Oral Answers to Questions

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I certainly agree; I know that my hon. Friend is a passionate advocate of IT literacy.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), for visiting Space Studio West London in my constituency to see young people making robots and getting involved in other engineering projects such as sustainable energy. My mobile phone was charged wirelessly this morning by an invention of theirs.

Does the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), agree that employability comes from having practical learning? Will he join me in trying to make sure that creativity is encouraged in all our schools? Will he support my arts and makers fair, which will showcase work by young people across Hounslow?

School Funding

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist]

Yes, I most certainly agree with the hon. Lady.

The headteacher and governors at Portobello Primary School also said that the impact of real-terms budget reductions has made it harder to deliver specific interventions with pupils; that it is increasingly difficult to provide personal and emotional support for vulnerable pupils; that they have lost decades’ worth of experience and curriculum knowledge; and that they are finding it harder and harder to take children on educational visits and purchase up-to-date teaching resources and equipment.

Due to these redundancies, staff are taking on extra duties and the local community are supporting the school by fundraising. I applaud the commitment of the staff of Portobello, who are doing everything they can for the children in their care. Most headteachers in my constituency could tell a similar story; it simply is not good enough that schools are not adequately funded to provide an outstanding education.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way.

[Sir David Crausby (in the Chair)]

Order. May I ask Members on the Benches at the sides to come forward to speak, so that the microphones can pick them up?

[Seema Malhotra]

Thank you, Sir David. My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. Given the feedback that I have received from schools in Hounslow, in my own constituency and in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), I know that the pressures and demands, particularly regarding the special educational needs of the most vulnerable, could now become the next national issue, just as adult social care has been in crisis because of the lack of places. In my constituency and the rest of Hounslow, although we could provide over 1,200 places with the extra investment and funding that has come, there are more than 2,000 children with educational and healthcare plans. Does she agree that is a concern?

Relationships and Sex Education

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

All of this is about trying to reach a sensible compromise.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Helen Jones]

I want to make a little progress.

One thing to note is that primary schools are not obliged to teach sex education, but it is recommended that they take steps to prepare children for puberty. As puberty happens much earlier in children now, that seems sensible. Crucially, on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), the guidelines say that schools must take into account the religious beliefs of their pupils when drawing up their programmes, and that faith schools may use their faith to inform their teaching. In fact, the guidance suggests that a dialogue should take place on issues regarded as contentious.

When I taught years ago, that is exactly what we did; it is not new in any way. I spent my teaching career in Catholic schools. We would teach—particularly our older children—what the Church taught and what others believed, and we would have a debate about it. There are good reasons for that. First, schools do not want to produce people who cannot put forward a rational argument, and faith schools certainly do not want to produce children who cannot defend their faith. Secondly, I have yet to find anyone who can stop a teenager arguing about any of this.

There are, of course, those who say that all this should be down to parents, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) mentioned. Parents are clearly crucial in all this and should be partners with schools. However, let us be honest: some parents do not do it, and some increasingly find themselves all at sea in dealing with online risks, domestic violence, grooming and so on. I was struck, even years ago, by the amount of wrong information and misinformation that children have in their heads. That was before the internet.

[Helen Jones]

I do. As I said, all of this is about trying to reach a sensible and reasonable compromise between competing issues.

[Seema Malhotra]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Helen Jones]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I must make a little progress, because lots of people want to speak.

Before the internet, children had enough wrong information in their heads. With the rise of the internet and stuff available at a few clicks, it is essential that we give children a proper education that protects them from some of the wrong information and ideas online, and that shows them what good, healthy relationships look like. Research from the Children’s Commissioners shows that many of our young people do not know what a healthy sexual relationship looks like and do not understand the concept of consent. That is very dangerous. It is why four Select Committee Chairs wrote to the Government in 2016 asking for relationships and sex education to be made mandatory in schools; it is why the Women and Equalities Committee, in its inquiry into sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools, asked for the same thing; and it is why that request is supported by Members from across the House.

This is about applying a bit of common sense to this situation and looking at the world that our children are growing up in, which is not the same one that we grew up in. I say with great respect to parents who think that their children are not seeing all this online stuff that, although they may think that they are controlling what is on their children’s phones or iPads, they are not controlling what their children see with their friends or what is passed around in the playground and so on.

It is shocking that 28% of 11-year-olds have viewed pornography. Unless we want them to grow up thinking that what they see is normal and a proper relationship, we need to do something about it. By not doing anything, we are not leaving our children innocent. We are actually leaving them to the worst possible teacher: the internet.

[Seema Malhotra]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Helen Jones]

I really must make some progress. I am sorry.

Of course, many parents want schools to be involved in teaching RSE, as do many young people. Research done for Ofsted in 2013 showed that many secondary school pupils felt that too much of their education was on the mechanics of reproduction, and that there was not enough about emotions, relationships, dealing with pornography and so on.

Prior to the debate, the Petitions Committee met some young people in Parliament’s education centre. As one of them said to us, “If you’re opted out, you can just google it.” That is the problem we face; that is the reality of life. Nevertheless, it is true that parents have a right to request an opt-out from sex education for their child, which the guidelines say should be automatically granted in primary schools and should be granted except in exceptional circumstances in secondary schools. I was quite concerned about that, but I have actually been convinced by something sent to me by the Catholic Education Service, which supports the opt-out on the ground that it gives heads the opportunity to discuss with parents why the lessons are important and why it is much better for children to be there, rather than getting a garbled version from their friends in the playground. That approach clearly works, because the opt-out rate in Catholic schools is very low, at about 1 in 7,800 children. That is in a faith-based education system.

That opt-out applies to the sex education element, not to personal, social, health and economic education or relationships education, and not to stuff in the science curriculum, which is part of the national curriculum. It is also true—certainly in the draft guidelines and I presume the formal ones—that the Government suggest that children can opt back in three terms before they reach the age of 16. Case law no longer supports an automatic and continuing opt-out, so we need to reach a sensible balance on when young people can decide for themselves.

All parents face this problem, whether in deciding when children can go to the shops on their own or when their children are deciding on a career. It is hard. I remember the first time we allowed my son to walk up the road on his own to post a letter; we were hanging out of the bedroom window, keeping an eye on him for as long as possible. However, as parents, we have to realise that, while our job is to try to set our children on the right path, they will eventually make their own choices, which may not be the same ones that we would make.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. One does not want to see that level of abuse continuing down the generations, but those issues can be picked up by other measures and dealt with in that way.

[Seema Malhotra]

Could the hon. Gentleman explain how he sees that happening? I will give him an anecdotal statistic from my constituency. I asked a headteacher of a primary school how many children in one class he thought might be subject to seeing domestic violence at home. His answer was five or six, which is pretty staggering. It shows a huge risk in the environments that many young children are growing up in.

[John Howell]

I am afraid that I do not know the answer to the hon. Lady’s question. I will not attempt one off the top of my head, but will think about it for a little bit.

I believe that we already take away so much from childhood. We should fight against the sexualisation of children—that applies to all children. I see a need to address some of these issues, but I do not see that the details of reproductive sex should be part of the compulsory situation.

There is a lot of good in the proposals for relationships education. I will give two examples, the first of which is mental health. I have always had a great interest in the mental health of children at schools in my constituency. One only has to look at incidents of children’s mental ill health to see that we do not want the child to continue to be distressed.

We live in a completely different age to that in which I was brought up. We live in an age in which there is a tremendous amount of social media—it is almost impossible to get away from it. That can produce the problems of pornography. There is a need to have some awareness, but that is an area in which the parents can be involved in a big way.

The second issue is online grooming. I come from a county that has had a major online-grooming scandal over the past few years. Seven individuals abused many girls—I have no idea how many, but the BBC claimed that hundreds of girls could have been abused in that way. I would like evidence to show what effect relationships education could have had in that situation. Could it have prevented that abuse from taking place or were parents in a better position to deal with it?

There are different types of relationships, of course. One cannot pretend that schools exist in a vacuum. One cannot pretend that we do not have lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender relationships. I have been very supportive of them. We have to acknowledge that that is the legal situation in the country. We need to talk about the fact that different forms of relationships exist and make that fact clear.

We are not asking for sacred religious texts to be rewritten or torn up. The role of Ofsted, which was mentioned earlier, is absolutely crucial in that respect. I urge the Government to instruct Ofsted to take a sensitive approach in recognising the nature of faith schools, and to work with the schools to deliver a better view of the way in which they deliver education. That means that schools need to be able to teach—they have a duty to teach—what is allowable under the law without having to approve it. That is the situation at the moment.

In making these remarks I have been advised by the Jewish Community Council and the Torah Education Committee, which run a number of Orthodox Jewish schools. It should be taken as a positive sign that they have reached out, because they are concerned about the effects of the regulations and would like to work with the Government to take them forward. Above all, it is important to remember that we are not asking them to tear up the Torah in order to take this forward. We are asking them to work with the Government to come to a proper solution.

Relationships and Sex Education

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I must add the hon. Lady, too, to the growing list, and yes, and we have already been listening to those expert organisations, some of whom create their own materials to help in teaching, running assemblies and so on. To be clear, it is not possible to withdraw from the parts of the curriculum that are connected with knowing where to get help or about the dangers that exist online and off. As I said, in primary school everyone will be going through relationships education, which will include staying safe online and offline. Relationships education includes awareness of where to go for help and of what is acceptable and what is not. These days, consent is a much broader question than it was, because of the online world, sexting and all such developments, and all children will be made aware of those matters.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, too, welcome the statement, and perhaps I may add to the list of those who have campaigned for relationships and sex education in primary and secondary and for some of the updating that has now happened: in my role as shadow Minister with responsibility for preventing violence against women and girls, I have worked closely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper).

May I pick up on the particular point about prevention of violence against women? The Secretary of State alluded to some of the things that are in the guidance on abusive relationships, but there is evidence that a growing number of young people—teenagers and those just a little older—are subject to violent relationships. To what extent will resources be provided for specialist training and for organisations such as the Hollie Gazzard Trust—founded in memory of Hollie Gazzard who was 20 years old when she was killed by her ex-partner—to ensure that young people, boys and girls, understand the difference between an abusive and a healthy relationship?

[Damian Hinds]

Yes, this is fundamental. Understanding healthy relationships, what constitutes a positive relationship and what is not reasonable to have happen are the fundamental elements running through relationships education guidance. It starts with one’s relationships with family and friends, and as children get older it goes on to intimate relationships and so on. Specifically on the guidance, I am open to hearing from all organisations, including the one that the hon. Lady mentioned.

Presidents Club Charity Dinner

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

I know the Secretary of State will want to look at all aspects of this, not least the due diligence. The hon. Lady is right, but hearing sexist language in the playground and in schools is just the tip of the iceberg. The stories of sexual abuse, rape and harassment happening in some of our schools are shocking.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

In light of the fact that a departmental non-executive director and a Minister attended this despicable event, does the Minister agree that it may be time for a review of the ministerial code of conduct and of the seven principles of public life to ensure that they reflect the commitment to the standards of equality and decency that we expect from our public servants? That will set an example and send a message to society as a whole.

[Anne Milton]

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is looking at a number of issues, and I believe the code of conduct is being reviewed. The tragedy is that we should not need a code of conduct, but we clearly do. It is a tragedy that we need it. Why do people need to be told to behave appropriately? Why do they need to be told not to use sexist or racist language? Why do they need to be told where the boundaries are? People clearly do, and that is the sadness of it. I am robust and angry, but a little bit of me is also extremely sad.

Social Mobility

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That is another great idea that I hope the Minister will respond to, and it shows the extent to which these policy areas need to be looked at across the piece.

Tackling social mobility also means looking at difficult issues such as inheritance tax, transport spending and social care. All those policies need to be looked at through the lens of social mobility. However, today I will focus on a few areas for which the Minister has responsibility, and for which the evidence and action needed are known and relatively straightforward. The first is early years, which colleagues and the Minister will know is a bug bear of mine, so I hope they will allow me to expand on that for a moment. It is well documented that by the time children reach the age of five there is already a big gap in school readiness or development between those from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers. Action for Children found that more than half of children from low-income families do not reach the expected milestones by the age of five. Often that gap is never fully closed during a child’s schooling.

Given that we know some of what works, why are we not doing more? Over the past 20 years we have made some progress through family support services, Sure Start centres, quality early education and targeted approaches, such as the offer for two-year-olds. However, in recent times and with what is upcoming, the agenda seems to be moving backwards.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that one of the Departments that needs to be brought into this conversation is the Home Office? I am thinking specifically about incidents of domestic violence, which have been increasing in my constituency. Experiencing and being a victim of domestic violence impacts on children, particularly very young children, and their educational attainment.

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Being in a domestic violence setting at home can have the most profound impact on the outcome of any child. We need to link that with children’s services and other family support services. She is absolutely right.

The Government’s emphasis is now almost entirely on childcare support for working families. That is a laudable aim in itself, but it perhaps focuses huge resources away from social mobility outcomes. Almost all the money for the 30 hours of free childcare for working families and tax-free childcare will go towards better-off families. Those policies are taking the Government’s focus away from other issues. By definition, the most disadvantaged do not get the extra support, and the delivery of the new policies is also having a real impact on quality institutions