Support for University Students: Covid-19
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Michelle Donelan
This hardship fund is on top of the £256 million that we unlocked for universities and higher education providers to utilise for this academic year, and it will help those most in need. It does not provide a blanket rent rebate. But I regularly meet students across England and from different bodies to ensure that we are giving them the support that they need.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) [V]
Many of the halls of residence of Southampton University fall within my constituency. The students there deserve and expect a quantity and quality of education that is commensurate with what they would be receiving if they had online classes. Can my hon. Friend confirm what pressure she is bringing to bear on all universities to make sure that our students are receiving the education for which they are paying?
Michelle Donelan
I agree with my right hon. Friend because online does not have to mean inferior, which is exactly why universities have invested a great deal of time and money to produce innovative and dynamic tuition. We are clear that every student deserves to receive quality, quantity and accessibility in terms of their tuition and this is being actively monitored by the Office for Students.
Education: Return in January
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point about how vital it is to work with local directors of public health and local authorities. We believe that this will be of enormous assistance to those local authorities in identifying where more covid cases are. It will be an opportunity to deliver more rapid testing than has been delivered so far—not just in County Durham, but across the country. The right hon. Gentleman might have heard that extra support is being provided to schools and colleges so that they can stand up this testing. In some areas where schools and colleges have particular problems, we will look at supporting them with a team to help to get the mass testing up and established. Of course, the data being collected is vital. When youngsters test positive in a lateral flow test, that data will be fed immediately into the test and trace system, which is shared with local authorities.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) [V]
Teachers, parents and pupils all need certainty. They need to be able to plan the return to school and prepare for exams if they are going to happen, and they need to know whether they will need additional childcare. I commend my right hon. Friend for his ability to make changes when required, but will he please assure my constituents that this is a plan that will stick and that it will give them all the certainty that they are desperately calling out for?
Gavin Williamson
I certainly hope that it does give people confidence to know that primary schools in my right hon. Friend’s constituency of Romsey will be opening on Monday, that exam year groups will be returning to secondary school and colleges on 11 January, and that all year groups will be returning shortly after that.
Nurseries and Early Years Settings
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Ali. I add my congratulations to my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), on securing this important debate this afternoon.
Hampshire is reasonably well represented here this afternoon, but I do not want colleagues to think that that is because there is a particular problem in Hampshire with early years provision. I can assure everybody that there is not. Indeed, we have some of the highest quality early years provision in the entire country.
Over the last eight months or so, providers have been keen to emphasise to me the challenges that they have faced during the pandemic, and the challenges that they have risen to: making their premises covid-secure and ensuring that they are open for the children of key workers. In the regular Zoom calls that I have had with providers, they have been keen to emphasise the significant financial impact on the sector.
I was struck by the comments that I heard from one provider, who said that each and every month, with the number of reduced places that he could provide allowing for social distancing, he would be running his premises at a loss of £1,000 per month, which is simply unsustainable. When faced with those sorts of economics, providers take very difficult decisions and decide to no longer open their doors, which causes a reduction in the overall spaces available.
I do not intend to do a march around every childcare provider in my constituency this afternoon, but it is fair to say that they are very varied. As constituency Members of Parliament and, in many instances, as parents, we want to make sure that there is variety, whether it be the small village pre-school of the type I attended back in the 1970s or the larger more formal childcare settings, the individual childminders, those attached to schools or the maintained sector. It is absolutely right that there is variety, so that there is choice for parents and so that those facilities can be conveniently located.
I want to pay particular tribute to Lou Simmons of Abbotswood Day Nursery, who has provided me not only with the facts and figures about her business and the challenge it faces, but also a commentary on the wider sector. As she pointed out to me, the costs faced by her setting will not be identical to every setting, precisely because there is such a variety; but they are probably not atypical.
The stark reality is that with staff costs, pension costs, increases in utility costs and personal protective equipment costs all going up, the funding for childcare has not kept pace with the pressures faced. The £4.55 per funded hour per child over the age of three does not meet her operating costs of £6.80, and they have no choice but to make a charge for consumables, which parents do not necessarily understand, having listened very clearly to the Government’s mantra that it is 30 free hours per week. She will still run at a loss for every hour, every child. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister, who is working hard on this, is going to talk about the £44 million early years injection, but that is simply not enough to begin to cover the 75p per child per hour average loss made by providers such as Lou.
There is a stark reality to this. Just like the village pre-schools that have already closed, we will see the loss of childcare provision at a time when we know that women need to be able to access quality childcare to make sure that they do not lose out further in the employment market. Statistics provided by Mumsnet earlier this week, from a survey it conducted post pandemic, show that a significant proportion of mothers who use childcare—70%—were emphasising that they were struggling to balance the requirements of work and childcare at home.
These businesses, as we have heard, are run by women, employing women and providing opportunities for other women to go out to work. As my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester said, there is a social cost, which my hon. Friend Minister needs to step up and address.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Nick Gibb
I agree with the hon. Member. Good quality religious education can help to develop children’s knowledge of the values and traditions of Britain and other countries, and foster understanding among different faiths and cultures. At a national level, the proportion of time secondary schools spend teaching RE has actually remained broadly stable. It was 3.2% of all teaching hours in 2010 and 3.3% in 2019.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
We continue to believe that exams are the fairest form of assessment. Today we announced our plans for next summer’s year 11 exams to take place—the GCSEs—and we will work with Ofqual to engage the sector in planning for a range of scenarios of potential disruption to exams to ensure students get the results they deserve.
Caroline Nokes
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s written statement today and thank him for ending the uncertainty that was facing pupils, teachers and parents alike. Please can he reassure constituents such as one of mine, 15-year-old Charlotte, who wrote to me a couple of weeks ago and inspired this question today, that next year’s exams will take into account the disruption there has been to their learning, while allowing them to demonstrate their ability and what they have learned over the past few years, and please will he reassure her that further detail as to how that will be achieved will be coming very soon?
Nick Gibb
My right hon. Friend raises an important point. We do believe that the subject level changes to the content of assessment that was confirmed by Ofqual recently will reduce the pressure on students and free up teaching time. Combined with the timing changes to exams announced today, this does free up more teaching time to help address any unfairness. On top of that, as I have said before, there is the £1 billion catch-up fund, and we will have more to say later in the autumn about the issue of grading.
Schools and Colleges: Qualification Results and Full Opening
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
One of the key reasons we took the decision to move to moderated grades in March was that many of the studies previously carried out showed that going to purely predicted grades was most likely to disadvantage those from the most disadvantaged communities and those from ethnic minority communities. That is what informed the approach. One of the key elements that I highlighted when I wrote to Ofqual was the need to ensure that those who are disadvantaged were not disadvantaged by any approach that was taken.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
We heard this morning that disadvantaged children and boys were likely to be most behind as a result of missed school. I also saw on the BBC a fantastically articulate child who said that she was anxious about going back school because she was fearful about how she would catch up. Can my right hon. Friend explain in greater detail when the tutorials that he is working so hard on with the Education Endowment Foundation will begin and what benefits children will see?
Gavin Williamson
We are working closely with the Education Endowment Foundation to ensure that those tutorials are rolled out through this academic year. All the studies point to the fact that the benefits that accrue to children are incredibly rapid, over quite a short period. Having small group tuition can deliver real leaps in learning within four to five months, so there is an immediate benefit from doing it, and that shows the urgency of bringing it forward. My right hon. Friend points to the slight trepidation of a child she saw on TV about returning to school. What we have seen across the board is that when children get to school, their faces light up, and the teachers are there to welcome them and are so keen to see them. That is what we want to see, and that is what we are seeing across the country. The benefits will be truly profound, not just for those children but much more widely in society.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Michelle Donelan
The hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that access and participation are key priorities for this Government, and the Office for Students has launched access and participation measures for every institution. Higher education plays a key role in filling the skills needs of the economy, but so does further education, and our priority is to ensure quality provision and that students can make informed choices that are in the best interests of their career destinations.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)
Social distancing is challenging with young children, so we have worked with stakeholders on a detailed planning guide to keep early years settings safe. This includes advice on keeping people, including children, in small, consistent groups and implementing hygiene measures. Thanks to the sector’s work in reassuring families, 234,000 children were in childcare on 11 June.
Caroline Nokes
Nursery providers in my constituency are worried that social distancing will result in a reduction in capacity, which for them means a reduction in income. The sector is already at crisis point, so I would like my hon. Friend to reassure me that she is working closely with the sector to ensure that places will be available so that parents—particularly mothers—will be able to go back to work?
Vicky Ford
We all recognise how important early years settings are, both for children and for their parents and carers. Early years settings have been able to open their doors to all children from 1 June. I spoke to sector representative organisations and childcare providers in the first week of wider opening to understand the detailed challenges they face. We know that it is a difficult time for many businesses, and we will continue to ensure that early years providers get the best possible help from all the Government’s support schemes.
Educational Settings
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Gavin Williamson
The hon. Lady raises important points. Yes, we will be doing that. We will also be looking to ensure that those who do not feel that the result is truly reflective of their work have a proper and substantive appeal mechanism.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
The private nursery sector plays a crucial role in enabling parents, but in particular mothers, to go back to work. They are absolutely crying out for clarity and support from the Government, and they feel very strongly, in the words of my constituent Lou Simmons, that they have seen pubs and retail get a great deal more assistance than they have. Will my right hon. Friend provide clarity about whether they are entitled to the business rates holiday and whether he will consider extending more support to that sector so that it can continue to provide crucial support at a really desperate time?
Gavin Williamson
My right hon. Friend raises an important point. Nurseries are eligible for business rates relief and, even more importantly, for continued support of the revenue that they would receive from the Government for the cohorts of children they would have. That will continue, which is a key element that they need to have in order to continue to pay staff.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
The Government are committed to complying with our public sector equality duty, and we will take account of feedback from our public consultations. We will undertake an equality analysis as part of the detailed planning for service reconfiguration, which will include feedback from public consultations in those locations where this applies.
Gavin Newlands
Last week, the UK Government announced the closure of 15 jobcentre sites in Scotland, including the Lonend site in Paisley. This follows a proposal to close eight jobcentres in Glasgow, which was announced in December. Does the Minister agree that it is a dereliction of duty and an insult to those affected not to conduct an equality impact assessment in advance of these plans, given the hardship that they will cause to thousands of the most disadvantaged people?
Caroline Nokes
The views and opinions from the consultations we are carrying out with claimants who use the services across the country, not simply in Scotland, will be fed into our equality analysis.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
The single biggest boost to equality delivered through our Department for Work and Pensions estate is the introduction of named universal credit work coaches and their personalised support. What is the current roll-out timetable?
Caroline Nokes
The roll-out of universal credit is increasing apace, and from September we expect it to roll out to 43 jobcentres every single month. My right hon. Friend is right to point out that work coaches are a crucial part of getting people back into work. As part of the service reconfiguration, we are working to ensure that individual claimants can maintain the relationship with their work coaches.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
Women reaching state pension age in 2016-17 are estimated to receive more state pension on average over their lifetime than women ever have before. By 2030, more than 3 million women stand to gain an average of £550 a year through the introduction of the new state pension.
Chi Onwurah
Working-class women are more likely to be in manual trades, which take a greater toll on the body as it ages, and to die younger due to the health inequalities from which we still suffer. The Minister did not mention the word “class” in her reply. Will she say right now that she will ensure justice for working-class women and all WASPI women by giving them a fair deal in the spring Budget?
Caroline Nokes
The equalisation of the state pension age has been well rehearsed in this Chamber; and, no, I will not use the word “class” because, to be quite frank, we are all working now.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
The Government have been very clear: bringing about state pension age equality was an important principle, and one that we have to maintain. We have made £1 billion of concessions to women in this age group but, as the pensions Minister has made clear, there will be no more transitional arrangements.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
The Government have been very clear about the fact that they want equality law to be protected when we leave the EU. That is particularly important. Can the Minister update the House on whether that will form part of the White Paper to be published today?
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is fully aware of the issue, which we debated in this Chamber just last week. He has clearly stated that the introduction of further transitional arrangements cannot be justified given the imperative to focus public resources on helping those in most need. There are no plans to go beyond the £1.1 billion concession introduced when Parliament considered the changes.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister for that response, disappointingly predictable as it was. Will she tell me whether anyone in Government has done an analysis of how much it would cost to implement transitional measures by comparison with what it will cost the Government reputationally and financially when the Women Against State Pension Inequality take them to court and win?
Caroline Nokes
Consistent is how I would prefer to describe my answer. The Government have looked into a variety of different proposals that have come forward in many forms, both from the WASPI campaign and from Opposition parties. As I have very clearly stated, we will not make any further transitional arrangements.
Andy Slaughter
The Minister must know that the lack of transitional support is causing real hardship to women in her constituency, as it is in mine. In the interests of transparency, will she publish any proposals that have come up since the Pensions Act 2011? Will she publish them and the Government’s research, so we can see what they have done?
Caroline Nokes
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the welfare system provides a safety net for those experiencing hardship. We have made it very clear that we have already provided £1.1 billion in transitional concessions. The Government have published a great many figures on this subject. It is very difficult for the Government to publish further statistics on proposals that have come forward from both the WASPI campaign and Opposition parties when it is very unclear what provisions would be included around those transitional arrangements for women as well as men.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
With the effects of austerity being felt disproportionately by women, another Government policy affecting women is the 4% tax on child maintenance. Does the Minister accept that this places an additional tax on survivors of domestic violence, and will she ensure that that is addressed?
Caroline Nokes
I thank the hon. Lady for that question, although I am not sure how it relates to the WASPI campaign. As she will know, I answered questions on this very subject at the Select Committee yesterday. Interestingly, no mention was made of the charges to parents in the collect and pay system. We are determined to encourage as many families as possible to have family-based arrangements. Indeed, even in cases where there has been domestic violence, the child maintenance service can step in to make sure that bank details can be passed safely, including using bank accounts that do not have a geographic location—they have a centralised sort code—so that we protect women and have as few families as possible within the collect and pay arrangements.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
By 2030, over 3 million women stand to gain on average £550 extra per year as a result of these changes. For women reaching state pension age in 2016-17, their median net income in retirement is estimated to be approximately £207,000. This is more on average than women have ever received.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Caroline Nokes
As the hon. Lady will know, the Department for Work and Pensions has recently published the work and health Green Paper, and we are looking at working very closely with the Department of Health on a whole range of issues to make sure that older people and our pensioners are treated fairly by all Government Departments and services.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
Caroline Nokes
As the hon. Gentleman will know, changes were announced in the autumn statement to the taper rate of universal credit. The reality of our changes to the welfare system is that universal credit is encouraging more people into work, and once they are in work, it is helping them, via our work coaches working in every single jobcentre, to make sure that they get more work and indeed better work.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has found that this Government’s pursuit of an austerity agenda, resulting in cuts to benefits, meets the threshold for human rights violations of disabled people. What are the Government going to do to rectify that?
Caroline Nokes
The Government are committed to providing support for disabled people who need it, as reflected in the fact that spending to support disabled people and people with health conditions will be higher in real terms in every year to 2020 than it was in 2010. The core intention of the recommendations set out by the UN is already incorporated in UK policies, and our response sets that out in more detail.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has committed to issuing by the end of the year a consultation document on the future of caste discrimination legislation. Will she update us on when that document will be released?
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Nokes Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
The Government will make no further changes in the pension age or provide financial redress in lieu of pension. A total of £1.1 billion has already been committed to lessen the impact of the changes on those who will be most affected, so that no one will experience a change of more than 18 months.
Jeff Smith
It is clear that the members of the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign and their many supporters around the country think that the Government have not done enough. Will the Minister commit herself to publishing all assessments of the impact of the 2011 changes, and any analysis that has been undertaken of possible transitional arrangements at the time of the Pensions Act 2011 and in the period since then?
Caroline Nokes
The Government have made available £1.1 billion for transitional arrangements because of these changes. This is about undoing an historical unfairness by equalising the state pension age, which both men and women should welcome.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
The Scottish National party commissioned independent research by Landman Economics that found the inequalities facing many of the WASPI women can be rectified if the UK Government implement the report’s recommendations for the sum of £8 billion, rather than the previously cited £30 billion. Will the Minister urge her Treasury colleagues to prioritise this issue ahead of the autumn statement?
Caroline Nokes
A range of potential options have been proposed by a number of different campaigns, but nothing that is specifically aimed at those most disadvantaged by the state pension age increases, and none of them has proposed something significantly better or, indeed, affordable and at an acceptable cost to the taxpayer.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
The UK is recognised as a world leader in disabled rights and equality, and the Government continue to spend about £50 billion a year to support sick and disabled people. That is about 2.5% of GDP. According to OECD figures, that is more than is spent by other countries including Germany, France and the United States of America.
Chris Law
But we still have not seen the publication of the long-awaited Green Paper to map out what employment support will be made available for those with disabilities. Can the Minister provide an explanation for the continued delay? Does she agree that this does not look like the action of a Government who want to provide “an economy that works for everyone”?
Caroline Nokes
As the hon. Gentleman will know, we will soon publish a Green Paper that will explore a whole range of options for long-term reform across different sectors. The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), is working incredibly hard to ensure that that happens soon. We are going to target the factors that contribute to the disability employment gap and engage with disabled people, their representative organisations and a wide range of other stakeholders. There will be an opportunity for hon. Members to feed into that consultation process, and I urge the hon. Gentleman to do so.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as a result of their condition, and the situation has been made worse by this Government’s £28 billion social security cuts, which have affected 3.7 million disabled people since 2012. Sick and disabled people are also more likely to be hit by social security sanctions and forced to use food banks, as the film “I, Daniel Blake” so poignantly showed. Today’s report by Oxford University proves the link between the Government’s punitive sanctions and the rise in food bank use. What action are the Minister and her DWP colleagues taking to tackle these injustices, as the Prime Minister calls them?
Caroline Nokes
This Government are committed to providing support to the people who need it, which is reflected in the fact that spending to support disabled people and people with health conditions will be higher than in 2010 in real terms in every year until 2020.
The hon. Lady mentions “I, Daniel Blake”. I have seen the film. My first visit as a Department for Work and Pensions Minister was to a jobcentre in Newcastle, and I can tell her that the front-line DWP workers whom I met do not recognise their portrayal in the film. The film raises important issues, which we shall debate, but we must remember that it is a dramatic interpretation. I also recognise none of its portrayals of DWP staff.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)