Oral Answers to Questions

Damien Moore Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

17. Whether her Department has conducted a review of the effectiveness of provider access legislation.

[The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)]

We are hugely strengthening technical and provider access in schools. We have legislated for pupils to have six encounters with apprentice organisations and technical colleges. Ofsted is looking closely at careers guidance, and the apprentice support and knowledge network is going into over 2,000 schools, supporting 680,000 pupils and encouraging them to take up apprenticeships or other skills offerings.

[Damien Moore]

Colleges in Southport have raised concerns about careers advice opportunities for students with SEND—specifically, about the suitability of the oversight and the supposed added value of these sessions. Will my right hon. Friend detail what steps the Government are taking to ensure that these sessions are personalised better to support SEND students in their transition into employment?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is a champion for special needs pupils, and he is absolutely right. We need to ensure that special needs pupils have employment opportunities, along with everybody else. We are investing over £18 million over the next three years in supported internship schemes for high special needs 16-to-19 pupils. We have a mentor scheme for disabled apprentices, the Careers & Enterprise Company has put in SEND support to ensure high-quality careers guidance and training, and 82% of SEND schools are now part of careers hubs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damien Moore Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

We are always committed to ensuring that students get good value for money, that they have a valuable experience at university and that they get the qualifications they need for the future. In addition to keeping tuition fees flat, we have introduced and boosted degree apprenticeships—as my right hon. Friend knows, I am a huge fan of those—where, if people want to earn and learn, they can get their degrees paid for by their apprenticeship.

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

3. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support the development of skills in communities that meet local business needs.

[Sir James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

12. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support the development of skills in communities that meet local business needs.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

I am delighted that we will be rolling out the local skills improvement plans from this summer. The LSIPs will put local employers at the heart of developing skills provision to meet the needs of their businesses, ensuring that people get the right skills to get good local jobs. In my own Chichester constituency, the Sussex LSIP is working to meet the needs of many sectors, including our horticultural industry, worth £1 billion a year to the local economy. Other hon. Members in rural seats will understand the recruitment challenges facing agrifood businesses. Our skills plan will bring together providers such as colleges to create more opportunities for people to get the skills businesses need, and that will be going on across the country.

[Damien Moore]

My Southport constituency has a unique seaside heritage and vital industry support. Can my right hon. Friend elaborate on how those steps will specifically support skills in the sectors of hospitality, tourism and coastal conservation?

[Gillian Keegan]

I know my hon. Friend is doing a lot to support businesses in our great seaside towns. We are increasing collaboration with colleges, employers and the chamber of commerce. The plan has been informed by hundreds of local businesses such as Lattimer, Access Point, EFT Construction, Bulldog Products and Stormspell. The visitor economy has been identified as a priority for the city region, with actions being taken to establish a working group to develop basic skills courses and to increase off-season study and training, management apprenticeships and access to work placements for students in and around the area.

Reform of Children’s Social Care

Damien Moore Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. Bristol City Council is obviously doing a good job of using the funding. We have £259 million in funding to build more children’s care homes and make sure that they meet area-specific needs—more complex needs, in some cases—and that they are closer to home. We are also encouraging local authorities: we will be working on a pathfinder for regional co-operative boards, because we recognise that it is sometimes easier to get a number of local authorities to work together on more specialised provision.

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement and all those who work in the children’s social care sector for their incredibly important work. My right hon. Friend knows that many of the failings in children’s social care, including in my area, are a result of a lack of political leadership. Will her reforms go further and hold local political leaders to account?

Making Britain the Best Place to Grow Up and Grow Old

Damien Moore Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

Since the last Queen’s Speech, Southport has begun the process of seismic change, with our £37.5 million town deal being met with hundreds of millions in pledged private funding. The town deal will ultimately help to create more than 1,300 new jobs, and will bring in over a million extra visitors per year. From the individual small businesses springing up along our high street to the larger Southport Cove and Marine Lake Events Centre developments, our wonderful town—which I am proud to call my home—is rightly seeing the benefits of the Government’s levelling-up agenda.

It is important for local communities to have a say in changes in their areas, and I therefore welcome the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which offers a real opportunity to address the housing shortage. While the Bill will also allow a further devolution of powers over local services to local elected leaders, 1 urge the Government to go further, and introduce a mechanism to allow a community to change its local authority catchment area more easily.

In Southport we have been held back repeatedly by the vindictive actions of Labour- led Sefton Council, which takes resources away from Southport and ignores local concerns about, for example, unwanted, unnecessary and unwelcome cycle lanes. Furthermore, as my hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Families knows, we discovered in the days conveniently after the local elections that Sefton Council’s children’s services had been rated “inadequate” by Ofsted in all areas, yet the responsible councillors shamelessly remain in office, and Southport’s vulnerable children continue to suffer. These children deserve excellent services from their local council, just as they deserve excellent healthcare from their local NHS. Such healthcare is crucial throughout life, and while I welcome the Government’s commitment to clear the backlog from covid, we must aim for more than simply returning to where we were before the pandemic hit and restrictions came into force. As my other hon. Friend the Minister for Health knows, Southport Hospital has been lacking a children’s A&E since 2003, with services rolled into Ormskirk Hospital. During covid, however, Ormskirk’s children’s A&E has stopped providing a 24-hour service, with the result that a child who falls sick out of hours must now travel to Liverpool. First we must see the resumption of the 24/7 service in Ormskirk, and then, most important, we must see the return of this service to Southport.

We must ensure that all people in this country, from the day they are born, are given the support they deserve. We must ensure that children are given the best possible start. We must ensure that the UK remains the best place in which to grow up. Education is crucial to allowing people to prosper and succeed, especially as we build back better from covid, so it is welcome that the Schools Bill will strengthen our education system. While Labour-led Sefton Council is content with failing to help children, this Conservative Government will use the Bill to level up opportunity, supporting children throughout the country.

However, we are not stopping there. The higher education Bill will raise education standards and increase fairness within the system, allowing students to fulfil their potential wherever they live. Southport benefits greatly when well-qualified graduates return to our town, as their innovative drive and passion for local progress are crucial to our success. For example, Southport’s hospitality developments need look no further than Southport College, where, under the fantastic leadership of Michelle Brabner, students are well supported in finding skilled, well-paid work locally.

All this relies on strong transport links. We need the Burscough Curves rail link to reopen, which would enable stronger connectivity not only within the region, but as far afield as Scotland and the south of England. We need to maintain the direct link from Southport to Manchester Piccadilly, which is crucial for jobs, businesses and leisure. I am optimistic that the transport Bill will succeed in its stated aim of making our transport system more reliable and efficient for passengers.

This Queen’s Speech brings welcome legislation to my constituency in particular, and I look forward to supporting the Government as we continue to level up our local areas, support our children, and connect our communities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damien Moore Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

It was a pleasure to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency not so long ago. I understand that the layout at Witton-le-Wear poses challenges, although it has sufficient capacity. The previous Minister for School Standards, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb), met him in July to discuss the school, since when officials have visited the school and set out the funding available to the Durham local authority to prioritise local need. Of course I would be happy to meet him.

I understand that Delta North is an independent school and, as a private business, we expect it to secure its own investment for development. We know that independent AP can play a useful role in the system, but we rightly prioritise the needs of state-funded schools when allocating public funds.

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

19. What steps he is taking to upgrade further education colleges.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Alex Burghart)]

We are working to upgrade further education colleges through the FE capital transformation programme. We are investing £1.5 billion between 2020 and 2026 to tackle poor conditions in the FE estate and to ensure our colleges are excellent places for people to learn.

[Damien Moore]

King George V College in my constituency has a reputation for producing outstanding A-level results, with students going on to do great things. It is a model for how things can evolve in the education sector. Will the Minister commit to joining me on a visit to the college to see how it could be a blueprint for development in other areas across the country?

[Alex Burghart]

Going to Southport would be as great an honour as going to Crawley. I would be delighted to see how Southport is taking advantage of the £480,000 it recently received from the FE capital transformation fund.

School-based Counselling Services

Damien Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for securing the debate. It is particularly close to my heart, because in my constituency we have three of the UK’s leading specialist schools for children with learning difficulties. I have had the privilege of visiting them and speaking to staff and children, who I understand come from miles around for the specialist care that Merefield, Peterhouse and Presfield Schools provide. I realise how lucky we are to have those wonderful schools in Southport on our doorstep, and I also realise that, sadly, this is not a success shared universally across the UK. Indeed, the schools themselves have told me that they are at capacity, and that although they would like to take on more children, they are often unable to do so.

In the case of many children, it is not full-time specialist care that they need, but simply a friendly, qualified counsellor to whom they can speak in confidence, perhaps on a regular basis, about their problems. Small interventions now can pay dividends in the long run, helping children to achieve their potential.

I back the Government’s record on support for children’s mental health, particularly during covid, and am proud to have voted for many of those measures. In March last year, as covid took hold, I was pleased to support the offer of £79 million to boost mental health provision for children and young people. By April 2023, that should enable nearly 3 million children to have access to some 400 mental health support teams in schools and colleges. These are noble goals and I fully support them, but there is still much more to do.

Just two months later, we announced the provision of £17 million to improve mental health and wellbeing support in schools and colleges, with up to 7,800 institutions in England being offered up to £9.5 million to train senior mental health leads. These measures are clearly popular. The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy reports that 72% of adults believe that schools should offer counselling services, including some 79% of parents with children under the age of 18. Among 16 to 24-year-olds, the figure jumps to a staggering 83%. The support is clearly there, but, while the Government are doing an unprecedented amount to support mental health in schools, specific measures such as increased provision of well-trained schools-based counsellors would be of great benefit.

I do not think that fixing this is just a job for the Government. It is right that the decisions are delegated to schools, and that while the Government are clear that all schools should make counselling services available to their pupils, it is ultimately individual schools and colleges that know best what support to offer their students. That is why they should have the freedom to enact the Government’s recommendations as they wish. However, I would encourage them to work closely with their local NHS, clinical commissioning groups, councils and, most importantly, parents and carers of children, to achieve the ends that we all want to achieve.

In speaking to my constituents and helping them with their casework, I understand the difficulty that many have had in getting an educational health and care plan—an EHCP—once they are referred to SEND. This plan is crucial to the wellbeing of some children, as without it they will struggle to get the necessary arrangements implemented in school that they need for their mental wellbeing. My constituents suffer from a lack of information throughout the process of getting an EHCP, as well as ongoing delays, and they sometimes do not get the support they need. Children can find this frustrating, and I fear a situation where we see children with mental health issues being excluded because they cannot get the treatment they so clearly need.

We need to see mental health support being provided as early as possible in a child’s school career, so that it is there when they need it, not years after their mental illness first occurs. We need to look at what more we can do to support those with moderate mental health problems who do not need specialist schools, but rather qualified counsellors. We need to hit this Government’s ambitious target and then set even more ambitious ones until 100% of children have access to mental health support in schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damien Moore Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

We are very grateful to Truro and Penwith College and all the trailblazing colleges that have pioneered T-levels. They launched T-levels in the middle of a global pandemic, and they have done an amazing job in getting the new qualifications launched. We have been implementing flexible models and approaches to make sure that we can deliver the work placements and that they are deliverable across all industries. Through the capacity and delivery fund, we have allocated nearly £165 million to providers to help them establish the infrastructure and resources they need to deliver industry placements. This will be a culture change: our businesses need to work with our education sector as well as the education sector working with businesses. We have also put in place a £1,000 per place incentive. Of course, I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend.

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to tackle disparities in achievement at A-level between the north and south of England.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

We are focused on levelling up opportunity for young people. A-level provision will benefit from recent increases in 16 to 19 funding of almost 10% per student in the 2020-21 allocation. Furthermore, our Opportunity North East and opportunity areas programmes are investing in improving outcomes for young people in many parts of the north.

[Damien Moore]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his response. A number of schools in my constituency are concerned about the increased number of parents electing to home-school their children. Can I ask my right hon. Friend how he intends to encourage those children back into the classroom, and what resources will be available to close the gap at A-level attainment between the north and south?

[Nick Gibb]

Many parents who educate their children at home do so extremely well, but in some cases children are not provided with a suitable education and we have provided support to help local authorities’ engagement with parents who have recently decided to home-educate. We also remain committed to a registration system for children not in school.

Covid-19: Impact on Schools and Exams

Damien Moore Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. We had a really good start to the debate from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis), and it is a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), for the first time ever.

Many of our nation’s schools face an unprecedented challenge. The lockdown has had a severe impact on every aspect of education in this country, and many students have fallen behind in their studies. The entire student population, from primary right through to university, has been forced to learn from home for almost a full academic year. Teachers have risen to the challenge of adapting for digital delivery, and many say they want to keep some techniques as we return back to the new normal, but the lack of available equipment and connectivity for disadvantaged young people during the lockdown has widened the educational divides. In my constituency of Southport and many others across the country, there are homes where children simply do not have access to a computer. If we are truly to level up our communities, we must address the problem and ensure that such children are not disadvantaged further by this pandemic.

My second point is about closures and the impact that they have had on examinations and the continuity of students’ grades. Of course, exams were cancelled this year. Thousands of students, who had been relentlessly told for years about the importance of exams, were suddenly left without a conclusion to their studies. Indeed, Ofqual established a system for teachers to estimate grades. Like a great number of MPs present, I received hundreds of emails from constituents after the grades were given out. They were concerned about their son or daughter and the grades that they had been given—they were nothing like what had been predicted. Many students missed out on a place at university. We must ensure that that does not happen again and that integrity is put back into the system.

That brings me to my final point, about the impact of this virus on students’ mental health, an issue that I have raised on numerous occasions since becoming the Member of Parliament for Southport in 2017. We know that the coronavirus pandemic has a profound impact on the lives of millions of children and young people across this country. In some cases, they have been through other traumatic experiences at home as well, such as abuse or death, as well as the direct impact that covid has had on families. Some have struggled with missing friends, others with losing the structure of the school day and no longer having access to the support network that they relied on. Although returning to school is likely to be positive for many young people’s mental health, the readjustment following a long break and the changes that schools are having to make to their environment and timetables will be challenging for some.

Schools need to make wellbeing their top priority as we return to normality, and they need Government support to help them to do that. We know that about a third of schools do not provide school-based mental health support and that many young people who are struggling to cope may not meet the criteria for NHS mental health services in their area. When the Minister responds, I ask her to carefully consider that issue and the campaign of the charity YoungMinds, which calls on the Government to provide ring-fenced funding to ensure that schools can bring in extra support where it is needed to help pupils and parents.

It is vital to ensure that, through no fault of their own, this generation of students do not fall back in terms of the educational support they receive. Let us get them back on top of their studies. I strongly believe that we need to return to full in-person learning and examinations, which are the only way to ensure fairness between year groups and parity between students from low-income and more fortunate backgrounds.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damien Moore Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Universities (Michelle Donelan)]

I can assure the hon. Member that I am anything but absent. As we have already announced, we launched a package on 4 May that included re-profiling £2.6 billion of tuition fee funding. We also brought forward £100 million of quality-related research funding, we stabilised the admissions system with student number controls, and we offered more support for students. That was all on top of access to the coronavirus job retention scheme and the business loan support scheme to the value of £700 million. I am more than happy to speak to the university in question directly.

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

Schools across England, including in my constituency, will benefit from the £1 billion catch-up fund. Will my right hon. Friend commit to ensuring, in that time, that school standards continue to improve, and will he confirm that he will pay another visit to my constituency to see this in action?

[Gavin Williamson]

I would be absolutely delighted to join my hon. Friend to visit schools in his constituency in the very near future. It is really important that we understand the vital role that Ofsted plays in making sure that we have strong accountability in schools. One of the aspects that I will ask Ofsted to look at as we are making this significant investment of £1 billion to support youngsters to catch up and support schools is how it has been implemented and how children have been supported in their catch-up plans.

Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill

Damien Moore Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 13th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that schools deciding to have dress-up days can cause additional pressures for families, who have to keep finding different outfits for their children?

[Chris Green]

That is a very good point. Fortunately, I was at school before it became the fashion to have these themed days—for World Book Day or other occasions—for which parents have to go out and spend money on outfits. I am glad that I missed all that, and having to dress up as Harry Potter or anyone else is not something I would ever have looked forward to when I was at school.

It is quite right that we emphasise the value in good-quality school uniform. This ought not just to be about the cheapest price. A lot of small shops provide good-quality school uniforms. We ought to be aware of the concern that in many towns around the country there might not even be a question of which school uniform the children are wearing, because it will be the cheapest option—from whichever supermarket is in that town. Supermarkets provide a valuable space for affordable clothing, but we need to be careful that they do not push out the small businesses on our high streets by doing so.

It is important for schoolchildren to wear a uniform because they may end up wearing one when they leave school, as people in so many walks of life wear uniforms. Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Speaker himself, and so many others around this Chamber and around Parliament wear a uniform. The police and nurses wear uniforms. Arguably, as is evident on the Benches around me, many male Members of Parliament dress in quite a standard way. Schoolchildren are likely to wear a uniform of one sort or another throughout their working lives, so they may as well get used to it early on.

School visits are one of the most interesting parts of any Member of Parliament’s life, whether that visit is from a secondary or a primary school. We often do the fearsome or dreaded Q&A, where there can be a range of questions—from “What is your favourite colour?”, which I deal with quite well, to “What are the relative merits or demerits of the party leaders?”, which is a far more involved question. It is sometimes good to ask the kids questions as well, and to get them to participate in democracy, especially given the importance of referendums.

In these sessions the children do ask, “Why do we have to wear a school uniform?” and the arguments can be set out as to why it is so important that they do. But I asked the children of St Bartholomew’s Church of England Primary School in Westhoughton to vote on whether their teachers and headteacher should wear a school uniform as well, and that question was agreed to not 52% to 48%, but with unanimity within the classroom. So many schools have school councils now, and I think that teachers should respect the children and democracy; perhaps we should be expanding this Bill. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Weaver Vale wants to seek to expand the remit of his legislation, but maybe we should be asking whether teachers should wear school uniforms as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Courts]

Absolutely. That is another excellent point. Younger people have an absence of social tact when it comes to pointing out such differences. Schools can be quite brutal places in the sense that the filter that is there in later adult life is absent. Pupils can feel very much that they are the odd ones out if they come from a family who cannot afford the latest fashion.

[Damien Moore]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there should be more co-operation between primary schools and secondary schools on generic items such as trousers, skirts, shirts and blouses? A parent might buy an item right at the end of a child’s time at primary school that might well fit them in secondary school, but they cannot use it because the uniform is completely different. Does he agree that if local schools got together and worked on generic items, there could be a completely different outcome on cost, because of all the other items parents have to buy when their children go to secondary school?

[Robert Courts]

I do. That is another excellent point. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising it. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) made the point about a student going to school with a jacket that is too long, where it looks like you are wearing your father’s clothes because your parents are trying to get the longest possible wear time out of them. That is understandable and I suppose that that will happen in any event. There is nothing much we can do about that. I suspect that the Government cannot legislate to stop that sort of thing. It is beyond the abilities of this House. [Laughter.] He is absolutely right that when children get to the end of the school year at primary school and they are due to go off to secondary school and have to have new clothes, the old clothes essentially have to be dispensed with when they go to secondary school. We will in due course deal with what will be in the guidance and I will make a few comments about that in a moment, but I think there will be some consultation and that is a point that could be raised.