Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Percy Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Higher and Further Education (Michelle Donelan)
As the hon. Member will know only too well, we responded to the Augar report in full a few months ago. We tried to get the right balance in who pays, between the graduate and the taxpayer, so that we have a fair system in which no student will pay back more in real terms than they borrowed. This Government are focused on outcomes, making sure that degrees pay and deliver graduate jobs.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
Nadhim Zahawi
Indeed, the Secretary of State will engage with my hon. Friend on his passion for this subject. He knows we are investing £17 million in the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme to improve language skills in reception-age children who most need that help. I would just like to also take this opportunity, because I know—
Antisemitism: Bristol University
Andrew Percy Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
It is profoundly troubling that in 2022 I have to rise and publicly speak about the hatred being directed towards Jewish students on university campuses. What should also be alarming to colleagues in this House and all those in wider society is the amount of parliamentary time that has been dedicated to the issue over the previous two years. I have sat through comments in this Chamber, read parliamentary questions and responses, heard evidence at the Select Committee on Education and led a Westminster Hall debate highlighting the concerns of Jewish students across our country.
Most Jewish students will enjoy an incident-free and happy time on campus, but I have heard testimony from many Jewish students and their families. When embarking on university careers, Jewish students and staff should feel safe, secure and supported. When issues arise, procedures should be in place and complaints investigated and acted on. Tragically, in many instances, that is not the case.
I have chosen to focus this debate on Bristol University because of the fact that it has shown a consistent disregard for the welfare of its Jewish students and, indeed, for Members of this House. Many will know about the abhorrent and racist views of Professor David Miller. However, there have been other instances of troubling behaviour that have not been addressed. Just yesterday, a Jewish academic shared on Twitter a screenshot of the university’s equality, diversity and inclusion training on religion and belief. The scenario explained that the best candidate for the job was Jewish and would therefore need to leave early on Fridays for shabbats, when there was a team meeting. If the participant answered the scenario by saying that there should be a flexible approach to hire the best candidate, they were told:
“Might not be a good idea.”
Essentially, this training is teaching participants not to hire an observant Jew.
The actions of David Miller will be familiar to most. Members will have read the numerous newspaper articles and heard the exasperation of Jewish students who were left exhausted and frustrated when raising these serious issues with the university authorities. To give some context, Professor Miller taught political sociology at the University of Bristol. He abused his position to extol dangerous antisemitic conspiracy theories to his impressionable students.
Miller conducted a module called “Harms of the Powerful”, including a PowerPoint slide with a fanciful diagram featuring a web of Jewish organisations placed under or subservient to the Israeli Government. The topic of the week in his February 2019 lecture was Islamophobia, and the slide was part of Professor Miller’s explanation of his theory that the Zionist movement is part of a global network that promotes and encourages hatred of Muslims and of Islam. The PowerPoint presentation he used included mainstream UK Jewish organisations and leaders in that diagram, implying that they were part of an alleged Islamophobic network.
One Jewish student present put it like this:
“As a Jewish student I felt uncomfortable and intimidated in his class. I know and understand what he says is false, it is clear however that a number of students in the class believe him, just because he is an academic”.
The same student said:
“I fear that if he found out that I was Jewish this would negatively affect my experience throughout this unit”.
A different Jewish student in his class stated:
“I don’t think it is right that I should have to sit in a lecture or seminar in fear. Fear that he will offend me personally or for fear that he is going to spread hatred and misinformation to other students who, in turn, can pass on these false ideas”.
The Community Security Trust, which monitors hate crime on behalf of the Jewish community, submitted a complaint to the university in March 2019. It was informed that
“the University does not have a formal process for responding to complaints from third parties”.
The university insisted that to look into matters further, a complaint would have to be submitted by a named individual. The students who had made contact with the CST insisted on their anonymity being preserved. As a result, Bristol University falsely asserted that it had received no complaints. That is clearly not the case.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for raising the case of antisemitic racist Professor Miller, because that is what he is and what many of his supporters are. We should never shy away from calling him out as what he is, which is an antisemitic racist.
It is not just students who have problems, as my hon. Friend will be aware. I am one of the co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, of which he is a vice-chair. More than 100 parliamentarians from seven parties have written to Bristol University. The APPG has written numerous times, and although we have had responses, they have been lacking in detail and in the information that we have asked for. Most recently, we asked the university to share with us the details of the training that it says it is offering on antisemitism. It is not good enough. The students should never have been put in such a position, but when 100 parliamentarians from seven parties are also ignored, that really tells us that Bristol is not putting the emphasis it should put on this important issue. It is frankly a disgrace.
Christian Wakeford
I find it hard to disagree with a single word that my hon. Friend says. It is an absolute disgrace that for more than two years, such antisemitic racist views were allowed to continue. What is more abhorrent is that even when she came in front of the Select Committee on Education, a representative of the university tried to hide behind the fact of having had a conversation and a dialogue with the Bristol Jewish Society—JSoc—as if that were the solution to all the problems. Again, that is not the case.
It is appalling that students felt that they had to choose whether to complain against an academic teaching racist conspiracy theory because they would inevitably face a backlash. The University of Bristol Jewish Society submitted its own complaint. In responding, the academic charged with reviewing the matter wrote in June 2019 that the internationally agreed definition of antisemitism, which the university later adopted,
“is a somewhat controversial definition, with some believing that it is imprecise and can be used to conflate criticism of the policies of the Israeli government and of Zionism with antisemitism”.
Instead, he decided to use
“a simpler and, I hope, less controversial definition of antisemitism as hostility towards Jews as Jews”.
He then ruled, regarding Professor Miller’s lecture, that
“I cannot find any evidence in the material before me that these views are underlain by hostility to Jews as Jews…I am unable, therefore, to find grounds upon which Professor Miller should be subjected to disciplinary action”.
That is completely contrary to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. It subsequently transpired that the person charged with investigating the matter was a close colleague who was notorious for holding similar political views to Professor Miller’s.
In 2019, the then Member for Bassetlaw, now Lord Mann, wrote to the university on behalf of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, asking it to review its disciplinary processes and consult antisemitism experts, but the institution refused. Following Bristol’s adoption of the IHRA’s definition in December 2019, a further complaint was made by CST, following further appalling, untrue and potentially dangerous allegations about the organisations, but this too was treated with utter disdain. The complaint followed Miller’s comments in an online meeting in which he described CST as
“people who must only be faced and defeated”.
CST is an organisation that looks after children going to school and people going about their daily worship and their daily Jewish life. To describe it as an organisation that must be defeated is absolutely abhorrent.
Christian Wakeford
Again, it would be remiss of me not to highlight the PowerPoint document in which not only the Board of Deputies but the Jewish representative councils, the Jewish Leadership Council and so many different community organisations were all highlighted as being part of a Zionist conspiracy, which is a blatant falsehood.
That comment alone from Professor Miller is blatantly antisemitic. Once again, the response from the university was underwhelming, emphasising that CST was an external organisation. It paid no regard to the fact CST was clearly not a third party and was in fact the injured party, given that the comments made were directly addressed to the organisation.
Andrew Percy
I am sorry to labour the point, but it is such an important point because that argument is an antisemitic trope that is used against anybody who dares to call this issue out or question it. It has been used against the APPG. We have been accused of being in the pay of Zionists, and videos have been produced accusing the group’s members of being on the take from the Israeli Government or paid for by Zionists. That is a regular occurrence and something that these people use time and time again against anybody who dares to question them: to accuse them of being in the pay of a foreign Government or some other shady characters in the background. It is pure and simple antisemitism. This has to stop, and I hope that the Minister will listen and contact Bristol University himself to demand that it shares with him the training materials that it is providing on this issue.
Christian Wakeford
I completely agree. Not only is it antisemitic, but the conspiracy theories alone are dangerous. They are false and inaccurate and, again, fuel the racist ideology that Professor Miller extols.
Seemingly encouraged by the lack of an official response to the complaints, Professor Miller carried on articulating his problematic views. He claimed that an interfaith cookery class was looking to normalise Zionism among Muslims. He also argued that
“Britain is in the grip of an assault on its public sphere by the state of Israel and its advocates”,
and called BBC’s Emma Barnett
“one of the most energetic Zionist campaigners in British public life”.
On the abuse of Jewish students on campus, he claimed:
“There is a real question of abuse here—of Jewish students on British campuses being used as political pawns by a violent, racist foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing”.
Again, this is not accurate. It is not true and it is dangerous.
One would have thought any one of those ridiculous theories would be enough for instant dismissal, but the lack of action emboldened Professor Miller. Even a letter signed by 700 academics, which stated that they
“believe that Prof. Miller’s depiction of Jewish students as Israeli-directed agents of a campaign of censorship is false, outrageous, and breaks all academic norms regarding the acceptable treatment of students”,
was ignored.
Professor Miller also had the audacity to criticise the Jewish Society and Jewish students for calling out antisemitism. Miller personally attacked the Jewish Society president, which led to a sustained campaign of abuse being launched online. In February 2021, the Union of Jewish Students once again had to release a number of statements, following further comments by Miller discussing some imagined global Zionist conspiracy involving Jewish students. It took until March 2021 for an investigation to be launched. Even after the outrage and a number of mentions in both Houses of Parliament, Miller was allowed back on campus, to the disgust of the Union of Jewish Students and its members.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) said, the leadership of the APPG continued to demand action from the university, in February and March 2021, when over 100 cross-party Members of both Houses intervened, and again in May and August. Each time our concerns were ignored, and Miller later suggested that the APPG, too, was part of an Israeli conspiracy.
The highest echelons of the university were well aware of Miller’s hateful views, and an unproductive meeting was held with the vice-chancellor and Jewish students. This was 165 days since Professor Miller had attacked Jewish students, and no guarantees were given on timescales or when the university would fulfil its basic duty of care to its Jewish students. Only on 1 October was news received that he would no longer be employed by the university. Giving evidence to the Select Committee on Education later that month, Professor Jessop mentioned that several training programmes were being run at the university, including on inclusion, Islamophobia and antisemitism. A letter from the APPG in October asking for details of the training was ignored.
The ordeal seemed to have drawn to a close, although a subsequent petition was signed by 460 people, mainly academics, highlighting this deep-rooted problem. Bristol University and Professor Miller are responsible for bringing antisemitism into a mainstream university campus, and they should be thoroughly ashamed. The fact that Bristol University took so long to act as Miller, a racist, peddled baseless conspiracy theories about his own students will be a permanent stain on its reputation. Initially, it stood by Miller’s teaching instead of protecting Jewish students from suspicion and discrimination. The fact that Bristol University did not act to protect Jewish students who were subjected to his disgusting conspiracy theories is a disgrace. This is a case study of how not to deal with legitimate complaints of antisemitism by concerned students who were deliberately targeted by one of its academics.
Andrew Percy
I am sorry to intervene again, but it is important to state that one of the defences used by the university was free speech. We are all cognisant of and protectors of free speech in this place, but free speech does not extend to racist language or the peddling of racist myths. It is shameful that the university used that as a defence. I hope that it will, in listening to this debate, reflect on that. Freedom of speech does not give us the ability and freedom to make racist comments or make Jewish students—or any student of any minority group—feel unsafe on campus. It was shameful that it used that as a defence.
Christian Wakeford
I completely agree. Freedom of speech is something we all treasure and hold dearly. However, freedom of speech should never include incitement to racial hatred, which is what was the case.
I have two substantive questions for the Minister. First, any improvement at Bristol University will involve training. Will he undertake to write to the university to find out what training is being undertaken, who has provided it and what quality assurance has been applied? Secondly, the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, as the Antisemitism Policy Trust pointed out, risks failing the Miller test by giving academics recourse to the courts when expressing themselves within their area of expertise—and we know how Miller describes that. Will he meet again with me the trust, the CST, the UJS and others on how the Bill can be amended to prevent that from happening?
I hope now that at the very least any institution planning to employ Professor Miller cannot say that it was not aware of his racism, and that Jewish students across the country will hear this debate and know that we will always stand with them and by them in the fight against anti-Jewish racism. That is what he is guilty of.
Education Settings: Wider Opening
Andrew Percy Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
The hon. Gentleman raises a vital point. We took this issue into account in our work with Ofqual and the exam boards to make sure that people from black and ethnic minority communities are not disadvantaged in that way.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
Children in the communities I used to teach in will have been most disadvantaged over the past few weeks, and to catch up they need access to qualified practitioners. As well-meaning as a summer school programme might sound, it needs to be longer term. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that, whatever programme is delivered in the longer term, it will be delivered by qualified practitioners?
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend makes a vital point. This should not be a short-term measure; it must be about people who are qualified and understand the issues, and who ensure that what they teach children fits in with everything that those children need to learn, as they move through the school and towards their exams. This must be an evidence-based approach, and we are working with organisations, including the Education Endowment Foundation, and others, to ensure that anything we do is focused on the best interests of the child, and ensuring that they close that gap.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Percy Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Chris Skidmore
Students pay nothing back until they start earning £25,725 a year, and that will rise to £26,575 from April 2020. It is important to understand that the number of people from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university has risen by 62% since 2009, and the Government are committed to looking at interest rates in future as part of the Conservative manifesto’s proposals.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
As a working-class lad who went to university and who voted against the tripling of tuition fees, I urge my hon. Friend to ignore the class warfare of the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana). Was not the one thing I was wrong about in that 2010 vote that it would put working-class kids off, because the evidence is that it has had the exact opposite effect?
Chris Skidmore
I thank my hon. Friend for making that essential point. Participation has risen year on year. Individuals are going through the school system, increasing the standard of their skills, and deciding that they want to take up HE as a route to future opportunities. However, we recognise that there must also be future opportunities within the FE system, which is why we want to ensure that every pupil in the post-18 education system is able to benefit for the future.
Education Funding
Andrew Percy Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
It is always vitally important that we do everything we can to support children with special educational needs in mainstream schools, but I would point out that the numbers of exclusions from schools are lower today than they were when there was last a Labour Government.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
May I begin by congratulating Goole academy on going from being in special measures a few years ago to this year achieving the best results ever in the school’s history?
I know from my time in the classroom that no teacher likes to see a child excluded, but on some occasions it is appropriate, for the child and the wellbeing of other pupils, for children not to be in classroom. Will the Secretary of State therefore turn his attention to ensuring we have better and proper alternative provision for children who cannot be dealt with in mainstream school?
Gavin Williamson
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Goole college on the turnaround it has been able to achieve. I know my hon. Friend has a lot of experience in this field, having taught for many years himself, and I will take on board his point, because it is absolutely vital that we ensure that every child in school is able to get the type of education that we want them to get and not be disrupted by others, so ensuring we have the right provision for those children to go to is vital.
Small and Village School Funding
Andrew Percy Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Neil O'Brien
I think my hon. Friend is correct, and I think we both want to see a faster transition to a fairer overall settlement. However, I want to focus on the point about the lump sum.
Leicestershire County Council was historically a strong supporter of small schools and had a lump sum of £150,000 per primary school. In the national funding formula, that is only £110,000. When consulting on the national funding formula, the DFE acknowledged that that number was lower than the average for most local authorities. As local authorities converge on the national funding formula, as they should, the pressure on small schools may intensify. The proportion of the core schools budget going through the lump sum declined in the last year, and the gap between income and expenditure is much smaller for small schools, indicating a financial pressure. In fact, larger schools have about twice as much headroom per pupil. Small schools are definitely feeling the pinch.
I hope and expect that, under the next Prime Minister, we will see a big increase in school funding. A good way of delivering that would be to increase the lump sum within the national funding formula. About a fifth of primary schools get more than 20% of their income from the lump sum, and for them an increase could make the difference between staying afloat and closing. There has been some discussion about increasing sparsity funding as an alternative, but I am a bit sceptical. Fewer than 6% of primaries get sparsity funding, and only 1% get the full amount; a number of small schools in my constituency that are under pressure would not be eligible. That is one reason why only a third of local authorities have included a sparsity element in their local formulas. Increasing the lump sum, if I could beg the Minister to do that, would be simpler and better. For a little more than £800 million, we could take the lump sum back up to £150,000 and get my village schools back to where they were.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I support his last point. One of my local authorities, North Lincolnshire Council, made a policy decision not to close any small schools, so the schools in my constituency with 45 or 50 children will remain open. However, the key issue that my local authority has asked me to raise with the Minister is the core funding costs. Admin costs, in particular, for a small school of 46 or 50 children are not dissimilar to those for a school of 100 to 150 children, because the same admin function is still needed. I therefore think that the point my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) is making is really important, and I want to offer him my full support and say that it is exactly the same point that my local authority is concerned about.
Neil O’Brien
I thank my hon. Friend. He is right and has brilliantly teed up something that I intended to say: the future for small schools and rural schools can be very bright. There are two reasons for that. One is that more and more people want to live in villages, and technology allows people to do that and work from home, rather than having to live in a major city. The other reason is the growth of multi-academy trusts—rather an ugly phrase for families of schools. The growth of those families of schools is enabling small schools in effect to combine the advantages of being a small school—the human scale and the connection to the community—with the advantages of being part of something bigger, which are being able to share resources, people and back-office functions and to learn from one another. Therefore, if we get behind them, village schools can have a really bright future.
I was in one such school just the other day in South Kilworth in my constituency. In many ways, it was a very traditional scene. I was watching the new school hall being built, thanks to school condition improvement funding, and the children were practising their maypole dancing. The fields were ripening around us and the sun was shining. It was a beautiful scene. We could have been time travelling, but that school is a modern school. It is part of a family of schools, which are helping one another to improve. It is a really good school and exactly the sort of thing that we want to keep in our communities. There are these very exciting opportunities opening up for small schools, but we need the Minister’s help to relieve the financial pressure on them if we are to fully achieve the potential of small and village schools.
Early Years Family Support
Andrew Percy Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing the debate and the work that she has done. She or the Government might wish to consider the Imagination Library, an initiative that we have started in North Lincolnshire which signs up every child for a free monthly book gifting scheme from birth, so that parents and carers read with their children from an early age. Health visitors and the maternity units in our local hospitals are involved, so that when people register their child’s birth they are automatically enrolled in this incredible scheme, which is funded by North Lincolnshire Council. Over 95% of children in the North Lincolnshire part of my constituency are now signed up. The scheme is having a really impressive impact, which is following through to our literacy rates in school, and is something that the Government could consider expanding elsewhere in the country.
Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the so-called “Five to thrive” is cuddling up to your baby, reading with them and looking at pictures with them. That engagement, which develops the early brain of the infant, is vital, and I pay tribute to him for his work on that.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) and the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on their work, and I agree with much of what has been said this afternoon.
It will not surprise those who know my background as a former school teacher that I want to focus a little bit on education and the literacy programme that I mentioned when I intervened on my right hon. Friend. I started teaching secondary school in Hull, sadly more years ago now than I would care to remember. When I went into that job I thought to myself, “Actually, I can really change lives in this role.” To some extent, that is true. But teaching 11 to 16-year-olds, I very quickly learned that so much of how my pupils’ lives were going to work out had already been set for them, mostly by the age of 11 and certainly by the age of 16.
When I left secondary school teaching, I became a primary school teacher and I went to teach year 1. Going from teaching 11 to 16-year-olds to teaching five-year-olds was probably the biggest shock of my life. I thought that that age would be the point at which a teacher really has a huge, life-changing impact on children; and, of course, they absolutely do. But I very quickly realised again that, by five years old, the life chances of so many of the children I was teaching had already been set for them because of their pre-school experiences, family situations, social deprivation and all the rest of it. It was incredibly sad. There were instances when a new child would be starting at the school and we would already have had pupils from that family through the school already. Sadly, we would already know the challenges we were going to face with that new child, whose name we only knew from the register, because of the situations that had already been determined for them even before they started school.
As a primary school teacher, it became clear to me that literacy was absolutely fundamental to how well a child would perform throughout their school career. Where they started in school at four or five years old very much determined where they would end up with their GCSE results at the age of 16. Those children who had a history and heritage of sitting at home and reading with their parents, carers and grandparents came to school with much better literacy rates. Their speech was also better, and they were so much further ahead than other children in their ability to communicate and interact with adults and children. For very many of them, that start set how they would perform not just in the first few years at school, but throughout their entire school career.
Not long after I was elected, I got in touch with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. As the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) will know very well, Dolly Parton set the library up because of her own childhood experiences with illiteracy. We met representatives of the Imagination Library and both my local councils—North Lincolnshire Council and the East Riding of Yorkshire Council—and we tried to set up a local scheme to support some of the poorest children into membership. It is a very cheap scheme, costing about £28 or £30 per child per year. For those who do not know about the Imagination Library, it sends children an age-appropriate book in the post every single month from birth through to five years old. This provides a really special time for families and it is a real event when the book arrives.
Sarah Champion
The Imagination Library had a transformative effect on children in Rotherham, not least because they felt so special receiving their books. Each book became something that was treasured, brought out and shown to other children. The scheme empowered a whole community, so I fully support the hon. Gentleman in trying to bring it to his constituency.
Andrew Percy
I thank the hon. Lady for her support. It might sound funny, but it is a real event when the book arrives in the post every month. The expectation of is a thing in itself. Then there is the process of the child opening the book, talking about it with their parent, carer or whomsoever, and spending time sitting down and bonding, which, as we know from the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire, is so important in those early years. This has such a transformative effect.
I am very proud to say that there are two schemes running in my area. I run a very small scheme in Goole—the Goole and Snaith Imagination Library—which I provide all the funding for myself. I am always asking anybody local who could help to sponsor more children to cough up some dosh and put it in the pot. It is a very small scheme. Unfortunately, I could not get the local authority to pay for it, but there are 110 children in Goole on that self-funded scheme, which I run through my office and fund myself and through other donations.
In North Lincolnshire, however—this is not a political point, because my party runs both councils—in 2013 we secured funding to roll out the scheme to every single child in the area, thanks to the leadership of Councillor Rob Waltham, who is now the council leader but who previously held the portfolio for young people. Since 2013 we have delivered through the letter boxes of North Lincolnshire almost 500,000 books to local children.
The take-up rate in my constituency is about 95%, and across the whole of the borough it is about 90%. At present, 8,100 children from birth to five in North Lincolnshire are signed up to the scheme. The buy-in has been incredible. As I mentioned in an intervention, when someone has a child at the local NHS maternity unit at Scunthorpe General Hospital, the first thing that happens is they are signed up and given a basket that includes information about the Imagination Library. When the birth is registered, they are checked again to see whether they have registered for the Imagination Library. Children’s centres, health visitors and every local public service are signed up to the Imagination Library.
The council has done that without any additional funding from anywhere, in very difficult times. I am very proud of what we have done in North Lincolnshire to ensure that this is universal. Some people said at the start, “Some parents can afford this and should perhaps pay for it themselves,” but, to be frank, we took a political decision and said, “No, it doesn’t matter. Every child should be signed up, regardless of whether or not they can pay, because the benefit is beyond doubt.”
The results are reflected in our primary school figures. For example, in 2018 we were the most improved authority in the country for literacy and writing, and I think our phonics screening results were the seventh best in the country—they were certainly well above average. We have the data and it is manifesting itself in improved standards at primary school. Regardless of whether their parents can afford to buy a book every month, every child in North Lincolnshire gets a book through the post every month for five years, throughout reception and before they start school.
It is sad that the scheme drops off and ends at the age of five. A number of people write to me saying, “This is a brilliant scheme, but it’s such a shame that it stops at five.” As I have said, we have all the data and statistics showing the impact that the scheme has had. The most important data for me, however, is the testimony of local parents. When we set up the scheme, we focused it on the most challenged part of Goole, and a mother in Goole wrote to me saying, “I just want you to know that this scheme has been incredible for me and my child. I was not a confident reader, but sitting there every month with my child has improved my own literacy.”
When I was a schoolteacher, the reason that some parents did not spend time reading and writing with their children and teaching them the ABCs and 123s was not always neglectful behaviour; it was often because they lacked confidence in their own literacy or numeracy abilities. That then manifested itself in what might have appeared to be neglectful behaviour, but they were actually embarrassed that they did not have the confidence to pass those skills on to their children. I found that sad. A lot of work has been done across our local authority to address that. It was not always a matter of neglect.
I do not want to say anything further, other than that I hope the Minister will look at the example of the North Lincolnshire Imagination Library. As I have said, almost 500,000 books have been delivered to local children through their letter boxes, and that is having a very clear impact on primary school results. It is not necessarily cheap, but we have decided locally that it is a worthwhile intervention because we will turn out children and young people at 16 and 18 who will perform better than they otherwise would have done. They will have confidence in literacy that they may not otherwise have had, and that will benefit the community when they get jobs in the area, including exciting jobs at the new Siemens rail factory, which will require those skills. Whether they are small schemes, of which a number are running across the country, or big schemes, these programmes can really make a difference to children’s lives, including the 110 children in Goole who are benefiting and the 8,000-plus who are benefiting across North Lincolnshire.
Early Years Development and School-Readiness
Andrew Percy Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) on securing this debate. I also declare an interest as a former infant schoolteacher. Indeed, almost exactly six years ago I was just ending my previous career. My first day as an infant school teacher remains the scariest new day in any job I have ever undertaken. Sadly, infant school was not the last time that I have dealt with five-year-olds’ behaviour.
I will talk briefly about the Imagination Library, which is a project we have developed in north Lincolnshire and in the east riding of Yorkshire—people may know of it. It is a free book-gifting scheme, which was originally established by Dolly Parton in Tennessee in the United States, and then brought here some years ago. As an infant schoolteacher, I obviously understood the importance of kids reading at home and how much better prepared they were when they turned up at school having actually opened and read a book, and read with their parents or carers. Sadly, for too many of the children I used to teach in Scunthorpe, that was not the case.
When I became an MP, I was fortunate enough to be able to work with North Lincolnshire Council, under the innovative leadership of Baroness Redfern and Councillor Rob Waltham, to establish the Imagination Library scheme in north Lincolnshire. The scheme now delivers books to 87% of all five-year-olds in our borough. Since we started the scheme in 2013, it has already had a significant impact on the results of kids who arrive at school. In 2015, 70% of our five-year-olds in north Lincolnshire were judged to have achieved a good level of development by the time they arrived at school, compared with just 53% in 2013.
This free book-gifting scheme is wholly integrated with the NHS locally and with our children’s centres—of course, we have protected and actually expanded some of our children’s centres in north Lincolnshire. The scheme is also integrated with our library service—of course, in north Lincolnshire we have actually built new libraries and extended all of our library opening hours to support this scheme, which has had a really transformative effect.
As I said, 87% of all five-year-olds in north Lincolnshire are now registered with the scheme; indeed, in parts of my patch, on the Isle of Axholme, 92% of children are registered. The scheme is open to every child and it is having a really transformative effect. In the other part of my constituency, which is in the east riding of Yorkshire, the council has not funded the scheme, but I myself run and fund a scheme in Goole that has 56 children signed up to it. Getting books out to kids from a very early age to get them reading and learning with their parents gives them the very best start in school.
I do not have time today to go on too much further, and have just two questions to put to the Minister. First, what assessment has been made of schemes such as the Imagination Library? The Scottish Government provide the Imagination Library to all looked-after children in Scotland and perhaps we could consider doing something similar. Secondly and finally, will he look at the Imagination Library’s bid to the Department for Education’s children’s social care innovation programme, which will mean more of these books being distributed to more children nationally?
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Percy Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Vaizey
I am afraid that I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman that reassurance, and that is what really worries me about our leaving the EU. Not only does the digital industry provide the 25,000 jobs he mentioned but overall it represents about 7% of the UK’s gross value added. We are at the heart of negotiating the digital single market, which will give our digital industries even more opportunities, and that is why we must stay in.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I was at a breakfast meeting this morning with digitech companies from Vancouver in British Columbia that are here on an inward trade mission, looking at investing in the UK. Does the Minister agree that this dangerous and damaging remain campaign, which is based wholly on a fear of leaving the European Union that is not justified, is going to do great damage? Has he done any assessment of how much damage is being done to investment by the talking down of this country by those who want us to remain in servitude to the EU?
Mr Vaizey
I hear what my hon. Friend has to say, but I wish the leave campaign would stop running this terrible fear campaign. I am confident that we are going to stay in Europe and continue to attract investment. I am pleased to hear that our Canadian trade envoy, to which I gather my hon. Friend had access, shows us how even as members of the European Union, we can still negotiate and engage globally with many other countries. Being a member of the European Union does not prevent us from working with countries outside the EU, and the leave campaign’s fear campaign has to stop saying it does.
Schools White Paper
Andrew Percy Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Lucy Powell
I will take some interventions later, but I am going to make some progress.
The Government claim that there are more children today in good or outstanding schools than there were in 2010, as proof that academisation leads to school improvement. However, the Secretary of State knows that, as ever, she is being selective with her figures. The truth is that the vast majority of those new good and outstanding places are in primary schools, where academisation is limited. Moreover, according to Ofsted, the number of pupils in inadequate secondary schools has risen by a staggering 60% over the last four years where academisation has taken hold significantly. Not for the first time, the Government’s selective use of statistics and their dubious link between cause and effect do not withstand any scrutiny. Perhaps that is why the Conservative majority Select Committee on Education recently concluded, after an extensive inquiry:
“Current evidence does not allow us to draw conclusions on whether academies in themselves are a positive force for change”
and:
“There is…no convincing evidence of the impact of academy status on attainment”.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I declare an interest as the chairman of governors of Goole Academy, an academy school that is doing very well. In north Lincolnshire, we have had a big academisation programme, and we have gone from having 38% of kids in good and outstanding schools to having 92% of children in such schools. Although I may agree with some of the points that the hon. Lady has made, will she confirm that the Labour party’s position is to support academies? Her speech so far has seemed very anti-academies, and that concerns me as a governor of one.
Lucy Powell
Not at all. As I made clear in my opening remarks, there are some excellent academies and other types of schools. Academisation can be an ingredient of a wider school improvement programme, but the overall evidence is underwhelming at best.
Nicky Morgan
I am going to make progress now, because a great many Members wish to speak in the debate.
As I have said, the academies programme reflects our core Conservative belief that public services should be run by front-line professionals. That means heads, teachers and governors running our schools. International evidence shows that autonomy of schools is linked to improved performance, and that an autonomous system must include strong school leadership and accountability. Academic studies show that, for instance,
“test scores are higher when schools manage their own budgets and recruit and select their own teachers”.
Schools do not have to follow a single way of doing things. Each school can develop a different approach that works for its pupils. Academies are better for teachers because they have greater freedom to innovate, and heads can reward them for their excellence. That freedom means that they can set pay, which enables them to attract and retain good teachers. Academies are better for pupils because it is easier for teachers to share best practice and take advantage of new opportunities, and for Governments to intervene if any evidence is found that schools are failing.
As we have said before, we want parents to be more involved in their children’s education, not less. As the Prime Minister said earlier, we are not suggesting, and have never suggested, that parents should no longer sit on governing bodies. We support the idea of parents being school governors. Many already play a valuable role in governance, and parents will always be encouraged to become governors or trustees.
However, there are other ways in which parents can be involved. For instance, the Flying High Trust in Nottinghamshire has a local governing body for each of its academies, with three elected parent representatives who receive not only an induction, but ongoing development so they can be really clear about their role in ensuring that the schools continue to be linked to the communities that they serve. We will also introduce more regular surveys of parental satisfaction, and display the results alongside examination results.
One issue that has not been addressed so far is the lack of intervention by some local authorities in schools that are failing or coasting. There are 42 local authorities that have not appointed an interim executive board since 2006, and 45 that have not issued warning notices since 2009.
Andrew Percy
I am pleased that this is such a popular intervention.
My right hon. Friend has just referred to the role of local authorities. Some authorities have clearly frustrated the academy process, but that has not been the case in North Lincolnshire. May I commend to my right hon. Friend the model of educational standards boards that we have established there? Even post-academisation, the local authority accepts that these children are our children and we have an ongoing responsibility for them. The authority has concerns about a forced academisation programme, as indeed it should, but will my right hon. Friend look closely at a system that accepts that these children are our children whatever school they are at?