Secondary Education

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Given that the Secretary of State is rightly concerned to ensure that no children fail, why is he so obsessed with schools? All the evidence points to the idea that perhaps at three years old, but certainly by the time they enter school, their life chances are determined. Might one invite him to be equally obsessive about the foundation years as he is about schools?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the point that he makes. Absolutely: we believe in intervening as early as possible, which is why we have extended the number of hours of pre-school learning that we offer, particularly to disadvantaged children. More can be done, however, and we are reforming the early years foundation stage. The Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), who has responsibility for children and families, is doing fantastic work in that area, and I look forward to working with the right hon. Gentleman to do more.

Free School Meals (Colleges)

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Blunkett]

My hon. Friend is right. With the advent of new technology, it is possible to make the system sensitive, non-discriminatory and easy. Institutions with other facilities that are available to disadvantaged youngsters make them available appropriately and sensitively.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Blunkett]

Anything for Merseyside this morning.

[Mr Field]

I hope that the Minister has the same view as my right hon. Friend.

Some time ago, on a Friday afternoon, I asked a group of 15-year-olds in Birkenhead what they wanted from school. I asked how many of them would have their next proper main meal at their school dinners on Monday. About 40% of that group would wait till Monday for their next main meal. That does not mean that some poor families are not good at budgeting and would not ensure that their children were well fed over the weekend, but it underscores my right hon. Friend’s point that, for many families on low incomes, it is difficult to make ends meet. We give child benefit up to the age of 19, and school dinner costs wipe out that additional sum given to families.

I hope that the Minister will, with a smile on his face—[Interruption.] He is smiling. I cannot believe that it would be impossible for him, looking at the Department’s budget over, say, the past three years, to find a spare £30 million at the end of the year and allocate it to the task that my right hon. Friend has brought to his attention.

[Mr Blunkett]

I agree. I do not want to want to give away secrets, but there were times between 1997 and 2001, when I had responsibility for education, when I was told by officials that there was no chance of finding the necessary funding for small expenditure and schemes. I am sure that the Minister has found that to be so in the past two years. However, it is amazing, when suggesting taking away things that officials are particularly interested in, how the money suddenly emerges. I recommend that he think about that. The now Lord Heseltine mentions some interesting times when reflecting on his wily ways and getting his own way when he was a Secretary of State. I recommend that the Minister chat with him if he has any problems finding the resource.

Sheffield college, including Hillsborough college, takes on 47% of all the youngsters who had free school meals during their school life. Longley Park and Sheffield colleges between them have more than 1,000 youngsters who would have been entitled to free school meals had they been on a sixth-form course. That is clearly unacceptable, in particular given that Sheffield college has had to set up food banks to help students and that staff bring in food parcels for the youngsters, although, obviously, in a sensitive way behind the scenes. However, that is not a situation that we can countenance in 2012, whatever the deficit or the difficulties of the recession. I rest my case.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I am grateful to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) on securing this important debate. I have huge admiration for him, in particular over his police community support officer reforms, although they are not the subject of the debate. I was sceptical about PCSOs, but now, having seen how they work in my constituency, I realise how successful they are.

I declare an interest: with the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), I chair the all-party parliamentary group for further education, skills and lifelong learning. I have also done a lot of work on apprenticeships since I was elected.

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s main argument that there should be a more level playing field. I am a strong supporter of the Association of Colleges and of the college in my own constituency. Harlow college has achieved the best success rates in the country because it does everything that it can to help those from poorer incomes, with apprenticeship programmes for young people leaving care or for single parents returning to work and with its own version of free school meals, even though it has no such obligation and little funds.

I have two main points. First, the landscape of provision is fragmented, and part of the problem is the lack of good information about which pupils at further education colleges are most in need of free school meals. Secondly, we must make the moral case; for example, if the benefit were linked not only to attendance but to hard work and getting good reports from the teacher, it would prove to lower-earning taxpayers who subsidise benefits that the money was being spent wisely and that students were taking responsibility. I will look at each point in turn.

First, the problem is similar to an iceberg, in that we might be seeing only the visible tip. Harlow college in my constituency, for example, estimates that at least 350 of its students are in severe need of free school meals; those are young people who turn up to college hungry every day, and whose education is at significant risk as a result. Harlow college does not get funding directly to help such students, but it has used the new 16-to-18 bursary scheme, which replaced education maintenance allowance, to give some of them a food subsidy of around £1.20 a day, three days a week, through the campus canteen. That is not as generous as free school meals, but the college is doing what it can with a limited budget. Furthermore, in my constituency only one school has a sixth form, so the vast majority of children go to Harlow college.

The college principal, Colin Hindmarch, has no legal obligation to do any of that, and the money he gets is insufficient to provide full meals through the week, but he believes that what he does is necessary to help the poorest students. I admire many things about Harlow college and the principal, but, above all, the belief that everyone can get good results, no matter what start they have had in life, if the college gives support.

The problem, however, is made harder because the college does not know who is likely to be hungry. Eighty secondary schools send pupils there, and most of the schools do not share data on free school meals with the college, which therefore has to guess—in essence—who needs help and who is at risk. The Association of Colleges estimates the cost of extending the right to free meals to college students at around £38 million. As the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough said, much of that money could be found through efficiencies; for example, the free schools budget is running a surplus, so perhaps some of the money could be taken from there.

[Mr Frank Field]

I want to emphasise what the hon. Gentleman said. The outside world listening to the debate will be shocked, but we get used to saying things and often not appreciating what the words mean. He said that some of the students in his constituency are hungry, and that would be true for many. As in Sheffield, two colleges in my constituency are in the same position—had pupils gone to the sixth form of their school, they would have free school dinners, but they do not get them at the colleges. In this day and age, in a very rich country, we are talking about some of our pupils being hungry. That is the most extraordinary state of affairs, which I hope will be borne in mind by the Minister when he replies. He is presiding over an education system in which some people are hungry.

[Robert Halfon]

As so often on social issues, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Those students are doing the right thing—they are going to college because they want to learn—but for them to go to college and not to have the money to feed themselves, through no fault of their own, is socially unjust.

The moral case for free school meals means that we need a fair deal between students and taxpayers, something that is respectful of both sides. We must help the hungry students, to give them the energy to concentrate, but it is also fair to ask them to work hard and to apply themselves, rather than to attend only; that was a problem with EMA. The welfare state fails when it becomes simply a handout—unconditional and too easily abused. At times, that can be deeply corrosive of public confidence, undermining support for helping the most vulnerable in our society. That is why I support reforms such as universal credit, because it is a proper contract. It says that it will always pay to work but also that welfare is conditional on genuine effort to find a job. I urge the Government to embed the same DNA in other entitlements, especially free school meals or alternatives such as the 16-to-18 bursary.

I am not arguing for the nanny state, because we can make a cost-benefit analysis. For example, in 2011 the Food for Life Partnership published academic research showing that a better uptake of free school meals increased school grades and, ultimately, the life chances of young people. Head teacher Seamus O’Donnell, who was involved in the pilot studies, stated:

“After lunchtime we used to have around 10 to 12 call outs for challenging behaviour in an hour. We did a survey two years ago after the pilot, and we were down to four. There was a correlation between improved food provision in school and better behaviour after lunchtime.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Another twist in the inequality embedded in the present situation is that youngsters at college are more likely than school sixth formers to come from poorer backgrounds, with 10.2% of sixth formers eligible for free meals. That means that the discrimination is against the majority of disadvantaged students, and that is the key point.

[Mr Frank Field]

I am chair of an academy in Birkenhead, and although our figures are not quite as bad as those in Walton, almost 70% of pupils receive free school dinners. The academy does not have a sixth form, because we decided not to at the present time, so pupils must choose either to find a job, which is difficult in Birkenhead and Walton, or to go to the sixth form college or the metropolitan college. What those colleges do is terrific, but pupils do not receive free dinners. If they were in a school with a sixth form, they would not face that stark choice. Previous Governments of both parties encouraged Birkenhead not to have sixth forms, but to concentrate our efforts and expertise on two colleges.

[Angela Smith]

My right hon. Friend is right. In Barnsley, we have only one sixth form, and the college is the main provider. In Sheffield in the past 30 years, most of the sixth forms have been in the south-west in Sheffield Hallam, which is one of the richest constituencies in the north of England. The case is made.

Students who attend college must often travel further to their place of study, which increases the cost of the commute, leaving less money for food. Overall, the truth of the matter is that a substantial proportion of the disadvantaged young are being discriminated against because of their post-16 education choice—when there is a choice—making it harder for them to achieve their goals and to secure their future as adults. It is important to remember that vocational choices are found more often in colleges than in sixth forms.

An objection to extending free meals to college students is that we would have to legislate, but it is the opinion of many who have looked at the matter that including FE colleges in the provision would not require legislation. This is despite Government—I use the word broadly—claiming that colleges are not classed as schools, so the students are not entitled to such provision. It is worth noting that under the Education Act 2011 an academy is not classed as a school. However, parliamentary answers indicate that funding agreements with academies provide the framework within which those institutions operate, and that they require academies to provide free meals to eligible pupils aged up to 18 years, or aged up to 18 before they start their course—I think the rule is up to 19 or 24. That effectively dismisses the Department for Education’s previous statements that only schools can provide free meals.

The Association of Colleges estimates that the cost would be £38 million. To put that into perspective, the Department for Education’s total budget is £56 billion, so the cost is equivalent to 1p for every £14 the Department spends. The cost is small change to the Department, and surely it must be affordable—the case has been made this morning—even in the context of so-called austerity budgeting.

That is particularly the case when considering the cost to the country of not providing free meals to eligible FE students. The Association of Colleges recently stated:

“The lifetime public finance cost of young people not participating in education, employment or training of those aged 16-18 is estimated to be at least £12 billion.”

The majority of those young people would, of course, attend college rather than a sixth form, and would take vocational courses, catch-up courses, literacy courses and so on. Their non-participation in post-16 education rightly worries us all. There is consensus on the need to deal with the problem. It should also be remembered that there is a significant cost if individuals do not participate in further education and therefore do not secure the skills and qualifications needed to gain quality employment.

The Association of Colleges also stated:

“We believe extending the right to free meals for College students aged 16-18 would encourage participation of this age group in education and training, which is especially important as the Government seeks 100% participation.”

Research by Barnardo’s has also found that many young people in FE do not eat at lunchtime; indeed in my constituency, Sheffield college, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough said, has had to establish a food bank with donations from college staff. On the other hand, Barnsley college uses learner support fund money to provide free meals—it does so independently—to those from families where the income is below £15,000. If there was an FE entitlement to free meals, that learner support fund could be used to help the broader needs of students who previously benefited from education maintenance allowance.

Behind the statistics, however, lie some disturbing and moving stories. John—not his real name—is a 17-year-old student at Sheffield college who lives in a hostel following family difficulties. He asked the college for help when he was struggling to afford to eat and had run out of money, and he received a token for free soup and a roll. He said:

“I found it a bit embarrassing going to collect the soup, and handing over the token. I felt like everyone around me knew my situation.”

John receives £112.50 in income support every two weeks, and he gets £20 education maintenance allowance. He pays £17 fortnightly for his hostel room, and he also has to pay for his food, travel and equipment. He says that he sometimes misses lunch at least once a week to save money.

My view is simple: the cost of implementing a scheme for free meals would be small and a fraction of the cost to the country of doing nothing. The present situation is grossly inequitable and needs reform. No logical argument can justify a situation in which a 16-year-old who is entitled to a free meal will get one if he or she registers at a sixth form, but will lose it if he or she enrols at an FE college.

I look forward to the response from the Minister, who I know is a reasonable man because I have sat on Committees with him—[Interruption.] He is smiling again now. I hope to hear details about when the Government will act to remove this discrimination from our education system. It makes financial sense, it is the fair thing to do, and it will help give youngsters from poor backgrounds a greater incentive to better themselves, thereby helping themselves and the country in the process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I shall share my time, if I may, with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), so I shall be brief and make two points.

First, I want to address the argument put by the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon)—that if the concession is made we should link it to poorer pupils’ good attendance at college, and their effort. I wonder why he wants to draw that contract so narrowly. It may be, of course, that he is trying to mobilise support on his side, and, if that is so, good luck to him. However, if we believe that we should move to a society where duties beget rights, rather than one where rights may occasionally be accompanied by duties, should taxpayers not put the same requirement on all pupils at school or college? Should we not expect them all, if they turn up with a huge subsidy from us, to do their hard work and attend well, in the hope that they succeed well? There should not be a stigmatising effect, with that contract applying only to poor pupils.

My other point is addressed directly to the Minister, who is very busy—radically changing his speech, I hope. As we have said, many of us represent seats where there are many pupils from poorer backgrounds. Because of the provision of post-16 education, they do not have a choice to go to a sixth form or sixth-form college. They choose whether to continue in education, and, maybe, to become hungry.

I have a question for the Minister. We know he has his answer all written out for him, and we know that he will read it, despite what has been said today. My plea is that he should report this debate to his colleagues and tell them that he finds it intolerable to defend a situation in which some poorer pupils will be hungry during their college days, while they are trying to get further qualifications—as my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) said, to lift their skills, get better jobs and pay our pensions as a result.

It is pretty scandalous that Foodbank estimates that by the next election it will be feeding 500,000 families who would otherwise be hungry. There is a new situation. Something strange and terrible is happening in our society, which we have yet to get to grips with. In one small way the Minister could do that, as a result of the debate, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) for initiating it. The Minister could say that he does not want again to defend Government policy that means that some post-16 students are hungry because they are studying.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) on securing this important debate. He is a former and distinguished Education Secretary.

As right hon. and hon. Members will know, the origins of a school meals service can be traced back to the mid-19th century. Later in the 19th century and in the early 20th century, a number of provisions for both free and reduced-cost meals were introduced to tackle malnutrition in schoolchildren. During the war years, the school meals service was transformed in policy and scope to become a general service of mid-day dinners that was intended to benefit all children.

The Education Act 1944 placed local education authorities under a statutory duty to provide meals and milk to pupils at schools and county colleges that the authorities maintained. The details were set out in the Provision of Milk and Meals Regulations 1945, but only in relation to maintained schools. Those regulations also made provision for meals to be provided free of charge to pupils at maintained schools who met certain conditions.

The Education Act 1980 gave local authorities the power to provide meals free of charge to pupils at any school maintained by them whose parents were in receipt of supplementary benefit or family income supplement. The 1980 Act was repealed by the Education Act 1996, since when the list of qualifying benefits for free school meals has increased, to ensure that those children who most need free school meals are entitled to them. The current criteria for eligibility are where a child’s parents are on income support; income-based jobseeker’s allowance; an income-related employment and support allowance; support under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999; the guarantee element of state pension credit; or child tax credit, but not working tax credit. The child’s parents must also have an annual income not exceeding £16,190. That has resulted in 19.2% of primary and nursery schoolchildren and 15.9% of secondary schoolchildren qualifying for free school meals.

The introduction of universal credit will simplify the benefits system and mean that we have to change the way that we determine eligibility for free school meals. We have yet to decide what the new criteria will be, but we want to make sure that they are simple and make free school meals available to those families on the lowest incomes.

It might be to desirable to extend free school meals further—for example, to all children. I understand the argument for doing so; I have seen that practice working well in Sweden, where all children receive a free school meal as part of what they receive at school, like the stationery, the heating and the building. The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) mentioned Finland. However, extending free school meals, for example, to all pupils whose parents receive the new universal credit, in line with the proposal from the Children’s Society, would cost around £1.6 billion a year. To extend free school meals to all pupils of school age would cost around £2.9 billion a year.

[Mr Frank Field]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will come to the issue of colleges in a moment, but I give way to the right hon. Gentleman first.

[Mr Field]

The Minister must know that none of us was arguing for extension of free school meals to every child. We were much more specific—

[Mr Gibb]

I understand that.

[Mr Field]

The Minister is reading from his script what I feared he would read out. Will he give this gathering in Westminster Hall today an undertaking that when he goes back to his next ministerial meeting he will ask his colleagues if they are happy that he, as their colleague in the Government, should have to stand up and defend a situation where some pupils, because they happen to go to a college rather than a sixth form, may be hungry?

[Mr Gibb]

If the right hon. Gentleman will be patient, he will see that although I am reading from a prepared script, I have manuscript changes to that script that I made during the debate. I was listening very carefully to all the arguments that were made.

I will continue. The Further and Higher Education Act 1992 moved colleges from local authority control into a more independent further education sector. Current legislation—the Education Act 1996—continues to provide free school meals only to pupils at schools maintained by a local authority. As was mentioned, academies and free schools are required to comply with free school meal legislation via their funding agreement. This provision also extends to students attending school sixth forms, because they are covered by the definitions of “secondary education” and “school”. However, it does not extend to pupils at independent schools, or to pupils aged between 14 and 16 who study at a college instead of a school. Pupils who are registered at a school but who also attend college are still covered and their school must provide free school meals if they meet the eligibility criteria.

As the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough has pointed out, free meals do not apply to students at sixth-form or FE colleges. The different legal status and independence of sixth-form and FE colleges bring with them other benefits, which the institutions themselves do not want to lose. That does not mean that we believe that students studying at sixth-form and FE colleges are any different from those attending school sixth forms. I understand and have sympathy with the argument made by Members including the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge that vocational courses are more likely to be found in FE colleges than in school sixth forms. As the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) pointed out, we recognise the anomaly. It is an anomaly, whether or not we put the word in inverted commas, but it is not a new anomaly. Indeed, it is one that previous Governments have not address did—I have to say that it was not addressed by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough when he was Education Secretary between 1997 and 2001.

[Mr Field]

My right hon. Friend apologised for that.

[Mr Gibb]

I will acknowledge that. That was at a time when the Labour Government had just inherited a golden economic legacy—

Safeguarding Children

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the updated statutory guidance to safeguard and promote the welfare of children published on 12 June 2012; and calls on the Government to ensure that the needs of the child are at the centre of all assessments and decision-making processes regarding safeguarding, that appropriate information and guidance is provided to young people so they understand the risks of abuse and sexual exploitation, that all local authorities and decision-makers are upholding the highest standards when it comes to integrated care access and multi-disciplinary and multiagency working, and that early intervention programmes are promoted on the best available evidence, and to clarify who is responsible within Government for implementing the measures included in the new guidance.

Yesterday the Government published updated statutory guidance to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. I am sure that all parts of the House will welcome the opportunity to consider the Government’s proposals today. Our motion has been tabled to provide for such a debate, and it sets out five areas of concern.

Modern society places huge pressures on children and young people. Although the influences of adult life on children are not new, it is clear that the advent of social media, new pressures on parents and the increasing availability of sexual content are accelerating the process. The term “child protection” covers a wide spectrum of issues and crosses several Departments. From online grooming, child neglect and forced labour to the trafficking of minors, the challenge of ensuring that children get a safe and happy start in life has a moral imperative—a view that I know is shared in all parts of the House. However, it is not just a moral necessity we face: the long-term impact of child abuse—to take one important example—has been well documented. It is therefore critical that we invest in early intervention, not just for young children, but for older children as well, in order to reduce the long-term risks and costs.

It is one of the foremost duties of any civilised society to protect its most vulnerable members. It is clear that that duty was breached in the most horrific way in the recent case in Rochdale, and in the tragedies that befell Victoria Climbié and baby Peter Connelly. The Government were right to establish the Munro review, to provide a thoughtful, calm analysis of the challenges affecting the child protection system. I want to focus on the five areas that we have identified in the motion as being of particular importance, though I make no claim that they are fully comprehensive.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I am sure that the whole House will appreciate the approach that my hon. Friend is taking to this subject. I should like to give him some information to emphasise the urgency of this debate and the need to approach it in this atmosphere. Part of Birkenhead is so rich that it makes Hampstead look downmarket, but parts are not so advantaged. A couple of months ago, I asked three head teachers from the more challenged areas, in different meetings, what percentage of families they would not wish to be part of if they were a child. Independently, all three said about 40%. I then asked them what proportion of children they would like to see in care today, if there were no restriction on budgets. I am not saying that that is desirable, incidentally. They said 20%. So I have an image of a group of poor social workers having to fight over inadequate budgets—whatever party is in power—and thinking, “If I get the resources, I might be able to prevent a child’s murder. If my colleague is not as powerful as me, perhaps the murder will take place elsewhere.” Will my hon. Friend stress that this is not just about resources, however—they are important, but we will never have enough to deal with these issues—and that it is about what is happening to parenting more generally?

[Stephen Twigg]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that contribution. He has a long-standing record on these matters and is respected in all parts of the House for his work in this area. I will touch on some of those issues later in my speech.

The first of the five areas involves ensuring that we have a child-centred system, and that the needs of the child are the first consideration of the many professionals who are involved in child protection and safeguarding. This was at the heart of the Children Act 2004, and of other reforms brought in by the previous Labour Government. They include the establishment of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the focus on five clear outcomes through Every Child Matters, which helped to deliver some of the previous Government’s most successful policies, including the reduction in child poverty. Yesterday’s report from the Child Poverty Action Group reminded us of that achievement, and of the real danger that that progress could be reversed by the present Government.

Let me place on record our support for the work of Professor Eileen Munro, who has done a service to the Government and to the country in promoting this child-centred approach. She is absolutely right to focus on the journey of the child through the system. Any shift from a process that is focused excessively on compliance to one that better values the expertise of professionals is one that will have my support. However, we need to strike a balance between allowing professionals the flexibility to make a judgment on a child’s needs and the need for clear rules and principles. There is clearly a danger that a big reduction in the amount of guidance could take us from one undesirable state to another.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point that building capacity is key in this area, and we announced the figures for the number of two-year-olds who will be eligible in each local authority partly to help local authorities to begin to plan for that. We have put extra money into the early intervention grant to ensure that local authorities are able to build capacity, and we are working with 18 local authorities to conduct trials on how they might increase capacity, looking at examples of best practice so that we can share it with other areas.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

The whole House welcomes the Government initiative on that front, but what moves is the Minister making to ensure that the poorest children get the very best nursery education, and not just child minding?

New Schools

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which is that we need to think hard about the paths that those from the age of 14 will follow. One of the things that I believe we can do is ensure that high quality further education colleges make available their resources, whether through sponsoring underperforming schools or allowing lecturers or others from FE colleges to operate in schools. Following on from the Wolf report, we have already changed the law to allow that to happen. But there is more that can be done to integrate the great work that FE colleges and schools do.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

May I challenge the slight complacency that I noticed in the Secretary of State’s speech when he referred to UTCs? Is it not true that if we are going to do anything about the competitive position of this country and if we are going to win new markets and offer rising living standards in this country, we do not want a Secretary of State coming to the House offering 13 UTCs? We want a Secretary of State coming and offering 113 such bodies. When does he expect to announce the next round of UTCs? When he does, I hope he will include Birkenhead in the list.

[Michael Gove]

There are few parts of the country that need schools of quality more than the areas around Merseyside. In Birkenhead, the young people who want a better future are lucky to have such a great champion. We will be bringing forward more UTC proposals, but sadly our capacity to invest in schools of that quality is constrained inevitably by the poisoned economic legacy that we were left.

Education Bill

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan]

I am grateful to the Schools Minister for that answer, which is very helpful.

On amendments 34 and 35, I would be grateful if we could have an assurance that there is no risk that pupils will be referred unnecessarily under these provisions or that there will be a huge increase in the volume and therefore the cost of alternative provision. What safeguards are in place to ensure that pupils are not simply referred out of mainstream schools and into alternative provision because, for example, their academic performance is not up to scratch as regards hitting their English baccalaureate targets or because schools want a way of dealing with pupils with special educational needs? I would be grateful if the Minister could assure us that strict safeguards will be in place to ensure that the new alternative provision approach cannot be abused in such a way by any schools that are seeking to hit any particular targets on special educational needs and academic achievement. Who will pick up the bill in such cases? Will it be the referring school or the local authority?

Finally, the Minister mentioned the technical Government amendments, and I am grateful for his explanation of them.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I rise to support new clause 19, which stands in my name. I can do so briefly and I am sure that colleagues will be grateful for that, but I must explain that the new clause comes not out of the ether of theory but out of practice. I will happily declare an interest, in case I have to, in that I chair one of the two new academy schools in Birkenhead. The governors have made no decisions on the new clause, if we were to be successful, or on some of the other options about which I shall speak. We are testing the ground to see the best forms of education we can offer some young people in Birkenhead. The new clause is very simple and states that as an academy we will be able to buy any places anywhere we want for our pupils, including in private schools, but that we should not be able to do so until pupils have spent three years with us—that is, until they are 14. The governors are seriously considering how we can start to reinforce once again the idea of life chances for our pupils by giving them a range of options that they might wish to choose at 14.

I know that this is the responsibility of the Minister's colleague in the Lords, but I am anxious that we should be successful in bidding for moneys from the new tranche of finance that the Chancellor announced in the Budget to establish what I might call a Baker academy. We would like some of our pupils to be able to consider that as one option. We have a first-class metropolitan college and we would like pupils to be able to choose—perhaps at 14—to transfer their talents and prosper even more in those circumstances. We will, of course, have some pupils of high academic attainment and it would be good to be able to fast-track them and their education in a local private school. This new clause is about giving not just our academy but academies in general that power.

I asked our brilliant experts in the Library whether the academies had such a power now and, more importantly, whether the law would prevent us from exercising it now. The answer was that, on the face of the record, we do not have that power now, but it is certainly cloudy whether any provision in statute would prevent us from using it. As the Bill moves to the other place, where we will try to move this clause in all seriousness, I am anxious that we should clarify the position beyond any doubt.

I do not know the views of Tory Back Benchers on such a new clause, but I imagine that the Liberal Democrats would insist that it should be part of the renegotiations of the coalition agreement, as it ticks every box in the Liberal vocabulary. If we felt that they were dragging their feet, in Birkenhead we would know who was stopping us increasing life chances for some of our poorest pupils. If the Liberals made this provision a key part of their renegotiations, they would get the credit.

The new clause moves the focus of the debate from buildings to pupils. I know we love the cant in this place and to pretend that we have moved in such a way, but everything we decide is really about buildings and institutions. The clause takes the debate beyond institutions and schools, and centres it on pupils. What can we buy that they most need at a certain point of time? I hasten to add—in case this disappoints any Tories—that this is not a subsidy to the private sector. We would buy provision at less cost than that spent in a state school on the very small group of pupils whom we might wish to give the opportunity of going to a local public school. If the Liberals opposed us, they would be saying that they were not in favour of our having this freedom and that we would have to spend the money in the state sector, even though that would mean spending more and not getting the sort of education that we want for the small minority of pupils who might benefit from such choice.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

As someone who benefited from the assisted places scheme, I can perhaps understand more than most the right hon. Gentleman’s argument about what his provision might do for pupils’ life chances. I have no concluded view on the new clause, which I shall consider carefully—I am sure the rest of the House will do so, too—but why would an academy that purchased a place at a public school for one of its pupils spend less on that pupil than if it maintained them in the academy?

[Mr Field]

For the simple reason that the average payment that we get from taxpayers to educate would be less than the marginal cost that the school might wish to charge us for allowing pupils to attend it. Its costs would be covered, we would make a profit and we would be doing what we would wish for the small number of our scholars who might want to move into a public school.

Let me emphasise that such a reform is not just about changing institutions and breaking down the terrible, crippling divide in this country between public schools and state schools. The new clause is an attempt to begin a reform that would allow us to spend our budget in the best way possible to give the greatest advantages and life chances to pupils, whoever they are. It is not the only option we wish to develop; we will not be prevented from developing the others and we will develop them. In this area, however, there is some doubt about what the law says.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

First, I hasten to clarify that it is not the coalition agreement that is under renegotiation. There are many matters outside the coalition agreement that arise, which the two parties will need to deal with.

An interesting question occurs to me about funding levels per pupil across the country, which vary greatly. Has the right hon. Gentleman considered that variation in comparing the costs of local independent schools? Pupils in some parts of the country would have less resource going to them than is currently the case in a London borough, for example, where they are very well funded.

[Mr Field]

I was doing the calculations without the pupil premium, which is a terrifically important innovation. I understand the difference between the marginal cost in the north-west compared with going to Eton. I do not have any wish for those pupils to go to Eton, although I have nothing against Eton or the education it produces.

As I have said, this is a probing amendment; we hope to bring back the new clause in another place. I hope that the Minister understands that whatever we in Birkenhead decide—we have made no decisions about this as governors yet—we want to know the range of possibilities that we could develop for our young pupils at the academy school. This new clause is not going to go away. This is where the debate is going and the Government have a choice between joining us or opposing us until they have to give way. On that happy note, I have said what I want to say about this probing new clause, which we will try to push more seriously in the other place.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) for the second time in succession. It has also been a great pleasure to participate in proceedings in Committee on the Bill. I am still relatively new to the House and I found it encouraging, compared with the spectacle that we see at Prime Minister’s Question Time, to see parties on both sides coming together to put their experience and best interests at the forefront of trying to improve education in our country. I pay tribute to all the parties for doing that.

I should like to comment mainly on my new clause 1, but first I shall make a couple of points about special educational needs, which the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) has mentioned. It was a great pleasure, a week ago, to welcome the Secretary of State for Education to Bedford to talk to the head teachers of our three special schools, the Grange, Ridgeway and St Johns, and to talk about the Green Paper. The coalition Government have moved forward significantly in understanding what is required for children with SEN not only while they are at school but when they are preparing to go on to the work environment. That is a record that the Government can build on over the next five years and which will be a tremendous success and tribute to them. The Secretary of State’s discussion with the head teachers in Bedford and Kempston was most illuminating. Two of those three schools are outstanding and one is good with outstanding features, so they are already providing excellent education to children, and their knowledge and experience is most valuable.

It is important to consider the particular impact of the Bill on exclusions. The Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), knows how important this issue is, particularly for children with autism and the impact on them if they are later excluded. I hope that he will take into account the recommendations of the special educational consortium about future decisions so that he can make sure that the issue of exclusion does not have an undue impact on children with autism.

New clause 1 would pay particular attention to schools with a history of educational underachievement, by which I mean achieving below the minimum national floor standards for a number of years. It would give the Secretary of State the powers that he or she might require in such circumstances to intervene to support change and to provide educational opportunity to the children in those areas. The new clause is not about passing comment on teachers; indeed, the teachers who go to poorly performing schools are sometimes the most inspired and capable teachers in the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend is right, and the Government are committed to protecting those employment rights.

The underperformance of teachers is not necessarily the only reason why schools underperform; there is a whole host of reasons, one of which is that schools are burdened by bureaucracy. One key measure that we implemented in the opening months of the Administration was a reduction in the amount of bureaucracy and prescription that has been heaped on teachers over the past 10 years. With those few comments, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey will not press his probing new clause any further.

I turn to the new clause tabled by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). We welcome the many initiatives in the independent schools sector, assisted by the schools themselves through bursaries and scholarships and by many charities, to support children who would not otherwise be able to receive an independent school education. The right hon. Gentleman may have seen the article in The Times today by Lord Adonis and Anthony Seldon, the headmaster of Wellington college, urging the independent sector to sponsor more academies, and we share the views of those two contributors. That should be happening, and we want to see more independent schools sponsoring academies, but the Government’s priority is to transform the state education system so that all children are able to access a good-quality education regardless of their background.

Our independent schools provide some of the best education in the world, according to the OECD and other commentators, and we are keen to encourage greater collaboration between the sectors so that best practice can be shared and schools can work more effectively together in the best interests of pupils and staff, but the right hon. Gentleman’s new clause is neither desirable nor necessary.

An academy is free to further its education objectives by using any funds it is able to raise through charitable donations or other similar sources, but academy funding agreements regulate the way in which such schools can use taxpayer funding. The general annual grant paid by the Secretary of State can be spent by an academy only on its normal running costs, and we have no intention of changing that. That does not mean academies cannot buy in additional support from independent schools or collaborate with them on joint provision, but the bulk of state funding should rightly be used to raise educational attainment and standards for the benefit of all pupils in the academy.

[Mr Frank Field]

rose—

[Mr Gibb]

I give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Field]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; I am not too grateful for his comments. Supposing the Government allowed a free vote on my new clause, does he think that we would run him close tonight?

[Mr Gibb]

I have no idea what the view of the House would be. I am not sure that the right hon. Gentleman would have huge support from Opposition Members, or that all elements of the coalition would necessarily support his proposal. I am not sure what the outcome of such a vote would be, but I am not convinced that his proposal is the right thing on which to use scarce taxpayers’ money.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Frank Field]

I make one last plea to the Minister. My constituents are not interested in a sectarian Government saying that they wish to raise standards in the state sector. My constituents wish to see standards raised, and they are not concerned about which sector is used to achieve that objective.

[Mr Gibb]

I share that view. There is too much sectarianism in education. There should be more working between the independent sector and the state sector. I should like us to look at the methods that are used in the independent sector to see what can be learned from it. Indeed, many of those in the independent sector tell me that they want to learn from what is happening in some of the best schools in the state sector. There should be greater movement between the two sectors, and we are committed to that. We share the views of Lord Adonis and Anthony Seldon in the article that they jointly wrote for today’s edition of The Times.

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend is right. We need to ensure that our comprehensive schools are genuinely catering for children of all abilities, and that those able children are as well catered for in comprehensive schools as they are in schools that specialise in children of that ability, whether in the independent sector or the state sector. The point I was making to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead and to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) is that the state sector has many examples of where such children are extremely well catered for, and that is why some schools in the state sector have very high levels of entrance to Oxbridge and to Russell group universities. It is our view that if it can be done in those schools, it can be done throughout the state sector. We are determined to have a state education system that can deliver a high-quality education for children of all abilities, including the children that my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) mentioned.

The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) asked about unnecessary referrals to alternative provision academies or to pupil referral units generally. There are three routes by which pupils can be referred to a PRU: first, through section 19 of the Education Act 1996 on placements by local authorities; secondly, through section 100 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which was introduced by the Government of whom he was a member, under a duty on schools and academies to provide education for pupils on fixed-term exclusions of more than five days; and thirdly, through section 29A of the Education Act 2002, under which a maintained school can direct a pupil to be educated off-site for the purpose of improving behaviour. Each of those routes carries its own safeguards, which will remain in place. That will ensure that alternative provision academies will provide for pupils who can most benefit from that provision.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham talked about the need to ensure that there are sufficient places in primary schools, particularly in rural areas. We recognise that the large increase in the number of children of primary school age means that more schools are needed. We have made the funding available to meet that increase, and the academy free schools programme will add to that provision. We are very well aware of these issues. The birth rate has been increasing since 2001, and we are absolutely determined to ensure that there are sufficient places.

With those few comments, I commend new clause 20 to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 20 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 21

Charges at boarding Academies

‘After section 10 of AA 2010 insert—

“10A Charges at boarding Academies

(1) This section applies where—

(a) a registered pupil at an Academy is provided with board and lodging at the Academy, and

(b) the local authority for the pupil’s area is satisfied that either condition A or condition B is met.

(2) Condition A is that education suitable to the pupil’s age, ability and aptitude, and to any special educational needs the pupil may have, cannot otherwise be provided for the pupil.

(3) Condition B is that payment of the full amount of the charges in respect of the board and lodging would involve financial hardship to the pupil’s parent.

(4) If the authority is satisfied that condition A is met, the authority must pay the full amount of the charges in respect of the board and lodging to the proprietor of the Academy.

(5) If the authority is satisfied that condition B is met, the authority must pay to the proprietor of the Academy so much of the charges in respect of the board and lodging as, in the opinion of the authority, is needed to avoid financial hardship to the pupil’s parent.

(6) The proprietor of the Academy must remit the charges that would otherwise be payable by the pupil’s parent, to the extent that it receives a payment from the local authority in respect of those charges under subsection (4) or (5).”’.—(Mr Gibb.)

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

[Mr Frank Field]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am not pressing my new clause, even though the Minister could have had his speech written for him by old Labour, which I think will be noted. I wish for the proceedings to go forward as expeditiously as possible.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

As amusing as that may be, it is not a point of order.



New Clause 2

Admissions policy of independent schools opting for Academy status

‘(1) Section 6 of the Academies Act 2010 (effect of Academy order) is amended as follows.

(2) In subsection (4) (definition of “selective school”), after paragraph (b), insert—

“, or

(c) it is an independent school with a selective admissions policy converting to an Academy”.’.—(Mr Brady.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

Sure Start Children’s Centres

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct that the interest we are paying on our debt is 39 times the Sure Start budget under the previous Government. If we really cared about our children’s future, would we have saddled them with a debt at that level? Clearly not. I am afraid, however, that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the last Labour Cabinet were happy to spend, spend, spend without any thought to whether future generations would be saddled with an enormous debt. It is to the great credit of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister that they were prepared to ensure that a coalition Government took the responsible steps necessary to deal with the dire economic mess, and it is to the discredit, I am afraid, of the current shadow Cabinet that not a single constructive suggestion has come forward for how to deal with the deficit. In just a few days’ time, when people think about how to cast their vote, I hope that they will reflect on which parties are acting responsibly in dealing with the national crisis, and which parties prefer posturing, irresponsibility and the emptiness of eternal opposition.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

I would like to exempt one person from that stricture, however, and it is the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), to whom I am happy to give way.

[Mr Field]

The whole House welcomes the re-announcement by the Secretary of State that the number of poor two-year-olds who will receive nursery education will rise from 30,000 to 130,000. To ensure that it occurs, will the Government ring-fence the money?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I wish to pose a question at the beginning of my short contribution: why are we attaching such importance to today’s debate? I say that because Sure Start is part of a wider area of concern, which the Secretary of State rightly called the “foundation years”. There are two reasons why the House is concerned about this area and what is happening to it, how it will be developed and how it might be affected by any cuts programme. The first is that over the past decade or so we have been given a great deal of new knowledge about how brains develop. In the past, we looked to schools and universities to make good class differences, but development in neuroscience suggests that we need to start much earlier and take action as children develop from the womb and until the age of five. So if we are really concerned about widening life chances and ensuring that people can move from their early years into education and into work, we need to prioritise the foundation years.

Much of the concern of Labour Members has been about what has been happening to Sure Start, and I want to pose some questions about that and end with a suggestion. We are not going to persuade the Government to go back on their non-ring-fencing, much as we would like them to, and so I make a plea to them. Other programmes and public expenditure reviews will take place during this Parliament and I hope that before the Government embark on their second, and probably last, public expenditure review for this five-year Parliament, they will question whether, with hindsight, the non-ring-fencing of some of these key services has been a good idea. The Secretary of State needed all his skills to avoid answering questions from Labour Members today, because real losses are clearly involved when local authorities with reduced budgets have to make choices on what they think is most important in the area covered by the intervention grant.

If the Government are to make real sense of the foundation years during this Parliament, they will need to change their attitude towards non-ring-fencing. I intervened earlier to ask whether the money for the new initiative of very significantly increasing the number of poor children between two and three who will receive nursery education will be ring-fenced, and the Secretary of State gave us the good news that it would be. So we can conclude that although the Government are not going to say in public that, with hindsight, they were probably wrong not to ring-fence, it is clear that in any future settlement they will prioritise those areas where they believe the greatest gains for taxpayers can be got from spending their money. I suggest that, in the next review, foundation years spending is one area that needs to be ring-fenced.

The second question that I wish to pose applies particularly to Labour Members, but also to those on the Government Benches. We are all anxious to present Sure Start in the best possible light. It is true that it has established itself as a universal service that is non-stigmatising and offers help, but I question whether we have the information at our disposal to be so confident that all Sure Start centre budgets are being spent in the best way possible. When Sure Start began in Birkenhead 10 years ago, I sought in vain to gain from our four local centres information on the number of children in their area, the number of children that they were contacting and whether they were ensuring that the greatest help went to the most-deprived children—I never received answers. Now that Sure Start centres know that things are up for grabs and that, for example, the schools in Birkenhead are probably going to bid for the centres, people are of course anxious to talk about what their services might provide.

In an age in which there is less money in most areas for Sure Start, it is more important that the money is spent on the poorest children, not the richest. Adam Smith’s hidden hand seemed to work at the doors of Sure Start, in that the doors were opened most widely to those bushy-tailed mums who are confident about themselves and who saw what a wonderful service it was and went in—they have benefited fully. I still ponder about the number of mothers in my constituency who are very poor, who are suffering from post-natal depression and with whom nobody makes contact. That is the group that Sure Start needs to be most involved with.

[Dan Rogerson]

Does the right hon. Gentleman think we could ensure that the more resource-intensive activities that take place in the children’s centres could be targeted while also ensuring that they can still be used in other ways to encourage everybody to come in, to work together and to learn from each other and support each other? Does he think we can get the balance between those two things?

[Mr Field]

My report tries to suggest how we can keep the service universal while also concentrating help on those in greatest need. That is crucial if in the next 10 years we are to see not only a development of the Sure Start budgets, but a significant increase in the budgets for foundation years—that is where any new money should go. It would help Sure Start to meet that objective if the Government were to move as quickly as they could to ensure that foundation years provision overall, and Sure Start in particular, was paid by results. In that context, we need to consider whether more children are better ready each year to start school as a result of expenditure in this area. I have asked heads in my constituency, where we have had Sure Start for 10 years, and they have said that that is not so.

The collapse in parenting may be occurring at a greater pace in some areas than it is more generally throughout the country—this problem is not a particular one. One of the great reasons why we support the foundation years is that more children are less well nurtured now than was the case 10, 20 or 30 years ago. One of the great things that Sure Start is about is trying to ensure that those young people who did not have good parents and who did not learn the ropes from them find from somebody else the best way of ensuring that their children are really fit to start their first day of school.

I hope that the Government have learned the lessons about ring-fencing. We will see this in their actions, because I do not expect a Minister to say at the Dispatch Box, “I think our approach was wrong, but next time it will be played differently.” Secondly, I hope that we all agree that whatever our framework for Sure Start, we want to ensure that the most vulnerable children are helped most. I wish to make a brief suggestion about the next stage of this policy. The Government have accepted all the proposals that they could immediately accept from my report, but one proposal relies on the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I suggested that each time the Chancellor considers whether to increase benefit rates for children, he should consider whether in that year it would be more appropriate to spend some or all of that money not on benefit increases, but on building up foundation years provision.

Some Labour Members are slightly apprehensive about that suggestion, because we have been committed to abolishing child poverty, as defined in monetary terms, by 2020. Those on the Government side are also committed to that and I think that Labour Members fear that if the Government decided to move moneys from benefit increases to services, we would lose that goal of abolishing child poverty as we defined it when we were in government. I wish to suggest that that clash does not exist. A couple of years ago, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation supported research examining the most effective ways to ensure that more children live in households with incomes above the target of two thirds of median earnings. It found that that was done not by increasing benefits, but by increasing the amount of child care. In fact, if we attended to that and ensured that child care was of high quality, up to half of those children who are now deemed to be poor would not be poor because their parents would be able to combine the work and tax credits that are available to give them an income that would take them out of our definition of financial poverty. I suggest that the Government consider significant increases in child care and that they finance that by holding back on some benefit increases for children in future years. We will not only achieve more quickly the goal of abolishing the numbers of children in financial poverty but, by ensuring that child care is of the highest quality, we will also ensure that many of those children are better prepared to start school and that their lives will be very different from those of their parents.

I chair the new academy in Birkenhead and we have been debating what should be in our contract with the town. I think that one part of our contract will be that we will run an academy that will ensure that children coming to our school will have the opportunity to get better jobs than their parents did when they had to start work. That is what most parents mean by social mobility, and I hope that I have shown today that if we consider the amount and quality of child care, we might not only lessen the amount of financial child poverty in our country but significantly open up the life chances of our poorest children.

Sure Start Children’s Centres

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I wish to make three short points in this debate, so that my colleagues can get in. I am sure that many of them will register their worries about the future of the Sure Start networks. I am fortunate, as our local authority clearly is not going to make any decisions until after the local elections, so I speak as one of those whose Sure Start network is currently intact.

Although it is very important that such concerns are registered, I should like to contribute to raising the spirit of the debate and our hopes for what foundation years can achieve. Indeed, some of my hon. Friends will make the point that that makes the closure of Sure Starts an even more important issue, not less important. We now have enough information to know that, if we want to make a major difference to the life chances of children, particularly poorer children, we need to do it very early on and not think that that will happen automatically in primary, secondary, further or higher education. These are the most crucial years if we are to make a difference.

Two pieces of information that I gathered together when writing the report on foundation years staggered me and knocked me sideways. One was the longitudinal study that looked at outcomes for young children, thanks to which we now know where such children end up in their late twenties. It showed that, probably at the age of three but certainly by five, the die of life is set for most children. Of course, after that age, the most brilliant parents, schools and teachers can make some difference for individuals, but it is very difficult to make a class difference for whole groups of our constituents. So if we are to be serious about whatever we spend, we need, over time, to redistribute resources from further education and from secondary and primary schools into the foundation years, not in a gigantic or absurd way, but in a way that recognises that building up this budget requires knowledge and expertise. We should note the Select Committee Chairman’s plea that we learn from what we are currently doing and add to our success, rather than knocking that sideways and jumping into the latest obscure way to extend life chances.

The second piece of information concerns an area in Birkenhead that has had Sure Start for 10 years. I asked the head of a really good school what 10 things he wanted from children attending school on their first day. What skills did he need? He shared this exercise with his teachers and with other schools, and not only in the Birkenhead area. There were some stunning replies. The schools would like the children to know their own names; to know the word “stop”, because that can hint at danger for them. They would like them to learn to sit still, so they can begin playing properly and by that learn; to learn how to take off certain items of clothing; to learn how to hold a crayon; to know what a book is and how to open it the right way.

This is not a school in Birkenhead that is one the most “challenged”, as we must euphemistically call it. It is a school where, 20 years ago, I first learned that mums would lie about their addresses to get their children into a better school than they would otherwise be allocated. While lying is of course wrong, I could not but have a sneaking admiration for those mothers who were acting in this way, and who knew in a ration-book economy what little chance they had to choose the best services for their children. So although this is not the most challenged school, even after Sure Start—in fact, it was one of the first Sure Starts in the country and has been operating for 10 years—we were still finding children who were highly unprepared for school.

In the light of those two pieces of information from the report, we know that the die is cast for all too many children by the age of five, and that something quite troubling is going on in many areas in our constituencies, where children are nurtured in an arbitrary and random way. I see young people in Birkenhead who are so un-nurtured by their parents that I wonder whether I would survive if I were subjected to the things they are exposed to.

That information underscores the importance of this debate, and in that context I want to make a plea for Sure Start, but not because I disagree with the view that it should be radically reformed, which is an issue I will deal with in a moment. Sure Start already has some extraordinary advantages. It is a brand name. None of the parents whom I spoke to in the various areas I visited throughout the country in undertaking this inquiry told me that this is a service for poor people that stigmatises them. If anything, some of the more bushy-tailed parents who might well not have used the centres were actually there, knowing what a good service Sure Start was providing for children and wanting it for their own. It would be appalling if that brand name were destroyed or damaged in any way.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly important point about the lack of stigma attached to Sure Start, and about access for families from many different backgrounds. At the Thornton children’s centre in Crosby, families from a deprived estate and from a less deprived estate all come together. In fact, more than 700 families use that centre, and one of its many huge benefits has been families getting together, mixing, meeting new friends and building relationships that would be severely damaged if the centre closed.

[Mr Field]

I agree with that. As my hon. Friend says, this is partly about the brand image and about people thinking that going to Sure Start centres is almost a right of citizenship that we do not want to destroy. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) has momentarily left the Chamber because I would have argued with her about the balance between limiting what Sure Start centres do so that we can keep the structure going and cutting the number of centres so that we can maintain the whole range of services that they provide. My judgment is that the balance ought to favour keeping the structure. However, as the Minister knows from the report, I am very anxious about how we reform Sure Start, and I now wish to discuss that.

In reforming Sure Start, it is crucial to keep its universal provision; it does not have to be the most expensive or the most upmarket, but the report on the foundation years suggests that it is important that all parents use Sure Start centres at some stage. We suggested that such a centre would be the place where someone picks up their child benefit form—they would not be able to get it from anywhere else—and where they can register the birth of their child. It might be the place where people who are not of any faith take their child for an initiation ceremony to welcome them into the wider community. It is possible to maintain universal services without adding greatly to the costs, and a universal service has a chance of reaching the parents who need most support to make them even more successful as parents.

The Sure Start centres should be taken back to what my right hon. Friends the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) originally envisaged, which was that there would, of course, be a universal approach, but the vast majority of the expenditure, time, effort and love of Sure Start should go to those families who need most help, not to the parents with sharp elbows that get them to the front of every queue. The Minister and I spoke at a conference for children earlier today, and I was pleased to hear her say that the Government will examine payment by results seriously, as that would help to achieve that objective.

One of the results we want is children to be ready for school. We do not want primary schools trying to make up for what has not taken place in the first four to five years of life and secondary schools trying to make up for what primary schools have not been able to achieve because they themselves have been doing a rescue operation. I hope that the Government will carefully consider the objectives for Sure Start children’s centres or whatever we call them. I also hope that the Government will build up payment by results around those outcomes.

The last point I wish to make is that I hope that the Government will encourage people to think outside the box about who should run Sure Start centres. A couple of weeks ago, I asked the heads of primary and secondary schools in Birkenhead and the chairs of governors to meet so that we could discuss whether we should bid to run our Sure Start centres. Although we hope that the Government’s payment-by-results approach will bear fruit, we need to think much more imaginatively about incorporating the Sure Start children’s centres into what will be a much more seamless operation to ensure that we break down inequalities for the poorest children. Although it is right to emphasise the worries of those on both sides of the House about the future of Sure Start centres, both in terms of buildings and the services that they provide, I hope that we will get a clear steer from the Government about the reforms that they will be announcing by the end of this month. I hope that those will cover the points about keeping this service universal and about doing so while targeting that service, and that one way of doing so is to experiment with payment by results.

Finally, I wish to commend to the Government that outside providers wanting to take a collective but non-state view about these services should be encouraged to bid for them, so that every child in the country is ready to start their first day at primary school and is ready for that great experience.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

It is a huge pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). I feel at least as passionately as he does about the need for early intervention and about the need to support the youngest in our society, and I wish to use this speech to press for far more evaluation of what works. I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman, who I am pleased to call a friend, on the need for children’s centres to be far more at the heart of children’s services generally. I absolutely agree with his suggestion that people should go to such a centre to register for child benefit and for initiation ceremonies to welcome their child into the world. Such things are all crucial to ensuring that Sure Start children’s centres are at the heart of everything to do with infants and their families—that is incredibly important. I welcome the Government’s intention to introduce far more health visitors, because that will strengthen the ability of children’s centres to meet local needs.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) on his words and on his recommendation that the Government think carefully about whether we want this to be a purely localist agenda or whether there needs to be some universal, centrally driven remedy on children’s centres. I believe that localism is key, because local communities know best how to deal with the issues in their area, and I wish to talk a little about my experience of Sure Start.

[Mr Frank Field]

The hon. Lady talks about the importance of localism, but one of the report’s recommendations is that central Government ought to say that Sure Start ought to buy in more services from outside organisations. There is a balance to be struck between allowing local bodies to do anything, which might just be to keep things as they are, and an approach that engages some of the best organisations, which so far have not got much of a look in from Sure Start funding.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. As I said at the outset, I wish to make a plea for better evaluation of what works. My hope, although not my direction, is that more Sure Start children’s centres would therefore follow best practice.

From 2001 to 2009, I was chairman of the Oxford Parent Infant Project—OXPIP—which is a children’s charity operating around Oxfordshire. In the past year, it has become co-located with the Rose Hill Sure Start children’s centre. When I first became its chairman, OXPIP helped families who were struggling to bond with their newborn babies and provided psychotherapeutic support for families who were simply desperate. I am talking about people who are perhaps suicidal or about to harm their baby, who are desperately depressed and who simply cannot cope. OXPIP helps those parents to get over that, to build a secure attachment with their babies and to move on confident of being loving parents as part of a loving family. OXPIP’s results have been truly astonishing and there is a desperate need to evaluate quantitatively the work of such organisations, so that such best practice can become widespread in children’s centres.

In 2001, the Rose Hill Sure Start children’s centre was just starting out, as was OXPIP, and in those days it was all about creating a large building and it had a large budget. It was focused on outreach and putting lots of resources into play. My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness made the good point that it has taken a lot of time to get children’s centres to the point where they are really effective, they know what works and they know where the best value for money lies, so it would be a great shame now to try to form any sort of revolution in children’s centres and end up throwing away all the good stuff that has come out of that long term of experience.

In those early days, OXPIP was a charity with very little funding, no statutory money whatever and only the money it could raise through its own efforts. We were successful in getting a significant and ballooning lottery grant, so we had three years of ever-rising income from which we could build on our platform. The sad fact was that the Sure Start children’s centre would not even cover the cost of providing a service. It wanted to engage OXPIP’s services, but only at a flat rate that did not reflect the true cost of providing it. We therefore had a ridiculous scenario in which a charity that was living hand to mouth and was totally dependent, in the early days, on the good will of volunteers was subsidising a Sure Start children’s centre that had a huge budget and that did not seem to understand that OXPIP’s work really defined what Sure Start was all about—providing children with a sure start in life.

From that day to this, 10 years on, we have gone from strength to strength. As I have said, in the last year OXPIP has co-located with the Sure Start children’s centre, and that has been a complete success story. They have many different approaches regarding the different backgrounds of the many diverse nationalities and cultures found in Oxford. They provide support to fathers, mothers, grandparents, foster parents and adoptive parents, and many different services. Now that OXPIP, of which I remain a trustee, is co-located with Sure Start, we can focus on providing psychotherapeutic support for families who are really in difficulty. That has worked very well. I wanted to share that experience with hon. Members because I feel that Sure Start children’s centres have come a very long way and it is terribly important that the Government seek to improve on that and to provide more evidence about what works best, rather than interfering with and possibly damaging it.

Children’s Centres

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. We have found exactly the same problem in Sefton. We face at least a 12% cut in the early intervention grant. The council has been told that it is there to replace several early intervention projects. The money is simply not enough to do the job that the Government claim it is there to do.

Faced with the financial crisis and the cuts that the Government are pushing through, the question is what gets dropped first. History shows us that early prevention projects always come off worst.

Polly Toynbee’s article continues:

“Where in this pecking order of need should children’s centres come? They offer the earliest help to young children, identifying difficulties before it is too late, a welcoming place to which families can turn.”

Many of my constituents have written to me to say how important those services are to them and their children. One parent at Hudson children’s centre in Maghull told me:

“I am a mum to two small pre-school children and consider the children’s centre an integral part of my life. I was delighted when the centre first opened, shortly after having my first child. It soon became my lifeline, opening doors to new friendships and experiences. We enrolled for all the sessions available to us and thoroughly enjoyed meeting up with other parents and carers. The staff are all so very caring and helpful, making us all feel like part of their family. We still regularly attend the centre and feel distraught at the thought that this may come to an end if funding is cut. Not only would my children lose their valuable educational activities, but I would also lose my support network. I plead with Sefton council to carefully consider their actions regarding this matter, as I feel our local community would be left devastated.”

A common theme coming through to me from parents, grandparents and carers, is that their children’s centre is a vital lifeline, without which they would have nowhere to turn. There are no other facilities; there are no other places for many families to go. I mentioned the Hudson children’s centre in Maghull. More than 750 families have used the services at that centre. A similar number has used the service at Thornton children’s centre in Crosby, and I have three more children’s centres in my constituency. All five are either phase 2 or phase 3 centres. Initially, Sure Start children’s centres were set up in areas of maximum deprivation. The evidence coming through to me from the parents and families who use the phase 2 and 3 centres is that they are just as important as the phase 1 centres.

People from many different backgrounds use the centres in my constituency. One of the benefits we have found is that people, who would often be isolated without access to those services, meet and form their own support networks and make new friends. Suzanne Bentham uses the Thornton children’s centre. She wrote to me to say:

“Thornton children’s centre is an essential part of my life. Firstly, I went with my partner for my antenatal classes, then with my daughter who loves all the activities she does there. The staff and amenities are wonderful but most of all the atmosphere is the best bit. If I am feeling a little housebound, we can pop in and join in or just chat. We attend most days. We have met so many people from all walks of life, all with stories or offers of help when you need it most. It is not just a play centre, it is a lifeline, and without it an awful lot of people, families and children, will miss out on valuable skills to help throughout their lives. You see, every child matters.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) reported in the past few weeks that early intervention and the support that children receive in their first five years are crucial. That makes all the difference and prevents many children and families from having difficulties later in life. That is why children’s centres were set up by the previous Government, and why Sure Start matters.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Would a more sensible and humane approach for local authorities, which have suffered cuts in grants, be to consider withdrawing some of the services Sure Start provides, so that they keep the whole network? I say that because at some stage the Government are going to respond to my report, which advocated that, in some years, they should consider not automatically increasing children’s rates of benefits, but using all or part of that money to build up the foundation years. There will be all the difference in the world if, in a year or so, the Government say more money is coming into the area, between those authorities that kept their network and those that decided to shut up shop and disappear.

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. His point about how vital it is to keep the network going is extremely well made. Perhaps I can make my own comments in support of that argument.

The network is so important. Families often use several children’s centres, not only one, and those centres work closely together. I cited some of the numbers of families who use those centres, and I have seen how they are now an integral part of building successful and sustainable communities, and bringing together families with different backgrounds from different parts of the same community. If that network is broken in any way, it would be a backward step.

I believe that children’s centres are as important in phases 2 and 3 as they are in phase 1. Pockets of deprivation and people who are isolated exist in all parts of our communities, not only the most deprived areas. Therefore, it is essential that the network is retained. How will the Minister ensure that councils carry out the Government’s stated wishes to retain the network? At the moment, it appears that in many local authorities the money is not being passed on to keep the networks open. The removal of the ring-fencing, and the fact that the grant is not a like-for-like replacement of funding, leaves that question open. The Minister will say that such matters are down to local determination, but if the Government are serious about retaining Sure Start children’s centres and the network, they must consider intervening in local authorities to ensure that their stated policy is delivered on the ground.

Disadvantaged Children

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and his colleagues on calling this debate. I would also like to remark on the quality of his speech. If my contribution is half as good as his, not only will I be pleased, but the House will be relieved.

Let me begin by reminding the House of the audacious goal that the Labour Government set not only this House, but the nation. They were the first Government to say that, over a 20-year time span, we would abolish child poverty. Whatever one says about the results, they were a Government who tried to will the resources to achieve that objective. In fact, the Government’s consultation document puts the money intended to try to raise the incomes of the poorest families—largely through the tax credits system—at £150 billion. These are huge sums, amounting to £15 billion a year on average, which is the equivalent of 4p on the standard rate of tax. Therefore, the previous Government were immensely serious about trying to achieve that objective.

If we look at the published data, however, we see that the results are modest, if not disappointing. Despite the size of the resources, the number of poor children was reduced, over 10 years, by 600,000. That is of course important for those 600,000 children, but it left 2.8 million still in poverty. In a sense, the figures are the beginnings for our new debate—a debate that we as politicians must now craft, and which the hon. Gentleman opened so well.

That debate is about this question: where do we go from here? Even if we were not beset by the largest structural deficit since the second world war, would we continue with the same strategy as the previous Government?

In particular, the previous Government emphasised the importance of redistributing income. In our debates on the then Child Poverty Bill, I questioned whether it was an adequate strategy by itself. I did so partly because of what I saw in my constituency and what I saw when travelling to other Members’ constituencies: those troubling signs, when children whose parents are not working are late for school; and when no one in the household thinks it is important enough to get themselves up, so that they can then get the children up, to get them washed, dressed, fed and off to school on time. Slowly, I began to question whether money by itself, important though it is, was an adequate strategy to deal with child poverty.

Then, the Prime Minister offered me the opportunity to review poverty and life chances—an offer that I willingly accepted. Two pieces of information—two bits of knowledge—that I came across in undertaking that review knocked me sideways, one of which came from one of the more successful Birkenhead junior schools. The school first came to my notice 20 years ago when parents were not being truthful about where they lived because they wanted to get their children into the school. We might all think that it is wrong to lie, but I felt a sneaking admiration for those parents who, knowing the cards that they had been dealt, felt that getting their children into a good school and giving them a good start was the best thing they could do for them. So that school is not in any way a sink school.

I asked the headmaster to list the skills that he and his teaching staff—and the equivalent staff in other schools—thought necessary if children were to be able fly on their first day. Hardened as I am to some aspects of life, I was staggered by the list of qualities that teaching staff would have liked all children to have. I stress “all children”, because some already have them. For example, he said that it would be important for children starting school to know their own name; to know the word “stop”, because it could be used to avert danger; to be able to take their coat off; to be potty-trained; to be able to hold a crayon; and to be able to sit still. To my mind, this issue clearly went beyond money, no matter how important money is.

The second piece of information was from the national surveys, which are about the only thing from which the hon. Member for East Hampshire did not quote. The work that the university of London has carried out on the cohort studies shows that, perhaps by three years old and certainly by five, life’s race is over for most children. Of course we might be able to make some differences later on, but for most children we have not yet discovered how to change their life chances after the age of five. It seemed to me, therefore, that any review of poverty and life chances needed to concentrate on those crucial early or foundation years. We have called them “foundation years” because it seems that all life’s opportunities are built on them.

The report has two main recommendations. The first is that the Government should build up a series of life chances indicators, nationally and locally, to run alongside the poverty objectives in the Child Poverty Act 2010. The second is that, once those indicators have been put on to the statute book or equivalent, alongside the financial goals relating to dealing with child poverty, the Government should have a different driver for policy. The previous Government were concerned to prevent the numbers of poor children from increasing, and every year, if possible, to find the money to reduce the numbers. That concern suffocated the rest of the debate. One could have forgiven people for not knowing that there were four definitions of poverty on the statute book. The one goal was to move children’s families above 60% of median earnings. I stress that that is important, but I no longer believe that it is necessarily the key criterion with which we should be concerned when considering life chances. We suggested the establishment of the foundation years in order that the Government should have an organisation through which they could drive new policy. That involves the grouping together of all those activities and services that at present go under the title of “early years”. Those early years start long before pregnancy; they start in schools.

The last piece of personal information that I want to give to the House is that I recently spoke to a group of 15-year-olds in a school that I shall be proud to chair when it becomes an academy. I asked them what they most wanted from their school contract. Two of the replies staggered me. One asked whether the school would be able to teach them how to make lifelong friendships, and what the necessary skills would be. All of them wanted to know how to be good parents. They did not say “better parents”. None of them gave any hint that their parents might even once, let alone regularly, have put their own needs before those of their children. It seems to me that if we are to drive policy differently and liberate those whose life chances are now determined by the age of five, we cannot start early enough. The whole culture of a school and what is taught in it about these skills is clearly part of the answer.

I should like to address to those on the Treasury Bench one challenge for the Government. I am lucky in that none of the Sure Start units in my constituency is being cut, reduced or closed, but that is not likely to be true elsewhere. Although the report, which I was privileged to help compile, says that we should not accept Sure Start as it is and that we should turn it upside down so that it much more closely meets the original objective of helping the most disadvantaged families most, it is inconceivable that we can make a go of the foundation years if Sure Start units all over the place are slaughtered.

For reasons that were set out during the election and in the coalition agreement, the Government believe that, wherever possible, power and money should be devolved to local authorities so that they can do as they think best for their area. Local authorities will, of course, be judged by their own local life chances indicators. I hope that the electorate will push for their establishment and measure their local authority’s success in widening life chances—in other words, lifting up those who have the least advantage in our communities.

This programme will not work without some more money. I am not talking about the £150 billion given for redistribution through tax credits, but it is naïve to believe that the Government will be able to make a go of establishing life chances or be able to report progress to the electorate by the end of this Parliament unless they find from somewhere moneys to finance the foundation years more fully—other than from the current budgets allocated. I emphasise again that we are not calling for huge sums. I do not think that we know how to spend huge sums in this area, but some commitment is certainly needed. I hope that when the Government complete their review in March, they will confirm not only that they are going to follow this strategy, but that they will accord it a higher priority than other areas and that, if need be, resources will be shifted from those areas to make the foundation years the driving force to change the life chances of our poorest citizens.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

When I was first elected to the House and we talked about educational achievement, the conversation was nearly always about A-levels and universities. One of the great things about the Government of whom I was pleased to be member was that we shifted the debate from educational achievement by young adults to one about educational achievement at the beginning of education—children learning to read, for example. What is wonderful about today’s debate is the focus on the very beginnings of education and children at the stage when they are learning to talk and listen. These basic skills are the building blocks of our personalities and future abilities to cope with the world.

[Mr Frank Field]

May I also draw attention to the fact that, not only has there been this wonderful change, but it must be the first Parliament in which more Members want to debate this than the horse racing levy? [Laughter.]

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The laughter following that remark shows that my right hon. Friend is supported in his view. It is a positive shift. My suspicion is that it reflects the greater participation of mothers in politics—but I will not push that point too far! We know that disadvantage starts earlier, well before school, and unfortunately gets worse during formal education. Despite the efforts of the previous Government, which I helped with, the gaps in achievement remain stubbornly wide, although we managed to narrow them in some respects. At five, 35% of children who qualify for free school meals achieve a good level of development, compared with 55% of children who do not qualify. The children on free school meals are more likely to be bullied, twice as likely to be permanently excluded, half as likely to get good GCSEs and, despite progress, less likely to go to university.

We need to make it clear that disadvantage is directly associated with poverty in education. There is a further disadvantage, however, to do with boys. The second lowest achieving group of pupils in schools are white British boys. They are exceeded only by Gypsies and Travellers. People have said that it might be because there are too few male teachers in primary schools. As someone who used to educate primary school teachers, I think it is partly because too few young men are interested in small children, and therefore have the skills and qualities that would make someone like me, interviewing students for teacher education courses, consider them capable of becoming good teachers. Perhaps it tells us something about how we bring up young men that they do not know enough about the lives of children.