Schools White Paper

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that question. I have in my constituency three grammar schools, all of which are high performing. We want to spread the DNA of grammar schools across the system. There are 165 grammar schools in an education system with 22,000 schools. Many grammar schools have already joined and are leading high-performing, strong multi-academy trusts. I want more of them to do the same, and they will join us on this journey.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I am concerned that the Secretary of State may be underestimating the damage that has been done to some children by the isolation during the pandemic—that is certainly what I hear from schools in Cambridge. That damage can be addressed through more interventions and more resources; is there anything in the White Paper to address that in a county such as Cambridgeshire, which remains one of the most poorly funded in the country?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Mental health is one of the areas we have been looking at with the Children’s Commissioner, including through her very good “The Big Ask” survey of half a million children. In May last year, we announced £17 million of investment to build mental health support in education settings. We have invested further to make sure that the mental health leads in more than 8,000 schools and colleges have the necessary support and knowledge to support young people.