Department for Education

Debate between Anne McLaughlin and Carol Monaghan

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[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.