Childcare Entitlements

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston]

My hon. Friend is right. Our key focus is on ensuring that places and staff are available in every area of the country, as we have shown in April with 200,000 benefiting from the new entitlement. We are pulling every lever, in time for the roll-out next September and the September after, to up recruitment, up rates, encourage more people into the sector and help expansion to ensure that provision is there.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I will start on a consensual point: it is not a bad thing that the Government want to extend early years childcare provision. We all want to see that and we want it to work. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), the Minister said, however, that not a single local authority is telling him that there are not sufficient places, yet Coram says that 35% of local authorities—a decrease of 29% since last year—reported that there was sufficient childcare for children under two. Both statements cannot be correct, so why does Coram think that in some local authorities there are insufficient places?

[David Johnston]

I have seen those figures. Many of these surveys are based on a measure of confidence taken at some point before the roll-out; all I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that we worked with those local authorities all the way up to that roll-out, to ensure that they had those places. Sometimes, when people say they are not confident, they turn out to be able to provide all those places. My point to the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), and now to the hon. Gentleman, is that since the expansion for April, no local authority is reporting that it does not have sufficient places. We will now work with them on the next stage of that expansion for September—the first 15 hours for nine-month-olds and upwards—to ensure that that is the case again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education works closely with employers to ensure that all essential skills, including English, maths and digital, are embedded into apprenticeship standards, and it will continue to do so. We are also increasing funding by 50% to help more apprentices achieve up to a level 2 English or maths qualification alongside their apprenticeship if they do not already hold one, to help them get on in work and in life.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

As someone who started his working life with on-the-job training at International Computers Limited—a company that is now part of Fujitsu, but we will not mention that name in this House—I very much support apprenticeships, particularly at the higher and advanced level that is required for occupations in information technology. What is the Secretary of State doing to address the worrying fall in the number of apprenticeship starts, particularly to get kids into higher and advanced level apprenticeships?

[Gillian Keegan]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be delighted to learn that apprenticeship starts are up by 3% so far this year. That is because they are backed by record investment of £2.7 billion. Never before has a Government invested so much into high-quality apprenticeships and achieved so much in spreading opportunity across the country.

Kinship Care Strategy

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Alistair Strathern) on his eloquent opening speech and I thank him for his support on this important issue. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, because I myself am a kinship carer. My wife Allison and I have the utter privilege of being the special guardians to our wonderful five-year-old grandson Lyle. Like many who find themselves as kinship carers, it was unexpected and unplanned; basically, the social services stork left a baby on our doorstep. Of course, around all the arguments that we could have about the structures and the legalities, the one thing that comes to the fore at a moment like that is love. Every kinship carer does it for love and only for love.

However, I have to say that special guardianship orders are far from a perfect device: you are often left to defend yourself in a legal maze, and if you are taken back to court for any reason, you are literally on your own. Had I known then what I know now, I would much sooner have remained as a temporary foster carer of my grandson, because at least then I would share legal responsibility—parental responsibility—with the local authority. Therefore, if I was taken back to court on a spurious argument, I would have the backing of the local authority rather than having to rely on myself. That is the predicament that far too many people find themselves in, so I would like special guardianship orders to be strengthened.

In addition, I want to get rid of the postcode lottery that, sadly, we now see in kinship services across the land. Some local authorities provide superb support for kinship carers, but some do not, and it cannot be right that where someone lives determines what support they can access. In theory, my wife and I can access support from the post-adoption fund. In practice, that is incredibly difficult because the social services computer says no. The last thing that I want to mention is parental leave, where I believe that, if the Government act, they can make a big difference. That is not just a matter for employers; it is a matter for this place, because when I effectively became a dad again five years ago, the House of Commons did not recognise that kinship parental leave was necessary.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman, the Opposition spokesman, knows that visa matters are for the Home Office. The Migration Advisory Committee is looking at the postgraduate international student visa route and will come to its conclusions. However, as I keep saying to him, our target was for over 600,000 international students a year, and we have well surpassed that.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

3. What steps she is taking to tackle persistent pupil absence in schools.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

18. What steps she is taking to tackle persistent pupil absence in schools.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

Tackling persistent absence is my top priority, as indeed it was last year. I pay tribute to our incredible teachers and heads who have gone above and beyond to get children back to school. We are more than doubling the number of attendance hubs to support 2,000 schools, we are investing £15 million to expand one-to-one mentoring to help 10,000 children and we will be requiring all schools to share data to support earlier intervention. Our plan is starting to work, with 380,000 fewer children persistently absent or not attending last year, and numbers continue to fall.

[Andrew Gwynne]

But by 2026, 2,435 children in Manchester, 907 in Tameside and 937 in Stockport are set to miss half their time at school if current trends continue. Labour has a plan to fix this crisis, backed by Sir Kevan Collins, the Government’s own former education recovery commissioner. If this is the Secretary of State’s top priority, why is her plan not working?

[Gillian Keegan]

It is working. It is not going to stick on the trajectory, because we have already turned around the trajectory. Since the pandemic, it is already falling in England. There is no better example of the Labour party having no plan and just sniping from the sidelines than on the question of attendance. I suggest that Labour Members look at other countries around the world because this is a global phenomenon. We have daily data that is almost unique, which is why we are now reducing the figures. If we look at Wales—Labour-run Wales—we see that attendance in school is much worse, at nearly eight days lower per pupil.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I will.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Children’s services are struggling, and in too many parts of England, outcomes for children are just not good enough. What conversations has the children’s Minister had with those in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about both resources and capacity for children’s services? What measures will he take where councils underperform, and thus let children down?

[David Johnston]

We have very regular conversations with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on that issue, as part of our “Stable homes, built on love” reforms to transform the children’s social care system, and we take strict action where local authorities are not meeting the requirements.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is a champion for special needs pupils, and he is absolutely right. We need to ensure that special needs pupils have employment opportunities, along with everybody else. We are investing over £18 million over the next three years in supported internship schemes for high special needs 16-to-19 pupils. We have a mentor scheme for disabled apprentices, the Careers & Enterprise Company has put in SEND support to ensure high-quality careers guidance and training, and 82% of SEND schools are now part of careers hubs.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

As supportive as I am of this scheme, I do not think that up to six sessions really cuts it. Will the Minister consider a scheme similar to Aimhigher, which was introduced by the previous Labour Government to encourage young people into higher education and down the vocational route? This would give young people mentors who have been through apprenticeship schemes and really get them hooked on the opportunities that vocational education can bring.

[Robert Halfon]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question. My first speech in the House of Commons was about that very subject. The six encounters that I mentioned are the minimum. Obviously, many schools do more. Only last week, I attended Oasis school in Bristol, and watched students being encouraged to take up apprenticeships and to hold an apprenticeship careers fair. We are doing huge amounts. I mentioned the apprenticeship skills and knowledge network, which is going around schools and encouraging pupils to take up apprenticeships. That involves more than 2,000 schools and 680,000 pupils. We need to do as much as possible to educate students about apprenticeships and to ensure that they have the encounters that he rightly talks about.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Johnston]

The Metropolitan Borough of Bury is getting significant support. In addition to the funding increases, we have appointed a SEND adviser to work with the borough to improve services. The Council for Disabled Children is supporting it to strengthen EHCPs. Two special free schools have been approved, and Bury is also one of 34 areas in our safety valve programme.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

T8. In recent weeks, we have seen reported instances of antisemitism rise by 1,300% and Islamophobia by 150%, with Jewish kids afraid to go to school and Muslim kids asked, “Whose side are you on?” What are the Government doing to ensure that children are taught sensitively but robustly about the wrongs of such intolerance, and does Ofsted have a role in ensuring consistency of approach in all schools?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Member is absolutely right: antisemitism has no place in education. It was an honour to join the Secretary of State’s visit to Menorah High School last week, together with the whole ministerial team, standing in solidarity with that school and with the Jewish community. We have written to all schools and colleges urging a swift response to hate-related incidents and active reassurance for their students and staff, and we continue to work with faith leaders, schools and Ofsted to monitor the response to those concerns.

Core School Budget Allocations

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The actual allocations to schools happen in December each year in the normal way, so this situation will not affect the figures that local authorities have informed schools they will be receiving. Those are based on the October census of pupil numbers and the application of the local formula. We then fund the local authorities on the basis of the national funding. The record funding of £59.6 billion equates to an average of £5,300 per primary school pupil and £6,830 per secondary school pupil.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The Minister’s argument in a nutshell is, “You didn’t have the money, so you’ve not lost it.” But the point is that local authorities received the notional funding allocation and were beginning to plan based on that figure given by the Government. In places such as Stockport, Tameside and Manchester, the figures that are going to be withdrawn from those areas are not insubstantial. I politely say to the Minister that his argument is incoherent—I will grade him D-minus. And his maths is appalling—I will grade him U. Can I suggest he goes into detention and fixes this matter, because schools in Tameside, Stockport and Manchester desperately need that cash?

[Nick Gibb]

The funding allocated for local authorities is ringfenced. This is an allocation and calculation issue—it is not that they have received the money—and we corrected it as soon as the error was made. Any Labour Members in the same position would have reacted in precisely the same way that I have.

Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

My right hon. Friend raises one of the challenges that we face. In the case of Hockley, soft ground has meant that we have to put footings in place before we can put in the temporary accommodation. Each site is different to some degree. That was one reason we were taking time to ensure mitigations could be put in by school. It is difficult because each school could have specific circumstances. I am afraid that the list and the information will evolve over time as we get more and more details, and the caseworkers will keep us up to date on that.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Today the Secretary of State has proved the value of having media studies on the curriculum.

On the serious point, I have been notified by both my local education authorities, Tameside and Stockport, that no schools under their control are affected. What they cannot tell me is whether any of the voluntary-aided, academies or free schools within their areas are affected. I would like to know how soon we will get those assurances. On Russell Scott Primary School in the Denton part of my constituency, which we have battled to get successfully added to the Government’s school rebuilding programme—it has its own issues, not associated with RAAC—can the Secretary of State assure me and the headteacher that it will not be bumped down the programme to patch up this mess?

[Gillian Keegan]

If the hon. Gentleman has schools impacted in his area—multi-academy trusts—they will have heard directly from us and he should have a “Dear colleague” letter with the details. Then he can contact the helpline to get more information, if he wants to. I thank him for his kind comments about media studies; I think it proves that that is not what I did before I became a politician. In terms of Building Schools for the Future, it will be based on condition and need, but of course we will work with him and his school and tell him its condition and need and whether it is prioritised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

That sounds like too good an invitation to miss. I thank my hon. Friend for being such a champion for skills development in Rochford and Southend East. I know that many local employers, including Essex & Suffolk Water, Rose Builders, Ground Control, DP World London Gateway, Adventure Island and Constellation Marketing, are working with the Essex chambers of commerce and South Essex College to steer the LSIP. Many businesses up and down the country will benefit from our £165 million local skills improvement fund that providers, including South Essex College, will apply for. I look forward to receiving the proposal for the Essex, Southend and Thurrock area.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The reality is that almost 4 million fewer adults have taken part in learning since 2010, there are 200,000 fewer apprenticeship starts over the last decade, and part-time undergraduate student numbers have fallen by 50%. What is the Secretary of State doing to reverse the decade of decline in skills and training opportunities that is making Britain poorer?

[Gillian Keegan]

What I am doing is ensuring that the quality is better. It is very easy to chase numbers and targets. The Labour Government did that a lot—some of the things in which they used to invest for skills were not of any value at all, either to the individual or to a single business in this country. We are ensuring that we work closely with employers. We have worked with them to design the T-levels qualification. We have worked with 5,000 of them to build the apprenticeship standards. We have had 5.4 million apprenticeship starts since 2010, and all of them are of a high quality that will give people the skills they need to get the jobs they want.

Safety of School Buildings

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman almost answered his own question, because I understand that the school he referred to was successful in the school rebuilding programme. It is difficult to respond to hon. Members’ questions and concerns when they highlight the fact that schools are rebuilt and that where there are serious problems with them, capital funding is available under a range of funds that schools bid into.

To qualify for the school rebuilding programme, schools such as the one the hon. Gentleman mentioned were assessed on their condition. Nominations for inclusion in the programme could involve including evidence of buildings in exceptionally poor condition or of potential safety issues. The bids were robustly evaluated by specialists and in the latest round all nominated schools with verified structural issues that met the programme’s criteria were included in the programme.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that I have raised the issue of Russell Scott Primary School in Denton on multiple occasions. He lays great weight on the survey that the DFE does, but in 2018 that school passed that survey with flying colours, even though the headteacher knew that it should not have done. It is now in the Government’s rebuilding programme because it is falling down. Will he look again at the survey data and the quality of that collection to make sure that such schools do not fall through the net?

[Nick Gibb]

Yes. That is another intervention criticising us for another success, where a school is being rebuilt. We do keep updating these surveys, which is why we had the initial survey and then the condition data collection, CDC1, which is what this debate is about. We have already commenced CDC2, which will report by 2026, I believe. This is about making sure that we keep that information up to date and relevant to all the schools.

Last December, I had the chance to visit Guiseley School in Yorkshire, where I saw for myself the transformative effect that the new, modern buildings being provided will make to the entire school community. That was under the school rebuilding programme. Littleborough Primary School in Rochdale celebrated the handover of its new buildings in March, the first school to do so under the programme. I am pleased to say that a further three schools—Whitworth Community High School, Lytham St Annes High School and Tarleton Academy—are also now using their new buildings, which were refurbished or rebuilt under the school rebuilding programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Russell Scott Primary School in Denton, Tameside has around 460 students. It opened in 1882 and moved to its current building in 1981. For full transparency, I attended both buildings between 1978 and 1983. Sadly, the school has been described by the national media as:

“Britain’s worst built school where pupils paddle in sewage and get sick from toxic fumes”.

This follows a large-scale refurbishment by Carillion in 2015.

Following concerns about the quality of the building work, an independent defect report commissioned by Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council was completed in August 2017 and found the building to have severe structural issues. The remedial obligation fell to Carillion, which subsequently went bust.

If the Minister agrees, I would like to meet him to talk about the Tameside local education partnership. I have concerns about the LEP, not least its involvement in the Russell Scott issue with Carillion. Also, a £12 million special school is now being built, and it is £10 million over budget. And the governors of Aldwyn Primary School in my constituency have severe concerns about the work carried out by the LEP.

Russell Scott Primary School has significant structural damage: the roof is basically held up by thin air, the foundations are shot to pieces, the drainage is inadequate, sewage floods into classrooms and the fire doors and windows do not meet any modern safety standards. The defects are so structurally embedded that it would be cheaper to rebuild the school.

I have met Education Ministers on several occasions in recent years, most recently Baroness Barran in June, and they have all been very sympathetic and very helpful. When the Government published their 2022-23 school rebuilding programme, Russell Scott was not included. However, it was included in the 2023-24 school rebuilding programme, in a major victory for the staff who had been calling for action for nearly eight years. However, since that announcement there has been little movement on rebuilding the school. In a response to my written question in April, the Minister said that the school rebuilding programme

“will start delivery at a rate of approximately 50 per year, over a five-year period.”

That is fine, but it does not tell me when Russell Scott school will be rebuilt. The delays to the start of the building work are concerning, particularly given that the DFE’s own surveyors assigned the build to their urgent projects team as they have also seen that there are inherent faults at the school.

I understand that when I intervened the Minister did not have this background information to hand, and it was almost as though we should be grateful to be on the list. I am delighted that we are in the programme, do not get me wrong, but I want an actual school, not a piece of paper. For now, a start date will suffice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

My right hon. Friend the Schools Minister has already made it clear that that information will be published by the summer.

I have tried to answer as many points as possible, and I want to re-emphasise that there are no open areas within school or college buildings where we know of an imminent risk to the safety of pupils and staff. If the Department is made aware of buildings that pose such a risk, immediate action is taken.

Since 2015, as I mentioned a moment ago, over £15 billion—no mean sum—has been spent to improve the condition of school buildings, including the £1.8 billion committed this year, and that spending is informed by consistent data on the condition of schools. As part of that, only yesterday we announced over £450 million in capital funding through the condition improvement fund. This will support over 1,000 projects to improve buildings at academies and other schools, including 23 projects at 16-to-19 academies and sixth-form colleges. That comes on top of the school rebuilding programme, which is meeting our commitment to transform buildings in poor condition at 500 schools and sixth-form colleges, and its predecessor, the priority school building programme.

In my area of skills, we are also investing over £2.8 billion of capital in skills to improve the FE estate, to develop new places in post-16 education, to provide specialist equipment and facilities for T-levels, and to deliver 20 institutes of technology across England. We are meeting our manifesto commitment by investing over £1.5 billion in upgrading and transforming the FE college estate through the FE capital transformation programme. All colleges have had funding through the programme, but we have directed funding towards addressing the worst conditions in the estate.

The Department is working with 16 colleges with some of the worst condition sites in the country to design and deliver their capital projects, and some 77 further projects are being pursued by colleges themselves with grant funding from the programme. I was pleased to announce at the end of March that a further £286 million would be allocated to 181 colleges with remaining poor conditions. Colleges are currently developing their plans for how to most effectively use this funding over the next two years to address condition improvement of their estate. Of course, that comes on top of additional allocations of capital funding provided to colleges in December—£53 million to support capital projects, particularly energy support measures—and £150 million provided in April to support funding gaps resulting from reclassification of the sector.

As mentioned earlier, we take RAAC particularly seriously and are committed to working with the sector to address any safety risk it poses. We are working proactively with responsible bodies to help with identification and management of RAAC across the school estate and have asked them to inform us of any schools and colleges that may have it. We individually follow up every report of a school that has RAAC, sending a technical adviser to verify its presence and assess its condition. If RAAC is confirmed, we then ensure appropriate and rapid action is taken to address any immediate risk, based on professional advice. More broadly, any academy trust or local authority with a serious issue with its buildings that it cannot address from its existing resources can come to the Department. We will work with those schools to find a solution and provide additional support as needed.

As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Schools outlined earlier, we commissioned the condition data collection to provide us with robust evidence for distributing capital funding fairly to where it is most needed. We have shared a report with detailed data on each school with every single school during the programme, as well as with the academy trusts, dioceses and local authorities responsible for those schools. We published the overall findings of the condition data collection two years ago, and we plan to publish more detailed data at school level as soon as possible. Its successor programme, CDC2, is now under way and will complete by 2026. Where our surveyors see issues that cause them concern, they inform the school and the Department. My right hon. Friend and I take these issues extremely seriously. We are monitoring developments and progress constantly.

[Andrew Gwynne]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, is it in order for Members in the No Lobby to be so noisy and disrespectful to the debate in this Chamber?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I must be going deaf; I did not hear them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank my hon. Friend, who has raised this issue consistently on behalf of her constituents. It is important that we see an improvement in children’s services in Devon, and I recently met the council leader and the chief executive to stress how important that is to us. Nothing is off the table, and I reassure my hon. Friend that the safety valve case remains open and still under discussion.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I represent a cross-borough constituency, so unfortunately I have to see two of everything, deal with two of everything, and experience two of everything. The differences between the children’s services of my two local authorities could not be more stark. I appreciate that the Minister has said that children’s services have improved, but how do we get those councils that are stuck in a rut to improve far more quickly, so that children in both parts of my constituency have the best life chances?

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. That is exactly what our reforms are hoping to do. We have set out things such as a new national framework and are looking at things like the agency cap. [Interruption.] Somebody has just mentioned our record; as I have just said, in recent years we have managed to increase the number of local authorities rated as good or outstanding from 36% to 58%, and we will continue to do everything we can to improve that.