Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Mike Kane(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
I thank the many His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service staff who continue to work hard over the Christmas period to deliver justice and keep us safe. Since the last Justice questions, the Victims and Prisoners Bill has passed its Third Reading in this House. It will enshrine the overarching principles of the victims code in law. It will establish a permanent independent public advocate for victims of major incidents, and it will enable a second check on Parole Board decisions in the interests of public safety. The Sentencing Bill, which is cracking down on the worst offenders by extending whole-life orders for any murder involving sexual or sadistic conduct, also passed its Second Reading, as did the Criminal Justice Bill, which will ensure, among other things, that criminals face up to the consequences of their appalling actions by requiring them to attend their sentencing hearings.
Finally, in December, I took part in a park run at HMP Onley alongside prison staff and serving prisoners. Congratulations to all who took part, except perhaps my private secretary, who had the audacity to beat me.
Mike Kane
The Minister mentions sexual offences, but it frustrates me beyond belief that my constituents have to wait on average 839 days for their cases to be heard. Is the distress caused taken into account, or is the system too broken?
Alex Chalk
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise the issue of victims of serious sexual offences. We take that incredibly seriously, and that is why we have introduced measures such as section 28, which enables evidence to be taken and recorded in advance. We have increased the fees for barristers to make that more straightforward. We have also increased the number of independent sexual violence advisers, who accompany, as it were, those victims on that journey. That is very important to prevent dropout rates. This is an important point: the sentencing levels are much higher—up by 30% compared with 2010.
Department for Education
Debate between Alex Chalk and Mike Kane(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Mike Kane
It is true that it does rain occasionally in the Peak district.
We have had a good debate. May I congratulate right hon. and hon. Members from across the House on their contributions, and obviously the Chair of the Education Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), on his articulate opening? I also congratulate him on how well he chairs that Select Committee.
When I last spoke in this Chamber about education cuts, I was positively surprised about how many Members from the Conservative party were in open dissent, and it has been no different really tonight.
I will pick out a few contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) said that education was the greatest gift that we could pass from one generation to the next. That is true, but we have heard the bleak reality today. The Chair of the Education Committee said that funding was “bleak”—several Members used that adjective—and that there is little long-term thinking about education and its budgets compared with the Department of Health and Social Care.
The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) talked about the double whammy that some coastal towns suffer in terms of education standards and attracting the calibre of people needed to our education establishments. He said that the tank was now empty. That was the best metaphor of the evening. He went on to say that there was a crisis in children’s social care on this Government’s watch.
The debate reinforces the unity in this legislature that things must change. Members who criticised the Government on education funding did so bravely and well. As they vie for the leadership of their party and the country, the right hon. Members for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) and for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt) have pledged new funding for education. Whether they fulfil their promise—I suspect that they will not—the pledge is an implicit criticism of their Government’s neglect of education.
The hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) spoke well. He spoke for many of us when he said that his constituency surgeries were often rammed with parents who are desperate to get SEND provision for their children. Many Members will recognise that situation.
The hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) spoke passionately about the schools in her constituency. She mentioned the good work that the Long Eaton School is doing, despite suffering a £385,000 cut since 2015.
The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) spoke well and passionately about the schools on his patch, but Gloucestershire has suffered a £41.7 million cut to its funding since 2015.
Alex Chalk
The hon. Gentleman will know that one of the issues that Gloucestershire has had to face is inheriting an unfair funding formula. Will he take his share of the responsibility for bequeathing to the Government a funding formula that disadvantaged rural authorities in favour of urban authorities?
Mike Kane
I remind the hon. Gentleman that, as a representative of the Trafford authority, I, too, am from one of the f40 authorities, so I know what underfunding looks like. We know that the fair funding formula is making no difference because it does not level up all schools as required.
We also know about the frustration in the Department. After all, the Secretary of State said that he had heard the concerns about education funding “loud and clear”. Last year, it was reported that he was trying to squeeze more money out of the Treasury. He also told us that every school would see
“at least a small cash increase”—[Official Report, 29 January 2018; Vol. 635, c. 536.]
However, we have seen nothing substantial—nothing that will wind back the years of austerity that No. 11 has waged against Sure Start centres, schools, colleges and universities and all those who work in them.
Instead, all the Chancellor offered in the last Budget was “a few little extras”. It is worth unpacking what he meant by that. When he was pressed, he said it could be for “a couple of whiteboards, or some laptop computers, or something”. It is no wonder that the Secretary of State was said to have cringed. That is another example of how isolated the Chancellor is from everyday reality. That “little extra” does not match the £3.5 billion that the Government took out of capital expenditure in the last Budget. It will not address the link between poverty and special needs, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) articulated brilliantly.
The Opposition know that the massive cut, along with the impact of the public sector pay freeze, has engendered an unprecedented crisis in teacher recruitment and retention. New teachers are less likely to stay in our schools now than at any time in the past 20 years. This week alone, the statistics are getting worse. That is happening at a time when there are some 45,000 more pupils in supersized classrooms, according to the Department’s figures, which were released last week. Schools have more pupils, but fewer teachers, fewer teaching assistants and fewer support and auxiliary staff. The latest OECD international survey ratings confirmed that England has the eighth biggest problem in the world for secondary school teacher shortages and the third highest level shortages in Europe.
At the advent of a new Tory Prime Minister, it is perhaps of little worth inquiring whether we will see the money the Secretary of State said he was trying to squeeze out of the Treasury. I wonder if the Secretary of State has made representations to the leadership candidates. The right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) said that there would be a pay rise for public sector staff, but that seemed to be rolled back almost immediately the other day. Again, I suspect that that promise will not be fulfilled, but I hope the Secretary of State has informed both candidates of what teachers and pupils are going through. In fact, can the Minister even tell us if the School Teachers’ Review Body will publish its annual report before the summer recess, or will a new Prime Minister just kick that down the road?
The recent report by the UN special rapporteur found that children are showing up at school with empty stomachs, and that schools are collecting food and sending it home because teachers know that students will otherwise go hungry. The rapporteur also found that teachers are not equipped to ensure that students have clean clothes and food to eat, especially as teachers may be relying on food banks themselves. It is worth noting that the Chancellor rejected the report, dismissing it as nonsense. It is no wonder that the Secretary of State has not been able to get anything out of him.
The early years are the most important in anyone’s life. We have had some excellent contributions. My colleague in Trafford, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), said that schools are picking up the pieces of the wider austerity agenda, particularly when it comes to mental health. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) in a passionate speech said that this generation of children are the austerity generation—a shameful reality, she said. The hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) spoke with passion about campaigning for the maintained nursery in his school, but his authority, Dudley, has suffered £27 million cuts since 2015. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak said that 10% of nursery provision has been closed in the past two years.
My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State has spoken about her local Sure Start and how it changed her life. She speaks for many. The policy area is equally important, and yet since 2010 over 1,000 Sure Start centres have closed. We cannot quantify how many people will have missed out because of that and it is a false economy. The latest Institute for Fiscal Studies report showed that Sure Start saved the NHS millions by reducing the hospitalisation of children, a point made by a number of hon. Members across the House. Is the Minister aware that right now there are 1,500 children with special educational needs and disabilities without a school place? What is his Department doing to help them?
There is one area that has suffered the deepest cuts and there is no reason to believe that a new Prime Minister will reverse the damage. Further and adult education has suffered funding cuts every year since the Conservative party came into office. The cuts stand at £3 billion. The Chair of the Education Committee said that FE has suffered twice the amount of cuts of other sectors. If the candidates to be Prime Minister want to make a real difference, they should look at ending devastating cuts to further education. In higher education, we have seen students loaded with more and more debt just for seeking an education, but it is adult and part-time learners who have lost out the most. The Sutton Trust found that the number of adult learners fell by more than half since 2015. Will the Minister admit at long last that his Government’s policies have driven part-time learners out of education? Do we expect a future Tory Prime Minister to implement the recommendations of the Augar review?
Lastly, I would like to repeat the point many Members have made today and finish by paying tribute to all the educators in our country. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) summed it up brilliantly. As my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak said, governors have had to make intolerable decisions. I wish to praise them as well. They do a fantastic and vital job to educate the next generation and to feed our economy with the skills we require. For the last nine years, however, they have suffered a heavy burden as the Government have needlessly made their lives harder.
Special Educational Needs
Debate between Alex Chalk and Mike Kane(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
I am really disappointed by the hon. Gentleman’s speech, because normally he makes such helpful contributions and this one is not that. The fact is that we now spend, as a nation, £50 billion a year on debt interest, which is more than the £43 billion schools budget, and that is in no small part because of the historic failings of the Labour Government.
School Funding
Debate between Alex Chalk and Mike Kane(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
For the first time in a generation, schools will face spending cuts to their budgets—[Interruption.] Right out of the gate, the Secretary of State is chuntering. In her authority area, that equates to a 15% cut, with £13 million coming out of her schools’ budgets by 2020. I look forward to campaigning in her constituency on this issue.
The Department expects schools to find £3 billion of savings in this Parliament to counteract cumulative cost pressures, including pay rises, the introduction of the national living wage, higher employer national insurance contributions, contributions to the teachers’ pension scheme and the apprenticeship levy, as the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) and Labour Members said. The hon. Gentleman is happy with the national funding formula, but I have to point out that his schools will receive an overall cut of 12% in this Parliament. We are talking about an 8% real-terms reduction in funding per pupil in this Parliament.
The Department regularly compiles a list of future policy changes that will affect schools, but it has no plans to assess the financial implications for schools of these changes. We have no assurances that the policy is affordable within current spending plans without adversely affecting educational outcomes. The Government are leaving schools and multi-academy trusts to manage the consequences individually. The Department has clearly not communicated to schools the scale and pace of the savings that will be needed to meet the expected cost pressures.
The proportion of maintained secondary schools spending more than their income increased last year from 33% to 59%—[Interruption.] No matter what the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) says, this Government have racked up a £1.7 trillion debt on their watch and now want to pass on part of that debt to our school system. The Department expects much of the savings to come from procurement and the introduction of shared services. Changing procurement and shared services requires strong leadership, clear plans for achieving savings, effective risk management and support from stakeholders. That leadership is clearly lacking among the Government Members. The Minister himself has said that he is confident that pages of guidance on the Department’s website will provide enough support for schools—it will not.
Mike Kane
I have literally seconds left.
As the National Audit Office has suggested, school leaders who do not have support are likely to make decisions that make the teacher retention crisis worse. The NAO went on to say that the Government’s current
“approach to managing the risks to schools’ financial sustainability cannot be judged to be effective or providing value for money”.
It is important to recognise the impact that the required efficiency savings will have on staff. We expect already unsustainable workload pressures to increase as staff efficiencies eventually start to bite. Moreover, the size of the savings that schools will have to find will lead to worse educational outcomes, and the biggest impact will be felt by those in the most deprived areas and those with special needs.
We know that staff costs represent any school’s largest expenditure—74% of schools’ budgets are spent on staff—so it is not hard to see that to save money over the next few years, schools will inevitably end up cutting back on staff. That will have a knock-on effect on workload, morale, class sizes and the breadth of the curriculum that schools can offer. All this is happening at a time when we are expecting a 3% increase in the number of children entering school.
A bad situation is compounded by the national funding formula. Some Conservative Members, who really missed the point, had been expecting “jam tomorrow” from the formula, which was a manifesto commitment, but now they are waking up to the reality that the schools in their constituency will not benefit from its introduction. Hardly any area is left unscathed. In their excellent speeches, the hon. Members for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) and for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) said that the funding formula was not the point; the point was the cuts and pressures faced by schools.
I ask the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire to speak to her hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), who completely missed the point. The House will have been astonished by the slap in the face for northern teachers, who are apparently not ambitious enough for their pupils, and that is from a Government who introduced the Weller report on raising standards.