Department for Education
Anne McLaughlin Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Let me begin by welcoming the new Secretary of State to her position. She has been committed and diligent in her role as Universities Minister, and I am sure she will bring the same commitment to this role. I know that she has spoken out strongly in favour of skills education, and I am sure that many of us will be watching with anticipation over the next few months.
Let me also congratulate the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). As always, he spoke with knowledge and passion, and I concur with much of what he said. He talked a great deal about the number of children who are absent from school, and I want to drill down into that. In the case of some children, absence is due to illness and not being able to connect properly with schools. There are many instances in which, if we had better links between schools and homes, young people would have better access to education. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), I have done a great deal of work on the issue of children who are excluded owing to that condition through no fault of their own, and I hope we can do some cross-party work on the subject. There are other reasons for children not to be at school. An issue that persists in England, but does not happen in Scotland, is the off-rolling of children. Off-rolling to massage school results or to get rid of the problem is not good enough. These young people should still be the responsibility of the local authority and of the school, and the school should be doing outreach to ensure that they can access education. This has to stop.
The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morsden (Siobhain McDonagh) talked about the importance of educating the whole person. She mentioned additional services such as after-school clubs. We need to be clear about those. They are not a nice add-on; they are key to the development of young people. With a different hat on, I am a volunteer coach at a local gymnastics club. Unfortunately, owing to the cost of living crisis, we are seeing young people not turning up—young people unable to access important activities delivered both in and outside schools. Such activities build young people’s resilience, they build healthy lifestyles, and they help those young people to communicate, collaborate and work with others. As I have said, they are key to development, and they should not be ignored. Amid all the talk about what is offered in schools, we must also look at what is offered outside schools for the development of a young person.
Schools are, of course, not immune to inflation and the cost of living crisis. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the 2021 spending review included an extra £4.4 billion for the schools budget in 2024-25, as compared with previous plans. While that may sound like a win, the IFS has also said that
“it will mean 15 years with no overall growth in spending. This squeeze on school resources is effectively without precedent in post-war UK history.”
The hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) detailed some of the other comments that the IFS has made, including the fact that deprived schools have seen larger cuts over the last decade. I will not repeat his comments, but what he said about funding in different areas was extremely important. If we are talking about equal opportunities for those from different backgrounds, this must be looked at. Conversely, in Scotland, the Scottish Government figures on education spending show that 2020-21 was the sixth year in a row that education expenditure saw a real-terms increase. This is important, and the money that has been directed to individual schools to help them to tackle issues such as child poverty and after-school clubs makes up part of that picture.
The problem is that the IFS figures and the Budget figures do not talk about child poverty, which is the biggest issue that will affect a child’s life chances and attainment. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) talked about free school meals, and this is something that is really important to us in Scotland. We have identified that this must take place, and since January every youngster in primary 1 to primary 5 in Scotland gets a free school lunch, regardless of income. That will be rolled out to every primary pupil over this parliamentary term.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I wonder whether my hon. Friend was in the Chamber on the day that a Government Minister was ridiculing the Scottish Government for the amount of money they spent on what were called welfare payments, which would include providing free school meals for those children in years 1 to 5. Does she agree that, whatever a Government invest their money in, the primary thing they should invest in is their people and their children?
Carol Monaghan
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend, and it is not just about the money. As she says, it is about the value we are putting on those youngsters as well. In Scotland, that starts right from the moment when parents are given a baby box, followed by the Scottish Government’s commitment to childcare and free school meals, and now we have the Scottish child payment of £20 a week for every eligible child, which is transformational for families in need. Of course that only goes a little way towards tackling the cost of living crisis, but we know that hungry children cannot learn, so free school meals must be central to this and it would be good to see some movement on that from this Government.
We also have to look at skills for the future. No party or Government who have forced through a devastating Brexit in the middle of a pandemic can credibly claim to be focused on recovery. A fair recovery must be investment-led. At the centre of Scotland’s plan is fair work, which is why the Scottish Government have invested £500 million to support new jobs and retrain people for jobs for the future, as well as funding the young person’s guarantee of a free university, college, apprenticeship or training place for every young person. This is not about loans; it is about investment, and with 93% of our young people in training, employment or education—the highest in the UK—it is paying off.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anne McLaughlin Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
That was a very well read question by the hon. Member. What we are doing is a combination of things, because we on this side of the House understand that teachers will have an acute understanding of those children who have suffered most as a result of being out of the classroom. We have understood that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are most helped by small group tuition. We have created the national tutoring programme—a specifically targeted programme—and all the evidence points to the simple fact that by taking this approach, we have the biggest impact in terms of helping children catch up with lost learning.
The hon. Gentleman probably has little interest or regard for facts or evidence, and that is probably evidenced by the fact that that is how the Labour party came up with its last manifesto. But we do care about evidence. Actually, the evidence shows that by having these targeted interventions, yet giving support to teachers to be able to help children who need it most, we will be able to help the maximum number of children.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
The Get Help with Technology programme is helping disadvantaged children in England without a connection at home, including those living in asylum accommodation, to access the internet. We have delivered more than 60,000 4G wireless routers and are partnering with the UK’s leading mobile operators to provide free data uplifts.
Anne McLaughlin [V]
Wi-fi is not a standard feature in asylum accommodation. As more and more learning is done online, even outside of the pandemic, is the Minister prepared to work with counterparts in the Home Office to ensure that all children in the asylum system are able to access digital learning opportunities, so that they do not fall behind and are able to integrate as quickly as possible?
Nick Gibb
Yes, of course. The Home Office is in charge of the asylum seeker estate, and it does ensure that wi-fi is available. In terms of schools generally, as of 15 February, more than 1 million laptops and tablets have been delivered to schools and local authorities. It is one of the biggest procurement exercises of its kind, with 1 million computers built to order and shipped to Britain, with software added before being delivered. The process started last April, and throughout the summer and autumn we continued to order more and more computers, as we prepared for future contingencies.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)
The Government are fully committed to protecting and promoting children’s rights; it is such an important issue. We strongly believe in the principles laid down in the UN convention on the rights of the child, which a Conservative Government ratified 30 years ago, in 1991. We regularly report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on the great work that we have been doing across the UK to implement the UNCRC and to promote children’s rights.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP) [V]
Gavin Williamson
I thank the hon. Lady for raising this point. I am happy to ask my office to get in touch with her for details, so that we can highlight this to the Department for Work and Pensions.
Draft Immigration Skills Charge Regulations 2017
Anne McLaughlin Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I have listened to what you said about not going off the subject, Mr Streeter. Given your patience with me in another place yesterday, you will be pleased to hear that I have taken my pen and scored out an awful lot of what I was planning to say.
I want to speak about our fundamental opposition to the regulations. My colleague and hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North will have some more specific points and some questions. When we get back to the fundamentals of this, I would argue, mistaken proposal, it is clear that it is yet another policy driven simply by the Prime Minister’s unachievable aim of getting migration under 100,000. That ever-retreating mirage of a policy ambition is perhaps causing more misery on these islands than any other of the Government’s objectives, outside those of the Department for Work and Pensions and the Brexit Department.
Any economy that is to expand needs to fill skill shortages in the short term, as its businesses grow, even if it ensures that in the middle term local workers are given the opportunity to be trained. Nobody would argue with that intention. What these measures will do is to discourage skilled workers and tax-paying migrants from many of our closest friends and allies from contributing to the UK economy—a policy that, it is clear to me, will harm British business.
We should not be punishing companies that need to bring in skilled workers from elsewhere. Those workers will contribute to our tax base, as will the companies that sponsor them, and we should not be disincentivising that simply because some employers, as the Minister said, do not make the effort to train and find people from the UK.
In the short to medium term, all we are doing is encouraging further migration from the EU. That is something that I wholeheartedly approve of, but I do not think it was the intention of the drafters of the regulations. Companies will quite likely look to the continent to avoid paying the sponsoring fees, even as we stumble further forward into the shadows of Brexit. Whether those EU nationals will be the slightest bit interested in those overtures, given the insecurity they will face if they accept them, remains to be seen.
We share the concerns of the hon. Member for Blackpool South on the public sector, and in particular the health service. As I said, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North will come on to that.
The Government are simply pulling up the drawbridge, not only on EU workers but on non-EU workers. I expect and hope that Scotland will choose a different path, but there is no guarantee of that; we may be stuck with this. Even if Scotland chooses a different path, I want the rest of the UK to be able to make it independently, seeing as that is what people have chosen. However, it will not make it if it keeps putting up barriers to people who have the skills to grow the economy.
We oppose the charge, and I urge the Minister to think again and to think about what we have all had to say today. I wish him a happy birthday, but I am more likely to bake him a cake if he considers what we have said.
The Chair
Robert Halfon
For two reasons. First, we are trying to change behaviours and develop—[Interruption.] If I am given a chance, I will set out all the things we are doing to invest in skills in the NHS. The second reason is to raise funds to invest in skills. We want to change behaviours and we want to raise funds. We want to share the burden of paying for the cost of skills across the United Kingdom and not put all of the burden on the hard-pressed taxpayer but share it fairly.
Anne McLaughlin
Would it not be quite useful not just to invest in training new doctors and nurses, but to treat existing NHS staff a little better so that they want to stay in the NHS? For example, there might a nursing shortage because the Government stopped nursing bursaries. In Scotland, nursing bursaries still exist, plus there is an additional fund for those facing extra hardship. The result is that, while applications to train as a nurse in England and Wales have dropped, they have gone up by 50% in Scotland.
Trade Union Bill
Anne McLaughlin Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Chris Stephens
Murderopolis, indeed.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The TUC, the STUC and the TUC in Wales are having these discussions. The STUC and the Scottish Government oppose the Bill, and the TUC in Wales and the Welsh Government oppose it. Local authorities oppose it. Health boards oppose it. It has no support whatsoever across the public services.
Chris Stephens
I am just finishing.
The Bill is an attack on our civil liberties and our human rights. As such, it does not deserve a Second Reading.