution and to achieve economic well-being. The best way of addressing some of the other issues raised in the debate is for me to take each of the five Every Child Matters outcomes in turn and say something about what they mean in terms of concrete forward policy and implementation in the Children’s Plan. The first Every Child Matters objective is for children to be healthy. As my noble friend Lady Howells said, all the evidence points to the fact that the better start that children make in terms of parental capacity and care, from the earliest months of their lives, the healthier and more successful they will be thereafter, including in education. Recent trends in society also highlight the importance of greater childcare support for young children’s parents to enable them to work and to balance work and family life. My noble friend asked how we would develop further our under-fives’ provision, particularly for disadvantaged families and those who find it hard to cope. The Children’s Plan sets out our objective that, by 2010-11, nursery or reception provision for all three and four year-olds will be increased from 12.5 hours per week to 15 hours per week. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, asked for an assurance that the voluntary and independent sector would be fully engaged in making that additional provision, and I can give her that assurance. We are also extending those increased hours of care to some 20,000 of the most disadvantaged two year-olds, particularly focusing on those who can be identified as less likely to take up their entitlement at the age of three. We are strengthening the outreach work of Sure Start centres, with a minimum of two outreach workers in every Sure Start centre in the most disadvantaged communities. The outreach workers will work predominantly with parents, often in their homes. In this context, I wish to highlight the role of family-nurse partnerships, under which we are taking forward models of intensive nurse-led home visiting for vulnerable first-time young parents in 10 areas of England—not only for the first weeks after childbirth, as is traditional in the case of health visitors, but right up to when the child is two years old. Thirty million pounds has been allocated to expand the family-nurse partnership scheme in the next three years. This is targeted at the most vulnerable first-time young mothers and their first child, and I am glad to be able to tell the House that the programme is taken up by 90 per cent of the hard-to-reach families to which it is offered and has been welcomed by health visitors and midwives. This model of how we can extend the concept of the health visitor, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, referred, is one to which we should pay close attention in the coming years. In terms of children’s well-being as they grow up, child obesity and unhealthy lifestyles have been of steadily rising concern in recent years. Seeking to address this issue has guided our policy on school meals, with the establishment of the School Food Trust and the raising of nutritional standards for provision in schools. Equally important is physical activity for young people. Our school sport strategy is significantly increasing sport and physical education in schools, thanks also to improved sports facilities in schools which are being made possible by rebuilt and modernised facilities, under the multibillion-pound Building Schools for the Future programme. Opportunities for play and recreation outside schools, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, are equally important. This is a particular priority of the Children’s Plan—hence our decision to commit £125 million over the next three years to help every council nationwide improve its play facilities. This will fund 30 new adventure playgrounds and the rebuilding or renewal of up to 3,500 play areas. This is also a key role of extended schools. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich mentioned the role of extended schools. After-school clubs that include sport and recreation provision are a central part of extended school provision, and that is intended to ensure that we reduce social divisions between different parts of the community, not enhance them, as he said. The second Every Child Matters outcome is for all children to be safe. On 5 February, following the Children’s Plan, we published Staying Safe: Action Plan. As the plan noted, there is much to be thankful for. Rates of sudden infant deaths and accidents have fallen in recent years, and our consultation showed that 87 per cent of young people felt that they were safe. But we know that many families cannot afford the basic home safety equipment that can help prevent accidents, so we are investing £18 million over three years in a new home safety equipment scheme that is targeted at families in disadvantaged areas. However, as we know, many of the threats to child safety are not of the traditional kind, but are a function of modern society. Technological advance and more commercial activity offer children greater opportunities than ever before, but also present new risks. That is why we asked Dr Tanya Byron to examine how we can protect children and young people from the harmful effects of the internet and the video games industry. My department and the DCMS have now accepted all of Dr Byron’s recommendations and we will act immediately to take forward her proposals. We will, for example, put in place a simpler and more coherent classification system for rating video games, bringing the system into line with video classification and making it easier for parents to understand. The third Every Child Matters outcome is that children should enjoy and achieve, which brings me to the heart of my responsibilities as Minister for Schools. I share the concern of my noble friend Lady Howells and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that our schools should be engines of social mobility for all parts of the community—and I include all races in our country—over the next generation. Our mission in the Children’s Plan is simple. Every parent should be able to choose a good primary and secondary school for their child. The great majority are able to do so now, but where that is not the case, it is simply unacceptable. By a ““good school””, I mean, at primary level, a school that achieves good levels of literacy and numeracy—as the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, said—and starts to develop children’s talents beyond that, including in languages, sports and the arts. I place great emphasis on all three of those areas, as many speakers have done. At secondary level, I mean a school that achieves a good level of attainment in English and maths and equips children with the qualifications necessary to go on to further and higher education or work with training. I mean a school whose pupils achieve social skills and an appreciation of sport, art, music and culture, and an understanding of the duties of citizenship, which will more broadly equip them for enjoyment and success in life after school. A number of continuing reforms are necessary to achieve the objective that every parent should be able to choose a good primary school and secondary school for their child. Building on the literacy hour in all primary schools, we are taking forward the recommendations of the Rose review that tried and tested systematic phonics should be the nationwide teaching method for reading, and our Every Child a Reader scheme will provide small-group and, if necessary, one-to-one tuition for children who fall behind in literacy in the early years of primary school. Every pound that we invest in literacy in primary schools to get children up to standard will be many pounds saved thereafter as regards failure in secondary school and, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, correctly said, the small minority of children and young people who progress into the youth custody estate and to unproductive lives thereafter. On numeracy, Sir Peter Williams is soon to report to us on best practice in teaching and staffing. We will act on his recommendations, alongside the rollout of an Every Child Counts programme, which aims to extend from literacy to numeracy a similar small-group and one-to-one approach to tuition for those who demonstrably fall behind in the early years of primary school. My noble friends Lady Massey and Lady Howells asked about the testing and assessment regime in schools. The Government remain committed to tests as an element in our strategy to raise standards. However, we are looking at how we can improve the testing regime, hence the Making Good Progress pilot running in 10 local authority areas, which is looking at the introduction at key stages 2 and 3 of single-level ““when ready”” tests for children, rather than their having to undertake the existing comprehensive system of SATs at 11 and 14. We will look at the results of the pilots with care to see if a national reform on those lines would be appropriate. At secondary school level, a concern highlighted by the Children’s Plan is the future of the 638 schools that are still below our floor performance level of at least 30 per cent of pupils achieving more than five good GCSEs, including English and maths. We are focusing especially on five good GCSEs including English and maths for the reason given by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing—the importance of continuing to ensure high levels of literacy and numeracy in secondary schools, as well as in primary schools. A decade ago, 1,600 schools were below this level, so there has been a good deal of improvement. But 638 schools below this level is 638 too many and we will soon publish a detailed strategy for action to reduce this number rapidly. It will include the further deployment of academies—completely new schools under independent governance, often replacing failing schools. These—as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said—are proving successful and popular where they have been established. It will also include measures to enhance support for leadership in poorly performing schools, including the more widespread deployment of national leaders of education who are successful head teachers specifically designated by the National College for School Leadership for their capacity to assist colleagues in less successful schools. It will also include the wider use of school federations and other tried and tested improvement strategies. Above all, underperforming schools—like all good schools—need good teachers. Continuing to raise the quality of recruitment and training in the teaching profession is a key priority of the Children’s Plan, including what will be a crucial change in the profession—the introduction across the profession of masters-level qualifications in teaching and learning for all teachers coming into the profession. It is modelled on the long established practice in Finland and in other successful education systems worldwide, and enables teachers to upgrade their skills to masters level once they have entered the profession. There is much more that I could say, but I have already overrun my time. I will deal in writing with the large number of other points that have been raised. Let me say in conclusion that, as has been recognised in the debate, the Children’s Plan is massive in scope and ambition and the contributions from all parts of the House have been valuable. We will take full account of them as we implement the plan. I believe that, if we do implement it successfully, we can ensure that this country—the United Kingdom—is the best place in the world for children and young people to grow up.