Education Recovery

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

I shall try to be brief to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) to take part in the debate. Also, we all clearly want to see whether football is still coming home.

I start by taking the opportunity to put on record how grateful I am to all the teachers, headteachers and support staff, especially those in Radcliffe, Whitefield and Prestwich in my constituency. Ministers and Department for Education staff have also worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic, especially in my constituency, which has over 50 educational institutions.

I echo many of the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the Chairman of the Education Committee, of which I am a proud member. He set out in his opening speech a wide range of the issues that are involved. I know how difficult it is to launch into the estimates day debate after having to introduce it last year in my right hon. Friend’s absence.

The Department for Education has a special responsibility to improve the life chances of all children in our country and to ensure that the most disadvantaged children reach their fullest potential. I have always argued that our education system plays a major role in the growth and progress of our society. It is the engine of our economy, the foundation of our culture and essential preparation for adult life.

Over the past 12 months, the Government have provided more than £3 billion in funding to tackle the devastating effects of lockdown on children’s education and wellbeing. I particularly welcome the Government’s national tutoring programme, which will provide 100 million hours of tutoring for five to 19-year-olds by 2025. That is exactly the sort of Government scheme that the country needs to ensure that our disadvantaged children receive the adequate support they need to catch up on what they have missed due to covid.

The national tutoring programme will be important for constituencies such as mine because Bury South is in the top 40% of constituencies with the greatest literacy need. Indeed, a third of the wards in my constituency are among the highest ranking in the country in terms of literacy needs.

My colleagues and I on the Education Committee have maintained that support should focus on closing that advantage gap and ensuring that those left-behind pupils, who have suffered enormously during covid-19, can catch up. I repeat my request to the Minister to meet me and providers from the NTP to ensure that everyone can take part in the scheme, especially those who specialise in online training.

The Department concluded last autumn that all year groups had experienced a learning loss in reading. In primary schools, that loss has averaged between 1.7 and two months. That was before the second and third lockdowns, so it is safe to assume that the position has worsened since then. We can only expect the level of need to have increased and we really need to take that seriously.

Furthermore, children with poor language skills at the age of five are more likely to experience social, emotional and behavioural difficulties later in life. Early language skills are therefore a crucial determinant of later success. Initial data from the second lockdown shows that any progress that was made when schools could open in the autumn was lost when they closed to key workers and vulnerable children in the winter. I am most concerned about the regional variation in the figures, with the north-east and the east midlands being worst affected and the north-west very close behind.

The new decade will be challenging indeed. Although the ambition of an education recovery plan is a good start, we need a long-term plan to tackle the attainment gap and falling literacy rates. I look forward to continuing to scrutinise the plans both in my role on the Education Committee and as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on literacy. We are keen to come up with viable solutions to address the severe effect of covid-19 on our children and young people. That should start now.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

The clock is not going on for you, Mr Gibson, but please be seated by 4.53 pm.