GCSE and A-level Results: Attainment Gap

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the GCSE and A-Level results on the widening gap in attainment for children and young people in the North East of England compared to those in the South of England.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I too associate myself with the wishes and prayers that people have for the Royal Family.

I submitted this topic for consideration, albeit in a short debate, because of my serious concern about the increasing number of vulnerable children in the north-east of England. The widening gap in attainment seen in the recent secondary school results exemplifies this.

Many organisations have done work on this and much research has been done on regional disparities. I do not have time to go through those statistics and all the different views, but I thank those who briefed me and are so concerned about this. It is clear from all of it that disparities arise not because children themselves are less bright. As I have said all my political life, I have not seen that children from the north-east are thicker than those in the rest of the country. Therefore, we have a responsibility to address why they end up the way they do, with much poorer attainment and more vulnerability than is appropriate or necessary.

What, then, explains this? The gap in A-level achievement between the south-east and the north-east has widened from 5.3% to 8.7% between 2019 and 2022. The north-east had the lowest number of students achieving A* and A grades at A-level—only 30.8%, compared with 39.5% in the south-east. We have to ask: what is going on? What leads to this?

The Northern Powerhouse Partnership says that we need to look at three things. The first is long-term deprivation and child property. Shockingly, the proportion of children living in relative poverty has risen more in the north-east than anywhere else. We had got it on a downward curve, and it was at least stable for a couple of years with the new Government post 2010, but since 2014 it has risen from 26% to 38% of children in the region living in relative poverty. I find that shocking in today’s world. This reflects not just unemployment but a low-wage economy, where families with only one earner are living below the poverty line. That affects the children.

Research shows that the intersection between long-term deprivation and certain ethnic groups, including white working-class children, is the strongest predictor of low attainment. The north-east has double the national average of pupils in these high-impact groups. That is why the allocation of funding for public services, in particular education, should reflect levels of deprivation, not political preference.

The second problem that has been identified is Covid and the pandemic. Pupils in the north-east missed 15.3% of lessons in the academic year 2020-21 and the autumn term of 2021-22, compared with 11.6% in London and 11.9% in the south-east. Significantly higher numbers of pupils were simply not in school, and we know that significantly high numbers did not have access to the equipment necessary for home learning.

The third thing is therefore the failure of the education recovery initiative, including the poor delivery of the National Tutoring Programme, to deliver effective catch-up. In the north-east, only 58.8% of target schools were reached by the National Tutoring Programme. It was 100% in the south-west and 96.1% in the south-east. What a pity that the Government did not accept the advice of their adviser at the time about what was necessary for effective catch-up.

I could talk about this for a very long time, but I know this is a short debate. But there we are: policies have been pursued over the recent decade and beyond which, far from levelling up, have increased disadvantage and the lack of opportunities in my region. As far as I am concerned, they are the salt of the earth. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham knows, it is God’s own country. However, we are letting children down massively.

I hope that the incoming Cabinet begins to understand this and produces activity to address it. We have the greatest inequality in our country of any western nation. Are we really proud of that? Are we really proud that we have less opportunity for young people here than in the rest of Europe? I think not. Child poverty was reducing in the north-east when I was in government. There was still a lot to do—I am not saying everything was wonderful—but we had begun to address those issues.

I cannot tell noble Lords the distress when I meet family members and colleagues who are running food banks and other programmes or working in schools at the moment. They are seeing day in, day out, families not just struggling but falling off the edge. The number of children not in school—we do not know where they are—has increased, as has the number of people who simply cannot get through the week without going to neighbours or friends for support and the number of schools which have lost teachers over the summer because their funding went down. We heard from the outgoing Chancellor that he changed the method of allocating money so that it did not go first and foremost to areas of deprivation and people living in poverty. That has to be changed. Members here have heard me go on before about the index of multiple deprivation. The Government not using it in their levelling-up fund is nonsensical.

We have to recognise the depth of this problem. It should not be a surprise to noble Lords or to the Government that deprivation and attainment are linked. I hope that in the promised announcements—I gather one announcement is due next week—the Government will tackle the fundamental problems faced by children. The Government will not achieve their ambition for growth if they ignore or neglect these issues because, in my view, the supply side is as important as the demand side, and we have heard very little about it. If the Government want productivity to improve and for employment to be at a higher level, addressing these issues in areas such as the north-east, which still depends on manufacturing, is critical. I hope the Government begin to understand this and address it.