Good School Places
Damian Hinds Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
The Government are committed to creating more good school places through a diverse education system, to ensure that parents have choice and children of all backgrounds have access to the best education. The range of actions we are setting out today helps us to deliver this; extending the opportunity for children, no matter what their background, to access the best education and encouraging cross-sector collaboration in order to raise standards and aspiration for all pupils. This action includes supporting the establishment of new schools and the creation of more good school places, as well as complementary measures in response to the Schools that Work for Everyone consultation. It is intended to incentivise high-performing schools and institutions across the sector to widen their offer to more pupils, and to encourage the sector as a whole to collaborate in order to help all children achieve their potential. I want to see universities, independent schools and state schools working in partnerships that deliver sustainable impact, including by establishing or joining multi-academy trusts where it is beneficial to do so.
The consultation sought views on removing the legislation that inhibit the creation of new selective schools and on lifting the restrictions on the establishment of new faith free schools, and it asked how we could harness the resources and expertise of those in our independent schools and the higher education sector to work in partnership with the state sector. We received several thousand responses, and I was encouraged by the number of those which identified the positive role that selective schools, universities and independent schools do, and could, play in improving educational outcomes across the wider education system. I am building on this through the measures we are setting out today.
The free schools programme is an essential part of delivering good school places where they are needed, and today we are launching Wave 13 for mainstream free schools applications. We are targeting this wave at areas with the lowest educational performance to put free schools in the places most in need of good school places. Free schools have, as do all schools, a role to play in supporting our objectives for integration and community cohesion, and it is important that our free schools programme establishes schools that are inclusive of children of all faith and none. We are retaining the 50% cap on faith-based admissions in free schools.
As previously announced to the House, we will not be enabling the new creation of selective schools, but selective schools play an important role in ensuring our children have access to a good education and have a real impact in helping young people, regardless of their background, fulfil their potential.
To enable existing selective schools to expand and provide more school places where there is local demand, we have today launched the selective schools expansion fund, backed by £50 million in 2018-19. We have also today published a memorandum of understanding with the Grammar School Heads’ Association, which sets out a commitment from the sector to widen access for disadvantaged pupils and to work in partnership with local non-selective schools to improve pupil outcomes locally. I look forward to seeing the action taken by this part of the sector to deliver these commitments.
The whole sector, not just parts of it, has a role to play in supporting the delivery of good school places and in providing the opportunity for all children to raise their aspiration and to achieve their potential. I recognise the role that universities and independent schools can, and in many cases already do, have in this, and I want to see this engagement deepened through greater partnership with the state sector, including working in collaboration in multi-academy trusts, to improve outcomes for pupils, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. I am keen that universities and independent schools with capacity come forward to be involved in school sponsorship and founding free schools, including maths schools. I welcome the joint understanding between the Independent Schools Council and my Department, published today, which sets out how independent schools will look to support these objectives, including how they can help those from disadvantaged backgrounds as well as looked-after children. I will continue to encourage the higher education sector to support these ambitions; to widen access to its institutions for students from under-represented groups and to provide meaningful support to the state sector, and I welcome the action taken to date, including the guidance published in February by the Office for Students on preparing 2019-20 access and participation plans.
I also recognise the role that faith providers play in delivering high-performing schools with excellent standards, and that some schools feel unable to establish new schools through the free schools programme as a result of the restrictions on admissions. As mentioned, we are retaining the 50% faith cap, but we are also developing a capital scheme to support the establishment of new voluntary-aided schools for faith and other providers. This route has always been available but has been little used in recent years. Schools created through this scheme will have the same freedoms as existing voluntary- aided schools, including over their admissions.
In addition to ensuring that we create the places that are needed, we also want to improve our understanding of how the education system is serving children from disadvantaged backgrounds. As part of the consultation, we also sought views on how best we can identify pupils from modest and low incomes in order to improve our understanding of how the education system is serving these children. The findings were fed into the technical consultation Analysing Family Circumstances and Education. The Government response to this technical consultation will be published in due course
This package of reforms will help to ensure we are delivering on our ambition to ensure that there is a good school place for every child, whatever their background, and I look forward to continuing to work with stakeholders across the education sector over this Parliament, as we take forward this commitment.
I will place a copy of the documents published today in the House Libraries.
[HCWS676]
School Funding
Damian Hinds Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
I start on a note of agreement with the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner): it is a moral imperative to strive for the very best for the next generation in our country and education plays the most central role in that quest. That is what the 450,000 teachers in English schools are dedicated to and what we are dedicated to supporting them in. To achieve that takes many things, but high on the list of course is money. There is more money going into our schools than ever before—rising from almost £41 billion last year to £42.4 billion this year and then rising again to £43.5 billion next year. That includes the additional £1.3 billion, to which she referred, that we are directing to frontline spending by prioritising money from elsewhere in the Department for Education’s budget, as my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), announced in July last year. That means that overall we are protecting schools’ per pupil funding in real terms over the next two years.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Opposition’s motion notes the Conservative party’s pledge that no school would receive cuts to their funding. That is not correct because, in Bolton South East, a number of schools are being affected and the budget is being reduced. If he does not accept that, I invite him to Bolton South East to meet the headteachers of my schools, who have said that there has been a real cut to their budget.
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and I will of course come to the specifics of the Opposition’s motion and the important points about the funding formula.
We are also giving primary schools £320 million a year for PE and sport—double what was given in 2016—and investing £600 million a year to provide free school meals for all infants. That is on top of our substantial investment in school improvement activities. This year, we will invest over £60 million in maths, science and computing, and over £100 million—to respond partly to the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle)—in arts and music.
Spending is high by historical standards. The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies—this has come up already—has shown that, in real terms, per pupil funding in 2020 will be at least half as much again as it was in 2000. Looking internationally, we spend more on our schools in total than both the EU and OECD averages and at levels comparable with key competitor countries.
However, although it is true that overall spend is higher—this goes to the point made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), the sole, or primary Liberal Democrat representative with us here today—on technical and vocational education, our figures compare less favourably. In Germany in particular, the spend is considerably more than ours on secondary-level vocational programmes. That is why I am so pleased that the Chancellor has committed extra money to boost the size and funding for the new T-level programmes. That will total over £500 million a year in additional resources for post-16 education when T-levels are fully rolled out.
As well as ensuring record funding for our schools, the Government have taken on the historical challenge of introducing a fair national funding formula—something, of course, that has not been taken on by any previous Government—to ensure that money is directed where it is most needed, based on the individual characteristics of schools and pupils, not on accidents of history or geography.
Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Damian Hinds
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not. We have gone further than our manifesto promise that no school would lose funding as a result of the national funding formula. The formula is in fact giving every local authority more money for every pupil in every school in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Every school is attracting at least a cash increase of 0.5% per pupil through the formula this year, and 1% more next year, compared with their baselines.
Of course, we have always been clear that local authorities continue to have some flexibility on how this funding is distributed across schools in their local area. I think that is right and it is a good thing that the flexibility exists for local authorities as we transition into the national funding formula. As our extensive consultation showed, flexibility is important because it allows local authorities, in consultation with their schools, to reflect local need and to smooth the transition toward the NFF where this represents a significant change.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State accept that although in my area we have achieved above average results with some of the lowest amounts of per pupil funding anywhere in the country, we are now at the point where it is simply too little? Will he please have some urgency in getting us a bit closer to the average because we simply do not have enough?
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention. As well as ensuring that every school attracts more money, the national funding formula also allocates the biggest increases to schools that have historically been the most underfunded. Thousands of schools will attract 3% more per pupil this year and another 3% per pupil next year, and some of the lowest-funded schools will attract even more as a result of our minimum per pupil funding levels, which mean that every primary school will attract £3,500 per pupil and every secondary school £4,800 per pupil by 2019-20. As a result, many areas will see quite big increases across the board. For example, by 2019-20 in Knowsley, there will be an increase of 4.3%, and in Derby there will be an increase of 6.7% in the same timeframe. In York, there will be an increase of 7.9%, and in Bath and North East Somerset, an increase of 7.2%.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
As someone who has supported the national funding formula through the f40 group for a long time, I am grateful that this has now been brought to fruition. The problem is that the way in which the formula is being operated in my area, with the conflation of special needs within the base budget, is causing significant problems among some schools. Will the Secretary of State look at how that special needs allocation is operating to ensure that the poorer schools do not get even poorer, relatively?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman raises important points about the high needs block. As I was saying, it is right that there is some flexibility at local authority level. Local authorities have the most up-to-date figures and profiling of the children in their areas, in terms of special educational needs and so on. Protections also apply to the high needs block through the minimum guarantees and so on, while overall high needs funding has of course gone up.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State talks about flexibility within local authority budgets. I have to say, as someone who is about to leave the London Borough of Redbridge this May, that he is in cloud cuckoo land. There is no flexibility in children’s services departments; there is just consistent need and insufficient funding. Parents do not need the UK Statistics Authority to show that some schools face budget cuts. They have seen it for themselves in cuts to the curriculum, a lack of adequate support for children with special educational needs and demands for money from parents to fund basics and materials. Does he understand that, when he stands at that Dispatch Box and talks about the figures as if everything is rosy, the parents know it is a load of rubbish because they are seeing it for themselves in their and their children’s lived experience?
Damian Hinds
The funding formula is what it is and has its guaranteed allocations of money from central funding to local authorities in respect of each school, along the lines I have outlined. I recognise, however, that schools have faced significant cost pressures over recent years—the hon. Gentleman alluded to some of those and their effects—in respect of national insurance and pension contributions, for example. There are new costs as well. For example, spending on technology exceeded £500 million across the system in 2016.
I also realise that there can be particular pressures on high needs budgets, as schools and local authorities work as hard as they can to provide an excellent education for every child, including those facing the greatest challenges. As I was saying, funding for high needs has benefited from the same protections we have been able to provide for mainstream schools, but I recognise that schools now do more to support pupils with a complex range of social, emotional and behavioural needs.
We are redoubling our efforts to help schools to get the best value from their resources, through free procurement advice via our pilot buying hubs in the north-west and south-west, which provide face-to-face and phone advice to schools on complex procurement and on how to get the best value for money; through nationally negotiated purchasing deals; and through school resource management advisers—business management experts from within the sector providing hands-on support to the schools that most need our help.
John Redwood
I welcome what the Secretary of State has said about minimum levels. I have shared the figures from my local authority with the Minister for School Standards. I have primary schools receiving less than £3,500 per pupil and secondary schools receiving less than £4,600 per pupil. When can I tell them they will be brought up?
Damian Hinds
I will write to my right hon. Friend with the specific figures for his schools. The formula is there both to create a guaranteed minimum level and to make sure that the schools that have historically been most underfunded see the greatest increases.
Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)
After decades of underfunding, schools in my constituency are benefiting from a 6% increase per pupil over the next two years. Parents and pupils in my constituency will be glad to hear that, but can the Secretary of State reassure me that this will not just be a two-year process but that we will continue to move towards fairness afterwards and that he will press for a settlement in the next spending review that allows us to make quick progress towards greater fairness?
Damian Hinds
It is clearly essential, as several colleagues from across the House have said, that our education system be properly funded. In an increasingly competitive world, it is important that we live up to that challenge and make sure that all children can be properly fulfilled and reach their potential. On future funding, there is a comprehensive spending review process, with which my hon. Friend is well familiar from his days at Her Majesty’s Treasury. We have set out in the national funding formula what will happen over the two-year period and established the principle that funding should be fair.
It is right that we have the highest ever total cash funding going into our schools. The kind of practical support I have just outlined is also a key priority for me because it is not just the total funding that matters but how far it can go in achieving the objectives we all share, which is incredibly important. Our reforms in schools are paying dividends thanks to the hard work of teachers, our continued focus on raising standards and the emphasis on phonics. Over 150,000 more six-year-olds are now on track to become fluent readers than in 2012, our top pupils are among the world’s best readers, and GCSEs and A-levels rank among the world’s best qualifications.
There can be no great schools without great teachers—to motivate children, make knowledge meaningful and inspire curiosity. The quality of teaching matters more than anything else, and it matters most of all for the most disadvantaged children. Right now we have many brilliant teachers in our schools—it is the best generation of teachers yet—and my top priority is to make sure that teaching remains an attractive and fulfilling profession. I am clear that we need to get back to the essence of successful teaching, which means stripping away the workload that does not add value and giving teachers the time and space to focus on what actually matters, in the interests of teachers and, of course, children.
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
Can the Secretary of State tell us where Portsmouth schools should be making savings, given that they are already having to make ongoing cuts? Should they cut teachers, have even bigger class sizes, shorten the school day? Parents and teachers in my constituency deserve better.
Damian Hinds
What I was outlining, on the issue of trying to give more support to schools on managing resources, is that it is all about ensuring that money can be devoted to the frontline to maximise the amount of great teaching from great teachers. I know that teachers in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency will be as focused on that as teachers in constituencies throughout the country.
Toby Perkins
I want to help the Secretary of State make good on his promise. He made a commitment that no school will see a cut in funding. What is the strength of that guarantee? If it turns out that a school has had a reduction in funding, will he consider it a resignation matter?
Damian Hinds
I think the hon. Gentleman has been here from the beginning of the debate, so, unless he was reading something, he will have heard me set out how the national funding formula works. It allocates money—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he cannot conduct the debate from a sedentary position. Perhaps the Secretary of State will give way again later, but he must let him finish answering the question he has just asked.
Damian Hinds
The formula allocates money to each school, subject to set minimum cash increases, but there is flexibility for local authorities—which have the most-up-to-date information on the profiles of children in their schools, in terms of special needs, free school meals and so on—to reallocate money up to certain limits. I think that is right. Does the hon. Gentleman think it is wrong that they have that flexibility?
Toby Perkins
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for asking the question. Is he guaranteeing that no school will lose money? Is that his commitment? If there is no such commitment, he should say so, and if there is, he should not hide behind councils.
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman is repeating what he just said. The national funding formula allocates money in respect of every school. It then goes to the local authority, which has a certain amount of discretion to reallocate that money between different schools up to a certain limit to ensure that the funding goes to the places where it is most needed.
Jeremy Quin
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I did not want to interrupt his conversation with the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins).
While I, and many other Conservative Members, may have individual issues about individual schools or how the funding formula might work out in practice in certain circumstances, I welcome the principle—which was agreed by Labour Members—of a fair funding formula that is allocating more money where it is required. It is going to pupils on the basis of need, and that is something that we should all support.
Damian Hinds
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. It is a historic challenge to have taken on, and it is not without its difficulties, but it is right to ensure that funding goes where it is most needed, not according to the way in which various funding settlements have accumulated over the years in different areas on the basis of accidents of history and geography.
I had better make some progress towards the conclusion of my speech, Madam Deputy Speaker, because otherwise you will do it for me. We have the best-qualified teachers we have ever had, backed up by the largest amount of money that we have ever had in the schools budget. We are protecting schools’ per pupil funding in real terms over the next two years, at a time when pupil numbers are rising. Working alongside a brilliant set of teachers and other education professionals, we are striving for a world-class education for everyone, whatever their background.
Since 2010, the Government have helped more children to go to good schools. We have helped primary school children to become better readers, we have helped secondary school children to gain higher-quality qualifications, and we have helped more students than ever to go on to university. We have extended early years education so that more children are school-ready, and we have raised the participation age so that everyone can build up the education and skills that they need for life. Through academies and free schools, we have given our frontline professionals, local communities and parents more freedom and choice. We have invested and are investing—with £7 billion committed in a six-year period—to create the quality of extra school places that we need, and let me repeat that more revenue funding is going into our schools than ever before.
The benefits of our reforms can be seen in schools up and down the country, thanks, of course, to the hard work and dedication of our teachers and education professionals. In its most recent annual report, published in December last year, Ofsted stated that
“the quality of education and care provided to young people today is better than ever.”
Since 2010, we have increased the number of children in good and outstanding schools by 1.9 million. The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has narrowed by 10%, and 95% of three and four-year-olds are benefiting from early years education. We have introduced the pupil premium and have extended free school meals to further education colleges and 50,000 more schoolchildren, as well as introducing universal infant free school meals.
However, the job is far from done. We are ambitious for all our schools, and for all our children. Someone’s background does not dictate their talents, and it should not limit their dreams. The attainment gap between children from different backgrounds has narrowed, but it is still too wide, so we are continuing our commitment to the pupil premium and the opportunity areas programme. Some places have seen dramatic gains, but others still need extra assistance. We must spread opportunity to the parts of the country where children are still let down by the limited depth and breadth of the education that is available. Every child should be able to go to a great school, which is why we are putting more than £300 million into support programmes over the next two years. To ensure that our economy has the skills that it needs to be fit for the future, we will do more to encourage the take-up of science, technology, engineering and maths by, for instance, introducing the maths premium and teacher bursaries for priority subjects.
By improving our nurseries, schools, colleges and universities, we can build a society in which it does not matter who people are, where they live or who they know. Alongside school leaders, governors, teachers, parents and pupils, we are striving for a world-class education for everyone, whatever their background, so that we can make our economy fit for the future in a world of rapid technological change. We want to boost our productivity and our children’s future prosperity, so that they are better equipped for their own futures and more of them can achieve their potential and lead fulfilled lives. That is what a world-class education can bring and that is what we are working for.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
The new national funding formula means that funding will finally be distributed based on the needs and characteristics of every school in the country. It is supported by an additional £1.3 billion, which means that we will maintain school and high-needs funding in real terms per pupil for the next two years.
Helen Goodman
Twenty-four of the 44 maintained schools in the Bishop Auckland constituency will lose in real terms, taking account of inflation. Many have high levels of deprivation and large free school meal entitlement. How can the Secretary of State justify that?
Damian Hinds
Of course, the formula rightly takes account of deprivation in the way that the hon. Lady mentions. If the funding formula were implemented in full in the Bishop Auckland constituency, based on the 2017-18 pupil data, funding would increase by £981,000 or 1.9%.
Judith Cummins
In every single school that I have visited in Bradford South since becoming an MP, the head has raised with me major concerns about funding. Will the Secretary of State confirm that, despite the £1.3 billion that his predecessor announced last July, school funding will still have fallen in real terms by 2020 for the first time in a generation?
Damian Hinds
No. On the same basis as I answered the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), if the formula were implemented fully in the Bradford South constituency, it would mean an increase of 1.6% or £1.3 million. Across the system, per pupil real-terms funding is being maintained.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
The cost of advertising for teachers and the cost of supply teachers, especially through agencies, are putting strain on school funding and budgets. What action are the Government taking to ensure that more money goes to the education frontline and less on bureaucracy?
Damian Hinds
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point about one of the cost pressures facing schools. We are working on seeing what we can do to help and developing a new framework to help to bring down recruitment costs, especially on the supply teachers she mentions.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
Schools in my constituency welcome the principle of the national funding formula, which will see an increase in funding. Will my right hon. Friend meet me and representatives of primary and secondary schools to ensure it is implemented in the right way?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is correct to say that the implementation of the national funding formula is a very important step forward. I always happy to meet my hon. Friend.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
Taking into account the rising cost pressures on schools, whether on temporary and agency staff or on salaries, virtually every school in my constituency will face real-terms cuts to their funding by 2020. Is that not the truth of the Government’s policy, or does the Secretary of State for Education think he knows more about school budgets than headteachers?
Damian Hinds
Across the system over the next two years, the total core schools funding budget will be going up from just under £41 billion this year to £43.5 billion. Of course there have been cost pressures on schools. I do not deny that for a moment. It is one of the reasons why we are taking the steps I outlined a moment ago to try to help with those cost pressures, but across the system per pupil real-terms funding is being maintained.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
We welcome the changes to the national funding formula and the additional money, but there is still a huge gap between the way schools are funded in West Sussex and in Greater London. Special schools are not included in the national funding formula, so an average 200-place school in West Sussex will receive something like £800,000 less than an equivalent school in Reading and £2 million less than one in London. When will the Secretary of State address this anomaly?
Damian Hinds
The intention of the national funding formula is not that every pupil throughout the country has exactly the same amount of money spent on them, because it is important that the formula recognises the difference in composition of pupil make-up. We were talking a moment ago about deprivation, but there are other measures of additional need that need to be reflected.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
May I first start by congratulating Andria Zafirakou from north London, who won this year’s global teacher prize this weekend. I know the whole House will agree with her on the power of the arts to change young people’s lives.
In the Chancellor’s spring statement last week, he said:
“School budgets are increasing per pupil in real terms.”
He also said that
“every school will receive a cash increase.”—[Official Report, 13 March 2018; Vol. 637, c. 726-735.]
Does the Secretary of State agree with the Chancellor?
Damian Hinds
First, let me join the hon. Lady in congratulating Andria Zafirakou on her outstanding achievement. It is a particularly striking individual attainment, but it is also a reflection of the incredibly inspirational role that teachers everywhere play.
We have discussed funding at some length. The fact is that across the system the per pupil real-terms funding is being maintained. Over the next couple of years, local authorities will play a role in allocating that money to ensure the final result reflects local circumstances.
Angela Rayner
I am glad the Secretary of State accepts that point, because the UK Statistics Authority last week refuted both of those claims and he had to retract what he said at our last question time. Last week, he said:
“the mere repetition of a falsehood does not turn it into the truth.”—[Official Report, 13 March 2018; Vol. 637, c. 801.]
Will he now apologise for misleading the House and make clear the truth that there is no increase and that school budgets may face cuts of up to 1.5% per pupil?
Damian Hinds
It is true that cash funding per pupil is increasing. It is also true that real-terms funding is increasing. But I could and should have been more precise that when we talk about real-terms per pupil funding, that is being maintained. The core schools budget over the next two years will rise from a little under £41 billion to £43.5 billion.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Since 2010, there are 1.9 million more children in good or outstanding schools and more disadvantaged children are going on to university. Our plans to make further progress include £72 million for 12 opportunity areas and £50 million on improving early language and literacy.
Mr Jones
Youth unemployment in my constituency has fallen by 72% since 2010. If we are to build on that progress, will my right hon. Friend set out how we can support the schools that are underperforming, so that young people, wherever they live, have the best opportunity to make the most out of their lives?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the dramatic falls in unemployment and youth unemployment. In his constituency, there have been over 7,000 apprenticeship starts since 2010. He is absolutely right that it is very important that all schools are able to share in the improvements in education outcomes, and it is very important that the support is there to do that.
Michelle Donelan
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and I strongly welcome the £26 million to support breakfast clubs. Wiltshire is not a deprived county, but it has pockets of deprivation, with some of my schools having two thirds of pupils on pupil premium. Would the Minister please clarify to the House how exactly deprivation areas will be determined?
Damian Hinds
The definition of areas of deprivation will include the opportunity areas that I mentioned a little earlier, as well as other areas according to the IDACI—income deprivation affecting children index—methodology. I cannot say off the top of my head exactly what the implication of that is for Chippenham, but I will be very happy to stay in touch with my hon. Friend.
Mr Clarke
Literacy underpins social mobility, and since 2013, the National Literacy Trust has run a fantastic hub in Middlesbrough. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to the hub’s work and in particular my constituent Allison Potter? It has contributed to narrowing the early years development gap in the schools that it works with from 24.8% in 2013 to just 8.5% last year.
Damian Hinds
Indeed. Improving literacy is vital to improving social mobility, and our plans for a centre of excellence and a national network of English hubs will help with that. I am happy, of course, to pay tribute to the fantastic work done by the National Literacy Trust in its Middlesbrough hub and to my hon. Friend’s constituent.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
Three years ago, I launched the Liverpool to Oxbridge Collaborative to support the most academic students in schools in my constituency to give them the option of applying to either Oxford or Cambridge. What are the Government doing to support areas, particularly with high social and economic need such as Liverpool, to aim high for all their young people?
Damian Hinds
This goes to the heart of the Office for Fair Access and what the Office for Students will do, but it is also really important that universities—particularly selective universities—continue to redouble their efforts to make sure that they are reaching out directly, so that they are tapping into the full range of talents that are on offer throughout our country.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
If the Secretary of State is serious about improving access to top universities for students from poorer backgrounds, why is he not doing more to enact the findings on the National Audit Office report on higher education, which urged the Government to do more to provide high-quality, independent careers advice to 13 and 14-year-olds?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady is entirely right to identify the importance of independent careers advice. That goes for applications to university, for subject choice and for considering technical and vocational—as well as academic—routes, and that is why we are putting so much focus on it.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State must understand that if we are to achieve social mobility, our schools have to be adequately funded. Because of funding cuts, Durham County Council is closing a school—the only school—in a disadvantaged village in my constituency. The young people there will feel undervalued, as will the community, so what will the Secretary of State do to ensure that that school stays open and that those children are given a real chance in life?
Damian Hinds
I totally acknowledge that it can be very unsettling and upsetting when a school closes like that. Of course, I am happy to discuss the particular case with her, but it remains the case that across the system we are holding the core schools budget constant in real per pupil terms.
Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
Having worked with Magic Breakfast for over five years, I share the welcome from my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) for today’s Magic Breakfast and school breakfast club funding. In addition to the money, will my right hon. Friend encourage partner schools to collaborate and share best practice to tackle social mobility challenges?
Damian Hinds
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for all he has done on breakfast over an extended period, particularly with his Magic Breakfast connection, and I share his desire to make sure that best practice is shared across borders.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Scottish students from the most-deprived backgrounds are supported by a comprehensive financial package, including free tuition and bursaries, resulting in Scotland having the lowest university drop-out rate in the entire UK. Will the Secretary of State give serious consideration to mirroring the support given to Scottish students, including by abolishing the extortionate student fees, here in England?
Damian Hinds
The important things to note are that with our university financing system more young people, including from disadvantaged backgrounds, than ever are able to go to university, that universities are properly funded and that there is no cap on ambition.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
Social mobility is improved when families have access to Sure Start and children’s centres, yet, in a damning report, the National Audit Office has revealed that the Government have cut spending on Sure Start by 50% in real terms since 2010, and we are still waiting for the long-overdue consultation on the future of children’s centres. Will the Secretary of State tell us whether he believes that these cuts are good for social mobility and on what date he will publish the consultation?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady is entirely correct in identifying the importance of early years for children’s development, social mobility and narrowing the gap, which is one reason we are putting so much more effort and money into early years and childcare, including through the extensions of eligibility for the two-year-old offer, which I think, bizarrely, she voted against last week.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Andria Zafirakou has already been mentioned a couple of times today, and I know the whole House will want to congratulate her on having been awarded the global teacher prize this weekend, beating 30,000 entries from 173 countries.
This Government are committed to supporting all teachers to make sure that children get a world-class education. This month, I announced that we will develop a plan on workload, professional development, flexible working and entry routes into teaching. On Friday we launched the children in need review, to develop the evidence on what makes a difference to children’s educational outcomes so that more children can get a better start in life. I am also today announcing an investment of up to £26 million to boost breakfast clubs in more than 1,700 schools in some of the most disadvantaged areas, complementing our expansion of eligibility for free school meals.
Wera Hobhouse
In the light of the recent racist incident in one of our schools in Bath, does the Minister believe the safeguarding policies, procedures and processes in our schools are strong enough, and that the Ofsted inspection regime is adequate in respect of safeguarding?
Damian Hinds
I was truly shocked to read of the incident to which the hon. Lady refers. Such incidents, and racism in general, must of course have no place in our schools or our country. Schools have to have a policy setting out measures to encourage good behaviour, including the prevention of bullying, and where there are serious concerns, Ofsted has powers to inspect any school without notice.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
Damian Hinds
I share my hon. Friend’s concerns; it is a terrible case, and tragically not the first of its type. I will write to ask the chair of the new national child safeguarding review panel to look at the places where these appalling crimes have happened, such as Rotherham, Oxfordshire and, indeed, Telford, and to report on whether lessons have been learned and practices improved right across the system.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Last week, the Secretary of State was forced to extend the childcare voucher scheme by six months in order to survive the vote on it that we called. I tried to get some answers last week, but the Secretary of State has given us no clarity on what will happen next. Will he come back to the House with an oral statement and give us a meaningful vote before the scheme ends?
Damian Hinds
The move to tax-free childcare is of course a Treasury and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs policy rather than a Department for Education one, but we made it clear in last week’s debate that there would be an extra six months to look into transitional considerations.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Damian Hinds
There is no actual or inadvertent misleading of the House. It is a fact that across the system the core skills funding budget will go up from £41 billion this year to £43.5 billion in a couple of years’ time. Beyond that, the national funding formula seeks to correct some of the long-standing imbalances in the system. I was pleased to visit Stoke recently and meet some of the outstanding headteachers who operate in the hon. Gentleman’s area. Funding has been tight for schools and there have been cost pressures over the past couple of years, and we stand behind headteachers and do everything we can to support them.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
The University of Cambridge’s announcement that it will now offer apprenticeships has put a quality stamp of approval on that educational route. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important that children from all around the country, including from schools in Redditch, are encouraged to apply? Does she agree that the “Opening Doors” programme, which brings children from Ipsley middle school in Redditch to local business MSP Ltd, is key to the raising of aspirations?
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Pay rises for teachers in schools in my constituency would be most welcome, but there is a concern that those rises will have to be met from the increase in funding that was delivered to schools in the summer. Are there plans, like there are with the NHS, to find a budget outside the existing school funding formula for those pay rises?
Damian Hinds
The teachers’ pay review body is deliberating at the moment. We have already given our evidence, as, of course, have the consultees. I point out that, since the spending review, an additional £1.3 billion has been found for school budgets.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Can the Minister tell us how many children with special educational needs or a disability will not have an education and healthcare plan by the Government’s deadline of 1 April?
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Last week I had the honour of chairing in Westminster the second annual Stafford schools debating competition. The standard was excellent, and I pay tribute to Councillor Carolyn Trowbridge and Sam Phillips for their work in organising the competition. What is the Department doing to encourage public speaking and debate in schools across the country?
Damian Hinds
I join my hon. Friend in commending his constituents who organised this great event. It is true that public speaking, debating and other such activities are really important for developing a rounded young person—the character development that we all want to see. Members of Parliament can also play an important role in this, and many run their own events.
Mr Speaker
Yes, and I look forward to visiting the constituency of the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy)—I think in his company—very soon. I imagine that his constituents will roll out the red carpet for him; he will be pleased to know that they certainly will not be expected to do so for me.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Did the abolition of the education maintenance allowance contribute to or hinder social mobility?
Damian Hinds
With the alternative funding that was put in place, it was possible for sixth-form colleges to do other things to ensure that they were attracting the full range of students. More disadvantaged youngsters are going on to university than ever before.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
Last week I opened the extension to the Knowle West children’s centre. The previous week the local further education college, City of Bristol College, hosted my apprenticeships fair. Both sectors are telling me that they are desperately short of funding due to cuts. What assessment do the Government make of children’s outcomes as a result of the current funding cuts?
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
The pupil premium is an important source of funding to level the playing field and improve social mobility. I have asked a number of questions about ensuring that all those who are eligible receive the pupil premium, and about improving its scope. Does the Minister now agree that it is time that we had a review of the pupil premium?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is entirely correct that the introduction of the pupil premium made an important structural change in how we do these things, by ensuring that the additional resourcing follows the pupils who need it in so that we can narrow the gap. It is also right that we keep these things periodically under review, as she suggests.
Several hon. Members rose—
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I welcome the news of the £26 million investment in breakfast clubs. How will my right hon. Friend ensure that the most disadvantaged children benefit from that, particularly in coastal communities?
Damian Hinds
We are using the IDACI—income deprivation affecting children index—methodology, as I mentioned earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), to ensure that this investment goes specifically to the most disadvantaged areas, where it can make the most difference.
Several hon. Members rose—
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Michelle Gay, headteacher of Osborne Primary School, was in tears when she told ITV just how tough it is to be one of the 361 schools in Birmingham suffering real-term cuts while trying to give kids in one of the poorest and most deprived constituencies in Britain the best possible start in life. Headteachers have asked to meet the Secretary of State personally so that they can bring home to him just how tough it is becoming. Will the Secretary of State be generous and agree to meet them?
Damian Hinds
As I said earlier, real-terms per-pupil funding in the core schools budget is being maintained across the system, but two things are overlaid on that. First, there is the application of the national funding formula to correct historical imbalances; and secondly, of course, local authorities play a part in reflecting local circumstances. I do acknowledge that with the cost pressures that there have been, things have been tight in school budgets. I will be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and his constituents.
Educational Outcomes
Damian Hinds Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
This Government are committed to ensuring that every child—regardless of their circumstances—can benefit from their education, ensuring they have the knowledge and skills to fulfil their potential, and the resilience they need for future success.
Since 2010, thanks to Government reforms and the hard work of teachers, we have made significant progress in raising standards in the education system. There are now 1.9 million more pupils in good or outstanding schools compared to 2010 and last year 154,000 more six-year-olds were on track to be fluent readers than in 2012.
Today, I am announcing a programme of work to improve our understanding of the educational experiences and outcomes of all children with additional needs, and those who live in challenging circumstances.
These children perform less well at school on average, are at greater risk of being excluded and are overrepresented in alternative provision. This is an overlapping cohort whose needs are often complex—many have special educational needs and disabilities, or are children in need of help and protection and so are supported through the social care system. This work is about understanding what works for these children and spreading effective practice to ensure they can fulfil their potential.
This programme of work includes:
An external review of school exclusions, led by former Children’s Minister Edward Timpson CBE. It will help us to understand how and why schools use exclusion, what drives the variation in exclusion rates and, particularly, the disproportionate exclusion rates of some groups—including black Caribbean boys, children in need, looked after children, and those with special educational needs;
Taking forward reforms to Alternative Provision (AP). AP educates children who are unable to attend mainstream or special schools, for example due to illness or exclusion. Today the Government are publishing “Creating Opportunity for AH: Our Vision for Alternative Provision”; it outlines our plan to ensure consistently high quality education is provided to all children in AP, across the country, and determine a clear role for AP as an integral part of the education system. This package includes a £4 million innovation fund to develop effective practice;
Reviewing the outcomes of and support for children in need, as set out in our manifesto. We are already reforming children’s social care to improve children’s safety and stability, but our ambition must be for children in need to achieve their full potential. New data published today sets out the challenges they face, and their outcomes through school. The review will develop evidence to understand what works to improve these children’s educational outcomes in practice. This starts today with launching a call for evidence.
I will respond fully to the recommendations of Dame Christine Lenehan’s review of residential special schools, “Good Intentions, Good Enough?”, later this year. I will take that opportunity to set out how the Government will continue working to achieve the vision of a reformed special educational needs and disabilities system, underpinned by the Children and Families Act 2014.
We will focus on what is effective—using evidence to implement successful policy, and to spread best practice. These measures should help to ensure that all children and young people benefit from their education, transforming their experiences and outcomes.
“Creating Opportunity for All: Our Vision for Alternative Provision” and terms of reference for the exclusions review will be placed in the House libraries, and published on the Department for Education’s website. The website will also contain links to supporting documents for both the exclusions and children in need reviews.
[HCWS555]
Education
Damian Hinds Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Damian Hinds
There is more money going into our schools in this country than ever before. We know that real-terms funding per pupil is increasing across the system, and with the national funding formula, each school will see at least a small cash increase. [Official Report, 29 January 2018, Vol. 635, c. 536.]
Letter of correction from Damian Hinds:
An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) in Education Questions on 29 January 2018.
The correct response should have been:
Damian Hinds
There is more money going into our schools in this country than ever before. We know that overall real-terms funding per pupil is being maintained between 2017-18 and 2019-20, and with the national funding formula, each school will see at least a small cash increase.
Post-18 Education
Damian Hinds Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the review of post-18 education and funding. While I am not announcing new policy today, I welcome the opportunity to confirm to the House details of a major review across post-18 education and funding, as announced by the Prime Minister yesterday.
Before I discuss the specifics of the review, I should highlight some of the strengths and successes of our existing post-18 system. We have a world-class higher education system. Sixteen British universities are in the world’s top 100 and four are in the top 10. We have record numbers of young people entering university, including from disadvantaged backgrounds. Our student finance system removes up-front financial barriers and provides protections for borrowers so that they only have to contribute when they can afford to do so. A university degree provides significant financial returns to the individual: graduates on average benefit from their university education by over £100,000 over their lifetime.
The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 sets the foundation for further improvements, with the Office for Students a strong voice for students and to ensure minimum standards. The director for fair access and participation will help to drive social mobility. The teaching outcomes and excellence framework measures are in the legislation as well, as is the facilitation of further diversity with new providers and shorter degrees delivered at a lower cost to students.
The Technical and Further Education Act 2017 extends the responsibilities of the Institute for Apprenticeships to include technical education, as well as introducing degree-level apprenticeships. New institutes of technology will be established, which will focus on higher-level technical skills and will be eligible for access to loans and grants for their students. T-levels are in development—a true, equal-standing alternative to A-levels.
We will build on those important reforms in this review. We will also look at parts of the system that are not working as well as they could be. Although we have seen further growth in three-year degrees for 18-year-olds, the post-18 system does not always offer a comprehensive range of high-quality alternative routes for the many young people who pursue a technical or vocational path at that stage. In universities, we have not seen the extent of increase in choice that we would have wanted. The great majority of courses are priced at the same level and three-year courses remain the norm. Meanwhile, although the funding system is a progressive one with built-in protections, those elements are not always well understood.
It is for those reasons that the Government are committed to conducting this major review to look further at how we can ensure that our post-18 education system is joined up and supported by a funding system that works for students and taxpayers. The review will look at four key strands: choice and competition across post-18 education and training; value for money for graduates and taxpayers; accessibility of the system to all; and delivering the skills that our country needs now and in the future. This means identifying ways to help people to make the most effective choices between the options available at and after 18, so that they can make more informed decisions about their futures. It is also about ensuring that there is a more diverse range of options to choose from beyond the classic three-year or four-year undergraduate degrees.
We will look at how students and graduates contribute to the cost of their studies, to ensure that funding arrangements across post-18 education are transparent and do not prevent people from accessing higher education or training. We will examine how we can best ensure that people from all backgrounds have equal opportunities to progress and succeed in post-18 education, including considering how disadvantaged students receive maintenance support, both from the Government and from universities and colleges. We will look at how we can best support education outcomes that deliver our industrial strategy ambitions by contributing to a strong economy and delivering the skills our country needs.
We are clear that we must maintain and protect key elements of our current post-18 education system that work well already. We will maintain the principle that students should contribute to the cost of their studies, and we will not place a cap on the number of students who can benefit from post-18 education. We will not regress to a system like that in Scotland, where controls on student numbers continue to restrict the aspirations of young people.
The review will be informed by independent advice from an expert panel from across post-18 education, business and academia chaired by Philip Augar, a financial author and former non-executive director of the Department for Education. To inform its advice, the panel will carry out extensive consultation and engagement with the sector, with business and with, among others, people currently or recently participating in post-18 education. The panel will publish its report at an interim stage, before the Government conclude the overall review in early 2019.
The UK is truly a world-leading destination for study and research. Record numbers of young people, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are entering university. However, we recognise the concerns and we must look at how we can go further to provide choice, to open up access and to deliver value for money for students and taxpayers. We must ensure that the system as a whole is delivering the best possible outcomes for young people and the economy, joining up the vocational, technical and academic routes and supported by a fair and sustainable funding system. I commend this statement to the House.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for giving me advance sight of his statement.
I welcome the Prime Minister’s admission yesterday that the system is not working. She rightly talked about the choices facing a working-class teenage girl today. I faced those choices as a working-class teenage girl myself, but every part of the education system that helped me has been attacked by this Government. I want to ask the Secretary of State first to clarify one simple point. He has claimed that there are now record numbers of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, but the House of Commons Library has confirmed today that, when we include part-time students, there are now 10,000 fewer students from under-represented areas than there were before the Government raised tuition fees to £9,000 a year. And as usual, the rest of the Secretary of State’s announcement leaves us with more questions than answers.
Let us start with the most important question. Will the review be able to recommend extra funding for education overall? The terms of reference state that it cannot make recommendations on tax and that it must follow the Government’s fiscal policies. Does that mean that the review cannot recommend anything that would increase spending? If so, can the review consider restoring maintenance grants, reducing interest rates or increasing the teaching grant? Can the Secretary of State also confirm that the terms of reference make it clear that it is not an independent review at all but one directly run by his Ministers? Given that, will he ensure that the review’s recommendations are put to this House and implemented in primary legislation that we can properly discuss and amend?
The Prime Minister admitted that the current system
“leaves students from the lowest-income households bearing the highest levels of debt”.
Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that that will always be the case with a system entirely based on loans? Does he agree with his predecessor, who has admitted that this Government were wrong to scrap maintenance grants?
Speaking to The Sunday Times, the Secretary of State said that he wants differential fees, with higher prices for subjects with the greatest earning potential. Is that policy, or was the Government’s Education Secretary not speaking for the Government? Does he understand that charging higher fees for the very courses that lead to the highest-paid jobs makes no economic sense and only widens inequality? So much for social mobility.
The Conservative party manifesto promised a review of tertiary education across the board, yet further education colleges form no part of this review, despite the hundreds of thousands of people aged 16 to 18 studying in them. Have this Government abandoned yet another manifesto commitment?
Can the Secretary of State also tell us whether student nurses are covered by the review? If not, will he give this House a debate and a vote on the regulations he is trying to sneak through to abolish their bursaries? He said that he wants funding arrangements to be transparent. The Treasury Committee, chaired by another of his predecessors, found the funding arrangements to be anything but. The Committee highlighted the “fiscal illusion” at the heart of the system, with up to £7 billion of annual debt write-offs simply missing, allowing the Government to artificially reduce the deficit by saddling young people with debt. Perhaps he can tell us whether he will take up the Committee’s recommendations. Will he finally tell us the latest estimate of the resource accounting and budgeting charge and about how it will be written off?
The truth is that a year-long review is an unnecessary waste of time and energy when action is needed now. Let me offer the Secretary of State a simple conclusion to his review: a fully costed plan to scrap tuition fees, to bring back maintenance support and to reverse the rest of the Government’s cuts to education. It is called “For the many, not the few” and that is exactly what our education system should be.
Damian Hinds
I thank the hon. Lady very much indeed for her response. She asked a number of questions and I will try to get through as many of them as I can. She is right to identify the issues of part-time participation in higher education. One of the things the review will look at is the ways in which it is possible to carry on earning in the labour force while studying. The decline in part-time study predates the 2012 reforms and indeed the change of Government in 2010, so we need to look at some of the underlying causes.
The hon. Lady asked what the review will cover. The review will cover the complete range, but the Government also believe in a framework of fiscal responsibility, and rightly so. It is only when we have a strong economy that we can have a strong education system and that we can carry on investing in our public services in the way that we are doing.
The hon. Lady asked whether it is an independent review. It is a Government review and the Government are ultimately responsible to this House and democratically. We make the decisions, but those decisions are informed and advised by an independent panel, the composition of which she knows. The legislative requirements that would follow from any changes would follow the normal processes. The same goes for the statutory instrument she asked about.
I do not want to take up too much time, but I want to set one important thing straight. When we talk about having different fees for different courses, it is about ensuring diversity and choice in the marketplace. That exists along many different axes, including shorter courses, more part-time courses and courses delivered in different ways. It is absolutely not the same as saying that there is some distinction of worth to be drawn between arts courses and science courses. With how the world economy is changing, it is also true that we are going to need more STEM graduates and more people with expertise in coding and so on, but that is a different point.
I will finish by observing that there is no such thing as “free” in higher education. Somebody must pay, and there are only two types of people who can fund higher education: those who have benefited from it and will typically earn much more over their lifetimes, and those who have not. There is a public subsidy that goes towards higher education that rightly reflects the societal benefit, but it is also right that the people who benefit contribute to the cost. The Labour alternative is to have the tab picked up entirely by other taxpayers, many of whom will not have benefited from the advantages. That is a regressive policy that would mean less money going to universities and fewer people going to university. It would be a policy for the few, not the many.
Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)
Like many Members of this House, I was the first person in my family to go to university, and wonderful universities, such as the University of Roehampton in my constituency, are now giving many young local people the same opportunity. I welcome the fact that the panel will talk to young people, which is vital because they need certainty to be able to start making informed decisions about whether to go to university. I have two points. First, does my right hon. Friend agree that social mobility must be at the heart of the panel’s thinking? Secondly, does he also agree that probably one of the worst things we could introduce would be the regressive tuition fee policy proposed by the Labour party, which would simply benefit the better-off at the expense of the worse-off in our society by introducing a cap on student numbers?
Damian Hinds
My right hon. Friend is of course completely right about the alternative policy proposed by the official Opposition, which would benefit the best-off. In contrast, as she says, we should be focusing on what we can do to promote social mobility and build on the strides that we have made in terms of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds going on to study full-time at age 18. She also mentioned the requirement that young people, or indeed older people, applying to university have certainty now. It is important for us to keep stressing that university is a good deal. If you are someone who can benefit from a university degree, we have a progressive system with plenty of protections in place, and if you can make the most of that, you should.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. The Prime Minister’s speech yesterday had plenty of platitudes and good intentions, but there has been absolutely nothing of substance. We have had an admission that the current system in England is not working for students. Admitting that it is wrong is one thing, but failing to correct the situation is simply incompetent. In Scotland, the Scottish National party has restored Scotland’s tradition of free higher education while maintaining the education maintenance allowance for those at school or in further education and the bursary for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in higher education—[Interruption.] Contrary to the comments from the Government Benches, that support package works. Scottish 18-year-olds from the most disadvantaged areas are now 67% more likely to apply to higher education than 12 years ago, and they graduate with the lowest debt in the UK. Is it not time that we stopped the nonsense and abolished the fees, and matched not just Scotland but the rest of the developed world? Going to university should be based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay.
If the fees for some less expensive degree courses are lowered, as has been rumoured, has the Secretary of State considered how he will encourage young people to study the more expensive STEM subjects that are so desperately needed in the UK? We have already seen the impact of removing the nursing bursary, with applications to study nursing in England down by 23%. How will the Secretary of State ensure that that does not happen in STEM?
Both the Government and the Labour party are trying to rewrite the history of their responsibility for the tuition fees fiasco, and it is clear that Scotland is leading the policy debate in the UK. With the average debt on graduation in England now at £50,000, how will the Secretary of State ensure that a flow of talent from all backgrounds will continue? How will he ensure that the industrial strategy is supported? Is it not time that fees were abolished?
Damian Hinds
Additional support is already provided in England for some of those key subjects that have a higher cost attached to them, and the review will consider how to incentivise the take-up of such courses. As for the broader point, I said to the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) that, if there were to be a policy along the lines that she suggested, that would mean fewer people being able to go to university, less money going to universities and disadvantaged students being impacted. She only has to look to her left towards the SNP to see exhibit A of how that works.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
How few students actually pay 6%?
Damian Hinds
The interest rate, to which I think my right hon. Friend is referring, is currently 6.1%, but it varies with inflation. Critically, it means that those who earn more in their 20s and 30s will pay more—[Interruption.] It applies throughout the study period, as the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) should know. Thereafter, the rate varies depending on earnings. It does serve an important purpose, but it cannot be considered in isolation from all the other aspects of the system.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Secretary of State to his post, but will he take this matter seriously? Something is deeply wrong with higher education funding. Much has been achieved, but much needs to be reviewed. Will he concentrate on skills in our country? We are not producing the right skills or giving incentives to further education colleges and private trainers—all those who are struggling at the moment.
Damian Hinds
Much achieved, but things to look at again—I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman, because that is precisely what we are doing. As for skills, some of the ones that we are looking for are being delivered extremely well, but we need to do more. That is why we have had the big expansion in apprenticeships, the Institute for Apprenticeships, the raising of standards and, of course, the introduction of the T-levels, which he will welcome.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I welcome the review and the direction of travel, but my right hon. Friend will know that a fifth to a third of graduates are not getting graduate jobs and that the number of state school graduates has decreased in the past year. Is it not the case that our higher education system is not providing value for money for many disadvantaged people? That is why the review must focus on skills and on addressing social injustice.
Damian Hinds
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the need to focus on skills and to have social justice and equal opportunity at the heart of things. I should also mention that those who do not earn above the threshold do not repay their loan, which is an intrinsic part of the system.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, three quarters of graduates will not repay their loans, so is it not the case that the system is not working for the taxpayer, let alone students? Therefore, would the Secretary of State have welcomed a more radical review that could have considered some of the deep-rooted problems of the current system?
Damian Hinds
I can understand why the hon. Lady asks that question, but part of the point of the system is that if someone does not earn up to a certain level, or if by the time 30 years have passed, someone has been out of the labour market, they are not expected to pay back the loan. That is deliberate, to ensure that the system is progressive and fair.
Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)
Thanks to the expansion that fees have enabled, the most disadvantaged students are now nearly twice as likely to go to university if they are in England than if they are in Scotland. I am in the first generation in my family to go to university and I want my constituents to have the same opportunity. Although I welcome the review, will the Secretary of State reassure me that we will not put that progress at risk?
Damian Hinds
I absolutely reassure my hon. Friend that ensuring equal and fair access will be at the heart of what we do.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The Conservative party manifesto promised a review of tertiary education, so I welcome the Secretary of State’s review. However, when will he fulfil the promise to review the most underfunded part of our education system—16 to 18?
Damian Hinds
The internationally recognised definition of tertiary education is largely post-18. The hon. Gentleman is right about some of the challenges in post-16 education. A moment ago, I mentioned T-levels, for which considerably more funding will come forward. There is also the great expansion in apprenticeships.
David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and strongly support his review. It is essential that we deliver the skills that our country needs, and give opportunities for all. Will he ensure that the concerns and views of business and industry are taken into account in the review?
Damian Hinds
It is vital that the views of industry and business are taken fully into account. I know that the independent panel will listen to them carefully.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
The terms of reference that the Secretary of State published say that the review cannot make recommendations on tax policy and that it must make recommendations in keeping with the Government’s fiscal policies. Does that mean that there will be no new money for higher education regardless of the review’s recommendations?
Damian Hinds
As I said, we have a framework of fiscal responsibility, which we will stick to. The announcements on tax and spending are made at fiscal events, but the review has a wide remit to consider all the different aspects of the system and make recommendations.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
The Secretary of State rightly stated the principle that those who benefit must contribute. Does he agree that the alternative is regressive and means a cap and a reduction in student numbers?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is right and he has only to look north of the border to see how that works.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The Secretary of State spoke about choices made at and after 18, but he will know that many students make those choices at 13 when they choose their GCSEs. The National Audit Office report on the higher education market identified high-quality careers advice and financial education as part of how we can fix the system. Will the review include that?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady is right to talk about the choices that are made early. That is why drawing attention to the so-called facilitating subjects can be useful for keeping people’s options open for higher education. The point also highlights why we need to make clear early in school the routes to technical and vocational as well as higher education.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that high-quality apprenticeships are key to addressing the UK’s skills shortages?
Damian Hinds
I agree entirely. That is why we have such bold ambition for what we will do on apprenticeships—not just the numbers, but with the Institute for Apprenticeships, and moving from frameworks to standards to ensure that they deliver what business needs.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
The creative industries generate more than £90 billion for the UK economy. Assessing the value of a university degree course on graduate salary or outcomes risks undermining that important sector. What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that we support universities in producing world-class arts graduates?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady makes an important point and, of course, we do produce world-class arts graduates, and we have some of the finest institutions in the world doing that. On what she calls valuing degrees, I have said that at least three different considerations need to be taken account of: the cost of putting on the course, the value in earnings to the individual, and also the value to our society as well as our economy.
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
I am delighted that the review will address value for money for graduates. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the system does not currently have the transparency for students to make informed choices, and that that needs to be addressed?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have moved forward with what is called the LEO—longitudinal education outcomes—dataset to help students make those analyses directly, and indeed to help those who provide information on courses.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
The madness of the current system is that it costs students and taxpayers a fortune. Student debt is spiralling up to £55 billion, nearly half of which will be written off and picked up by general taxpayers. I urge the Secretary of State to look forensically at how we knit together further education and higher education so that we radically expand the number of earn-while-you-learn degree places, which are collapsing in great cities such as Birmingham, where they have halved in the past 12 months alone.
Damian Hinds
That was a question of two halves. In the first half, I think the right hon. Gentleman was describing what is called sharing the cost, which we do. We believe that it is right that the individual who benefits should take on part of the investment, and the taxpayer also picks up part of it. I agree entirely with the points in the second half of the question: we should have proper join-up between HE and FE. Many universities already do important technical education, and many FE colleges also conduct very good HE. We want more of a join-up.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
Many of us, from both sides of the Chamber, come from modest backgrounds and were the first in our families to go to university. Any kind of cap on numbers could seriously jeopardise the system. Will the review therefore ensure that the unintended consequences of popular but ultimately disastrous policy options are highlighted?
Damian Hinds
The review will look at a range of issues, but highlighting the downsides of some policies that may appear outwardly and initially attractive is an important part of that.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State guarantee that there will be no reduction in funding for widening participation and fair access programmes as part of the review?
Damian Hinds
As the hon. Gentleman will know, there has been some great progress in widening access in terms of social class and, for example, in terms of people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds going on to university. The access programmes that universities run are part of the reason for that. The director of fair access enables us to strengthen that further, learn from what works best and ensure that we spread best practice.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
We need to build 300,000 houses a year in this country. Does my right hon. Friend therefore agree that a high-quality apprenticeship in construction is an excellent alternative to incurring any debt through a university course?
Damian Hinds
Different people have different talents and orientations and enjoy different things, and it is important that we present a range. My hon. Friend is right to mention the particular requirement for construction skills, and the apprenticeship route is an important part of fulfilling that.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
The review does not touch on the excessive salaries and pension pots that many vice-chancellors claim. Does the Secretary of State think that that is an insignificant factor in the current culture?
Damian Hinds
The overall remuneration of senior staff in institutions that have public support must also enjoy public confidence. The Office for Students will look at how we can ensure that that confidence is maintained.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I welcome the mention of apprenticeships and T-levels. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the review will cover the potential of institutes of technology to deliver them, particularly if one was built in South Devon College in Paignton?
Damian Hinds
I am not at this exact moment in a position to go into detail about Paignton, but I can confirm that institutes of technology are an important part of the piece.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to the answer that the Secretary of State gave my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on the international definition of tertiary education being post-18, I point out that the Conservative party manifesto included 16 to 18 education as tertiary. Although it is the Secretary of State’s prerogative to choose his timings for inquiries, will he give an actual date for the FE review, because colleges in Stoke-on-Trent want to know?
Damian Hinds
We are constantly improving things. The level 4 and 5 review that is going on will feed into the review that we are discussing. As I have said to several Members, we want to ensure that the two sides are joined up.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Yesterday, when I looked, there did not seem to be a readily accessible link on the website to the review team. If members of the public want to share the benefit of their views with Mr Augar, will the Secretary of State ensure that there is an accessible, emailable link?
Damian Hinds
I will indeed ensure that it is possible to do that. There will of course be a call for evidence as part of the process.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The Secretary of State has simply criticised the Scottish Government and not taken the opportunity to learn from them. Will he join me in welcoming the 2017 UCAS figures, which show a 13% increase in students from Scotland’s most deprived communities going to a Scottish university, and the overall 2% increase in applicants to universities this year from the 20% most deprived areas compared with last year?
Damian Hinds
The gap in opportunity between the disadvantaged and the advantaged in Scotland is well known to all, including the commentators who look at it, and no plucking from the air of a favourite statistic is going to change that. The fact is that the system we have in England has been effective in helping disadvantaged people to make the most of their talents if they want to go on to higher education.
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
Student living costs are the most pressing issue at Keele University in my constituency and certainly elsewhere in the country, where it is much more expensive to rent and simply get by. Rather than waiting an age for the conclusions of this review, should the Government not simply address this issue now, as well as the sliding scale of access to maintenance loans and the reintroduction of maintenance grants?
Damian Hinds
Bringing in maintenance loans meant it was possible to get access to more cash, and we know the cash-flow question was an important consideration, especially in enabling disadvantaged students to stay at university. I confirmed in the statement that the review will look at all the different aspects of the system.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
We have agreed with the EU that we will continue to benefit from EU programmes until the end of the current budget plan. We have also reached an agreement on citizens’ rights, allowing EU citizens to continue to live here broadly as now, which helps to provide certainty to current staff.
John Mc Nally
The Secretary of State will be aware of the comments made by Professor Andrea Nolan when she told the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs that Brexit
“will have a significant impact on the HE sector, on the staffing profile, and on the student profile, in Scotland.”
Does the Secretary of State understand those concerns, and does he agree with the convener of Universities Scotland?
Damian Hinds
Of course people working in the university sector in Scotland, as throughout the United Kingdom, will be thinking about the future in what will be a time of some change, but it will remain the case that the United Kingdom, including Scotland, has an exceptionally strong message to give to the world on the strength of our institutions, on the attractiveness of coming here to study and on the attractiveness of partnering with our institutions on research.
Chris Law
Scotland’s universities have so far been awarded almost €400 million from Horizon 2020, an 11% share of all funding secured by UK institutions. The University of Dundee in my constituency, for example, has received €21 million from the scheme. Given the scheme’s huge importance, when will the Government tell universities how they plan to square the funding circle after the current Horizon 2020 programme finishes?
Damian Hinds
These are indeed important matters, and officials from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have spoken to academics from Scottish universities—including, I think, from the University of Dundee—about the future. It is important that we have a guarantee until the end of the Horizon 2020 programme. Of course, what happens with future programmes will be a matter for us to agree with the other nations.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his new position. Has he had a chance to read the Social Market Foundation report, published today, on the problems of snobbery between higher education and technical education? Does he agree that universities need to do a lot more to embrace technical education students and degree apprenticeships and that financial incentives should go towards those universities that encourage degree apprenticeships and encourage students with BTECs into technical education?
Damian Hinds
I confess that I have not yet read this morning’s report, but I look forward to consuming it when I have the time to do so with proper attention. My right hon. Friend mentions something on which he has consistently campaigned throughout his time in Parliament, and it is so important that we do not have some sort of wall between the academic and the technical and vocational. Things such as degree apprenticeships are a great opportunity for more people to benefit from certain types of education and to make sure that we widen participation as much as possible.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend join me in echoing the phrase used by the BBC and, despite Brexit, welcoming this year’s record number of international students in our university system?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is correct that the United Kingdom remains an exceptionally attractive destination for international students. As he says, the number of non-EU international students is at a record high, and of course we want that to continue.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
What conversations has the Secretary of State had with the Home Secretary on the contribution made by international students and staff to our British universities and about their classification in immigration statistics?
Damian Hinds
I, the Government, the Home Office and everyone else totally recognise the value of the higher education sector to our country. The Migration Advisory Committee will be looking at the question of international students, as well as the question of migration in general, so that we can consider those things fully.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
Since the introduction of Horizon 2020, Welsh universities have received more than €83 million in funding from the programme, enabling their participation in more than 2,000 international collaborations. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether the UK Government intend to negotiate association with Horizon 2020’s successor programmes, so that universities in Wales can continue to benefit from and contribute to such programmes?
Damian Hinds
Horizon 2020 has worked very well for UK universities. In fact, we have the second-highest number of participants in those programmes of any EU state. Of course, it is vital and in everybody’s interest that we continue to work co-operatively with our near European neighbours on many things, including university research.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
I welcome the Secretary of State and his team to their places. He will no doubt be aware of the challenges of getting young people, especially girls, into STEM careers. Given the importance of those subjects to our economic development, does he agree that the UK’s immigration policy for prospective academic and research staff from the EU should not be restrictive?
Damian Hinds
I alluded a moment or two ago to the Migration Advisory Committee and the work it will be doing. This country has always been clear that we want to remain attractive to and welcome the brightest and the best. We have a very successful and very international, outward-looking higher education sector, and I anticipate that continuing.
Carol Monaghan
The Royal Society of Edinburgh said in its evidence to the Migration Advisory Committee that the UK risks undermining the Scottish Government’s efforts on developing interest in and the uptake of STEM subjects if restrictive immigration policies are put in place. What discussions has the Secretary of State had in this area with the Home Secretary and with university principals, to commit to looking at a tailored immigration policy for Scotland?
Damian Hinds
As I say, we will be looking at all aspects of this, with regard to both students and academics. More widely, the Migration Advisory Committee is looking at immigration and the role it plays in different sectors of the economy. We continue to discuss with our European neighbours what will happen in the future, and my hon. Friend the Minister for Higher Education will be speaking to EU Science Ministers later this week. It is in everybody’s interest that we work for the good of the whole United Kingdom to ensure that we continue to have such a highly successful higher education system.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Since 2010, the proportion of pupils taking a language GCSE has increased from 40% to 47%. In December, we outlined plans to improve the quality of language teaching in England, where schools with a good track record in teaching languages will share best practice and pedagogy.
Jamie Stone
I also welcome the Secretary of State to his place. I listened to his answer with great interest. North of the border, Scotland’s future economic prosperity will clearly be dependent on young people having the very best language skills. Would the Secretary of State’s Department be good enough to share—[Laughter.]Would his Department share best practice with the Scottish Government? I think that the Scottish Government would be very grateful.
Damian Hinds
Language skills are important for young people in Scotland, as they are for those in England. In England, we have looked across the world for examples of best practice in various subjects, and we are happy to share that information with others. I am keen to work collaboratively with the Scottish Government, so that we can both see what we can learn from one another.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I remind Ministers that there is no obligation to provide multi-sentence replies? There is no prohibition on single sentence replies. In fact, some people think that they are quite desirable.
Damian Hinds
That is very fortunate, Mr Speaker, as I do not quite know where to go after that. My hon. Friend makes a very good and interesting point about the value of languages.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
We were all suitably impressed when Emmanuel Macron spoke flawless English in his candid interview with Andrew Marr the other week. That is no surprise given that 80% of children in EU member states start learning a second language in primary school. What is the Secretary of State going to do to ensure that children in the UK do not fall behind their European counterparts?
Damian Hinds
It starts with an international outlook and learning about other countries. Of course, it is also about encouraging more teachers to go into teaching modern foreign languages, and we are working hard on that.
Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
The number of entries for GCSE Mandarin has increased by nearly 50% since 2010. Will the Secretary of State continue to support that language and other languages spoken in the world’s fastest-growing economies?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is exactly right about the importance of Mandarin. Of course, this is a hugely important economy. That is why things like the Mandarin excellence programme are so much in focus at the Department for Education.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
Since 2010, the number of open academies and free schools has increased from 203 to almost 7,500. The numbers of primary schools converting to academies has grown significantly. As of the first day of the year, there were 4,592.
Stephen McPartland
Herts for Learning is the only local authority-controlled multi-academy trust in the country. Records at Companies House demonstrate that the local authority has more than 25% of shares in it and is an organisation of significant control. It has been converting primary schools in my area since September. Will the Secretary of State clarify the Government’s position with regard to local authority-controlled multi-academy trusts?
Damian Hinds
Our position is that we limit local authority representation on academy trust boards to 19.9% to help maintain the independence of academies, while ensuring that boards can benefit from the right mix of skills and experience. I am of course very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss whatever concerns and wishes he may have.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
May I welcome the new Secretary of State to his position? Since taking up office, has he had a chance to read and reflect on a letter that the Education Committee wrote to the Minister, Lord Agnew, following our evidence-hearing session with the Minister and the National Schools Commissioner about what we feel is a lack of oversight, accountability and, critically, transparency with regard to multi-academy trusts?
Damian Hinds
We have a framework in place around multi-academy trusts. Academies have been a fundamental part of the improvements that we have seen in schools. Multi-academy trusts, in turn, are a fundamental part of making sure that good practice can be spread more widely across the system. We have the good practice guidance that is published. There are audited accounts and various processes. Ultimately, as Secretary of State, I am accountable to Parliament for the performance of the schools system. In turn, the regional schools commissioners are accountable to me.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend, in promoting multi-academy trusts, also show the role that secondary schools can have in leading primary schools that become part of those trusts? That is very important for people attending primary schools and then going on to the secondary school in due course.
Damian Hinds
My right hon. Friend, with his great experience, makes a very important point. The different phases of education, working together, can share a great deal of expertise.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
All the focus on structures is taking us away from the real issue, which is that this weekend even Tory party donors and academy chain heads were talking about real-terms cuts to funding. That is what I am seeing in the schools in my constituency. Will the Government face up to the real crisis, which is the real-terms cut in school funding?
Damian Hinds
There is more money going into our schools in this country than ever before. We know that real-terms funding per pupil is increasing across the system, and with the national funding formula, each school will see at least a small cash increase. [Official Report, 5 March 2018, Vol. 637, c. 2MC.]
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)
This Government are committing to providing a world-class education for all our young people, raising attainment and narrowing the gap between the affluent and the disadvantaged. Working with our dedicated teachers and professionals throughout education and beyond, we must continue to raise standards, from early years through to further and higher education, and ensure that the right care and support are always there for society’s vulnerable children. I will work to make sure that our education system offers opportunity to everyone, in every phase and in every place. The successes are clear, with 1.9 million more children in good or outstanding schools, and the latest figures showing the attainment gap narrowed by 10%, but there is more to do to spread opportunity, particularly in areas of the country historically left behind.
Emma Reynolds
I recently visited Ashmore Park Nursery School in my constituency, which provides outstanding education, as do 60% of nursery schools across the country. Unfortunately, the future of their funding is now in doubt. Will the Secretary of State guarantee their sustainable funding beyond 2020?
Damian Hinds
I join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to her local nursery school. This Government are spending more on childcare and early years than any previous Government, with not only the 30 hours commitment but the extra provision for disadvantaged two-year-olds, and of course there is also the work being done on the hourly rate.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
Damian Hinds
Yes, it does. Before “Never again” comes “Never forget.” Every young person should learn about the holocaust, which is why it is the only historic event that is compulsory within the national curriculum. I commend the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and other such organisations.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
The Secretary of State’s predecessor this morning admitted that they were wrong to abolish maintenance grants, that the student finance system is regressive, that variable fees will punish the poorest and that their review is intended to kick the issue into the long grass, rather than make decisions. Apart from that, she is very supportive. But she is right, is she not?
Damian Hinds
We have a system of higher education finance in this country that means unprecedented levels of disadvantaged people can go to university and our universities are properly funded. In October, the Prime Minister said that we would be taking quick action, raising the threshold for repayment and freezing the top fees for the next academic year. It is also right that we have a full review, looking at all aspects of value for money for young people and others going to university, and at the alternatives to university, such as taking a degree apprenticeship, as we discussed earlier.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Damian Hinds
I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. I value greatly the contribution that Church and faith schools make to our education system; they are consistently generally high-performing and popular schools. Every child deserves a good school place, which is why the “Schools that work for everyone” consultation set out proposals to enable a wider group of providers, including the Catholic Church, for example, to set up new schools. I am carefully considering the proposals.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
Damian Hinds
Quite simply, the proposals will involve more children being eligible for free school meals than under the previous system. We have a short-term arrangement for the very early days of universal credit, which is different, but we estimate that around 50,000 more children will be eligible for free school meals than under the old system.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
What is the Department doing to help children with special educational needs on their pathway to adulthood and, where appropriate, into the workforce?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend has been consistent in campaigning on this issue for a number of years, and I will of course be happy to meet him to discuss his comments.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
The desperate rush to convert schools into academies does not appear to be matched by any rush to ensure adequate financial oversight and value for money. Will the Secretary of State please investigate why the academy trust United Learning received £150,000 to support Sedgehill School in south London, despite the school remaining maintained and United Learning not even becoming its sponsor?
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
I very much welcome the steps the Government are taking to improve the mental wellbeing of school pupils, but does the Secretary of State agree that extracurricular activities such as sport are also vital in ensuring good wellbeing and mental health and that we should promote them at every opportunity?
Damian Hinds
Mental health among our young people is indeed an issue of paramount importance—and something, of course, the Prime Minister has given particular attention to—and the Green Paper is an important indication of the way forward, but my hon. Friend is also right to mention that active lives and sport play a very important part.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
Not all children arrive at school equal, and those who are homeless and in temporary accommodation have the worst set of circumstances. Mrs Sheridan, a headteacher in my constituency, recently wrote about her pupil Jack, who has become an absentee student since going into temporary accommodation. What does the Minister’s Department say to those children in temporary accommodation?
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
Wirral Metropolitan College failed to secure funds for non-levied apprenticeships from April this year, despite a positive Ofsted report in October 2017, which highlighted the fact that it is a key player in economic and social development in the region. Concern has been expressed about a number of colleges that are currently meeting the needs of employers but have missed out in the procurement process. Will the Minister ask the Education and Skills Funding Agency to look again at the application from Wirral Met, to ensure that the college can continue to work with employers to deliver vital skills training in Wirral?
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Damian Hinds Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Damian Hinds)
Today’s young people can look forward to some of the most exciting opportunities that a generation has ever faced, but also to a much more uncertain world. They face a changing world order, where the economic and political dominance of the west is increasingly challenged by developing and emerging economies. They face a changing labour market, with a growing premium on high value added jobs and the knowledge economy. They are unlikely to stay in the same job for life, they are much less likely than their parents to have a defined benefit pension, and they face much higher house prices, albeit that those are greatly mitigated by the low interest rates that have come about from our sound economic stewardship.
That comes on top of long-standing issues that the Government inherited in 2010 but that, to be fair, have existed for much longer. There is a productivity gap between the UK and other major global economies, an educational gap between rich and poor and between different parts of the country, and a lack of financial resilience in many parts of the population, without even the cushion of a small savings account.
The Government have been facing up to those structural issues through our educational reforms, the revolution in apprenticeships and the national living wage. This Budget puts the next generation first. It builds up our young people’s skills, and builds the infrastructure for a modern economy and higher productivity. Alongside all that is rightly being done to increase housing supply, it also helps young people to save for their retirement and for owning a home, with all the security that that can bring. For many, the Budget makes possible a rainy-day savings cushion for the first time.
The Budget also commits £1.6 billion extra over this Parliament to education in England. Academies are a key part of our education reforms, as the Education Secretary outlined earlier, and research from the OECD, the European Commission, and others, has repeatedly shown that more autonomy for individual schools can help to raise standards.
The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), my cloakroom neighbour, rightly talked about the performance of London schools and the London challenge. Many factors have gone into improving the performance of London schools. In fact, the improvement in performance predates the London challenge—the year the London challenge started is the year that the GCSE performance in London caught up with that of the rest of the country—but one of the factors in London’s outperformance was the school mix, including the disproportionate contribution to improvement made by academy schools.
Alex Cunningham
I am grateful to hear the lovely compliments for my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). The Secretary of State could not tell us where the extra money was coming from to fund the forced academies programme. Can the Minister do so?
Damian Hinds
The money announced in the Budget comes on top of what was announced in the spending review.
The right hon. Member for East Ham asked how the national funding formula would be done. We will consult on the principles through which it will work, but the intention is to ensure that it is fair and that it reflects need, unlike the rather arbitrary system we can have currently.
Damian Hinds
I am sorry but I am going to make some progress.
A number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), talked about post-16 maths. There is a massive premium on the study of maths and maths qualifications, as the report by Professor Alison Wolf identified. Maths will become more important as time goes on, but it is right that we ask the question and work out the best way to have further maths study, including by taking into consideration the questions that a number of hon. Members raised.
Hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) and for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), raised the importance of sport in school. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) rightly mentioned in an intervention that the difference in opportunity in sport and other extracurricular activities is part of the gap in opportunity between children in state schools and children in public schools. It is therefore very important for social mobility.
A number of right hon. and hon. Members talked about the levy on manufacturers and importers of sugary soft drinks. My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) movingly spoke of her own family and reminded us of the health benefit that is at the centre of the policy, which was also mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) and for Faversham and Mid Kent, and the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). Of course, we would rather not collect that much of that tax. The reason for the delay before it is introduced is to allow the manufacturers to change the formulation of their drinks or change their marketing so that they are pushing and promoting more the lower-sugar variants and products. We hope they will do so.
Rightly, a number of times in the debate, the important subject of the support that is given to people with disabilities has come up. I reassure the House that real-terms spending on the personal independence payment and its predecessor, the disability living allowance, has increased by more than £3 billion since 2010. The PIP budget will continue to increase from now until 2020. The reforms announced last week will bring spending closer to the level forecast in November and ensure that increased spend is targeted on those who need it most.
Damian Hinds
I am sorry but I will not give way.
We are exempting disability benefits from the uprating freeze and exempting recipients of them from the benefits cap. We are aiming to halve the massive employment gap between those with disabilities and those without. Over the past year, the number of disabled people in employment has risen by 150,000, but there is much more to do, hence the increase in the Budget for the Access to Work programme, the expansion of the Fit for Work scheme, and the increase in funding for dedicated employment advisers in IAPT— improving access to psychological therapies—services, among other programmes.
As today’s theme is education and young people, I should mention the replacement—it comes from the previous Parliament—of statements for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities with educational health and care plans, which for the first time bring together the care, health and education needs of some of our most vulnerable young people from the age of zero right up to 25. It is too early to measure the full effect of the programme, but most hon. Members would welcome it—I hope so.
On some of the other issues raised in today’s debate, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) talked about the catapult proposal. I am not in a position to comment on that in detail, but I am very happy to hear more about it. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) talked about tax simplification. We have eliminated the carbon reduction commitment part of the tax system, and there is also the zero rating of petroleum revenue tax. We are making the filing of taxes easier and making sure there are more people in HMRC call centres to take calls.
On the carer’s allowance, raised by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), the spend has increased by almost half since 2010. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole rightly mentioned the increased funding to deal with homelessness and the attention being given to provide second stage accommodation for people leaving hostels and refuges.
The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) and the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green)—it is a pleasure to speak opposite the hon. Lady from the Dispatch Box for what I think is the first time—suggested that inequality was rising due to the Government’s policies and the Budget. Inequality is actually coming down. The simple fact is that, if we look at the effect of policy over the period, the pattern of how public spending goes to different income groups in society remains broadly flat, while the incidence of taxation has shifted towards the top end.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) and my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent reminded us of the Government’s employment record. I remind the Opposition that the bulk of those jobs have been in full-time and higher-skilled occupations. My hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Reading West (Alok Sharma) and for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) reminded us that only business can create the wealth that gives security to families, and affords us the excellent schools and our world-leading national health service. We are therefore right to reform small business rate relief; fuel duty, which is an important cost for many businesses; and corporation tax to make sure that investment is incentivised, while at the same time introducing a further £8 billion package on tax avoidance by multinationals. We say that we are going to have a very competitive tax system and that we want to attract investment to this country, but when companies operate in this country we expect them to pay the full tax that is due.
Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor was candid with the House about the challenges facing the global economy. They are challenges from which no economy is immune, particularly a globally connected, trading economy such as ours. That is why it is so important to make Britain fit for the future, whatever challenges may lie ahead. It is why we focus on stability, employment, enterprise, innovation and opportunity. It is why we put in place policies helping people at every stage in their lives: from early-years childcare, to financial security and dignity in old age.
The reforms in education announced in this year’s Budget take that agenda forward. They help our aim of creating a society where everybody can achieve their aspirations and fulfil their potential—for children to get the best start in life, regardless of background; for them to be able to go to work in businesses as committed and skilled employees, companies that are incentivised towards productive capital investment; for young people to get on to the housing ladder; for our towns and cities to prosper, and to attract investment; for families to save for their retirement; and for everyone in our society to have a stake in the prosperity that, through this Budget, this Government are continuing to deliver.
Childcare Bill [Lords]
Damian Hinds Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Jenny Chapman
Well, I am glad that’s as simple as it gets. I said at the outset that I supported the Bill reasonably enthusiastically, but it is a bit arrogant of the Minister to suggest that it is a perfect Bill and that it has no complexity. As he just demonstrated incredibly well, there is huge complexity. Somebody on low earnings and working fewer than 16 hours a week will not qualify, but someone on higher earnings—
Jenny Chapman
The Minister says that universal credit will help improve the system. I venture to suggest that it might well further complicate the situation.
The new clause is designed to ensure that these perceived and anticipated complications do not have unintended consequences. As I have said, I accept that they are unintended, but the Minister would be rather naive to think that these consequences could never occur.
Technical and Vocational Education
Damian Hinds Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
I am very pleased that the shadow Secretary of State called for this debate, because we have to make education and skills this country’s No. 1 priority. The biggest question that we face, as a country, is how we can bring new, better-paid and more secure jobs to places such as Dudley, which have lost their traditional industries. The only way our country will pay its way in this century, let alone prosper, is by equipping the British people with the skills that they need to compete. There is no more urgent priority or task.
Children who are at school today will spend their adult lives working with technologies that have not yet been invented, and that we cannot even imagine. On average, those who leave school today will have more than a dozen jobs over their lifetime. The key thing that they have to learn is how to adapt and acquire new skills. However, the CBI’s education and skills survey in 2013 found that nearly a third of employers were dissatisfied with school leavers’ basic literacy and numeracy. Too few students have good English and maths GCSEs by the time they reach 18.
Germany has three times as many apprentices as the UK. The number of young apprentices—those who are under the age of 19—is falling, as is the number of apprentices in information technology and construction. It is good that the Minister has introduced degree-level apprenticeships, but they account for less than 2% of apprenticeships.
Britain is also falling behind our competitors in basic numeracy and literacy. In basic skills, we now lag behind not only countries such as Finland, South Korea and Germany but even Estonia, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. England is the only country in the developed world where the generation approaching retirement is more literate and numerate than the one entering the work force.
Ian Austin
If I may say so, that is a narrow party political point. I believe that the last Government took many great steps in education and skills, and if the hon. Gentleman bothers to listen, he might discover that I am saying some things that he and his party’s Front Benchers actually agree with. He ought to sit down, listen carefully and then perhaps contribute later to a serious debate about what I am saying should be the No. 1 priority for every political party.
We should agree as a country—all parties, Government, schools, universities, the teaching profession and businesses—clear long-term targets to transform education and ensure that we have the skills that we need to compete. We should set an ambition for Britain to produce the best-educated and most highly skilled young people in the world. Someone is going to do that, so why can it not be us? We have to drive up standards in our schools and get behind head teachers and teachers who are working to improve standards. If we recruit good teachers, motivate them, set high aspirations and tough targets, focus on standards and discipline and make the kids believe in themselves, the sky is the limit.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
ATMs and self-checkouts have already taken over jobs that we assumed would always be there. It is difficult fully to take in the potential structural change that will come from driverless vehicles and 3D printers, let alone from cleaning robots and Amazon drones delivering what is left and cannot be transmitted through the ether. More and more markets become more contestable, and more and more things can be offshored. We will never again make T-shirts cheaper than China can.
As we look to the future, we need to focus not only on high-value sectors, but on areas where we have competitive advantage. Those are things for a debate on another day, but we need to note that those two forces—technological change and globalisation—are accentuating the hollowing out of the labour market that we are already seeing, with more jobs at the bottom of the scale, more at the “knowledge economy” top and fewer in the middle. That has serious implications for social mobility and progression.
We know that the way in which those forces impact on people will depend on whether the particular job is enhanced by technology and the computer or competes with them, and there are major social justice questions attached to that. There will, of course, always be jobs that have little or nothing to do with technology—in care, retail, hospitality and so forth. For all employment sectors, however, we need a significant improvement in skill levels in the economy.
What skills will be required? We are going to see a merging of the academic and the vocational, the intellectual and the practical, and a further emphasis on some skills that we are not used to considering in either group. The Wolf report was right to talk about the primacy of English and maths—the skills for which employers look before all others. We need more attention, as the shadow Secretary of State mentioned, on character and resilience skills and on workplace skills. They are not the same thing but they overlap. Character and resilience skills are about what is in you—self-belief and the ability to set realistic goals, for example. Workplace skills are primarily about how people interact with others—customer empathy, including the ability to smile and make eye contact, teamwork, organising tasks, leading and motivating others. At the intersection of the two are perseverance and the ability to bounce back, which is, of course, so important throughout life.
Our success as an economy will depend on how we adapt to those new realities, and on how quickly we adapt. One benchmark is probably South Korea, whose story of change is dramatic. The youngest people in its work force have materially better basic skills than those approaching retirement. It is a shame that this country must currently contend with the opposite position.
I fear that a great error in the first decade of this century was the overriding obsession with the “five-plus C-plus” target for GCSEs. I say that not just because this is an Opposition-day debate and this is what happens in the House of Commons, but because we owe it to young people not merely to file recent history, but to learn from it. The system found increasingly clever ways of helping schools and helping itself—the system as a whole—to find their way up the league. Half-courses, double awards, modularisation, early sits and retakes all helped, but the daddy of them all was “equivalents”, which helped to perpetuate the diet of low-value qualifications. The 350,000 young people of whom Alison Wolf spoke were let down by courses with little or no labour market value, and that in turn contributed significantly to the terrible rise in the number of young people who were not in education, employment or training.
The other big target was the 50% target for the number of people who should go to university. The Opposition now talk about the “forgotten 50%”, but we only talk about that 50% because of the first 50% target which they introduced. Actually, I am not sure that 50% is a bad target. I think it is the rest of the sentence that we need to look at. The target should be not just about the proportion of young people who go to university, but about the proportion who finish university courses that will be of use to them later in life. An increasing number of those courses—degree courses—will be vocational, and many careers that used to involve a vocational route straight after school have themselves become “graduatised”. The number of people embarking on undergraduate degrees more or less matches the number of occupations that now require people to have degrees and did not do so previously.
I rather welcome what the Opposition have been saying about tech degrees. I think that that is a direction of travel that we see on both sides of the House. However, it is the Government who are grasping the nettle and doing what it takes. The importance that my right hon. and hon. Friends attach to vocational education and training is exemplified by the fact that the Wolf report was commissioned at the very start of the Government’s tenure, before the completion of some of the other reforms that we have had plenty of opportunities to debate in the House. I think it right to move away from that “one target that trumps all others”, the “five-plus C-plus”, and towards measures that reward and value the progress made by all young people, whatever their abilities. I also think that we should take into account not just the results those young people achieve at the end of their time at school or college, but where they go after that, and where they end up.
This Government are determined that all qualifications will have rigour, because with rigour come respect and value. I welcome tech levels that involve local employers, and I welcome the tech bac, including the core maths qualification and the extended project. I also welcome the massive increase in the number of apprenticeships—it is up 86% in my constituency—the higher apprenticeships fund and the huge growth in UTCs. This goes further than that, however. It is about employers being in control of apprenticeship training budgets, it is about more young people studying maths after the age of 16, and it is about getting 3D printers into schools and enabling more young people to study coding and app design.
You are indicating that I should stop at this point, Mr Speaker, so I shall do so. Let me end by saying that, as we heard from the shadow Secretary of State, this is a matter of social justice and economic efficiency.