Prime Minister’s Meeting with Alexander Lebedev

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Vicky Ford

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

I understand that at the Liaison Committee yesterday the Prime Minister committed to following up in writing with the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, so there is a commitment to put information in writing. That is important. I cannot comment on any further meetings.

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

I do not think that the Minister understands quite how serious the issue is, and not only for our own national security; at a time when Ukraine is defending its own right to its own land, this is completely undermining President Zelensky. What analysis has the Minister’s office undertaken to understand the impact of the Prime Minister’s secret meetings?

[Vicky Ford]

May I just say that Russia is a top national security priority for this Government? We have made huge strides to counter the threat by the Russian state. The National Security Council agreed the Russia strategy back in 2017. The Government published a full and comprehensive response to the Intelligence and Security Committee report back in January 2020, implementing a majority of the Committee’s recommendations. We have closed the tier 1 investor visa route, which I believe was introduced by the Labour party. We continue to call out Russian malign activities where they occur across the globe.

Afghanistan Humanitarian Crisis: UK Response

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Vicky Ford

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

None of us wishes to be in this situation. There is a deeply concerning humanitarian situation, and what we all saw happening over the summer when the Taliban moved in so quickly left a really difficult situation, but Operation Pitting and the work of our soldiers to evacuate those 15,000 people was really incredible. It is important now that funding comes from across the world, not just from the UK. We continue to be a leading donor with the money we have contributed so far, which is helping the 4 million. I cannot comment any further ahead of the conference, but I am sure that the House will be informed as and when we make further announcements through written ministerial statements.

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

I am sorry, but the answers we have heard today are just completely inadequate. I do not think the Minister understands that tens of millions of people will starve to death in Afghanistan unless she steps up and meets the need, economically and politically, to put in the resolution that we need. I have been trying to meet Ministers with the only Afghan MP in our country. Two months have gone by and we still do not have a meeting. MPs know their communities and how to get the money to the frontline, but they need help from this Government. Where is it?

[Vicky Ford]

My colleague Lord Ahmad met a group of leading Afghan women in this country only last week. If the hon. Lady would like to contact me about her particular contact, I will make sure he reaches out so that such roundtables can include other people recommended by this House. It is a deeply tragic situation. It is many millions of people. There are other very, very difficult humanitarian situations across the world. Just last week, I announced further funding for humanitarian aid in Somalia, in Kenya and in Ethiopia—a very serious situation. The UK’s aid is currently providing food for over 4.4 million people. We will support the conference and the House will continue to be updated when we have more news to share.

Afghanistan: Humanitarian Crisis

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Vicky Ford

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

I think I have been very clear: we are working with the UN and other international partners and we want to unlock the World Bank funding that will make a considerable difference. We need to continue to work with trusted partners to make sure that the funding that we and others have pledged gets to those on the ground who need it most. We are also working with NGOs and other banks and, if it is possible, to tackle some of the issues in the payments system that are causing such complexity. We are working with our education partners and other NGOs and will make further announcements in response to the UN appeal in the coming weeks.

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

When something is not working, we have to look at it again, and that is why an international conference is necessary, to bring greater leverage to the situation and to achieve the outcomes we all want. One group of people that the Minister has not referred to is the democratically elected Members of the Afghanistan Parliament, who are now spread around the world. They know their communities in the same way that we know our communities. Will the Minister open up a dialogue with the very people who know whole communities across Afghanistan, to ensure that they have a say on the future?

[Vicky Ford]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point about speaking to many of those who have represented Afghanistan and who are now situated across the world—[Interruption.]

Timpson Review of School Exclusion

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Vicky Ford

Thursday 16th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington South (Andy Carter) and for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) on securing this important debate. I apologise that I needed to step out for a couple of minutes earlier.

I also thank the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) and so many other Members for their kind and personal words about my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb). I saw how, as Minister of State for School Standards for so many years, he worked tirelessly to make sure that children all across our country had access to first-class education. He always put the most disadvantaged children first, and in the past 18 months I have learned a huge amount from him. I wish him the very best, and I join you all in sending him our thanks for everything that he has done for children.

The Timpson review was a very positive and comprehensive report that has influenced the Government’s approach to exclusions and behaviour. All children deserve the best start in life and, as the Timpson review states, every child has a right to

“a high-quality education that supports them to fulfil their potential.”

The review also recognises, however, the right of every headteacher

“to enable their staff to teach in a calm and safe school”

environment. The Timpson review shone a really important spotlight on how certain cohorts of children were more likely to become excluded than others and how that can affect their outcomes. We are really grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury both for his work on this really important report and for acting as an advocate on this issue more widely.

We are taking forward the vast majority of the report’s recommendations. I would like to reassure all those listening today or following this debate that the Government are pursuing an ambitious programme of work to improve our understanding of behaviour and wellbeing, as well as putting in place additional support for children who have been excluded or are at risk of exclusion.

That work is a combination of concrete actions that we have taken through the pandemic, the behaviour programme of the Department and the SEND review, which I have broadened to include reforms to alternative provision. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) spoke so passionately about special educational needs and disabilities. I reassure him and all those present that a key aim of the SEND review is to make it easier for children with special educational needs to access support in good time.

As we are all aware, children and young people have experienced substantial disruption in the past 18 months. Excluded children, and those at risk of exclusion, are some of the most vulnerable in the country, which is why it was so important that we not only kept schools open for vulnerable children, but kept our alternative provision open for all who attend such institutions.

We also provided AP with additional support. As part of our £3 billion education recovery package, we provided additional support of £1.7 billion for all schools, including AP. We also ran the really important AP transition fund, which provided targeted support to around 6,500 year 11s, to help them move on and remain engaged in post-16 education and training, including apprenticeships and FE courses. Last term, I visited an AP setting in Hyndburn, and I heard from the school that all bar one of the year 11s who had left in the summer term of 2020 were still in education, employment or training nearly a year later. The extra support for transition at the end of the summer of 2020 made a huge difference, which is why we are continuing it for that same cohort—the year 11s—into FE next year.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we set up an AP stakeholder group, which brings together some of the best leaders of alternative provision in the country. They have helped to guide us on the best way to support vulnerable children through the pandemic and beyond. They are helping us to shape the AP reforms through the SEND review. In line with the recommendations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury for a practice improvement fund, and as part of the AP reforms, we are looking to codify and boost the quality of AP, so that all children and young people can access the best in-class provision and all mainstream schools can draw on specialist support upstream, to get in the early intervention. That is part of the work that we are doing with our AP stakeholder group and will be bringing in through the SEND review.

We know that our engagement in education is a key protective factor against many harms. Vulnerable young people can be at risk of being drawn into crime or gangs, and they will benefit from specialist support if they can stay engaged with their education and out of harm. Therefore, we are not waiting for the SEND review before putting in more specialist support to help such children. We have recently launched two really exciting new projects, focusing on areas with serious violence hotspots.

From early next year, the DFE will be establishing 10 SAFE taskforces—SAFE stands for support, attend, fulfil and exceed. They will be led by mainstream schools in order to protect and re-engage children who are truanting, who are at risk of permanent exclusion or who are at risk of being involved in serious violence. That will include £30 million of new funding over three years and will enable additional support and interventions, to reduce the probability of such children and young people being excluded.

That will complement the pilot that we are doing in 21 alternative provision specialist taskforces, which is launching in November. It will draw specialists from across health, education, social care, youth services, youth justice and mental health, as well as family workers and speech and language workers. Where necessary, the pilot will enable the specialists to be co-located in the AP setting. That will help deliver targeted wraparound support to pupils in order to reduce truancy, improve rates of employment, education and training, reduce the NEET risk, and reduce the risk of involvement in serious violence. It will also improve mental health and wellbeing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South made a number of good points and spoke about the importance of capital. We are investing £300 million in this financial year to support local authorities to deliver new places and improve existing provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities, or for those children who require alternative provision—almost four times as much as the Government provided to local authorities in the previous financial year. Spending for future years will be determined as part of the spending review.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) spoke about the importance of really early support for families and parents when children are very young, and I so agree. That is why the Government have worked with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) on her review of those 1,001 days—the very early years—and how to give children the best start in life. It is also why I and the Government are so committed to championing the family hub approach.

I come back to the issue of exclusion. We know that exclusion is an essential tool for headteachers to use when a serious incident has occurred, for example, or when there is persistent disruption. However, we are very clear that it should be used only as a very last resort. Longer-term trends show that the rate of permanent exclusions across all schools followed a downward trajectory from 2006-07, when the rate was 0.12%, until 2012-13. It then rose a little, but has remained stable since 2016-17. Permanent exclusions remain a rare event; there are roughly six exclusions for every 10,000 pupils. As expected, the number of exclusions decreased during the pandemic, but according to the data that we receive from schools, in the last summer term there were only 40 permanent exclusions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich mentioned off-rolling. Let me be very clear: off-rolling is unlawful and is never acceptable. Ofsted will hold schools to account for how they use exclusions, under its behaviour and attitudes judgments, and its new revised education inspection framework considers the rates, patterns and reasons for exclusions: differences between different pupils; whether any types of pupils are repeatedly excluded; and any evidence of off-rolling. The revised framework in 2019 strengthened the focus on this issue. Of course, Ofsted needed to stop its inspections for some time during the pandemic, but where inspectors find off-rolling it will always be addressed in the inspection report and, where appropriate, it could lead to a school’s leadership being judged inadequate.

One of the Timpson recommendations was to update the guidance on suspensions and permanent exclusions. We have committed to revising our statutory guidance on exclusions so that headteachers are able to have further clarity when using exclusions, and we will be consulting on this guidance and the non-statutory guidance on behaviour and discipline later this year.

The Timpson report also recommended that the Government reviewed the number of days that a pupil could be suspended from school. Currently, the number is 45 days in an academic year, although it is rare for children to reach that limit. In 2019-20, just 27 pupils received that type of temporary exclusion from schools in England for 45 days in a single academic year. However, the Government are considering these arrangements and we will update our plans in due course.

The Timpson review also recognised that certain groups of children with particular characteristics were more likely to be excluded, which includes pupils who were eligible for free school meals, pupils with a child in need plan, and pupils with black Caribbean or Gypsy, Roma and Traveller backgrounds.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) spoke about looked-after children and exclusions. However, there is good news. I am delighted to say that since we introduced the virtual school heads into local authorities, looked-after children now have some of the lowest rates of exclusion compared with their peers. The virtual school head role has been so successful that we are now expanding it so that virtual school heads can support all children who have a social worker.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South mentioned the need to upstream support for children’s mental health and wellbeing, which is so important. We are putting considerable investment into mental health in the education system. The additional £79 million announced by the NHS in May will support the roll-out of mental health support teams to an estimated 3 million children and young people, which is around 35% of pupils in England, by 2023.

We are also progressing with the training of a mental health lead in every state-funded school and college in England. Our £9.5 million investment this year is expected to train up to 7,808 mental health leads this year. That training will include how to support children with attachment problems and trauma. Our new relationships, sex and health education curriculum also plays a part here; I am thinking especially of the mental health and wellbeing modules. We rolled those out, advanced the roll-out of those, early on in the pandemic—in the summer term of that school year—alongside extra training for staff.

[Rachael Maskell]

We know that there is a real shortage of clinicians with expertise in paediatric mental health. I wonder, with the work that the Minister is doing, whether she is talking to the Department of Health and Social Care about the need to really increase the number. What we find is that although teachers, as mental health leads, can provide certain support, they do not have the clinical skills and experience to supply the expertise needed.

[Vicky Ford]

I thank the hon. Member for that very good point. It is true and it is one of the things that I have spoken about at length over the past year and a half with the former mental health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), who is now Culture Secretary.

Improving the paediatric mental health support for children in the health service is also a very important part of the Government investment here. The mental health support teams, which wrap around our schools and can bring together different levels of support, depending on what the child needs, have also been extremely helpful in different areas. That is why it is so good to see those being rolled out. We do not expect teachers to be mental health experts, but we do think that training a mental health lead in every school can help them to identify the children who need more support, and to promote wellbeing, which is so important. Goodness—I saw so many children having a great time with their wellbeing over the summer during our holiday activities and food project.

We have also talked about children and young people with autism. The Government have updated the autism strategy over the summer. For the first time, that includes specific references to supporting children and young people.

We want to better understand the link between wellbeing and behaviour, so we are developing a pilot for a pupil survey to understand their perception of wellbeing and behaviour in mainstream secondary schools. Behaviour does matter. We know that behaviour can have an impact on teacher wellbeing and retention and on young people’s life chances. The Government recognise that we need to understand the drivers of behaviour and what the barriers to learning, engagement and attendance are, so we are pursuing a programme of work to do more to improve behaviour and discipline in schools, in recognition that good behaviour and strong discipline are key parts of school improvement. The behaviour hubs programme will mean that schools with exemplary behaviour cultures can work one on one with schools that need to turn around their approach to behaviour management. We expect that to help at least 500 schools over the next three years.

This goes alongside a golden thread of high-quality support, training and development that will run through the entirety of a teacher’s career. It begins in initial teacher training and goes through the implementation of the early career reforms for early career teachers and on to the introduction of new and reformed national professional qualifications for more experienced teachers and leaders. Also, in April, we announced plans to launch a national behaviour survey. That survey will provide a more accurate, timely and authoritative picture of behaviour across all schools. It will cover topics ranging from low-level disruption, to bullying. That will also help us to understand what more needs to be done.

I am really grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington South and for Eddisbury for raising their concerns on this issue. I would like to assure them that, throughout the pandemic and going forward, the Government have had and will have a laser focus on supporting vulnerable children, targeting support at those at risk of exclusion and improving support for those who have been excluded. I know that the hon. Members will all be looking forward to receiving the SEND review and the AP reforms in the months ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Vicky Ford

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

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

T5. Safeguarding young people in statutory settings such as schools must always be a priority, yet the same children in community settings are being exposed to huge risks, including consuming large volumes of alcohol, and being exposed to drug dealing and sexual exploitation. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the lack of youth provision for our young people and the importance of putting these services in place, like on the Little Knavesmire in York?

[Vicky Ford]

I absolutely agree that we need to have more for our young people to do, which is why it has been so brilliant over the summer to see our amazing holiday activities and food programme, which has given young people access to opportunities that they never had before and helped to give them confidence, build their wellbeing and close the attainment gap, as well as providing food. I am more than happy to meet the hon. Member to find out more about what is happening in her constituency.

Disabled Children: Accessible and Inclusive Education

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Vicky Ford

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell]

I raised the issue of transport into schools, which comes out of local authority budgets. I have a constituent who currently is not in school because they need specialist transport and cannot travel with others, and the parents are having to pay for 50% of that travel. Will the Minister go back and look at the issue of children being unable to access school because of the insufficiency in the transport budget for local authorities?

[Vicky Ford]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Of course, we have given local authorities additional funding during this period for exactly the matter of transport, but if she cares to write to me about that specific case, I am very happy to look into it. Some parents have decided that they will do the transportation themselves, particularly if they want to reduce the amount of contact that their child has with other people outside the family bubble or school bubble.

We know that children and young people have needed to work online, and we have provided additional support, including for those children with SEND, but of course there are extra challenges. The Oak National Academy provides video lessons on a broad range of subjects from reception to year 11, including specialist content for children with SEND. In April, we launched the EdTech Demonstrator network, which is a peer-to-peer support network for the expert use of technology. It has done some phenomenal work supporting teachers—especially SEND specialists—across the country. Specialist support is provided by Highfurlong School in Blackpool, and the National Star College in Cheltenham has been running webinars weekly in which over 1,800 schools and colleges have participated so far, with many more accessing the recorded content. That shows how, throughout the pandemic, teachers and staff are absolutely passionate to learn more about how they can use technology to support those with SEND. That will have a lasting, positive benefit.

I am also delighted to announce today that one of those specialist providers, the National Star College, will roll out assistive technology-specific training. As colleagues will know, we are on course to have delivered nearly half a million laptops and tablets by Christmas to support disadvantaged children in years 3 to 11 where face-to-face education may be disrupted. Many of those laptops will be provided to children and young people with SEND.

The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow mentioned the importance of other medical treatments and specialists. The chief nurse has made it clear that health visitors and school nurses should not be redeployed elsewhere in the NHS this winter. We have also been clear that specialist therapists should be back in schools.

The debate comes at a timely point, because the Government are working both on the new cross-Government disability strategy for publication in the spring and on the autism strategy. As the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) said, autism is extremely important. The Department for Education is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care on the comprehensive review of the autism strategy. In developing the strategy, we are listening closely to autistic people, including over 2,700 people who contributed to the call for evidence.

Early identification of autism is really important. Under the Government’s opportunity areas programme, there is a fantastic project in Bradford using the outcomes for each individual child at the early years foundation stage tests and teacher observations to find out whether there are markers of early autism. The results are so impressive that we have rolled it out from the 10 first pilot schools to the next 100 schools. I am hopeful that in the future that could lead to much earlier diagnosis.

The SEND review, which the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow asked about, has always aimed to enable the education system to have that transformative effect on those with SEND and to focus on the person as a whole, with a joined-up offer of transparent services co-produced with them and their family to suit the child’s individual needs. That was the driving force behind the legislative changes we made in 2014 and it is the driving force behind the SEND review. It will require significant change from everyone involved in the system to deliver those changes. It is a fundamental and cross-cutting review in which we are working hard to find ways to make best practice in the SEND system become common practice. During the outbreak of the pandemic, it was necessary to reduce the pace of the review, but I and the whole of Government remain completely committed to it, and our ambition is to report in the spring. The areas we aim to improve are of long standing, but we are determined to deliver that real and lasting change.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for drawing our attention to this important agenda. We are as committed as ever to getting the right support in place for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities so that they can thrive and achieve their potential. Both she and the hon. Member for York Central raised important concerns, which I hope she is happy to hear the Government take seriously.