Department for Education

Anne Milton Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)]

I thank the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) for securing the debate. I can assure her that I will not resort to smoke and mirrors. That is not really my style. I will not necessarily be able to give her all the specific details about the money that I think she will want to hear, but I will respond to a couple of her points.

The Secretary of State is extremely mindful of the problems involved in asking schools to do more. He is determined to ensure that we do what we can to help them to manage their budgets and their workload. The hon. Lady mentioned high needs. An additional £250 million will be invested in 2019-20, and we are looking at some of the perverse incentives that currently exist, especially considering that first £6,000 that schools are asked to pay. The hon. Lady raised the issue of asbestos exposure and capital budgets. The impact of asbestos in buildings on health, and the changes and challenges that it poses, are quite complex, but I welcome her comments about the schools survey that we have undertaken. The Department has established an asbestos working group, which includes the Health and Safety Executive, to address some of those problems.

A total of £23 billion has been provided for capital spending over five years—between 2016-17 and 2020-21 —and we are on track to create 1 million new school places during the current decade. That will be the biggest expansion for two generations, and it contrasts with the loss of places between 2004 and 2010. Between 2010 and 2017, 825,000 additional places were created; that includes 90,000 in 2016-17 alone. I should add that 97.7% of families received offers from one of their three top primary school choices, and 91% received offers from their first choices. Those are important figures, because that is what matters to parents.

I will respond to some of the most pressing points that have been raised, but I should first point out that in 2018-19 the Department’s resource budget is about £79 billion. Of that, £18 billion is for higher and further education, £55 billion is for early years and schools, and £0.3 billion is for social care, mobility and disadvantage.

I welcome the contribution of the Education Committee, and the work of the Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), has been particularly valuable. He is right to remind the House that putting in more money does not necessarily equate to better outcomes. It is not as simple as that. Good outcomes are what matter, but good outcomes in themselves are not enough. We want excellent outcomes not only for those at school, but for those for whom school did not work. Many of them need a second, a third or even a fourth chance. I am, of course, delighted that my right hon. Friend raised the issue of further education, and I thank him for his kind comments.

My right hon. Friend talked about the importance of plans. It will certainly not be before time that we articulate a vision for further education, which is so often squeezed between the noises surrounding schools and universities. As my right hon. Friend rightly says, reducing inequalities in education has a wide impact, not least on people’s health—those who are better educated have better health—and it can also enable people to become socially mobile.

I was extremely pleased that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) reiterated the need to reform all education, highlighting further education. I assure her that we are very aware of the issue of maintained nurseries. I am aware that their need to know the situation is very pressing.

[Robert Halfon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Anne Milton]

I do not have much time, so if my right hon. Friend will forgive me, I will not.

My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) raised the issue of exclusions. We are not complacent, but I should point out that the number of exclusions reached a peak in 2008. The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) raised a specific issue about local schools and academies. I think it is a mistake always to blame structures, but I understand her underlying point about accountability, which is so important.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton)—although he was corrected slightly by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee—raised the important issue of children’s social care. He drew attention to the key role that early years education and care play in the eventual outcomes for young people. He made a predictably powerful speech. I worked with him when I was in the Department of Health, and I am extremely pleased to see him continuing his excellent work, albeit from the Back Benches. I know he has also been a champion for his local schools and their funding, as indeed has my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who reiterated similar issues. He raised one thing that has long been a bugbear of mine: the need for more certainty in budgets. He mentioned three-year rolling budgets, but whatever it is we are talking about something that gives organisations certainty.

I have already met the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) and she raised the issue of inequality and social mobility and the importance of local industrial strategies. She, like the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, highlighted the need for us to have an articulate and adequate clear vision for further education. I am sure she is aware that Bristol is one of the five cities in our “5 cities” project trying to increase diversity in apprenticeships. I met a woman recently in Bristol who demonstrated exactly what can be achieved through apprenticeships. [Interruption.] She was a single parent, and I am sorry hon. Members on the Opposition Front Bench find this amusing, but I found it very moving: she had been unemployed for 10 years and had a small child, and because of that project she had got a level 2 apprenticeship and was really proud of what she had achieved, and proud that her daughter was now proud of what her mother was doing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) has been a huge champion of further education and rightly pointed out the need for much greater emphasis on levels 4 and 5; we are looking at that at the moment. He also recognised the need to increase the number of people undertaking qualifications at that level.

I know the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) always tries to be helpful and it is always a pleasure to hear her contribution, and she rightly pointed out the inequalities that exist from those with sharp elbows fighting those tribunals.

We are investing an additional £1.6 billion in schools this year and next over and above the funding confirmed at the 2015 spending review. This significant additional investment means core funding for schools and high needs will rise from almost £41 billion in 2017 to £43.5 billion in ’19-20.

We recognise the cost pressures that schools, nurseries and further education are under, but the Government have achieved a huge amount since 2010: 1.9 million more children are being taught in good or outstanding schools; the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils has shrunk by 10%; a record proportion of disadvantaged students are going to university; and we now have a truly world-class technical education offer through T-levels and high-quality apprenticeships. There is massive reform in apprenticeships which has a life-changing impact. There has also been £100 million into the national retraining scheme, a partnership between the Government, the TUC and the CBI.

I am a lucky Minister to be able to contribute to debates that are often so well considered and passionate and I will never cease to be grateful to all those involved in education at every level. We all want the same thing: that whoever you are, wherever you are born and whoever you know, everyone has the chance to get on in life, and get a rewarding career and a job.

We on the Government Benches will not play party political games with education, but put children, young people and adults and education first and foremost, and we will not shirk the difficult decisions sometimes needed to make sure we achieve that end. Party political rhetoric has no place in a debate like this; it is, as many Members have said, the outcomes for those we serve that matter.