Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Damian Hinds Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Patience is a virtue, and as we have made up time, the final Back-Bench speaker will get five minutes. I call Damian Hinds.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to have heard the last few speeches, which made very important points, but even with five minutes, time is still short for me. I will speak briefly about a couple of aspects of social media and mobile phones.
On social media, let us get on with it. We have had this issue come back from the Lords multiple times, and we can do this. There is a glaring logical flaw at the heart of the Government’s argument for not taking action—we have also heard it from a bunch of Labour MPs today—which is, “We can’t do this one thing, because there are some other things we could do as well.” That just does not hold water. All those other things—around gaming, other types of applications, chatbots, addictive features and so on—could be additive to a ban on social media for children under the age of 16. They would still, by the way, be very relevant to child safety. I remind the House that our duty to children extends to those aged up to 18, as per the Children Act 1989 and our commitments to the United Nations.
There are issues to resolve about a ban—exactly where the lines should be drawn; exactly what is in and what is out—and yes, of course, the Government have to consult on those issues, but they do not need to consult further on the principle of whether the country and the House of Commons want a ban on young people under the age of 16 accessing social media, a conclusion that so many other countries are also coming to.
On mobile phones, throughout the progress of the Bill, I have found a remarkable contrast. The Government said for so long that they would not ban phones in schools because there should be some discretion for headteachers, but they are going to tell them precisely how many items of branded school uniform they are allowed to specify, and will tell them that in secondary schools that could include a tie, but in primary schools, for some bizarre reason, it cannot.
I am pleased that the Government have partly seen the light. The Minister, whom we all like and respect, said last week that the problem had already been solved—and presumably it has now been re-solved, as the Government have come back to the issue—but I have to say that that is not what children say. What children tell us, both informally and when they are answering surveys about the actual use of mobile phones in schools, is how often lessons get interrupted, teachers are filmed, and bullying and other stuff happens at break times and lunchtimes. We need to act. Of course, there can be individual exceptions for those using assistive and adaptive technology, for young carers, and for others, but the one exception that we must not have is on the type of ban.
The critical question is about having a policy of “not seen, not heard”. Every school in the country, pretty much, already has at least that, but I am afraid that it is not effective as a ban. If you have this thing in your pocket, or in your bag at your foot, it is still there, and you feel its presence. If it vibrates, you might actually feel it, physically; but even if you do not, you feel that compulsion towards it. The only way to make a school truly free of the scourge of mobile phones is to have them away from the child. The “not seen, not heard” approach does not work.
The main argument for saying that we have to allow “not seen, not heard” is about cost. I understand that. Pouches, which a couple of colleagues have mentioned, do have a cost, but we do not have to do pouches. There are other ways of doing this. I mentioned the Petersfield school in my constituency, which has a phones-away-from-children ban, and which uses a simple device—a plastic box that can be purchased in most large-format Swedish retailers. That is locked away in a cupboard, along with a number of other boxes, until the end of the day. The biggest cost has been the foam inserts, with numbered slots in which each child puts their phone, but the sum total cost is very reasonable.
I want to answer the hon. Member for Banbury (Sean Woodcock), who is no longer with us, so to speak. He asked why had we not taken this measure when we were in government. That is a perfectly reasonable question. There are two reasons: first, the issue has become more acute; and, secondly, the attitude of headteachers. It has changed. We have gone from headteachers and their representative bodies saying, “The best way for you to support me in this school is not to impose a national ban,” to them saying the exact opposite—that the best way to support schools and headteachers is to have a ban written into law.
Damian Hinds
I think that would try Madam Deputy Speaker’s patience. Today is the day that we can take action on those two points.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
It is true that the effects of the falling birth rate have been felt most so far in places such as Hackney, but it is coming to many more places, and the effect will be felt in a much more magnified way, particularly in small rural schools. Does the Secretary of State accept that the funding formula will have to change away from being so heavily reliant on a per capita amount, so as to support our small rural schools?
Bridget Phillipson
The right hon. Gentleman is right in saying that while falling rolls present a particularly pronounced challenge in London, we are seeing the issue right across the country. We will work with the sector to develop a framework for the use of mainstream school space, including pressures such as demographic change, and we intend to publish that in the autumn. I note the point that he makes about small rural schools. We want to make sure that those schools can support their local communities, and we will keep under review all the funding that we operate to ensure that that is a reality.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Damian Hinds Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Olivia Bailey
I am in the middle of responding to the previous intervention; Members might just want to wait one moment. In all good faith, I have looked in great detail at the problem with why these policies in schools were not being enforced properly. It was a question of weak guidance, and the schools therefore not enforcing that guidance properly. Ofsted is now enforcing that, and teams of people are supporting schools to implement it. I have been clear that if the consultation says that a statutory ban is the silver bullet that will solve the problem, then of course we will do it, but in my honest view, we have already solved the problem of banning phones in schools.
Olivia Bailey
I will make some progress.
This Bill is something that only a Labour Government—[Interruption.] I will give way because the right hon. Gentleman is looking so aggrieved.
Damian Hinds
I think I just heard the Minister say, “We have already solved this problem.” I do not know if any other colleagues heard that. She said that she has written to every headteacher in the country, and it is absolutely the right thing to be in contact with them. Has she heard back from any headteachers or headteacher representative bodies, who say that this ban would be so much more straightforward if it were written into law, because of the difficulties that arise with a minority of parents? Headteachers say how much easier it would be for their school and their authority in their school if this ban were written into law.
Olivia Bailey
It seems to me that the Conservatives have just had their fingers in their ears and have been ignoring the wide range of steps that this Government have taken to address this issue. [Interruption.] We have recently changed your weak guidance—
Peter Prinsley
I agree that we must hold the tech companies to account; they are the ones in control of the situation.
The amendment proposes a higher standard—not simply “reasonable steps”, but highly effective age assurance, and that is meaningfully different. We have heard about movement internationally. France and Spain are taking similar steps, and others are following. We ought to be part of the broader shift in how Governments are approaching online safety for children. Also, this cannot just be about restrictions; of course, there is a role for education. Children need to understand the online environment that they are engaging with, particularly when it comes to the algorithms, data and content driven by artificial intelligence.
We have heard about the consultation, and I support it in principle, but the scale of the issue is already well evidenced. There is a question about what additional insights small trials would realistically add, given the body of research that already exists.
Damian Hinds
There are unanswered questions about definitions, what should be in and what should be out, and exactly where the boundary lines are. Parents sometimes talk about social media in a way that professionals might not; parents might exclude certain messaging apps, for example. There are questions to be resolved, but the Government consultation is not just about that; it is about the “whether”, as well as the “how”. By all means, let us consult to get those technical points right, so that the measures are bullet-proof and future-proof, but today is the day that we could say, like those other countries did, “We are doing this. We are going to protect our children—and yes, there is still work to be done on exactly how that will fall out.” Does the hon. Gentleman agree?
Peter Prinsley
I understand exactly what the hon. Member says.
My position is this: I support the Government, and I support the Bill, but I think the House should take very seriously what the Lords have asked us to consider. If the Government are not minded to accept the amendment as it stands, I believe there is a strong case for them to bring forward their own proposal to achieve the same outcome clearly and in a timely fashion. Ultimately, this is about setting the right boundaries for children in a digital world that is evolving quickly. There is a clear expectation, inside and outside this House, that we must act.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Bridget Phillipson)
Last month, the independent curriculum and assessment review published its final report, and I would like to reiterate my thanks to Professor Becky Francis and the panel for all their work. We will reform progress 8 to balance a strong academic core with breadth and student choice, so that every child can both achieve academically and thrive personally, and we will consult on this shortly.
Damian Hinds
Professor Francis was clear that the EBacc grouping should be kept in the progress 8 measure under the heading “Academic Breadth”. The Government have overruled the review, which is quite a big thing to do. The Secretary of State herself used to be a student of modern languages. Have they learned nothing from their terrible error in 2004, or what does she have today against modern languages and humanities?
Bridget Phillipson
I do love modern languages, and I was a very keen student of them myself, but I am afraid that, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, the EBacc did not drive improved access to modern foreign languages. He knows that—he will have looked at the data. I do not think that the system as it stands provides the right balance: it unnecessarily constrains student choice, it affects students’ engagement, and it has hampered progress in subjects that strengthen our economy and society. I believe in high standards, strong foundations and academic achievement, but I also believe that access to music, sport and vocational subjects should be the right of every child, not just the lucky few.
Josh MacAlister
Strengthening our child protection system is a key priority for this Government. Very soon we will bring forward plans for the child protection authority. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill contains a number of measures that would make a big difference to the safety of children across the UK, although those measures are unfortunately being blocked and frustrated by colleagues in other corners of this House.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
There is nowhere in the DFE budget from which £6 billion could possibly come other than the core schools budget, so either SEN funding is being cut, the core schools budget is being cut—that implies 5% per head—or the Secretary of State has an explicit agreement with the Chancellor for the money to come from somewhere else, or from new taxes. Which is it?
Bridget Phillipson
It is not coming from the core schools budget—I could not be more clear. It will come from across Government budgets, and it is a matter for the next spending review. [Interruption.] It is! Alongside that, we will set out reforms in the new year to improve outcomes for children with SEND—something that the right hon. Member and the Conservative party failed to do over 14 years. They should hang their heads in shame at what they left behind.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Damian Hinds Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to see you presiding, Ms Barker. This has been a good debate, and very good points have been made by hon. Members on all sides, including the hon. Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon), who has just spoken. This is a rare and important opportunity to talk about the vital role of hospital schools.
I do not intend to go through every measure in this Bill in detail; we did that at Committee stage, and I took that opportunity to go through many of its measures then. However, I will make a few broad observations about it. First, there are things in this Bill that we like. There are things in this Bill that were in the Conservatives’ earlier Bill, and we should all welcome some of the moves on, for example, multi-agency safeguarding, the expansion of the role of virtual school heads, and so on. Let us be clear—and Ministers, I am sure, will not try to say this today—that if the Government say that they want to withdraw the Bill, it does not mean that they do not like any aspect in it. Ministers are in charge of the Parliamentary timetable and are perfectly capable of withdrawing a Bill, noting that it is nicely set out in discrete units, and coming back the next day or the next week with a better Bill that does not include the bad bits and but does include the good bits.
To be clear, there are many things in the Bill that it would be better to be rid of. It is, I am afraid, a mix of trying to fix problems that do not exist; some retail offers, at least one of which is set to backfire with significant long-term consequences; an over-invasive approach to parents exercising their right, and thereby often giving up a great deal personally, to home educate; and worst, an attack on the school freedoms that have underpinned the great performance improvements that we have seen in schools in England over the last decade.
Let us remind ourselves what that record is. Our primary school readers are now the best in the western world. At secondary, our performance has improved from 27th to 11th in maths and from 25th to 13th in reading. The attainment gap has narrowed, and children eligible for free school meals are now 50% more likely to go to university than they were in 2010. What drove that improvement? It was standards and quality; brilliant teachers with autonomy and accountability; a knowledge-rich curriculum and proven methods, such as synthetic phonics and maths mastery; and a system in which schools learned from schools, with a hub-and-spoke network for different subjects and disciplines. But most of all, it was about academy trusts, where schools could learn from one another.
We knew that that system would drive up standards only if it also ensured diversity and parental choice. People need clear information, which is why Ofsted reports are so important, and why Progress 8 replaced the previous, contextual value-added measure, as a much better way of measuring children’s progress at school. That choice is necessary, which is why academies and free schools were at the heart of our approach.
I am sad to say that, all the while, there was what statisticians call a natural experiment going on. While those reforms were being pursued in England, in other nations of the United Kingdom—in Scotland and particularly in Wales—they were not. If anybody doubts the benefit of these reforms, they have only to look at the comparative results of the different nations of the United Kingdom.
The Government have already stopped new free schools, and this Bill stops more schools getting academy freedoms and erodes the freedoms of existing academies. I have said that the Bill seeks to fix problems that do not exist, and there is no evidence that academies pay teachers less than other types of schools, yet we have these new rules on the statutory pay and conditions framework. There is no evidence that there are armies of unqualified teachers marching through our schools. The proportion of teachers in our schools who are not qualified today is 3.1%. Can you guess what it was in 2010, when the Government changed, Ms Barker? It was 3.2%. There are good reasons to have unqualified staff in school sometimes. Then there is the national curriculum. Schools are already obliged to follow a broad and balanced curriculum, and they get measured on that by Ofsted, yet we now have a requirement in primary legislation to slavishly follow the detail of the national curriculum in its entirety, thereby removing the opportunity for any innovation and differentiation.
Alongside that, the Government have abandoned the EBacc, they are unpicking Progress 8 and, in parallel, they have moved the standard-setting function in technical and vocational education from an independent institute to a body that was first inside the Department for Education and then, inexplicably, moved into the Department for Work and Pensions.
Will the Government meet their targets? Of course they will, because they are in charge of deciding what counts as meeting the target. We saw that the last time Labour were in government, with the famous “five or more GCSEs at grade C or above”. I counted 11 ways in which that statistic was massaged so that every year it looked like the results were getting better and better, when all the while we were tumbling down the international tables comparing attainment at school, and not only in the PISA results. The OECD survey of young adults’ skills looks at countries across the OECD, and we were the only country in that survey where the literacy and numeracy of young adults who had newly left school were worse than those of the generation about to retire.
At least at that time, the then new Labour Government talked about academic excellence. Now, such talk is out of fashion, because it is believed that striving for excellence is somehow elitist. It is not—striving for academic excellence in state schools is the very opposite of elitism. It is what allows children and people from ordinary families to get on a level playing field with those who are in the elite. I say to Ministers, “Please, please don’t undo the progress of the last decade and a half”—some of which, by the way, built on what their predecessors did in the new Labour Government.
Damian Hinds
I am coming very close to the end of my speech, and I think Ms Barker would want me to continue to allow for more speakers.
Liam Conlon
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that what has not been conducive to education and preparing children for the best start in life, as I have heard from primary school teachers across my constituency, is the decimation of Sure Start, which provided children with the best start in life?
Damian Hinds
I am so pleased that the hon. Gentleman asked me about that, because it is one of the great slogans of his party. One of my favourite statistics, however—people can look it up; it is available in an official publication—is that there were more children’s centres open in this country when I was Secretary of State for Education than in any year that Tony Blair was Prime Minister. The fact is that from 2008 to 2010, under Gordon Brown, there was a massive explosion in the number of things called a “Sure Start centre”. Basically, people could go to any old building, stick a sign on it that said “Sure Start” with a rainbow, and that became a Sure Start centre.
The Education Committee, which is a non-partisan Committee of this House, conducted an inquiry in about 2011 or 2012 looking at Sure Start. We tried in chapter one to define what a Sure Start centre was, but we could not, because there was no actual design. One Sure Start centre that we visited had no children at all in it; some centres were fully fledged nurseries, family centres—you name it. There is very important work to be done with family hubs and other programmes. When we were in government, we made a huge increase in entitlements to early years education and childcare, which was a good thing to do.
Ms Barker, I said that I would finish shortly, and I will. I say to Ministers that they should please come back with a Bill that can achieve widespread support, but that does not include these damaging measures that will undermine and harm education and opportunity.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms Barker. I thank the Petitions Committee for granting this important debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for so ably opening the debate. I pay tribute to the approximately 166,500 people who have signed this petition, including the 184 in my constituency.
There is much in this Bill that many of us can agree on, especially in part 1. During its passage there was cross-party support for the measures in part 1 to ensure that the Government go further in safeguarding and promoting the wellbeing of our children. Part 1 also includes the proposals for a single unique identifier, and I say to hon. Members concerned about it that I do not think it is the precursor to digital ID for our children. If hon. Members look at Professor Jay’s report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, one of the biggest issues in the system—as I heard when I met her earlier this year—is the lack of data sharing between different service providers, such as health, the police and social services.
Some of the young women and girls who were victims of grooming gangs across the country were regularly turning up in hospitals with sexually transmitted diseases, but that data was not being married up with what the police and social services were seeing. If data had been better shared, those issues might have been picked up. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health strongly supports a single unique identifier for the same reason.
I fully agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) that there are concerns about data sharing, data security and privacy that need to be tackled, and they were explored in detail in the Bill Committee, particularly by the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). Whether it is the NHS number or a different single unique identifier, however, it is an important provision for safeguarding our children and ensuring that we can better research their needs and commission services to meet them.
As a number of Members have mentioned, part 2 of the Bill feels a bit muddled, particularly the clauses that deal with academies, and in a number of cases it puts the cart before the horse. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire looks back at the last decade of Conservative Governments with rose-tinted glasses, but I gently remind him—
Munira Wilson
David Laws was not in government for the last decade of Conservative Governments; he was there for the first five years and he did some excellent things, not least introducing the pupil premium. I would say, however, that Conservative Governments left us with crumbling schools that are unable to hire specialist teachers, a crisis in special educational needs provision, and a huge problem with persistent absence.
Given those major issues in our education system, I am not quite sure why the Government have chosen to tinker with academies and governance arrangements as their priority for education policy, when there is limited evidence to suggest that a mixed economy of governance arrangements in our school system is posing a major problem. With the promised schools White Paper hopefully being revealed in the new year, although I think it has been delayed twice already, there is a question as to whether part 2 of the Bill was somewhat premature. I am increasingly wondering whether the Government feel the same way, given that the Bill keeps being delayed in the other place. By the time the Bill returns to the House of Commons, it will have been well over a year since it was first introduced.
When the Bill Committee consulted education leaders in January, the one strong message that came through was about how the Government went about drafting part 2 of the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross set out, it was done with limited consultation and showed a lack of coherent vision for the school system; there was no White Paper and no consultation of those on the frontline or in leadership positions across the sector.
That lack of coherent vision and joined-up thinking seems to be a recurring theme for this Labour Government. They introduced free breakfast clubs, but they are not funding them properly. They have capped the number of school uniform items to three, but that will actually risk further inflating prices for hard-pressed families. They have proposed broadening the curriculum, which is something we welcome, and the Bill will make that statutory for all academies, but they have failed to set out the funds or a plan to recruit the necessary teachers to deliver it. During the Bill’s passage, they voted against Liberal Democrat proposals to widen eligibility for free school meals, but they subsequently decided to copy the policy and announced that they will introduce it next year.
Throughout the passage of the Bill, the Liberal Democrats have sought to engage constructively with the Government by tabling amendments and new clauses that aim to improve the Bill and to address some of the concerns raised by the petition that we are discussing today. Given that the Government have already copied at least one of our policies, I hope that the new Minister, who is here today, might listen to some other good ideas in my speech and in the other place.
There is a real fear that this legislation, which is seeking to safeguard children who go missing from education, will over-police home educators, most of whom are doing a great job. I have been very clear at every stage of the Bill—I think there was cross-party support for this—that the Liberal Democrats strongly support having a register of children not in school to ensure that vulnerable children do not simply disappear from the system. We also strongly support the right of parents to choose to home educate, where that is the best option for their child.
In oral evidence to the Bill Committee, however, even the Association of Directors of Children’s Services was circumspect about the vast amount of detailed information that the Bill will expect home educating parents to supply. That level of detail risks becoming intrusive and unnecessary. Many home educators choose to home educate their children not because they want to but because they feel forced to. There is a crisis in our special needs system, and so much special needs provision just does not meet the needs of those children, forcing many parents to give up work so that they can home educate their child. By virtue of their child’s need, parents tend to be much more flexible in how they home educate, but the very onerous reporting mechanisms will interfere with the flexibility that parents need to provide for their children.
I tabled various amendments to try to pare back the burdensome nature of the register, as set out in the Bill. One amendment called for, at the very least, a review of the register’s impact on home educators to be carried out within six months, to ensure that only reporting requirements that are strictly necessary for safeguarding purposes are retained. We also tabled an amendment that would have removed the requirement for parents and carers of children in special schools to secure local authority consent to home educate. Furthermore, we proposed that home educated children should not be excluded from national examinations because of financial or capacity constraints.
Sadly, the Government voted down all our amendments, but I encourage the new Minister to give serious consideration to relevant amendments tabled in the other place, because we must do more if we genuinely want to extend opportunity to every child. Our SEND system is letting down many children, and it is allowing a number of organisations with bad intentions to exploit the market failure in the system. I am talking about private-equity-run special school providers, which are making exorbitant profits, as they have with children’s homes. They are exploiting the lack of provision to hold local authorities and parents to ransom.
The latest revelation in the Budget is that the Government will absorb the costs of SEND provision from local authorities, and the projected £6 billion black hole only strengthens the need to start capping the profits of private special schools. The Bill already makes provision to cap the profits of the same companies that are running children’s care homes and fostering agencies, so I again ask the Minister to consider introducing the measure so that no child is left waiting because of a lack of resource, given that local authorities are being bled dry.
While I am talking about children being left waiting, I encourage the Minister to look at another Liberal Democrat proposal to automatically enrol every eligible child for free school meals, so that no one misses out on a hot, healthy meal. Durham county council, under its previous Liberal Democrat-led administration, auto-enrolled 2,500 children, whose schools benefited from an additional £3 million in pupil premium funding.
It is not too late for the Minister to improve the Bill, which I do not believe needs to be withdrawn wholesale. Instead, with the help of the other place, it can be amended so that there is a strong foundation to improve safeguarding for our children and strengthen provision for them in our schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Olivia Bailey)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Barker. I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for introducing this excellent debate on a landmark Bill. I thank all colleagues for their contributions, and all those in the Public Gallery who have signed the petition, particularly Michelle and Addison, who have been mentioned by my colleagues.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) reminded us at the start of this debate—quite nicely, I thought—that we all share the same ambition to try to ensure that our children are safe and get the very best start in life. I thought that was an excellent way to start this debate.
The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) told us that home educators are often misunderstood. I wanted to start by referencing that directly, because he is right that the vast majority of home educators are doing it in the best interests of their children—the Government and I absolutely recognise that home educators are doing it with the best interests of their children in mind—but he explicitly stated that we are taking away that option, and he was wrong to do so. That is categorically not what this Government are doing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon) shared his personal experience. As the Minister responsible for bullying and behaviour, I would say he is also right to say that he should not wind up the year below! He rightly spoke about the importance of supporting children before those settings, using his own experience powerfully. I thank all the staff of the hospital schools he mentioned today—Royal London hospital, Bethlem Royal hospital, King’s College hospital and the PRUH. I would also like to give him the reassurance he seeks on the risk of bureaucratic, burdensome reporting requirements on home educating families. The Government are determined to ensure that there are no unduly burdensome requirements on home educating families.
Later in my speech, I will address some of the more substantive points that have been made in the debate. As we have heard, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is a wide-ranging piece of legislation, but at its heart, it is about protecting children and ensuring that they have the best possible education. It is also rightly described as the biggest single piece of safeguarding legislation for a generation. As we have heard today, the measures in the Bill cover four broad areas: easing the cost of living for parents, supporting children in care, keeping all children safe, and driving the best possible standards in our schools. I will expand on each of those points in turn.
First, the Bill puts more money back into parents’ pockets at a time when all of us are feeling the impact of the cost of living. Introducing free breakfast clubs in all state-funded primary schools will save families up to £450 a year and drive improvements in behaviour and attendance. The claim made by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) that we are not properly funding breakfast clubs is inaccurate. We have deliberately adopted a test-and-learn approach with breakfast clubs. In the first phase, we learned from schools, and in the second phase we have increased funding for breakfast clubs for the average school by 28%.
Damian Hinds
As a simple, comparative piece of maths, if the Minister is saying that breakfast clubs will save families £450 a year, how much money is the Department for Education providing to the school to provide that breakfast?
Olivia Bailey
As the right hon. Gentleman will be well aware, the breakfast club represents 30 minutes of free childcare, as well as a healthy breakfast. That is how we calculated the estimated cost savings for families. We have also increased the funding for schools, as I have just said, having learned from headteachers and schools, which has been widely welcomed.
We are also limiting the number of branded uniform items a school can require, a measure that could save some parents up to £50 per child during the back-to-school shop. Together, these measures could save up to £500 per child per year. The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) asked about school uniform costs. I would like to take the opportunity to clarify this point: we are introducing the policy deliberately because we need to reduce costly expectations on parents in this challenging time for the cost of living. There will be three branded items that schools may use as they see fit. The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East mentioned sports clubs, and the Government are taking a common-sense approach here. If, for example, a school wants to loan some pupils its uniform or whatever it may be, it will be able to do that, as long as it is not a requirement for the child to wear it. We are taking a common-sense approach here, but it is important that we set out clearly that there are three branded items.
Olivia Bailey
I am very happy to write to the hon. Gentleman and set that out in detail, but let me try again. There will be a requirement for three branded items. That is the maximum that schools can require. They can choose where they would like to allocate those branded items, whether that be in the main school uniform or for PE. If a child joined a football team, for which the kit is not part of the three required items, then as long as the school does not require the pupil to wear that kit, they may, for example, provide a loan or say that they could buy it. I hope that clarifies the point.
Damian Hinds
The Minister says that the limit is three items, but actually, the limit is three in primary school, while I believe it is four in secondary school—she will correct me if I am wrong—so long as the fourth is a tie. Can she tell me for what reason a fourth is not allowed in primary school, if the fourth is a tie?
Olivia Bailey
I shall write to the right hon. Gentleman in extreme clarity on that point.
Secondly, the Bill’s children’s social care reforms will shift the system away from increasing reliance on residential provision, towards stronger early intervention and prevention. We want to keep families together as much as possible and, where children cannot remain at home, we want to support them to live with kinship carers or in foster families. Children’s social care has the power to transform the lives of some of our most vulnerable children, and children in care deserve a childhood filled with love, support and access to the opportunities that will set them up for a successful life, but the system is not delivering that ambition. Through the measures introduced by this legislation, we will champion family group decision making, fix the broken care market, create powers to introduce a profit cap for providers, and provide a staying close support package to address the cliff edge that young people face when they leave care.
Thirdly, it bears repeating that this is the biggest piece of safeguarding legislation in a generation, delivering robust action to keep children safe from harm. The Government have challenged themselves, and will continue to do so, to stop children falling through the gaps by ensuring legislation introducing an information sharing duty and provision for a single unique identifier, and ensuring that implementation is as watertight as possible.
Holidays During School Term Time
Damian Hinds Excerpts(6 months ago)
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Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate on holidays in school term time. This issue resonates deeply with families across the country, including in my own constituency of Hartlepool, where 530 residents signed the petition we are debating today.
Let us start with the reality that every parent recognises. They search for a family holiday in June and it costs a certain amount; they search for one in August and the cost has exploded. For many families those price hikes make a break together completely unaffordable. I have taken to calling it the Center Parcs tax. This morning I searched the Center Parcs website for a short break next May. Four nights from 11 May is £599; from 18 May it is £599; but from 25 May it is £1,349—a £750 mark-up for the exact same trip, simply because it falls in half-term. It is cheaper to take the fine.
Of course, it is not just one company; the practice is rife across the entire holiday sector. Families are being priced out of spending time together, and the state’s response is to fine them for trying. It is immoral. I say to the Minister, “Ban those practices by holiday companies and end the culture of fines.” Parents should not have to choose between doing the right thing by their children’s education and giving them a well-earned family break. Families already struggling with the cost of living should not be punished for trying to give their children the same experiences as everyone else.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Could the hon. Member explain how he would stop that practice by the holiday companies?
Mr Brash
There are a number of mechanisms. The Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), offered one solution. I am a believer in price controls in this area and that the state can intervene in the market here; it is basic fairness.
Of course attendance matters. As a former teacher, I have seen at first hand the link between attendance and attainment. Students with 100% attendance are nearly three times more likely to achieve five good GCSEs, including English and maths, compared with those whose attendance drops to 65% to 70%. But let us be honest with parents: the current system is not working. Expecting families to pay fines to prove a point about attendance does nothing to tackle the real problem.
Research shows that fining parents does not improve attendance. There is no statistically significant link between more fines and better attendance rates. Indeed, the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report found the same internationally: fines do not work, but they do harm low-income families. Instead, punitive measures often make things worse, creating tension and mistrust between families and schools. We know many children with poor attendance have special educational needs, as has already been mentioned, or anxiety or mental health issues. Punishing their parents does not solve those challenges; it just adds financial and emotional pressure. The Centre for Mental Health has even warned that fines can exacerbate the very issues that keep children away from school.
I am proud that in Hartlepool we are trying to look at things differently. Alongside nine other local areas, we are part of a pilot programme run with the Department for Education and a social enterprise called Etio. I met Etio last week, and what it is doing is simple but powerful. When it comes to attendance, the focus is on support. Its teams sit down with families to understand what is really going on, whether it is anxiety, caring responsibilities, transport programmes or financial hardship, and offer practical help to get children back into the classroom. The results are encouraging. When families feel supported rather than criminalised, attendance improves and relationships between schools and parents are strengthened. It is just common sense. If we fix the root cause, we fix the problem.
That is the approach we should champion nationally, replacing the blunt instrument of fines with early help, understanding and partnership, because the issue goes far deeper than holiday costs. It is about fairness, common sense and respect for families. Parents should not be treated as offenders for trying to spend time with their children and for giving them a holiday.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(6 months, 1 week ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
That is fantastic to hear, not least given the challenges that we still see with quite high levels across our country of young people who are not in employment, education or training. I and the Work and Pensions Secretary are determined to take action on that, and I would be more than happy to do my best to honour my hon. Friend’s request.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
After the creative reimagining of the Government’s target for hiring more teachers, it would be helpful to have some precision on the record for the target of two thirds of young people in higher learning. We know that higher learning means level 4 or above, but what exactly is a gold-standard apprenticeship? Does it mean one in growth sectors with very high levels of completion?
Bridget Phillipson
Yes, that is one area. We are refocusing our target to ensure that there are strong technical and vocational routes for our young people, as well as the opportunity to go to university. Going to university remains a strong option for many young people who want that chance—I know Conservative Members have always been keen to do down our fantastic universities—but the big gap that we have as a country is around level 4 and level 5, especially in technical and vocational education. The right hon. Gentleman spent a long time in the Department for Education looking at that issue; this Government will tackle it.
Educational Assessment System Reform
Damian Hinds Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
It is good to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. Assessment in education is obviously one of the most important aspects of what we do in education. It gives children a chance to show what they have learned, what they can do, and we want that to be stretching, but also to be fair. Anything that measures our attainment is inherently somewhat stressful. We also want to prepare children for adult life, and part of that is learning to deal with stress and to make it work in a positive direction.
We obviously do not want exams to be overly stressful, and I commend the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) for his work on mental health. He poses this as a mental health question, and it is true that there is an upward trend in mental ill health in children in this country and, by the way, in most other countries in the developed world, although they do not all have the same exam system as us. France and the United States have very different exam systems, with one largely a terminal exam system and the other not, but we see a pattern that is essentially the same.
A linear study and terminal exams give us some important things. They give us consistency, transparency, and comparability across the country. Because the exams come at the end we can synthesise knowledge, so it is not just a test of what someone happens to have learned for a test, but it is putting together different aspects of knowledge. It is not just one big exam. First, there are seven, eight, nine or 10 subjects, and typically two papers and multiple formats—multiple choice, short-form open questions, essay questions, orals and practicals in different subjects. Ironically, if we reduce the number of papers we would increase the high-stakes nature of tests that come at the end of study. It is possible that if we had continuous assessments, we might not get rid of stress but just stretch it out over a longer period because, as I said, any assessment inherently has some stress attached.
Let me talk briefly about younger children, because that issue is different. SATs are not public exams, and no child should ever be put under pressure coming up to SATs. SATs are a measure of schools, not pupils—I promise that when someone applies for a job or university in adult life, nobody will ever ask them what they got in their SATs. That is not what they are for. The biggest effect that they could have is what set a child gets into in year 7. But ironically, as the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) said, schools do that anyway. Even if we got rid of a high-stakes assessment at the end of year 6, there would still be one in year 7. I repeat that no child should be put under pressure about SATs. That is not their purpose.
I wanted to say a lot, but that is not going to happen in three and a half minutes. I briefly ask the Minister to confirm that Progress 8 is coming back. We have not been able to do Progress 8 for a couple of years because of covid and not having a baseline, but it is by far the better measure—much better than contextual value added or a raw score. Please will the Minister confirm that the Government are not looking at getting rid of handwritten exams done in exam conditions? Those are the best way to guarantee security of assessment and to ensure that handwriting development continues apace.
We should have an open mind on resits. The point about the policy is not to have more people sitting exams but to carry on studying English and maths. That in itself is a good objective, but we should be open about how it is achieved.
Early Education and Childcare
Damian Hinds Excerpts(7 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Stephen Morgan
My hon. Friend is a real champion for mothers, and I commend her for all her hard work in this place over the years. In our “Giving every child the best start in life” strategy, published in July, we set out that we plan to make the process simpler for parents, and we will be working across Government to ensure that issues are addressed so that all children are able to access the entitlement offer. I would be delighted to meet her to discuss these issues further.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
There were five major expansions of early years education and childcare entitlement under the last Government; what the Minister has announced today would have been our sixth. But since we formed this policy, the new Government have made a massive increase in the tax on jobs. When will Ministers next publish their assessment of the economics of running a nursery and of how they ensure that there will continue to be adequate supply of high-quality places, in places like Alton, Petersfield and Horndean?
Stephen Morgan
As I mentioned earlier, we inherited a pledge without a plan. I commend the hard work of early years providers and local authorities to deliver this key milestone for working families across the country this week. This year alone, we plan to provide over £8 billion for early years entitlement, rising to £9 billion next year. We announced the largest ever increase in the early years pupil premium, and a £75 million early years expansion grant has delivered support to the sector to increase the places and workforce that was needed. On top of that, we will review funding rates during the course of the next academic year.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(9 months, 1 week ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
We continue to keep all these areas under review; if the hon. Gentleman would like to write to me with more information, I would be happy to respond with more detail. However, I am clear that this Government are investing more in education. We are turning around the year-on-year declines in teacher numbers with better pay, more support on workload and more money for our schools, including tackling child poverty. That is the difference that a Labour Government are making for our country.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
The Government have tried to have it every which way on these elusive 6,500 extra teachers. If the Labour manifesto had meant that only secondary teachers counted, but they could be in any subject, presumably that is what it would have said. What it actually said was 6,500 new specialist teachers in key subjects, so will the Secretary of State enlighten us: what are those subjects?
Bridget Phillipson
I would be very happy to do so. As the right hon. Gentleman just heard, we are seeing big increases in initial teacher training acceptances in many of those key subjects such as maths and science. On the commitment we have made, we had 60,000 fewer children in primary over the course of the last year and, as a former holder of this office, he would rightly expect that we target our efforts in areas of greatest need. Sadly, we are seeing a big decline in the number of children in primary, with the numbers forecast to fall by another 165,000 over the next few years, so we are focusing our efforts where they are needed.