School Funding (London)

David Burrowes Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this vital debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing it. Members from both sides of the House are present. That is important, because this is a cross-party issue that cannot be monopolised by any one party. It matters to us all because it matters to children in our constituencies and their life chances.

I am grateful to the Minister. He is one of the most patient Ministers and, indeed, one of the longest-standing Education Ministers. No one can preach to him about schools. He has been out there visiting schools across the country. He may be patient, but he is intolerant in the sense that he does not tolerate educational failure, wherever it comes from, particularly for disadvantaged pupils. He has been a Minister on a mission, both in the Department and on his sabbatical—we could not do without him, so he came back. The Minister’s mission, which is shared by the Department for Education, is:

“to deliver educational excellence everywhere, so that every child and young person can access world class provision, achieving to the best of his or her ability regardless of location, prior attainment and background.”

We all want to achieve that aim. That is what the debate about the national funding formula and schools’ overall budgets is about. That is what we want to achieve. Like other hon. Members, I am a governor, at two schools. I am also a parent and I care passionately about the Government achieving what is very much this Minister’s mission.

London is a success story as a result of that mission. The Government should be proud, along with the previous Government in terms of funding, of what they have achieved. They have ensured that 92% of schools across London are good or outstanding. We pay tribute to the teachers, governors, parents and pupils for being very much part of that success story. Particularly relevant is the fact that disadvantaged pupils are progressing better in London than elsewhere in the country. We want to ensure that others are lifted up to that standard. That means being lifted up in funding as well, and that is what the national funding formula is about.

I recognise that the Government have a position. We can spend our time—I do not want to spend too much time, Mr Hanson—defending manifesto commitments, and we can dance on the head of a pin about how much extra money there is per pupil, or we can make the point, as I am sure the Minister will, that more is being spent than ever before, in cash terms. The figure is £40 billion a year. We also have to recognise the context, which is our national debt; interestingly, that is £40 billion a year as well. That is important context for the restraint that all public services are facing.

I have been ready to defend the reality that the Department for Education budget and the schools budgets are not immune from that restraint. They have already had to make significant decisions and cuts in school budgets. However, we are in a position in which schools have already been vulnerable. Before the national funding formula, we could have had a debate about school funding and cuts in my local schools and others. However, we now have the national funding formula. Many of us, particularly in outer London, were hopeful that that would lead to a significant rebalancing of funding. For those of us in outer London, there has been an impact not just in relation to school funding. Local government has historically been underfunded. There is a need to recognise the demographics—the population increases—in outer London. Mental health funding is also relevant. The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) will join me in making this point. There has been 25% less funding in parts of London such as Camden. All of that impacts on schools, so we were looking to the national funding formula in particular to see us through these difficult and challenging times.

I recognise that the Government are right on the principle. This is perhaps where this funding formula debate will differ from others to which the Minister has patiently listened. We need to retain recognition of deprivation. That needs to be reflected, and it is: 18.1% of the schools budget is for additional needs, based on low attainment, deprivation and English as an additional language. That is so important and it must stay. It must not in any way be diluted or reduced; in fact, some of us say that it should be increased. It should be good news for Enfield and other parts of London that are particularly impacted by those additional costs. It is also right there is flexibility; that is good news as well.

There is an issue about deprivation. I ask the Minister to reflect on the concerns in that regard. I am thinking of free school meals and the income deprivation affecting children index. Is what is happening truly reflective of the challenges facing children in families who may well be on universal credit and who may be in work, but who could well still be in poverty and in challenging situations? There is concern that the drop-off in free school meals is impacted by the benefit changes and that that is not leading to a proper settlement, a proper reflection of people’s needs.

Enfield does better than other parts of London, and it should do, but it does not do well enough—the Minister may have been expecting me to say that. My constituency may get £400,000 more in cash terms, but the reality is that 15 out of 22 schools will lose out. The reality as far as budgets and the real costs are concerned is that there will be £3 million of cuts in Enfield, Southgate by 2018-19. There is also an impact from the apprenticeship levy, national insurance contributions, pensions and pay.

That matters greatly to schools such as West Gove Primary School, which have significant additional needs. Just over the weekend, I got another 280 petition letters, all of which I have here. Never before has there been such interest and concern among parents. At West Grove, they are concerned about a cut of £276,572 over the next four years. Hazelwood Infant and Junior School faces a cut of £150,000 over that period. It says that that equates to eight teachers. We have dealt with challenging budgets before, but there is now an impact on the budgets for teachers. That is affecting particularly primary schools. A particular issue is the high cost of recruitment and retention.

The principle behind the national funding formula is sound. I do not want us to go backwards. We need to be bold and continue with that, but we need to recognise that eventually it has to mean adequate provision, proper provision, for additional costs. I will defend the principle, but I will not defend the reality of the cuts that will come through for the budgets of my local schools. In fact, I join the Minister in this intolerance: I will not tolerate that, because it will impact particularly on disadvantaged pupils. When we get to the autumn Budget, I will want to see, to help the Minister, a bigger pot so that we can help schools in other areas and ensure that there is fairer funding, and ensure that London continues to be the success that it deserves to be and is not a victim of its success.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Social Mobility Commission: State of the Nation Report

David Burrowes Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to sixth-form colleges. All the data show what great outcomes they deliver for a comprehensive intake of pupils. Indeed, Loreto sixth-form college in my constituency is one of the top 5% in the country in terms of outcomes for its pupils, and it is in the heart of inner-city Manchester.

New analysis by Professor Simon Burgess and a team of academics shows that poor, bright children are much less likely to attend grammar schools than more affluent children who are not as bright. In England, the best performing boroughs are comprehensive. For example, London, which I have mentioned, outperforms selective areas and the national average in its top GCSE results. In contrast, the attainment gap is worse than the national average in eight out of nine fully selective areas, so the evidence is pretty overwhelming.

I am sure that when he rises to speak later, the Minister will repeat the one fact that he is particularly keen on —of course, there is another one that he likes about modern foreign languages—which is that in grammar schools, the tiny number of children on free school meals do better than all the other children in the country on free school meals. What the Government fail to tell us is that the children who get into grammar schools are already highly able, by definition, so the Government are not comparing like with like. In fact, highly able children do just as well in good and outstanding comprehensive schools as their counterparts do in grammar schools.

The grammar school policy is wrong in itself when it comes to social mobility, but it is also a huge distraction. I am setting out an agenda, which is shared by the Social Mobility Commission and other hon. Members, around the early years, schools, post-16 and other areas. That agenda would keep any Minister or Department extremely busy, but the Government have also embarked on other major overhauls, including the new national fair funding formula—that has caused much consternation on both sides of the House—the biggest reform of GCSEs in a generation, new SATs, the creation of hundreds of thousands of new school places to deal with the massive increase in demand, and a reduction in the amount of funding and number of teachers per pupil. The divisive pursuit of more selection in grammars will require huge political capital and a great deal of officials’ attention, and it will mean that all the other really important work, some of which the Government have already embarked on, will fail.

I do not think that we would be having this debate about grammars and selection if we had done more in recent years to create a cross-party consensus on what needs to be done to tackle the lack of social mobility. Our intention in this debate is to look at and develop an understanding of what works, and to build a broad consensus.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I apologise for not being around for the beginning of the hon. Lady’s speech. When it comes to building consensus, if she were willing to cross the Rubicon in terms of more selective education, would it not be a good idea to focus it on the opportunity areas and coldspots that the Social Mobility Commission has highlighted?

[Lucy Powell]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is saying that he thinks that selection would work in such areas. There is no evidence for that at all, especially when I look at the fantastic schools in my constituency. My constituency has some of the highest levels of deprivation in the country—I think it is the second ranking constituency for child poverty in the whole country—but I have some outstanding schools that get amazing results in a comprehensive setting. I do not understand how selection will help them; it will simply make their job all the more difficult.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burrowes]

We may well disagree on some of the principles and practice, but if there is to be increased opportunity for selective education, would not the best place to focus it be in the areas of most need—those opportunity areas coldspots highlighted by the Social Mobility Commission?

[Lucy Powell]

No, I disagree fundamentally. As we have seen historically and evidentially, opportunity areas such as the London challenge work when we bring schools together and encourage them to collaborate, rather than creating an environment of competition. Such areas work when we ensure that they have the best teachers, the right resources and strong, collective leadership. Bringing a selective agenda into that ecosystem will work against all those core principles.

I think that there is a broad consensus about what needs to be done, and I hope that we can devote political time, and the time of Ministers and officials, to that. The important things are: quality in the early years; targeting resources; creating and developing opportunity areas; getting the best teachers where they are needed; developing a skills strategy focused on jobs; creating job opportunities and access to the best jobs; and securing progress through those jobs for the many, not the few.

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

I echo the words of the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) and of many other speakers in the House today in paying tribute to those who lost their lives or were injured yesterday, and to the House staff for keeping us safe. It is very important that the House’s business has resumed today. As the Prime Minister said earlier, yesterday was an attack on democracy. It is therefore important that our democracy should continue unabated today, and where better to start than on so important an issue as social mobility?

I was just looking at Twitter, as you do, and I see that somebody has tweeted, “How can there be a debate this afternoon if everyone agrees?” I suspect many of us spend our time trying to explain why everybody disagrees in this place, and why we are busy arguing and falling out with each other, so on the whole I think it is rather nice to have a debate in which people can broadly agree that there is an issue with social mobility in this country that we all want to tackle.

I thank the hon. Lady and the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) for co-sponsoring this debate, and I thank all those outside the House who have sent briefings to Members sharing their thoughts on today’s debate. The November 2016 Social Mobility Commission report said:

“Britain has a deep social mobility problem which is getting worse for an entire generation of young people”.

The Teach First briefing for this debate says:

“Failing to improve low levels of social mobility will cost the UK economy up to £14billion a year by 2050, or an additional four per cent of GDP.”

Frankly, we cannot afford not to tackle it.

I want to talk about three things: Britain’s social contract; schools, to pick up some of the issues that the hon. Member for Manchester Central has mentioned; and social capital. Every generation expects there to be greater opportunities for their children and grandchildren. In Britain at the moment, that social contract and the expectation of social mobility has broken down in parts of our country and among some groups of people. Education is a key driver of social mobility—I know that the Minister is committed to this, because I have had the privilege of working alongside him—but in the parts of the country that most need social mobility, there is often little educational aspiration, and underperformance is entrenched. I agree that tackling that should be the focus of this Government’s education policy, rather than having yet another discussion about expanding selection.

Last year’s vote and the rise of populism not just in this country but elsewhere, including in the United States, was a cry showing that our social contract has broken down. As I have said, each generation expects better opportunities for the next, but I think we should be honest in saying—I know this from my casework, but also from talking to friends and family—that that is not how many people see life today. There is pressure on housing services, and housing is unaffordable for the next generation in many parts of this country. The labour market feels incredibly insecure, but also very demanding, which has a knock-on effect.

The hon. Lady mentioned the numbers of words that children from different backgrounds know by the age of three. There is some very interesting research in the Social Mobility Commission report about the number of minutes each day that parents from different backgrounds spend interacting with their younger children. People working long hours in an insecure job will inevitably have less time to interact with their children than those not in that position. What can we do to help with that?

[Mr Burrowes]

I thank my right hon. Friend for highlighting the issue of parental contact, but may I focus on contact with fathers? The Government have made great strides in trying to ensure greater opportunities in work, but we must also look at how to create greater opportunities to ensure that fathers are not only in contact but are involved in their children’s upbringing. I saw from clients in the criminal justice system that one of the prevailing factors for them was either an absent father or a father who was not involved in their lives.

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The importance of families and of having two parents or two important role models in life—and of both boys and girls having a strong male role model—should not be underestimated. It is no secret that I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) on some policy issues, but the work that he did at the Centre for Social Justice and the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) is doing now on the importance of family relationships and public policy should not be underestimated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

I agree. It is not that parents do not want the best for their child. If you ask most parents on the birth of a child, they want their child to be happy, healthy and successful in life. I will talk about extra-curricular activities shortly because again, there is a social injustice in access to those activities. The hon. Lady is right about support. All the nagging that middle-class parents do about homework, or chivvying children to read more books, often does not happen elsewhere, not for lack of wanting to do it but perhaps because it was not done to those parents. Going into a child’s school and challenging teachers is anathema to someone who has had a very unhappy school experience. Attendance at parents’ evenings is indicative of the support that children get at home.

Aspiration is about aiming high for young people. I did not have a chance to look up the name of the school, so I apologise for not remembering it, but I went to a fantastic primary school in Northamptonshire, where a high proportion of children had free school meals, but it was working with the Royal Shakespeare Company and every child had access to Shakespeare and his language. I heard the tiniest children talk about Shakespeare’s characters and watched the older children perform complicated scenes—I would have had difficulty remembering all those lines, but they were doing brilliantly. The headteacher there had high aspirations. He said, “All my children will be able to do this and benefit and learn.” They were doing incredibly well.

I pay tribute to the National Association of Head Teachers for setting up its “Primary Futures” campaign, which is about getting adults into schools to talk about their careers and broaden horizons. When I was in the DFE, we set up the Careers & Enterprise Company. Broadening horizons, and aspirational and inspirational careers advice, are important. There will be a difference of opinion in the House about work experience, which we have debated. One week’s dry work experience in an office will not necessarily set the flame alight, but I remember talking to some apprentices, who told me that a week at Rolls-Royce, where they could see how the maths they were learning would be applied in the workplace, does set the flame alight. People then go back to school more determined to do better in their maths classes.

There is a changing labour market. In the article at the weekend that the hon. Member for Manchester Central and I wrote, we talked about the number of high-skilled jobs that will be around. The Teach First briefing says that, by 2022, the British economy is expected to experience a shortage of 3 million workers to fill 15 million high-skilled jobs. At the same time, there will be 5 million more low-skilled workers than there are low-skilled jobs. I did not want to mention the “B” word this afternoon—it is very nice not to be talking about the European Union—but, if we are to change our immigration policy in this country and have fewer people coming in from overseas, we must ensure that all our young people are training for the labour market of the 21st century.

That is my problem with the Government’s focus on introducing more selection. We do not live in a world where we need only the top 20% or 30% to be highly skilled. We need everybody to have access to a knowledge-rich, excellent academic curriculum. A renewed battle over selection distracts from what is needed in our education to deal with the demands of a 21st-century labour market, to give everyone a chance to close social divisions, and to build a consistently strong school system.

Research from the Education Policy Institute talks about the negative effects on those who live in the most selective areas but who do not attend grammar schools. The negative effects emerge around the point when selective places are available for around 70% of high-attaining pupils. The research says that there are five times as many high-quality non-selective schools in England as there are grammar schools.

Every child is entitled to an academic curriculum. Like the Minister, I have seen some great schools in some very unexpected places. I remember my visit to King Solomon Academy in London—the Minister will have been there too—and to the Rushey Mead in Leicester. They have a higher proportion of children on free school meals but are doing incredibly well in terms of the exam results they are achieving. I also pay tribute to the Harris academies and Ark in Portsmouth.

The hon. Member for Manchester Central mentioned the secondary heads in Surrey who had written about selection. The Leicestershire secondary heads, too, wrote to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education. Impressively, every single headteacher in Leicestershire signed the letter. If the Minister has not seen it, I hope he can get hold of a copy. One paragraph states:

“As professionals who have dedicated our lives to educating children across Leicestershire, our concern is for all the children in our region. Removing the most able pupils in our schools will have a negative impact on those who remain. Removing the option of ambitious, all ability comprehensives, with a scarcity of academic role models, will impact most particularly on the least affluent and least able. Therein lies the most significant injustice of this policy.”

Academic attainment is important and we should set high aspirations and ambitions for all pupils, but pupils in the best schools gain something else, and I want all pupils to gain it. This was one of the things I tried to champion when I was in the Department for Education. I am thinking of the character traits—persistence, resilience, self-confidence, self-esteem—and the values and virtues of integrity, honesty and whatever it might be, that help to build a whole pupil. I was at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in north London recently. The school focuses on building social capital among its pupils. It is conscious of the fact that its pupils will have to compete with the independent school down the road. I visited the King’s Leadership Academy in Warrington, which is a new free school, now over-subscribed, where behaviour is excellent, and where aspirations are incredibly high. All the young people are trained for leadership. Kings Langley School in Hertfordshire and Gordano School near Bristol are fantastic schools—I could go on.

Educating young people is about not just what happens in the classroom, but access to other schemes. I pay tribute to the former Prime Minister and the current Government for their focus on the National Citizen Service and other schemes: social action, volunteering, uniformed activities such as the cadets, the guides and the scouts, and the Duke of Edinburgh award. They all help to build up experience and confidence in young people. Those of us who have been employers and have interviewed see the ability of some young people to walk through our door, look us in the eye and shake us by the hand. Some children are taught that and encouraged in school, but some are not. These things matter in helping young people to get on.

I mentioned extracurricular activities. The commission’s report specifically talks about the effect different social backgrounds have on how people participate:

“One study found that 43 per cent of children whose mother had a postgraduate degree had music lessons, compared with just 6 per cent of children whose mother had no qualifications. At the age of 11, 85 per cent of children whose mother had an undergraduate degree participated in organised sport outside of school, compared with 56 per cent of children whose mother had no formal qualifications.”

I was very pleased that in last year’s Budget the then Chancellor announced funding for a longer school day. It would be helpful to know what emphasis the Department will place on that to help schools provide such activities. It is not necessarily about the schools themselves providing the activities; it could be enabling all young people in their schools to take up a place and participate.

[Mr Burrowes]

I very much support what my right hon. Friend says, particularly about social capital and building character through education. The Government have committed to a statutory requirement for relationships education. Many children, sadly, come from a background of conflict, trauma and survival. There is now the opportunity to provide them with the building blocks that others receive outside school to build resilience, self-esteem and respect for others, and help to build that character which is so vital for their long term future.

[Nicky Morgan]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I was very pleased to support his amendment on sex and relationships education, and I am very pleased that the Government have taken that on board and accepted an amendment to the Children and Social Work Bill. He is right to say that. One of the most important characteristics is resilience, or to use the awful phrase, stickability and bouncebackability: the ability to deal with what life throws at them and not be blown off course. Anything that schools, adult role models and other organisations can do, in addition to families, to help young people to develop that characteristic will go at least part of the way to building the more resilient and confident young people we need for the 21st century.

I do not think we will all agree with everything in the commission’s report, but it shows that we have a problem with social mobility. For those of us who are one nation politicians, that should make us very uncomfortable. There is talk of a meritocracy, but the difficulty is this: who decides who has merit? I would prefer to say that everyone has potential, but that in some cases the keys to unlocking that potential are more readily available to some than others. Today’s debate is about working out what those keys are and how they are handed out, and about building a consensus, or perhaps cross-party momentum, on how to do just that. But it has to be about more than words. Much has been done by this Government and by previous Governments, but there is much more to do if we are to show how we are going to renew our broken social contract and build real social mobility in this country.

[Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) and the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) for the cross-party collaboration and work that has secured this debate on this all-important subject. In time-honoured Westminster fashion, there is an inverse relationship between the importance of a subject and the level of attendance, but that does not mean we should not persist. I join them, and everyone who has spoken today, in expressing my condolences to the family and friends of those injured and killed in yesterday’s horrific attack. I would like to pay my own heartfelt tribute to, and admiration for, the emergency services and the police who work so tirelessly, as they did yesterday, to keep us safe.

There is a choice that hangs like a backcloth to this debate: do we want to live in a closed society in which people are, in effect, told to know their place, or do we want to live in an open society in which people are able to choose their place? There is, I hope, an unarguable cross-party consensus that we should aspire to the latter.

I am delighted that the Social Mobility Commission, under the chairmanship of Alan Milburn, produces these excellent annual reports. I would say that, because I set up the commission: I announced its establishment on 5 April 2011, and we subsequently legislated for it. On the same day—it is interesting to look back on this—I announced the introduction of a new set of indicators that would help Whitehall to judge whether social mobility was being progressed or not. I also established a ministerial committee on the subject, which I chaired for many years.

At the time, all those things were new. Whitehall did not have a set of indicators, and we did not have a Social Mobility Commission. Extraordinarily, when I entered the Government I discovered that there were interns working in Whitehall and paid by the taxpayer who were judged purely on the basis of who they knew. Even in the heart of Government. prior to 2011, people were being given a leg-up because of who they knew rather than what they knew. It is fantastic that, in the intervening five or six years, social mobility has become a regular feature of the annual cycle of announcements.

I remember the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, observing to me rather ruefully that he thought I might have made a mistake by insisting that a member of the Opposition should chair the precursor of the Social Mobility Commission, because the first report produced by Alan Milburn and his colleagues had been critical of something that the coalition Government had done. I said to him, “That is the whole point: we need an institution that is independent of Government and contains people who will be fearless in their criticisms of any Government of whatever political persuasion, and which”—this is guaranteed by law—“reports to Parliament, not to the Government.”

The commission has—I will put it politely—had its wings clipped a little by the present Government. Shortly after the last election, the Government announced that they would remove the child poverty remit from what was formerly called the Child Poverty and Social Mobility Commission. I very much hope, and I am sure the Minister will reassure us, that that is not the first step in an attempt to make the commission in any way more docile, or less ferocious, in its all-important work.

I want to dwell on three issues, all of which are touched on in the annual report that the commission produced last November, and many of which have already been touched on by my co-sponsors. The first, the role of early years support, was highlighted by the hon. Member for Manchester Central, to whom I pay tribute, because she has made it a personal mission and has done so in an admirable way.

I think we all know this intuitively as parents, but, crucially, over the last decade or so, the academic evidence —from neuroscience to research done by educationists—has confirmed the axiomatic importance of what happens to a child’s brain, a child’s ability to learn, a child’s willingness to learn, a child’s willingness and ability to adhere to authority, a child’s ability to mix with other children, and so on. So much of that, of course, is formed, or not fostered, in the home, but a huge amount can be fostered, or neglected, in the early years and pre-school support that is given to our children.

There are two matters that concern me slightly. What I am probably most proud of from my time in government was the initiative that we took to provide 15 hours a week of pre-school support for two-year-olds. No Government had done that before: all early years and pre-school support had previously been confined to three and four-year-olds. I was keen for us to act on the evidence that the earlier we start—and, crucially, the earlier we start with those from the most deprived families—the greater the multiplier effect on children’s subsequent educational performance. So we introduced that measure. It initially applied to two-year-olds whose families were in the lowest 20% income bracket, but we later doubled that to 40%. That is where it stays to this day: there is a 15-hour entitlement for two-year-old toddlers from families that fall into the 40% lowest income families category.

The Government have now embarked upon a dramatic expansion of the entitlement for three and four-year-olds. I say, as someone who did not get into the bunfight between the two larger parties in the last general election, that that was—let us not beat about the bush—frankly because of a great Dutch auction in which the Labour and Conservative parties at the last election tried to outdo each other on how much they could improve the 15-hour entitlement for three and four-year-olds: at first it was 20 hours, then it was 25, then 30, and so it went on.

The Government will encounter terrific difficulties in delivering this expanded entitlement in a sustainable, high-quality way. That is worrying enough, but, this being a cross-party debate, I simply make a plea to us all to pause and consider whether, in a time of constrained resources when we have to make choices, this is really the most sensible use of scarce resources, given the importance of early years. The expansion of a universal entitlement from 15 hours to 30 hours for three and four-year-olds does absolutely nothing to build on this ground-breaking initiative of providing early-years support for two-year-olds. It also does nothing to bridge a gap that we will, as a society, have to bridge one day: the gap in a child’s development, which can be perilous, between the point at which mum and dad, or mum or dad, go back to work and the point at which the child can enjoy the state-funded allocation of early-years pre-school support devoted to him and her—which, if they do not come from those lower income families, comes not at two, but at three and four.

We have this gap at that age. I know nothing about neuroscience, but I am told that this is when the brain does the most extraordinary things and forms at a pace that is barely repeated at any other point in life—although I am also told that some neuroscientists say that they think rewiring might happen later, in the early teens. Certainly, judging by my teenagers, there is a lot of rewiring going on, most of it devoted to staring at an iPad.

We all know that early-years is one of the most important engines of social mobility, and we all know that money does not grow on trees. A decision has been taken—I think because of a non-evidence-based rush to double up again and again on a universal entitlement for three and four-year-olds—not to build on the ground-breaking initiative provided to two-year-olds. However, the early evidence—I would love to hear whether the Minister can share any of the evidence that I assume the Department for Education is accumulating—shows promising results for the knock-on effect on the two-year-old entitlement, and we have this persistent gap between the point at which many parents have to go back to work and the point at which their children can be put into a setting where they receive some of those entitlements.

I therefore make a plea to the Government. I am not for a moment imagining that they are going to say, “Absolutely, the right hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam is right and we will stop entirely the direction of travel and orient policy in a different direction,” but the challenge remains. We need to continue to target resources earlier and at children from the most deprived families, and we are not doing that right now.

[Mr Burrowes]

In a spirit of consensus, I would point out that one of the successes of the coalition Government was the focus on early years and the early years foundation stage, which came not least out of the work of the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith). There is growing evidence, not least through the Department for Work and Pensions programme on parenting, of the quality of the relationship between parents having a huge impact on children’s long-term wellbeing, mental health and life chances. There should be a focus on that. There is a lot of well-evaluated evidence from the parents as partners programmes showing that we need to focus on these quality relationships all the way through as providing the foundation for long-term prospects.

[Mr Clegg]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. I have gone on a bit of a journey on this: I have always had a somewhat kneejerk liberal reaction of slight squeamishness and reticence about the idea of politicians, the Government, Whitehall and public policy experts seeking to tweak or improve how parents choose to raise their children, which I intuitively think is no business of politicians, but I agree with the evidence. Much like the right hon. Member for Loughborough, I agree on almost nothing with the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) on many issues, but on this I think that he led the pack in saying that this is something that politicians need to grapple with, although we need to do so with care.

The first page of the summary of the report recommends that the Government should introduce

“a new parental support package, including a guarantee of help if a child’s 2 to 2½-year check shows that they are falling behind.”

I entirely agree with that. Public policy is inching towards greater involvement in an area that many folk have previously felt should be kept immune from such interventions.

I want to make one more point about early years that I am sure everyone here is aware of. It is unglamorous, rather fiddly and difficult to fix, but it is acutely important: it is the quality of early years provision. The pay and status of early years teachers are real problems. We do not have enough men going into early years teaching. Pay is very low, and there is no qualified teacher status. As the Government seek to expand the entitlements for three and four-year-olds, it is terrifically important that quantity does not come at the further cost of diminished quality. If the Minister can tell us how the quality, status and—in the long run—pay of early years teachers can be improved, so much the better.

I also want to talk about money. In those glory days back in 2010, I intervened aggressively in internal discussions when we had to announce what was in many ways the fateful comprehensive spending review setting out all sorts of unappetising cuts. I insisted that the per-pupil and indexed core budgets for schools should be protected. Those budgets needed to be protected in terms of prices and of pupil numbers, not least so that we could then add on the pupil premium in a meaningful way and ensure that it added genuine value.

I look now at the trouble the Government are getting into, and yes, a lot of this is complex. A lot is to do with the higgledy-piggledy, unjust, idiosyncratic way in which schools have had their budgets allocated to them over many decades, but some of it is pretty obvious. The Government simply cannot cancel the £600 million education services grant, as they did shortly after the 2015 general election, while protecting the per-pupil allocation only in cash terms and not in real terms and while diverting hundreds of millions of pounds to free schools—many of which are doing a great job, but frankly, far too many of which have been opened in places where there is no desperate need for extra places—and possibly compounding that error by spending hundreds of millions of extra pounds on new selective schools, and then ask schools to shoulder their own newly increased national insurance and pension contributions and, in some cases, apprenticeship levy costs, and, on top of that, introduce a national funding formula with no additional money to make that work. If they do all that, they are bound to get into terrible trouble.

I do not say this in a spirit of recrimination, but the Government should not be surprised that they are encountering huge resistance to these plans across the House and huge disquiet from parents, headteachers and governors up and down the country. There is a limit to how much they can keep expecting improved performance from a schools system that is being put under those multiple and entirely self-inflicted financial stresses and strains.

I know a little bit about this because, in the coalition Government, we looked exhaustively at the case for introducing a national funding formula. In principle, the case for doing so is impeccable; of course it is. The current situation is woefully unfair. There are many non-metropolitan schools, smaller rural schools, suburban schools, schools in the shires and so on that have received far less funding over a long period. However, the problem is that if we introduce a national funding formula in a way that does not raise the overall financial tide for all schools, what happens is exactly what is happening now. The schools that think they are going to gain pots and pots of money are disappointed at how little they gain, and those that are going to lose will lose an unacceptably large amount of money. No one is pleased.

The one issue in this debate on which I disagree with the right hon. Member for Loughborough is that, if I understand it correctly, her solution is to adjust the deprivation calculation buried within all the numbers in the national funding formula, which—all credit to the Minister and his Department—is a bona fide attempt to protect the funding to the poorest. The right hon. Lady will no doubt correct me if I am wrong, but one way to try to square the circle is to take a little money from the deprivation allocation and raise the floor or the minimum amount—

Visible Religious Symbols: European Court Ruling

David Burrowes Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to point out that women should be respected; indeed, all workers and their religious individuality should be respected. Employers have a right to enforce a dress code, but she is right to point out that certain employers interpret that right differently from others. We certainly take religious tolerance, and tolerance more generally, into consideration when considering Government contracts. This situation is a shame, because we are very tolerant in this country and we are making massive progress. Some 45% more Muslim women were in work in 2015 than in 2011. We know that there is much more to do to ensure that no one is left behind, but we are committed to supporting people in their workplace, whatever their background, which is why it is so important that this issue was brought to the House today.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that in this country a member of an airline’s cabin staff or a receptionist has the right to express their faith freely by wearing a cross or a headscarf, and that that cannot be supressed by any so-called neutral dress code?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right that people are entitled to express their religious thoughts or beliefs in what they wear. It becomes an issue only if there is some kind of health and safety aspect. As I have said before, companies are entitled to enforce their own dress code, but it is very clear that that dress code must apply equally to all employees, whatever their faith, religion or gender, and the Government are keen to promote that.

Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

David Burrowes Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

I am happy to commit to meet the right hon. Gentleman to see what we can do on that.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I appreciate the Minister’s comments on new clause 7, which has cross-party support. There is welcome investment from the Department in Pause and other programmes that provide support to vulnerable young women, but I want to check that the statutory guidance will ensure that such schemes get further cover. Those who have lost a child and are at risk due to vulnerabilities need therapeutic care support, so will this extra statutory guidance ensure that they get it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Heidi Allen]

I do, absolutely. For me, this debate is born out of the fact that some local authorities have stepped forward and said they are struggling incredibly, while others have stepped forward and said they do have capacity. Somewhere, we are not joining those two conversations together. I know there is further capacity out there for the betterment of the children in care in the UK and the refugee children.

[Mr Burrowes]

What the Minister said from the Dispatch Box did not seem too far away from what new clause 14 is seeking, which is to ensure that we recognise exactly what the capacity is for all children, including unaccompanied children. Is not the call for transparency the very call referred to in the Home Affairs Committee report, in which the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner said he would welcome greater transparency? He was charged with the duty of going there independently to find the answer, and he wants transparency.

[Heidi Allen]

Absolutely. The fact that not only Members of this House but individuals such as the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner are asking for this tells me that we need to do it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

I wish to speak to the amendments in my name to new clauses 13 and 14. Let me say in passing that new clauses 12 and 11, on universal credit and local housing allowance, both have our full support. On new clause 4, while we sympathise with the sentiment behind it, the method of progression is not the correct one, and we could not give the new clause our support.

Let me turn to new clauses 12 to 14 and to my two amendments. New clause 13 would put the strategy for the safeguarding of unaccompanied refugee children on a statutory footing, and that has our support. Given that many of the laws and services that will be involved are devolved, I have suggested that the new clause be amended to require consultation with the devolved Administrations before the strategy is published.

New clauses 12 and 14 require assessment of the capacity to provide safeguarding and welfare services, including to unaccompanied child refugees. I welcome the cross-party support new clause 14 has attracted, and the Scottish National party fully intends to give it our support. My small amendment to it simply borrows the wording of new clause 12 in relation to the devolved Administrations. It is appropriate to include the devolved Administrations, because, as we have heard, the key driver behind new clause 14 is to force the Government to rethink their move to wind the Dubs scheme down. This was a UK-wide scheme, and Scotland was and is absolutely willing to play its part in it.

With the rationale for closing Dubs falling to pieces, the Government have belatedly come to the Dispatch Box to make a concession. However, in making that concession, they have actually made the case for new clause 14, rather than giving an explanation of why we should reject it, so I see no reason why we should not proceed with it. If it comes to a vote, the SNP will absolutely support new clause 14, whether amended or not.

[Mr Burrowes]

I rise to support many of the proposals, not least those in my name, which the Minister has supported from the Dispatch Box.

On new clause 7, statutory guidance will spread good practice, which is all too limited in relation to those who need therapeutic support, such as those who are at risk—not least those who have come from a care background—of repeat pregnancies. There is a duty of care in this Bill not only to children but to vulnerable adults, and I appreciate that that will now come within statutory guidance, so I will not need to press the new clause. However, I pay particular tribute to the Family Rights Group and the other organisations supporting it.

I very much support new clause 15, and our earlier new clauses 5 and 6 paved the way towards it. The thrust of it is very welcome. We should recognise the support from all sides of the argument. Previously, there was a stalemate, and we were looking simply at when we would make sex education compulsory. Now, we are focused on relationships and building the resilience in relationships that vulnerable children—particularly those who do not have any sight or sound of healthy relationships—do not have. I welcome that and the reassurance on age-appropriateness and the religious background of pupils.

The Government’s position on new clause 14 is welcome in focusing on safeguarding. This is not a re-run of Dubs or of those earlier arguments. This is about safeguarding. Whether we are talking about children in the UK or children coming from abroad, all children need safeguarding, and I welcome the commitment that has been made on that. However, as a result of this debate, the Government need to be more transparent about keeping the Dubs process open, so that we can do all we can for children here and elsewhere.

Fathers in the Family

David Burrowes Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) on securing this debate. I declare an interest, as not only a father but a criminal defence solicitor. I refer to the latter because I certainly can amplify the stats given by my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double). When I reflect on the consistent themes in my filing cabinet, there were issues of addiction and mental health, but the predominant theme was an absence of involvement of fathers in the lives of those young people—predominantly men. It is clearly an issue of social justice. We must take the role of fathers seriously.

Some 36% of male prisoners come from households without a father’s involvement. Of those male prisoners, 50% have a child, and we need to take their responsibilities as fathers seriously. We cannot just cast them out from the justice system. Those responsibilities have an important role to play in their future rehabilitation. When I think of those prolific offenders, the light switched on not only when they took responsibility for themselves and for their habits—getting the next fix or the next stolen item—but when they suddenly realised they were a father.

[Neil Gray]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman making that point. The Year of the Dad campaign specifically went into prisons to talk to fathers. Will he commend that work and encourage the Minister to pick up where Scotland has been leading on that?

[Mr Burrowes]

I will. There is also good work in—

[Andrew Selous]

The Farmer review.

[Mr Burrowes]

My hon. Friend reminds me about the Farmer review, which is looking in particular at the relationship with fathers and at making that link. It is about that responsibility for another. The opportunity for rehabilitation is so important in the long term.

Involving fathers is a route out of poverty, as has been mentioned. Therefore, we must recognise that it makes social and economic sense to take the role of fathers seriously. In dealing with family relationships and crucial moments such as the birth, the early days, weeks and months, maternity services should involve paternity services. Barnardo’s makes that point clearly. The relationship with midwives and health services must involve fathers. Children’s centres, which the Government are looking at, and family hubs must take seriously how to involve fathers. There are some good examples in my constituency and elsewhere of involving fathers in such work. Fathers can play a crucial antenatal and postnatal role. Sadly, that has become too much a middle-class preserve, with the national childbirth trusts and others involving fathers. All of us may have been involved in that, but sadly fathers from more disadvantaged backgrounds are not involved. We must look practically at how to get fathers involved from the early stages before birth and afterwards.

Preventive work in terms of education is also important. As I should have said at the beginning of my speech, I pay tribute to the Centre for Social Justice for championing the role of fathers, along with other organisations, such as the Relationships Alliance—reference has been made to it. We must recognise the preventive role. Education can play an important role in that. Today, the Government rightly responded to cross-party calls to require relationship education in primary schools, providing a foundation for sex education. That is crucial in terms of the role of fathers and understanding that from a very young age.

The Minister has a cross-cutting role in this area. There is an issue of equality here. She has responsibility for equality. We have made a cross-party call on a practical issue of equality—the joint registration of births. That has been on the table since 2009—schedule 6 to the Welfare Reform Act 2009 provides for the joint registration of births. That happens automatically for mums, but why not for unmarried fathers?

[Mr Lammy]

Is the hon. Gentleman as concerned as I am that 500,000 fathers are not on birth certificates every decade because of a failure of the political establishment to sort that easy problem out?

[Mr Burrowes]

Yes. The measure must be implemented, rather than having the elongated process to get on the birth certificate. There are already exceptions in law to deal with violent fathers who should not be anywhere near the mothers, and we recognise that. However, that is not an excuse. We must implement that as soon as possible. It is a very practical measure. We talk here about the role of fathers. There are lots of ways to do this, but this is a matter of law. We all battle for a change in the law. That happened in 2009. Implement it, so that we can say loud and clear on the registration certificate that there is a joint enterprise of mothers and fathers and that we are taking it seriously. It is there from birth—it should be in the registration. We are saying loud and clear that of course mothers matter, and fathers matter too.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Before I call the SNP spokesman to wind up, I point out that I would like to offer Neil Gray a minute or so at the end of the debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Burrowes Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

No decision has been taken yet by Ministers on the future of Baverstock Academy, which has twice now been put into special measures by Ofsted. Ministers are going to consider all options, and of course the view of parents and the community, before reaching a final decision. The key factor will be ensuring that children get good access to a good education.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

12. What steps the Government are taking to increase educational opportunity for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

Increasing educational opportunity for disadvantaged pupils underpins our commitment to make sure that our country works for everyone, and through the pupil premium, worth £2.5 billion this year alone, we are narrowing the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. That can be seen in Eversley Primary School in Enfield, and I want to take this opportunity to congratulate it on its excellent work on the pupil premium and on winning the high aspiration award.

[Mr Burrowes]

I thank the Secretary of State for that response, recognising the great work of Eversley school, among others, in my borough. I wish to draw on the responses from my right hon. Friend the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills and touch on the “Getting ready for work” report. Given that school links with local employers have let down the most vulnerable, in particular, may I commend to the Secretary of State the good example of Transport for London’s Steps into Work programme, which is bucking the national trend; instead of only 6% of those with learning disabilities getting into work, some 57% are doing so.

[Justine Greening]

I am aware of that programme, and indeed as part of our opportunities area work we are working with both the CBI and the Careers & Enterprise Company to strengthen links between employers and schools. The TfL programme shows how, when we get a closer relationship between employers, local schools and young people, especially those with learning disabilities, it can really make a difference in employment rates.

Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

David Burrowes Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 5th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is right about that, but shiny, squeaky new babies have always been much more attractive to people who want to adopt than problematic teenagers who have been through all the trials and tribulations of broken families—perhaps abuse, neglect, mental health problems and behavioural disorders—and have been pushed from pillar to post in the care system. Those are the children we have most let down, which is one reason why the introduction of adoption scorecards was based not just on improving the number of children adopted, but on concentrating on those harder-to-adopt children: older children; large sibling groups; and children from black and minority ethnic communities. Too often these children were at the back of the adoption queue. I am glad to say that in recent years disproportionately they have found themselves more likely to get adopted than they were before. This is still not enough and there remains a lot to be done, but that was absolutely the right focus to bring in over the past few years.

Another thing I am concerned about is that despite all the good work the Government did on paralleling the kraamzorg system for health visitors in Holland, we have lost 722 health visitors since January and there has been a 13% decrease in the number of school nurses since 2010. They are really important people in early intervention—in identifying children with problems, and those for whom the support of social services and other caring services is essential, sooner rather than later.

Of course, I am also worried by the recent rise, again, in social worker vacancy rates in many authorities around the country, and too often the positions are taken by temporary social workers. Social work, particularly when dealing with child protection, is an area where staff need to forge empathetic relationships with those vulnerable children and families whom they are there to look after. Being pushed from pillar to post, from one home to another, from one social worker to another reviewing officer—or whoever it may be—only accentuates the instability and vulnerability of those children.

I worry when, even in this place, we are still too quick to point the finger of blame at the social workers because a child has been brutally assaulted or killed, as still happens in too many cases, by their carer, parent or close relative. We hear the talk of “wilful neglect”. There are social workers who are not doing their job properly, and there are social workers who are not up to the job and should not be in social work, and they should be removed from it, but they are a small minority. We should not make the rest of our excellent, hard-working, dedicated social worker force feel constantly that they are the ones to blame for many of these tragedies. We have to up everybody’s game, but they are part of the solution; in the vast majority of cases, they are not part of the problem.

It is odd therefore that at the heart of the original Bill, since eviscerated of clauses 29 to 33, which it would seem are about to make an unfortunate reappearance, were radical new proposals supposedly to test new ways of working, under the guise of promoting innovation. As I said earlier, the clauses were not remotely welcomed by the vast majority of people who are involved in the whole field of child protection. They were opposed by the British Association of Social Workers, the Care Leavers Association, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, CoramBAAF, which is the Government’s appointed adoption provider, the Fostering Network, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and Action for Children. In various polls, about 90% of working social workers did not support those clauses either, which was hardly surprising given that the clauses came out of the blue. There was no consultation on absolutely fundamental changes to the way in which we apply duties of care to vulnerable children in this country.

I pay tribute to the House of Lords, particularly to Lord Ramsbotham, for putting forward the amendments that saw those clauses taken out of the Bill. Lord Ramsbotham referred to clause 29 as nothing less than

“the usurpation of the proper parliamentary process.”

He asked

“how the courts are expected to respond where a young person or child in a particular local authority area is clearly disadvantaged by the arbitrary disapplication or modification of the law as it is applied in all other parts of the country.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 November 2016; Vol. 776, c. 1056.]

As I said earlier, a child needs protection wherever he or she may be in the country. We cannot have a competition between different areas on ways of looking after vulnerable children, some of which will not work and some of which might. Every child needs the protection of the law as set out by Parliament, and it should not be subject to a postcode lottery, as is convenient for certain local authorities.

In the debate in the other place, Lord Low said:

“It is perfectly possible to test different ways of working…within the existing legislative framework…it makes no sense to get rid of the duty.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 November 2016; Vol. 776, c. 1063.]

The squeeze on funding, which Members have mentioned, and which is, I am afraid, inevitable at the moment—[Interruption.] I am afraid that it is inevitable because of the disastrous way in which the Labour Government ran the economy into the ground. In too many cases now local authorities are providing only what is their duty; additional services are no longer on the agenda at all. Taking away that duty means that some of these fundamental things could not happen in the future.

Clause 29 as it was would have allowed local authorities to request exemptions from their statutory duties in children’s social care. Every Act of Parliament and every subordinate piece of legislation concerned with children’s social care from 1933 onwards could have been affected. The proposed mechanism for exemption orders was to be statutory instruments, which would have handed over enormous powers to the Secretary of State and the Department for Education. I am afraid that the Minister for School Standards is wrong: the DfE acknowledged that this part of the Bill directly concerns children’s fundamental rights. How can vulnerable children challenge those lack of services? I gave an example—it was one of many examples raised in the House of Lords—of independent reviewing officers. I am a big fan of IROs—I think we can do better, and there is a bit of a postcode lottery—as their role is to stand up and be the voice, or the advocate, of children who are not getting the services to which they are entitled and which they need from local authorities. If no IRO is available because an exemption has been applied for and granted, which means that the authority has no IROs, where is that child to go? There are not just IROs, but key legal protections that exist in the form of regulations now, including the ban on corporal punishment in foster care and children’s homes, protection for disabled children placed away from home, leaving care entitlements and complaints procedures. All of those could be granted an exemption and could disappear from fundamental rights, which we apply to protect vulnerable children now. This would be the first time in the history of children’s welfare that legislation made for all vulnerable children and young people could be disapplied in a particular area. This is a very radical proposal that warranted at least a Green Paper and a White Paper and proper consultation, but there was none.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the NSPCC and Action for Children said that

“the case that the Government is making presents considerable risk. Despite numerous conversations with ministers and officials, the evidence for the need for this power remains unconvincing and does not justify the potential risks of suspending primary legislation.”

The British Association of Social Workers said:

“If the clauses are re-introduced it will pave the way for significant and dangerous changes to the provision of children’s social care which would jeopardise hard fought victories for children’s rights spanning decades.”

How would the pilots for these provisions be monitored? How would we monitor whether children were still safe and what the results were for those children? It is no surprise that only one in 10 practising social workers surveyed by the BASW and by Unison thought this was a good idea. That is why I have severe reservations if the clause is to be returned to the Bill.

The Munro review took away much of the bureaucracy from social workers. It gave flexibility on the timing of assessments of children and how social workers could prioritise. It gave greater powers and confidence back to social workers to use their professional judgment to do what they thought best in the interests of vulnerable children. Sometimes they will get it wrong. I always say to social workers, “What I want to do, and what the Munro review was all about, is to give you the confidence to make a mistake—hopefully, not often, but to do it for the very best of reasons, not simply because that’s what it says on page 117 of the rule book and you needed to tick the boxes.” That is not what social work is all about. It is not a science. It is a complicated and challenging job.

If we are going to give social workers those flexibilities and allow them to act in different and innovative ways because they think that is the best way of looking after vulnerable children, we do not need to take away the statutory duties of the local authorities which are the corporate parents of those children, so that those new ways do not have to abide by the fundamental duties which ensure that social workers are doing the right thing and looking after those vulnerable children.

Finally, I shall look at a few specific clauses and ask the Minister some questions, which I hope he will refer to in his summing up. Clause 1 is about corporate parenting principles, which I welcome, but it is not clear exactly what they amount to in practice. Are they in addition to the section 23 commitments of the Children Act 1989 or do they replace them? I have used examples which I welcome: promoting physical and mental health, promoting high aspirations and securing the best outcomes for those children and young people. Nobody could vote against such things, but in clause 3 new section 23CZB(7) states:

“Where a former relevant child to whom this section applies is not receiving advice and support under this section, the local authority must offer such advice and support . . . at least once in every 12 months.”

Once in every 12 months will not go very far for a vulnerable child who needs intensive help. Subsection(4) makes provision for personal advisers. The problem is that too many children in care whom I met and children leaving care had never heard of personal advisers, let alone knew who their own personal adviser was.

In clause 4 new section 23ZZA(3) gives a local authority this extraordinary power:

“A local authority in England may do anything else that they consider appropriate with a view to promoting the educational achievement of relevant children educated in their area”—

motherhood and apple pie. Why do we require that sort of thing in legislation? It strikes me that a bit much of this is a bit too mushy and full of cotton wool—too many vague assumptions which in practice, particularly with funding pressures and duties taken away, will not amount to a row of beans, if we are not careful.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Obviously, the primary focus and concern is the duty of care to children, but there is also the issue of mothers who might well end up having successive children who end up in care. The local authority needs to have a responsibility for those vulnerable women, who may well be victims of a coercive relationship and have complex needs as a result. The sooner there is intervention and therapeutic care, the better, to avoid subsequent issues—maybe subsequent children and subsequent costs and concerns for all.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend, who has great expertise in this area, is right. Of course we cannot look at vulnerable children in isolation; we need to look at their families holistically. There are some really good examples. I hope that the Minister will stick to his word and provide funding for things such as FDAC, the family drug and alcohol court set up by the excellent Nick Crichton, a fantastic family district judge.

At FDAC, a mother—often a single mother—at risk of losing a child to the care system because of substance abuse or an abusive partner, say, is given a clear choice of an intensive package that will help her back on to the straight and narrow so that she can bring up her own child. It is a tough, challenging exercise. Alternatively, perhaps both parents will be involved. If they are able to do that, the whole family is put back together and the child stays, which is the best outcome. If not, that child will head for care.

I have sat in court, as has my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who will speak shortly, seeing mums who have had six, seven or eight children taken into the care system. We have to tackle the root of that problem: why is it? Is it that the mother just does not know how to parent, in which case what are society, social workers and the troubled families programme doing to help her become a fit parent if she remotely can? If she cannot, that child must go to a safe family elsewhere who can give them a second chance of a beneficial and happy upbringing.

I would like to make a few other quick points, Mr Deputy Speaker; I am aware that there are not too many speakers for this debate, so I have an opportunity to elaborate on some important points a little longer than the Chair normally allows. I know how generous you are in these matters, which are of great interest to you.

Clause 5 is about the designation of a member of staff at school

“having responsibility for promoting the educational achievement”

of children in the care system. That is a good initiative, but it already exists for children with caring responsibilities and alas that does not work in practice. It is a good idea, but it has to have some teeth so that it means something on the ground: that children in the care system have special attention from a designated teacher who understands the particular needs of such children, who are often subject to bullying, mental health problems and everything else. There must be more than a clause on paper in a Bill: the proposal has to work in practice.

There are some good points on the child safeguarding review panels, although I have concerns about the independence of the panels. Certainly when we gave a commitment before the 2010 election that we would publish serious case reviews—opposed by the Labour party, although the reviews have now become the norm—one of my concerns was also about the calibre of the people producing those SCRs and the quality of some of the reports. Effectively, they were not properly monitored; they were monitored only on a local basis. Some time ago, I put forward the idea that a national body should oversee the quality and that there should be a national register of authors of serious case reviews with a requirement for continuous professional development; there needed to be training, which would be updated. Before now, anybody, effectively, could apply to be the author of a serious case review. We need to regulate that important area rather better.

Under clause 13, the panel

“must publish the report, unless they consider it inappropriate to do so.”

Given that, previously, when serious case reviews were published, they were seen only by a few people locally and Department for Education officials if we were lucky, it was really important that, other than in exceptional circumstances where there could be detriment to surviving children or families, the reviews should be published and the lessons learned to see how they could apply elsewhere. This new review panel is an exercise in doing that and in disseminating best practice rather better. I very much support that, and I would like more details on how it is going to work.

Then, however, we have the section about safeguarding partners. These appear to be replacing the local safeguarding children boards, which are a really important feature of bringing together local agencies to make sure that we have workable solutions and partnerships in place, particularly to deal with child sexual exploitation at the moment. We need to be convinced about how these new bodies are better than, or different from, local safeguarding children boards and, in particular, about how they are going to be funded. Clause 20, on funding, says:

“The safeguarding partners for a local authority area in England may make payments”

towards the expenditure of these bodies

“by contributing to a fund”

or making payments directly. It also says:

“Relevant agencies for a local authority area…may make payments”.

The problem with LSCBs at the moment is that not all the partners pull their weight. In too many cases, key partners are, first, not turning up at the table and, secondly, not helping to fund the work of the LSCBs. Too often, it falls to the local authority—the default partner —to pick up too much of the tab. If we are going to put these things on a statutory basis, can we make sure that it is laid out clearly and unequivocally that the funding contribution from, and the active participation of, all the relevant partners is absolutely essential?

I am also concerned because clause 21 says:

“The safeguarding partners for two or more local authority areas in England may agree that their areas are to be treated as a single area”.

How big can they be? It is important that LSCBs are able to come up with local safeguarding plans and local plans to tackle child sexual exploitation in their areas—plans that are relevant to Rotherham, given the particular problems there, to Rochdale or to wherever. If these bodies are going to be looking after huge areas, their effect will surely be diluted in key hotspots. The Bill also talks about having cross-border constabulary co-operation, but these are very large areas, and I am concerned about how big these new bodies could become.

On the part of the Bill about the new body, Social Work England, I think we need to improve the regulation of social workers. I am not sure whether this is the right way to do it, and I would like to see more details. The demise of the College of Social Work is a shame, and I think it would have performed a lot of this function if it had been allowed to continue and to thrive. A lot of effort went into setting it up in the first place.

I am also concerned about the independence of Social Work England. My understanding is that it will be an Executive agency of the Department for Education, and we need to have some clarity over that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a true pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and his detailed, precise and, some might say, exhaustive analysis of the Bill before us. I think I can speak for all Labour Members in saying that we share many of the concerns that he outlined about getting right the legislation on how we protect young people in our country. I associate myself with the excellent introduction by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) in which she raised Labour Members’ concerns about the Bill while recognising that many parts are welcome and could take us forward. We share the wish across the House to provide the best safeguarding for all children.

I see this Bill as being about how we best support our children in an imperfect world—a world that we are all painfully aware of through our casework and work within our communities. That is why we all share the concern expressed by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham about the importance of partnership working—in particular, working with professionals. Many of us will have dealt with cases where we are acutely aware that we are not professionals but wish to help, and where the guidance of social workers with years of experience in complex and delicate matters has been of vital assistance to us. We therefore recognise that not involving them in this conversation may take us backwards rather than forwards as a country. Some of us have real concerns about what will replace the local safeguarding boards, and how we make sure that the multi-partnership work that has worked in some parts of the country and led to some significant changes is not lost in the process of recognising where change is needed.

In a wish not to indulge one of the customs of this House where the same thing is said several times, let me try to offer the Minister some ideas about things that I believe are missing from the Bill. I hope that we will find cross-party consensus in adding to it. One of those things, as well as a concern to avoid any suggestion of privatising such a delicate and important service, is to make sure that in talking about safeguarding we involve the concept of prevention, particularly the idea of acting earlier within the system to make sure that children are protected. I am particularly drawn to clause 16, which talks about the safeguarding and promotion of welfare of all children, and the role that local authorities might play in that.

Bearing in mind the comments of the Minister, who is sadly no longer in his place, about ensuring that a robust safeguarding system is in place, I wish to let him know that I will table amendments to bring in one of the most crucial parts of safeguarding we have yet to get right—sex and relationships education for all young people. We cannot say that we safeguard our children when we make sure that they are taught about composting but not consent. Many of us may have stories of our own sex and relationships education. I might have feared that I was forever scarred by having once fallen asleep in a classroom only to be awoken by somebody waving a female condom in my face. However, it is no laughing matter. Many of us are acutely aware of the many pressures on our young people that we need to be able to address, and, crucially, in a positive and inclusive manner. All parents will tell us that they are concerned about the world today. In a former lifetime, I was a youth worker, and we used to say that we had all been 15-year-olds but none of us had been 15-year-olds in today’s world. I am incredibly grateful, for a start, that Facebook was not around when I was at school. One third of young girls in this country report being sexually harassed at school. Three quarters of girls in a Girlguiding survey said that they were anxious about sexual harassment in their age group, and 5,500 sexual offences, including 600 rapes, were recorded in UK schools over the past three years alone.

I say that not to make parents fearful, but to ask what we can do to make sure that every young person in this country has the tools and the confidence to lead the lives that we would all wish for them, and to be able to know when no means no and yes means yes. That is why it is important that we do not let it become the internet that educates our young people or the playground that tells them what passes for acceptable sexual conduct, but that we give every young person the kind of training that we would want for our own children.

That is not a critique of parents. Indeed, many parents work very hard to make sure that their children have good ideas about sex and relationships education. We need to recognise that parents can only ever be 50% of the answer, because this is also about the other children that children will meet. Giving every child good sex and relationships education should be considered part of safeguarding, because it will make sure that every young person, whoever they come into contact with, has the skills and the tools to lead the life that they wish to lead and to deal with the modern world as it is, not as some might wish it to be.

I know that Members across the House will support that proposal. I am mindful of the support of the Select Committee Chairs, one of whom—the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller)—is in her place. I was taken by her Committee’s report, but this is not just about the Women and Equalities Committee: the Select Committees on Home Affairs, Education, Health, and Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy all agree that now is the time to make sure that every child is given access to good sex and relationships education.

[Mr Burrowes]

The hon. Lady has prayed in aid the Home Affairs Committee. I think that she is referring to the previous Chair, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who signed up to a letter, but he did not do so on behalf of the Committee. As a member of that Committee, I did not support it. I certainly support proposals for high-quality sex and relationships education. There are ways of achieving that, not least through building resilience and supporting families, which is what the Bill is about. We can do that in lots of ways, not just the path suggested by the hon. Lady. I ask her to please acknowledge that there is significant opposition to her proposal.

[Stella Creasy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, but I hope that we will be able to change his mind during our discussion. We have been having this debate for some time, and I tell him plainly that the young people of Britain are crying out for this kind of education. Time and again they say, “Ignorance is not bliss; confidence is what we want.” It is not about replacing parents; it is about supporting them and making sure that young people, wherever they are, have the right environment. It is too important not to listen to our young people when they ask for this kind of education to be done in an age-appropriate fashion in their schools. Now is the time to get it right. Select Committee Chairs acknowledge that, and, although the hon. Gentleman did not support the letter, I believe that many do. It is right that we have this debate and I hope that we can allay those fears, because the consequence of not doing so is to leave young people at risk, and I do not think that that is acceptable in the 21st century.

I agreed with the Secretary of State for Education when she said that she was minded to see this happen and that she wanted to consider all the options, and I believe that this Bill is the right way to do it. There were discussions about doing it as part of the proposed education Bill, but that has stalled, for whatever reason. The matter is too important to delay any longer. That means using this legislative opportunity to acknowledge that, in order to safeguard every young person, they need to be taught about consent—not just the biology of sex, but how to have positive, equal and safe relationships. The honest truth is that that is not happening for too many of our young people and we are seeing the consequences.

I will ask the Government to make sure that that work is part of safeguarding at a local level; that schools are given the guidance to make it available to every young person in an age-appropriate and inclusive way; that they work with communities; and, above all, that they do not simply consult, but set a timetable, because for too long our young people have been asking us to get this right, and for too long their voice has not been heard.

The hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) is no longer in his place, but I hope that there will be cross-party support for amendments that I will table on this subject. I will certainly seek that support, and I know that many Labour Members—including, I suspect, the Front-Bench team—will support those amendments. I would be happy to sit down with Ministers and look at how we can make these proposals work, because I do not think that any of us can be happy with the situation that obtains. There is general agreement that this needs to happen, and yet there is no legislation to make it happen. We are failing our young people if we keep kicking this issue into the long grass.

I hope that I can convince the Minister that there will be cross-party support on another area as well. Although the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) is yet to be convinced about the case for the changes I have just outlined, I hope that he will be convinced to back the amendments that I will propose on child refugees. He and I were certainly on the same side when it came to supporting the young people left in Calais. I acknowledge the Minister’s statement about safeguarding child refugees and recognising the importance of extending safeguarding proposals to our young people. However, I believe that his statement was undermined by the guidance that was issued by the Home Office at the same time. The Minister’s statement caused the noble Lord Dubs—a tremendous champion of our child refugees—to withdraw his amendment to this very Bill about this very matter. That amendment was withdrawn on the basis that there was good will across the House about making sure that we safeguarded child refugees, including during the process of transferring them from overseas to the UK.

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important point. Counselling should be part of the safeguarding process.

Many of us who deal with these young people are concerned about the fact that many of them are still in France, precisely because of the guidance issued by the Home Office, which set out a two-step process and specified that nationality would be one of the criteria for helping child refugees—ahead of their best interests. It cannot be in the best interests of a child to put nationality before need, and I hope that the Minister will recognise that the detail in his statement of 1 November is undermined by such a strategy. It is right that we clarify in amendments to the Bill that the country will always put the best interests of a child first, and that includes child refugees.

[Mr Burrowes]

I was with the hon. Lady on the Dubs II amendment. Perhaps the link with her proposed amendments is that we can agree on the outcomes, but the question is how we achieve them. If we will the ends, is a prescribed piece of statute needed or are there other means to achieve what we want? We will debate amendments about SRE at a later stage, but the issue with her proposals about safeguarding is the practical implementation. We saw with the Dubs amendment that we need to pay careful attention to practical implementation. Prescribed legislation is not always required, but we need to hold the Minister to account and ensure that he stays true to the good words in his statement.

[Stella Creasy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. I agree with much of what he has said about the difference between having to prescribe, and recognising locally led solutions. However, I disagree with him fundamentally on both points for precisely the reason that he is putting out. The outcomes that are being achieved are not what we desired; they are not the will of this place. The desired outcome in sex and relationships education is not being achieved at a local level because there is no clarity about what schools should be teaching, so too many young people are not getting the appropriate support. Even with the best will in the world and the best parenting, unless we wrap those children up in cotton wool, the other young people they meet may present a risk to them.

So, too, with child refugees. Sadly, with the Dubs amendments, good will has slowly ebbed away in this place when the implementation has not matched the outcome that we desired. Nowhere is that clearer than when the Government try to say that nationality is more important than need. Many of us were delighted by the statement that the Minister made on 1 November, and then we were horrified to read the Home Office guidance, which seemed to stand against the spirit of the statement. I believe it is necessary to clarify that we must always act in the best interests of those children, just as Lord Dubs sought to act in their best interests when he tabled his original amendment.

The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate will know the battle that we have had throughout proceedings on the legislation. As difficult and uncomfortable as some of the debates may be, and although some people may have concerns about child refugees, we must surely all want to act in their best interests. I am sorry to have to tell the Minister that some of the Government’s conduct has led many of us to believe that amendments are necessary. I will seek support from across the House to make this happen so that we can put the matter beyond doubt, because, sadly, the guidance from the Home Office does cast doubt on it.

I do not wish to echo the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham in terms of length—not to undermine anything he said—but through my proposals I am looking forward to being part of the legislative process. I am looking forward to scrutinising the Bill. I am looking forward to seeking cross-party agreement on these issues, because all of us in this House recognise that protecting children is one of the most important jobs we do. There may be disagreements about how to get there, but we do have to get there. We cannot avoid these issues any more. Whether it is our young people facing an uncertain world or the young people stuck in child centres in France right now, we have a responsibility for all of them, just as we have a responsibility for children through our corporate parenting rules. I hope that the Minister will listen and respond on all these issues. I am happy to meet him, as I am sure are many others, but we will not rest until this is resolved.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Burrowes Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

10. What steps the Government are taking to improve support for adopted families.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

13. What steps the Government are taking to improve support for adopted families.

[The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)]

More than 9,000 families in England have received bespoke therapeutic support via the adoption support fund that we set up just 17 months ago. Such support is often crucial in making a placement a long-term success. We are improving support in schools by extending access to virtual school heads and designated teachers, and we are developing new care pathways to meet the mental health needs of adopted children. The establishment of regional adoption agencies and the £14-million practice and improvement fund were designed to bring about better support for adoptive families.

[Edward Timpson]

First, I congratulate East Sussex County Council on its Ofsted rating. I agree that we want others to learn from the best. The development of regional adoption agencies will see local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies working side by side to deliver excellent adoption services everywhere, with a strong focus on evidencing what actually works. We are setting up the aptly titled What Works centre for children’s social care, which will disseminate and promote best practice across the country.

[Mr Burrowes]

I recognise the great role the Government and the Minister have played in championing and supporting adoption, so he will share my concern at the statistics his Department released on 29 September, which show a reduction for the second year running in the number of children being placed for adoption and being adopted. What is the main reason for those figures, and what action are the Government taking to turn them around?

[Edward Timpson]

It is worth remembering that there were 4,690 adoptions in 2015-16—an increase of 35% on 2011-12. The latest figures, to which my hon. Friend refers, are due in large part to over-responses to the Re B-S judgment in 2013. They are disappointing figures. That is why, through the Children and Social Work Bill, we are amending legislation to improve the way decisions about long-term care options are taken, so that adoption is always pursued when it is in a child’s best interests. The Government’s adoption strategy, which we published in March, sets out plans to redesign the whole adoption system to ensure that we have the foundations in place to build a lasting change that benefits children.

Education, Skills and Training

David Burrowes Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her contribution to the campaign for this important alternative finance product. The coalition Government were the first to consult on the potential demand for such a product. We have a legislative vehicle with which to introduce it, and we are moving at full speed. The sooner Labour Members let this Bill through the Houses of Parliament, the sooner we will be able to crack on and deliver the alternative finance product that they want to see.

In the reforms we are already making to part-time and postgraduate study, we are sending a clear message to people that it is never too late to learn. The Government are transforming the funding landscape for part-time and postgraduate study. We are, for the first time, introducing maintenance loans for part-time undergraduate students, in addition to the tuition fee loans that were made available in the previous Parliament. We continue to reverse Labour’s restriction on studying for a second degree, so that people can get a student loan to take a second part-time degree in a STEM subject. For the first time, we are introducing student finance for postgraduate study, where people from disadvantaged backgrounds are even more under-represented than at undergraduate level. This one nation Conservative Government are giving people the opportunities they need to gain new skills at every stage of their lives.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s support for the idea that it is never too late to learn. For some refugees, coming to this country will be their first chance to learn. Will the Minister outline the Government’s commitment to supporting their integration, not least in terms of English language courses, which are a crucial component of their learning?

[Joseph Johnson]

We are committed to supporting refugees as they enter the higher education system, and we will look closely at whether there are any gaps in their support with respect to English language provision.

To turn to the Opposition amendment, we have been able to take steps to widen participation in higher education only because of the difficult decisions we have made as a Government to ensure that our universities are sustainably financed. [Interruption.] They are. Total funding for the sector has increased from £22 billion in 2009-10 to £28 billion in 2014-15, and is forecast to reach £31 billion by 2017-18. The OECD has said that our approach means that we are one of the few countries in the world to have found a sustainable approach to financing a modern system of higher education.

Our economy needs a world-class higher education system, and we cannot allow a situation to arise in which our universities are once again underfunded. The £9,000 tuition fee introduced in 2012 has already fallen in value to £8,500 in real terms. If we leave it unchanged, it will be worth £8,000 by the end of this Parliament. We want to ensure that our universities have the funding they need and that every student receives a high-quality experience during their time in higher education.

I am not the first Minister to note the variability of teaching quality, or indeed the imbalance between teaching and research in our higher education system. Labour Ministers in many Governments have made exactly the same point, but a Conservative Government will actually do something about it. We want to shine a spotlight on good practice, to give applicants more information about the type of teaching and graduate outcomes they can expect, and to raise the status of excellent university teaching. That is why we are implementing our manifesto commitment to introduce a teaching excellence framework to drive up the quality of teaching and spread best practice across our system.

In relation to the Opposition amendment, it is worth noting the irony that it was a Labour Government under Tony Blair who, in 2004, sensibly put in place the new legal powers that have allowed Governments to maintain university fees in line with inflation. For the 2017-18 academic year, I can confirm that the rate of inflation applying to maximum fees for institutions demonstrating high-quality teaching is 2.8%. The measure of inflation we are using is RPIX, as set out in regulations which, again, were introduced by Labour in 2006. The Labour party may have changed its views on that entire era and may no longer support the policy it introduced, but the Conservatives will refuse to allow students’ learning to suffer.

As Universities UK and GuildHE have made clear in statements ahead of today’s debate, allowing the value of maximum fees permitted by legislation to be maintained in real terms is essential if universities are to continue to be able to deliver high-quality teaching.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Burrowes Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I think we all agree that those who are seeking refuge from war-torn areas and conflict zones where they have been in situations of immense stress and disruption need all the support they can get. We have a system of appointing caseworkers who work with each family or individual who comes here to seek refuge, to identify their needs. In particular, they ensure that children with special educational needs or mental health needs get support, as well as those who have additional educational issues such as needing extra language support.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Following the Government’s welcome decision on 28 January to provide additional refuge for unaccompanied minors coming from conflict zones such as Syria, but also from Europe, what discussions have been held in the Department about providing additional support for those who reach these shores, and to provide them with the effective support they need?

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend recently visited the camp in Calais, and he will know that a cross-Government taskforce has been set up to ensure that all those who claim asylum or come to live in the United Kingdom under the resettlement programme get that support. In my previous answer I outlined the particular areas that my Department takes an interest in, and we must ensure that support is delivered for those with special educational needs, mental health needs, and those who require additional educational support such as language support.