Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Hinds and Paul Blomfield

Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is right. After Holocaust Memorial Day, we are acutely conscious of the continuing need to act against antisemitism. One of the things we are doing is launching a new fund for both schools and higher education, to try to address antisemitism effectively at its root.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

T5. Each year, students have to apply for the Turing international mobility scheme before the Easter deadline, but those from widening participation backgrounds need to know that they have the money before they apply, and universities are getting confirmation of funding some months later, in June and July. I am sure the Secretary of State will agree that Turing should be open to all, so will she press Treasury colleagues for a multi-year funding settlement?

Children Not in School: National Register and Support

Debate between Damian Hinds and Paul Blomfield

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)]

I warmly welcome the Opposition’s focus on the vital subject of school attendance. It is a big issue that we want everyone to talk about. Being in school matters for children—for their education, for their development, for being with their friends and for all else that school brings. As our campaign says “moments matter, attendance counts.”

Everyone will be off school at some point through illness, and sadly some have to be off for extended—sometimes very extended—periods, but we absolutely want children to be in school as much as possible and to cut out avoidable absence. I am sure that the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) joins me in celebrating the success in cutting absence since 2010 and prior to the pandemic. Attendance levels improved significantly, with absence falling from 6% in 2010 to 4.8%, representing 15 million more days in school. Persistent absence, which was at 16% in 2010, came down by almost a third by 2015, and stayed around that level until the pandemic.

Many education systems are dealing with increases in absence since the pandemic. That is true of jurisdictions far beyond these shores. It is also true in all of England and Scotland, and in Labour-run Wales—where, by the way, the increase is from a considerably higher starting point to a considerably higher current point than in England. As such, I welcome the hon. Lady raising this subject. The actual motion, however, suggests that it is perhaps not a subject that the Opposition are taking properly seriously.

The motion starts by saying that the Government are not tackling persistent absence. Let us set aside for a moment that that is plainly nonsense, as I will come to shortly.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Hinds]

Not at the moment. There then follows the most colossal conflation—a massive non sequitur—about a register of children not in school because they are home educated. Obviously, absence and “not in school” sound pretty similar, but if the hon. Lady really thinks that the issue around absence is all about children being home educated en masse, she has failed to grasp the issue. [Interruption.] I simply point the hon. Lady who speaks for the Opposition to the motion as it is printed on the Order Paper, which clearly connects the two statements with nothing more than a semicolon between them. We do think that local authority registers are important: they would help improve oversight of those children who are not on school rolls, but they would not directly address the larger group of children who are on a school roll but have been persistently absent from that school.

[Paul Blomfield]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Hinds]

No; I ask the hon. Gentleman to forgive me for a moment.

Before we go on, I would like to say a short word about children in home education. This is often done very well by parents, who make huge sacrifices for their children, often in particularly difficult circumstances, and I pay tribute to those parents. Let us be clear: parents also have a right to home school their children, and that is a right I defend. However, we do think it is important for local authorities to have a register, because we know that not all children who are not enrolled at school are in receipt of a suitable education at home. We also think it is important that parents who are home schooling should be able to source support from their local authority.

The hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South should know that that is Government policy because, as she said, it appeared in the Schools Bill. She may or may not have spotted that in the past few days the Department has completed a consultation on elective home education to inform new guidance. I know she has spotted that a private Member’s Bill has been tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), which will come before this House on 15 March. Both the Secretary of State and I look forward to working with my hon. Friend as she seeks to progress her Bill through this House. In the meantime, the Government continue to work with local authorities to improve their existing non-statutory registers.

[Damian Hinds]

I give way to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), just because he has had a go three times.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the Minister for giving way. According to the 2021 census, there are over 197,000 young carers under the age of 18. That is recognised to be an underestimate, so when 85% of headteachers told the school census that they had no young carers in their school, that only illustrated how those carers are unrecognised within the system. Evidence submitted to the inquiry held by the all-party parliamentary group on young carers and young adult carers said that young carers have double the persistent absence rate of their peers—41.6%—but they are not recognised in the Department for Education’s guidance on working together to improve school attendance. When this debate has finished, will the Minister go away and review that guidance, and would he consider requiring all schools to have a lead for young carers in the way that they do for SEN, to make sure they are no longer unrecognised within our system?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is right to identify the number of young carers growing up in our country and going through our school system and the particular needs they have, issues that are directly relevant in the case of absence. We are working to improve understanding of where there are young carers, including through the school census that the hon. Gentleman mentioned and also through the guidance that we issue. As he will know, “Keeping children safe in education” is the main guidance on that subject that is issued to schools: it requires designated safeguarding leads to be aware of the needs of young carers, but trying to understand those needs is something that goes broader within school communities. Of course, dedicated professionals working in our school system seek to do exactly that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Hinds and Paul Blomfield

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Security and Borders (Damian Hinds)]

I am conscious of the statement to follow, but my hon. Friend is right that those are concerning matters. In truth, they are not restricted to a single British politician or a single party. The security briefings that he mentioned continue to play an important role.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

T3. Last week, at a briefing for Members with the Minister for Afghan Resettlement, Home Office officials indicated that while the Department is not introducing a specific family reunion route, there is some flexibility on visa requirements for Afghan family members of British citizens. Will the Minister confirm, as we were told, that there could be flexibility on visa fees, income requirements and demands for lost or destroyed documents, because that would offer real assistance to constituents who took Ministers’ advice to flee to third countries and are now trapped there?

Net Zero Targets and Decarbonising Transport

Debate between Damian Hinds and Paul Blomfield

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds]

Steel is of great importance, and the hon. Lady knows better than most people how important it is to our industrial base. It is also important to the development of many green technologies. As she knows, steel has its own challenges. It is a very energy-intensive sector; in time, hydrogen technologies and others might help in that regard, and we need to ensure that we maximise our efforts towards them.

We now have over 22,000 public charging points for electric vehicles. There is a particular concentration in London, but also in places such as Dundee. We have 125 rapid charge points per 100 km of highway, compared with the EU average of 25. In 2018, the UK was the second-largest market in Europe for ultra low emission cars and the fourth-largest market for electric cars, and one fifth of battery electric cars sold in Europe had been made here in the UK. For actual sales as a percentage of the total car market, we were above France and Germany but, as colleagues will know, we were below some of the very high-percentage countries, particularly the Scandinavian nations and others such as the Netherlands. It is the growth curve—the year-on-year growth, albeit from a small base—that is particularly encouraging.

Alongside changes in electric vehicle technology, a lot of other relevant changes are happening in society and the economy. We have been changing the way we shop, and how and where we work, and those things potentially have material implications for the number, type and length of people’s journeys. The product itself—the performance of cars—has been improving. At the same time, the charging technology has been evolving with things such as induction pads. We have the development of autonomous vehicle technology, which is likely to be particularly significant in the future for heavy goods vehicles.

I suggest that the most important change of all is one that has already started: a change in how we buy our own transportation. “Mobility as a service” includes everything from Boris bikes to car clubs. In the car market, it includes the growth of personal contract purchase plans and, significantly, personal contract hire plans. Why do I say that is so significant? Is it not just a way of financing a vehicle? It is significant because it changes the way that people think about the cost of a vehicle. Historically, people would compare the sticker price of a car separately from the monthly running cost, but with different types of paying for mobility, the formula has changed significantly.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for securing the debate, and he is making some important points. He says we need to change the way we do things. Does he agree that we need a modal shift away from cars and towards less carbon-emitting transport? Buses are key, and we need to shift bus pricing to invest in that sort of transport. If two or three people are travelling together in Sheffield, it is cheaper for them to get a taxi than to go on a bus. Does he agree that we have to change that by investing properly in our bus services?

[Damian Hinds]

As ever, the hon. Member makes an important and incisive point. A modal shift is clearly part of the response to this issue, but it will not be the whole response. As I mentioned earlier, buses are an important factor too, but there will always be a need for domestic passenger transport—cars, as we tend to call them. In a constituency such as mine, which is very rural and spread out, people need cars if they want to go to work. Making cars as environmentally friendly as possible, in terms of both carbon emissions and air quality, is an important goal.

It feels as though we are on the cusp of some quite significant change or what might be called a watershed moment. With the conversion to electric vehicles, however, we are up against some quite significant challenges from a consumer perspective. The first is cost. There is a gap between the cost of electric vehicles and the cost of internal combustion engine vehicles. Although that gap is narrowing all the time, however, I do not think that, in general, the sector or the public sector has yet made the clear and compelling case for how close those costs are—looking not at the purchase price, but at the total cost of ownership over the car’s lifetime—as well as it could have been made.

The second challenge is so-called range anxiety—“What happens if I leave home and can’t get back again because the battery runs out?” That is a perfectly good, rational fear, part of which will be addressed by improvements in infrastructure. As an aside, although scientists would say that there is no benefit to having a spare battery, and that we should just make a bigger battery, I wonder what the psychological effect might be of having one.

The third perfectly rational worry is about the car’s residual value, particularly as a result of battery degradation. That is particularly rational, given what we have been told over the years about mobile phone and laptop batteries— we have been told, “This is the generation that will not lose any of its performance,” and it has never turned out to be true. Again, if the car is not owned in the same way, that worry should be somewhat dissipated.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Hinds and Paul Blomfield

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)]

This month, we approved 22 new free schools in underperforming areas that need the most. That brings us one step closer to delivering 1 million new school places by 2020, which will be the fastest growth for at least two generations. We announced a second wave of further education providers to teach T-level courses from 2021, bringing that total to over 100, and last week, I announced changes to in-year admissions, so that the most vulnerable children, such as those fleeing domestic abuse, can access a school place as quickly as possible.

[Paul Blomfield]

Although demand for special needs support across the north has risen by 39%, funding has risen by only 8%. In the next school year, Sheffield will receive £3.7 million less in the high needs block than even the Government say that we need. Unable to cope, mainstream schools are excluding increasing numbers of children with special needs. Local parents say that they are at breaking point. The children’s Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi)—has admitted that more needs to be done, so when will the Government deliver what is needed for our most vulnerable children?

[Damian Hinds]

I acknowledge what the hon. Gentleman says about the increased strains on high needs budgets. As the Minister for School Standards, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb), said earlier, high needs spending has gone up, from £5 billion to £6.3 billion, and at the end of last year we put in place a package to ease the immediate strains on local authority high needs budgets. I recognise, however, that more needs to be done. For example, we need to look at how the reforms are working and at the role of educational psychologists and to make sure that where it is right for children they can be educated in a mainstream school.

Post-18 Education and Funding

Debate between Damian Hinds and Paul Blomfield

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I was worried when I saw the hon. Lady pick up what looked like a novel, but it turned out only to be a question in a notebook, albeit a very important question about childcare. Of course this Government are investing more than ever before in early years and childcare. I will have to write to the hon. Lady on the specifics of support for students, but I absolutely agree that childcare is a very important consideration for many people.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I wonder if I can give the Secretary of State the opportunity to answer a question he has sidestepped so far. He said in his opening remarks:

“The panel’s recommendations on student finance are detailed and interrelated, and cannot be considered each in isolation.”

If the Government accept the recommendation to reduce the fee cap, will the Secretary of State commit to the Augar recommendation to

“replace in full the lost fee income by increasing the teaching grant, leaving the average unit of funding unchanged”?

[Damian Hinds]

I believe that Ministers used often to stand at this Dispatch Box and say, “I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave a few moments ago,” but the Gentleman has just been good enough to repeat it so I do not have to. All these things—the various terms of repayment, the level of the fee, the T-grant top-up and so on—are interrelated; of course they have to be considered in the round and we will do so when we come back with our response.

Schools That Work For Everyone

Debate between Damian Hinds and Paul Blomfield

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I will be pleased to meet my hon. Friend again to discuss that situation.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Sheffield’s schools are losing out in comparison with those in similar cities under the new funding formula. Money is being shifted away from primary schools, and there is simply not enough for children with special educational needs and disabilities. I shall be meeting Sheffield primary heads on Friday to discuss the crisis in their schools. Does the Secretary of State understand why they will feel that providing £200 million extra for grammar schools is simply the wrong priority?

[Damian Hinds]

There is no extra revenue funding for grammar schools. Let me be totally clear about this, lest there be any doubts. The revenue funding formula works in the same way for the different types of school. In fact, grammar schools will on average receive slightly less money per pupil. I do understand some of the cost pressures that schools have been under, and I am committed to redoubling efforts to work with them to bear down on some of those costs.

Post-18 Education

Debate between Damian Hinds and Paul Blomfield

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[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.