Timpson Review of School Exclusion

Debate between Graham Stringer and Peter Kyle

Thursday 16th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. Let me also pay tribute to the outgoing Minister for School Standards, the right hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb). I have shadowed him since I took on this role and know him to be a decent, communicative and respectful opponent. I am grateful for that. Last night, I passed on my personal respects and gratitude to him, and I am happy to do so today on the record. He is also the Member of Parliament for the area I grew up and went to school in, which has been another great source of conversation between the two of us because I ended up going back to secondary school at the age of 25, so I had a lot to talk to him about.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter). He, with the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), not only triggered the debate and gave us the opportunity to have this conversation today, but set the tone in a thoughtful and wide-ranging way. For that, I think hon. Members across the House are grateful.

I will start my remarks in the way the hon. Member for Warrington South and the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) did, by paying tribute to the teaching profession and all those who support students in schools. As the hon. Lady pointed out, most schools successfully support students to make the right decisions on behaviour, learning and delivering outcomes that are successful for them, their families and our community. We should be entirely grateful for that. However, today’s debate focuses on the areas where we do not succeed, and we need to do much better overall.

Most teachers do a tremendous job. Despite the considerable challenges they face, they work tirelessly to deliver high-quality learning to all children, regardless of background. They face mounting workloads, coupled with cuts to real-terms budgets, and they have adapted to the unique circumstances of the pandemic. However, where teachers exclude too easily, honest conversations need to be had about why. They are working against a system with high incentives to exclude and too few incentives to include. Moreover, they face a Government who are reticent to address the vulnerabilities underlying exclusions, which their policies have sometimes fostered.

The impact of austerity fell directly on schools, but it also fell indirectly on young people. Cuts were made to children’s services and the wider network of partners designed to support children and to keep them healthy and safe. That has led to a rise in vulnerability. Between 2014 and 2018, the numbers of children being looked after, subject to child protection plans and becoming homeless or living in temporary accommodation, all increased. We know that vulnerability is a key driver of behaviour that leads to exclusions, so it is no wonder the rate of permanent and fixed exclusions rose dramatically over the same period.

Economic vulnerability is a key factor behind exclusions, but other characteristics matter too. According to analysis by the Centre for Social Justice, pupils eligible for free school meals are four times more likely to be permanently excluded than others and more than two in five of all permanently excluded pupils have some form of SEND, a matter particularly close to my heart. Concerningly, the rise in school exclusions shows no sign of ending and more and more pupils are getting stuck in a vicious cycle of exclusions, unsettling for them and unsettling for the school at large.

The historian and critic R.H. Tawney once said:

“What a wise parent would wish for their children, so the state must wish for all its children.”

I doubt that any parent would desire a system in which exclusion is used so readily, especially when we know the consequences of exclusion are so severe. They are felt in education, where only 7% of permanently excluded children receive GCSEs in maths and English. They are felt in work, where only 54% of pupils in alternative provision are in education, employment or training six months after leaving key stage 4. They are felt in the criminal justice system, with an NSPCC analysis of serious case reviews showing that 31% of serious violence victims had received a fixed-term exclusion.

Where no other options are available, exclusion should of course be open to schools, teachers and leaders. I have been involved in establishing two schools, both in areas of quite extreme deprivation. I became chair of governors of one of those schools at the very beginning. In the previous year, the predecessor school had permanently excluded 12 children. That was unacceptable to me. As chair of governors, at the beginning of the new school, I set the target of getting to zero in one year, while increasing student outcomes and attainment.

We managed to get it down to one. In that one case, the child had stabbed six other children with a hypodermic needle. In such circumstances, we cannot allow other students to feel so unsafe. The line cannot be crossed. In those circumstances, exclusion should of course be used, but with a very heavy heart.

We reduced permanent exclusions down to one. At the same time, in one year, we managed to achieve a 100% increase in children with five GCSEs including maths and English. The link between permanent exclusions and the use of exclusion and de facto increasing exam results is simply not there. By never writing off a young person and making sure that the right support is there at the right time, an atmosphere is created that sends a message to every student, whether they face challenges making the right choices in life or not, which ultimately fosters an environment that is conducive to learning for all students.

We must fix the underlying problems that drive problematic behaviour first. As schools balance the desire to keep children in schools with accountability for the performance of others, we must act to introduce sensible safeguards to prevent overuse, not least when—as I saw in my period as shadow Minister for youth justice—children are often excluded while being criminally exploited. That is utterly heartbreaking. Some are even trained by gangs in how to become excluded in the first place, to free up time for drug running and more.

A few years ago, with the serious violence epidemic reaching its peak, the Government seemed to recognise this. They commissioned the hon. Member for Eddisbury to lead a review into school exclusion, attempting to understand how the system could be sensibly rebalanced to allow more children to remain within mainstream provision.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on that report, as the Opposition did at the time. We welcomed his findings and recommendations. The Government did too, “in principle”. Two years on, only six out of 30 of the recommendations have been implemented. Like the Lammy review, when it comes to tough action to tackle unfairness in public systems, the Government must do better to walk the walk. It is not just rhetoric—it means something.

The recommendations ignored by the Government to date include a practice improvement fund to disseminate best ideas on tackling exclusions across the country, and empowering local authorities to lead on partnership working, thus ensuring a truly joined-up approach between all parties involved in the process. Critically, that includes making schools accountable for the results of excluded children. That would ensure that pupils were never dismissed as a problem to be got rid of but were subject to proper tailored interventions that gave them the education that they so sorely need.

The Prime Minister took office on a platform of cracking down on crime, yet his Administration have shown no interest in cutting off the pipeline into crime or tackling child criminal exploitation. I am afraid that Conservative Members were even whipped to vote against my amendments to the recent Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Without shutting off this pipeline, no amount of police action will succeed.

I close by asking the Minister the following questions. What is her rationale for failing to implement the remaining recommendations in the Timpson review? What plans does she have to evaluate the success of the exclusions process as part of the Department’s forthcoming review into the statutory guidance? Along with the hon. Member for Warrington South, I ask the Minister: when will the review into tackling racial and SEND disparities be published? Will she commit to making sure that new exclusions guidance provides specific protections for children subject to criminal exploitation?

There have been too many wasted opportunities. We need to act now to make sure that the school exclusion process is rigorous and fair. If we fail, it will not just be other people’s children who suffer; it will be us all.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

In calling the Minister, I ask her to leave a couple of minutes at the end for the Member who introduced the debate to make a winding-up speech.