Early Years Family Support

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes there is now overwhelming evidence of the importance of the first 1,001 critical days of a new baby’s life in determining his or her lifelong physical and emotional wellbeing; notes the work of the Inter-Ministerial Group led by the Rt. hon. Member for South Northamptonshire, the Thirteenth Report of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, HC 1496, on First 1000 days of life and the Eleventh Report of the Science and Technology Committee, HC 506 on Evidence-based early years intervention; and calls on the Government to take strong and decisive action immediately to ensure that every baby gets the best start in life.

I am delighted to have the chance to speak today on a subject that is a real passion for me, and one of the reasons that I got into politics. I thank the Backbench Business Committee, particularly the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), for finding time for me to hold this important debate.

It is a great pleasure to see good friends from across the House here to support the motion this afternoon. I am looking forward to hearing some excellent speeches on an issue that, if we get it right, has the potential to be truly life-changing for so many in our society. We are here today to share the overwhelming evidence of the importance of the 1,001 critical days of a new baby’s life in determining his or her lifelong physical and emotional wellbeing, and to call on the Government to take strong and decisive action right away to ensure that every baby gets the best start in life.

I want to pay tribute to some recent work that has been undertaken in this important area by the Select Committees chaired by the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). I know that the right hon. Member for North Norfolk was keen to speak today and I am sorry that his duties elsewhere mean that he cannot be with us this afternoon.

As many right hon. and hon. Members will know, until recently I was chairing a cross-Whitehall inter-ministerial group at the request of my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, to look specifically at how the Government can best improve support in the earliest years, for families and their newborn babies. I pay tribute to the Prime Minister for her prioritisation of this key issue—I believe it can provide a vital part of her legacy.

I am told that the inter-ministerial group I chaired was the only significant piece of cross-departmental work under way, with the obvious exception of Brexit. I am so grateful to the Prime Minister for tasking me with the enormous responsibility of contributing my own experience and knowledge in this policy area to fundamentally change our society for the better. I was proud that one of the last things I did before stepping down from my role as Leader of the House was to sign off on the detailed recommendations of the group.

Before we turn to the recommendations, I want to take a few minutes to set out the science behind the importance of the 1,001 critical days. From conception to the age of two—the period that is now referred to as the 1,001 critical days—it is the existence of a secure and loving relationship with a key adult carer that literally shapes the way a baby’s brain develops. It is amazing that, in the first year of life, more than 1 million new neural connections per second are being created in the brain. Secure attachment to a loving adult carer has a lifelong beneficial impact on the baby’s developing emotional health, and the developing brain will literally learn that the world is a good place and that problems can be solved.

Not only that, but secure attachment in the earliest period of life can have a positive impact on our entire social fabric. It is not about the impact on the individual; it is the positive ripple effect that secure attachment creates. It is the emotionally capable adults that those children become, able to make friends, learn, hold down a job, find a good partner and then become good parents themselves. It is the society that we could create if we fully address this issue.

Although it would be an exaggeration to claim that insecure or, worse still, disorganised attachment leads to all of life’s problems, at one level there is no doubt that it severely limits a person’s ability to cope with life’s ups and downs, and we know that in the most extreme cases a person’s earliest experiences can totally wreck their life. Negative early experiences create new generations of troubled and insecure young people and are often passed down to their babies by parents who themselves suffered insecure attachment. This is known as the cycle of deprivation. I well recall discussions with Dame Louise Casey when she was the troubled families tsar, who became convinced that intervening much earlier would be vital to prevent the later behavioural challenges that she was seeing, and the many discussions with my local police and crime commissioner, who recognises on the street every day the impact of a person’s earliest experiences on their tendency towards later criminality, addiction and violence, as well as depression and suicide.

It is clear that the science of brain development matters not just in our early years, but is a cradle-to-grave public health issue, the symptoms of which are evident in the years and decades that follow poor early experiences, which can cost the individual and society so much.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

Before the right hon. Lady moves on, let me say that I chair a multi-academy trust. We are trying, without additional expenditure, to use midwives and health visitors to work from schools, so that any feeling that they are hostile places might be lessened, and to seek funds for home visiting during the first two years, so that mothers and fathers can learn skills that are good for them and even better for their young children, as the right hon. Lady has highlighted. Does she agree that one of our pleas to Government should be to look at how they spend existing budgets, as well as to give this subject the priority it deserves?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The right hon. Gentleman and I have worked together on this subject for many long years. I pay tribute to him for his amazing contribution in recognising the importance of secure early interventions and everything we can do to make people’s lives more successful and secure. I am sure that some of his ideas will be, and are being, taken forward by Government.

Children’s Future Food Report

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Children’s Future Food report.

My sentiment differs from that expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) when he was winding up our previous debate on co-operatives and mutuals. He talked, naturally, of his huge pride and pleasure in contributing to that debate, but few Members will rise with pride or pleasure to contribute to this one. This is a very necessary debate, but it is not, I hope, one in which we, as a House of Commons or as a country, can take much pleasure.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling the debate so that we can properly consider and debate the report, and press the Minister on the Government’s response to the report’s important recommendations. In doing so, it is worth our remembering that hunger in this country did not feature as a topic in our debates prior to 2012, so today we are debating something that has happened very quickly in our society. We are considering how the bottom of our society has fallen out, and how those at the very bottom have been subjected to not only hunger, but destitution. Obviously there are reasons for that, although they are not the point of today’s debate. When George Osborne, the then Chancellor, moved to try to prevent the opening up of our markets to much increased international competition by introducing a living wage, it was an important way of trying to counter the collapse of certainties and standards for the poorest people in our communities. Of course, we know that employers try to get round the living wage in various ways, such as through the gig economy. However, I hope that the Government will soon look seriously and carefully at their role in the hunger we are debating today.

We have had a series of cuts—four years in total—to the income of people on benefits. That had never, ever happened before since the beginning of the welfare state between 1909 and 1911. This is an immensely important issue, and in the review of public expenditure, we expect Ministers to fight very hard for the idea that those who have paid most will be at the front of the queue for future payouts.

It is with real pleasure that I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) for co-chairing the inquiry that led to the report. It is also appropriate to thank not only those who made sure we had a report to consider, but the Food Foundation, which is led by Laura Sandys, who was until recently a Member of this House, for its work in raising the whole issue of hunger and destitution. The report not only does that, but makes practical proposals for what we might do about the situation. Likewise, I wish to thank the hundreds of children and young people who contributed to the inquiry, particularly those young people who, with their co-interviewees, not only brought about a report for us, but are continuing the work by becoming ambassadors on this big issue.

Let us recall how new a topic hunger, including school hunger, and the destitution that follows it is for the House of Commons. If we look at the index of our work—our parliamentary questions and debates—we see that there was not much to be said about the issue before 2012. At that point, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, was asked about it, given that that same week, the Trussell Trust had said that unless the Government took action, the number of people who would be drawing on food banks would double between then and 2015, when the next general election was due. I asked him to take action that day, and while he did not do so, MPs did by forming an all-party group to look at the extent of hunger around the country and to collect evidence. In what I believe was a first, a group of MPs then formed a charity, Feeding Britain, to take the work forward. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), I helped to form that charity in 2015. Part of what we are debating today is the work of Feeding Britain. Let me draw attention to my constituency, where we were among the first—we may have been the first—to try to deal with the shocking situation of children being hungry. The work was specifically about the situation during the school holidays, but its brief widened all too quickly.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for his speech thus far—it is impossible to disagree with a single point of it. In recent months, my constituency, which has traditionally been seen as a relatively well-off part of London, has seen real evidence of hunger, with people needing our food bank and now school hunger projects. Has he looked at the low take-up of Healthy Start vouchers, which represent Government support for people on benefits with newborn children? Almost 45% of eligible people do not take those vouchers up. Does he not think there is more that the Government and the supermarkets should be doing to promote the scheme?

[Frank Field]

I am immensely grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was not going to mention that matter, because I was not sure how many other people would raise it during the debate. It is covered by one of the report’s recommendations, and the fact that a targeted benefit is failing to reach many of the people at whom it is aimed is important. Perhaps the Minister will set out the Government’s response.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Prior to 2012—my right hon. Friend touched on this point—food banks were set up by churches and voluntary organisations to help refugees, but since then, these things have become institutionalised. Only a couple of weeks ago I made a visit to a major distributor to nine food banks in Coventry. Some 22,000 people in Coventry used those food banks last year, and they provide everything from food to babies’ nappies. That is how bad the situation is getting, so I agree with a lot of what he has said.

[Frank Field]

I am glad that my hon. Friend has intervened, because Coventry has the terrific Feeding Coventry project, which not only deals with the issues he set out, but has set up a citizens’ supermarket to cater for people in desperate need while giving them real choice about how they build up their budgets, or at least the food with which they feed themselves and nurture their children.

The Government will rightly say—they should claim some credit for this—that they have been sponsoring pilots for two years. Birkenhead was successful in gaining funding from the first pilot, but we were not successful in gaining any of the large dollops of money the Government gave out this time. We have therefore had to look at other ways of raising money, because an important job remains of feeding children during the school holidays and enabling them to have fun. Members will be raising points about the importance of various aspects of this report, and I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about how he wants to develop those two pilots so that we are not dependent on bidding for funds. I hope he will provide a universal service for all children of people on low incomes so that they are fed during the school holidays and can have fun, like richer children. Once that has occurred, I also hope that the education system will be able to report to him that poorer children have not dropped behind richer children when they come back to school, especially after the long summer holidays, due to a lack of food and nutrition over the holidays widening the educational disadvantage they suffer.

I wish to set out an example of a school governor in my constituency because it tells us about the journey that many of our constituents have travelled, and which we have travelled with them as Members of Parliament. We are grateful that the Government sponsor breakfast clubs at five schools in Birkenhead. Today, however, the fact that 27 schools and community groups could pick up 80,000 breakfasts in Hamilton Square in Birkenhead was made possible by moneys raised by Feeding Birkenhead and the provision of supplies from that person’s church. This one school governor reported that there was initial amazement that there was a need to start a breakfast club. However, later came the realisation that children did not want to go home during the winter months because their home was cold and there was no food, so they wished to stay in school. It was therefore decided that schools should provide a form of tea for those children so that they would get at least one good meal between going home and coming back the next day for their school breakfast. Sadly, many of our constituents will have made that journey, and many good-minded people in our constituency have done their best to try to counter it.

Following the report and the #Right2Food charter, we very much look to the Government to respond, particularly given the report’s list of recommendations, to which other Members, including our co-chair, will speak. They include the recommendation that there should be a children’s food watchdog. When will that person be put in place? What part will the young food ambassadors play in ongoing work so that we can regularly monitor progress when there are reports to this House?

Let me end my speech by discussing free school dinners. This topic concerned me when I worked for the Child Poverty Action Group. I have been around for some considerable time, so I have experience of the discrimination that poor children suffer through free school meals and how the face of that discrimination has changed. In the early days, children might have been brought in through separate doors, sat at separate tables or given tickets of a different colour. Today, in this age of IT, we find that children are discriminated against through the new IT system.

With thanks to the academics watching the debate from the Public Gallery, I shall end on the following issue. If a child’s parents pay for their dinners and the credit is put on to a card, but that child is not at school to have their school dinner for a particular reason, the money on the card is rolled over. However, for a poor child, the school dinner money for that day is cancelled. Our good academics have found that something like £88 million a year is lost to those children, and that goes somewhere—presumably to the companies that run the cards used to operate the dinner system. I am very concerned about this issue, and the sum itself is horrendous. Yesterday I wrote to the new Comptroller and Auditor General to ask him to undertake an inquiry on behalf of MPs who are interested in the issue so that we can establish whether £88 million is the floor or if the sum is even larger. If a poorer child does not attend school on one day, it is probably because they are ill, so we would think, as ordinary human beings, that they would need extra food the following day. For them, however, unlike their richer peers, the money that they did not spend the previous day disappears from their cards. I very much hope that the Minister will support the National Audit Office carrying out an inquiry into this new, nasty, vicious little twist that stigmatises poor children who draw on our school dinner system.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) on securing this important debate and thank all colleagues who participated in the inquiry, including the hon. Members for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford). We have heard contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and the hon. Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson).

I welcome the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) to his role as shadow Minister for children and families. We may come to our roles from different policy perspectives, but we share a passion for wanting to do the best for the children and families whom we ultimately serve.

I know that hon. Members in the Chamber have a sincere and long-held interest in this area. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead was a member of the inquiry, and I thank him for his work and his continued significant contribution to shaping my tenure in office and, of course, to children’s health and wellbeing.

The inquiry’s report is the result of a detailed and thorough examination of how we ensure that all children and young people have access to healthy and nutritious meals. I extend my thanks to all the children, young people, practitioners and, of course, researchers who were involved in its production. I also thank the many hon. Members on both sides of the House, and colleagues in the other place, for their contributions to this important work.

I was pleased to attend the launch of the report in April, at which I was truly privileged to be fortunate enough to meet some of the young food ambassadors in person. I was moved by their experiences, and impressed by their confidence and clarity in setting out how they will continue to make an impassioned contribution in this area. I look forward to continuing my engagement with them.

The Government share the inquiry’s overarching aims. All children should be able to access healthy, nutritious food at home and at school, as that is an essential part of building a country that works for everyone and in which every child and young person can reach their potential. The Government are already taking many steps to support children in accessing nutritious food and leading healthy lives. Of course, I recognise that there is much more that we need to do and can do.

When I spoke at the launch of the report back in April, I committed to providing a formal response in the autumn school term. Earlier this month, I again met representatives from the inquiry to discuss the recommendations further, and I have asked my team to work with the Food Foundation, including on exploring how we might provide greater oversight of children’s food by involving the inquiry’s young food ambassadors, as well as with other relevant Government Departments —my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton mentioned cross-Government work earlier.

I look forward to providing that formal response in the coming months. In the meantime, I wish to highlight some immediate actions we are taking. On 7 June, I wrote to all schools in England to highlight the inquiry’s findings and to remind them of their responsibilities in relation to school food. Many schools are, of course, already delivering excellent practice in this area, including through creative menu options and a focus on healthy eating across the curriculum, and by making it easy for children to enjoy free school meals.

In my letter to schools, I highlighted the importance of creating a positive lunchtime experience by ensuring that dining areas are welcoming places and by giving children a genuine voice in shaping this provision. I also stressed that no child should be stigmatised because they are eligible for free school meals—the right hon. Member for Birkenhead is passionate about that—and that there should be no limit on the healthy meal choices available to these children. I also described my shock on hearing from some young people that they do not have access to free drinking water at school and often have to buy a bottle of water, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) mentioned. Schools are legally obliged to provide access to free drinking water on the school premises at all times, as I made very clear in my letter.

[Frank Field]

The Minister has quickly gone on to the important topic of having free water in schools, but was he also shocked about how poorer children—we do not know how many—lose entitlement if they are not in school on a given day, as the credit on their card for a free school meal is cancelled? I hope the National Audit Office will be looking at this issue; will he and the Department also do so?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that point. I intend to address that matter later in my remarks.

Finally, my letter highlighted the range of resources and guidance that is available for schools, including on meeting the mandatory school food standards and supporting children on free school meals, and curriculum resources for schools to help children to lead healthier lives. The Government have recently taken significant action to ensure that all children can access healthy food at school and beyond.

--- Later in debate ---

[Frank Field]

Before I make a request of the Minister, I wish, like others, to thank those Members who participated in the debate: the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) and for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) and the Minister himself.

In this Chamber, in Westminster Hall and in Committee, we have been debating the evil of hunger among children in this country for seven whole years; we are still doing so. Under our system, we know that it is the Cabinet that has the power to do things. We conclude our debate today in the knowledge that all too many children will be hungry tonight and tomorrow morning. As we approach the school holidays, despite the efforts of many voluntary bodies and the Government, the number of hungry children will significantly increase. Will the Minister undertake to tell members of the Cabinet that the House of Commons knows that if we as a country wish to abolish hunger as we know it, the place where a decision will be made is the Cabinet, so will they act?

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Children’s Future Food report.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

May I add my congratulations, Mr Speaker, on your 10 years in the Chair?

The consultation will be published very, very shortly.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

When do the Government expect to announce a national free school dinner scheme for poorer children during the holidays, based on the successful pilots the Department has been running over the past two years?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who helped to make sure those pilots happened. We are investing £9 million in holiday activities and food programmes. This summer, children in 11 local authorities will receive healthy meals, learn about the importance of healthy eating and enjoy enriching physical activities during the summer holiday. Decisions on the programme beyond March 2020 will be taken as part of the spending review, but I certainly think it has been a great success.

Cost of School Uniforms

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the cost of school uniforms.

Ms McDonagh, this is the first time I have spoken under your chairmanship, so not only is today’s debate really important, but it gives me real pleasure to serve under you. I am sure that view is going to be shared by everybody, including the Minister, for whom I have some really good news. I am hoping to enlist him in a twofold campaign. One part of it is that all of us who want to intervene should approach the Chancellor and ask him to lift VAT on school clothing—full stop. We should also ask him to give a direction to school governors in a way I think is going to emerge during the debate, and I will touch on that as well.

We are facing an open goal, because the year that the Minister came into the House of Commons, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) introduced a Bill saying how absurd it was that there was a 14-year cut-off—a point some of us may come back to. He pointed out that, for an average-sized 14-year-old, it means that VAT is applied where their collar size is over 14½ inches and where they wear jumpers with a 34-inch chest and upwards, trousers with waists of 28 inches and upwards or skirts with a 26-inch waist and upwards.

The key person supporting my hon. Friend—I will call him my hon. Friend because I agree very much with his views—was the Prime Minister. She was not then the Prime Minister; she was a Back Bencher. This was a topic dear to her heart, so I hope, when all of us together make an approach to the Prime Minister, and through her to the Chancellor, that we are going to get a massive amount of support for my hon. Friend and a constructive response.

I am hoping for a twofold response. The first part is that we scrap VAT on school clothing. If people can provide evidence that it is for a child at school, that will exempt the actual product, just as people with disability get some VAT exemptions when they can prove the status of their disability. Secondly, we want the Minister of State who drives schools policy to give a commitment that he will write to school heads and governors and ask them to do several things. First, school governors should undertake a pricing each year in local stores or wherever they request parents to shop on the cost of the school uniform. Secondly, there should be standard items from many suppliers rather than just one or, if lucky, two. Thirdly, if the school wants to distinguish itself from others, it should do it by standard colours that can be bought in many shops, not by specific blazers that are only to be bought in certain places.

I think other Members may want to come in on the actual costs of games kits, and I will quickly touch on all those issues. However, I also want to thank people from Birkenhead and beyond, because we had the most extraordinary response from there and from around the country about today—I did not know people wanted to follow a Facebook link to Birkenhead—and those people wrote in with their comments about the horrors.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

I know how well this debate will be received in my constituency, where one parent contacted me to tell me about the extortionate £135 cost of their children’s school uniforms. The fact is that parents should be allowed to go to the high street, the supermarket or anywhere to get a school uniform. That is what happened under the last Labour Government—it was stated in the guidance, and it should be reintroduced.

[Frank Field]

That is a suggestion for the Minister. It could be guidance; I would love it to made be stronger than guidance—that schools must do this. I will come back to that.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. I raised this issue when I was first elected last year, because a constituent had similarly come to me with the cost of uniforms. I was surprised that the Government committed to legislate to ensure schools did the right thing back in 2015. I received a letter from the Minister last month saying they are not going to do this until the next Session, which means at least five years since the first commitment was made. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, given the increasing costs of living that parents have to bear, a five-year delay to do something that the Government committed to do back in 2015 would be a pretty poor show?

[Frank Field]

It is a very poor show. There is a myth going around that we have no time to legislate because of Brexit. Ms McDonagh, I am sure you would think that the rubbish we debate in the Chamber would not be suitable for Westminster Hall and would just be filling up time. The Prime Minister believes we are all very busy with important legislation; we are simply not. I am really grateful to my hon. Friend. Why can the Cabinet Legislative Committee not give us time to introduce a Bill?

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am really grateful to my right hon. Friend for securing the debate. Millthorpe School introduced a new school uniform this summer and it has meant that children have been excluded from class. When the Minister is writing to heads, perhaps saying that no child should be excluded—this is doubly stigmatising a child because they are poor and because they cannot afford the right uniform—will he also instruct all schools that they must recycle uniforms, not just on cost grounds but on environmental grounds, to ensure that a school uniform is affordable for absolutely everyone?

[Frank Field]

It is very good giving way, because these are points that I would have made otherwise. I merely underscore the point my hon. Friend has just made about how it may not be a one-off set of costs but an increasing set of costs through the year. Of course, if someone has young lads, who are all too often separated from their uniform and their games kit, the costs mount tremendously.

In preparing for this debate, we had a Feeding Birkenhead meeting a couple of weeks ago, and we talked about this debate. There were 22 mothers in the room who support Feeding Birkenhead. Practically all of them were either grandparents or parents. They all said, “We can actually give you examples,” and all of them have given me examples. There have been examples on Facebook—the House of Commons Facebook for these matters has got a huge number of responses from parents. I said that, during this debate, I would do what Ernest Bevin did when he appeared before the wages committee for dockers, where he laid out how much food the dockers would get from their wages and asked the independent panel if it thought that was adequate. One mother listed the cost of the uniform—I will hold the document up so the camera can see it. I will give it to the Minister afterwards—I do not expect him to read it now, but I jolly well hope it is going into the camera.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I congratulate him on securing this important debate. I, too, have had a number of examples from across my constituency. A school uniform often costs in excess of £120 in Barnsley East. Does he agree—I know he does—that that is totally unacceptable? We need to look at ways to bring down the costs. Perhaps one way to do so is for governing bodies and local authorities to use their power to bulk buy.

[Frank Field]

All these ideas are here for the Minister to pick up and run with, particularly given that he has the Prime Minister’s support on this issue.

Some of the parents who wrote to me from Birkenhead and beyond have bills that are £300-plus for a school uniform, and they also face the devastating cost of games kits. I hold up another document from a mother, listing a games kit. When my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) saw it, she jumped and said, “Look at that—emblems are being put on the items, which adds enormously to the cost.” That parent—a young woman—has a child in school who has to have two different games kit cases to bring the stuff to school.

[Rachael Maskell]

I was absolutely horrified about that. I met the staff of one school and asked why they put labels on trousers and skirts. They said that, previously, they tested girls’ trousers by pulling them away from the leg. Clearly, that is completely inappropriate. We need to set guidance to ensure that uniforms can be bought from standard retailers, so that badges are not put on trousers, skirts and other bits of kit.

[Frank Field]

Again, I see the Minister busily rewriting his speech—[Laughter.] We are laughing, but I know that nobody outside will mistake that: our comments are dead serious. I have heard horror stories about parents going without food to provide uniforms. They do not want their children to look different from other children, and they wake up at night worrying about it. This is an incredibly serious debate, but we are making some of our points as humorously as possible because we know we have got the Minister on our side.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way, and I congratulate him on securing this really important debate. The points he has been making are really serious. Buying school uniforms potentially plunges parents into poverty, but it also forces them to pick certain schools over others because of the expense of the uniforms. The previous Labour Government introduced a statutory school admissions code that explicitly required schools to prevent the cost of school uniforms from getting in the way of admission. Perhaps the Minister will consider reintroducing it.

[Frank Field]

It is really great that all my best points are being taken. The Government say they are concerned about social mobility, but school uniform costs affect parents’ choices about which school they send their children to, irrespective of where they come not in the 11-plus selection but in the selection of schools. I thank my hon. Friend for that immensely important point.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I am a Welsh MP, and these issues are devolved to the Welsh Government. There is a different way of doing it. I urge my hon. Friend the shadow Minister and the Minister to look at what the Welsh Government are doing on school uniform grants. In Wales, a £1.7 million fund is available for children on free school meals. Parents can apply for a £125 grant, which can be spent not just on school uniforms but on sports kits, school trips and technologies. There are better ways of delivering, particularly for the least well-off children. If they are on free school meals, their parents can apply for that grant, which is worth up to £125. It is for reception children and children aged 11 who are going into year 7, so it is across the age range. I am sure my right hon. Friend would agree that there are better and different ways of supporting the least well off.

[Frank Field]

That is a particularly good one, isn’t it, Minister? The Prime Minister has told us that austerity is coming to an end, so she will want ideas about how to bring it to an end. Copying a proven model—we are not making up something that may not work—seems an admirable way to advance.

I am going to conclude, because the spokesman on our side—if I can still refer to him like that—has quite a bit to say, and we all wish to quiz the Minister. We have heard about the huge cost and about how arbitrary the 14-year cut-off point is. Will the Minister tell us when it was last reviewed? One person wrote on Facebook:

“Our son is 14, going into year 10, 6ft 4, size 12 feet, 48 inch chest!”

He has to have men’s shirts with very long arms so he can feel part of his school. It is very important that we get promises about improving the situation, not just for some but for all. There is a really important issue behind many of our contributions: we should be able to buy uniforms in many shops. For the many, not the few shops—that is what the policy should be.

The Minister should think about how he will lead us in approaching the Prime Minister. I say that in all seriousness, because we actually want to help him with this deadly serious topic. We want to help him with the instructions he will give to schools about, for example, costing their uniforms every year, getting supplies from standard suppliers, and the absurdity of the price for a games kit. If people want a uniform to be distinct, they should pick a colour that is commonly available and different from other school uniforms, rather than one that is available only from a single supplier.

I am really grateful to the Members who have turned up to the debate. We have been surprised by the number of letters, emails and phone calls that we have received. We have clearly just been through a horrendous period for parents, and I hope that they will not have to face that for another year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. I was going to call the shadow Minister, but I have been corrected by the Clerk. The Opposition spokesperson cannot make a speech in a half-hour debate.

[Frank Field]

What I might do, if you are tolerant, Ms McDonagh, is take a few interventions from the shadow Minister so he can make a few points.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Frank Field]

What a surprise!

[Mike Kane]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. I attended his constituency fundraiser in 2010, and I am reminded of the event because—

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. This is my error, and I apologise, but I understand that you cannot make a speech.

[Frank Field]

Can I just rewind? I had spoken with the Opposition spokesman, and we were under the impression that he could speak. I would have allowed him to intervene before I sat down. Could I say that I had not sat down, Ms McDonagh?

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

I would like to do anything I can to facilitate the right hon. Gentleman, but the guidance I have been handed states that during a half-hour debate, neither speeches nor interventions from Opposition Front Benchers are permitted, as is the rule in the House. I apologise.

[Mike Kane]

Can I speak from the Back Benches?

[Frank Field]

I hope my hon. Friend will be able to intervene in the debate from the Back Benches.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

Of course I will write to my hon. Friend as he asks, but I have to say that we are spending record amounts of money on schools, some £42.4 billion this year. There has never been a sum as high spent on schools in our history, and it will rise again next year to £43.5 billion, and we announced an increase in school funding last July to the tune of £1.3 billion. That was the result of successful negotiations with the Treasury.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

21. All Birkenhead schools, like schools throughout the country, suffer real cuts in their budgets. Will the Minister meet me to seek ways by which we automatically enrol all poor children for free school dinners, and, as importantly, the Government’s initiative, the school premium?

[Nick Gibb]

The right hon. Gentleman makes some interesting points and I will take advice on his suggestions, but I must say that we have guaranteed the pupil premium to the end of this Parliament: it is over £1,300 for every pupil eligible for free school meals attending a primary school, and nearly £1,000 for every disadvantaged child attending a secondary school.

School Holidays (Meals and Activities) Bill

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I thank those who, through the usual channels, have ensured that we got a debate today. I have never been more pleased with their activities and with what they have shown us over the last few hours.

The case for the Bill has been made in the country and, as I told the Minister, I intend to be brief. People do not want to hear me; they want to hear him. First, however, I will take a couple of minutes to outline the need for this Bill. In one way it is shocking that a Bill to ensure school meals and fun during school holidays—particularly for the poorest children—is being presented today. I also feel some pride, however, because I see in the Public Gallery people from my constituency who, like many volunteers around the country, have played a huge part in ensuring that children who would otherwise go hungry are fed.

The lesson of that massive example of activity is that the task now is beyond what the voluntary sector can do and the challenge is therefore passed to the Government. I hope that the Minister will take up that challenge in two ways. The Bill seeks to initiate a number of pilots around the country, sponsored by the Government, so that the first moral principle of social action—that we should do something for people who are suffering now—is met. However, we also want the Government—and us as legislators—to learn from that experience and to undertake research activities so that we can see what is the best way to deliver these programmes, with the help of the voluntary sector and, above all, what the impact is of such programmes on children’s weight—weight is often lost during the school holidays—and on their ability to maintain the educational advancements achieved during the school term.

This is a historic opportunity, and the first time for more than 100 years that this House has discussed a school meals Bill. As I said, it is not me that people want to hear but the Minister, so I am happy to end my speech now.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

Will you, Madam Deputy Speaker, pass on our birthday wishes to Mr Speaker, as I understand it is his birthday today?

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) on promoting this Bill and making such a clear case for change. As a new Minister, I hope that I am able to emulate his exemplary and tireless commitment to improving outcomes for disadvantaged families, and I wholeheartedly applaud his ongoing efforts in this area.

Let me set out what this Government have done to tackle poverty and disadvantage. Last April, the Government published their “Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families” strategy, which focused on measures that tackle the root causes of poverty and improve children’s welfare. Tackling poverty, and its root causes, is a key priority for this Government, and we know that for most people work represents the best route out of poverty. Unemployment has not been lower since 1975, and the proportion of workless households is at its lowest since records began. Our welfare reforms are working. Let me give an example. Analysis by the Resolution Foundation has shown that our national living wage lifted 300,000 out of low pay last year. That is the biggest uplift out of the lowest bracket since 1970.

We recognise, however, that there is more to do, and the Government are committed to delivering a country that works for everyone. I am, therefore, keen to work with the right hon. Gentleman and other stakeholders to help the most disadvantaged pupils to have access to activities and healthy meals during school holidays. That has the dual benefit of ensuring that children have access to healthy food and enabling them to gain skills and experiences that can unlock future opportunities.

My Department’s breakfast clubs programme is one area in which we are already exploring how we can tackle that issue. The programme will not only expand breakfast clubs in at least 1,500 disadvantaged schools; it will also promote innovation through projects that focus on addressing access and delivery barriers and improving the health and education outcomes of disadvantaged children. I also agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we must look at how best to ensure that the most disadvantaged pupils have access to activities and healthy meals during the school holidays.

I am, therefore, pleased to confirm today that the Government will launch research, as the right hon. Gentleman has requested, into how best to ensure that more children from disadvantaged families benefit from healthy meals and enrichment activities during the holidays, including through targeted pilots. The programme will include engagement with stakeholders and will enable us to assess the impact of Government intervention.

Where I differ with the right hon. Gentleman is in his belief that primary legislation is required to address the issue. I do not believe that that is the case. Moreover, it would not be sensible to impose a duty on local authorities to deliver such provision until we have more evidence about the scale of the issue, the most effective ways of tackling it, and, of course, the costs and burdens associated with doing so.

The Government therefore oppose this private Member’s Bill. However, as I have already confirmed, the Government will support the right hon. Gentleman’s proposal to investigate the best way to ensure that the most disadvantaged children have access to activities and healthy meals in the school holidays. The research programme will include funding for a targeted pilot programme, as he and I have discussed. That will allow the Government to consider if and how they should intervene in the long term. That programme of work will focus on the best and most cost-effective ways to address the issue, with an emphasis on securing the best possible value for money.

We will ensure that we do that by maximising the use of existing resources and focusing on targeting those areas in greatest need, building on the good work that is already under way in many local communities. However, only once the findings from the evaluation are available will it be possible to reach an informed view about next steps. We will want to consider these findings carefully, taking account of value for money. Before we have the evidence, it would not be right for me to make any commitment today to further action, either in terms of introducing a national policy or placing a duty on local authorities to offer such provision along the lines proposed by the right hon. Gentleman’s Bill.

[Frank Field]

I entirely understand why the Minister does not want to go down a primary legislative route, but the main aim of the Bill was to invite the Government to match the extraordinary efforts of the voluntary sector and undertake their own pilots. Equally important, however, is the research side. We need to understand what is the best way of delivering this service to poorer children, and also to understand the educational consequences of such a programme. I hope that, in the not too distant future, we shall be ready to greet the Minister when he rises to introduce his own Bill based on the pilots and the research. As he knows, there is massive support for my Bill on both sides of the House, not least his own side.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for dealing with this issue through an evidence-led strategy. He agrees with the Government that we need to conduct the research and the pilots in order to understand what is happening.

Education Funding: Wirral

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered education funding in Wirral.

I am grateful to have obtained this debate about such a critical issue for my constituents ahead of the Chancellor’s crucial autumn Budget on 22 November. I trust that the Minister, who represents the Government, will listen to what I have to say and convey to the Chancellor as he deliberates on the content of his Budget the anxiety of so many people who are involved in education at all levels. The reality is that the overall funding pot for schools is too small. Whatever claims the Minister may make, the lived experience of my constituents—parents, teachers, support staff and pupils—is that school budgets are not enough to keep up with rising running costs. The consequences are huge pressures and deteriorating education opportunities for Wallasey’s kids.

In the 25 years that I have represented Wallasey in this place, I have paid regular visits to local schools and met many teachers, support staff, pupils and parents, and I have to tell the Minister that the warning lights are flashing. In all my time in Parliament, I have never heard expressed such wide-ranging concern about funding pressure as I hear now about the pressure that all Wallasey’s schools are experiencing. That pressure extends right across the Wirral. It came up forcefully during the general election, and the Government subsequently had to find extra funding. Although that is to be welcomed as a good start, it is not enough to alleviate existing pressures, and the Government’s decisions about how to distribute it disadvantaged further those who were already struggling from significant disadvantage.

This funding crisis hits the most vulnerable hardest. This crisis is happening now; schools in Wallasey are being forced now to cut back on staff, on the curriculum and on teaching materials. A National Audit Office report last year concluded that schools will need to reduce spending by an average of 8% per pupil by 2020. That would be the largest real-terms cut since the 1970s. School budgets have been cut by £2.8 billion since 2015 at a time of rising and additional costs, and schools are struggling to cope.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I very much endorse what my hon. Friend is saying about the crisis we are facing. Thanks to Feeding Birkenhead, Wirral adopted a policy of using its housing benefit data to identify those pupils who are eligible for free school meals and the pupil premium, resulting in another £750,000 for Wirral schools. However, despite that additional funding, which the council activated by using its IT sensibly, everything my hon. Friend says stands.

[Ms Eagle]

My right hon. Friend points out the layers of disadvantage that are often not taken into account by the Government’s distributive mechanisms. The proposed new national funding formula is one such mechanism, and it will do nothing to alleviate the crisis in Wirral schools.

What is particularly insulting is the Government’s persistent claim that the national funding formula is based on the principle of fairness and the frankly ludicrous claim that schools will see an increase in funding as a result of it. No one believes that there are no flaws in the current system—we all recognise that—but, rather than rectifying them, the new national funding formula simply creates new ones. It shifts an already inadequate sum of money from one area of the country to another, with some of the most deprived areas losing out. I do not know about the Minister, but that is not my definition of fairness.

I have no doubt that we will be told by the Minister about the additional £1.3 billion over two years announced in September by the Education Secretary. First, that is not new money but rather a sum that has been assumed to be available from unrealistic, so-called efficiency savings and cannibalised from other parts of the budget. Secondly, it will do little to compensate for the £2.8 billion of cuts schools have suffered since 2015. Ask any teacher in my constituency, or any school governor, and they will talk about the cutbacks that schools are already having to make as a result of the real-terms reductions in their budgets at a time of spiralling costs.

Lord Harris of Peckham, a Conservative party donor who runs a large academy chain, let the cat out of the bag recently. He said that the schools he runs are facing a 20% cut in funding by 2020 and that the Government should put more funding into schools. I agree with him.

I turn to the specific impact that the funding pressures are having on schools in the Wirral. As I mentioned at the outset, I have maintained a frequent dialogue with schools in my constituency throughout my time as an MP. Everyone I speak to tells me the same story: funding from the Government has failed to keep pace with running costs in schools. According to figures from the National Education Union, my constituency is set to lose an average of £149 per pupil in real terms between 2015-16 and 2019-20, with a total loss of 29 teachers. Wirral as a whole will lose on average £111 per pupil and 108 teachers.

The cuts come at a time of additional pressures on school budgets such as rises in national insurance contributions and pension contributions and, most recently, the apprentice levy. There are also growing demands on schools to offer social services support and family support and to deal with increasingly complex mental health issues. Meanwhile, cuts to local authority budgets have made matters even worse, because they have decimated the support that the local authority used to provide to our local schools.

Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council has lost £150 million since 2010 and is set to lose a further £132 million by 2020-21. That amounts to a 40% cut in its budget. As a consequence, local authority support for schools has been cut drastically. In Wirral, cuts to the education services grant have left the council with a £1 million shortfall. That grant funds areas such as mental health support, fire safety and the maintenance of school buildings and playing fields. Likewise, social services and family support have been decimated by the huge cuts to local authority budgets. To make up for the shortfall, the council will have to absorb it into its already shrinking budget, cut services or force schools to pay up themselves, heaping more pressure on their already stretched finances.

Adrian Whitely, headteacher at The Mosslands School in my constituency, told me about the impact of funding cuts on his school. His quote is worth reading out in full, and I do so with his permission. He says:

“Five years ago, The Mosslands School, an 11-to-19 boys school with approximately 1000 pupils on roll, had 79 teaching staff and 18 teaching assistants. Due to budget reduction and rises in running costs, today it has 60 teachers and 8 teaching assistants. Average class size has risen with the majority of pupils now taught in classes of over 30. Over 40% of its pupils are entitled to free school meals at some stage; 26% of the students are identified as having additional special education needs; the number of children meeting the threshold for social services intervention has doubled in 24 months; and there are a further 20 pupils who are in the care of a Local Authority. It is a popular school and was deemed to be a good school when it was inspected last year. This year, it had to make a further 6 redundancies to balance its budget. This clearly cannot continue.”

Cuts such as those cannot simply be dismissed by the Government as efficiency savings. I note that the Government are increasingly fond of claiming, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that the cuts are actually increases. I intend to deal with that argument in detail a little later in my speech, but the fact is that the cuts are having a tangible effect on the breadth and standard of education that schools in Wallasey can provide.

I recently visited Birkenhead Sixth Form College, which as its name suggests sits just outside Wallasey in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), but it is attended by many of my constituents. In advance of the meeting, the principal, Mike Kilbride, wrote to me to outline the funding shortage faced by the college. He stated:

“At Birkenhead Sixth Form College we currently educate over 1,300 young people and passionately believe that every student deserves a first class education. Unfortunately, funding cuts and cost increases are making this increasingly difficult to provide. In the last year we have had to make many tough decisions including the withdrawal of some provision.”

Birkenhead Sixth Form College has had to reduce its curriculum in areas such as performance art and music. Perhaps the Government believe that such subjects are surplus to requirements, but I believe they are an integral part of a well-rounded education. The UK performs particularly well in music and the arts, and that success earns the country worldwide recognition and plenty of economic benefits. Those benefits are being put in jeopardy by short-sighted policies.

One headteacher of another school told me that funding for special educational needs children was becoming a cause for concern. There are statistically a high number of special needs pupils in the Wirral, and many of those needs are very complex. Many pupils have needs that require one-to-one attention from teachers with specific expertise. The funding that schools receive per SEN child does not always provide for that. The headteacher said that SEN funding “disappears in an instant”.

The vast majority of school spending goes on staff. With pay progression, the best teachers receive pay rises and older teachers tend to be paid more. However, as one headteacher pointed out to me, the national funding system takes no account of that. Schools are therefore struggling to fund pay increases as well as significant increases in national insurance contributions. One headteacher told me that

“teachers are teaching bigger and bigger classes”.

Not only does that create more work in the classroom; it also leads to more marking and more admin, and it is putting a bigger strain on them.

As figures from the National Education Union reveal, the pattern of funding cuts is being replicated in schools all over Wallasey and the Wirral. Most worryingly of all, some of the most deprived areas are being hit the hardest. To be clear, the figures I use take 2015 as their base year and reveal that, despite the Government’s attempted sleight of hand with what they like to call new money for schools, the funding given to schools has been cut by 4.6% overall between 2015 and 2020.

I will now deal with how that reality affects schools in Wallasey. The Oldershaw Academy, a school where 64% of pupils are on free school meals, is set to lose £233,000 in total by 2020, or £455 per pupil. St Mary’s Catholic College, where 53% of pupils are on free school meals, will lose £224,000, the equivalent of £186 per pupil. Primary schools in Wallasey are also being hit, and small schools, which can least afford to absorb huge funding reductions, are among the worst affected. Kingsway Primary School, where 53% of pupils receive free school meals, will see a real-terms cut of 19% per pupil. Eastway Primary School, where 52% of pupils are on free school meals, will see a cut of 10%.

As I outlined earlier, these figures do not tell the full story. They are accompanied by rising costs and additional sources of expenditure, such as the apprenticeship levy and national insurance contributions. There have been numerous press reports of state schools asking parents for donations to keep their school afloat—a double disadvantage for those schools that serve poor communities, where the parents simply cannot afford to fork out the extra money that schools now routinely ask for.

Many parts of Wallasey and the Wirral have high levels of deprivation. In Wallasey, a total of 41% of pupils are in receipt of free school meals, but we will lose £149 of funding per pupil by 2020. I do not call that an increase, even if the Minister is going to claim in his reply that it is. By contrast, the constituency of Bournemouth East will gain £36 per pupil, despite only having 19% of pupils on free school meals. North East Hampshire will see a small gain, despite only having 10% of pupils on free school meals. How can the Minister possibly justify that?

Another of the Government’s flagship education policies is multi-academy trusts, which have implications for, and give rise to questions about, funding and accountability. In June this year, just after the general election, the Government took the decision to close the Kingsway Academy in Leasowe, in my constituency. The school will close on a phased basis by the end of the 2017-18 academic year, and many pupils have already been forced to move on to neighbouring schools. The school, formerly known as the Wallasey School, has a long and proud history, and provided an education for pupils in Wirral for generations. It is astonishing that the multi-academy trust, the Northern Schools Trust, was allowed to walk away as soon as it became clear that it could no longer turn a profit, just three years after taking over the school. That was after it had summarily closed down the sixth form a couple of years ago, leaving 80 pupils high and dry.

I cannot stress enough how much anxiety the announcement caused parents, pupils and staff when it appeared out of the blue just four weeks before the end of the academic year, but that was par for the course with the Northern Schools Trust. The decision was taken behind everyone’s back and the local community was kept in the dark throughout the process. As soon as I heard rumours of the school’s closure, I asked the Minister to meet me. By the time he had agreed to do so, he had already taken the decision to close the school. I believe that the episode exposed a worrying lack of transparency and accountability at the heart of the Government’s policy on multi-academy trusts. Had Kingsway been a maintained school, it would have been obliged to conduct a 12 to 18-month consultation, involving parents, trade unions and the local community, before a closure; yet there is no such obligation on academies to consult.

When we look at the list of income allocated to schools, we find that the only school in Wallasey that has had an increase, at £524 per pupil, and a 9% uplift in its funding, was the Kingsway Academy, which is now being closed. The Northern Schools Trust essentially announced closure within four weeks, having left council officials, unions and other stakeholders in the dark. The multi-academy trust seems to be free to walk away from the school, leaving the local authority to pick up the pieces, with the future of pupils’ education left in the balance.

The lack of accountability was highlighted in the Education Committee’s report on multi-academy trusts, published in February this year. With a multi-academy trust, the accountability is transferred from local governing boards to a central trustee board that holds the decision-making responsibilities. The report noted:

“We were told by parents that MATs are not sufficiently accountable to their local community and they feel disconnected from decision making at trustee board level. There is too much emphasis on ‘upward’ accountability and not enough on local engagement.”

The report went on to recommend:

“MATs should demonstrate a sincere commitment to outreach and engagement with the local community.”

In my experience, they are a long way from doing so. That is certainly advice that the Northern Schools Trust should have heeded during the Kingsway debacle.

Multi-academy trusts are recipients of huge amounts of public money, but they do not seem to be subject to the same standards of accountability. When school budgets are being squeezed as they are, and when schools are having to reduce staff numbers and are struggling to purchase equipment, is it right for MATs to pay their chief executive officers an annual salary of £160,000, as the Northern Schools Trust does? If multi-academy trusts were an unrivalled success, there might be at least a case for it, but when they are allowed to take over a school, fail to turn it around and walk away with no public consultation and little in the way of repercussions, the Government should ask themselves whether the policy is acceptable.

I have no doubt that the Minister has come armed with the Government’s own figures, giving the impression that Wirral schools will receive funding increases as part of the new national funding formula. After all, he has been going round claiming that cash increases are actually real increases, and hoping that nobody would notice the huge rise in running costs that all schools have to cope with, which more than wipe out any of the so-called gains for which the Minister is spuriously claiming credit. If the claim of increases were remotely true, does the Minister imagine that Wallasey’s headteachers, staff, parents and pupils would be complaining so much about the funding pressures that are causing them to cut back on the curriculum, sack teachers and increase class sizes?

Let us take a moment to interrogate these figures before the Minister brandishes them about in his reply. The Government’s figures show that in 2018-19, Wirral schools will receive, on average, a 1.6% increase in cash terms. Government figures also show that they will then receive a further 0.8% cash-terms increase in 2019-20. Schools in my own constituency in Wallasey will receive a 1.5% cash-terms increase—slightly less than the average for Wirral—in the first year, and an additional 0.6% the following year. Again, that is slightly below average. I note, however, that revealing ministerial phrase, “cash terms”. It does not take an economic genius to work out that, with inflation running close to 3%, that amounts to a significant real-terms cut.

The Government’s wilful and convenient confusion between a cash-terms and real-terms increase is only part of the story. The Minister’s figures show modest cash-terms rises from 2017-18, using that year as a baseline. By choosing that baseline, the Government are entirely and deliberately ignoring the cuts that took place before that—cuts that even as I speak are already being felt in classrooms across the country. That is pretty shoddy, but there is even more bad practice to come. The Minister’s figures also overlook the additional pressures on school budgets that I outlined earlier: the apprenticeship levy, national insurance contributions, pension contributions, any increases in staff pay, loss of education services provided by local authorities and any additional help on issues such as mental health and social services support, which used to be provided by local authorities but have now been decimated by the swingeing cuts this Government have made to local authority budgets.

Despite this accumulation of budget cuts and cost increases, the Government insist on perpetuating the ridiculous and false claim that schools are actually receiving more money. I suppose they are, but only in the most meaningless, technical sense. Actually, they are not really. I hope that the Minister will be reasonable enough to not treat us to another bout of that nonsense. How can he claim that schools are getting more money when they are sacking staff, increasing class sizes and cutting subjects from the curriculum? Frankly, Ministers are living in a parallel universe if they think that their farcical claims bear any relation to the situation confronting headteachers and staff on the ground, where the effects of austerity are being felt in classrooms all over Wallasey and all over Wirral.

I encourage the Minister to visit the schools in my constituency and across the Wirral to observe the real-terms cuts that schools are having to make, and the very real consequences that those cuts are having on our schools’ capacity to provide an outstanding education for all. Perhaps he may then see the error of his ways and realise that he has to persuade the Chancellor to put our children first and finally agree to the real-terms increases needed to give the next generation the educational chances they really deserve.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) on securing the debate and on her excellent speech.

I am delighted to be able to address this issue at a time when the Government have recently announced the outcome of our consultation on the national funding formula—an historic and necessary reform that will, for the first time, distribute funding on the individual needs and characteristics of every school in the country. This Government believe that all children should have an education that unlocks their potential and allows them to go as far as their talents and hard work will take them.

We are making significant progress. More schools than ever before are rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, and 1.8 million more children are in good or outstanding schools today compared with 2010, including 90% of schools in the Wirral. The attainment gap between poorer children and their wealthier peers is closing; it has not closed totally. We have launched 12 opportunity areas to drive improvements in parts of the country that we know need to and can do better.

Those improvements have been made against a backdrop of an unfair and arbitrary funding system. Similar schools across the country get markedly different levels of funding for no good reason and resources are not reaching the schools that need it most. The funding system has acted as a barrier to improvement, when we need it to be a support. That is why we are delivering on our promise to reform the unfair, opaque and outdated school and high needs funding system, and introducing a national funding formula.

[Frank Field]

A prime way in which the Government have tried to direct resources to the poorest pupils, sometimes to schools in the poorest areas, has been through the pupil premium. As I said in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), the data from housing benefit will be lost as universal credit is being rolled out. I ask the Minister to take away the idea, and talk with the Department for Work and Pensions, so that the data that is in universal credit will be made available on housing circumstances to councils, so that they can automatically offer registration for the school premium and free school dinners.

[Nick Gibb]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point. All these issues are being considered as we move to universal credit, to ensure that children who need to be funded through the pupil premium continue to be funded.

[Frank Field]

Will the Minister take the issue away and, when he has consulted his colleagues in the other Department, write to me please?

[Nick Gibb]

I am happy to write to the right hon. Gentleman, but these issues are being considered as we speak.

Given the significance of this reform, it was vital that we took into account as many views as possible, and the consultation process generated over 26,000 individual responses and responses from representative organisations, and we considered all of those views. The existing system is out of date. It is based on data and decisions from over a decade ago. Funding for each area has been determined by simply rolling forward the previous years’ allocation, adjusting only for changes in the total number of pupils in each area and ignoring all the other changes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

As the hon. Gentleman sets out, there is a lot of good work happening in this area, and from my perspective, aside from what happens in schools during term-time, there are two key elements: having a strong economy that is providing people with jobs and employment, and, secondly, making sure people get to keep as much of their pay packet as possible, which is why we have not only introduced the national living wage but have increased the personal allowance. If we take those two things together, we see that somebody working 35 hours on the national minimum wage, now the national living wage, will have gained by £3,300 more through those two policies.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State take her lead from the Prime Minister, and welcome the Bill to abolish school hunger for millions of children, and might she follow the Prime Minister’s lead in bringing together the relevant Ministers, and then give us the parliamentary time so that Back Benchers on both sides of the House can finish the job for her?

[Justine Greening]

The point I am trying to make is that the best way to tackle these issues is through families themselves being empowered and able to take the decisions and steps they want. What I am saying is we are doing that as a Government through having a strong economy, but also by making sure people can keep more of what they earn in the first place.

Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

The hon. Gentleman is going to have to be more specific about what his objection is. I would be happy to take it up with him at another time, but I am not in a position to answer a question that has not been formulated in a way that allows me to provide an answer.

I want to turn briefly to the question of sibling contact for looked-after children. I am sorry that the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) is not here today, and I am sure that the whole House will send her their best wishes. We both agree that allowing reasonable contact between looked-after children and their siblings is absolutely right, where that is in the best interests of the children involved. This is reflected in the current law. However, the hon. Lady has helpfully pointed out an anomaly in the current legislation whereby the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 provide for sibling contact with a sibling who is also looked after but do not refer to contact with siblings who are not looked after. I will therefore ask my officials to start the work needed to amend the regulations to address that question, and I will happily keep the hon. Lady informed of progress.

Finally, I should like to mention the support provided to care leavers who have their own children removed from them. Hon. Members are right to emphasise how important it is to support young parents who have had a child taken into care. They need the right kind of intervention to help them to cope with this challenging situation, so that they can be effective parents to any children they might have in the future. Statutory guidance is already clear about the arrangements that must be followed to ensure that the needs of children in care and care leavers are assessed and that appropriate support is put in place. The statutory guidance includes the need for comprehensive assessment of a young person’s needs in relation to their emotional and mental health, including whether they need access to specialist health and therapeutic services. So, given the existing statutory guidance, I do not believe that it is necessary or appropriate to incorporate the proposed new clause into the Bill. I do, however, understand the importance of the issue, and I can confirm that I will ensure that the statutory guidance is strengthened to make clear the importance of providing appropriate support in the specific circumstances when a looked-after child or care leaver has a child of their own taken into care.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I have never seen the House so crowded to discuss amendments, which shows the importance that we attach to the Bill. I fear that we may not get to my amendment about the welfare of all children, so may I come and talk to the Minister at some point? It deals with compelling local authorities to carry out an audit of all their policies and of Government policies on the welfare of children.

[Edward Timpson]

I am happy to commit to meet the right hon. Gentleman to see what we can do on that.

Soft Drinks Industry Levy: Funding for Sport in Schools

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Justin Tomlinson]

Actually, that was the very first time I rebelled—I was rewarded by sitting on some obscure European committees thing for five years to think carefully about my actions. The funding was not scrapped. There was a change and initially a proposal to remove the ring-fencing, but the money was then once again ring-fenced, though schools were allowed to choose how to spend it on sports-related programmes. I supported that because we have got some fantastic school sport partnerships that are still thriving today—including my local one—but there were also some pretty poor ones, which have gone by the wayside, and those schools have now spent that money on individual sports coaches, sports clubs and things like that. We got there in the end, and funding has increased in this area since 2010.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the issue of sport, no one is against using some of the sugar tax revenue for encouraging greater sporting activities, but does he not accept that in his constituency, in mine and in everyone else’s, during the school holidays large numbers of children who would have free school dinners during term time do not get any food from the school or free school dinners? Might not one of the ways of making the sugar tax progressive be to earmark part of the revenue to ensure that schools could at least lay on the facilities for voluntary bodies to provide school dinners during the holidays?

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is a powerful point, and I agree with the sentiment of it. I would not necessarily use the sugar tax money, but that is something that the Government could consider as a wider point. It is a fair point, and actually some of the head teachers in some of the more deprived parts of my constituency have raised similar concerns about what happens to the children not just with regard to eating, but on wider issues throughout the holidays.

As it stands, there will be £285 million to extend the school day in secondary schools in relation to sport, £160 million to double the primary school physical education budget, and £10 million to expand breakfast clubs. That was welcomed by Emma Boggis, the chief executive of the Sport and Recreation Alliance, who said it will

“deliver more opportunities to get children of a young age active”

and

“to stay active in later life.”

That is an important point. We must recognise that the opportunities we create must be regular and sustainable, because we also recognise that if the Government’s intention for the sugar tax works out and all the manufacturers reformulate their products and customers switch from full-sugar versions to zero-sugar versions, the amount of money will diminish. We must therefore ensure that the money is spent to seed regular sustainable activities. This is where I bring forward my rather reasonable—in my unbiased opinion—asks.

This has all come about from a visit to Oakhurst Community Primary School, which hosts the Draycott sports camp, run by Mark Draycott, a PE teacher at the school. The school runs after-school clubs, weekend clubs and school holiday clubs. There are lots of sports camps and I am sure that all of us as MPs have visited them at some point, but this one sets itself apart by a country mile. More than 200 primary schoolchildren were being active each and every single day in the last summer holidays, of whom slightly more were girls than boys—that is something for Sport England and the Sport Minister to recognise and celebrate, because that is a particular area of challenge—and they were engaging in all sorts of different sports.

A summary of how the camps work is that they run during every school holiday from 9 am to 6 pm, costing £12.50 a day, which is probably the cheapest childcare that a parent will find. They create an active environment that is inclusive and engaging for all abilities. That is vital, because a particularly sports-minded child probably has sports-minded parents and will already be signed up to a football, rugby or netball club. The camps are for the vast majority of children who are not necessarily sports-minded and who are the most likely to become obese.

The camps focus on helping children to be more active and introducing them to new sports—not only football and netball, but cricket, athletics, golf, lacrosse and so on—so that they can replicate what inspires them on the television. I visited a camp during the Olympics and saw them recreate the things that were inspiring them on the TV—it was amazing. Because Mark Draycott is a teacher, and because the majority of his support staff have connections to the school or are teachers themselves, they have the expertise to identify and support those children who are starting to fall by the wayside, and who are not naturally gifted or naturally enthusiastic about sports, to make sure that they remain engaged. They concentrate on killing the fear factor that some children have when playing sports and ensuring that they enjoy the activity. They are increasing participation among girls and bucking those national trends.

I highlight that because we have an opportunity to replicate this. As Mark Draycott said when he was interviewed on “BBC Points West” this morning, the camps should be not only at Oakhurst in Swindon, but all over the country; there should be hundreds and hundreds of them. They are sustainable, because the taxpayer is not paying him to do this—he is running the camps as his own organisation. However, the Government can help. First, anybody who wishes to set up one of these camps will need to build up numbers. We could therefore look to incentivise other people to do the same sort of thing as Mark by reducing the charge for hiring the school facilities at the beginning, until they build up the numbers and become sustainable in their own right and can keep going.

We also need to attract more good quality physical education teachers into the profession. We had a chronic shortage of PE teachers, although more are beginning to come in now. The beauty of this situation is that Mark Draycott came from a sporting background—he was a non-league sports player. The coalition Government tried to attract troops to become teachers, but it turned out that there were not millions of troops who wished to become teachers. However, there are many non-league sports stars who are minded and who, with the right incentives and the right instructions, could go on to become very good PE teachers in schools. I urge the Minister to look at that potential wealth of talent from whom, if we advertise to them, we could potentially recruit some very good people.

There could be lots of Draycott sports camps all over the country, which would be fantastic for those who wish to pay and can afford to do so—as I have seen, for 200 children every single day. That is something that we can replicate. However, I wish to go even further. I would also like to see all school facilities made available for free between 4 pm and 6 pm to any voluntary organisation that wishes to use them. For example, if some parents get together and wish to put on a netball, football or basketball club—I do not mind which, so long as it is a constructive activity for young people—between the hours of 4 pm and 6 pm, we should not charge them. Some of the sugar tax money can then be used to compensate the loss of income to schools. That is not a peak time for school hire fees, because school sporting facilities are generally used when offices and factories shut at 6 pm, which is when schools would expect to make their income. I therefore suspect that compensation would be only a modest part of that income, but it would remove the barrier that many enthusiastic parents find.

I know that, because I spent 10 years as a borough councillor in Swindon representing a new build area with private finance initiative schools. There were limited leisure facilities, yet there were fantastic sporting facilities that the taxpayer was paying for but which we could not afford to access at a time when they were simply not being used. That does not make sense. We can find people willing to give up their time; there are hundreds of sports clubs across all of our constituencies that would seize the opportunity to provide constructive opportunities that will make our children active, that will remain in place once the money starts to diminish and, crucially, that will help busy parents.