I want to write to Baroness Barran
Baroness Barran: ...and can offer a range of dedicated support to their international students before they arrive in the UK, on arrival and during their studies. The changes to migration policy announced in 2023 strike the right balance between acting decisively on migration while protecting the UK’s position as a world-leader in HE.
Baroness Barran: ...is taking action to tackle teacher workload, improve curriculum expertise, and ultimately improve education. It is right that the government takes steps to achieve this, whilst being careful to strike an appropriate balance with the interests of the thriving commercial curriculum and publishing markets. It is therefore disappointing to see commercial organisations, and those who represent...
Baroness Barran: The Government remains committed to ensuring that children and young people are not disadvantaged because of any future strike action. Cumulatively, over 25 million school days have been lost over ten strike days in schools alone. Disruption caused by strike action has only compounded the detrimental impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and young peoples’ education. On Friday 20...
Baroness Barran: ...must pay the costs of higher education and currently we have a balance between the students themselves and other taxpayers, some of whom have not been to university. That is a delicate balance to strike. But if one were to do away with student debt entirely, somebody would have to pay and that would obviously fall on every other taxpayer. In terms of the individual examples she gives,...
Baroness Barran: The Government need to strike a very delicate balance. I think we in this House would all agree that parents are ultimately responsible for ensuring that their children get a good education. Local authorities already have significant powers to check the quality of that education, and we are working closely with them and with parents, updating our guidance in this area, because we are all...
Baroness Barran: We have to strike a balance for parents who need to send their children to school in a uniform that fits and is suitable, encouraging them to use second-hand uniforms wherever possible, while of course considering the environment.
Baroness Barran: ..., and a one-off payment of £1,000 for this year. It is disappointing that the education trade unions have rejected this offer, and that the National Education Union (NEU) has since organised two strike days in April and May, and has said three more will happen in June or July. Decisions on teachers‘ pay for next year will be made following the independent pay review process. The...
Baroness Barran: ...to resist raising this, but, since everyone else has mentioned their family, I have a husband who is doing a part-time degree at the moment. His evening of teaching falls every single time on a strike day, so I am familiar with the issues to which the noble Lords refer. Universities are expected to take steps to avoid or limit disruption to learning. We would encourage all of them to do that.
Baroness Barran: ...can probably anticipate my answer, which is twofold: first, they have far-reaching consequences for children, who are potentially denied access to education if their teachers or other staff are on strike, and, secondly, it has an impact on their parents, many of whom work in other critical services but are unable to go to work. It is only right that these essential services, which the...
Baroness Barran: ...as other evidence, there are a number of important services where the public should be protected, including children’s education, which should be protected against the disproportionate impacts of strike action for the future.
Baroness Barran: ...children’s social care budget in the autumn, so the Government are already committing very large sums of money to this area—as we rightly should. On the definition of kinship care, we want to strike a balance that retains flexibility, as every family potentially has a slightly different model for how kinship care works, and absolute clarity, as we want to make it easy for families to...
Baroness Barran: ...noble Baroness also raised the concerns about decisions being published before an appeal is completed and whether that is unfair to social workers. Obviously, this is the balance that we need to strike between public protection and an individual’s rights. As I said in my opening remarks, Social Work England’s primary focus is on public protection. Of course, these cases are very rare...
Baroness Barran: ...that the scope of these measures is proportionate to the possible risk to freedom of speech. We believe that the intended threshold of £75,000 for providers and colleges is appropriate, as it will strike the right balance by increasing the transparency of significant transactions without creating undue bureaucracy by requiring the reporting of smaller transactions that are less likely to...
Baroness Barran: I am not entirely clear what the noble Lord’s question was. The Government do work very closely with schools to support them to do this. The balance that we need to strike is to make sure that schools are using funding as efficiently as possible, and we need to understand the pressures under which they operate.
Baroness Barran: ...and to make it easier to initiate a ballot. As he explained, these amendments aim to make it easier for those who are opposed to grammar schools to ballot for the removal of selection. We want to strike a balance between protecting the selective status of grammar schools on the one hand, and the right of parents to vote to remove selection on the other. We will review the grammar school...
Baroness Barran: ...June 2022. Ministers and officials in the department regularly attend meetings alongside other government departments, including the Department for Transport, and have done so in the lead up to the strike action. These meetings have been to prepare for the industrial action, highlighting risks and contingencies for our sectors. Daily meetings are taking place, both at an official and...
Baroness Barran: ...the skills and experience that they need—with drawing on the valuable local insight and intelligence to which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and others of your Lordships referred. We are trying to strike a balance between those two things. In relation to the role of local authorities in this, particularly those which have a devolved adult education budget, the Secretary of State will have...
Baroness Barran: ...sector in England, protect student rights and ensure the sector is delivering real value for money. The OfS expects providers to do all they can to avoid disruption for students. Prior to these strikes starting, the OfS wrote to universities outlining how they will uphold standards and protect student interests. They have made clear that they expect universities to abide by the conditions...
Baroness Barran: ...stakeholder engagement, and sought specifically to promote both uptake of higher technical qualifications and flexible study through this recommendation. The recommendations made were intended to strike the right balance between taxpayers and students. This amendment would potentially enable much greater cost to be borne by taxpayers than has been proposed by the Government. It is also...
Baroness Barran: ...on data protection may impact on competition and innovation in the digital economy. Internationally, our reforms will allow us to operate a risk-based and proportionate regime that allows the UK to strike deals with some of the fastest growing economies in the world while keeping people's data safe and secure. These reforms will keep people’s data safe and secure, while ushering in a new...