Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

3. What steps she is taking to tackle persistent pupil absence in schools.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

18. What steps she is taking to tackle persistent pupil absence in schools.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

Tackling persistent absence is my top priority, as indeed it was last year. I pay tribute to our incredible teachers and heads who have gone above and beyond to get children back to school. We are more than doubling the number of attendance hubs to support 2,000 schools, we are investing £15 million to expand one-to-one mentoring to help 10,000 children and we will be requiring all schools to share data to support earlier intervention. Our plan is starting to work, with 380,000 fewer children persistently absent or not attending last year, and numbers continue to fall.

[Gillian Keegan]

It is working. It is not going to stick on the trajectory, because we have already turned around the trajectory. Since the pandemic, it is already falling in England. There is no better example of the Labour party having no plan and just sniping from the sidelines than on the question of attendance. I suggest that Labour Members look at other countries around the world because this is a global phenomenon. We have daily data that is almost unique, which is why we are now reducing the figures. If we look at Wales—Labour-run Wales—we see that attendance in school is much worse, at nearly eight days lower per pupil.

[Chi Onwurah]

The Secretary of State says that keeping children in school is her top priority, but since 2016 persistent absence in Newcastle has more than doubled and severe absence is up 282%. She says it is a global phenomenon, but what matters is what happens in schools in Newcastle. Labour’s plan for schools is supported by Sir Kevan Collins. Why will she not support it? What is she going to do about this, because we need to see change now?

[Gillian Keegan]

The hon. Lady may have mixed up a couple of things there, but the plan to get children back into school is to have daily attendance data, which we introduced and sent out to every local authority. Some local authorities do not perform as well—perhaps the hon. Lady’s is one of those—but we send out daily data so that they can identify exactly where the schools are. We are working with attendance hubs, which we are introducing across the country. For individual one-to-one attention we have attendance mentors. We have a national campaign and a cross-Government action alliance, all of which has meant that England has a 7.5% absence rate, compared with 11.5% in Wales, and it is much higher in most countries around the world. We have a plan, and we are delivering on it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

I would be delighted to come to Grimsby. I congratulate my hon. Friend on becoming the apprenticeship diversity champion. She is a skills champion, and what she is doing on careers and mentoring in Grimsby is a model example of what should be done across the country.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

T4. This month’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation report sets out how childhood poverty impacts on educational attainment, and how the consequences last a lifetime, entrenching intergenerational poverty. Forty-two per cent of children in Newcastle are growing up in poverty. Will the Secretary of State support Labour’s call for free breakfast clubs in every primary school, to give those children the best start in life?

[The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)]

We are investing very heavily in breakfast clubs. This is another area in which we think that targeting support matters. That includes secondary schools, not just primary schools, as the Labour party suggests.