Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The purpose of the phased bursaries that we have piloted with maths in particular is to stagger the payments of those bursaries after three years. For those training to teach maths, there is a £20,000 bursary, followed by a £5,000 payment after three years and a further £5,000 after five years. In areas where there is a record of recruitment challenges, or areas of deprivation, the £5,000 figure becomes £7,500. There is a range of other measures intended to incentivise people to train in the areas to which my right hon. Friend has referred.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, too, welcome the new strategy, but it is long overdue. We have been raising these issues in the House for a number of years, and the Minister, and other Ministers, seems to have been in denial about what is causing them. That has been echoed in some of the Minister’s comments today. Tackling teacher recruitment and retention is not about a growing economy; it is about pay, workload and job satisfaction, so will the Minister now address those three key issues in a more strategic and substantive way than we have seen them addressed thus far?

[Nick Gibb]

We have been addressing those issues. For instance, we started to deal with workload in 2014. The workload challenge produced 44,000 responses identifying the top three issues: excessive marking work, data collection and lesson preparation. We addressed those with some workload review groups, and accepted their recommendations. This strategy, however, includes more measures to deal with workload. For example, the new Ofsted framework will include tackling teacher workload as an element of the leadership and management judgment that schools will face.

We are also doing more to ensure that the culture of schools is right. We are changing the accountability regime. There will not be a “football manager” approach. We are consulting today on replacing floor and coasting as triggers for support for schools with the simple “requires improvement” judgment of Ofsted. We have been engaged in a range of measures since 2010, and we are taking a strategic approach to these issues as well. I think that if the hon. Lady reads the strategy, she will find that it addresses all her concerns.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

These decisions are best made at a local level in the light of the local circumstances, but to support schools that decide to change their age range, we publish online guidance for maintained schools and academies on the process involved. I am pleased that my hon. Friend is in touch with my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

During the recent Education Committee inquiry, we heard from many businesses and experts about how the current UK curriculum is taking us in the wrong direction. They said that it is about regurgitating knowledge rather than equipping young people with skills—communication skills, and the ability to do projects, science practicals and so on. Does the Secretary of State agree or disagree with those people?

[Damian Hinds]

If parents, employers and others heard us suggesting that there was some sort of conflict between knowledge and skills, they would despair. People need both when they come out of school. The development of skills is in many ways about knowing how to deploy knowledge. We believe that a knowledge-rich curriculum is incredibly important and helps to develop the skills that young people need for the world of work—and, indeed, for life.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

There is an enormous amount of rather noisy chuntering from a sedentary position, principally emanating from a senior statesman in the House—namely the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). His colleague the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) is trying to encourage him in good behaviour; I urge her to redouble her efforts, as she has some way to travel.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given the Government’s apparent commitment to social mobility, would it not be a good idea to introduce a social mobility impact assessment for all Government policies and budget plans? That way, we might avoid stories such as the one that appears today in Nursery World, which details how across the country 27 schemes targeted at the most disadvantaged children in the early years have had to be scrapped because of changes to the early years funding formula.

[Damian Hinds]

I apply social mobility considerations right across the work of the Department for Education, and I also work with Ministers across Government to make sure that we are doing the same in all that we do.

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[Nick Gibb]

Ofsted assesses the triggers that will cause an inspection to happen even where a school is judged as outstanding and exempt from inspection—for example, if a school’s results fall, complaints are received from parents or there are safeguarding concerns. All those are triggers that will cause an inspection to happen even in an outstanding school. The hon. Gentleman can be confident, therefore, that a school that is judged good or outstanding is good or outstanding.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

T2. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)]

My Department continues its work to ensure that young people get the best start in life whatever their background. We are widening opportunity with our school reforms, reinforced through new programmes such as Opportunity North East; in the latest Budget, funding was provided for T-levels and apprenticeships to improve the quality of our technical education, so that we can rival productivity leaders such as Germany; and last week, our consultation on relationships, sex and health education closed with over 11,000 responses. These new subjects can help young people growing up in an ever more complex world.

[Lucy Powell]

I was pleased to see the Secretary of State arguing in the media recently for education funding to be a special case. Perhaps it was a shame that that came a week after the Budget rather than before it but, given that the Secretary of State recognises the very tight constraints on school budgets, does he share my regret, and the regret of many other people, about the phraseology used by the Chancellor when he talked of “little extras”?

[Damian Hinds]

I think it was a good thing that we were able to find hundreds of millions of pounds— £400 million—for additional capital spending in-year, on top of the £1.4 billion in capital already allocated.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to my predecessor for that question. I think I will leave it to the Daily Mail to decide what it does. Suffice it to say that the number of non-domestic providers has remained stable.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure the Minister can guess what I am going to ask about.

Among early years provision, the jewel in the crown for social mobility is our maintained nursery schools. The Minister will know from the conversations that we had before the summer that the supplementary funding that they receive from the Government is due to run out before the comprehensive spending review, so does he have an update for the House on what he and the Treasury are doing to ensure that our maintained nursery schools have a secure future beyond next year?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. Maintained nurseries offer a valuable service to communities such as hers and others around the country, and we are conscious of the value that they provide. Both I and the Secretary of State have visited a number of them. Decisions about the future funding of maintained provision will be taken at the spending review, but I repeat that it would be premature for local authorities to make decisions about the future of their maintained nurseries before seeing the spending review outcomes.

Department for Education

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

You obviously need to work on that.

[Emma Hardy]

I obviously do. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we need to look at different criteria—I will go with that word—for children qualifying for the pupil premium?

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[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup). I thank the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for securing this debate and for encouraging the rest of us on the Education Committee to seek to secure it too.

Despite earlier provocation, I am not going to talk about how we cut the cake; I want to talk about the size of the cake. I am sure that we will hear these two main arguments from the Minister later on: more money than ever is going into education; and the per-pupil numbers are protected. Ministers say that there is more money than ever, but that is never followed by the fact that we have more pupils than ever. Not only do we have significantly more pupils, but the rise in the participation age and extra support for the early years mean that pupils are in education for a lot longer than ever before.

Ministers also say that per-pupil funding has been protected, but they do not say that the costs per pupil have gone up. The maths is quite simple—I am sure that it would make the new reception curriculum—because if there are more costs, but the cash is the same, spending power will decrease. There will be less cash to spend on teachers, textbooks and all the rest. This is not about the funding formula; it is about the size of the cake, which is insufficient to meet the current costs of our education system.

For schools in particular, the lack of funding is coinciding with the teacher recruitment crisis. That is adding to the costs, because the costs of recruitment and of supply teachers are so high, but there has also been massive change. At any other time, new curriculums, new exams and new assessments would require extra investment, not less money, so a huge strain is being put on the system as a whole.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

The argument about the size of the cake is pertinent. Almost 140,000 more children have joined the system over the past 12 months. That means 140,000 more children to eat the cake, so we need a bigger cake.

[Lucy Powell]

I thank my hon. Friend. I think the actual figure for the system as a whole is a lot higher than that.

Further education, as the right hon. Member for Harlow said, has also been starved of cash since 2010. The spending power of higher education has increased by around 25%—austerity certainly has not hit that sector—but FE has seen cuts of around the same amount at a time when it is being asked to do more. FE colleges must now undertake constant GCSE English and maths resits—we are not quite sure what the outcomes of that are when a norm-referenced statistical framework is being used, which means that so many people have to fail every year—along with delivering apprenticeships and offering new curricula. Post-16 education needs to be looked at urgently.

It is for those two reasons that we need a long-term funding settlement for education, The NHS has one, as we have already heard, but where are the voices in Government pushing the Treasury for a long-term funding settlement for education? We need a 10-year plan for education that takes account of need, of the numbers coming through the system and of the requirements of our economy not just today but tomorrow. I am afraid that is woefully lacking.

We are a bit hand to mouth at the moment. There is constant policy change, with little forecasting of budget requirements. No wonder we see this crisis in education. Ministers need to up the ante when making these arguments.

The remainder of my speech will focus on maintained nursery schools. Yes, overall funding for childcare has gone up under this Government, but who benefits? The analysis I did with the Social Market Foundation, and analyses from the Education Policy Institute, the Resolution Foundation and others, shows that the vast majority of the extra money the Government are putting into early years is going to top earners—in fact, 75% of the extra £6 billion is going to top earners—which is changing the social mobility arguments and tipping them the other way.

We know that the early years matter, because the single biggest indicator of how well a child will do in their GCSEs is still their development level at the age of five. Children from more affluent backgrounds hear over 30 million more words by the age of three than those from less advantaged backgrounds. Children from more disadvantaged backgrounds are twice as likely not to reach early learning goals at the age of five. The evidence is clear about quality early education.

As we heard on the “Today” programme this morning—the Minister was on the programme, and he made some of these arguments himself—our maintained nursery schools are the jewel in the crown of social mobility, but this is now becoming urgent. We cannot wait for the comprehensive spending review to secure the funding. Maintained nursery schools were offered three years’ transitional funding nearly two years ago, and the CSR will not be for another year, by which time those nurseries will be right at the cliff edge. Maintained nursery schools are disappearing now, so we have to get this sorted, and sorted fast.

I gently say to Ministers, who I know are personally committed to these agendas, that we will support them if they want to get out there and be a bit more bolshie—or should I say macho?—in pressing the Treasury for extra funding. If they are not careful, to use another metaphor, the macho tanks of the Secretary of State for Defence and of other Departments will be parked firmly on the lawn of the Treasury while Education Ministers politely put their hands up at the back of the class.

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[Nick Gibb]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has said that that is the approach we are taking to assist Catholic schools in particular. We are spending £23 billion on capital funding because of our balanced approach to managing the public finances.

We have made historic reforms to the way we fund our schools, supported by an additional £1.3 billion investment, and we have announced ambitious plans for a new world-class technical education system, backed by £500 million a year of additional funding.

As is clear from this debate, our work as a Department, and our investment in young people, extend far beyond schools and colleges. Members have raised issues relating to priorities across the Department’s remit—from early years to further and higher education—and I aim to address some of those important questions.

[Lucy Powell]

I thank the Minister for giving way; he did intervene on a number of colleagues during the debate. He champions numeracy, but does he accept that spending power is reduced when costs go up and income remains the same? The number of teachers who can be employed, the amount of training that can be put on and the support that schools can provide has reduced, and budgets have therefore fallen.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

Where it does become necessary to re-broker an academy, as it does on occasions—my hon. Friend and I have had an opportunity to meet to discuss this—there is a bespoke approach to make sure that the settlement for the new arrangement with the new trust is sustainable.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Heads have recently warned that the new GCSEs are “inhumane” and that the “collateral damage”, as they call it, will be the less able pupils. Given that the Health and Social Care and the Education Committees recently found that one of the top causes of child mental ill health is the new exam regime, when will the right hon. Gentleman’s Department take action to assess the impact of the new GCSEs, and will he ensure that private schools that are opting out of the new GCSEs at the moment will be forced to take them as well?

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I think the hon. Lady misunderstands the situation. The fact that the number of students who are accessing the £200 has gone down does not mean that they are lacking in equipment. The truth is that computer ownership is now common among all students, with students spending on average around £250 on computers. As DSAs are not intended to cover all student costs, we think it is reasonable to ask students to contribute towards the cost of computer equipment.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

13. What steps he has taken to improve social mobility since the publication of the Social Mobility Action Plan.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

18. What steps he is taking to improve social mobility.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)]

Social mobility is at the heart of our programmes and my own priorities. We have announced a number of steps, including delivery plans for a further six opportunity areas, and a pilot scheme to help parents improve their children’s early language and literacy skills at home.

[Lucy Powell]

I thank the Secretary of State for that reply. As we rightly pay tribute to the amazing Dame Tessa Jowell, who pioneered Sure Start centres, is now not the moment for us to come together across this House and recognise that boosting the early years is the route to social mobility in this country? Even George Osborne said that to the Education Committee the week before last. Will the Secretary of State work with me and others in the all-party parliamentary groups to look again at how we restart the Sure Start programme and to give life to maintained nursery schools, which do so much for quality early education in some of our most deprived communities?

[Damian Hinds]

We absolutely come together in recognising the fundamental importance of the early years. I am afraid it is all too depressing a fact that, from what happens from age zero to five, so much is predictable of what will happen in later life. Addressing that involves a number of different strands, one of which is what happens in the home, and that is perhaps what has had least attention hitherto. The work of children’s centres is also important, and there are over 2,000 children’s centres across the country. It also matters what happens in childcare and early years settings, and we now have many more young disadvantaged children—71% of eligible two-year-olds—benefiting from the 15 hours at age two.

Schools That Work For Everyone

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

My right hon. Friend is of course right about the variety of interventions that are important in this area. He is also right to identify that not enough children on free school meals are able to go to these schools. I want to see that number go up, which is why we are insisting on enhanced access arrangements. I should clarify that this is capital funding—it is not the same as per pupil funding—following the creation of a place. Places will be created at all sorts of schools, the vast majority of which will be comprehensive intake—[Interruption.] I am not sure why the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) shakes her head. The vast majority will be comprehensive intake schools and the funding will follow in that way.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is regrettable that we are having to have this debate yet again. The grammar school the Secretary of State attended, St Ambrose in Trafford, has just 25 children on free school meals. Across the whole of Trafford, less than 2.5% of children are on free school meals. That compares with 25% in Manchester, where the attainment gap is narrower than it is in Trafford. In fact, the attainment gap for those on free school meals in Trafford is twice that in Manchester. The same pattern is true for any selective area. This is about not just the individual, but the systemic impact of these schools. What percentage of free school meals will a school need to have to access funding? What attainment gap adjustment will need to be made to the whole area for schools to receive funding?

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her questions. I totally acknowledge—I think I have already acknowledged it—the point that not enough children who are eligible for free school meals are able to attend these schools. We are trying to get that number up, which is why to bid into this capital fund schools need to come forward with a proposal for how they are going to make their admissions broader and more accessible. At a minimum, that must include priority for pupil premium recipients, ensuring outreach to specific primary schools and looking again at admissions criteria to make sure they are as broad as possible.

Draft Child Safeguarding Practice Review and Relevant Agency (England) Regulations 2018

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 General Committees

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I shall certainly take the hon. Lady’s point away. In terms of funding and non-participation, which hon. Members have mentioned several times, safeguarding partners and agencies must comply with the arrangements. Public bodies may be held to account if necessary through legislation, which allows the Secretary of State to take action, so there is a lever that applies in terms of compelling safeguarding partners and agencies.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister is being incredibly generous, and we are hammering a similar point, but can he say a little more about the lever that requires other agencies to come to the table? As has been alluded to, often the buck stops with the local authorities. They are the ones inspected and the ones with the statutory requirement. If other partners do not want to come to the table, how can we ensure that they do so and with some cash of their own?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I hope to address that in the remainder of my opening remarks, but the hon. Lady makes a very important point, and there is a statutory requirement on the safeguarding partners and agencies listed in the regulations to participate.

The agencies selected must have functions relating to children, and safeguarding partners should consult with relevant agencies as they set up their arrangements and, for clarity and transparency, include a list of those agencies in their published arrangements. That list can change over time, as considered appropriate locally. Duties apply only to agencies included in local arrangements; the list in the regulations is for the purpose of selection only. Safeguarding partners may also, by mutual agreement, work with other bodies or persons not included in the regulations, although they will not be bound by the same duties—I think the hon. Lady was referring to this—as those listed in the regulations.

The Government consulted on the regulations and the associated statutory guidance, “Working Together to Safeguard Children”, for around 10 weeks towards the end of last year. More than 700 written responses were received. Regional consultation events were also held, attracting some 450 people from a wide range of organisations. I very much welcome the contributions made and the valuable points raised. As indicated in the published Government response, consultees were largely positive about the proposals in the regulations and guidance. However, some changes in clarification were made to the regulations following the consultation, and rightly so in my view. We are in the process of reviewing the related statutory guidance, “Working Together to Safeguard Children”, taking into account comments made during the consultation.

As was set out in the Children and Social Work Act 2017 (Commencement No. 4 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2018, which were made on 18 April, the new arrangements are due to begin from 29 June 2018. On that date, the new panel will begin operations, and the transitional period from the current system of local safeguarding children’s boards and serious case reviews to the new multi-agency arrangements and local reviews will commence. Local areas will have 12 months to publish their new arrangements, including their selected relevant agencies, and a further three months to implement them. Subject to the successful passage of the regulations before the Committee, we intend to publish the final version of the statutory guidance within the next few weeks. That will support the new arrangements and complement these regulations. Public bodies that fail to comply with their obligations will be held to account in a variety of ways. That could include a letter from the relevant Department or, ultimately, the Secretary of State.

In conclusion, I am extremely grateful to the very wide range of people, including Members of this House, who have been involved in moving us towards this important stage in our ambition to improve the protection of children across the country. These reforms, of which these regulations are a critical part, will support stronger but more flexible joint working arrangements, as well as promoting better and more timely learning from reviews, both locally and nationally. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

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[Nadhim Zahawi]

The regulations underpin the important safeguarding changes set out in the Children and Social Work Act 2017. The regulations are essential to drive the operation of the joint working arrangements. They will enable safeguarding departments to identify whom to work with to support the safeguarding of children in their area, and give force to those decisions.

The new Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel will be a high-profile, high-impact body, with powers independent of Government to drive improvements in the safeguarding of children. The new system of local and national child safeguarding practice reviews will enable the clear identification of any improvements that should be made to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. National reviews will be able to identify improvements on a national and local basis. The regulations support the proper functioning of those changes.

I am grateful to hon. Members for their comments and questions on the regulations. I will attempt to address them all in the few minutes remaining. The hon. Member for South Shields mentioned the possibility that the Secretary of State could override a panel’s decision. I assure her that that is not possible. The panel’s decisions are entirely its own.

A number of colleagues mentioned the independence of the new panel. The panel will ultimately be accountable to the Secretary of State, but how it will function is key to its independence. The panel will have sole responsibility for deciding which cases to review, the appointment of reviewers for national reviews, and the publication of such reviews. The Secretary of State will not have the power to direct the panel to initiate or publish reviews. The panel will be free to make recommendations on such matters relating to its areas of work, as it sees fit. Recommendations may be for the safeguarding of partners as well as for others, including Government and national or local bodies.

Reviews will focus on identifying any improvements that should be made to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, not on apportioning blame to individuals. The hon. Member for Wigan has spoken up passionately against the blame culture. Ensuring that we respect the independence of the panel is critical to its credibility and success. That will enable reviews of serious cases to lead to meaningful and enduring improvements to child safeguarding policy and practice across the country, which I know interests many colleagues.

The hon. Member for Stockton North was pressing for a better understanding of where the panel members come from and their expertise. Let me share that information with him. As I said, the panel will have the skills and experience to make sound judgments on complex situations that affect the lives of children. To ensure that the panel is independent, impartial and credible, members have not been appointed as representatives of their particular profession, employer or interest group. However, the experience and skills they bring in relation to safeguarding children or other areas will be vital to the panel’s success and credibility. To achieve that, it is made up of people who have direct experience of working to improve the life chances of children, which I think the hon. Member for Wigan mentioned. It includes individuals from local authorities, police and health.

Let me try to reassure the hon. Member for Stockton North by quoting some of the names of people who have joined the panel: Mark Gurrey, the chair of the South Gloucestershire improvement board, and the chair of the Devon and Wiltshire local safeguarding children boards; Professor Peter Sidebotham, associate professor in child health at Warwick Medical School and consultant paediatrician at South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust; Dr Susan Tranter, chief executive and accounting officer of Edmonton Academy Trust; Sarah Elliott, non-executive director at Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust and LSCB chair for Poole and Dorset; and Dale Simon, a qualified barrister and the former director of public accountability and inclusion at the Crown Prosecution Service.

I want to press the point that this process is about learning, not blame. Learning must be at the heart of all reviews, which should seek to prevent or reduce the risk of recurrence of similar incidents. Reviews should focus on identifying improvements to be made to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, not apportioning blame to individual practitioners or organisations. Other processes are in place to manage accountability issues. This process is not for that; it is about understanding how we can improve the system for those children.

[Lucy Powell]

I am sorry to delay the Committee. I appreciate what the Minister is saying by way of reassurance, but he will be aware that self-reflective practice is a particularly difficult and pertinent issue in the NHS at the moment, and there is an overlap with children’s social services. Given the recent case of the doctor who was dismissed for having engaged in self-reflective practice, will he give some reassurance to practitioners on the ground that such practice will be at the heart of the process and people should feel able to come forward and admit mistakes in the context of learning and reflecting, rather than it being an opportunity for them to be dismissed by the professional bodies?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Lady articulates that beautifully. She is absolutely right, and I want to drive this point home: the process is not about apportioning blame but about learning. Other structures are available to look at how people have behaved. People should be able to come forward in the knowledge that this is not about reports that apportion blame for their involvement in any case.

On involvement and the voice of children and families in reviews, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Wigan, Edward Timpson and his panel are thinking carefully about how to ensure they hear the voices and reflect on the experiences of children and families in the reviews. That requires careful consideration to ensure that their vital contribution is meaningful rather than tokenistic. The panel’s membership includes several people with specific expertise relating to children.

The shadow Minister mentioned fees for the panel. The fees will be published as soon as possible on gov.uk on the pages covering public appointments and will be in line with those covering similar appointments.

On how we share best practice and learning and how we ensure that lessons are shared and implemented—that is ultimately what the process is about—the panel includes a representative from the new What Works centre for children’s social care, and that person will be a full panel member with the added responsibility of acting as a bridge between the panel and the What Works centre. The centre will collate findings from reviews, identify themes and disseminate lessons about what works in children’s services. The panel will also benefit from the centre’s overview of what lessons are already being learned so that, when it comes to deciding whether a national review is necessary, the panel can consider what current learning exists and how that is being implemented.

The hon. Member for Stockton North is clearly concerned about participation. The duty to co-operate and participate in safeguarding arrangements, which is set out in statutory guidance, in “Working Together” and in legislation, is in place. It will be up to the inspectorate to monitor the way in which safeguarding partners participate in multi-agency arrangements. The levers are there to push for full participation.

I have taken up far too much of your valuable time, Mr Robertson. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Child Safeguarding Practice Review and Relevant Agency (England) Regulations 2018.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the key ways to promote apprenticeships is to maintain a broad curriculum in our schools. This was one of the key themes at the Association of School and College Leaders conference last week, where the CBI president said that children were missing out by being made to memorise facts and that the curriculum should prepare them for adult life. Does the Minister agree that the curriculum is narrowing to the detriment of children and our future economy?

[Anne Milton]

There is no doubt that we have one of the best curriculums in the world. What is absolutely crucial to the success of any technical education programme —that includes apprenticeships—is a solid foundation at school. That can be used as a springboard into other careers, possibly via apprenticeships.