Oral Answers to Questions

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Kinship carers actually have access to benefit entitlements in the same way as birth parents.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

On Friday night, I held a crime forum in Corsham, and outreach to carers and parents by schools was regularly discussed. Corsham high school already employs a person to do this outreach, and a lot of charities also work in this space. Are there any plans by the Government to review support and to share best practice, which can encourage social mobility?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

As part of our social mobility action plan, we are looking at all these issues. I would be very happy to discuss them with my hon. Friend.

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[Damian Hinds]

The schools Minister and I will be delighted to meet the hon. Lady.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Has the Minister given any further consideration to my call for a review of the pupil premium to ensure it is an even more effective tool for fostering social mobility?

[Damian Hinds]

The pupil premium is a really important structural tool to make sure that funding is skewed towards those who need it most. We keep it under review, taking advice from the Education Endowment Foundation, and I promise my hon. Friend that we will continue to do so.

Schools That Work For Everyone

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is absolutely vital that this opportunity is presented as widely as possible and to all primary schools.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that he will keep under review the removal of the cap on faith schools? I appreciate the point about integration, but was a drop to 25% considered as a compromise?

[Damian Hinds]

We keep all policies under review. As I said earlier, having published the integration strategy we thought very carefully about this issue and determined that the best approach was to retain the 50% cap. There are of course various other requirements on new free schools to demonstrate their inclusivity, but there are also thousands of faith schools in this country not subject to a cap, and through the voluntary-aided route it will be possible to open them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

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

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

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

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

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

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[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the dramatic falls in unemployment and youth unemployment. In his constituency, there have been over 7,000 apprenticeship starts since 2010. He is absolutely right that it is very important that all schools are able to share in the improvements in education outcomes, and it is very important that the support is there to do that.

[Michelle Donelan]

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and I strongly welcome the £26 million to support breakfast clubs. Wiltshire is not a deprived county, but it has pockets of deprivation, with some of my schools having two thirds of pupils on pupil premium. Would the Minister please clarify to the House how exactly deprivation areas will be determined?

[Damian Hinds]

The definition of areas of deprivation will include the opportunity areas that I mentioned a little earlier, as well as other areas according to the IDACI—income deprivation affecting children index—methodology. I cannot say off the top of my head exactly what the implication of that is for Chippenham, but I will be very happy to stay in touch with my hon. Friend.

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[Nadhim Zahawi]

Local authorities are responsible for how they deliver support to families, through children’s centres as well as other support. Many authorities are focusing on getting support directly to families rather than investing in bricks and mortar.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

The pupil premium is an important source of funding to level the playing field and improve social mobility. I have asked a number of questions about ensuring that all those who are eligible receive the pupil premium, and about improving its scope. Does the Minister now agree that it is time that we had a review of the pupil premium?

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is entirely correct that the introduction of the pupil premium made an important structural change in how we do these things, by ensuring that the additional resourcing follows the pupils who need it in so that we can narrow the gap. It is also right that we keep these things periodically under review, as she suggests.

Post-18 Education

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

I am delighted that the review will address value for money for graduates. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the system does not currently have the transparency for students to make informed choices, and that that needs to be addressed?

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have moved forward with what is called the LEO—longitudinal education outcomes—dataset to help students make those analyses directly, and indeed to help those who provide information on courses.

Free School Meals/Pupil Premium: Eligibility

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Hodgson]

I totally agree. The same system should apply for all children who are entitled to universal credit, although wider access is another debate.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

I completely agree about the stigma; I raised the same point with the Minister the other day in the Chamber. However, does the hon. Lady agree that there is another way? Instead of enfranchising everybody, we could have an auto-enrolment scheme that was linked to the benefits system, rather than a system of people self-declaring as eligible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Hodgson]

I absolutely agree. Administering the cliff edge will mean huge costs. We should learn from the current system for free school meals for infants.

I am aware that many hon. Members wish to speak in the debate, so I had better get back to setting out my concerns. What we want to prevent is families avoiding pay rises or working more hours for fear that they will lose out. That is not making work pay, and it is not what the system was intended to do when it was set up. If the Minister and his Department, alongside the Department for Work and Pensions, were truly in favour of making work pay, they would at the very least have made provision to avoid that issue—even keeping the status quo would work. They have known about the problem for seven years; I have banged on about it for years, and so have my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak, since before she was an MP, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and other hon. Members. Sadly, it seems that the Government are keen to power on without even considering the impact of their policies on a child’s life. It would be welcome if the Minister set out how he believes the threshold and its implications are consistent with the Government’s aim to make work pay.

Another concern about the consultation is the figure of 50,000 more children who we keep hearing will benefit from free school meals by 2022. On the surface, it is welcome that the Government have estimated that more children will be receiving free school meals under their plans, but it is deeply concerning that analysis by the Children’s Society has found that more than 1 million children living in poverty would miss out on a free school meal because of the cliff edge. In the consultation document, the Government say that 50,000 children will benefit by the end of the roll-out, when the transitional protections are at their capacity. Herein lies the crux of the problem: the document also states that 10% of children—113,000—will lose out on free school meal entitlement. That is because children will fall off once the transitional protections come to an end, as they move from primary school, where they will have the protection when it comes in, to secondary school, where their entitlement will end.

I would therefore welcome clarity from the Minister about how he will protect children who risk losing their free school meals when they move from one stage of their education to the next. If he cannot give us answers in this debate—that would be a shame, but I am aware that time will be an issue—I would be more than happy to take him up on his offer to meet me if he is still happy to do so. I am very grateful that he made that commitment.

I want to offer the Minister a solution, which I have already touched on. It makes total sense for the current transitional system to be made permanent so that all the children in a family on universal credit receive free school meals. That would not generate any extra bureaucracy, it would be fairer and it would help make work pay. It would be exactly what the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green intended when he envisaged and enacted the policy. It would negate any of the concerns that I have mentioned and that other hon. Members may mention. It would push the cliff edge to a much higher earnings threshold and overcome the fear of deductions from earnings, which turn the Government’s proposals against making work pay. We do not want people to refuse pay rises or extra work for fear that they will lose three lots of free school meals.

That is not the only reason to maintain the status quo. Free school meals also have significant benefits for a child’s life. I will never miss an opportunity to sing the praises of the universal principle of free school meals. As several hon. Members have already mentioned, they reduce stigma. In its response to the consultation, School Food Matters quoted the comments of a headteacher about how universal infant free school meals had reduced stigma:

“Despite being in an affluent London borough, 27% of the children at our school are currently entitled to free school meals but nearer 40% have been entitled to free school meals within the past 6 years.”

That is what matters for the pupil premium. The headteacher went on to say:

“This is a clear indicator that many of the families are only just about managing.”

This shows that if the Minister goes ahead with the current proposals, we could see more and more of the “just about managing”—the JAMs, who the Prime Minister referred to in her first speech on the steps of 10 Downing Street—being left behind. Would that not go against what this Government are all about?

The Minister knows that I have a keen interest in supporting children from low-income families by giving them healthy meals, both in term time and in the holidays. We had the excellent private Member’s Bill promoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) and I know that the Minister is considering pilots with regard to it, which is very welcome. By implementing my proposal, the Government would ensure that those children have access to a healthy meal that would benefit their education, their health and their wellbeing.

The evidence is out there and I am sure that the Minister has a copy of the school food plan lying around in his office; if he has not, I have a spare one, or I am sure that I get John Vincent or Henry Dimbleby, its writers, to send him one. I advise him strongly to go away and read it, as it is excellent from cover to cover, especially chapter 11, which is about the benefits of free school meals. In said chapter, there are references to the evaluations of the free school meal pilots established by the last Labour Government under Ed Balls, which showed that there was a 23% increase in vegetable consumption, a 16% decline in the consumption of soft drinks—because there were no packed lunches—and an 18% decline in the consumption of crisps. Those pilots also benefited a child’s education, with children in receipt of a free school meal in the pilot areas on average two months ahead of their peers outside the pilot areas and 2% more children reaching their target levels in maths and English at key stage 1, while at key stage 2 the impact was between 3% and 5%. If we want to close the attainment gap, there is nothing better than to start by making sure that the kids are all fed.

[Michelle Donelan]

The hon. Lady says “there is nothing better”, but potentially there is: breakfast. All the studies show that disadvantaged children perform a lot better once they have had a breakfast, and in fact children in middle-class families and higher-earning families, where the parents are busy and going off to work, often suffer as well, because they are not getting that important breakfast, which is, after all, the most important meal of the day.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Absolutely—the hon. Lady will not be surprised to learn that I totally agree with what she just said. However, I do not see it as an either/or situation, as I want both those things; I want children to be getting their breakfasts and then getting their lunches. When there were the pilots for universal free school meals, lots of schools could manage to provide both, because even when there was an offer of universal free breakfasts, not all of the children had them; only about 18% to 20% of the children took up that offer. It is very affordable to provide such breakfasts and usually it is the children who really need them who take them, whether they are from busy working families or from poor families. It is a very good policy.

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[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who has done great work on child poverty and school meals. I am proud to be standing here on the anniversary of women’s suffrage. This debate is on exactly the sort of issue that women were given the vote for and to stand in Parliament to speak on. The issue hits children most of all, but women primarily and in particular single parents.

I was shocked to read the consultation document, having worked on universal credit for many years. One of the best things about universal credit was the fact that all children on universal credit were entitled to a free school meal. I applaud the fact that the coalition Government legislated for that. It would be a backwards step to look to take that away and introduce a cliff edge at just £7,400 a year of earnings, which is equivalent to just 18 hours a week on the minimum wage. Under universal credit, someone loses 63% of everything they earn. If someone on a low wage is only getting 37% of what they earn back into their pocket and is losing free school meals for their children—those are worth on average £429 for one child and £858 for two children—that is a huge disincentive to work.

I urge the Minister to look into the work of the Children’s Society. It has calculated that a single parent with two children would need to earn £11,000—that is, £4,000 more—to overcome that cliff edge under universal credit. That is no incentive to work, and a million children in poverty will not gain the free school meals that they need. A family in poverty cannot afford to feed their children to the best nutritional standards, as they would want to do. A free school breakfast would help.

[Michelle Donelan]

I agree with the hon. Lady about those in poverty, but those moving from working tax benefits on to universal credit could be earning up to £40,000 as a household, if not more. Is it appropriate that we give those households free school meals, or is that a misuse of resource?

[Ruth George]

The vast majority of parents moving from tax credits on to—

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[Mike Kane]

I cannot agree more with my hon. Friend. We talked about cliff edges. What assessment has the Minister made of the cliff edge issues? In particular, how many children will be affected and how much will it cost families to make up the shortfall?

A second and connected issue has been flagged in the debate: the pupil premium. Pupil premium is additional funding targeted at raising the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. It is currently targeted at children registered as eligible for free school meals, looked-after children and children who have had a parent in the regular armed forces at any point since 2012. Since the introduction of universal infant free school meals, schools have been missing out on that vital additional resource, as parents do not need to register for free school meals, which is the basis on which pupil premium is calculated. For schools already experiencing real-terms cuts to their funding, that is a vital additional resource that they can ill afford to miss out on.

[Michelle Donelan]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is time we broke the link between free school meals and the pupil premium and broadened the calculations for the pupil premium, so that it also includes social disadvantages such as bereavement, mental health problems, divorce and so on, which can affect attainment?

[Mike Kane]

We will broaden it out and should have more, not fewer, children on free school meals. That was clearly our policy in our manifesto in June.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

There is more money going into our schools in this country than ever before. We know that real-terms funding per pupil is increasing across the system, and with the national funding formula, each school will see at least a small cash increase. [Official Report, 5 March 2018, Vol. 637, c. 2MC.]

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

8. Whether he plans to review the operation of the pupil premium.

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

As with all policies, we continue to monitor the pupil premium for effectiveness and value for money. Through the Education Endowment Foundation, we seek to ensure that schools are confident in using that evidence.

[Michelle Donelan]

Wiltshire teachers consistently stress their concerns that many parents fear the potential stigma of registering for free school meals, meaning their children do not get the pupil premium. I have stressed that for years. Will the Minister consider introducing an automatic link between the pupil premium and the benefits system, to ensure that all children who need additional funding get it?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Let me be clear: we should not allow any stigma to get in the way of parents seeking the best for their children. We will continue to highlight effective practice by schools that have made a great effort to get children registered for free school meals and share that practice with all schools and local authorities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

There has never been more money flowing into our schools system. The schools budget has risen year on year. Over the next two years alone, it will rise from £41 billion a year to more than £43 billion a year.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Last Friday, I held the Wiltshire festival of engineering, inspiring more than 3,000 children and involving more than 35 businesses and organisations. The Schools Minister kindly attended. The event highlighted that Wiltshire really is a hub of engineering. Will the Minister confirm that the new careers strategy will encourage a better link between schools and businesses, and prioritise sectors with severe skills shortages, such as STEM?

[Nick Gibb]

It was a real pleasure to join my hon. Friend at the engineering fair and I pay tribute to her for creating such a wonderful occasion. It was attended by thousands of pupils from years 6 to 9, who will be inspired to take up STEM careers. A-level maths is now the single most popular A-level choice for the fourth year in a row.

Higher Education (England) Regulations

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan]

I will not give way.

The fact that such a sweeping change to fee structures can be brought in by stealth as a statutory instrument—or that such an attempt can be made—is an indication of how low the present Government are willing to stoop, and how scared they are of putting this brutal policy to the test.

That is not the only attack on English students. The interest on tuition fees has risen sharply from 4.6% to 6.1%. Maintenance grants have been scrapped. Now we hear that debt on completion of course has reached an astronomical £50,000 for students in England, which will leave many young graduates saddled with debt throughout their entire working life. I wonder how many hon. Members would have trooped willingly through the Lobby in 2010 to support the policy that, seven years on, has left so many of our young people financially crippled.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady think that the quality of education that students receive is important? An audit in Scotland found that 22% of Scottish university estates are now poor or very poor. The quality of education must come first.

[Carol Monaghan]

In Scotland, we take a holistic view of education that is not simply about higher education. In fact, I have referred to “tertiary education” several times already because the distinction between further education and higher education is fluid in Scotland. The Secretary of State suggested that fewer young people from disadvantaged backgrounds enter higher education in Scotland than other parts of the UK, but let me quote what UCAS has to say:

“For people living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, UCAS covers the overwhelming majority of full-time undergraduate provision. Therefore, the statistics on acceptances or entry rates can be taken as being very close to all recruitment to full-time undergraduate higher education. In Scotland there is a substantial section of provision that is not included in UCAS’ figures. This is mostly full-time higher education provided in further education colleges, which represents around one third of young, full-time undergraduate study in Scotland… Accordingly, the statistics on UCAS entry rates and acceptances in these… charts reflect only that… undergraduate study that uses UCAS.”

To put that simply, UCAS only considers direct entry from school to university and takes no account of higher education provided in our FE sector or, indeed, of young people who enter university having completed an access or college course. To talk down the interactions between FE and HE in getting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into tertiary education does a great disservice to the institutions and the young people served by them.

Free Childcare Entitlement

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

We are working very closely with local authorities, particularly on the administration. Indeed, we have given very clear messaging to local authorities: if there are parents who have not yet got their codes because of technical or other reasons, they have to show latitude. Of course, it is not the job of the local authority to manage the market; it is the job of the parents to choose the best provision for their child and for the market to respond to that. That is what we are seeing up and down the country, with increased places being provided in existing nurseries, and new nurseries, I hope, being opened, particularly given the grant funding we have made available for another 180,000 places.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that some Members seem to be glossing over the fact that this pilot has proved that the policy will empower and enable parents either to go back to work or to extend their working hours, which will transform thousands of lives in this country?

[Mr Goodwill]

There are colleagues in the House from places such as York, Northumberland, Newham, Wigan, Staffordshire, Swindon, Portsmouth, Hertfordshire, Dorset, Leicestershire, North Yorkshire and Tower Hamlets, which have been in the pilot for a year. I have not heard a peep from anyone saying that the scheme is not working, so obviously the pilot has been successful.