Department for Education
Al Pinkerton Excerpts(1 week, 4 days ago)
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Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
I welcome the investment for our teachers, school buildings, free school meals and SEND support, but I remain concerned about SEND provision in Somerset. I know from personal experience and from listening to constituents just how much of a difference giving SEND children the support they need can make. Teachers go above and beyond to give children in their classes the education they deserve, but we have a SEND system in crisis. It feels like we have gone backwards from when I was at school, which is, I am sorry to say, thanks to the cuts made under the previous Conservative Government over many years. As in so many other areas of life, parents in Yeovil are often left with a losing draw in a postcode lottery, waiting months to get the support their children deserve.
There are two really effective ways that the Department can invest its budget to improve the outcome for SEND children at school. The backlog for education, health and care plans is too high in Somerset, and it is of course right that Somerset council receives more money to urgently support EHCP provision, but not every SEND child needs an EHCP for support. Instead, we urgently need universal screening for neurodiverse conditions at primary schools. That would be a fantastic way of empowering teachers to identify the individual needs of children in their classes and to adapt their teaching.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
I speak to lots of special educational needs co-ordinators in many schools in and around my constituency, and they always tell me that the earlier the diagnosis, the better, and the more a child can be put on a path towards effective learning. Does my hon. Friend regret, as I do, the loss of Sure Start centres, which were one of the very best ways of identifying those learning conditions as early as possible?
Oral Answers to Questions
Al Pinkerton Excerpts(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
Yes, we continue to keep that under review, especially ahead of the further expansion of childcare in September. The figures will be published in the usual way, and we will make sure that we have the workforce there to deliver on the commitments that have been made. I say to the hon. Lady that in addition to almost doubling the early years pupil premium, we put in place a £75 million expansion grant to make sure that ahead of the further roll-out in September, all our early years settings can deliver the places that are needed.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
In my constituency there are more than 130 active cases involving children with special educational needs, many of which involve education, health and care plans that were either denied or issued in such a poor state that they contained the wrong names and described the wrong conditions, and therefore offered completely inappropriate packages of support. Given that Surrey county council has the highest number of tribunal cases against it every year—most of which are lost—may I ask whether the Secretary of State intends to reduce the rights associated with EHCPs, and whether she will do what so many parents ask me about and launch an immediate investigation into the council and its compliance with its legal obligation?
Bridget Phillipson
The hon. Gentleman has raised a number of important questions. I will certainly look into the issues relating to Surrey that we have discussed previously, and will then come back to him. As for support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, he has made the case for reform very precisely. The current system is simply not working, and the Government are determined to ensure that children get more timely early support and that we have a system that is based much more on need. As part of the process leading to the schools White Paper that will come later in the year, I am engaging with parents, campaigners and others, and I would be more than happy to discuss the matter further with Liberal Democrat colleagues in order to understand their concerns.
Outdoor Education
Al Pinkerton Excerpts(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Tim Farron
Yes to all those things. It is important to recognise that if we give people a sense of excitement of being in the outdoors, we open their imagination to making those sorts of choices in their studies and careers and later in their private life.
I am grateful to the outdoor education professionals who share their expertise with me regularly. They identify the barriers to young people accessing outdoor education, which include the steady erosion of school budgets. Outdoor education is seen as a nice add-on, but not essential, so it gets downgraded or dropped altogether to save money. Schools either do not do outdoor education visits at all or they reduce them from week-long to two-day affairs, with worse outcomes as a consequence.
There is also a culture of risk aversion that infects schools, teacher training institutions and society as a whole. Over the last couple of generations, we have sought to protect our children from danger and the unpredictable to such an extent that we have perhaps done them greater harm by denying them experiences that would have given them resilience, wisdom and better mental and physical health.
Over my years as the Member of Parliament for Westmorland and Lonsdale, I have seen trends in the issues that local people seek my help with at my surgeries, on the doorsteps and via my inbox. The issue that has grown most in volume is the utter tragedy of worsening mental health among our young people. I will continue to fight for every one of those young people and for their loving but often terrified families to get the care they need through mental health services, but why can we not choose to do something radical today that will reduce the number of people suffering mental ill health in the first place?
The outdoors is the antidote to many of our ills. Time on outdoor residentials pulls us out of our comfort zone. It makes us rely on others and experience the scary wonder of being relied upon by others. It teaches us that we can do things we thought were impossible. It nurtures an ability to solve problems and to rise above the panic that freezes us when crises hit. It builds relationships and the capacity to form friendships, skills that are transferable and, above all, the resilience to help us cope with the stuff that life will chuck at us.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
My hon. Friend’s rich evocation of outdoor education reminds me to reflect on my own time doing things like the Duke of Edinburgh’s award. Although Surrey Heath might not have the soaring topographies of his constituency, what we do have is extraordinary outdoor education provision such as Briars Field forest school, which provides vital outdoor education, particularly for young children with special educational needs who otherwise could not access mainstream classrooms. Will my hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to those offerings that provide a genuine alternative to the classroom and profoundly change young people’s mental health?
Tim Farron
Absolutely. That builds on what I am saying. When it comes to poor mental health, it feels like we are figuratively fishing struggling people out of water, when perhaps what we really need to do is build their resilience so that they do not fall in in the first place. Ironically, of course, we do that in part by pushing people into the water—after an entirely appropriate risk assessment, of course.
Education and policy of successive Governments has failed to prioritise outdoor education to the extent that it has become for many a nice luxury at best, rather than the essential that it ought to be.
Universities: Funding and Employment
Al Pinkerton Excerpts(3 months ago)
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Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. There is a real mismatch between the Chancellor’s growth agenda and the policies impacting the higher education funding landscape that we inherited. As has been highlighted, every £1 of public investment into university research generates £14 in economic output—but scale up, add in the direct, indirect and productivity overspill, and we are talking about £15.2 billion returned to the Exchequer from a £2.49 billion investment. The N8 Research Partnership universities have an economic impact greater than the whole of the premier league. We know that this is of significant value, and we must honour that. If £1 billion is deducted from UK Research and Innovation investment, we are talking a 42% fall in that return. That is poor for the economy and the UK industry, and catastrophic for universities and students—22,000 jobs could be lost. That must not happen.
We also must be aware that the demands of UK industrial ambition far exceed the supply of graduates that we are currently producing. We are all alerted to the falling roll that will hit higher education by 2030—another 11 million graduates will need to be found to fuel our economy into the future—yet last year we saw 5,000 jobs cut in the academic year. This is a real challenge. If we are going to realise the knowledge and scientific, innovative and technical opportunity that this country presents to the world, we must have a global outlook on the investment we must make into higher education.
There have been many factors impacting universities, many of which we have heard. On international students, I urge the Minister to make representation to the Home Office to ensure that dependants can accompany academics and students as they come to this country, and that we look again at visa costs and NHS surcharges. That will enable people to come our country to put in to it and bring benefits—including the economic benefit that we know has been deeply damaged with the change in visa rules.
We also must address our relationship with the EU, which we got so much out of. We must address a deeper relationship with Horizon, look at Erasmus again, and ensure that we are getting the very best academics, researchers, staff and students from across the EU. We must also give our students the opportunity to travel overseas and make it more attractive to engage in higher education.
The pain has been felt in York. There are two universities in my constituency: York St John University has removed 70 vacant posts and deleted 30 posts, while the University of York has already seen 273 leave. I know from talking to the unions just last week that the pressure is there once again. It is having a real impact on staff and academics as well as students. We know about the mental health challenges and the stress that people are experiencing, and those workloads are going up.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
As an academic in recovery, currently working as a visiting professor at Royal Holloway, University of London on Monday mornings before Parliament sits, what the hon. Lady is saying resonates with me very powerfully. Today, Royal Holloway announced a voluntary severance scheme. I remember that moment in 2016, after the Brexit referendum, when our international student numbers fell off a cliff. Britain cannot claim to be a genuine world leader in many things, but in our university sector we absolutely can. We have the second largest number of Nobel prizes of any country. Does the hon. Lady agree that, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell, we won’t know what we’ve lost until it’s gone?
Rachael Maskell
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and thank him for participating in this debate and bringing his experience. The referendum was nine years ago, and the country was in a very different place then. We must address that, but also look at opportunities to put funding into the sector.
It is clear that the funding model is broken. We know that students cannot continue to pay higher tuition fees, and nor should they. The funding model needs to shift. I support a progressive taxation system, because whether someone earns more money because they are a graduate or through other means, I believe the more they earn, the more they should put into the system. In York, where the cost of living is exceedingly high, students are breaking. They are working more hours than they are studying, and as a result some are not even able to complete their course. That is not the kind of education system that we want, so we must revisit the funding model. Tweaking around the edges is not enough. We are missing opportunities for the economic future of our country. In York, there are the bioeconomy, digital and advanced rail opportunities, safer automation and the digital creative sector. They need these graduates and academics, and we need our universities to remain.
Education, Health and Care Plans
Al Pinkerton Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) for securing the debate. Parents in my constituency of Surrey Heath will know all too well the failures of Surrey county council to deliver an effective SEND system. In 2023, only 16.2% of EHCPs were issued in the statutory 22-week period. Even though Surrey county council now celebrates a frankly miraculous rise to 70% issuance of EHCPs in the statutory 22 weeks in the latter half of 2024, parents tell me that those EHCPs are coming back with the wrong name or date of birth, describing the wrong conditions and offering inappropriate packages of support. It is, of course, parents, families and children who suffer the consequences of that.
My constituents tell me that some of their children have attempted to take their own lives. Other parents have had to leave full-time employment in order to become permanent carers for their children, which is bad for them, their family, their family finances and the economy. Timeliness and quality are not mutually exclusive, and they are essential components of good EHCPs. Our children deserve better, as do the families, the educators and the professionals who are becoming permanent advocates on their behalf.
Oral Answers to Questions
Al Pinkerton Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
The Government’s ambition is that all children with special educational needs receive the right support to succeed, where possible in mainstream schools. We will strengthen accountability and improve inclusivity through Ofsted, and we will support professionals to develop their SEND expertise. High needs funding will increase by almost £1 billion in the next spending year.
Dr Pinkerton
Across Surrey last year, more than 1,800 children with special educational needs were absent from school for more than a third of the time. Special educational needs co-ordinators are incredibly frustrated that EHCPs are coming back from our local council with the wrong names, describing the wrong conditions and offering the wrong packages of care. Teachers are stretched, headteachers cannot stretch their budgets any further, and one or both parents are having to give up employment to look after their children, yet the leadership of Surrey county council has said that there is not a problem with special educational needs, but that there are parents who are too articulate. Would the Minister please meet me and SENCOs to discuss this very serious—
Mr Speaker
Order. Can I just say to the hon. Gentleman that it is much easier if he gets to the question, instead of having all the preamble? I cannot get other people in. I think the question was clear.