Education Bill

My Lords, it is clear from this debate—as has often been the case—that promoting the highest possible quality of education for the most vulnerable children in society is a subject dear to the heart of the Committee. We have set out in our schools White Paper, published last year, and more recently in our Green Paper on special educational needs and disability, our overall plans on how we want to achieve this,. These include the pupil premium, which will deliver an extra £2.5 billion a year by 2014 to support the education of the most disadvantaged children. My letter to my noble friend Lord Avebury on 25 August set out the overall the statutory framework and range of measures in place to support vulnerable children. In response to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, the White Paper was absolutely clear that the local authority retains its responsibilities for vulnerable children, and the Bill does not affect its statutory duties in any way. However, the nub of this debate is around Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children, who are of particular concern to the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and to my noble friend Lord Avebury. He is absolutely right that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils continue to underachieve significantly relative to their peers and are still much more likely to leave school without completing their formal education. This year, under one-quarter of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils achieved level 4 in English and maths at the end of key stage 2, compared with 73 per cent of all pupils. At key stage 4, just 10.8 per cent of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils achieved five or more good GCSEs, including English and mathematics, compared with about 55 per cent of all pupils. These are stark differences. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils have the worst attendance of any minority ethnic group and there is a marked decline in enrolment between primary and secondary school level, a point that has been made. They have the highest levels of permanent and fixed-term exclusions. Local authorities have a key role to play in addressing this issue. They are under a statutory duty to ensure that education is available for all children of compulsory school age that is appropriate to their age, ability, aptitudes and any special educational needs they may have. This duty applies regardless of a child’s ethnicity, immigration status, mother tongue or rights of residence in a particular area. Along with schools and colleges, local authorities have a range of safeguarding duties for vulnerable pupils, as well as duties to establish as far as possible the identities of those children of compulsory school age who are missing education. We are currently revising statutory guidance to clarify how local authorities can best carry out their duties to identify children who are missing education. I say to my noble friend that we expect to strengthen current references to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils in the revised guidance and I should be happy in due course to share that in draft form with him, the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and anyone else who is interested. It is also the case that Ministers in my department are working, under the chairmanship of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with a range of government departments to ensure that the range of inequalities faced by the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities are properly addressed. That working group expects to publish before the end of the year a report on how the Government will tackle the issue, including a package of measures designed specifically to raise educational aspirations, attainment and attendance. We are grateful to the work carried out by the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller education stakeholder group, chaired by my noble friend Lord Avebury, for the contributions that it has made so far, and I look forward to working with the group over the coming weeks to develop further plans in that area. On children missing education, a point that my noble friend particularly emphasised, local authorities, maintained schools, further education and sixth-form colleges have safeguarding duties under Section 175 of the Education Act 2002. Crucially, under the 2006 education regulations, all schools are required to inform the local authority where a pupil fails to attend school regularly, where a pupil has been absent from school continuously for at least 10 days without permission or where a pupil has been removed from the school roll in specific circumstances. Indeed, failure by a school to comply with these provisions is an offence. My noble friend is right to cite some concerns about how well these arrangements are working, so the Government are committed to reviewing those regulations and to tightening up and extending the circumstances in which schools must inform the local authority when a child is missing school or removed from the register. We will revise the statutory guidance to clarify how local authorities can best carry out their duties to identify children missing education. I hope that this will provide my noble friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and others with some reassurance that there is an overall appropriate legal framework and statutory guidance in place to support local authorities and other services in promoting the education of vulnerable children, and specifically that we are taking steps to try to address the educational challenges and inequalities that we all accept are faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children. With that, I hope that my noble friend feels able to withdraw his amendment.