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1491781

	registered interest
	date	21/07/2022
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	School Meals: Processed Food
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps, if any, they plan to take in response to the study in the journal Nutrients, published on 21 July, which found that ultraprocessed food consisted of 82 per cent of the calories in packed school lunches and 64 per cent in school meals, with calories provided by these foods being 61 per cent of primary pupils' diets and 77 per cent of secondary pupils'.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
	type	WrittenParliamentaryQuestion
	uin	HL1991
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/08/2022 answer text <p>A diet high in processed foods is often high in calories, salt, saturated fat and sugar and low in fibre, which is associated with an increased risk of developing chronic diseases. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) is delivering a range of measures to help address the exposure and consumption of food and drink products high in saturated fat, sugar or salt, including restricting the advertising and promotions of these products, and a sugar reduction and wider reformulation programme.</p><p> </p><p>Further to the work being done by OHID, the department encourages all schools to have a whole school approach to healthy eating, promoting healthy eating and providing healthy, tasty and nutritious food and drink. Compliance with the school food standards is mandatory for all maintained schools, including academies and free schools. The Requirements for School Food Regulations 2014 is available here: <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/1603/contents/made" target="_blank">https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/1603/contents/made</a>.</p><p> </p><p>Schools may use the school food standards as a guide when writing their packed lunch policies. For example, confectionery is banned throughout the school day and foods high in salt, sugar and fat are restricted. Schools can also confiscate items that are banned by the school rules. More information is available here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/searching-screening-and-confiscation" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/searching-screening-and-confiscation</a>.</p><p> </p><p>The department also wants to make it easier for parents to feel confident that they are preparing healthy, balanced lunches for their children. Further information such as recipes, tips and swap suggestions for parents are available on the Change4Life website, which is available here: <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/change4life-beta/healthier-lunchboxes" target="_blank">https://www.nhs.uk/change4life-beta/healthier-lunchboxes</a>.</p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 01/08/2022 13:55:26 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
	tabling member	4719 label Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

1662214

	registered interest
	date	20/09/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Schools: Buildings
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask His Majesty's Government what is the minimum expected lifespan of new schools currently being constructed.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
	type	WrittenParliamentaryQuestion
	uin	HL10342
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/10/2023 answer text <p>All new educational buildings delivered by the department are designed to a robust specification that includes minimum expected lifespan of all components of the building, both externally and internally, based on current construction industry standards.</p><p>The current specification requires the minimum building life expectancy to be 50 years for the key structural components. Most buildings however last much longer with regular maintenance and proper oversight. The school estate has many excellent functioning buildings performing well as education settings from the last 150 years.</p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 16/10/2023 09:46:08 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
	tabling member	4719 label Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

1651485

	registered interest
	date	10/07/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Schools: Ethnic Groups
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number of schools with codes on hairstyles that adversely affect school participation among students from ethnic-minority backgrounds; and what plans they have to ensure that all such codes are abolished.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
	type	WrittenParliamentaryQuestion
	uin	HL9198
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/07/2023 answer text <p>Every school in England has existing legal obligations not to discriminate unlawfully on the grounds of a protected characteristic. It is for the governing board of a school to decide whether there should be a school uniform policy and if so, what it should be.</p><p>The department has not made an assessment of the number of schools with codes on hairstyles.</p><p>The department has published non statutory guidance to help schools to consider their equalities responsibilities in relation to uniform policies. The guidance is available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform/school-uniforms" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform/school-uniforms</a>.</p><p>In addition, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, with support from the Race Disparity Unit in the Cabinet Office, have produced guidance, which can be found here: <a href="https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/preventing-hair-discrimination-schools" target="_blank">https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/preventing-hair-discrimination-schools</a>.</p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 24/07/2023 12:09:38 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
	tabling member	4719 label Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

1613043

	registered interest
	date	20/04/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Teachers: Training
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask His Majesty's Government what funds are specifically allocated to, or are available for, the training of industry specialists to become teachers and further education lecturers.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
	type	WrittenParliamentaryQuestion
	uin	HL7330
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/05/2023 answer text <p>For those starting initial teacher training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year, the department is offering bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage talented trainees to apply to train in key subjects such as chemistry, computing, mathematics, and physics.</p><p>The department is exploring new ways to recruit trainee teachers in subjects where there is a shortage. For example, we are introducing a new scholarship to attract the most talented language graduates to the profession.</p><p>Alongside our financial levers, the department is continuing to invest in attracting the best teachers where they are needed most. For example, we have rolled out a new ITT course designed to support more engineers to teach physics. The department also awarded a contract of approximately £3 million to Now Teach in 2021 for the delivery of a National Career Changer Programme. Now Teach supports experienced professionals with significant previous employment and industry experience, who may not otherwise consider teaching, to transfer their skills to the classroom during ITT and their first year as an Early Career Teacher.</p><p>Teachers in the further education (FE) sector are often ‘dual professionals’ who have valuable experience and expertise from industry and business. To support the recruitment of more such specialists into FE teaching roles, our flagship Taking Teaching Further Programme offers fully funded early career support, including a teacher training qualification, mentor support, and a reduced timetable in the first two years of teaching, worth up to £18,200 per trainee. In addition, the Taking Teaching Further Programme offer has been enhanced with the trialling of a new financial incentive, worth £6,000 per trainee, over two years, targeted at the most hard-to-fill vacancies. Backed by up to £15 million of investment across the next two years, 710 Taking Teaching Further places will be available, with up to half attracting the new financial incentive.</p><p>Bursaries worth up to £29,000 each, tax-free, are available to those training to teach in a range of priority subjects in the FE sector, including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Relevant professional experience is taken into account when assessing candidates’ eligibility for these bursaries, making them appropriate for people with industry expertise looking to retrain as teachers. The bursaries programme for the 2023/24 academic year is now open for applications.</p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 04/05/2023 15:45:14 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
	tabling member	4719 label Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

1688786

	registered interest
	date	12/02/2024
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Universities: Research
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of any risk to the UK's status as a location for research presented by the planned closure of the anthropology department of the University of Kent, particularly with regard to ethnobotany; and what broader assessment they have made of any risk posed by the closure of significant numbers of departments and faculties at universities.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
	type	WrittenParliamentaryQuestion
	uin	HL2379
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 26/02/2024 answer text <p>Higher education providers are independent, autonomous institutions and are best placed to make decisions about the future focus of their research and their institutional strategy. Where it is necessary to reshape their activities, it is important that universities carefully consider the impact of job losses on staff and students, and the overall sustainability of teaching and research in this country.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 26/02/2024 12:30:13 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
	tabling member	4719 label Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

1668655

	registered interest
	date	08/11/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Schools: Concrete
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will be providing funding to schools which identified safety issues relating to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete and which began or finished the relevant repair work before July to fully cover the cost of such work.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
	type	WrittenParliamentaryQuestion
	uin	HL91
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/11/2023 answer text <p>It is the responsibility of those who run schools - academy trusts, local authorities and voluntary-aided school bodies - to manage the safety and maintenance of their schools and to alert the department if there is a serious concern with a building. It has always been the case that where the department is made aware a building may pose an immediate risk, immediate action is taken.</p><p>The department will spend what it takes to keep children safe. The department will fund emergency mitigation work needed to make buildings safe, including installing alternative classroom space where necessary.</p><p>The department will fund refurbishment projects, or rebuilding projects where these are needed, to remove RAAC from the school estate. Schools and colleges will either be offered capital grants or rebuilding projects where these are needed, including through the School Rebuilding Programme. The department will set out further details for affected schools and colleges in due course.</p><p>The department will carefully consider claims submitted by responsible bodies for essential RAAC related works, taking into account the particular circumstances of each case.</p><p>The department recognises that some responsible bodies will already have carried out emergency mitigation works, where RAAC was deemed ‘critical,’ based on the advice of the department’s surveys or from other qualified professionals, and in most cases we will reimburse these costs.</p><p>Prior to 31 August 2023, the point at which the department’s advice on the risks of RAAC changed, some responsible bodies or schools may also have chosen to take action on RAAC in their buildings where it wasn’t deemed critical, and others may have chosen to go further and removed RAAC entirely. In these cases, as with any other capital works, the responsible bodies will have taken decisions as part of their own estate strategy, based on their assessment of any professional advice they'd received and the affordability of the project.</p><p>This work would typically have been funded through annual capital funding provided by the department to the sector, or from other sources of funding, such as a responsible body’s reserves. In these cases, the department is not providing additional funding to the funding the responsible bodies will have used to pay for the work.</p><p>In addition to the department’s support on RAAC, the department has committed £1.8 billion of capital funding for the 2023/24 financial year to improve the condition of school buildings, as part of over £15 billion allocated since 2015. Alongside this, the department will transform poor condition buildings at 500 schools and sixth form colleges over the coming decade through the School Rebuilding Programme.</p><p>The department will always put the safety and wellbeing of children and staff in schools and colleges at the heart of its policy decisions. The government has taken more proactive action to identify and mitigate RAAC in education settings than the devolved administrations in the UK, or indeed, governments overseas.</p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 22/11/2023 17:57:46 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
	tabling member	4719 label Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

1521531

	registered interest
	date	12/10/2022
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Schools: Infectious Diseases
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take during the winter period to reduce transmission of (1) SARS-CoV-2, (2) flu viruses, and (3) other respiratory, airborne diseases, in schools; and what steps they will take to encourage pupils, teachers and other staff to remain at home rather than come into the premises and spread those illnesses.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
	type	WrittenParliamentaryQuestion
	uin	HL2513
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/10/2022 answer text <p>Most infectious diseases in education and childcare settings should be managed by following the advice set out in the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). The advice can be found here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-protection-in-schools-and-other-childcare-facilities" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-protection-in-schools-and-other-childcare-facilities</a>.</p><p>If a school suspects an incident or outbreak, they should review and reinforce existing measures including ensuring that any staff or students with relevant symptoms stays at home for up to five days as described in UKHSA’s guidance. This can be found here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/people-with-symptoms-of-a-respiratory-infection-including-covid-19" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/guidance/people-with-symptoms-of-a-respiratory-infection-including-covid-19</a>.</p><p>The department’s emergency planning and response guidance sets out how education and childcare settings should plan for and deal with emergencies. The guidance is available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/emergency-planning-and-response-for-education-childcare-and-childrens-social-care-settings" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/emergency-planning-and-response-for-education-childcare-and-childrens-social-care-settings</a>.</p><p>The department will continue to review any emerging evidence, public health guidance and advice to help ensure that schools remain as safe as possible.</p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 24/10/2022 12:35:28 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
	tabling member	4719 label Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

1585998

	registered interest
	date	09/02/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Health Education
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to improve health literacy of school pupils.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
	type	WrittenParliamentaryQuestion
	uin	HL5587
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 23/02/2023 answer text <p>The Department has made health education compulsory in all state funded schools in England, alongside making relationships education for primary pupils, and relationships and sex education for secondary pupils compulsory. This is collectively known as relationships, sex and health education (RSHE).</p><p>The Department has published implementation guidance and teacher training modules covering all RSHE topics to help schools develop their curricula and teach the subjects confidently and effectively. This guidance available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health</a>.</p><p>Topics in the RSHE curriculum at both primary and secondary include health and prevention, healthy eating, mental wellbeing, and physical health and fitness.</p><p>The Department is reviewing the RSHE statutory guidance this year. The Department intends to publish revised guidance in 2024.</p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 23/02/2023 12:29:11 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
	tabling member	4719 label Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

1490062

	registered interest
	date	18/07/2022
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	British Association for Shooting and Conservation: Schools
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of schools attending events run by the British Association of Shooting and Conservation and Gamekeepers and Landowners, as has occurred in Sheffield; and whether this has occurred in schools in other areas throughout England.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
	type	WrittenParliamentaryQuestion
	uin	HL1828
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/08/2022 answer text <p>The department does not collect information on educational visits and has not, therefore, made any assessment on schools attending events run by the British Association of Shooting and Conservation and Gamekeepers and Landowners.</p><p>The decision to undertake educational visits is entirely a matter for individual schools. However, the department provides guidance to help schools understand their obligations when undertaking educational visits and other out of school activities. Among other things, this includes advice on carrying out risk assessments and on seeking consent from parents.</p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 01/08/2022 14:29:36 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
	tabling member	4719 label Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

1536579

	registered interest
	date	26/10/2022
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Children in Care: Disability
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s Safeguarding children with disabilities and complex health needs in residential settings: phase 1 report, published on 26 October, what plans they have to conduct a nationwide review on similar homes, with a particular focus on concerns raised by parents.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
	type	WrittenParliamentaryQuestion
	uin	HL2911
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/11/2022 answer text <p>The department wants to thank the national child safeguarding panel for their recent report and ongoing review. Their final report and recommendations will be published next year.</p><p>The police investigation is ongoing. The complex abuse investigation started in March 2021, and all children who lived in the children’s homes were moved to alternative homes by April. The children’s homes have since closed.</p><p>The department issued a Written Ministerial Statement setting out the actions we are taking on the day the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s report was published.</p><p>The department has:</p><ul><li>Sought assurances from local authorities about the safety and wellbeing of all children who were living in the three homes when they were closed.</li><li>Asked local authorities to review their commissioning processes for children and young people with complex needs and ensure they act on concerns.</li><li>Reiterated the importance of Disclosure and Barring Service and employment checks being undertaken prior to employment in residential establishments.</li></ul><p>In August 2022, the Panel asked all local authorities in England to:</p><ul><li>Review urgently the quality and safety of individual placements of children in specialist residential provision.</li><li>Local Authority Designated Officers (LADO) review all information on any LADO referrals, complaints and concerns over the last three years.</li></ul><p>Local authorities will report to the department by the end of the year.</p><p>The department’s plans for responding to recent reviews of children’s social care and support for children with special educational needs and disabilities are being drawn up in parallel, building a coherent system that works for all vulnerable children. We are rapidly working up an ambitious and comprehensive implementation strategy in response to these reviews.</p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 09/11/2022 17:00:00 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
	tabling member	4719 label Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle