Higher Education Regulatory Approach
Chris Vince Excerpts(1 week ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
I am grateful to the former Secretary of State for his question. He will appreciate that this will be an independent regulator, and that there is a limit to what I can set out on their behalf. On the key issue of the tort, there will be consequences, even following the removal of the tort, for those providers who do not fulfil their duties under the Act. The OfS can already regulate providers in relation to free speech. It will be able to take regulatory action where there are breaches of the duties under the Act, including monetary penalties if needed, and the complaints scheme will enable the OfS to make recommendations to providers that they will be expected to follow. Existing routes of redress through judicial reviews and employment tribunals will remain open, but we want the OfS to focus on making sure that there is a system in place that is workable so that complaints can be dealt with swiftly.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Secretary of State for this statement. I think freedom of speech is really important, but it should be done in an environment of shared respect, as it is most of the time in this place. I welcome this pragmatic approach to the process. Will she confirm that the previous unworkable legislation would have added additional financial stress to institutions?
Bridget Phillipson
It is important that any legislation in this area is fair, proportionate and workable, and that is what we have sought to achieve through the wider engagement and consultation that has taken place since July, when I paused commencement. It is vital that we get it right. It is incredibly important, and today we have given clarity to the sector around expectations into the future.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Chris Vince Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
That is simply a mischaracterisation, and the right hon. Gentleman knows it. I will come on to the wider schools measures in this Bill later in my speech, but I note that he had nothing to say in his intervention about the safety of children and the measures we are discussing today. The wrecking amendment that the Leader of the Opposition has tabled would block the very important, very serious measures that the Conservatives have been telling us for days they want to see put in place. If they want those measures, they need to support them.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) mentioned uniformity, but the only uniform measures I can see in the Bill are about saving parents money on uniform bills, which I think we can all welcome. Does the Secretary of State agree that the fragmentation of the school system created by the last Government led to many young people falling through the gaps, which is a huge issue?
Bridget Phillipson
I will come on to the wider point of collaboration later in my speech. Collaboration across the school system is crucial, but my hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the really important measures in the Bill that will put more money back in parents’ pockets by cutting the cost of school uniforms and bringing in breakfast clubs in primary schools across our country.
This is child-centred legislation through and through—legislation that backs parents to do the best for their children. This Government are on a mission to break down the barriers to opportunity, driven forward by the plan for change unveiled by the Prime Minister in December. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is a huge step forward in that journey of reform, starting with child safety and building from there. It is an agenda for excellence—for safe and secure childhoods, because healthy and happy futures are built on nothing less. It is an agenda for excellence—for high and rising standards, because we will accept nothing less. It is an agenda for excellence—for a top-quality core offer in all of our schools, because parents demand nothing less. It is an agenda for excellence, because every child in this country deserves nothing less. That is what mission-led government is all about: child-centred action across Departments, between professions and through partnership.
What matters about families is not the shape that they have, but the love they give. That is why, back in October, we announced the expansion of our work on fostering and on the trialling of a new kinship care allowance. It is why, in November, I came to this House to set out the biggest reform of children’s social care in a generation. It is why this Government then backed those changes with almost £300 million of investment, including the biggest ever investment in kinship care. It is why today I return to this House to cement our reforms in legislation, and to build a children’s social care system that is forward-looking, excellence-driven and child-centred.
Our first priority is to keep children with their family wherever it is safe to do so, so the Bill mandates all local authorities to offer family group decision making. With the guidance of skilled professionals, families with children at risk of falling into care will be supported to build a plan that works for them. We are strengthening support for kinship care, so that vulnerable children can live with the people they know and trust, wherever that is possible.
However, despite the best efforts of all involved, some children will inevitably need to enter care, so we must reform the system so that it works for them. I know that Members right across this House share my outrage at the excessive and exploitative profit making that we have seen from some private providers. It is shameful, it is unacceptable, and it will end.
Munira Wilson
I am not in a position to comment on the statistics relating to employment law issues in different types of school. I suspect that whichever type of school we look at, we will find cases across the board, but I am not sure that is up for debate today.
The title of the Bill includes the words “Children’s Wellbeing”, but child poverty is the key issue hindering the wellbeing of children in the UK today. The shameful legacy of the Conservative Government is one of far too many children going hungry at school. We Liberal Democrats have put forward a fully costed plan to extend free school meals to the 900,000 children in poverty up to the age of 18 who are currently excluded, and it is disappointing that the Government have not taken this opportunity to ensure that no child goes hungry throughout the school day. A meal at lunch time may be the only hot, nutritious meal that some children get, and all the evidence shows that it helps them to concentrate and learn through the course of the day and achieve better outcomes. We must also bear in mind that hunger does not end at 11. Breakfast clubs can be useful, but expanding lunch provision is a far more ambitious measure, and one that would have a greater impact on child hunger.
As was pointed out by the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), far too many families who are entitled to claim free school meals are not doing so; there are an estimated 470,000 such cases. Not only are those children missing out on the hot meals to which they are entitled, but their schools are missing out on much-needed pupil premium funding.
Chris Vince
I welcome the hon. Lady’s comments about the need for young people to have hot food. At Jerounds primary school in my constituency, the kitchen is closed because of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete and the last Government’s failure to provide the necessary funds, so none of those children can have hot food. Does the hon. Lady agree that is not good enough?
Munira Wilson
Absolutely, and I am very sorry to hear about that case. The last Government did not deal with RAAC in our school buildings, and it was as a result of work that my colleagues and I did, along with Labour Members, to expose some of the shocking extent of it that we finally started to get some traction on the issue.
The Liberal Democrat-led coalition administration in Durham county council introduced auto-enrolment for free school meals in September last year. An extra 2,500 children have been signed up, and there has been an extra £3 million in pupil premium funding for the county. Just imagine the impact that that model could have nationally. I hope that the Government will take this opportunity to expand free school meals and introduce auto-enrolment.
I was disappointed to see no mention of mental health in a “wellbeing Bill.” This was an opportunity to tackle the mental health crisis that we are seeing among our children, and it is crucial that we do not allow that opportunity to slide away. Given that, on average, six children in every classroom have a mental health condition, the Government could have seized the chance to ensure that every school in the country, whether primary or secondary, has a statutory and fully funded duty to provide a dedicated mental health professional. As the Bill progresses, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I will seek to do just that, and I am sure that we can count on support from across the House.
Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)
This Bill is a landmark piece of legislation that not only demonstrates ambition but takes tangible action to keep children safe, improve educational standards and make families better off. Like many of us here, I got into politics to improve the life chances of children in my community and to make it a reality that, regardless of someone’s background or circumstances, the only ceiling on their potential is their talent and your determination, so I am delighted to see the Government bring forward this Bill, which begins the work of breaking down barriers to opportunity for our children. As anyone who has been involved in our schools or who has read any of the academic evidence on the subject will know, that starts with a full stomach at the beginning of the day, which breakfast clubs deliver. They help with attention span and cognitive performance, and they give parents greater flexibility to earn during their working hours.
Strengthening the law to set out a specific number of branded school uniform items is an important step in the right direction, and I hope we will go further in due course.
Chris Vince
My hon. Friend mentions free breakfast clubs and the removal of some branded school uniform items. We talk about uniforms costing up to £500, but does he agree that the figure is bigger than that for parents who have multiple children at the same school?
Andrew Cooper
I absolutely agree. Primary school children, who typically wear polo shirts, need five days’ worth, plus PE kit. This measure will make an enormous difference. Although it has been great to see organisations such as the Winsford Uniform Exchange in my constituency grow and provide people with lower-cost and greener alternatives, bringing costs down for families is absolutely the right priority. The measures on breakfast clubs and school uniforms may be the two most visible in the Bill, and I hope that they will be part of the Government’s lasting legacy of supporting all children to achieve and thrive.
The Bill covers a vast array of measures across the spectrum of children’s social care and schools policy, as we have discussed this afternoon. I will focus my comments predominantly on the schools side, although I want to take a moment to say something about the single unique identifier for children. In Lord Laming’s report on the death of Victoria Climbié in 2000, he recommended that the Government explore the safeguarding benefits of a national children’s database—effectively a single unique identifier—to address poor communication and data sharing between agencies.
In report after case after report after case, the issue of weak multidisciplinary working continues to arise. The measure proposed in this Bill, alongside the clarification of the legal basis for information sharing and the creation of multi-agency child protection teams, will undoubtedly help, but they are the start of the story, not the end. The success of this measure will be in ensuring that the single unique identifier is consistently captured in reforming working practices so that information sharing is part of the culture, and in making it clear that local authority boundaries, health authority boundaries, police authority boundaries and, in my part of the world, national boundaries are not a barrier to good safeguarding practice, which has become more important as children travel further to appropriate education or care settings.
I want to cover the reforms that the Bill makes to academies in the minute or so that I have left. I am not ideological about the academy system. I have seen multi-academy trusts that provide an outstanding level of support for their schools; equally, I have seen MATs that have not worked and that have provided local leaders with few levers to push for improvements on behalf of their communities. The reality is that the previous Government left us with a school system that has become increasingly fragmented and lacks coherence at local, regional and national levels.
The governance model is rarely the key determinant of whether a school will provide good outcomes for children; as someone once said, this is about standards, not structures. On that basis, many of the reforms proposed in the Bill are entirely sensible, such as the requirement to teach the national curriculum, the requirement to employ qualified teachers, and giving the schools adjudicator the final say on admission numbers. All of these measures will get us closer to some consistency and common standards across the sector.
I will leave it there. I just want to say that this legislation—
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
When I thought about why I was going to support this Bill and why it is so important to me, I thought about the number of children I have taught over the years. The sad reality is that of all the young people we teach, the vast majority we do not get the opportunity to see again; we do not see them grow up or what they do. I am proud to say that I have bumped into a few of my former students over the years because some of them have gone into the teaching profession. One of them was actually in the “Death in Paradise” Christmas special the year before last, and one of them is the star striker for Harlow Town football club. There is the other side of that, however, and I once had the horrible experience of looking at the front page of the local newspaper and seeing two of my former students who had tragically died in a car accident, but perhaps I should not have mentioned that.
I realised why I was so passionate about teaching and supporting young people, and that is because I feel so passionate, as many of my colleagues do, about ensuring that young people have the best possible opportunities to fulfil their potential. I truly believe that every young person has the potential to achieve if we give them the opportunity.
I also believe that it is less about the type of school that young people go to, and more about the broad range of subjects that they can study, so that every young person has the opportunity to star.
As I said earlier, I have some genuine concerns—I do not want to get into the politics of this, but I am concerned about the number of young people who have fallen through the gaps, certainly recently, and I welcome measures in the Bill to introduce a register of students who are not in school. I also welcome news about a single unique identifier. Wearing my hat as chair of the all-party group for young carers and young adult carers, I mention the importance of ensuring that young carers form part of that unique identifier and part of teacher training—just a little ask.
I also recognise the importance of improving communication and multi-discipline teams—I have a lot less time than I thought. I also wish to mention free breakfast clubs, and the school uniform savings that will benefit parents and young people in my constituency who are struggling because of the cost of living crisis. I genuinely believe that that measure will help them, as it is an issue that definitely comes up in my constituency.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Vince Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
As I have already mentioned in the House a number of times, I am a former teacher, I am married to a current teacher and most of my friends are teachers—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] She’ll be pleased with that. The mental health of teachers after the last 14 years is at rock bottom. What steps will the Department take to support not just the mental health and wellbeing of our students, which is really important, but the mental health and wellbeing of our teachers?
Janet Daby
I thank my hon. Friend for making it extremely clear that he is a teacher and has teachers within his network. He is right to mention the welfare and wellbeing of professionals and of teachers. I would like to offer him a meeting with an Education Minister to discuss that further.
Education and Opportunity
Chris Vince Excerpts(5 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Damian Hinds
I admire the hon. Gentleman’s ability to turn everything into a discussion about Europe, but I have to tell him there are other things at play. If I were an SNP politician, I would not come to the Floor of this House boasting about the record of the SNP Government given their woeful performance on behalf of underprivileged children in Scotland. Nor, by the way, would I be complaining about the finances, when the Scottish Government are well financed for the things that they should and must do. Until recently it was us sitting on the Government Benches making these points, but now it will be Labour Members.
This is a debate about opportunity, and the point of greatest leverage in spreading opportunity is what happens in the very earliest years, as the Secretary of State said. Since 2010, we have had five major extensions in early years and childcare entitlements, and a sixth is now on its way. I think I heard the Secretary of State say that she was committing fully to our plan in each of its phases. Unless she corrects me now, that is certainly how I will interpret it. She then went on to say there were some difficulties and so on—[Interruption.] I can assure the Secretary of State, who speaks from a sedentary position, that there was indeed such a plan, and we look now to the Government to see that plan through. I would also like to hear from her colleague the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), when she sums up, about the 3,000 nurseries to be established in primary schools. It is important for us to know what proportion of those she expects to be full-time, year-round nurseries as opposed to term-time only.
We know that however much time young children spend in nursery or in childcare, they will spend more time at home, and the social mobility literature is clear that what happens at home makes a big difference to opportunity later in life. This is a difficult area for Governments and requires great care, but I hope that this new Government will look to build on the home learning environment programme—Hungry Little Minds—that we put in place and then reprised during covid, and do so in a supportive and non-invasive way.
I also hope that the Government will continue with the family hubs, recognising that while they are vital for the 0 to 2 age group, many issues go on right through childhood and adolescence. The supporting families programme is actually a cross-party story because it was brought in during the Cameron Government from 2012 following a pilot under the previous Labour Government. With its key worker approach it has so much potential, and it now covers 300,000 families, not the original 120,000. Bringing it into the Department for Education presents a great opportunity for the Secretary of State, and I hope she will make the most of it.
In schools, the success story we have been discussing, which can be seen in the results in the programme for international student assessment, the progress in international reading literacy study and other studies, has been based on three legs of a stool. The first is school autonomy, with transparency and accountability. The second is a knowledge-rich curriculum and proven learning methods such as phonics and maths mastery, with the Education Endowment Foundation evaluating and accrediting programmes. The third is the spreading of good practice through academy trusts and through schools learning laterally from other schools, with teachers learning from teachers rather than things being imposed top down, through a nationwide network of hubs in key subjects and in key areas such as behaviour. It is not yet clear exactly what the new Government’s plans are in each of those three areas, but if they seek to undo what has worked and what does work, we will argue the counter case robustly.
The Government have, as the Secretary of State said, announced a review of the curriculum, as of course they can, and as we did in the past. But again, I would urge them to reflect on what has worked and what does work, and in particular not to see a conflict between skills and knowledge. Clearly, when children are growing up, developing and being educated, they need both, but it is through having a depth of knowledge that they best develop skills. As to what knowledge, I hope the review will also acknowledge that a strength of our national curriculum is that, unlike what a lot of people think, it is not in fact a detailed specification of everything a pupil will learn in history or literature. Rather, it is a framework. That guards against political interference, and that is a principle that absolutely must be maintained. I hope that Labour did learn the lesson of the literacy hour and the numeracy hour—that seeking to set out to schools in 10 or 15-minute segments exactly what should be taught to children is a Bad Idea, with a capital B and a capital I.
On behaviour, a calm and ordered environment is a basic requirement for learning, and that is what children tell us they want. Of course, no one wants pupils to be suspended, still less expelled, but that option needs to be available as a last resort. Yes, we must think of the child’s wellbeing, but we also need to think of the wellbeing and life chances of the other 27 children in the class.
Having school leaders in the driving seat is essential, but that also brings a need for transparency so we can see whether children in some areas are not getting as strong an education as children in others. Progress 8, which we brought in, measures the progress of all children equally and is far better than the blunt and much-gamed approach of measuring how many children got over the five-plus C-plus at GCSE hurdle. It is also materially better than the old contextual value added measure, which effectively lowered expectations for entire groups of children.
We also need a threshold to trigger intervention, so that underperforming schools can be moved into a strong trust that can better support them. That is standing up for parents and children, who will get only one shot at schooling.
There are challenges to address and, as I said to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), high on that list post covid is attendance. It is much better than it was, but there is further to go. I hope the Government will keep and build on the measures that we put in place, together with schools and the wider education family.
We always need to strive to do more to support children with special educational needs and disabilities and enable them to maximise opportunity. I was encouraged by what the Secretary of State said. I call on her and the Government to keep and grow our capital programme for more special school places, as well as, as she rightly said, to strive to support inclusion in mainstream education, where that is possible and beneficial.
Today there is a greater prevalence of mental ill health in young people. Crucially, this issue is not specific to this country. We see it in most comparable countries, or at least those where there is data we can look at; we see a similar trend there. The Labour manifesto spoke about having mental health professionals in schools. When we were in government, with the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS, we were already rolling out mental health support teams to clusters of schools and I urge the Government to look at that.
Of course, we and other countries must also ask why there is this increased prevalence of mental ill health in young people. Because it is international in nature, some of the ready answers that might otherwise be thrown about cannot be correct. We will work constructively with the Government as they work to build on the landmark Online Safety Act 2023, for example, and ensure its most effective implementation.
Schools are all about teachers and we welcome the Government’s plan to recruit 6,500 more. Of course, 6,500 is a large number, but it is not quite so large in the context of the total number of teachers, which is 468,000, and it should be noted that the increase in the number of teachers over the last Parliament was considerably more than 6,500—in fact, it was more like 15,000. However, it is true that it has been tough to recruit for some subjects, such as computer science, physics and modern foreign languages, and I welcome the Secretary of State’s focus on that area.
Damian Hinds
If the hon. Member will forgive me, I had better press on, as I might be stretching Madam Deputy Speaker’s patience. Early in my time facing her in the Chair, I do not want to get off to a bad start.
We will be looking to see exactly what the 6,500 target covers, by when and, crucially, how it will be achieved.
The one subject in education that got a lot of coverage in the media and elsewhere during the election campaign was the taxation of independent schools. We recognise that that was in the Labour manifesto, but it is still wrong-headed. It will not hit the famous big-name schools, but it will hit small-town schools, families of children with special educational needs and certain religious faiths. Most of all, in the biggest way, it will hit state schools. We do not know how big the displacement effect will be of families who can no longer afford to send their children to their independent school, and we cannot know because there is no precedent, but we know that it will be a material number.
Damian Hinds
We must not get into a long debate on this, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that export earnings is part it, as is multinationals’ choice of this country to site their headquarters. All these things are considerations, including the Ministry of Defence.
I inadvertently skipped over the hon. Member, so I give way to him now.
Chris Vince
I thank the right hon. Member for taking my question. His figures on teacher numbers are very interesting. Does he not recognise that, over the last Parliament, the teacher retention rate was at an all-time low, with a third of teachers leaving within five years of going into the profession?
Damian Hinds
Again, I must not get into too lengthy a debate on this—[Interruption.] But I can. In the last couple of years, we actually found that retention was better than had been anticipated. We want teachers to stay longer in the profession, which is one of the reasons why, during my first spell in the Department for Education, we brought in the early career framework specifically to address that issue. The Secretary of State has said that the Government will continue to evolve that, which I welcome too, but the fact of the matter is that we have 468,000 teachers in the profession. Part of that is to do with retention, and part of it is to do with people returning to the profession, which at times has been better than anticipated. It is also to do with the significant programme to get people into teaching in the first place through bursaries and scholarships.
Returning to taxation and independent education, I ask the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), at the very least today when she sums up, to confirm that the Government will not bring the measure further forward so that we end up with in-year disruption for families, and for state schools trying to cope with a potential influx of large numbers of children. Can she also guarantee that the large number of spending programmes that have been linked to this taxation income stream, including the 6,500 teachers, are protected, regardless of what happens on that VAT income?
I am close to the end. We set about a major upgrade in technical and vocational education. The Secretary of State said something important and, I think, new about what was going to happen. I hope the Government will see through T-levels and the reform of technical and vocational education on the blueprint—we always did this in government: we took a cross-party approach—of Lord Sainsbury. The Secretary of State mentioned that she will update the House tomorrow. Will the Minister of State confirm in summing up that that will be an oral statement, giving hon. and right hon. Members a chance to question the Minister on exactly what is proposed?
We will also scrutinise the Government’s proposed changes to apprenticeships and the levy. I understand that businesses want more flexibility on what they can do with levy money, but the two crucial things about the apprenticeship levy is that, first, it dealt with what economists call the “free rider problem,” under which some businesses historically invested strongly in training their staff, while others did not, but benefited when staff left those businesses to join them after two or three years. Secondly, the levy ensured that human capital investment went into incremental training; it did not just rebadge training that would have happened anyway. In whatever reform the Government undertake, those two things will have to be delivered.
On Skills England, we just need to know what it is. We understand the desire of a Labour Government to say, “In an emergency, break glass, reach for quango” but what will it do that is different from what is done today by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, by local skills improvement plans and by the Unit for Future Skills?
I am proud that disadvantaged youngsters are now much more likely to go on to higher education than they were—despite of course predictions of the opposite at the time the student financing system was brought in. I remember very well that, when in opposition, Labour Members of Parliament said repeatedly that fees should never go as high as £9,000, or £9,250, and we will be watching for consistency in their approach in the months and years ahead.
We need to ensure high-quality provision for students. It does no favours to a young person to go to university if it is for a course where we know a high proportion of students do not even complete the course. We spoke during the election campaign of our plan to build on our foundation of the Office for Students to ensure that, in whatever subject it might be, students could be confident that their course was of high quality. The new Government need to set out how they, in their way, will ensure that that quality is guaranteed.
To conclude—[Hon. Members: “Hooray.”] Come on. It is often said—it was said earlier this afternoon—that the first duty of Government is to defend our country and our national security and to keep people safe. It is the most fundamental function of Government to have sound management of the economy and the finances. The noblest drive in government is to strive to spread opportunity as far and as equitably as possible. Ultimately, education is the key to almost everything. We wish the new Government and this team of Ministers well. We will work positively and constructively with them. We will scrutinise what they say, monitor what they do and hold them to account for what they deliver.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) for his excellent and very emotive maiden speech.
I welcome you to your new role, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you for calling me to speak in this important debate.
Above all, I thank the people of Harlow. It is a diverse constituency that includes not only Harlow but the villages of Roydon, Nazeing, Sheering and, following the recent boundary review, Hatfield Heath, Hatfield Broad Oak and too many others to name. I thank everybody for giving me the incredible opportunity to serve as their Member of Parliament.
The new Prime Minister used the word “service” throughout the election campaign, and he has used it in this Chamber. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition even used it in his opening remarks on the Humble Address. Harlow is a constituency that demands and deserves the utmost service from its Members of Parliament, and in my direct predecessor, Robert Halfon, it had an MP who constantly championed and worked hard for the constituency. I genuinely thank him for his service. Likewise, his predecessor, Bill Rammell, who is a good friend and a mentor of mine, is still remembered fondly on the doorstep by residents he has supported. Both of them have shown how to persevere in the face of obstacles and beat the odds. Although my story is far more humble, I hope I can live up to the high expectations that they have both set. I also thank Bill’s predecessor, Jerry Hayes, who believed in the importance of public scrutiny.
Finally, I pay tribute to the late Stan Newens. I got to know Stan quite well in his later years, because all our Co-operative party meetings were held at his house. If anyone enjoys a trip back in time through literature, I would recommend a visit. At the end of every Co-op meeting, Stan would come over to me and whisper into my ear, “You’ll be an MP one day.” Stan, I did not believe it at the time, but it turns out that you were right.
My background is one of service. I spent 15 years as a secondary school maths teacher, and more recently I worked for a charity in Harlow called Streets2Homes, which supports homeless people, and for Action for Family Carers, which supports unpaid carers, particularly those who are young. A while ago, I had a conversation with the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), about his excellent contribution to the report on young carers. I also pay tribute to Razed Roof, a wonderful charity of which I am a trustee. It is an inclusive theatre company, and I have to say a big hello to Simon.
Like many Members, my experiences have shaped my politics and my interest in politics, but my priorities are also shaped by the constituency of Harlow. Many Members will know that Harlow is a post-war new town, designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd. Sir Frederick designed Harlow to be a place of community; every community has its own shopping area, playground and green spaces. A local historian described Harlow as being designed—excuse me for this, Madam Deputy Speaker—on socialist principles. It is a place where people can see a Barbara Hepworth or a Rodin while just walking down the street.
That sense of community was put to the test during the pandemic, when we saw dark times not only in this country but across the entire world. I am proud to report to everybody in this House that during those dark times, Harlow’s community stepped up; they passed the test. They supported the most vulnerable people across our town and community. Perhaps that is no surprise, given that our town invented the fibre optic cable, and is the home of Harlow college and the birthplace of Rupert Grint—I have no idea why I put those things in that order. Apparently, Harlow has the lowest density of pubs per head of population. That is okay, though, because there is one five minutes’ staggering distance from my house.
It is the convention to talk about a non-controversial issue in one’s maiden speech. That is tricky when you find yourself in a room with people with opposing views. I thought that I might talk about football, but I am a Leeds supporter, and my hon. Friends the Members for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey), and for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson), went before me, so I think I shall leave the subject alone, but I am sure this House will join me in congratulating the mighty Harlow Town on their league cup victory last season—let us not worry about what league it was.
Instead, I decided to talk about young carers, a subject very close to my heart. As I have said, I was a secondary school maths teacher for 15 years. In one school, I had a boy in my form—I shall call him George, but that is not his real name. He was a lovely lad. Every Friday, it was my job to check that pupils had got their homework planner signed by their parents, so that we knew that the pupils were doing their homework and recording it properly, but George never got his planner signed. Anyone who knew me as a teacher would say that I was a bit of a softie, so I let it go, but over time, I had to keep him back at break time and lunch time because his planner was not getting signed. He never argued. He just turned up, did his five-minute detention and went on his way. It was only at parents’ evening that I found out that both George’s parents were severely physically disabled, and that George and his sister were young carers. I felt terrible. It was probably that experience that inspired me to become more involved in supporting young carers.
The solution to George’s issue was really easy. George, like many young carers, did not want to be treated differently. What we did was say, “Your sister can sign your planner for you. As long as your sister gets it signed, there is no problem.” Lo and behold, he got it signed by his sister—he got a detention if he did not. He was happy with that. I am pleased to say that that story is about 10 years old. I think we have progressed quite well in our recognition and understanding of young carers. I thank Members from across the House, the leader of the Liberal Democrats and my own Prime Minister for bringing their experiences to this House.
In a recent school census, 72% of schools said that they did not have any young carers. I can tell Members that, from my experience of supporting young carers, that cannot be correct. It is predicted that there are more than 10,000 young carers in Essex alone. Essex county council has identified roughly 3,700 of them, so there is a huge number of young carers whom we have not identified, let alone got the resource in place for.
I would like to end my maiden speech on a positive: I ask the House to join me in thanking all the young carers I have worked with, and all young carers across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, for the incredible job that they do. Many of them do not even think of themselves as being young carers because it is just what they do—they help a loved one—but I want to put it on record that, to me, they are absolute heroes.