Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Damian Hinds(7 months ago)
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Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
On the cost of living, among concerns raised by parents in response to the most recent National Parents Survey by Parentkind, the cost of school uniforms, trips and food came up the most. Labour has a plan to cut the cost of school uniforms by limiting the number of branded items, and our free breakfast clubs in every primary school will put money back in parents’ pockets while improving attendance and attainment. We have done the Government’s homework, and they are still failing families. Will it take a Labour Government to give every child in this country the chances that they deserve?
Damian Hinds
I appreciate what the hon. Lady says, but I am afraid she needs to keep up: we have done the things that restrict the cost pressures on uniforms. We regularly survey how much uniforms are costing, and some of those results are encouraging. We also survey regularly the number of schools that have a second-hand uniform facility available, and I am pleased to report that that has improved. We are also very clear that, when a school trip is part of the national curriculum—an essential thing to do—there should be no charge. In addition to that, way many schools make sure that they are providing inclusivity for all pupils, and of course the pupil premium that we introduced shortly after 2010 is one of the things that facilitates that.
Tutoring Provision
Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Damian Hinds(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I thank the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for bringing forward this debate on tutoring provision, and all hon. Members who have spoken very passionately on behalf of the children, families and school communities they represent here in Parliament.
I think we all agree that the scale of the challenge that many of our children and young people are currently facing is immense. We know that children and families have really struggled with the combined impact of years of reduced investment in our public services, compounded by the impact of the pandemic. Indeed, the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers, which many have mentioned, has widened across all educational phases since 2019, so any limited progress made in the decade before was wiped out in a couple of years. The hon. Member for Twickenham also highlighted that issue.
We know that what happens outside the school gates reinforces the impact of what happens inside them. With the rising levels of child poverty, the cuts to youth services in communities and the dwindling support for children with additional needs, schools are increasingly becoming the frontline, with teachers having to buy food with their own money and wash clothes for families, and the increasing challenge of mental health issues.
It has now been four years since the enormous disruption and lost learning experienced by so many children began during covid. What was most concerning at that time was the lack of planning for children and for the inevitable impacts: no plan for learning from home in the early days; no plan for ensuring that all children had the equipment they needed; no plan for schools, teachers, or how to support children afterwards. So when the classrooms finally reopened after covid, it was not surprising to anyone that children found it hard to adjust. They had had little socialisation or interaction, and some had received barely any education at all.
I saw the impact on my own children. My youngest had only just started school when he found himself back at home being taught by two parents who had no teaching experience, two other children to try to teach and support, and two full-time jobs that they had to undertake from home. It was an incredibly challenging time for families everywhere, and in far too many households, particularly where less support was available, children paid a very heavy price. Kevan Collins was therefore commissioned by the Government to set out a long-term recovery plan for our children, but the Prime Minister, who was then Chancellor, opted out: he was simply not willing to make that investment in other people’s children. Our country continues to pay a very heavy price for the decision he took then, and it will for some time to come.
The National Audit Office reported last year:
“Disruption to schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic led to lost learning for many pupils, particularly disadvantaged children.”
It also reported:
“Left unaddressed, lost learning may lead to increased disadvantage and significant missing future earnings for those affected.”
As a key measure to address that, the Government introduced the national tutoring programme, which was initially provided through tuition partners. As hon. Members have noted, there were many missteps, from a very low uptake at the start to schools struggling to find the tutors they needed to deliver the support, but as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) highlighted, once the Government introduced the school-led tutoring element in September 2021, there was some success and take-up was higher.
Evidence gathered by the National Foundation for Educational Research showed that increasing the number of tuition hours
“led to better outcomes in maths and English.”
Crucially, however, the foundation noted:
“Less than half of pupils selected for tutoring were from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
As the match-funding requirements kicked in and Government funding went from 75% to 50%, schools that were trying to make the scheme work and that needed it the most found it ever more difficult to deliver. This year, many schools, especially those in the poorest areas, have used up almost all of their pupil premium and recovery premium funding to pay for tutors, leaving them little to pay for other interventions such as enrichment or training. Indeed, the benefits of the scheme risked being undermined by the way it was delivered because it was poorly targeted, so lots of children who needed the support the most were not able to benefit from it.
Tutoring was not mentioned in the Budget earlier this month, so it seems that the national tutoring programme is coming to an end. Just a few months ago, the then Schools Minister, the right hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb), stated:
“The Department has committed that, from the 2023/24 academic year, tutoring will have been embedded across schools in England.”
However, without a specific budget for tuition, it is assumed that schools will need to use their main budgets to fund that support.
Catherine McKinnell
I will just finish my point.
As I was saying, it is assumed that schools will need to use their main budgets to fund tuition support, absorbing the costs into what is already a shrinking pot. It would therefore be helpful if the Minister set out the Government’s vision of the national tutoring programme in the future. I was going to ask if he could do so in his response to this debate, but he is welcome to make an intervention now.
Damian Hinds
I will speak in a moment. I just wondered whether the hon. Lady is committing, in the event of her party coming into government, to having a separate line item for the tutoring programme over and above core school budgets.
Catherine McKinnell
The question that I am putting to the Government is how they envisage the future of the national tutoring programme. I would be grateful if the Government set out their vision. I will respond to the right hon. Gentleman’s point, as I deal with it in my speech—
Damian Hinds
It will not be long until there is a general election. We do not know exactly when, but there will be a general election at some point in the months to come. If the hon. Lady is saying that she thinks the Government’s course of action is a mistake, I am interested in hearing the alternative that she is setting out.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Damian Hinds(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
Last year the National Audit Office reported that 700,000 children were being taught in schools needing major rebuilding works. On top of the problems caused by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, construction issues are emerging daily with block and beam flooring, high-alumina cement and asbestos—all long past their shelf life—up in North Tyneside and down to Luton and beyond. Fourteen years of Conservative Governments have left children learning under props and in portacabins and sheds. Given that this Government’s plan seems to be to leave it for the next Labour Government to sort out those problems, can the Minister at least inform us of the latest estimate of the total school repairs bill?
Damian Hinds
Keeping our school estates in the right condition for optimally educating children is of the foremost importance. Since 2015 we have allocated £15 billion to keeping schools safe and operational. I pay tribute to everyone who has been involved in the most recent RAAC issue, including the schools and pupils who dealt with it and my colleagues who helped to ensure that we reached this point. All schools have been told what will happen next: either they will receive a remediation grant, or they will be part of the school rebuilding programme.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Damian Hinds(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the Minister to his place.
On Friday, I joined Labour’s candidate Alan Strickland on a visit to Ferryhill School in County Durham. The staff team and students are amazing, but staff are left teaching in portacabins, the dining room and the sports hall, the staff room is behind a curtain on a stage, and years 10 and 11 are in a different town. Last week, yet more schools were added to the list of those with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, and the Secretary of State could not confirm how many will need complete rebuilds. Given the urgency, can the Minister tell parents, children and staff when this chaos will end?
Damian Hinds
Mr Speaker, allow me to take this moment to pay tribute to all school staff, leaders, children and their families, who have shown great fortitude in dealing with the disruption caused by RAAC. We have moved quickly to make sure all schools with suspected RAAC are surveyed and to work with schools to put in place alternative arrangements. Of course none of that is perfect, but schools have shown great flexibility in working towards that, such that we now have 99% of affected schools back with full-time face-to-face education.