Free School Meals (Colleges)

Debate between Nick Gibb and Nicholas Dakin

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gibb]

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

[Nic Dakin]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

No, as I am running out of time. As I was about to do, I acknowledge the honesty of the right hon. Gentleman’s hands-up confession.

The Association of Colleges is campaigning for the provision of free meals to be extended to all eligible FE students between 16 and 18. It estimates that it would cost £38 million to do so, although our own estimate is that it would cost significantly more than that. I sympathise with the arguments of my hon. Friends the Members for Harlow (Robert Halfon), for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) and for Redcar (Ian Swales), which they made well in their passionate contributions to the debate. Although the sums that I have just quoted may seem small compared with the overall education budget, in the current fiscal climate it would be genuinely difficult to increase spending by between £35 million and £70 million, however desirable it would be to extend free school meals to students at sixth-form and FE colleges. Of course, we keep the matter under review and I will discuss the arguments that have been made today with my ministerial colleagues. That is the commitment that I give to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field).

In education, the absolute priority of this Government is to close the attainment gap between those from wealthy backgrounds and those from poorer backgrounds, and all our policies are funded with that one aim in mind, whether the policy is about reading, behaviour or tackling underperforming schools. Our priority is to devolve as much of the Department for Education budget to the front line as possible. That is why we have managed to maintain school budgets at flat cash per pupil, despite the very difficult spending review. In addition, schools receive the pupil premium, which is specifically designed to boost attainment—

Education Bill

Debate between Nick Gibb and Nicholas Dakin

Monday 14th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. When a new head teacher comes into a school it can have important effects, and not necessarily beneficial ones if the school has been led by a very effective leader. That would be a risk assessment issue. I know that it is an issue that the new chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, is concerned about. We will reflect on those points in due course. The principle of having proportionate inspection and targeting the limited resources on schools that have the most pressing need is important. However, we must take it into account if a school that is graded as outstanding is not graded as outstanding in teaching, for instance.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I agree with what the Minister and the shadow Minister say about proportionality in inspection. However, it is important that outstanding schools are inspected by Ofsted as part of the ongoing learning of other schools. I hope that the Minister will ensure that Ofsted continues to do that to spread good practice in the system.

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Ofsted inspectors need to learn what an outstanding school looks like. That always was the case. Even when schools are exempted from inspection, inspectors will still see outstanding schools in themed inspections, which might look at how religious education or maths is taught. On those occasions, inspectors will still experience outstanding schools.

Education System (Dance)

Debate between Nick Gibb and Nicholas Dakin

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin]

Will the Minister accept that a relatively wide English bac will have a natural impact on the nature and number of minority subjects that any school can provide on its curriculum in key stage 4?

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. If we go through the English baccalaureate subjects—English, maths, science, one of the two humanities and a modern foreign language—all of them, apart from a modern foreign language and a humanity, are already compulsory to 16. We are talking about two GCSEs: history or geography, and a modern foreign language. Modern foreign languages were compulsory until 2004, and there is a body of opinion that says that they should be made compulsory again. The debate is about history and geography, and there has been a significant decline in those subjects over recent years, which is a cause for concern. None the less, if we add up all those GCSE subjects and add on a humanity, it is still small enough for pupils to study one, two or three more GCSEs beyond those core academic subjects, depending on which combination of those subjects they take. That is right because the Russell group universities and others say that those subjects are the facilitating subjects that keep options open for young people to make decisions about their career choices later in life. International evidence has shown that countries around the world in high-performing jurisdictions are delaying young people from making decisions over career choices. They keep options open for longer so that young people can make the right choices.

Academies (Funding)

Debate between Nick Gibb and Nicholas Dakin

Thursday 16th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend is right. The Secretary of State has announced that we are taking urgent action to convert the 200 least-performing primary schools in this country to academy status, transforming those schools and giving the youngsters who attend them a significantly better start to their education, and I would have thought that that should be the issue to be raised today.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Given the Department’s serial bungling, can the Minister tell us how much it has spent on defending legal challenges in the past year?

[Mr Gibb]

These issues are faced by all Governments and all Departments—[Hon. Members: “How much?”] I do not have those figures to hand, but if I am able to get them, I will write to the hon. Gentleman.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Debate between Nick Gibb and Nicholas Dakin

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I will not give way now, as the speech by the hon. Gentleman’s Front-Bench colleague, the hon. Member for Hartlepool, went over time slightly.

We have been determined to protect the money that goes to schools and the front line, and we have managed to ensure that school funding is protected in cash terms and will rise to cover increases in pupil numbers.

Perhaps the Opposition are arguing that there should be no cuts elsewhere, however. Perhaps they are arguing that they would cut the deficit more slowly, and allow it to remain a little longer—another half a billion pounds here, another billion there—so ensuring that we continue to pay enormous interest charges, which now stand at £120 million every day. That could be the Labour party’s approach: challenging the capital markets and calling the bluff of the people who invest the pension funds in sovereign debt to pull the plug or downgrade Britain’s credit rating.

That is not a risk that the coalition Government are prepared to take. Greece provides an example from not too far away, and Ireland is nearer still. We are not prepared to risk this country’s future. We are not prepared to plunge Britain into a currency and debt crisis, and we are not prepared to delay our economic recovery by failing to take the action that is necessary to get the public finances back under control. If we were to do so, young people—the people whom the Opposition purport to be representing today—would bear the brunt of the consequences of this failure. It is young people who suffer when companies freeze recruitment, and it is ensuring that our recovery happens sooner rather than later that lies at the heart of every difficult decision on spending taken by every Minister in this Government.

The overriding tenet of the coalition Government is to close the attainment gap between those from the poorest backgrounds and those from the wealthiest, so in making these changes to EMA we have been determined to ensure that no student is prevented from staying on in education because of genuine financial hardship. The hon. Member for Wigan made a passionate and thoughtful speech, but all her arguments can and will be addressed by the replacement support that we intend to put in place. It is wrong to undermine the research that was commissioned by the last Labour Government and carried out by the highly respectable National Foundation for Educational Research. It had a representative sample size of more than 2,000.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Gibb]

I will not give way.

We are targeting some of the savings from EMA to those young people who the NFER survey showed might not have stayed in education but for EMA.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Debate between Nick Gibb and Nicholas Dakin

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Westminster Hall

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

May I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson) on securing the debate? I know that he is passionate about the issue—as he said in his opening remarks, education maintenance allowances are close to his heart.

I share the hon. Gentleman’s desire to see more young people, from lower income households in particular, staying on in education and gaining the qualifications they need to contribute to and enjoy the culture of our country and to obtain good employment. I assure the hon. Gentleman that one of the main priorities for the Government is to ensure that our education system is on a par with the best in the world. We want our schools and colleges to prepare their students for success. We will continue to provide support for the most vulnerable young people, so that they can stay on in education.

I acknowledge that the evidence from the EMA pilots shows that the EMA was successful in its early days at encouraging young people to stay on in education. The decision to end the scheme will be disappointing to many young people, in particular to those from the website whom the hon. Gentleman cited in his opening remarks: Nick; Alex, who said that without it he would have “no education” and “no future”; and Cassie Campbell, whom he cited towards the end of his speech and who said that without the EMA she would have to drop out. I will come to that point later in my comments, when I say that they will not have to drop out of education as a consequence of this decision.

We are, today, in a different world. Already, 96% of 16-year-olds and 94% of 17-year-olds participate in education, employment or training. Attitudes to staying on in education post-16 have changed. We are committed to going further still, to full participation for all young people up to the age of 18 by 2015. However, a payment designed as an incentive to stay on is no longer the right way to ensure that those facing real financial barriers to continuing their education get the support that they need. We need to look again at the most effective way of supporting the most vulnerable young people to stay on in education.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

As the Minister might well know, I was the principal of a sixth-form college until fairly recently. I can say from personal experience that the EMA has supported widening participation, the raising of aspiration and greater attainment among young people from a wide range of backgrounds. The EMA has certainly underpinned those developments—it is not an incentive, but an underpinning of continuing in further education. The Minister would be foolish to move away from his statements of only June this year, when he gave assurances that EMAs would continue into the future.

[Mr Gibb]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. There is evidence that EMAs have helped a small number of young people to stay on in education. However, that same evidence suggests that the scheme has a significant deadweight cost. Indeed, pilot evidence throughout the scheme, and more recent research, to which the hon. Member for Glasgow North West referred, from the National Foundation for Educational Research, found that almost 90% of young people receiving the EMA believed that they would still have participated in the courses they were doing if they had not received it.

The fact is, the EMA is a hugely expensive programme, costing more than £560 million a year, with costs of administration amounting to £36 million, but impacting on the participation of only around 10% of the young people who receive support. In effect, the taxpayer has been paying £9,300 for every extra young person who has stayed in education due to EMA. Most of the young people who receive the EMA would have made the same choices and achieved the same qualifications without it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Nicholas Dakin

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

14. What estimate his Department has made of the number of children who will be eligible for free school meals in September 2010; and if he will make a statement.

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

The number of pupils of compulsory school age in maintained schools eligible for free school meals was 1,179,880 in January 2010. The Department has not produced an estimate of the number of pupils eligible for free school meals in September 2010; the figures are produced annually as part of the annual school census, completed by local authorities in January each year. Leaving time for compilation, the next set of figures will be available in May 2011.

[Nic Dakin]

I thank the Minister for his answer. He will note my interest as a former principal. Does he think it is fair that 16 to 18-year-olds attending colleges are ineligible for free school meals, when 16% in FE colleges and 10% in sixth-form colleges are from disadvantaged backgrounds, compared with only 7% in maintained schools?

[Mr Gibb]

I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s comments. I share his view. We have committed to maintaining spending on free school meals this year. Further announcements will be made after the spending review.