Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life

Chris Vince Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)]

Everybody wants to give children the best start in life. That is why we increased spending per pupil in schools by 11% in real terms in the last Parliament, and why we doubled real-terms spending on the free entitlement for the early years. More importantly, it is why we pushed through difficult reforms to schools, which were often opposed by the Labour party. It is why we brought in the knowledge-rich curriculum, why we brought in stronger accountability, and why we pushed through the academies revolution and more parental choice.

The Minister said that our record speaks for itself, and it does. Labour’s record speaks for itself as well. Between 2009 and 2022, England went from 21st to seventh in the programme for international student assessment league table for maths, while Wales—spending the same amount as before—went from 29th to 27th. [Interruption.] Labour MPs clearly do not like hearing this, but I am afraid I am going to carry on. In science, England went from 11th to ninth, while Wales—with same amount of money as before but run by Labour, with no reforms—slumped from 21st to 29th.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

On that point, will the shadow Minister give way?

[Neil O’Brien]

I am happy to take an intervention.

[Chris Vince]

I thank the shadow Minister for taking my intervention; he is always very generous with his time. I will give him a friendly intervention. I was going to criticise the Conservatives for a lack of attendance in this debate, but he said the words “no reforms”, and I notice that there are no Reform MPs present for this important debate. When I spoke in the general election campaign about education and it was the turn of the Reform candidate in Harlow to give us his views on the party’s vision for education, he did not have an answer. Does the shadow Minister agree that we do not want the Reform party anywhere near education?

[Neil O’Brien]

The hon. Gentleman is completely right, and it is not the first time—it is generally the case that no one from Reform is present. On this issue, I am afraid that Reform MPs are chronically absent, as we say in education.

I will continue with my theme. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out that the huge difference in performance, and the divergence in performance, between England and Wales cannot be explained by poverty rates or ethnicity. It is to do with the reforms that were not undertaken because of trade union pressure in Wales.

[Neil O’Brien]

I do not think that is true. Looking at the evidence pack produced by the Government’s curriculum review, it is clear that some of the arguments are overstated. It is true that we reversed the decline in the number of young people taking double and triple science; that had been falling for years, and it went back up again because there was more focus on science. It is true that there are a limited number of hours in the school day, but I do not accept that we had some sort of Gradgrindian educational agenda. There continues to be a broad and balanced agenda. If Labour Members want to say that much more time should be spent on a particular subject, they should at least be clear about where it will come from.

Children in England were ranked the best in maths in the whole western world in the 2023 trends in international mathematics and science study, and they moved into the top five in the global rankings for science. What happened in Wales and Scotland? We do not know, as their Administrations removed themselves from those competitions because they do not like accountability. It is the same at all levels.

Whereas we favoured parental choice and autonomy for schools, balanced by strong accountability, the current Government take a very different approach. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is currently in the Lords, dilutes parental choice, and it gives local politicians more control over pupil numbers for the first time since 1988. The greater autonomy for schools that we brought in has been replaced by a tide of micromanagement of curriculum and staff, and the absurd situation where if someone wants to put up a bicycle shed they have to apply to the Secretary of State. On the other hand, the ultimate form of accountability—placing schools under new management via academy orders—is being slowed down and stopped, which has been criticised even by Labour MPs such as the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh).

The Labour party’s attempts to mess around with Ofsted to please the trade unions have watered down accountability for parents and made things more complicated, but they have not made anybody happy; nobody is happy with what has been proposed in the end. The Government have axed all the forms of support that we were making available to schools for subjects from advanced physics to maths, Latin and advanced computing—they think they are elitist. They have also axed the behaviour hubs, even though there is clear evidence that they were working and schools that went through them were twice as likely to be good or outstanding afterwards. The reform agenda is just not there.

At one point, the Government’s big answer was that they were going to employ 6,500 more teachers: they were going to increase VAT and employ all these extra teachers. The Chancellor said at the end of last year that every single penny of that VAT increase would go to education, but then, confusingly, the Prime Minister said that the money had been spent on social housing instead. It has been a long time since I studied formal logic, but we cannot spend every single penny on education and also spend that money on housing; we cannot spend it on two things. As it happens, we now know that actually there are not those extra teachers; there are 400 fewer teachers. We added 27,000 teachers under the last Government and under Labour there are 400 fewer teachers.

At the point when the numbers came out showing that there were fewer teachers, the Government suddenly declared that primary school teachers do not count—that the fall of 2,900 in primary school teacher numbers did not count. Ministers implied that that had always been their intention—they said, “How dare you say that wasn’t our intention?”—but they announced this policy in a primary school, and they said they would hit their targets for early years through an increase in primary. Now they say, “Oh, numbers are falling in primary,” but numbers are falling by a lot less than when they made the pledge in the updated forecast. If we apply the same logic, half of secondary schools have falling numbers, so perhaps that will be the next way they try to monkey around with the numbers to pretend that the opposite is happening. I would not mind so much if we did not get these chirpy press releases from the Department saying, “We’re doing so well; we’ve got all these extra teachers.” There are fewer teachers—that is the bottom line in what has happened here.

[Chris Vince]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way again; he is being very generous with his time. I have to say, as a former teacher who left the profession because of the way we were treated by the previous Government, that I always feel a little bit gaslit by the Conservative party. I would just point out to him that during the previous Government’s time in office, a third of new teachers were leaving the profession within five years. Does he not recognise that the pressure put on teachers by the previous Government, the lack of support and the general lack of faith in teachers made a number of them leave, and we lost so much experience that it has been very difficult to get back?

[Neil O’Brien]

There are several things to say about that. The first is that the overall number went up: the hon. Gentleman said that some were leaving, but the overall number went up by 27,000. He makes a good point about early career teachers and that is why we put in the early career framework, which I do think is a big improvement. It is not that there is nothing in what the hon. Gentleman said, but I do think it is funny for him to stand up and talk about gaslighting when the Government are pumping out glossy propaganda saying that there are more teachers, even though their own Department for Education website says that there are 400 fewer teachers. So do tell me all about gaslighting.

My broader worry about the Government’s approach to giving every child the best start in life is that it misses the wood for the trees. Ministers like to talk about some of the small interventions they are making, such as the £33 million they are spending on breakfast clubs and the “best start in life” centres and the increases in spending there. But on the other side of the ledger, how is this being paid for? It is being paid for with a £25 billion increase in national insurance, and, unbelievably for a notionally social democratic Government, that national insurance increase is brutally targeted on the lowest income workers. It is incredible.

Department for Education

Chris Vince Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I rise to address the House on the Department for Education’s main estimate for 2025-26. I thank the Liaison Committee and the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate this afternoon; it is an important opportunity to scrutinise the Government’s spending plans, which must deliver for every child, young person and family. Education is the bedrock of opportunity, social mobility and economic growth.

The Government inherited a situation in which almost every aspect of the Department for Education’s areas of responsibility faced severe challenges, from the financial pressures on early years providers to the erosion of school budgets and teacher pay, the crisis in the special educational needs and disabilities system, underfunding of further education and skills and a total reset needed in children’s social care.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is giving a really important speech on a subject that is very dear to my heart, as everyone in the House knows. Will she add to her list the huge issues that we inherited with school buildings? As a former teacher—I have mentioned that a few times—I know that the learning environment is really important. We inherited a real issue with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, for example, but there have also been other issues, such as those faced by Sir Frederick Gibberd college in my constituency.

[Helen Hayes]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the state of the school estate.

The final area of challenge is that many universities face a risk of insolvency. At the heart of all the Department’s responsibilities are individual children and young people who need and are entitled to the best possible start in life, secure foundations, a great education and every opportunity to grow into active citizens with successful careers and a good quality of life. The challenges in our education and social care systems can be seen in the outcomes for children and young people, with rising numbers of children not meeting the early learning goals when they start school, growing disadvantage gaps at all stages of education, very poor outcomes for care-experienced young people, rising levels of school absence and far too many children with special educational needs and disabilities not receiving the support that they need to thrive in education.

I will speak to the estimates across five key spending areas—SEND, children’s social care, early years, skills, and higher education—drawing on the Education Committee’s ongoing inquiries to ensure that these funds meet the urgent needs of our communities. On special educational needs and disabilities, the main estimate reflects the Government’s recognition of the challenges, with an immediate increase in high needs revenue funding of more than £1 billion. Capital spending for high needs provision sees a 138% uplift, from £310 million to £740 million, to create new school places.

During the inquiry, my Committee has heard powerful testimony from families and educators about the crisis in the SEND system, with witnesses calling for significant and far-reaching reform to ensure that funds translate into effective delivery for children. The Institute for Fiscal Studies warns that rising SEND costs could absorb much of the mainstream school budget uplift, and that capital investment, while significant, may not meet growing demand. The forthcoming schools White Paper promised this autumn must set out bold reforms, with resources made available to ensure that they can be implemented successfully. Our inquiry report will set out recommendations to the Government for reform of the SEND system, and I hope that the Government will make time to take full account of our work. I urge the Minister to confirm a timescale for those reforms, informed by our Committee’s evidence.

Our children’s social care inquiry has exposed acute funding pressures, with local authorities forced to prioritise crisis interventions over preventive support due to a £1.2 billion cut in early intervention spending since 2012. The spending review introduces a £555 million transformation fund over three years, including £75 million in 2025-26 and £270 million for a new children’s social care prevention grant. That is a vital step towards effective reform.

The additional £560 million for children’s homes and foster care placements is also welcome. However, the independent review of children’s social care estimated a need for an additional £2.6 billion of funding over four years. My Committee’s work underscores the urgency of investing in early intervention to reduce the number of children being taken into care and to improve outcomes.

Maths: Contribution to the UK

Chris Vince Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) for bringing this debate to the House. There may be plenty of things we disagree on, but when it comes to maths, I am sin²θ and he is cos²θ, and together we are at one. There are a lot more of those jokes to come, Mr Vickers.

I am a former maths teacher, I am married to a maths teacher and I am looking forward to the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) commenting on how good the maths teachers are in her constituency. In fact, when I first met my wife—this is a little bit raunchy—I told her she was 1/cos C. Only the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire and I will get these jokes, unfortunately; I apologise that my speech is not going to be at the same intellectual level as that of the hon. Gentleman.

I taught secondary school maths in schools across Essex, and the two things students most often asked were a) “When are we going to use this in real life?”, and b) “Will this be on the exam?”. I am genuinely passionate about maths, not because it is on the exam or because there is a problem to be solved, but because maths in itself is a beautiful thing and something that we should enjoy. Those questions were therefore incredibly frustrating.

After part a), they would sometimes add another line: “When will we use this in real life? And don’t say engineering.” I have to say to the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire that I was not a maths graduate—I was actually an engineering graduate, but I think he will understand. There is a lot of maths in engineering, and I was wholly qualified to teach it. I genuinely believe that we should love maths and not see it as a challenge to overcome but a tool to help us. I do not want to write a shopping list that says I am buying six apples and five bananas if I can use a and b instead. That is really important.

On part b), one of my favourite things to teach, which is not on the curriculum, is the Fibonacci sequence. When I teach the Fibonacci sequence, I show pupils how that leads on to the golden ratio and how the golden ratio applies in real life to the shape of leaves or seashells, or to the amount of bees that live in a hive. In fact, Liz Hurley can be compared to the golden ratio. On literature, paper sizes are based around the golden ratio. When we read a book, we are likely to find that something significant happens around 61.8% of the way through, because this is a really important ratio. It is not just mathematical—it occurs in real life. I genuinely think that is interesting. I want to emphasise that we have a habit of talking about maths as a kind of challenge—almost a monster in the room—but it is not. It should be seen as our friend.

The question of the role of maths in the UK is substantial, so I have thought about it a little more at the local level as being about the use of maths in Harlow. Hon. Members will be aware that Harlow is the home of Hannah Fry, who shares my passion for mathematics. It is also where George Hockham and Charles Kao invented the fibre-optic cable. It is fair to say that such an invention could not have happened without the use of applied mathematics. In fact, any business, school or organisation in Harlow will rely on maths, whether that is to fill out tax returns or produce wage slips. Maths is absolutely everywhere.

I find that one of the biggest frustrations with maths is that it seems to be acceptable for adults to say, “I’m not very good at maths.” When I was a teacher, some colleagues and senior colleagues said it. In one of the schools I worked at—I will not name which—one of the deputy heads, a fantastic English teacher, proudly said on stage in front of students, “I was never very good at maths.” Imagine the impact that had on young people, who were perhaps already struggling with maths, about the importance of learning it.

I am not saying it is right to criticise people who struggle to read or spell, but I am pretty confident that someone would not say that in the same way they are happy to say that they are not very good at maths. I appreciate I am talking in jest a little, but I hope the Minister will take from my speech the hope that we can challenge that misconception and say that it is important to be able to do maths, as the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire mentioned.

I was not going to be too political, but in preparation for hearing the shadow spokesman claim that we have never had it so good on maths teaching as we did under his Government, I say to him that that is as imaginary as the square root of minus one. I respectfully point out that the number of qualified maths teachers—yes, I am one of them—went down under his Administration. More and more, schools were forced to rely on non-specialists to teach maths. Some did so very successfully, but clearly when it comes to higher-level maths—A-level maths and A-level further maths—we want specialist teachers, even if they are engineering graduates, to tackle that.

I welcome the fact that the Government have started to bring confidence back into the teaching profession and, dare I say, that with today’s announcement, they will also ensure that the young people we teach have full bellies and are able to learn. I will finish on a positive note. As a sci-fi fan, I welcome the fact that, if we ever meet alien life forms, it will be mathematics that serves as our common language.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) on securing this important debate. We have had some fantastic speeches, and any debate in which Johnny Ball gets a shout-out is a good debate in my view.

Our profession, politics, is awash with mathematical metaphors. Lyndon Johnson famously said that the first rule of democracy is that you have to be able to count. In Westminster, the Treasury is always insisting on making the numbers add up. Lots of junior Ministers who interact with the Treasury and try to get money out of it discover that they get the square root of naff all from those discussions. Occasionally, when I listen to hon. Members who are less concise—they are not in this debate—trouting on in the main Chamber, I am reminded of the space-filling Hilbert curve, which is repetitious and capable of filling an infinite amount of space if left unchecked.

One of my greatest beliefs is in the non-linear nature of innovation. As hon. Members have already alluded to, mathematics is a brilliant example of that. It was never obvious, when the obscure philosophers who became logicians were faffing around with strange upside down a’s and backwards e’s, that they would lay the foundations for the computation that defines our world today.

I read in Quanta magazine that in the ’60s we discovered something that seemed perfectly useless: Penrose tiling—infinitely non-repeating patterns, which are very pretty and obviously totally useless, right? No: they are now used in quantum encryption. We have found a use for that seemingly useless thing.

The same is true of one of the UK’s greatest industrial successes: Arm, which does obscure-seeming work on reduced instruction set computing. What use is that? Why would anyone need a really tiny thing that does not use much power? But we all have mobile phones, and the intellectual property from that bit of Britain’s industrial policy is now in everyone’s pocket, all over the world. Mathematics is hugely important. I completely agree with all hon. Members who have said that.

I have been goaded by the brilliant speech of the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince), who said that I would talk about the last Government, and of course I will. It would be inappropriate not to add some numbers to a debate on maths, so what happened to mathematics under the last Government? Let us look at some international comparisons.

In the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study—TIMSS—between 2011 and 2023, England went from 10th in the world to sixth in the world for maths, and from ninth to fifth for science. That is remarkable progress that puts us top in the western world. We are not quite at the level of the Asian people who dominate the table, but we are the best in the west.

I cannot tell hon. Members how Scotland and Wales are doing on that metric because their Governments chose to withdraw from those competitions as they did not like the scrutiny. However, I can give a comparison by stating where those devolved Governments are in the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment. Between 2009 and 2022, England went from 21st to seventh in the world for maths in PISA results, and from 11th to ninth for science. Whereas Wales —where a lot of the reforms that we had in England were avoided for ideological reasons—went from 29th to 27th for maths, and slumped from 21st to 29th for science.

That is part of a wider picture. I encourage everyone to read the brilliant report “Major challenges for education in Wales” by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which points out that the average deprived child in England is now doing as well or better than the average child in Wales. The gap is so big, and the deprivation progress has been so great in England, that the deprived child in England is now in a better position than the average child in Wales. That is an incredible situation.

Looking at the improvement in school attainment by IDACI—income deprivation affecting children index—decile, we see improvement across the income distribution under the last Government, but the biggest improvement in England was in the bottom half of the income distribution. That is true for maths throughout the educational life cycle. Today, 90,000 more children at key stage 2—the end of junior school—meet the expected standard in reading, writing and maths than in 2015-16.

That progress was driven by a number of measures, including our putting in 27,000 extra teachers over our time in government. Over the last Parliament, we increased real-terms per pupil funding by 11%. We brought in things such as maths schools and maths hubs, lots more low-stakes testing—my daughter is about to do the year 4 times tables test—and the key stage 2 tests. All those things, by the way, are still opposed by some people in the trade unions even though the evidence for the effectiveness of low-stakes testing, for example, is so strong. The National Education Union still opposes all forms of testing in primary school—a crazy position that we were right to reject in England.

There has been real progress as a result of those reforms. Although everything in England is far from perfect—there is loads of room for progress and lots of problems to fix—we can see what the alternative is. Where those reforms were not made for ideological reasons because the unions said no to academisation, school choice and school accountability, things got worse. The people who suffered from that ideology were not the rich and those who could afford to go private, but the poorest.

Some of the things being done now in schools are a mistake, such as hammering the budget for the advanced mathematics support programme. As has already been touched on in this debate, and as quite a lot of the people who care most about maths have pointed out, that is a big mistake. Jens Marklof, president of the London Mathematical Society, said that it will harm the chances of children from poorer areas. He said:

“There’s no AI without maths and if the government is really serious about its AI strategy they have to significantly scale up the support for maths education at all levels…The big success of AMSP was to enable kids who went to schools that didn’t offer further maths to give them this opportunity”.

Likewise, Adrian Smith, the Royal Society president, said it is

“spectacularly short-sighted to pull funding from programmes designed to support teachers and schools to deliver better maths provision.”

He also said:

“Our maths education is not up to scratch—too many young people are leaving school without the skills they need for life or the well-paid jobs that will drive economic growth”.

Dan Abramson, the chief executive of U-Maths, the umbrella organisation for university maths schools in England, and a professor of maths at King’s College London, said:

“For the UK to be at the forefront of AI and the data-driven modern economy, we need excellent mathematicians from all backgrounds, and we need more of them—that means more investment, not less”.

We set up the advanced mathematics support programme in 2018 to provide extra maths help to schools, and the Government have now cut it. I think that it is a mistake and I hope that they will look at it again. Unfortunately, that is part of a pattern. The Government have cut support not just for maths, but for physics, computing, Latin, cadets and behaviour hubs. A lot of the things that were doing a lot of good, including for maths, have been axed even though they are very small in the grand scheme of the Department for Education’s £100 billion budget. I hope that the Government will rethink those cuts.

The hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire also wanted to talk about the higher education part of the piece. It is very striking that although 50% more people are now doing A-level maths—a great success—and the number of people doing double or triple science at GCSE has more or less doubled, which is great progress, that has not always translated into increases in the number of people doing maths at university. In fact, while there has been about a 20% increase in the total numbers entering HE courses at university since 2018-19, the number going into maths, while marginally up, is broadly flat.

Why is the improvement we are seeing in schools not leading to larger numbers doing maths at university? I am afraid that goes to the heart of the issues with our higher education system more broadly. I understand the logic of why tuition fees were brought in and I accept up to a point the idea of a market in higher education, but it seems to us that that market has gone too far. It is really a pseudo-market, because we rely entirely on young people aged 16 and 17 to drive the allocation of resources into our enormous higher education system.

The gradual move from teaching, or T, grants to a highly fees-based system gives Ministers far less control than they previously had. The Government’s decision last week to further reduce high-cost subject grants—T grants, as they used to be called—by a further 10% in real terms is a mistake in its own right because it hits the subjects such as engineering and science that we need for the future, and gives Ministers less control over what is going on in higher education.

The incentives set up by the pseudo-market in education have led to a great growth in courses that are cheap to provide but do not necessarily give great value to either the student or the taxpayer. We know from the leading work of the Institute for Fiscal Studies that, when we look at the combined perspective of the taxpayer and the student themselves, higher education is not worth it, at least from an economic point of view, for around 30% of those who go into it at the moment,.

Since the work that the IFS did, which is based on those who graduated during the mid-noughties, we have seen the graduate premium decline even further. The marginal students who we have been adding have even lower earnings, so those figures could easily be worse if we were to rerun that analysis now. That needs to be addressed.

There is absolutely sometimes a case for higher education to be simply beautiful—to do theology, art or whatever—and for it not to be of economic value, but we should be clear about when we choose to subsidise that. We should also be clear that things that are highly economically useful, such as mathematics and science, also have intrinsic value. They are also beautiful and there is an intrinsic value to studying them—that is not just the case for some of those things, particularly the creative arts, where we see the great concentration of those who end up with very low earnings and negative returns from an economic point of view.

We need to rethink. We need not just to patch up and mend the existing system, but to fundamentally rethink the incentives that it has set up. We should give ourselves the ability to make sure that we are investing in and driving up the growth of subjects such as mathematics, which are so critical to our future economy and security as a country. I will not go further into it than that, but the issues facing mathematics are, in a sense, part of the wider issues facing higher education. I hope that the Government will move from a patching up and mending attitude to a reformist and overhauling one.

The one thing I want discourage Ministers from doing is something that I am worried will come out of the Government’s curriculum and assessment review. Although I have lots of respect for Becky Francis, who is leading the review, one of the things that Ministers have been very keen to do is say that we need to have lots more time for arts subjects—for fun subjects such as music, drama and dance. That is fine in a sense, but Ministers have to be super clear about how they will find that time, and whether they are going to find it by funding some extra hours in the school day or something, because otherwise it inescapably means less time on other things. One of the good things that has happened, and one of the reasons standards have gone up, is that schools now spend about 13% more time teaching maths than they used to in 2010, so more time is going into this critical subject than was before. If we say that we want to have more time for something else, let us be honest about the trade-offs and what we are going to not do and let us also be honest about the consequences of that.

[Chris Vince]

This does not have to be a political point, but to answer the question that the hon. Gentleman just posed about where schools find the time: my argument is that maths does not need to be taught in a silo. Many subjects—even creative subjects such as art and music, and certainly design and technology—would include an aspect of maths. For many young people, being able to apply maths in those particular subjects would actually be really useful. Would the hon. Gentleman concede that point at least?

[Neil O'Brien]

I am happy to agree that we can bring maths into many other things, and that is also a fun way of teaching maths. In return, I put back to the hon. Gentleman that there are limits to that. If we want to have more time for something else, we have to say where it is coming from. The improvement in those international league table rankings that I mentioned has not come about as a result of some sort of magic. It has come about by us spending more time on that, putting more resources into it and making it a priority. Unfortunately, not everything can be a priority. If everything is a priority, then nothing is. The last Government chose to prioritise maths and STEM. I think it was the right decision. One can argue that we should go for a different course, but if we are going to do that, people should be explicit about it and honest about what they are actually going to do.

Let me not turn into the thing that I have already criticised—the space-filling Hilbert curve—and take up endless time in this debate. It has been a hugely important debate with brilliant speeches from lots of Members from across the House. I hope that the Ministers will act on some of the brilliant suggestions that have been made, and that we can further improve math education in this country.

School Teachers’ Review Body: Recommendations

Chris Vince Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

No. We recognise how important it is for schools to plan their budgets and we know that they are keenly awaiting the announcement this afternoon. That is why we have made the announcement as quickly as possible, and much quicker than at any point over the past 10 years. We will continue to work with schools to help them deliver for the children in their care. We know that that is their priority and it is our priority, too.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

For 14 years, I saw my profession treated like dirt by the Conservative party: undervalued, underpaid and undermined at every single turn. Does the Minister agree that not only should we be paying our teachers fairly, but we should be treating them with respect, and that the only decent teacher recruitment the Conservative party did was to recruit former teachers to the Labour Benches?

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend rightly remarks on his service as a teacher. It is incredibly valued. The one message we want to send to the school system is about the extent to which we value the teachers and the headteachers who support their schools to thrive, and the extent to which we support the support staff who are the beating heart of schools in every community. We will continue to do so.

Educational Opportunities in Semi-rural Areas

Chris Vince Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) for securing this important debate, which shines a light on an issue that affects my constituency.

Although Harlow itself is a built-up town, I am also proud to represent the surrounding villages of Nazeing, Roydon, Hatfield Broad Oak, Hatfield Heath and Sheering, to name just a few. These are vibrant communities, which I regularly visit through my constituency surgeries, local events and attendance at parish meetings. Time and again, I hear the same concerns: young people in semi-rural areas are being let down by barriers that limit their access to quality education.

I recognise that this Government are committed to making education an equal playing field for all, but in too many semi-rural areas there are issues that we need to address. One of the most pressing, as mentioned by other hon. Members, is transport. In urban areas, many students can walk to school, but families in villages such as Roydon or Sheering face long and often unsafe journeys. Buses are infrequent or unreliable, and parents—many of whom work full time—can spend hours each day driving their children to and from school.

One constituent, Kelly from Roydon, had to drive 30 minutes each way for the school run before heading to work. Her husband, Jason, often had to leave work early to pick the children up. That is not just inconvenient; it is a clear disadvantage, and one that working families should not be forced to bear.

Another issues I want to address, which I have seen a lot in constituency surgeries, is road safety and infrastructure. Even when children live close to school, the journey can be dangerous. Sheering Road, for example, is home to two primary schools, yet I would hesitate to call it child friendly. I have done the walk myself, and it is hair-raising at times. The road lacks the proper safety measures, and I have witnessed at first hand just how hazardous it can be for young pedestrians. School should be a place of learning, not something a child risks their safety just getting to. Poor road infrastructure also makes it harder to attract and retain talented teachers. As has been mentioned, long and difficult commutes into isolated areas are a barrier to recruitment. Without teachers, there is no education.

Beyond infrastructure there is the issue of resources. Many semi-rural schools have limited access to reliable internet and electricity, holding them back from using technology that could enrich learning. Teachers, who are the backbone of our education system—I have to say that; I used to be one—often gravitate towards schools where they are offered better salaries, career progression, housing options and transport opportunities. That makes it even more difficult for rural and semi-rural schools to retain high-quality staff.

In Harlow, 20.4% of the adult population have no formal qualifications, which is 2.2% above the national average for England and Wales. That figure should concern us all.

In conclusion, if we are truly committed to educational opportunities for all, we must invest in transport, infrastructure and digital access to attract the best teachers to every part of the country, not just our cities. No family should be disadvantaged because of where they live. Education should not be a postcode lottery. Let us work together to ensure that every child—whether they live in central Harlow or the smallest village—can reach their potential.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

I apologise; I am going to have to reduce the time limit to two minutes to try to get you all in. I would like to listen to the next speaker for hours, but he has only two minutes. I call Peter Prinsley.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Vince Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

This morning, I had the pleasure of visiting Milwards primary school, which is one of the many brilliant primary schools in my constituency. One of the main issues raised by primary schools is school readiness, which was hugely impacted by the closure of Sure Start. What are this Government doing to ensure that young people are ready for school and ready to learn?

[Stephen Morgan]

I know that my hon. Friend is a huge champion for children in his constituency. This child-centred Government want to break down the barriers to opportunity and ensure that every child gets the best start in life. That is why we are introducing a number of initiatives through our plan for change, including good-quality early education, increasing school-based nurseries and investing in other initiatives that support a child’s development.

Access to Sport: PE in Schools

Chris Vince Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) for bringing this important debate to the House. Being picked last was very much my experience of PE at school. It is interesting that the majority of people who have spoken in this debate are not very good at sport. There is a rule in the parliamentary football team that MPs have to start. I have to say that I am the footballer who has pushed that rule to its limits, leading to the question: “How quickly can we sub Chris off and bring on a better player?”

Before this debate, on the suggestion of my hon. Friend for Stafford, I reached out to some of my local schools in Harlow to hear about their good practice and to find out about some of the challenges they face. People will know that Harlow has a proud history of sporting excellence. It is the childhood town of Glenn Hoddle, the birthplace of Laura Trott—not the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott)—who is now Laura Kenny. I have to mention long-distance runner Michael Casey, because he is now a local journalist, and my sporting hero, the Paralympian Anne Strike MBE.

Two schools were very quick to get back to me about what they are doing in Harlow. I thank Luke Hammond, the PE lead from Purford Green primary school, for his quick response and what he shared from his school and the wider Passmores Co-operative Learning Community, which is a strong advocate for physical education. He told me that they have done up to 70 events in the past year alone. They purchased and lent out bikes as part of a Bikeability programme and created their own sporting event—I believe it is called tchoukball—and a dedicated festival to support SEND students to do PE, as well as a girls-only tag rugby tournament where over 150 students participated. He particularly wanted to pay tribute not just to the staff in his school, but to the staff in primary schools and schools across Harlow who work collaboratively in coalition to support one another.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) mentioned the decision by the coalition Government in 2010. I have to say that I am old enough to have been teaching at the time of that change, although I am pleased that Jerounds primary school in my constituency continues to excel in ensuring students have at least two PE lessons a week. It also invites sports- people into the school, including representatives of Essex cricket club, which we know is the best cricket team in the country—there are not enough people to boo that.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes a brilliant case for access to sport. I could challenge him on his last claim, but he is such a doughty champion for Harlow, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham), who brought us together for the debate. Does he agree that sometimes school sport can fall off when we talk about elitism, elite athletes, the Olympics and all that? Will he champion the Culture, Media and Sport Committee report that we are working on? We took evidence the other day. It is on community and school sport and the challenges facing sports clubs and under-represented groups. Schools are central to that, and as an ex-teacher, I know he will agree.

[Chris Vince]

My hon. Friend mentioned that I was a teacher before I did—oh no, I did mention it.

[Dr Huq]

You look too young!

[Chris Vince]

Thank you.

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and what is interesting from hon. Members’ contributions is that none of us particularly excel at sport—I certainly do not—but we have seen sometimes in later life how important participation in sport is. She is right that it is not just about elitist sport; we could talk about Harlow Parkrun where people come together as a community and take part in sport every Saturday morning. There are so many examples where sport does not need to be elitist. Of course we want people to excel at sport, and of course we want the next Laura Kenny or Glenn Hoddle, but we want people to enjoy sport: the impact it has on their mental health is huge. I thank my hon. Friend for the work she is doing on the Select Committee to champion that point, and I look forward to that being fed into the curriculum review.

Increased transport costs are among the biggest challenges that teachers have raised with me. For some Harlow parents struggling financially, and low-income families, transporting their children to away fixtures is just not possible.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford—and the other bits—mentioned the Lionesses. We have all been inspired by Lucy Bronze and others in that team, and young girls in Harlow have been inspired by them as well. However, many girls and young women in Harlow have to leave Harlow to go to Bishop’s Stortford, of all places, to access sport, so we clearly need to do more to ensure that sports facilities are readily available and close enough for everybody to go to them.

As someone who is not the most sporty person in the world but appreciates the value of sport, my plea to the Government is to invest in PE in our schools, because it helps develop skills such as resilience and physical and mental health, as mentioned previously. It should not be just for elite athletes; it should be for everybody to enjoy—even slightly over-the-hill former maths teachers.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Before I call the Front Benchers, it is important to put on the record that I, too, was always picked last. I call Max Wilkinson.

Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund

Chris Vince Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the fund. We will announce further details to the House in coming days and open the fund for applications as soon as possible. I will continue to work closely with my Treasury colleagues.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for coming to the House to answer the urgent question. I know from her visit to Harlow last week how much she cares about supporting young people. Having worked in the charity sector before I came to this place, I recognise that short-termism in funding for services to support vulnerable people is not a new problem. Will she confirm that the Government are committed to ensuring that adopted children are given the support they deserve?

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords]

Chris Vince Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 31st March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby]

Information on that will come out in due course, but if the right hon. Member gives me a little more time, I will be able to elaborate and respond to Members as I go.

New clauses 1 and 4 relate to the creation of Skills England and its legal status. New clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom), would require the Secretary of State to lay draft proposals for a new Executive agency, to be known as Skills England, within six months of Royal Assent. New clause 4, tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, would require the Secretary of State to establish Skills England as a statutory body.

Our position—that we establish Skills England as an Executive agency—remains extremely clear and is entirely in keeping with the usual process for establishing arm’s length bodies. The Department is complying with the robust and vigorous process for establishing Executive agencies, which applies across Government. The Executive agency model balances operational independence with proximity to Government. That is needed to inform policy and support delivery of the Government’s mission. That model enables us to move quickly, which is vital given the scale and urgency of the skills challenges that we face.

The Government have committed to reviewing Skills England between 18 and 24 months after it is set up. That will includes an assessment of whether the Executive agency model is enabling Skills England to deliver its objectives. That is consistent with good practice. Skills will power this mission-driven Government and our plan for change. Our approach means that we can get on with the job at hand: fixing the skills system and helping more people to get the training they need to build our homes, power our towns and cities with clean energy, and master new digital technologies.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for visiting the best town in England, Harlow, last week. Does she agree that this Bill will help benefit young people in my constituency and give them the skills that they need ?

[Janet Daby]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that the Bill will help young people to gain the skills that they need—in his wonderful constituency and in many other wonderful constituencies as well.

Amendment 6 tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston would frustrate the complete establishment of Skills England by delaying the transfer for a full year of the functions as set out in the Bill. Members have heard the Government set out already that delay is not an option; that has been repeatedly said. They should not just take my word for it: technology training provider QA has said that this is a pivotal moment for shaping the skills system to meet the UK’s industrial and economic needs, and it is right. The complex and fragmented nature of the skills system is contributing to critical skills gaps in our economy today: opportunities are being missed today, growth is being held back by a lack of skills today, and we cannot afford to be sluggish in our pursuit of a more joined up, data-driven approach.

In the first set of apprenticeship statistics under the new Labour Government we saw an increase in starts, participation and achievement compared with the same period under the Tories in 2023, even in the constituency of the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston. When the Conservatives were in government, starts in his constituency fell by 13%; almost 100 fewer people were starting apprenticeships on their watch. This Government marked National Apprenticeship Week with a set of reforms going further and faster on growth, whereas under his Government a third of vacancies were due to the lack of skills. We will press on.

The British Chambers of Commerce has urged us to work at pace to establish Skills England, and we are doing exactly that. Since being set up in shadow form, Skills England has got to work. It has got to work by identifying skills gaps in the economy and building relationships with strategic authorities, employers and other groups. Indeed, Skills England has worked with mayoral, strategic authorities and other forms of regional government as well as regional organisations to ensure that regional and national skills needs are met in line with the forthcoming industrial strategy. Skills England will work closely with the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council so that we have the skilled workforce needed to deliver a clear long-term plan for the future economy, and with the Migration Advisory Committee to ensure that growing the domestic skills pipeline reduces our reliance on overseas workers. Our constituents will not thank us for sticking in the slow lane. There is no need to wait another year, and we are ready to go now.

New clauses 2 and 3 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) and the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston respectively would impose a duty on the Secretary of State to publish within one year of Royal Assent reports on the impact of the Act on T-levels and higher education. Members will be aware that we have already included in the Bill a duty for the Secretary of State to report on functions transferred from the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education that will be exercised by Skills England, including their impact on technical education and apprenticeships. This report will need to be published not after a year but after six months, which is much sooner. We have therefore already made commitments to transparency in the Bill, and that was welcomed by stakeholders, including the Association of Colleges in its written evidence to the Bill Committee. We all agree that T-levels and higher education are central to fixing our skills challenges and, as I made clear in Committee, the Skills England six-month report will include necessary information on T-levels as well as technical education and apprenticeships delivered in higher education settings. The Conservative party has argued that we must avoid Skills England being overlooked and distracted from its important work. Surely, then, we should avoid forcing it to spend its first year producing more and more reports covering the same issues.

Amendments 1 and 2 were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central and by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston respectively. These amendments would also place additional reporting requirements on the Secretary of State, this time in relation to degree apprenticeships. As with T-levels and higher education, the report that the Government have committed to providing after six months will necessarily include information on apprenticeships, including degree apprenticeships. Amendment 1 is about funding for those apprenticeships. We are setting Skills England up to build the evidence and the partnerships needed to deliver change, but policy and funding decisions on skills provisions will not sit with Skills England; they will continue to sit with the Secretary of State. That is entirely right and appropriate, and nothing in the Bill changes that. We will set out more information on level 7 apprenticeships in due course.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Chris Vince Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I do, and my right hon. Friend gives me two valuable opportunities. The first is to pay tribute to the great Tim Leunig. We do not often talk about him in this House. He has friends here, and he is a perceptive thinker. I will look up his article.

The other opportunity that my right hon. Friend gives me is to highlight the discrepancy we can get when things appear to be getting better, when in fact they are not. That is what happened under the last Labour Government when, in spite of us falling down the international comparisons, they managed to find 11 different ways in the system to make it look like our GCSE results were improving year after year. We do not want that to happen again. There were those champions in the new Labour years who made these great reforms happen and would want to continue them now, so I say to those on the Government Benches: where are the champions today? Where are those in the modern Labour party who will say, “No, we will not be bound by ideology. We are going to do what is in the best interests of the children”? I hope there will be some of those champions in the other place.

To be fair, I was mildly encouraged this morning to hear the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, when questioned on the radio about the fate of this Bill, appearing to be somewhat open-minded, shall we say, about what might happen. To be fair, I have even been slightly encouraged listening to the Secretary of State for Education in recent days and weeks. She has sounded like she might be a little bit open to rowing back from some of the worst excesses of this legislation. There is still time. There will be weeks of this legislation being considered in the other place, so I just ask the Government to please take that time to think carefully about the legacy they will be leaving and to turn those words into deeds.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Ministers for their contributions. It is an honour to have an opportunity to speak on behalf of my constituents and my former colleagues in the teaching profession on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Quality of teaching is the single biggest driver of standards in schools. The Bill will ensure that all teachers have or are working towards qualified teacher status. As a former teacher, I welcome that.

It is fair to say from the chuntering I have been doing from this Bench that I feel passionately about education. I find it difficult, listening to Opposition Members—I recognise that they generally care passionately about education, but sadly my experience of teaching under their Government was different from how they describe it. I once again ask the Minister to recognise that she is inheriting a workforce in the education system that is absolutely at rock bottom.

Let me stress, however—I want to make this clear to Conservative Members—that I put the wellbeing and education of children above any politics. When I talk about the education of young people, I talk not just about examinations but what is described in the teaching profession as the hidden curriculum: important life skills. Indeed, I became quite animated when a month ago, on this very spot, I spoke in a debate about the importance of financial education.

As I have said, for me a well-qualified teacher is one who still takes a joy in education that has not been sucked out of him by the endless barrage of comments in the press, and, I must add, a revolving door of Conservative Education Secretaries, although I should offer an olive branch to the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds)—[Interruption.] I was about to say something nice about the right hon. Gentleman.

[Damian Hinds]

Carry on, then!

[Chris Vince]

I was going to say that he was probably one of the better ones.

I should also recognise, as should we all, that the young people who are going through the education system now have been impacted negatively by something even worse than a Conservative Government, namely the terrible pandemic. We know that they are less resilient. We also know that more and more young people are having to be carers for their parents and other family members and loved ones. Members will be aware that I am very passionate about this subject, and I thank the Minister and other Members for attending and contributing to my Westminster Hall debate on it last Thursday. On average, young carers are likely to miss more school than their peers, and I welcome the proposal in the Bill to record absences to ensure that no young people fall through the gaps, including those who are home educated.

I said earlier that I did not want to be too political about this. I went through the education process and became a teacher because of Sir Tony Blair’s remark about “education, education, education”. When he said that teaching was a valuable and noble profession, I thought, “He’s right: it is.” The former Member of Parliament for Surrey Heath did not put it in quite the same way when he said that most teachers were letting young people down.

I want to say something about reform, and to move away from the ideological politics of reform. Sometimes reform is good, sometimes it is bad, and sometimes good reform is bad because of the way in which it is implemented. As a former teacher, I can assure the House that telling a student that they are not doing a very good job does not make them do a better job. When we are considering reform in education, it is hugely important that we take educationists, teachers and support staff along with us, and that, I am afraid, is something that I do not think the last Government did. I believe that the Bill returns us to the original purpose of academies: to share best practice and encourage collaboration in the best interests of children.

I was told that I must talk about the amendments and new clauses, so let me briefly speak in support of Government amendment 156, which focuses on the importance of ensuring that every school is run by a “fit and proper person”, which I think we would all agree is a no-brainer. I also want to refer to—I cannot find the right page in my speech—

[Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend accept an intervention?

[Chris Vince]

I will!

[Tim Roca]

At several points today, we have been transported by Conservative Members to the educational nirvana that supposedly existed under the Tory Government. That is not the memory I have, or the memory that many parents and children have. They, I think, remember the real-terms funding cuts that happened for much of the last 14 years, increasing class sizes, the millions of days lost to industrial action by unions who were fed up with the hectoring nature of previous Conservative Governments, and the 11% of children who were going hungry compared with the 8% OECD average. PISA rankings are all very well and good, but PISA scores were going down; they were just not going down as fast as those in other countries.

[Chris Vince]

I thank my hon. Friend for painting a better picture than the one painted by Conservative Members.

Shortly after the election, in August, I met a couple of former teacher colleagues who were still in the profession, and they just looked broken. It was really difficult to see, because they have been maths teachers for a long period of time. When I first became a teacher, they inspired me to persevere, to reflect on the bad days and to have better lessons. To see them so fed up and so disenchanted with being a teacher was really difficult, and we have to change that. I emphasise again to the Minister that it is really important that we ensure that we support teachers’ mental health. I was going to intervene on the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) to ask him whether he recognises that happy and supported teachers lead to happy and supported young people, which is really important.

[Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Vince]

I will not.

I will briefly mention Government amendments 166 and 167, which talk about data protection never getting in the way of safeguarding. One of my most difficult days as a teacher—the House will be pleased to know that it has nothing to do with the Conservative Government—was when a young person in my class came to me at the end of a lesson and said those terrible words that every teacher dreads: “I need to tell you something.” Despite my explaining to her that it could not be confidential, she made a disclosure—I will not go into it, obviously—and then begged me not to tell anyone, which is not an option for teachers or anyone in a similar position. It was heartbreaking to see how upset she was, but I reported it in the correct and proper way. Clearly, safeguarding is really important, and all professionals—not just those in education—who work with young people take it very seriously. General data protection regulation, or myths about GDPR and data sharing, should not get in the way of ensuring that our young people are safe in education and outside it.

I will finish on a lighter note, because I appreciate that I have got a little bit deep. The right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) discussed the educational merits of having an ice cream. I say to him that 1/3πr²h is the volume of a cone.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) for schooling me in maths—I am not very good at that.

I begin by expressing my strong support for the Bill, particularly its efforts to enhance child protection and ensure better collaboration between professionals involved in children’s care. I welcome the measures in part 2 that seek to harmonise admissions and provide cost of living support for families, especially those from deprived backgrounds.

Parents whose children are in state-funded education deserve transparency. They should have access to clear information about their child’s education and be assured that schools and trusts are operating fairly, and I look forward to measures coming forward that are not in the Bill but which will really make a difference for children, such as the child poverty strategy, the SEND review and the curriculum review. However, there is one part of this Bill that I believe needs to be amended: the level of unnecessary scrutiny that is being imposed on parents who choose to home-educate their children. Rather than protecting them, elements of the proposed register risk putting such families in danger.

Let me be clear: I support the principle of the register. As corporate parents, local authorities need to know where children are if they are not attending school. Collecting some information and the reasons for elective home education is important, not only for child protection but so that authorities can plan for the future. We know that some children who are home-educated later return to school, and many parents make this choice because local education provision does not meet their child’s needs, either temporarily or permanently. That presents an opportunity for local authorities and multi-academy trusts to work collaboratively with families to ensure that curricula and school offerings are inclusive of their needs.

However, proposed new section 436C of the Education Act 1996, which governs the content and maintenance of the home education register, contains provisions that could have serious unintended safeguarding consequences, as suggested by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed). Under proposed new section 434A, in clause 25, the local authority must serve notice to both parents “unless exceptional circumstances apply”—for instance, in cases of domestic abuse or family estrangement. Yet proposed new section 436C, in clause 26, requires the register to include the name and home address of the child, both parents’ names and addresses, and the addresses of all places where education takes place. Crucially, there is no provision for exceptions in cases where sharing this information could put children at risk.