Baroness Berger (Lab)

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 81A in my name. I was glad to add my name to Amendments 3, 8 and 13 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I am sorry that I was unable to speak to them on Tuesday due to some caring responsibilities. Amendment 81A is all about education. Our British educational institutions sit at the heart of our communities. They are key to developing our children and young people, and helping them grow, supporting them through the most important developments of their lives. This year, the UK was ranked as having the third best public education system in the world, something that we should be so proud of but which we must safeguard. We have seen our education system change rapidly in the past decade. We now have exam results revealed via an app. We have homework set through online portals. I receive it weekly for both of my children. Increasingly, vast amounts of student data is being stored online, including around attainment. If our young people are to be properly supported, that must extend beyond the classroom to the network and information systems now essential to their education—a point only reinforced as universities and colleges continue to further embrace online learning. Exam results determine a young person’s future opportunities. We all remember just a couple of weeks ago the pictures, the interviews of the young people and the elation of many 16 and 18 year-olds as they received and revealed their GCSE and A-level results. We owe it to the next generation to do everything we can to give them the best possible chances—to protect the integrity of the system that determines their future and to prevent the chaos that could follow if, for example, university place allocation, clearing or accommodation processes could not proceed. Anyone who might have friends or family whose 18 year-olds are currently going through that process knows it is frenetic enough at this time—scrambling to get a place for young people who might not have made their grades, changing universities, changing courses, trying to get a university spot or university accommodation. We have already seen what chaos looks like on a small scale. Noble Lords perhaps will recall students who sat their A-level physics paper with Cambridge International who had their results voided after just one paper was leaked online, with a substitute mark calculated from other components. That was just one paper from one exam board, and it was still enough to undermine confidence in the results for every student affected. We need to look no further than the terrible experience recently in India where the National Testing Agency’s medical entrance exam results were withdrawn after a paper was leaked. It triggered mass protests and, tragically, at least 21 reported suicides among students who had sat the exam. If a single compromised paper can cause that level of devastation, we cannot afford to leave our education system exposed to a compromise on a grand scale. Amendment 81A would establish that the education sector is an essential activity by requiring the Secretary of State to make regulations under Part 3 of the Bill. This would bring within scope any institution that provides primary, secondary, further or higher educational and vocational training. It includes exam boards involved in setting, marking or awarding and grades, higher education admission bodies, and any body that is essential to the provision of primary or secondary education that holds substantial volume of student or staff data. The obligations would require that education bodies take appropriate and proportionate technical and organisational measures to manage risks to the security of their network and information systems. The bodies must: take appropriate and proportionate measures to prevent and minimise the impact of cyber incidents, with a view to ensuring continuity of service; have regard to the state of the threat; ensure that they have a high level of security appropriate to the risk; and have regard to any relevant guidance issued by their regulator.