School Uniform Costs

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, and to follow the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) on securing the debate, and on her tireless work to raise the profile of an issue that for too long has flown beneath the radar, despite having a real and significant impact on our constituents’ lives.

According to the Children’s Society, 1 million children in England live in families that get into debt just to meet the rising cost of school uniforms. One in six families blames school uniform costs for having to cut back on food and other essentials. One resident in my constituency told me she had forked out more than £120 for one child’s school uniform and PE kit. That is a staggering amount to pay, but the reasons why people have to do so are well known. Some schools require compulsory branded items, some request expensive specialist gear, and others use single suppliers and retailers—even getting a financial incentive to do so. As if that were not enough, for many struggling parents this is an annual occurrence, as their children quickly grow out of purchased uniforms, and many must pay to clothe several children.

This summer, in response to the concern among parents in my constituency, I organised the Barnsley East school uniform exchange, which was an opportunity for those who had uniforms they no longer needed to pass them on to other families in need. I was blown away by the response. Not only did we manage to provide uniforms for children and families who might have struggled otherwise, but we helped to facilitate a community’s coming together, sharing resources and helping one another out. It was a testament to the incredible generosity in Barnsley, and such was the response that we already have uniforms ready and waiting to go for the next school year, when I plan to continue the exchange.

Ultimately, however, we should not have to rely on the generosity of our friends and neighbours to help provide even the basics, especially when it comes to children and their experiences in education. Provisions and guidance to schools to ensure that uniforms remain affordable and accessible should be reinstated following their dilution under this Government, and greater ability for local authorities to keep the costs down would undoubtedly make a difference. No family should be left vulnerable, and no child left disadvantaged, because of what for too many is the extortionate price of education. Schools, local authorities and communities can come together to tackle the burden, but action must start with the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Lady raises a good point. It is something that we will reflect on. I have often seen schools and academies, in such circumstances, provide the uniform for existing pupils, because of course it is a cost that parents will not have expected. There are many ways around the issue, but it needs to be addressed and taken seriously, as the hon. Lady says.

While school uniform can have a hugely positive impact on a school, by providing cohesion and community for the pupil population, it may present a financial burden to some—particularly to families on low incomes —as has been widely discussed in this important debate. In 2015, the Department commissioned the “Cost of school uniform” survey, which provided the most recent information that we hold on the cost of school uniform and indicated that the average cost of most items decreased between 2007 and 2015—the date of the report—when adjusted for inflation. Moreover, most parents were pleased with the overall cost and quality of their child’s uniform. More than two thirds of parents were happy with the cost of uniform and PE kit. However, in the same survey nearly one fifth of parents reported that they had suffered financial hardship as a result of purchasing their child’s school uniform. It is therefore vital that we do what we can to ensure that school uniform is accessible for all, no matter what the family’s budget.

It is for the governing body of a school, or the academy trust, in the case of academies, to decide whether there should be a school uniform policy, and if so, what it should be. It is also for the governing body to decide how the uniform should be sourced. However, we are clear that governing bodies should give cost considerations the highest priority when making decisions about school uniform. The Department published best practice guidance for school leaders on developing and implementing school uniform policy. That guidance sets out that a school should ensure that its school uniform policy is fair and reasonable for all its students. It should make certain that the uniform is affordable and does not act as a barrier to parents when choosing a school.

School uniform should be easily available for parents to purchase. In particular, the guidance specifically states that schools should seek to select items that can be purchased cheaply—for example, in a supermarket. If parents can shop around for items of uniform, that can encourage competition and enable them to buy their uniform from a retailer at a price that suits their household budget. The Department’s guidance advises schools that, in setting their school uniform policy, they should give the highest priority to cost considerations and achieving value for money for parents.

I am aware that a concern is often mentioned in this context about branded items of uniform, and how those are supplied—something that has been mentioned in the debate. We recognise that schools will often want to adopt items of uniform that are specific to that school, such as a branded blazer or tie. The Department, however, advises schools to keep such branded items of uniform to a minimum, as multiple branded items can significantly increase costs. We recommend that schools should avoid exclusive single-supplier contracts, as those could risk driving up costs. Where schools choose to enter into such contracts, which in some cases may be the best option, they should ensure that they are subject to a regular competitive tendering process to ensure the best value for money.

The hon. Member for Barnsley East raised the issue of schools that receive a financial incentive to use a specified supplier. The guidance explicitly states:

“Schools should not enter into cash back arrangements.”

It is very clear about that. If parents have concerns about the school uniform supply arrangements in relation to competition law, they can raise them with the Competition and Markets Authority. As you may be aware, Mr Pritchard, the CMA wrote an open letter to schools and school uniform suppliers, which provides more detail about its policy, and what powers it has, regarding the appointment of exclusive suppliers for school uniform.

With reference to the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), he will be pleased to know that the Government have committed to putting our best practice guidance on school uniform on to a statutory footing. Opposition Members also made that request. The Secretary of State and the CMA recently engaged in an exchange of open letters on the matter of single-supplier contracts.

[Stephanie Peacock]

I believe that the Welsh Government used powers provided in the Education Act 2002 and the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which were passed under a Labour Government, to issue their statutory guidance. Why has the Minister not done the same?

[Nick Gibb]

We keep those issues under review. As has been pointed out, we are running out of time in this Session, but if a Conservative Government are returned with a functioning majority, I am sure that we will give urgent priority to legislating on the matter in question.

The CMA stated its approval of our commitment to place our guidance on a statutory footing when a suitable legislative opportunity arises, as I am sure it will after the general election. In turn, the Secretary of State has reaffirmed our commitment to do so, which will send a clear signal that we expect schools to ensure that uniform costs are reasonable. I should make it clear that the Government’s stated intention to make school uniform affordable does not undermine our commitment to the principle of uniform itself. Putting our guidance on a statutory footing is directly intended to ensure that school uniforms are affordable for all.

In England, some local authorities provide discretionary grants to help with buying school uniforms. It is a matter for the local authority to decide whether to offer those grants and to set their own criteria for eligibility. Schools may offer individual clothing schemes, such as offering second-hand uniform at reduced prices, as in the uniform scheme that we have heard about today. As I have said, schools can choose to use their pupil premium funding to offer subsidies or grants for school uniforms. Again, that will be a decision for the school to make.

I am enormously grateful for the support that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle has given on this issue. She has raised some important concerns, and I hope that she is relatively happy that the Government also recognise the cost of school uniform as important. We want all children, wherever they are and whatever their background, to be able to secure a good school place, and we do not want the cost of uniform to act as a barrier. The steps that we have taken underline the importance of the cost of school uniform in helping the most disadvantaged members of our society to get access to a good education. The Government have made a commitment to legislate on the issue, which we intend to honour.

Education Funding

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes an important point. I know that he represents a county that has historically faced funding challenges and that he has always campaigned for them to be addressed, and I am pleased to be able to do that. I will take his words very much to heart and ensure that we retain clarity and simplicity, as well as always ensuring that schools have a view as long-term as the funds that they will be receiving.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

We in Barnsley have lost nearly a third of our teaching assistants and school support staff. As a former teacher, I am aware of the vital job that they do, but the Secretary of State did not mention them once in his statement, and, despite his warm words in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), we have still not been given any firm commitments. Will he rule out funding his plans by cutting school support staff further?

[Gavin Williamson]

We are giving schools the largest funding package in a generation. I know how much all schools value the amazing work that teaching assistants do every single day throughout the year. They have always made that a key part of their investment, and I am sure that they will continue to do so. However, as the hon. Lady may know, I do not determine staffing levels, how schools spend their money, or on which staff they spend that money.

Post-18 Education and Funding

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I am well aware of the high reputation of Dudley College, and of some of the collaborative work that is being done. It is always a delight to meet the hon. Gentleman, and I look forward to doing so again soon.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has given us warm words about technical education, but does he accept that the reality is frequently a postcode lottery in which towns such Barnsley have too often lost out? When I met representatives of Barnsley College recently, they told me that many of the first-wave T-levels were simply unavailable. What will change for people in Barnsley as a consequence of the review if there is no funding to follow?

[Damian Hinds]

We are starting in a relatively small way in 2020 with three T-level subjects in a selection of colleges, but that will grow over time. The T-level programme is a national programme, but I think it is right for us to introduce it in a measured way in order to ensure that we get it right as we go along, for the benefit of those young people.

Timpson Review of School Exclusion

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I do not know the specific answer on the practice improvement fund. There are parts of the country where we are looking at this if it is a long-standing issue. The primary-to-secondary-phase transition manifests itself in a number of different ways. It can be a very daunting prospect for a child moving sometimes from quite a small, manageable school where they know most people to the much bigger and, in some senses, scarier environment of secondary school. Summer learning loss is another feature of this. I will take care to look at the example in Stockport that the hon. Lady mentions.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

Last year, an academy in my constituency temporarily excluded nearly a quarter of its pupils. That is over a third of all exclusions across Barnsley. The Minister said that there is no right level of exclusions, but surely he will agree that these figures are far too high. Can I push him again on what the Government are proposing to do to tackle excessive exclusions in our schools?

[Damian Hinds]

Most of my statement was a response to the hon. Lady’s question, or at least indirectly. There is no right level of exclusions to pursue, but obviously we would all like exclusions to be lower, because that means more children being in school in a stable education and not having to move elsewhere in the system. I do not know if she was trying to make a specific point in mentioning academies, but overall academies and local authority maintained schools have broadly the same rates.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) is also a successful marathon runner who deserves the approbation of the House.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your kind words. May I take this opportunity to thank everyone across Barnsley for supporting me yesterday?

When the Government announced their new institutes of technology earlier this month, there was not a single one in South Yorkshire or West Yorkshire, and just two across the whole of the north. Will the Secretary of State review that decision and support new applicants from those areas?

College Funding

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Laura Smith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker, and to take part in this incredibly important debate on further education funding. It is obvious that the matter is of great importance to my constituency, as we were one of the top 10 constituencies in terms of responses to the petition.

In my constituency we are lucky to have two sixth- form colleges in Nantwich—Brine Leas and Malbank—and we are extremely lucky to have the college I attended in Crewe. The college has changed dramatically since I was there. Not only has it changed its name to Cheshire College South and West, but the building underwent an incredible transformation during the last Labour Government and we are now proud to have a modern facility with fantastic resources, unlike the creaky 1960s tower block I enrolled at.

Cheshire College South and West provides a variety of courses, boasts its very own award-winning student-run restaurant called “Academy”, and has a hair salon, a theatre and an incredible fitness centre. The college sits in a residential area of Crewe, which is a post-industrial town that suffers from high levels of poverty, with people trapped in work that simply does not pay. The college provides opportunities to many local schoolchildren and to the community in general, offering space for community groups, meeting rooms for businesses and experiences that people otherwise simply would not have.

It sounds too good to be true. There always is a “but” with these things, and the big “but” is exactly the reason we are here today: Cheshire College South and West faces huge funding challenges. I am here to highlight that and to make the Minister aware of how devastating it would be to my community to lose that excellent education provision. Sadly, we are already seeing the university I attended, Manchester Metropolitan, withdraw its university campus from Crewe; that is a huge blow. We cannot allow FE opportunities to shrink for my constituents as well.

A key point that really illustrates the funding pressures in FE is that in real terms, funding for 16 to 18-year-olds is back to its 1990 level. To put that into context, I was five years old in that year, Margaret Thatcher resigned and Nelson Mandela was released from prison. How can it be that 29 years later funding has gone so far backwards? I have been informed that while costs continue to increase, our college will face considerable funding pressures next year, causing a potential negative impact of more than £1 million. The college will undoubtedly make cuts, and we all know that cuts come in the form of jobs. That will be devastating not only for those who are dedicated to teaching, but for the opportunities available to our future generations, not to mention the impact on our local economy.

It is important also to make it clear that pay is a major issue both for staff and for the colleges for which they work. Two thirds of college leaders cite an inability to match pay expectations as a major barrier to recruiting skilled staff.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her powerful argument. The picture she has painted is very similar to the situation faced by Barnsley College. I recently met with staff there, who highlighted that the college is really struggling to recruit in core subjects. To make matters worse, students often come to the college below the standard that they should be at when they leave school.

[Laura Smith]

The situation that my hon. Friend and I are talking about is reflected in all constituencies, and that is why we are here today. The University and College Union has made it clear that funding reductions have meant that many colleges have had to make difficult decisions about what to fund. For students, those restrictions have meant fewer hours for teaching and support and a more limited range of study choices. For staff, pay has fallen in value by 25% in real terms since 2009. In cash terms, that means a £2,484 pay cut for those at the bottom end of the scale, rising to more than £9,000 for experienced lecturers and even more for those higher up the scale. For colleges that have failed to implement the recommended pay rises, the fall has been even greater. Since 2010, some 24,000 teachers have left the further education sector. That is around a third of the total teaching workforce.

Why is this happening? The Conservatives have ruthlessly cut funding for FE colleges and reduced entitlements for adult learners. That has led to diminishing numbers of courses and students, and has plunged the FE sector into crisis. The Labour party recognises that FE is an essential part of our education system that plays an important role in young adult education and lifelong learning. I firmly believe that after nearly 10 years of neglect, only the Labour party will correct the historic neglect of the FE sector by supplying the investment that teachers deserve. After all, it was the Tories who scrapped education maintenance allowance, which supported disadvantaged young people to stay in college—something that was so important to students in constituencies such as mine.

However, while this Conservative Government remain in charge of policy, I appeal to the Minister once again. I have already written and asked questions on this matter. First, what recent assessment has she made of the adequacy of Government funding for further education colleges in England? Secondly, what assessment has her Department made of the level of pay inequality between schools, universities and colleges in the education sector? Thirdly, what assessment has she made of the recent letter from Her Majesty’s chief inspector to the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), which raised concerns about significant under-investment in the further education sector? I sincerely hope that the Minister can provide answers to those questions at the end of the debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

As today’s shocking research from the National Education Union shows, one simple step that could help the most disadvantaged children is providing them with a healthy meal. It is more than two years since the Government committed to a healthy schools rating system. When will they act?

[Damian Hinds]

I am glad that the hon. Lady mentions the issue of providing meals for children at school. We have done a great deal on breakfast, and we have also extended eligibility for free school meals on three different occasions—in a way the Labour party never did when it was in government—through universal infant free school meals, free meals in further education colleges and, most recently, the roll-out of universal credit.

Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered mental health and wellbeing in schools.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I am delighted to have secured today’s debate on mental health and wellbeing in schools. I am sure that many hon. Members will know that I am a former teacher. My interest in this subject comes from the link between mental health and wellbeing and learning. I will come later to all sorts of issues surrounding children’s mental health and the lack of services out there, but I hope that today’s debate will focus on how this issue affects children, and indeed teachers, in schools.

Schools are not just places where we help students and children to learn resilience and the skills that they need to build themselves up so that they become adults who can cope with all sorts of pressures that are thrown at them; schools themselves can influence the mental health of children. Some of the debate so far has focused too much on the outside influences on children coming into school. Today I will focus on aspects of the current schooling system that exacerbate that problem.

Let us look at the scale of the issue. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children says that the number of schools seeking help from mental health services is up by more than a third in the last three years. The number of referrals to NHS child and adolescent mental health services by schools seeking professional help for a student was 34,757 in 2017-18. That is the equivalent of 183 every school day. To say that this is anything other than a crisis would be wrong. We are facing a crisis of mental health issues in our schools.

The National Education Union further found that 49% of education staff said that secondary school pupils had been suicidal as a result of the stress that they were under, and more than half of professionals surveyed said that funding for support for pupils’ mental health in schools was inadequate.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. In my constituency of Barnsley East the local clinical commissioning group has been working with schools to try to embed support in a project called “MindSpace”. Does she agree that projects such as MindSpace that get trained counsellors into school, to be there every day, need more funding?

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. Funding is part of it, but a number of interventions are taking place in schools, and they have to be critically evaluated. We have to look at the evidence to see whether they work. To my knowledge, only one—the Bounce Forward intervention programme—has been shown to have had a positive impact. I am not saying that the intervention that she mentioned does not, but we need to be careful that what we are doing in schools works. It is incumbent on the Government to ensure that that critical evaluation happens.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

I completely agree. In fact, I would argue that if mental health is the Cinderella service in the NHS, children’s mental health is the Cinderella of the Cinderella service. That is brought into stark relief by child and adolescent mental health services across the country, although I will focus on Oxfordshire. My postbag is full of letters from parents who are desperate to get their children to CAMHS for all sorts of reasons. We have to remember that CAMHS is there for the most acute mental health needs; it does not cover the mild to moderate needs that so desperately need solving in school at an early, preventive stage. In Oxfordshire, children can wait for a referral for up to two years; extraordinarily, they are then often pushed back.

The Education Policy Institute reports that the number of referrals to specialist children’s mental health services has increased by 26% over the past five years, although the school population has increased by 3%. Something is clearly going on, whether it is lack of early intervention in schools or increased pressure.

[Stephanie Peacock]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is quite concerning that people need to be in absolute crisis even to get a referral? Often young people need to be suicidal before they can get a referral. That is absolutely shocking. Surely earlier intervention would be much better.

[Layla Moran]

I completely agree. It is especially shocking with respect to issues such as depression and eating disorders. Parents seek referrals, but when—after a waiting time of six months at the very least—they see a professional, they are told, “I’m sorry, but your daughter’s not sick enough.” They despair, because they do not know what to do any more. We need a much more joined-up service. A lot of these things are picked up in schools, so schools have a part to play.

There is a lack of resources for CAMHS across the country, and unfortunately the new commissioning service is not going to solve it. The funding problem for mental health services shows that we do not have parity of esteem between mental health and physical services; I know that the Government want it, but they cannot pretend that it has happened. If they say that children’s mental health is a priority within that, I ask people to look at the evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee’s inquiry into children’s mental health services and see for themselves that that is absolutely not the case. The Government know that there is not enough money for CAMHS.

The EPI study further points out that as many as a quarter of local authorities have phased out vital support services around schools, including school-based mental health services, family counselling and support for those living with domestic abuse. The median waiting time for treatment is 60 days, but I am well aware of many constituents who have had to wait as long as two years. That is extraordinary.

Last but not least, I want to discuss the impact of cuts, particularly on local government and on the support available in the wider community. As we know, schools never exist in a vacuum. As today’s Ofsted annual report points out, schools cannot fix everything, but for a lot of children they are often where the buck stops. Cuts elsewhere in the system, particularly in local government, have a massive impact.

I have secured quite a number of debates in Westminster Hall, but of all of them, this debate attracted the most responses when I tweeted about it. I would like to share one with hon. Members, from Vanessa Whitcombe, headteacher at Castle Manor Academy:

“Just emailing following your Facebook post regarding tomorrow’s debate. We are trying so hard to prioritise mental health and wellbeing in schools, applying for grants, paying for school nurse service as ours has been withdrawn, participating in Anna Freud school mental health award, peer mentoring programmes, reducing workload for teachers and putting in wellbeing support, and we are really proud of the small steps we are taking forward. But they are small, as they are against a backdrop of dwindling external services and decreasing budgets. External service provision and early help is only available at such a high threshold we feel like we are firefighting, and it is the most vulnerable children and families that are not accessing what they need. Amanda Spielman spoke wisely of the need for schools to be able to stick to their core business, and in our school we try to make sure that classroom teachers are able to do that as much as possible, but the surrounding investment that is needed to be put in to safeguarding, emotional support, educating parents, feeding students is not going to go away without more provision outside school.”

We have seen that for ourselves in Oxfordshire. Every single one of the children’s centres in my constituency was closed by the Conservative county council, and the more than 40 across Oxfordshire have fallen to just eight. We were able to help families in children’s centres, at an early stage, before there were problems. I have not even started to go on about youth services and youth provision and the issues there. All the wraparound services for young people have gone from the local community, and that leads to all sorts of issues. It is not just about social media—in fact, there is some evidence to show that a little bit of social media for teenagers is a good thing, although a lot is very definitely a bad thing. The debate often focuses too much on that point and less on the much more intractable issues that surround the child.

In conclusion, I believe that this is an issue of deep concern. Even on a day such as today, when the shenanigans of Parliament might make us forget that there are big issues in the country, this is one of the biggest issues we have, and I am concerned that the Government response is simply a sticking plaster. What they are not doing is looking at the core issues that are driving the problem. Unless they do that, they are always going to be playing catch-up; I am not convinced that the laudable aims in the White Paper are actually deliverable. We need to change the culture in schools. We need to stop the pressures on young people. I am grateful in advance for the contributions from other Members, because I am sure that I have missed many of those issues out of my speech.

It is time for change. I am so proud that my party has managed to take a massive step forward in our conference debates. The issue I had in my early years of teaching was under a Labour Government. That has happened again and has got much worse under a Conservative Government. I am not blaming anyone; we have reinforced bad practice across the political spectrum. It is time that we made it stop. This is our next generation and there is nothing more important than that.

Cost of School Uniforms

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Frank Field]

It is very good giving way, because these are points that I would have made otherwise. I merely underscore the point my hon. Friend has just made about how it may not be a one-off set of costs but an increasing set of costs through the year. Of course, if someone has young lads, who are all too often separated from their uniform and their games kit, the costs mount tremendously.

In preparing for this debate, we had a Feeding Birkenhead meeting a couple of weeks ago, and we talked about this debate. There were 22 mothers in the room who support Feeding Birkenhead. Practically all of them were either grandparents or parents. They all said, “We can actually give you examples,” and all of them have given me examples. There have been examples on Facebook—the House of Commons Facebook for these matters has got a huge number of responses from parents. I said that, during this debate, I would do what Ernest Bevin did when he appeared before the wages committee for dockers, where he laid out how much food the dockers would get from their wages and asked the independent panel if it thought that was adequate. One mother listed the cost of the uniform—I will hold the document up so the camera can see it. I will give it to the Minister afterwards—I do not expect him to read it now, but I jolly well hope it is going into the camera.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I congratulate him on securing this important debate. I, too, have had a number of examples from across my constituency. A school uniform often costs in excess of £120 in Barnsley East. Does he agree—I know he does—that that is totally unacceptable? We need to look at ways to bring down the costs. Perhaps one way to do so is for governing bodies and local authorities to use their power to bulk buy.

[Frank Field]

All these ideas are here for the Minister to pick up and run with, particularly given that he has the Prime Minister’s support on this issue.

Some of the parents who wrote to me from Birkenhead and beyond have bills that are £300-plus for a school uniform, and they also face the devastating cost of games kits. I hold up another document from a mother, listing a games kit. When my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) saw it, she jumped and said, “Look at that—emblems are being put on the items, which adds enormously to the cost.” That parent—a young woman—has a child in school who has to have two different games kit cases to bring the stuff to school.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments. As she hints, we have appointed a strong sponsor for Whitehaven Academy that is already driving forward improvements, backed by substantial funding to improve teaching, resources and the school estate at that school. The overwhelming majority of academies tell a positive story of driving up standards, and the latest published accounts show no regularity exceptions, as they are called, for more than 95% of trusts. The Education and Skills Funding Agency has learned from the experience of the Bright Tribe Trust and other cases, and has made improvements.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

T2. Before the recess, the Minister promised me in a written answer that the Carillion apprentices would be supported to find new placements and continue to be paid in the meantime, but just days after the House rose, hundreds were laid off. What will she now do to honour her commitment and support all these victims of corporate failure?

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)]

The Construction Industry Training Board has worked with all 1,148 apprentices. For 776 of them, the issue has been resolved and they have got training places and employers, for 225 we are still looking to find a match for them, and 147 have failed to respond following repeated attempts to get in touch with them. The Construction Industry Training Board should be congratulated on what it has done. It has used letters, emails and texts—every way possible—to get hold of those 147, and it is to be praised.