University Students: Compensation for Lost Teaching and Rent

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Thursday 15th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan]

The scheme in Northern Ireland has aimed to support those in financial hardship, as we have, but what we have done is slightly different. We have distributed £70 million and now an additional £15 million—a total of £85 million—of hardship money to universities to help those most in need, including international and postgraduate students. That is the process we have used to get money into the pockets of those most in need.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con) [V]]

I have been contacted by some university students from Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke who have felt the closure of universities more acutely from the additional costs of alternative accommodation, loss of employment and the extra costs of accessing teaching online. Can my hon. Friend assure me that the £85 million in total support being made available will deliver tangible help to those left financially struggling?

[Michelle Donelan]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and that is why we are focused on getting money into the pockets of the students who need it now. Universities have flexibility in how they distribute this funding in a way that will best prioritise those in need, but it must be spent on supporting students, including international students, postgraduate students and domestic undergraduate students. My message to any student listening is that if they need help, they should approach their university and ask for it. There is no stigma attached.

Covid-19: Impact on Education

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I am delighted to be present for what is an extremely important debate about the future of education, and particularly the impact of covid. As a member of the Education Committee, and following the almost weekly appearance that the Minister makes before us, I feel as though he and I are seeing each other much more than we are seeing our respective partners. I am delighted to be with him once again today. I am sure he will hear some repeats of the moans and groans at the last meeting of the Education Committee regarding this issue.

On the petitions about GCSEs and A-levels, I appreciate that the Government were in a very tricky situation. I fully respect that a decision was made more quickly than some would have the public believe, but the process was also laid out clearly for pupil, parents and teachers. I must say that my inbox has not seen a deluge of emails, unlike during the algorithm debacle that I am sure we are all desperate to forget.

However, I would like to stress some of my concerns—the Minister will be aware of these—about the fact that exam papers from exam boards are voluntary and not mandatory. I am aware that 100,000 people responded to the consultation and that the overwhelming majority of students were keen for the tests to be voluntary, but even if it is 41%—the Minister might have quoted the Education Committee, and I apologise if I have got that figure wrong—the overwhelming majority of teachers supported the fact that there should be some mandatory testing with the exam papers from exam boards. That is something that would have been very helpful to the evidence base.

Ultimately, the one thing that schools that I am speaking to are concerned about—I am particularly thinking about St Margaret Ward Catholic Academy in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, which I visited recently—is that there a very tight window in which to get assessments done. The angst comes from the fact that the Government announcement has come, yet it is a month until the guidance will follow. That has caused a lot of strain for teachers as they wonder what the exam boards will and will not allow and what they can and cannot do within this period of time.

I appreciate that the situation with testing is difficult for the Minister, but if kids are in school and get a positive lateral flow test, even if they then go home and get a negative polymerase chain reaction test, they are not allowed back into school. The school that I mentioned has seen 38 year 11s stay away for 10 days, which will ultimately have an impact on the evidence gathering that will need to take place.

I also have concerns about grade inflation and the impact on future years, and I have really pushed the issue of grade suppression with the Education Committee. Ultimately, grade inflation has taken place; we have seen it on quite a large scale. The summer of 2020 was more generous than previous years. At A-level, the proportion of candidates awarded an A* or A went up an unprecedented 12.9 percentage points from 25.2% in 2019 to 38.1% in 2020. At GCSE, the proportion awarded grade 4 and above went up 8.8 percentage points from 67.1% to 75.9%.

My worry, as the Chair of the Education Committee regularly says, is that that grade inflation will end up being baked into the system. Ultimately, there has to come a point where we draw a line in the sand. I hope to hear from the Minister, if not today then in the future, that when it comes to the 2020 cohort, the grade inflation of the past two years will be ring-fenced and blacked out, as it were, as an anomaly because we are in a global pandemic—these are unprecedented times—and that we will go back to 2019, pre-pandemic and before the summer grade inflation, in order to have a better gauge of where students are at.

My issue with the suppression is that ultimately there will be kids—particularly children from deprived backgrounds in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke—who are outperforming their peers in their schools and their schools’ historical performance. I fear that teachers, out of fear of having a mass investigation, will ultimately keep grades lower because they do not want other pupils or the wider school to be impacted by Ofqual coming in to investigate. I fear that there will be kids who do not get the grades they deserve, particularly those in deprived communities such as the ones I am proud to serve, for that very reason.

I will say this to the Minister: well done. For the National Education Union to admit that it was wrong was a feat of excellence. I thoroughly enjoyed it and almost had it printed and put on my wall to celebrate. It admitted that it was wrong that the testing would not work. Well, it has worked really well. I saw it at first hand, both in the local primary schools that I visited—Whitfield Valley Primary Academy and St Margaret—which had form groups coming down and having the tests. It worked really smoothly and has given confidence to staff and students. It has meant that those who are asymptomatic are able to go home and therefore stop any spread. That is really positive.

Another issue is the national tutoring programme. The Minister is aware of my concerns about that. Although I absolutely support the aims and fully support the Minister—Teach First and the Education Endowment Foundation are very good providers and groups that have my full backing—my concern when we run big, central Government-style interventions such as that is whether they really get to the kids who need them. In my city, more than 30% of students are eligible for free school meals, and I wonder whether we will reach every single child who has a right to that tuition and support and deserves to have it. When I hear that, so far, only 125,000 out of 1.5 million kids have been reached, that raises concerns.

I want to pass on to the Minister the comments of Dominic McKenna, the headteacher at St Margaret Ward Catholic Academy, about Teach First. He has emailed it and engaged with it, and he has simply had an email back saying, “We’ll get back to you.” I appreciate that the Minister will not think that is good enough; he will want that follow-up to take place. Ultimately, he knows and understands the pressures that headteachers are under. On the one occasion that Dominic McKenna did hear back when he was asking for maths and English tutors, he was told that they were not available but was asked whether he wanted modern foreign languages. Those are still important, but if a school is asking for something and the service is not available, that raises questions about whether the national tutoring programme is going to work as well as it should.

We are talking about two years. I am sure that hon. Members will have concerns about the kids who drop out of education in a school setting, maybe going into colleges or apprenticeships. If they missed out in this academic year, will they get the opportunity to catch up in following years in different educational settings? That is my concern with the programme: its aims are noble and its impact will be big, but will we actually get to every single child in those areas?

I will talk about some of my other pet peeves, which the Minister knows I am a fan of doing. If we are really going to sort out education, we need a standardised national written test in every school for all year groups—from reception to year 11—so that everyone does the same. At primary, it would be literacy and numeracy, and at secondary, it would be English, maths and science, so that we would have some actual data on the full impact of loss of learning. That would help schools to understand what they need to do to help their students catch up in the long term. I believe that a lot of kids will catch up much quicker than we think. Children are remarkably resilient, which I know, having been a balding head of year. I have just seen a shot of the back of my head on the screens here, and the balding is quite concerning. I think the kids might have accelerated that, and the receding hairline that my father has at 65 but which I have managed to achieve at 31.

I believe that kids are remarkably resilient. Being back in a school setting, in a routine, back among their peers and friends, and with their teachers, whom they trust and respect, will go a long way to rebalancing children overall, and mental health support can go where it is most needed. There is a huge pot of money in the sugar tax. I know that it has been put into school sports, but mental health and CAMHS is where that money should go, particularly in the short-term, but perhaps we could look at that in the longer-term, because there will be some mental health challenges. That does not necessarily mean that every children will need one-to-one support, but that sugar tax money could certainly unlock some small group work that could be really positive. The standardised test, as I said, is really important.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), who is a fine speaker on issues of education, talked about sports facilities and the use of the school building. Those buildings are huge community assets, but in the summer the gates are closed, and unless the school is able to rent out any of its space, it goes unused. That is a crying shame. We should be doing so much more with schools in the local area, using them as part of the summer catch-up programme and beyond, to allow youth groups and external agencies to save themselves the overhead costs from their own buildings and to fund revenue schemes for those kids.

My final plug is for the Challenger Trust, whose chief executive officer is Charlie Rigby. I will declare an interest: I was a councillor for him in the ward of Shipston-on-Stour a long time ago, in 2011. The Challenger Trust does amazing work in Gateshead and Birmingham. It costs a 17th of the National Citizen Service and one seventh of OnSide Youth Zones. Rather than directly running programmes, the Challenger Trust works with local partnerships to support school leaders to choose programmes that have the maximum impact in extra-curricular opportunities. It takes children out of their schools and local areas to experience the things that people like me, who went to private school, were privileged enough to experience. I want every child, in every part of this country, to be able to access those same extra-curricular opportunities. That can be achieved only if we find more sustainable long-term funding solutions. Although the NCS is an admirable project, it is very much a short-term project for the summer, and it tends to attract, in my opinion, a lot of middle-class and upper-class children, and does not get into the deprived communities that desperately need it.

Overall, the petitioners—bless them—have done some really good work. Obviously, the Government have well and truly answered their questions well in advance. All I can say is that the teaching profession is an amazing profession—I loved being part of it for eight years—but it has been reputationally damaged. That is not the fault of teachers; the Department for Education needs to bear some responsibility for the fact that it has not always communicated in a timely fashion, which has put school leaders in a difficult situation because they are getting last-minute mixed messages, which causes difficulty with parents.

My biggest criticism, however, is of the National Education Union, which has been an absolute disgrace throughout this crisis, to be quite frank. It has been more interested in playing petty party politics than in getting schools reopen and actually helping the people it is meant to serve, who are children and teachers, all of whom wanted to be back in school.

Dr Mary Bousted is on £180,000-plus a year. Kevin Courtney is on over £200,000 a year—well above what the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom earns. I have said it on my social media, I have said it on radio interviews with Talk Radio, and I will say it in this Westminster Hall debate so that it is a matter of record in Hansard: they must resign with immediate effect. They have failed the teaching profession. They have failed the children whom those teachers are serving. They have damaged the reputation of the profession and led to the impression that teachers somehow went missing in this crisis, which could not be further from the truth.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Robertson, and it is great to be back in a Westminster Hall debate, even if we are not back in Westminster Hall. These are great opportunities not just to discuss in usually a more collegial and convivial way some of the big challenges facing our country but, as we are seeing now, for members of the public to get their voice heard on issues that concern them.

Clearly, lots of water has gone under the bridge since the petitions reached the threshold for debate. Some of the issues that I will touch briefly on before focusing my remarks mainly on exams will be familiar to Members right across the House, but I will repeat them none the less for the benefit of the petitioners. Obviously, lots of people were concerned about the safety of schools and the safe opening of schools. We saw in a number of petitions, not least these, a clamour for schools to be closed. I have to say, particularly in the light of the lived experience of children and young people during the course of lockdown, closing schools ought to be the very last resort, and they should be the last thing to close and the first to reopen. We know that any time out of school, let alone the significant time out of school that children and young people have had, can have a detrimental impact in terms of both learning and their mental health and wellbeing.

Despite the best efforts of schools to keep children learning from home, we know that none the less some children from certain backgrounds and with certain challenges have faced a much more difficult time in accessing online learning, not least because even as schools returned last week the Department for Education was just about scraping in with its own target of getting laptops and devices out to children and young people. Tens of thousands of children are still without the devices they needed, and hundreds of thousands of children are receiving the devices far later than they should have.

None the less, there have been some concerns about safety in the classroom, both from children and young people and from staff working in schools. We believe that the Government really should have done a lot more a lot sooner on that front. I am delighted to see mass testing being rolled out and I hope that it continues to be a success in the way that we have heard described in this debate. Indeed, we called for mass testing to be rolled out late last year, so it is disappointing that it took until this point in 2021 for mass testing to be rolled out.

We also think that the Government missed a significant opportunity to vaccinate all school staff during the half-term. President Biden’s Administration are currently in the process of vaccinating teachers. We were pushing for that not simply on the grounds of safety but because, as I think we are already beginning to see, there is still a challenge of keeping children in school learning. One of the biggest challenges that headteachers had, particularly when schools returned in September, was staff shortages, with teachers going off sick themselves. We think that the Government ought to have vaccinated all staff, and we regret that that has not happened.

I am afraid to say that we still see too many examples of schools being short-changed when it comes to safety measures. Indeed, schools in my constituency have written to me because the funding that they have shelled out for personal protective equipment and other safety measures is not being reimbursed by the Department for Education. What does that mean? It means headteachers robbing Peter to pay Paul—taking funding from one area of the school budget and putting it into these extraordinary safety measures. That is a source of deep regret.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the schools that were in sound financial places pre-pandemic have been hit hardest when it comes to the financial support that they have received, which has been very little. That has meant that a lot of them have ended up eating into their reserves and their positive bank balances. Does he agree that those schools, which will now be judged by Ofsted and could potentially receive an inadequate rating for their finances, need to be reimbursed, particularly when cleaning costs in some schools are up to £4,000 a month?

[Wes Streeting]

I strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman. The fact that these are cross-party concerns should tell the Minister that there is a problem here that still needs to be addressed. These are extraordinary, one-off costs. I want to see every penny of schools’ budgets being directed to learning and teaching, and providing the support that pupils need, not least given the disruption to their education over the last year. It is regrettable if headteachers are having to raid budgets that would normally be going towards pupils’ education to fund safety measures. I hope the Minister will take that point away and reconsider.

I want to address the points about exams. Before I do that, I am afraid I have to start disagreeing with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis). He made a number of partisan attacks on the National Education Union, which was not helpful. We are in the middle of a national crisis and education unions, whether they are representing teaching staff, support staff or staff in leadership positions, have a responsibility to speak up for the concerns of their members.

Whether it is the National Education Union, the Association of School and College Leaders, the National Association of Head Teachers, NASUWT, the Voice section of Community, Unite, Unison or the GMB, all of whom represent staff in schools, they have tried to convey the concerns of their members in a responsible way, to which we, as policy makers, should pay attention. That does not mean that we always agree with them; indeed, there have been points during the pandemic when we have not been on the same page as the National Education Union and where the unions have not been on the same page as each other. That is the nature of representative trade unions representing the concerns of their members.

Given the extraordinary challenges we have seen and the level of stress and anxiety faced by staff, what we have had from the education unions during the pandemic has been measured—sometimes robust, but none the less measured—reflections of their members’ concerns. I do not think it is helpful to attack them in the way we have just seen.

I turn to the issue of exams and what needs to be done. The overarching message is that the Minister and the Department have to learn lessons from the mistakes that they have been making throughout the pandemic. First and foremost, we want to avoid a repeat of last year’s shambles. The Government’s grading algorithm was an unmitigated disaster. About 40% of teacher A-level predictions in England were downgraded by the algorithm. Pupils from working-class backgrounds were more likely to have seen a bigger downward adjustment from the algorithm than those from more affluent backgrounds, and the attainment gap between pupils on free school meals and those who were not got significantly higher in terms of the number of A grades received.

There is something to learn from that whole miserable experience in terms of how the Secretary of State for Education himself handled it. He put alternatives to the algorithm in place at the very last minute and announced that the system would be switched to a triple lock before Ofqual had signed it off. Indeed, Ofqual was told about the plan only on 11 August, two days before results day— talk about lastminute.com. Through his triple lock, the Education Secretary said students could use a valid mock, but he did not direct Ofqual to consider what might constitute a valid mock until results day itself. Again, that is not just last minute, but after the event. Only after several days of chaos did the Education Secretary relent and revert to using unstandardised centre assessed grades.

Having had that awful experience and put young people and their teachers through real chaos and anxiety after A-level results day, the Government have been slow again to plan for this year’s exams, even after last year’s shambles. It was not until October last year that the Government announced a three-week delay for exams in 2021. We said then that the Government ought to have a plan B in place just in case exams could not take place—if the spread of the virus was such that exams as usual could not happen—but the Government did not act. Even when the Government cancelled exams in January, they still did not have a plan B. That should have been done months before, as we had called for.

There was also the BTEC fiasco. We had just an appalling situation in which, even as the Education Secretary announced that all schools were to close at the beginning of January—having just summoned millions of children back into school for the day—he caused additional stress and confusion by insisting that BTEC exams to be taken that month, and indeed some that week, ought to go ahead.

[Jonathan Gullis]

With regard to BTECs, will the hon. Gentleman not agree that even though students were brought in for those exams, they were actually for courses and subjects in which exams are required to have been taken in order for them to get the qualification and therefore give employers the confidence that they have the necessary skills to carry out their duties? It is something that they legally have to do. A subject such as English or maths is obviously a very different thing altogether.

[Wes Streeting]

The problem with the BTEC handling back in January was that the Department was saying two things at the same time. It was saying that these BTEC exams were going ahead, but then, following an outcry and concerns about whether that would be safe, it said:

“In light of the evolving public health measures”—

I am quoting from the DFE statement—

“schools and colleges can continue with the vocational and technical exams that are due to take place in January, where they judge it right to do so.”

That just added to the confusion and chaos. The issue was not just pupils sitting at home, trying to prepare for exams that were taking place literally the next day or in the coming days; it was also that their teachers were unable to give clear answers. This goes back to the point that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North raised about the invidious position that school leaders and teachers have been put in by the chaos and confusion and dither and delay that have come out of the DFE. They were not clear on what was going on—the communication was poor for them—so the very people to whom students usually look to provide clear answers and strong advice and leadership simply were not able to provide it, through no fault of their own.

That left us in the absurd situation in which, according to the Education Secretary, about a third of colleges chose to continue with exams in January, while the rest did not. He then backtracked and cancelled BTEC exams in February and March. Again, he eventually got to the right decision, but why did he not see it coming and why could he not take decisive action in a way that told all students and all staff exactly where they stood and what he planned to do about it?

Let me turn now to some of the other challenges facing us ahead of assessments this summer. The first is on private candidates. There has been concern, throughout the changes to examinations, that about 20,000 private candidates not affiliated with schools and colleges this year will be disadvantaged. Many students have been told that they have to pay hundreds or even thousands of pounds for local exam centres and schools to assess them, and schools do not necessarily have the resources to do that. Again, more for the benefit of people watching the debate than people in the Chamber, I point out that we are not talking about privately educated students; we are talking about private candidates, who are entering themselves privately for examinations. Many of these private candidates are students who were not happy with their centre assessed grades last year. They feel that they are being denied the opportunity to take exams and prove that they deserve better grades. They are worried about whether they are even going to get a centre to take them on.

I acknowledge that today there has been an announcement from the Department that schools will receive a subsidy for every private candidate who is entered for a qualification. I think that that will go some way to incentivising centres to take these students on. I am concerned that, in relation to a very small number of subjects but none the less a number of subjects, the fees to enter students for these exams are more than the £200 that I think the Department is offering. Could the Minister speak to that point in particular?

I wonder, because this is the question that we are getting from students, what consideration the Department and Ofqual gave to allowing private candidates to sit some form of exams. The Minister will understand that the concern of these students is that a system that relies on teacher assessment will be inherently disadvantageous or, perhaps, practically impossible if the centre does not have a relationship with the private candidates.

These are just some of the quotes that I have from private candidates expressing their concerns. One told PoliticsHome:

“With the promise of 2021 exams, I was hopeful that I could redeem myself in my other two A Levels…It’s clear that the government thinks of us as afterthoughts…We’re not just going to sit back whilst they toy with our futures. We want a solution that works for everybody.”

Another student who was downgraded last year said:

“I decided to put my life on hold for another year and resit my exams this summer as the university kindly reinstated my offer. I made the decision not to give up on my dreams and not settle for a grade I strongly believed was too low. I put an extreme amount of effort into revising everyday so that I am able to move on…I am absolutely devastated for private and resit candidates that exams have been cancelled again this year as they are, in vast majority of cases, not able to get a [teacher-assigned] grade.”

Will the Minister explain to those students the practical challenges of their being able to sit an exam? What reassurance can he provide that they will be able to sign up with another school, college or assessment centre and receive a properly validated grade that reflects their abilities and efforts in the way that they hope, as students who are resitting?

My final point about this year’s exams is about the immense pressure that we are already beginning to see inflicted on teachers and headteachers as a result of the appeals system that seems to have been outlined in the guidance. One of my own secondary schools wrote to me quoting the guidance, which says:

“To reduce the number of errors made and, in turn the volume of appeals, centres will be expected to tell their students the evidence on which their grades will be based, before the grades are submitted to exam boards. This will allow issues associated with, for example, absence, illness or reasonable adjustments to be identified and resolved before grades are submitted.”

There is something to commend in the approach that students must understand the basis on which they are being judged—of course, that is absolutely right. It is also absolutely right that mitigating factors ought to be taken into account, and in a transparent way. However, I think we are all concerned about the implication that pupils or pushy parents with sharp elbows will be able to—picking up on reasonable adjustments in particular—effectively demand from teachers and headteachers different grades from the ones the teacher has judged to be right. That puts schools in a really invidious position.

By the way, this should be regarded as a gentle warning to those who regularly make demands for a whole series of exams to be scrapped that the grass is not always greener on the other side. This is not to say that teacher judgment cannot play a role, but leaving a system significantly to teacher judgment in the way that this has been puts enormous pressure on teachers. My concern is that it will also bake in deeper disadvantage because sharp-elbowed middle-class parents will be in there demanding adjustments to grades, and other parents will not. I wonder what the Minister might say in response to that, in terms of the approach to this year’s exams.

Finally, on next year’s exams, if the Education Secretary has not learned from the absolute fiasco last summer and the absolute fiasco in January, and the completely last-minute way in which he made a decision about exams in 2021, please, for the love of God, I hope he has made some judgments about exams in 2022. We already have students on GCSE, A-level and BTEC courses expecting to sit exams in 2022. There is simply no good reason why the Department for Education and Ofqual should not be able to tell those students what exams in 2022 will look like.

Indeed, Ofqual’s acting chief regulator, Simon Lebus, told the Education Committee last week:

“So far as 2022 is concerned, the thinking at the moment is about adaptations along the line that had originally been contemplated for this year, when exams were still to go ahead.”

Furthermore, the Minister for School Standards said:

“We are working now on what decisions we will take for 2022, because we know there has been disruption, but we will have more to say on that later in the year.”

I am afraid that “later in the year” is really not good enough. It is really inexplicable—these issues and the choices available to exam boards and Ministers about mitigations and adjustments to exams are well known and were debated and discussed ahead of exams potentially taking place in 2021. Why are these decisions not ready to go? Why are we not providing clarity and certainty to schools, teachers and students, who are crying out for them? I find it unfathomable that we are not providing clear instruction and guidance to students who are on these courses right now, wondering what they should be studying for and towards, and what their exams will look like.

Of course, adjustments are necessary. Looking at the Department’s own data, we estimated that year 10 pupils have missed one in eight days of GCSE teaching. The situation may not be quite so severe at A-level because we always expect there to be a greater degree of independent learning, but none the less there will be some degree of learning loss, and we know that the challenges faced by students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds will be greater.

Last week, I met school leaders from Newham sixth forms. Both the principals present were very clear that scant information is coming from the Government and that they need certainty now. Uncertainty is piling on the pressure facing pupils and their teachers. The longer Ministers dither and delay, the harder it will be to make meaningful adjustments for exams to go ahead in a way that is fair to all pupils.

Ministers need to learn from their mistakes and act sooner, rather than later. If the Education Secretary did not feel battered and bruised from his previous encounters with exams, and motivated to do something different, something earlier and something decisive, there really is no hope for him.

Education Return and Awarding Qualifications in 2021

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

It is always lovely to hear from the hon. Lady; I thank her very much for her comments. We have set out a comprehensive plan for the return of pupils to education, which is, let’s face it, something that she will always be opposed to. She seems to think that the only thing that a school should do is be shut. In her time on the Front Bench and on the Back Benches, she has never taken up the baton for children in order to campaign for them to be in school. She seems to take the view that they are best at home. That is not the view of Government Members.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con) [V]]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. As he will know, in November last year I published a report with Onward advocating a shorter summer break, as statistically that would help prevent the attainment gap from widening—especially important for disadvantaged pupils. Does my right hon. Friend agree with my idea, particularly as we help children who have lost face-to-face learning in classrooms due to the global pandemic to catch up?

[Gavin Williamson]

I remember reading my hon. Friend’s report, which reached much more broadly than just the issue that he raised. He is right to raise the important issue of how we look at the structures in education. I very much encourage him to sit down with me and Sir Kevan Collins to discuss some of his thoughts and ideas. We will always be very keen to talk about the whole breadth of what can be done to really drive attainment for children, especially those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.

Skills for Jobs White Paper

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Lady will see that this is an expansive package of support for people who want to get training and skills, which is very much designed and fit for the modern economy and responsive enough to shift with changing labour market needs.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con) [V]]

In Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, I am blessed with ceramic manufacturing giants, such as Churchill China, that want to skill up locally, and exciting research and development companies such as Lucideon, which is hoping to open an advanced ceramics campus. A full-fibre academy is launching this year at Stoke-on-Trent College’s Burslem campus, paving the way to unleash silicon Stoke. Does my right hon. Friend agree that by ensuring that high-quality vocational courses are developed to employer-led standards, we can make sure they will deliver meaningful and tangible opportunities for young people?

[Gavin Williamson]

I know that my hon. Friend has been championing the concept of silicon Stoke and ensuring that Stoke-on-Trent has not only the inward investment that is vital for the revitalisation of that great city but investment in the human capital, talent and resources that it has always had but that need enhancing. I look forward to working with him to ensure that that happens and that investment comes to the great city of Stoke-on-Trent.

Remote Education and Free School Meals

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con) [V]]

School is and always will be the safest and best place for a pupil to learn. Delivering remote education is a real challenge, as not every pupil has an environment at home that is easy to work in or has the necessary technology and connectivity. It is equally challenging for teachers to try to replicate as much as possible the learning environment of a normal classroom setting. Some £400 million has been spent on supporting schools and colleges in moving to remote provision, so that every child can access the education they deserve, with 700,000 laptops and tablets and 54,000 4G routers delivered. That is alongside the £5 million spent on our unsung heroes of the pandemic, the Oak National Academy.

With regard to free school meals, it is disappointing and disheartening to see the Labour party wanting to politicise such an important topic. I spent eight and a half years working as a teacher and a head of year in state secondary schools across London and Birmingham. Every day, I worked tirelessly to ensure that the next generation had the education they deserved, as well as looking after their welfare and wellbeing, in the privileged position of loco parentis. I understand how important free school meals are to young people and their families, yet the Labour party spreads misleading graphics, creating anger due to falsehoods, which leads to people calling colleagues and me “Tory scum”, to echo the comment made by the deputy leader of the Labour party towards my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson).

Those in the Labour party seem to believe that they own the monopoly on compassion; they believe that my being a Conservative somehow means that I do not care about the most vulnerable in my community. This is student union politics, intent on pitting people against one another, whereas we should recognise that child holiday hunger is an issue that should unite rather than divide us.

To help to tackle holiday hunger over the winter, including the February half-term, the Government announced a £170 million winter support package for not just those eligible for free school meals, but those of pre-school age and vulnerable and elderly adults in our local communities. That is in addition to the £63 million given to local authorities last June for food and other essential support. Stoke-on-Trent City Council has used the collected £1.5 million of funding wisely. Some 80,640 free school meals will be provided for students, with £110,000 for Stoke-on-Trent Foodbank, £30,000 for the amazing Hubb Foundation, which will partly fund slow cookers, ingredients and recipe cards for families for 12 weeks, and £60,000 for local charity Beat the Cold to provide 100,000 fuel vouchers to vulnerable households affected by fuel poverty.

I fully support the £220 million for the holiday activities and food programme, which means that this calendar year, a place can be offered to every child who is eligible for free school meals, enabling them to benefit from a healthy, nutritious meal, alongside physical and mental stimulation, which is equally important to a young person’s health.

Covid-19: Educational Settings

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Lady will probably be aware that just before Christmas, the Government announced additional support for university students, with an extra package to help those youngsters who are most vulnerable. We will continue to work with the sector to look at how best we can support students and the sector as a whole.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con) [V]]

I cannot hide my disappointment and sadness to see school gates closed to so many students from across Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. Remote learning has many challenges, from unsuitable learning environments to no online connectivity and not having the necessary digital devices. Will my right hon. Friend continue discussions with me and the Minister for School Standards to get textbooks distributed to pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, so that they do not fall victim to the digital divide while learning remotely?

[Gavin Williamson]

I have asked officials to organise a meeting between my hon. Friend, my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards and me next week to discuss this. We all recognise what an important role textbooks play in helping and supporting learning, and there has been some brilliant work and investment in producing exceptionally high-quality material. I look forward to meeting him next week to discuss how we can get textbooks distributed, especially to some of the most disadvantaged communities across our country.

Education: Return in January

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

In tribute to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will be very brief in answering the hon. Gentleman. He probably heard in my earlier response that we are rolling out the distribution of 1 million laptops, more than 150,000 of which will be going out over the first couple of weeks of the coming term. The measures that we have seen meant that, actually, 99% of schools were able to open. We had excellent attendance at schools across the country, including in areas with high infection rates, and areas with high infection rates were able to maintain schools being open. The measures that we are taking, in terms of a mass testing regime, will ensure that schools can continue to remain open, which I am sure he will celebrate.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I want to thank all the teachers and support staff across Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to mass testing. My main concerns, however, remain about children—particularly those in disadvantaged homes—and the work with catching up. The national tutoring programme is helping students in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke to catch up, but we can also use alternatives to the Oak National Academy, which is online. Will my right hon. Friend speak to textbook publishers to see whether they will be willing at cost price to send textbooks to some of our most vulnerable children to enable them to sit their exams this year?

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend so often has brilliant ideas, and I would be very happy to sit down with him to look at how we could do that. The Minister for School Standards is one of the greatest advocates in this country of textbooks and of their real impact and the support they offer students in their learning. We can sit down and discuss my hon. Friend’s thoughts and ideas.

Covid-19: Impact on Schools and Exams

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petitions 326066, 550846, 316404 and 549015, relating to the impact of Covid-19 on schools and exams.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. This is a timely debate as only last week the Secretary of State for Education laid out the Government’s plan for the delivery of GCSEs and A-levels next summer. I want to put on record my sincere thanks to Libby Harris, Alex D’Arcy and Ellis Rogers, whose petitions we debate today, for giving me time to speak with them at length about their reasons for starting their respective petitions. I also thank Dame Glenys Stacey from Ofqual for giving me her time to explain the processes for exams next summer.

I start with Ellis’s e-petition calling for the reclosure of schools and colleges due to an increase in covid-19 cases, which has been signed by 416,000 people—990 of them are from my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke—as well as Libby’s petition asking the Government to mandate schools to close two weeks before the end of autumn term, enabling students to self-isolate before joining loved ones in their Christmas bubbles.

Ellis began his petition because of his mum and aunt, who both work as teachers—unsung heroes during the global health pandemic—at the same secondary school. When all year groups returned to Parrs Wood High School, where Ellis’s mum and aunt work, it was only a matter of weeks until his mother caught covid-19. Ellis feels that, despite all the measures introduced by the school to be as covid-secure as possible, they simply are not enough, in large part because not all pupils are following the rules of wearing masks in corridors, keeping socially distanced from staff and peers, and not mixing with different bubbles. He also highly doubts the regularity of people hand-sanitising or washing. That causes only more anxiety for Ellis as his aunt was classified as extremely vulnerable via her GP during the first lockdown, and his first concern is—rightly so—the safety and wellbeing of his family.

Ellis has some questions for the Minister that he would like to have answered. Why can we not move back to online learning for all pupils? What have the Government done to invest in technology to enable learning from home since the start of the 2020 summer term? Have they invested in better ventilation in schools, as has happened in some countries across Europe? Lastly, what are they doing about vocational qualifications? Many students felt let down by having to wait an additional two weeks to receive their grades last summer. Are vocational qualifications an afterthought?

Libby’s petition, which goes along slightly similar lines to Ellis’s, is about providing safety for elderly relatives and preventing another spike in cases, as we have recently witnessed. She has asked whether it is possible to move all learning online for the final two weeks of this term. In that way, young people could self-isolate, potentially get tested and ensure that they had no symptoms, so that when they met loved ones they could do so knowing that they were not endangering them.

Libby referred me to Stephen Reicher from Independent SAGE, who has suggested allowing pupils off a week earlier than usual and adding those days back into the school calendar next summer, in order to protect loved ones and the NHS. Libby also referred to Kit Yates, also from Independent SAGE, who has said that if we took year 13 alone as a region, they would be in tier 3. To be clear, Libby is not a teacher. She is a concerned citizen who understands the need to compromise and is willing for her idea to apply only to secondary schools where the spread of covid-19 cases seems much more prevalent. Libby therefore asks this question of the Minister: if schools remain open, will the Government implement the safety measures recommended by Independent SAGE, and if not, why not?

I come to the final petitioner, Alex, who has called for the cancellation of all GCSEs and A-levels in the summer of 2021. His petition has just over 169,000 signatories, with 292 from my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. Alex is a year 11 student preparing to sit his GCSEs next summer. A northern lad living in Liverpool, he argues that his local community in his region has been more greatly affected than some in other parts of the United Kingdom. Since September, some of his peers have lost out on six weeks of face-to-face learning. Alex was happy to share that he is a beneficiary of Merchant Taylors’, a private school that he attends in Liverpool. It has the resources and capability to deliver high-quality online learning, but that experience is not fair and not true of many in his community.

Alex referred to statistics showing that during the first lockdown, when most students were asked not to attend school, a study by the National Foundation for Educational Research team concluded that a third of students had not engaged in lessons while at home, 42% had not bothered to return their work, and pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds were the least likely to engage with remote learning. Alex feels it is highly unlikely that a level playing field can be created because, as some surveys suggest, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are up to four months behind in their learning, which the three-week delay to the start of exams simply cannot make up for.

All my discussions with Alex predate last week’s announcement by the Secretary of State for Education, but Alex did email me with some thoughts and questions for the Minister. How will the Government and Ofqual ensure that fair marking is applied across all exam boards, as marking can be very subjective? The Government must ensure that the advance notice of topics and additional support materials is announced as soon as possible to ensure that teachers and students can prepare. A U-turn must not happen. Lastly, will the Government pledge to spend any additional money on resources in case of a third lockdown, and use Oak National Academy, BBC Red Button and textbooks suppliers so that schools have all the resources they need?

I hope I have done justice to the petitioners. I will respond with my own views on the petitions. All petitioners have been told in advance, and I am grateful for their trust in me to deliver their views today. For the record, I do not believe that schools and colleges should close, and I believe that exams must go ahead next summer. I am pleased that we now have the details about how that will run. Such large numbers of students being asked not to attend school for six months still saddens and horrifies me. I understand why that was necessary as we tackled and learned about covid-19, but I think many Members will agree that that is something we never wish to see again.

I represent an area with one of the worst level 3 and level 4 qualification take-ups in the country. Students in my area are below average in achieving a pass in English and in maths at GCSE, and far too many lack access to high-skilled, high-quality apprenticeships or job opportunities. Lockdown has meant that we are rocking on our back foot as a local area after taking a right hook from covid-19. I therefore ask the Government to ensure that the last things to be closed in this country are schools and colleges.

I was extremely disappointed to see the National Education Union executive campaign so heavily not to have schools open to all students, and spending time running a political campaign asking for Facebook graphics to be shared, rather than working with the Department for Education. The damaging actions taken by NEU leaders, who I do not believe speak for most of its members, will have negatively impacted the reputation of and respect for some in the teaching profession. I sincerely hope the NEU will pause and think about its conduct.

Since the start of September, 99% of state-funded schools have been open each week, with the rate of face-to-face attendance maintained at close to 90%, although we have seen a drop to 83% as of 26 November, due to an increase in covid-19 cases. This shows that many students are present in school, and there has been an expectation for schools to provide remote learning when students have to self-isolate, with recent guidance about how that must be done.

Of those pupils who did not attend on 26 November due to covid-related reasons, it is believed that only 0.2% had a confirmed case and 0.4% a suspected case, and 7% to 8% were self-isolating because of coming into contact with someone who had covid. UK scientists have constantly demonstrated that children are less susceptible to infection than adults, which has also been shown in studies from South Korea and Iceland. Data from this summer demonstrated that under-18s in the UK accounted for less than 2% of all infections detected, and research led by University College London concluded that children are 50% less likely to become infected than adults. Data has also indicated that schools are a low-risk setting for transmission and that there is no significant transmission among children or from pupils to teachers. Details of a study in the Netherlands that were published by SAGE in April support these claims.

I believe that the Government have worked to create a comprehensive list of measures—including regular hand washing, enhanced cleaning, bubbles and staggered timings of the day—to ensure that school can be an effective place of learning. However, although lots of good work has been done, it is still fair to ask questions and raise concerns.

I note that the Department for Education has announced recently that money will be made available to schools to assist with the costs of cleaning, the provision of laptops, supply teachers and other costs. Although that is welcome, it is not yet clear what the size of the budget will be nor how the money can be applied for. Schools in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, such as St Mary’s Primary School in Tunstall, have lost out, because they have a well-managed budget and therefore were not entitled to claim back for the cost of making sure that they were covid-secure after the first lockdown. Will the Minister say how big the budget will be, whether schools be able to backdate claims and when the money will be distributed?

I acknowledge and welcome the Government’s £195 million to purchase 340,000 laptops and tablets. However, not all children have access to wi-fi, and nor do they or their parents know how to use the internet and online apps properly, as is the case for 44% of residents across Stoke-on-Trent. While the digital divide exists, with 9 million people struggling to use the internet independently, as the Good Things Foundation has found, we can anticipate huge problems. That is why I back the call by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) for a digital catch-up scheme.

With regard to exams, I will not revisit the past, as I think we have all learned a valuable lesson from that ordeal. The scheme announced by the Secretary of State for Education seems to take a balanced and detailed approach. I am particularly pleased with the advance notice of topics, as it enables teachers to plan accordingly. Again, I urge the Minister to work with the profession to create accessible online resources and also videos on these topics for TV, accessed via the red button, to aid teachers, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the Chair of the Education Committee, has regularly called for. These additional support materials will give students the support to ensure that they can demonstrate the very best of their ability.

However, the Minister must keep the pressure on Ofqual to ensure that advance notice is given by the end of January, as promised. Contingency plans—additional papers for those who miss the exams and enabling clinically vulnerable students to do tests from home—would also be good news. However, I hope that those with special educational needs and disability will also be taken into account much further, with consideration of home examination adjusted for.

Using Ofqual’s special consideration process for those who may sit only one or two of the exams in a subject is also good news, as this is a system that has been in place for decades. However, I ask the Minister to ensure that the system has been stress-tested, because it is highly unlikely that it will have had to handle the numbers in this summer’s exam series, in order to give certainty to year 11 and 13 students across England.

I also urge the Minister to work with me to have the DFE set up an online portal for the volunteer army of retired or ex-teachers to be exam invigilators, an idea that the Secretary of State has supported. This way, the DFE can enable schools to waive the costs of conducting CRB checks and access those stepping up in the national effort.

The Minister also needs to set out how additional exam markers will be hired to ensure that papers can be marked in a shorter timeframe and to ensure the quality of exam board marking.

I welcome the £1 billion catch-up fund, but I am seriously concerned that some schools, such as the King’s Church of England School in Kidsgrove, have not been able to find tutors via the approved suppliers, and by the announcement that the £350 million of funding for the national tutoring programme is not only for the 2020-21 academic year but will now be spread over two years. I have long stated my scepticism that this scheme will deliver for students in disadvantaged areas such as Stoke-on-Trent, Kidsgrove and Talke, as these large, centrally controlled schemes do not always end up where they are intended to.

Will the Minister explain why funding from the national tutoring programme will now be spread over two years, what progress has been made in hiring tutors and how they will be distributed? Lastly, the school holidays are a really important opportunity to catch up. Following comments last week from my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston), will the Minister explain how we can use the holiday periods effectively?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Gullis]

I want to place on the record my thanks to all right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the House who have taken part in this very important debate.

Some really strong points were made about fairness in the United Kingdom by the hon. Members for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I completely concur with their comments. I am concerned about the fact that we have different systems in different parts of our United Kingdom. This would have been a good opportunity for all regions of the United Kingdom to come together as one to agree a system to ensure fairness.

I also have concerns—this was raised by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell)—about the deferment of students from 2020 going into this year along with the students who will apply for university at the end of their summer exams in 2021, and whether universities will be able to handle that and whether students will miss out on their first choices.

I should mention my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey). I was a teacher at Ashlawn School, which he named, so I suppose I should put that on the record in the interests of fairness. I brought him to the school to speak to students on numerous occasions.

I want to go back to the hon. Member for York Central, because she made excellent points about how it would be far better for the £350 million for tutoring to go to local areas to make local decisions to hire local tutors, or for local university or student tutors or ex-teachers like me to go out there and actually do the work. Before I get the Twitterati trolling me, I place on the record that I would not expect to be paid if I did volunteer.

I thank all teachers, supply staff and exam officers from across Stoke-on-Trent North and the UK. I look forward to sparring with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), on education. He referred to the Government’s handling of exams last summer, but I remind him that Labour-run Wales and the Scottish National party, which runs Scotland, also had to realise that their algorithms had gone wrong. He talked about the issues with advance notice. There are 1,000 exams that need to be written, so there is obviously an issue because exam boards need time to work with Ofqual to make sure the topics are fair and balanced.

When it comes to lions led by donkeys—I do enjoy that old line from when I taught history—I thought at one moment that we were talking about the NEU leading the Leader of the Opposition with regard to his constant non-committal in June over whether schools should be open or not. Perhaps I misheard or misunderstood.

I thank all Members for taking part in this debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petitions 326066, 550846, 316404 and 549015, relating to the impact of Covid-19 on schools and exams.

Exams and Accountability 2021

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

We have spent a great deal of time working with stakeholders and listening to children, teachers and professional academics on how best we do this. That is why we have pulled together the proposal that we have, putting the interests of children very much at the heart of everything we do.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend and his entire departmental team on today’s statement, which gives certainty and clarity to teachers, pupils and parents for exams in the summer. We know that schools, including those in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, have been hit hard financially this year due to covid-19. That will only be added to by the need to advertise for, train and hire additional exam invigilators, which is a challenge at the best of times, so will my right hon. Friend back my call for an army of volunteers, made up of former and retired teachers—please add my name to the list—to help the national effort and deliver exams next summer?

[Gavin Williamson]

I would be delighted to add my hon. Friend’s name to the list of that army of volunteers who will go out there and help in schools. However, we do not just need invigilators; we also need markers—people who have experience as teachers, who are maybe retired—to come forward and assist us in this significant effort to ensure that papers are marked punctually. This is a great opportunity for people to give something back to the next generation and to schools in their community by either volunteering as an invigilator or coming forward as a marker.

School Attendance: Covid-19

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 300399, relating to school attendance during the covid-19 outbreak.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank Matthew Wardle, who began the petition and has gathered over 100,000 signatures—136 from my constituency alone in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. I am thankful to have spoken to him today over the phone, and I hope to represent his views, and those of the people who have signed the petition, in a fair manner.

I thought I would start by briefly stating the law, as it stands, in relation to fines being used by schools and local authorities. Under section 7 of the Education Act 1996, parents have a duty to ensure that their children

“of compulsory school age…receive efficient full-time education…by regular attendance at school”.

Schools and local authorities can use a range of parental responsibility measures to provide support when a child’s attendance at school becomes a problem.

Section 23 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 made provision for parents to be fined for their child’s unauthorised absence from school. In September 2013, the amount of time a parent has to pay a fine was reduced. Parents must pay £60 within 21 days, rising to £120 if paid within 22 to 29 days of the notice being issued. If the fine is not paid, the parent can be prosecuted. However, it is important to make it clear that schools and local authorities can implement various legal powers, as well as penalty notices or prosecutions, if a child is missing school without a good reason. They include parenting orders, education supervision orders and school attendance orders.

As parents, we all want our children in school. It is the best place for them to learn and to socialise with their peers. Schools are vital to a child’s wellbeing, safeguarding and education, yet these are not normal times, so we cannot have schools operating in normal ways. However, we are in unprecedented times and must therefore act in an unprecedented way. Matthew argues that the long-term effects of covid-19 on children are still relatively unknown. The fact that there was huge pressure from parents back in April to keep their children at home, and that the Government sent the overwhelming majority of students home, illustrates the risk associated with sending them to school. Despite schools working tirelessly to be as covid-secure as possible, that element of risk has not yet gone; in fact, it is heightened by the need for a second national lockdown over November.

Matthew states that parents are responding to their protective instincts, which are driven by fear, and that it is not fair to punish people who are acting in the best interest to safeguard their children and families. When the situation in August showed a reasonably stable R rate, it was understandable that the Government thought school attendance rules should be restored in September. To Matthew and those who signed the petition, however, that was thrown into doubt after the Prime Minister talked of the rising risk of the NHS being overrun and cases spreading rapidly across the country. Matthew asks:

“How is the situation today any different, if not worse, to that back in April this year?”

Matthew also asks:

“Can we not go back to virtual learning, where teachers can upload pre-recorded lessons? Schools can send learning packs out to homes, as they did with their own children. Or even fine parents who do not ensure that children complete a certain percentage of work provided.”

If none of those options is viable, Matthew simply asks that parents can make a choice. Allow those parents who wish to conduct home learning the opportunity to do so, without the need to de-register their child. In the first eight weeks of returning to school this September, Matthew’s children had to spend four of those weeks in isolation at the school’s request. That caused anxiety and stress in households, as well as difficulties with parents—before Saturday’s announcement—going back to offices and suddenly trying to arrange childcare where the tier system allowed.

Amy McClellan, from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), wrote to me in support of Matthew. Amy argues that:

“With airborne transmission as the main way that covid-19 has been spreading, what is being done to improve poor ventilation in many schools, as is being tackled in Germany?”

Lastly, I spoke to James Bowen from the National Association of Head Teachers ahead of the debate. The NAHT sees school fines as being a blunt tool in abnormal times, which creates unnecessary conflict between the school and parents at a time when it is important that we work together in order to beat coronavirus. As noted, a school takes such action as a last resort, but parents who have children with underlying health conditions will rightly be anxious. Instead, he believes we should be helping schools to reassure parents of the safety measures taken, and to enable headteachers to act on a case-by-case when it comes to students not attending school.

Will the Minister give clear answers to Matthew and to the hundreds of thousands of individuals who signed the petition, so they know that their voices have been heard and their concerns clearly considered?

Before I sit down to let others speak, I will put on the record my personal position on the issue. I have informed Matthew that I disagree with the call to suspend fines for low attendance once again. I have contacted several primary and secondary schools across Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, to hear the perspectives of headteachers, senior leaders and school attendance officers. I also bring to the debate my eight years of experience as a teacher in state secondary schools, a large proportion of which I worked as a head of year with the responsibility of overseeing attendance.

The key point about why schools and local authorities must retain the ability to fine non-attendance is summed up well by colleagues at the Excel Academy. Covid-related absence is discounted from a child’s attendance record, so it would never be the reason for a fine or court action. Parents of students about whom schools have concerns based on attendance data from previous years need to be aware of the consequences of not working with the school to keep their child’s attendance above a 90% minimum.

As I stated at the start of my speech, there are many steps of support before parents are fined. Without the ability to fine parents, schools would have no strategies left, having put all the support in place, and so they might not see improvement in a pupil’s attendance. The suspension of the fine would make it even harder for schools to engage with hard-to-reach families. One of my local schools reported that, in some extreme cases, parents were booking holidays to other countries—knowing that they would have to quarantine as a result—because holidays were cheap and the law places an expectation on schools to provide home education while students quarantine and self-isolate.

We need to remember that the decision to fine parents is a decision for schools and local authorities. The Department for Education’s reopening guidance advised schools to take a supportive approach rather than being too hasty in issuing fines. The Department has also asked schools and local authorities to communicate clear and consistent expectations on school attendance. Pupils and families who may be reluctant to attend should be identified and plans developed to re-engage with them. Schools can also use the additional catch-up funding and the pupil premium funding to put measures in place for families who require additional support to secure a pupil’s regular attendance.

In the August statement from the chief medical officers on the re-opening of schools and childcare, the signatories restated the importance of attendance for children and young people. The percentage of symptomatic cases requiring hospitalisation is estimated to be 0.1% for children aged nought to nine, and 0.3% among those aged 10 to 19. The statement also suggested, based on data from the Office for National Statistics, that teaching is a lower-risk profession, and that international data supports that claim. The House of Commons Library briefing also supports it, stating that although almost half a million pupils did not attend school for covid-19-related reasons as of 22 October 2020, only 0.1% had confirmed cases of coronavirus, while 0.4% had suspected cases. Some 459,000 self-isolated after potential contact with a covid case.

We cannot pretend that any school will ever be risk-free, but we must look at the data and accept that the damage to a child’s life chances and physical and mental health, as well as safeguarding concerns, mean that the risk of schools being open to all pupils outweighs the risk of a covid outbreak. These are not easy or comfortable choices, but to lift young people in Stoke-on-Trent, Kidsgrove and Talke out of the bottom 20% of national statistics on social mobility and on level 3 and 4 qualification take-up, and to reduce the number of people who are in work without any formal qualifications—the figure there is 8% higher than the national average—students need to be in the classroom with the expert in the room, their teacher, to ensure that they can access one of the greatest equalisers we have in this country: school.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wes Streeting]

I strongly endorse the point made by my hon. Friend; she is absolutely right.

Returning to the research available to us, I am a concerned about the large gap that is emerging in the number of learning hours between those from the most affluent backgrounds and those from the poorest backgrounds, because the contrast is stark; the gap between them is more than an hour a day for both primary and secondary pupils. When we look at the breakdown of data on those from the poorest backgrounds and those from the wealthiest backgrounds, we see that pupils are learning significantly less if they are from a poorer background rather than a more affluent background. That raises really serious long-term challenges when it comes to closing the attainment gap.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; we now have a full house of people making interventions. I wrote a piece for the Red Box newsletter in The Times to raise some of the concerns that exist. For example, 27% of those in low-income households do not use the internet, which is a really startling figure. I am very proud to be a member of the Blue Collar Conservativism group that has joined Labour colleagues to ask for a digital catch-up scheme. I would like to hear the shadow Minister’s thoughts on that, and I urge the Minister himself to take that idea and consider it, to see how we can introduce such a scheme, because when I listen to St Bart’s Multi-Academy Trust, which has 19 schools across north Staffordshire and south-east Cheshire, I am told that it was promised 465 laptops but only given 55. This issue is a great concern for many disadvantaged pupils in trust schools.

[Wes Streeting]

That is absolutely right. We heard from the Chair of the Education Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), that back in June around 700,000 disadvantaged children were not doing homework and did not have proper access to computers or the internet. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden said, the number could be higher.

That brings me to my fundamental concerns about where the Government have been on education throughout this pandemic. On too many occasions, education has been an afterthought for the Government in their response to the pandemic. There was more thought and guidance provided about opening pubs than about opening schools. Some of the support that has been provided to schools in terms of the funding they need to keep a safe environment—such as personal protective equipment, sanitisers, hand-washing facilities, deep cleans and frequent cleans, and cover for absent staff who have been forced to self-isolate—falls short of what schools need.

This is my point of reassurance to the public, including people who are thinking about whether to send their children to schools—headteachers are doing everything they can to keep their schools safe. I do not know a single headteacher who would open their school if they did not believe it was safe. However, they are looking at the end of the financial year with real worry and anxiety, because they will spend what it takes to keep their schools safe for their pupils and staff, but at the moment they do not have the certainty that, as the financial year-end approaches, the Government will step up and do whatever it takes to ensure that those costs are covered. The Government need to act in that respect.

I am deeply concerned about what we saw before half term, when allocations of laptops were cut at the 11th hour. The Government need to step up and recognise—this is a general point about the pandemic response—that there are some things that central Government can do well, but providing responsive emergency resources to local communities, whether food parcels, laptops or internet connections, is much better done locally. They should give local authorities, academy trusts and schools the freedom and resources to buy the kit they need for their pupils. They know their pupils best, but they need money to ensure that those kids have the kit and the internet access that they need. I urge the Minister to reflect on the shortcomings of the provision so far.

As a general point, as was set out earlier in the debate, fines are a blunt instrument for compelling people to turn up to schools. The general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, Geoff Barton, said:

“We don’t think that it is the right approach to fine parents for the non-attendance of children as soon as schools fully reopen in September, and the Government should not expect schools to take this action.”

We have had similar representations from the National Education Union and the National Association of Head Teachers. As much as the Government say, “Let’s have a conversation first. This is about discretion,” we have seen too many cases in which that does not apply, and schools do not necessarily believe that they have the flexibility that the Government say they do.

One of my constituents, a teenage girl who was shot in the lungs when she was a young child, was compelled by her school to go back, despite the risk of coronavirus and a letter from her GP, because the school threatened her with a fine. A mother of a terminally ill three-year-old was forced to deregister her older daughter from her school to avoid being charged weekly non-attendance fines. A woman with type 1 diabetes, asthma and an underactive thyroid, which means she is classed her as clinically vulnerable under NHS guidelines, has been threatened with a three-month prison sentence and a £2,500 fine because she refused to send her children back to school amid coronavirus.

Some of this stuff is bizarre. It is really inappropriate to put families in that position. As a general point of principle, I do not think school fines work, and in the current circumstances the Government have to be clearer in their guidance about what happens if there are vulnerable family members at home with underlying health conditions who are concerned that a child coming back from school might present a risk, or if vulnerable people live with a member of school staff who presents a risk. That is something about which lots of staff in school and school leaders are anxious.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir David; I have not kept count like my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt), but I am sure there have been many occasions. I welcome the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) to his position. I look forward to debating with him. If today is an example of the exchanges that we will have in the future, I look forward to them very much indeed. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) on the excellent and fair way that he introduced the debate.

To pick up on one or two points made by the hon. Member for Ilford North on the attainment gap, the raison d’être of education policy since 2010 has been to close that gap. That has been the reason for all our reforms in reading, in maths, in the curriculum of GCSEs and A-levels, in the academies programme, and in the school improvement programme—everything we have been doing since 2010 has been about closing that gap, and making sure that those from the least advantaged backgrounds in our country have the same quality of education as their more advantaged peers. Since 2011, we have managed to close the attainment gap in primary schools by 13% and by 9% in secondary schools. We worry about the effect of the pandemic on that success, which is why we have managed to secure £1 billion of catch-up funding, £350 million of which is specifically targeted at the most disadvantaged pupils through the national tutoring programme.

This debate is particularly timely in the light of the Prime Minister’s announcement this weekend of new national restrictions. We are clear that the Government will continue to prioritise the long-term future of young people. We will not ask schools to close. It is vital that as many children as possible attend school, for their education, for their wellbeing and for their wider development—a view shared by my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North, and for Ipswich, and by the hon. Members for Ilford North, and for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh).

High levels of pupil attendance in school over this period are critical to ensuring that this generation of children reaches its potential, and to preventing a widening of the attainment gap. I pay tribute to the outstanding efforts of teachers, staff and parents across the country, which have meant that pupils continue to receive the education and opportunities that they deserve in the face of this pandemic. I also extend my thanks specifically to the attendance workers in schools and local authorities for their continued hard work in supporting so many pupils to attend.

At the beginning of the outbreak, we made the difficult decision to limit the number of pupils attending school, and we empowered schools and local professionals to prioritise the attendance of vulnerable children and the children of critical workers. Although rates of coronavirus are rising, it is vital that children attend school to minimise as far as possible the long-term impact of the pandemic on their education. We are clear that school attendance is mandatory, and all the usual rules apply, including regarding parents’ duty to secure their child’s regular attendance at school, and the ability of schools and local authorities to issue sanctions and secure attendance.

The Department will shortly issue summary guidance to schools setting out the implications of the new national restrictions. There is a clear correlation, as the hon. Member for Ilford North said, between time absent from school and attainment. Pupils with higher overall absence tend to do less well in their GCSEs. Figures show that as of 22 October, 99.3% of schools were open, excluding schools on half term or inset days, and up to 7 million children and young people were in school; that represents 86% of pupils across the country. We continue to regularly collect and monitor school attendance data, which is published weekly as part of the Department’s commitment to transparency and to supporting local action.

To support high levels of attendance, we have specifically asked schools to continue to communicate clear and consistent expectations about school attendance to pupils and their families. We have asked schools to identify pupils who are reluctant to attend or who are at risk of disengagement, and to develop plans to re-engage them, using the catch-up funding that they will receive.

We have asked schools to work closely with other professionals, including social workers and specialist services, to support pupils’ attendance. There are examples of excellent work to support high levels of attendance across the country, including in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North. The Stoke-on-Trent opportunity area is funding a project to tackle the underlying causes of unauthorised absence by creating a behaviour and attendance leaders network to establish consistent approaches and shared best practice across all the schools in the city. cannot attend school because they are required to self-isolate, they will be able to learn at home, and that catch-up support will be provided.

Underpinning all this important work by schools are the usual school attendance rules and legal duties. These rules and duties will continue to apply during the forthcoming new national restrictions. Parents have a duty under section 7 of the Education Act 1996 to ensure that if their child is of compulsory school age, they receive an efficient full-time education, either by attendance at school or otherwise.

Schools and local authorities can use a range of measures if a child’s attendance becomes a problem. The law gives schools and local authorities power to offer parenting contracts and obtain parenting orders to improve school attendance. Where a parent has failed to secure their child’s regular attendance, prosecution of a parent is available to local authorities as a last resort, under section 444 of the Education Act 1996.

Of course, now more than ever, we trust schools and local authorities to consider the circumstances of each pupil and family when considering what the appropriate action is to tackle absence and support the child’s attendance, and whether to use those powers. We trust them to do this sensitively, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich. We also encourage parents to work with their child’s school and the local authority, to discuss the reasons behind their child’s absence, and to agree together an action plan, so that the right support can be put in place to help the child return to regular and consistent education.

Where children are not able to attend school because they are following public or clinical health advice related to coronavirus, parents will not be penalised. We will shortly publish updated guidance setting out current attendance expectations for children who are clinically extremely vulnerable. We also recognise that some pupils or families may still be anxious about sending their child to school, especially in the light of the rise in infections. Schools have been discussing those concerns with these families in order to provide reassurance.

To increase support further in the long term, we remain committed to tackling mental health problems and implementing our joint Green Paper, which helps to introduce new mental health support teams, linked to schools and colleges. Those teams will help schools deal with mental health issues, which are as prevalent as, if not more prevalent than, they have been in recent years.

The safety of all children in schools is especially important at present. We have set out a clear framework so that school leaders can put in place protective measures for pupils and their staff. Protective controls include ensuring that people who have symptoms do not attend school, that robust hand and respiratory hygiene measures are followed, that cleaning arrangements are enhanced, that contact is minimised between individuals, and that schools actively engage with NHS Test and Trace.

All four UK chief medical officers have been clear that the risk to children of becoming severely ill from coronavirus is low. Therefore, for the vast majority of children, the benefits of being back in the classroom far outweigh the risks. Nevertheless, access to testing is available for any child, young person or member of staff displaying symptoms, as well as any symptomatic members of their household. Supplies of test kits have also been provided to all schools for those who develop symptoms on site and face significant personal barriers to accessing a test.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden raised the important issue of remote education, as she did in the Adjournment debate just before the recess. I share her genuine passion for ensuring that all children have access to remote education. We are clear that for some pupils who are unable to attend school in person, remote education may need to be an essential component of their education, alongside classroom teaching. In those circumstances, the Government want to ensure that there is no doubt about the roles and responsibilities within the system for providing remote education.

The Secretary of State therefore made a temporary continuity direction on 1 October to clarify that schools have a duty to provide remote education for state-funded school-aged children who are unable to attend school due to coronavirus, in line with our guidance and the law. To support schools and colleges in meeting those expectations, the Department announced a further remote education support package, which includes access to the right technology to deliver remote education, peer-to-peer training on how to use it effectively, and practical tools, guidance and webinars. Alongside that, the Department has made £4.84 million available for Oak National Academy, both for the summer term of the last academic year and for the 2020-21 academic year, so that it can provide video lessons on a broad range of subjects for reception up to year 11.

The hon. Lady also talked about devices. The Government are doing everything that they can to support schools in delivering remote education. Having invested more than £195 million in supporting remote education, the Department delivered more than 220,000 laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children who would not otherwise have access to a digital device, and we are adding to the support by making 340,000 additional laptops and tablets available to support children who might face disruption to their education this term. Since September—the beginning of term—more than 100,000 of those laptops have already been delivered to schools.

In the context of increasing global demand, we are bringing schools’ device allocations more closely in line with the average size of a pupil group that is self-isolating. We recognise that levels of self-isolation may be higher in different areas of the country, and that face-to-face education is being prioritised in all eventualities.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I heard what the Minister said about allocation being based on need for isolation. I represent Stoke-on-Trent and surrounding parts of north Staffordshire. I am sure I know what the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) was getting at. If we look at deprivation levels, the need will be higher in Stoke-on-Trent than in Kidsgrove, which I also represent and which may be—these are semantics, as I do not have the figures to hand—a statistically more affluent place. I would like us to look more at deprivation, not simply cohort sizes.

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We recognise that there will be different levels of self-isolation as well as different areas of need in different parts of the country. The more targeted design will mean that as many schools and disadvantaged children as possible benefit from receiving a device in the event of face-to-face education being disrupted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Gullis]

I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister for their responses to the petitioners, and all Members, including the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt), for taking part in this important debate.

It was nice that the debate looked at the wider role of schools. I add my thanks to those given by the Minister and the shadow Minister to the incredible teachers, support staff and local authority school staff for their above-and-beyond work. With regard to covid, they are the unsung heroes of the education profession. The lazy, stereotypical response from a minority in our community has been that teachers were on some sort of six-month holiday. That could not be further from the truth. My partner, a head of religious education, spent eight and a half hours ranking children for the GCSE and A-level algorithm, although I am sure the Minister will be happy for me to pass on from that topic as quickly as possible.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden is right that the digital divide is a huge issue, and I passionately believe that it has to be tackled. I would love to work with her more closely outside the House to see how we can tackle it. She said that we need to look at deprivation when it comes to the supply of technology. I have written to the Chancellor about classing broadband as an essential household item and so bringing VAT on it down to 5%, which is the figure that applies for gas, water and electricity. I appreciate that that would cost the Exchequer £2 billion, but it would be an important measure.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Getting involved in this issue has made me aware that poorer people access the internet differently, just as they access electricity, gas and other essentials differently. The main internet companies are great, but most people in poor situations use pay-as-you-go, and companies that we do not necessarily use. Unless we address how people access those services, we will not understand or tackle the issue.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady. I have worked with a local IT company on this issue, but that is not necessarily the solution to the long-term problem. Stoke-on-Trent is lucky to be a gigabit city; it has 104 km of full-fibre network. As we install that into homes, the challenge is to ensure that it is affordable and accessible in areas I represent that are, to be frank, in the bottom 20% for social mobility. They are some of the most deprived communities in the country, where people earn on average £100 per week less than a full-time worker in other parts of the country.

We absolutely have to understand how technology is being accessed. I completely agree with the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden that mum’s mobile should not be the best tool in the house. Sadly, I have worked with many students for whom that was the only way in which work could be done. I look forward to working with Members from across the House on looking at the digital divide.

A highlight is the Oak Academy; it is an absolute triumph. I thank the Minister for his incredibly hard work to get that set up. He has engaged with a wide range of professionals who have done incredible work. I do not think that any Member of this House thinks that is not a triumph. Kids who cannot be in the classroom can access this really important tool, which I hope we can keep well beyond the current health crisis. It would be a really positive tool to have all year round for all students of all future generations.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich. We on the Education Committee did indeed hear from the Children’s Commissioner, who is an absolute tour de force. I have a huge amount of time for her. Although we might have disagreed on other issues recently, I support fully her view that school should be the last place to close and the first to reopen. I am really grateful to the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) for stating the Opposition’s view that schools must stay open.

I ask the leaders of the National Education Union—although I ranted and shouted at them in the Select Committee sitting, I will not do so now—to end their call for schools to close, because that is a divisive campaign. It will not bring schools and families together; nor will it get us politicians, who are making incredibly challenging and difficult decisions, closer to the public. I ask the union leaders to cease that campaign, and to work with the Government and the hon. Member for Ilford North to find ways for schools to get the most support.

I too want to put on record the point made by the hon. Member for Ilford North about the funding for additional cleaning and personal protective equipment. There will be increased anxiety, especially now that we are entering deeper restrictions. Staff will want additional support, and we have to look at that. I am not asking for extortionate amounts of money, and schools are not asking for the sort of PPE that is needed in hospitals or care homes. Any additional support would be very welcome in the dark and bleak winter ahead.

I also place on record my thanks to the Minister for the £1 billion in catch-up funding. Again, that is welcome. As I am a bit of a sceptic, I have some reservations about the £350 million for the national tutoring programme, because I want to ensure that ends up helping the kids who need it most. I have seen lots of money given to lots of big organisations, yet people I speak to in Stoke-on-Trent have never met those organisations on the streets. This is absolutely the right way to share out the money, and absolutely the right thing to do, but please let us ensure that we deliver in the areas where there is the greatest need.

Schools have done a remarkable job. The fact that 99.3% of schools are open is an incredible achievement; I think we all recognise that. I am very grateful to the Minister for promoting the Stoke opportunity area, which is in its second year. It will be going for a third year, and I am sure the Minister will look favourably on that as we continue to see improvements in Stoke-on-Trent.

I go back to the premise of the petition: the fine. I would like to think that Matthew has heard the conciliatory tone of Members of all parties, and that he has heard the reasons why we believe schools should be open. I hope he has also heard that we fully understand the anxieties of parents. We want to work with them to ensure that they feel that schools are the safest place. As we know, school is the best place for a child to learn, and it gives them the best opportunity for life ahead. I hope that Matthew feels that, although we might not be fully signed up to his aim of suspending the fine, we will work very closely with schools to ensure that they are as safe and secure as possible, and to ensure that future generations get the very best opportunity that school offers. As I said earlier, that is the greatest equaliser in our society.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 300399, relating to school attendance during the covid-19 outbreak.