Investing in Children and Young People

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) this afternoon.

Before I go on, I, like everybody else this afternoon, pay tribute to the amazing work done over the past year and a half by teachers, support staff and everybody else involved in delivering education in my constituency of West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine and across the entire country.

It is incredibly interesting that the SNP have chosen not to have any representation in this debate—its Benches are deserted. That could be because today’s Opposition motion deals entirely with investing in young people in England; the SNP may have decided to take a principled stand in not involving themselves in matters that do not affect their constituents—unlike me and my Scottish Conservative colleagues, who care just as much about a child’s welfare in Penrith as we do about that of a child in Perth.

However, that SNP principle is allowed to lapse from time to time, as we have seen on such important issues as foxhunting, in which the SNP does feel it has a role to play in deciding what goes on south of the border. So I do not think it is that. I think that, as when the SNP removed Scotland from international league tables on educational performance, it is terrified of having to defend its shameful record of supporting children and young people in Scotland.

Today’s motion talks about the Government’s plans to support children, investment in targeted support and additional funding in England, and it is usually at this point that a separatist would jump up from the Benches opposite primed with their SNP HQ briefing points—sent, by the wonders of the internet, from Murrell towers in Edinburgh—to opine to the world on how much better things are in Scotland, but not today, and why? Because while this Conservative Government are committing £1.4 billion to education recovery, £1 billion for tutoring courses to help students recover from lost teaching during the past year, £400 million for training and development of teachers, £700 million on a catch-up funding package, raising the pupil premium, eliminating digital exclusion—including £3 million for laptops and tablets for students in need—and extending our holiday food and activities package, the SNP is failing Scotland’s children.

The Scottish National party Government claim to have invested £400 million in catch-up funding and, per pupil, that would appear on the face of it to be more generous than the UK Government, but take a look at how that money is being spent: the vast majority is being spent on increasing ventilation in classrooms. That is very important in getting kids back into the classroom of course, but it does not help the children and young people of Scotland catch up. More than half of children and young people in Scotland had no contact at all from teachers over the first lockdown, a fact not helped by the roll-out of tablets and laptops in Scotland last year being a complete and utter shambles, and I will not even go near the situation regarding exams and assessments.

That is even before we examine the record of the SNP in education before the pandemic hit, with the attainment gap widening, children from less advantaged households in England now more likely to get a place at university than those from similar backgrounds in Scotland, and the trumpeted and ironically named curriculum for excellence leading to a situation where in the poorest parts of Scotland one pupil in five—one in five—leaves school without achieving a single pass at national 5 level, and where across Scotland one in 10 children fails to meet the required standard for national 4 in literacy and numeracy.

So what is the plan in Scotland? What is the SNP’s grand plan—the ambitious project to help children and parents catch up for lost time? It is a £20 million summer of play. Of course, encouraging and providing opportunities to socialise and play and to improve the mental wellbeing of children is vital, and I actually think we should be looking towards the Scandinavian model of education and examining how the model there is based much more on putting the health and wellbeing of children first, but our young people need so much more than the derisory £25 per head that is being pledged by the SNP on this. If the Labour party is criticising us for not investing enough—that is its position today, and that is completely respectable—to help young people get back on track in England, what on earth are we to make of this laughably poor situation in Scotland? Except that it is not laughable, because this is incredibly serious.

Our Government—any Government—have a duty to the next generation to provide them with the skills and education needed for them to get on in the world of work. In this duty—this sacred duty—the SNP has failed and are failing the young people of Scotland. Today’s students in Scotland will pay the price for SNP failure. Scotland will pay the price for SNP failure. I oppose the motion today because this Government are doing the right thing by children and young people in this country. I only wish that our ambition was matched by the Government in Edinburgh.