Oral Answers to Questions
David Burton-Sampson Excerpts(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Matt Turmaine (Watford) (Lab)
David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)
Stephen Morgan
This Government are committed to making quick progress to deliver on our commitment to offer a free breakfast club in every primary school to ensure that children are ready to learn at the start of the school day. The Chancellor has announced a tripling of investment in breakfast clubs, driving improvements to behaviour, attendance and attainment and, for parents, more choices over childcare.
David Burton-Sampson
I have contacted all the primary schools in my constituency to encourage them to become early adopters. Child poverty in my constituency stands at 12.1%, and food bank use has risen by 433% over the last five years. Does my hon. Friend agree that breakfast clubs will be part of the solution by helping to lift children out of poverty, giving them food in their belly to start the school day and encouraging their parents back into part-time employment?
Stephen Morgan
Parents and carers up and down the country are still struggling with the cost of living. As part of our mission to bring down barriers to opportunity, breakfast clubs give parents and carers the confidence that their child can access a breakfast, should they need one, and we are supporting families to work with the cost of childcare. It is a pity that the Conservatives cannot say whether they back our plan to deliver better life chances for all children in all parts of the country.
Government’s Childcare Expansion
David Burton-Sampson Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Stephen Morgan
I thank the hon. Member for his statement and welcome him to his place. As he identified, there are some core challenges for the early years sector in delivering the Government’s agenda to expand childcare entitlement. As I made clear in my statement, today’s announcement sets out key steps we are looking to take to deliver for children and ensure that they have safe, supported systems to help them succeed in life. I know that he will support our ambition of ensuring that every child, no matter where they come from, can succeed in life.
The hon. Member was right to focus on disadvantage, which is a key priority for me as a Minister. If we are serious about breaking down barriers to opportunity, we need to think about the impact of the scheme on the most disadvantaged in our society. The number of childminders involved in the system has halved over the years; we want to reset that relationship. The new flexibilities announced today will make a big difference. Finally, he will appreciate that funding is a matter for the spending review.
David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for finally bringing forward a realistic plan for expanding childcare. Residents, and certainly parents, in Southend West and Leigh will welcome the announcement. Will he provide assurances that childminders, who are a vital part of childcare arrangements, will still be a key focus? Will he give a further idea of how they will be supported?
Stephen Morgan
Childminders are a key part of the childcare market, providing more choice and flexibility for parents. From next month, the Government plan to implement new flexibilities to help childminders join and stay in the profession. That will include enabling childminders to work from non-domestic premises, as I mentioned in my statement, and increasing the number of childminders who can work together; that will improve children’s access to new experiences out of the home and encourage socialisation. As we seek to deliver a sea change in our approach to early years, we want partners, including childminders, to work closely with us to push for better.
SEND Provision: East of England
David Burton-Sampson Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)
Thank you, Sir Mark. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for introducing the debate. There are 19,000 children in schools in my constituency of Southend West and Leigh, and 1,000 currently have education, health and care plans. It is a figure that has been increasing every year for the past four years. Now, over 5% of all children have a plan. Overall, including all children with special educational needs, the figure rises to 10.3% of pupils. That is over one in 10 children. In addition, there are more than 150 families currently in the system, waiting for their assessments to happen after their applications have been sanctioned. On top of that, another 266 families have requested assessments, but are waiting for approval which, in part, is due to the national shortage of educational psychologists, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft.
There is also a shortage of social workers in Southend, which is above the national average. Almost one in four posts are vacant, which compounds the issue, because social workers help to assess children’s needs. I believe my constituency is not particularly unusual, and I suspect the picture is not very different in the constituencies of other hon. Members in the Chamber.
Some schools, however, are not set up or equipped to support children with special educational needs. I have witnessed that as a school governor. Despite the overwhelming desire of teachers to support SEN children, often they cannot be supported in a mainstream classroom. Specialist facilities are at a premium, or a child may be awaiting their assessment, which in turn can lead to their being removed from their mainstream classroom and separated from their schoolmates while not getting the specialist support they need to develop and thrive.
As my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards has announced, the Government will take a community-wide approach to SEND provision, with a number of positive measures already announced. It is vital that we address gaps in SEND provision urgently, and the Government have moved quickly since taking office. We need to continue to press forward with this work on behalf of our constituents so that they get the critical help they deserve. We must stop letting our young people down.