Relationships and Sex Education
Debate between Damian Hinds and Jim McMahon(5 years, 8 months ago)
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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.
Education Funding
Debate between Damian Hinds and Jim McMahon(5 years, 11 months ago)
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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.
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.
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.
Universal Credit Roll-out
Debate between Damian Hinds and Jim McMahon(7 years ago)
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Damian Hinds
Of course I am not going to say a word against the right hon. Gentleman’s food bank staff and suggest that they are scaremongering or doing anything else negative like that, but my response to his substantive question is, no, we do not expect these things to happen because we want this system to work as well as it possibly can. Its performance continues to improve and we continue to evolve and improve the system.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister give way?
Damian Hinds
No, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
We also continue an active dialogue with Members across this House and, of course, other people outside, and we will continue to listen to concerns. Where we hear about improvements and identify the need for them, we will make them. As the Secretary of State and I said in opening and closing last week’s debate, the Government will continue to roll out this benefit gradually, in a considered way, adjusting as necessary as we go.
The Opposition are asking for a pause in the roll-out. We already have planned pauses in the roll-outs. We have just had one pause and another is scheduled for January. These breaks in the schedule have intentionally been built in. They illustrate my point of a slow and considered roll-out, rather than the alternative big bang approach—an approach which Opposition Members may recognise from 2003, with the disastrous implementation of working tax credits, with billions misspent and many families left without money for six months, and many, many more facing huge repayment bills.
Jim McMahon
If the Government are so confident in their position, why this week have they refused to publish the risk register that would set out for the whole of Parliament exactly what had been planned?
Damian Hinds
Debates over risk registers in relation to a number of different parts of Government policy happen the whole time. They also happened, by the way, when the Labour party was in government. I think people in general would agree that it is important, for the sake of better management of government, to be able to consider these things in the way that they are.