Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My role is to make sure that the child care provided in this country is of the highest quality and provides value for the money that the Government are putting in. My hon. Friend is right: many parents choose to look after their own children at home. That is important, too, but my role is very much to ensure that child care is of the highest quality.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Two expert advisers on child care, Professors Helen Penn and Eva Lloyd, have warned the Government about their child care plans. Does the Minister agree with Professor Lloyd that changing ratios would not reduce costs, but would result in “a reduction in quality”? Will the Minister publish the expert report that her Department commissioned nine months ago and take the advice of these experts who said, in effect, that she needs to go back to the drawing board?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I suggest that the hon. Lady speaks to her boss, who has advocated Danish and Swedish child care systems, both of which have higher ratios than we currently have in England. They also have higher salaries and higher levels of qualification.

We are looking at best practice in Germany, France, Denmark and the Netherlands to make sure that we end up with a system in which we pay child care workers more than the £6.60 an hour that they are getting at the moment. That is a legacy of the previous Government. We are paying those who should be highly paid professionals £6.60 an hour—barely more than the minimum wage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to expand briefly on those remarks. It is important that the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee should strike a proper balance between respect for public money and the encouragement of innovation. As the NAO pointed out, the academies programme has been a success for this Government. We also need to ensure, however, that every penny that we have is spent wisely.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that, according to Ofsted’s recent report, there are now 381 fewer children’s centres than there were at the time of the election, which represents a cut of 10%? In the same week, the Minister for Children and Families admitted that the number of centres providing child care had fallen by 30% in just one year, and that many of the closures were in deprived areas that have problems with the availability and quality of child care. How many of those services, on which families rely, does the Secretary of State think will be lost, now that the budget for Sure Start has been cut by 40%? Why does he not care about Sure Start?

[Michael Gove]

It is because I care so much about Sure Start that I want to ensure that the quality of service that is delivered to young people is the most important criterion. We do not want to fetishise bricks and mortar; we want to ensure that the quality of the education that children receive is as high—[Interruption.] What sort of an example is that setting for the nation’s three and four-year-olds? I say that we should concentrate on the quality of education.

Autism

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr. Speaker, given your keen interest and great work in this particular area of policy.

Let me begin by paying tribute to the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland). I congratulate him not just on securing this important debate but, more widely, on the work that he has done, and continues to do, in raising the parliamentary profile of autism spectrum disorders through his excellent chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group on autism. His personal testimony today, when he spoke as a parent, was particularly powerful. As a parent of a child with social educational needs, I could certainly identify with it, as, I am sure, could other Members in the same position. He is, of course, ably assisted in his stewardship of that very active all-party group by a number of Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), who also gave powerful personal testimony of his experiences as a parent.

In my capacity as a shadow Minister, I was delighted to be asked to take part in the all-party group’s review of education for children and young people with autism. Sadly, my time slot for giving evidence was severely curtailed because the Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), substantially overran in making her contribution—as, I have to say, was her habit. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the Minister to his post, and I promise that I will not do that to him today.

The all-party group’s review took place at about the same time as the Labour party’s review of SEN policy, which I led. The all-party group was assisted in its work by the National Autistic Society, and we on the Labour panel were ably assisted in our review by a young man called Andrew Rhodes, who was one of the NAS young ambassadors, and who I am sure is watching our debate today.

I have read the all-party group’s report and there is clearly a lot of common ground between our reviews, particularly on the need to support young people on the autism spectrum or who have other special educational needs in their transition to adulthood and helping those who, given the right support and opportunities, are capable of working.

The main statistic on which the National Autistic Society hung its “undiscovered workforce” campaign was that fewer than a quarter of people with autism are in work, with just 15% working full time, but four out of five people with autism who are reliant on benefits want to work, and believe they can do so. I know from my constituency postbag that the Government are very keen on telling people they are fit to work when they clearly are not; my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) addressed that subject. There are also, however, young people who are desperate to get out there and work, yet who are often not given the right support to overcome the challenges they face. They may also face discrimination from employers, who see their disability rather than their abilities.

There are, of course, exceptions to that rule. I had the privilege of visiting an organisation in Sunderland called Autism Works, which provides job opportunities and career guidance as well as support for young autistic people in the local area. It provides a safe environment, where staff are confident about dealing with the changes in behaviour of some of the young people who work there. Chris Mitchell, who is on the spectrum himself, and the rest of the staff were keen to stress that, given the right attitudes and a degree of flexibility from colleagues and line managers, those young people can be a real asset to lots of organisations.

As the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) said in her customary well-informed speech, people on the spectrum are often particularly skilled in a number of areas, such as computers and science, which are highly valued in the modern work force, as well as repetitive tasks such as those the right hon. Lady highlighted. I am sure that many organisations are beginning to realise that—thanks in no small part to the work the NAS did as part of its “undiscovered workforce” campaign, as well as the excellent campaigns Members of this House have led over many years, including the first one I was involved in, as a signatory to the right hon. Lady’s private Member’s Bill, which has now become the Autism Act 2009. I am sure its provisions are making a real difference to the lives of young people and adults with autism.

I would like the Minister to say how the Government will support young autistic people into work, and how his Department, as well as the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Cabinet Office, can encourage employers, including the public sector, to look beyond the outward manifestations of conditions such as autism, and not deny so many people the opportunity to prove that they can be a valued part of their organisation.

Other issues with the transition to adulthood were discussed in an excellent Adjournment debate a few weeks ago, to which the Minister responded. Concerns focused particularly on opportunities for further education and training, and on young people on the autism spectrum having the same opportunities as other young people, which other hon. Members have mentioned.

In the time available, I want to consider the experiences that arise earlier than that and to talk about the school journey, which is ultimately the main determinant of a young person’s options at 16, 18, or 25. Another recommendation in the all-party group’s report that chimed with what came out of my review of SEN policy more widely concerned the need for teachers to know about high incidence special educational needs and disabilities, including ASDs, and to be equipped with the skills to adapt their teaching to get through to young people and manage certain behaviours. The issue has come up time and again while I have held this brief, and not just while I was conducting the review. It was also raised in a number of speeches from Members on both sides of the House today.

One in five young people is identified as having an SEND, so in every class there is likely to be at least a handful of people who require extra support. That means that every single teacher is a teacher of SEND pupils, as the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) highlighted powerfully from his personal experience. Not every teacher is given the skills to allow them to be a good teacher of SEN pupils, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) said in her thoughtful speech. If we expect our teachers to be good teachers for every child in their class, as we should and we do, we must give them the skills and knowledge they need to live up to that expectation.

We are therefore considering how we can ensure that every new teacher undertakes a minimum module on SEND as a mandatory part of their initial training—not an optional part, as it is at the moment. It will cover identifying and adapting teaching for high incidence conditions and managing sometimes challenging behaviour in the classroom. We are also considering saying to schools that they need to give due prominence to special educational needs such as autism in their continuous professional development strategies. One in-service training day a year could be given over to promoting good practice on inclusive teaching, sharing best practice and experience, and refreshing knowledge on SEND. One in five of the training days for the one in five pupils with SEND seems fair to me.

Our plans are not about creating specialists, although some might decide they want to go on and do that. We certainly need specialists at a local level to drive improvements across a council area. They are about giving every teacher the best possible chance of being able to teach the class in front of them.

I also want to consider how to raise the status of SENCOs, which we heard about today. We need to look to them to lead and improve practice in their schools. We want the best teachers to aspire to take on the role, but anecdotal evidence suggests that that is not always the case. By raising their status, for example by saying that SENCOs should be part of the senior management team within a school, I believe we can positively influence the choice of individual to perform the role, incentivise good teachers to work towards becoming a SENCO and increase the clout they have in schools to drive improvements. I think that the combination of these measures will vastly increase the quality of provision for children and young people in mainstream settings.

Of course, there will be children and young people on the extreme end of the spectrum for whom mainstream classrooms will not at the moment be the best place for them to be educated. In many such cases parents look to the specialist expertise and facilities in our non-maintained and independent special school sector, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde spoke about movingly from his own experience. A major concern is that although the draft clauses in the Bill provide for non-maintained schools to be named on an education, health and care plan, they do not extend the same provisions to independent special schools, in which about 8,000 children and young people are currently placed. I believe that is because of concerns in the Department about how to define an independent special school, but in a written answer to me the Minister responsible for education and child care, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), stated that no work had been undertaken to try to devise one. The Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), had the opportunity to address these concerns at the Select Committee hearing a couple of weeks ago, but did not do so. I therefore give him the opportunity today to set people’s minds at rest. I urge him to devise a designation or approval system for independent special schools, so that they can continue to provide the excellent support that 8,000 families currently rely on.

One aspect that is not always discussed when we debate provision for children and young people with additional needs is the needs, and indeed the competencies, of the wider family. This was powerfully expressed by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in his contribution. All hon. Members who have come along to this debate will probably know from personal experience, as we heard so movingly on a number of occasions today, or from constituency cases that having a child with a special educational need or disability, particularly where that manifests itself in challenging or aggressive behaviour, as in some cases of Asperger’s or severe autism, such as in the second case that the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) shared with the House today, can be extremely stressful for parents, siblings and other family members, and cause a number of problems, such as mental and physical health issues, or the inability to stay in or perhaps to take up work.

Supporting a child’s family to understand how to cope with and cater for the child’s SEN or disability is often the most cost-effective intervention, and should be encouraged, as the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) said eloquently in her speech. Early intervention in such cases saves money, whereas over-estimating a family’s ability to support a child can be detrimental to all concerned. It can aggravate certain problems, negate efforts and resources spent elsewhere, contribute to family breakdown, and increase the likelihood of the care system being involved.

We brought in short breaks, which can help families immensely, as we heard, and I welcome the Government’s continued support for them. But as important and valued as they are, in the end they are just that—short breaks, in what can be and usually is a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week caring role. When all the professionals who we are promised will come together to draw up the education, health and care plans, it would surely be an effective use of their time together in one room to consider the needs of the whole family, rather than just the child as an individual.

That would mean assessing the family’s resilience and ability to cope, which differs from family to family; providing or recommending support specifically for family members, where appropriate; and if there are siblings who are also in education, ensuring that their school gives them support to overcome the unique challenges that they may face at home, whether that is just the fact that they do not have a quiet place to do their homework, or the fact that they are fulfilling a caring role themselves and do not have the time or energy to do their homework.

I end my remarks by praising the hon. Member for South Swindon again for securing this important debate, which has been an excellent opportunity for hon. Members to emphasise the priority that we all place on improving outcomes for children and adults with autism. There will be many disagreements along the way, I am sure, but Labour will strive to work with the Government and all parties to ensure that the children and families Bill is the best Bill it can be, and that it will deliver real, positive change to provision for autistic young people and their families.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

For a moment, I thought that my predecessor as Schools Minister was going to skewer me at the Dispatch Box, and I began to freeze over. However, I am most grateful to him for his question—and for providing the answer—and for highlighting the important work that the Government are doing to restore the credibility and seriousness of these subjects. I pay tribute to him for the superb work that he has done in these areas over the past two years.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

May I also welcome the Minister back to the Front Bench? I know that he is passionate about this subject, and I look forward to working with him for the benefit of the House and of the country. Last month’s reading recovery annual report confirmed that 9,000 fewer children received reading recovery intervention last year. That means that 9,000 struggling children, many of whom are from disadvantaged backgrounds, are not getting the intensive support that they need to support their literacy levels. The Department’s own evaluation shows that reading recovery achieves real results for children, and that it could achieve long-term financial benefits for the Government. Does the Minister agree with that evaluation? If not, why is he happy to sit back while children fall behind?

[Mr Laws]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her kind comments, and I am keen to work across the House where we can on some of the issues to which the previous Labour Government showed considerable commitment. This Government, however, are trying to put in place a simpler funding system, not only for the baseline funding, but by giving schools through the pupil premium a large amount of additional finance— £2.5 billion by the end of this Parliament—so that schools can prioritise in each setting the mechanism and the intervention that best serves their pupils. Schools will, through the pupil premium, have the moneys for precisely the types of reading recovery that the hon. Lady mentioned.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

I agree that this is a particular issue. My hon. Friend may be aware that today we published the draft provisions for special educational needs, which we hope will go into the Bill next year. We are particularly looking at extending down the support and protection offered for children in the school system so that nought to fives get similar support. She will also be aware that in the specific guidance to local authorities we highlighted the issue of making sure that they should provide more information for parents who have a disabled child.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

As the Minister said, she has today published the draft legislation on the provision for children with special educational needs and disability, so how does she intend to address the shocking fact that 87% of local authorities reported that they do not have enough holiday child care for children with SEND?

[Sarah Teather]

I think there is a particular issue to address on the availability of holiday care for many children, not just for disabled children, and the commission is looking at holiday provision. Similarly, we are trying to encourage local authorities to put in place a local offer as part of the draft provisions we published today. That will include making sure that adequate respite care is available, and holiday provision is a prime example of that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes a good point. It is an anomaly with which we wish to deal, and we are talking to the Association of Colleges about it. Resources are tight, but he is absolutely right to carry on campaigning.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

On the disgraceful scrapping of nutritional standards for free schools and academies, health and education experts are calling for a U-turn; 98 Members, including Government Members, are calling for a U-turn; and even Jamie Oliver is calling for a U-turn. How many more calls for a U-turn and reams of evidence do the Government need to hear before they do the right thing, put evidence ahead of dogma and ensure that all children get the benefit of healthy school food?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady has been a consistent campaigner for the vital importance of health education in her schools, so I applaud her passion, as I do that of Jamie Oliver, but the facts show that there has been no deterioration in the quality of food offered in academies, and academies are not offering worse food at lunch time than other schools. All schools need to improve the quality of their food, and we will make an announcement shortly, not of a U-turn, but to build on the platform that Jamie Oliver has created.

Free School Meals (Colleges)

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) on securing this important debate and on his excellent speech. Indeed, we have heard a number of excellent contributions, which I sincerely hope will have persuaded the Minister of the merits of ending this anomaly.

I am aware that this issue has been around for some time. An amendment to the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill in the previous Parliament, which was moved in the other place by the Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Sharp of Guildford, would have done what my right hon. Friend is calling for today. In the end, though, the noble Baroness was convinced to withdraw her amendment by my noble friend Lord Young of Norwood Green, who informed her that the issue was under review. That was back in November 2009, and the review was ongoing when the election was called. I assume that that work was superseded by the new Government’s plans, which culminated in scrapping not only EMA, but the planned roll-out of free school meals to all children living below the poverty line.

The Association of Colleges has recently launched its “No Free Lunch?” campaign, and it has been backed by the National Union of Students. The Association of School and College Leaders feels the same way, and Unison has been campaigning on this matter for some time now. The Children’s Society has also given its backing to the campaign and has tied it in with its “Fair and Square” campaign, which calls on the Government to ensure that all children in poverty, including those in poor working families, can get a free school meal from when they start school until they leave further education. That is something that we would be much closer to now had the Government not scrapped the planned extension of free school meals to households below the poverty line, which was due to begin in September 2010.

It is clear that the Minister’s colleagues on the Education Committee share the belief that this issue needs to be addressed. In their report, “Participation by 16-19 year olds in education and training”, they criticised the Government for their cuts to EMA and said:

“There is no logic in making free school meals available to 16-18 year olds in schools but not in colleges, and, while we recognise that the financial implications would make an early change of policy difficult, we recommend that parity of eligibility should be the medium to long-term aim.”

The Government have acknowledged that, but have not committed to doing anything about it, or even said that they would find it desirable to do so. Perhaps that could all change this morning when the Minister gets to his feet. I think that all Members present hope that he has some good news for us.

As we have heard, it is not as if the young people in colleges who were receiving free school meals in year 11 are automatically entitled to any money from the new bursary fund; the guidance for further education providers posted on the Department’s website last week makes that perfectly clear. The only groups that will be automatically entitled to financial assistance, which at £1,200 a year is only fractionally more than they would have got from EMA, are young people in care, care leavers, or those on income support and disabled young people getting employment and support allowance and disability living allowance. Young people who were previously receiving free school meals will be left to go cap in hand to their colleges for whatever is left from their bursary allocation.

[Ian Swales]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case. Does she also agree that a postcode lottery is in operation? Some colleges in rural areas or in very large areas will have high travel costs, compared with inner city colleges, where travel costs are lower. Therefore, the amount of money that colleges have available for free meals will be variable, depending on the nature of their area.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Some colleges have to raise funds to help support some of the poorest children, who need money for travel and, if there is anything left, for food.

The Minister may remember that we faced each other in a similar debate in 2010—we do not often do that, so I remember it well. It was on EMA and was called by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce), in partnership with my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), whom we welcomed to the shadow education team a couple of weeks ago. In that debate, I spoke about the testimony of a number of young people who had attended a seminar that we had held in Parliament about how much EMA meant to them. Many said that the allowance barely covered their travel and lunch as it was.

A young man called Luke talked about students whom he knew who could not eat before or at college because their money did not go far enough. That is a point that is developed by a young carer quoted in a Barnado’s briefing for this morning’s debate. The young girl is studying four A-levels and dreams of becoming a barrister. She says:

“At college when I don’t eat I get really bored, I can’t focus and I feel faint or really tired.”

As participation rates increase, many more pupils will be in that position. Given what we know about the impact of hunger and poor diets on educational attainment, we can understand what will happen to their studies.

The Government need to do a lot more than just think about this matter. They need to go into colleges and find out for themselves just how many students are going hungry or having to eat cheap rubbish that is not good for them, and then think more about the merits of the argument that is being made today and that has been made by campaigners for the past few years.

If the end of EMA did not add impetus to this debate, the impending rise in the participation age surely does. Labour passed the Education and Skills Act 2008, which increased the minimum age at which young people in England can leave education—from next year, it will be at the end of the academic year in which they turn 17, and it will be up to their 18th birthday from 2015—and that is something that the current Government are committed to driving through.

As a result of those changes, young people will have to stay on full time from 2015 unless they are working for more than 20 hours a week or are on an apprenticeship, but those who choose to do so in a college will be at a distinct disadvantage. As we have heard from a number of hon. Members this morning, the vast majority of students who received free school meals in last year’s year 11 are now studying in non-school settings. According to the Association of Colleges, there are 103,000 such students in colleges, compared with 33,000 in sixth forms. The gulf will only grow wider, particularly given that young people who are eligible for free school meals are more likely to pursue courses in college rather than in sixth forms.

In their response to the Education Committee recommendations, which I cited earlier, the Government stated that they would review this anomaly, in conjunction with 16-to-19 financial support, as the rise in the participation age gets closer. Given that we are about 16 months away from the 2013 academic year and that the Department seems to operate in a chaotic manner under this Government, it is time that they got a move on.

There are issues with some 16-to-19 providers not having the kitchen capacity to prepare meals, which is an argument that the Secretary of State has used for not expanding eligibility. As the Minister will know from a press release that he put out while he was in opposition to try and rubbish the idea of improving nutritional standards in schools, which we were trying to do at the time, some school sites do not have the facilities to prepare meals. In those instances, they get meals brought in from other local schools, or they simply serve cold food. Having no kitchen is not an insurmountable challenge for schools in providing free meals, so I do not see why it would be for colleges. Indeed, the chief executive of the Association of Colleges told the Education Committee that all the members whom he had spoken to about this potential barrier had said

“if that provision was made they would make it available”.

In conclusion, the campaigners for free meal eligibility to be extended to children in non-school FE settings have been making a strong and logical case for a number of years now, but that case has become even stronger since the Government scrapped EMA. There is, of course, a cost associated with doing so. As we have heard, it is just under £40 million a year, according to the Association of Colleges. That is certainly a significant amount, but when we compare it to the amount that the Government cut from financial support for 16 to19-year-olds when they scrapped EMA, it is just 10%. The Government should look at the merits of investing money in free meals, rather than in other areas of expenditure.

I therefore hope that the Minister will now give an assurance to my right hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough and for Birkenhead (Mr Field), as well as to others who have spoken this morning, that he will take on board their arguments and put this anomaly to bed, or explain why he thinks that it is fair that large numbers of young people between the ages of 16 and 18 will be at a significant disadvantage to their peers and possibly going hungry by the end of this Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

I will finish this point and, if there is time, I will give way.

As I was saying, the pupil premium is specifically designed to boost the attainment of pupils aged under 16 from low-income families, and free school meals is the only per-pupil indicator of poverty that we can have. That amounts to some £625 million—

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is for schools.

[Mr Gibb]

I understand that it is for schools; I will come on to the other point. That amounts to some £625 million in 2011-12, £1.25 billion in the following year, and it will rise to £2.5 billion by 2014-15. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough and the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge are right that no pupil premium applies to pupils aged between 16 and 19, but for students between 16 and 19 the disadvantage uplift—as it is called—and the additional learning support funding are the equivalent of the pupil premium.

The disadvantage uplift is intended to recognise that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds may need extra support to close the attainment gap. The measure is based on the index of multiple deprivation for those living in the 27% most deprived areas, with students from more deprived areas attracting higher rates. In addition, we increased funding for disadvantaged young people and for additional learning support by £150 million in 2011-12, and that total funding is now £750 million a year. But again I must say that to help to tackle the budget deficit, we have had to make some very difficult decisions.

In the remaining time, I just want to point out to the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge that annual bursaries of some £1,200, which have replaced education maintenance allowance, are being provided to the most vulnerable young people. Taking the example of John, the student at one of her local FE colleges whom she mentioned, if John is 17 and on income support, he qualifies for a bursary of £1,200 a year, which is actually more than he would have received under EMA. The most vulnerable young people, including people in care—

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

As I have said, the change in hours should not have an impact on the child care element, because the hours remain the same in terms of the eligibility for the child care element of the tax credit. All local authorities have a duty to ensure that sufficient pre-school and after-school child care is available in their areas. However, we are monitoring this situation very closely and looking at capacity in disadvantaged areas, as we are rolling out a significant increase in the amount of early years education available for two-year-olds.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

According to the National Day Nurseries Association insight report, 65% of nurseries reported decreased occupancy levels towards the end of 2011—when parents were feeling the impact of slashed child care tax credits—leaving more than one in 10 settings with occupancies of less than 50% and therefore at serious risk of closure or of having to increase prices for the remaining parents. As more than 1 million families are counting on losing child tax credit or working tax credit this month, what are the Government doing to ensure that all child care providers are not driven out of business by falling occupancies?

[Sarah Teather]

What has had the most impact, unfortunately, has been some people losing their jobs, which inevitably affects the demand for child care in the areas concerned. However, the most significant impact on the early years sector, and in particular the private providers, will come from the roll-out of the two-year-olds offer, which I mentioned a few moments ago. That amounts to a very substantial increase in the amount of money going through early years settings. A significant number of places will need to be created. There will be some areas that are under-occupied, of course, but there will also be very significant demand for places for two-years-olds in some settings, and many in the sector are seeing this as a huge opportunity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

I absolutely recognise the points that the hon. Lady makes. Child care is a very difficult pressure on many families’ budgets, and that is precisely why we have invested so much extra money in the area. Despite the tight financial climate because of the mess that the previous Government left us, we have nevertheless invested significant extra money in enabling two-year-olds to access free early education—20% of two-year-olds by 2013 and 40% by 2014.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

The Department’s Sure Start and early intervention funding for the local authority area of the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) was cut by £30 per child this year. Islington, Knowsley and Tower Hamlets, however, three of the country’s most deprived boroughs, had cuts of £100 or more per child. Does the Minister believe that that is a good example of targeting resources for Sure Start and for early intervention at the most disadvantaged?

[Sarah Teather]

Decisions about the early intervention grant were made on the same formula as that used by the previous Government, so it is not really acceptable for the hon. Lady to claim that there are specific changes in particular constituencies, and suggesting that there is a political motivation is a little beneath her, actually.

Children's Subjective Well-Being

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ruane]

I absolutely concur with every word of that, and I shall come to those points in more detail in a moment.

I want to spend a few minutes on the Children’s Society’s excellent report on children’s subjective well-being. It gives the definition of subjective well-being, which focuses on how people are feeling, whereas objective well-being focuses on conditions that affect those feelings, such as health or education. The report looked at 10 areas: relationships with family, relationships with friends, time use, health, the future, home, money and possessions, school, appearance, and the amount of choice in life. It has some interesting key findings. One in 11 children has low subjective well-being. Family relations and choice are the two most important factors. Family relations has the best score and is always a positive, but how a schoolchild or young person manages the choices that affect his own or her own life has one of the lowest scores. External factors, life events and relationships with others can have a dramatic and sudden effect on the subjective well-being of children. Household income is important, but it should be enough rather than a lot. If a child has too much, they can mark themselves out and become a figure of fun as the posh kid in the class.

The report highlights six priority areas, one of which is the opportunity to learn and develop not just cognitive but emotional intelligence. I was a little disturbed last week when one of the education Ministers said that he held emotional learning in complete disregard. That does not chime with the opinions of the Prime Minister, and the Minister needs to think carefully about it.

The home environment is as important as the school environment. If a child goes home to a house in multiple occupation and is living six storeys up where it is wet, windy and draughty and he or she cannot concentrate, that is not a good environment in which to create opportunities for learning and developing.

Children and young people should have their opinions respected. They should be listened to not only in school, through schools councils, but by their parents around the breakfast table or the dinner table. They need to have a positive image of themselves. Advertisers tell us that beautiful people are thin, attractive, intelligent and dynamic. That is not always the case, but it is the image that is thrust at us through the media.

We must ensure that all families have enough to live on as they face the sudden shock of redundancy, benefit caps, the freeze in child benefit and the abolition of education maintenance allowance. The full consequences of those measures as regards how they will impact on childhood well-being must be thought through before they are introduced.

Positive relationships with family and friends are a key priority area. Family bonds are 10 times more important than the structure of the family. A lot is made of the nuclear family, which is held up as a paragon. I am from a nuclear family and I have my own nuclear family, but we should not be promoting that model by saying “You are not quite right” to all the other families, because that additional pressure will not help a child’s well-being.

Children must be in a safe and suitable home environment. Privacy is important for a child’s well-being: they need to have their own bedroom. If a child is in a transient family that moves between one town and another, they are twice as likely to have poor well-being. I come from a seaside town, Rhyl, where one primary school has a 49% transiency rate. In other words, for every 100 children who are there in September, 49 are gone by July. That is not good for the 49 and it is not good for the 51 who remain. Those children will often move two or three times in a year, leading to massive pressures on themselves and their families.

Children need an opportunity to take part in positive activities, because otherwise they will turn to negative activities such as drink, drugs, teenage sex and teenage pregnancy. We need to create positive opportunities for volunteering and creative and expressive activities.

The report is a mixed blessing. I hope that the Minister has a copy. The final page has a grid on which the green areas represent initiatives that have been put in place—I congratulate the Government on that—and the purple areas represent ideas that have not been acted on. I hope that in the course of this Parliament they will all become green areas. Just to remind the Minister, I have put down 36 questions tonight—one for each box—so he will be able to answer them tomorrow.

The important thing that the report says is that all these things need to be monitored. I know that the Minister, his party and the Government do not believe in red tape, but if they are not monitored, we will not know whether they are successful.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am afraid that the hon. Lady cannot make an intervention from the Front Bench, but if she moves to the Bench behind, she can.

[Chris Ruane]

Come on down!

[Mrs Hodgson]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am interested in what my hon. Friend said about monitoring the outcomes. We are signed up to the UN convention on the rights of the child. Many of its articles, such as the article on the right for the child’s voice to be heard, could play a big part in meeting those outcomes. What does he think about the idea of having a Bill of Rights for children?

[Chris Ruane]

There is much to be said for that. The UN perspective is important, as is the European perspective. We need international comparators so that we can measure ourselves against international standards. We also need to monitor the programmes that we put forward nationally.

The Children’s Society report gives credit to some of the initiatives that the Government have put forward over the past year, such as telephone support for families, free parenting classes for those with under-fives and the junior individual savings account. Of course, to have an ISA people need enough spare cash to put in it and many families do not have that.

There are big changes, which the Minister knows about, that will impact on children and their well-being. I will simply echo a thought that is in both reports. One of the key things that the neglect report asks of the Government is for information to be collected. For dozens of parliamentary questions that I have put down, the answer has been that the information is not collected by the Government—I must say that it was not collected by the Labour Government either.

These are two excellent reports. Progress was made under the Labour Government and it is being made, although more slowly, under this Government. However, there are dark clouds ahead and we all need to monitor this area—both those in government and those outside government—through parliamentary questions and debates to ensure that we get the best deal for our children and young people.