Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
There are 443 open free schools, and we will establish another 263. Today, I announced the approval of a further 37 special free schools and two alternative provision schools. In the spring, we will announce the successful applications from wave 13, and we recently published the wave 14 applications.
Dominic Raab
Cobham Free School’s secondary department has been in temporary accommodation since 2014. While it is welcome that the sixth form is moving in to the new site at Munro House in September, the rest of the pupils will not join them until 2021, which is frustrating for pupils and parents and will cost over £1 million. Will the Secretary of State see whether more can be done to seek early vacant possession, given the additional money and expense that would otherwise go on temporary accommodation, to get those children into the permanent site as soon as possible?
Damian Hinds
I commend my right hon. Friend for his ongoing work with the Cobham Free School and the upcoming project at Heathside Walton-on-Thames. He has met my noble friend Lord Agnew to discuss vacant possession and, as he knows, there have been delays in trying to get it, but I would be happy to meet him to discuss the matter further.
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
Whether free schools or not—a policy I disagree with—Stoke-on-Trent now has a huge gap in the number of places available at secondary schools to the point where 11 of my 14 secondary schools are oversubscribed, with some constituents having to get three buses to get to their allocated school in September. What is the Secretary of State planning to do about that?
Damian Hinds
This decade we are on course to create 1 million new places in schools across the country. It will be the largest expansion in school capacity in at least two generations, following the net loss of 100,000 places during the last six years of the Labour Government. Although there will always be individual situations that we need to address—we have a capital programme to do that, and I will be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss it—there are now tens of thousands fewer pupils in schools that are over capacity.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
In The Times on Friday, the Secretary of State said that
“an exclusion should not just be the end of something but be the start of something new and positive.”
What is he doing to address the postcode lottery of alternative provision, particularly in areas with high amounts of exclusion? Why does the latest free school wave contain just two free schools with alternative provision? What is he doing to change that?
Damian Hinds
Some alternative provision free schools are already open, and there will be more over time, and my right hon. Friend is right that today’s announcement contained two more. Like him, I have seen some outstanding alternative provision in our country, and we need to ensure that that happens everywhere.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
Today’s announcement of 37 new free schools to deal with exclusions is all very well, but the fact is that the reason why headteachers feel that they have to exclude pupils is that there is simply not enough money in special educational needs and disability provision in the first place. More is not enough from this Government. When will the Secretary of State finally fund SEND provision properly?
Damian Hinds
As the hon. Lady knows, there is more money going into high needs provision—£6 billion. However, it is also true—this is implicit in what she says—that there are greater demands on the system. That is why we brought forward as a first stage the package that I announced a few months ago, including the extra revenue funding and extra capital funding, but we know that there is more to do.
Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)
Parents and children in Middlesbrough were left angry and upset last week by the announcement that 100 pupils will not receive a secondary school place in the town from September and will instead be placed with neighbouring authorities. A key cause of that is population growth. Middlesbrough Council is supporting a bid for a new free school in Middlehaven, so will the Department expedite it as a matter of urgency?
Damian Hinds
As I said to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), there are areas where we need to continue creating new school places. That is why we have already created over 800,000 school places since 2010 and are on course for 1 million new school places over the decade.
On the free schools process, we expect to announce the outcome of wave 13 before too long.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Instead of increasing the number of free schools, will the Secretary of State look at how we could improve the quality of the free schools we already have? Plymouth School of Creative Arts does exceptional work in some respects, but it is failing in others. Will he look at investing more in making sure such failing and troubled schools give our kids the education they deserve?
Damian Hinds
That is at the heart of what we do. That is why we have Ofsted and a school improvement programme, and it is why we encourage schools to learn from one another. One of the main reasons we have multi-academy trusts is so that they are able to work together. I think the hon. Gentleman will be meeting my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards, who takes a close interest in Plymouth schools, to make sure the very best can be done.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
We have reformed the curriculum and ensured we have rigorous qualifications so that employers and young people themselves can take full confidence in them.
John Stevenson
At the end of the day, the most important thing that matters is that a child’s education is one that gives them the greatest opportunity in life. Although resources are clearly very important, what also matters is the quality of teaching, the learning environment and, above all else, leadership within schools. Does the Minister agree it is those ingredients that will really make the difference to a child’s education and to standards within schools?
Damian Hinds
I agree with my hon. Friend, and we will be investing over £20 million by 2020 through our teaching and leadership innovation fund. On Saturday I had the opportunity to talk about the benefits of diversity in leadership at the “Break the Cycle” event, and I take this opportunity once again to thank and pay tribute to teachers and leaders in our schools throughout the country.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Damian Hinds
As it happens, on Thursday—in three days’ time—we have a session with Opportunity North East to look specifically at working directly with secondary schools in the north-east. The hon. Lady is right to identify that there is a particular issue in parts of the north-east, where primary schools have strong and outstanding results, as do nursery schools, but we clearly need to do more for secondary schools, which is partly what we will be looking at on Thursday.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)
Damian Hinds
Of course I recognise the value of rural schools, not least as a constituency MP—I have many brilliant rural schools in my constituency. As we come to look again at the formula, of course we will look at how the different elements work to make sure that all types of schools are supported.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) is a jolly lucky fella to get in at Question Time, as he withdrew his own question. He is a very busy fella, with many commitments and a very full diary, but I got him in early, which I know he duly appreciates.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Surely it is impossible to raise standards in schools when 15.93% of children with special educational needs and disabilities are excluded, compared with 3.6% of children without special educational needs. What is the Minister doing to address this stark difference in exclusions?
Damian Hinds
Of course it is a matter of concern that some groups are more likely to be excluded than others, particularly when it comes to children with special educational needs, who deserve and must have our particular attention. The hon. Lady will know that there is an ongoing review by Edward Timpson, the former schools Minister, and we expect to hear back on that quite soon.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
Two thirds of children who are excluded from school are found to have speech, language and communication difficulties. Tackling this at an early age would make a real difference to their life chances and, indeed, to the standards they achieve at school, so will my right hon. Friend please outline what the Government are doing to show they realise this and to tackle it?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is, of course, exactly right on that. The very earliest development of speech and language is crucial; someone who arrives at school unable to communicate fully just cannot access the rest of the curriculum. That is why I have set out the ambition to halve that gap in early language development. It is also why we must look at the home, because what happens in school and nursery is not the whole picture. We have to think about the home learning environment and make sure we are giving as much support to parents as possible.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Standards in schools are wholly dependent on the recruitment and retention of quality teachers. Does the Secretary of State agree that the immigration Bill, with its £30,000 threshold, is going to be a barrier to the recruitment of teachers post Brexit? Surely he must agree that it is time to scrap this flawed legislation.
Damian Hinds
A relatively low number of teachers from other EU countries are working in our education system. For the development of languages, for example, we could do more, and of course we will always look at the immigration system and make sure that the highly skilled people we need for our system are welcome.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Our reforms, backed by the £2.4 billion pupil premium, have helped schools to narrow the disadvantage attainment gap by 13% at age 11 and 9% at age 16 since 2011.
Sir David Evennett
I thank the Secretary of State for his response. Research shows that when children fall behind in the early years it is incredibly difficult for them to catch up. Will he advise me as to how his Department is supporting disadvantaged children in those crucial early stages of education?
Damian Hinds
Of course, my right hon. Friend is correct on this, which follows on from the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow). We are investing more than £100 million in our early years social mobility programme, including for professional development for early years practitioners and in grant support for the home learning environment, as I was outlining. Across the country, more than 150,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds benefit from the 15 free hours entitlement, 540 of whom are in the Bexley local authority area.
Nigel Huddleston
Quite a few children from disadvantaged backgrounds in my constituency start school with English as a second language. That is one reason why my constituency ranks relatively low on reading skills and in social mobility indices. What is the Secretary of State doing to enhance English-speaking skills in the very early years at nursery and in primary school?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is correct about this; at the early years foundation stage, providers have to make sure that there are sufficient opportunities for children whose home language is not English to learn and reach a good standard in the English language.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Rural poverty means that children in north Northumberland are doubly disadvantaged in terms of educational opportunities. Headteachers such as Nicola Mathewson at Rothbury First School, in my most sparsely populated rural community, are struggling to balance budgets because of the apprenticeship levy forced on them there. This money cannot be spent on a teaching assistant to help with reading or maths. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can free up these funds by correcting what I assume was an oversight in respect of excluding small rural schools when the apprenticeship levy framework was put together?
Damian Hinds
Of course, I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss how we can make sure that apprenticeships do work for the Rothbury First School and others in her constituency. Local authorities, which are the levy payers in this case, should ensure that schools can benefit from apprenticeships; they can combine the levy across schools or share apprentices to ensure that the money is best spent.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
As the Secretary of State will be aware, one institution that does close the disadvantage attainment gap in the early years is our valued maintained nursery schools. As hundreds of headteachers gather in Parliament today to lobby their MPs before we go on a march to Downing Street, may I, first, pay tribute to the children’s Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), for securing the down payment of £24 million for these maintained nursery schools? May I also ask the Secretary of State to redouble his efforts and work across government to make sure they have a long-term, secure funding stream?
Damian Hinds
I thank the hon. Lady for her kind words about the schools Minister. [Interruption.] I mean the children’s Minister. Did I say schools Minister? He is also very good. I do recognise the particularly important place that maintained nursery schools have. With this recent announcement, local authorities can plan with confidence for the full academic year. As the hon. Lady knows, we are also doing further work to look into the value added and additional services that maintained nurseries provide.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State listen to a little bit of advice? A lot of people in the educational world want him to be a big beast. They want to know what he stands for and what he is passionate about. If he cannot be passionate about identifying which little children have talent but are lost to the system by the time they get to 11, he will be nothing. Why does he not take it seriously, bring back children’s centres and early years support, and do something about underprivileged children as early as possible? Be a big beast!
Damian Hinds
Wow. I believe my commitment to social mobility and closing the disadvantage gap is strong. I used to chair the all-party group on social mobility before I came into this job, and believe that social mobility is at the very heart of what we do. It is the core purpose of the Department for Education to ensure that every child, whatever their background, has the maximum opportunities available to them. I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that since the party of which he is a member was last in government, we have narrowed the disadvantage attainment gap at every stage—from nursery to primary, through secondary and into higher education.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Damian Hinds
It may come as no surprise to anyone at all that I am not about to commend the Scottish Government for their approach. Actually, in the last few years England has seen record rates of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds being able to go to university. We need to work further on not only access but successful participation, bringing down drop-out rates and increasing completion rates, and making sure that everybody has full access to the most stretching opportunities available to them.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
We know that per pupil spending in England has fallen by 8% in the past 10 years, which has led to many schools now having to rely on substantial parental funding—in some cases, it is up to £1,200 per year. How is the Department ensuring that schools in disadvantaged areas are able to continue to deliver for pupils, given that the parents in such areas cannot possibly consider contributing such fees?
Damian Hinds
The simple truth is that that gap has been narrowing in England. I will take no lessons from SNP Members, whose Government in Scotland are failing to narrow the gap.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
As we have heard from Members from all parties, communication, articulacy and oracy are the absolute keys to closing the disadvantage gap. A child with poor vocabulary at five and under is twice as likely to be unemployed at 30. We know that high-quality early years education can make a massive difference for disadvantaged children. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) for mentioning the heads of maintained nurseries who are campaigning outside No. 10 right now. Sadly, the Secretary of State chooses to lock the most disadvantaged youngsters out of the 30 hours of free childcare. Does he not agree that to make a serious attempt at closing the disadvantage gap, he must drop the requirement that both parents have to be in work to qualify for entitlement to 30 hours of free childcare?
Damian Hinds
There are currently 154,960 disadvantaged two-year-olds benefiting from the 15 hours’ free entitlement programme—a programme that was never available under any Labour Government. As for the increase in eligibility from 15 to 30 hours, that supports working families and helps to sustain employment. I gently remind the hon. Lady that we have record levels of employment in this country and the lowest level of unemployment we have seen since the mid-1970s.
Several hon. Members rose—
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Our recent integrated teacher recruitment and retention strategy prioritises reducing unnecessary workloads. We will ensure teaching continues to offer one of the best pensions available, and teacher pay ranges have increased by between 1.5% and 3.5% this year.
Dr Huq
I was back for assembly at my alma mater, Montpelier Primary School, this morning. It is an outstanding school, but it is coming under pressure from churn, with Brexit moving parents’ jobs so pupils are off, while teachers, finding their salaries are not enough to meet the London cost of living, either commute from outside London or permanently move their jobs there or overseas. What is the Secretary of State doing specifically about the London pressures, which are masked by the figures he has quoted, so that teachers are paid enough to be rooted in their community, as they were in my day, not passing through?
Damian Hinds
Of course we recognise the additional cost in high-cost areas, in particular in London. It is true that there are 200 more teachers in the Ealing local authority area than there were in 2010. However, it remains a very competitive recruitment market, particularly for graduate recruitment, partly because of the historically very low unemployment we have, and that makes our recruitment and retention strategy all the more important.
Sir Desmond Swayne
We are spending more per pupil than any other G7 nation, but headteachers are complaining that they are cleaning the loos themselves. Something is going wrong. What is it?
Damian Hinds
On the first point, we are spending more than any other G7 nation bar the United States in per capita funding for state primary and secondary education, but there are particular cost pressures in the system. We were discussing high needs earlier, and we do need to address that particular set of pressures. There are others as well, such as the way we go about purchasing and so on, and some of the costs that are particularly rising. I want to reassure my right hon. Friend that we are looking at all of those factors.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
I am pleased to confirm that we are providing £24 million of supplementary funding to local authorities to enable them fully to fund maintained nursery schools for 2019-20. Last week marked National Apprenticeship Week, celebrating apprenticeships and their positive impact on people, businesses and the economy. We have recently confirmed plans for reforms to the relationships and sex education and the health education curricula, to be implemented in schools from September 2020, so that children can be taught about mental and physical wellbeing, as well as about online safety, subject of course to parliamentary approval.
Melanie Onn
For how many more years can my Great Grimsby constituents expect Great Coates and Scartho state-maintained nursery schools to remain open?
Damian Hinds
As I said earlier, we recognise the particular place that maintained nurseries have in our system. They often provide additional, high-quality services, which we value. Work is ongoing to assess that value and of course we will make announcements about future spending as part of the spending review.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
Damian Hinds
All employers with a payroll in excess of £3 million pay the levy, but many apprenticeships are available that can work for schools, including apprenticeships for school business professionals and teaching assistants. Of course, there is also the postgraduate teaching apprenticeship. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that further.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)
Damian Hinds
I am sorry; we struggled a tiny bit to hear the full question. We have several programmes on the subject of FE staff and ensuring that posts are sufficiently attractive. However, it is probably best if I say that either my right hon. Friend the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills or I will meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the college in Eastbourne.
Mr Speaker
I heard perfectly clearly. Does the hon. Gentleman want to blurt out the last sentence very briefly?
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Damian Hinds
We are proud of our record in reducing the attainment gap in England, but I recognise that one always needs to go further. That starts, of course, in the early years. We are seeing progress at every stage, but there is always more we can do.
Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
At a time when pupils’ emotional and mental health needs are increasing, cuts to our schools mean that teaching assistants are being lost. In Derbyshire, we are about to lose 200 early help staff. The number of school nurses is being halved and child and adolescent mental health services say that they can only see pupils where there is proof that they have attempted to commit suicide. Will the Secretary of State look at the cumulative impact of all the cuts to education and health on our pupils’ wellbeing?
Damian Hinds
We do recognise the additional demands relating to young people’s mental health. That is why our programme ensures a designated mental health lead in every school, a further roll-out of mental health first aid, a shortened time for CAMHS referrals and support teams operating around schools to help them with mental health needs.
Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman and I have had a chance on previous occasions to discuss and correspond on the Thomas Hepburn school, and of course I will meet him, as he suggests.
Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)
A not insignificant number of parents feel compelled to take their children out of school and into home-schooling as a result of bullying. Will the Department’s call for evidence on home education look at the support being given to these children to try to get them back into mainstream schooling as soon as possible?
Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. When a child is excluded, where the responsibility for their education lies can be ambiguous, meaning that too many pupils fall through the net. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to clarify who has responsibility for excluded or off-rolled children to stop that from happening in future?
Damian Hinds
As the hon. Lady will know, we instituted the Timpson review into exclusions, which will report back soon. She will probably also have heard me say that we have to look at the question of making sure that schools retain some responsibility for pupils who are excluded, and I expect to have more to say soon.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
A recent report commissioned by the Welsh Government has shown that fining parents for unauthorised school absence has had no impact on raising attendance levels in Wales. Is it not time to have a review of that policy in England and, if the evidence shows that it does not work, to drop it?
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
On Friday, I was one of 3.5 million parents who received a letter from their school concerned that costs are outstripping funding. I was threatened with detention unless I asked the Secretary of State this: when it comes to more funding—and I hope that there will be more funding—will he ensure that it goes to those areas that are currently the lowest-funded counties?
Damian Hinds
Come the spending review, we will of course be looking at funding for education alongside other Departments. Funding for education is vital for our society and the productivity in our economy, and of course, we need to continue to look at how that is distributed through the national funding formula and to consider aspects such as rurality as part of that.
Relationships and Sex Education
Damian Hinds Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement to update the House on the Government’s proposals for the draft regulations and guidance on relationships education, relationships and sex education, and health education, following public consultation.
It is 19 years since the sex and relationships education guidance was last updated. The world that our children and young people face today is very different, and the way in which they build relationships, interact with their peers and manage their own mental and physical wellbeing has changed significantly. Along with all the positives of modern technology and new media come great risks, as children and young people are exposed to information, content and people that could and do cause harm. For many young people today, there is little distinction between their online and offline lives. That is why I believe that, now more than ever, it is necessary for us to give young people the knowledge that they need in every context to lead safe, happy and healthy lives.
During the passage of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, with strong cross-party support, the Government brought about the introduction of compulsory relationships education for all pupils in primary schools, and compulsory relationships and sex education for all pupils in secondary schools. In July I announced that, in addition, I would make health education compulsory for all pupils in state-funded schools. Thanks and appreciations are due in particular to my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) for her leadership in those historic steps, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and to many other Members on both sides of the House, including the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). My sincere thanks also go to all the external groups and bodies that have contributed to the process and the tens of thousands who contributed to the call for evidence and consultation, and most particularly to our education adviser, Ian Bauckham CBE. Today we have laid the regulations that, following debate, will finalise the process, and published the accompanying statutory guidance for schools.
It is clear—this was also reflected in the consultation responses—that there are understandable and legitimate areas of contention. In reviewing responses and determining the final content of regulations and guidance, we have retained a focus on the core principles for the new subjects that Parliament endorsed through the Children and Social Work Act. Our guiding principles have been that these compulsory subjects should help to keep children safe, help to prepare them for the world in which they are growing up—including the laws relating to relationships, sex and health—and help to foster respect for others and for difference. Content must be appropriate in terms of age and developmentally, and must be taught in a sensitive and inclusive way with respect for the backgrounds and beliefs of pupils.
Parents and carers are the prime teachers for children on many of these matters, and schools complement and reinforce that role by building on what pupils learn at home. We have retained the long-standing ability for parents to request that their child be withdrawn from the sex education element of RSE. The school should respect the parents’ request to withdraw the child, except in exceptional circumstances, up to and until three terms before the child reaches the age of 16. At that point, if the child wishes to take part in sex education lessons, the headteacher should ensure that they receive it in one of those terms. In response to the consultation, we have further clarified in the guidance how and when a pupil’s special educational needs may be taken into consideration, and the fact that headteachers should document their decision-making process on the right to withdraw.
We believe that after reviewing the consultation responses, we have struck a balance between prescribing clearly the important core knowledge that all pupils should be taught, and allowing flexibility for schools to design a curriculum that is relevant to their pupils. We have made a small number of changes that we felt were important and would further strengthen the intent of the guidance. For example, we have made changes to the content on puberty to reflect the need for menstruation and menstrual wellbeing to be taught in all primary and secondary schools.
Given the lack of distinction that young people make between online and offline contexts, we have expanded teaching about internet safety and harms to include content on the potential risks of excessive screen time, and on how to be a discerning, discriminating consumer of information and other content online. We have included teaching about rape, female genital mutilation and forced marriage in secondary RSE, and we have amended the content on organ and blood donation to include the science relating to stem cell donation. We are committed to ensuring that every school will have the support that it needs to deliver those subjects and maintain a high and consistent quality by September 2020. We will be investing in tools that will improve schools’ practice, such as a supplementary guide to support the delivery of the guidance, targeted support for materials, and training. For the financial year about to begin we have allocated up to £6 million to invest in the development of those tools.
We will also continue to encourage as many schools as possible to start teaching these subjects from September 2019, partly so that we can learn lessons and share good practice about how these subjects are being taught before the full mandatory roll-out. These new subjects will put in place the building blocks needed for healthy, positive, respectful and safe relationships of all kinds, starting with the family and friends and moving out to other kinds of relationships, including those online. Young people will know what makes a good friend, a good colleague and a successful marriage, and what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in relationships. They will understand the positive effects that good relationships can have on their mental wellbeing. Alongside CPR and first aid, there will also now be mandatory teaching on mental health and wellbeing, a foundation for our wider transformation programme on support services for children and young people’s mental health.
We believe that these proposals are an historic step in education that will help equip children and young people with the knowledge and support they need to form healthy relationships, lead healthy lives and be happy and safe in the world today. I commend this statement to the House.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement, and let me also say that we welcome its direction of travel.
As the Secretary of State said, the work of many colleagues across the House has led to today’s announcement, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) and for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), as well as my hon. Friends the Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who did so much from the Back Benches. It is only fair to note also, as the Secretary of State did, the contribution of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), and the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) for her initial commitment to these changes.
There are a number of questions that I hope the Secretary of State can address. He said there would be a £6 million budget to support schools. With over 23,000 schools in England, this amounts to about £250 per school; is he confident that this is enough, and how will it be distributed? Will training be available to every teacher who requests it, and how many teachers will receive it over the next two school years? Is this new Treasury funding or money diverted from existing education budgets?
On the guidance itself, giving children a voice in this part of their education is hugely important, and I welcome the Secretary of State’s recognition of that vital point. However, can he explain why, since the curriculum will always be age-appropriate, he will not allow children to opt in at a younger age? He referred to “exceptional circumstances” in which the opt-out will not be allowed; can he tell the House what such circumstances might be?
The Secretary of State will know the horrifying figures on bullying and mental health problems that affect young LGBT people. Addressing these issues in the curriculum would be a milestone in ensuring that they and others can grow up understanding more and living in a safer environment. At his last statement, I told the Secretary of State that these issues must not be an annexe to the rest of the curriculum, so I am glad that the draft guidance says they must be fully incorporated into the curriculum and not taught separately. However, paragraph 37 of the guidance says this only has to be taught
“at the point at which schools consider it appropriate.”
I know the Secretary of State’s Department has said it expects all pupils to be taught LGBT content, but how will he address the risk that some might be excluded?
Paragraph 21 of the guidance allows schools to “teach about faith perspectives”, and schools with a “religious character” to teach a
“distinctive faith perspective on relationships”,
and it says that
“balanced debate may take place about issues that are seen as contentious.”
The Secretary of State will know there are concerns, particularly in the Jewish and Muslim communities, about both his Department and Ofsted, and I am sure we both want our education system to reflect the diversity of our country and provide the opportunity to learn more about it. But can he also be absolutely clear that his guidance does not permit teaching that could be hostile or damaging to LGBT young people in particular?
I welcome the Secretary of State’s words on health education and on the importance of mental health, but can he assure us that he does not intend simply to shift the burden of diagnosis on to teachers, and that greater provision of professional health services will be available? For example, has he considered matching our commitment to ensuring that access to a counselling service is available in every secondary school? I am glad that he has addressed the issue of menstruation, but that would surely be complemented by concrete steps such as those we have proposed to tackle period poverty in schools. Can he tell us whether subjects such as the menopause are also included?
The Secretary of State’s commitment on online safety is also welcome, but is he pushing for firmer action aimed at the giant businesses that profit from social media without taking any proper responsibility? I welcome the inclusion of education on female genital mutilation in the curriculum, but girls are at risk of FGM when they are very young, so can he explain why this issue will not be included in the primary curriculum and tell us what other steps he is taking to tackle it? I believe that we are all better off through understanding the issues that we each face, and I hope that the whole House can work together to make this a reality for the next generation.
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady has raised a number of issues, but I should like to start by thanking her for the collaborative and co-operative cross-party way in which she and her colleagues have addressed this matter. We want the subjects to help young people be healthy, happy and safe, and the building blocks start in primary school—particularly those dealing with healthy family relationships and friendships. At secondary level, this moves on to thinking about young people as potential partners and parents and therefore covers content on intimate relationships, sex, online harms and more complex mental health content. She asked about our wider approach on mental health, and she will know of our commitment—my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary is sitting next to me—to ensuring that support teams are rolled out across the country to work with schools, and to ensuring that there is a designated mental health lead to look at mental health first aid. Overall, the recognition that we all have of mental health is higher now than it is ever been.
The hon. Lady asked about LGBT content. Schools should address that, as they do other subjects, in an age-appropriate way. Schools, teachers and headteachers know their cohorts of children better than anyone, alongside their parents. We expect this education to happen, at least in secondary schools, so that by the time someone finishes school they have covered that content, but it could happen in primary school as well. Of course, it should not be hostile to any group, and we need schools to be sensitive to the different kinds of families that children might come into contact with. That is partly about LGBT people, but it is also about other types of family. For example, children might be growing up with foster parents, grandparents or single parents, and schools need to be sensitive to whatever the set-up might be. The hon. Lady also asked specifically about LGBT bullying. That is of course a matter of great concern, and we know from surveys that LGBT-related bullying is quite prevalent. As she will know, we are funding four anti-bullying organisations, and the Government Equalities Office is also working with organisations on transphobic and biphobic bullying.
There is a parental right to request the withdrawal of their child from sex education, but we have carefully balanced that with the right of the child as they get older and become competent to make their own decisions. I think that we have struck the right balance there. The hon. Lady asked about exceptional circumstances. It is difficult to codify exactly what those exceptional circumstances could be—by definition, because they are exceptional—but the guidance sets out how headteachers should go about discussing these matters with parents. That is good practice, and they should honour that right to request withdrawal until three terms before the child reaches the age of 16. More broadly, we encourage schools to work with parents, and there is an obligation to consult parents on the content of these subjects and to publish that consultation on the internet. The hon. Lady asked specifically about faith groups, and it is correct to say that in the guidance we set out that the core content must be covered, but beyond that faith-based schools can reflect the teachings and traditions of their faith to help to build on that.
Overall, we need the right resourcing and support to help schools to deliver this properly, which is why we have budget available to do that. That will cover both online and face-to-face training, but of course we will continue to look at this as the programme gets rolled out to make sure that we have absolutely the right support in place.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I strongly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Did he see the report in The Times at the weekend suggesting that more than 6,000 sex assaults had taken place in schools between 2015 and 2017, which was an increase of 60% during that time, and that some victims were forced to stay in the same school as those who had conducted the sexual assault? Will he look into that and ensure that it does not continue?
Damian Hinds
Yes, and of course I share my right hon. Friend’s deep concern. Our “Keeping children safe in education” guidance sets out what should happen on safeguarding in schools. It includes specific guidance on what happens with reports of sexual violence and harassment between children, to ensure that if someone is at risk or is going to be at risk, an immediate referral should be made. If appropriate, that should be to the police.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I hope everyone in this place can agree than this is a long overdue but welcome update. We know that young people are hitting puberty younger than ever before, so it is good to see the inclusion of menstruation in these guidelines. Is the Secretary of State planning to follow the Scottish Government’s example and make free sanitary products available in schools, both primary and secondary, across England?
It is important that parents remain the primary educators of their children, and that there is a partnership between schools and parents. Although I respect the right of parents to withdraw their children from these lessons, I make an appeal to those parents: children talk, so would it not be better that children and young people are taught by trained professionals, in a safe environment, where questions can be answered accurately and with sensitivity, rather than their getting half stories in uncensored chat in the playground?
The Secretary of State has confirmed that diversity, inclusion and tolerance will form the basis of these new proposals, and that young people will be supported in making safe and informed decisions about their sexual and emotional health and wellbeing as they prepare for adult life. Will these guidelines also support the aims of the TIE—Time for Inclusive Education—campaign with respect to LGBT rights and tolerance? Can he confirm that sex and health education will tie in with the Government’s anti-bullying strategy to ensure that pupils are taught the importance of acceptance and are aware of the support available to them?
I am slightly concerned about the age at which FGM is going to be tackled, but perhaps the Secretary of State could tell us at exactly what age he proposes that this should start. We know that this practice is happening at a very young age, so children do need to be aware of it.
Finally, in recent evidence to the Select Committee on Science and Technology’s inquiry on the impact of social media and screen use on young people’s health, we heard disturbing evidence that 48% of 11 to 16-year-olds had seen online pornography, with many of them having done so simply because it had “just popped up”. What can the Minister tell us about his plans to ensure that children are properly educated about the harmful effects of online pornography, including revenge porn, to ensure that young people are able to stay safe online and are aware of the consequences of this practice on both the victim and the perpetrator? What will he do to ensure that all young people, whether their parents have removed them from the lessons or not, will get these lessons, particularly those on safety online?
Damian Hinds
Again, there were a lot of questions in what the hon. Lady said. I am not sure I am going to be able to do justice to them by giving them all full answers, but I have a feeling that many of those topics will come up again during the course of questions. This guidance is for schools in England, but of course these are areas of shared concern. The hon. Lady is quite right that children talk, and these days they not only talk but see stuff on a screen. That is why it is much better to receive these messages from, as she rightly said, a trained teacher in a safe and supportive environment. Respect for LGBT people and so on is at the heart of this, and we are absolutely integrating what we are doing in this area with our work on bullying, as I said to the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who speaks for the Opposition.
We will ensure that children in secondary school talk about the harmful effects of pornography and are aware of the wider issues around pornography and respect for others. That touches on some other issues, to do with privacy and some of the additional problems that people can run into online. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) says “consent”. She is absolutely right. Consent these days is a multifaceted question, when we are talking about images of people and the control that they lose over them if somebody else comes into possession of them.
Finally, we need a whole-society approach to eradicating FGM, so that there is not another generation coming forward that is at risk of it. When we talk about FGM, we are not talking specifically about girls who are individually at risk. This is also about those growing up who will be the nurses, teachers, police officers, community support workers—you name it—of tomorrow and ensuring that we are aware of these issues throughout our society so that we can do better to stamp FGM out.
Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)
I welcome the steps forward being taken today. They are incredibly important for many children and especially young people, whose voices have been listened to. It is very hard for them to protect themselves from a risk if they have never been alerted to its existence in the first place. It is also very hard for them to know what is normal and acceptable online—what they should share, what they should look at and what they should put online themselves—if no one has ever sat down and tried to explain to them the context and how that behaviour affects others, so what we are doing is crucial. Clearly, the online world in particular moves at a pace that often makes it hard for this place to keep up. Will my right hon. Friend set out what plans there are to ensure that it is not another 19 years before a Government revisit and update the guidance?
Damian Hinds
I said it earlier, but I will say it again because it bears repeating: let me express my thanks and appreciation to my right hon. Friend for the leadership she has shown on these issues over an extended period. I can make a commitment that it will not be another 19 years. During the passage of the legislation, our hon. Friend Edward Timpson, the then Member for Crewe and Nantwich, committed us to updating the guidance much more regularly—every three years or so—although it might need to be updated more quickly because, as my right hon. Friend rightly said, all these things are now moving at such a pace.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I wholeheartedly welcome the Secretary of State’s statement today. I know that these are not easy issues to navigate, and he is doing a really good job of it. With that in mind, I urge him to keep going, because there will be those who say that they want exceptions or want to exclude their children, or that their school is somehow different. I have visited many schools, as I am sure he has, where the majority of children are Muslim or of other faiths. They deliver teaching on LGBT bullying, LGBT awareness and all those issues extremely well, resulting in very well rounded children, so the Secretary of State will have our full support if he wants to continue doing this work.
Damian Hinds
I thank the hon. Lady for her kind words. Of course, many people have been involved in this work, and I know that it has support right across the House. I join her in commending schools—faith schools, community schools; all sorts of schools—that do such a good job of ensuring that all their children feel totally included and supported as they grow up.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
The last time sex and relationships guidance was updated, the internet had not been invented, sexting had not been invented, social media had not been invented—the list goes on. All these things have become part of our children’s childhood, so my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench today deserve the wholehearted support of everyone in this House for what they have done.
How will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State make sure that parents understand that enabling their children to be part of sex and relationship education is about helping to keep them safe and that it is not a threat to their children’s safety? It is through that work that the Government can most help schools understand how they deliver.
Damian Hinds
My right hon. Friend characteristically makes a very telling intervention. She is absolutely right. As we have gone through this process, I have been struck by the support that has come from some quite unexpected quarters. Often that is because of the jolt that adults have had from discovering the things that children find out and see on the internet in particular. There have always been stranger dangers, but there are now dangers from people whom children do not consider to be strangers or to be a threat and that has galvanised many people into supporting this kind of action.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I very much welcome today’s announcement, but I should also say that of course 10 years ago the previous Labour Government made very similar proposals to the ones that have been announced today and, unfortunately, the Conservative party at that time could not agree with them or support them. I am delighted that there has been that change of heart.
I want to draw to the attention of the Secretary of State two constituents in my area, Stephanie Trotter and Vicky Parkey, who had a note put through their door on Thursday evening, which basically said that their relationship was immoral. It questioned their right to have a child together and told them that they should move away from the area. That bigotry and prejudice, which is still out there in some communities, has very effectively been challenged in my community by neighbours displaying the rainbow flag and putting up supportive posters for that family. That is why I am really pleased that the Secretary of State talked today about the need for healthy, positive, respectful and safe relationships of all kinds to be taught in our schools and the need for sensitivity to all types of families, so congratulations and well done.
Damian Hinds
I thank the hon. Lady for her words. I am so sorry to hear about the experience of the couple in her constituency. That does help to illustrate why it is so important that, from a young age, people think about respect for all kinds of people and all kinds of relationships, and understand that families of the other children in their school setting may look quite different from their own.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
As far as I am concerned, the best form of sex education is—to coin a phrase—to respect and love your neighbour as yourself whatever their sexuality, just as you would respect and love them regardless of their race, ethnicity or anything else. How boring life would be if we were all the same. This very diversity sums up why all previous Conservative Governments have recognised that religious people, and indeed non-religious people, have their own justifiable formal belief about the best way to teach sex education. All previous Conservative Governments, therefore, have given an untrammelled right to parents to remove their children from sex education, but here, in certain circumstances, that right has been transferred to the headteacher—a fundamental shift of power to the state. How does that square with what Edward Timpson, the then Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, said during the passage of the Children and Social Work Bill? He said:
“We have committed to retain a right to withdraw from sex education in RSE, because parents should have the right, if they wish, to teach sex education themselves in a way that is consistent with their values.”—[Official Report, 7 March 2017; Vol. 622, c. 705.]
Damian Hinds
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. I do not think I can do any better than read word for word from the guidance:
“Once those discussions”—
that is to say, those on the request to withdraw—
“have taken place, except in exceptional circumstances, the school should respect the parents’ request to withdraw the child, up to and until three terms before the child turns 16. After that point, if the child wishes to receive sex education rather than be withdrawn, the school should make arrangements to provide the child with sex education during one of those terms.”
But the right continues to exist up until the three terms before the child reaches 16.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I too wholeheartedly welcome this guidance. When I was a teacher, these were the lessons that I loved teaching the most. However, without good training, without a full understanding of the full evidence behind them, these lessons are really quite difficult to teach, and not all teachers are adept at doing that. What assurance can the Secretary of State give to all teachers that, if they are going to be teaching this, they will get proper training, not just online tools? Furthermore, will they have the time to be able to engage not just with that, but with the conversations that come naturally after these lessons as well?
Damian Hinds
I am glad to hear that the hon. Lady really enjoyed teaching these lessons. That is not true, of course, for every single teacher. Some can find it quite difficult, which makes the provision of good training and materials even more important. There are lots of third party organisations that produce high quality materials. We want to make sure that schools are easily able to access them, but I can give her the commitment that we will make sure that good training is in place.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I am afraid that the Secretary of State did not quite answer the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). I agree with most of this, but I remember Edward Timpson categorically saying that parents would have the right to withdraw their children if they wanted to. The Secretary of State has made a very strong case for the three terms before the age of 16 exception, but he keeps adding the words, “unless there are exceptional circumstances”. Why have those words been added? In what circumstances would a headteacher overrule a parent? Is not the likely effect of this going to be that in some cases, instead of children getting necessary sex education in schools, more parents are going to keep their children out of school?
Damian Hinds
We do not want parents to keep their children out of school. I hope I can reassure my right hon. Friend that the intention is to say that the long-standing right to withdraw children from sex education does not apply to relationships education or the subject of human reproduction in the science curriculum, but that there is that right to request when it comes to sex education. The request is put to the headteacher, and the guidance that we issue to headteachers clearly says that the headteacher should comply with that request up to three terms before the child reaches the age of 16. Why three terms before the age of 16? Because 16 is the age of consent, so the child should be able—if they wish—to have some sex education for at least a term before they reach that age.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the impressive range of reforms that he is introducing, but will he say something about how the increasing number of children who are being home-schooled will benefit from these reforms?
Damian Hinds
There is a distinction to be drawn between children who are being home-educated and children who are not in school but who are sometimes statistically deemed to be home-educated because they are not in school; those are two different matters. Many parents are home-educating their children, sometimes because their children have had difficult experiences at school or have special needs and so on, and those parents are doing the most amazing and dedicated job in educating their children. The simple answer to the hon. Lady’s question regarding how this reform will help children who are not at school is that it will not because this is about lessons that happen in schools. Where children are able to be in school, we want them to be in school.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, and particularly for his reassurances that the primary responsibility for educating children in relationships, sex and health remains with parents. In the light of his answer to previous questions, will he reassure the House that there is no intention whatever in these guidelines to usurp or undermine the rights and responsibilities of parents to educate their children in these matters if that is what they choose to do?
Damian Hinds
I can confirm that. What schools do should complement what parents do, and I recognise that parents are in many ways the primary educators in these matters.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I welcome today’s announcement about specialist subjects and new learning, but constituents have come to me both applauding these changes and raising concerns. What will the Department be doing to bring parents alongside schools, so that they can assist in their children’s learning?
Damian Hinds
We want schools to work alongside parents, recognising that there are sensitivities to some areas of the subject matter. There is a requirement to consult parents and to publish the school’s policy on the internet. More broadly than that, we want schools to work alongside parents because this should be a collaborative effort.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
The issue of relationships and sex education is causing a huge amount of concern in my constituency. I took a delegation to meet Lord Agnew, who said that his Department set the direction but that the interpretation was being implemented by Ofsted. Now, there are some Members here who feel that the state knows better than parents themselves, but the last time I looked the Conservative party believed in freedom of choice and the freedom for people to decide their own future. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet a delegation of my constituents so that he can hear their concerns at first hand?
Damian Hinds
I am always happy to hear from my hon. Friend. I assure him that in this process I and colleagues have met representatives from a range of different viewpoints, including a range of different religious groups. There is a balance to be struck, and I think we have struck it. We get criticism from both sides—both from groups who think that this is too liberal and from groups who think that it is too restrictive—and the job of the Government is to try to get a good balance that respects that. Faith is also one of the protected characteristics, and it is right that we acknowledge that and absolutely have due respect for it. We need to make sure that as children are growing up and, sometimes, coming to terms with themselves and the world around them, we support them and make sure that they are equipped as they enter the adult world.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Well, I for one say hoo-bloody-rah—well done! I am absolutely proud of what the Government are doing, because in September 2010 I introduced a private Member’s Bill to this effect. It is just a shame that they have taken such a long time to get round to it. Seriously, though, I am delighted, not least because what passes on poverty in so many cases around the country is teenage pregnancy. A young girl who has a child before she is 15 or 16, apart from the legality of the situation, will end up having a child who grows up to be a teenage mum as well. All the evidence shows that really good sex and relationship education makes sure that children delay their first sexual experience, take fewer risks when they do so, and end up being better, more rounded, more fruitful, happier children. So hoo-bloody-rah!
Damian Hinds
I can only agree with the hon. Gentleman. I do not know if that is unparliamentary language or not, Mr Speaker, but I think we will let it go on this occasion.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I have had parents contact me over the weekend, ahead of the debate that is going on in Westminster Hall and the Secretary of State’s statement, saying that they would like to have the right to make sure that their children do not attend the relationships part of the proposals that he is suggesting. What is the Government’s response to my constituents on that?
Damian Hinds
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Our response is that there is a long-standing right to withdraw from sex education. We took the view that that right should not be extended to relationships education, as Parliament also decided during the passage of the Children and Social Work Act 2017. It is important that every child has the opportunity to learn about and to discuss the different types of relationship there are in the world. That does not start with intimate relationships. It starts with sharing, taking turns and being kind to people, with an understanding about permission that then moves into discussing consent before getting on to some of these matters about intimate relationships. Obviously, schools do much of that anyway, but grounding the content for later years in school with regard to some of these basic building blocks is really important.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. I strongly support the introduction of compulsory relationships education. It is vital that all young people grow up understanding and respecting the diversity of modern relationships and modern families. How will his Department monitor the delivery of these subjects to ensure that all children are taught effectively, including about LGBT issues, and that same-sex relationships are always presented in a positive and respectful way?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady raises an important point. Of course we expect schools to follow through on this. It is about core curriculum content, and schools do follow such guidance. It is also in scope for inspection by Ofsted, or aspects of it are, and by the Independent Schools Inspectorate—for example, through the way that inspectors look at pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare, and their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. As she will know, the Ofsted framework is a core part of the infrastructure around education.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I welcome the statement, not least because, when I was going through school, sex education was too much about the mechanics and not enough about respect, emotions and, ultimately, the key issue of consent. The 19-year-old guidance is flagrantly in need of updating. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me that the focus of what we are looking to do is not just about learning about the mechanics—sadly, too much of that can now be done online—but about the key components of what a relationship actually is, particularly respecting others and respecting yourself?
Damian Hinds
I give my hon. Friend the absolute assurance that that is at the heart of these proposals.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
I welcome the statement and the measured way in which it has been imparted to Parliament. However, pursuant to the question of the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), in what exceptional circumstances does the Secretary of State foresee headteachers overruling parents, aside from during the term prior to the age of consent?
Damian Hinds
As a matter of course, I would not expect headteachers to overrule parents. It is difficult to codify what those exceptional circumstances might be because, by definition, they would be exceptional. I make it clear that the intent of the guidance is to say that when a parent requests that their child be withdrawn from sex education, the request will ordinarily be granted up to three terms before the child reaches their 16th birthday, being the age of consent.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
I, too, welcome these measures, which help to prepare our children for life in the complicated modern world. The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) mentioned the menopause. The Secretary of State referred to menstrual wellbeing, and it is important that we include in that not only educating girls and boys about the start of menstrual life and the start of periods but what will happen at the end, because we know there is a shocking lack of awareness and information for women at that stage. Will he meet me to discuss this further and how it can be included in the curriculum and in the guidance for schools?
Damian Hinds
I am always pleased to meet my hon. Friend and to get her particularly expert view. There is a long list of things that we could include in this guidance, and we have already included a lot. We have tried to make sure that the guidance is quite comprehensive, but we have to set some limits.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
Nearly 750 children across my borough of north-east Lincolnshire have been exposed to domestic violence in the past year, and it is essential that all children understand what constitutes a healthy relationship and recognise unduly coercive and violent behaviour so that they do not go on to repeat it. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating North East Lincolnshire Council, Women's Aid and the NSPCC on the work they do, day in and day out, in my constituency and across my borough in schools and family hubs to protect, inform and support Grimsby’s children and families?
Damian Hinds
I absolutely join the hon. Lady in commending those organisations. As she will recall, I had the opportunity some time ago to visit her constituency and to meet some of those involved in safeguarding children to hear about some of their strong and innovative work.
Ged Killen (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome what the Secretary of State has said about LGBT education, but does he think there are any circumstances in which a school should be allowed not to teach that element of the curriculum? I went to a faith school, and I do not want to be flippant about the sensitivities, but having absolutely no LGBT sex and relationships education did not make me any less gay. Every child in every school has a right to that education.
Damian Hinds
We are clear on two things: these issues should be taken on in an age-appropriate way, but by the time a person reaches the end of their schooling, they should have covered them. We trust teachers and headteachers to make the decision about when to do that but not whether to do it.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Secretary of State for bringing forward these reforms, which I broadly welcome, particularly the element of relationship advice and what constitutes a good relationship, but there is no doubt that this is concerning parents in my constituency—I have received a lot of correspondence on this. Clearly we need to get the balance right on our common shared values of understanding and tolerance, but can he give reassurance to parents who are concerned about modesty and appropriateness that the balance will be right and appropriate for the age group?
Damian Hinds
I too have received a lot of correspondence, and I understand that there are great sensitivities. I think it is true to say that there is no set of guidance on relationships and sex education we could come up with that everybody would be happy with, but we have tried to strike a balance. We have written it into the guidance that there needs to be consultation and co-operative working with parents, and through that, I hope parents will be more reassured. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are a diverse society, and it is important that children growing up in it know about that diversity.
Relationships and Sex Education
Damian Hinds Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Today, the Secretary of State for Education, will provide a statement to the House, updating on the Government’s proposals for the draft regulations and guidance for relationships education, relationships and sex education, and health education following public consultation. The draft guidance and other materials will be published at: www.gov.uk,
following the statement.
[HCWS1356]
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
We are making very good progress. We are working closely with providers to deliver the first three T-levels from 2020 and have launched a £38 million capital fund to support that initial roll-out.
Mr Cunningham
I thank the Minister for that answer. I recently tabled a question and got an answer back saying there had been a 30% cut in adult education, particularly in relation to T-levels, as part of a wider effort to increase the numbers in adult education. What will the Secretary of State do about that, bearing in mind that Hereward College in Coventry, which teaches people with disabilities, and Coventry College badly need funding? Can he give us a positive answer on that?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman is a great advocate for further education in general, and for his colleges in Coventry in particular, and for the important role that adult education plays in social mobility and improving life chances. On T-levels, we are initially focused on getting the roll-out done, but we will look at adult provision in the future, and of course there was also a big boost in the Budget for the national retraining scheme.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Damian Hinds
I will and I have. I was grateful for the opportunity to discuss some of these matters the other day with my right hon. Friend’s Select Committee. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills has written to large multi-academy trusts and will be writing to local authorities to remind them of the importance of the so-called Baker clause in making sure that children and young people have information about all the options available to them. I also agree about the importance of embedding careers information deep in the curriculum.
James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)
Only about 10% of 16 to 18-year-olds on a full-time level 3 course are currently studying a technical qualification. The proposed investment in T-levels will not benefit the vast majority of sixth-form students in schools or colleges. FE and sixth-form funding has fallen by one fifth since 2010. Do not all young people deserve to have FE properly funded, irrespective of the qualifications they choose to study?
Damian Hinds
Yes, clearly further education—and indeed all 16-to-19 provision—has to be properly funded, but I do anticipate that more young people will do T-level qualifications in the future, because they will be very high-quality qualifications, with those extra hours, the maths, the English, the digital content, and that high-quality industry placement.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
Damian Hinds
I will. In fact, about 200 employers have already been involved, in one way or another, in their development. Business is at the heart of this major upgrade to our technical and vocational education, including T-levels.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Obviously T-levels are still a couple of years away, and colleges are expecting funding now. What can the Secretary of State do to assure me that when T-levels do arrive, colleges such as Stoke-on-Trent sixth-form college, which will be delivering them, will not have to use some of that additional money to cross-subsidise underfunded courses in other parts of the colleges? Is not the best way to stop that money being misused simply to raise the rate for everyone else?
Damian Hinds
The money that the Treasury has committed to T-levels is new money to finance more hours for young people studying these subjects. I think that that is incredibly important, but, as the hon. Gentleman says, there are other people studying for other qualifications, in Stoke and elsewhere, and they too must be properly resourced.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
I warmly welcome the introduction of T-levels, but what action has been taken to upskill the teachers and lecturers who will be delivering them? That process is vital to the success of the project.
Damian Hinds
My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. We must engage in a number of preparations, such as setting up relationships with businesses for the industrial placements and also, as my right hon. Friend says, relationships with people working in our sector. We created the T-level professional development offer for precisely that purpose.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
The Department, of course, measures the progress that pupils make between the end of primary education and their GCSEs, and those data can help schools to identify where and when to put additional support in place.
Mr Sheerman
This is nothing short of a national scandal and a national disgrace, because we all know where we lose these talented children. We lose them in this transition period, and who do we lose? Poorer children from deprived backgrounds. When will we have a big beast on the Government Benches who will see this as a national disgrace and do something about it?
Damian Hinds
I assume the hon. Gentleman means the transition between years 6 and 7, to which I acknowledge we have not paid enough attention—both before and after 2010. That is one of the reasons why we are looking at this in the Opportunity North East programme, and in other piloting opportunities, but it is not the only thing to look at. I am pleased to be able to say that the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers has shrunk both at key stage 2 and key stage 4, but there is much still to do.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Commiserations for yesterday’s football, Mr Speaker; I am sorry.
The recent University of Bristol report shows that 40% of so-called underperforming secondary schools would actually be out of category if the progress 8 measure were more rounded. That is in addition to the Education Policy Institute study that found a very strong correlation between the number of deprived children and a school’s Ofsted rating. Given the high-stakes accountability regime in schools, is it not about time we had a much more profound and deeper understanding of what makes a good school, instead of just hammering, time and again, the most challenging schools that are doing a very good job in difficult circumstances?
Damian Hinds
Not at all. The progress 8 measure is materially better than the main measure in place during the last Labour Government, the “five-plus C-plus” measure at GCSE. Progress 8 measures the progress of all children, and it is right that we have high expectations for all children. Progress 8 is a much better measure.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
I am pleased to say that the attainment gap is down by 13% and 9% respectively at ages 11 and 16. This year, almost £30 million in pupil premium is allocated to schools in Norfolk, and schools, of course, have the work of the Education Endowment Foundation on which to draw.
George Freeman
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer. Chapel Green School in Norfolk is one of the country’s finest institutions for the teaching of those with the most severe educational needs. I am grateful that I can put on record the thanks of the school and all its governors for the major funding from the Government to move from its cramped facilities to its state-of-the-art facilities. The school has reported that one problem is that, because of a lack of skilled staff in the mainstream sector, it is massively oversubscribed. I invite the Secretary of State and our former Minister, Mr Timpson, who I know are working on this, to come to Norfolk, meet the team and discuss that wider problem.
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend has touched on a really important and wide-ranging issue. First, I am grateful to him for mentioning Chapel Green School and the excellent work that it does, and also our investment in its new facilities, but he is also right that, in thinking about high needs and special needs, we also need to think about how teachers and others in mainstream schools are equipped. That is one reason we are looking at what happens in initial teacher training and with the specialist qualification, and also the key role of educational psychologists in that regard.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Ind)
Figures released last week show that only 15% of school leavers in the Furness area go on to higher education. That is the lowest in the country. Will the Secretary of State or the Universities Minister meet me to see how we can address that gap? We are really proud of our apprenticeship scheme, but a generation of talent is being lost to the country because of this.
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question and he is absolutely right that we all need a blend in our local areas—apprenticeships, further education and higher education. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) or I would be delighted to meet him. I will just mention, though, that universities these days have very large sums of money available for access and participation plans, and they should be reaching out into all communities, including in Furness, to make sure that all children have the opportunity to make the most of those if they can.
Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Last week, we launched the Department for Education’s integrated recruitment and retention strategy for teachers to attract and keep even more inspirational people in this most vital of careers. We continue to make progress on the major upgrade of technical and vocational education, including through higher-quality apprenticeships and T-levels. This week is Children’s Mental Health Week, and I am pleased to be able to announce the start of a major trial to look at ways to improve support for young people’s mental wellbeing. The trial—part of our integrated and wide-ranging approach on mental health—will take place in up to 370 schools across England and will be one of the largest such trials in the world.
Sir Nicholas Soames
I thank my right hon. Friend for that comprehensive answer. I have already spoken to the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), about the excellent St Wilfrid’s Catholic Primary School in Burgess Hill in my constituency, which I visited recently. The school has an outstanding reputation for supporting pupils with special educational needs. It takes in more children with SEN than it is properly funded for and thus finds itself with a budget shortfall through no fault of its own, other than the desire to do good. What further help can my right hon. Friend give to that school, given its outstanding work in this vital field?
Damian Hinds
I pay tribute to the school for its work and I would be happy to meet my right hon. Friend to discuss the matter further. There was some extra funding for high needs in the package of measures that we put forward in December; I also committed to looking at some of the wider issues, including the way funding works structurally, to ensure that the resourcing for those needs is fairly spread among schools. I will also address some of the training and development issues that I mentioned in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman).
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree with today’s call from the Children’s Commissioner for new powers to deal with the alarming number of pupils falling off schools rolls? May I politely suggest to him that he implement Labour’s proposal to ensure that schools are accountable for the results of pupils who leave their rolls until they find a new permanent place?
Damian Hinds
There are a number of interrelated issues in the subject that the hon. Lady has rightly raised and that the Children’s Commissioner was talking about today. I am, of course, concerned whenever there is off-rolling, which is not legal. These things must be done properly. I am also concerned about the extent to which we may not know how some children are being educated, and so on. That being said, there are children who are being home educated brilliantly by amazingly dedicated parents, and we have to acknowledge and respect that. As the hon. Lady will know, a review of exclusions is under way. We will report back on that in due course, as well as on some of the wider issues.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
Jo Platt (Leigh) (Lab/Co-op)
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the central importance of the early years when it comes to social mobility. We know that the gaps between the rich and the poor develop very early on, which is one reason this Government are spending more than any previous Government on early-years education and childcare. There are 154,000 two-year-olds benefiting from early-years education in a programme that was never available to any child before 2010. But we can do more. I want to ensure that we integrate our approach with helping to support parents in what happens at home because, particularly in the very early years, what happens at home is crucial to what happens later at school.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
Damian Hinds
First, I thank the staff at Squirrels Heath for what they do. I totally acknowledge the pressures there are on school budgets and I know that it is difficult managing these budgets. It is also true that, compared with other countries in the world, we spend relatively high amounts on state education at both primary and secondary levels. However, I will of course be very happy to meet my hon. Friend.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
Schools in Cheshire are still underfunded compared with more urban counterparts, especially in London. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me and a number of Conservative councillors from Cheshire East Council, and Cheshire West and Chester Council, to discuss how we can fix this historical inequality?
Damian Hinds
There are differences between Cheshire and London, including in the composition of the population. For example, the proportion of children on free school meals is materially higher in London than in Cheshire, and there are some cost considerations, but I will of course, as ever, be more than happy to meet my hon. Friend.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Ms Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State look again at school funding in rural areas, particularly Cheshire, and push for further funding at the spending review? Will he commit to come to Tatton, to meet some of my headteachers?
Damian Hinds
I am conscious of the issues around rural and smaller schools. We have made adjustments for that in the national funding formula, but I am happy to visit Tatton and meet some headteachers.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Over 50% of York children from disadvantaged backgrounds are not school-ready by the age of five, and only 46% of those qualifying for free school meals are ready by the end of year 1. York has the highest attainment gap in the country. We also receive the worst funding for our schools. What correlation does the Secretary of State draw between the two, and will he meet me to discuss how we can improve the chances of children in York?
Damian Hinds
I am taking a lot of meetings today, but I will take one more, because if the hon. Lady has some good ideas, I am happy to hear them. She is right to identify the issues around school readiness, and this is at a time when there is more early-years nursery provision than ever before. We need to work harder on this, and I would be delighted to hear from her.
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
I know the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills is aware of concerns in Mansfield about the future of West Nottinghamshire College. Despite its strong record historically, it now finds it has overreached financially and made capital investments that were not sustainable. Will she assure my constituents that we have seen good changes in the management and new governance there, that the core purpose of the college in delivering local provision is secure and that we will see accountability for the problems that have happened?
Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy
Damian Hinds Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Teaching remains a popular career choice for many. We recruited over 2,000 more trainee teachers for the 2018-19 academic year than in 2017-18, continuing the positive trend we saw the previous year. However, the growing number of pupils of secondary age means that we need even more teachers. This is at a time when we are losing more teachers from the profession than we can afford to, and are operating in the most competitive labour market on record.
To address this, the Department for Education has developed a teacher recruitment and retention strategy. Building on extensive quantitative and qualitative evidence, the strategy was developed collaboratively with teachers, headteachers, representative bodies, teachers’ unions, initial teacher training providers and leading experts.
At the core of the strategy is the understanding that there are no great schools without great teachers. No other profession is as important to the fate of the next generation or as uniquely rewarding as teaching. The strategy outlines four key areas where focus, investment and reform can have the biggest impact on improving teacher recruitment and retention.
Priority One: Create the right climate for leaders to establish supportive school cultures
At the heart of this will be reforming the school accountability system. In particular we will radically simplify the system helping to reduce pressure, consulting on making “requires improvement” the sole trigger for an offer of support—replacing floor and coasting standards. The new Ofsted framework will have an active focus on reducing teacher workload, with inspectors considering staff workload as part of the leadership and management judgment. They will also look unfavourably on schools that implement burdensome data practices, and will refuse to look at internal assessment data.
Priority Two: Transform support for early career teachers
We are launching the early career framework, which will underpin a fully-funded, two-year package of structured support for all early career teachers linked to the best available research evidence—alongside funded time off timetable in the second year of teaching and additional support for mentors. We will create a major shift in the incentives for new teachers by introducing phased bursaries, with staggered retention payments to encourage good people to remain in the profession, as well as to join.
Priority Three: Build a career offer that remains attractive to teachers as their careers and lives develop
We will develop specialist qualifications to support clearer non-leadership career pathways for teachers who want to stay and excel in the classroom. We will invest in these new and existing leadership qualifications, and will do so disproportionately in challenging schools. We will support headteachers to transform approaches to flexible working in schools.
Priority Four: Make it easier for great people to become teachers
We will launch a new discover teaching initiative, giving as many people as possible the opportunity to experience the unique opportunities that a career in teaching provides. We will radically simplify the process for becoming a teacher, introducing new digital systems designed to make application much easier and more user-friendly. In particular, we will introduce a new one-stop application service for ITT, which will be easier to use and designed to better meet the needs of potential trainees. We will review the ITT market to support it to work more efficiently and effectively.
This strategy builds on work already in hand to achieve this Government’s vision to improve teacher recruitment and retention. We know that delivering this vision will take time; the issues are complicated and long-standing. But we are committed to continuing to work closely with the teaching profession to deliver this vision.
I will deposit a copy of the strategy in the House Library.
[HCWS1278]
Funding and Support for Schools and High Needs
Damian Hinds Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Today, I am pleased to announce additional revenue funding in 2018-19 and 2019-20, and extra capital funding in 2019-20, to provide support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), as well as the 2019-20 dedicated schools grant (DSG) allocations to local authorities.
Our ambition for children with SEND is exactly the same as for every other child—to achieve well in school and college, find employment and go on to live happy and fulfilled lives. High needs funding has already risen by £1 billion, from £5 billion in 2013 to £6 billion this year. As part of our wide-ranging reforms to the SEND system in 2014, we introduced education, health and care (EHC) plans, to ensure that support is tailored to the needs of individuals, and families are put at the heart of the process. Already, more than 320,000 children and young people are benefiting from these.
Members from all sides of the House have raised concerns from schools, colleges and local authorities about the pressures on high needs budgets. I understand that these costs are rising, in particular the costs of special educational provision for those with more complex needs, funded from local authorities’ high needs budgets.
Today I am announcing a number of changes to start to address these pressures.
First, we will provide additional high needs funding allocations across all local authorities, of £125 million in each of 2018-19 and 2019-20. This brings the total allocated for high needs this year to £6.1 billion. This additional investment will help local councils to manage pressures and I have published the individual local authority allocations today.
Ensuring that there is sufficient capacity locally for pupils in mainstream and special schools, and for young people aged 16 and above, is a priority for this Government. As part of this, I am announcing a further £100 million top-up to the special provision capital fund in 2019-20 to take our total investment to £365 million across 2018-21. This additional funding will give more children access to a good school or college place that meets their individual needs. This could also pay for more state-of-the-art facilities, such as sensory rooms and specialist equipment.
We have also received 65 bids from local authorities identifying a need for new special and alternative provision free schools. We now anticipate that all those that fully meet the published criteria will be approved, even if the number of schools exceeds the 30 or so we had originally planned for.
Of course, extra funding cannot be our only response. I want to continue engaging with local authorities, health providers, families, schools and colleges to better understand what is driving the cost pressures on high needs budgets, and to work with the sector to help manage them. Therefore, today I am writing to all local authorities to outline our plans for supporting them in their role of providing strategic leadership and oversight of the provision for children and young people with SEND. While local authorities have this responsibility, I am clear that they cannot act alone in doing so.
To equip all areas to improve planning and commissioning we are establishing a SEND system leadership board focused on improving joint education, health and care commissioning, as recommended by Dame Christine Lenehan’s review into the experiences and outcomes of children in residential special schools and colleges. We are also establishing joint ministerial roundtables with the Department for Health and Social Care to give providers, users and voluntary sector organisations further opportunities to input their views and insight across the SEND system.
To support local authorities in carrying out their statutory EHC plan assessment process and to support schools and colleges in their work with families, I am announcing funding for training more educational psychologists (EPs). We will be funding three more cohorts of EP trainees, starting in September 2020; and will increase the number of trainees from 160 to at least 206, to reflect increased demand. Classroom teachers and those in training will also have a greater focus on supporting children with SEND, as the upcoming teacher recruitment and retention strategy will make sure all teachers are equipped with the knowledge and skills to meet the needs of all pupils.
My Department is also commissioning SEN Futures: a flagship package of long-term research and analysis to provide evidence on the impact of current SEN provision on children and young people’s outcomes, and to assess the value for money of SEN provision in England. Procurement for the first pieces of work in this programme has begun today.
In addition, in order better to understand the financial incentives that influence how schools, colleges and councils support children and young people with special educational needs, the Department for Education will be gathering more evidence early in 2019. This will include looking at the first £6,000 schools pay for special educational provision before accessing additional funding from local high needs budgets.
I recognise the rising demand for EHC plans for those over 19, and the need for education, health and social care services to agree a shared vision of what good life outcomes look like for an individual, and when it is right to cease an EHC plan. We have commissioned one of our delivery partners, the National Development Team for Inclusion to work with 20 local authorities to develop and model effective practice on this, and to share their findings across regions.
I also want to continue to ensure that services for young people with SEND effectively prepare them for adulthood, including employment: raising expectations and aspirations for young people, their parents, education providers and employers. My officials are working closely with the Department for Work and Pensions on this, and we are committed to finding ways to support more young people with SEND into sustainable employment. I want our wider reforms to post-16 education, including T-Levels, to be accessible to those with SEND and will continue to support close working between colleges, schools and local authorities to improve pathways to adulthood.
Today I am also confirming the school and early years funding allocations for 2019-20. This announcement covers the DSG and the Pupil Premium.
The distribution of the DSG to local authorities is set out in four blocks for each authority: a schools block, a high needs block, an early years block, and the central school services block.
In July 2018, we published the primary and secondary units of funding for the schools block, the provisional allocations for the high needs block and central school services block. These have been updated with the latest pupil numbers to show how much each local authority will receive in 2019-20.
The early years national funding formula rates for 3 and 4-year-olds for 2019-20 were published on 22 November, and today we have announced initial allocations for this block.
The pupil premium per pupil amounts will be protected at the current rates.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to respond to the resolution of the House following the Opposition day debate on school funding on 13 November.
Children only get one chance at a great education, which is why, as today’s announcement further demonstrates, this Government have prioritised and protected school spending—even while having to take difficult public spending decisions in other areas.
Across the board, standards are rising; in 2010, 66% of children were in good or outstanding schools—that is up to 84% now. While there is more money going into our schools than ever before, and we know from international studies that our school spending is in line with or above most comparable countries, we recognise the budgeting challenges schools face and that we are asking them to do more. That is why we have announced a school resource management strategy, setting out a wide range of practical support to help schools reduce their costs and make every pound count, while at the same time improving outcomes for pupils.
With the funding and support for schools and high needs announced today, I am confident that they will be able to continue to improve outcomes for all children and young people.
[HCWS1185]
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
At 31 March this year, there were just over 75,000 looked- after children in England, 4% up on the previous year following a small fall in the number entering care, but also a decrease in the number leaving.
Lucy Allan
Does the Secretary of State agree that if funding for family support and early intervention was ring-fenced, that would reduce the number of children subject to expensive statutory intervention and care proceedings?
Damian Hinds
I understand why my hon. Friend makes that point. It is important that authorities should have flexibility in managing their budgets in line with local priorities, but I also very much agree that early-help services have a really important role to play in promoting the welfare of children and supporting them in achieving better outcomes.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State review the amount of resources put per family to support the birth mother around raising their children? We have had so many cases in York where children have been taken into care or for adoption because of a lack of resources reported by the local authority.
Damian Hinds
We do believe that in most cases it is right for the child to be with their parents and that they should be taken into care only as a last resort. We are putting resources into local authorities to help with that, but money is tight—I totally recognise that—and that is why we are seeking always to improve processes, including by some of our partners in practical innovation programmes.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for appointing a children’s commissioner to Northamptonshire. Why did he feel it necessary to effect such an appointment, and how quickly does he expect results to be realised?
Damian Hinds
Of course, the safety of children must always be paramount, and we consider it to be the right approach, in the circumstances in Northamptonshire, to do that. These things do not all change overnight in terms of systems and processes, but we do expect to see good progress.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Seventy-three per cent. of children’s residential care providers are now run purely for profit. Alongside this, Ofsted has reported a rise in serious enforcement action against providers with regard to safeguarding concerns, poor use of physical restraint, children going missing, and children at high risk of sexual exploitation. How much longer will the right hon. Gentleman preside over the commodification of vulnerable children, and how many children’s residential homes has he visited in his time as Secretary of State?
Damian Hinds
I do not recognise the hon. Lady’s characterisation of what she called commoditisation. A variety of providers are operating in children’s residential placements, and we expect the very highest standards of care for those children. That is why the Ofsted inspections are as they are.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Social mobility is one of our top priorities, and we have seen the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils narrow at all levels, from pre-school to university entrance.
Nigel Huddleston
My Mid Worcestershire constituency is one of many rural constituencies that received a disappointingly low ranking in the latest social mobility index. The fairer funding formula will help, but what else will the Department do to close the gap in social mobility between rural and urban areas?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is right to identify the issue in rural areas. It is encouraging that the number of good or outstanding schools in his constituency is up from 37 to 41 since 2010, but he is correct that rural areas can face distinct barriers. Through the opportunity areas programme, among other things, we will see what else we can learn to assist social mobility in rural areas.
Scott Mann
Recent Policy Exchange research shows that poor behaviour is holding back learning and driving teachers out of the profession. Does the Secretary of State agree that if we drive out that poor behaviour, we can give every child a chance to climb the ladder?
Damian Hinds
Yes, indeed. Classrooms must be safe, calm and stimulating places for both children and teachers. The Policy Exchange report highlights what the best-performing schools do. We recently pledged £10 million to help share best practice in behaviour management, which we know is so important to teachers.
Damian Hinds
I welcome the IFS report. We want a country with maximum opportunity for everybody, regardless of their background. The IFS report identifies how reforms since 2010 have increased funding in favour of pupils from poorer backgrounds. That is part of starting to redress the balance and ensure that there are no limits on any child’s potential.
Fiona Bruce
Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the best ways to give children a good start in life is for them to be brought up in a stable and loving home? What is the Department doing to strengthen family relationships in this country?
Damian Hinds
I agree with my hon. Friend that strong families can help social mobility and so much else. Our reform programme, “Putting children first”, aims to ensure that vulnerable children and families receive high-quality support as soon as need is identified.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
As today’s shocking research from the National Education Union shows, one simple step that could help the most disadvantaged children is providing them with a healthy meal. It is more than two years since the Government committed to a healthy schools rating system. When will they act?
Damian Hinds
I am glad that the hon. Lady mentions the issue of providing meals for children at school. We have done a great deal on breakfast, and we have also extended eligibility for free school meals on three different occasions—in a way the Labour party never did when it was in government—through universal infant free school meals, free meals in further education colleges and, most recently, the roll-out of universal credit.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
In 2015, I set up the Liverpool to Oxbridge collaborative, to encourage more students from schools in my constituency to apply to Oxford or Cambridge. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating the 19 students who have had interviews this month at either Oxford or Cambridge and have been part of that scheme? Will his Department work with me to encourage other areas of the country, particularly those with high levels of deprivation and poverty, to adopt similar schemes?
Damian Hinds
I am delighted to do so on both counts. I commend the hon. Gentleman for his work in this area. Encouraging young people to aim higher—whether that is to Oxford, Cambridge or other universities, or into professions—is very worthwhile, and I certainly join him in what he says.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Damian Hinds
The framework that the hon. Lady mentions is, among other things, there to protect students studying at colleges. FE colleges have a central role to play in our system, particularly as we develop the apprenticeships programme and bring in T-levels.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
The same NEU report shows that more children will be going hungry this winter than ever before, in the experience of most teachers. Is that helping or hindering social mobility?
Damian Hinds
I am pleased to be able to confirm to the hon. Gentleman that we have record levels of employment, which have helped to contribute to record levels of household income. We have brought in the national living wage and brought in tax cuts for millions of people—all to help to support working families’ household budgets.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Given that many apprentices are from disadvantaged backgrounds, will my right hon. Friend make sure that the apprenticeship levy is fit for purpose? A lot of employers are rebadging and retraining senior employees, and denying new apprentices the chance to do apprenticeships. Will he confirm that there is a £500 million overspend on the apprenticeship levy budget?
Damian Hinds
I can confirm to my right hon. Friend that it is of course very important that we continue to monitor the way in which the apprenticeship levy works. We have committed to having a review, and we will work with businesses on how it works after 2020 to make sure that young people, but also older people or people who are further into their careers, can benefit from this programme.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
According to UCAS figures, the number of young Scots from deprived backgrounds gaining a place at university is at an all-time high—firm proof that the Scottish Government’s policy of free tuition is working. Rather than become involved in creative accounting with student loans, will the Secretary of State now follow Scotland’s lead in improving social mobility, and scrap tuition fees?
Damian Hinds
The picture that the hon. Lady paints of the higher education sector in Scotland—it of course features many very high quality higher education institutions—is not the same one on admissions, I have to say, that I hear from everybody. I am pleased to be able to confirm that in England we have a record number and proportion of young people going on to university.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
The Social Mobility Commission’s recent survey revealed a deep unease at the gap between the rich and poor, with the public believing that the Government, employers and schools are not doing enough. The Secretary of State’s response to this urgent problem is to make £2 million available for more research, but there is still no concrete plan of action. Can he tell us exactly how much of the £2 million will be spent on the most important time for social mobility—the early years—and will it investigate the impact on the poorest children being locked out of 30 hours of free childcare?
Damian Hinds
The concern that the hon. Lady mentions is a concern shared by me—I want to go further and faster on social mobility—but I am not quite sure where she gets the idea that the social mobility strategy consists of the research budget of the Social Mobility Commission. Social mobility is at the heart of everything that we do, and we see it in the narrowing of the attainment gap in nursery school, in primary school, in secondary school, in the attainment of level 2 maths and English by age 19 and in university admissions.
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
The dedication of teachers along with our reforms has seen the proportion of good or outstanding secondary schools increase from 64% to 75%, in terms of the pupils in them, between 2010 and 2018.
Andrew Bridgen
Unlike the vast majority of senior schools, most of my constituency still operates a middle and upper school system. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the all-through education model is better for raising standards and preferable to pupils having to move school only five terms before they take their GCSE exams? Will he do everything in his power to assist schools in North West Leicestershire that want to transition to the 11-to-16 model?
Damian Hinds
These decisions are best made at a local level in the light of the local circumstances, but to support schools that decide to change their age range, we publish online guidance for maintained schools and academies on the process involved. I am pleased that my hon. Friend is in touch with my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
During the recent Education Committee inquiry, we heard from many businesses and experts about how the current UK curriculum is taking us in the wrong direction. They said that it is about regurgitating knowledge rather than equipping young people with skills—communication skills, and the ability to do projects, science practicals and so on. Does the Secretary of State agree or disagree with those people?
Damian Hinds
If parents, employers and others heard us suggesting that there was some sort of conflict between knowledge and skills, they would despair. People need both when they come out of school. The development of skills is in many ways about knowing how to deploy knowledge. We believe that a knowledge-rich curriculum is incredibly important and helps to develop the skills that young people need for the world of work—and, indeed, for life.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that, if we are to continue to raise standards in schools, it is important that schools funding is given a high priority in next year’s spending review?
Damian Hinds
Indeed. Schools, and education more broadly, are a unique case in our national life because they are all about bringing up the next generation and social mobility, and ensuring that our economy works at its full productive potential.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
Ofsted has proved to be one of the most effective regulators in the country, but with cuts of almost 50%, inspections are too short and inspection teams are too small, and many schools simply do not get the inspections they need—some should require improvement or be in special measures and are not; and some good schools should be outstanding but are not. Will the Secretary of State commit to putting more resource into Ofsted so that parents can have faith that their schools are delivering for their students?
Damian Hinds
I have faith in the Ofsted system, which is an incredibly important part of our system alongside performance measures and so on. It is a vital part of what parents use to select their school. The new Ofsted framework, which is due to come in next year, is a further opportunity to develop that, but we want a proportionate system.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
There are 1.9 million more pupils in good or outstanding schools compared with 2010 and we are on track to create 1 million places this decade. That compares with a loss of 100,000 places in the six years up to 2010.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
A badly planned new housing development is putting enormous strain on school places in my constituency, particularly primary places. We have a new school that will open in 2019, but the funding process through the Education and Skills Funding Agency has been very elongated and bureaucratic. I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend could say how the process can be simplified, so that in future we can ensure that the supply of good new school places matches the demand in areas where there is new development.
Damian Hinds
I thank my hon. Friend for his support on the Lower Farm primary academy. The Department is always looking for ways to improve our processes, driving efficiency and value. That now includes the establishment of a specialist property company and the use of modern construction methods to help to build schools faster. I am very grateful to him for his helpful feedback.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
I am deeply concerned that schools are using isolation rooms as a form of unregistered exclusion for pupils for extended periods of time, thereby severely harming their education. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of how good the education is that is received by the children forced into using them?
Damian Hinds
We think it is up to headteachers, within the rules, to set the behaviour policy in their schools. They have to set it out clearly in their behaviour policy, on which there are clear guidelines.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend welcome the rising percentage of good and outstanding places in special schools, meaning that no matter what challenges someone faces, real opportunities are on offer for all?
Damian Hinds
I do welcome that. As part of yesterday’s announcement, we also said that we would take off the cap on the current round of special and alternative provision free school applications and approve the full set that met the criteria.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Good school places include good school music teaching, but headteachers tell me that they cannot afford to provide high-quality music education, which flows into a lack of access to tertiary places. We have more international students studying at tertiary level than we do our domestic students in some cases. Will the Government urgently review the provision of high-quality music education, so that every child, regardless of their region, background, skin colour or religion, can study music at our wonderful universities?
Damian Hinds
I agree with the hon. Lady about the essential importance of music. That is one reason why music is the second most financially supported subject in our school system, after PE. We have invested £300 million in funding for music hubs and other music programmes between 2016 and 2020.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
In the last two weeks, I have set out the next steps in our major upgrade of technical education. We have announced additional funding for high needs budgets, plus capital funding and enhanced training and commissioning, and we have had confirmed a further narrowing of the attainment gap at primary school. We are striving for a world-class education for everyone, whatever their background and roots, and as we approach the end of the Christmas term, as ever our thanks and appreciation go to the 450,000 dedicated teachers and all the other professionals who make education in our country live.
Mike Amesbury
Last week, it was confirmed that teachers and students at Sir John Deane’s sixth-form college in my constituency and elsewhere will lose out yet again following the confirmation that the national funding rate for sixth formers will remain at £4,000 per student next year. That is the seventh consecutive year that funding has been frozen. How can the Secretary of State claim that austerity is over?
Damian Hinds
It is true that five-to-16 education funding in this country has been protected since 2010 and that that pledge did not apply to sixth forms. Yes, funding has been tight for sixth forms and that is one of the things we will consider when looking at future funding.
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Over the weekend, the former Universities Minister, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), suggested that the Prime Minister was not acting in the national interest. On that theme, the hon. Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson) has said:
“I was in strong disagreement with keeping foreign students in the immigration cap. The sooner it is dropped, the better.”
I am glad that he agrees with us on that. We have been told to expect the immigration White Paper later this week. Can the Secretary of State tell us whether it will finally take students out of the migration target, allowing the Government to find at least one policy that the majority of this House and indeed the country can support?
Damian Hinds
I fear that the hon. Lady is mistaken. Our higher education sector rightly attracts students from around the world, thanks to its great quality, and we want to grow the number of students coming to our universities. There is no limit on the number of students who can come to our universities. I think she is referring to the statistical measurement, which is an international measurement that defines people who come to this country for more than 12 months as being in the immigration statistics, but of course, when they leave again, they count as minus 1 in those statistics.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
Mr Speaker
I would have thought that the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) strongly disapproved of the very creation of the mobile phone in the first place.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
Two grammar schools in Walsall have benefited from the selective schools expansion fund, but does the Minister endorse the work that they are doing to improve access for disadvantaged children?
Damian Hinds
Yes. The selective schools expansion fund was targeted precisely at ensuring that grammar schools that do not yet admit enough pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and on free schools meals are encouraged to admit such pupils. I have been very encouraged by the applications that we have seen from the 16 successful schools, and I look forward to seeing accessibility increase.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Damian Hinds
I think it is right that parents are consulted on these important matters, but I also think it is important that our selective schools and grammar schools, which are very popular with parents, should also be extending their reach and making sure they are accessible to a wider group of pupils.
Several hon. Members rose—
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Despite the Government’s warm words, headteachers tell me that they do not have enough money for children with special needs. What comfort can the Secretary of State give to the headteachers of maintained schools in my constituency of Bristol West that children with special educational needs will have the funding they need in 2019?
Damian Hinds
I recognise the issues on the tightness of funding for special needs, which is one of the reasons why yesterday we announced the package that includes not only additional revenue funding but provision for more capital funding towards facilities, for more places, for more training for educational psychologists and for making sure that all teachers have the support and training they need.
Government Asset Sale Update
Damian Hinds Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
I am pleased to inform Parliament that the Government have today completed their sale of part of the older, pre-2012, English student loan book achieving a value of £1.9 billion.
The Government have been clear in their commitment that the position of all borrowers, including those whose loans have been sold, will not change as a result of the sale. This sale does not and cannot in any way alter the mechanisms and terms of repayment: sold loans will continue to be serviced by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Student Loans Company (SLC) on the same basis as equivalent unsold loans. Purchasers have no right to change any of the current loan arrangements or to contact borrowers directly. The sale does not change the Government’s current approach to higher education or student finance.
The Student Loans Company will be writing to borrowers whose loans have been sold within three months to notify them of the sale. No action will be required from borrowers. Government have no plans to change, or to consider changing, the terms of pre-2012 loans. I also want to be clear that these older loans, whose borrowers benefited from lower tuition fees as well as lower interest rates, are not in scope of the current review of post-18 education and funding.
This sale is good for the taxpayer. It releases money that is tied up and serving no policy purpose, to invest in other policy priorities now, while keeping within the spending limits we need to strengthen public finances. The sold loans have already been in repayment for over nine years, and therefore a portion of the original value has already been paid back to the Government. The Government do not expect all of the remaining loans to be paid off in full and the sale guarantees money upfront today rather than waiting for fluctuating and uncertain payments over a long period of time. This sale also transfers risk to the private sector. Repayment income from student loans fluctuates with economic performance, as do tax receipts and managed expenditure like benefits. Selling the loans reduces the Government’s exposure to this fluctuation. The Government are committed to reducing public sector net debt in order to enhance the UK’s economic resilience, improve fiscal sustainability and lessen the debt interest burden on future generations. This sale makes a significant contribution to that objective.
The Government do not sell at any price. Throughout the process, the Government's decision on whether to proceed remained subject to market conditions and a final value for money assessment. This looked at whether we were selling to an efficient market, that can price the asset efficiently, and at a price that was worth more to the Government than retaining the loans. The Government’s retention value takes into account predicted repayments, the effect of inflation, the riskiness of the asset and the opportunity cost of having money tied up in the asset.
I can confirm that the price offered in aggregate across the book was above the Government’s retention value range. I will shortly be laying before Parliament a report on the sale in accordance with section 4 of the Sale of Student Loans Act 2008. This will provide more detail on the sale arrangements, and the extent to which they give good value as well as covering the sale’s different fiscal impacts.
[HCWS1137]
Education Funding
Damian Hinds Excerpts(6 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Great schools are all about great teachers, and we have 10,000 more of them in our schools than in 2010. They and their colleagues have achieved quite remarkable things, with our highest ever score in international tests in primary reading, a reformed curriculum and qualifications, more young people doing the subjects that keep their options most open, more young people going on to further study, and more—many more—young people in schools rated good or outstanding.
Damian Hinds
1.9 million, Mike.
But it is not only about overall attainment, it is also about narrowing the gap and evening the odds between the rich and the poor. Here we have seen substantial improvements since the Labour party left office, with the attainment gap having narrowed by 10% or more at both primary and secondary age and disadvantaged 18-year-olds going on to university at a record rate. This decade, we will have created 1 million new school places—the biggest expansion for at least two generations.
Damian Hinds
That contrasts with the reduction of 100,000 places that Labour oversaw between 2004 and 2010—answer that.
Marsha De Cordova
Well, I am making an intervention. The Secretary of State talks about a record number of people going on to university, but because of the £200 tax that his Government introduced, fewer disabled people go to university. Will he address that?
Damian Hinds
We want all people, whatever their background and whatever extra challenges they face, to be able to benefit from all that education, including higher education, has to offer. That is one reason why the Universities Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), works closely with universities to ensure that, and why more than £800 million a year is spent on access and participation arrangements to ensure that access to universities is as wide as possible.
I was speaking about the expansion of the school estate. If hon. Members will forgive me, I will repeat myself. By the end of the decade, we will have created 1 million new places—the biggest expansion in school capacity for at least two generations, in contrast with the reductions I am afraid we saw under the Labour party. The latest data show that there is now less school overcrowding than when we came into government in 2010. The remarkable success of schools is of course thanks to the hard work and dedication of teachers and school leaders—and, let me add, of everyone else who plays a key role, such as school staff, parent teacher associations, governors and trustees.
I recognise that the Government and society ask more of schools than ever before, so I want to take the opportunity to set out the record investment we are making in schools. In the Budget, as well as hundreds of millions of pounds for reforms to apprenticeships, T-levels, the national retraining scheme and children’s social care, there was £400 million in additional capital funding for schools this year. That is additional in-year funding for schools to spend on capital projects to support their own priorities. An average-sized primary school will receive £10,000, and an average-sized secondary school will receive £50,000.
Huw Merriman
It is important that Government Members talk up our record. A fifth secondary school in my constituency has just been rated good—they are now all good or outstanding. That school had a vast injection of money into its capital budget to help make it a good school. We should talk up our record rather than listening to the Opposition.
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. I commend and pay tribute to the teachers and leaders in the schools in his constituency, and to him for the work he does with them.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State briefly mentioned T-levels. T-levels will come into Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College in 2020, when the money follows, but its principal, Mark Kent, tells me that its funding pressures will start next year. What help can he expect from the Government next year? Given that the Chancellor did not mention further education in his Budget speech, what will the Secretary of State do about that?
Damian Hinds
As the hon. Gentleman no doubt covered in his discussions with the principal of that college, there is also funding for preparation for T-levels and industrial placements, and for staff preparation. There was also confirmation in the Budget of our party conference announcement of extra capital money for facilities and equipment in preparation for T-levels. I will return to technical and vocational education a little later.
Wera Hobhouse
Newbridge Primary School in Bath is struggling with the maintenance of its buildings and its big grounds. I met one of the Secretary of State’s colleagues, who said that the £400 million would not be available for the maintenance of buildings or grounds. Will the Secretary of State set out precisely what the £400 million is for and how schools can access it?
Damian Hinds
There are published criteria governing how this type of capital can be spent, and I will be happy to provide the hon. Lady with a complete copy. We will be issuing a calculator in December so that schools can work out how much their allocations will be. The allocations themselves will follow in January, and the rules that normally apply to capital of this sort will apply to them.
The £400 million is on top of the £1.4 billion of condition allocations that have already been provided this year for the maintenance of school buildings. The Government will also spend £1.4 billion on condition allocations in 2019-20, and schools can now apply for the first tranche.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Damian Hinds
I think I must ask for the hon. Gentleman’s forbearance.
We will have provided a total of £7 billion for new places between 2015 and 2021. We also continue to introduce innovative free schools to give parents more choice.
Michael Tomlinson
The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) almost accepted that the Government were spending a record amount on our primary and secondary schools. Can my right hon. Friend tell us how that compares with spending in other G7 nations?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend asks an important question. There are many ways of comparing spending on education in different countries, and in most cases the UK is shown to be a relatively high spender. If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will come to some of those figures a little later.
Jim McMahon
It would be interesting to know what the Government will do to ensure that they get value for money. In my own town they have spent £80 million on a failed university technical college and a failed free school, and since 2012 there have been 16 referrals to the police for financial fraud in academies and free schools.
Damian Hinds
The free schools and academies programme has overwhelmingly been a success, but when there are issues in our schools, whether in the maintained or the academy system, we must deal with them quickly. The difference with the academy system is that there is that much more transparency, so people know what is going on. However, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we continue to develop the system and ensure that it works as well as it can.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
The Secretary of State has made a very good point. Facilities are obviously very important—I recently visited a fabulous new school, West Monkton Primary School, which is already chock-a-block—but is not the quality of the education the most important element? We are getting a lot of barrage from Opposition Members, but under Labour, a third of 11-year-olds left primary school unable to reach the right standards of reading and writing. This Government have completely turned the situation around, and that is thanks to the quality of our teachers.
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is, of course, entirely correct. The quality of our education is all about the person standing at the front of the room. It is all about the 450,000 teachers, and I join my hon. Friend in her commendation of them.
Free schools are among some of the highest-performing state-funded schools, and 442 are now open across the country. That includes 41 alternative provision and 34 special free schools, and a further 69 are in the pipeline. Again, parents are being given more choice in selecting the right provision for their children.
Damian Hinds
I think I should make some progress. I have given way a number of times.
As I have said before, spending on education is in a different category from the spending of other Departments. It is about investment in our skills base, about bringing on the next generation, about social mobility, and about fulfilling the potential of all children. So it is right that this Government have prioritised education spending, and that our schools are receiving record investment. The total core schools and high needs budget, which was almost £41 billion last year, will reach a record £43.5 billion by 2020. That is thanks to an additional £1.3 billion put into core schools funding in July 2017 over and above the plans set out at the previous spending review.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
One of the biggest education funding challenges for areas like Warwickshire is that the last Labour Government left office with a massive gap between funding for metropolitan areas and funding for county areas. What is my right hon. Friend doing to address that, and what will that mean for areas such as Warwickshire?
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, and I will come on to questions about the fairer national funding formula that we have put in place.
Mary Creagh
One of the free schools the Secretary of State mentioned is CAPA College—the Creative and Performing Arts College—which is being built in Wakefield after his Department’s disastrous attempts to move it to Leeds, purchasing a site which it later transpired was on the route of HS2. I am genuinely grateful, but that did overshadow last year’s general election to quite some degree. When I looked at the plans for the new free school, I was dismayed to learn that new schools are not being built to BREEAM—Building Research Establishment environmental assessment method—standards, which are the highest environmental standards. Will the right hon. Gentleman look at why that is, and make sure that all new schools and refurbishment projects meet environmental standards, since kids are going to be taught in them for the next 100 years?
Damian Hinds
The Education and Skills Funding Agency follows high standards, but I will be happy to follow up with the hon. Lady separately on some of the specific issues she mentions.
As we were discussing, spending on schools is high by historical standards. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, real-terms per-pupil funding for five to 16-year-olds in 2020 will be more than 50% higher than it was in 2000 and more than 70% higher than in 1990.
Several hon. Members rose—
Damian Hinds
I ask colleagues for forbearance: I have given way many times and do not want to try your patience too much, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the length of my speech. [Interruption.] Well, I believe we are having a debate.
Funding for the average primary school class of 27 this year is £132,000, which is £8,000 more in real terms than a decade ago. The same children will be funded at an average of £171,000 when they move to secondary school, a real-terms rise of £10,000 compared with a decade ago.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be aware that there are pressures on all authorities in providing for children with special needs and disabilities. The cabinet member for education in Durham, Olwyn Gunn, has written to the Secretary of State highlighting the plight of Durham, which had a £4.7 million overspend last year and is projected to spend even more this year. What is the Secretary of State doing to help authorities tackle the demand that many are now facing in providing for special educational needs?
Damian Hinds
I do recognise that issue; there are additional demands. We are putting in place some extra capital and there are special free schools, but I recognise that this is a wider issue, and I will say a little more about it later.
UK spending is also high by international standards. According to the latest OECD data—from the 2018 “Education at a Glance” report, which refers to data from 2015, the last year for which comparable data for the various countries are available—on state spending on primary and secondary education, in terms of proportion of GDP the UK was the highest spender in the G7. Our spending was higher than that of the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. We were also higher on that measure than countries outside the G7, including Australia, the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland. On a per pupil level, the UK ranked lower than the US but above or in line with all the other G7 nations.
As well as ensuring record levels of funding for our schools overall, this Government have taken on the historic challenge of introducing a national funding formula to distribute the money more fairly—something that was ducked by previous Governments. For example, Coventry previously received £510 more per pupil than Plymouth, despite having the same proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals. Nottingham similarly attracted £555 more than Halton—
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Damian Hinds
No, I am sorry.
This year, we have given every local authority more money in cash terms for every pupil in every school, while allocating the biggest increases to the schools that have been most underfunded. It is also worth highlighting some of the funding that schools receive on top of what is distributed through the new funding formula. That includes £2.4 billion this year in pupil premium funding and £600 million per year for universal infant free school meals. We have also estimated that, through the roll-out of universal credit, around 50,000 more children will benefit from a free school meal by 2022, compared with under the previous benefits system, and that even more will benefit in the meantime through transitional protections. I regret to have to say that that stands in stark contrast to the scaremongering and wholly misleading accusations made by the Opposition about eligibility.
Through the primary PE and sport premium, we have invested more than £1 billion of ring-fenced funding in primary schools to improve PE and sport since 2013. The soft drinks industry levy is also enabling us to put up to £26 million into breakfast clubs in the most deprived areas. To fund the biggest increase to teachers’ pay since 2011, our teachers pay grant of £508 million over two years will cover the difference between this award and the cost of the 1% award that schools would previously have been planning for. We are also proposing to fund the additional pressure that the increase in pension contributions will place on budgets next September, for the schools as well as the further education and sixth-form colleges that are affected.
Several hon. Members rose—
Damian Hinds
I am spoiled for choice. I will give way to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali).
Rushanara Ali
Earlier, the Secretary of State mentioned per pupil funding. In my constituency, per pupil funding will be cut by an average of £448 per pupil. Can he tell me why he is doing that, in an area with the highest child poverty rate in the country?
Damian Hinds
Through the funding formula, additional moneys in cash terms are allocated to each local authority for each child. I believe it is right that the local authority is then able to make adjustments—for example, to cope with the pressures on the high-needs budget for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The local authority has the ability to do that, and I think that that is right.
Paul Farrelly
The Secretary of State has just mentioned help for colleges, as well as schools, with pension pressures. Will he extend that help to provide assistance with pay rises, so that there is no discrimination between colleges and schools? Will he also confirm that all colleges, not just sixth-form colleges and schools, will be eligible for the pot provided for the “little extras”, including Newcastle and Stafford College?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there are differences in how colleges are constituted. In particular, independent colleges are not subject to the pay and conditions arrangements of schoolteachers, but they are typically in the teachers’ pension scheme—hence that difference.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I acknowledge the record amount of money that is going into schools, but we came up with that funding in order to have a national funding formula. Does my right hon. Friend not agree that in low-funding authorities such as Gloucestershire, a minimum amount of national funding should mean exactly that? Gloucestershire is about to top-slice its budget by 0.5%, so will he look at this and see what can be done?
Damian Hinds
I recognise what my hon. Friend says, and he is right. I thank him for acknowledging the additional money that has gone in, the fairer national funding formula and the additional £1.3 billion in resourcing. It is also true, as I was saying in answer to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), that local authorities can move money from schools into their high-needs block, which is sometimes the right thing to do. Of course, we also want to ensure that the facilities are always there to help local authorities manage their high-needs budget as effectively as they can.
We have increased opportunities in technical and professional education by doubling the level of cash for apprenticeships through the apprenticeship levy to £2.5 billion over the course of the decade. By 2020, funding available to support adult FE participation is planned to be higher than at any time in England’s history. At the other end of the age range, high-quality childcare supports children’s development and prepares them for school. That is why this Government are investing more than any previous Government in childcare and early years education—around £6 billion by 2020.
This Government have extended the scope and extent of support in multiple ways. As well as higher reimbursement under universal credit—higher than was ever available under tax credits—and tax-free childcare, we have increased the childcare available for three-year-olds and four-year-olds from 12.5 hours to 15 hours, and that funded early education now has a 95% take-up rate among parents of four-year-olds. There are also an additional 15 hours—so 30 hours in total—for working parents. All of that represents greater entitlement than under the Labour Government.
Then, of course, there was the landmark extension of the 15-hour entitlement to—[Interruption.] Let me start that sentence again. Then, of course, there was the landmark extension of the 15-hour entitlement to disadvantaged two-year-olds in 2013, which has since benefited almost 750,000 children at an investment of £2 billion since the policy began—something that was never made available to disadvantaged families by any Labour Government. Looking ahead, funding for the future comes up periodically at spending reviews. We have a spending review next year, and we are already looking at the approach for this period. Of course, we have a review of post-18 education and funding in progress, and £84 million was confirmed in the Budget for children’s social care to help spread best practice.
Turning to school-age education, I am not the first Education Secretary to stand at the Dispatch Box and say that we need a better balance between technical and academic education. While we plan to invest nearly £7 billion during the current academic year to ensure a place in education and training or an apprenticeship for every 16 to 19-year-old who wants one, I am conscious that funding for 16 to 19-year-olds has not been protected in the same way since 2010 as funding for five to 16-year- olds, but we are ensuring a balance through public policy by developing high-quality routes for technical and vocational education through T-levels and apprenticeships.
On the high-needs budget, funding for local authorities has benefited from the same protections in the funding formula that we have been able to provide for mainstream schools, but there have been increasing pressures. There is a balance to be struck between mainstream and special schooling to ensure that most pupils can be supported in mainstream settings when that works best for them. Finally, we need to continue to ensure, as always, that there is the right level of resource to make sure that the quality of education is at the required level for people wherever they live—in a town, the countryside, the north, or the south.
Alongside all that we need to focus on ways to make the system work better for all schools. Ensuring that we invest properly in schools and distribute funding fairly is clearly fundamental, but how that funding is used in practice is just as important. The education system is diverse, operating between various local authorities, dioceses, multi-academy trusts and individual schools. While that is a strength, it does not always work in the system’s favour when it comes to leveraging the benefit of volume in purchasing, for example. That is why I am working hard to ensure that we come together to help schools get the best value, that expertise is available across the system and that resources that do not need to be purchased or created on an individual basis—from lesson plans to energy contracts—are shared. We will also work to bear down on the £60 million to £75 million that schools spend on recruitment with the new teacher vacancy service and the agency supply teacher deal. By creating financial benchmarking, we are helping schools to share good practice and identify ways to use resources more effectively. All of this allows schools to direct the maximum resource into what they do best—teaching.
Damian Hinds
I am sorry, but I am short of time.
We all want to see standards rise across our schools and across the wider education system and, thanks to this Government’s reforms and the hard work of teachers, this is happening. I say we all want to see standards rise, but every step of the way the Labour party opposed the introduction of phonics checks. In Wales, where Labour runs the education system, PISA rankings for maths, science and reading are lower than those in England.
The Labour party wants to scrap academies and free schools, putting ideology before education and trusting politicians over teachers. In our exchange yesterday, the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said that Labour’s policy is
“no threat to any new or existing school”—[Official Report, 12 November 2018; Vol. 649, c. 16.]
but she did not, and cannot, reconcile that with her explicit stated policy to stop the free schools programme,
“bring all publicly funded schools back into the mainstream public sector”
and impose the Orwellian-sounding “common rulebook” across the school system.
I have referred to a number of figures in the thousands, millions or billions, but what is clear is that each of those figures would be under threat from the Labour party, because we need a strong economy to invest in our public services. It is a balanced approach to the economy that will mean we can continue to provide our schools and our education system with the resources they need. Labour’s approach of more spending, more borrowing and more debt would take us back to square one and hit ordinary working people, just like last time.
This Government are unapologetic in our ambition for every child and young person in this country. Again, that ambition is backed by more revenue funding going into our schools than ever before—an investment that we are able to provide thanks to our balanced approach to the economy. The benefits of our reforms, backed by that investment, can be seen across the country, thanks to the hard work and dedication of our teachers and education professionals. It is a track record that gives all of us much to be proud of, but the job is not finished. We will always want to do more, and we will continue to do more so that every child, in every classroom and in every part of the country, has the chance to thrive, with none left behind.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(6 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Social mobility is a top priority right across the Department, from the early years at school to supporting disadvantaged students into university and improving technical education.
Maggie Throup
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. However, as the party of aspiration, what more are our Government doing to help our young people achieve their dreams? Specifically, what are we doing through the secondary school system, which is formative in developing their future roles?
Damian Hinds
I thank my hon. Friend for that. Of course, the attainment gap has narrowed by 10% at secondary school, but she is right to say that we need constantly to be thinking about aspiration, which is why our careers strategy and the work of the Careers & Enterprise Company are so important.
Adam Afriyie
Grouped—I understand, Mr Speaker. I was slightly wrong-footed, as ever.
Irrespective of political persuasion or ideology, everyone in this House will agree that the state has a special responsibility towards vulnerable children in care. Only 6% or 7% of them get to university, and 60% of them have behavioural and mental health challenges. We must congratulate the Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation and Buttle UK on their work in providing bursaries for university. Does the Minister agree that we must look to expand work in this area?
Damian Hinds
I do agree with my hon. Friend that we need to expand work in that area, and I commend the charities that he mentioned, including for their work to inform local authorities about how to make placements in boarding schools. It is true that for the right child at the right time and at the right school, boarding can create a life-changing opportunity. Encouragement into university is also vital, of course.
Dr Offord
A recent OECD report stated that the children of poor families are likely to take five generations to start to earn an average income, compared with two generations for families in Denmark and three in Sweden. Why has it taken the United Kingdom so long to bridge this gap?
Damian Hinds
These are big topics and, indeed, stubborn statistics that take quite some time to move. As anybody who has compared the 1970 cohort with the 1958 cohort will attest, it is a problem that goes back through multiple Governments, but we need to keep working on it. The most recent OECD statistics show a more encouraging picture than there was previously thought to be. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
There is an enormous amount of rather noisy chuntering from a sedentary position, principally emanating from a senior statesman in the House—namely the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). His colleague the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) is trying to encourage him in good behaviour; I urge her to redouble her efforts, as she has some way to travel.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Given the Government’s apparent commitment to social mobility, would it not be a good idea to introduce a social mobility impact assessment for all Government policies and budget plans? That way, we might avoid stories such as the one that appears today in Nursery World, which details how across the country 27 schemes targeted at the most disadvantaged children in the early years have had to be scrapped because of changes to the early years funding formula.
Damian Hinds
I apply social mobility considerations right across the work of the Department for Education, and I also work with Ministers across Government to make sure that we are doing the same in all that we do.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Damian Hinds
We believe that any young person who has the potential to benefit from university should be able to do so, and the existing system helps to facilitate exactly that. More than £800 million is being spent on access encouragement from universities. We need to make sure that that is spent as well as it can be, to make sure that any young person from any background has an equal opportunity to benefit.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
A huge block to social mobility is the Government’s policy of forcing schools to pay the first £6,000 of costs to support children with special needs. Does the Secretary of State accept that that penalises schools for taking students with additional needs, incentivises doing the wrong thing, impoverishes those schools that do the right thing and, most of all, hurts children with special needs and their families? Will he agree fully to fund education healthcare plans?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman is right to look at things such as the incentives that are inherent in the system. Of course, schools have a notional special educational needs budget, which is what the first £6,000 is supposed to be linked to, but we keep all these matters under review right across the system—in mainstream schools and special schools.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)
An independent review of higher education funding is under way. Does the Secretary of State agree that any proposals in that review that are regressive in nature, that would reintroduce a student number cap or that would act in effect as a brake on social mobility are not recommendations that this Government should accept?
Damian Hinds
It goes without saying that my right hon. Friend has very considerable expertise in this area and I take what she says extremely seriously. The review that she mentions is informed by an independent panel. That independent panel has not yet completed its work and the Government have not yet considered what recommendations may come forward, but, of course, social mobility must be at the heart.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
Nursery schools play a crucial role in promoting social mobility, and that includes the outstanding Ellergreen and East Prescot Road nursery schools in my constituency. The Secretary of State will know that there is widespread concern about the long-term funding for nursery schools. Will he announce today that we will shortly hear about long-term sustainable funding for nursery schools?
Damian Hinds
We do, of course, appreciate the particular and special role that maintained nurseries play in the system. We have funding up to 2020, as he knows, and we need to look at what happens thereafter.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Damian Hinds
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. The funding for high needs has been going up, and will reach just under £6 billion. In Hertfordshire, it has risen by 4.3% this year. Our reforms from 2014 were the most significant reforms in this area for a generation, but obviously we need to continue to strive more.
Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
Damian Hinds
I know that local authorities work with each other to share best practice and to look at what happens. A whole range of things needs to be considered from, of course, training provision for teachers in mainstream schools, to the availability of places in special schools and so on. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman’s local authority will look at all those areas as well.
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
Hastings is one of the opportunity areas supported and funded by the Government, which will be the biggest driver of social mobility for those of us in it in a generation. Although we celebrate the success and work closely with the Department for Education to make sure that it delivers on those changes, such is the success that we are now concerned about the end of the opportunity area funding. May I urge the Secretary of State to think carefully about how that end might be smoothed so that areas such as Hastings, which will get such extraordinary change from the opportunity area, do not suddenly find themselves cut off?
Damian Hinds
I am thinking carefully about that. It was always the intention that it would be a three-year programme and that we would then take learnings from the opportunity areas both to continue that programme in those areas, and also to look at what could work elsewhere, and we continue to look at that. May I commend my right hon. Friend for her personal leadership in the Hastings opportunity area, which I had the chance to visit recently?
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Successive Conservative Education Secretaries of State have rightly identified sixth-form colleges as engines of social mobility, yet the rate for 16-to-18 funding has not changed for many, many years under this and the predecessor Government. Is it not time to raise the rate?
Damian Hinds
It is. As someone who has a long passion for and personal professional experience in the sixth-form sector, the hon. Gentleman is right to identify that 16-to-18 funding is tight. That is, of course, something that we need to keep under review and have in mind as we come up to the spending review. There are, of course, things such as the maths premium. For some colleges, the T-levels funding will also be relevant.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister knows that key to closing the social mobility gap is access to high-quality early years education for those who need it most. Therefore, he will be as concerned as I was to see a report by PACEY—the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years—released today, finding a downward trend in qualification levels for childminders while the number of nursery workers in training is dropping too. His own Department’s figures show that only one in four families earning under £20,000 is accessing 30 hours of free childcare a week, which might be because the same report shows that more than half of private nurseries have put up their fees in the past 12 months. Can he tell us how less well-off families unable to access more expensive childcare with less qualified staff closes the social mobility gap?
Mr Speaker
That was so good that one would think the hon. Lady had experience of acting.
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady is right to identify the centrality of the hundreds of thousands of dedicated people who work in nurseries and early years settings. She mentioned the 30-hours offer and the differences in different income groups. A lone parent has to earn just over £6,500 to be able to access the 30-hours offer. That is one of five extensions of early years and childcare support that have been made available by our Governments since 2010. Overall, by the end of the decade, we will be investing an extra £1 billion, rising to £6 billion in total, on early years in childhood.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
As well as those already open, we have approved a further 266 free schools and university technical college applications, including 69 in London. What we now need to know from the Opposition is what would happen to the programme in the unfortunate event of their getting into government.
Greg Hands
My two boroughs have seen an astonishing five new secondary schools opened under this Government: the Kensington Aldridge Academy, the Chelsea Academy, the West London Free School, the Hammersmith Academy and the Fulham Boys School. The fifth one, however, needs to move to a new site as soon as possible. I thank my right hon. Friend for meeting me in the summer, when we talked about the new site. Will he give us an update on progress on moving to the new site?
Damian Hinds
First, let me thank my right hon. Friend for his personal involvement with these programmes. Of course we always endeavour to minimise the amount of time that any open free school needs to stay in temporary accommodation before moving to a permanent site. As he will know, there have been complexities in this case. I am very happy to meet him to discuss them.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Rather than spending time, energy and money on new schools in London or in England, would it not make far more sense to spend more time, energy and money on Alaw Primary School, whose children are in the Public Gallery? In fact, they have just left.
Damian Hinds
To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, these things happen at a quarter past three. It is an occupational hazard.
Free schools are one part of our expansion. This decade will have the largest expansion in school capacity for at least two generations, with 1 million new school places added and £7 billion of investment committed over the period.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
I am really pleased that the Secretary of State eagerly anticipates the next Labour Government, just like so many parents and teachers, but let me be clear: our policy is no threat to any new or existing school, unlike the Government’s cuts. His Department’s accounts show that the academies sector ran a £2 billion operating deficit last year. Their net financial position is down overall and more trusts closed last year than ever before. He admitted last week that education needs billions more, so will he be asking the Chancellor to reverse all his cuts in full and in real terms?
Damian Hinds
We are investing in the school system, both through the additional £1.3 billion we found last year and through the capital moneys, to which I just referred, to fund the large expansion in the school system. Although these are questions to the Government, I think that everybody would be keen to hear more from the hon. Lady about how no school would be under threat from Labour party policy.
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
In the Budget, the Government invested more than £1 billion of new funding for the Department for Education, including £695 million to improve the number and quality of apprenticeships, £400 million capital for schools, £100 million for the national retraining scheme and £84 million to improve children’s social care.
Rosie Cooper
The Secretary of State makes reference to all sorts of streams except revenue funding, so will he confirm that the Budget offered no additional revenue funding for schools and that means that, in real terms, per pupil funding will fall yet again next year, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found?
Damian Hinds
No, Mr Speaker. Of course revenue funding is determined periodically at spending reviews. Since the last spending review, we have found an additional £1.3 billion to hold per pupil real terms funding constant on a nationwide level.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that it is not just the total amount of funding, but where and how it is spent? The implementation of the fairer funding formula is certainly welcome in Worcestershire.
Damian Hinds
Yes, my hon. Friend is right. Through the national funding formula—the fairer formula—we are taking on something that successive Governments have dodged to make sure that funding is based on need and the characteristics of pupils, rather than accidents of history.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
No wonder the Secretary of State has been slapped down by his own stats watchdog four times since he took office. The IFS found that per pupil funding is hundreds of pounds lower in real terms than it was in 2015 and is set to fall again next year without new funding, so I ask him again: will he be asking the Chancellor to reverse all his cuts in full and in real terms?
Damian Hinds
I have not been slapped down four times by anybody, to the best of my recollection. I appreciate the difficulties in managing school budgets, and I appreciate that those budgets are tight, but it is also true that we spend a great deal more on schools than we used to and that, by international standards, on multiple measures, we spend a relatively high amount on state education in this country.
Angela Rayner
I am really pleased that the Secretary of State has since clarified that the Chancellor’s “little extras” should in fact be called “small additional capital projects”. Perhaps he can also clarify that school capital spending has already been cut by nearly £4 billion a year. So the Budget offered very little and no extra. Now that the Prime Minister has promised austerity is over, will the Secretary of State ask the Chancellor to fully restore the education capital budget in real terms?
Damian Hinds
We are investing a great deal of capital both on expanding the school estate to create more high-quality places and in terms of its condition. The £400 million for additional small capital projects is on top of the £1.4 billion already allocated.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
We have made excellent progress and recently reached a significant milestone when we launched the procurement for the development of the first three T-levels for 2020. We are working closely with the selected providers that will deliver them from 2020, including several in the midlands, to make sure they have the right support in place.
Damian Hinds
Over time, we are committing hundreds of millions of pounds in additional resourcing for T-levels. My hon. Friend is right to identify facilities and equipment, which is why we have committed £38 million in the first tranche of capital funding to support the initial roll-out.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
My Department continues its work to ensure that young people get the best start in life whatever their background. We are widening opportunity with our school reforms, reinforced through new programmes such as Opportunity North East; in the latest Budget, funding was provided for T-levels and apprenticeships to improve the quality of our technical education, so that we can rival productivity leaders such as Germany; and last week, our consultation on relationships, sex and health education closed with over 11,000 responses. These new subjects can help young people growing up in an ever more complex world.
Lucy Powell
I was pleased to see the Secretary of State arguing in the media recently for education funding to be a special case. Perhaps it was a shame that that came a week after the Budget rather than before it but, given that the Secretary of State recognises the very tight constraints on school budgets, does he share my regret, and the regret of many other people, about the phraseology used by the Chancellor when he talked of “little extras”?
Damian Hinds
I think it was a good thing that we were able to find hundreds of millions of pounds— £400 million—for additional capital spending in-year, on top of the £1.4 billion in capital already allocated.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman has raised very important points about a subject in which he has considerable expertise. This is one of the reasons that we asked Edward Timpson to conduct a thorough review of exclusions policy. It is done better in some places than others, and it is important for us to learn from that. It is also important that, when children are excluded, alternative provision should be the start of something positive and new, rather than the end of positive education.
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
The second Bercow report, “Ten Years On”, highlights that there is a very strong correlation between poor speech, language and communication skills, and children who are excluded from schools. Tackling this issue early on can make an enormous difference to children’s life chances. Does my right hon. Friend agree that focusing on this area in the early years is more important than ever, and can he assure us that we can still deliver these services given the pressures on many local authorities that provide these services?
Damian Hinds
I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of early language and literacy. I have set an ambition that we halve, from 28% to 14%, the percentage of children who reach the end of reception year without the level that they require to get the most out of primary school. This is one of the reasons that we are investing so much in the early years, including the two-year-old offer, which was not available under any previous Government, but we need to go further and we will have more to say in due course.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
We have excellent academy schools in Bromley, but we have been badly let down by the failings, unveiled by the Education and Skills Funding Agency, in the Education for the 21st Century trust. Will my right hon. Friend meet me urgently to discuss the findings of the ESFA report, and in particular the extraordinary circumstances where the chief executive who presided over and profited from these failures has been allowed to remain in post as headteacher of one of the largest schools?
Damian Hinds
Where there are issues and where problems emerge, we must act on them quickly. I should say that the vast majority of academies and multi-academy trusts have been a great force for good in our education, but of course I would be happy, as always, to meet my hon. Friend.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Can the Secretary of State explain why York has the worst funded schools in the country, why Westfield Primary Community School and Tang Hall Primary School have had the greatest cuts and yet are in the most economically and socially deprived areas of my constituency, and why York therefore has the highest attainment gap in the country?
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating our schools, rather than running them down, on the excellent work they did around Remembrance Day parades this weekend? Across the country, schools did fantastic exhibitions. I do not know about other Members, but I saw more children on Remembrance Day parades this year than I have ever seen before, and I am sure that that has a lot to do with the schools.
Damian Hinds
I concur entirely with my right hon. Friend. Many schools have used the centenary as an opportunity for learning across a whole range of aspects connected to the first world war, but particularly Remembrance Sunday. The powerful and evocative commemorations that many schools have taken part in is a great example to us all.