School Funding: North-east of England

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Trevelyan]

As the hon. Lady knows, I support the USO and campaigned very hard to ensure that we got it into the Digital Economy Bill. I speak as someone for whom 1 megabit is still a very good day in my house. It is still a challenge for many of my constituents whose children need to do their homework online, but we are getting there. We have kicked the system into a more proactive premise, but I agree that getting access across the board is vital. It will be no good for my constituents to see Newcastle with superfast broadband at 100 megabit or 1 gigabit, because we still cannot download a basic file to do homework. We need to ensure that the universal service obligation spreads across the nation to every home.

The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West raised the issue of the apprenticeship levy, which for small schools in Northumberland is proving to be problematic because councils have been given the freedom to pass the levy fee on. It is an issue for a small school that suddenly got a bill for £10,000 a few weeks ago and will not take up the opportunity of an apprenticeship, and I very much hope the Minister looks at it in more detail.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Schools in my area have contacted me about the apprenticeship levy. The hon. Lady says that the local authorities have the ability to pass the levy fee on to schools. Local authorities in my area have suffered tens of millions of pounds-worth of cuts. Does she expect them to pick up the bill or does she think the Government should offer a concession or do away with it for schools?

[Mrs Trevelyan]

The question is how the levy is used. For some of my larger schools the apprenticeship levy is a reasonable fee to pay because they will have the opportunity to benefit from apprentices and will increase their cohort of staff. We need to be a little more flexible and encourage councils to think more constructively in how they deal with the levy.

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[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing this debate. I share her sentiments about my hon. Friends the Members for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) and for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop).

I, too, am immensely proud of the progress made in our schools during the last Labour Government. The money ploughed into nurseries and primary schools in particular reaped benefits. I remember one secondary headteacher telling me that more and more children were arriving at his school better equipped, with higher levels of numeracy and literacy than ever, ready for the secondary school curriculum. As the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) said, some of that improvement has been sustained, but that is because of the tremendous base that the Labour Government created in schools during their time in office. Funding has not been at the levels needed in recent times, and even parents are worried. The gains made over a generation are in jeopardy.

Ann Harland from Billingham wrote to me about her worries that her child’s school, Prior’s Mill Church of England Controlled Primary School in Billingham, faces an effective budget cut of £86,576 over the next four years. That is the equivalent of a couple of teachers or perhaps a few classroom assistants. That picture is repeated across the Stockton borough.

In 2015-16, the block allocation per pupil for Stockton-on-Tees schools was £4,487, compared with £4,612 nationally. That figure has stayed the same in Stockton since 2010, while nationally it has increased. During a schools funding debate in January, the Schools Minister admitted that schools are facing cost pressures, but stated that funding reforms are not about the overall level of school funding or cost pressures, but about ending the postcode lottery and making funding fairer. I agree that funding should be made fairer, but other factors need to be taken into consideration when considering reform. If the new formula is fairer, why do Stockton children get less than the average?

Of the 13 secondary schools in the borough, six face a cash cut of up to 2.9%, while the others, with one exception, expect an increase of less than 1%—Northfield and Our Lady and St Bede get a whopping 0.1% and 0.2% respectively—but that is not the whole picture. As was said, the proposed national funding formula does not take into account other elements, such as inflation, staff salary increases and the increased cost of other resources that the school may need.

Taking all the pressures into account, the vast majority of schools in England are likely to see real cuts to funding per pupil over the next three years. What will happen? Teachers will get sacked, assistants will suffer likewise, the already increasing class sizes will get even bigger and schools’ ability to deliver a wide and diverse curriculum will be compromised. I expect we will see more of what is happening already, which others have already referred to. There will be increased demands on parents to fund everything from classroom essentials to the extracurricular activities, which until recent years schools have been able to provide.

What is going to happen to schools such as Thornaby in the Stockton South constituency, which borders mine, or the North Shore Academy in my constituency? They serve some of the neediest communities in the country, and they face budget cuts of 2.9% and 2.3% respectively. What are parents of children in those schools going to do when they are asked for cash to help their school get through? They do not have the money.

I am worried about the kids at the bottom of the pile. Allocating funding through this formula will increase the attainment gap, and students from deprived backgrounds may not have the same level of support at home as those from an affluent background. Hon. Members know full well that the Government’s formula is far from fair. It is based only on current pupil numbers and does not take into account increases in those numbers.

The Minister may say that, under the consultation proposals, Stockton will receive an overall funding increase of 0.7%, but that will not even help to maintain staffing, teaching and learning at current levels. The Minister questioned whether we were talking about cuts or cost pressures. It makes no blooming odds whether something is a cut or a cost pressure—it means cuts to teachers, teaching assistants and other services.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently reported that schools spending is projected to fall by 6.5% in real terms between 2015-16 and 2019-20. That means that even the schools that benefit from the new formula will have their gains completely wiped out by other funding pressures. That will undermine the quality of education in classrooms, putting children’s academic progress at risk.

Even Tory colleagues know that their Government are letting our schools down. Doubtless Ministers are working on special arrangements for particular areas—we have seen that already in social care—but if they really want to be fair on funding, to address the attainment gap and to see every child realise their potential, they need to take action now to ensure that no school and, more importantly, no child loses out.

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[Mr Gibb]

It is not convenient, actually.

School funding in the constituency of the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) will rise by £0.4 million—a 0.9% increase—as a direct consequence, again, of introducing the national funding formula. School funding is at its highest level on record, at almost £41 billion this year, and it is set to rise to £42 billion by 2019-20 as pupil numbers rise.

However, the current funding system is preventing us from getting that record sum of money to where it is needed most. Underfunded schools do not have access to the same opportunities to do the best for their children, and it is harder for them to attract the best teachers and afford the right support. That is why we are reforming the funding system by introducing a national funding formula for both mainstream schools and the high-needs support provided for children with special educational needs. It will be the biggest change to school and high-needs funding for well over a decade.

Such change is never easy, but it will mean that, for the first time, we have a clear, simple and transparent system that matches funding to children’s needs and the school they attend. In the current system, similar schools and local areas receive very different levels of funding with little or no justification. Those anomalies will be ended once we have a national funding formula in place, and that is why we are committed to introducing fair funding. Fair funding will mean that the same child with the same needs will attract the same funding regardless of where they happen to live.

We launched the first stage of our consultation on reform in March last year. We set out the principles for reform and proposals for the overall design of the system, and more than 6,000 people responded, with wide support for those principles. Last month we concluded the 14-week second stage consultation, covering the detailed proposals for the design of both the schools and high-needs formulae. Our proposals would target money towards those who face the greatest barriers to their education.

In particular, our proposals would boost the support provided for those who are from deprived backgrounds and those who live in areas of deprivation but who are not eligible for free school meals—those ordinary working families who are too often overlooked. We propose to put more money towards supporting those pupils who have fallen behind, in both primary and secondary school, to ensure that they have the support they need.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will not give way now, because of lack of time; I apologise.

Overall, 10,700 schools would gain funding under the new national funding formula, and the formula will allow those schools to see gains quickly, with increases of up to 3% in per-pupil funding in 2018-19 and 2.5% in 2019-20. Some 72 local authority areas are proposed to gain more high-needs funding, and they would also do so quickly, with increases of up to 3% in both 2018-19 and 2019-20.

We have listened to those who have highlighted the risks of major budget changes in our first-stage consultation, which is why we have introduced a floor of a 1.5% minimum funding guarantee per year, and no school can lose more than 3% overall per pupil as a consequence of these changes.

Schools in the north-east would, on average, see a 1% increase in funding as a result of our proposals, and 60% of schools in the region would see an increase in funding, compared with 54% nationally. Schools in the north-east are doing well: 68% of pupils in key stage 2 SATS reached the expected standard in reading in 2016, compared with 66% nationally, and 82% of children are passing the phonics test, compared with 81% nationally.

Of course, the picture would not be uniform across the whole of the north-east. I recognise that the proposals would result in budget reductions for schools in the local authority of the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West and no real overall change in funding to schools in her constituency. However, I believe that the formula we have proposed strikes the right balance between the various competing considerations for funding, such as the balance between the core funding that every child attracts and the extra funding targeted at each of the additional need factors. We propose to use a broad definition of “disadvantage” to target additional funding at schools most likely to use it, comprising pupil and area-level deprivation data.

I want to turn to the issue of costs. We recognise that schools are facing cost pressures, including salary increases, the introduction of the national living wage, increases to employers’ national insurance pension scheme contributions and general inflation. From the start of 2016-17 to the end of 2019-20, we have estimated that those pressures will amount to approximately 8% per pupil, on average. To be clear, that is not an 8% pressure in a single year, nor is it an 8% pressure that is all yet to come. In fact, some of those pressures have already materialised and been absorbed in the past financial year. Over the next three years, per-pupil pressures will, on average, be between 1.5% and 1.6% each year. The current, unfair funding system makes those pressures harder to manage, and introducing a national funding formula will direct funding where it is most needed.

We have published a wide range of tools and support to schools, available in one place on gov.uk. That includes tools to help schools to assess their level of efficiency and to find opportunities for savings; guidance on best practice, including on strategic financial planning and collaborative buying; case studies from schools themselves; and support for schools to acquire greater financial skills. We have launched a school buying strategy to support schools to save more than £1 billion a year by 2019-20 on their non-staff spend. That will help all schools to improve how they buy goods and services.

I am grateful for today’s opportunity to debate school funding. A fair national funding formula for schools and high needs underpins our ambition for social mobility and social justice, and it will mean that every pupil is supported to achieve to the best of their potential, wherever they are in the country.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I am grateful to the Minister for leaving me some time to wind up; not all Ministers do that. This has been an excellent debate. At this late stage, on the penultimate day of this Parliament, it is heartening to see so many colleagues from across the north-east here today. That just goes to show how worried we all are about these funding cuts to our schools. We have all made the case as strongly as possible, as we have all met with our headteachers and are regular attendees at our schools, and we have been told at first hand the consequences of the Government’s actions.

I listened to what the Minister had to say. I really was hopeful that he would listen and commit, even at the final stage of this Parliament, to act or at least promise to look at this again in the next Parliament if he is lucky enough, which I am sure he will be, to be returned at the election and appointed again to his current position in government—if they win.

[Alex Cunningham]

That will be Emma’s job.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Yes, it might be the job of my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck). I am sure she will be putting this all right. That will be a great day indeed, and I look forward to it.

Sadly, the Minister did not make any such commitment. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields will, so I look forward to that day. The Minister instead referred to the fairer funding formula, telling hon. Members that we were wrong. He cited a few examples of schools that may be a little bit better off with regard to the funding formula, and he read out a list to try to make that point, but he is missing the bigger point, which is that the national funding formula is being used as a smokescreen. We all agree with fairer funding for schools across the country, but this is being used to hide the real-terms cuts and pay for the other four pressures on school budgets that I highlighted in my speech, such as the pay rise, the national living wage, the apprenticeship levy and trying to fix the schools that are falling to pieces.

I am sorry that we have not made progress on this issue today. I remind the Minister that the electorate is watching; they are watching all of us, and I am confident that they will make their verdict on this at the ballot box on 8 June. Hopefully it will be my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields who can fix this when we come back to this place in June.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered school funding in the north east of England.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I agree. That is part of our fair funding formula on which we are finishing consultation this week; it sits alongside additional funding for children with low prior attainment. We have to make sure that we enable all our children to catch up if that is what they need to do.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T10. Action for Children is concerned that half the children from disadvantaged backgrounds arrive at school not ready to get the most out of the classroom environment. What is the Secretary of State doing to improve early years development in the home to make sure that every child is ready to learn on their first day?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)]

I eventually get to say something! The home learning environment is fundamental to early years development. This Government are investing over £6 billion a year in early years by 2020—more than any Government have ever spent before—and we will look very closely at how to improve the home learning environment.

Early Years Development and School-Readiness

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I was pleased to serve on the Childcare Bill Committee last December to try to improve what was, on the face of it, tremendously powerful legislation designed to make a huge difference for our youngest children before school. Sadly, Ministers did not recognise the flaws in their plans, so I tabled a new clause that would have meant they were mandated to ensure that all three and four-year-olds had access to high-quality, flexible and accessible early education and childcare provision, delivered by well-qualified, confident and experienced practitioners and led by an early years graduate. It would also have required Ministers to publish proposals for the development of the early years workforce. At the time, early language attainment was increasing, but the pace of improvement was so slow that it would have taken more than a decade of similar progress to get all children school-ready by the age of five. Figures from Action for Children suggest that one in three children across England still arrives at school not ready to learn. Yes, I recognise that policy changes take time to have an impact, but I have reservations about whether the world of childcare out there is able to deliver what the Government say is needed.

Half of children living in low-income families will arrive at school ill-equipped, as will almost 40% of children who live in our most deprived communities. In the north-east, where my constituency sits, fewer than two thirds of children will have reached a good level of development before starting school at the age of five, which is significantly lower than the 70% in the south-east. However, the gap between the most and the least deprived communities is growing, while the gaps between the north and the south and between boys and girls have not changed in three years. The Government will, I am sure, have the support of every Opposition Member if they can narrow that gap during the current Parliament. We must not settle for the small changes of recent years. Will the Minister therefore deliver a new measure of child development at age five to allow a national picture of child development that incorporates a definition of school-readiness, to remove the uncertainty regarding the outcomes the Government believe early years education should deliver? Will they set ambitious goals to focus on those children whose life chances are being blighted from their earliest years, to close the attainment gap?

High-quality early education—specifically nurseries led by graduate early years teachers—has been shown to have the most significant impact on the early language skills of young children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. But therein lies the cruelty of the current system. Childcare settings in disadvantaged areas are the least likely to be of high quality, which is why I argued during the Childcare Bill Committee for the Government to have both the power and the responsibility to ensure that all our children are cared for and taught by highly qualified professionals. Instead, we have a situation in which nurseries are unable to pay the wages needed to attract early years teachers because of the chronic underfunding of the free education entitlement from the Government. At the same time, universities are withdrawing their early years teacher courses because they cannot attract the applicants.

I ask the Minister: when will his long-awaited early years workforce strategy appear and will it include an assessment of the level of provision available and likely to be available in the next few months? Finally, what is he doing to ensure that all children have access to the high-quality care we all desire, delivered by high-quality professionals?

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[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I rise to speak in this debate as somebody who has experience of being an English teacher for more than 23 years before I entered this place. As the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) said, there are certainly similarities in the kind of behaviour that we might encounter. I have a particular interest in this debate from that perspective. I do not think I have ever been involved in a debate where there has been such consensus about the need for all children from all backgrounds to receive the best start that we can possibly give them in life, which they deserve regardless of the circumstances into which they are born. For that reason, I thank the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) for securing this debate today and for encouraging this consensus that is so unusual in this place.

The hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) pointed out something that I think we would all agree on: if a child starts school when they are not school-ready, the entire school experience from primary 1 right through to the end of secondary is tainted by that. At worst, school is a very negative experience and at best it is tolerated. We have all talked about the importance of increasing the hours for early learning and childcare to 30 hours a week. That is to be applauded, but I want to pick up on some of the points that have been made. Fundamental to that increase is not simply providing childcare, but providing qualified professional experienced staff.

In Scotland, the 30 hours will be rolled out with the addition of 600 new early learning and childcare centres with 20,000 more fully qualified and professional staff. That is very important when rolling out extra childcare for the purposes of making sure that children are school-ready. But we can make all the policy decisions we like; we can sit here and pontificate and perhaps even throw investment, money and resources at the problem, but the experience at home is fundamental. We need to support parents at home as they bring up their children, particularly those who live in poverty and face much more challenging circumstances than we or they would like.

I want to bring a new dimension to the debate this morning because I believe that fundamental to child development, to being school-ready and to being a good citizen—indeed, fundamental to a happy life—is instilling a thirst for learning and an inquiring mind, and we do that through cultivating a love of reading. That must be nurtured in our children, but in order for us to nurture that in our children we need to nurture that in our citizens as widely as possible. That is why I will always argue and kick against any attempts to close libraries, particularly those in my own constituency.

I do not believe it is possible to talk about closing the attainment gap or raising attainment if we deprive citizens, particularly those in socio-economically disadvantaged areas, of access to books, because that is what closing down libraries too often means for too many of our citizens. Access to books for parents and for children is fundamentally and inextricably linked to reading attainment. If we want our children to come to school with inquiring minds, we must introduce them to books as early as possible: not just those living in poverty, but especially those living in poverty. We must support and encourage parents in their endeavours to read with their children so that reading becomes a part of what is done at home.

[Alex Cunningham]

The hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) talked about the fact that the most needy families do not necessarily engage. The same applies to books and libraries and getting people to go to libraries. What is the Scottish experience in getting people from deprived communities into libraries, and accessing early childcare as well?

[Patricia Gibson]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman has raised that point because in Scotland we have initiatives. We have the Bookbug, PlayTalkRead and Read, Write, Count campaigns, and every parent with a new child is given a bag of free books for their children. That experience is repeated intermittently as the child goes from birth to the age of five and is supported in nurseries where books—the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole talked about the Imagination Library—become integral to raising attainment.

I do not think it is possible to talk about raising attainment unless books are a big part of that equation, so I am delighted that the Scottish Government have taken that on board. I despair when I hear of libraries closing down in any part of the UK, because I know that that means depriving people of books. I grew up in a family where, if I had not had access to a local library, I would not have had access to books, because the school library, such as it was, did not really exist. Books are fundamental to a happy and fulfilled life, to feeding the imagination and creativity, and to feeding the mind. Access to books is fundamental and must be part of this conversation.

Very often when we hear about libraries being closed down, it is about cost cutting and how we cannot afford them and need to make cuts, but some things we cannot count in pounds and pennies, such as what we get back in terms of informed citizens who are encouraged and supported, particularly those who have children. We obviously want to reach out to people who do not have children and who do not access the library, but we are talking about the next generation. We need to think about what we lose rather than what it might cost in pounds, shillings and pence. The Scottish Government’s Bookbug, PlayTalkRead and Read, Write, Count campaigns offer universal support for parents regardless of their socio-economic circumstances. Everybody has a stake in this.

Closing the attainment gap is very important, and early intervention is the canvas on which we must paint everything that we do. Early intervention must be about instilling the love of reading into our citizens as they become parents. We cannot afford to leave our children behind: if they are not school-ready for a full school life, it creates all sorts of social problems for the future. How we support parents with young children is an investment in the future. We must in all conscience and from an ethical point of view try to create a more inclusive educational and social environment for our citizens as they grow up and have their own children. We owe it to our children and we owe it to our country.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) on securing this important debate.

I agree that improving the life chances of our children is important to all of us, so I will first strike a note of consensus. In this country, we have strong cross-party consensus on the importance of the early years and the need to invest in them. The free entitlement offer was started by the most recent Labour Government, with 12.5 hours of free childcare for all three and four-year-olds. The coalition Government extended that to 15 hours, and the Conservative Government are doubling the entitlement to 30 hours.

In addition, the coalition Government introduced a free early education offer for the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, recognising that we have to start even earlier with disadvantaged children. We also introduced the early years pupil premium, extending the pupil premium in schools to the early years so that disadvantaged three and four-year-olds can get extra funding for reading and intellectual stimulation. I will come on to the detail of that later.

There is therefore cross-party consensus, and the direction of travel in policy is broadly similar. Sometimes, however, in such debates as today’s, some Members seem to have an interest in making out that what is happening is really bad. I am not saying that we can afford to be complacent, but some good work is still going on in early years, in which we lead many parts of the world. For example, the entitlement to free early education for three and four-year-olds, which has an average take-up of about 96%, is unique in the OECD. We have achieved what many other countries in the OECD have not: a universal early education offer. We should be proud of that.

[Alex Cunningham]

I praise the Minister for his work on childcare, but although putting in all those resources is tremendous, universities are still withdrawing their early years teaching courses, because, as I said in my speech, they cannot attract applicants. The Public Accounts Committee has stated that the Department for Education has no “robust plans” to ensure that there are

“enough qualified early years staff so that providers can continue to offer high quality”

education. What will he do about that? We can throw as many resources as we like at the problem, but if we do not have enough people being trained to do the job, we will not be able to deliver his ambition and mine.

[Mr Gyimah]

I will come on to the workforce strategy in more detail, but the simple point is that from 2019-20 we will be investing £6 billion a year in the free entitlement in this country, which is more than we have ever invested before. If we fund providers, they will be able to pay the quality staff that they need so that they can attract and retain them.

For the early years, we do not have a system such as we have in schools, in which the Government try to control the number of staff going in. Most of our early years sector consists of private or voluntary providers, so we need to ensure that they are adequately funded to be able to attract and retain high-quality staff. That is why the Government made a strategic choice to invest in early years provision even at a time when many other Departments were having to have their budgets retrenched.

[Alex Cunningham]

As I said, we have all those resources being poured in, but if people are not applying to go to university for the necessary training, how on earth do we get people in? How do we incentivise them further to get them into the profession, so that we can—I repeat—deliver his ambition and mine?

[Mr Gyimah]

As I said, later this year we will be publishing a workforce strategy to go along with the introduction of the 30 hours of free childcare for three and four-year-olds. The strategy will focus on removing barriers to attracting, retaining and promoting staff. However, I point out to the hon. Gentleman that 87% of the workforce are qualified to level 3 at the moment, compared with 81% in 2010. The proportion of graduates is steadily increasing, with 13% holding at least level 6 qualifications, compared with 8% in 2010. There is still a lot to do, but the direction of travel is positive.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton rightly mentioned the take-up of the free entitlements, in particular by the most disadvantaged. The three-year-old offer is a huge success, with 93% of families taking it up, and 97% of families are choosing to take up the offer for four-year-olds. In the case of the two-year-old entitlement, which is for the most disadvantaged 40% of families, 70% are taking up the offer. It is worth remembering, however, that the take-up of those entitlements is voluntary. Parents do not have to enrol their children, so it is remarkable that we have that many parents doing so.

My hon. Friend made a good point about how we market offers to parents, especially the two-year-old offer. We knew that a lot of disadvantaged families were suspicious of having to send their children to school that early, which was how some perceived it. Or if the mother was at home looking after the child—it was often the mother—they wondered why they should send their child to a nursery. The fact that the Government were involved made some of them nervous, so we did a lot of work in the Department to find new and innovative ways of marketing to those parents, even recognising that changing the colour of an envelope would make it more likely that it would be opened. To some families, brown envelopes looked like they came from the Government, so they would not open them at all, but if we made the envelopes more interesting they were more likely to open them. We are conscious that we need to drive take-up, and we need to look constantly at innovative ways to do so.

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[Mr Gyimah]

I will not take any more interventions, because of the time.

We have introduced reforms to improve the standard of literacy in the early years, which has included awarding grants, for instance through the National Day Nurseries Association’s literary champions programme, which supports practitioners to provide a high-quality, literacy-rich experience for all children. In 2015, 80% achieved the expected goal in communication and language, compared with 72% in 2013.

All of that sits in the broader context of life chances. School-readiness cannot be divorced from the broader discussion of life chances. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister set out his vision for improving life chances, and the Government want to transform the life chances of the poorest in our country and offer every child who has had a difficult start the promise of a brighter future.

We are already transforming lives. Since 2010, there are 449,000 fewer children living in workless households. The early years foundation stage framework is improving the quality of early education and care for young children, and our most recent results show that 66% are achieving a good level of development at that stage. A number of hon. Members touched on that point. It is worth noting that 66% is an increase of 14.6 percentage points in the past two years. The quality of settings continues to improve, with the highest proportion ever—86% of settings—judged good or outstanding in their most recent Ofsted inspections.

We know that some of the poorest children are already behind their peers by age three, before they start school. Such children miss out in the number of words they speak, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton pointed out, although the proportion of school children eligible for free school meals who achieve a good level of development is increasing—it was 51% last year, compared with 45% the year before. However, I will be the first to admit that we still have a long way to go.

Obviously, in considering school-readiness and life chances we also need to take into account what happens in the health sector. A number of hon. Members touched on that. All children aged from two to two and a half are offered a universal health and development review by a health visitor, which includes checking a child’s communication development and referring families to more specialist support if necessary. One thing that I introduced when I became the Childcare Minister was an integrated review for children who are not in early years settings, so that health visitors could recommend and introduce parents to other support services that they might need.

To touch on a point raised by the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), we also published “What to expect, when?” so that parents know what they can do to support their children’s development in the early years. It is easy for Government to think that we have all the answers, but children, especially in their early years, spend a disproportionate amount of time at home with their parents, so parents need to understand what good development is and what they can do to influence it. That is what our guide is meant to achieve.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am particularly interested in the role of health professionals and others who go into homes in the most deprived communities. What are the Minister’s policy ideas and instructions to encourage them to play a greater role in directing families to the childcare and literacy support we want them to have?

[Mr Gyimah]

A lot of home visits are done by health visitors, which is incredibly important. Health visitors are trusted by parents and do a great job. The previous Government and this Government have continued to invest in increasing the number of health visitors. I would like to see more joined-up activity between health and education in the early years. There are a number of great programmes out there, such as the Lambeth Early Action Partnership, which are successful because they join up health and education in early years interventions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) rightly touched on assessment. Obviously Ofsted is one way of holding nurseries accountable and assessing what they do—as I said, 86% of settings are rated good or outstanding—but the early years foundation stage profile is another way of ensuring that individual children reach a good level of development. That will become non-statutory in September, but we are looking at ways of ensuring that we continue to have such evaluation. She therefore raised a relevant and important point.

The point was made that we should differentiate between childcare and early education, especially when we talk about the 30 hours of childcare. I completely agree that childcare arranged for the purposes of parents’ employment is completely different from early education. That is why the first 15 hours of the offer is universal—so that every three and four-year old in the country is entitled to 15 hours of free early education. Why 15 hours? Evidence from the effective pre-school, primary and secondary education longitudinal study, carried out over 13 years, suggests that children at that age need a little bit of education every now and again. They need little and often, not the equivalent of a school week at the age of three and four. The eligibility for the second 15 hours—the employment offer—is based around parents’ work.

[Alex Cunningham]

Perhaps the Minister can give us a few seconds on workforce development.

[Mr Gyimah]

I have made it clear that we will publish the workforce strategy, which will look at workforce development.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) asked whether I would consider the bid by the Imagination Library. That bid is interesting, so I will take that on board and look at it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered children’s early years development and school readiness.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan)]

It is a pleasure to respond to the shadow Chancellor on behalf of the Government. Let me welcome him to his place on the Front Bench for his first Budget debate contribution in that role.

The shadow Chancellor recently unveiled Labour’s fiscal credibility rule, which we are told is part of its economic credibility strategy. Well, let me suggest that what Labour is missing is a political credibility rule, which would go something like this: the British people expect the same rule to apply to politicians as applies to them; they expect Governments to live within their means, and that is what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has been doing for the past six years.

The shadow Chancellor proved today that he is incapable of answering any of the questions put to him by my colleagues on the Government Benches. However, he is able to tell us a few things. He has told us he wants to transform capitalism. He has told us his heroes are Lenin and Trotsky. He has told us that he wants to borrow more—in fact, had we carried on with the Labour party’s plans from when it was in government in 2010, we would have borrowed £930 billion more in the past six years.

Listening to the Labour party speak on economics is a bit like listening to the arsonist returning to the scene of his crime. It is a constant criticism from Labour Members that the firemen are not putting out the fire swiftly enough to correct the mistakes they made.

The Budget presented to the House yesterday by the Chancellor puts education at its core and invests in the future of young people right across Britain. I noticed that the shadow Chancellor got on to education only right at the end of his speech. This Budget will ensure that we give young people the best possible education, no matter where they are born, who their parents are, or what their background is.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Nicky Morgan]

Let me make a bit more progress and then I will give way.

Having listened intently to the shadow Chancellor, I have to ask this: why has he found it impossible to welcome in its entirety a Budget that puts the next generation first? He talks about productivity, but I did not detect any mention at all of investment in skills and the future education of the young people of this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

I will take one more intervention and then make some progress.

[Alex Cunningham]

The Chancellor announced a grand plan to academise all our remaining schools. The cost of doing that will be in excess of £700 million. He has allocated £140 million. How is the Secretary of State going to plug the gap?

[Nicky Morgan]

Let me nail this point once and for all. It shows that many Labour Members could also benefit from staying on to do more maths education. What Labour Members—including the shadow Education Secretary, the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), who I note is not here today—have missed is the money allocated by the Chancellor in the spending review in November to make sure that we can academise all schools: those that are failing or coasting, and those that are good and outstanding.

Based on the shadow Chancellor’s previous exchange at the Dispatch Box with the Chancellor, I had assumed that he would be an advocate of our “great leap forward” in education reform. I thought that he would welcome the Chancellor’s £1.6 billion of new spending to make our education system fit for the 21st century.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Yesterday I listened intently to both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, hoping against hope that we would see a Budget for the poor as well as the rich—a Budget that would be not just for private businesses but for local services, and not just for London and the south-east but for the north-east of England.

First, I heard the Prime Minister boast about a very welcome drop in unemployment in the UK, but he did not have a word for the 3,000 more people out of work in the north-east of England than 12 months ago. The Chancellor, apart from mentioning his pet project to impose an extra tier of politicians on an unwilling electorate to deliver devolution of power without devolution of real resources, failed to announce anything that would provide the north-east with the investment in infrastructure—or anything else, for that matter—that would help to create the jobs we need to employ the people this Government have clearly forgotten.

Today’s theme is about education and equality. It is time the Chancellor recognised that there is tremendous inequality between the regions, and that it has been created as a direct result of his policies and those he shared with the Liberal Democrats. Others have already detailed the colossal failures of the Government in missing self-imposed targets, but still the Chancellor maintains that all will be well because he can always squeeze those who have been squeezed before. Sadly, this means that women and less well-off folk are again in his sights.

The Chancellor’s warm words about acting now to protect future generations, about shrinking inequalities and about us all being “in this together” were designed to create an image of fairness and social justice, but they do not paint an accurate picture. They do not, for instance, detail how 81% of the Chancellor’s cuts, totalling £82 billion in tax increases and cuts in social security, have fallen on women. Nor do they mention the fact that the Government’s policies are projected to be even more regressive than those of the coalition that went before, hitting women and lone parents disproportionately hard.

In fact, contrary to what the Chancellor would have us believe, women in Britain are now facing the greatest threat to their financial security and livelihoods for a generation. Never before has a Chancellor upset so many middle-aged women at a stroke of his red pen; the pensions issue for women born in the 1950s is just one area of their income he has attacked. An awful lot of people will remember this, should he ever realise his ambition to lead the Conservative party. He might do that, but his blindness to the anger and upset felt by women on all manner of issues will probably mean that he will not fulfil his second ambition: to win a general election.

I spoke last week to my constituent, Amey-Rose McGrogan, who manages a small but successful independent business in Stockton North. The business is about to celebrate its second birthday. As of this coming Monday, the non-domestic business rates for which the business is liable are set to rise from £157 a month to £581. The business is facing tremendous increases in costs all round. The measures announced yesterday will help a little, but they are perhaps going to be a bit late. As the North East Chamber of Commerce has highlighted, this is just another example of a Government paying lip service to stability and failing to provide businesses with sufficient detail to plan for the future.

The Chancellor is not really doing anything to help our overall economy. He is not using any of the money available to central Government to fund this planned benefit to small businesses. Instead, he is stealing it from the local authorities, which are planning their budgets based on his previous proposals for the localisation of business rates, only to find out that he has cut their income yet again. That simply places further constraints on their ability to deliver the vital services that local people need, and I have no doubt that that will create untold difficulties for local authorities as they strive to cope with cut after cut and change after change.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that the Government are giving to small businesses with one hand and taking away from local government with the other. Does he agree that these measures will take money out of the local economy that those same small businesses were relying on for part of their success, and that the overall package is far less impressive and attractive than the Chancellor has made it out to be?

[Alex Cunningham]

Indeed; I certainly agree with that.

The Minister needs to tell us what assessment has been made of the impact on local economies and on local authority funding of this policy change. In my constituency, Stockton Borough Council has faced funding cuts of £52 million in the last six years, and that is set to continue with a further reduction of £21 million over the next four years. The concessions to businesses are great, but local authorities should not be suffering as a result. Instead of empowering local councils, the Chancellor is undermining their effectiveness. Authorities such as Stockton with low tax bases will lose out as the vast wealth realised by rich councils in the south will no longer be redistributed to provide vital services across the country.

Unemployment is another particularly pertinent issue. When the Chancellor spoke in the House yesterday, he chirped merrily about a labour market delivering the highest employment in our history and unemployment having fallen again. What he did not say, however, was that that is not the case across the whole country. In Stockton North, for example, unemployment has actually increased, adding to the pressures that have been created by a spate of business closures and by Government failures to do more to protect our vital steel industry and related supply chains. As recently as Friday, 40 highly skilled workers at a specialist steel foundry in Stillington in my constituency were told that their jobs would go in May. What did the Budget offer such firms? Simply nothing. This Government stood in the way of EU tariffs on steel produced in the far east and now prefers to use foreign-made steel, rather than home-produced materials, to build Navy ships.

Speaking of materials, despite the hint from the Business Secretary during departmental questions on Tuesday that we would soon hear whether the materials catapult proposed by the Materials Processing Institute would be created, we heard nothing. It is all very unfair. We need fairness for the north-east of England.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

The Chancellor hailed his Budget as being for the “next generation”, so I want to focus on a nationally significant research and development, industrial and economic issue that feeds through from STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and maths—to higher education and into our industrial base, to which I urge the Government to give their attention. Disappointingly, there was nothing in yesterday’s Budget to address this matter, but I wish to address it now.

Against the backdrop of the steel closure debacle at SSI on Teesside, many deficiencies and challenges were identified in our steel industry, and several asks were made of the Government. Sadly, there was no meaningful or timely intervention from them to save the SSI plant, which employed many hundreds of my constituents, but there could have been and there should have been. Although, without doubt, the entire materials sector is still critical to the UK economy, it is also widely accepted that critically important innovation in the sector is patchy and poorly co-ordinated. The UK industry Metals Forum has said:

“A forward-thinking, collaborative approach to R&D will have embedded innovation throughout the industry, from the smallest firms to the largest, directed by customers’ needs.”

In the UK, the catapult concept is where we have the mechanism for innovation intervention whereby we transform our capability and drive economic growth. Sadly, there is no catapult for the metals and materials sector, but there is an opportunity right under the Government’s nose and I ask them to seize it. The proposal is a joint one from the Materials Processing Institute, the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, and The Welding Institute—TWI—which jointly propose to meet that very need by establishing a new national materials catapult, as a not-for-profit partnership. The partners have letters of support from leading universities, which show this to be a major concern for the development and upscaling of fundamental research. There is widespread support for the proposal across industry. In a short period, more than 50 letters of support have been received from employer associations, trade associations, industry, small and medium-sized enterprises, universities, the public sector and private consultants.

The beauty of the proposal is that the partners are already in play. The catapult will work with universities and the other catapults, across all the sectors, and it would be headquartered at the campus of the Materials Processing Institute in Redcar, in close proximity to TWI in Middlesbrough and Teesside industry. Of course, the proposed location for the catapult would also enable the Government to deliver on the commitment they made in the Tees valley city deal, signed by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), to encourage Innovate UK to establish this catapult at the Tees valley innovation and commercialisation hub.

The concept of a materials catapult was raised by the CBI in 2014 and has been reaffirmed in its Treasury submission in advance of yesterday’s Budget. Support has also been expressed by UK Steel and FSB, but, sadly, that was not reflected by the Chancellor yesterday. With the partners having collectively more than 300 years of experience, world-leading facilities and an immediate national presence, the catapult presents excellent value for money. There are minimal start-up costs and because it is proposed to use existing buildings there is no lead- in time for construction activity. The ask is for £5 million per annum of revenue support and £2 million per annum of capital, under the normal catapult funding model, and an initial capital award of about £10 million to fund equipment for core projects. The catapult will leverage recent and secured future investments that have been used to upgrade materials research and support facilities in Rotherham, Port Talbot and Cambridge, as well as on the two sites in the Tees valley.

[Alex Cunningham]

This must be an organisation worth backing because this week it actually started a new steel production facility on Teesside.

[Andy McDonald]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that, and it shows the value of these initiatives. I regret to say that sometimes we have to keep on pressing and repeating these requests. We are talking about a major contribution to our economy and it should be grasped, because, based on previous studies, a benefit of £15 per £1 of Government spending would be expected, giving a gross value added benefit of £75 million per annum.

The catapult is needed by industry nationally and could be delivered immediately. It would give some credibility to the much-vaunted but singularly absent northern powerhouse. The catapult is an entirely appropriate response to the steel crisis and builds on existing capabilities and expertise. It is cost effective and would have an immediate positive impact on UK companies. As well as that fifteenfold return, it could be a beacon for inward investment, and there is the real potential for a £300 million project to come to the catapult.

The catapult would improve productivity in the materials sector, strengthen manufacturing supply chains and drive growth by supporting new and growing technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises. It would improve international competitiveness by addressing the UK’s relative disadvantage in materials innovation compared with Germany, the USA and Japan.

I urge the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills not to block this proposal, because I am convinced that it is vital for our industrial base and will provide immediate and significant research and employment opportunities. It will be readily achievable and make a huge contribution to our economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Damian Hinds)]

Today’s young people can look forward to some of the most exciting opportunities that a generation has ever faced, but also to a much more uncertain world. They face a changing world order, where the economic and political dominance of the west is increasingly challenged by developing and emerging economies. They face a changing labour market, with a growing premium on high value added jobs and the knowledge economy. They are unlikely to stay in the same job for life, they are much less likely than their parents to have a defined benefit pension, and they face much higher house prices, albeit that those are greatly mitigated by the low interest rates that have come about from our sound economic stewardship.

That comes on top of long-standing issues that the Government inherited in 2010 but that, to be fair, have existed for much longer. There is a productivity gap between the UK and other major global economies, an educational gap between rich and poor and between different parts of the country, and a lack of financial resilience in many parts of the population, without even the cushion of a small savings account.

The Government have been facing up to those structural issues through our educational reforms, the revolution in apprenticeships and the national living wage. This Budget puts the next generation first. It builds up our young people’s skills, and builds the infrastructure for a modern economy and higher productivity. Alongside all that is rightly being done to increase housing supply, it also helps young people to save for their retirement and for owning a home, with all the security that that can bring. For many, the Budget makes possible a rainy-day savings cushion for the first time.

The Budget also commits £1.6 billion extra over this Parliament to education in England. Academies are a key part of our education reforms, as the Education Secretary outlined earlier, and research from the OECD, the European Commission, and others, has repeatedly shown that more autonomy for individual schools can help to raise standards.

The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), my cloakroom neighbour, rightly talked about the performance of London schools and the London challenge. Many factors have gone into improving the performance of London schools. In fact, the improvement in performance predates the London challenge—the year the London challenge started is the year that the GCSE performance in London caught up with that of the rest of the country—but one of the factors in London’s outperformance was the school mix, including the disproportionate contribution to improvement made by academy schools.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am grateful to hear the lovely compliments for my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). The Secretary of State could not tell us where the extra money was coming from to fund the forced academies programme. Can the Minister do so?

[Damian Hinds]

The money announced in the Budget comes on top of what was announced in the spending review.

The right hon. Member for East Ham asked how the national funding formula would be done. We will consult on the principles through which it will work, but the intention is to ensure that it is fair and that it reflects need, unlike the rather arbitrary system we can have currently.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State’s word will do little for the 40 skilled staff of the Metabrasive steel foundry in Stillington in my constituency, which will close in May. So will he listen to the Materials Processing Institute and back its proposals for a materials catapult, which will provide productivity and innovation benefits for the production of metals, ceramics and other materials and promote our competitiveness and exports?

[Sajid Javid]

I am sorry to hear that that firm in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency may close. We should do everything we can to try to protect jobs like that, and certainly research has an important role to play. We are looking very carefully at that proposal and he will hear more shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I have made my position clear, but the ideal is that this is not about the Government imposing this on anybody. It is about giving local authorities the power to decide what is best in their area for all their shops, of whatever size, and of course for their shoppers and their consumers. If they do not want to do it, it would not be mandatory, but they have the choice because we take the view that they know best.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade (Sajid Javid)]

Britain’s high-end manufacturing continues to lead the world, and 2015 was the most successful year ever for our aircraft industry, with delivery numbers up 44% since 2010. Jaguar Land Rover is now Britain’s biggest car maker; it produced nearly 500,000 cars last year, which was three times as many as in 2009. And just yesterday, the latest figures showed that manufacturing output grew once again in January. Britain’s high-end factories are working, more Britons are working than ever before and this Government’s long-term economic plan is working too.

[Alex Cunningham]

We are hearing that Lord Heseltine has a big plan for the redundant SSI steelworks site on Teesside. If so, what is it?

[Sajid Javid]

It is absolutely right that we look at all options to generate more employment in that area, and that is exactly what Lord Heseltine has been working on. He has been working with businesses and local business leaders, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would welcome that. I notice that his own constituency has seen a sharp fall in unemployment of more than 40% in the past five years under this Government, and it is those kinds of policies that we will continue.

Onshore Oil and Gas

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[David Mowat]

My point was more about feedstock. I have no problem with an industrial strategy along those lines, although I make the point gently that the million jobs that were created on the eastern seaboard of the US were the result not so much of industrial strategy, but of a massively cheaper economic model and business case and all that goes with that. We need to learn from that.

The Chairman of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), made a number of points about the fact that we are running out of gas. This is not principally a discussion about whether we should have gas versus renewables. It is gas versus coal, as I said earlier, in environmental terms. Gas production is now 70% lower than five years ago and we are importing it from Qatar and principally from Norway, but increasingly from Russia. Centrica has a contract with Gazprom and around 10% of our gas will come from Russia by 2020. We need to understand that and be comfortable with the implications.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I am sorry I was not here for the start of the debate. The hon. Gentleman has talked a lot about the proximity of supply and forward gas production over the years. Will he talk a bit about coal gasification, which could be so important and is so close to Teesside and the north-east, for our energy-intensive industries?

[David Mowat]

I am not sure whether that was a request for me to talk about coal gasification. I will not because I have been talking for 10 minutes, but I agree that it is a complex market and an opportunity for Teesside. Our country’s industry base in Teesside is extremely important to all constituents there, and I completely agree with that.

On Wednesday, I had dinner with the head of Ernst and Young in the UK and I said that one thing that annoys me about parliamentary debates is that we quote reports from people like Ernst and Young as though they are some sort of gospel. We all say, “That’s what they say, so it is true and I will go with that.” It said in its recent report that it estimates that 64,000 jobs will be created in the shale industry alone, 6,000 direct and the rest in the supply chain, steel and so on. I return to the US experience where more jobs were created in the industries that benefited from the lower feedstocks than in the direct industry—the chemicals industry and so on.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) on securing the debate. I had the advantage, or perhaps the disadvantage, of arriving in the Chamber this morning almost wholly ignorant on the subject. This Chamber, at its best, is the best university seminar in the world, and I will leave after an hour and a half a lot more knowledgeable on the subject.

Particularly important and welcome is how constructive and responsible the debate has been. Not a single contribution has been out-and-out anti-unconventional onshore oil and gas drilling. Concerns have been expressed and different approaches by different Governments in the country have been outlined, but nobody has suggested that onshore drilling does not potentially have a role to play in our future.

Interestingly, the focus—especially from Conservative Members—has been on the role of the Government and their various agencies in helping people to cope with change, the unexpected, and the things that baffle and worry them. I congratulate all my hon. Friends on the role they take as Members of Parliament in bringing people together, securing the contributions of relevant experts and helping to lead their communities. The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) observed the scale of the victory of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton in the last election, but I am sure that he would be as brave in leading his community wherever he was elected and with however few votes over his nearest opponent.

The suggestion of a combined regulator is interesting. There might be a more practical approach than merging regulators, which would be pretty complicated. I will ask Ministers—I suspect it will be those in the Department of Energy and Climate Change rather than the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but it might be a combination of the two—why all three agencies have to send people to meetings. I will ask whether it is possible to have people who, despite being employed by the Environment Agency or the HSE, can speak to all the different aspects, rather than, as my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) pointed out, the agencies having to travel in packs. That seems slightly inefficient and suggests that there is not a joined-up view and that things can get lost in the cracks.

The Government’s policy on shale is that it can make a significant contribution to energy security, environmental protection and economic growth if it is managed carefully and regulated responsibly. Both Government and Opposition Members have mentioned the desire to arrive at just that balance, between recognising the opportunity and dealing with the risks and legitimate concerns.

On energy security, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) mentioned that we currently import more than 50% of our gas, and my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) pointed out that by 2020, 10% will come from Russia. In the 2020s, based on current projections without the development of domestic sources of onshore gas, we will import more than 70% of our gas needs. Many Members have made the point that gas will always be a major part of our energy mix—or if not always, at least for the foreseeable decades. It is therefore important that we have a secure supply of it, ideally from domestic sources.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am pleased that the Minister has expanded his knowledge this morning. Does he plan to become equally knowledgeable about coal gasification? He could become an advocate for that part of the energy mix as well.

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me. No doubt if he secures a similar debate on that subject, I will have that opportunity. I am sure he is right that we can help to reinforce the competitive advantage of our existing chemical and steel industries, and others, through all sorts of innovative ways of securing energy supplies that are more environmentally sensitive than previous ones.

On the vital question of environmental protection, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South made the powerful point that, if all the world’s coal were replaced by gas, it would contribute the equivalent of a sixfold multiplication of the world’s renewables industries. Gas is a fossil fuel and, in the long run, we all hope not to be reliant on fossil fuels. Nevertheless, the transition from coal to gas is probably the most dramatic thing we can do to enable us to cut carbon emissions and prevent further climate change. That is why the Government are so keen to see the development of shale gas in the UK. There are substantial reserves, which will assist us in achieving our environmental objectives and providing economic security.

Further Education Colleges (North-east)

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) for securing the debate.

Further education colleges in the north-east are important engines of economic growth and prosperity in our local communities, as well as significant drivers of social mobility. By 2022 the Tees valley will require 127,000 jobs in key sectors, but only 278,300 people out of a working-age population of 417,000 are in employment. The skills mismatch is incredibly important, and FE colleges can fill the gap.

Hartlepool, for a relatively small town, has a remarkably diverse range of post-16 provision. We have a sixth-form college, Cleveland College of Art and Design, and two schools with a sixth form. Hartlepool College of Further Education is the biggest provider of apprenticeships in the Tees valley and the second biggest provider in the north-east for 16-to-18 apprenticeships. It has a fully functioning aircraft hangar, with two jets and a helicopter, and we have real skills, expertise and quality in STEM. The college’s apprenticeship success rate was 86.4%, when the national rate was 70.3%.

As my hon. Friends have indicated, there are concerns that the Government’s reforms are pushing FE colleges to adopt significant changes in their business models, which will put their viability at risk.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour for giving way. Yesterday in Education questions the Minister dismissed my concerns about the cost of area reviews, which I am led to believe could result in millions of pounds of extra banking fees being incurred as loan agreements are ended and new ones created. Does my hon. Friend agree that any real financial benefit to colleges might be lost unless the Government step in and decide what will happen with those additional costs?

[Mr Wright]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point, but I would go further, because I worry about the area-based review in the Tees valley. May I ask the Minister why the review includes FE and sixth-form colleges, but not school sixth forms, 16-to-19 free schools or university technical colleges? If a comprehensive review of post-16 provision in an area is being undertaken, why include only certain providers? The 10 FE colleges in the Tees valley subject to the review account for only about 60% of provision, so how can a proper evaluation take place? The process seems opaque, and no one has been able to demonstrate to me clear and transparent criteria for how the area-based review is being conducted. Will he use this opportunity to do so this afternoon?

Furthermore, given that colleges are autonomous organisations, it is difficult to see how any conclusions of the review can be implemented unless the Government starve colleges of funding until they agree to the conclusions. Will the Minister respond to that point and confirm that colleges in the north-east that refuse to accept the findings will not experience disproportionately harsh cuts to their funding?

The Government’s key objective in skills policy is the target of 3 million apprenticeships by 2020. The apprenticeship levy has been proposed as a means to ensure that firms pay for training. I appreciate that core funding for 16 to 19-year-olds and adult skills will be maintained in cash, if not real, terms as a result of the spending review. However, the Minister knows that there remains acute pressure on college budgets. The Skills Funding Agency has suggested that about 70 colleges throughout the country could be deemed financially inadequate by the end of 2015-16.

A devastating impact on FE colleges in the north-east is possible. Will the Minister reassure the House, without referring to specific institutions—doing so might undermine confidence—that colleges in the region will have suitable resources? Will he explain how he anticipates that the combination of his main priority, apprenticeship expansion, with other FE college activities will complement one another, rather than the former being seen as a substitute or alternative for the latter?

I mentioned that FE colleges in the north-east are drivers of social mobility. For people in the north-east in their 20, 30s or 40s who have been made redundant—sorrowfully, we have had far too much of that in the north-east recently—or who may not have worked hard at school but now want to put their lives back on track, and yet are not in a position to take on an apprenticeship place, how does the Minister anticipate that FE colleges will be able to provide them with the necessary basic skills to make something of their lives?

I turn to the apprenticeship levy and, in particular, something that the Minister said when giving evidence to the Sub-Committee on Education, Skills and the Economy yesterday. About 2% of firms in England will be liable for the levy, and the Tees valley figure is broadly comparable to the national proportion—2.2% of our employers are large firms. In Committee I asked the Minister whether the Government position was that the levy will be a ring-fenced fund to be drawn on only by levy payers to fund apprentice training. The Minister said that large firms would have “first dibs” on the money raised from the levy.

That response prompts a number of questions. If that is the case, how will the 98% of smaller firms receive funding for apprenticeship training through the levy if they are waiting for scraps from the table? Will firms be able to carry the levy forward to subsequent financial years, so that if a large firm does not want to draw on it in year one, it will have that possibility in year two? Again, how will that help smaller firms? How will the system help FE colleges provide suitable financial planning? Will the “first dibs” approach be allocated on a national, regional or sub-regional basis—will it be large firms only in the Tees valley, or only in Hartlepool? How will the levy work?

As the Minister understands, the considerable uncertainty is undermining the ability of colleges in the north-east to plan and to provide their existing excellent further education provision. I hope that further detail will be provided this afternoon, so that colleges can get on with the job of ensuring that we can transform our regional economy and that people’s lives in the north-east are made better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kevan Jones]

rose—

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Boles]

I will not give way. I am answering all Opposition Members’ questions—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

In which case, I am happy to give way to the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham).

[Alex Cunningham]

The Minister has not addressed the issue that I raised with him yesterday, which has been raised again today, about the banking fees that merging colleges will ultimately face as a result of any mergers that take place. They will run into millions of pounds across the country. What action will he take either to influence the banks or to ensure that those costs do not lie at the doors of colleges and that they get the benefit of any mergers that go ahead?

[Nick Boles]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has asked the question again. He is right, of course, that sometimes when there are changes to banking arrangements, fees arise, but those will be visible and transparent, and a college will only undertake an operation that might trigger those fees if it considers that, overall, doing so is in its interest. He will be aware that the Chancellor made it clear in the spending review process that there will be a facility to provide transitional funding for the implementation of area reviews. We will have access to that facility if we need it to support, for instance, a merger or some other arrangement; but ultimately, we will only support such a merger or arrangement if the colleges believe that it is worth doing, even if there are some transitional transaction fees. I hope that helps a little.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her post. I look forward to her future contributions as vice-chair of Progress, especially as I now understand that to be a front for hard-right views in the Labour party. She will know that for the first 15 hours, the offer is universal— 99% of four-year-olds and 94% of three-year-olds get it. We have been very clear that the second 15 hours is a work incentive. Surely she does not believe that Islington parents on £100,000 a year should be entitled to free childcare. I know that she wants to represent the new core constituency of the Labour party.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

3. What discussions she has had with education providers on reviews of post-16 education and training.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

10. What discussions she has had with education providers on reviews of post-16 education and training.

[The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)]

I have had several meetings with college leaders, often represented by hon. Members, and will continue to do so as the area review process unfolds.

[Alex Cunningham]

The Minister will be aware of the area review of colleges in the Tees valley, which could lead to one or more mergers. The banks will be big winners in this, and I am told that if colleges become liable for penalties for breaking loan contracts that could run into millions of pounds. How much will the banks benefit from these mergers?

[Nick Boles]

This is absolutely the first I have heard about that, and it is certainly not my intention that a single pound of taxpayers’ money should go to benefit banks. The whole point of the area review process is to strengthen institutions so that, like Middlesbrough College in the Tees area, they can offer an excellent service by providing high-quality technical and professional education to local people.

Childcare Bill [Lords]

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman]

I am, of course, grateful to the Minister for his intervention, but I might just suggest that he will get the opportunity to make his own speech when I have finished, and he might want to answer some of my questions then. I will move on—

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jenny Chapman]

I will move on by giving way to my hon. Friend.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am grateful to my constituency near-neighbour for giving way. I was pleased to serve on the Bill Committee and I have never seen a Minister intervene so often during others’ speeches with reassurances such as “the Prime Minister’s promise will be fulfilled,” or “There will be sufficient quality places,” and all manner of other such statements. Would not the Minister be seen to be really reassuring us if he accepted new clause 1 and the scrutiny put down in law?

[Jenny Chapman]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and does so very well. We all like a keen and perky and eager Minister, but it would be good if he were more willing to hold himself to account, after the introduction of this Bill, by adopting new clause 1. However, I shall move on to new clause 2.

This new clause, also in my name and that of my hon. Friends, requires the Government to monitor and report on the state of the attainment gap between young children, and it specifies between “different genders”, “different ethnic backgrounds”, “different socio-economic backgrounds”, those living in different parts of the country, and those

“who do and do not have a disability”.

Our experience tells us that unless Ministers monitor, and are required to report on, the gap, focus will be lost and equality of opportunity for all young people will never be achieved.

I would like to acknowledge the invaluable work of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission in helping us to prepare new clause 2. I believe that setting up the commission was relatively easy for the Government, but listening to it and acting on what it says seem to be a step too far for them. The new clause would provide an opportunity to put that right in a very small way. The commission states that the Britain we should all aspire to help to build is

“one where opportunities are shared equally and are not dependent on the family you were born into, the place where you live or the school you attend. It is a society where being born poor does not condemn someone to a lifetime of poverty. Instead it is a society where your progress in life—the job you do, the income you earn, the lifestyle you enjoy—depends on your aptitude and ability, not your background or your birth.”

The commission’s most recent report warns that Britain is on the verge of becoming a “permanently divided nation”, and exposes some of the deep divisions that characterise our country. Those at the top in Britain today look remarkably similar to those who rose to the top 50 years ago. For example, 71% of senior judges, 62% of senior armed forces personnel and 55% of civil service departmental heads attended private schools, compared with just 7% of the general population.

Britain could become the most open, fair and mobile society in the modern world, but the policy and practice of this Government need to change, and that all starts with the early years. All children, whatever their background, should be school-ready by the age of five. However, less than half of the poorest children in England are ready for school by that age, compared with two thirds of the others, and a deep gender divide means that girls from the poorest families do almost as well as boys from the better-off families at that point. The commission has found that,

“efforts to improve the school-readiness of the poorest children are uncoordinated, confused and patchy.”

It also comments that,

“the complexity of the childcare funding system is hampering efforts to increase maternal employment.”

The commission has some straightforward suggestions for the Government to help to narrow the gap at the age of five. It says that the

“Government should end the strategic vacuum in the early years by introducing two clear, stretching, long-term objectives: to halve the development gap between the poorest children and the rest at age five; and to halve the gap in maternal employment between England and the best-performing nations, both by 2025.”

Further, the commission argues in relation to childcare that the Government

“should radically simplify the multiple streams which finance it”.

New clause 2 tells the Government that willing the gap in attainment and development of children to narrow is not enough. However, I believe that they have the will to do it. I have heard some of their mutterings and comments, and I believe that they have the will—

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Chapman]

I dread to think what my kids would say to that.

New clause 2 is a modest request, given the scale of the challenge that we face. It is also something that the Government should be doing anyway. The strategy to narrow the gap with properly co-ordinated policies and regular reporting to Parliament is urgently needed. The measures in the Bill have the potential to diminish the supply and quality of childcare, and we want to know that that gap-widening risk will be closely tracked and acted on by the Government.

New clause 2 encourages the Government to do some of the strategic thinking that we need. If it is adopted, the Government would have carefully to track the take-up of the offer among, say, the 40% most disadvantaged, better to understand the reasons for low take-up, and then they can seek to address them. The key to improving the attainment of the poorest children—high quality early education as opposed simply to childcare—is at risk due to the question marks over funding, which is why I encourage the Government to support the new clause. We know that poorer areas have a higher proportion of providers than the maintained sector, mainly pre-schools and children’s centres. Those providers face particular capacity challenges, and the National Association of Head Teachers has warned that they are unlikely to be able to deliver the increased hours, as they tend to take just two groups of children—one in the morning and one in the afternoon—and physically do not have the space to double their numbers.

Schools have also tended to cross-subsidise the funding of their early years provision from elsewhere in their budgets to ensure quality. The Government have committed £50 million of new capital funding to help with that, thereby acknowledging that there is a problem, but the figure is unlikely to meet the need and may leave some areas without new provision. All this clause does is seek to ensure that this problem does not result in a widening of the attainment gap.

[Alex Cunningham]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister could win his place in education history by accepting this new clause, which has some great ideas? He believes that those ideas will narrow the attainment gap, and that everything will work. What has he got to fear from the scrutiny associated with this particular clause?

[Jenny Chapman]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Not only would the Minister win his place in the history of education teams in Parliament, but it would be the first time ever in Parliament that a Government accepted a new clause tabled by the Opposition on Report. We can live in hope.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says:

“We have already stumbled a long way in the dark in this policy area. It is time to stop stumbling, shine a light on the policy landscape, and plot an effective route forward.”

If the Government plan to spend £6 billion a year on childcare by 2019-20, I would argue—and I think that they would, too, if they were in opposition—that the risks of an ill-targeted and inefficient system should not be ignored. New clause 2 asks that the Government turn their head to narrowing the gap in early years attainment, and monitor the impact of their policy on this issue to ensure that the nation’s investment is rewarded.

Let me briefly speak to amendment 2, which is a probing amendment and is intended to assess the Government’s appetite for supporting a particular group—in this case, student nurses. This matter arose in Committee, and it is worth flagging up our concern about that particular group and its needs at this time. Members will recall that last week thousands of student nurses and midwives marched through London in protest at plans to scrap training bursaries. Many student nurses already have financial obligations such as mortgages, and many also have children. The Nursing and Midwifery Council requires them to have completed at least 4,600 hours while studying, with half of those in practice. The student nurses work the equivalent of 37 and a half hours a week at least. They work nights, days and weekends. It is very difficult for that particular group to get a part-time job to support dependants while training.

Have the Government made an assessment of the cost of extending the additional entitlement to student nurses with eligible children? I tried to do so, but I do not think that the data exist, so it would be interesting to see whether the Minister has been able to obtain an estimate of the cost. My parents were both nurses, and at the time there were hospital social clubs and a crèche. Obviously that was not recent, but the amendment encourages the Government to work with other Departments to ensure that particular groups—in this case, student nurses—are not disproportionately disadvantaged by a combination of Government policies. I commend new clauses 1 and 2 to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The quality of early years provision has improved significantly; 85% of early years settings are now rated good or outstanding. The previous Government introduced the common inspection framework for early years education, which has raised the bar and will continue to do so over the course of this Parliament.

Regular surveys commissioned by the Department also provide rich data. These include the childcare and early years provider and parent surveys. The provider survey collects information about childcare and early years providers, including the composition and qualifications of the workforce. The parent survey collects data on parents’ use of childcare and early years provision and their views and experiences.

[Alex Cunningham]

Various groups have raised concerns about capacity and quality of provision and stressed the need, to which the Minister has just referred, to have the best trained people in order to deliver it. They do not accept his reassurances, but the new clause gives him an opportunity to have his achievements measured all together. I know that he says that some of the issues are covered elsewhere in legislation, but this would pull it all together in one big round circle that he could fill in over time. Why does he not just accept the scrutiny that the new clause offers him?

[Mr Gyimah]

The Government will be spending £6 billion a year from 2019-20 on early years and childcare. The suggestion that we will be doing that without measuring or evaluating it is simply not true. The question is where we carry out this evaluation and whether it needs to sit in primary legislation. Had the hon. Gentleman been listening, he would have heard me explain that we currently have a survey following 8,000 two-year-olds across England, so what he is asking for is already under way. We do not need primary legislation to evaluate the impact of the important investment to achieve very important goals in this sector.

The latest early years foundation stage profile data reveal that an increasing proportion of children are achieving a good level of development at age five—66% in 2015, compared with 52% in 2013. That is an impressive 14.6 percentage point increase over the past two years. I know that there is more we can do to understand the impact of this extended entitlement. However, as drafted, the proposed amendments are not workable. They call for an evaluation of the impact of discharging the Secretary of State’s new duty within 12 months of the Act coming into force, which is far too soon to make any judgment about impact. That would not be adequate time to collect the data, assess the impacts and produce a report.

[Mr Gyimah]

Every three and four-year-old is entitled to 15 hours of free childcare. The question is who is entitled to the second 15 hours. [Interruption.] If Opposition Members will bear with me, I will answer the question. Lone parents are entitled to it, as are self-employed parents and parents looking after disabled children. I will seek inspiration from the officials’ box specifically on kinship carers. But the issue is that everybody gets the first 15 hours if they work, and the second 15 hours is a work incentive. If people are not working, they do not need that amount of childcare.

[Alex Cunningham]

But that is not the point. Kinship carers are some of the most pressed individuals in our society. They need respite care. The Minister says that there might be 15 hours available, but they need respite care and comprehensive support, perhaps even more than working parents. Surely he should be considering this.

[Mr Gyimah]

Under the current regime, kinship carers will get three hours of respite care a day for five days of the week. Is the hon. Gentleman seriously arguing that he wants more than three hours of respite care a day? If so, why was that not in the Labour party’s manifesto?