Free School Meals

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Sharon Hodgson

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Catherine McKinnell]

The breakfast club offer, which we have fully costed and will deliver, is a first step on the road to making sure that we put money back into people’s pockets, break down the barriers to opportunity and deliver a cross-Government strategy to tackle child poverty. Free breakfast clubs are the first step on that road.

However, we also want to see the costs of uniforms come down for all families. We want to give children the best start in life to set them up for life and set them up to learn. As the hon. Member for Twickenham pointed out herself, after 14 years of Conservative Government we have a situation where an average of nine children in a classroom of 30 are growing up in poverty. That is why we will introduce a cross-Government taskforce aimed at breaking down the barriers to opportunity for every child in every community. We will focus the limited resources we are set to inherit where we believe they can impact the most.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I will be very brief; I think my hon. Friend is just coming to her big wind-up moment. I know she is in an invidious position—an impossible position. I am sure that, like the rest of us, she would like to stand here and announce universal free school meals, and obviously she cannot, because that is not in her gift today.

One thing that I notice has not been raised at all today—I know she will be concerned about it and could take this back to the Front Bench when they are developing policy—is the issue of dinner money debt. She talked about putting money back into parents’ pockets, and there are so many families who struggle with dinner money debt. Universal free school meals would obviously solve that. When the policy is being developed and talked about, I hope she will feed that in.

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend is such a passionate campaigner for children in her area, and indeed the country. I did not want to let this moment pass without her getting the chance to add in that final additional measure that she would like to see.

I am conscious that the Government need to respond to this debate, so I do not want to take up any more time. I want to finish by emphasising that child poverty in this country is pernicious, but does not demand a simple fix. It needs hard work, focus and prioritisation across Government Departments. It needs a targeted approach to tackle the root causes of poverty and break down the barriers that are holding far too many people back. The next Labour Government will take on that mission, and like previous Labour Governments, we are determined to deliver on it.

EBacc: Expressive Arts Subjects

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Sharon Hodgson

Monday 4th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank the Minister for intervening simply because it shows that he is listening to the debate, which is good. However, those were not my words; they were the words of a SCHOOLS NorthEast member, who has said that the EBacc creates not a hierarchy but a false hierarchy. I said at the beginning of my comments that nobody questions the importance of maths, English and science as a foundation of learning, but the restrictive nature of the EBacc leaves no room for artistic subjects. I am pleased the Minister is listening so carefully.

Who could blame headteachers for wanting to focus all of their schools’ energies on delivering the EBacc’s results, whether or not the subjects studied are appropriate for their pupils? They hear repeated warnings, including in the Conservative party manifesto, that their school will not be able to receive the highest rating from Ofsted if they do not meet their EBacc targets. I know the Education Secretary believes that those expressing concerns about the EBacc are “adults writing off children”, but nothing could be further from the truth. They are seeing a Government restricting young people’s life chances by forcing them to focus on a narrow and restrictively defined group of subjects. They are concerned about a Government reducing the ability of schools such as Walbottle Campus in my constituency to deliver a balanced and creative curriculum tailored to each young person’s talents and needs and focusing on the overall experience and wellbeing of their students. Of course, this is a Government who are determined to impose a one-size-fits-all approach to GCSEs at a time when they claim to be introducing autonomy for all headteachers and local schools through academisation.

The Schools Minister has repeatedly claimed that there is no evidence the EBacc is having a negative impact on the arts, substantiating that with the argument that in the past five years there has been a 3% increase in the uptake of at least one arts subject. We may well hear that again in his response today, but the Bacc for the Future campaign has stated that those figures are flawed as they omit various BTEC qualifications, include early entry AS-levels and neglect design and technology, in which exam entries dropped by a staggering 19,000 last year. Indeed, new figures produced just last month show that entries for GCSEs in arts subjects have fallen by 46,000 this year compared with last year—a loss five times the one in 2015, when candidate numbers for arts subjects fell by 9,000. The ArtsProfessional website reported:

“The falling take-up of arts GCSEs has already started to spill over into A levels. There were 4,300 fewer candidates for A level arts subjects this year—a decline three times bigger than the 1,500 recorded in 2015.”

Of most concern is the claim by the Creative Industries Federation that schools with a high proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals have been more than twice as likely to withdraw arts subjects as those with a low proportion. So much for access to cultural education being a matter of social justice. Of course, that decline is taking place even before the EBacc has become compulsory in our schools. The chief executive of the Creative Industries Federation said that the decline is

“alarming and further confirms a longstanding trend that EBacc is clearly exacerbating.”

He went on to comment:

“For a sector already suffering skills shortages, undervaluing and excluding creative subjects has major ramifications. The impact will not only be felt by the creative economy but also by other sectors, such as engineering, that desperately need some of the same skills. Although it is possible to take up jobs in our sector without exam results in creative subjects, it is much harder and potentially more expensive to do so, which obviously further diminishes the chances for young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds. There are many people who are not academic in a traditional sense and who would struggle with the EBacc yet are thriving and excelling today in careers from fashion to video games. If creative subjects are increasingly painted as an ‘optional extra’ to a more traditional core curriculum, these are some of the people who could be lost in future.”

As the Chancellor highlighted in his 2015 autumn statement,

“Britain is not just brilliant at science; it is brilliant at culture too. One of the best investments we can make as a nation is in our extraordinary arts, museums, heritage, media and sport.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1368.]

I agree. The Government’s own figures show that the creative industries are one of the fastest growing sectors in the UK economy, worth more than £84 billion a year or nearly £10 million an hour. According to the CBI, the creative industries employ some 2 million people, with around one in 11 jobs found in the creative economy. Critically, as the Creative Industries Federation highlights, those roles are broadly protected from automation.

This is an area in which Great Britain genuinely leads the world but one in which we have a significant skills shortage, so much so that a range of roles in the creative industries are included in the Home Office’s tier 2 visa shortage occupation list—for example, graphic designers, programmers, software developers, artists, producers, directors, dancers and skilled musicians. Nevertheless, this is the time when the Department for Education is determined to force schools down a path that will inevitably lead to even fewer British students taking up the subjects and developing the skills that the UK’s burgeoning creative industries desperately need. As has been made clear by Artists’ Union England—a relatively new trade union established by my constituent Theresa Easton—

“The new EBacc proposals will leave the creative sector without a future workforce.”

It is absolutely nonsensical.

Of particular concern is the evidence highlighted by the Creative Industries Federation’s higher and further education working group, which shows that many of the courses that need students to have studied art and design at school level also have high levels of students with special educational needs. The group cites remarks by the British Dyslexia Association that

“People with dyslexia are frequently successful in entrepreneurship, sales, art and design, entertainment, acting, engineering, architecture, I.T., computer animation, technical and practical trades and professions.”

It also cites the fact that more than 4,000 students at the University of the Arts London are disabled and/or dyslexic—24%, compared with just 4.7% at Cambridge University.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent introductory speech, which I congratulate her on. I am very pleased that she mentioned special educational needs and dyslexia. As she knows, my son Joseph, who is now 22, is severely dyslexic. He will graduate in the next few weeks from Teesside University with a degree in games art and design; I am thrilled. He could not read until the age of 14 and he would never have passed the EBacc, but he is creative. His brain works in a different way, and he was able to go on through equivalencies to now get a degree.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, because I know that she not only cares passionately about how well her own son does and has done, but cares and campaigns passionately for all children with special educational needs. This is an issue that the Minister must sit up and take notice of because by insisting on the implementation of EBacc for all or almost all pupils, the Government seriously risk restricting the life chances and future career opportunities of those with special educational needs. Not only does that do those young people out of their potential creative futures, but it does our creative industries out of their special skills and contributions.

Finally, I want to touch on concerns that have been raised with me about the EBacc by Studio West—a studio school established in West Denton in my constituency in September 2014. As Studio West has highlighted, studio schools have been established to bridge the gap between the skills and knowledge that young people need for success and those that the current education system provides. By design, a studio school’s curriculum embraces enterprise initiatives, innovative project-based and work-related approaches to learning and an emphasis on employable skills. Studio West feels very strongly that the EBacc judgment made of all secondary schools is too restrictive if studio schools are to fully embrace their ethos.

Local Government Funding: North-East

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Sharon Hodgson

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Hodgson]

That says more about that Minister. His lobbying was obviously not as successful as that of his colleagues in Northumberland.

The Prime Minister is on the record saying, in an interview with Jeremy Paxman before the 2010 election, that the north-east and Northern Ireland are the two areas where his planned public sector cuts would have the greatest impact. True to his word, when he walked into Downing Street in 2010, propped up by the Liberal Democrats, he began implementing some of the deepest and most devastating cuts our region has ever seen. I would hazard that they are even worse than the cuts under Margaret Thatcher, which I never would have thought possible.

Here we are again: councils in some of the poorest parts of the country are having to cut services back to the bare bones. The fat went long ago. In most of our region, especially the coalfield communities, some of which I represent, there was for many years trepidation about what the Conservatives would do if they were ever in power again. It is with no surprise or pleasure that we gather here to point out that the Government have truly lived up to those dire expectations. After six years of belt-tightening, Opposition Members listened with disbelief as the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government stood at the Dispatch Box last month and announced a local government settlement of £300 million of transitional funding, 85% of which will benefit Tory councils that have not faced anywhere near the funding cuts meted out to Labour councils. Labour councils are expected to tighten further and add a few notches to an already worn-out belt. If that were not already impossible, it certainly is now.

Not a penny of the funding that was announced is directed at the majority of councils in the north-east, where unemployment is the highest in the country at 8.1% and poverty remains a persistent issue. Some of the poorest communities in the country are paying for 36% of the Government’s austerity measures. Social care is a burgeoning issue for many of them, especially given that the people who use social care will bear 13% of the cuts.

Tomorrow, my local council, Sunderland, will pass its budget for the 2016-17 financial year. It must find £46 million of savings this year and a total of £110 million by the end of this Parliament, on top of the £207 million that it had to find during the last Parliament. That means that the council has a total of £290 million to spend by 2020, compared with the £607 million it had in 2010, before the Conservatives came to power in 2010. That is less than 50% of its pre-2010 budget. That is not trimming, belt-tightening or streamlining; it is an attack—a full-scale assault. So much for the rhetoric of a northern powerhouse. Northern poorhouse, more like.

Of the £290 million of spending power that Sunderland has left, £182 million is reserved for statutory adult social care and children’s services. The remaining £108 million will have to pay for all other services, including waste collection and disposal, libraries, museums, housing, business investment, and sport and leisure. Those wide-ranging services need proper investment to be suitable for public access, but with such a small budget for those services, it is obvious that the council will struggle to maintain the high standard that our local communities deserve and expect.

Significant cuts will also have to be found within the needs-based funding elements, including children’s services. An 8% per annum cut is expected in the early intervention budget on top of the 50% cut to early intervention services since 2010. Children’s services and early intervention are such important areas. If funded correctly, they can mitigate greater costs further down the line by preventing children from becoming adults with multiple issues. The Government’s policy is so short-sighted.

No doubt the Minister will talk about devolving the collection of local business rates. Labour supports that policy in principle, but in practice it will further ingrain unfairness into an already unfair system. He may also talk about the 2% increase in council tax to fund social care as a means for councils to bring in additional funding. For low-tax councils such as Sunderland, such measures will not bring in the funding they require to continue to provide the local services that we rely on. It is estimated that the 2% for social care will bring in only £1.5 million for Sunderland, but our local social care demands are approximately £3 million. Where does the Minister think the additional funding should be found? This is one of the greatest public policy crises that we face in this country. For Sunderland, the prognosis remains bleak for the near future. There is no respite or support on the horizon from the Government.

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about the ingrained inequalities, which the Government’s policies will deepen. Is she aware that Newcastle City Council estimates that the 2% council tax precept will raise £1.4 million a year, whereas it faces a spending shortfall of £15 million? It is a simple mathematical calculation, and it does not add up.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I often wonder whether the Government’s calculators and experts stop functioning when it comes to some of these numbers. They seem to have dyscalculia—numerical dyslexia—when working out the sums for the north-east, but they are not troubled by it when working out the sums for the rest of the country.

Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Sharon Hodgson

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I, too, strongly commend my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for leading this debate so powerfully. Although the injustice imposed on women born in the 1950s has been repeatedly debated, discussed and raised with the Prime Minister in recent weeks and months, this is my first opportunity since returning to the Back Benches to express my constituents’ concerns, and I am grateful for it.

The Minister and the Government regularly state that the changes to the state pension age imposed by the Pensions Act 2011 are vital to ensuring that our pensions system is fair, affordable and sustainable, and I am sure the Minister will repeat those words today; but not a single Member of this House would suggest that our pensions system should be anything other than fair, affordable or sustainable, and nor would any of the women who are part of the brilliant WASPI campaign. I agree that it is right to equalise the state pension age for women and men, but I thoroughly object to the Government’s implication that the women, and indeed men, who are campaigning on this issue are standing in the way of progress, or acting as a barrier to the achievement of gender equality and fairness. That is deeply insulting, patronising and wrong.

We are, thankfully, living longer, and few people would doubt that the state pension age must rise to reflect that, but the crux of the matter is that these pension changes have not been properly communicated to those affected, and women born in the 1950s have been disproportionately hit because their pension age has been increased not once but twice, with very little time for them to do anything about it. That relatively small group of women is being asked to bear the cost of making our pension system fair, sustainable and affordable for everyone else. That is patently unfair and blatantly discriminatory. Women across the country have been left in real fear, simply because they did not have the foresight to be born a few years—in some cases, a few months—earlier.

How dare the Government lecture those women about the importance of gender equality? They have worked hard, done the right thing and paid into the system. They have faced discrimination, unfairness and inequality throughout their working and often their family lives. They thought they had entered into a pensions contract with the Government, only to discover as they neared retirement that the Government were not going to keep their side of the bargain. That is the very definition of unfairness, and the notion that inequality can be fought by imposing more of it is absurd.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I am sorry, but I will not.

Women across Newcastle North face real financial hardship as a result of these changes, just when they thought they had done their bit As well as repeatedly lobbying the Minister for Pensions about the wider injustice, I have written to her about every single case in my consistency that I have been contacted about. I want her to appreciate the real impact that the changes are having on individuals’ lives. I want to share some examples today, if I have enough time.

One of my constituents, a brilliant WASPI campaigner, at the age of 54 and on the advice of her union contacted the DWP in 2008 to request a state pension forecast. She was informed that she had attained 38 qualifying years. She has received no other information from the Government about the 1995 changes. However, she was born in November 1954, so under the 2011 pension changes, at the age of 61 with 45 qualifying years, she is unable to receive her state pension for another five years. She has worked since she was 15, and is now unable to do so because she is pre-diabetic and pre-glaucomic. She claims jobseeker’s allowance, but cannot complete the job searches because her condition makes it difficult to use a computer. She is attempting to find work in a region that has the highest level of unemployment anywhere in the country by some margin.

What particularly worries me about that case is not only that my constituent has received no information from the Government about the 2011 changes—she found out about them by chance—but that she has been informed that she will not be entitled to receive a full state pension under the new system unless she makes further contributions between 2016 and 2020, despite having 45 qualifying years. Given her health conditions, it is impossible for her to do so. I gently ask the Minister, who campaigned vociferously on this issue, what is the point of becoming a Minister if you are unprepared to use the levers of power when you have the opportunity to do so?

East Coast Main Line

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Sharon Hodgson

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Hodgson]

We are not talking about the renationalisation of the east coast main line—it has already been nationalised—but about how to stop it from being re-privatised. The point is that it is already in national ownership.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I suggest that there have been many changes at East Coast in the past few years. In fact, for the first time in a long time, it seems to be working well, to the point that the east coast main line has a record level of customer satisfaction. The company has won 13 industry awards since 2012, including as Britain’s top employer. It is surely endorsement enough that so many Opposition Members who travel on East Coast trains week in, week out want to fight for it to remain as it is and against changing it again.

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is the point—the east coast main line does not need to change. The process might ultimately lead to a significantly worse deal for all our constituents, as well as for the Exchequer, when there is absolutely no need to go down such a path.

As I and others said in the last debate, East Coast is doing very well under the current arrangement, both for passengers and the Exchequer. Since the failure of National Express, thousands more services have been timetabled; hundreds of thousands more passengers have used services; significant investment has been made in passenger comfort and stations, including at Newcastle; customer satisfaction has been at record highs, notwithstanding the recent blip; and complaints have been handled in a timely way 98% of the time, compared with 73% of the time under private ownership.

Basketball (Funding)

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Sharon Hodgson

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley)—I want to call him my hon. Friend—on securing this important debate. We work together closely on the topic of basketball. I am the chair of the all-party group on basketball, and he is my excellent vice-chair. I am also a trustee on the board of the British Basketball League Foundation, which he chairs. I thank other hon. Members from both sides of the House who are members of that fantastic all-party group for showing their commitment to the cause and being here in force tonight.

I endorse everything the hon. Gentleman said and will not seek to repeat the many excellent points he made, even though we have the time available. Needless to say, I too am deeply disappointed by the decisions, both new and historic, that have led to this debate. Basketball is important, both in my constituency and across the country, because it reaches a demographic that few sports can. It is dynamic and accessible, and its natural ties to urban culture give it a street credibility others sorely lack. It is no wonder that it is as popular as the hon. Gentleman described. Basketball was consistently one of the most viewed events at the Olympics and Paralympics; 7,500 fans turned out to see the Newcastle Eagles, my local team, play in the BBL cup final earlier this month; and just the other week, 17,000 people packed out the O₂ arena to watch an NBA game, which by all accounts was fantastic.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) on securing the debate. I had not realised that we had a little extra time, so I tried to be as quick as possible with my previous intervention—

[Catherine McKinnell]

I will try, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I have attended a few of the Newcastle Eagles’ games, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) will share my enthusiasm for the amazing family-friendly atmosphere at them. Everybody should experience it as it is quite something.

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is an excellent point, and I am sure that other hon. Members who are here to support basketball will agree with my hon. Friend. I was at one of the matches that she attended with her young children, and they were running around and thoroughly enjoying the game in a very safe environment. Anyone going to basketball for the first time falls in love with it, because it is so exciting and fast. I know that my appearance now does not give the impression of an elite basketball player, but in my youth I played at school with some enthusiasm and have loved it ever since. It is very exciting to play and to watch.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Hodgson]

I thank the Minister for that clarification. Basketball is not an established sport, so it is fair to say, as the hon. Member for City of Chester described, that it tends to be at the back of the line when funding gets divvied up. In terms of the elite level, the House has also heard about the massive strides made by Great Britain’s men and women basketball teams within just one Olympic cycle. I share his doubts about a process that could write off their hopes for 2016 on that basis. I hope the Minister will be able to shed some light on that.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again; she is being very generous. On the hoops for health programme, I appreciate that Sport England does not give funding for that age group. Does she agree, however, that Sport England should recognise that the funding and effort that goes in at that younger age produces the athletes of the future, and that without it they cannot become elite players?

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is the key point, which I will move on to. We were promised that the London Olympics would inspire a generation, but which part of that generation are we going to inspire? That question matters because how we distribute that money for sport—whoever is distributing it and under whichever rules—says a lot about what sort of society we want to be. UK Sport’s no compromise policy inadvertently, yet knowingly, punishes team sports for being accessible, as they are more globally competitive.

Financial Support (Students)

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Sharon Hodgson

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Hodgson]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point, one which I hope the Minister and Government will consider before coming forward with an announcement in this regard.

This morning we had a very good seminar in the Boothroyd room, at which young people, teachers and administrators from across the country—including Becky, Codie, John and Jordan from Hylton skills campus in my constituency—talked to politicians about what scrapping EMA will mean to them. It was a shame that the Minister could not be there. With respect to all hon. Members who have contributed to this debate, it would have been much more valuable for the Minister to have heard first-hand what young people and those who work with them say to those of us willing to listen, about how much impact this choice will have on the lives of people from the poorest backgrounds.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I wanted to put that question to the Minister, had I had the opportunity to speak. How many colleges have the Government spoken to about this policy? I spoke recently to staff from Newcastle college, which carried out a survey of all its EMA recipients, 85% of whom use it for transport costs. I was alarmed to hear it stated in this debate that EMA is regularly and widely abused. That is not the experience of colleges that I have spoken to.

[Mrs Hodgson]

That was definitely not the experience that Members heard from students this morning. We heard some powerful and at times very moving contributions. Many students told us how EMA is barely enough at the moment to cover their travel costs and their lunch. A young man called Luke told us of his peers who could not eat before or at college because their money did not go far enough. How many more will be in that position when EMA is removed? We know that eating well leads to better attainment. Even though the Minister and his colleagues scrapped the extension to free school meals, he must acknowledge the scientific evidence.

We heard from the principal of Lambeth college that EMA had led to a rise in participation and achievement and a fall in drop-outs. We heard from Cath and Alex, who had brought the young people all the way down from my constituency in Sunderland, that EMA helps young people with financial planning, which reduces the likelihood of their getting into debt in later life. We heard from a student who had dropped out of school in year 8, but was now studying towards GCSE-level qualifications because of EMA. We heard from a young single mother, who could only attend college and take her child to the crèche because of EMA. We also heard from all the staff that EMA was helping young people.

The most poignant moment was a comment from John, who with his peers had got up at 4 am to come down from Sunderland for the meeting. He sat there until the end, then said:

“Sharon said on Friday that I should follow my dreams. EMA gives me the chance to follow my dreams, and if you take it away, I don’t know what I’ll do.”