Investing in Children and Young People

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Is the hon. Lady suggesting that that figure she has just given for the US relates solely to catch-up funding and therefore is comparable? Does she need to add up a number of figures from the British Government for English schools? Is she suggesting that that is what that figure refers to?

[Kate Green]

It is certainly not 30 times out in its accuracy. The right hon. Gentleman is right, of course, to ask about the make-up of the different figures, but even on my most generous interpretation of the amount the Government have put in over the past year to support children’s catch-up, which I calculate would amount to £310 per pupil, we are still well short of what other countries are spending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who speaks for the Opposition, was quite right when she said that children are our most precious assets, and, as parents, we share with our brilliant teachers; we rely on them for the education and preparation for adult life of our children, and I want to join with colleagues across the House in paying tribute to them and thanking them for all they do.

This is a moral imperative: we all know that there is a whole-cohort effect from this pandemic and a risk of lasting effects on this generation of children and young people, and we cannot let this generation be put at a disadvantage because of covid. We also know that the effect has been felt very unevenly: some children have progressed entirely as they would have done in a regular year, but many have not, and we know that the attainment gaps that had been closing since 2010 will have started to widen again. We also know that this is not just about academic attainment; far from it, it is about the whole of children’s development—their extra-curricular activities, their socialising and their development as people.

This calls for a whole-of-society response including expanding mentoring programmes, having more volunteer readers, firms working more closely with schools, and having more STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—ambassadors, accelerated careers programmes and work experience. We need established broadcasters and new media to step up on early literacy programmes, and sports clubs and governing bodies have a key role to play, as do cultural organisations and the voluntary sector. In fact, everybody has a part to play in supporting this generation. For the Government of course it is about many things, too: it is about a bolstered school sports and activity plan, the holiday activities programme, the mental health services support reforms, working with local authority children’s services, innovations in early language and literacy, and the major upgrade to technical and vocational education which has at its heart T-levels.

And of course it is about money. A higher proportion of national income—Government money—is spent on British state schools than in many other countries, but clearly additional resourcing has been needed during the pandemic to support schools, and clearly it is needed now to support schools and children in its wake. Some of the figures bandied around about what other countries are doing are entirely misleading; they are not comparing, as it were, apples with apples or apples with pears, but comparing apples with pomegranates. I am a little surprised that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston speaking for the Opposition just repeated them without doing some basic fact checking, and I could say the same for her boss, the Leader of the Opposition. However, it is the case, of course, that many countries around the world are looking at the extra support that is now needed, and here we have just recently had the £14.4 billion uplift over three years and since the pandemic £3 billion in three different funding packages over the past 12 months. The last tranche of that will cover 6 million 15-hour tutoring courses in an unprecedented and unparalleled programme of individual and small group tuition. It is right that my right hon. Friend the Schools Minister and his colleagues in the DFE have focused on the programmes with the best evidence, and we know that there is very strong evidence for one-to-one and small group tutoring.

It is also true that we cannot just dial these things up infinitely. People who have spoken to schools recently—I guess that is most colleagues here in the Chamber today—will know that the No. 1 thing that people are talking about is often not a lack of money for tutors but a lack of tutors, because obviously there were not 100,000 tutors hanging around who were not already busy when this thing hit, and that is a difficult thing to scale up for. It is right that schools should have the flexibility to source tutors locally—I was pleased to see that in the package—because it is they who will know their schools’ situation best.

I also welcome the involvement of Teach First in the programme, but I would ask the DFE to redouble its efforts in its search for where talented professionals can be found to support this effort. Of course, teachers themselves are a big part of the effort. For example, every year teachers volunteer to be exam markers, and many teachers will want to be involved in this programme, but we also need to think about recent retirees and PGCE returners. As my right hon Friend the Minister knows, many thousands of people in this country have a postgraduate certificate in education but are not currently teaching. It would be wonderful to get some of them to come back to the profession, either full time or part time—[Laughter.] I am not trying to shame anyone here. We also need to redouble our efforts on teacher workload to free up their time to be able to do these incredibly important things.

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), I would like to see us move to a rational, long-term, predictable system of funding that works both for when pupil numbers are shrinking as well as for when they are expanding, and perhaps this is the moment when that might be possible. It is important that we look at extra time to make up for lost time, and the tutor programme is of course part of that, as is moving back public exams a bit, but it is right to look at the question of a longer school day. Not everybody is excited about that prospect, but there is clearly a role for some of these important, enriching and broadening activities. It is right that the Government are taking an evidence-led approach, and I was delighted to hear what my right hon. Friend the Minister said. We look forward to hearing more in due course and at the spending review.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

In order to ensure that we get everybody in, I am going to have to reduce the time limit to five minutes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

No, the Government take brain injury and the devastating impact that it can have on a child’s life especially seriously, but the important thing is to make sure that each child gets the support that they need for their particular circumstances. That is why the SEND system is specifically designed to get the right support to each individual child, and that is what we are working on through the SEND review. I am very happy to discuss with the hon. Member exactly how we are working on making sure that each child gets the support that they need for how the brain injury manifests for that child.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to increase international study opportunities for students.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)]

The Government are committed to international study opportunities. We have demonstrated that through our introduction of the Turing scheme and our recent update to the international education strategy. The new Turing scheme is backed by £110 million and provides funding for around 35,000 students in universities, colleges and schools to go on placements and exchanges around the world, starting in September this year.

[Damian Hinds [V]]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that response. Like him, I very much welcome the widening of partnerships and cultural discovery that will be possible under the Turing scheme, but will he say how he will ensure that the scheme also widens access, including for young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds?

[Gavin Williamson]

We are putting in place additional support for students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds to help cover the cost of travel to those destinations. It is vital that, as we construct the Turing scheme and we invite new partners into it, we do so such that it is a brilliant way of creating opportunities for children of every single background to study abroad and understand the benefits of working collaboratively on the international stage.

Education Route Map: Covid-19

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con) [V]]

The full return of schools on 8 March is much more than a waypoint on a road map. I very much welcome it and the safety measures in place. Can I congratulate my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on how he, at no notice, opened this debate? I join him in noting the can-do attitude of local school leaders and in thanking teachers in East Hampshire, as elsewhere, for all they continue to do.

This is not just about a cohort of children; it is about our children and about the future of our country. As we rebuild for those children, obviously schools and teachers will be in the lead, but we cannot put all the responsibility on them. It is a shared national endeavour in which everyone is responsible. Of course, it is about schools, but it is not only about schools. We need to think of a plan with children. In Government terms, that takes in the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and others, but it also goes far wider. I welcome the money announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State yesterday, but it is also not all about money. Partly, it is about time, but we cannot just cram our way through this. There are limits on how much we can lengthen days. Attention spans themselves have limits, and holidays are important, too. However, there is a role for those, and there are plenty of things that can be done outside the normal school day that are an equally important part of development and growing up.

My right hon. Friend is quite right to leave the discretion to individual schools, but there are things Government can facilitate to get everyone talking about how everyone is involved. I would like to propose a few areas. First, there will need to be more people to help on things such as the tutoring programme. It has been hard recently finding supply teachers, let alone those for additional tutoring. There are lots of people in this country who have a postgraduate certificate in education already but are not currently teaching, and I hope the Department can work out a simplified route for those who want to to be able to come back to the profession, including some refresher training.

Secondly, alongside the professionals, we need a volunteer army. A lot of course happens in schools already with volunteer readers, STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—ambassadors, mentoring programmes and so on. We do not need to replace those things, but we need to see how we can grow them and be yet more ambitious. I would like every organisation and company in this country to have a board meeting item to discuss how they can support this great endeavour for our children. It might be giving staff time for mentoring or careers advice, but it could also, as with the Hungry Little Minds campaign, be where companies work out how they can, in their business activity, help support early literacy development.

This is about much more than classwork; it is about mental health, as my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester said. It is about activities to make children active again, working with national governing bodies and local clubs. It is not just to catch up on schoolwork, but to get children back on track to rebuild opportunity, broaden horizons and get back to enjoying childhood at the same time. It is a big task and a big ask, and one we all have a role in.

Skills for Jobs White Paper

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman obviously could not be bothered to actually read the White Paper, so I will send him a copy. He will notice that there have been lots of new announcements.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con) [V]]

I welcome what my right hon. Friend set out, including the essential role of industry and the extension of employer-led standards. Will he say more about how local skills improvement plans will work, with the right emphasis on the sectors and job roles of the future that he is talking about today, and versatile transferable skills to maximise opportunities and social mobility?

[Gavin Williamson]

I will take this opportunity to thank my right hon. Friend for his work in enabling us to proceed with this skills for jobs White Paper. Without his commitment and dedication, including the odd skirmish with the Treasury, we would not have made the progress we have made with the institutes of technology, which are already starting to transform young people’s lives, and of course with T-levels.

On where we want to go, we really want business organisations to work with colleges, putting this on a statutory footing, very much like what we see in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, where they can co-design the qualifications they need and match the job needs of the local community. That will bring those businesses and the business sector into the heart of those colleges, ensuring that we drive employment and the right set of skills.

Remote Education and Free School Meals

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con) [V]]

Nourishment is fundamental to learning, as to so much else. In recognition of its importance, of course, eligibility has been extended three times since 2010—among infants, in further education colleges as my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) mentioned, and with the extension of the universal credit roll-out.

In current circumstances, it has been right to extend support into the holidays, during the depths of this crisis. I support the covid winter grant scheme. In Hampshire, I welcome the programme elements that go considerably beyond lunches and children eligible for free school meals, as my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) mentioned, to target help where it is most needed, with things such as discretionary school grants, community pantries, provision of fuel cards where needed and other elements and channels.

Looking beyond covid, I hope that it will be possible to maintain and indeed extend the holiday food and activities programme, which a number of colleagues have mentioned and which we grew while I was at the Department for Education. The best programmes in that scheme include a variety of purposeful activity and family food-preparation workshops. I was very impressed when I visited to two such programmes run by Connect4Summer in my constituency of East Hampshire, in Headley Down and in Bordon.

Turning to the other part of the motion, on resources for learning remotely, this has clearly been an immensely difficult time for teachers, parents and children and I commend them all for what they have done. I support the unprecedented effort to provide extra hardware on top of the devices that schools already had, but of course, this is not only about that tech. That is far from the only aspect of remote education. Indeed, there are limits on it, especially further down the age range. Many schools have created fantastic paper resources, and old technology such as textbooks continue to play an important role. It is important to maximise the effectiveness of the less new technologies, which are widely available, and I am pleased that the BBC has now announced more programming. I wish that that had happened earlier, because although there are many companies that can make great online resources, there are few that can do broadcasting.

The move to remote learning was so rapid that teachers and others did not have time to plan, but much has been learned since then by schools, ed tech suppliers and others. We have seen how to improve the balance, for example, between live lessons and at-your-own-pace work. We have learned more about what tech can and cannot do, and about how it can augment learning. The range of ed tech available now is truly outstanding, and the all-party parliamentary group on education technology is looking at the lessons that can be learned from lockdown. The road ahead is surely challenging for this generation of children and their amazing teachers in terms of getting back on track and re-narrowing the attainment gap, and it is essential that what we have learned in this time through the albeit enforced distance learning is put to best use when, in time, we return to normality.

Nurseries and Early Years Settings

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is very good to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing this important debate.

I acknowledge the important work of nurseries and early years settings in my constituency; they have been core social infrastructure in the area. They are at the heart of child development, but also support parents in their work and ease family budgets. I particularly mention a maintained nursery school in Alton, in my constituency, called Bushy Leaze, which does high value work with children with special needs, supporting parents, doing outreach in the community and partnering local schools.

I also acknowledge the commitment of the Government to early years education and childcare, with no fewer than five extensions to early years and childcare entitlements since 2010: the 15 hours’, then 30 hours’ tax-free childcare; the 85% reimbursement under universal credit; and, crucially for this debate, the offer of 15 hours for two-year-olds.

Finances in this sector are difficult—they were hard even before the pandemic, and they have become worse. Like others, I welcome the £44 million. I know that the Department does regular analysis of cost structures in this sector, but that clearly still remains difficult to manage in some cases. I hope the Minister will keep that under review, make sure that the process is transparent, and, as time goes on, peg that to cost increases, particularly when it comes to the national living wage.

In the longer term, there is more that we can do to ease cost pressures on the sector, particularly with trying to spread out the demand on the offers for three and four-year-olds, when there are more children in the summer term than in the autumn term, but there have to be staff for the whole year.

Maintained nurseries are more costly, partly because they do more. Like others, I welcome the continuation of the supplemental funding, but the sector really needs long-term visibility and security in its funding. I welcome the fact that the Minister has said that there will be more to say on that soon. I hope it is possible to tie that in with a wider look at the sector and how all parts of it fit together.

I do not have the time to give most of my speech, in the circumstances. Others have said how important early years education is. It is fundamental for social mobility and for dealing with some of the most entrenched disadvantages in our society.

We have seen an increased prevalence of children presenting with high needs. That is because of a combination of greater diagnosis and awareness, and perhaps some greater underlying prevalence as well. Whatever the reason, we know that the earlier we can help and support those children and their families, the better for them and, later on, the more it will ease the pressure on the school system.

In that wider look at how the sector works and how it all fits together, ideally there would be a geographically distributed network of maintained nursery schools with a defined set of core services, one of which would be to support the private, voluntary and independent sector nurseries in the area. There is also more opportunity to use primary school settings. A couple of years ago, we put in place a capital fund to allow more of that, but there is far more potential. It is important that those nurseries include some year-round provision as well.

We need a people plan, because this is all about the wonderful people who work in our nurseries. I welcome the fact that in the T-levels programme, early years and childcare is one of the first T-Levels to come on stream.

There are one or two other very important people in a child’s life: mum and dad. The home situation may be becoming more complex in the current time, partly because of the developments in electronics and so on, but we know that about a fifth of the difference in the development of cognitive ability is to do with parental engagement. It is very difficult for public policy to start getting involved in that arena, but nursery schools and others working in early years can play an important part in supporting parents with the support they are looking for.

I hope the Government will continue with and grow the Hungry Little Minds campaign, which uses ambient opportunities for people on the bus or train, eating their breakfast cereal or about to go to bed, to help to promote early literacy. The BBC has an important role to play, too.

If the erstwhile right hon. Member for Birkenhead, Lord Field, was still in this House, he would remind us of the time he was talking to some 15-year-olds at a secondary school in Birkenhead. They said there were two things they really wanted to learn more about at school—how to make lifelong friendships and how to be good parents. Everybody has a huge part to play. We need to work out how the social infrastructure that we have been talking about can best support all this important work.

Lifetime Skills Guarantee and Post-16 Education

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

Of course we always look right across the United Kingdom, as one United Kingdom, to see how we can learn best and work well together, and I am sure that the hon. Lady is as much an advocate of that as I am—or maybe not quite as much—and she will no doubt be delighted to hear that over £1.5 billion has been spent in terms of capital in the FE estate, and that has approximately £300 million of Barnett consequentials for the devolved nations. So that is even more good news that we are delivering for Scotland as a result of having a Conservative Government for the United Kingdom—extra investment into FE in Scotland, and I hope the hon. Lady ensures that that is delivered into Scottish further education colleges.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I particularly welcome the reform progress my right hon. Friend outlined on higher-level technicals, as well as on T-levels and apprenticeship reform. I welcome, too, the lifetime schools guarantee, and will he say a word about how that fits with the national retraining scheme? Can he confirm that work coaches and the National Careers Service will be fully engaged in making sure that they do not just signpost but actively encourage people who could benefit from this great upskilling opportunity to do so?

[Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance not just of encouraging but really taking people through that journey. There has sometimes been a slight prejudice in our education system to steer people away from those really great-quality higher technical qualifications, which are a great way for young people—and people of all ages—to transform their careers. May I take this opportunity to thank my right hon. Friend for so much of the work that has already been done on higher technical qualifications? I would love to lay claim to having started it all myself, but I was very much driven by his work as Secretary of State for Education, which recognised the need to broaden out the range of opportunities for young people; this revolution that we are driving through in the sector is built on the work that he did at the Department for Education.

Students’ Return to Universities

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The work on mental health support started right at the start of this covid crisis. We made sure that we put in place measures to support students and to put the whole education community at the heart of what we do, recognising the importance of dealing with mental health issues. If we look back at the guidance issued on 2 July and the guidance issued on 11 September, we can see that there was always a recognition that people who tested positive for covid would need to self-isolate. Those people who have been in close contact with those who test positive—not dissimilar to what we would see in workplaces and other educational settings—would also have to isolate as a result.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Following on from that, for many young people, even in a normal year, this is a difficult time of transition—moving to independent study and living, managing finances, meeting new people, and all in unfamiliar surroundings—and a lot of great work is done by universities and the likes of Student Minds, for example. Could my right hon. Friend say a little bit more about the support that is available, and about how it is being stepped up in universities and can be stepped up to fully support our young people?

[Gavin Williamson]

An amazing amount of work is done by every single university, but there has also been a recognition by the Office for Students that there may be gaps. That is why the Office for Students has stepped in to ensure that where students find that there is not that type of provision, something is provided for them, so that no student is in a position of not being supported. It is incredibly important that all students understand that support is available to them for them to be able to enjoy their time at university and succeed in their studies.

Schools and Colleges: Qualification Results and Full Opening

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

At every stage, everyone, whether in Ofqual or the DFE—across the whole education sector—has been looking at how we ensure fairness and the very best for every child in this country. That is what we would all expect to see and that is what we have been doing. Yes, we did have to make changes, but the right thing to do was to make those changes, because fairness for young people is the most important thing for me and all those who work in education.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

May I join my right hon. Friend in commending everybody in schools and all they have done to ensure a full return this week and welcome the clear message that, if there were to be future localised outbreaks, all possible measures would come before restricting attendance in education? Will he outline some of the contingency planning going into that so that, even if there were to be disruption, education would still continue? Will he confirm that although IT and online lessons may be a part of what needs to be considered, it certainly is not all?

[Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point about how this is not just about IT; it is about ensuring that youngsters are supported at home in their learning and that can be done through so many means other than just through a laptop. However, we have made the commitment of rolling out and increasing the purchase of laptops by another 150,000 to ensure that, where communities are in local lockdown, schools who have children from the most deprived backgrounds have access to that resource. But that has to be an absolute last course of action we take, because we know that nothing substitutes for the learning a child gets through being in the classroom with their teachers and being inspired by those teachers, who are giving the enthusiasm to learn. That is why this Government will do absolutely everything they can do to ensure that schools remain open at every stage of our response to dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

Support for Left-Behind Children

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) on his outstanding opening speech, which set out the breadth of issues involved here. At all times, the Department for Education is about both raising attainment for all children in this country and simultaneously narrowing the gap between rich and poor, but never has that combination been more acutely felt and more important than it is right now, because we know that yawning gaps will have developed in this time between different areas, different schools and different children. We need to get all children back on track and narrow that gap simultaneously.

That starts, of course, with being physically back in school. We need to keep building up public confidence in the next couple of months. It will be really important to explain to parents clearly the bubble approach, including why it is whole year groups in secondary schools, which enables both mixed-ability and setted education, as well as options—we cannot return to a full curriculum without that. I suspect that one of the biggest challenges my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards will face is transport, particularly in secondary school, where children tend to travel longer distances. I am sure that he is working closely with colleagues in the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to use the maximum bus capacity safely.

This has been a very difficult time for headteachers and teachers, who have really stepped up to the plate, converting their programmes of work in double quick time and keeping their schools open. I know that for headteachers in particular, the weight of responsibility has never felt heavier than it has over the last few weeks. They know that the time to come will be difficult, but they want their children back and are looking forward to September. It will start with some important formative assessment, which I know the Minister will be looking to support.

I welcome the fact that we are returning to a full curriculum and the £1 billion package for catch-up support. I know that the Minister will be conscious of the additional issues and requirements of children with education, health and care plans and those in local authority care or with a social worker.

I want in particular to ask about extracurricular activities, which play such a vital role in children’s activity, mental health, interaction and character and resilience development. I welcomed the news at the weekend about the PE premium and the flexibility on leftover moneys from this year. I welcome, too, the continuance of the holiday activities programme. However, I ask the Minister and his colleagues to look closely at the full range of extracurricular activities and maximise the range that children can take part in—not only more sports but debating and public speaking, drama, school orchestras and school choirs, all of which play such an important role.

This has been an ambitious decade in education, with the extensions in early years education, 1 million new school places, the great progress on primary reading, the ongoing major upgrade to technical and vocational education and, of course, the narrowed attainment gap at every stage—in early years, in infant school, in junior school, at GCSE and at university entry.

This new decade is going to be challenging indeed, and the funding is important. I very much welcome the £14 billion over three years, the T-levels funding, the more recent new school capital and of course the billion-pound catch-up fund, but it is people who will make it happen: children, parents, governors, parent-teacher associations, teachers and heads. I know that my right hon. Friend will be behind them all the way.