Further Education
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth). I must first declare an interest as an advisory governor of Eastleigh college, a brilliant general FE college and one of the leading providers of apprenticeships in the area. I can say that with proper knowledge, as the business admin apprentice in my office attended the college one day a week. As the Secretary of State will appreciate, it is a leading champion in ensuring a good charge towards apprenticeships in the area.
As we have heard from the Chairman of the Education Committee, we and BIS are working together on productivity and it was great to hear from apprentices at the seminar held a few weeks ago how they were enjoying and benefiting from the training that they were getting on the job. It was worrying to hear from them, however, that they were not learning about apprenticeships in schools. In many cases, apprentices are themselves the best advocates for apprenticeships, but we need to find a way to get them into schools to talk about what they are doing and to give others the opportunity to follow in their footsteps.
Mr Jackson
Does my hon. Friend agree that the very best FE institutions not only discharge their responsibilities for apprenticeships and even sponsor university technical colleges, but work with bodies such as Jobcentre Plus to help youngsters with work-readiness, so that they are ready with their skills to start employment after they have concluded their studies?
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend is of course right. The best colleges are working with business and schools to make sure that when young people go into the world of work they are ready for it.
My constituency has no 16 to 19 provision in the state sector, which means that every single teenager is exported somewhere else to go to college. But that is great, because it gives me an opportunity to talk to college principals across the region. I may stray on to the territory of some of my neighbours today, but I have a broad perspective from many college leaders across the south of Hampshire. We are lucky: we have great sixth-form and FE colleges that have worked over the years to make sure that they are as efficient as possible. In many cases, they are as large as possible—they have worked hard to get more students through their doors—but big is not always best. What is crucial is that we have a range of colleges that provide different offers. The transition from school to college can be difficult for some young people, and we should not assume that just because a college is large, efficient and getting great results it will give the best outcomes for every student.
Peter Symonds college, which I was lucky enough to attend—a few years ago now—and Barton Peveril, two of the biggest colleges in the area, have brilliant academic records. They are some of the best in the country, but we also have Richard Taunton college in Southampton on the edge of my constituency, which is far smaller. It has only 1,250 students and it has specialised in attracting a broad and diverse range of students, many of whom have come from other institutions and found their home in a much smaller college, taking three years to complete their A-level education.
Kelvin Hopkins
I am listening with interest to what the hon. Lady says about the size of colleges. Does she agree that one of the advantages of large—but not too large—colleges is that they give students a maximum choice of A-level subjects as well as unusual combinations of subjects that might best suit their needs?
Caroline Nokes
Of course what economies of scale and large colleges also provide are fantastic enrichment programmes, additional courses and provision that goes so far to prepare young people for the world of work—experiences such as volunteering in different parts of the world, the Combined Cadet Force and a wide range of sports. We desperately want young people not to drop off in their participation in sport at 16, but to carry on and make sure that they are fit and healthy for life. It is those enrichment programmes that I worry might start to fall by the wayside, but they are the very programmes that make sure that young people from the state sector have the same opportunities and chances when filling in their personal statements for university that we see in the independent sector. That sector has been great at ensuring that its young people have every advantage and are given a broad curriculum as well as experiences and activities. It is critical to keep ensuring that there is wider access to higher education, and it is imperative that students from the great sixth forms we have in Hampshire, which have a brilliant track record of getting pupils into Oxbridge, have exactly the same advantages when they are filling in their personal statements as those from the independent sector.
The area-based review under way in south Hampshire—the Solent-based review—has won an exclusion which, to my mind and to those of college principals, is significant: it does not include the in-school sixth forms. Way back in the 1970s, Hampshire introduced the tertiary model of education, but a few school sixth forms have lingered on, and indeed there have been some new ones. The area-based review will not look at those schools, and the principals of the colleges feel, probably rightly, aggrieved about that. They do not think it is fair. They already pay VAT, yet the schools do not. They do not have the opportunity to cross-subsidise. We all know that the funding for years 7 to 11 is protected and significantly more generous than the funding for 16-to-19 education. Within a school setting, it is possible to use the funding for years 7 to 11 to assist in the provision of A-level education, but the colleges do not have that choice. They are paying VAT, cannot cross-subsidise and now face this situation, about which they understandably feel pretty cross, because it is unfair on them, as they tell me.
We know from the Sixth Form Colleges Association that sixth-form colleges are out-performing school sixth forms. We know that they are helping higher numbers of more disadvantaged students, and we know that they are getting better results. In Hampshire, the colleges have consistently delivered high-quality education cost-effectively.
Kelvin Hopkins
I strongly agree with the hon. Lady. In Luton, we have a relatively disadvantaged population, but simply because of the sixth-form college we have above the national average number of young people going to university.
Caroline Nokes
I commend the hon. Gentleman’s work as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for sixth-form colleges.
To conclude, we all know that the average funding for 14 to 16-year-olds is £5,600 a year, but that it drops to £3,600 after 16. That means a reduction in contact time with teachers. That might work for young people preparing for university and learning about independent study, gaining skills that they are going to use in higher education, but it will not work for those with special educational needs or those who require additional support. It will not necessarily work for the students at Brockenhurst college in the New Forest, which has worked so hard to increase access to further education and keep young people with special educational needs in college and in education. For them, unsupervised study is simply not a realistic prospect.
I know that the Minister has probably heard more than enough from me, and will be preparing to respond with facts on funding and by telling us that we all have to learn to live within our means. I get that, I really do. I am not opposed to the area-based reviews, and having seen the issues at Totton college just outside my constituency, I know how important it is that young people have confidence in their college’s ability to provide them with a qualification at the end of their course, provided that they have worked hard enough to get it. I know that there is logic in exploring whether stronger partnerships or collaborative and strategic thinking might further enhance the effectiveness of the college system. However, how about a more level playing field for colleges that are already doing an outstanding job providing strong programmes of study and preparing young people for university, for apprenticeships and for the world of work?
Education and Adoption Bill (Fourth sitting)
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Bill Esterson
I thank the Minister. He chaired both groups, so he is well aware of the good practice over a number of years of taking evidence from children and young people.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for the work that he has done, through various all-party groups, for looked-after children or children in the care system. He will have listened to evidence from care leavers as a member of the Education Committee in the previous Parliament. Does he agree that it is not simply children currently in care who need a voice, but those who have recently left it?
Bill Esterson
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We served together on that Committee in the previous Parliament. We held inquiries into leaving care and the quality of 16-to-19 care options and, indeed, a further inquiry into residential care. Previously, there was an inquiry into child protection. All those things are in the space that we are discussing under this aspect of the Bill and all will probably lend themselves to slightly fuller discussion under some of the other amendments. She is right to say that we should listen to what those who have left care have to say about their experiences. The experiences and life chances of children and young people who end up in the care system, whether they go on to be adopted or, we hope, into other forms of permanence, are affected very much, and for the same reasons. As parliamentarians looking to get this right for that group of children and young people, we should take every opportunity to listen to what children and young people and in particular, as she says, care leavers have to say.
Education and Adoption Bill (First sitting)
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Peter Kyle
Q 31 The legislation focuses just on maintained schools. Does that not strike you as odd?
Malcolm Trobe: I think we believe in fairness and equality and, therefore, all schools should be treated the same, whether they be academies or maintained schools.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
Q 32 I have a question on teacher recruitment specifically for Sir Daniel, but I am sure that others will want to chip in. Do you think that academies and multi-academy trusts find it easier to recruit good teachers and leaders?
Sir Daniel Moynihan: It is certainly the case that teaching schools—the Government set up a teaching schools scheme—like medical schools, can train their own teachers. Increasingly, multi-academy trusts have teaching schools within them, which are training large numbers of teachers outside the university system. We have got 94 trainee teachers for next September and we will be producing teachers not just for Harris schools, but for London schools. So in the sense that we now have the freedom to take teacher training into our own hands and deliver qualified teachers, it is easier to that extent.
Richard Watts: Although I would note that that power is open to all schools, I think that teacher recruitment is much more about geography and somewhere being an interesting place to come and work than about the governance status of the school.
Malcolm Trobe: One way in which multi-academy trusts and chains have a big advantage is that they work collectively, effectively to have continuing professional development programmes that run across the trust. They are able effectively to grow their own leadership and develop their own leaders and that, therefore, enables some movement of staff into key positions. So if you have a school in a multi-academy trust that is hitting certain difficulties, you have often got some flexibility to move teachers around.
The biggest difficulty is in schools, particularly those in coastal regions, that are isolated and do not have access to teaching schools. One might call these areas teacher education deserts: there is no provision for young teachers coming into them.
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
Q 33 This legislation, through guidance, aims to address the problem of latent stagnation in schools. It does that by identifying the standard for coasting and raising standards by offering those coasting schools the opportunity to work with some of the best experts in education to design a path to improvement. What should those plans include? What programme of improvement measures should there be for schools of that type?
Emma Knights: I think that, actually, pretty much every school in the country has a school improvement plan—it is part of what we do. It might be called something else, such as a school development plan, but that is actually what the governing board of the school is doing. I would not want the Committee to think that some schools are just bimbling along, not thinking about how they improve teaching and learning and outcomes for children. A huge change has taken place in schools over the last 10 years in terms of schools actually taking responsibility for that. We see, in fact, that a lot of schools do manage to improve without having to have what is called formal intervention.
I do not want to leave this room without mentioning interim executive boards, because there is more than one type of formal intervention and so far the Committee has asked only about sponsored academisation. We actually have very little evidence about which different types of formal intervention work best and that is a bit of a worry for me. This whole Bill has come into place when actually we are guessing.
The main bit of evidence was produced by the National Audit Office last year and it showed that 60% of schools deemed inadequate did improve without any sort of formal intervention because they had exactly that: a school improvement plan, and that worked in 60% of cases. Sponsored academisation worked in 44% of cases and IEBs worked in 72% of cases, so I really think the Committee needs to think about other interventions and please do not overlook interim executive boards.
You may think it is slightly funny that I am saying that as the National Governors’ Association, because obviously an IEB is put in place when the governance fails. But, if the school is failing, that is needed and we should be doing that.
Peter Kyle
Q 65 As a final question, I invite you to put forward other tools that could be beneficial in challenging coasting schools, in addition to academisation. Is there any other way that engagement could be brought forward to provide the jolt that is needed?
Lee Elliot Major: There are some brilliant academy chains that do transform lives. There are also academy chains that have not done so well. One thing I would say is that you have to be careful about which academy chain you engage with. There are other options that the Government are considering on coasting schools, such as working with the leadership to begin with—I would totally support that—and, as I understand it, looking at a number of options before going into the discussions on becoming an academy.
Caroline Nokes
Q 66 We heard from the last panel—apologies, but this is again directed at Zoe—that geography is important when it comes to multi-academy trusts and that the region had an impact. It was easier to manage academies if they were in close proximity to each other. From your experience, what do you think there is by way of capacity in your area, were a number of the primary and secondary schools to be required to become sponsored academies? Is there the capacity there in the shape of sponsors?
Zoe Carr: One of the successes of the regional schools commissioner board for the north of England has been to increase the number of small sponsors coming forward who are prepared to take on one or two more schools. That has been a real benefit of the work that our regional schools commissioner has been involved in with the wider board over the past year that they have been in office.
I certainly see proximity as an important factor. We have staff who I know personally, because I have worked in each of the four schools. If I see a particular need on leadership in a school, we bring together our teachers and our leaders at all levels to work together to solve the problem, or to coach or to mentor. In that way, I have seen the rate of improvement in our schools go up much more quickly than if we did not have that talent bank within our organisation to draw on.
It is important that, within that local context, you stay connected to the local area. One of our schools is a teaching school, and we have lots of schools within the alliance that are both academies and maintained schools. It does not make any difference to me where the support comes from. We work with outstanding maintained schools and with outstanding academies to serve our own ends. Wherever the support is most appropriate, that is where the support will come from.
Bill Esterson
Q 67 Dr Major, the evidence that the Sutton Trust came up with suggested that, overall, multi-academy trusts—chains of academies—are not performing as well as local authorities, when it comes to looking after the schools they are responsible for. Given that academies are increasingly where we are going—and this legislation is going to accelerate that process—what is the answer? How do we make sure that sponsors improve so that they are outperforming the existing system?
Lee Elliot Major: We found that overall there was a variation. Some academy chains were doing incredibly well and improving attainment progress and others were not. We tried to look at the factors behind that. Basically, they are the things that we all know about: good leadership and a focus on teaching in the classroom. All our evidence suggests that that is the one major issue in schools. If you have good leadership that focuses on that, you will get results. It sounds simple, but that is the basic issue that the evidence throws up.
Over and above that, we found that the successful chains had steady growth. They were not taking on too many schools too quickly. They had a clear strategy for school improvement. They had geographical clusters of schools, which I think you were alluding to earlier.
What should you do to encourage that? I am in favour of Ofsted inspecting chains of schools as well as schools themselves. We are heading in that direction. We may come to this point later, but I think the accountability measure should explicitly look at disadvantaged students as well. When we talk about thresholds of 60% or 85% being over a certain grade, or progress measures, we should apply those to children as a whole, and also to those children from poorer backgrounds. I would therefore measure academy chains alongside those data.
Education and Adoption Bill (Second sitting)
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mrs Lewell-Buck
Q 12 I understand that different local authorities and different areas might have different approaches, but do the members of the panel agree that it is important for the local authorities and agencies that are affected by this that there should be some kind of criteria in place? I think that Dr Homden and Annie Crombie agree, but Sir Martin does not.
Sir Martin Narey: No, I think that if these powers have to be used, then of course there will have to be some criteria. I have not yet had any discussions with either the Secretary of State or the Minister of State on what the criteria will be, because I think it is unlikely that these powers will have to be used other than very rarely. My sense from going around England and speaking to directors of children’s services is that they are keen to do this, because they will be able to do better at the job of adoption and particularly of matching and—given that improvements usually cost money—it will save them some money as well.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
Q 13 I wanted to pick up on something that Dr Homden said, with which I will not disagree. She referred to looking at road transport as the means of establishing a hub. Presumably you have already given consideration to island regions where road transport is not possible, Dr Homden?
Carol Homden: Quite clearly, there are specific circumstances which will need to be carefully considered, affecting the regional and also the metropolitan areas as well as island areas. These are complicated matters, and there may be a very good reason why the Minister would wish to consider whether or not it would be appropriate to seek a particular form of involvement in a region. It may be that partnership in a much larger geography is more practical, or more meaningful in terms of access to the services that a particular area needs; I completely acknowledge that point. However, for the majority of places, these practical considerations will be ones that involve road transport links.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
Q 14 Annie, you mentioned the inter-agency barriers that still exist. Could you confirm that the Bill actually does nothing to address any of those barriers other than creating bigger agencies? Secondly, to the whole panel, do you think that this will actually restrict choice for adopters in terms of agencies at a local level?
Annie Crombie: On the inter-agency point, the policy around regional adoption agencies would bring together a number of local authorities. At the moment, if a local authority purchases an adopter from another local authority or from a voluntary adoption agency, it pays for that adoptive placement. It pays the same amount whether it is to a local authority or a voluntary adoption agency. That levelling of the amount paid is an achievement of fairly recent years, and it has meant a great deal in terms of sustaining the participation of the voluntary sector. It cannot afford to do the work it does unless it gets paid a fair price. That has also been an achievement because it has ensured that local authorities would not look more favourably on another local authority placement just because it was cheaper, and genuinely think about which is best for the children.
A regional adoption agency—while it has reasonably not yet been worked out what that would look like—will probably change the way in which money changes hands when a child is placed from one local authority with an adopter. It might mean being placed elsewhere with an adoptive parent approved by a different part of the region. It might mean there is a single adopter, approver and recruitment arm in a regional adoption agency and so all of those adopters feel free to you. That could be a really good thing because there will be a much bigger pool and there will not be any financial barriers stopping the placement of a child with a particular adopter. The risk for the voluntary sector is that if it is not part of that, suddenly the cost drivers change and the placement feels very expensive again. That is why it is so important that we think about how the voluntary agencies can continue to be part of the landscape and part of the regional agencies.
Carol Homden: On your point about choice, there are some areas, with reference to the previous question, where in practice there is no choice. There is a local authority agency and I’m sure it works in the full best interests to meet the needs of those adopters, but generally, choice is a positive thing in any system. It tends to drive quality and, in a digital era where, for example, people can search for information on adoption first, they are better able to make a judgment and to find an agency with which they feel comfortable. An adopter is making a life-changing, lifelong decision. They need to have full confidence and trust in the particular social worker or group of social workers that they are working with. It is a risk to us if this reform process leads to a reduction in choice across boundaries, particularly given that there is generally a much higher level of engagement from and satisfaction of adopters from the first call to voluntary adoption agencies, which deepens through the process, including with post-adoption support. The point needs to be about protecting equality and choice in whatever arrangements we make.
Sir Martin Narey: The only thing that I would like to add is that the really important choice element in adoption is the choice of child. These arrangements will significantly increase the choice of children for adopters. At the moment, if a prospective adopter is unlucky enough to be living in one of the 20 local authorities that dealt with fewer than 20 adoptions last year or in a local authority where there are already many more adopters than children, it will be very difficult to get a child. The future is finding the best parents for adopted children, wherever they are. You are taking evidence later from Adoption Link. I think that is an incredibly good initiative, which is opening up the prospect of searching beyond regions to find the very best possible adopters. I am sure this will improve adopter choice significantly.
Caroline Nokes
Q 73 I have a question for Mr Timpson about special guardianship orders. Concerns have been raised with me by adopters that the bar is set lower for members of family to take care of their extended family’s children. Will that be under review or will the Bill include anything on that?
Edward Timpson: One of the reasons why we have set up the review and the expert body that Andy Elvin referred to earlier in his evidence about special guardianship orders is that since they were introduced about 10 years ago—just under—there has not been a full analysis and understanding of what effect they have had. That means analysis of the effect not just on those children who have benefited from special guardianship orders but those for whom it has not worked out; of the types of children that are coming forward for special guardianship; and of how rigorous the assessment is of the carers who have taken them on.
That is all going to form part of the review, because there are some children who are placed under a special guardianship order who may have been subject to that order after only a six-week assessment of a member of their family or extended family, or friend of that family. Those are all issues that we need to look at; but it is true that as a consequence there are lots of children who achieve permanence through special guardianship, and that we need to understand better who they are—has it worked out and was it the right decision for them, and are they getting the support that they need post-placement?
That does not form part of this Bill, because it is specifically looking at the issue of adoption post-decision on permanence; but it is clearly an area that we need to understand better, so that we can be confident that going forward we have the right approach for children who come into care, when we seek to achieve permanence for them.
Peter Kyle
Q 74 Lord Nash, perhaps I could put a question to you first, because you did not have the pleasure of being here earlier. Witnesses made some interesting points. They had a huge amount of experience behind them.
We started with Dr Rebecca Allen, who made the point that we do not need legislation; Ofsted can tackle coasting and it should be tackling it. A later witness said that the approach in question would lead to a confusing accountability regime. We heard last from Russell Hobby, who said that the way it will play out will damage the legitimacy of the system in the examination and standards regime.
There was a clear consensus from witnesses, including Sir Daniel Moynihan from Harris, that the academies are one tool; they are part of the solution for tackling coasting, but not the only solution. Do you have any cause for concern that the Bill is too narrow in its focus?
Lord Nash: No.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Nicky Morgan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I too welcome the honour awarded to the former headteacher of Ellowes Hall sports college. He and I have discussed that matter already; we want to look at it again. Academies can apply for loans for capital works as part of the condition improvement fund. I understand that the college did not apply for such a loan in the last CIF round, and it is something that we will consider further.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
Spending a third year in sixth form can be vital for some students, particularly if they have suffered from mental or physical illness or have come from challenging backgrounds. Will my hon. Friend tell me whether he has any plans to review the funding rate for 18 to 19-year-olds, which is currently 20% lower than for those in the 16-to-18 group?
The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)
My hon. Friend asks a very good question. We had to make a difficult decision about whether to continue to fund particularly heavy programmes more generously, which meant making savings elsewhere. The cut in the funding rate for 18-year-olds was the saving on which we decided. I accept her argument that there are some individuals for whom that third year is vital. All of those things will be considered in the spending review, but for this financial year, the funding rates will be as announced.
Vocational Qualifications Day
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Roger, for a Westminster Hall debate early in the new Session. Like other hon. Members, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) on securing this interesting and important debate to celebrate national Vocational Qualifications Day.
Romsey and Southampton North is quite unusual in that within the constituency there is no 16-to-18 state sector provision, which means that those in that age range are effectively exported out. That is sometimes seen as a negative, but I regard it as something of a benefit, because it gives me the opportunity to work with a range of college principals, albeit at the edge of my constituency.
For example, I am an advisory governor at the further education college in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies). For many years I have been invited annually to Eastleigh College to present the awards at its apprenticeship celebration event. That is exactly the sort of initiative that we want to happen everywhere, to celebrate the apprentices and their achievements, as well as the achievements of the employers who have taken the plunge and taken apprentices on. Many employers arrive annually having been nominated by their apprentices for the brilliant experience that they give young people in the Hampshire area.
We want more vocational qualifications and more high- quality apprenticeships. It is crucial that apprenticeships should provide the quality training that young people deserve. I have been pleased over the past nearly 12 months to have a business administration apprentice in my office. That has been a learning curve for us and for her. I hope that she has benefited from the experience. I guess we will know about that at the end of it, and I hope that she will get a good certificate, which she will be able to take to future employers, or potentially to university. We have a responsibility to practise what we preach, and that was one reason for my taking on an apprentice. I was struck by Eastleigh College’s determination to promote its provision and to make things as easy as possible for the employer. That is crucial. Sometimes there are far too many barriers, although many are perceived rather than real.
Caroline Nokes
The hon. Gentleman is right. Taking on apprentices is great for us, for the employers, and for the economy and everyone else. I have long held that the first rung on the employment ladder is the hardest, and that is why vocational qualifications are so important. They provide a fantastic bridge from school to work. Whether they be tech-levels or technical awards, and at whatever age they are achieved, we need the suite of qualifications of which they are part to be attractive and available to students, and we need it to have parity of esteem, as various hon. Members have said.
Life is about more than a clutch of good GCSEs. It is about acquiring the life skills necessary to make the transition to the world of work. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud mentioned the soft skills that can be obtained from work experience and vocational qualifications—whether in retail, catering or the example that he used of sport. Such opportunities can also build confidence, which is important for young people who too often have just experienced the classroom, and who lack the interaction that they will need in later life to play a constructive role in the world of work.
Southampton has some great vocational qualification providers, such as City College in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) and the Southampton Engineering Training Association, which I enjoyed visiting last summer for its annual presentation and celebration evening. There are hundreds of courses for thousands of students, which all provide obvious and successful routes into work. City College makes much of the fact that its young people who undertake vocational qualifications often go on to be self-employed. They will be small business owners, employing other people. We need to encourage that, because if every small business employed one more person we would have zero unemployment.
At the SETA evening, 70 young men and one girl received engineering qualifications. We still have an enormous amount of work to do to encourage young women to take up engineering qualifications and follow that vocational route. We must make sure that, just as GCSE and A-level results are celebrated annually in local papers, when we see young people with brilliant achievements and fantastic certificates, there is also an opportunity to celebrate just as vehemently and vigorously those who get vocational qualifications. It is great to see exactly that happening on the website of the Edge Foundation, but I would love to see more of it in my local paper.
The hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) made a point about careers advice, which is crucial. In my constituency there are some great examples of best practice, with opportunities to expand on career options and choices. The Romsey School has done brilliant work, particularly with young girls, on vocational qualifications. They set up their own beauty studio in the school, to try to get across the message that science qualifications are needed to go on vocational courses in beauty and hairdressing. That was a practical way of conveying to girls the importance of continuing with science studies, when perhaps they were not finding them that interesting.
Just up the road is The Mountbatten School, which has done brilliant work linking up with local businesses. That is crucial; we must have such opportunities to bring companies into schools, so that young people can see the opportunities and the range of jobs out there. I take part annually in what The Mountbatten School refers to as its enrichment day. The poor year 10 children have to do a mock interview with me. They appeared slightly horrified the first year I did it, because they were used to doing it with their teachers, but the event has expanded every year, and the school now brings in the Rotary Club and eminent members of the local chamber of commerce. The children are confronted with real live employers and they go through a real interview, so they understand how tough it can be to make that important first impression. We must make sure that 14-year-olds make the right decisions about their future, based on what they want, enjoy and are interested in, and that they avoid the age-old problem of choosing to do exactly what their friends are doing.
I congratulate the Edge Foundation, which has done great work on establishing, celebrating and promoting VQ Day. It plays a crucial part in reinforcing parity of esteem between academic and vocational qualifications. In the words of Lord Baker,
“By 2022, 90% of the most in-demand job areas will be accessible through technical, practical and vocational learning.”
That gives a very clear steer about the scale of the opportunity, and we must make sure that we grab it with both hands.
Today I have given some local examples of best practice throughout Hampshire, and there are others throughout the country. We need to celebrate and promote them, and make sure that they are rolled out across the country.
First Aid Techniques: National Curriculum
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing this important debate.
We have heard an awful lot of statistics and numbers this afternoon, and I do not intend to dwell on those. I will focus more on a personal case from my constituency—the story of young Sam Mangoro, who was a 16-year-old pupil at Mountbatten school in Romsey. Almost exactly a year ago he suffered a heart attack and collapsed. His heart stopped beating during a PE lesson. We heard the stat that fewer than one in 10 who have a heart attack outside hospital are likely to survive, but Sam was one of the lucky ones. His PE lesson was being led by a teacher who was there for an interview—she was not even on the full-time staff. He collapsed, and she had had training.
Enormous credit is due to Mountbatten school, because it was one of the few schools in my constituency that had a defibrillator, which it had purchased some months previously. I will not say that that happened by chance; the chair of the governors had had a conversation with her son-in-law, who was a doctor for the air ambulance. He had explained to her in great detail why it was so important to have defibrillators in public places where young people might play sport—because every minute counted. As a result of that conversation the school purchased its first defibrillator, and on 6 March 2014 Sam Mangoro’s life was saved because the school had staff trained in CPR and a defibrillator on the premises.
The excellent news is that the whole Mountbatten school community has now embraced the need for CPR training, and two more defibrillators have been purchased. As might be expected in a large rural constituency, the school is on quite a large site, and the view was taken that three defibrillators were needed to provide sufficient coverage and make one of them easily reachable anywhere on the campus should a child collapse. Mountbatten school has led the way in Romsey, and Sam’s story was a wake-up call for many other schools in the area. I do not say that it is commonplace, but it is not uncommon for schools in the constituency to have defibrillators. There is a great deal of awareness of the issue. I agree with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that first responders and similar groups are now more likely to have defibrillators. Defibrillators can be seen outside village pubs and community halls around my constituency. Mountbatten school has become one of the British Heart Foundation’s “nation of life savers” schools.
Alongside access to defibrillators, there has to be training. Modern defibrillators talk people through the process, and I have used a defibrillator that the Oliver King Foundation demonstrated to us in this place. I know how straightforward it is, but the issue of confidence still remains. It is easiest to imbue confidence into people when they are young. We have heard that school pupils wish to learn CPR and, unlike those of us who could be described as middle-aged, they have no hesitation or trepidation; they get stuck straight in. We therefore have an important opportunity.
I am a member of the Select Committee on Education, and on 17 February we published a report calling for personal, social, health and economic education to be a statutory part of the curriculum. Many hon. Members have pitched to the Minister this afternoon the idea that CPR should be taught as part of physical education, biology or, perhaps, citizenship, but I will of course make the pitch that CPR should be part of PSHE. I cannot think of a more obvious place in the curriculum for CPR. Of course, PSHE is not currently mandatory or statutory, and I have consistently called for it to be a statutory part of our curriculum, as I firmly believe it should be. If we take that step, CPR should be a mandatory element of PSHE.
Last year, I spent a mere half an hour with St John Ambulance in Romsey, and it reminded me of some basic CPR training that I received a very long time ago when I was a member of the Brownies. I am proud to have gained my Brownie first aid badge when I was about nine or 10, and CPR has not changed radically. Way back in the 1980s we were not doing CPR to the tune of “Stayin’ Alive,” but St John Ambulance is keen to emphasise that that is the rhythm that people have to deploy—it is really straightforward. St John Ambulance also showed me again how to use the automatic defibrillators. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) is correct that CPR can be taught very quickly—30 minutes is all it takes—and I urge the Minister, first, to consider the Education Committee’s plea that PSHE is made a statutory part of the curriculum and, secondly, that PSHE is the right place for CPR.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
That is the third education policy announced by the Opposition during this Parliament; I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe). It is a pity that he does not have a few more to put to the electorate in two months’ time. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David; it is the parliamentary assessment board all over again. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing the debate.
There is nothing more important than keeping children, and indeed the staff who teach them, safe in our schools. This Government have already done a great deal to ensure that defibrillators are more widely available in schools. In answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, we have encouraged all schools to consider purchasing automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, as part of their first aid equipment. We refer to that in the new statutory guidance on supporting pupils with medical conditions at school.
In November last year, we launched new arrangements to help schools to purchase high-quality AEDs at a significantly reduced price. To make that as easy as possible, we also produced a guide, “Automated external defibrillators (AEDs): A guide for maintained schools and academies”, covering the issues that schools might wish to consider when purchasing an AED, including location, maintenance and access to training. It was developed in collaboration with NHS ambulance services and other specialists, including Dr Andy Lockey of the Resuscitation Council, who was mentioned by the hon. Member for Bolton West. I am pleased to confirm that as of 6 March, 227 confirmed orders under the scheme had been placed, for a total of 291 AEDs.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) touched on the important role that AEDs can play in communities. Many schools view a community-access AED as a tangible contribution that they can make to their community. The AED guide suggests that schools might wish to consider community access where such a solution also meets the needs of staff members.
Access to an AED is only part of the story. Every second is important when someone suffers a cardiac arrest, and first aid skills are vital to ensuring that help is available when it is most needed, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) pointed out from his own experience when his father had a cardiac arrest. I see why he is so passionate about the issue; he is an indefatigable campaigner on it, as he is on other life skills in the curriculum.
Therefore, the guide is clear about the importance of defibrillation and of CPR in the chain of survival. Schools will already have first aiders trained in CPR, but there is no reason they cannot use the purchase of an AED as an impetus to promote knowledge of those skills more widely within the school community; indeed, the Department for Education’s guide suggests that schools do that, and we hope that many of them will choose to do so.
The hon. Member for Bolton West made a powerful case that we should go further, persuasively arguing for CPR and life-saving skills to be included in the national curriculum. Similarly powerful speeches were made by my hon. Friends the Members for North Swindon, for South Derbyshire, for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), and for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes). I listened carefully to the story of the PE teacher attending an interview at Mountbatten school and all I can say is that I hope to goodness that they were given the job of PE teacher at that school.
Mr Gibb
If not, I am sure that he or she has been snapped up elsewhere.
We heard powerful speeches from the hon. Members for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) and for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane); I am sure the latter will receive a letter from either Willie Walsh or Richard Branson, depending on which airline did not have a defibrillator. There was also a powerful speech from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).
I recognise that the intention of the hon. Member for Bolton West is to ensure that more people have the knowledge and skills that could prove so valuable in assisting a child, teacher or someone visiting a school who suffers a cardiac arrest. However, whether teaching such knowledge and skills should be an addition to the national curriculum is another question.
The new national curriculum, which came into force in September 2014, represents a clear step forward for schools. It will ensure that all children have the opportunity to acquire the essential knowledge in key academic and non-academic subjects. However, I am afraid that it has now become somewhat routine for Education Ministers to come to such debates to make the case against the inclusion of a particular new requirement in the national curriculum. Proposals such as this are often supported by a persuasive argument, but their sheer number means that we need to start from a position of caution when addressing them.
The national curriculum creates a minimum expectation for the content of curriculums in maintained schools. Quite deliberately, it does not represent everything that a school should teach. Also, schools do not have a monopoly on the provision of education to children; parents and voluntary groups outside school also play an important role.
Many schools choose to include CPR and defibrillator awareness as part of their PSHE teaching. In the introduction to the new national curriculum, we have highlighted the expectation that PSHE should be taught, and improving the quality of PSHE teaching is a priority of this Government. However, we do not want to prescribe exactly which issues schools should have to cover in PSHE or other related parts of what we would call the school curriculum, as opposed to the national curriculum.
Prescribing a long list of specific content to be covered could be unproductive, leading to a tick-box approach that did not properly address the most important issues. Nor would it ensure that schools addressed those matters that were most relevant to their pupils. Indeed, we should trust schools to provide the right education for their pupils, within the overall framework of the national curriculum.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Mr Vaizey
I am pleased to tell the hon. Lady that I have sat down with representatives of the City of London to talk about broadband in central London. I was also pleased to hear the City of London’s plans to roll out its own broadband network, because competition is very important. She raises an important point, and we will continue to keep that matter under review.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
The Abbotsford estate on the edge of Romsey is a brand-new, 800-home development that still suffers from broadband speeds of less than 2 megabits. Does the Minister agree that it will be an enormously long wait until 2017 for those residents to get decent speeds?
Mr Vaizey
There are two answers to that question. The first is that we have sat down with developers and network providers to work on a code of conduct to ensure that new developments get broadband. Secondly, it is worth reminding hon. Members, including my hon. Friend, that this is a difficult engineering project. We cannot deliver broadband with the wave of a wand, but we are ahead of schedule in almost all areas.
Nicky Morgan
Perhaps for the first time, I think I agree with the hon. Gentleman. He might be interested to look at the evidence taken by the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications as part of its inquiry into women in broadcasting and the media, to which I recently gave evidence. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that having positive role models—women of all ages and all backgrounds—represented in the media and national newspapers is incredibly important.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
In England, 18-year-old women are a third more likely to apply for a university place than their male counterparts. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that shows how far we have come in terms of girls’ educational attainment, but that there is still further to go?
Nicky Morgan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As we know, women now make up the majority of the numbers in many different subjects right across our universities. In fact, in the university I represent in my constituency of Loughborough, I understand that more women than men are taking engineering degrees. However, we all clearly have a long way to go.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)
It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this important debate on this important Bill. I will start by declaring an interest as a family law barrister. Over many years, I have represented parents, guardians, grandparents, children, social workers and many other people. I have no doubt that the Bill will improve the prospects of some of the most vulnerable children in our society, in particular those who are in foster care and those who are placed for adoption.
We in this House often focus on the issues that divide us, but matters such as the prospects for looked after children always unite the House, and efforts have been made across the parties and in the other place to progress the Bill in a positive way, and to work on the detail and reach our agreed position this evening. I remember fondly—as will many other hon. Members, I am sure—the many hours spent on the Bill Committee considering these important measures.
I wish briefly to highlight two points this evening. The first is the extremely positive development in part 5 of the Bill that makes provision for young people to remain, or, as the phrase goes, to “stay put”, in foster care until the age of 21. It is almost impossible for any of us to imagine how, in addition to all the challenges that young people face when considering their careers and their journey into adult life, some will have the added uncertainty of their whole home support network being in possible jeopardy.
Too often I have seen court cases involving older teenage children where, despite the best efforts of all those involved—the judiciary, solicitors, social work team and so on—and a care plan that is always carefully worded and constructed along with the legislation, there is always a concern that there is only so much the court can do. Previously, up to the age of 16 or 17 there was that uncertainty, and a gap in the provision of services. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister in leading on these measures. The whole House has worked extremely hard to identify those gaps and to ensure that continued provision, which is much needed for young people as they move into the adult world. The Bill will need time to be implemented, and we will also need time to evaluate and assess the success of what is being proposed. Nevertheless, I think that all involved will see tonight as a significant step forward for looked after children.
My second point is about clause 11. The House has had the benefit of the expertise of Baroness Butler-Sloss who assisted in that section of the Bill. As the former president of the family division, she may perhaps offer more expertise than most of us when it comes to understanding how the drafting of the clause may be interpreted in the family courts. I have no doubt that the starting point for all courts when considering contact and residence applications has been, and will continue to be, that children will always benefit from a relationship with both of their parents, unless there is a good reason to move away from that.
As a family practitioner I have no doubt that contact and residence cases can be the most emotive and difficult litigation for individuals to commence. Put simply, it is to do with the relationship that people have with their own flesh and blood. In advance of such cases, those around the clients involved, such as the solicitors, not only give legal advice but often take on the role of friend and confidant as they guide the parents—or increasingly the grandparents—through such litigation. That highly emotive aspect to these cases is why the drafting of the Bill is so crucial—drafting is crucial for all legislation, but it is a particular issue with this clause.
Clause 11 is entitled, “Welfare of the child: parental involvement”. That maintains the important balance of children having a meaningful relationship with both parents, but it does in some ways move away from suggesting that there is any division in terms of time, which is different from what some of the other proposed phrases may have done. That was, of course, never the intention of using a phrase such as “shared parenting”, but I understand why a parent involved in litigation might interpret the words in such a way.
I thank all those involved, including the voluntary organisations, those in the family courts and, as I said earlier, Members from across the House and the other place who have worked extremely hard on this Bill. I commend the Minister who has done extremely well in leading on this important Bill. I for one look forward to this positive and progressive Bill being granted Royal Assent.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
As a member of the Bill Committee, I would like to comment on two amendments made by their lordships. The first could improve the Bill, but I have some reservations about the second. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) for reminding the House of the lengthy consultation period ahead of the Bill, which gave all interest groups the opportunity to contribute to both the Bill Committee and the Select Committee on Justice.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
My hon. Friend is exceptionally well known for her commitment to improving the lives of children, especially those with special educational needs and those caught up in what can be the misery of separated parents. However, does she agree that the major part of the problem is the failure of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service and the courts to intervene and take a genuine stand against obstructive parents who engage in parental alienation and prevent court order access, which damages both the relationship between, and the mental health of, the child and the non-resident parent?
Caroline Nokes
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. CAFCASS has an incredibly difficult job to do, but too often it fails to deal with issues such as parental alienation, and it is important that we consider the problem of poor enforcement of contact orders when non-resident parents are granted access but resident parents ignore them.
The current situation does not work, and both coalition partners gave commitments on several areas relating to family law reform. Some of those issues—mediation and dispute resolution, better enforcement of contact orders and, I hope, reform of court practices—will be genuinely improved by the Bill, but both coalition partners also gave clear commitments on the subject of shared parenting or shared contact. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Minister said that courts are seen as creating winners and losers, and it is vital that both parents feel confident that the court will consider fully the benefits of their involvement.
The Government have worked hard to strike the right balance, called for by groups such as Families Need Fathers, UK Family Law Reform and the Association for Shared Parenting. Clearly, the legislative intent of clause 11 was to bridge the gap between delivering tangible progress on shared parenting while ensuring the paramount need of the child’s welfare was preserved through a presumption in favour of shared contact, providing there was no good reason to oppose it.
I was elected on a promise to seek a legal presumption in favour of automatic shared contact, something that the Bill achieved before the amendment was added, but clause 11, as amended, will not deliver what we promised. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me on that point and confirm that I am incorrect in that. There is a whole library of research showing the benefits to a child of a proper, meaningful and ongoing relationship with the non-resident parent. If, as a society, we are genuinely interested in tackling the impact of family breakdown, we must start by encouraging and enabling non-resident parents to remain active in their children’s lives.
The amendment plays into the hands of obstructive resident parents who wish to prevent a child from having a meaningful, ongoing relationship with an absent parent, and puts us back into a situation of winners and losers. Some 10% to 20% of separations—often those that are the most rancorous and upsetting, and in which winners and losers are created—come before the courts. It is right that the court should be bound by the paramountcy principle, but the culture of shared parenting should be driven home, forcing hitherto hostile and oppositional parents to work together in the interests of their child.
I hope that the Minister can provide me with the reassurance I seek. Apart from that, I believe this to be an excellent Bill on which we have all worked long and hard. I support the rest of the clauses and the amendments, and thank him for his attention on these matters.
Charlie Elphicke
I, too, have a long history with the Bill, having served in Committee, and being here for its final Commons stage today. It has been a real privilege to watch a master class from my hon. Friend the Minister in how to pilot a Bill with great dignity, courtesy and endless quantities of patience.
I also wish to pay tribute to the shadow Minister, who is no longer in her place but performed her role in Committee with great aplomb. She has handed over to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), whom I pressed earlier on the subject of childminders. It has been a pleasure to serve on this landmark Bill, and it will also be a pleasure to see it brought into force.
I shall concentrate on one basic statistic. In 1986, the employment rate for mothers whose youngest child is under three was 25%. Today, it is 56% and rising. That matters because it says everything about how the world has changed. If so many more women are in work—more than half of all mothers with children under three—child care is instantly an issue. That is why I raised the issue of childminders. In my constituency, if a family is above the benefits threshold but cannot afford £10,000 or so a year for a nursery, it has a real problem. That is why childminders are so important for that intermediate child care and why I make the case for the need to consider people in that salary band. There is a lot of deprivation in my constituency, and many people in low-skilled, low-paid work are in that position.
It also means that, because both partners are in work, parental love, affection and child care have to be juggled. Involvement in the child’s life has been transformed in the past 25 years: fathers are more involved with their children. Both parents are more involved with their children than ever before because of social change. That is why I welcome the changes in the Bill that relate to parental leave. Shared parental leave is a recognition of how the world has changed so very much.
I have raised the issue of contact many times in this place: the rights of children to have access to their parents. I thank the shadow Minister for using that formulation, because it is very important. It is a damning statistic that, of the 3 million children who live apart from a parent, 1 million have no contact with a parent three years after separation. That is really tragic, particularly given the way the world has changed. One parent, who was heavily involved in a child’s upbringing, is suddenly no longer there at all. That is destabilising to the child. That is why, in times past, I brought in a Bill to this House to enforce contact properly and place a duty on all. The right is not the right of the parent, but the right of the child to know and have a relationship with both their parents: the right of the child to have access to their parents.
This massive social change over the past 25 years matters so much because not all our judiciary are young people living the lives of modern parents seeking to get by. Not all academics or our social work establishment are young and as aware as they could be in their daily lives of this particular situation. It is for that reason that I want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on her passionate, heartfelt and deeply thoughtful speech. She is absolutely right in all she says. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on taking up this case originally and putting it forward.
The statistic on the involvement of both parents in the life of their child is particularly relevant to clause 11, which states
“unless the contrary is shown, that involvement of that parent in the life of the child concerned will further the child’s welfare.”
I, too, share the concerns raised today that the amendment originally tabled by Baroness Butler-Sloss in the Lords Grand Committee risks watering that down. I recognise my hon. Friend the Minister’s assurances when he says that he is confident that the amendment does not alter the meaning of the clause or its intended effect. I hope that that will be reflected in the guidance issued to the family division, and that the family division will take note of that. It is really important that this principle is not ceded, particularly given that Baroness Butler-Sloss included not just the irrelevant issue of the division of a child’s time that resulted from the Norgrove report getting distracted by the Australian experience and the issue of the direct and indirect access.
It would not be right to have a situation in which the only contact for a parent who has been heavily involved in a child’s life is a phone call at Christmas, a book of photographs or the odd letter exchange. That does not constitute a right to know and a relationship with both parents. The right of children to have access to both their parents is essential. It matters because they may wish to turn one parent or to the other parent for mentorship, guidance, love and affection. We should enable that to happen. We should recognise that the world has changed.
Education Funding for 18-year-olds
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on securing the debate. I draw attention to a declaration of interest: I am an advisory governor of Eastleigh college in the neighbouring constituency to mine.
Hampshire has a fine tradition of sixth-form colleges. Some of the best in the country can be found in our fine county, including Peter Symonds college, which I attended. However, my constituency has no sixth-form provision whatsoever in the state sector, which means that virtually every 16 to 19-year-old is sent elsewhere. The colleges that they attend have different specialisms and are of very different sizes. Some focus on vocational training and others are highly academic. They cater for different types of students from different backgrounds, some of whom have excelled at GCSE and some of whom have not.
I want to mention some of those colleges, not as an exercise in name checking my favourite college principals but to highlight the variety of experience. Some are huge, including Peter Symonds college, Barton Peveril sixth-form college and Brockenhurst college, all of which cater for well over 3,000 students. Others are much smaller. It is a pleasure to follow my neighbour, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham), who mentioned Richard Taunton college, which is less than half the size of some of the bigger colleges in the area. Brockenhurst has a particular specialism in special educational needs, and when I visited last year I was particularly impressed with its dedication to those who faced different learning challenges. Sparsholt college, one of the country’s leading land-based colleges, provides a significant focus on vocational qualifications. It has emphasised that it has only 44 18-year-old A-level students, but it has 358 18-year-olds on vocational courses.
Why might students need an additional year at college, and what would be the financial impact on colleges? I will not revisit the VAT issue, but the Minister is well aware of it. There are many reasons why a young person might not achieve the results to which they aspire at GCSE, at A-level or in a vocational course. We all remember the problems with GCSE English last year, which in Hampshire particularly affected boys, and I recall how the colleges I have mentioned really stepped up to the plate and met those challenges. They compromised, put on additional classes and held resits of English GCSE. How much less flexible might they have been if they had thought that a fiscal penalty would result from their keeping those young people for another year?
What of Brockenhurst, which has a phenomenal track record of helping those with physical disabilities and special educational needs? Why should it receive less funding for a third year of study for a student who has overcome physical problems, as a result of which they need an extra year of study? Surely, we want to encourage young people to stay in education to achieve their maximum potential and we do not want to give colleges a reason to say no.
I am the mother of a 15-year-old, so I have been completing college application forms recently. I was struck by the additional information form that was required by the outstanding college in Hampshire, which asked for any additional reasons why a student might not complete their study, and I wonder how much more rigorous such forms will become. Two years ago I visited April House, a specialist eating disorder unit in the constituency of my neighbour, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen. I emphasise that although eating disorders can affect anybody, they particularly strike 17-year-old girls who are high achievers academically. Three of the girls I met were at the same sixth-form college, but their studies had been disrupted—forced to a temporary halt—by their condition. It was not their fault, it was not the college’s fault and it certainly was not their parents’ fault, but all three girls had been negatively affected. Nevertheless, they were hoping to go back to college. I do not want colleges to have an excuse to say no to that type of student—to see illness as a reason not to accept them back on to their course because they can foresee a negative fiscal impact in having them back.
There are some great colleges that do a brilliant job of getting teenagers back on the road to education. I cite in particular Richard Taunton college, and we have heard the figures from the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen: 212 of 1,159 full-time students are 18, and 30% of them have come from other colleges. I always used to say to students, “You’re a long time old. Education is critical, but getting it wrong, admitting that you have made a mistake, making the necessary changes and moving on is all part of the learning process.” I will be a lot more reluctant to say that to them now.
I have 20 seconds, but I wanted to touch on the subject of summer-born babies, who we know are statistically likely to perform less well than their older classmates. That is measureable through GCSEs, A-levels and university admissions. What about those teenagers who, just through a freak of their date of birth, might require resits to achieve the required grade?
I shall finish with the thought that we must also think about those who come to the UK late, whose parents get divorced, who are bereaved or who have been sick.