Safety of School Buildings

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

I am grateful for the chance to speak in the debate, following the statement made by the Secretary of State for Education earlier this week.

I draw the attention of colleagues on both sides of the House to the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris)—this is bad timing on my part, as she is just leaving the Chamber—about the legacy of this Government on education, which is something to be proud of. I will not use my time to repeat her points, but when I post on my Facebook page later, I will add a link to her speech so that all my constituents can see it too.

In 13 years of Conservative government, standards have gone through the roof. My right hon. Friend the Schools Minister and others in government should be proud of that and trumpet it at every possible opportunity. I can point to recent examples in my own constituency, including Queen Elizabeth’s Academy, Oak Tree Primary School and Vision West Nottinghamshire College, that have gone through difficult times in terms of quality but are rated “good”, some for the first time ever, because of incredible amounts of local work and a drive for higher standards and better opportunities for kids in my constituency from this Government. No one should let anybody tell them that the Conservatives do not care about kids, education or schools because that is demonstrably nonsense.

In the debate, Labour Members have been asking for information that they would never release themselves. If the shoe were on the other foot, they would never allow that to happen and they would vote against such a motion. They know perfectly well that there has to be the ability to have a confidential conversation behind the scenes when budgets are set, because otherwise no ideas would ever come forward and no plans would ever be made. The Government are releasing information about schools in England, which is being published today, but that cannot be done for schools in Wales because Labour-run Wales does not have that information, as work to mitigate the challenge has not been done.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had very little choice last week when she made the decision. There is no choice about when expert advice comes forward and changes the balance of risk. She had to take a risk averse, safety-first approach. That was absolutely the right thing to do. The immediate response has been very good. I felt her frustration yesterday, because this work has not just happened in the last week but has been going on for years. The Department for Education took a decision, identified the schools, supported those schools and committed the funds to tackle the problem. That happened fairly quickly and the outcome, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury said, is that fewer schools are affected than was originally thought last week. That is something of a success.

The history of the issue goes back several years. The idea raised by Opposition Members that the problem emerged only last week or in 2022 is nonsense. I am the leader of a county council, the responsible body for maintained schools in my constituency and around it. We have been doing survey work with the DFE since 2018-19, so it has been ongoing for a long time. There have been local and national condition improvement funds to work on the quality of those schools in that time. As a result, when the announcement was made last week, we had very good data and information to be able to tackle the situation quickly.

The sum total of affected schools in Nottinghamshire—there are no affected schools in my constituency—is one primary school being delayed in its return by a couple of days. That is not an accident; it has happened because a lot of work, funding and support has gone in over a long period of time. In places where that has not happened, the DFE stepped in directly in 2022, which was a good and responsible thing to do. I pay tribute to the work of colleagues in the Department and in my own council who have managed this well over a number of years. We have a local £9-million school condition improvement fund of our own and four schools in my constituency are being rebuilt. These are all good news stories for schools, not just because of the quality of education I have described, but for school buildings in my constituency and around it.

The level of building—500 new schools over a decade—is consistent with any programme in recent decades. The numbers under the programme that Labour Members are lauding ended up being something like 25 or 30 fewer than that. They never reached the target they said they were going to reach—shock, horror! This problem was an issue back in 1997 to 2010, but it was never mentioned at any point. They tell us now that if they had been in government, they would have used their psychic powers to figure out the problem before the experts did and would have tackled it well in advance. Of course we know that that is not true or possible.

The biggest concern I want to raise is about reassurance. I have heard three times from Opposition Members that schools are literally falling down around our children—name one, because they are not. Each time I hear that, I am reminded that I will be getting emails from my constituents saying, “I am worried about my kids’ safety in their school,” when no schools are affected in my constituency, they do not need to worry and those kids have all gone back—every single one—safely to school this week. That fearmongering and rhetoric is irresponsible. Parents will be unnecessarily worried about the condition of their kids’ school when I know, for all the reasons I have described, that we have managed this well over a number of years and it is not an issue in my constituency. I urge hon. Members to think long and hard before they put that unnecessary stress on parents who are already finding this difficult.

Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Can we please use temperate language?

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

May I offer some reassurance to the House and to parents in Nottinghamshire? The county council has been working with the Department and schools for many months to get surveys in place to make sure we have an accurate picture of our school estate. As a result of that work, for which I am very grateful, the sum total of disruption in Nottinghamshire this week is the return of one primary school being delayed by a couple of days. That is a good result in the circumstances of this late change of guidance, so I am really grateful for that work and the support of the DFE.

There will no doubt be a massive run on the procurement of temporary buildings in the coming days and weeks, but there will also be existing temporary buildings on school estates that are underused or unused. Academy trusts will not naturally talk to each other about that, so would the Department consider helping to ensure that existing buildings end up in the most appropriate places at the right time?

[Gillian Keegan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that, and also for all the work that he and his council have done—they have been exemplary in getting on top of this issue. On temporary buildings, I am very happy to have a further discussion. At the moment we have three suppliers and a lot of stock, and we are getting ready to enable that to be used. If there is underused stock elsewhere, we will be happy to consider that.

School and College Funding: The Midlands

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Gullis]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her fantastic intervention. Of course, her area faces challenges different from those faced by the city of Stoke-on-Trent, given that hers is a much more rural constituency with, I assume, higher rents and house prices in some areas than the average of Stoke-on-Trent.

When I was at the Department for Education, albeit for only 51 days under a certain former Prime Minister, I was delighted that one of the briefs was the recruitment and retention of teachers. In my very brief time there, I signed off on the 5% pay increase, as put forward by the independent pay body review, which was accepted in full—the highest increase in teacher salaries in 30 years—as well as on the manifesto commitment to deliver a £30,000-a-year starting salary, which is so important if we are to drive recruitment.

Of course, recruitment and retention have been an issue for many years, particularly in science, maths and certain other subjects. One of the challenges is that, rather than getting into the game of “Who’s going to give more grants, and to which subjects?”, we need to have a frank and honest conversation.

Ultimately, the Labour party says that it has a plan to recruit and retain more teachers. I would be delighted if Labour Members could reveal the specific details. They have told me where they will get the money from: they are going to remove the non-dom status—that is fine; that is their entitlement. What they have not said is what they will do differently. Are they going to increase salaries, including starting salaries? Are they going to increase the grants? Are they going to give more grants to more subjects? Are they going to nick talent from around the world by paying people to come here from other countries? That is their prerogative if they so wish, but the detail has yet to be supplied, despite the fact that I have repeatedly asked for it on the Floor of the House and been given some brush-off answers designed to get some Twitter clip—I seem to trend on Twitter quite successfully, almost as successfully as the hon. Member for Coventry South.

The devil is always in the detail, and I look forward to hearing from the shadow Minister about what the non-dom-status money is specifically going to do. If that money drops year on year, how will the funding be covered by any loss incurred by people moving outside the country? These are harsh realities that we have to address and accept.

I go back to the issue of the midlands area. It sometimes feels as if Stoke-on-Trent is rather unfairly treated as the ugly duckling of the west midlands, but we are the gatekeepers to the northern powerhouse, based on where we are located geographically. In the midlands, £6 billion has been allocated for in-forecast schools with higher needs funding—a 7.4% increase from 2022-23. There has been a 5.7% per pupil increase in the west midlands, but the city of Stoke-on-Trent is getting 6.8%, so we are getting 1.1 percentage points more than other parts of the region. That is great news for our schools and, most importantly, for our pupils, because local authorities will have the teachers and resources they need to invest in their local communities and schools, and to deliver the world-class education that, ultimately, is so important.

Of course, it is important to remember that there is a £5 billion education recovery fund, which includes £400 million for teacher training, £1.5 billion for tutoring and, thanks to the Education Endowment Foundation, £2 billion for evidence-based interventions that we know make a difference on the ground. The tutoring was indeed a problem. When I was on the Education Committee, I was as critical as anyone else about the fact that the Government needed to introduce reform and give the money directly to headteachers, who could either bring in their own tutors or pay teachers additional money to work beyond their normal hours.

When I was the Minister for School Standards and spoke to teachers on the ground in Sandwell, Wolverhampton, London and elsewhere about why they had put themselves forward, I heard that it was because they knew the pupils, their background and the support needed. They felt that they were able to deliver the best. The Government legacy has to be a long-term plan for tutoring. If we do not get that right, the gap between advantage and disadvantage will, sadly, continue to grow after all the hard work that the Government did between 2010 and 2019, when the attainment gap narrowed drastically. That is something I was certainly proud of when I was in the classroom and working day in, day out on the frontline.

It is also important to remember that we have to look at teacher numbers. We know that there are 465,500 full-time teachers in the workforce—up 24,200 since 2010. That is more teachers in the classroom, which is a good thing for us all. As I say, there are all the grants that we are handing out, including around £28,000 for some science-based subjects, in order to bring in more people. There is also the new starting salary and, in education investment areas, the levelling-up premium: an additional, tax-free, bonus salary given to the subject areas where we struggle most, so that someone in Stoke-on-Trent and possibly Mansfield—I am guessing that Mansfield is an education investment area.

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

indicated assent.

[Jonathan Gullis]

It is—fantastic! I am glad to know I got the right place. Those are the types of areas that can offer something unique—something to put on the job advert that says to people why they should come to our area.

Of course, there is also the PE and sport premium for primary schools. I keep referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield because I enjoyed watching him from 2017 being a doughty champion for education when I was in the classroom. That £600 million, two-year funding settlement means that more primary schools can better plan for what they are going to do to invest in young people. I thank the Lionesses and Baroness Sue Campbell for their incredible diligence in leading that campaign. I thank the fantastic local companies in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, such as Bee Active, which delivers the high-quality PE lessons that young people truly deserve—not just in Stoke-on-Trent, but across Staffordshire. That is fantastic, and it again shows that the further investment going into our schools is creating healthier bodies and minds.

There is also the holiday activity food programme, which has been excellently led by the Hubb Foundation. Former Port Vale football player, Adam Yates, has been leading the charge, ensuring that nearly a million meals have been provided across the city to those who need them. In nearly every single school holiday, that programme has been providing thousands of opportunities for young people, working with local schools to target the pupil premium and the free-school-meal students who most deserve those opportunities. That is education at its finest, which is why we should be using the school building more. We should use the building when it is holiday time. We should see the building used to its full potential.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) on securing this really important debate. It is a pleasure also to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis), whose constituency includes Kidsgrove and Talke—we have to ensure we get all of them in or he tells us off. His passion for this subject is visible for us all to see. I thank him for his kind words about my advocacy around education. You will be pleased to hear, though, Mr Pritchard, that I will be significantly briefer than he was. He managed to talk for 20 minutes, and still I agree with every single thing that he said, so I am grateful that he did.

The first thing for me to say is that I never intended to be in this place. If anyone has ever listened to any after-dinner speech that I have given, they will know that I never wanted to be an MP. I always wanted to be a teacher—that was my intention all the way from primary school, in fact. It is only by pure accident that I have ended up in this place instead. Therefore it is absolutely clear to me that education should be the biggest priority of any Government. I have always said that if I had just £1, I would put it into schools; that would be my first priority. I had the privilege of serving on the Education Committee when it was under the chairmanship of the Minister and I know his passion for education, too.

I have been in this Chamber many times advocating around teacher recruitment and retention in particular. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North is absolutely right when he says that teacher workload is so important and often overlooked. We always talk about pay, but actually most of the teachers I speak to recognise that we have some of the shortest school days in Europe but some of the longest teacher working hours. That cannot be right. There must be something that we can do to reduce that workload and give teachers back autonomy and the ability to be in the classroom and to teach, instead of dealing with paperwork and data. That must be an absolute priority for the Minister.

I want to highlight some of the positive progress in my constituency, because there has been positive progress. There has been a particularly positive trajectory in the number of schools that are rated good. Certainly we could count the number of those secondary schools on one hand prior to my election in 2017, but we have made good progress. We have had a Government agenda on education that benefits constituencies such as mine—not least the shift towards technical and vocational qualifications and towards what I often call cultural capital, as opposed to just the academic. It will take time to embed it in our schools and our education systems, but so often it is the most disadvantaged children who just do not have that life experience to be able to achieve more, to be ambitious and to understand all their options and opportunities in life. I am grateful that Ofsted has started to shift slowly in that direction as well.

I am grateful also for the early years funding budget, which was increased in the Budget earlier this year, because our education system is not just schools and colleges; it starts right from day one of a child’s life. Thinking of some of the most disadvantaged estates in my Mansfield constituency, I know that our early years provision in particular is the key to ensuring that children have a fair shot in life.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed in the autumn statement that schools will receive an extra £2 billion over the next two years. School budgets will rise by £3.5 billion next year, which is absolutely massive. That is why this Labour rhetoric around school cuts winds me up. The language of “school cuts, school cuts”, the websites with misleading figures, and all the rest of it suggest that somebody in Government has taken a decision and said, “No, we’re not going to give money to schools anymore,” but that could not be further from the truth. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North listed the figures: since 2010 education budgets have been increased by about 60%. There has never been more money in our education system.

It is not fair to suggest that Ministers have decided to cut schools. Saying, “We can’t keep up with 12% inflation when our public services are massively squeezed,” is not a school cut. Ministers have not decided to take money away from schools. Highlighting that difference in intention is really important to our public conversation. It is just not true to suggest that Conservative Ministers are not willing to invest in our schools.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, Ashfield and Mansfield are education investment areas. The aim is to improve outcomes in parts of the country where, unfortunately, literacy and numeracy are poor. Eleven local authorities in the midlands are part of that programme. More local funding is good, but I say to the Minister—I want to drive the Government to do this—is that it is always best when there is local autonomy in how funding is spent. In my constituency, some of the funding has been spent on structures, supporting the governance of academy trusts and things such as that, but I would love it go to classrooms. I would love it to be given to schools so that teachers and heads can use it at their own discretion, as that is the most effective way to spend schools funding.

I am pleased, therefore, that there is local autonomy when it comes to the new budget uplifts. Mansfield is getting just over £3 million in extra funding for schools in the next academic year, as part of the £2 billion uplift. I think the first payments are landing this week, which is excellent news. Schools will have the freedom to choose whether to spend the money on extra staff, better pay or whatever else they decide. It has always been my view that it should be for schools to decide.

In my part of the world, there has also been significant capital investment in school buildings and facilities. Over £13 billion has been invested since 2015, but we are always playing catch-up, because the schools estate in much of the country is very old. I have always found it very frustrating that when I when I take some of the most difficult examples to the DFE, I am told, “You think that’s bad? Go have a look at X down the road. There are so many examples.” That is frustrating, but there has been significant capital investment in the schools estate around the country.

I was delighted when, in December, three Mansfield schools—the Meden School, the Garibaldi School and All Saints’ Catholic Academy—were selected to be among the 239 to be rebuilt or substantially refurbished. That was brilliant news, but I urge the Government and the DFE to help us accelerate that programme, because the sooner that investment is visible on the ground, the better. I have spoken to the schools about their plans and they are good to go; they are ready. They are applying for planning permission, and as soon as they get the word from the DFE, they will start to build.

That programme is so important for students and communities, not just because of the state of school buildings and because they will get new classrooms, but because of the feeling it generates that somebody is investing in the community, particularly in areas of significant disadvantage. There are levelling-up outcomes when people can say, “Somebody has put millions of pounds into my community, and invested in my children’s futures.” That is so meaningful and powerful for communities. It demonstrates a commitment to Mansfield and communities like it.

In the recent local elections, I spoke to a lot of people on the doorstep who said, “Look, there are lots of conversations about this stuff and I hear about the figures, but show me the buildings and the outcomes.” That is what we need to achieve by the next election. We need to grow our communities’ confidence so that they support us for another term. Let us get those schools built.

Across Nottinghamshire, two new primary schools are opening in September, and new extensions and secondary places in existing schools have been funded in no small part by central Government. I am also grateful for the energy price support provided to help us to face this difficult economic challenge: £500 million has been shared out for energy efficiency measures.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North mentioned facilities, and in particular sports facilities. I am a huge advocate of opening up school facilities to our communities. Our schools are not just education providers; they are hubs of our communities. That is particularly true of primary schools. Engaging parents in education when their children are of primary age is so important. For many estates in my constituency, the school and school fields are the only sports provision and community buildings, so let us get them open for as many hours as possible. Let us get partners, councils, community groups in there, delivering more on evenings and weekends. Let us use those taxpayer-funded facilities to their maximum. I am grateful for the additional funding for that.

I mentioned the direction of travel on skills and technical and vocational education. I am a massive believer in work-based learning. For many people, technical and vocational qualifications—apprenticeships and similar such qualifications—will provide far better outcomes and life opportunities than university. The key thing for many students in my constituency is choice and having the right information to help them get the best outcome. The Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 has started to drive things in the right direction, getting more careers advice and third-party organisations into schools. That is hugely important.

I want to highlight the good work of West Nottinghamshire College in Mansfield. When I became a Member of Parliament six years ago, the college was in financial trouble and was really struggling. Under new leadership it has grown and developed into an incredible asset for our community. It is important to recognise the good work of the principal, Andrew Cropley, who has turned a failing college into a huge asset by opening the facilities for the community. It is not just about our young people, their learning and what can they deliver; it is about wider investment and regeneration work. Andrew leads the place board, delivering on levelling-up fund and towns fund outcomes.

The college has become a centre for growth and change in our community. It has also become a university campus, which is game changing for the young people in my constituency. These figures are a few years out of date now—they are pre-covid—but used to be that only 11% of people in Mansfield went to university, and typically they went to university somewhere else and never returned to Mansfield. That is hugely damaging to our economy, our culture and our fabric, and has massive, wide-reaching implications. I lead the council, so I know this means that there is nobody to look after older people, which is hugely problematic.

We are providing education locally, not by setting up a “University of North West Mansfield” and delivering junk qualifications that will not get people anywhere, but by working with the award-winning Nottingham Trent University via a local campus, where people can earn and learn and get on with their higher education while staying in Mansfield. We are building pathways from school through college into higher education, so people can get their qualifications and then go to work at the hospital next door. These opportunities are amazing and game changing for young people in my community. Both Andrew Cropley and Edward Peck at Nottingham Trent University deserve a lot of credit for their commitment and investment in Mansfield. It is hugely important.

The colleges get significant capital investment as well as the NTU presence, which means better access to higher education. We are delivering new centres for advanced manufacturing and automation and training for aerospace roles in Newark, just down the road. There is a Mansfield knowledge exchange, which provides training opportunities for science, technology, engineering and maths and innovation through the levelling-up and towns funds. It is not just Department for Education funding that is going towards these outcomes; there is a wider range of Government support through the levelling-up agenda.

I have not even had a chance to talk about lifelong learning, the change it will deliver for many people in Mansfield and the opportunities it will bring for jobs and growth. There is also the STEP fusion energy programme, which is a £20 billion investment in creating jobs in clean energy in my constituency. Those kinds of jobs and opportunities have not existed for decades—since the pits shut, quite frankly. It means that I am confident that young people in primary school in Mansfield now will have better opportunities than their parents and their grandparents. That is hugely important in the wider levelling-up agenda.

We all recognise that there are significant economic challenges right now. I am sure everybody in this room would agree that our pounds should be put into schools and our young people. They are the future, and we need to deliver opportunities for them. It is not always easy. We have to balance all the other services we deliver. I am a local authority leader, and I see that we are trying to deliver children’s services, which is my passion and the area I want to work on and deliver in, as well as adult social care and trying to sort out the roads and everything else. These are not easy equations to balance, but it is clear from the figures that the Government have sought to support and invest in schools.

I hope I have highlighted some examples of positive things going on in my constituency. I know the Minister agrees that education and schools and colleges should be a huge priority for the Government. I look forward to working with him to deliver on that. For some of these projects, capital builds in particular, the money has been announced and we have 18 months or so to get things built in our constituency. I hope the DFE will drive forward those outcomes and help to accelerate things like the school rebuilding fund, not put barriers in the way of schools delivering. That will be hugely important as we get into the second half of this Government’s Administration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Perkins]

I was in the process of answering precisely that question. As I was saying, it is not that if there were simply a little bit more money and we had these extra teachers, everything would be resolved. The entire approach that this Government have taken to schools has led to a massive decrease in morale that has meant lots of teachers leaving the profession and has led to a reduction in the number of teaching assistants, while the Government’s social policies have led to far more children turning up hungry than there were 13 years ago. All those additional pressures end up diminishing the morale and experience of schoolteachers—they all add to the problem. Frankly, if the hon. Member does not mind my saying so, the very transactional approach that he suggests misses the point about this Government’s failure on schools.

It is a great pleasure, however, to say that there was something I agreed with in the hon. Member’s contribution, which was about the use of buildings in school time—a really important point. In the all-academy world that we largely inhabit in terms of secondary schools, there are pressures that make that different when they are run by local government. None the less, he made that point well.

I will return to the point on which we had a debate. The hon. Member rather missed the point with the tone of his rhetoric on free school meals. I checked again what he said: he said that he would be “embarrassed” if he could not put food on the table with his salary, then created the straw man that his family receiving a free school meal would take it out of the mouth of another child. That is not what universal free school meals do at all. The hon. Member needs to reflect on his language if he genuinely does not want parents and children to feel that free school meals are something to be embarrassed about.

The hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) spoke about teachers he had met who recognised that they had short days and long holidays. It almost beggars belief to suggest that the reason that lots of teachers leave the profession is that they think they do not work hard enough and their holidays are too long. That does not bear any relationship to the schoolteachers I have met, who suggest that the huge workload outside their teaching time is one of the reasons that they are leaving the profession.

[Ben Bradley]

rose—

[Mr Perkins]

I am very happy for the hon. Gentleman to correct my understanding of what he said.

[Ben Bradley]

I will seek to correct the hon. Gentleman on what I said. I do not wish to chastise the hon. Gentleman, who I like very much, but in a similar way to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North, I am afraid that he has inadvertently misrepresented what I said. I said that it was a travesty that schools in our country have the shortest days while teachers work the longest hours in Europe, that that is not right, and that we should seek to reduce that bureaucratic burden on teachers to allow them to spend more time in the classroom with our children. I do not know many teachers who would disagree with that point, but it is not what the hon. Gentleman said my comments were.

[Mr Perkins]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman was able to set the record straight on that.

There can be no doubt that 13 years of Tory Government have left England’s school and college buildings crumbling, left many teachers and their support staff demoralised and left our schools robbed of the funding needed to support the opportunities that all our children deserve. I see that in the facilities every time I attend a school in my constituency. One of the very first things I recall from when I came to this place as a new MP in 2010 is the chaotic announcement from the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) about the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future projects.

Every single month at Education questions, it seems that there is another Conservative MP coming to their feet to reflect on how appalling the school building is in one of their schools, and saying, “If only the Minister could take the time to address that,” without recognising that it is the entire system of capital funding, not the individual case, that is a failure under this Government. There is a stark difference between the facilities that children have at Outwood Academy Newbold and Springwell Community College in my constituency, with brand-new buildings secured under the last Labour Government, and the 13 years without a single new secondary school building in my constituency, which have meant schools such as Brookfield Community School and Parkside Community School soldiering on in inadequate facilities despite the best efforts of their staff.

It is not just school buildings that have been left to rot. The Conservatives also cut off the fledgling Building Colleges for the Future programme on their arrival in government. Both statistically and anecdotally, the failure under this Government is there for all to see. The attainment gap between disadvantaged secondary school pupils and their better-off peers has widened to its largest level in years. Under the Conservatives, teacher vacancies have risen by 246%, with the Government missing their teacher recruitment target again this year, recruiting just 59% of their target for secondary schools.

In late 2021, research published by the headteachers’ union, the National Association of Head Teachers, found that schools across the west midlands have been forced to cut staff or activities because of a lack of funding. One in three schools said that they had made cuts to balance their budget, while 38% expected to make cuts in the following year. Last November, similarly, a Unison report revealed that councils across the east midlands faced a collective funding gap of £181 million in the next financial year, forcing them to cut essential services including early education. The extent to which schools have felt totally unsupported with the increase in energy prices is just one example.

Inasmuch as there has been any recovery in funding in recent years, it does not begin to address the shortfall over which the Government presided in the previous 11 years, and it comes in the context of huge cost of living crisis pressures, which mean that it has been swallowed up. Only last week, the Sutton Trust found that essential school staff and activities are being cut as a result of funding pressures inflicted by central Government. Such measures can only have a detrimental effect on our children’s futures. The IFS analysis to which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North referred showed that schools in England still face a significant budget squeeze.

School Sport Facilities: Reopening

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to bring this issue to the Floor of the House and to be able to discuss opportunities to open up school sports facilities to the wider community. It is an issue very close to my heart as a self-confessed sports fanatic, hockey coach, occasional football referee, parent of kids involved in grassroots football and someone whose original ambition was to be a PE teacher. I cannot overstate how important I think sport, and particularly grassroots and community sport, is to our physical and mental health, to the development and growth of our young people, and to our social fabric and our general wellbeing.

The role sport plays and the value of it in the education and development of the next generation have, quite frankly, always been undervalued by Governments of all stripes. While the health benefits of physical activity are obvious, it also plays a major role in academic achievement and careers. Dundee University has shown an increase in academic performance by students who participated in more exercise than their peers, and this is something that can be scientifically measured: it is a real thing. If I wanted to get technical, I could even talk about how other studies have shown that regular exercise leads to better levels of concentration and better memory, but the real point that sport adds value across the board when it comes to developing young people is an important one. I consistently reiterate in this place that I think it is really important.

We also know that sport not only helps to develop the academic potential of a young person. Sport, particularly team games, helps to encourage the social development of young people and often provides that first instance of teamwork for many kids. All of us who have played sport know about the highs and lows it brings and the character building that comes from those experiences of determination, competitive spirit and overcoming challenges. These experiences help to make our young people more resilient and better able to deal with the rest of their lives.

The most disadvantaged communities also tend to be the least active, and they also tend to have the least access to sports facilities, so this is a levelling-up mission too, which is really important. As I keep saying, this is really important. We need to help more people to access facilities and to access sport. There is a lot to that, and I could bang on for ever. We recently had a debate here, with the Minister for Sport—the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew)—on the Front Bench, about sport in schools and communities, so I am not going to reiterate all of that. However, as we have an Education Minister here, and I am very grateful for her time, I will flag again that the PE and sport premium is really important. I know it is being discussed, because teachers are regularly contacting me to ask if it can be finalised and sorted.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

The Football Association has raised concerns that school sport premium funding is often announced very late in the academic year, and therefore schools struggle to make plans on how to use that, often laying off staff who they then have to re-employ. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Department for Education and the Treasury should perhaps agree that settlement for two or three years so that planning, provision and people can be put in place?

[Ben Bradley]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We all know about the recent economic challenges around long-term planning, but the sooner we can have longer-term security around staffing the better. I would make the same point about the Department of Health and Social Care funding stream for school games organisers. They are in the same boat; if the funding is not confirmed soon, they will have to lay people off and then start again. The cost of that is unnecessary and burdensome for schools.

This evening I want to focus on school facilities, however. One way to increase access to sports facilities across the country is by ensuring that schools are able to open their sports facilities for public use. We are investing in new sports centres, and lots of levelling-up funds and other funds have recently come forward for new facilities, including Warsop leisure and health centre in my constituency. That is really positive, and means that, thanks to this Government, we will finally replace the old, dilapidated leisure centre that the Mansfield independent-led council closed around four years ago. That is great; I have campaigned on it and have been keen to secure it, and I am really pleased we are going to be able to do it this year. But when I look across the road from the leisure centre, I see a school sports field with football pitches, a multi-use games area, a basketball court, tennis courts and school sports facilities that are already there. It is fortunate that in Warsop some of them—not all—are open to the wider community, but when I first came to Parliament five years ago I was shocked to find that the general public were not able to access 45% of the sports facilities in state-funded schools; almost half provide no public access at all.

[Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that for some of the indoor facilities, particularly swimming pools but also gyms, the problem might be that the exorbitant cost of heating at present prevents the school from doing something, because it will cost them money even if they charge for use of their facilities?

[Ben Bradley]

I was not planning to go through everything we discussed in the previous sports debate, but we talked at length about that issue, and my right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the cost of running sports facilities, in particular swimming pools, is hugely challenging at present. The business energy support does not tackle that; it does not specifically help or offer that support for leisure facilities, and I have asked Ministers to look at that. I know my right hon. Friend has spoken about that, too. It would be great to see support come forward for such facilities, making them more accessible and affordable.

In light of that, the proportion of facilities that the public cannot access will be even higher than 45% now. I can think of multiple large secondary schools even in my constituency that have recently removed that access to sports facilities for communities because of additional costs post-covid; the commercial viability of running centres reduced because customers disappeared during covid, making them a drain on school budgets.

To give an example, Manor Academy in Mansfield Woodhouse closed its sports centre for community use post-covid. That is understandable; I am not going to point fingers at the school, because I understand why it feels that it should direct its funds towards the academics and the students, and that it is not its job to subsidise community leisure provision—it was losing money on it. I sympathise with that, therefore, and I am not here to assign blame, but we are 18 months on now, and still multiple football pitches, a hockey pitch—the only hockey pitch in Mansfield—an indoor sports hall and other facilities remain inaccessible.

As that hockey pitch remains closed, the hockey club remains effectively homeless. I have been trying to broker a solution between councils, the academy trust and North Notts Hockey Club, but it has been a real slog and has taken 18 months now. I think we are getting there, and I am hopeful that when we meet again in a few weeks we will have a solution to take forward, but, as I will discuss, the challenges and bureaucracy around trying to pull that together have been very difficult, and it should not be so hard when on the surface all partners involved want to make that happen.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech highlighting an important issue. Does he agree that it might be helpful if the Department for Education’s model lease for academies included a requirement that, where it can be done at no cost to the school, those taxpayer-funded sports facilities should be available for community use when not in use by the school?

[Ben Bradley]

That is certainly an option. Where taxpayers are funding those facilities, they should be able to use them. In cases such as Manor Academy, where schools do not feel able to do that, they could give the facilities back. Let the community or the district leisure trust run them—whoever is willing to open them up. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point.

What we have ended up with is, arguably, the best sports facilities in the Woodhouse area, which supported countless grass roots clubs, being there and visible—people know them and used to play on them—but not available. Meanwhile, we are short of hockey pitches—we have none—and of rugby and football pitches. All the major venues are full across the area—across the whole county in fact. I get grassroots clubs coming to me all the time seeking more capacity, particularly for football, although every school has a massive flat field that lots of people could play football on, if they were available.

Although we all think sport is very important, it is rarely the top priority in times of covid, cost of living, health and other crises—everything is a crisis—for any of the organisations such as schools, councils and Government, so it never makes it to the top of the to-do list. That is something that I am trying to shift in my own organisation, to make sure that provision for community sports services is top of its agenda. All the prevention stuff means that the council does not have to step in and sort everybody out later. Sports facilities are a real part of that, and I am asking the Minister to try to help me shift the dial in government. It is an issue that falls across Departments, and is never top of anybody’s list. We all talk about it, but we need to shift the dial.

The example at Manor Academy represents a missed opportunity to give a significant boost to grassroots sports, to meet some of that need, and obviously to access all the positive implications that has for the community, such as improved physical and mental health. In many cases, facilities already exist. Surely, common sense dictates that it would be quicker and cheaper to simply open up existing facilities than to build new ones, especially with the rising costs of capital projects. A small amount of infrastructure in terms of admin support for bookings would be enough at some sites; others might need advice on managing liability and insurance, and wading through the bureaucracy, which would allow clubs to take on management of facilities at weekends. Some sites might need a small amount of capital funding for a portacabin for some changing rooms separate to the school buildings, or gates and access arrangements might need to be sorted. Those things are not unachievable, but they can seem very difficult when partners need to be brought together to work towards that goal and wade through the legal stuff and everything else.

When clubs have some certainty for the long term, they can attract the funding for improvements from existing routes, such as Sport England, the Football Foundation or the county council’s local community fund. Some of that can be managed locally, and I volunteer my own council to manage it or pilot that administration if we can access support to ensure that we have the staff capacity up front. It does not need Government to do it, in that sense, but the Government’s help is needed to set the clear direction of travel. That could be by changing lease agreements to make sure that taxpayer-funded facilities are available to taxpayers, or by offering the capacity to get started—a bit of upfront support, with the proviso that the schemes have to become self-sustaining in the long term. Many of them could be, but they need an initial outlay on making them fit for purpose and managing administration, such as booking systems. In many cases it would be self-funding, but it needs support to get going. Given that it is a levelling-up outcome, as I have said, with disadvantaged communities often having least access, and that levelling up funds may be returned in coming months as rising costs make projects unviable—I have no doubt that we will see councils saying that they can no longer deliver some schemes— perhaps some of those funds could be repurposed to help with this.

Secondly, the Government need to be clear that they expect everyone to facilitate this—as my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) suggested—and be permissive when it comes to navigating the bureaucracy. Even though partners want to work together, the biggest barrier is the system—the perceived safeguarding implications for schools even on a weekend when nobody is there; legal teams stressing about insurance and who has liability if someone falls over; and local planners rejecting permissions for even the simplest things such as using sites for slightly different hours. We need to be clear with schools. Some do not see it as their job, understandably, others do not have capacity and others just will not help to get it going. It requires lots of partners to pull together in the same direction and all prioritise it at the same time, so it sometimes feels as though it is not doable. It should not take two years to sort a solution for Manor sports centre. The Government need to be clear, and to demand that taxpayer-funded facilities are available for taxpayers to use and that partners and stakeholders should facilitate that use and not put barriers in the way.

I have heard about an Opening School Facilities programme, but I cannot point to a practical example of where this has happened—I wonder whether the Minister can tell me about that. I have heard of pilot schemes to try to facilitate administration and bookings, as I have described. I spoke to the last but one sports Minister about those pilots, but I have not heard of any outcome or of what the next steps are. If Ministers want to help my council with some initial capacity, I will happily work with Government to get this up and running in Nottinghamshire and prove the case. Officials in the Department will, no doubt, point to some open process of pilot projects or whatever, but I am standing here volunteering, so if someone needs to pick a next step and give it a go, they should tell me what it is and I will work with Government to make that happen.

I hope the Minister can update me on what is happening with these programmes, particularly in the light of the new sports strategy—I know that that is not in her Department, but I understand that it will include plans on accessing facilities for grassroots sport. What is the next step in making this happen and ensuring that the sports facilities in our communities are not mothballed and are not unavailable for use, but are actually there for the community? How can I take that forward and ensure that Mansfield residents have full access to all the wonderful community spaces that they have often previously enjoyed but cannot now as they are locked away? I look forward to her comments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Coutinho]

The Prime Minister and many other people in the Government are passionate about children’s access to PE. I will come on to some of the sport strategies we are looking at and set them out in further detail.

The Government also support physical activity and sport outside the school term. The £200 million a year we are spending on the holiday activities and food programme, which is delivered by local authorities in England, has been a tremendous way to increase access. Some of the figures I have looked at on children accessing holiday activities who have never done anything like that before are really quite heartwarming.

Alongside community facilities, facilities on school sites represent an important resource for pupils and their families. Although schools may need support with the logistics of opening up their facilities—my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield spoke to some of them—the phase 3 funding we have set out will allow them to ensure that their facilities are more easily accessible to families, other community users and local clubs, while remaining secure. Since October 2019, the Department for Education has provided £11.7 million to schools to support them to make best use of their sports facilities beyond the core school day and to start to reopen them after the pandemic.

In phase 2 of the Opening School Facilities programme, over 280,000 young people were supported to take part in over 60 types of extracurricular sports and physical activities, including traditional sports such as football and tennis, and new activities such as BMX and skateboarding. The Department will also be providing further investment support to schools to open their sports facilities in the evening, at weekends and during the holidays by funding phase 3 of the programme with up to £57 million over three years. As well as providing practical support and advice, phase 3 will also support schools to create new partnerships with national governing bodies and local sport providers to broaden the extracurricular opportunities available to their pupils, as well as providing a benefit to the wider community.

With that, I would like to thank everyone who has taken part in today’s debate, and in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield, who I know will continue to press on this issue.

[Ben Bradley]

Before the Minister sits down, will she allow me to highlight a point about extracurricular sport? I am really grateful for the update, because I was not aware of the detail of the Opening School Facilities programme. It sounds really positive. I recently met the Schools Minister to talk about trying to get sportspeople into schools and into teaching. We spoke with my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) about the Professional Footballers Association and trying to get academy footballers into primary teaching. So often, it is the people with that experience who will then stay after school and run sports in communities. My hon. Friend gave examples of people who run the holiday activities fund programme because of their coaching background. I urge the Minister to have a look at that scheme, and to encourage the Department to bring it forward. Opportunities to get sportspeople into schools will really help us to deliver on that kind of provision as well.

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank my hon. Friend. I would be delighted to look at that scheme and see what more we can do. The teachers I have met who come from a sporting background bring, as he says, so much enthusiasm to their role.

Question put and agreed.

Male Primary School Teachers

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered increasing the number of male primary school teachers.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise what I think is a really important issue, and I am sure we will have plenty of time between us to discuss some of its merits—perhaps we will not need the full 90 minutes.

I want to start by setting the scene and explaining why I have secured this debate on recruiting more male teachers into primary schools and, indeed, teaching more generally—we are short across the board. Having the debate this week is important in the build-up to International Men’s Day this weekend, and I will touch on the impact of the issue on our young people and young boys, and on their mental health and stability.

Of course, there are many challenges facing our schools, not least the financial squeeze that all organisations are feeling from inflation and rising costs. Don’t get me started on the curriculum, teacher recruitment and retention, and empowering teachers on Ofsted—I am sure the Minister and I could debate those things all day, which would be very enjoyable. As I will explain, increasing the number of male primary school teachers is socially and culturally important.

I declare an interest: before I accidentally became a politician, I had always planned to be a teacher, and I had considered teaching in primary schools. I never quite got there before I fell into some local issues—bin-related drama, as it happens; people get very passionate about wheelie bins—that led to me becoming a district councillor, and the rest is history. Despite not having ended up in teaching, children’s welfare and primary education remain really important to me personally, not least because I have primary-age children myself. I have committed much of my time over the past five years in this place to policy that is in one way or another related to supporting children.

Another issue that is really important to me—and, I think, to our society—is equality. I have been perhaps the most vocal critic of our equalities legislation, which is almost always misused and misunderstood. The Equality Act 2010 is often explained as protecting characteristics such as being female, BME or LGBT, but that is not the case. It protects biological sex, race and sexuality, among others—both male and female equally; white, black and anything else equally; and gay and straight absolutely equally. It is, after all, the Equality Act.

The intention behind the law is that the exact same legislation that is cited in order to support young women into science, technology, engineering and maths subjects, where they are historically under-represented, and into university—even though today’s figures show they are over-represented—should also be used to support young men where they are under-represented in professions such as nursing or, indeed, primary teaching.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is a great loss to teaching, but he also has a great passion for sport. I recently met representatives of the Professional Footballers Association, which helps thousands of men and women transition from their footballing careers into other careers. Surely this is a big opportunity for the Department for Education to work with them, particularly—given the thrust of this debate—to help get more male teachers into primary schools.

[Ben Bradley]

I thank my hon. Friend, who makes a really important point. We had a debate in this place only a few weeks ago about more flexible routes into teaching, and that sounds like a brilliant one. We also touched on routes from early years education into primary teaching. If someone is able and qualified to teach and support five-year-olds in an early years setting, surely they could do the same for six-year-olds in a primary setting. Some of the barriers make it very difficult, but my hon. Friend has mentioned what sounds like a fantastic scheme, which is perhaps an example of how taking positive action under the Equality Act could increase the number of male primary school teachers.

The law exists to enable us to tackle this issue, but it is almost never interpreted in that way. In a recent debate on access to teaching, which took place in this very room, the previous Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis), informed me that there are no schemes or planned schemes to support young men to get into primary teaching. The point of my speech, and of securing the debate, is quite simply to ask why, because we have the opportunity to address this issue. That is why we are here, but what is the problem?

I have some figures that Members might find surprising, as it feels like the issue has gone under the radar. I know it is the subject of conversations outside the school gates among parents of primary-age children, because I am one and I have had such conversations with a number of parents at my own children’s school, but the figures might surprise a wider audience. Only 14% of primary and nursery teachers are male—significantly less than one in five. That is actually a slight rise from 12% in 2010, but the total teaching workforce has become more female-dominated in that time: more than 75% of teachers are now female, up from 74% a decade ago. Out of nearly 17,000 primary schools in England, 3,240 have no male teachers on the payroll whatever—not one. At an average of just under 300 pupils per school, that is nearly 1 million children with no male role model in their education setting.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

My daughter is in her second year of training for qualified teacher status, having done her PGCE. I asked her whether she agreed with my hon. Friend’s premise that more men should be encouraged into what is a largely female workforce. She made the point that he just made: many of our young people are growing up without a male role model in their lives. She pointed out that it is really good for children to see men in a caregiving role, which is essentially the role in a primary school. She made one or two other observations, which I may share with him later.

[Ben Bradley]

That is exactly right. If we are striving make public services representative of our communities and society, primary education should be at the very heart of that. It is hugely important to teach young people about relationships and provide role models. I thank my hon. Friend for that point, and I will come on to it in more detail.

This is a particular problem in my region in the east midlands. A study for the Institute for Social and Economic Research in May found that nearly a third of all state-funded primary and secondary schools in the east midlands do not have a single male classroom teacher. That is the highest proportion in the country. In London, the figure is 12.5%, which is still a lot of schools, but in the east midlands 30% of schools do not have a single male teacher. That means that one in three children have no male role model in the classroom—not even in the building—whom they can seek out.

Not only are men less likely to become teachers in the first place, but those who do are far less likely to remain in the profession than their female counterparts. We have been unable to recruit and retain male teachers. I know it is a problem with female teachers too, but it particularly so with male teachers. The stats I have just shared make that issue particularly clear.

Lots of action has been taken to address inequality in teaching. There has rightly been lots of action to get more women into leadership roles in education, and to make teaching more racially diverse. Indeed, the teaching population is more ethnically diverse than the country as a whole. As I said, those imbalances are tackled under the Equality Act, yet although one in three children in my region has no male teacher at all and only one in four teachers are male—it is even lower in primary school at just 14%—there are no schemes, and as the previous Minister said, no planned schemes, to try to redress the balance under the Act, which is intended to support men and women and protect them equally. It is not working; it is not being used properly.

Members might be thinking, “All right, the figures are skewed. We can see that there aren’t many male primary school teachers—not many blokes in the profession. Why does that matter?” Well, I will tell them why. It touches on a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) made. Having male primary school teachers is really important for a number of societal, psychological and social reasons. First, male and female teachers contribute to children’s gender knowledge in a balanced way. They contribute to their understanding at a very young age of what male and female are and what they mean, and of what those roles might be. That may seem a small thing, but for an ever-increasing number of young people who do not have a male role model at home, and who often do not have male role models they can learn from and emulate in their personal lives, having them at school is important.

In an increasingly difficult and often frustrating society where discussing gender can sometimes be incredibly unclear and misleading—certainly complicated by mixed and politically charged messages about what being male means and what gender is—a simple balanced interaction with male and female positive role models is important. At a time when masculinity and being a man can be portrayed very negatively, and young men increasingly find it hard to figure out what their role in life and in our society might be, leading to all sorts of mental health problems, which I am sure we will discuss over the course of this week in the build-up to International Men’s Day, it has never been more important for them to have a consistent, respectable male role model they trust in their life. I would make the same case in support of men in youth work, for example, which can do so much for the relationships, trust and security of young people in our communities.

For the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children, the presence of male teachers might be vital, allowing them to observe men who are non-violent, for example, and whose interactions with women are respectful and positive. This is particularly important for children from dysfunctional backgrounds—households with domestic abuse, or other family environments that are not healthy. If the only consistent male figure in someone’s life is actually a bad role model who is teaching bad behaviours, how is that person to know or learn any different?

Today, some 2.5 million children grow up without a dad at home, which has an impact. Moreover, there were estimates in 2020 that some 30,000 or more children are exposed to domestic abuse at home every month, whereby the man in their life and in their home sets a poor example and relationships are dysfunctional. Male teachers—safe, trusted, respectable role models—are absolutely vital for those children.

I am consistently saying “children”, rather than “boys”, because I mean all children. Good male role models are important not just for boys but for girls, and for exactly the same reasons. They are equally important in helping children to understand how men and women treat each other, or should treat each other. For children to have trusted adult males they can rely on in their lives is important for them to understand, as I have said, some of the issues around gender, and roles and responsibilities, and also to tackle the problems caused by poor examples and poor role models, if children have those at home, and show them a different path.

I think this is a self-perpetuating cycle, whereby limited visibility of male teachers means that men are less likely to go into teaching. Again, I draw the comparison with nursing, as stereotypes abound in that space, too. The stereotype is that primary school teaching is a women’s job, and that men teach design technology and physical education; similarly, men are doctors and women are nurses. That is all outdated and old-fashioned; it is absolute nonsense, of course.

However, there is still an outdated and ill-informed prevailing view that primary teachers are women; that should not be the case, but when we look at the statistics we see that it is largely the case. That view often means that men do not apply for primary teaching jobs. I might as well keep adding in nursing, because there is a similar challenge in that profession. These are areas where the Equality Act is absolutely clear that measures could and indeed should be taken to tackle a clear imbalance and disparity between characteristics, whereby one group is massively under-represented. That is precisely what the Act is intended to tackle, yet we heard here in Westminster Hall just a month or so ago that there are no schemes or plans for schemes to try to tackle that imbalance.

Quite simply, I ask the Minister: why not? When we put so much energy and resource into teacher recruitment and retention, which is hugely important for our schools, why not? We offer huge financial incentives for people to teach key subjects, but this issue is key, too. A lack of male role models will have a negative impact on the lives of young people, leaving an increasing number of young men with mental health problems, unable to work out who they are and what their role in society is, and leaving young women in particular and young people in general with unhealthy views about what relationships with men should look like.

In my view, a lack of men in teaching is actually more important in society—for its fabric and for the wellbeing of our young people—than a lack of maths teachers, but we incentivise maths teachers. We are not incentivising male teachers and healthy relationships. Why? Is there a logical reason or is it, as I suspect, something else? I have already spoken about the Equality Act. My experience of it is that there is a deep-seated fear within parts of Whitehall, which thinks that if they use the Equality Act to do something that supports men, they will get slated on Twitter. That is probably true. When I have had these types of conversations and raised these points, I get slated on Twitter as well, but it is important to recognise that Twitter quite regularly spouts a load of nonsense and we cannot be governed by Twitter.

I firmly believe that the wider public will be fully supportive of what I am saying here in Westminster Hall today and the premise behind it. We need more male teachers, in primary schools in particular and in schools in general.

[Mark Pawsey]

My hon. Friend makes some very interesting points about financial incentives. I think that it is accepted that salaries and careers in secondary education are generally more highly remunerated than in primary education, which does not provide an incentive for male teachers to go into primary teaching. Often in a relationship, males are seen as the main breadwinner, and while none of us would want there to be a particular financial incentive for male teachers, the attractiveness of primary school teaching really needs to be looked at.

[Ben Bradley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the wider recruitment and retention challenge as a whole, and trying to get more people into teaching, and primary school teaching. As I have touched on, we debated some of the avenues that we might take to support more people, and people with a wider range of backgrounds and experiences, by providing easier routes. Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) mentioned the transition from coaching, for example, into teaching, or a transition from early years into teaching. There are different ways in which we can support people through schemes such as that to incentivise male teachers. Perhaps the football example is a good one. We can imagine that lots of men in their 30s who are ending a career in sport, or who have been coaching and looking after young people in a coaching environment, could easily transition into a teaching-type role.

[Justin Tomlinson]

It goes even further than that, because the majority of those men are aged between 18 and 24—they have not quite fulfilled their dream of premier league stardom. The PFA is desperate to sit down with the Department for Education to talk about this; it is already working with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. I hope my hon. Friend will join me in encouraging the Minister to sit down with the PFA.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Bradley]

I absolutely support that—I would love to have that conversation. That is a prime example of the kind of scheme that is supported by the Equality Act and everything I have described. It is exactly the kind of thing that we could and should do to try to incentivise people in a massively male-dominated space to transition into teaching. That is a perfect example of what I am talking about; I thank my hon. Friend bringing it up.

Aside from setting up that conversation, which would be really helpful, what can the Minister do to ensure that the importance of this is recognised, barriers are removed and the tools we use to tackle these inequalities in other areas are also used for this? All the data, anecdotal evidence and common sense should tell us that this issue is really important. I hope that that can be recognised in policy. I thank colleagues for engaging in the debate and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Bradley]

I thank everybody who has taken part in the debate; it was an interesting conversation. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out that it is important to recognise that this is an issue across the whole UK. It is not a small or isolated problem; it is reflected in primary school teaching across the entire country.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) gave a practical example of something we could do, which is already being discussed. I am grateful that the Minister has agreed to take that forward. It is interesting to compare how much funding, time and energy is, quite rightly, committed to helping young women into football, with the fact that not a lot is committed to getting young men from football into a profession in which they are under-represented. It would be good to redress that balance in a positive way.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) bought his daughter’s views and opinions to the fore, and was absolutely right to do so. He made an interesting and important point about how having a balanced workforce makes a school a more enjoyable place to work, given the increased range of diversity, experience and background.

The hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) made lots of partisan points that I wildly disagreed with, but he was absolutely right about the wider recruitment and retention challenges. An awful lot needs to be—and, I hope, is being—done to tackle those challenges. Here is a recruitment solution: make a big point of positive action, which we use in other spaces, to help us to recruit male primary teachers.

I welcome the Minister back to his place. His knowledge and experience in education is unmatched in this place, and he is very welcome. I am grateful for his kind words and for his commitment to meet the PFA. Perhaps we have started something beautiful that might lead to some outcomes. He pointed to his commitment to sport, which is fantastic. As an aside, he will be aware of the work I am doing on sports facilities that are locked away at schools. We have been trying to work on that issue for a long time.

The Minister talked about adverts and how teacher recruitment campaigns are balanced. That is interesting because in other areas the Equality Act allows us to specifically target certain groups, and we have no issues with that. The language in this place and in wider society—this is not a criticism of this place, as this is a wider societal trend—shows that we are very happy to overtly say that we want to see more women in STEM subjects and in certain professions, but we rarely hear people say, “We want to see more men in x.” The language is about being balanced across all genders, all sexes and all the rest of it. That is a very different conversation, which I find really interesting. We seem less comfortable making those points in the same way, but I hope that can change. I would like to not get into gender or any of that at all, to be honest. My fundamental issues with the Equality Act are well documented in Hansard.

I was pleased to hear the Minister’s points about the importance of that balance and that the number of male teachers has risen, and his commitment to monitoring recruitment and applications, which will be helpful in driving this forward. Fairness of access and support during career progression is also absolutely right. I look forward to further discussion and seeing schemes come forward—perhaps there will be more footballers in primary schools very soon. I thank colleagues and you, Sir Gary, and, of course, the Minister for his time and consideration.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered increasing the number of male primary school teachers.

Apprenticeships and Teacher Training

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the second time today, Sir George. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) for bringing forward this important debate. I will focus today on education, but I also totally agree with what he said about the apprenticeship levy and the opportunity, by making that more flexible, to open up a range of employment and training opportunities that do not currently exist. We should definitely have done that a long time ago, to be honest.

There are two things I wanted to raise today. The first is helping people to access teaching as a career, regardless of background. Insistence on degree qualifications makes for a less diverse workforce, although not less diverse in terms of physical characteristics—which the Minister knows I have all sorts of issues with, which I will come to in a minute—but less diverse in terms of background, views and experience.

Other areas of education, such as independent schools and colleges, are free to bring in a broader range of teachers and lecturers with different backgrounds. We regularly see colleges bringing in people from industry, for example, into teaching settings. That is sometimes to support more vocational or technical qualifications, or to support and advise on business or getting into private sector roles or entrepreneurship. I often hear businesses say that schools struggle to teach effectively about being in business, about entrepreneurship, and about being work ready and the expectations of private sector employment. In reality, that is less about qualifications and more about engagement, character and extracurricular interests.

Many groups and charities are working to get more business experience into schools, which is good. Even better, we could get that experience into teaching. To have a wider variety of routes and ways to get into teaching, without having to take years out to take a degree, would be incredibly beneficial. Giving schools more flexibility to employ a wider range of people would also be beneficial. It would help us to give our young people a wider range of options, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham said, and a wider and better range of careers advice.

Often, the most effective role models for young people are those from their community. A young person who grew up on an estate who has done well, and who is capable and engaging and understands the local context and issues, is perhaps better placed than a graduate from another, very different area to mentor young people—to be a role model. Often, people get to grips with learning and qualifications later in life, having struggled at school. That is particularly true in very disadvantaged communities, where levels of post-16 qualifications can be very low. People being able to access teaching through apprenticeships and shorter courses, to transition from other sectors such as business, to work as a teaching assistant while they learn and qualify on the job, and opportunities such as those would help those people to get on, to give back to their community and to teach where they grew up, instead of going to do something else elsewhere. I extend that to other professions, as well—the police, for example. I would make the same case in that sector, but I do not have time to go into that today.

In other areas of education, having new ways into teaching could be hugely beneficial and create new opportunities. Just last week, I visited Crocodile Rock Day Care, an early years setting in Mansfield, where we spoke about a variety of things, including the challenge of recruiting and retaining staff. We spoke about the challenge of offering appropriate training and development with very tight budgets, and how many staff in the sector end up moving into retail or going to work at Amazon because it is better money. If those young people entering early years education could progress into primary teaching, for example, by learning on the job—by transferring their training and qualifications in early years to schools through apprenticeship-type options—we could open up a whole world of new opportunities, and also improve recruitment and retention in the sector.

If people could progress from an entry-level role in early years education to become more experienced and qualified, work in a nursery or reception setting at a school, gain experience with older children, learn as a teaching assistant and become a newly qualified teacher, and do all of that on the job, it would mean people would not have to take career breaks to requalify. It would also remove financial barriers and enable people to progress in settings within their own community—the community that they most care about—and then perhaps teach in their own area, not leave and go somewhere else. That is a real challenge for schools, particularly those in disadvantaged communities, so I hope the Minister will take those points away. I fully support what my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham has said.

In the short time I have left, the second thing I want to raise with the Minister is the importance of male role models in teaching, which relates to this teacher training issue. I do not need to go into my issues with the Equality Act 2010 and the perverse outcomes it has led to: there are countless examples of trying to support women into university or into science, technology, engineering and mathematics, for example, but next to no examples of trying to support young men into teaching, even though the profession is 75% female, and even more so in primary education.

In the east midlands, 30% of schools do not have a single male teacher. That is really upsetting when we consider that in some of the most disadvantaged communities, that male teacher might be the only decent role model that a young man has. It is difficult and confusing to learn how to be a man in modern society when there is no male role model, or when the male role model at home is involved in domestic violence, for example, or unhealthy relationships. Where do young men learn those things from? I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to also take that point away, and look at how we might encourage more male role models for the children in those disadvantaged communities who most need them. Most importantly, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham has said, we need to open up access to teaching to a much broader range of people, to make that easier for all our communities.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) on securing the debate.

We all know good and bad teachers: they shape our lives, and therefore can be considered the most important influence after parents and carers. Our economy depends on skills and apprenticeships, and I welcome ways into career paths that open them to people from a range of backgrounds. However, I have huge concerns about the number of ways of getting into teaching, and whether they all guarantee the preparedness of teachers. Depending on what equivalence we attach to similarly operating pathways, there are around 10 ways of getting qualified teacher status. It is now proposed to introduce a level 5 associate teacher apprenticeship aimed at teaching assistants, both as a route into teaching and a continuing professional development activity. We should remember that most TA roles are based on a level 3 qualification, or level 4 in some cases.

If, as I have said, teaching is the most important influence, we should be making sure that teachers are well trained and motivated. Teaching is a vocation, but that does not mean that everyone is good at it. There needs to be rigorous training over years to enable good teaching, which includes child pedagogy. It requires a mixture of sciences, such as child development, as well as subject teaching. Finland, which comes top of most education surveys, has primary school teacher training for four years and secondary school teaching programmes for five years. Candidates then have to do a year of pedagogical training; alongside that, they do a research thesis on a topic of their choice and spend a full year teaching in a university-affiliated school before graduation.

This gives status to teachers, and confidence that teachers are well prepared. Compare that with the lack of that foundation in some routes in England, which particularly concerns me, because we cannot rely on stretched schools and their teachers to provide additional support to newly qualified teachers who are expected to learn from others on the job. Additionally, we cannot put children and young people in a position where they may have an unqualified or struggling teacher for a whole year. The new apprenticeships specification builds in so much overlap with the qualified teacher status that it is inevitable that the distinction will be lost or overlooked.

We lose far too many of these valuable recruits early in their careers because they feel unprepared in the classroom. The average rate for teachers leaving the profession is around 10% per year. However, among early career teachers the rates are a lot worse; some 12.5% have already left within a year of qualifying. Some 17%—

[Ben Bradley]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs Drummond]

I will not, because we do not get extra time.

[Ben Bradley]

We get a minute back at the end.

[Mrs Drummond]

No, we do not get a minute back in here, I am afraid.

Some 17% will have left within two years. After five years a third have left, and 40% of teachers who qualified 10 years ago have left teaching. Besides being a failure of current policy, this also undermines our ability to develop a cadre of experienced teachers who can help the next generation.

I am a huge fan of apprenticeships, vocational education and learning while working, but the stakes are so high in education that we must be cautious. Classroom-based professional development can help qualified teachers learn themselves and stay in teaching, but it is not a substitute for giving teachers a solid foundation at the start. We certainly should not be circumventing routes to it, which I am concerned the kinds of apprenticeships now being proposed will do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Gullis]

They were the ones I dreaded when I was in the classroom. It is absolutely brilliant that she has that insight into the profession. I understand the importance of maintaining that high-quality education and ensuring that that the skill and knowledge base is there, particularly with the important reforms that we have made to GCSEs and A-levels. That is why I am certainly intrigued to explore further what my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham said about primary education as potentially a pilot route.

[Ben Bradley]

I thank the Minister for giving up a few seconds. On the primary environment—the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) touched on this earlier—the challenges in disadvantaged communities mean that teachers are often seen as social workers, and some of the issues that come through the door are more akin to those experienced in an early years setting than in what we would traditionally associated with a teaching setting. Does the Minister agree that the opportunity to drag people from those care and early years settings and place them in those primary environments might be of huge benefit? That is slightly separate to the discussion about academic excellence and brilliance at post-16, which has been mentioned.

[Jonathan Gullis]

My hon. Friend makes fantastic points. I visited a school in Wolverhampton recently to hear how the multi-academy trust had hired its own social worker to work among its schools. I found that very inspiring. Absolutely, looking at how we can build that relationship between the early years sector and the primary school sector—that knowledge base, that understanding and that familiarity with the local people—is so important.

My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) is a doughty champion. He has been lobbying and banging the door over Carmel College and its fantastic CEO, Mike Shorten. We know that an appeal is coming, so my hon. Friend will appreciate, as I have said before, that I cannot make any comment, but his and Mike’s comments have been heard and will be taken into consideration when the appeal is made.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), who also represents Staveley, for his kind words. I am sad that my natural counterpart, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), is not here. I assume that he is still in detention with the Commissioner for Standards, having been a bit of a naughty boy recently when he sent a letter about me to The Guardian before she had made a comment. However, I really do appreciate the opportunity to hear the fine words of the hon. Member for Chesterfield and about his passion for level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships, which are absolutely important and should not in any way be seen as unimportant by this Department. Yes, we have put a lot of work into the degree level, but we want those take-ups at level 2 and level 3, and we are very pleased that that is continuing.

Finally, on teacher numbers, we have 466,000 full-time teachers on the books. That is a record number and 24,000 more than in 2010. While there are, of course, rising teacher vacancy rates, it is important to understand the context. The situation across all sectors is challenging, but I will ensure that we challenge that head-on with recruitment and retention strategies.

Kinship Care for Babies

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) on securing the debate and on her incredible campaign and passion for this subject, particularly around the first 1,001 days. Her knowledge of this subject is second to none in this place, so it is a privilege to speak in her debate today.

I will touch on the care market in general and then on kinship care and perhaps babies, as per the title of the debate. Children’s services around the country are under massive pressure and are our biggest budget pressure from a local authority perspective. People talk about social care, and I wish I could spend the money in social care, but the staff do not exist, so the biggest budget pressure is in children’s services. Every year we battle with the overspends.

At the same time, we are also tackling what are very often poor outcomes for children in the care system. Mostly, it is best for children to be with families. There were 57,000 children in the fostering system this time last year, but fostering is also a challenge in the current climate. Covid isolation—not being able to have people come and go from one’s house—has had a huge impact on fostering and the ability to recruit and retain people in the sector. The Competition and Markets Authority’s report on the children’s care sector has said that the market is broken and in need of significant work, which further highlights just how important kinship care is and will increasingly be in the future in what is otherwise a volatile market.

Living with family or friends is often the best outcome for a child. It is also cheaper from a local authority perspective, and it is outside the market pressures that mean that fostering and adoption are so difficult. It is something we could manage much more easily if we wanted to do so, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire touched on, there is inconsistent support, and much less support than for fostering or adoption, even though there are additional challenges that do not exist in those areas, such as the relationship with birth parents. More often than not, we would hope, there is a reason why families cannot look after their child, which can lead to incredibly strained relationships with whoever looks after the child. I do not want to stereotype, but my right hon. Friend touched on some reasons why that might be the case, including imprisonment and substance abuse. Clearly, if granny or grandad takes on a child in such circumstances, with perhaps a mum or dad who is on drugs or an alcoholic, it can be an incredibly difficult relationship for them to manage alongside the work pressures, financial pressures and everything else that comes along with kinship care. Sometimes it just has to go in the “too difficult” box without the support that exists.

Kinship carers also get less access to free childcare, which does not happen in other parts of the care system. Almost uniquely, kinship carers do not access the 15 or 30 hours’ support in the same way as parents who adopt, which is something very simple that we could do. In Nottinghamshire, we are investing in that in our budget this year; we are putting £400,000 into a specific kinship support scheme. When we look at how we are going to balance our budget in children’s services over the coming years, it clearly has to be by having more of that kind of support—keeping kids in their own homes or in the home of a family member or friend through kinship care—and having less expensive residential care, which we know costs a fortune and where the outcomes are typically not good.

The more that we can invest up front in those proactive services to help kinship carers to cope and look after relatives, and to mitigate those financial challenges, the better off we will be in the long term, both financially and in terms of outcomes. We want to look at how we incentivise granny and grandad, or aunt and uncle, to take on that challenge and keep their family member in a loving home environment. We will invest in that in our budget this year, and I am very proud that we are doing that for the first time.

The national review of children’s care services needs to highlight the importance of kinship care and increase the simplicity of, and access to, that support. That should be tackled alongside the well-understood and discussed challenges around fostering and the wider care market, which are really challenging. From a purely financial perspective in local government, early support and intervention to help people access kinship care are much simpler and cheaper than the challenge of providing long-term residential care and, ultimately, of having to look after people throughout most of their adult lives because outcomes are often very poor.

In her example, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire highlighted cost and the lack of comparative rights, when compared to adoption and fostering. I have touched on some of those, and there has to be more that we can do to rebalance things. The private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) sounds like a fantastic start to being able to do that, and I look forward to supporting it in the House.

My right hon. Friend also focused on babies. We know that the earliest years are absolutely vital in terms of emotional connections with family, communication and language, and social skills and the ability to meet and engage with other children. Security is very important when it comes to things like that. Going in and out of different foster homes with different people, or going in and out of the care system in different ways, cannot be a good environment, particularly for babies. All the way through the system, kinship care tends to be a much more secure and long-term placement.

My right hon. Friend is right to highlight all the good work that has happened around the early years workforce and the investment in family hubs that was in the Budget last year—again, in Nottinghamshire we are very much promoting and supporting that model. All these things will boost the life chances of young people. There are many positives, but it is also clear that more could be done on kinship care, the care market and fostering.

I urge the Minister in his closing remarks, and over the coming months and years—particularly through the children’s care review—to help us support services such as the one that we are rolling out in Notts. I think that will be a fantastic start but there is much more that we could do, and I would welcome his thoughts and advice in the future about how we can boost and promote that. We should look at that support and the incentives that exist for kinship carers, to ensure that kindship care is at least comparable with fostering and adoption. It is a better outcome; it is arguably the best outcome for most children to stay with somebody whom they know, who loves them and who wants to look after them. We should support and promote that, because it is better for children, better for families and better for the taxpayer as well. It should be at the top of our list, and I am sure it is at the top of the Minister’s list.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

I am grateful for the chance to sneak in during the last few minutes of this debate. It is always right that Mansfield should have the last word on such subjects, so I will take full advantage.

I warmly welcome this Bill, and it was a privilege to sit on the Committee with the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and to feel his passion and understanding of the subject, which is hugely important, as my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) just said, for the levelling-up agenda.

I was pleased to see skills and education investment at the heart of last week’s White Paper, because we need a long-term change in communities such as mine in Mansfield to make sure that people have better life chances. We are already seeing the benefits of that agenda. My hon. Friend pointed to examples in Loughborough, and I can point to further examples in Mansfield and North Notts.

Last year, the towns fund funded what we call the knowledge exchange of business innovation and growth. That will support local businesses in north Notts so that they can do things differently, automate, look to the future, grow and employ more people. There was also funding for robotics and automation in neighbouring Ashfield and similar funding for aviation and engineering in Newark. North Nottinghamshire has benefited greatly from £140 million-odd of investment through the towns fund, and a lot of it is going to skills and education, for which I am grateful.

I read in a briefing earlier this week that further education and technical skills contribute £26 billion to the economy. I have no idea how that was worked out, but it sounds like a very big number. Its importance should therefore be clear to all of us. Education is not just about getting a university degree and swanning off to work in whatever sector. I hear so often from employers that they take on first-class graduates with excellent qualifications on paper who simply are not equipped for the workplace. Other routes have to be built with employers, so that workers suit sectors such as engineering, where practical work experience and technical skills are so important. People cannot learn it all in a classroom, and this Bill helps us to deliver for the long term, with the kind of change that will build opportunities for people in constituencies like mine.

I welcome the lifetime skills guarantee and the finance that comes with it. In a post-covid era, more and more adults are finding that the sectors in which they work and the things for which they are qualified simply are not viable anymore. If we are to rebuild, grow and allow such people to get back into rewarding work in sectors that are growing—there are plenty of them—we must support them to retrain with the finance they need, and it needs to be flexible.

If I could make one plug, it would, as always, be for West Notts College and Nottingham Trent University—I could bang on about them forever. Edward Peck, the vice-chancellor of NTU, has fantastic ideas about how we could pilot the lifelong learning loan, and how we could ensure it is flexible by allowing people to study units at individual organisations and transfer them around the country over their adult life, so that they continue to build their qualification and take it with them. It is important that it works flexibly, and I would love to have that conversation with any of my wonderful hon. and right hon. Friends on the Front Bench. The skills Minister is coming to talk to me and NTU tomorrow, for which I am grateful.

Partnerships with employers and universities are key to providing long-term opportunities for people in my constituency, young and old, who will benefit from the Bill long into the future. That is why I am delighted to support it today.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This afternoon, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence made an important and statesmanlike statement on Ukraine. This evening, Mr Putin has recognised the two separatist regions in Ukraine as independent states, with dangerous parallels to Germany’s recognition of the Sudetenland in 1938. In these circumstances, do you accept that it would be appropriate to have a further statement, as soon as possible, on the new Ukrainian situation? The Defence Secretary himself stated today that he would update us as necessary, and this may well be the reason for making such a statement tomorrow or as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s commitment to lifelong learning and level 3 qualifications, but my hon. Friend the Skills Minister will know that many residents across the country will need significant help with levels 1 and 2 in order to access that offer. Will he meet representatives of West Notts College and me to discuss how we might be able to offer that support to people in Mansfield?

[Alex Burghart]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. We are reforming level 2 qualifications. The Chancellor has announced our plans for Multiply, a new project to help people with numeracy of all ages.

Early Years Educators

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

I apologise, Mr Gray, for appearing a couple of minutes late; I sprinted across the courtyard to try to get here to speak in this important debate. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) for bringing it forward.

Early years education is vital to the development of our children—our future adults—and to our levelling-up agenda. Education and early years are key when we talk about what that means, what we are going to do, and how we tie together a coherent package around the phrase “levelling up”. Education is absolutely at the heart of that.

Just a week or so ago, I was lucky enough to visit Kangaroo Teacher Led Childcare in my constituency, where I met Alison, the owner and manager of the centre. She was adamant—my hon. Friend made this argument too—about the importance of the education element of early years settings. They do not just provide childcare—particularly not her setting, as she is a qualified teacher and a former deputy head of a primary school.

Alison explained how important her setting and others are to everything we understand about development in those preschool years—everything from nutrition to brain development, and the social, language and communication skills that are important. Even in that setting, I could see the difference between those children who had had many hours of early years education throughout their childhood and those who had not been socialising in the same way in their early years. The difference in speech and communication between those children was profound. We know that there is a huge correlation between children’s communication skills, in particular—their ability to express themselves and how they feel about things—and negative outcomes such as being expelled, being unemployed or even going to prison in later life, so this is hugely important from that perspective.

As someone who believes in small government and low taxes, I have always felt that if there is one area of life or society that the Government absolutely should invest and intervene in, it is education, because that is what sets people up to be independent adults who can make their own decisions in later life, and who hopefully will not need the Government to intervene.

From that perspective, I welcomed the Chancellor’s Budget last year, which put more money into the sector, with funding for workforce development in particular. We have already touched on how important that is for the sector. All of us in the room, who run what are effectively very small businesses, will recognise the challenge of having a very shallow structure where the most junior person in the office might only be one or two layers below us. There are very few places for people to go in that hierarchy, and often, after not many years, it is difficult to continue to progress and develop people, so they leave. We often find that in early years settings.

To retain staff, we need to help them and continue to develop and train them throughout their careers; those careers will be short if we do not do that. I would love to see a joined-up workforce strategy across early years, as was mentioned earlier, but also into other education and care pathways, such as primary schools and children’s services. People could then start—yes, perhaps on low wages—in an early years setting, but clearly see and understand the many varied, positive routes to all sorts of different careers. I think we need to do the same for social care and health; if people starting as care workers could see the massive range of opportunities that exist within the NHS, that would change our ability to recruit and retain people in social care. That is hugely important.

There was also £500 million in the Budget for family hubs and the Start4Life advice service. All that will be beneficial to our wider set of children’s services, and to those interventions in support of the most disadvantaged children.

My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester used the phrase “market failure” to describe early years. I hear that phrase a lot around children’s services and early years settings. I think it has also been used by Josh MacAlister when talking about the wider children’s services sector—about foster care and looked-after children. All these areas are hugely important to our ability to support the most disadvantaged kids and to churn out—for want of a better phrase—adults who can live productive and happy lives. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister feels strongly about this, too. There is so much to grasp, and trying to fix the market failure will be a huge challenge, but it is such an important challenge for him to focus on.

I will make two practical suggestions before concluding. They are only simple, and they are perhaps not the answer to all these problems, which will take much wider and more challenging work. First, a couple of Members have already touched on the fact that they access free childcare. I access free childcare—30 hours—for both my children. I waited with bated breath for the day when my bills would be halved, when my elder son turned three, and we took advantage of that great benefit. We did not need it; I was on an MP’s wage and my wife worked part time. People on up to £100,000 a year can access that taxpayer-funded benefit. I am all for extending the benefits system—the universal credit system—into the workplace slightly if that helps to encourage people to be in work rather than getting trapped on benefits, but a hundred grand a year is kind of pushing it. I am not sure that that is entirely necessary. I think we could redistribute that money in a way that helps more of the most disadvantaged children, where we see a particularly acute issue. I think that more children accessing free childcare would get much more bang for the buck.

Secondly, one way to use that might be to offer the early years experience to more looked-after children. I raised this with the Minister informally last week. It is really important to recognise that not every child in the care system, even, is able to access early years education in the same way or in the same amount. A child in foster care does not have the same right to 30 hours as other children in the care system do. There is no reason why they should not, other than an arbitrary line that has been drawn in the sand. For those children who have either lost parents or been taken away from their parents and had very traumatic experiences in their early lives, consistency and support from an early years provider could be hugely beneficial. It could be life-changing for those children. There is no reason why a child should not be able to get that if they are living with their nan or auntie rather than in children’s residential care. We could make a very simple change there, and I think it would also help us to incentivise people to begin to be foster carers or to take on their nieces and nephews in those circumstances. I think that would happen if there were the offer of a bit of respite and some incentive for people to join and help in those services.

Those are some small examples of areas where I think we could make an early change that would benefit a lot of young people. As many Members have said, this is a hugely important sector, and the Minister has a huge task on his hands to try to fix just some of it, but I know that he feels very strongly about it, as we all do. There is a real opportunity, through the MacAlister review and these kinds of conversations about early years and additional changes in funding, to make a real difference to the most disadvantaged children. That needs to be at the heart of our levelling-up agenda, and I trust that it will be when we see the work from the Government on this over the next months and years.