Free School Meals: Summer Holidays

Debate between Clive Efford and Rebecca Long Bailey

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

The Secretary of State has his first volunteer to provide targeted tuition for pupils come September. I look forward to seeing the hon. Gentleman in the classroom once again. I am sure that Members across the House agree that safety has to be the No. 1 priority, and I know that that view is shared by the Secretary of State. We have to work across the House, and the Government really need to start pushing the boundaries and creating a taskforce, with experts, teaching unions and school leaders, to look at how we can safely get children back into school. That will be the best place for them—emotionally and academically—but it is not a trade-off between safety and being back in school. We need to achieve both.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

What we do not need from the Government is another rabbit-out-of-the-hat announcement. My hon. Friend has just set out the sorts of things that we need in place if we are going to reopen schools in September, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) just suggested. That would require the Government to set out a plan now and to start to engage with teachers’ unions, teachers themselves, heads of schools, local authorities and parents to create confidence that it is safe to send children back to school. That is what is lacking from the Government; they need to engage more widely if we are going to create the confidence that children can return safely.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. This is about assuring parents, teachers, school staff, pupils and wider communities about safety, and ensuring that we get children back into school in a very safe way. To do that, we have to have a consensus, which is why I have repeatedly called for the creation of a taskforce to bring together all those in the education sector to come up with the safety principles that need to be put in place in schools to ensure their safe reopening, and to produce a national plan for education so that pupils receive the emotional and academic support that they deserve.

Let me turn to additional support measures. I would like the Secretary of State to look at future GCSEs and A-levels, and to have discussions with Ofqual about changes to account for the work that has been lost during this period in order to provide a fair assessment of young people’s attainment. We also need provisions in the event that there is a second spike resulting in pupils being sent back home and being unable to take exams in the usual way.