Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity
Angela Eagle Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) in this King’s Speech debate.
After 13 years of Tory Government, and three Prime Ministers in the last year and a half, this King’s Speech offered us pretty thin gruel. There was no real vision for the future, there was nothing like a plan to get there, and it was nowhere near adequate to meet the challenges this country is facing. The Speech contained just 21 Bills, six of which have been carried over from last year’s parliamentary Session. Many of those included, such as on leasehold reform, turn out on closer inspection to be pale shadows of what was promised by the Government. There are Bills that nod towards the need for reform but do not actually deliver meaningful change, or delay it so long as to be meaningless. They sit alongside such towering legislative ambitions as a Bill to license pedicabs in London.
That legislative programme leaves the challenges that my Wallasey constituents are facing virtually unaddressed: taxes are the highest they have been for 70 years, mortgages are up, rents have skyrocketed, the cost of living squeeze goes on, inflation remains the highest in the G7, and food inflation is higher still. Growth is projected to be zero next year, and the Bank of England has put the chance of a recession at 50:50. After 13 years of this Government, our rivers and seas are filled with sewage, our schools are crumbling, 94% of crimes go unsolved, our transport system is in chaos, and over 7.5 million people are on an NHS waiting list. Where in this King’s Speech were those things addressed?
Food insecurity was once rare; now, in the past year in a rich G7 country, over 11 million of our fellow citizens have experienced it. In my constituency of Wallasey, the number of emergency food bank parcels provided by the Trussell Trust has increased by 57% since the last general election. On the Wirral as a whole, over 16,000 people received emergency food parcels last year, a third of whom were children, and in the country as a whole, nine children out of 30 in a class are growing up in poverty. This legislative plan does not even mention, let alone begin to address, the daily struggles and hardship that millions of people in this country are now facing.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) mentioned, there were some notable omissions from the speech, including a promised reform of the Mental Health Act 1983; an employment Bill to give workers a fairer deal; and the Tory manifesto promise to ban conversion therapy for LGBT+ people. There was no sign of the promised reform of audit rules—boring to some, but quite important to the good working of our economy—and as my right hon. Friend pointed out, the promised reform of pensions was also absent. Despite the Prime Minister’s much-vaunted summit, there was no regulation of artificial intelligence anywhere to be seen, either.
We have a Government who have long since ceased to govern, who seem uninterested in tackling the serious issues our country faces and who seek division, rather than solution. We have a programme for the final year of this Parliament that was briefed out by senior Tories as being designed to set “traps” for Labour in the forthcoming general election campaign. The offshore petroleum licensing Bill is one such example: the industry says that the Bill will make no difference whatsoever, and the Secretary of State has been forced to admit that it will not lower energy costs for consumers. While rough sleeping is up 74% under the Tories, we have a Home Secretary who, instead of solving the problem of the housing shortage, wants to make it illegal to give tents to the homeless. She claims they are indulging in a “lifestyle choice” by having the temerity to sleep on our streets. We have five criminal justice Bills that toughen sentences for convicted criminals, but have nothing to say about the huge and growing backlogs of criminal cases —some of which are taking two years even to get to court—or about the plummeting arrest and conviction rates for serious offences. They are tinkering, not dealing with the real issues.
Rather than do the day job, this tired and incompetent Government are grinding to a halt. They seem much more preoccupied with pursuing their own internal factional fights than addressing the growing needs of the country. Even now, it is possible to discern the looming battle to be the next Leader of the Opposition commencing between the current Home Secretary and the Trade Secretary. We can spot the dwindling band of Boris Johnson supporters publishing absurd, conspiracy-laden books such as “The Plot” to explain his defenestration, when the rest of us only need to follow the covid inquiry to appreciate what the real explanation is. As the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) tours the world proclaiming that despite her catastrophic 44-day tenure in office, she was in fact right all along, we can see that the Tory party can never be the change that this country is crying out for.
The change Britain needs is a mission-led Labour Government embarking on 10 years of national renewal—a Government who will secure the highest growth in the G7, make Britain a clean energy superpower, build an NHS fit for the future, make Britain’s streets safe, and break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage. It is long past time for this flailing, divisive Tory Government to recognise that the country needs real change, and to call a general election so that the country can have the new start it deserves—and sooner rather than later.
Financial Education in Schools
Angela Eagle Excerpts(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Jerome Mayhew
You are absolutely right. I will come on to the benefits of compound interest, which is part of the answer.
Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)
Order. I do not want to intervene too much, but if you say “you”, you are referring to me. As I am sure we all we know, he is “the hon. Gentleman”.
Jerome Mayhew
Of course he is. I am sorry for that slip.
Barclays, in its 2014 research, found that 17.5 million hours of productive work was lost because of financial stress. It came up with the figure of £120 billion of value lost to the economy because of financial stress in that year.
Then there is the impact on the individual. Last year, Standard Life did some research on the impact of compound interest on pensions. It created a worked example showing that if a 27-year-old got a relatively modest entry-level job paying £23,000 a year and contributed the minimum to their pension—3%—and their employer contributed the minimum that they could, which is 5%, they would, at the retirement age of 68, have a pension pot of £312,266, a very considerable sum to support them in their later years. However, if that person started saving into their pension just five years earlier, aged 22, their pot would be £424,618 at the age of 68. That is £112,000 bigger—an increase of 36%. The difference is profound not just for the person’s chances in later life, but for the state, because there are knock-on consequences for the cost of social care as we age as a society.
I come back to the point that I recognise that it is not the job of the state to proselytise or the job of educational establishments to tell young people that they have to have a pension, for example, but where the impact of failing to give people really good information on which they can take their own decisions is so profound, for the individual, for the economy and for society as a whole, surely there is a level of focus that the state should provide in giving detailed information repeatedly to young people during the educational process. The need is enormous and, in my submission, we do not go nearly far enough.
The answer, one would think, is that young people should be given financial education as part of the curriculum. “Job done,” we thought back in 2014 when the coalition Government did exactly that. For secondary education in England, it was made a statutory part of the curriculum. The devolved nations go further: they have it as part of the primary as well as the secondary curriculum. Yet the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people, which I am lucky enough to chair, undertook some research and reported earlier this year that, despite the legal requirement for financial education to be part of the curriculum, 56% of teachers in England did not know that it was part of the curriculum. That begs the question: how were they teaching it if they did not even know that it was part of the curriculum?
The Money and Pensions Service looked at the same issue but from the other end of the telescope. It asked children, “Do you remember ever having received any financial education?” We can forgive them a bit of amnesia, but only 38% of children recalled any. That means that 62% had no recollection of ever having received any financial education at all.
What has gone wrong? Why are we in this state despite the fact that financial education is part of the national curriculum? The first answer is that it is very easy to ignore. We know that there is a lack of awareness, because the researchers told us that the majority of teachers are not aware that financial education is part of the curriculum and they are meant to be teaching it. We know that it is not inspected by Ofsted. We know that it is something that is added in, perhaps as an afterthought, and not part of the core curriculum. There is an easy solution to that, and one of my requests today is that the Department for Education lead, or at the very least support, a determined campaign to raise awareness among educational establishments of the importance of financial education and the fact that it is indeed a statutory part of the national curriculum.
The second reason why financial education has fallen down is that teaching it is hard. Many teachers, just like me, did not receive any financial education themselves, and the survey evidence supports the fact that they do not feel confident in teaching a subject about which they know so little: 55% of teachers find it challenging. They went into further detail and said that there are time pressures and a lack of training—again, it is about their own financial confidence—and, of course, there are many, many competing priorities in the education system. We need to provide teachers with improved access to the training they need. Perhaps there is a role for teacher training colleges. Teachers are coming into the profession with no focus on financial education at all and a lack of confidence in their own abilities in this area. Could teacher training colleges have a focus on financial education as part of the curriculum?
There is a lack of time in schools. Can we integrate the teaching of financial education better into the other subjects that are already part of the curriculum, as part of applied learning? Again, I know that it is not the role of the Department for Education to dictate lesson plans to the 22,000-odd schools in this country, but it is the Department’s role to facilitate.
Using financial topics as the context of learning can increase engagement with mathematics. That is not my assertion; research has demonstrated it. In 2019, the OECD undertook a pilot scheme and found that where this subject was integrated, students’ performance on exam questions increased by 20%. That is very significant. Of the teachers who participated in the pilot, 81% said that it improved pupils’ understanding of financial matters, which we would expect, but about 50% said that their students demonstrated improved attitudes to maths as well. That is quite startling. It improves their ability to answer questions, and it improves their approach to the harder core subject of mathematics. Does the Minister agree with that analysis, and if so, what work is being done to develop this approach more widely within the maths curriculum?
Another piece of feedback, perhaps predictably, was that there is a lack of resources. There are loads of training aids out there. Every established and aspiring bank and financial institution is desperate for their environmental, social and governance departments to provide financial education to young people. Martin Lewis produced a textbook four or five years ago, which I know the Minister was involved in helping to create—more power to your elbow.
Jerome Mayhew
His elbow—I am so sorry. I am normally quite good at this!
I recognise that the textbook needs to be updated, but an improved textbook from Martin Lewis or the wider financial services sector could be taught for 30 minutes every fortnight for a couple of years during secondary education. Is that the sort of thing that the Minister and his Department could support? If so, what form would that support take?
One alternative to supporting the many multi-academy trusts out there, including in my constituency, with their internal teaching of financial education is to facilitate access for external financial education trainers to come into schools. Many of them are very keen to do so. Could we allow or even require schools that do not teach financial education internally to give access to accredited financial education training providers to do the job for them?
Let us bring that all together: we have learned that habits form early—by the age of seven. Should we not have financial education as part of the primary curriculum? Should we not learn from the good examples of what goes on in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, where financial literacy is measurably higher than in England? It is not by much, but it is measurably higher, and perhaps that is because they have financial education as part of the curriculum in primary schools. Should we not follow them?
Will the Minister actively support a campaign to increase awareness of financial education as part of the national curriculum for secondary education in England? Will he support the development of improved teaching assets, either within cross-departmental curricula at the moment, or through increased access for external providers? Will he encourage, perhaps in the first instance, voluntary access to external education providers? If that does not go far enough, will he mandate access if schools are not providing financial education themselves, as they are statutorily required to do?
I started this speech saying that politics is personal, and I believe that this is one of those small areas where a tiny change, relatively speaking, could make a profound difference to the lives of the people and economy of this country. We spend so much time here dealing with fluff—the latest 15-minute scandal, the eye-catching initiative. There are relatively few small, but very significant, tweaks that we can make to policy in this country that could have such a profound effect as tweaking the provision of effective financial education for young people. I know this is not an easy win, but it is an achievable win, and I encourage the Minister to grasp it.
Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)
I intend to call the Front Benchers from 10.30 am. If hon. Members who are not on the Front Benches bear that in mind, there will not be a need for a time limit.
Oral Answers to Questions
Angela Eagle Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)
The tragic death of Brianna Ghey will be at the forefront of all our minds. An investigation is ongoing and we should not assume the facts of the case. However, I want to take this opportunity to express my deepest sympathy to her family and friends.
Schools should be safe, supportive and calm places where children are taught to respect each other and staff. The Government are clear that bullying is unacceptable. Since 2016, we have provided a total of more than £5.5 million to a number of anti-bullying organisations, including the Anti-Bullying Alliance and others, to support schools to tackle bullying.
Gillian Keegan
All schools are required to have a behaviour policy, which will include anti-bullying, and Ofsted holds them to account on that. We also recognise that issues relating to sex and gender can be complex and sensitive for schools to navigate. I am currently working with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities to develop guidance to support schools in relation to transgender pupils. It is important to consider a wide range of views to get the guidance right and we have committed to holding a public consultation on the draft guidance prior to publication.
Dame Angela Eagle
May I take this opportunity to add my thoughts and condolences to the friends and family of Baroness Boothroyd? Voting for Betty to become the Speaker was the first vote in which I ever took part in this House. In the five years that that Parliament took up, I think that it was the only vote that we won.
Research shows that LGBT+ young people are twice as likely to be bullied as their peers in school. For trans pupils, this can be even worse. The Secretary of State’s predecessor promised last September to issue draft guidance on supporting trans pupils. It still has not appeared, so can the Secretary of State tell us when this guidance will appear, as pupils need it and teachers are crying out for it?
Gillian Keegan
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I know that that guidance is very much required and that schools are waiting for it. We are working on it—I am working on it right now with the Women and Equalities Minister—but it is very important that we get it right and have a long consultation on it, because, as we know and as we have seen, this is quite a sensitive topic, and we do need to treat it very sensitively. We are working on it.
Education Recovery
Angela Eagle Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
Absolutely. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the amazing work of so many outdoor activity centres in his constituency. Of course, he is particularly blessed with a most beautiful area—I would not say outdoor activity centres are abundant there, but there are many of them. It is really important that they play a part in our education recovery, and we certainly hope that many schools will be looking at that. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend and other colleagues to discuss in further detail how they can play their role.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) [V]
Why are the Secretary of State’s powers of persuasion so inadequate that he has been able only to persuade the Chancellor to fund a mere one-tenth of Sir Kevan Collins’s admirable catch-up plan? Do children not deserve a better champion fighting their corner than this Secretary of State and his risible efforts, which are letting children down across the country? If I was marking his homework, I would give him an F for fail.
Gavin Williamson
We are investing heavily in teacher quality, so it is very doubtful that the hon. Lady would ever get the opportunity to be a teacher.
School Closures: Support for Pupils
Angela Eagle Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)
I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new call list system and to ensure that social distancing is respected. Members must arrive for the start of debates in Westminster Hall. Members are expected to remain for the winding-up speeches, provided that there is space in the room, which it looks like there is today. Members are asked to respect the one-way system around the room; please exit by the door on the left. Members should sanitise their microphones, using the cleaning materials provided, before they use them, and dispose of those materials as they leave the room. That rule has been more honoured in the breach than in the observance, and I intend to see it observed, if possible, in the current circumstances. Members in the later stages of the call list should use the seats in the Public Gallery and move into the horseshoe when seats there become available. Members can speak only from the horseshoe. I remind Members that they are strongly encouraged to wear a face covering when they are not speaking.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Angela. I, too, congratulate you on becoming a dame in the new year’s honours, which was very well deserved. I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on securing the debate and on his opening remarks, which covered all the issues that I believe need to be addressed. I also thank and congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on their work on this issue.
This is an urgent issue, and one that many colleagues have been talking about since the start of lockdown. Just yesterday I heard from one of my headteachers, who said that she was still waiting for the 114 laptops that the school had ordered and that were due to arrive last Wednesday. That is despite assurances given to Members of Parliament that laptops should arrive within 48 hours of being ordered. It is clear that the Government have inexplicably failed to plan ahead, once again putting kids last, not first, in this pandemic.
I am also disappointed that the Government seemingly took their foot off the accelerator in supporting kids to learn at home, following the easing of lockdown. They had a woefully slow start in March, which is on public record, with only 51,000 of the 200,000 laptops promised in March delivered by the end of May. I had to put in a freedom of information request to find that out. That was compounded by chaos in the supply of free school meals during lockdown, and a lack of guidance for teachers and support for parents.
Roll the clock forward nine months and it appears, on one level, that not much has changed. Incremental progress has been made, but it is utterly piecemeal and still far too confused. That has continued to be a hallmark of this Government. While the Department for Education should be making administrative decisions with clarity and forward planning, it instead lurches from crisis to crisis. It is not an excuse to say that the new variant took us by surprise, because a variant was expected. The NHS had sought to plan ahead; the rest of the Government clearly had not.
I do not want to hear today from the Government—I am sorry to be stern about this—about what has gone on that is to be applauded: the Oak National Academy, BBC provision, and Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and others putting on learning options. Much of that learning also has to be focused and directed by teachers, and it has to be accessible. To do that, we need laptops and broadband sufficient for every child, not every household, because every child has to be online and has to be able to learn for as many hours as they need.
We need an honest and clear conversation about what is not going well, and how the Government need to tackle the remaining gaps at the speed and scale needed. First, the Government must have a proper plan to support hybrid and remote learning, because this issue is not going away. There has to be a long-term and sustainable solution for the provision of laptops and devices to all children who need them. That includes the broadband connectivity that will be required not just during the lockdown, but on an ongoing basis. The virus is going to be with us for at least this year and maybe well into the next academic year.
When I say every child, I mean every primary and secondary school pupil. It may be that they cannot get access because a sibling is using the home computer or laptop to study, or a parent might be using it to work at home. Those are the same families that might have used free wi-fi in libraries but, under the current circumstances and conditions, cannot do so. Children are also on cycles of lockdown and self-isolation. We have seen that all the way through since September. As many as 20% could have been off in one day due to the need to self-isolate.
Catching up is also vital, and I congratulate the Sutton Trust and others on the work they have done. Research by the National Foundation for Educational Research showed that at the start of last term, poorer pupils were three months behind on their learning, showing that the digital divide plays a huge part in poorer children falling behind. As well as keeping up, they also have to catch up. They need the time to be able to study in order to do that.
Secondly, laptop support must be at scale and of quality. I am surprised at the number of complaints from teachers about the spec and quality of laptops they have received, and the difficulties they had in reimaging them and getting their children online. Will the Minister outline the quality of provision the Government are providing, the tests and criteria they have set out, and how they are monitoring complaints received from schools, in order that those issues can be ironed out for further cycles?
The benefits are clear and it is heartening to read what children have to say. Last April, in the gap between the start of lockdown and laptops starting to arrive, local charity Hounslow’s Promise started a scheme to secure business and individual donations of laptops. That project is ongoing, working with the Hounslow Education Partnership of headteachers.
I want to quote Victoria Eadie, chief executive officer of the Tudor Park Trust, who has worked on the project from the start:
“During the first lockdown when we rolled out the first computers in April we saw significantly increased engagement in learning by pupils who previously had no access… They went from no engagement to medium or full engagement. It made a huge difference.”
The feedback from young people has also had an impact and has led to the project continuing. One pupil said:
“Before I received a laptop from school, I was struggling to complete work that was being sent by post. This meant it was difficult for me to complete my work and receive feedback. Once I received my laptop it was easier to do my work and access help online. I am very grateful for the laptop; my mum is also very grateful as my little brother also uses it for his learning.”
Another pupil said:
“It has been absolutely brilliant. I was stressed because I couldn’t do the work as I only had my phone. Now I can do the home learning.”
A third pupil said:
“This is a life saver because I travel between mum and dad and this makes it possible for me to keep up with my schoolwork in either home.”
Thirdly, we need a proper plan for connectivity. We need to tackle data poverty. That is not an unknown inequality, yet it is another social injustice that the pandemic has shone a light on, dividing rich and poor, and haves and have nots, whether young or old. Children who are unable to learn from and with their parents are learning far more slowly than their peers.
I believe there is a lot more to do to ensure that there is a sustainable solution. I appreciate and am grateful for the support from Three and others, which are now coming together with the Government to provide some free access to broadband during this period, but there has to be a solution that is ongoing and sustainable. We need a proper national schools connectivity scheme at low or no cost, so that schools can be confident that they will be able to support all their pupils to get online.
This is indeed an unsettling time for children, and it would be hugely beneficial and easily achievable for tech firms and broadband suppliers to help children stay connected to their school and their friends. Not only will it support their learning; it will positively impact on their confidence and wellbeing.
Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)
I warn everybody that there are drop-outs from the call list, so the next person I will call to speak is Kate Osborne. First, I call Tracy Brabin.
Matt Western
I thank everyone who has participated in today’s debate, in incredibly difficult circumstances. It is clearly an important debate, and the fact that we have been able to hold it is testament to the need for it. I guess we all share some frustration when the Chambers are not available to us, and about not holding the Government to account. The Minister is a decent person, and will understand that the concerns of the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), for example, are constructive. They may be critical, but we want the best for our children and communities. That is why it so important to have such debates.
I want to give particular recognition to my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), who has done such sterling leadership work on child poverty and in the education sector. I thank her, having listened to her speak in the Chamber many times. She leads the way on many fronts and is worthy of special recognition.
I shall not go through the individual contributions, but I reiterate my thanks for Members’ participation and for so many important points. I will perhaps summarise just two areas. On free school meals, I understand the Minister’s point about Chartwells and the meeting that took place yesterday, but when businesses apologise, those apologies can be cheap. There are serious amounts of money involved, and profiteering is going on to the detriment of the children and families involved. I urge that the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee should look at the issue. It is a scandal, and a blemish on the work that the Minister is doing—as the Department. I hold the Minister in good regard, but it is right that the matter should be looked at most carefully.
I want to focus on the issue of laptops and digital access. There is poverty in many parts of our modern lives, but in this day and age the idea that the sixth wealthiest nation should have digital poverty and exclusion seems quite wrong. I think back, and perhaps I can put the matter simply by framing it in this way: for a child not to have an exercise book provided by the school, or access to a textbook in class, would be wrong. The school would not allow it. We have to think differently and recognise that digital access through the internet and broadband is crucial—laptops and digital access. Therefore, it should be mandatory for the Government to provide them to every child in our schools.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered support for pupils’ education during school closures.
Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)
Will Members please leave promptly by the exit door on the left, while observing social distancing?
Free School Meals: Summer Holidays
Angela Eagle Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Rebecca Long Bailey
I thank the hon. Member for his comments. I await with bated breath the details of the Secretary of State’s summer scheme—I have some ideas to suggest to him for how it might be rolled out. Indeed, there is a wider suite of support that our children will need throughout the pandemic and as we exit lockdown. Tackling poverty is just one element.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Is my hon. Friend as surprised as I am, if the Government always intended to do this, that they sent out the Transport Secretary and the Work and Pensions Secretary to embarrass themselves defending the indefensible?
Rebecca Long Bailey
All I will say is that I am happy we have reached the point we have today, although it should not have taken a public campaign from a well-known national hero to push the Government into making this decision. That said, they have made that decision and we take these small wins where we can find them.
Gavin Williamson
I will make some progress.
It may be that the retailer was in a sparse area and there were no other retailers that the family were able to use, or the family were in an area where there was not a list of available retailers.
Maria Eagle
They always have been that. I was not aware of those numbers, but I am now.
For many years—from the Front Bench when I was on it, and now from the Back Benches—I have highlighted the ever increasing food poverty crisis that my constituents have been enduring, driven by savage cuts in public spending and support for families. The nature of the job market, which is dominated by insecure work, low pay, short-hours and zero-hours contracts, has been one of the drivers of increasing food poverty, but it has been made much worse by the covid crisis.
Ms Angela Eagle
I thank my honourable and sororal twin for giving way. Does she agree that the state of the labour market and the precarious nature of much work is one of the most shameful legacies of the Conservative party?
Maria Eagle
I do agree with that analysis, as it happens, but I would have to agree in any event in order to keep the peace in the family, even at a distance. My hon. Friend is correct. Precariousness in the labour market—particularly under-employment, as it used to be called, with zero-hours contracts being a prime example—is one of the main causes of the financial instability that leads to the food poverty that I have seen increasing in my constituency over the past 10 years to a remarkable degree. It has been made much worse by the covid crisis. Children are the most innocent victims of that. In the past three Parliaments, I have repeatedly seen incomprehension on the faces of Ministers. They have not seemed to accept that there is a real problem of hunger out there when I and other hon. Members on the Opposition Benches have pointed it out to them, but there is. It was real and growing before covid. It is bigger and starker now.
Free school meals are a direct way to tackle food poverty for children in normal times, but what if the schools are closed or the parents’ income has been removed while their bills remain or are at best deferred? That is what the covid crisis has done. Some 18,000 children are eligible for free school meals in Liverpool, including more than 3,500 in my constituency. Some 29%—close to a third—of all children in my constituency live in poverty.
There are two other problems: first, that things are getting worse, and secondly, that the capacity of local authorities to assist has been systematically undermined and is diminishing rapidly because of Government policies. Before the covid crisis, unemployment in my constituency was at 4.5%. Today’s figures show that the claimant count has almost doubled in two months to 7.9%, which is above the national average. A further 11,500 jobs are furloughed, which is some 18% of the working-age population in my constituency, and 2,600 people are taking up support from the self-employment income support scheme.
Those schemes are valued and important, and I congratulate the Government on instituting them, but many of those livelihoods will be severely at risk over the next two to three months as the Government schemes are brought to an end. Liverpool city region research and other research into the job situation in the Merseyside area suggests that up to a quarter of all jobs are at risk as a fallout of the economic consequences that we are suffering because of covid. The reality is that unemployment in my constituency is likely to be even higher soon.
Unemployment over 10% and a quarter of jobs at risk of going—that reminds me of something. It reminds me of the early 1980s in Liverpool, which was truly the worst of times. I remember it; I was there. Many of my constituents are now in desperate need, having found themselves unemployed with bills still to pay and a financial reckoning heading straight towards them.
In many areas, queues formed quickly outside retail outlets yesterday, as non-essential shops began to reopen, but I am told that the longest queue that formed in Knowsley was outside a local pawnbrokers. There has been a 389% increase there in universal credit applications since before covid. As universal credit is a passport benefit to free school meals, the need is obviously increasing hugely.
Meanwhile, the ability of Liverpool City Council and Knowsley Council to respond and provide extra help is being removed by a Government who have not even kept their own promise at the beginning of the crisis to pay councils the full cost of covid. Far from being paid back what they have paid out, both councils in my constituency have received only about half the costs incurred. That is a recipe for removing their ability to further help children in need as the crisis of child hunger worsens.
In Liverpool, the council was spending £108,000 a week funding a £10 voucher for children eligible for free school meals. It is a good job that it did, because the chaos engendered at the beginning of the Government’s scheme meant that Government vouchers were not forthcoming for weeks. Last year, the council spent a quarter of a million pounds providing city-wide play schemes that included food for the children using them across the city. It is not clear if it will be able to do that in 2020 because of the financial shortfall. In Knowsley, the council has spent £360,000 funding meal vouchers for children, which it will not get back from the Government.
During the lockdown, local councillors in Knowsley and Liverpool have overwhelmingly used their discretionary funds and their volunteering time to feed people, including children. That is all in addition to the food provided, eventually, by the Government’s shielding scheme. The Torrington Drive Community Association in Halewood has delivered more than 2,000 meals and is currently delivering 120 meals, three times a week, including 150 packed lunches for children. In Belle Vale, 2,600 food packs have been given out at three distribution centres, with new families still coming in and asking for help. In Cressington, local councillors have spent £9,000—all of their discretionary funds—simply feeding people, including children, who need support, with the help of Can Cook kitchen, a food poverty charity, whose work I have highlighted before. Yes, I am glad that the Government have seen sense, and have decided to give help that will feed children over the summer holidays; it will be given directly to their parents in the form of vouchers. The Government should not, as some of their Members were close to doing, equate poverty with fecklessness. It is wrong to do so, and I know that the Secretary of State will not fall into that trap.
The Government need to step up to the challenge of making sure that the next few years in Liverpool are not a rerun of the early 1980s. They could begin by giving Liverpool City Council and Knowsley Borough Council the full costs of covid, as they promised they would. In the longer term, they must address the underlying causes of holiday hunger, child poverty, low wages and insecure work. It is only when they do so that this problem will truly be solved.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this debate. I would like to compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) for calling our Opposition day debate on this issue and forcing the Government to confront their inexplicable decision to abandon the programme of food support over the summer. I welcome the U-turn, although it would have been very difficult to learn from the Secretary of State’s contribution that there had been a U-turn at all. It was almost as though the Government were always going to do this. However, it took a huge campaign to achieve it, and I for one welcome the fact that the Government have conceded that the school voucher scheme will go on over this summer. I also agree with the comments that this kind of ad hoc approach is not a good enough way of tackling the issue of holiday hunger.
We know that, as Opposition Members have said, this has been caused by problems in our labour market: low pay, precarious work, and, due to a period of austerity, benefits not being good or generous enough to supply people with the basics. We also know that that hits the most vulnerable. We know that 200,000 children have skipped meals during the lockdown. We know that child poverty has increased since 2010. We know that seven out of 10 of those in poverty are in work. We know from the Trussell Trust that there was an 89% increase in the need for emergency food parcels in April. We know that there has been a 107% increase in parcels given to children. In my own constituency of Wallasey, 3,910 students were eligible for the voucher scheme. Having had a look at the increase in unemployment since March of 1,880, I know that that will be going up. There is extreme pressure.
I talked to a lot of my schools who have been dealing with this issue. Many of them say the same thing: that the food voucher scheme has helped to reduce financial and mental anxiety during the difficult times caused by the lockdown and covid; that vouchers to purchase food at least ensure that people do not have to worry about the basic requirement of being able to feed their families; and that without the Government making this concession children would undoubtedly have gone hungry, resulting in intolerable strain and collapse in our communities.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
Does the hon. Lady share my concern that a number of families who are eligible for the scheme may not have even had the vouchers? That could be an administrative issue or that they just do not know about it. That means that this is no silver bullet and that the Government need to continue to introduce schemes that will reach those who are the hardest to reach.
Ms Eagle
Absolutely. I think all of us experienced the chaos that was around when the scheme began. Many teachers who contacted me were pulling their hair out. Many schools spent a lot of money—as did local authorities—to ensure that food parcels were available until the voucher schemes were up and running. There were very many issues with them.
There are those who say that civil society should do this work and that the food bank system is an example of how lucky we are to have an engaged society, but one of the first things that happened when covid struck was that the entire food bank structure in my area had to close down because it was managed mainly by people who are in the older categories who then had to shield for their own wellbeing. The local authority then had to take on a lot of the central distribution of the food bank structures that had grown up to feed thousands of children in Wallasey every summer.
The Government need to pay great attention to how much support they give to the structures that are there to ensure that something as basic as access to food is available for the most vulnerable children. It means, of course, that those children can study and learn, and get a better chance than they would otherwise have had if they were wondering where their next meal would come from. The covid-19 crisis has shone a not very flattering light on the plummeting levels of social justice we have seen in this country throughout the years of austerity. It has shone an unflattering light on the edge that many of our fellow citizens live on, whether they are in zero-hours contracts, in precarious work, only just able to manage, without access to savings, or only one wage away from disaster. It is an issue for all of us to think about how this can be improved, but it is particularly for the Government to ensure that they tackle it, given that they are in power for the next four years.
I welcome the U-turn, and I would welcome it even more if the Government recognised that there was an issue and dealt with it more proactively, rather than being forced, by the fantastic and magnificent campaigning of Marcus Rashford, to U-turn at the last minute.
Oral Answers to Questions
Angela Eagle Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend raises the vital point that we have to have a range of different tools to be able to ensure that children succeed. At the core of that is making sure that as many children as possible achieve and deliver on what they need to do in terms of English and maths, while ensuring there is a range of different opportunities as they progress through their schooling career. The Government have introduced a number of initiatives, including T-levels, and a changing approach in terms of apprenticeships, which will give so many young people the chance they deserve and need.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State have in his mind that, as child poverty is now rising and due to rise to 5 million by 2022, there will be more disadvantaged people who need more help? What are the Government going to do about that?
Gavin Williamson
Through initiatives such as the pupil premium and the extra money we are putting into special educational needs, and the fact that we are levelling up education funding across the country, we on the Conservative Benches recognise the important role education plays in delivering opportunities for young people. That is what we are delivering for all children in this country.
Parental Involvement in Teaching: Equality Act
Angela Eagle Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Godsiff
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I cannot give him an answer because I can only refer to what is happening in Birmingham. I shall continue to refer to that.
In a Westminster Hall debate on 25 February, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood referred to the fact that parents were complaining that there had been no consultation whatever about how the nine protected characteristics were being imparted to children and that children, some as young as four or five, were telling parents about what they allegedly had been taught in lessons. That caused the parents considerable concern. At the school in my constituency, a similar situation occurred. There was no consultation with parents. The headteacher made it plain that no consultation was going to take place and no collective meetings with parents were held. She said that she or her deputy would meet individual parents on a “one-to-one” basis to listen to their concerns, but when such meetings took place the same answer was always given—namely, that the school was only carrying out the Equality Act.
Mr Godsiff
I have already given way on a couple of occasions. [Interruption.] Well, the hon. Member will have plenty of time to make a speech, because this debate could go on until 7 o’clock.
Understandably, some parents were unhappy with the response and felt that the school had no regard for their concerns.
Mr Godsiff
I have made it clear that I am not giving way.
The parents therefore had their own meeting and, after asking the brother of one parent who is in the property business and is well educated and articulate, to be the co-ordinator, they began their protests, on which I will touch in a minute. The common theme that links these two schools is that parents at both schools were neither consulted nor involved in how the nine protected characteristics were to be imparted to children. Parents were excluded entirely from the process, although the Equality Act is not an exam subject, for example, like English or mathematics.
All schools call regular meetings of parents when they want to inform them about important issues. It is part and parcel of school life for regular meetings to take place with parents, but no meetings with parents were held at the two schools.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Teaching about LGBT existence and relationships, and showing respect and legitimacy to all regardless of their sexual orientation, is something that has not been a feature of our school system for very long. That is because of the odious and appalling effects of section 28, which was passed in the 1980s in a circumstance that was very similar to some of the scare stories that we are hearing about the possible dire effects of simply teaching relationship and sex education in schools—something that we should have been doing generations ago. If we had done it generations ago, there would have been an awful lot more happy and well-adjusted people than those who have been monstered in the way they have for the way that they are in a system that was disfigured by the effects of section 28. Many years later, we are finally making progress on LGBT rights in law and reaching fantastic levels of formal equality in our law. That is one of the most important social reforms that the previous Labour Government were responsible for, and it has been continued, to their credit, by Administrations subsequently. I know of the Minister’s own personal commitment to this agenda.
Yet here we are in the middle of a similar kind of moral scare that is being whipped up by people who have a different agenda from the wellbeing of children and their adjustment to the facts and experience of 21st-century life in the UK. We have seen it exposed on television and in some of the closed Facebook groups of the individuals involved that are making claims about the sexual orientation of the teachers at this school, using language that I would not use in this Chamber. We have seen it in the mob reactions outside the school. It is not appropriate, however we do these things, that young primary school pupils should have to run a gauntlet of screaming demonstrators simply to get to school, with that noisy, vociferous, aggressive kind of shouting and chanting. That will be traumatic for any kind of young primary school pupil, and we should not be subjecting them to it. To be honest, no parents who believe that they are acting in the best interests of their children should be making them run such a gauntlet.
We know—I exempt my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff) from this, although I wish he had let me ask him a question—that the motivations of some of those involved in this are reactionary. They are returners to an era where LGBT people should get back in the closet and hide and be ashamed of the way they are. We are not going to get back in the closet, or hide, or be ashamed of the way we are. Nor are we going to allow a generation of pupils who are now in school to go through what pupils in the ’80s had to go through because this Chamber let them down.
Nor are we going to allow this to happen in the name of religion. I am a humanist, and married to a Catholic. She does much work with LGBT religious organisations to try to put together across religions coalitions of moderate, decent, sensible religious people who recognise the right of LGBT people to exist, to have access to respect and dignity, and to have their rights in law. We must not put together this view that if somebody has a religious objection, then somehow there can be no debate about it from then on in. There are multiple views in religions about the legitimacy of LGBT rights. It is only on the far extremist fundamentalist fringes that we get the kind of hostility that is being shown on some of the Facebook groups of these campaigners. I would like to know a lot more about the network that is behind this, because it is a deliberate, reactionary attempt to take back progressive advance and decency for children.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; she is speaking incredibly movingly. As somebody who lives closer, I think, than anybody else to the schools particularly in question and lives in the community amongst the people who go to that school, I want it to be said on the record that she is absolutely right in what she says about this being on the fringes, because I do not recognise the Muslim community that I live amongst as being part of that mob.
Ms Eagle
I thank my hon. Friend. She has a great deal of experience in this, not least because she lives amongst the community that is being portrayed in such a way.
We must not give in to this kind of organised campaign, which is effectively being organised from the outside. The Equality Act—which was passed in 2010, so has been on the statute book for nine years—actually says that schools have a duty not to discriminate against LGBT people. That includes discrimination against pupils who are LGBT—to be fair, that would probably not be very apparent at primary school level—pupils who are perceived to be LGBT, and pupils with LGBT parents, carers and family members. These are the diverse parents that we have in our communities now, and the children that they send to school, or the potentially LGBT children in school, do not deserve to be treated with anything other than equality and respect. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] All that is meant by the teaching on relationship and sex education is that this diversity needs to be represented. It is not propagandising and it is not trying to “turn people gay”, which I have heard mentioned—I am not sure it is possible to turn people gay; there certainly would be no gay people if you had to be taught about being gay to be gay. [Laughter.] What we are talking about is respect, their rights, their right to be equally welcome in school, not to be bullied or treated as if they are lesser, not to be made to feel that somehow there is something wrong with them, not to feel suicidal, not to be called “faggot” or “lezzer” in school and not to be humiliated. That is what we are talking about when it comes to relationship and sex education—plain, simple decency.
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
This has been an extraordinary Adjournment debate and, Mr Speaker, worth your waiting 10 years in the Chair to hear, I would argue.
There were powerful speeches by the hon. Members for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), with a powerful and moving speech by the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), who was right that we were not going to allow another generation of children to go through what previous generations endured. As the hon. Member for Rhondda said, what is wanted is not to be tolerated but to be respected or, as the hon. Member for Wallasey said, plain, simple decency.
There were well argued and persuasive speeches by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), and the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle). I listened carefully to the speech by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff), who opened the debate.
This Government agree that parents, as the primary educators of their children, should be involved in their child’s education in schools. The Government trust schools to deliver a broad and balanced curriculum that will prepare pupils for life in modern Britain, and we firmly believe that proper dialogue between schools and parents supports mutual understanding and ultimately benefits the progress of pupils. Schools should in particular consider whether aspects of their curriculum may be sensitive to the parents of their particular cohort and, if so, should ensure that they have properly engaged them on this content. But we must also remember that schools have been given the responsibility to educate, and ultimately it is for schools to decide what is taught, and how.
Equality for all is written into our laws. The Equality Act 2010 provides a legal framework to protect the rights of individuals and advance equality of opportunity for all. It provides Britain with a discrimination law that protects individuals from unfair treatment and promotes a fair and more equal society. Schools are required to comply with the relevant requirements of the Equality Act. Chapter 1 of part 6 of the Act applies to schools. As an example, part 6 of the Act makes it unlawful for a school to discriminate against, harass or victimise a pupil or potential pupil in relation to admissions or in how the school is run. The content of the school curriculum is exempt from the duties imposed on schools by part 6 of the Equality Act. Excluding the content of the curriculum ensures, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green pointed out, that schools are free to include a full range of issues, ideas and materials in their syllabus and to expose pupils to thoughts and ideas of all kinds, however challenging or controversial, without fear of legal challenge based on a protected characteristic.
Schools are, however, subject to the public sector equality duty in section 149 of the Act, which means that in discharging their functions they must have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Act, and have due regard to the need to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it. Relevant protected characteristics are age; disability; gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.
We know that many schools choose to teach pupils about the Equality Act and the protected characteristics in the context of duties on schools, such as the requirements to promote fundamental British values and the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of their pupils. Schools are perfectly entitled to teach about the Equality Act in this context, and the Department thinks it is right that pupils leave school with a proper understanding of the importance of equality and of respecting difference. To answer the question on age appropriateness asked by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green, schools that choose to teach about the Equality Act and protected characteristics should of course consider the age appropriateness of all elements of this and plan their curriculum accordingly.
That crucial need to respect difference would of course be a simple expectation of members of our society were all differences easily compatible. The true test of the concept of respect for difference lies in cases where our differences may appear to bring us in direct conflict with others. The fundamental expectation that we respect other people is therefore at times hard to achieve and all the more crucial for it. This has been seen in action in recent months, as some differences have seemed to divide us. We have seen protests from parents relating to the teaching of equality in our schools, with a particular focus on teaching lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender content. The media would like to portray this as religion versus LGBT. I do not doubt that some people on both sides of the debate, without links to the schools involved, are exploiting the situation due to their own lack of tolerance for the other side, but I truly believe that, for the majority, there is a real respect for their fellow citizens who are different from them.
Central to this debate are deeply held views on what is right to teach children about LGBT people and relationships at different ages.
Ms Angela Eagle
Is the Minister as worried as I am about the emerging evidence of an organised campaign to disrupt the introduction of RSE in schools, which is now spreading from Birmingham to other places? Will he reassure us that his Department will crack down on those attempts with the utmost determination?
Nick Gibb
This Government, supported by Members on both sides of the House, introduced the regulations making RSE compulsory in schools—an amendment to the Children and Social Work Act 2017 introduced that requirement.
Today, we are publishing the final version of the guidance, which was put out for consultation. We are determined to press ahead with this policy, which has been carefully crafted with help from across the House. Individual Members helped us to devise and write the policy; Ian Bauckham, an experienced headteacher from Kent, helped us to draft the guidance; and, of course, officials from the Department for Education worked extremely hard in crafting the guidance. We will, of course, press ahead with the policy.
Ms Angela Eagle
Until we got to that passage in the Minister’s speech, I thought I understood what the situation was, but he seemed to be saying that he is going to give very radicalised fundamentalist-type campaigns options to make as much fuss as possible to prevent the teaching of LGBT equality and relations until it is easier to do it. I fear that what he said a few minutes ago—I hope that he will be able to put me right on this—is almost an open invitation to these organisations that are already spreading disruption across the country to do even more of it. We cannot compromise with such organisations, and if he does not stand up to them now, he will regret it.
Nick Gibb
I think that the hon. Lady is being unjust in how she is interpreting what I have said. I made it very clear that the school should consult parents. I made it very clear that the school is not bound by a vote of those parents—that ultimately the decision on the content of the curriculum, and how and when it is taught, is a matter for the school—and that we will support the school in that decision once it has been reached. We have also made it very clear that we do not support protests outside schools that require young children to—to use her phrase—run the gauntlet of screaming and shouting protesters. We absolutely do not support those protests. We supported Birmingham City Council in taking out the injunction against those protests. I think she is being slightly unfair in the way that she has heard my speech.
Murders in Northamptonshire: Serious Case Reviews
Angela Eagle Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I hope he heard me say earlier that we have Malcolm Newsam. In conjunction with Malcom we have Lincolnshire County Council, which is one of our exemplars in delivering the best services and safeguarding children. The important thing to remember in this case is that we must always ensure that the safety of children comes first. We know that poor practice can cost more money, not less, in the longer term. The director of children’s services has been clear in her statements that funding was not the cause of these tragic incidents, and that system, practice and partnership was where it needs to be. The important thing is that we get on.
In Doncaster, I saw at first hand how children’s services can be transformed. They went from failing with very poor outcomes, to good outcomes for children when we put it into trust. I met the social workers on the frontline, and 70% of them are the same people who were there when the local authority was failing. I said, “I want all the directors out of the room. I want to talk to just the frontline.” I said to them, “What is the difference here? What have you done here that has transformed the service? You are the same people who were here when it was failing.” They said it was all about leadership: leadership that supported, trusted and nurtured them, and delivered that support for them. Those are the sorts of lessons we need to learn in order to be able to deliver the same level of success as Doncaster.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Funding may not have had a direct effect, but surely the Minister needs to recognise that, with the huge cuts to local authorities and a national shortage of well-qualified social workers putting enormous pressure on social services systems around the country, we are seeing a crisis in one area responded to by putting in extra money and bidding up social workers’ wages, allowing them to move to solve one problem but creating gaps in other areas. Surely the Minister needs to take a much more systemic view of what is going on in social services up and down the country, and recognise that funding is an issue.
Nadhim Zahawi
I think—I hope—I have been clear in saying that I recognise there are funding pressures on children’s services. I am working with the director of children’s services and the sector as a whole in preparation for the spending review. However, to simply characterise this as a funding issue would be misleading. We have to do both things. We have to have a whole-system approach. We are learning from the best—Leeds, North Yorkshire and Hertfordshire—and scaling those models from those three local authorities to 20. We also have to look at the workforce, and by introducing the national accreditation assessment process and Social Work England we begin to deliver a system that really does work to protect the most vulnerable children and families in our society.
Education
Angela Eagle Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Nick Gibb
I will come on to that specific point later in my opening remarks, but I can give my right hon. Friend the reassurance that only in exceptional circumstances will the school not respect parents’ request to withdraw their child from sex education in secondary school. There is an absolute right for parents to withdraw their child from sex education in primary school.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
This is always a sensitive subject, but we are talking about giving information to children about the daily reality of some of their contemporaries. Does the Minister not agree that we are talking about doing this in an atmosphere where we have seen what happens when being LGBT is somehow hidden and ashamed? It leads to bullying, high levels of self-hatred and mental health issues, self-harm and sometimes even suicide. Will he not just listen to those who wish completely to separate their children from basic human knowledge about the reality for LGBT pupils in schools?
Nick Gibb
That is, of course, one of the purposes of introducing the regulations today and the guidance is very clear about the importance of LGBT issues. However, we also want to make sure that we have a wide consensus on these issues. They are ultimately a matter for teachers in schools to decide. I will come on to that point in a little more detail.