Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank Josh MacAlister and his team for their hard work and commitment on this piece of work. We must recognise the commitment of the social workers, support workers, foster carers, children’s home staff, youth workers and everyone else who devotes their lives to providing safety and stability to children who are in need or whose own families are unable to care for them. We on these Benches welcome the review’s conclusion: a total reset of children’s social care is now needed.

I remember serving as lead member for children’s services in Darlington and spending time with our looked-after children, visiting our children’s homes and, back in 2007, having a very strong sense that these children are a priority for local agencies and that their futures are our responsibility as corporate parents. I do not think there has ever been a golden age for us to look back at, but it is unarguable that pressures have grown and services have come under more and more strain over the last decade.

MacAlister’s conclusions must make us all wake up to what has been going on in every community up and down the country. Looked-after children are our children, and we are failing them. Over the last 12 years, we have seen the number of children living in poverty rise to 4.3 million. We have also seen the number of looked-after children increase continually, up by a quarter since 2010. The number of Section 47 inquiries, where a local authority has cause to suspect that a child is in need, has gone up by 78% since 2011. Half of all children’s services departments have been rated inadequate or requiring improvement. At the same time, vacancy and turnover rates for children’s social workers are increasing and outcomes for care-experienced children and young people are worsening.

There are many reasons for this, of course, but we have to ask ourselves how, against this backdrop of failure, the 10 biggest private providers of children’s homes and private foster care placements made a jaw-dropping £300 million in profit last year. Where have the early intervention and prevention services gone? We warned that the decimation of Sure Start would have deeper, long-lasting impacts that would cost us socially and economically. Other local authority-led services that would have identified problems sooner have faced cuts too.

Time and again, we all agree that these services are vital—yet the Government do nothing to protect them. I must refer the House to the work led by my noble friend Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, who has been making these arguments for as long as I can remember. Perhaps if she had been heard by the Government, the MacAlister report could have been different and outcomes for children so much better.

We welcome the review’s focus on restoring early help to families so that many more children can be supported to remain and to thrive with their own family, on supporting kinship carers and on seeking to ensure that every looked-after child can build lifelong links with extended family members. We also welcome the review’s clear statement that:

“Providing care for children should not be based on profit.”


The law recognises childhood as lasting until the age of 18, so it is shocking that the Government have continued to allow children to be placed in unregistered children’s homes and other completely unsuitable accommodation. The review says that this must stop, and now.

Nothing the Government have revealed so far answers the review’s demands. Successive piecemeal announcements are yet further indication of what the review describes as

“a lack of national direction about the purpose of children’s social care”.

We agree. The Government do not seem to grasp the depth of change that the review requires, at scale, across the whole country.

We would like to see a firm date for publication of a comprehensive response to the review and a detailed implementation plan. Does the Minister think there will be a need for legislation? We note that nothing was suggested in the Queen’s Speech.

How will the announcement of early-help investment in a handful of additional areas ensure that services are available in every single area of the country so that every family needing help can be supported? Will the Minister agree, as the review demands, to investigate profiteering in children’s social care? How will the Government ensure that the voices and experiences of children are always at the heart of children’s social care? Will she guarantee that the workforce, who are the backbone of children’s social care, are fully respected, engaged and involved as reforms are implemented?

This review represents an opportunity to deliver the total reset needed in children’s social care. It is an opportunity that must not be missed.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we too very much welcome this review and thank all those involved in presenting it to us. I associate my remarks with all those people involved in working with children and families at all sorts of levels; they do an amazing and fantastic job.

The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care provides an opportunity to unlock potential for recognising that loving relationships and supporting kinship networks lead the way to sustainable and ideal solutions for children in social care. Her Majesty’s Government’s response focuses on providing foster carers and social workers with more support but does not address the supporting of children themselves. This review is a wake-up call to Ministers who, after a series of reviews, must finally address the scale and severity of the challenge to provide adequate support to those who rely on us. The report recommends injecting a minimum of £2.6 billion into the care system over the next four years. Will the Minister reassure us that the Government will commit to this kind of important investment?

The Government’s response so far does not address the discrepancy between care-leavers and the continuing success of the individual throughout their life. Every child, no matter where they live or what their circumstances, deserves a great start in life so that they can have the support, relationships, skills and knowledge needed to succeed. We on these Benches believe in young people being allowed to stay in care until the age of 25, as well as increased financial resources through expanding the bursary for those leaving care from £1,000 to £2,000, access to mentors and support networks. We champion bridging the gap between care and a fulfilling adult life in a way that current government policy does not meaningfully address.

Furthermore, Her Majesty’s Government’s proposed policy places the onus of finding care providers for vulnerable young children on the relevant local authority while underfunding those very same councils. The providers in the private sector are charging exorbitant rates—£4,000 a week—for inadequate care, knowing full well that there is a shortage of care providers. The predictable outcome is that the authority finds care from the lowest bidders, often unregistered providers with no quality assurance of care.

Young people are the future of our nation. How can we be content to allow such a situation to continue? Can the Minister give an assurance that the Government will stop these vulnerable children and young people going into inadequate, unregistered care provision? We welcome many of the review’s recommendations, including a renewed emphasis on supporting families, financial allowance to parental and kinship carers at the same rate as foster carers, and providing parental leave to kinship carers. This will support our nation’s most vulnerable young people while allocating funds towards those who are best able to support them.

Without the resources and proper structures of support, children will continue to be placed in unregistered care situations, which can of course be incredibly harmful. It is of paramount importance to use this report as a springboard for sustainable and meaningful change for those who deserve a safe and purposeful upbringing.

We talk about levelling up but, if we are actually to make any meaningful changes, we need to deal with the root causes of what these children and families often find themselves in. It is about making sure that we tackle poverty and provide the best educational opportunities. It is about making sure that families in the most disadvantaged communities are supported.

Finally, I remind the House that we have a Select Committee looking at the Children and Families Act, chaired by my noble friend Lady Tyler. Many of these issues are being discussed in that Select Committee, so I welcome that opportunity as well to highlight these important matters.

Safeguarding of Young Children

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right: health visitors play an incredibly important role in identifying families that need support and children at risk. I know that my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care are looking at this as part of the wider workforce strategy.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is absolutely right to say what she just said, so does she regret the closure of 1,300 Sure Start centres?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Our focus is on getting effective multiagency support for children, hence our investment in family hubs and all the support that goes with them.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part one
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the Minister, and I very much welcome the tone of her words. Obviously, we have concerns about the Bill and the missed opportunity that it represents, but I look forward to working with her and getting to know her as we try to improve this legislation.

Before I begin, I wish to acknowledge the work of my noble friend Lord Watson, who held this post before me. I hope he does not mind me saying how fortunate I feel to have someone like him sitting behind me to guide me and allow me to benefit from his experience and knowledge as the Bill proceeds.

Although there are welcome measures in the Bill, it is a profound disappointment to us because it is a missed opportunity. We feel that it shows that the Government have barely begun the thinking that is needed to address the immediate challenges faced by our schools. Right now, 200,000 children are in areas without a good or outstanding primary school, secondary school class sizes are growing, children are leaving education without the skills they need, mental health needs are unmet, particularly since the pandemic, and the Government are not saying anything of any substance about social mobility or careers advice. Teachers, Ofsted and the Government’s own early years review expressed concerns over the rise in reception children who are not school-ready—and we know how difficult it is for those children to catch up later in their school lives.

Unfortunately, there is much more to say about what is missing from the Bill than about what is there. The Bill lacks an ambitious, substantial plan to support children’s recovery from the pandemic. The OECD tells us that older children, and even 16 to 24 year-olds in England, have worse literacy and numeracy than those in comparable counties. Where are the proposals to improve teaching standards or to tackle the exodus of burnt-out school staff? Where are the measures to equip our students with the skills they need for the industries of the future in an ever-more globalised and technologically advanced economy? After 12 years, the Tories are still not sure about what academies are for, and the Bill proves it. If the point is freedom, why is the Education Secretary seeking direct rule over their standards? I think we know why. It is for the same reason that the Government have taken to using legislation to give Ministers powers to act, rather than being clear about what they intend to do with those powers. It is because the Government are running out of ideas and energy, and on this topic we simply cannot afford for that to happen.

With an 80-seat majority and able effectively to make any changes they like, the Government could be doing so much more, but they are seeking to confer unprecedented powers on the Education Secretary without, it seems, any clue about the direction they want to go in or how they want to act to help children and families. In taking these powers on a whole range of issues, from the curriculum to the length of the school day, Ministers have not explained—they really ought to—what they intend to do with these powers. They might find that there is agreement across the House. We agree that the national curriculum should apply to academies. Is that what the Government think? If so, let us discuss it—and why then would the Secretary of State want the power when there could be agreement across the House?

For all the White Paper’s claims to be following the evidence, the Office for Statistics Regulation had to write to the Department for Education to highlight issues around the transparency, replicability and, most importantly, quality of the statistics presented in the evidence note underpinning the White Paper. We are concerned about this: pushing ahead with full academisation without being clear why the Government are doing it and without having evidence to support the plan—the ideology about structures—when what is needed is a focus on educational attainment, standards and children’s experience in the classroom.

We on these Benches have proposed a national excellence programme, which would drive up standards and make sure that every child leaves school job-ready and life-ready. We would end charitable status for private schools and use the money saved to fill workforce vacancies. Our children’s recovery plan would deliver small-group tutoring for all who need it, as well as breakfast clubs and after-school activities for every child, quality mental health support for children in every school, and continued professional development for teachers to improve teaching and learning, and it would target extra investment, from early years to further education, to support children at risk of falling behind.

This Bill gives the Secretary of State his own to-do list. There are broad powers to set standards for academies, including in critical areas such as the curriculum and school-day length. Can the Minister tell us whether this marks the end of what the Government have described as the “trust-led approach”? It certainly looks like it. This could be described as a power grab. Is that needed because academies are not to be trusted to manage their own affairs, perhaps? Or do the Government intend to deal with the eye-watering salaries of some academy heads? If that is what they want to do, they should say so, and introduce proper measures to address the problem rather than simply taking the power to consider fixing it at some unspecified date in the future.

These powers include the curriculum, so does the department intend to use this power, for example, to educate our children about credit scores, applying for a mortgage, understanding employment and rental contracts, and digital skills? We should all hope so, because these are sorely needed—but we just do not know from what is on the face of the Bill.

We will be tabling amendments to ask the Secretary of State, at the very least, to consult on these powers and, in the interest of transparency, report on how they are to be used. We are keen to maximise parliamentary oversight of the standards and their implementation, and for opportunities for parents and carers to influence the education of their children. It should be noted that there has not been an opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny, as the Government have chosen to start this Bill in your Lordships’ House. In the other place, a committee of MPs would be able to take evidence from stakeholders to help inform their deliberations. Would the Minister be open to suggesting that this stage could be included when the Bill reaches the other place? That kind of scrutiny can be beneficial.

Local authorities will be able to apply for any and all of their schools to become academies. They will have to consult governors but will not need the agreement of governors—so we will be pressing the Government on this in Committee. We think that local school governors should not be steamrollered if they have concerns about becoming an academy, because this would be damaging to parental confidence.

Local authorities will be required to give parents of children not registered in a school educational support if they ask for it, so what are the Government going to do to make sure that councils are resourced sufficiently to do that? Will guidance as to the kind of support that the Government have in mind be available in Committee?

On admissions, what do Ministers anticipate the role of local authorities to be in future? Ensuring honest brokerage is vital to fairness and for parents’ confidence.

There are aspects of the Bill that we welcome. We very much welcome Ofsted being given the powers it needs to inspect unregistered schools. This is a situation that has persisted for too long and we will support the Government’s efforts to resolve it. Similarly, we are pleased to see teacher misconduct regulations extended to cover supply and part-time teachers, and to more settings. Children deserve to be safe in their classrooms, and teachers who break that trust should be held to account.

Schools will have to devise attendance policies in future and we do not disagree with that. They will need to set out new responsibilities for staff, but we all know that they are already at breaking point in terms of workload so will there be guidance, training and support, and will the Government make that available, to make sure that what happens is effective and has the impact that we all want to see in schools?

There are some welcome measures, but why is there nothing on several pressing issues that our children are facing, including crumbling school buildings, unqualified teachers, the lack of school food standards and the lack of transparent financial arrangements? We will attempt to help the Government by tabling amendments on all these issues to strengthen the Bill where we can.

We should not forget that schools are struggling with the exact same cost of living crisis as the families they serve. Do Ministers have a plan to help them to keep up with the rocketing price of food, to help them to improve inadequate broadband or for children suffering terrible mental health due to their financially precarious home lives? So far, the Bill is just silent on these issues.

The Queen’s Speech said that education was at the heart of the Government’s agenda. I am afraid that is not the message that the Bill sends. Teachers, children and parents need action and leadership from the Government. They could be doing so much more. We do not expect Ministers to engage and agree with us on everything that we suggest, but we look forward to working with noble Lords from across the House to turn what is unfortunately an unambitious and lacklustre piece of legislation into an Act that does justice to our children and their families.

Relationship Education in Schools

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The implementation guide will set out very clearly how to plan the curriculum, how to engage parents and the processes that schools need to go through to plan and develop the policy. As I mentioned in my opening comments, we have published the information in three separate languages to try to dispel myths, but the key message that I hope comes from this debate is that we will fully support and back headteachers who decide to teach LGBT issues in their school. As long as they have been through the process of consultation and they publish their policy on the school website, they will have our full backing.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I am in awe of teachers like Gillian Marshall at Red Hall primary school in my constituency who has been providing an inclusive education for many years now. She has worked tirelessly and sensitively with the parents of the children in her care and were this guidance to have a stronger, firmer legal footing, that would not stop: she would still seek to work alongside and with the parents in her community. The Minister does not need to worry that schools will abandon working alongside parents if he gives more power to the school and makes that clearer to the parents.

[Nick Gibb]

Yes, and I pay tribute to that headteacher. There are teachers in thousands of schools up and down the country that are teaching these issues with no protests from any group outside their school gates. The hon. Lady should realise that this is the first time that we are requiring schools to teach about LGBT issues. That will not affect the school she referred to, but it will affect many thousands of schools up and down the country that will for the first time be teaching their pupils about the need to respect difference and to understand that families come in different types, including single parents or parents of the same sex. So this is a very important piece of legislation—a very important piece of statutory guidance. We should all be doing more to support and welcome it, as the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who speaks for the Opposition, did in her response to this urgent question.

School Funding

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to take part in this debate and to listen to my colleagues’ fantastic contributions. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) for introducing the debate, but I particularly thank the petitioners, without whom we would not be able to have it. It is a matter of regret that the Government have not seen fit to allow us time to debate the issue in the Chamber. Were it not for the fact that the petition was signed by so many people, we would not even be here today to discuss it now.

The message is crystal clear. I met chairs of governors in my constituency on Friday and I visit schools all the time. I have been a governor at several schools in my constituency. I went to school there and my children go to the same comprehensive school that I went to. I feel I have got to know many of the people who work in schools in Darlington well over the years. I went to school with someone who is now one of the headteachers, which makes me feel a bit old, I must say. I have never known the unhappiness among leaders in schools to be so great. I remember being a governor between 2002 and 2008, and there was sense of shared mission in the schools—that we could achieve something, narrow the gap, make sure that every child mattered and got what they needed, invest in buildings and the curriculum, and enrich the experience of school life for every child. There was a sense that we shared that common aim between us and were making progress. I am afraid that the shared mission now has become “How on earth do we make this budget balance?” That is not the mission that I want in schools in my constituency.

We have been talking about outcomes, and in the north-east we have the lowest achievement of English baccalaureate and the lowest number of young people gaining two A-levels. We have the highest number of young people with no job and not entering a college course at 16. Social mobility has stalled. My schools are not thriving, but struggling. Schools in Darlington are falling down the league tables. I should like to avail myself of the offer made on the Minister’s behalf by one of his party’s Back Benchers, who said he has an open-door policy. Perhaps he could indicate whether he would be happy to meet me to discuss school performance in Darlington. The regional schools commissioner is invisible. The levers to effect change that were once available to the local authority and to me as the Member of Parliament no longer exist in the same way. Who will decide what is going wrong and intervene to put it right for schools in Darlington? It is not working. Whatever is going wrong needs to be identified and put right.

My headteachers are not a belligerent, ideological bunch. I am going to end with a quotation from one of them, Pete King at Mowden School:

“School leaders have previously tried to shield parents from the difficulty but because the situation is not sustainable, we now need parents to know. There simply are not the savings to be made that can make up for the huge shortfall in our funding, and it feels very unfair to our children and our staff.”

That is the message that is coming from everybody. Government Members may have been very polite about it, but it is the same message. Something is going badly wrong. The results that are wanted may be possible today, but, as the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) said, I seriously doubt that they will be achieved in five, six or 10 years’ time unless we put things right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

My hon. Friend is right that the procurement that was launched in July will ensure that there is good geographical coverage, stability of provision and high-quality apprenticeship training for small and medium-sized enterprises, but I accept that this has been an unsettling time. We are making £440 million available between January 2018 to April 2019 as an interim measure before employers get on to the proper apprenticeship system.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

The Social Mobility Commission recommends that the application process for apprenticeships should be made clearer and simpler, and be better co-ordinated across institutions, so applicants can see what courses are available and what their outcomes will be—a bit like what happens when applying for university courses. Do the Government intend to introduce such a scheme?

[Anne Milton]

We are looking at a number of measures. As the hon. Lady rightly says, clarity is very important. The long-awaited and eagerly anticipated careers strategy will set out some work on this, but a lot of other work is going on. We have to make sure that apprenticeships are easy to apply for and that it is easy to see exactly what they will give apprentices at the end of their apprenticeships.

Schools that work for Everyone

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his views. As he suggests, there are good and outstanding schools all over our country. This is not a binary choice between getting into a grammar and not having access to a good school. We are simply saying that academic children should have the ability to go to a school that will really stretch them, if that is what they want to do.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

What the Secretary of State has just said goes to the nub of the problem. An 11-year-old source close to me started comprehensive school last week. He does not yet know whether he wants to be a chef, an astronaut, a plasterer or a lawyer. He does not know what he wants to do. Why is the Secretary of State closing off opportunities to young people at such a young age?

[Justine Greening]

We are doing precisely the opposite. For example, the introduction of the EBacc and much of the reform of GCSEs will be about ensuring that children come out of our school system—whatever school they have gone into—having a rigorous, balanced set of GCSE results that are academic in nature, and that all options remain open to them.

Teachers Strike

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

The problem with education in Wales is that standards are behind those in this country. In fact, yesterday we were asked what advice we could give to the Welsh Government about our academies programme, our reforms to the curriculum, and our reforms of GCSEs and A-levels, which are resulting in higher and improving standards in this country. The gap, I suspect, is widening.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

As we now have a Chancellor talking about post-Brexit largesse, what do Ministers intend to do to ensure that the projected schools funding cuts are prevented?

[Mr Gibb]

We have protected school funding on a per-pupil basis. School funding is now at £40 billion—the highest it has ever been, and £4 billion more than in 2011-12. Because of the decisions that the Chancellor took in his Budgets, particularly the June 2010 Budget, we are not facing, and have not faced, the crisis facing countries such as Greece that had the same deficit as a percentage of the budget. We have not faced their crisis of closing schools, slashing salaries, and cutting numbers of teachers; we have maintained stability in our system. The average class size has remained stable in that period despite the fact that we have also created 600,000 more school places.

Education, Skills and Training

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I always think of the first Queen’s Speech that you and I attended, Madam Deputy Speaker. That was the last occasion on which I spent any real time with my good friend Robin Cook. I think that most Members in all parts of the House would agree that he was a fine parliamentarian, and I wonder what he would make of this shambles of a Government today. A former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has described the Business Secretary as disappointing, his own Prime Minister as disingenuous, and his own Chancellor as nothing short of a liar, even calling him Pinocchio. Meanwhile, the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the former Mayor of London and the former Defence Secretary are all saying, “Look out, look out, the Turks are coming!” , although 10 years ago they were saying, “We want Turkey in Europe.”

It is against that background that the most wasteful use of parliamentary time in history went ahead last week. It showed what we are used to in this place: contempt from the leader of this country towards the House of Commons. Worse, however, it showed contempt for our Queen to bring that woman here, in her record-breaking 90th year, to deliver such a piece of rubbish. And even worse than that, it showed contempt for the people who do not just send us here, but pay for the privilege of doing so.

It is that contempt that I want to reflect on now, in relation to something that will have a huge impact on the people in my part of the world. I refer to the ludicrous programme of English devolution. It is a farce, it is a joke, but sadly, it is deadly serious.

The Labour party is and always has been the party of devolution, in Scotland, in Wales, in Northern Ireland and in London, all of which have been given real powers, real democracy and real accountability. Crucially, all those arrangements were agreed through genuine engagement and democratic decision-making involving the people affected. What have we got now? Devolution drawn up on the back of a fag packet; decisions taken behind closed doors by Treasury officials, local government senior officers and leaders of councils; the imposition of elected mayors without asking the local people if they want one, often ignoring the voices of those who have already rejected mayors in their towns and cities; the cobbling together of geographical areas that bear little resemblance to each other; meagre resources being given to areas that have been coerced into signing up—areas where huge sums of money have been taken away from local government as austerity goes on and on; an insistence on getting full agreement on structures even before the legislation has been agreed by this House and the other place; a funding stream that has no basis in fairness or transparency; and locally elected representatives being cajoled into agreeing these poor deals as the only game in town, telling them, “You take this or you get nothing.” All this is being cobbled together under the crass PR tags of the “northern powerhouse”, the “midlands engine”—and God knows who is in the back of the car in the boot.

The people of England deserve better than this, and more and more people are recognising that, as are more and more politicians of all colours. Indeed, I have sat in amazement over the past few weeks as I have heard people I disagree with almost every day on almost every issue saying how concerned they are in their part of the world—in East Anglia, the south-west and the west midlands—about how this is going through the House. People are asking, “Why, oh why, is this happening in this way? Why must we in the north-east be told we can’t have this kind of authority without having a mayor, yet people in Cornwall can?” Why can we not have a proper consultation and a referendum, as has quite rightly happened everywhere else in the UK?

Why have we not got a fair funding system? I will give the House a great example of the need for one in my part of the world. Tees Valley, in the south of the north-east, has agreed to proceed with a mayoral combined authority, as is its right. The north-eastern part of the north-east has not as yet fully agreed to do the same. One of the sticking points is resources. We are asking why the Tees Valley, an area that is much smaller than ours geographically and with about a quarter of the population, is getting £15 million a year dedicated to its so-called powerhouse while we in the northern part are getting only £30 million. It might just be a coincidence that the Tees Valley contains the constituency home of the Minister responsible for the northern powerhouse. Surely that could not have anything to do with this decision. That would be almost as absurd as to suggest that the arrangements in the greater Manchester area have anything to do with the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer lives on the fringes of that area. Surely even Pinocchio would not want us to agree to that.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I represent one of the constituencies in the Tees Valley, and I want to make it clear that we deserve that £15 million and will spend it wisely. However, we are also deeply opposed to the imposition of an elected mayor.

[Mr Anderson]

I have no doubt that the people of the Tees Valley should have that money; they deserve a lot more, given what they have gone through over the past 30 years. They have been through deindustrialisation in the 1980s and they have taken other hits lately, and £15 million is meagre corn for the people of the Tees Valley. I am in no way having a go at them. I am asking how it can be fair for a population of that size to get that amount when another area with a population four times the size does not get proportionally more.

I am a huge fan of devolution. I really believe that we in the north-east know what will work for us better than the old Etonians do. I also believe that we should be allowed the freedom to decide what is best for our part of the world, but to do that we need sufficient resources to match the responsibilities that are given to us. We need the funds to meet our needs. We need structures that are transparent and fully accountable, and this should not be negotiated by people with vested interests. The leaders of the council are decent honourable people, but they should not be the ones sitting around the table saying, “Yes, this is what we want and we will agree to it without any recourse to the people in the local area.”

In Gateshead, the council carried out a consultation of 200,000 people, but only 38 people replied. A poll was carried out in the north-east a couple of weeks ago and, out of a population of almost 2 million, only 511 replied. The majority of those who replied said that they did not really know enough about what was going on to make a valid choice. What on earth does that tell us about the way the Government are pushing through this programme, which has nothing to do with real transparency and real democracy? We need genuine buy-in and commitment from the people. Without that, this is going nowhere. We need a range of powers that recognise the vast differences between the needs of people living in, for example, rural Northumberland or the Durham dales and the people living in Tyneside tower blocks. They are different and they will have different demands.

None of these questions has been fully addressed to our satisfaction and, as I said earlier, people in other parts of England are similarly dissatisfied, including those in a number of places that have already signed up to these dodgy deals. I want to make it very clear in relation to my borough of Gateshead, which has refused to sign up to a deal that other people in our part of the world have agreed to, that we are not walking away from this. We want this to work, but we want it to work properly. There is nothing in this Queen’s Speech to make me believe that it will do anything to improve the situation we have been landed with.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

I am grateful for being allowed to speak during this debate on the Queen’s Speech. It was a one nation speech, and I will be speaking mainly about my nation, Scotland, and my hopes to improve legislation here. This is a UK Parliament, I am elected as a Member of a UK Parliament, and—for the benefit of Government Members—I come from Scotland.

There are many things to welcome in the Queen’s Speech, but many more things could be improved on given our experiences in Scotland. It would appear that the Secretary of State for Education’s U-turn is complete and that there should be no forced academisation of schools in England, which is good. However, I have heard it rumoured that cuts to local authority education resource funding might mean that authorities do not have the cash that helps them to improve school services in their areas and that that would lead schools to become academies anyway. No proof has been provided that academisation improves educational attainment—I did not say that; Michael Wilshaw said that. The free schools model came from Sweden, where it has now been decided that such schools are a political failure. I am glad that we have neither academies nor free schools in Scotland.

Turning to the Higher Education and Research Bill, which is mainly for England, it at least has the laudable aim of improving access to higher education, which should be welcomed across the United Kingdom. However, I find it difficult to believe that widening access can actually happen under a Government that have systematically cut funding to poorer students since 2015 and before. Maintenance grants are being abolished. Disabled students’ allowances are being cut. The National Scholarship Programme has been abolished. The educational maintenance allowance, which helps poorer students in both schools and further education, has also been abolished. How can such students possibly move on and access higher education if they are crippled by debt? In England, the number of part-time students has been reduced by 38%, and there are 180,000 fewer mature students in higher education since 2010. As a former further education lecturer, I find that unconscionable. Mature students bring so much to higher and further education, so it is impossible to understand why any Government would want to reduce their chances.

In Scotland, we do not charge fees. We still pay the education maintenance allowance. We actively encourage students to move forward in higher education. We do not simply ask universities to publish information on the types of students from deprived backgrounds who are accessing their services; we have actually legislated that universities must show that they are improving access for our most disadvantaged students. That is an absolute must, and I encourage the Government to look at what Scotland has done. It is important that they not only ask, but tell universities to encourage people from BME backgrounds, disabled people and those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.

One reason why many disadvantaged students do not go to university is the cost. In Scotland, we believe that students should access university based on ability, not the ability to pay. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) has had that sentiment carved into a rock in Edinburgh at Heriot-Watt University—my alma mater. It is a subject with which the majority of people in Scotland totally agree.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying, but before she gets too smug, will she promise to go away and read the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s report on elitism in Scotland?

[Marion Fellows]

I most certainly will, but I remind the hon. Lady that the First Minister, who has been re-elected on a huge mandate, has put education at the heart of her Government and has asked to be judged on her progress.

Many people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland would agree with me that university fees are a huge barrier to higher and further education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling), and I enjoyed picturing her as a blonde on a wire. I am sure she will not get stuck, and I admire the gusto with which she undertakes her role as a constituency MP. However, she did make me reflect on the introduction of the National Citizen Service, alongside the demise of our youth service. I wish the NCS well, but I regret that my local community no longer has a targeted, effective resource to deal with real and immediate problems, not just for young people, but for the wider community.

It is also a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), although I wish we had conferred a little earlier because I found myself scratching out large segments of my speech. She did a great job of explaining why the credibility of the life chances strategy will be questionable when it emerges, given the Government’s record.

I find myself pondering the term “life chances”. It is a much better term than “social mobility”, which is not particularly widely understood. I looked it up, and found that “life chances” was initially coined by Max Weber, the famous sociologist, and it is a positive thing that the Tories are taking reference from his work. My concern, however, is that the term “life chances” will become rubbished because the Government will mess things up, and will not deliver any meaningful improvement in life chances to most people in the country. The term could well go the way of “localism”, “the big society” and—increasingly in my part of the country—“the northern powerhouse”. That term is treated with utter derision and contempt, and I would hate that to happen to “life chances”. I am no one’s class warrior, but I am Labour, and we are about life chances and widening equality of opportunity. That is what we are here for—all Labour Members are in the Labour party because they are interested in life chances. [Interruption.] I am happy to take an intervention if someone wishes to make one.

It is difficult to see how the Government intend to proceed with improving life chances. They are still paying for a social mobility and child poverty commission, which writes excellent, first-class reports and commissions superb research, yet there is precious little sight of that in any Government policies. The commission makes specific recommendations that relate directly to the issues under consideration, but the Government ignore them.

We have heard from many Members who are worried about the quality of apprenticeships—I know I am, and I have seen extremely questionable examples of short, poor-quality apprenticeships that do not lead anywhere. According to the commission, we should have a target of around 30,000 higher level, level 3 apprenticeships. Life chances differ depending on what someone does when they are 16. The decisions they make then determine their life chances for the rest of their life. If they take a non-academic route, their chances of doing well later in life are greatly diminished.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend reminds me of the Aimhigher scheme that operated in my constituency in 2010. It was all about encouraging young people from deprived backgrounds to think that higher education was something for them—basically, it did the things that my mum and dad did to encourage me to go into higher education. Is it not a travesty for those young people that one of this Government’s first actions was to scrap Aimhigher?

[Jenny Chapman]

It is. Our universities do not do nearly enough to encourage a broader range of people to attend their institutions. There are little schemes—I am sure there are some lovely pockets of good practice around the country; I have seen some gorgeous things with primary school children wearing hats around local universities—but their long-term impact is very weak.

We find that the life chances of non-graduates, the people who do not go on to university, are limited. Some 42% do okay: they find themselves in the top half of occupations, are relatively well paid, and receive further training and progression throughout their careers. However, men in lower-half occupations are low paid, with no progression. They make up 16% of non-graduates. They are mostly younger men and they work in lower-paying occupations. There are then the skilled but stuck. Generally, they are women in part-time work. They, too, make up 16% of non-graduates. They are mostly mothers working in low-paying occupations, such as sales and customer service, because they are unable to retrain, get childcare or part-time work in occupations for which they may well be qualified.

About 26% of non-graduates are young, tend to have children and have low qualifications. Again, they are mainly women. They are at real risk of getting stuck. They may have messed up and not done so well in their GCSEs. Perhaps they did not get any advice on what was best for them and made a poor choice. They may have ended up doing hairdressing, beauty therapy or going into another low-paid profession because their friends were doing it and the alternatives were not explained to them. It is now almost impossible for them to get out of that profession and into something with a real chance of progression. If we are talking about life chances, it is this stage in education—if I could fix one thing—that really needs to be addressed. It is underfunded and ignored. There is no decent advice for young people before they make these decisions.

One recommendation from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission is for a common access point. For young people going to university there is the UCAS system. They make their application and are supported through the process. There are deadlines and they understand the process. There is a whole host of information about the outcomes, routes and destinations available on the internet. There is nothing like that for those trying to get on a further education course and that needs to be addressed.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making an extremely interesting and apposite speech. As the father of five children who have gone through the age of 16, your point—sorry, the hon. Lady’s point; forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I deserve to be hanged—about the age of 16 being a crucial time for decision making is so very important. I just want to reinforce that point, having watched five children go through the age of 16. It is so incredibly important. People should recognise that 16 is the golden age.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It is great to have support across the House on this point.

On GCSE and A-level results days we send out tweets congratulating young people, schools and parents. In our constituencies and nationally, there is a sense of an event. There is nothing like that attention, celebration or recognition for non-academic, post-16 qualifications. We do not have the same sense of a nation coming together to recognise the achievement of our young people when they receive their NVQ level 3 in whatever it might be.

Such an inequality of status in qualifications at that age is wrong and something we need to address if we are serious about promoting non-graduate routes into the professions. Let us be honest: most of us will be encouraging our children to take a certain route, involving A-levels and university, because we know that that is how a person gets the best chances. Until non-graduate or non-academic qualifications post-16 bring with them the same opportunities, life chances, employment opportunities and pay, life chances will remain desperately unequal and how well someone succeeds will have nothing to do with what they know but will depend on who they know, who advises them and—even worse—who their parents know. We will not have equality of life chances until we address that simple issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

The consultation is ongoing and we will report to the hon. Lady and the House in due course.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

There is undeniably a crisis in teacher recruitment in schools. I warn the Minister that it is not confined to schools but is starting to affect early years provision too, and hitting it hard because there is no coherent early years career pathway and no set pay scale, with some providers paying wages for only 35 weeks a year. How can the Government possibly hope to improve quality in early years when they are doing their level best to put people off joining the profession?

[Mr Gibb]

We are not putting people off joining the profession, and we are expanding the early years sector. We acknowledge that when we have a strong economy it is a challenge to recruit highly qualified and highly able people. That is the case in this country, and it is the same in other successful economies around the world. We are doing a huge amount to encourage more professionals to come into the profession. We have a very effective advertising campaign. We have very generous bursaries right across the system; we are spending £1.2 billion on those bursaries. This is working, because we recruited 94% of our target to teacher training last year and we have record numbers of people in teaching. What we do not do, as the hon. Lady and Labour Members are doing, is talk down the profession, because, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, teachers tell us that talk about a recruitment crisis helps to deter people from coming into the profession; it does not encourage them to do so.