(1 year, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)
As I am sure everybody knows, I will never get tired of flying the flag for apprenticeships and skills. This Government are investing record levels of funding, with an additional £3.8 billion in skills over this Parliament. That includes an extra £1.6 billion for 16-to-19 education, and increasing investment in apprenticeships to £2.7 billion by 2024-25. That supports our commitment to create a world-leading skills system that is employer-focused, high quality, and fit for the future.
Siobhan Baillie
This Government’s schools, colleges and businesses around the country are working hard to show young people that going to university is not the only route to success, and there are now so many study options, which the RHA, the Federation of Small Businesses, and lots of Stroud businesses are talking to me about all the time. What is my right hon. Friend doing to reform the existing apprenticeship levy to work better for small businesses and students?
Gillian Keegan
I thank my hon. Friend, and I am proud of all the work we have done on apprenticeships. We removed the limit on the number of apprentices that small businesses can take on, and we continue to pay 100% of training costs for the smallest employers, and allow levy payers to transfer 25% of their funds to support small and medium-sized enterprises. We spent 99.6% of the apprenticeship budget in 2021-22, which has helped to support 8,940 apprenticeship starts in my hon. Friend’s constituency since 2010. To continue that progress and ensure that everyone knows what apprenticeship opportunities are available, we are working with UCAS so that for the first time ever, young people will be able to use UCAS to search and apply for apprenticeships alongside degrees, making it easier for young people to find the right opportunity for them.
Sara Britcliffe
I thank the Secretary of State for visiting BAE Systems recently in Lancashire. Accrington and Rossendale College in my Hyndburn and Haslingden constituency has been successfully rolling out the T-level programme, but to ensure that young people in my constituency have the skills they need in areas such as technology and engineering, further capital investment is needed to ensure that it can continue to provide state-of-the-art facilities. Will my right hon. Friend confirm whether there will be further waves of the T-level capital fund?
Gillian Keegan
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for joining me on that visit, which I think was eye-opening for both of us. The Nelson & Colne College group, which includes Accrington and Rossendale College in my hon. Friend’s constituency, has benefited from capital investment of more than £6 million since 2010, including funding to improve the condition of its estate and support the delivery of T-levels and technical education. Most recently, it benefited from further investment as one of our 108 T-level capital projects, working towards delivering engineering and manufacturing T-levels. We will continue to support the roll-out of T-levels.
Royston Smith
The Secretary of State will know that levelling up is about not geography but opportunity, and what better opportunity can we give our young people than a first-class education? Southampton has put in a bid for a university technical college. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that she has seen our bid and will look favourably on it, and will she update the House on when we are likely to hear whether we have been successful?
Gillian Keegan
I thank my hon. Friend for his continuous campaigning on this subject. I do not know how many meetings we have had, but I see his passion to get a UTC in Southampton. I recently met Becky Smith, one of the fantastic former students of UTC Portsmouth, who is now a degree apprentice studying mechanical engineering at the University of Chichester in my constituency. She was full of praise for her time at UTC Portsmouth. We are currently considering the applications we have received. I have seen them all, and I have been through them in great detail in the latest free school wave, including Portsmouth’s bid for a new UTC in Southampton. We hope to announce the successful applications very soon.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Hospitality and tourism is an industry worth £3.5 billion a year to Cumbria, and it is our biggest employer. Apprenticeships are an important way into a career within that sector. The problem is that T-levels are a useful stepping stone into apprenticeships, yet the Government have again kicked into the long grass the T-level on catering, having already taken out the hospitality element of that. Will the Secretary of State meet me and representatives from Cumbria Tourism, so we can talk about how she can change that policy, and so that more young people can enter that important profession?
Gillian Keegan
I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman. As he will know, I always have a laser-like focus on quality, and if the quality is not good enough then I will not release the apprenticeship, the apprenticeship standard or the T-level. Too often we have had low-quality qualifications in this country, and it is important that we work with a vast array of businesses to ensure that we get the quality system that they demand and that will be good for all our young people.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I beg the Minister to pay attention to the fact that good apprenticeships and good training in any town and city must come from a blend of good universities—I think most of our universities are good—with local further education colleges? Will she take a leaf out of Tony Blair’s book, when he said in a recent important speech that what we need is more high-class universities and more polytechnics made up from the new former FE colleges?
Gillian Keegan
As usual, we are ahead of the Opposition. We have already invested in 21 institutes of technology, which are where a group of colleges and universities work with employers in the area. They are a great addition to the landscape, along with all the other technical qualifications and skills training that we have introduced since 2010.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
I welcome the funding made available to the space systems engineering degree apprenticeship and the opportunities that will provide young people in the UK’s growing space industry. What plans do Ministers have to fund similar apprenticeships in other emerging sectors?
Gillian Keegan
It was a great pleasure to go to the space park in Leicester to launch the space systems engineering level 6 degree apprenticeship, on top of the level 4 space engineering apprenticeship, which I launched previously. There are many different routes into the space industry, which is important and something that we are good at in the UK. Any employers or employer groups wishing to develop an apprenticeship standard could work with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. We have worked with more than 5,000 employers in the past few years, and we have built more than 670 apprenticeship standards, none of which existed before we started the programme in 2012.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
New research from the House of Commons Library has shown that the amount of the apprenticeship levy paid by employers that has been allocated to the apprenticeship budget has fallen from 89% in 2017 to just 77% in the most recent year. The truthful answer to the question from the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) is that the Secretary of State is doing nothing to reform the apprenticeship levy, as she believes it is working perfectly. Can the Minister confirm that any employer that, like the hon. Member for Stroud, wants greater flexibility in the levy should vote Labour in the next general election?
Gillian Keegan
There is nothing that would make me give such drastic advice. The truth about the apprenticeship levy is that 99.6% of it will be spent this year. We can look in the rear view mirror, and there are some reports going back over time that show some underspend in the levy, but they are back over time. We are now spending 99.6% of the levy. Perhaps what the hon. Gentleman has not appreciated is that some of the funding goes to the devolved Governments. If we examine the apprenticeship system in Wales and Scotland, it is not a patch on what we have introduced in England.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)
School attendance is important for not just a child’s education but their wellbeing and life chances, and it is a personal priority. We have: rolled out the daily attendance data tool; launched the attendance action alliance group of system leaders, which includes representatives from health, policing and social care; expanded the attendance hub support; and, deployed expert advice to work with local authorities. Termly persistent absence fell by a fifth from summer last year to spring this year, with 350,000 fewer persistently absent pupils, but we know we still have more to do, and it is a top priority for me.
Esther McVey
Does the Secretary of State agree that shutting schools during covid lockdowns was a disaster for children and their mental health and has led to an explosion in severely absent rates? Will she make sure that cannot happen again by classifying all education settings, including schools, colleges and universities, as essential infrastructure, to ensure they remain open during national emergencies?
Gillian Keegan
Schools were not shut during lockdown. Many of our fantastic teachers were still teaching key cohorts, supporting our NHS and the most vulnerable, such as those with special educational needs, but I fully share my right hon. Friend’s concerns about the impact that the pandemic has had on attainment, attendance and mental health. She knows we are working hard to recover, making almost £5 billion available for recovery. I can assure her that we will always seek to minimise the disruption to education in emergency situations. We all have a lot to learn from the experience during the pandemic, including the impact on children of all the decisions that we took, which were led by medical advice.
Mr Walker
It is good to hear the Secretary of State prioritising getting children into school. Alongside her welcome funded pay offer, which will hopefully see an end to disruptive strikes, a real drive to reduce persistent absence and increase attendance would be welcome. A long-standing recommendation of the Education Committee is a statutory register of children not in school, which she is well aware of and has told us is a priority. May I therefore urge her to rapidly adopt the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) so that we can get on with delivering on that priority?
Gillian Keegan
I thank my hon. Friend for his Committee’s work on this issue, which really is important. We have a world-class education system, but we need children in school to be able to take advantage of that. As he knows, my Department remains committed to legislating for statutory local authority registers of children not in school and will do so at the next suitable legislative opportunity when parliamentary time allows. I will work closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) on how we can best introduce that.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Secretary of State very much for her responses. It is obvious that she is committed to making things better. In the light of the covid home-schooling period during which parents may have forgotten the importance of socialisation as well as academic education, many may need reminding of the legal obligation to educate children. Has the Department considered tidying up the intervention period to allow early intervention and discussion with parents where possible before any action is taken?
Gillian Keegan
We are very much taking a supportive approach. We know that there are complex reasons why some children are missing school—some have lost their confidence and are anxious about school and how far they are behind—so we are taking a focused approach. We have leads in local authorities working closely with schools, and we are measuring the impact of all the things we are doing, which includes attendance hubs, as well as looking to support parents to get their children back into school, where we know their outcomes will be so much better.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Nick Gibb)
Ofsted’s report on school maths, published last week, stated:
“In the last few years, a resounding, positive shift in mathematics education has taken place in primary schools.”
In the 2019 TIMSS international survey of maths attainment for year 5 pupils, England achieved its highest ever score and rose from 10th out of 49 countries in 2015 to eighth out of 58 countries.
Bob Blackman
It is clearly good news that 73% of young people are achieving or exceeding the expected grades at the standard assessment tests. Measures have been taken to catch up after covid, which is really good news, but it is important that we lay the foundations in primary schools so that young people love mathematics and can continue to work on it until they are 18. What measures is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that?
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In addition to expanding the successful maths hubs programme to deliver teaching for mastery to 75% of primary schools by 2025, we are increasing delivery of the mastering number programme for reception to year 2, which helps students achieve fluency with number bonds, to 8,000 schools by 2024. We will also extend the programme into years 4 and 5 to bolster fluency in times tables.
Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
At the spring statement, we announced the single largest investment in childcare in England ever. By 2027, the Government will be spending in excess of £8 billion, doubling the amount that we do now and helping working families with their childcare costs.
Samantha Dixon
Good-quality childcare is essential to a child’s early development, to parents and to the economy. The owners of the Best Friends Day Nursery and the Spinney Day Nursery in Chester have told me of the real struggle faced by so many nurseries across the country, despite the Government’s latest funding announcement. Many have been forced to close, including five nurseries in the Hoole area alone in five years. What more will the Government do to alleviate the situation set out by my constituents?
Claire Coutinho
As I have mentioned, we are putting the single largest ever investment into childcare over the next few years, to provide funding to settings such as the one she mentioned. We are also looking at things such as workforce, which we know can be a challenge, making sure that we remove barriers to additional routes to entry.
Mr Mohindra
South West Hertfordshire is home to lots of young couples, particularly those who have moved out of London to start their families. Could the Minister tell the House how her Department is supporting new parents as they return to work?
Claire Coutinho
That is a huge priority for this Government. The funding that we are setting out will provide parents with support worth, on average, £6,500 a year from maternity leave right up to primary school. We are doing additional work to support things such as wraparound care.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Across the early years sector, nurseries and childminders are raising concerns that the Government have no coherent plan for the expansion of the early years workforce to meet the requirements of an expanded offer. The only ideas on the table so far are the relaxation of ratios and a reduction in the proportion of level 2 qualified staff—plans that the Sutton Trust has found could lead to worse outcomes for children. Why are this Government so uninterested in the quality of childcare and the outcomes that high-quality early years education delivers for children?
Claire Coutinho
The Government care about education standards. That is seen across every single result across the board, whether reading or maths results. It is this Government who care about education standards. Over 90% of our early years providers are rated good or outstanding. We will do everything we can to keep them that way.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
All children should have access to a calm, safe and supportive school environment. In addition to school behaviours policies that must include measures to prevent bullying, we have provided more than £3 million in funding between August 2021 and March 2024 to five anti-bullying organisations supporting schools in tackling bullying.
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I congratulate my hon. Friend for all her work tackling bullying. So many constituents write to me about the problems their children are experiencing. How are the behaviour hubs making a difference in schools and tackling the bullying that is so prevalent, particularly as a result of online harms and social media, which are all too frequent?
Claire Coutinho
We are confident that the behaviour hubs programme is helping schools to create calm, understanding and positive environments by spreading best practice. The behaviour hubs programme is being evaluated and impact assessed. We will publish an interim report in 2024. I would be delighted to discuss those findings with my right hon. Friend.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Last week I introduced by ten-minute rule Bill on bullying and respect at work. It is not just children who experience bullying in the school environment but teachers and other staff. Will the Minister look at my Bill, which will establish a legal definition of bullying at work and a route to employment tribunal to protect the people who are looking after our children in our schools?
Claire Coutinho
I have not seen the hon. Lady’s Bill, but I would be happy to take a look and have a discussion with her.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)
Our teachers do an incredible job and inspire children every day. Last week, we accepted the independent pay review body’s recommendations in full, giving schoolteachers their largest pay award for 30 years of at least 6.5%. I also announced funding for the further education sector to address key priorities, including teacher recruitment and retention. To help us get more of the top talent into teaching, we are delivering on our 2019 manifesto commitment to raise the starting salary for teachers to a minimum of £30,000. That is a competitive salary that will help us to continue to build on the record numbers of teachers in our schools in England.
Grahame Morris
The further education sector is facing a teaching crisis, not fully addressed by the pay review body. In my constituency, East Durham College has had two teacher vacancies in engineering and a computer science position unfilled for 18 months. Barriers to recruitment include high workload, qualification reform, excessive assessment and a huge pay disparity compared with comparable work in industry. Could the Secretary of State tell us what steps she is taking to ensure that further education teaching is an attractive and viable career?
Gillian Keegan
I very much care about further education and ensuring that it has the funding. That is why, as of last week, we are investing an additional £185 million in the financial year 2023-24 and £285 million in 2024-25 to drive forward skills delivery in further education. The Government do not set pay for the FE sector. However, I have been clear that I expect that funding, which is new funding, to go to the frontline. I hope the investment will support the FE sector to address its recruitment and retention challenges. In addition, we introduced bursaries of £29,000 for STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—subjects, and the Taking Teaching Further programme is working with industry and paying £6,000 to attract those from industry who want to spend their second career in FE teaching.
Mary Kelly Foy
We have seen a significant increase in the number of teachers leaving the profession in Durham. They are burnt out and their unmanageable workloads are made harder by support staff redundancies in schools where there is an absence of furniture and equipment, with children even carrying chairs between lessons so that there is somewhere to sit. One teacher said to me, “It is like being a baker with no flour, a delivery driver without a van, an IT specialist without a computer.” When will the Department provide the absolute basics for our schools in Durham?
Gillian Keegan
We are going even further than the basics, because we will be funding education higher than we have ever funded it in our history. It will be £60 billion next year. But I do take workload seriously. As part of our discussions with the unions, we have agreed to set up a workload taskforce, which has a target to remove five hours from the school working week in addition to the five hours we have already reduced. Last year, more teachers entered the profession than left it: 47,954 entered the profession and 43,997 left it. If we look at the averages, the leavers rate has been stable since 2010, but we are investing more in our education system than ever before.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
One particularly challenging area of work for teachers is special needs education. There are many who want to work in that field, but in Essex our special needs schools are unfortunately already full to bursting. That is why, today, I am launching a campaign for a new special needs school in south Essex. I met the Minister for Schools, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb) in advance and he was very helpful. Will the Secretary of State and the Schools Minister work with me and Essex County Council to try to get us the additional special needs places in Essex that parents and special needs children so desperately need?
Gillian Keegan
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. This is something we have already announced: we will invest £2.6 billion in building more special schools. We are getting another one in Sussex and many hon. Members are getting more special educational needs schools in their areas. We would be very happy to work with him and Essex County Council to ensure the right provision in Essex for all children who have additional needs.
Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I pay tribute to all the staff and teachers at my local FE college, Basingstoke College of Technology for all the work they do to ensure that young people in my constituency are ready for work. The reform of BTECs is causing some uncertainty when it comes to staffing for the future in the college. Will my right hon. Friend join me and headteacher Anthony Bravo for a meeting to discuss those concerns, so that we can continue to ensure that the young people of Basingstoke are work-ready in large numbers?
Gillian Keegan
Yes, I am always happy to meet my right hon. Friend and her college. I have had many meetings on this subject. We are focused on ensuring that high quality T-levels are introduced across the country in all colleges, so that young people can access them. We are also looking, side by side, to see what BTEC qualifications will sit alongside A-levels as part of our level 3 offer.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
We know that we need more foster carers. That is a really important part of our plan, “Stable Homes, Built on Love”, to reform the care system. We are investing £27 million in recruitment and retention over the next two years. We have also increased the national minimum allowance for foster parents by 12.4% as part of those plans.
James Morris
Does my hon. Friend agree that foster carers can play a vital role in improving the health and wellbeing of a looked-after child, and that we need to encourage more people to go into foster caring by removing unnecessary bureaucratic barriers so that we can build a network of foster carers across the country to improve the life chances of children in care?
Claire Coutinho
This is a big priority for me. Some children end up in children’s homes when they should have ended up with foster carers, so we need to recruit more. As I have said, we are making a significant investment in recruitment and retention so that we can keep some of our brilliant, experienced foster carers as well as attracting more into the system.
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Nick Gibb)
The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study was published in May this year. England had come fourth among 43 countries that tested children of the same age, nine and 10-year-olds. In 2012 we introduced the phonics screening check, testing six-year-olds for their progress in reading and phonics. In that year, 58% of pupils reached the expected standard; by 2019, just before the pandemic, the proportion had risen to 82% following a transformation in the teaching of phonics in nearly all primary schools.
Sally-Ann Hart
Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking the National Literacy Trust and Bloomsbury Publishing for including a number of schools in Hastings and St Leonards in their pioneering new reading programme, which is specifically aimed at persuading more children to read for pleasure, and will he encourage parents and carers to engage in a programme that is a vital part of their children’s development?
Nick Gibb
I recently met Jonathan Douglas of the National Literacy Trust, and I thank the trust for its enormous contribution to raising the profile of reading for pleasure in schools. Its new programme—which, as my hon. Friend said, it launched in partnership with Bloomsbury—involves working with seven Brighton Academies Trust schools throughout Hastings to encourage more children to read for pleasure.
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
In its White Paper for schools, published last year, the Government’s headline ambition was for 90% of pupils leaving primary school to meet the expected standards in reading, writing and maths. Why does the Minister think that, since that pledge, tens of thousands more children have been leaving primary school without meeting those standards?
Nick Gibb
As the hon. Gentleman will know, owing to the pandemic we did see a fall in writing and maths standards. Reading standards rose, and then fell by two points this year. However, reading standards today are broadly similar to those before the pandemic, and since 2010 both reading and maths have improved enormously in primary schools throughout the country. I am confident that we will meet the 90% target by 2030.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
We cannot talk about attainment at any level without also taking into account child poverty. The link between undernourishment and lower reading standards and, therefore, attainment across the board is irrefutable. When children are hungry, they cannot focus on learning. The Scottish Government are currently rolling out free school meals for all primary school children. When will the Minister take decisive steps to combat child poverty and emulate the actions of the Scottish Government?
Nick Gibb
Under this Government, the number of children receiving free school meals has increased hugely. About a third of children are now eligible for either benefits-related free school meals or the universal infant free school meals introduced by our 2010 Government. However, the hon. Lady should be careful when talking about reading and education standards, because standards in this country have risen significantly, and I am not sure that the same can be said for Scotland.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Nick Gibb)
My hon. Friend and I have discussed education provision on the Isle of Sheppey many times over the years. Given the inadequate Ofsted grading for Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey, the school is now being removed from the Oasis Community Learning trust to a strong multi-academy trust.
Gordon Henderson
I welcome that response from my very right hon. Friend.
Currently, 1,000 children a day are bussed from the Isle of Sheppey to Sittingbourne schools because parents do not want to send their children to the Isle of Sheppey academy, which means that all Sittingbourne secondary schools are over-subscribed and many children in the town cannot get into their local schools. As my right hon. Friend said, the Department is in the process of transferring the academy to a new multi-academy trust, but with the end of the summer term fast approaching, island parents have no idea whether that transfer will happen, or, if it does, what form it will take. As my right hon. Friend knows, I have been working with the Department on secondary education problems on the Isle of Sheppey for many years, and I know that officials are doing their best, but what can he do to speed up the process and end the current uncertainties?
Nick Gibb
I pay tribute to my very hon. Friend for his passion for improving standards in schools in his constituency. The transfer of the Isle of Sheppey academy to a new multi-academy trust is a priority for the Department. A strong preferred sponsor has been found, and a proposal is being developed by them. Once those plans are completed, they will be put to parents before a final decision is taken by the trust and the Department on the academy transfer.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)
As part of our commitment to have at least 600,000 students study in the UK every year, we have worked closely with the Home Office to strike the right balance between acting decisively on migration, being fair to the taxpayer and protecting our position as a world leader in higher education. We fully expect Britain to remain an attractive destination for students across the world.
Joanna Cherry
I thank the Minister for his answer. My constituency of Edinburgh South West is home to two leading universities: Heriot-Watt and Edinburgh Napier. Research by Universities UK shows that the constituency’s net economic benefit from international students is £170.8 million. The Government plan to massage the net migration figures by making the UK less attractive to international students. That is going to harm the economy in my constituency, Scotland’s economy and our educational institutions. Can the Minister tell me: is that an example of the Union delivering for Scotland?
Robert Halfon
I am not quite sure what problem the hon. and learned Lady is trying to solve. I mentioned to her that our target was 600,000 international students; we have surpassed that—679,000 international students are coming to our country, which is something we are proud of. But as I said, we have to be fair to not only international students and universities but the taxpayer, who bears the cost of the infrastructure. But I agree with the hon. and learned Lady that international students have a huge impact on the economy, of up to £37 billion-plus.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Time after time, we find that every Government Department is short of young graduates with digital skills. Will my right hon. Friend think about making an application to the Home Office to encourage more visas to be granted to students who want to take digital degrees in this country?
Robert Halfon
My hon. Friend is learned in these matters, but they are for the Home Office. We are developing our digital skills at home with amazing digital apprenticeships. Half of our 670 apprenticeship standards are in STEM subjects, and there are T-levels and higher technical qualifications in digital. We are spending on the digital skills that our local people need. We have to give them the skills they need as well.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)
We are transforming tertiary education by building state of the art prestigious institute of technology colleges, backed by £300 million and led by further education and higher education businesses. We have also introduced the lifelong loan entitlement—it is in the House of Lords at the moment. That will allow higher and further education to collaborate, offering short courses and the transfer of courses between FE and HE institutions.
Alex Sobel
Last week, I met representatives of the National Farmers Union at the Great Yorkshire Show. We discussed the great need for new skills and a skilled workforce in areas such as agro-ecology. What work is his Department doing to link specialist agricultural colleges with the non-specialist FE and HE sector?
Robert Halfon
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We have good land colleges and we are doing everything we can to support them. There are two institute of technology colleges in Yorkshire, although not in his area. I am sure that he will be pleased with the investment of £88 million in his area into FE, sixth form and the university technical college, as well as a grammar school. We are doing a lot of work on agricultural T-levels as well.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to work with employers, local authorities and jobcentres to ensure that as many adults as possible are aware of the opportunities available to them to learn and upskill?
Robert Halfon
My right hon. Friend speaks with huge wisdom. We are transforming careers advice through the National Careers Service, which is advising people on adult skills. We are spending hundreds of millions of pounds on boot camps and on more than 400 free level 3 courses. Our apprenticeship scheme offers hundreds of different apprenticeships. Through careers advice and our skills offer, we are ensuring that adults get the skills they need.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
As a working-class kid from the constituency I now represent, I am not sure where I would be today if not for the opportunity I had to study for a so-called “Mickey Mouse degree” at university. After today’s media push and the Government’s apparent crackdown on students, how does the Minister expect us to believe that this is not just a ruse to protect the privileges of the Timothies and Tabithas of the home counties, as opposed to working-class kids?
Robert Halfon
The hon. Gentleman could not be more wrong. Why is it right to send somebody to a higher education institution, taking out a significant loan of £9,250 each year, to take a course that leads either to poor completion, poor continuation or poor progression? This Government are stopping that by imposing recruitment caps on such courses. I am proud that record numbers of disadvantaged students are going to university. More disadvantaged students are going to university than ever before.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
Parents and pupils across Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke wait anxiously to find out the result of the fantastic bid made by the further education City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College and the higher education Staffordshire University for a free school to unleash the digital skills, in particular, that we want to see in Stoke-on-Trent. Will my right hon. Friend lobby the Schools Minister and the Secretary of State not only to make sure this is announced soon, but to make sure it is delivered quickly so that we get the school places we so desperately need?
Robert Halfon
I was very pleased to visit Staffordshire University, which is a model university that offers a brilliant policing degree apprenticeship scheme, among others. The Secretary of State is listening carefully to the bid, and I am sure she will make the announcement shortly.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
The introduction of the lifelong loan entitlement, which we all support, will inevitably require greater collaboration between higher education and further education providers, but under the current regulatory system, as the lines between HE and FE blur, we are seeing significant regulatory duplication and increased burden. This acts as a brake on partnership. Does the Minister not recognise the need to streamline the regulatory system to foster collaboration ahead of, rather than after, the introduction of the LLE?
Robert Halfon
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the lifelong loan entitlement of up to £37,000 will be transformative for millions of people across the country, enabling them to take short or modular courses at a time of their choosing. We are looking at regulation across the higher education and further education sector, and we are doing all we can to reduce it, but I recognise some of the issues he raises.
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)
The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)
The introduction of tuition fees has not led to fewer disadvantaged young people going into higher education. As I have already highlighted, the 18-year-old entry rate for disadvantaged students in England increased from 14.4% in 2011 to 25.1% in 2022. We saw record numbers of disadvantaged students going into higher education in 2022, with the rate for students on free school meals going up from 20% to 30%.
John Mc Nally
I thank the Minister for that answer but, in the last academic year, English students graduated with £30,000 more debt, on average, than their Scottish counterparts. Despite this, both the Government and the Labour party refuse to follow the Scottish Government’s lead by abolishing tuition fees in England. With more than 16,000 undergraduates dropping out of higher education this year, will this Government admit that their policies are pushing students into debt, and often out of university?
Robert Halfon
Actually, we are being fair both to students and to all those taxpayers who do not go to university. I might point out that low-income students living away from home will qualify for more living cost support over the coming year than low-income students in Scotland.
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
The new Labour dream of 50% of young people going to university has left many saddled with debt, a third of graduates unable to find graduate jobs and more than half of graduates never earning enough to repay their student loans, so I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement today of a reduction in the number of low-value degrees, which benefit neither students nor taxpayers. Will the Department look to go further by identifying whole universities that could be transformed into higher technical and vocational institutions, which would give far more young people the opportunities and training they really need for the productive jobs of the future?
Robert Halfon
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, in the sense that the Labour party was all about quantity over quality, and we are about quality, high standards and a good education. We are already doing a lot of what she wants, because we are introducing institutes of technology, which are collaborations between higher education and further education that provide flagship skills and teach higher technical qualifications, with 21 across the country. They are doing exactly what she wants us to do.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)
This week, I have accepted the independent review body’s recommendation in full, so our fantastic teachers will receive their highest pay award for 30 years—it will be at least 6.5%. From September, we will have delivered on our manifesto commitment by raising teachers’ starting salaries to £30,000. To support our school leaders, we are providing an extra £525 million this year and a further £900 million in 2024-25. This is not just about schools, because we will also be investing £185 million and £285 million in our further education colleges over the same period. All four unions have recommended the pay award, and it is fully funded. I hope that teachers will join them, so that we can bring an end to strike action and get our teachers doing what they do best: teaching the next generation.
Jamie Stone
UK students who have been offered opportunities to study abroad are waiting for funding decisions under the Turing scheme. Clearly, for students from less well-off families this is tough, as visas and accommodation have to be paid in advance. Will the Secretary of State, out of the kindness of her heart and to a man from the highlands, give a commitment to bring forward these decisions next year, to make the Turing scheme more accessible to all students, regardless of their background?
Gillian Keegan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. The Turing scheme is a great success. Disadvantaged students will take up two thirds of the international study and work opportunities from September, with students going to 160 different countries. It is a remarkable scheme, given that it has been introduced so quickly. It is a new demand-led scheme, but I will work with the sector to make improvements to it and make sure that people are funded in time.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)
My hon. Friend is a true fisherman’s friend, although a lot sweeter tasting than the lozenges, I might add. She will be pleased to know that high-quality apprenticeship standards in agriculture and a level 2 fisher apprenticeship are available. We are promoting apprenticeships, including in agriculture, in our schools, and through the apprenticeship support and knowledge programme, and the Careers & Enterprise Company.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Ministers have known since last year that strike action by teachers was likely, yet after months of refusing to talk, it was only last week that the Secretary of State finally settled the dispute. Will she take this opportunity to apologise to parents for the completely needless and avoidable disruption to their children’s education for which she is responsible?
Gillian Keegan
Since I came into this job at the end of October, the unions asked for an extra £2 billion and I delivered it; families asked for childcare and I delivered it; the School Teachers Review Body asked for 6.5% for teachers and I delivered it; and that had to be funded, and I have delivered it. I have worked to deliver every day in this job, whereas the hon. Lady cannot even decide whether she will accept 6.5% or not.
Bridget Phillipson
Last week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that ending private schools’ tax breaks will raise up to £1.5 billion in additional revenue, confirming that Labour’s plans are fiscally credible. We would use that money to invest in 6,500 new expert teachers and better mental health support for all our young people. Will the Secretary of State distance herself from the discredited claim of the private schools’ lobby, do the right thing and adopt Labour’s plan to drive up standards in our schools?
Gillian Keegan
Labour has never driven up a standard in our schools. Most of our private schools are nothing like Eton or Harrow; they are far smaller and they charge a lot less. Many cost the same as a family holiday abroad, and there are plenty of parents who choose to forgo life’s luxuries to give their children those opportunities. The IFS also said:
“The effect might be larger over the medium to long run… There is still lots of uncertainty around these estimates.”
Labour’s tax hikes are nothing more than the politics of envy. As Margaret Thatcher once said:
“The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build.”
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
We recently changed the location of the Warrington free school from the Bruche Primary School to a better suited site at Padgate, with the agreement of the local authority and the trust. We are now working with all parties to begin design preparation work and the school is on track to open in September 2025.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Today, headteachers in England have spoken of an unprecedented struggle to recruit teachers, because teachers in England feel undervalued and underpaid. To combat this, when will the UK Government match the offer made by the Scottish Government, which will see most Scottish teachers’ pay rise by 14.6% by January 2024, delivering a starting salary of £39,000, which is much more than the £30,000 that the Secretary of State has boasted about today for teachers in England?
The Minister for Schools (Nick Gibb)
In England, standards are rising. We have a record number of teachers in our profession: 468,000 teachers, which is some 27,000 more than in 2010. We value education in this country, standards are rising and they will continue to rise, provided we have a Conservative Government.
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
Nick Gibb
I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. Progress is being made in identifying and securing a site on which to relocate the school. Officials continue to work with Devon County Council and the diocese of Exeter. I thank my hon. Friend for his support in progressing the discussions. The next step is for site appraisals to take place on potential new locations, and officials will continue to keep my hon. Friend informed.
Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)
Nick Gibb
We continue to raise standards in our schools, as the hon. Gentleman will know. He should not talk down the profession. This is an exciting time to join teaching. It is an honour to be able to work with children and to shape the next generation. This year, 47,000 people came into teaching, a number that is broadly similar year on year, because this is a good profession to join and there is a Government that will support the teaching profession.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Gillian Keegan
I know that my hon. Friend has done a lot of work in this sector. It was wonderful to visit Busy Bees and the fantastic team who work there. As well as the £204 million increase for providers, we have announced a £289 million investment to develop our universal wraparound childcare offer. We are the party of working parents. Labour has flip-flopped repeatedly on childcare, announcing vague policies in the autumn, which it quickly backtracked on. Its new plan, which I hear is to be means-tested, would snatch away childcare from thousands of hard-working parents. We are rolling out the largest investment in childcare in our history; Labour cannot even keep to its word.
Mr Speaker
I say gently to the Secretary of State that I was very generous at the beginning, but that does not carry on all the way through topicals. I want you to set a good example in this school classroom.
Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)
Claire Coutinho
I thank the hon. Lady for that question. This is really important. We are trying to make sure that all staff in early years settings are better equipped. We will be setting out a practice guide specifically on early years speech and language, as well as working with the NHS on better diagnostics.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Nick Gibb
I welcome my hon. Friend’s question. We have spent £15 billion since 2015 on repairs and maintenance of our school estate. We intend to announce any successful appeals from the latest condition improvement fund round this month, as CIF typically opens for applications each autumn. Eligible schools with an urgent condition need that cannot wait until the next round may of course apply for the urgent capital support.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Claire Coutinho
Rates for teaching assistants are set by the local authority. Teaching assistants are highly regarded by all of us. As the hon. Lady says, they provide important pastoral care alongside the mental health support that we are rolling out via the mental health support teams.
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
Robert Halfon
I know that my hon. Friend is a champion of his brilliant Weston College, which is an example of the greatness of our FE colleges. He will be pleased to know that the DFE publishes outcomes data on further education, which shows statistics on the employment, earnings and learning outcomes of further education learners. We are introducing a data dashboard, which is in the direction of travel in which he wants to go.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Despite statutory guidance to reduce the costs of school uniforms, far too many schools are requiring four and up to five branded items. What more will the Minister do to intervene to ensure that schools abide by the law?
Nick Gibb
I thank the hon. Member for his private Member’s Bill that, with the Government’s support, enabled us to put the guidance on a statutory footing. About 61% of headteachers are aware of that guidance and are taking action to implement it. If parents are still concerned that the school uniform is too expensive, they can raise it with the school and go through the school’s complaints process.
Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)
In the absence of any Ofsted oversight or regulation of multi-academy trusts, will my right hon. Friend tell me what mechanism is in place for a school to escalate concerns over the pooling of pupil grant funding, especially in a situation where a multi-academy trust gives a school considerably less money than the Education and Skills Funding Agency allowance for that school?
Nick Gibb
Academy trusts can pool their general annual grant to deliver key improvements and efficiencies across the academies in the trust. The academy trust handbook requires consideration of each school’s needs and an appeals mechanism, which can be escalated to the ESFA.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
In my constituency of Edinburgh West this week, students are graduating, some of them with unclassified results, because of a dispute involving marking. This is making it difficult for those wishing to do masters or PhDs, particularly foreign students who have been told that they will have to reapply for visas. Are the Department for Education and the Home Office looking at ways of facilitating those students taking up the places that they have been offered without the classification and avoiding that problem with the visas?
Robert Halfon
UK Visas and Immigration will consider exercising discretion, and will hold graduate route applications made before the applicant results have been received, provided that the results are received within eight weeks of the application being made. Students who do not know when they will receive their results due to the boycott will be able to extend their permission while they wait for their results. They will be exceptionally exempt from meeting academic progression requirements. I will write to the hon. Lady with fuller details.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Recently I visited Rushmere Hall Primary School in Ipswich, which is doing a fantastic job to support all neurodiverse pupils, particularly dyslexic pupils; however, its head spoke of a need for all regular teachers to have a better base understanding of neurodiversity, not just new specialists. In the special educational needs and disabilities improvement plan, the Government committed to that. I would like an update on how far we are getting with delivering that in practice.
Claire Coutinho
I thank my hon. Friend, who I know is an amazing campaigner on this issue. We are doing a lot to progress the support in schools, making sure that we have access to a specialist workforce and that teachers have proper training. We will set out a best practice guide on autism specifically, for which we have seen a big rise in need.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
The price of school meals has increased by more than a third in some parts of the UK, yet the Government, and indeed the Labour Front Benchers, will not commit to universal free school meals for primary school-age children. The Scottish Government are rolling out free school meals across all primary schools. The question is when this Government will take the lead from the Scottish Government and act decisively to help struggling families.
Nick Gibb
Record numbers of pupils in England are now eligible for a free school meal. Under universal infant free school meals, all infant pupils get a free meal. A third of children in our schools are receiving a free school meal. We believe very strongly, however, that we should focus the funding on the children in the greatest need. We keep the issue under review, but our focus is always on the most disadvantaged.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), the Chair of the Education Committee, mentioned my Children Not in School (Register) Bill, which passed its First Reading with support from colleagues across all parties and both Houses. The Schools Minister himself said before the Select Committee last month:
“It is important that we know where children are and can make sure that they are safe.”
Therefore, is it not critical that the Government work with me to expedite the Bill, as an existing and ongoing legislation vehicle that the Government can use without any further delay?
Gillian Keegan
As I have pointed out, we do intend to legislate for the children not in school measures and put attendance on a statutory footing when the legislative timetable allows, looking at the sitting Fridays that are left within this period. The Department is currently running a call for evidence on improving the support for children missing from education, and that evidence will be used to inform future policy.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Reclaim)
Does the Secretary of State think that something might be going seriously wrong when children in our junior schools are being indoctrinated by gender ideology at the same time as senior Members of this House appear unable to define what a woman is?
Gillian Keegan
I can assure my hon. Friend that I am more than capable of defining what a woman is. It is true that some schools are asking for guidance in this area, so we intend to bring forward guidance. I am working with my right hon. Friend the Equalities Minister to bring that forward in the near term.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con)
Last week, 14 officers from West Midlands police were recognised at the Police Bravery Awards for forming a human chain and breaking through the ice as Fin, Tom, Jack and Sam fell through in sub-zero temperatures at Babbs Mill lake in Kingshurst. I thank the Minister for his time on this previously. What progress has been made in revising the relationships, health and sex education curriculum guidelines specifically on understanding the implications of cold water shock on the body?
Nick Gibb
What happened to my hon. Friend’s constituents is tragic. Swimming and water safety are in the national curriculum, and the Government are updating the school sport and activity action plan, which will set out actions to help all pupils take part in sport and keep fit, including swimming and water safety. The plan will be published this year to align with the timing of the Government’s new school sport strategy.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State told the media at the weekend that she had found the money for the pay settlement from an underspend in the Department. Can she tell the House exactly where she found the money and what policies have not been delivered?
Gillian Keegan
I am delighted to. We have a constructive relationship with the Treasury, whether on childcare, school funding or extra budgeting, and in this particular case what we have done, as I have done many times in my 30-year business career, is to go through every line of the budget. We spend £100 billion on education, so there are a lot of things in that budget, and we have gone through it and checked every single assumption. Some are demand led and some depend on the roll-out of certain projects. We have protected the frontline and reprioritised; what has changed is that the Treasury has allowed us to keep that money to reprioritise—[Interruption.] It is an answer. The right hon. Lady may not understand, because she does not—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am not sure the Secretary of State is understanding me, either. When I say these are topicals, I mean that—[Interruption.] Order. No, I am sorry; if you do not want Members on your side of the House to get in, please say so, because that is what is going to happen, and it is totally unfair to the people who are waiting. Let us play by the rules—that is what we expect from all of us.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
I recently visited the impressive National STEM Learning Centre in York and was fortunate enough to be able to observe some of its work. I would be delighted if my right hon. Friend could visit, but in the interim, can she detail what professional support is available for teachers in their continuing professional development?
Nick Gibb
We have engaged in an extensive reform of teacher training, introducing what we call the golden thread: a higher level of requirements in initial teacher training and a two-year early career framework for teachers just starting off in their career. Those standards will mean that in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and in all subjects, teachers are better prepared to enter the profession.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The chairs of the governing bodies of 19 primary and secondary schools across the London Boroughs of Richmond and Kingston upon Thames have today written to the Education Secretary, requesting an urgent meeting to discuss the crippling funding and recruitment challenges they face. Will she agree to meet them?
Nick Gibb
Of course the Secretary of State will agree, as she has just said to me. We are spending record amounts of funding on schools. The Secretary of State achieved an extra £2 billion in the autumn statement last year and we are now spending £59.6 billion on school funding. We have recruited 2,800 more teachers this year than last year and we have a record number of teachers in the profession, at 468,000, but of course I am happy to talk to the hon. Lady and the teachers in her constituency to discuss their particular concerns.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry, we have taken too much time on questions. You will have to do without.