Free Childcare

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does she agree with me that the current system is under huge pressure? In my city of Cambridge are two nurseries: one maintained and one private. One is slashing services and the other is telling parents that services will stop within weeks. Does she agree with me that the current system is not financed properly by the Government?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I will come on to make that very point in more detail.

The issue is not only a problem for individual families; it is critical to our whole economy and productivity levels. Early years education has proven to be a positive benefit to our children, too. The Department for Education’s study of early education and development—SEED—longitudinal study, published in 2018, found that increased hours per week spent in formal early education, such as day nursery, between the ages of two and four resulted in non-verbal development and better socio-emotional outcomes. The Education Committee’s inquiry into tackling disadvantage in early years found that early years education for children below the age of four has a positive impact on the life chances of disadvantaged children. However, it also found that disadvantaged children currently spend significantly less time in pre-school than children from more affluent backgrounds.

Britain has long had a publicly funded education system because successive Governments have recognised that such a fundamental service should be provided by the state and be available to all. Just as we accept the principle that family income should never be a factor in whether children receive a good school education, the same must be said of early education, which is equally as crucial. We often look to Scandinavia for ideas on effective family policy; countries there have long recognised the value of early education and have invested in it extensively.

Finland provides free universal daycare from eight months until the start of formal education at age seven. In Sweden, parents have a universal entitlement to a guaranteed childcare space, and the fees for using it are capped. The system is so accessible that 85% of children under five years attend pre-school. Parents are entitled to 16 months’ parental leave, with the first year paid at 80% of their salary. They also receive a monthly child allowance that can be used to significantly reduce the cost of pre-school. In Denmark, the cost of childcare to parents is capped at 30% of the actual cost for nurseries. Norwegian parents are entitled to a flat-rate child benefit allowance. The result is that Scandinavian countries consistently rank among the best internationally on all the indicators of children’s wellbeing. Rates of child poverty are also among the lowest in the world.

The provision of free part-time childcare places for all three and four-year-olds in England was introduced in the early 2000s. Tony Blair’s Labour Government recognised that the modern welfare state needed to adapt and do more to support parents to raise young families and balance home life with work. The introduction of free childcare, alongside tax credits, was part of a package to give parents—particularly mothers—more choice over returning to work and having more children. I am pleased that the principle of investing in early years support has received cross-party backing. There have been some positive developments from Governments in recent years. Working parents of three to four-year-olds now receive 30 hours of free childcare, and those of disadvantaged two-year-olds can receive 15 hours on a means-tested basis.

However, although the headline picture is of a Government that continued Labour’s investment in early years, beneath the surface services have been squeezed and vital early intervention support has been cut. Across the board, spending on Sure Start and early years services in England has decreased by 39% since 2014-15, and almost £1 billion was slashed from Sure Start spending between 2010 and 2018. Free childcare, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) has pointed out, has been underfunded; additional funding has not been allocated to cover the cost of minimum wage rises for nursery staff. Take-up of the two-year-old offer among children who receive free school meals varies significantly across the country, with analysis showing that in major metropolitan areas they are among the key disadvantaged groups. Access to places and differences in the types of placement on offer varies a lot, too, and can limit take-up in some areas. That is why, in 2018, the Treasury Committee conducted an inquiry, which I was pleased to be part of, into childcare policy and its influence on our economy.

I was really pleased to see the Committee—for the first time chaired by a woman—investigate the economic impact of childcare as a key aspect of our national infrastructure, in recognition of the fact that our economy is driven not only by trains, roads and IT, but by parents’ ability to go to work knowing that their children are happy and well cared for in high-quality settings. We therefore looked at the overall package of Government initiatives in this area and their effectiveness. Our cross-party review found that the Treasury had made little effort to calculate the economic impact of the Government’s childcare interventions. However, the evidence available suggested that the biggest impact of the Government’s childcare schemes may be to make childcare more affordable to those who receive support, rather than bringing parents back into the workplace.

The Committee also found that parents may need to retrain in order to return to work, but the free childcare scheme did not support that. We recommended the removal of age restrictions on childcare support for parents undertaking training or education, which would have the greatest impact on productivity. We also identified design flaws in the current schemes. The requirement in the childcare element of universal credit for parents to pay childcare costs up front before seeking reimbursement is really unhelpful to the lowest-paid parents. Moreover, the fact that the entitlement to 30 hours of free childcare only begins the term after a child turns three means that if a parent is offered a job in January, their entitlement will not begin until the summer term; that can make a critical difference to some parents’ livelihoods and decision making. If the current system of support is the starting point, the flaws need to be addressed for free childcare schemes to support people into work effectively.

Another area that has proven to be a challenge is the way in which providers are funded to deliver the schemes, and any uplift in free childcare must be accompanied by the additional funding required to make it viable. Coram’s childcare survey found that around a third of local authorities thought that the 30-hour extended entitlement had caused prices to rise for those aged three to four outside the funded entitlements. Half thought that there had been a negative impact on the financial sustainability of childcare providers. Purnima Tanuku OBE, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, has said:

“High quality early education positively impacts on a child’s development and therefore their lifelong education and opportunities—it cannot be done on the cheap...By short-changing childcare providers, the Government is selling families short on their promises. Parents are seeing fees for additional hours and for under threes go up as a result.”

The Treasury Committee report estimated that the average cost per hour of providing childcare is £4.68, but the average rate that the Government passed on to providers for 2017-18 was £4.34. Some providers are left with insufficient funding to cover their costs and therefore have to cut back on the service provided, including by restricting times, reducing child-to-staff ratios and charging for services such as food and activities. In this situation, providers in higher-income areas can mitigate those funding shortfalls much more easily than can providers in deprived areas, who have much more to gain from these schemes. That undermines the potential for early education to reach disadvantaged children, who are in the greatest danger of falling behind.

The Education Committee’s inquiry into tackling disadvantage in the early years made similar observations. It found that rather than closing the gap, the Government’s 30-hour childcare policy was entrenching inequality by leading to financial pressures on nurseries, providing more advantaged children with more quality childcare and putting stress on the available places for disadvantaged two-year-olds. The Government must pay providers a rate that reflects the full costs; otherwise, the full benefits for those who are eligible will not be realised, particularly in our most disadvantaged communities, and the overall cost of childcare will be pushed up further.

Of course, investing in childcare costs money. Any policy proposals, however effective they would be, are shaped by the available financial resources. The cost of funded childcare places for three and four-year-olds stood at £3.3 billion in 2018-19, which is equivalent to £3,650 per eligible child. Overall, the Government now spend about £6 billion on all funded childcare, despite the limitations and restrictions in the current model. If free childcare were to be expanded to all children from nine months old, as the petition requests, there would clearly be significant cost implications. Labour’s manifesto proposals to reform childcare provision and make high-quality early years education available to all, regardless of income, would amount to a £4.5 billion investment. We know the value of investing in early education to tackle entrenched disadvantage and gender inequality, and there would be longer-term cost savings and a productivity boost from targeting this investment at the early years. Although this would involve a significant cost, politics is the language of priorities, and measures that tackle poverty, support families and boost the economy should be at the top of the list.

There is clear cross-party support for improving childcare, as evidenced by commitments in the manifestos of the three main parties at the last election. Labour pledged the extension of paid maternity leave to 12 months; the introduction of 30 hours of free pre-school childcare for all two, three and four-year-olds; and the extension of provision for one-year-olds. The Conservatives pledged a £1 billion fund to help to create more high-quality affordable childcare, including before and after school and during school holidays; and the Liberal Democrat manifesto included a commitment to offer 35 hours of free high-quality childcare to every child aged two to four, and to children aged between nine and 24 months whose parents are in work.

It remains to be seen whether the current Government have the political will to deliver the support that is needed. Childcare is an issue that affects families right across our country, and there is a widespread belief that the Government could be doing much more to support people to work while also raising a family. I thank everyone who signed the petition that led to today’s debate, and I thank all members of the public who have been in touch to share their views. I hope that by the conclusion of the debate, we will have represented their views and experiences effectively, and that the Government will reflect on this discussion and have a serious think about what support they can provide, particularly given this week’s Budget, which is very timely.

I will finish by asking two questions that I hope the Minister will pledge to consider. First, will she commit to a review of the economic and social impact of various levels of free childcare, so that its effectiveness can be independently verified? Secondly, will she commit to exploring the expansion of free childcare as requested by the petitioners, including the benefits of such a scheme and how it might practically be delivered with sufficient childcare places and funding to make it viable? Today, the Government have the opportunity to give a clear expression of their commitment to supporting families, supporting social mobility and supporting women and families in the workplace by pledging to investigate this issue. On behalf of the petitioners, I urge the Minister to do so.

School Funding: East Anglia

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree—he probably does not—that although Norfolk faces a difficult situation, the situation in Cambridgeshire is even worse? Tony Davies, the headteacher of St Matthew’s Primary School, tells us that the school will run out of money at the end of this year so it, too, is seeking contributions from parents. How is it that fantastically successful schools are literally running out of money?

[Clive Lewis]

I thank my hon. Friend for his input. We have to accept that our schools are running out of money for the same reason that our public services are underfunded: because of a damaging political choice. I will come on to that, but let me add that one of the reasons I sought the debate was that, as I understood it, every school in Norfolk was potentially going to put in a cost-overrun budget—an illegal budget—because of the funding shortfall. That is happening across the eastern region, and definitely across Norfolk.

Only last week, a local trust in Norfolk announced that it had had to cut 35% of its teaching assistants. That means the ratio of children to staff is bigger, creating myriad potential risks and increasing exponentially the lost learning time for children who need extra help in the classroom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on securing this debate.

East Anglian schools have had a raw funding deal for many years. The Government’s announcement last week of an additional £14 billion for schools nationally provides an opportunity to put right that unfairness, which so wrongly penalises pupils in Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. It is important that that money is spent wisely, in a pinpointed and targeted way, and that priority is given to underfunded areas such as East Anglia. To be fair, the Government do recognise the latter need.

Time is short, so from a Waveney and Suffolk perspective I shall briefly highlight the four issues that I believe need to be addressed. First, the national funding formula needs to be made fairer, simpler and more transparent. Suffolk is a member of f40, a group of education authorities that receive the lowest per-pupil funding settlements. At present, the formula does not give enough basic entitlement to schools and allows too much for add-ons, resulting in big funding differences between different local authorities and schools across the country. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that, as local authorities have faced ever tighter budgets, schools have been asked to take on more and more work traditionally undertaken by others, including youth work and parental and mental health support, as we have heard.

Secondly, it is also necessary to ensure that pre-school early years funding gets through to those organisations and groups—often from the private and voluntary sectors—that do great work in deprived areas where there are gaps in the provision of primary schools. A good example is Little Buddies in Lowestoft, which has suffered significant funding cuts at the same time as incurring additional costs. We have heard about the pension scheme costs, and it is important to welcome the Government’s announcement that the £4.5 billion required for teachers’ pensions will be met from outside the Education budget. I urge the Government to work with local education authorities and, through them, with pre-schools such as Little Buddies, to ensure that they receive a fair share of the additional funding now being made available.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about early years funding—which is notoriously complex, it is fair to say. I am not sure about the pattern in Waveney, but certainly my area has some fantastic maintained local nursery schools, which incur additional costs and have been under considerable financial pressure. Does he agree that it would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that this additional funding will flow through to those excellent maintained nursery schools?

[Peter Aldous]

The hon. Gentleman’s point is well made. A lot of the problem is that, although the Government announced the additional funding for early years two or three years ago, the money is not getting through to several establishments, such as Little Buddies and the Rainbow Day Nursery in the Harbour ward in Lowestoft. We had meetings with the then Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), and the county council, and we had a lot of difficulty working out where the problem arose and why the money was not getting through to those schools. The urge for simplicity and transparency in how this money is spent is very important.

The third point, as we have heard from a number of Members, is about special educational needs. This is a problem throughout the whole country, but I sense that it is a real problem in Suffolk. The county faces—I will not call it a perfect storm; that sounds awful—an imperfect storm of factors that create a real problem in SEN provision in Suffolk. The first is obviously rising demand: there is a yearly doubling of requests for education, health and care needs assessments. Secondly, complexity of need is rising, particularly for children with autism. Thirdly, the council receives historically low levels of funding for high-needs learners, compared with other local authorities.

A lot of the problem is caused by funding for specialist placements coming from the dedicated schools grant. As Suffolk is an f40 authority, its overall funding for schools is lower, and therefore its funding for higher-needs learners is also that much lower.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane]

It had a £516 loss per pupil and is £430,000 down on where it should be. Clover Hill infant school had a £757 loss per pupil; it is £276,000 out of pocket. But let us go around the Chamber. Let us look at the East Anglia county average—the loss between 2015 and 2019. In Norfolk, there was £279 less per pupil. It has lost £66.6 million-worth of spending power in the last four years. Suffolk—let us go there. It had a £178 loss per pupil. It has £40.3 million less spending power since 2015. Let us go a little further south, to Essex. It is £257 down per pupil. In Essex, £134.4 million has been taken out of school budgets since 2015.

We can be in no doubt, after all that we have heard again today, about the impact that this Government’s continued austerity in our schools is having across East Anglia and the whole country. The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, the new Secretary of State for Education and the long-standing—as I have pointed out—Minister for School Standards have announced over the last few days more funding for schools and teachers. Unless or until we see that new money and the magic money tree that it is coming from, we can only assume that it is business as usual for this regime.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I hope that my hon. Friend is coming to Cambridgeshire. If he is, I can tell him that the figure is £208 per pupil and £45 million overall.

[Mike Kane]

Well, I do not have to come to Cambridgeshire anymore.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Please do.

[Mike Kane]

I was pleased to be at the Bury-Cambridge game last year. What a sad indictment it is that Bury has now left the Football League. I forgot to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South that I am visiting his beautiful city in just a couple of weeks to see Manchester City play and to spend some time. I can see the Ipswich Members getting a bit edgy, but we will not go there.

After sitting at the Cabinet table agreeing to years of real-terms pay cuts for teachers, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education have finally admitted that austerity has failed our schools. The announcements prove the veracity of what we have heard today. Statistics from the Department for Education show that the number of children and young people with special educational needs or education, health and care plans in England rose by 34,200, an increase of 11% from 2018. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) spoke articulately about SEN provision and how it is currently failing young people in his patch and across the country, yet research by the National Education Union has found that special needs provision in England is down by £1.2 billion as a result of shortfalls in funding increases from the Government since 2015.

The Government’s own data shows that, as of January 2018, 4,050 children and young people with an education, health and care plan, or statement, were “awaiting provision”. In other words, they were waiting for a place in education. Pupils with special educational needs and disabilities are struggling to get the help that they need, yet last week, in the school spending announcements, the Secretary of State did not even offer to cover half the funding shortfall, and not for another year. But as the hon. Member for North West Norfolk articulately pointed out, mental health is severely impacted when young people cannot get the provision that they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

The Minister has talked about the impact on primary schools and secondary schools. Could he say a little about the impact on maintained nursery schools?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman will have to wait, because we have not made the announcement for early years funding. If he can be patient a little longer, we will be making that announcement.

We will continue to distribute this money through the national funding formula, which is our historic reform to the schools funding system that continues to ensure that funding is based on the needs and characteristics of schools and pupils, rather than on the accidents of history or geography.

Today we have reaffirmed our intention to move to what is called a hard formula, whereby all school budgets are set on the basis of a single national formula, guaranteeing equity among all schools, wherever they are in the country. Moving to this approach will mean that neighbouring schools that happen to sit on different sides of a local authority boundary will be funded on the same basis, and it will no longer be the case that different decisions made by different local authorities mean that similar schools receive different budgets. We intend to move to this hard formula as soon as possible. Of course, we recognise that this will represent a significant change and we will work closely with local authorities, schools and others to make this transition as smooth as possible.

The hon. Member for Norwich South said that he was opposed to academies. He has publicly expressed what I would regard as unwarranted hostility against the Inspiration Trust—a multi-academy trust that is doing huge work to raise school standards in his part of East Anglia. That probably explains why he failed in his speech to congratulate Jane Austen College in his constituency, a free school, which this year published its first GCSE results. Its provisional Progress 8 score places it in the top 10% of schools nationally. Some 75% of pupils achieved grades 9 to 4 in maths and English, and 30% of students at that school achieved a grade 8 or 9, which are the top grades that can be achieved in a GCSE. I offer huge congratulations to Jane Austen College and all the staff and teachers at that school.

My hon. Friends the Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for North West Norfolk raised the hugely important issue of special educational needs funding. We are absolutely committed to supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities to reach their full potential, and we expect all schools to play their part. That funding increase therefore includes more than £700 million of extra funding to support children with special educational needs and disabilities to access the education that is right for them. We recognise that local authorities have pressures on these budgets for next year, and alongside that additional funding we will continue to work with local authorities and schools to ensure that this investment is working well for those children in greater need. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney also raised the important issue of funding for 16 to 19-year-olds.

Post-18 Education and Funding

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

There is much to welcome in this review, not least the proposals to tackle the neglect of those who do not go to university, but the universities are right to worry about the proposals for differential funding for different courses, which the Secretary of State appeared to speak quite warmly of a few moments ago. Universities are different; they are not all the same—they have different strengths and different roles—and they are best placed to determine how to allocate resources, so can the Secretary of State reassure us that he respects and understands university autonomy?

[Damian Hinds]

I not only respect and understand but celebrate university autonomy. I think the hon. Gentleman represents a university city so I am slightly surprised at his question, because of course different subjects attract different amounts of money right now, and quite markedly different amounts of money. For example, a great deal more teaching grant goes into medicine than other subjects. The independent panel review report suggests there should be a different balance in the cap on overall fees and therefore how much variability there would be in the T-grant, but it is not introducing that principle for the first time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

I agree with my hon. Friend that in many instances, it may be better to build a new primary school than to expand an existing school, and a variety of factors will need to be weighed up in making such decisions: the quality of existing provision; the impact on existing schools and the community; and the overall costs and value for money.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

T2. Tony Davies, the headteacher of St Matthew’s Primary School in Cambridge, recently told a national newspaper of his fury when he learned of a £60,000 budget cut to his school next year. The school is much loved by pupils and parents, but it will now have to cut its core education services. Does the Minister share Mr Davies’s fury?

[Nick Gibb]

As we have said a number of times during this Question Time, under the national funding formula, every local authority is being funded with more money for every pupil in every school—a minimum of 1% more, and up to 6% more for schools that have been historically underfunded.

Further Education Funding

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Recently, Carolyn Fairbairn, the director general of the CBI, spoke at Cambridge Regional College and said that further education colleges have “politically been neglected”, which has led to their historic underfunding. I think that theme will come through in many of the contributions this morning.

I represent an education city, but I see it as my business to speak up just as much for the further education sector as for the famous universities for which Cambridge is known.

When I spoke recently to the director of Cambridge Regional College, Mark Robertson, he detailed many of the funding issues that have been raised this morning. I asked what it would take for him to really make a difference. He smiled ruefully at me and said, “Even a 5% uplift would be absolutely game-changing.” It seems to me that it is important to get that across today: colleges are not asking for a revolutionary change regarding their settlement; they are asking for a relatively small reversal of the damage that has been done over the last decade.

The situation is particularly difficult in areas such as mine, where staff face very high housing costs, there is a lot of churn and a lot of people cannot afford to live and work there. Cambridge is an expensive city and if we compare the pay with that in some schools, we see that colleges are working at a systemic disadvantage.

One key issue is that students are being put through maths and English retakes consistently. I am told by staff that the retakes are very, very difficult. It is very hard to teach people who really do not want to be there and who are almost being set up to fail. I hope that the Minister will consider revisiting that issue, because frankly there are other ways of assessing whether people have the appropriate skills to take them forward. From what I hear, it seems that the retakes process is proving counterproductive. When I speak to Pete Mulligan, a local University and College Union representative, he says that it is really difficult for FE staff who can see ways of taking people forward when those people are being forced down a very narrow route.

I will not repeat the figures that we have heard this morning, but I suspect that the strong message to the Minister from both sides of the Chamber today will be that as we come to the spending review, particularly in the light of the skills challenges around our changing relationship with the European Union, it is really important that we get this matter right. Obviously, there will be an argument about funding and the comprehensive spending review, but the fact there are so many Members here this morning—I have counted at least 20 Members on each side of the Chamber—sends a strong message to the Government that the situation needs to change.

Secondary School Opening Hours

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 229178 relating to secondary school opening hours.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I will start by reading the petition:

“School should start at 10am as teenagers are too tired. Teenagers are so tired due to having to wake up very early to get to school. The Government should require secondary schools to start later, which will lead to increased productivity at school”.

One of the things I love about the Petitions Committee is that the petitions we receive are often direct and to the point. There is no political beating about the bush—no “on one hand” and “on the other hand”. This one goes straight to the point: teenagers are tired, so schools should start later. It has achieved huge cut-through; there has been huge public interest, which is why it is such a pleasure to open this debate.

Over the next few minutes, I plan to lay out some of the scientific evidence that backs up the petition. I will say a little about the huge number of responses, many from teenagers, parents and schools. I will report a little on the responses in my city of Cambridge, and I will say a little about the practical challenges, the wider implications and some of the possible travel benefits.

When I started writing this speech, I was tempted to conclude, in time-honoured fashion, with a politician’s reply of “yes—maybe”, because, sadly, these things are always more complicated than one might imagine, but the more I read, the more I found myself agreeing with the petitioner. Allow me to praise the initiator of the petition. It was started by Hannah Kidner, a teenager doing her A-levels at Blundell’s School in Devon. She is in the Public Gallery. This petition is a great example of people-powered democracy. It was started just three months ago and has already garnered more than 180,000 signatures, proving that there are issues other than our future relationship with the European Union that stir passions.

I will set out the legal position. I thank the Library staff for their excellent briefing, which has informed much of my speech. Academies and free schools set their own school days and term dates with their board and headteacher. Local authority maintained schools decide the length of the school day, session times and breaks, but school must open for 190 days in a school year, and the school year must start after July. That means there is scope for local decision making, rather than the Government issuing an edict. I am not fond of the academy structure, and I favour so-called free schools even less, but they all receive public money, so my guess is that a future Government could act, because they would hold the purse strings. On the other hand, it is always convenient for Governments to delegate decisions that they consider tricky. More of that later.

The question of starting times has been considered at various points in recent years. There are strong feelings on both sides of the debate. I am not an education or neurological development expert, but I am told that many studies across the world over the years, particularly in the US, have suggested that a later start time may have a positive impact on pupils. However, some reviews have found more mixed results, and some have raised concerns about the quality of evidence. In Singapore, a school found that a delayed start time had a positive impact after nine months. A study in Canada found that

“Students from schools that started later slept longer, were more likely to meet sleep recommendations and were less likely to report feeling tired in the morning.”

The authors claimed:

“The study adds weight to the mounting evidence that delaying school start time benefits adolescent sleep.”

Canadian researchers claim that letting teens start school just 10 minutes later might help them to get more than 20 minutes extra sleep on a typical night. Although that might not sound like much, for some sleep-deprived adolescents it might be enough of a difference to enable them to get the recommended minimum eight hours of sleep a night. A lead author of a study into this issue, Karen Patte of Brock University in Ontario, said:

“Our body’s circadian clock naturally shifts later at puberty, so teens get tired later at night (due to later melatonin release) and therefore, need to sleep in longer in the morning in order to get sufficient rest. Delayed (school) start times have been recommended for adolescents to align with their delayed sleep schedules.”

Generally, though, it is thought that a further exploration of the evidence is required. One study, “Delayed School Start Times and Adolescent Sleep: A Systematic Review of the Experimental Evidence,” stated that

“School start times were delayed 25 to 60 minutes, and correspondingly, total sleep time increased from 25 to 77 minutes per weeknight. Some studies revealed reduced daytime sleepiness, depression, caffeine use, tardiness to class, and trouble staying awake. Overall, the evidence supports recent non-experimental study findings and calls for policy that advocates for delayed school start time to improve sleep. This presents a potential long-term solution to chronic sleep restriction during adolescence.”

However, the study goes on to state that

“there is a need for rigorous randomized study designs and reporting of consistent outcomes, including objective sleep measures and consistent measures of health and academic performance.”

I am grateful to Harriet Sherwood, who wrote an excellent piece for The Guardian a few weeks ago highlighting some of the issues underlying this debate. She wrote:

“Sleep experts are warning of an epidemic of sleep deprivation among school-aged children, with some urging educational authorities to alter school hours to allow adolescents to stay in bed longer. Adequate sleep is the strongest factor in the wellbeing and mental health of teenagers, and a shortage is linked to poor educational results, anxiety and obesity”.

She reported that the French Education Minister recently approved a proposal to push the start of the school day back by an hour—albeit to 9 am—for students aged 15 to 18 in Paris. The article continues:

“Scientists say that humans’ circadian rhythms – the body clock that manages the cycle of sleep and wakefulness – change in adolescence. The cycle shifts two hours in teenagers which means that they are wired to go to sleep and wake up later. ‘It’s like they’re in a different time zone,’ said Dr Michael Farquhar, a consultant in paediatric sleep medicine at the Evelina children’s hospital in London.

‘We’re asking them to get up before their body clock is ready, because that’s the way the adult world works. So most teenagers end up sleep-deprived.’

Sleep is the ‘strongest predictor of wellbeing among teenagers’, said Russell Viner, professor of adolescent health at University College London and president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.”

There are strong scientific reasons for considering change, but beyond the simple correlation between teenage brain development and sleep patterns, and the impact that may have on school results, it is important to recognise that schools are more than just exam factories. I am afraid successive Governments have needed to be reminded about that. I suspect most of us would agree that schools are key parts of communities and play a key role in family life, and that that would have to be considered as part of a proposed change to the school day.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

rose—

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

rose—

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am happy to take interventions from both hon. Members, but I give way first to the hon. Gentleman.

[John Howell]

Please—ladies first.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Well, I am not sure I am going to go for that, but I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) .

[Vicky Foxcroft]

My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Does he agree with me and the BMJ that delaying the time children finish school is a very important part of this issue? On his point about our children being safe and part of the local community, ensuring that they stay in school between 3 pm and 6 pm has been shown massively to reduce the potential for knife crime during those hours.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. One of the difficulties with the proposed change is that starting later may well mean finishing later. There are pros and cons to that, which I will come to in a moment, but she makes an important point about safety.

[John Howell]

Has not research shown that we need to limit the amount of time people spend using screens, whether on their phones or their iPads, and that doing so can have a big effect on people’s attentiveness during class?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. There has been good research recently suggesting that is the case, particularly with regard to the hours immediately before sleep. There is a range of issues about how we boost young people’s quality of life, and I fully admit that this is only one of them.

I am not an expert, but there are quite a few experts in Cambridge, which I represent, so I know people who are. Sensibly, I would suggest, I sought their advice. I am particularly grateful to the headteachers of Hills Road and Long Road sixth-form colleges, of Coleridge, Netherhall and Parkside secondary schools, of Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology, and more. I was struck by the alacrity and thoughtfulness of the responses that I received from all those institutions; they were really well considered and well thought through, and of course they pointed out both the advantages and the potential pitfalls of this proposal. I suspect that any Member who asked their local colleges and schools about the subject would get similarly well considered responses.

Cambridge headteachers and principals mentioned plenty of positives. The proposed change could provide opportunities for childcare relief for staff, allowing teachers more time with their children in the mornings, which in turn may improve recruitment and retention—a key issue in my area. A lot of people pointed out that starting school later could significantly reduce traffic problems, which are particularly acute in university cities such as Cambridge, and delaying the start of the school day for teenagers could make a substantial change to public transport peaks. Many of us notice the difference getting in and out of Cambridge outside term time.

However, one local headteacher told me that he thought the proposal would work only if it was

“co-ordinated across the system. That is the big issue, as with the current term structure. Because of the need to co-ordinate with primary schools on childcare, working patterns of parents by and large running 9-5, it is hard for individual institutions to step outside the norm.”

His point is well made. I agree with him about co-ordination, although I have to say that I am less convinced that everyone works nine-to-five these days. I note that better employers are introducing more family-friendly flexible working. That should be encouraged, and it could be part of the answer when it comes to staggered school start times.

Let us look at some of the downsides. Although across-the-board change may be positive from an organisational perspective, the context of the school in question is key. Another Cambridge head, who I think has experience from a previous posting, said that although starting later has worked well at Portsmouth College,

“it is very context dependent as a stand-alone solution”.

Clearly, different communities have different requirements and preferences, and any change must take that into account.

There are also questions to do with the impact on the wider community and families—many parents who do the school run on their way to work may find a later start disruptive—and at what age such a change would best suit students. Parents who allow their children to walk home alone may feel uncomfortable with the school day starting at 10 am, as it may mean children returning later in the afternoon or early evening. Clearly, some parents might not feel comfortable with their 11-year-old travelling home in the dark in winter.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. We cannot exonerate the parents. For good or bad, I have two grammar schools in my constituency. Children come to Stroud’s grammar schools from the other side of Swindon. That means there are 11-year-olds who have to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning. We can talk about putting the start of the school day back to 10 am, but at the moment, the days of some 11-year-olds start at 5 am and do not end until at least 9 pm, by the time they have finished their homework. That cannot be good for children. We need to look at what makes a school accessible, rather than letting the free market go mad and letting parents make the choice.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Many of us continue to argue for a good local school in every area. Parental choice sometimes leads to difficult journeys for children, as my hon. Friend explained. That may be the choice people make, but the impact on children may not be as positive as one might wish.

The proposed change would affect not just children and parents but teachers, many of whom already work very long hours. They may prefer school to finish earlier, because they have more to do when the school day finishes. Of course, the change may cause complications for families with children at both primary and secondary school. It may also impact after-school extracurricular activities, particularly in winter, when inter-school sports games may be affected by darkness. Of course, other voluntary sessions happen after school, including exam revision, music classes and community outreach. There is a range of potential pitfalls.

As I mentioned, others in the world do things differently. There have been changes to school start times in other countries. In fact, some of our European neighbours start their days even earlier; some schools run from 7 am until 1 pm. Of course, that depends to some extent on the local climate, but that all shows that this is a very complicated range of issues.

That complexity is not always understood by everyone. Some people have characterised this debate as somehow being about lazy teenagers. Today I was on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire’s excellent morning programme with Thordis Fridriksson. I am told that many people who contacted the show had little sympathy for what they described as “sleepy teenagers”, and thought that getting up on time was good practice for the world of work. That is pretty unsympathetic. People of my generation and older should try to remember what it was like for us when we were teenagers. I am afraid that similar grouchiness can be found in some of our national media, which may be dominated by grumpy old men from a certain background—but maybe I am stereotyping, too.

Having said that, some teachers have questioned whether we would risk undermining the work ethic by accommodating difference. One teacher told me she was concerned, and questioned whether, if young people started later at school, we would not be training them to be up and ready for a job, which would often start earlier. I am not that sympathetic to that view; better employers are generally more open to flexible working. However, I recognise that there are jobs that have to be done at particular times, and many of us have been frustrated by colleagues who struggle to get to work on time, Mrs Main—and not always teenagers. There are always extenuating circumstances.

Moving on to the more detailed practicalities, evidence shows that the term “teenagers” does not do justice to the complexity of the issue. What works for older teenagers may not be so beneficial to younger people. A local headteacher pointed out to me that although there is some

“evidence that for 14-18-year-olds a later start to school is beneficial…the same is not true for 11-13-year-olds. This introduces a bit of a dilemma as meeting the needs of all would mean extending school hours and so adding costs. Given that we are currently unable to meet our costs due to inadequate funding”—

a point I think she particularly wanted me to relay to the Minister—

“any move in this direction would be impossible to deliver with our existing resources.”

This is a key point, particularly for state schools. I suspect that the proper funding of education is the main issue for almost every state school, so questions about the timing of the school day come lower on their list of priorities. Although this debate is not party political, I highlight the difference that sufficient funding would make to schools. It would give them the ability to experiment and to find what suits them, which would arguably lead to the best outcome for this debate.

I conclude by saying a little about the public response; as I said, there has been huge interest. The Petitions Committee Clerks have engaged with the public on this matter, and they have done an excellent job. Last week, they surveyed nearly 5,000 people, some 92% of whom identified themselves as secondary school students, and who were much more enthusiastic about change. The key themes that emerged touched on the academic research that I have mentioned, the effects on family life and transport, the potential mental health benefits, the potential challenges for teachers, and the effect on those with illnesses and disabilities. The Clerks of the Committee told me that the story about this petition was the most engaged-with post ever on Parliament’s Instagram account. When the survey closed, it had had over 5,000 responses in under 48 hours. Clearly, this is an idea that has captured both hearts and minds.

I will read one of the contributions from a parent, which puts the point very well:

“I have five teenage children and it is an absolute nightmare getting them all ready for a 9am start every day. In order to start school at 9am they have to leave the house at 8am and therefore get up at 6.30am.”

That echoes the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew). She carries on:

“I would defy anyone to try and get 5 teenagers out of bed every day at 6.30am and not feel, as I do, that this is far too early!...Having to wake 5 teens at 6.30am each day is like trying to raise the dead. I can see that it’s not that they don’t want to get up—they enjoy and look forward to school—but they genuinely can’t get up. Being forced to wake up before they are ready has a massive impact on their health and well-being, which suffers hugely, and moreover so does mine! The school morning is without question the most stressful time of the day for children and parents.”

I have some sympathy for that account, and I am sure others will recognise the situation.

As for the quantitative response to the questions in the survey, the figures are pretty stunning. One of the questions was:

“How often do you feel drowsy or sleepy during the day?”

That is not a question for MPs, Mrs Main, but a question for teenagers. More than 85% of teenagers said that they often or always felt drowsy or sleepy during the day. That is a message that we should take seriously. The next question was:

“How often have you been bothered by trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much?”

Some 60% were often or always troubled by sleepiness. There is something going on out there that we clearly need to pay attention to.

I hope that I have been able to lay out just some of the arguments made for and against teenagers starting the school day later, and to show that although some might swiftly dismiss such a suggestion, when you look into matters more deeply, they are never as simple as they seem. My conclusion would be that schools and colleges must make their own decisions, but within a co-ordinated and organised local framework, and with sufficient funding to make it possible. We are a long way from having either of those, but we are a rich country, and it does not have to be this way; it is a matter of political choice.

The time may soon come when these issues should be addressed by a radical and reforming Government. We are living through a world of dramatic technological change; knowledge is more universally available than ever before, through every smart phone. Within a couple of decades, the context has changed beyond recognition, yet our organisational structures for learning remain very much as they were half a century ago. As we learn more about ourselves—how we learn, and how we are different at different stages of our lives—why not reform our structures to meet our needs? Why always say that is too difficult? When hundreds of thousands of young people are telling us that they want change, perhaps it is time to create a system that works for them, instead of telling them why it cannot be done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to all Members for their contributions, a consistent feature of which was the call for more evidence. I sometimes think that people call for more evidence when they do not necessarily like what they hear from the evidence already there. It seems to me that the strength of feeling of young people in this country, demonstrated through the petition that was so admirably put forward, bears some thinking about. I actually think that there is plenty of evidence—particularly the Open University study—that shows a real potential educational gain here, and some schools and colleges might want to seize that opportunity.

I am always mindful of the level at which these decisions are taken. I remember in the early days of the Labour Government after the 1997 general election, when there were discussions on banning smoking in public places. Tony Blair came to a Labour event and said that it might be left to local councils to decide, because he was a bit nervous about taking that decision. We said, “This needs leadership,” and in the end he did it and no one thinks it controversial now. I would say that the evidence shows that it is very hard for local schools and colleges to take the decision that we debating today on their own. It needs some leadership, and I am hopeful that at some future point we will have a Government who have the courage to listen to our teenagers, act on what they are telling us and find the evidence to back it up.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 229178 relating to secondary school opening hours.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

16. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the governance of multi-academy trusts.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

Our expectations of effective governance in multi-academy trusts are set out in the governance handbook, and they include the skills, knowledge and behaviour that boards need to demonstrate to be effective. We are supporting trustee effectiveness by allocating a higher level of funding to train multi-academy trust boards and by having regular governance conversations with multi-academy trusts.

[Daniel Zeichner]

In Cambridgeshire, as elsewhere, the world of multi-academy trusts is opaque and wholly unaccountable with schools looking over their shoulder to see whether they are the next to be picked off. These trusts receive large sums of public money, but are effectively self-perpetuating oligarchies. When will the Secretary of State do the right thing and pass back control to the people who pay for them—the local citizens?

[Nick Gibb]

These multi-academy trusts are driving up academic standards. In primary schools, disadvantaged pupils in MATs make significantly more progress in writing and maths than the average for disadvantaged students, and the gap in progress between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged primary school pupils is smaller in MATs than the national average. I could go on with more examples of how MATs are raising standards in our country. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the MAT performance table and he will see which MATs are the highest performers.

Maintained Nursery Schools

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on securing the debate through the Backbench Business Committee. It has been a well-tempered discussion so far, but I have to say that I am pretty angry about what is happening so I may introduce one or two notes of rancour I am afraid.

In my area there are four maintained nursery schools: Brunswick, the Fields, Homerton and the Colleges. I know all of them well, and whenever I visit I am struck, as other Members have said of their nurseries, by the genuine care and dedication of the staff, who provide an excellent start. I am particularly struck by the support and engagement of parents and I am always struck by the messy play, but unfortunately I am also struck by the real sense of worry about the future because of the threat that future funding will not be secured.

As we have heard, the costs that these nurseries incur are higher, and in a high cost area such as Cambridge it is particularly expensive to hire staff so they are under huge pressure. That of course applies to all nurseries across the sector in Cambridge, but as we have heard the maintained nurseries have particular extra costs, because they are providing something different, because they are schools. Sometimes I do wonder whether the Government entirely grasp this point.

To say that funding streams and accountability within this sector are opaque barely does justice to the complexity. As we all know, this Government have, as usual, made promises on things such as 30 hours and then failed to provide the resources, so passing the buck to local councils who then all too frequently get the blame. As a result, providers within the sector all too easily end up pitted one against another when what we really need is everyone working together to achieve a shared goal: good quality, universal early-years provision with properly trained, well rewarded staff.

Sadly, we are a long way from that. In Cambridgeshire, providers are paid just £4.04 an hour to provide care. The Department for Education has confirmed that it will not provide an uplift in the hourly funding rate from 2019-20, so our nurseries will only receive a 1p rise, to £4.05 an hour. And as we have heard, after April 2020 there has been no guarantee that any supplementary funding will be received for maintained nurseries: no word from the Government about future funding. So these excellent providers, so loved by parents and children, struggle on with a sword of Damocles hanging over them as they battle to cover the high costs of running a service in an expensive city, and now are given no certainty over their futures. This affects hundreds of children, hundreds of families, and of course, many staff.

Sadly, this anxiety surrounding the plight of our nurseries’ funding is not a recent phenomenon; it has almost become a way of life. Very early on in my time in this House I was at the Fields nursery, working with anxious staff and parents over how their future would be secured. In 2017 I delivered a petition on this very subject in this Chamber, and over the years I have repeatedly asked Ministers about this and warned of the approaching cliff edge; time and again I have been told, “It’s all in hand and there isn’t a problem,” but that really is not true in Cambridge and, what is worse, staff have had to go on working week after week, month after month, year after year without any certainty. Frankly, it is a disgrace: the Government should hang their head in shame at the stress and distress their dereliction of responsibility has caused so many people. Austerity might have been a nice parlour game for Osborne and Cameron—a nice bit of political triangulation—but it has caused untold damage and harm, tearing at the fabric of society, and the maintained nursery sector is a particular victim. Frankly, no one should ever forgive the Conservatives for these self-obsessions. Just as it is with the European Union, so it is with austerity: it is always about internal ideological battles and never about the public good.

In the latest round of this long-running saga, the most recent Minister has said that nurseries and local authorities should hold off from making decisions until after the spending review. Well, great. In the current chaos, without any certainty about when the spending review will even take place, that is frankly hopeless.

[Vicky Ford]

I should like to declare an interest, in that about 10 years ago, prior to coming to this place, I chaired a pre-school just outside the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. The pre-schools that are not maintained nursery schools receive less funding per head than the maintained nurseries. How does he justify to parents that their child who attends one of those excellent pre-schools is getting less Government funding per head than a child in a maintained nursery school?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. As I said earlier, the funding mechanisms for this sector are extremely complicated, which can create the danger of setting one provider against another. The answer to her question is clear, and it is astonishing that Conservative Members do not get this simple point. Maintained nurseries are schools; they are different, they have extra costs and they are often located in the poorest areas. I would hope that, taking a cross-party approach, we can try to find a way of maintaining both, because there is a range of providers that are doing an excellent job.

[Karen Lee]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this should absolutely not be a race to the bottom?

[Daniel Zeichner]

It should absolutely not be. The one thing we can all probably agree on is that we would like all these providers to have a sustainable future. I have every sympathy for the other providers, who are also struggling with an underfunded system.

[Vicky Ford]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his answer, but I would also like to make it absolutely clear for the record that I am not in any way suggesting a race to the bottom.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s clarification, but I have to say that, from where some of us are sitting, on this side of the House, that looks exactly like what this Government are intending, in a far wider range of sectors than just the early years sector.

I shall return to the spending review. It is expected in the autumn but, as we have heard, that will be too late for many people. Businesses, local authorities and families need to plan, and they need costed commitments, not empty promises. It is wholly irresponsible to continue to drag out this uncertainty regarding supplementary funding. The Local Government Association tells us that 61% of local authorities with maintained nursery schools fear that their nursery schools will close if their funding is not protected, and 52% say that the loss of that funding will reduce the support available for children with special educational needs; and let us not even start on the crisis affecting that group. Pretending that the current funding is sustainable is an utter fantasy, which is perhaps no surprise from a Government who seem every day to demonstrate that they live in a fantasy world of unicorns. That is fine for nursery stories, but a hopeless way how not to run a country.

This week I was handed a petition, as others have been, from thousands of concerned parents across Cambridge who are calling for better funding and stability for our maintained nurseries. Many of them added extra comments, and they make heart-warming reading. Both the Brunswick and the Colleges Nursery Schools in Cambridge were recently rated outstanding across the board by Ofsted, with comments reflecting on the nurseries’ “high quality care”, “inspirational leadership” and “strong teaching”. Parents commented that their nursery had been a

“fundamental fixed point in our lives”,

and “extremely supportive” to special educational needs and English as an additional language needs, and that it had helped their children to grow in

“confidence, understanding and care for others”.

Are these really the kinds of services that this Government want to destroy?

Under the current funding agreement, nurseries will struggle to stay in business, according to the Department for Education’s own figures. When I visited one of the nurseries recently I was told that, without extra help, it will hit the buffers next April. How depressing, when we know that for every £1 spent on early years, £13 are saved down the line. The Chancellor has announced that his spring statement will take place in March, and I and others will be very disappointed if the Minister here today does not use the next few weeks to make serious representations on this matter, ahead of those announcements. I have had angry words for the Government today, and frankly I think they are deserved. Our maintained nurseries deserve better, and I hope that the Minister will prove me wrong and show that the Government have some sense after all.

College Funding

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 229744 relating to college funding.

I am moving the motion on behalf of the Petitions Committee. It is a pleasure to serve when you are in the Chair, Mr Walker. I should just say that, formerly, before I came to this place, I worked for Unison, one of the trade unions representing staff in colleges, and I am a member of Unite.

I will read the petition submitted by Charlotte Jones, a student at Brockenhurst College in Hampshire, but first let me congratulate those who have promoted it, including the thousands who lobbied Parliament a few months ago; commend the excellent work done by organisations such as the Association of Colleges, the Sixth Form Colleges Association, the University and College Union and Unison; and congratulate the almost 70,000 people who have signed the petition. It is great to see so many hon. Members in Westminster Hall today. I cannot believe that they are all fleeing the main Chamber, for one reason or another, at the moment. I hope that it is because of their enthusiasm for the subject under discussion here.

The petition is entitled:

“Increase college funding to sustainable levels—all students deserve equality!”

It states:

“We call on the Government to urgently increase college funding to sustainable levels, including immediate parity with recently announced increases to schools funding. This will give all students a fair chance, give college staff fair pay and provide the high-quality skills the country needs.

Funding for colleges has been cut by almost 30% from 2009 to 2019. A decade of almost continuous cuts and constant reforms have led to a significant reduction in the resources available for teaching and support for sixth formers in schools and colleges; potentially restricted course choice; fewer adults in learning; pressures on staff pay and workload; a growing population that is not able to acquire the skills the UK needs to secure prosperity post-Brexit.”

I shall start by asking the Minister a simple question: why? Why are 17 and 18-year-olds in colleges and sixth forms worth so much less than younger pupils or university students?

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is starting to make a very strong case about further education. In answer to his question, my belief is that we have a Government who fundamentally do not understand what further education is for. We have a Government full of people who have never experienced the further education sector, which is why they so undermine it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I shall develop a very similar case in a moment, but I suspect that it goes wider than Government, because I suspect that the Minister and most others who speak today will agree that it is simply shameful that the divide has been allowed to grow. I suspect that the Minister will blame the Treasury, and I have some sympathy for that position, but I guess that others will say that the problem goes deeper. The near invisibility of further education and now, apparently, other colleges to people in this place is not a new phenomenon. Arguably, it is at the heart of our current political problem—a divided country, with too many people left behind and ignored. No wonder the education divide mirrors the EU divide almost exactly. That is why I argue that it is in everyone’s interest—everyone’s—that this huge injustice be tackled.

Let me go into some more detail regarding the petition and then move to discussing the national picture, alongside some examples local to me, and the impact of the current funding squeeze. As I said, the petition calls on the Government

“to urgently increase college funding to sustainable levels”

in order to

“give all students a fair chance, give college staff fair pay and provide the high-quality skills the country needs.”

The petition notes:

“Funding for colleges has been cut by almost 30%”

over the past decade, stretching resources, support and the staff available.

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

In Hartlepool, we have three excellent 16-plus providers: Hartlepool College of Further Education, Hartlepool Sixth Form College and the English Martyrs School and Sixth Form College. Some of their cuts since 2010 have gone up to 62%. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need urgently to address funding in order to avoid the irreparable damage that that might do to our colleges?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I suspect that we may be going on a regional tour of colleges over the next 25 minutes or so. The picture that my hon. Friend paints is familiar across the country; indeed, it is all too recognisable across the nation. I represent Cambridge, a place that is rightly associated with excellent education and where higher education often dominates the agenda and discourse. Somehow that makes the contrast all the more stark between the focus on higher education policy—and, frankly, the resources—and that which goes to further education. Many of us remember the huge national outrage when tuition fees for university students were introduced and later trebled, but when fees were introduced in further education, where was the outrage? Where were the marches? In my patch, it was just me and a handful of local trade unionists out there talking about it—thanks, Peter Monaghan and others from Cambridge. Some people noticed, but the vast majority did not. Was the matter considered newsworthy? Hardly at all.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I would like to add to the points that my hon. Friend is making. Where was the outrage when the education maintenance allowance was taken away? That seriously affected students in further education, many of whom were unable to afford the bus fare even to get to college and receive an education.

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That issue is almost worthy of a whole debate in itself, but the problem is not just the removal of the education maintenance allowance, of course. Where was the outrage in the country about the near collapse in the number of mature and part-time students? People can read about that in the pages of the specialist press; I think that we all know why it does not reach any further.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Daniel Zeichner]

I see my right hon. Friend ready to make some strong points.

[Mr Lammy]

On that excellent point, does my hon. Friend agree that we need to hear from the Government not about bringing back grammar schools, but about funding night schools? If, indeed, we exit from the European Union, should we not be giving people in our seaside towns, northern industrial areas and parts of London the skills to compete in the economy that we are going to have?

[Daniel Zeichner]

Characteristically, I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. Of course, he has been campaigning on these issues very powerfully; I just hope that people are listening.

Let me give some of the numbers. According to the House of Commons Library, in 2010 the average funding allocation was £4,633 per student. The 16 and 17-year-old funding rate has been frozen at £4,000 since 2013-14. The rate for 18-year-olds was cut to £3,300 in 2014-15 and has remained frozen since then. Funding per student aged 16 to 18 has seen the biggest squeeze of all stages of education for young people in recent years. By 2019-20, funding per young person in further education will be about the same as it was in 2006-07—only 10% higher than it was 30 years earlier.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the £3.3 billion of cuts in further education since 2010 is utterly devastating and, given the higher proportion of working-class students attending further education colleges—I was one of them—does he agree that this Government are hell-bent on making life a misery for working-class people in this country?

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend makes the point very powerfully. As I said, I see the divide in my own city. She is absolutely right.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend rightly mentioned the £4,000 rate freeze. He might like to know that, had the rate increased by inflation since 2013, the figure would be almost £4,300 today; that is just if it had kept pace with inflation. For cities such as Stoke-on-Trent, there would have been about £2.5 million more funding for further education. What does my hon. Friend think that we could have done with that money?

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. When many of us go into institutions and ask, “What could you have done and what would the difference have been, had you had these resources?” the response is very telling. I am sure that we will hear similar accounts from others. I will come on in a moment to some of the implications of the numbers.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case. Just to put a positive spin on it for this Government in the beginning, my local college listened to me and it is very pleased about the bus passes for 16 to 18-year-olds. That has made a great deal of difference for its students.

On the point that the hon. Gentleman is making about the finances, the two colleges in my area—the excellent Richard Huish College, which is in the top 10 in the country, and Bridgwater and Taunton College, which also does an excellent job—have both raised concerns about finances. They find that the cuts mean that they cannot offer staff as much as systems outside FE can, and that it is difficult to recruit. Might the hon. Gentleman comment on that? In the light of the fact that schools outside that system got a 3.5% pay award, which is hugely welcome—I know that those teachers welcome it—does he agree that we should look at the FE system and at least bring it into parity?

[Daniel Zeichner]

Strangely enough, I will come on to staffing issues in a moment. I suggest that the hon. Lady addresses those points to her colleagues on the Government Benches, because they are in a position to do something about it. Young people will be even more enamoured with free bus passes for people up to the age of 25.

Spending per student in school sixth forms will be lower than at any point since 2002. Although there are some minor scraps of comfort around funding for meals and certain subjects, and extra hours for T-levels, they do little to address the cuts that we have seen.

The issues are slightly different for sixth-form colleges offering A-levels and further education colleges offering a number of different qualifications, but the problem of cuts is universal. Our friends at the Sixth Form Colleges Association have tirelessly campaigned on that with their “Raise the Rate” campaign, which has attracted the support of many MPs. They are calling for the national funding rate—the rate of funding per student—for 16 to 18-year-olds to be raised to at least £4,760 per student, including 18-year-olds, and for it to be kept in line with inflation year on year.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend as puzzled as I am that, at £3,300 each, 18-year-olds are the cheapest people in the world to educate, given that, in my experience, people on an additional year are actually the most demanding to teach?

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Those students suddenly and miraculously become much more expensive when they turn up at university; it is amazing.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I am sorry that I cannot stay for the whole debate, but I am chairing a Committee later. The hon. Gentleman may mention it later in his speech, but I wanted to put on record the important matter of special needs funding. Oaklands College in my constituency has 200 pupils with special needs funding, and that puts huge pressure on the college. I am fully aware that there are cutbacks to be made, but sometimes services just have to be provided for people who have particular needs and need to get their life back on track.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady, and I will come to that point in my speech. I want to turn to some of the effects of this underfunding, which is significant and has damaging consequences in sixth forms. In total, 50% of schools and colleges have dropped courses in modern foreign languages as a result of funding pressures, with A-levels in German, French and Spanish being the main casualties. That would seem to be the wrong way to go, especially when we are talking about global Britain.

Over one third of sixth forms have dropped science, technology, engineering and maths subjects, while two thirds have reduced student support services, such as mental health support, which we know is increasingly required. There are also, in many cases, limited careers advice services, and that also has a damaging effect. Two thirds of schools and colleges have moved from a four-subject offer to a three-subject offer, significantly reducing students’ choice and ultimately narrowing their options after study. For state schools with sixth forms offering post-16 study, the underfunding affects the education of all students, because, as we know, such schools frequently cross-subsidise post-16 education with funding that is meant for 11 to 16-year-olds.

Given that this country, quite rightly, requires its young people to participate in education or training until the age of 18, it seems quite incredible that across all 16 to 19 provision we reduce investment in education so sharply at the age of 16, from £5,341 for a 15-year-old to just £4,000 for a 16-year-old.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that the level of cuts is so extreme that very dramatic steps are being taken? Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College is one of the biggest in the country, but it has cut its A-levels completely. It has also cut back on English for speakers of other languages, because funding has not been available. It is now redeveloping its sites to release land, just to keep itself going. How can we plan for the future of FE, when there is so much uncertainty and so little finance available?

[Daniel Zeichner]

As always, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is very difficult for people working in the sector to plan ahead. With years of area reviews, and all the rest of it, it has been a tough time. At the moment, the situation ahead does not look that good.

Further education colleges provide our communities with access to skills across the board. We see even more diverse challenges there. Although, in their response to the petition, the Government acclaimed their commitment to the adult education budget, in reality the initial teaching and learning funding allocations for adult further education and skills in England fell from a baseline of £3.18 billion in 2010 to £2.94 billion in 2015-16—a reduction of 14% in real terms—and more for the non-apprenticeship part of the adult skills budget. Since then, there has been an increase in funding for apprenticeships, but that really cannot make up for the thousands of people across the country who have suffered as a consequence of these cuts, and who want to upskill and reskill, as technology changes our jobs and our lives.

What about those who work in colleges? College staff were mentioned earlier. Staggeringly, college teachers are paid on average £7,000 a year less than those in schools, according to the University and College Union. In conjunction with busier jobs and fewer resources, this is stretching staff to breaking point, as any of us who go into colleges will hear.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

On that point, 57 members of staff were recently made redundant at Warrington and Vale Royal College in my constituency when the Northwich campus was closed. It is facing funding pressures of about £4 million as a direct result of this under-resourcing.

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend is right and sadly there is a familiar story of not only redundancies, but insecure contracts. The level of morale is really challenging for so many staff. Unison’s head of education, Ruth Levin, pointed out that colleges have faced underfunding, leading to job cuts, course closures and larger class sizes “for many years”. She went on to say:

“Pay in further education has fallen by more than 21% in real terms over the past nine years”.

It is clear that further education colleges have been hit the hardest in recent years, and it is simply not possible to continue down this road of less funding and more demand.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further education colleges are being asked to implement T-levels, but the T-level system, even though it has not started yet, is already in crisis. The exam boards are taking the Government to court. The colleges are saying that they are unable to cope with the level of funding. Employers are unaware of them. Will that not add to colleges’ burden?

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend raises some important points. I guess it will be for the Minister to respond. In a sector that has seen constant change and churn over many years, there is sometimes a yearning for stability.

On that note, the Prime Minister’s review into post-18 education and funding, chaired by Philip Augar, was announced last year and is eagerly awaited—although I guess the Prime Minister might have other things on her mind at the moment.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making the point about pay and the impact on recruitment and retention. Does he agree that it is especially acute for specialist areas? Sheffield College has seen significant growth in the delivery of higher apprentices in engineering and manufacturing, but it is really struggling to recruit in those specialisms. It has run four recruitment campaigns, but still finds it almost impossible to recruit. These are areas that are crucial for the future of our economy. We need to ensure that they have full parity of pay, so that we can attract the best and the brightest into this sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that. I was not aware of that, but I must say that recruitment is a continual problem in high-cost areas such as mine. Given the levels of pay, that is hardly surprising.

Returning to the Augar review, I fear that we will probably have much the same story. I suspect that there will be warm words about further education. However, certainly in terms of the coverage, I expect, yet again, the world’s focus to be on higher education and universities. Important though those things are, I fear that there are unlikely to be real solutions for colleges, but we live in hope—we shall see.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman just made an interesting point, but in coastal communities such as the one that I represent, which includes Lowestoft Sixth Form College and East Coast College, colleges are vital for the link from education to the workplace and in improving social mobility. We probably need a change in mind-set in this country with regard to how we fund post-16 education.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Only a few days ago we were discussing that in the east of England all-party parliamentary group. Would it not be wonderful if we could have cross-party consensus on this kind of change?

Even the Further Education Commissioner told the Education Committee that further education funding is “unfair” and “sparse”. I have seen this at Cambridge Regional College, an FE college in my constituency, which I visit regularly. I see the excellent work that staff do with students and apprentices from right across the east of England, but the college remains under-resourced and overstretched.

The principal of Cambridge Regional College, Mark Robertson, told me that

“colleges train 2.2 million people annually, and … further education students aged over 19 generate an additional £70 billion for the economy over their lifetime. However, colleges and schools are facing increased pension costs and colleges have not yet had assurance that this increased cost—of around 2% of all income—will be funded.”

That makes no economic sense to me. With colleges adding such huge value to the economy, why are we hitting them so hard?

A similar situation can be found at the fantastic sixth-form colleges in Cambridge, Hills Road Sixth Form College and Long Road Sixth Form College, and in the sixth-form provision at Parkside Community College and Netherhall School. All the teachers at those colleges and schools tell me the same thing; indeed, I see it for myself week after week when I visit them. There are brilliant, hard-working, energetic young people, but increasingly they feel that the system is stacked against them.

Hills Road Sixth Form College is often cited as one of the best state sixth-form colleges in the country, but staff there have told me about the impact of cuts on their provision. Today, the college has £100,000 less to spend on additional learning support for students who need it than it did in 2010. It has been forced to offer fewer subjects and many students take fewer subjects. The average class size has grown by two students, while per capita student funding has dropped by over £1,000.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Ipswich was very pleased to welcome opportunity area status, which we were granted by the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), to try to improve the not very good social mobility in our area. However, there is no way that we will improve social mobility if we do not have the necessary facilities in place, and in particular the skilled and competent staff to help provide the opportunity for additional social mobility.

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend and near neighbour is absolutely right, and that is a key issue for the east of England, which is often seen as a prosperous and successful region, but its skills shortages have been a problem for a long, long time and they need to be addressed.

I will also quote Yolanda Botham, the principal of Long Road Sixth Form College, another excellent college in Cambridge. She tells me:

“The current level of funding has meant for Long Road that we have had to reduce our curriculum offer. We no longer provide A-level German, for example. We have had to reduce the broader opportunities and enrichment opportunities that we can provide, limiting the number of trips and experiences we can offer, which really matter for social mobility. Visits and trips show what’s possible and enable students to see beyond their immediate horizons.”

She says that it is particularly galling to note that

“our private school neighbours, charging £17,000 annually, do not have to pay VAT, yet we do.”

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it seems a bit perverse in the days of Brexit to be cutting back on foreign language provision?

[Daniel Zeichner]

Indeed it is, but this place is full of ironies on a daily basis, is it not?

Yolanda Botham said that for her college

“that £200,000 extra a year could really make an important difference, such as supporting through subsidy more students to take advantage of university summer schools and other opportunities.”

That is exactly the kind of point about social mobility that colleagues have been making. She continued:

“An increase in funds would allow us to better cater for the mental health needs of our students and so, over time, maybe reduce the demands on the NHS. This is in increasing need amongst young people.”

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Recently, I met principals from the Lancashire Colleges network, including the principals of Blackpool and the Fylde College and of Lancaster and Morecambe College. The point they really emphasised to me is that this situation goes beyond subject provision. Further education colleges are absolutely on the frontline of supporting young people through what can often be very challenging mental health needs, at a time when the NHS cannot cope and cannot meet those needs fast enough. Does he agree that FE colleges provide far more than just basic qualifications in education and support young people through what can often be a very challenging time?

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is a message we hear in both colleges and universities: the demands on them are rising. If, at the same time, they have to cut back to just their core provision, who helps the students and what happens next when those problems arise? The cost of meeting them moves somewhere else.

That colleges have to pay VAT has been a long-running problem for sixth forms, and it really is a kick in the teeth for headteachers who are doing their best to balance their budgets, while competing with private schools that are exempt from VAT.

The problems go wider still. The chief executive of Cambridge Academic Partnership, the multi-academy trust that runs Parkside Sixth Form College in Cambridge, spoke to me about the impact of cuts on the international baccalaureate. He said:

“The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme is recognised across the world as a rigorous qualification, and it is well regarded precisely for the breadth of its curriculum. IB students distinguish themselves by undertaking study across the academic disciplines at a more advanced level. Therefore, they leave further education with an impressive knowledge base that spans their native tongue, a foreign language, the Humanities, the Sciences, Mathematics, and the Arts. Within each of those disciplines lies a plethora of subjects from which students can tailor their Diploma according to the nuances of their interests and future plans. State centres that offer the IB qualification do so due to their commitment to developing well-rounded students, equipped to contribute across all sectors of society.”

Of course, after all that there is a “but” coming.

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Daniel Zeichner]

Ah, my hon. Friend is going to interrupt at the “but”— very good. Yes, I am happy to give way.

[Faisal Rashid]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Last Friday, I visited Barrow Hall College in my constituency of Warrington South. It was so refreshing to see so many young people engaged politically and exhibiting so much potential—I could see their potential. Sadly, however, I fear that all too often that potential is being squandered by a further education system that is drastically underfunded. Does he agree that we should all support the “Raise the Rate” campaign, to ensure that young people receive the investment they deserve?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I very much agree. I also applaud my hon. Friend’s enthusiasm, which is the enthusiasm that can be seen in colleges. However, there is also that slight sense of shame when one sees the problems that they are facing.

After the “but”, the chief executive of Cambridge Academic Partnership told me:

“When funding is limited, the skills set that we wish to provide to our students is impacted. Registered IB centres wish to offer students sufficient choice between subjects to give them a learning experience that complements their interests and strengths. A lack of funding reduces that choice because sustaining the breadth of teaching expertise required becomes impossible. It is crucial that school funding reflects the importance accorded to a broad curriculum. If centres are forced to eliminate subjects, it either deters students from undertaking the programme, or undermines the principles of the qualification itself: to be principled, broad-minded and internationally minded.”

Post-16 education is vital to the UK’s prosperity, and at a time when many fear that the Government’s stance on immigration is making access to skills more uncertain, it is foolish to under-invest in young people’s education and training. To be competitive in a global marketplace, the UK must adequately resource the education of future generations. If the Home Secretary acts on the policy proposals in his immigration White Paper, which already threaten the economy as they will restrict access to skills so dramatically, it is essential that we push education and skills right up the agenda, or we will face a crisis that could take many years to resolve. We should be preparing now for that, as providing people with the skills that the country needs takes time, resources and support.

I will conclude by offering an alternative. Labour’s 2017 manifesto made a real offer for education—a national education service. There would be free, lifelong education in further education colleges, enabling everyone to upskill or retrain at any point in life. The manifesto noted:

“Our skills and training sector has been held back by repeated reorganisation, which deprives providers, learners and employers of the consistency they need to assess quality. Labour would abandon Conservative plans to once again reinvent the wheel by building new technical colleges, redirecting the money to increase teacher numbers in the FE sector”.

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden), who is on the shadow Front Bench, will have more to say, but our manifesto commitment is a real offer for the further education sector and for students. It has to be a strong offer; we cannot go on like this. We cannot go on without being able to say why we as a country so undervalue our 16 and 17-year-olds. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide an explanation.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I would have thought that the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) strongly disapproved of the very creation of the mobile phone in the first place.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

T2. Parents and staff in maintained nursery schools are waiting for the Government to stop dithering on future funding. Excellent schools in Cambridge and all over the country face a funding cliff edge next year. Can the Minister give them the assurance they need, and commit today to the future of our maintained nursery schools?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

We have made £60 million available to maintained nursery schools up to 2020 because of the excellent provision that they deliver. My message, and that of the Secretary of State, to local authorities is not to take any decisions until we get to the spending review.