Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the importance of increasing female participation in STEM. Since 2010, we have seen about 26% more women entering STEM A-levels in England, and our efforts to increase skills participation include the Stimulating Physics Network, which delivers on a series of innovative gender-balanced interventions. I would be happy to read the report that she mentions and to discuss it with her. We are determined to ensure that we work together with the science community to raise participation in these crucial subjects.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend tell us how maths hubs have helped to increase the teaching of mathematics and to enable its better appreciation by students?

Children’s Social Care

John Howell Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered children’s social care in England.

First, let me declare my interest in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Secondly, let me say how delighted I am that we are actually here to debate this issue—the debate has been delayed twice, so this is our third attempt—and that we have some people here to listen as well. It is wonderful, after the stressful week that we have had, that we have two excellent debates this afternoon on really worthwhile subjects that affect all of our constituents on a daily basis. This is the sort of bread and butter business that this House should be spending more time on, but I fear that we do not spend enough time on it, and that has been a characteristic, over many years, of children’s issues in particular.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate. This is a wide-ranging subject, and I am sure that there will be contributions on many aspects from children in care, to safeguarding, early intervention and so on.

I am not overstating the case, having followed this issue in Parliament for now more than 18 years, when I say that children’s social care services are currently approaching crisis point, if they are not already there in certain parts of the country. I am particularly concerned about the disparities and the differential outcomes between different authorities in different parts of the country. That forms the basis of the report “Storing Up Trouble”, which was published last July and produced by the all-party children’s group, of which I am Chair. The Minister very kindly contributed to that report and has spoken to our group in response to it. That followed on from the “No Good Options” report in March 2017, which really flagged up huge differentials in the way that our children are being looked after in the care system and beyond across the country. I thank the National Children’s Bureau and its officers for the immense amount of work that went into that very commendable report.

However, it was not just that report in isolation. I am afraid that, over the past few months, there has been a plethora of reports and many worthy organisations flagging up concerns about the state of children’s social care. Action for Children produced the report, “Revolving Door Part 2: Are we failing children at risk of abuse and neglect?”, which revealed that some 23,000 children needed repeated referrals before receiving statutory support to help them with serious issues such as abuse, neglect and family dysfunction. It found a further 13,500 not getting statutory support despite multiple referrals.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend as worried as I am about the patchy way in which children are brought into the decisions being made about themselves?

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend raises a very good point. There is certainly differential practice and this is an important issue. In my time in the Department for Education, we were really keen, as subsequent Ministers have been, that children in the care system should be at the heart of the considerations of what is best for them, but they actually have quite a good idea of what is best for them as well, so it is really important that they are brought into the decision-making process.

In my time as Minister, I made sure that every local authority in the country—with the exception of the City of London and the Isles of Scilly, where there were no children in care—had a children in care council, made up of children in the care system speaking directly to directors of children’s services and councillors about their experiences. I am really pleased that the Government have decided not to do away with independent reviewing officers, who are that important link, consulting children face-to-face and feeding into their care plans.

Europa School

John Howell Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I am grateful for the Minister’s attendance. He and I have talked about the Europa School at some length on a number of occasions, and he was, of course, responsible for the reply from the Department for Education to a petition that I presented in the Chamber not so long ago. My purpose this evening is first to highlight the importance and the unique history of the approach to languages that is demonstrated at the school, secondly to highlight the approach to providing the European baccalaureate as the final qualification for those leaving it, and thirdly to ask some questions and make some comments arising from the Department’s response to my petition.

The background to all this is, of course, the situation in which we find ourselves as a country in the context of our relationship with the European Union. I am sure we all feel the need to end the current uncertainty as soon as possible, but that is felt nowhere more keenly than at this school, where the educational future of children is at stake.

The Europa School is one of the free schools created as a result of this Government’s initiative. It is in Culham, in my constituency, but it serves a wide area, mostly in Oxfordshire and in the surrounding areas of neighbouring counties. Under the terms of the free school, parents have agreed to the provision of a certain type of education that I will describe in more detail shortly, but let me first say something about the school’s importance and its unique history.

The initial meeting to discuss the establishment of a free school in Culham took place in 2011 with the then schools Minister, my noble Friend Lord Hill. The meeting was sponsored by me and attended by representatives of parents and educationalists who wished to speak in favour of the proposal. The aim was to meet three demands. First, residents of the county had given the clearest possible support for the new school; secondly, its founders wanted to bring a new form of education into the state school system; and thirdly, we all wished to build on a secure and well-established foundation of education in the European Schools curriculum, which leads eventually to the European baccalaureate.

At its core—this is the first of my major points—was a proposal to offer something that had not been offered before in the UK state system, and, indeed, had not previously been offered in the whole of the European School system. The proposers offered a complete, thoroughgoing commitment to full bilingual education from reception class onwards. Pupils would not simply learn the other language, but would learn through that language. They would learn the linguistic rhythm of that language. This was planned to be truly deep language learning, not just the acquisition of a second language overlaid on the first.

The Europa School was set up as a free school because that is what the parents wanted, which is a key component of the free school movement. The parents wanted that particular type of education to continue through the free school. It was a way of approaching subjects in languages. The pupils were taught subjects through all those languages, so they could end up learning history in German or geography in Spanish, and so on. That is a valuable way of teaching. The parents wanted that system to continue in the school, and it is being continued.

During Education questions, I asked the Minister whether he accepted that the school was proving popular with parents of all types, including those from the UK, and that it was a good model of language teaching to follow. He replied that he shared my admiration for the Europa School, and I want to build on that today. I understand that we are anticipating an Ofsted report. I believe that everyone expects the school to have done rather well out of it, and I hope that that expectation is fulfilled. However, this approach needs to be set in the context of Brexit, and the difficulties of negotiating a Brexit that does not see the school become a casualty.

The European School, Culham—not the Europa School—had for some time been destined for closure, as the resourcing for such a school at Culham could not be justified within the European Commission’s budget for European Schools. A closure date of 2017 for the European School had already been announced. A plan was therefore advanced for the new free school to grow year by year as the European School diminished, and for the two schools to share the use of the Culham site on an agreed basis. An important aspect of this is that the free school was oversubscribed by some 30% at its opening in September 2012 and it has remained significantly oversubscribed at every subsequent admissions round since that date.

What promises and commitments has the school made? First, it sought to open multilingual education to all the residents of Oxfordshire. Secondly, it determined that the new school would have an important commitment to sciences and mathematics, particularly when the plans for the secondary school came into play. The school started with two stream languages, German and French, each joined with English, but it has recently added Spanish as a third stream language.

Critically, the freedom offered by the free schools programme to allow free schools to set their own curriculum has been essential. The founders of the Europa School adopted the European Schools’ curriculum, modified by the mandatory elements of the English national curriculum. Thus, by the time of the all-important interview at the Department for Education, there was a distinctive offering to support the bid for pre-opening status. From the deep educational theory came the view that giving a child a second language from their earliest schooling was like giving them a second life—that is, an alternative cultural world in which they could immerse themselves. From the practical world came the view that multilingualism is in no way elitist: what the taxi drivers of many European cities achieve linguistically must be within the reach of schoolchildren, given the right environment and experiences.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a fascinating speech extolling the virtues of the Europa School in his constituency. I have had correspondence from constituents expressing their admiration for the school and I would like to associate myself with those comments. Does he agree with me on two brief points? First, does not the success of the Europa School show the success of the free schools programme? Secondly, does that success not also illustrate that, while Britain may be withdrawing from the political structures of the European Union, she remains an enthusiastic participant in the culture, friendships and co-operation of Europe?

[John Howell]

I agree with both my hon. Friend’s points. The school’s success shows the importance of the free school movement and our commitment to continuing our co-operation in Europe. I thank him for making those points.

I was particularly proud when the Europa School was specifically mentioned here in 2011 when the then Secretary of State for Education announced that the school was to open as a bilingual free school in 2012. That was not the first time that the residents of Oxfordshire had reason to be grateful for the support of the House in determining the educational provision available to their children. The quality of education at Culham through the European Schools programme had long been held in high regard. David Cameron had supported the unique educational offer provided at Culham, seeking to preserve and enhance it.

I should like to praise the system of education offered under the free schools programme. We must not forget that in this case the school was principally set up to deal with parents of mainland European origin in the area. However, the approach to teaching languages has proved immensely successful—so successful that we are now in a situation where British parents are keen for their children to enter the school and be taught in that way. I ask the Minister to acknowledge this and to confirm that he will do all he can to encourage the continuation of this form of education.

Moving on to the question of the European baccalaureate, the Europa School became an accredited European School in 2014. This means that the school has approval to continue offering the European baccalaureate and to teach the European curriculum. This accreditation was confirmed at a more recent inspection in 2018 by the European Commission. No money flows from Brussels to the school as a consequence of that status; it is simply a validation of the quality of teaching and assessment in the school.

What is so valuable about that accreditation and affiliation? The European baccalaureate uniquely obliges all candidates to take written and oral examinations in at least two languages. The examinations do not just test competence in the additional stream language; the students, as I have pointed out, actually study history and geography through those languages, and use the stream languages as the mode of learning and assessment. As a result, students have a linguistic competence in their stream language on leaving similar to the linguistic competence of university undergraduates. At the same time, all students must study mathematics and at least once science subject to an advanced level. That outcome is not delivered by the UK A-level system. This free school also requires a leaving qualification that properly recognises the numerous years of education that are involved in becoming bilingual and studying diverse school subjects in two languages.

As a responsible step in school governance, the principal and governing body of the school have explored whether the international baccalaureate could be adopted as an alternative qualification. However, there are significant limitations: examination and study of subjects through two languages is not mandatory; support for the English and German stream combination is weak; the middle years syllabus differs in significant ways; and, most of all, there is a risk of losing expertise among the teaching staff.

The school wants to be able to continue offering the European curriculum and to offer the European baccalaureate as its qualification for school leavers, and I support it most strongly in that aim. In conversation, the Minister likened the situation to the owners of a copyright. In this case, the copyright is owned by the European Commission, not by the Department for Education. I understand from the Minister that the Department is happy for the school to continue teaching the European baccalaureate, but the problem lies in the attitude of the European Commission. In this situation, I would like to ask the Minister to ensure that the Department for Education can continue to be a friend to this free school, to negotiate strongly on its behalf, and to offer a no-holds-barred assessment of how the school can continue even if the UK is not a member of the EU. I urge the Minister to explore every avenue as a matter separate from Brexit. I hope that this excellent educational establishment may continue its development in the direction that the founders of the free school have planned.

Finally, let me turn to the Department’s response to my petition. I was glad that the Government were successful in securing a provision in the withdrawal agreement that allows for Europa School’s continued accreditation as a European school until the end of August 2021. Beyond the withdrawal agreement, accreditation to deliver the European baccalaureate is available only to schools located in an EU member state. Continuing to deliver the European baccalaureate beyond that depends on a decision by European Union member states and the European Commission, through the European Schools board of governors, to change the rules on accredited schools. What are the Government doing to help the school talk to the European Schools board to try to get an agreement to include the school within its ambit after 2021? The Minister said:

“At present that seems highly unlikely.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2018; Vol. 651, c. 16P.]

This may be a lawyer’s view, but I note the term “at present” in his statement, so I ask him to set out the full position and the likely changes he expects, so as to provide the school with the degree of certainty it requires.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) pointed out, there is something special about free schools, particularly in what they can teach and the way that they can teach it. The Europa School illustrates that above all, which is why I have spent the last few minutes telling Members about it. It is a good example of how free schools work, how they can take the attitudes of parents and make them a reality, and how they can, in this case, through the European baccalaureate, continue to offer something of enormous benefit to children. I would like to see the extent to which we can provide support for the school at this time.

Apprenticeships and Skills Policy

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

I beg to move that,

This House has considered apprenticeships and skills policy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir David. The title of the debate is as broad as possible so that colleagues may join in and give their own perspective. I will address the problems in the apprenticeship levy and regional skills imbalances in our country; the mismatch between the skills system and the needs of the economy; and the need to give tools to places such as Bradford to help us to close the productivity gap between us and London.

In June last year, I held a business and jobs roundtable in my constituency. Business leaders and representatives of trade unions, the Bradford Economic Partnership, the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, Bradford chamber of commerce, Bradford University and Bradford College all attended, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd). The overall theme for the roundtable was how we could boost economic opportunity for all in Bradford South. Although the discussion ranged over a number of issues, a significant amount of time was spent discussing schools, training and apprenticeships. Later in my speech, I will address the specific issue of the apprenticeship levy, but first I will briefly outline the challenges and opportunities facing Bradford.

Bradford is a great northern city with a proud industrial heritage. That heritage was created by successful businesses, which used new technologies and the city’s pioneering drive to build a world-leading economy. We are still home to many successful and enterprising businesses. In my constituency of Bradford South, we have a strong manufacturing sector. Bradford has 1,200 manufacturing businesses, employing more than 25,000 people in the district, which accounts for 13% of all employees locally compared with 8.3% for Great Britain as a whole.

We face a significant challenge with the interconnected problems of low skills and low wages, and I will give a few figures relating to my constituency to illustrate that. In Bradford South, 15% of the working-age population have no qualifications compared with the UK average of 8%; 14% of our working-age population are qualified to degree level and above, compared with 31% nationally; Bradford South has 600 jobs per 1,000 people in the working-age population, compared with 840 nationally; average weekly workplace earnings stood at £480 in April 2018, compared with a UK average of £570; and Bradford South ranks 520th out of 533 constituencies in England in the social mobility index from the House of Commons Library. Many people in my constituency do not have the skills they would need to access good-quality, well-paid and secure jobs.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making about her constituency. Does she believe that schools in her constituency have something to contribute to redressing the imbalance she is describing?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, and it is an even greater pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins). I will take advantage of the way in which she has drawn the subject so widely because I want to answer a fundamental question: how do we get students who are still at school to focus on the options of an apprenticeship and skills training rather than going to university? Those Members who know me may think that that is a rather surprising thing for me to say—I went to three universities and had attachments to two foreign universities while doing so. She will have to forgive that, but I ask the question seriously.

There are two aspects to answering that question: schools, and the method by which we get people attracted to the options of apprenticeships and skills training, which is through work placements. I will start by looking at work placements as a precursor to people going on apprenticeships. I am sure that we have all had people on work placements in our offices; I know that for much of the run-up to the summer holidays, I have a person on a work placement every week. I wonder how many people we are trying to line up to be politicians when we are supposed to be cutting back the number of MPs.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman’s eyes might care to drift towards the Gallery, where he will see a young person from St Dominic’s college in Harrow—just north of my constituency, but she does live in my constituency—who is the living embodiment of the ideals and ambitions that the hon. Gentleman has just expressed.

[John Howell]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing that person out, and for the way in which he described them. It is fitting to include them in the debate.

It is important to get other people involved in providing work placements—it is not just something for politicians to provide. We need to encourage small businesses to become involved in that, so that people get a feel for the entrepreneurship that is involved in setting up and running a small business. There are a couple of examples of companies in my constituency that do that, such as Williams Jet Tenders, which makes boats to go on other boats. It has a scheme of taking 10 people from the most deprived area of the constituency each year, some of whom go on to do apprenticeships. That training provides them with a lot of experience, and also with a lot of fun, because they end their experience by building little boats that they race against each other. I have been along to present the prizes to the winners, and all of that might sound like great fun, but there is also a seriousness to the skills that they learn: how to make model boats, and how to scale them up from that. Other companies provide that experience as well, including a cabinet and kitchen maker that I have also visited.

Those work placements take a whole lot of learning away from the apprenticeships. I am principally going to mention three areas of learning, the first of which is working well with other people. That may sound obvious, but for young people, working with other people and dealing with the dynamics of that is a skill that needs to be learned. Another skill that is crucial to learn and which work placements can provide is how to cope with criticism. Of course, coping with criticism is something that we as politicians take for granted, so maybe the work placements in our offices do have a purpose, but that is an important thing for people to learn. The third thing is people managing their own time, and making sure that that is part of how they approach life. Those are three examples of skills that work placements can provide, which will take away the need to pick up on those areas of learning during apprenticeships and will also help to make apprenticeships more attractive.

Having dealt with the work placement side, let me turn briefly to the schools side. Schools need to participate. We have been only partially successful in encouraging schools to encourage people to go into apprenticeships and skills training rather than to university. Certainly, among the schools in my constituency, there is a huge variety of attitudes towards encouraging students to go into apprenticeships. Some still have a very old-fashioned view of life and only measure success by the number they send to university.

[Mike Amesbury]

I am an MP but I am also a former careers adviser. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is about time that we re-establish a careers service—formerly the Connexions service—that will help people make well-informed and realistic decisions?

[John Howell]

I am open minded. I just think back to my time at university when there was a careers service. I will not tell the House the advice that I was given, but I did not follow it at all—not one iota. I am not sure whether that was down to the quality of the advice or my own sheer cussedness, but I take the hon. Gentleman’s point.

It is important that schools focus on promoting apprenticeships as a legitimate option that is equal to going to university, and we need to judge where people go according to their own skills and inclinations. I am pleased to have been able to contribute on the topic of how we get people to go into apprenticeships in the first place. I think we need to put a little more finesse into the work placements that are offered around the country.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am not quite sure how I follow that tour de force, not least because towards the end of his comments, the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) expressed— and expanded on well—sentiments that I share, but also because I have very little to say about ornamental horticulture.

[John Howell]

To pick up on the horticulture point, Capability Brown made his name with his work at Stowe in Buckinghamshire, which is not a million miles from the Henley constituency that the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) so derided.

[Lee Rowley]

Excellent. I have none of the one-liners, wit or repartee of either my right hon. Friend or the hon. Gentleman, so I will move straight on to the debate as a whole.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) on securing this valuable and necessary debate. We need to have more such discussions. It would be better to talk more about this issue than some of the other subjects we seem to obsess over in this place and elsewhere.

I want to talk about apprenticeships and skills. I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for her time over the past few months when I have been to talk to her about apprenticeships. I am a strong supporter of what the Government are doing on apprenticeships, and the direction is very positive. A number of months ago, I had the opportunity to go to Rolls-Royce, which is a major employer in the south of my county, so I have seen what a good-quality apprenticeship programme does to raise the aspirations of people in the local area and equip them with the skills they need to succeed in the workforce for the next 50 or so years.

The Minister knows the feedback I have received from a number of people and organisations in and around my constituency. Chesterfield College is a large training provider in my part of the world. Smaller training providers, such as Stubbing Court Training, say that there have been problems with the introduction of some of the measures. Some of that is understandable—changes are never easy—but she knows some of my underlying concerns. I have passed them on to her, and I ask her to continue working to resolve them.

The debate on skills is one of the most interesting that we need to have in this place, and it speaks to a much bigger point. I was pleased when the hon. Member for Bradford South discussed the challenge of automation within five minutes of talking about skills. I see automation as a challenge and an opportunity. I wanted to congratulate the hon. Member for Ealing North on his final comments because it was refreshing to hear a speech where automation was not seen just as a problem, but as something that is coming, is inevitable—there is no point arguing about that—and is an opportunity to grasp, because it brings many opportunities for people.

The challenge I see is that we have to start equipping those in the workforce and those coming into the workforce for the next 50 years. That is a truism—everyone knows that. I was with a member of my family yesterday. He is 11, and he had just gone to an interview to decide what secondary school he wants to go to from December. He came back and was telling me about all the things he wants to do. It struck me that he will probably still be in the workforce in 2060 or 2070, a long time from now.

I differ slightly from the hon. Member for Bradford South on one point in her introductory remarks. She talked about the Government having a knowledge of what skills are needed and the changes to come. I am not sure we can look that far ahead—I do not suggest the hon. Lady suggested otherwise. Ultimately, for 11 and 12-year-old children, who will still be in the workforce in 2060—hopefully, I will still be in the workforce in 30 years’ time—we must equip them with the skills to be able to still work and take advantage of what the workforce brings. The hon. Lady talked about automation, so I will throw in a few more statistics: the OECD estimates that 15% of jobs will be fully automated and another third partially automated; McKinsey talks about half of all tasks in the workforce being automated; the World Economic Forum talks about 7 million jobs going in our country, but potentially more than 7 million jobs being created. That is the fundamental challenge that we have to try to work through. We cannot plan for it in the traditional way. We cannot execute it from the centre. We have to equip people with the skills to be able to deal with it in the next 20, 30 or 40 years. Partly it is about core knowledge, and the Government have done an enormous amount in terms of reforms in schools over the past 10 years, but part of it is a different set of skills: flexibility, problem solving, persistence and agility. Those are the things I used to look for when I employed people in my old industry, and they are the most difficult things to work out in an interview process.

An interesting discussion needs to be had in Parliament and other forums, including in industry, about how we start codifying and understanding skills. I am not saying we will get to an NVQ level 3 in persistence or anything like that, but we have to have a better understanding of how we define and measure such things so that we can help to teach people or at least develop such skills.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and I can absolutely confirm that.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The Europa School in my constituency teaches languages by teaching other subjects in foreign languages. Does my right hon. Friend accept that that is proving popular with parents of all types, including from the UK, and that it is a good model to follow?

[Nick Gibb]

I share my hon. Friend’s admiration for the Europa School. It teaches the European baccalaureate, which is of a very high standard. The continuation of that qualification will depend on discussions with the European Schools system after the UK leaves the European Union.

Free Schools and Academies in England

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Greg Hands]

I think that it is sensible to keep those policies under review at all times. I am not familiar with the situation in Stockton-on-Tees, but I think that the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and I am sure that the Minister has noted it.

I want to quote a helpful contribution from the headmaster of the Fulham Boys School, a remarkable man called Alun Ebenezer—he is from your part of the world, Mr Davies, although he was in Cardiff, not Swansea. He wrote that he was happy in his position:

“And yet, eight months later, I decided to apply for a headship at a school that had no site, no pupils, no staff, no exam results, nothing in the trophy cabinet and was 150 miles from my homeland. Why?

Because the opportunity to build a school from scratch, the vision set out for that school and the ideology of the free school movement was so alluring. It was an opportunity to make a difference, challenge society, transform young people’s lives; to shake up the established order. I came to London to show what a free school could do when it properly embraces its freedom…I believe the first four years of FBS have done just that.”

That is the kind of can-do attitude that is seen in so many schools in my constituency.

Another example of schools doing as well as that is the group of Ark schools, of which there are five between the two boroughs. They have led the way in teacher training innovations. Their Now Teach venture, set up in 2016, was designed to encourage high-flyers to retrain as teachers. They get on board the lawyers, doctors and bankers of the world to inspire children and become role models in the classroom. Such innovation is possible only when schools are freed from red tape and the bureaucratic decision-making processes of councils.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend add parents to the list of people that schools should involve? It is crucial that they are involved in a big way in the running of schools. That solves many of the problems that teachers have with things such as discipline.

[Greg Hands]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. The role of parents is vital. Many free schools are parent-led initiatives. I first met people involved with Fulham Boys School in late 2010 or early 2011, along with the then Secretary of State for Education, to discuss how to proceed. Groups of parents in my constituency come to me all the time with all kinds of innovative ideas. I shall talk about some of the problems they face, particularly with finding sites, but my hon. Friend has made a powerful point.

Schools of the kind I am talking about are also doing extremely well nationally, with nearly double the proportion of primary schools rated outstanding, compared with all state-funded primary schools. Secondary free schools and academies are also ahead of state-run maintained schools in the proportion rated outstanding; 30% of free schools have been judged outstanding, compared with 21% of other schools. I see more and more demand. I have come across groups looking for particular specialisms, such as the group of Spanish-speaking Fulham residents who have come to talk to me about setting up a bilingual free school, and another from Fulham’s French community. Other people are looking at subject specialisms. The idea has really driven innovation in my constituency.

However, some issues with the system still need ironing out. Despite all this excellent news, we must not be complacent. There should be no presumption of preferred suppliers of academy chains.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) for introducing this subject, because it is one that I have spent quite a considerable amount of my time specialising in within my constituency. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Minister, who has been incredibly courteous to me over the years, meeting with me and with schools of all sizes so that we can discuss problems. I place on record my sincere thanks to him.

One thing that I have been able to do in specialising in this area is to visit every school in my constituency. I think, from memory, that that is more than 100 schools, which is quite a lot. I have not done that all in one year; I have done it over a number of years, given that we have only Fridays and that the schools are on holiday for quite a lot of the year. But I have done it; I have visited all of them.

I would like to mention one school in particular that fits in with the subject of this debate, the Europa School in Culham in my constituency. Before I describe it, I re-emphasis the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham made about how free schools offer considerable flexibility to reflect a particular way in which parents want their children to be taught. In this case, being a free school offers a particular mindset for how to approach the area, which we should all bear in mind.

The Europa School is the successor to the European School. I am not going to get into a Brexit debate—in fact, I was at a naval dinner last night where, if anyone mentioned the term “Brexit”, they had to drink a large measure of neat rum.

[Alex Cunningham]

Brexit!

[John Howell]

While I would love that to be the case here, I suspect it will not occur.

The European School had a distinguished record. It was set up when lots of European parents were over to work at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy at Oxford University and at the Harwell science centre. For several reasons, the European School’s funding dried up, so the Europa School was started as its successor, and has gradually taken over its workings.

The Europa School was set up as a free school, because that is what the parents wanted. They wanted the particular type of education that the European School offered to continue through the free school. That type of education was a way of approaching subjects in original languages. Children did not go and learn in French, Spanish, German or English. They were taught in all those languages, so they could end up having history in German or geography in Spanish, and so on throughout the complete list of subjects. That is a valuable way of teaching. The parents wanted that system to continue in the school, and it is being continued.

To encapsulate that teaching at the end of the process, the parents also wanted the children to take the European baccalaureate, which offers a comprehensive system for evaluating children at roughly the equivalent A-level period that they would have to face. We need to hold fast to that in what I say next.

We must not forget that the school was principally set up to deal with parents of European origin in the area. The approach to teaching languages has proved immensely successful—so successful that we are now in a situation where non-European parents are desperate for their children to enter the school and be taught in that way. Because it is a free school, it can offer that way of teaching and it can say to the parents, “We can take your child in.” To be honest, I think it is a superb way of being taught languages.

The problem comes about because of the European baccalaureate. As I said, the school is desperate to continue teaching it, but there is some difficulty about the ownership of the copyright for it, and a distinction is being made as to whether that is in the gift of the European Commission or the Department. The school has had some interaction with the Department about the issue, which needs to be resolved. It is important because that way of teaching is very special, and people have become not only wedded to it, but so attracted to it that it attracts parents from a wide area. Earlier this year, I presented a petition from something like 2,500 or 3,000 parents and friends of the school in the House of Commons to try to encourage the Government to make sure that the European baccalaureate can continue to be taught there.

There is something special about free schools, particularly in what they can teach and the way in which they can teach it. The Europa School illustrates that above all, which is why I have spent the last few minutes telling hon. Members about it. It is a good example of how free schools work, how they can take the attitudes of parents and make them a reality, and how they can, in this case, through the European baccalaureate, continue to offer something of enormous benefit to children. I think the Minister agrees that there is no issue of quality about the European baccalaureate; it provides just the same quality that children would get if they were taking traditional A-levels. For that reason, I fully support the school.

School Funding

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Gentleman is pre-empting my speech; I will deal with special educational needs because they are of great concern.

If the Minister meets headteachers in Coventry or in my constituency, they may well tell him that the reality is that the current budget is not enough. Sian Kilpatrick of Bernards Heath Junior School told me that recently she wrote to parents to explain the financial squeeze that her school faces. Mrs Kilpatrick compiled a helpful list of all the additional things that she has to allocate funding to in order to keep her school running—I will not go through them all, but I am happy to share the list with the Minister. The things she outlined include: outdoor vital risk assessments, legal human resources advice, general maintenance costs and staff insurance payments. Those are just some of the additional costs that schools have to find money for. On top of that, she had to pay £8,000 to get her trees pruned.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Surely one of the problems is that different campaign groups, and indeed the Department for Education, use headline figures that vary from organisation to organisation. In working together to achieve a solution to the problem, it is not particularly helpful for words such as “deceptive” and “dishonest” to be used by one campaign against another or against the Department. Does my hon. Friend agree that there should be a much firmer grip on the use of language by the campaign groups?

[Mrs Main]

I cannot comment on the campaign groups; I am commenting on what the headteachers in St Albans said, and no one used the words “deceptive” or “dishonest.” The purpose of my being here today is to ensure that there is a degree of clarity about where the funding goes. The headline is that we are putting more into schools—and we are—but the reality on the ground is that teachers face undue pressures. I want to highlight that. I cannot accept anyone’s use of inappropriate language—that is not fair on either side of the argument. We must be respectful of the pressures faced by the schools and by the Minister.

Family Hubs

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered family hubs.

It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham, given your support for family life.

What exactly are family hubs? They are beginning to spring up across the country, and are being developed by innovative individuals and local authorities as a result of a fundamental rethink of how families can be better supported. The term is used in two main ways. First, it can mean a physical building in the heart of a local community, such as a former children’s centre, a sports centre or a school, where a range of providers of adult and children’s services from the public, private and voluntary sectors are based or co-ordinated. Crucially, it is a place where families can go for help and support, and where someone will have the answers. The Isle of Wight’s locality hubs, to which I will refer shortly, are examples.

Alternatively, the term can be used to refer to a virtual community service hub. For example, in Newcastle, networks of services are co-ordinated in an integrated way, perhaps in a single building that is not itself a hub.

The examples I will refer to today are physical hubs. The advantage of physical hubs is that families know that there is somewhere local to go, where joined-up services are clear for all to see and access without stigma. No family is without its challenges from time to time.

Why are some local authorities developing family hubs? According to Dr Samantha Callan,

“the lack of readily accessible family supports, along a spectrum of need, throughout the time children are dependent on their parents (0-19) means that life chances are often severely impaired and social care services are faced with unremittingly high numbers of children who are in need, on child protection plans and coming into care.”

The Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield OBE, who is very supportive of family hubs, rightly says in her child vulnerability report, published last month, that

“1.6 million children living in families with substantial complex needs have no established recognised form of additional support.”

She is increasingly frustrated that vulnerable children are

“let down by a system that doesn’t recognise or support them; a system that leaves these children and their families to fend for themselves until things have got out of hand and crisis hits”.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

My experience of children’s centres is that they were not targeted, and the services they provided were completely wasted. How will my hon. Friend ensure that the hubs are targeted at the people who really need them, rather than at middle-class mothers who want to sit there or who take their children because they have other things to do?

[Fiona Bruce]

One of the ways—I shall elaborate on this—is to ensure that the centres are grassroots-built, that they engage with the local community and that they involve not just the statutory services but voluntary community groups. Each family hub will therefore be different and tailored to the needs of the local community, much more than Sure Start services were.

Anne Longfield says that

“in expanding the range of support we offer to vulnerable children and their families, we can support many more children in a more efficient and effective way. This is about an approach that works with children and their families, to develop resilience, confidence and independence”.

She says that it is imperative that Government initiatives

“focus on expanding the provision of lower-level services which support children and families, making them routine to access”.

She says that some may simply need a “helping hand” but that

“for others it will be specialist support for them and their families.”

Family hubs can offer that range.

The broader need that Anne Longfield highlights explains why exclusively focusing on the Sure Start children’s centre nought-to-five model is no longer tenable. It is vital, if we are to give children the best start in life, that services are broader. However, we also need to address the massive challenges our country faces due to family instability. That is why family hubs are needed. Such challenges include children’s mental health issues and educational and employment under-attainment, as well as a range of other challenges that can be lifelong, including addiction, housing pressures, pressure on GP surgeries, loneliness in old age and many others.

Although family hubs are as yet few in number, they are already beginning to have a real impact. I understand that the early intervention provision on the Isle of Wight means that fewer children are being put on child protection plans. At Middlewich High School in my constituency, when students have special educational needs or disability or mental health challenges, the whole family is supported. After just a few years, the evidence shows the positive impact of family hubs on the emotional health and wellbeing of students. There has even been an improvement in GCSE results.

I will describe one family hub in detail to evidence the range of support that hubs can provide, but before I do so, I will set out my key asks of the Government. National Government, from the Prime Minister down and across ministerial briefs, must really get behind this initiative. They must champion family hubs in policy, promote best practice and provide a transformation fund to help to accelerate the development of family hubs across the country.

I will describe just one example from a number of family hubs, represented at a recent roundtable to showcase good practice that was held at 10 Downing Street. Family hubs are all different because they are created by and tailored to the local communities in which they sit. Chelmsford family hub opened in March and is located in Chelmsford library. The refurbishment was paid for by a £145,000 grant from the Arts Council and £171,000 from Chelmsford’s infrastructure levy fund. In its first two days of opening, more than 80 families received support from the Essex Child and Adult Wellbeing Service and library staff.

The Essex Child and Adult Wellbeing Service focuses on ensuring every child has the best possible start in life and on providing community services that are accessible and high quality, and that meet the identified needs of children, young people and families.

Schools That Work For Everyone

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I share the hon. Lady’s appreciation of grammar schools and high schools—and other schools indeed—in Trafford and other high-performing areas of the country. She asks what figures I will require. I will require ambitious plans, but they will be specific to individual schools and their circumstances. I want more children from deprived backgrounds to be able to take advantage of this funding.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

A free school in my constituency, the Europa School, has proved very inclusive in providing good places for children. Is this not a good example of a school that adds value to the network and provides more choice for parents and children?

[Damian Hinds]

The free schools programme has added enormously to diversity and innovation in our school system, which is why it is important that we continue to expand their number, through our plans for another 110 or so over the next few years.

Skills Strategy

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered progress on the Government’s skills strategy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. One thing that has remained remarkably consistent as I have spoken to business leaders in my constituency over many years is that, when I ask them what they look for in their future workforce, their answer does not often focus on exam certificates. They want individuals who have a good attitude and are good communicators, excellent problem solvers and strong team players. Yet, barely a day goes by without a story in the news about skills shortages in one sector or another.

It is a drain on our economy and our society that job vacancies cannot be filled because employers are unable to find the right skilled individuals. That is not just a challenge to productivity and prosperity; skills are a social justice issue too—perhaps the central one. When we look at the overwhelming number of senior leaders who were privately educated—I am lucky to be one of them—it is not so much their exam results that got them where they are today, but the connections they were able to make and the networks and team-working skills they developed. If we are serious about social justice, it is our duty to afford those opportunities to all young people.

Since the closure of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, no single organisation has had responsibility for monitoring skills shortages and sharing information about them, so I was delighted when the Edge Foundation stepped forward to form an analysis group, bringing together key organisations in the area. I pay tribute to the foundation’s chair, Lord Baker. The first in a regular series of its bulletin is published today, and it makes for challenging reading—I will happily ensure that copies are available to Members.

The British Chambers of Commerce report says that 60% of services firms and 69% of manufacturing firms experience recruitment difficulties.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Culham Science Centre in my constituency? It has got together an apprenticeship hub that specialises in providing high-tech engineering apprenticeships for local people, and it has transformed how local firms react to those skills.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is a champion of skills and apprenticeships, and the Culham laboratory is exactly what we need to build up our skills base and address our skills deficit. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and to the organisation he mentions.

Shortages of skilled manual labour in manufacturing remain at their highest level since records began. That concern is echoed by the CBI, whose education and skills survey last year showed that the number of businesses that are not confident about being able to hire enough skilled labour is twice that of those that are confident. Reducing the skills shortages must be a key aim of our skills strategy and a barometer of its success.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing the debate. I am grateful for the opportunity to talk in broader terms. I have a great pile of briefings from my wonderful officials, which I will not refer to at all, because I would be telling him things that he probably already knows. He makes a wider point about why skills matter, and he is absolutely right that we have a significant skills shortage in this country.

I was at the WorldSkills competition in Abu Dhabi last year, and there was also a conference where I met many Ministers from Germany and Singapore—there were a whole host of them there. It is clear that we have a world skills shortage; it is not just in this country, although some countries are perhaps doing slightly better. One of the Ministers I talked to attributed their success in technical education, particularly at levels 4 and 5, largely to embedding maths and English so well in the curriculum. When young people came out of that skills system, it was a given that they had reached a high standard, so they could get on and take the academic or technical route that they wanted.

As my right hon. Friend rightly said, surrounding all that is this country’s economic need for a skilled workforce, but it is also about social justice. I did not go to private school and I did not have the networks that my right hon. Friend referred to, which many people have. In fact, I entered politics knowing almost nothing and absolutely nobody. I had to make it up on my own, which was fine for me—I chose politics as a second career—but it is not all right for a young person leaving school at whatever age. It should not be about who someone knows or actually about what they know, or where they live or where they come from; it should be about what skills they have.

My right hon. Friend talked about what employers are looking for. Like him, I have heard that reiterated to me time and again. It is about resilience, attitude, team playing, problem solving and aptitude. Those will not be learned only in the classroom. He also talked about the narrow focus of the curriculum. In some ways, there has been a focus on some of those academic subjects for exactly the reason a Minister from another country pointed out to me: a good foundation in certain key subjects, such as English, maths and digital skills, is important. However, it is also important to widen young people’s eyes to the opportunities that are out there.

My right hon. Friend talked about employer experience, which is critical, particularly for children who are not doing particularly well at school, who are bored in lessons and who do not understand the point of it. Contact with employers demonstrates to them why they are learning those things. It gives them a goal and an aim; it makes it all make sense. Without that it is much harder, particularly for people who, for whatever reason—not necessarily to do with how bright they are—find school slightly more challenging.

Experience of the working world also prepares children to go on to the next stage. I am a mother of four children, and all four worked weekend jobs when they could, and certainly during the holidays. That gave them invaluable experience, because the errors they made will have stood them in very good stead when they went to university or into a job after leaving school.

My right hon. Friend is quite right that the glue around that is the provision of careers advice. Ever since I was at school, which was a very long time ago, I do not think we have got that right. The careers strategy that we published last year is a step in exactly the right direction. It is not necessarily particularly tidy, but the way to reach young people these days is not simply an hour-long lesson with a careers teacher; it has to be much more than that. At the end of the previous Parliament, he was responsible for changes to the Bill that meant that providers of technical education and of apprenticeships must be allowed into schools, which opens young people’s eyes to other possibilities.

[John Howell]

A difficulty in my constituency is that the sixth-form colleges do apprenticeships and skills training very well but ordinary schools do not; they are still wedded to an academic view of life. Does my right hon. Friend share my view?

[Anne Milton]

Yes. My hon. Friend mentioned an organisation in his constituency and its apprenticeship hub, and I commend that local initiative. I have seen something similar down in Gosport that showed an absolutely groundbreaking attitude. He is right that careers advice in schools has traditionally not always been very good.