Higher Education Reform
Chris Green Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Gillian Keegan
The hon. Lady will be delighted about the data that we now have. If students having done those courses go on to earn more—I do not know what her judgment is on those institutions—that will be absolutely fantastic; that is all that we expect. I have two business and management degrees and know business well, having spent 30 years in it, but if people cannot get a good business job after doing a business and management degree, I would suggest that was not a good-quality degree. One must recognise that.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is right to celebrate Britain’s international higher education success, but does she agree that any changes made must recognise the tremendous success of the 2,000 workers at the University of Bolton, which has shot up The Guardian’s best university guide league table now to be placed in the top 40?
Gillian Keegan
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I know that he is a big champion of the University of Bolton, which I was delighted to meet recently. It is quite interesting that a lot of former polytechnics and newer universities are working and collaborating so well with businesses, offering more degree apprenticeships and more flexible courses, and storming up the league tables.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Green Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
The free schools programme has created hundreds of new schools, including Eden Boys School and The Olive School in Bolton, both judged as outstanding by Ofsted. Before signing a funding agreement to open any new school, the Secretary of State will always have regard to local consultation on the proposals.
Chris Green
Getting planning right is one of the biggest concerns my constituents have. The proposals to build a new school on the Captains Clough playing field drew a huge number of people to a public meeting I recently held. Will my hon. Friend the Minister commit to meeting me and working with my constituents to ensure we get the right school in the right place?
Mr Walker
I understand that an initial site search put forward Captains Clough as a preferred option, but we are aware of the concerns raised by my hon. Friend and others, and that a local group has submitted a village green planning application. We are exploring options with the local authority to resolve those concerns, but of course I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the matter further.
Support for University Students: Covid-19
Chris Green Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Michelle Donelan
The hon. Member’s suggestion of scrapping fees would not put money into the pockets of students today. It would not help them with the hardship that they are facing as a result of the pandemic. Instead, that is exactly what we have done, with £70 million spread over just three months. We are also urging all accommodation providers to refund students for this period of time, so, no, we will not be adhering to her request.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that in these difficult times it is the responsibility of every university to do its best for its students? Does she also agree that, by providing campus access where appropriate, 500 new laptops, hot food deliveries to many residential students, 1,000 free bicycles for students so that they can avoid public transport and keep fit, and by operating a no-academic detriment policy and free post-graduation practicals for missed classes, the University of Bolton is setting the standard?
Michelle Donelan
I thank my hon. Friend for again highlighting to me the fantastic work that the University of Bolton is doing. Like many of our world-class universities, it has a reputation for supporting students not just with their education, but with their wellbeing. I thank all the staff at the University of Bolton for the work that they continue to do.
Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill
Chris Green ExcerptsFriday 13th March 2020
(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Andrew Lewer
The hon. Gentleman provides a good illustration of how personal experience informs rather than inflames the debate. His point also illustrates the importance of local areas and schools having a measure of control and responsibility. That is not always delivered by an attitude of, “The man in Whitehall knows best.” There is space for guidance—that is the purpose of our discussion today—but guidance and over-prescription in a country the size of ours, with the number of schools we have, would be unwelcome.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the vast majority of schools take a very responsible approach when designating their school uniform? We might be looking at a relatively small number of exceptions when we talk about more expensive uniforms.
Andrew Lewer
What my hon. Friend says is true in the overwhelming majority of cases. It is interesting; I have found from my meetings with larger schoolwear suppliers, and the intermediate businesses that provide wholesale stock of those garments to a local area, that some of them have prevailed on schools to take a more measured and responsible approach. It is a tribute to people in the sector that although they could say, “Yes, you should absolutely have a cerise lining and charge £250,” they have said that they do not think that is a very responsible approach. People may respond, “Oh, the sector would say that, wouldn’t it? It’s just in it to gouge everybody.” That is not, I hope, something that we would necessarily say about other sectors, such as the defence sector or the theatre. This sector, being so close to the people it serves and so embedded in the communities it serves, overall does take its responsibilities particularly seriously.
Nobody suggests that a uniform makes or breaks a school, but if a school is seeking to change and drive up standards—possibly in response to not very satisfactory Ofsted results, or in response to parent pressure to step up their game—a uniform makes the statement that it is on a mission to do that. Also, schools with a much longer tradition of success that they want to keep up encourage pride in their uniform—pride in their brand, and in what they have achieved for the young people that they serve. Uniform has an important role to play there.
I went to a state school with a comprehensive intake, Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Ashbourne in Derbyshire. I owe it so much that I mentioned it in my maiden speech. It has a traditional uniform, including right through the sixth form. That is not why it is a good school, but it plays its part.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate about guidance on and costs of school uniforms. We have all been through school and had the experience of looking forward to buying school uniform, or our parents buying it. Hon. Members have rightly highlighted how, when we go to the shop to get the blazers and sports kit, it really sets that sense of transition from primary school to secondary school, which is a really important stage in life, for the vast majority who go to schools with these uniforms.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi). I have three brothers so I was in a similar position on hand-me-downs. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), in his speech, made an excellent contribution. The reassurance that the Bill is not about getting rid of school uniforms is so important, because they hold an important place in our society. It is not just the uniform—the tie and the badge—that is important; on sports day and in sporting competition between different schools, they allow people readily to see their team and who they are supporting. Uniform lends itself to that ethos and identity within a school.
It is far cheaper to have a school uniform, because it avoids that competitive catwalk approach. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) highlighted what can happen if a school’s sports kit is not also part of the school uniform; by attempting to reduce the overall cost of the uniform, schools can actually allow other areas of school life to become dominated by cool kit, style and fast fashion. School uniform is important in many different ways.
Perhaps this is a minor point, but children will only appreciate a mufti day at school if they have to wear a school uniform the rest of the time. However, there is a concern that non-uniform days come a little too frequently now and happen for too many different reasons. Perhaps there should be a reduction in such days, because it is now on these occasions that competition over clothing comes out, undermining the value behind having a school uniform.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that schools deciding to have dress-up days can cause additional pressures for families, who have to keep finding different outfits for their children?
Chris Green
That is a very good point. Fortunately, I was at school before it became the fashion to have these themed days—for World Book Day or other occasions—for which parents have to go out and spend money on outfits. I am glad that I missed all that, and having to dress up as Harry Potter or anyone else is not something I would ever have looked forward to when I was at school.
It is quite right that we emphasise the value in good-quality school uniform. This ought not just to be about the cheapest price. A lot of small shops provide good-quality school uniforms. We ought to be aware of the concern that in many towns around the country there might not even be a question of which school uniform the children are wearing, because it will be the cheapest option—from whichever supermarket is in that town. Supermarkets provide a valuable space for affordable clothing, but we need to be careful that they do not push out the small businesses on our high streets by doing so.
It is important for schoolchildren to wear a uniform because they may end up wearing one when they leave school, as people in so many walks of life wear uniforms. Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Speaker himself, and so many others around this Chamber and around Parliament wear a uniform. The police and nurses wear uniforms. Arguably, as is evident on the Benches around me, many male Members of Parliament dress in quite a standard way. Schoolchildren are likely to wear a uniform of one sort or another throughout their working lives, so they may as well get used to it early on.
School visits are one of the most interesting parts of any Member of Parliament’s life, whether that visit is from a secondary or a primary school. We often do the fearsome or dreaded Q&A, where there can be a range of questions—from “What is your favourite colour?”, which I deal with quite well, to “What are the relative merits or demerits of the party leaders?”, which is a far more involved question. It is sometimes good to ask the kids questions as well, and to get them to participate in democracy, especially given the importance of referendums.
In these sessions the children do ask, “Why do we have to wear a school uniform?” and the arguments can be set out as to why it is so important that they do. But I asked the children of St Bartholomew’s Church of England Primary School in Westhoughton to vote on whether their teachers and headteacher should wear a school uniform as well, and that question was agreed to not 52% to 48%, but with unanimity within the classroom. So many schools have school councils now, and I think that teachers should respect the children and democracy; perhaps we should be expanding this Bill. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Weaver Vale wants to seek to expand the remit of his legislation, but maybe we should be asking whether teachers should wear school uniforms as well.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in favour of this Bill, promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), who has truly identified a real issue faced by millions of families across the country. The Bill takes the necessary steps required to alleviate the problem.
The cost of a uniform can vary dramatically across a community and across the country, with the only uniformity being that the relatively cheapest uniform is still extremely expensive. The school uniform serves a wide range of important functions. It provides a uniformity for what young people wear to school, regardless of their family’s financial situation. A young person cannot be made fun of because their family cannot afford the most up-to-date clothes, for example. This uniformity, which was in part designed to help some of the poorest in our society, is in fact now placing an undue cost on families.
In my constituency alone, the cost of a branded blazer is between £31 and £37, a tie is £6.50 and a PE top is £15. The average cost of a secondary school uniform is £340. In its 2020 update, the Children’s Society has announced that this cost is now even higher, with costs rising to £361. Some 43% of parents said that the cost of school uniform alone had affected their families in some way, and one in 10 families reported getting into debt trying to pay for uniform costs. We also need to bear in mind that this is a yearly, and sometimes twice yearly, cost. Some Members in this Chamber may hear “£37 for a blazer” and think, “That’s not too bad”, but as young people grow their uniform often needs replacing yearly and sometimes twice a year, so these figures become an annual cost. This leads to poorer families being unable to replace worn out or outgrown school uniforms, which leads to stigmatisation and bullying, meaning that uniforms are failing to meet their purpose of providing a baseline for all.
I know that we cannot do away with the cost of uniforms altogether, and I welcome the work that Governments have done on this matter previously. The Government’s advisory guidance, for example, does emphasise the importance of cost considerations. However, as we have heard from the contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale, the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), and my hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) and for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), who have made good contributions, this guidance is not enough and is seven years out of date. It also lacks the teeth required to make schools lower the cost of uniforms, although I am aware that many schools have schemes to help.
This Bill is so important because it will empower the Government to take the statutory steps necessary to alleviate the financial burden being placed on families across the county. The Government have already pledged to make their guidance statutory, as stated in in the 2015 better markets plan. My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale has helpfully drawn up the Bill up for the Government, and I can see no reason why they would wish to oppose it, given that it is in line with their own stated aims and is admirably written. By passing this Bill into law, the Government can take the necessary steps to limit the amount of items that must be branded. It is often this branding that increases the cost of uniforms, as families are forced to purchase from a single provider.
Chris Green
Does the hon. Lady share my concern that reducing the range of branded school uniform items would enable—and perhaps, to some extent, encourage —a pathway for people to have more branded items that are not branded by the school, which would slightly undermine the concerns about bullying and a lack of cohesive identity?
Ms Rimmer
I have heard the hon. Gentleman, but the Bill means that the Government would have to take the necessary steps to limit the amount of school uniform that must be branded.
The Government could also use the powers contained in the Bill to ensure that schools must have a fair and open tendering process at the end of each financial year, which would increase competitiveness and help drive down costs, and the savings could then be passed on to families.
One such family is Paula Hay’s. Paula has four children. Her youngest is 14 and still at school. Over the years the family have struggled to pay for uniforms, especially when the three older boys were all at secondary school at the same time. Paula said:
“Having to buy three sets of everything was expensive and I would have to rely on my parents to help out. If they had not covered the costs of things like shoes and trainers, I am not sure how we would have managed it.”
Paula’s daughter is currently in year 9. At the start of the current school year her school changed its uniform, which meant Paula had to buy everything new again. She said:
“I bought two skirts and a blazer for £89, and then we had to add a tie and a few bits for the PE kits. It was well over £100 on those items. Then there were additional shirts, jumpers and tights—it all adds up. Many of the schools use that same shop, which means you don’t have a choice and have to buy the more expensive items. It’s not fair to those from low-income families.”
This Bill can and will, if utilised effectively by the Government, make a real difference for families like the Hays. That is why I commend the Bill to the House and call on Back Benchers and Front Benchers to support it through all the stages required to make it law.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
May I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for introducing this private Member’s Bill? As a former teacher, I understand the impact that the high cost of school uniforms can have on parents.
I would like to start by stressing the importance of school uniform, of which I am an ardent supporter. I recently visited two of the top-performing schools in my constituency: the first is a brand-new through school, Armfield Academy; and just last week I welcomed my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education to St George’s School. The headteachers of both schools explained that the introduction of a zero-tolerance policy on school uniform had had a profound impact on school standards and results. When I spoke to some of the brilliant pupils at those schools, they told me how proud they were to wear their uniform. They said it gives them a sense of belonging and community, and that it helps them get into the correct mindset for learning. It also puts all pupils on a level playing field, where their personality, achievements and attitude make them stand out, not the cost of their clothes.
I also understand the stress that having no school uniform can bring to parents and children. A single non-uniform day a year can be a cause of concern for some. Parents will worry about sending their children to school if they have not bought the latest fashionable brands—a point articulated by the hon. Member for Ilford South (Sam Tarry) a few moments ago. Bullying can seriously impact children’s development, and many fear what their peers will say on a non-uniform day. A standard uniform can alleviate these worries and allow children to focus on what is important: their education.
Chris Green
No doubt many parents in my hon. Friend’s constituency take a sensible and pragmatic approach to school uniforms, as indeed did my own parents. I had a total of two blazers during my time at secondary school—I remember that on my first day the sleeves went past the tips of my fingers. It is really important that people make sensible, pragmatic choices about school uniform, and that schools support families in need to ensure that they can have the appropriate wear.
Scott Benton
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I am sure that all Members will have heard the phrase, “You’ll grow into it.” I suppose many parents hope that their child will not grow out of it.
As a primary school teacher, it never ceased to amaze me how hard-wearing school uniforms can be, when I would see children knee-slide across the hall at the school disco, or rolling around in the playground. I believe that there should be simplicity and longevity in school uniforms, to make the cost to parents lower than that of personal clothes.
However, the rise of branded school uniforms and the requirement to have a vast number of items, including branded PE kits, separate GCSE clothes and bespoke skirts, is making school uniforms unaffordable for many. I do not believe that parents should have to decide where to send their children to school based on which has the least number of bespoke garments, many of which may never be worn. Branded items can cost multiple times the non-branded equivalent, and using sole suppliers only exacerbates the problem.
Uniform costs can enter hundreds of pounds as children outgrow clothes and shoes. My constituency of Blackpool South unfortunately has some of the most deprived wards in the country. It is known that material deprivation can have a serious impact on school attainment. Despite being a big supporter of the previously mentioned zero-tolerance policy, it is often the children of low-income families who fall foul of the rules, and they can miss out on crucial learning as a result. I hope that this change in legislation will help those parents trying to do the right thing to send their children to school with the necessary tools to succeed.
I welcome the Government’s support for the Bill, and their commitment to levelling up per-pupil funding across the entire country. They have a clear commitment to ensure that all children receive a first-class education, whatever their background and wherever they live. Schools have a responsibility to ensure that the costs to parents are reasonable, and it is right that the Bill will make that statutory.
Robert Courts
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I am glad that she has. I will come in a moment to the question of how we institute and work the legislation. It is right that decisions be made locally. I will make a comment or two about that in just a second, but that could also be part of the consultation.
Chris Green
The point about transferability from primary to secondary school is incredibly important, and I appreciate the point about not looking too distinctive in particular neighbourhoods, but we have a very mobile workforce. People go from one place to another, and therefore families go from one place to another, so does my hon. Friend agree it is important across the United Kingdom that, as far as possible, people can transfer uniforms from one place to another?
Robert Courts
Both my hon. Friends have drawn attention to the importance of having, essentially, a base layer—perhaps the shirt and trousers could be fairly standard across regions and the country—and then an interchangeable element giving the individuality and the esprit de corps that could be taken off if required.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Green Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I agree with my hon. Friend that in many instances, it may be better to build a new primary school than to expand an existing school, and a variety of factors will need to be weighed up in making such decisions: the quality of existing provision; the impact on existing schools and the community; and the overall costs and value for money.
Relationships and Sex Education
Chris Green Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon, and to contribute to this debate on the incredibly important right to remove children from relationships and sex education. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) made an incredibly powerful speech, capturing brilliantly so many of the feelings that my constituents and I have, and the concerns that many constituents have written to me about.
It is incredibly important that parents’ rights are respected. However, conversations I have had with headteachers since I was selected as an MP in 2015 have reinforced the concern that there is an imbalance of rights and responsibilities; and that there is a massive emphasis on the rights and responsibilities of schools, which undermines expectations of what parents ought to contribute. That manifests in a number of ways. I will not go on for any greater length than to say that if we give more and more rights and power to schools, and parents are unable to challenge schools’ decisions and the rights that they, or the state in one form or another, have accrued, the rights and authority of parents are undermined. A concern in civil society more broadly is that individual responsibility, whether that of school- children, their parents, or families as a whole, has been undermined, which then reduces people’s willingness to participate as full members of society.
The former Minister and former Member of Parliament for Crewe and Nantwich, Ed Timpson, said:
“We have committed to retain a right to withdraw from sex education in RSE, because parents should have the right, if they wish, to teach sex education themselves in a way that is consistent with their values.”—[Official Report, 7 March 2017; Vol. 622, c. 705.]
I believe that that is wholly right. It is a very good principle and approach. Religious schools have the right to teach RSE in accordance with their values and their guidance but children of the same religious or ethical perspective in a local authority school are not respected in the same way. It is incredibly important that that respect is universal and is not reserved for selective schools. It ought to be there for all schools.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
The Government’s response to the petition clearly states that primary schools are not required to teach sex education but that, where they do, they must consult parents and include that in their policy. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that gives parents an automatic right to withdraw their kids from sex education in primary schools?
Chris Green
There is huge concern about what that consultation means and what impact it has. Can a school still make an overriding decision regardless of the contribution produced by a consultation? That is key to this debate.
The hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) rightly highlighted that there is, especially in Catholic schools, a very low number of children being withdrawn from classes—that one in 7,800 figure—but if trust and confidence broke down more widely, would we see an increase in that number? One of the aids in ensuring that that confidence is there is parents’ right of withdrawal, and taking that away would enable schools to make decisions with less influence and guidance from the wider school community. That is fundamentally important.
That leads to a concern about increased parent-sanctioned truancy. If parents felt unable to withdraw their child for just that lesson, they would perhaps withdraw them for the whole school day, which would undermine the child’s education more widely. The approach is not a respectful one. In so many other areas we hear about diversity and respect, and celebration of that diversity, and it is curious that in this area those things do not exist; rather, what the state or the agencies of the state believe to be right is imposed.
I urge the Minister to treat relationships and sex education as an integrated subject and to respect parents’ rights to remove their children, because that is the best way to ensure that more children engage with the classes. The classes make an important contribution not only to children but to parents, who are often informed and educated by their children. What assessment has the Minister made of the likelihood of an increase in children being home-schooled? A number of concerns are related to that.
Pupil Referral Units
Chris Green Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Pupil referral units perform excellent work in my constituency and across the country in complementing mainstream schools. There are two in my constituency, Youth Challenge and Lever Park, and both are run by Bolton Impact Trust. When I met the trust recently, I was made aware of how vital these units are to the pupils who rely on them and how fantastic they are at delivering the service and support they do to those pupils. Both were rated outstanding in their last Ofsted inspections.
It was a particular delight when I visited to hear of the relationship that Youth Challenge had with local business. It is an important fact about these units that often the experience of children is in vocational work and training and that often those are the kinds of careers they go into once they have finished school, whether that is at age 16 or 18. That transition into mainstream employment is very important. The close relationship that the unit has with local business is very good for local businesses, which increasingly understand the value that these children can contribute to their businesses, and also sets a positive direction of travel and gives the children the opportunity and vision to move into good and productive jobs once they leave education.
The services provided by Bolton Impact Trust really do make a difference. That can come in the form of 1:1 teaching support, which a teacher in a mainstream school, perhaps with a class of 30 or so pupils, cannot provide, but it does others things as well. There is one simple, straightforward thing that it does. Teachers often sit with children at lunchtime, and that engagement between adults and children can produce a useful environment that is more relaxed than a formal classroom setting. It also reinforces the support that referral units give to families. Mums and dads often have a very challenging time. Bringing up any children obviously has its challenges, but the support that these units can give by introducing more stable adult figures to children’s lives is very important.
There is concern about funding, as was confirmed by my visit to Bolton Impact Trust. As the Minister will know, the dedicated schools grant is split into four notional blocks, but I want to focus on the high needs block.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman has raised a vital issue. Given the importance of helping children who are ill, pupil referral units are an essential tool to retaining access to education that is specifically tailored to them. Should that not be protected at all costs?
Chris Green
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Different schools and different parts of the educational structure serve different groups of children. The work done by referral units and, more widely, by specialist schools is very important, and ought to be protected. There will always be a need for these units, and they ought to be reassured that support will continue. Many of the people who work for them are very specialised and highly trained, and we must maintain that continuity in order to maintain that talent.
High needs funding is essential in helping to meet the educational requirements of pupils. The cost of those additional needs can be as much as £10,000 a year, £6,000 more than the normal average of £4,000. As the Minister is no doubt aware, local authorities determine the budgets for referral units and specialist schools on the basis of the number of places that are required before commissioning those places at £10,000 per place per annum, regardless of whether they are taken up.
In that context, it is important to recognise the difference between specialist schools, where there is a certain continuity, and referral units, where the intake can be slightly more erratic. If a place is taken up, the local authority funds a top-up on a daily and weekly basis. That funding model works very well for specialist schools. They normally experience less in-year movement of pupils, which means that forecasting income is comparatively straightforward. The situation in referral units is much more volatile. For example, in September there were 170 pupils on the roll in Bolton, but by the following June the number had risen to 260. There can be a stark contrast between the numbers at one point and the numbers at a later stage.
We need a responsive system. Because specialist schools have a longer-term relationship with children, there tends to be far more clarity about who will be in those schools, and hence more clarity about access to funding. Moreover, the main aim of referral units is to support pupils so successfully that they are able to return to mainstream schools, and an unfortunate consequence of that success is that a unit will lose between £12,000 and £14,000 per pupil per year. The current funding model provides no incentive for a referral unit to deliver successful outcomes. They will of course be focused on delivering successful outcomes, but there is a clear challenge in the funding model. Certain costs, such as for the building and the staff, are permanent regardless of the number of people in the unit, but the income can significantly vary over a period of time. Would it not make more sense to have a funding model that did not disadvantage referral units for successful outcomes, rather than one that could be seen as an incentive to units keeping hold of children? PRUs that are doing very good work, perhaps better than average, must not lose the money that is coming to them more quickly than the average, because that would be a disincentive.
In addition, there is no consistency in how local authorities determine the level of top-up funding for PRUs, and more broadly for specialist schools, when additional funding is required to support challenging behaviours. Often PRUs are unable to determine the level of a pupil’s needs until they have worked with them for a few weeks. At that point, with the pupil’s needs being met, it can be a challenge for the PRU to obtain additional funding from the local authority because the placement has already been made, and naturally, local authorities who are under a great deal of financial pressure, having decided to give a certain amount of funding, would find it challenging to give more funding; there would be resistance to that.
Does the Minister agree that a system which provided greater consistency and security of funding, whereby services are commissioned in a manner which allowed schools and academies to predict their income accurately, would deliver a better service for pupils? That would also lead to a reduction in the degree of friction between local authorities and providers, and allow greater emphasis to be put on educational standards, rather than needing to focus on volatile funding. Often in units much of the management time is spent on asking, “How do we get the money in? How do we get the funding in? How many meetings do we have? How much pressure do we have to apply?” That time ought to be focused more on the needs of the unit itself.
PRUs provide a vital service both locally and nationally, but we must focus on how we can reward units for success. The units in my constituency have been remarkably successful and are deserving of their outstanding status. How can we remove the financial penalty I have described? What steps can the Minister take to address the concerns of referral units and deliver more consistent funding in such an important part of children’s education?
Social Mobility: North-west
Chris Green Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Jo Platt
I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and I thank him for all the work he does on the APPG on social mobility. I think he is referring to the 2017 “State of the nation” report, which stated that it is no longer inner cities, but remote rural and coastal areas and former industrial areas where social mobility is a huge problem. He will agree that that goes against everything we should stand for as MPs. It cements inequality into our society. It excludes and isolates whole areas of the country from our joint prosperity. It demotivates and demoralises, and can even lead to the breakdown of our social fabric.
Unfortunately, in the north-west we know exactly how that can feel. The region has some of the highest poverty rates and some of the lowest attainment rates in the UK. Fewer than half of children from low-income families—48%—are school-ready. Just 3.9% of children eligible for free school meals gained five A grades at GCSE, and nearly three quarters of local authorities in the north-west have more than one in four workers earning below the living wage. As the Social Mobility Commission said in its annual report, and as I just mentioned,
“old industrial towns and coal mining areas that have struggled as England has moved from a manufacturing to a services-based economy now dominate the areas identified as social mobility coldspots.”
As the Member of Parliament for Leigh and, most importantly, having lived in and represented our post-industrial towns, I know exactly what poor social mobility can lead to. I grew up in neighbouring Salford, and I did not have the best start. Back in the 1980s—I am probably giving my age away now—I did not have the best education. I left school without qualifications, and so did many of my peers and friends. I was lucky because I got supported, but that was not the case for many of my friends.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
There are many drivers of social mobility. What more does the hon. Lady think can be done to keep people who have achieved social mobility and become successful in the communities they came from, rather than moving away and taking their success with them? What more can local communities and perhaps local authorities do to help people to remain in place?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I thank the hon. Member for Leigh (Jo Platt) for securing this vital debate, and I welcome the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Government. She spoke powerfully of her experience growing up and the experience through the eyes of a young person growing up in Leigh.
At this point, it would be remiss of me not to mention my Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), who was born and bred in Leigh. He grew up and left school with only five O-levels and no A-levels, went to hairdressing college and opened a salon, which became the biggest hair salon and chain in the Leigh area, before he became the MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale. His son is a lawyer from Leigh. That is a true example of social mobility in Leigh. I also thank the hon. Members who have so far contributed to this important debate: my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), and the hon. Members for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) and for St Helens North (Conor McGinn).
We welcome the debate secured by the hon. Member for Leigh—it is important that we take a close look at social mobility. Rightly, social mobility is a critical priority for the Government and, as she argues, it is a challenge that requires action across the whole of Government in order to make progress. Our social housing Green Paper, for example, makes social mobility a key priority, and we are the Government who introduced the national living wage and increased it at the last Budget. She is also right to single out the importance of good transport connections for regional prosperity. That is why £48 billion will be invested in modernising our rail network over the next five years.
To ensure that our efforts are joined up across Government, the industrial strategy provides a comprehensive plan to ensure that no place is left behind when it comes to boosting opportunity and growth. That strategy sets out the steps that we are taking to spur productivity and to create more high-skilled and high-paying jobs. We are delivering that agenda not only across Whitehall, but through our local industrial strategies, local enterprise partnerships and with mayoral combined authorities.
As a Minister in the Department for Education, however, I hope that the hon. Lady will understand if I focus the majority of my remarks on that subject, although not just because of my day job. As someone who came to this country unable to speak English, I know at first hand how education can change lives and open the doors of opportunity. We still live in a country where someone’s start in life far too often determines their future success. Education can and should break this link by helping everyone to fulfil their potential. I am pleased to say that the Government have made significant progress in closing the opportunity gap when it comes to education. The difference in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has been reduced across all stages of education, and through our opportunity areas programme, we are targeting extra support at some of the most disadvantaged areas of the country.
Yet there can be no room for complacency. It is both an economic and a moral imperative that we ensure the schools system works for all and that it does so up and down the country.
Chris Green
Does my hon. Friend welcome the fact that, on youth social mobility, my constituency comes 73rd out of 553 constituencies from around England and Wales? I also want to support the idea of a huge sense of responsibility—a duty—not only for local entrepreneurs to invest in the local communities but for local councils to support local business, provide opportunities and enable those businesses to invest. It is so much more inspirational when someone comes from our own community.
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend makes the point about engagement by local councils eloquently. He pursues such engagement passionately, locally and nationally.
We take action in every region and at every stage of a young person’s life to close the opportunity gap. I will now take each of the stages of education in turn, reflecting in particular on the progress that we have made in the north-west of England.
Good early years education is the cornerstone of social mobility and we are making record investment in that area. Too many children, however, still fall behind early, and later in life it is hard to close the gap that emerges. Today, 28% of children finish their reception year without the early communication and reading skills that they need to thrive. The Secretary of State has set out his ambition to halve that figure by 2028. We have announced a range of initiatives to deliver it, including a local authority peer review programme, which we piloted in Wigan, and a professional development fund for early years practitioners in 54 local authorities.
The Government are committed to help parents to access affordable childcare, which is why we will spend about £6 billion on childcare support in 2019-20, a record amount. That will include funding for our free early education entitlements, on which we plan to spend £3.5 billion this year alone. I am pleased to say that, in Wigan, take-up of all the Government childcare entitlements is high: 93% of eligible children there took up care that we made available for two-year-olds, which figure is substantially higher than the national average of 72%; equally, 95% of three and four-year-olds took up an entitlement place, which is also higher than the national average. During the first year of delivery, more than 2,700 children in Wigan benefited from the places that we made available under our policy offering of 30 hours of free childcare.
On school education, we target extra support at the poorest areas of the country to raise standards and to attract great teachers to our primary and secondary schools. I know that schools have faced cost pressures in recent years, but I am happy to report that schools in the north-west will attract an average of 2.8% more funding per pupil by 2019-20 compared with 2017-18.
Education Funding
Chris Green Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid) and to hear his typically determined championing of his constituency. One of the greatest pleasures of being the Member of Parliament representing Bolton West and Atherton is the school visits, particularly in connection to the events surrounding Parliament Week. I visited Devonshire Road Primary School yesterday and participated in a Q&A session there, and I digitally visited Ladybridge High School last week for a digital surgery that it was holding. That was the first time I had participated in that kind of event, and it was really interesting to see young people engaging in democracy in a way that my classmates and I never did when we were at school.
I also visited Bolton sixth-form college recently to hear its concerns. I understand that the Secretary of State went to a sixth-form college himself, following his studies at St Ambrose College. It is particularly important to represent the needs of those colleges, because that sector of our education system is often overlooked. Let us also remember the contributions that many of our schools made during Armistice Week, including activities by choirs and readings during the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the armistice and the end of the first world war.
It is important that we get the distribution right between the different boroughs around the country. We have heard today about the unfairness of the historical inequalities in funding, and I think everyone would recognise the importance of balancing out those problems. It would be remiss of me not to reflect the concerns that I consistently hear from headmasters and headmistresses across my constituency as they call for more funding. Bolton West needs more schools and more school capacity. Blackrod Primary School and Chorley New Road Primary School have recently been extended to meet increasing demand, but there is a need for new schools as well. We are seeing a substantial amount of house building in and around the constituency, and a demographic bulge has had an impact on primary schools and is now beginning to challenge the capacity of the secondary schools in the constituency to take more children.
There is constant concern about the lack of sufficient school building and of sufficient investment in schools, which ought, to some extent, to be driven by the council’s vision. However, we are consistently not getting the schools, the medical facilities, the GP surgeries or the roads that we need. That is a really consistent message across the constituency, and it is perfectly highlighted by Bolton Council’s lack of vision for the Horwich Loco Works. That is the biggest housing development in Greater Manchester, with 1,700 houses planned, yet not a single primary school is planned for the site. That is extraordinary. These will be family homes, probably with several children in each of them.
Bolton Council had a master plan and a vision for the Horwich Loco Works, but it has been ditched. The council’s plan is now for the schools around Horwich to double in size. Rather than being single intake, many of the primary schools will double in size. In some ways, that is good. We have good and outstanding primary schools that can increase in size and take more children, but let us look at the challenge that those families will face. For example, we want children to be able to walk to school, but if a primary school doubles in size, many of the children who go there will not be able to do that. Their parents will have to ferry them there in a car. We are looking at an area that is already suffering significant levels of congestion, and the lack of vision from the Labour-led Bolton Council will compound the significant problems that the town already faces. The council should be working with the developers to ensure that we have the leisure facilities, the roads, the medical facilities and the schools that we need.
This is part of a wider problem across Greater Manchester. A powerful vision should have been set by the 10 boroughs for the Greater Manchester spatial framework, which is supposed to combine house building with all the other infrastructure that is required. Consistently, however, the 10 borough councils, all of which are now led by Labour, have failed to set and deliver their vision for roads, medical facilities, leisure facilities and schools. The vision must be developed, and if Greater Manchester cannot sort it out and if the Mayor cannot help to deliver a new vision for Greater Manchester, Bolton and Wigan, I am calling on Wigan Council and Bolton Council to go it alone and set out their own visions. Ultimately, this is about education for the next generation, and we have to deliver skills for children in my constituency.
Nursery Sector: Sustainability
Chris Green Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the sustainability of the nursery sector.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I appreciate the opportunity to have this important debate on the sustainability of the nursery sector. In recent years, I have increasingly seen and heard concerns about the sector, both through the media and through conversations in my constituency. What really brought the issue to a head for me was a meeting with the Federation of Small Businesses and a couple of local nurseries. They raised their current concerns about sustainability, rising costs, and the lack of a level playing field within the sector. Following that, I surveyed all of the nurseries in my constituency and got an incredibly strong response. Most of the nurseries replied, which shows that there is a great deal of interest in improving and reforming this area.
I will first talk about the enormous contribution that nurseries make to children and families in all of our constituencies. Nurseries provide a wonderful start in life for children. They provide opportunities for socialisation for children who are at home during their earliest years, so that they can meet other children in increasingly large age-based groups. When I say “socialisation”, I do not mean socialism; I mean the broader sense of meeting other people in the local community. Nurseries are also valuable for helping children prepare for primary school, as we know that people have concerns about how ready children are to take that step in their lives.
Nurseries are also important for parents, who can get advice about what they are doing as they raise their children, and meet other parents. Sometimes, having young children can feel very isolating for parents, and nurseries provide a good forum for them to meet other parents, get advice, and feel confident that they are doing the right thing—or to seek further advice if, perhaps, they are not. Nurseries provide parents with a very useful break from the children, and increasingly both parents work. The traditional, old-fashioned style of one parent, typically the mother, staying at home to raise the children is not so prevalent these days. Normally, both parents work, and nurseries provide a very important service, enabling both parents to go to work or perhaps re-enter the workforce.
Working in a nursery can be a great deal of fun: it is an enjoyable, rewarding form of work, and a nursery is also a really good business to own and run, because it is an interesting part of a local community. People who work in nurseries can see the children develop over the years, and the importance of the contribution their nursery makes to all those families.
The initial introduction of the universal 15 hours a week of free childcare was followed by a further 15 hours, but since then, there has been concern that funding has not kept pace, and does not provide all the moneys that nurseries require for the care that they deliver. Funding not keeping pace with costs is a concern, and nurseries have been finding ways of supplementing that income without increasing their hourly rate. For example, some nurseries have been charging additional money for lunch that far exceeds the actual cost of that lunch. Across the country, the average charge is about £10 per day. That is a very significant amount of money for a family to have to contribute on a weekly basis when they believed that the 30 hours of childcare was free. There is a strong narrative that what is offered is 30 hours of free childcare, which leads to problems for families when they are managing their budgets. They may have had a family conversation about whether a parent staying at home should go back to work, and what the household accounts would look like if they did, but if they then get a request from the nursery for more funding, that creates problems for that family. Having to have a conversation right from the off about what looks like a demand for more money also creates a difficult start to the relationship between the family and the nursery.
This support is there to help people; of course, there is an aspect of education for the children, but the support is clearly also there to support people in the workplace. However, it last for only 38 weeks of the year. Most people do not work 38 weeks in the year, so what about the remaining weeks in which the family has to make up the difference? Again, many people have the understanding that what is offered is 30 hours of free childcare a week; they would not think that meant 30 hours of free childcare just during school term time, in essence. Of course, that is a concern for many parents, but especially for parents on very low pay, for whom any surprising additional outgoings will be quite a shock to the system.
Across my constituency, nurseries have raised concerns about business rates. If children are supported for 38 weeks, they will often attend for 38 weeks; the parents will look after the children for the rest of that time, or will perhaps find some mechanism involving their extended family. However, the business rates are set as though the business is being operated for the entire year, so if that nursery is over the threshold to pay business rates, it will in effect be receiving the money for 38 weeks but paying business rates for 52 weeks. If there is not flexibility over that 30 hours of bringing in more money, that creates a challenge.
There is also a concern about VAT. If a nursery is associated with a primary school, that nursery has the ability to reclaim VAT, because it is part of an educational institution. However, a nursery not associated with a primary school does not have the opportunity to claim that money back, which does not demonstrate a level playing field between the two. That is a problem. Councils also take a cut, and I welcome the fact that the Government have driven the expectation that the amount of money going from national Government to the council and then on to the nursery will go up from 93% to 95%. I am pleased that Wigan Council has already achieved that goal of 95% of money going to the nursery, and that Bolton Council is a level ahead, with 97% of its money going from the council to the nursery. It is important that councils are recognised for that commitment to ensure as much money goes to nurseries as possible.
Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the fact that nurseries are having to look for other ways of raising funding, including charging for meals—I have heard about all sorts of things, such as taking in ironing, or baking and selling cakes—indicates that insufficient funding is coming to nurseries full stop, and that that should be the starting point for dealing with this issue?
Chris Green
I am very sympathetic to that view. Fundraising by nurseries or other organisations does have a positive aspect for those organisations, but I am very sympathetic to the view that councils have been squeezed, and it is challenging for councils to pass on as much of that money as they would like.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He is raising some important points about top-up fees and business rates, and their effect on nurseries’ finances. I should say that we are fighting to keep five outstanding local authority nurseries open in Salford, not far from Bolton. They have been put at risk because the Government have changed the way they fund early years provision, leaving our cash-strapped Salford council to find £1.5 million this year. He has outlined how he values nurseries, so does he agree that we should not be in the position of losing any outstanding nurseries? I am sure he would not want to lose five nurseries in his constituency. Will he join me in urging the Minister to help Salford and other authorities whose nurseries are now under threat?
Chris Green
The hon. Lady and I share a common position. We ought not to be losing any provision, and certainly not the outstanding provision in her constituency. I welcome the Government’s consultation, because it recognises that when new schemes come along, with the pressures on councils, we have to reconsider the ongoing funding and support. The Minister might be able to answer the hon. Lady’s question in that regard.
There is also concern about the ratio of children to carers and about when the bands kick in. Some nurseries have mentioned that perhaps there could be adjustments. It is a complicated subject, so I will not go into the details, but I simply raise that as a concern. Will my hon. Friend the Minister also look at best practice across European countries to see what they do and what works there?
There is a sense that perhaps there is not sufficient flexibility within the system beyond the rigid bands that are set out. I will read out one of the responses to my survey to give a slight sense of the feeling:
“I feel that a professional should be able to decide what ratio would be required depending on the children in each room as well as the level of qualification of staff etcetera.”
There is a sense that if there are talented, experienced and well qualified staff, the ratio needed for a certain group of children might be different from that for a more challenging group of children with staff who are not as well qualified and not as experienced. A little more flexibility might perhaps be considered.
Sometimes a nursery cannot take a child when the family request it at the last minute, because all the age groups are at their limit. Perhaps one parent does not normally go into the office on a Friday, but there is a big project at work and they are required to attend, and the nursery has no space or cannot hire a member of staff just for the one additional child for that day. Because of the way the rules are applied, the nursery does not feel that it can say, “Okay, for this one day we will allow a little flexibility.” Perhaps that could be recognised and allowed within the system, because at the moment some nurseries say that they cannot take a child in those circumstances which causes a problem for the child, for the parents and for the place of work. Could that be resolved with a little flexibility? It would have to be monitored so there was no abuse of the system, but I think it would help all parties concerned. Of course we want transparency, but sometimes there is a conflict between ticking the boxes and trusting the professionals to run a service. We need a slightly better balance between the two.
I want to make the point that nurseries are not right for all children and all families. We ought to recognise that in families where one parent chooses to stay at home to raise the children, it is a wonderful, positive thing, but sometimes parents feel they are being told they are making the wrong decision because they have only one income and they are taxed to support other people who have two incomes. It is almost as though the state tells them that they are doing the wrong thing and they should have someone else look after their children and go off to work.
I am pleased that the Minister is having a consultation, and I have some points that I wish him to address in his speech later. My first point is on the hourly rate of support within the 30 hours. If the entire cost of childcare is not covered, families and nurseries ought to be clear that the childcare support is not free and should be seen more as a contribution towards childcare. Following the example in Scotland and what will soon be the example in Wales, there should be an exemption from business rates for nurseries and equality between independent nurseries and those associated with schools. They should all pay VAT or all be exempt.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) on introducing this morning’s important debate.
My interest in the sector arose as a consequence of an invitation to visit Pathfinders Day Nursery in my constituency, which is based at Crescent School in Rugby, to discuss the challenges faced by the sector with Alison Dyke, the owner of the nursery and the Warwickshire chair of the National Day Nurseries Association. My interest was aroused partly because I know about the importance of providing 30 hours of quality childcare and nursery education to our youngsters to give them a great start in life and to parents, particularly because it enables those parents who want to get back into the workforce to do so.
My interest was also aroused as a businessman. I was a businessman for 25 years, and some of the issues that were drawn to my attention related to the sustainability and viability of a fast-growing small business sector. I wanted to understand the business implications. A great deal of what I learned at my meeting related to funding, which earlier speakers mentioned.
As a fellow Warwickshire MP, the Minister will be aware that there is variation in the amount of funding that different authorities receive. The national headline funding rate is £4.94 per hour, but as the county authority, Warwickshire receives £4.30 an hour. I had assumed that that meant £4.30 an hour paid to the childcare provider. That, of course, is not the case, because local authorities are entitled to take a deduction. In Warwickshire, that deduction amounts to 5%, which is used by the local authority to fund the early years special educational needs team, to provide some business support and to contribute to the early years provider. That results in a rate of £3.96 being paid to childcare providers in Warwickshire, which Alison tells me is really not enough to provide high-quality childcare or anything more than a bare bones service.
As the Minister will be aware, there is research to support that contention: Ceeda has found that the hourly cost to a provider of each place for a three or four-year-old is £5.08, whereas the average Government funding is £4.34 an hour and Warwickshire pays its providers £3.96 per hour. Ceeda calculates that that shortfall of about £1 an hour adds up to an annual funding shortfall of £63 million for the 30 hours offer for three and four-year-olds nationwide.
The National Day Nurseries Association has found that since 2017, when the 30 hours policy was introduced, closures have increased by 47%, largely as a consequence of financial pressures. It has also found that 19% of nurseries expect to make a loss, while only 43% anticipate a profit or surplus. I have already mentioned the difference between the costs of delivering the service and of funding it. Survey respondents highlighted administration challenges in the sector: 85% said that there is now additional administration to do, while 58% said that managing the complexity of the system is among the challenges they face.
Mrs Dyke is delighted that some parents are now able to access funding and provide a nursery education for their children in a way that they could not before. She and Pathfinders are very proud of the high-quality environment that they offer to children between the ages of six months and five years. They allocate 28 places for three and four-year-olds who receive the extended 30 hours’ funding. Her assessment is that children who attend nursery make extremely good progress in their development and gain an enormous advantage, but she is concerned about how to fund it—I understand that the rate has now been frozen until 2020, despite the increasing costs of labour, staff training and service provision. She is also concerned that for children on the 30-hour funded places, providers are being required to provide a no-frills service, which does not equate to quality childcare.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West referred to the fact that many providers are asking parents to pay for additional services; Mrs Dyke highlights snacks and other food, as well as other consumables and specialist sessions.
Chris Green
There is also an additional cost for those parents who need 40 hours of childcare and have to pay a separate rate for it. They may not have a higher income—they may still be on a very low wage—yet they may be subsidising additional hours for other parents who are on the 30 hours.
Mark Pawsey
That is exactly my constituent’s point: there is a differential, and those on the higher rate are effectively subsidising those on the Government-funded rate. A further problem that Mrs Dyke identifies is that parents are not obliged to pay for the additional services. If all parents refused to pay it, more businesses would become unsustainable, quality would be compromised and providers would have to either stop offering the 30 hours or shut down completely. At a time when we are working hard to extend provision to more and more children, that is a matter of concern.
I know that the Minister is aware of Mrs Dyke’s concerns, because I wrote to him about them and he was kind enough to send a prompt reply, which I have passed on to her. I look forward to his speech; I hope that he will share some early indications of the results of the Department’s evaluations and that we will continue to push forward and develop this very important sector.
Chris Green
From London to York, stopping at Rugby, Salford and Burnley along the way, there has been broad consensus, captured by the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), that there is increasing pressure on the system that is challenging the sustainability of the nursery sector. Some nurseries have closed; in my constituency others feel under threat and are eating into their reserves. I welcome the Minister’s comments; I know he will take away our concerns. I was surprised there was a Brexit angle in this debate—it seems to get everywhere. I hope he will take every opportunity with the Chancellor in the run-up to the Budget.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the sustainability of the nursery sector.