Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Debate between Andrew Cooper and Jamie Stone(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Jamie Stone
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. That point was made in the consultation I had before this debate.
To continue, the Bill proposes wellbeing co-ordinators, structured mental health assessments and greater collaboration with community health services to embed wellbeing alongside literacy and numeracy as part of what every school must nurture. These are noble aims. Heaven knows, if a child is struggling mentally, they are not going to learn very much about trigonometry, are they?
We must approach the issues that campaigners have with the Bill. Previous Governments have spent decades giving academies and trusts more and more control, only for this Government to take it away again. Sometimes the best way to support wellbeing is to give schools freedom, not more top-down rules. In some instances, an attempt to standardise pay would mean giving our teachers in academies pay cuts. School groups have emphasised to me that the importance of local decision making cannot be underestimated.
Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)
Perhaps I have misunderstood, but I am sure that the Minister has clarified that the standardised pay across the sector should be a floor, not a ceiling. Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that that is his understanding too?
Jamie Stone
It will be interesting to see what the Minister says on that. Perhaps there is a little bit of misunderstanding on that issue. Let us leave it at that.
Teachers, parents and local authorities often know best what their children need—far more than we in Westminster ever could. They understand their communities and deserve to be trusted and, I believe, properly consulted.
The Bill also reaches into the world of home education, with measures such as a national register of children not in school, requirements for local authority consent to home school in certain cases and powers for councils to intervene if a home environment is deemed unsuitable.