Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy

David Drew Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

As I mentioned earlier, the new Ofsted framework will be looking at things like teacher workload, as part and parcel of the leadership and management judgments made about a school. The Government take teacher workload extremely seriously, which is why we set up the three review groups to look at data management, excessive marking and lesson preparation. We have accepted all the recommendations of those three review groups.

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

By definition, the most experienced teachers are the most expensive. One of the reasons for poor retention is that schools, particularly smaller primary schools, have to lay off those teachers because they cannot afford them within their budget. Will the Government look at how we can keep those teachers teaching, as they are the best because of that experience?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The national funding formula is distributing funding across our schools system in a far fairer way than in the past, and this recruitment and retention strategy should ease the cost pressures on schools. We have also introduced a teaching vacancy website, which is a free resource to enable schools to recruit free of charge, as the profession has been calling for a long time.

College Funding

David Drew Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. For most of my lifetime—perhaps all of it—a misapprehension has pervaded and affected the application of Government policy. That misapprehension has been that people can only gain esteem and fulfilment through academic accomplishment. As a result, practical learning has been perpetually neglected by Governments of both parties.

It was in that spirit and against that backdrop that, as a shadow Minister in the mid-2000s, I began debating these issues and considering them carefully. Indeed, I worked with the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden), who chaired the all-party skills group at the time and is the shadow Education Minister today, to look at how we could elevate practical learning. To do so, it was necessary to challenge many of the assumptions that had permeated previously—assumptions that were given life by the previous Government’s much-vaunted ambition to send 50% of people to university. I always thought the problem with that ambition was what it said about the other 50%, who did not go to university but went into practical subjects, further education and all kinds of other learning. We had some success. We grew apprenticeship numbers to their largest level in modern times—perhaps of all time. We protected the budget for adult learning, working with the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable), who was Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills when I was the Minister for further education, skills and lifelong learning.

However, that success is now in jeopardy. I have to challenge the Minister about the decline in apprenticeship numbers that has resulted, in part, from a misunderstanding of the new levy—I am not against the levy as a matter of principle, but its implementation has been problematic—and the decline in adult learning in particular. I say that for the following reasons: first, there is a strong utilitarian case for further education and training, which is about feeding the economy with the skills it needs for us to prosper. That is a given, and I think all Members in this Chamber would agree with it. Secondly, there is a case for communal health being part of the value of practical learning. When people learn and gain new competencies, they grow and become better citizens, seeing themselves as more useful to those around them.

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

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that one of the most valuable things that further education does is to allow people—whether they be native to this country or a migrant—to improve their language skills, including by learning a foreign language? That was always one of the ways in which FE colleges reached out and gave people opportunities.

[Sir John Hayes]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, FE colleges train 2.2 million young people and adults. The courses they run range from fundamental issues such as the acquisition of good English, as he suggests, to the most advanced skills. They also provide an opportunity for people to learn throughout their lives. FE is the principal vehicle by which people upskill and reskill in the way my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) described, and that is essential if we are to fuel the economy with what it requires. It is simply not enough to train people who are entering the workforce: we have to look at how people who are in the workforce already can adapt what they can do to suit changing economic circumstances.

Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I commend the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for bringing the debate to Westminster Hall today, when there are many other pressing demands on our time, because this is an important matter. She rightly highlighted a number of the challenges facing young people in our schools. I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am a doctor practising in mental health services and a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

We need to analyse first why the problem is happening. Is it down to the increased challenges facing young people—the stresses and strains of exams and the need to perform in tests at schools, as the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon outlined, and general increasing distress among young people—or is it also due to increasing awareness and recognition of mental ill health among young people, and the fact that more young people are therefore prepared to come forward because there is generally a greater recognition of their needs? Perhaps it is a combination of the two. We do not fully know or understand the reasons for greater pressures presenting in services, but they are happening. It is right that the Government are beginning to turn their mind to the issue and have put forward a number of initiatives.

I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon that, in addressing young people’s mental health, it is important that we do not over-medicalise issues such as teenage angst or normal patterns of growing up. It is important that we do not follow the American system, where—in my view and, I am sure, that of many psychiatrists in this country—a lot of young people are on medication without there necessarily being a good evidence base for that. We have to be very careful about over-medicalising problems, or medicalising problems too quickly, which is perhaps how we should look at it.

The Government are making strides in this area. They are rolling out training for every school and college to ensure that a designated mental health lead will be in place by 2025 and that there will be greater mental health awareness training for teaching staff. There has also been a lot of talk by some, including the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, about the dangers of social media and its potential impact on young people’s mental health. However, as the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon outlined, eye-catching announcements will do little to deliver the meaningful expansion and improvements in care that young people need and deserve. Although such announcements may make good media headlines, I am afraid the lack of provision on the ground for young people is the real problem. I know that it will be one that the Minister will want to work with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to address.

I want to look at some areas of challenge. The coalition Government had a commendable focus on improving special educational needs provision. We know that a lot of children with special educational needs may also suffer from poor mental health. There is a correlation between some conditions that are associated with special educational needs and psychosis or other mental illness. However, far too often the joint care plans that should exist between the NHS and schools take a long time to come to fruition. Schools are far too often frustrated by the identification of a problem that they have recognised for which the NHS does not have the resources available to support the school in meeting the needs of the child in the way that was envisaged when those joint care plans were legislated for in this House. That speaks very much to the issue of lack of workforce, which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon outlined in her remarks.

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

That is no more evident than with the huge problem of eating disorders, where all the medical evidence shows that what is needed is early intervention. The NHS has got to get much more involved with schools on that. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

[Dr Poulter]

Certainly, eating disorders are an area of great challenge. One of the difficulties is that very often young people present in great distress after their illness has taken hold for quite some time, and the prognosis can be less good in those situations. A lot of young people may have to travel many miles or even out of area to get the specialist care they need, and that does need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister will be raising such issues with his counterparts in the Department of Health and Social Care, because a number of the answers to the challenges raised in this debate have greater priority, and there is greater understanding of what the challenges are in that Department rather than in his.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

I have already mentioned that £1.4 billion will be put into young people’s mental health services. I do not have the precise figure that the hon. Lady asks for, but I am happy to write to her with it. I suspect that it will not have been determined precisely at this point, but our plan is to increase that spending, and we can only get to that through careful marshalling of our economy, because our economy of course produces the wealth that enables us to provide such a level of funding.

In the debate, there was a reference to eating disorders. The Government are on track to meet, or are exceeding, waiting-time standards for eating disorder services and early intervention in psychosis.

[Dr Drew]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Gibb]

I will not give way now, because we only have a few minutes left. I have already given way a number of times.

Schools have an important role to play in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their pupils by putting in place whole-school approaches tailored to the particular needs of those pupils. Our 2017 survey, “Supporting Mental Health in Schools and Colleges”, was commissioned to derive robust national estimates on activities to promote and support mental health and wellbeing. It found that about half of schools and colleges already had a dedicated lead for mental health in place, that 61% of schools offered counselling and that 90% of schools and colleges offered staff training on supporting pupils’ mental health and wellbeing.

The Government are committed to supporting schools and colleges to do more to promote good mental wellbeing in children, to provide a supportive environment for those experiencing problems and to secure access to more specialist help for those who need it. To support schools to build the capability to identify and promote awareness of mental health needs, we have committed to introduce mental health first aid and awareness training for teachers in every primary and secondary school by the end of the Parliament. To date, we have trained more than 1,300 staff in more than 1,000 schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Drew Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Excellent projects such as the green car challenge for year 6 pupils in schools in south Shropshire help to bring science to life and they help to motivate those pupils when they start secondary school where, since 2010, the proportion taking at least two science GCSEs has risen from 63% of 16-year-olds in 2010 to 91% now.

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

Does the Secretary of State and the rest of the Education Department recognise the importance of agricultural science to help address the need for more food production in this country on the back of the forthcoming Bill? Is it not about time that we included agricultural science in the STEM subjects?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the importance of agriculture and of studying agricultural sciences. The sciences—maths, chemistry, physics and biology—are important preparation for studying agriculture post-16.

Department for Education

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I think those are mixed figures, because if we look at this in the round, the number of teachers has gone up by a significant amount since 2010. Again, this is part of the argument I have been making.

Such arguments are why the Education Committee has launched an inquiry into school and college funding. We have no intention of unpicking the huge public consultation on the national funding formula or its sister consultation on high needs, but we must talk about the long-term sustainability of education. This is about delivering the outcomes we need as a nation and how we can move towards a longer-term vision, with a 10-year plan coupled with a future-proof five-year funding settlement.

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

The right hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. Does he accept—I hope the Education Committee will look at this—that there are particular problems with the national funding formula for special schools? Those schools are hit in two ways. First, the special schools budget has been conflated with the overall budget, which is causing some difficulties. Secondly, they are also taking students with much more profound difficulties, for which they are not necessarily being funded in the way they need to be. Will he look into that?

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We are doing a separate inquiry into children with special educational needs and disabilities, which I hope will reflect the issues he has raised.

We began our inquiry on 19 June, with a scene-setting session featuring the National Foundation for Educational Research, the Education Policy Institute and Institute for Fiscal Studies. In our future sessions, we will be hearing directly from teachers, governors and parents about the way forward, and seeking to strengthen the Department’s hand as it enters negotiations with the Treasury in the spending review.

One important matter is how public money actually reaches schools. Part of the original motivation of a national formula was to bypass the various byzantine means by which local authorities disbursed funds to schools. This is sensible, but there is a problem concerning the role of multi-academy trusts in top-slicing and allocating money received from the DFE, a matter on which my Committee colleague, the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), has tabled a number of parliamentary questions.

According to the Education Policy Institute, there is little measurable difference between the performance of schools in MATs and those in local authorities. There is good and bad to be found in both, and we must not let the reforms of the past eight years or so be lost through a failure to attack underperformance in academy trusts, as has occurred in a number of high-profile cases recently, including WCAT—the Wakefield City Academies Trust—and Bright Tribe. Having said that, I recognise that there are many good and outstanding academy schools and the difference they have made to the lives of thousands of pupils.

I wish to add that the £1.3 billion top-up was an Elastoplast solution, as it were, for a longer-term problem that could become serious if not seen to. Members on both sides of the House will share my commitment to tackling social injustices—that is the aim of our Select Committee—and one of the most profound challenges we face on that front is the so-called attainment gap between the educational outcomes of children from disadvantaged backgrounds and those of their better-off peers. I appreciate that the Minister for School Standards and the Education Secretary have made progress on this, but it has been at quite a slow rate.

The Government and their predecessors have shown their commitment to tackling educational disadvantage through using the pupil premium to enable schools to provide additional support and opportunities to the children who deserve and need it most, but however well-intentioned and generously resourced the pupil premium is, it is not without its flaws. The first flaw is that schools are increasingly dipping into their pupil premium money to shore up their overall budget. This is most unlikely to be a measure of first resort, as it involves simultaneously further disadvantaging already disadvantaged pupils. There is also the ethical problem of publishing information about how pupil premium money is spent while knowingly doing something else with it.

The second flaw is that many children eligible for the pupil premium fail to receive it because they are not registered to receive free school meals. I understand that this figure could be as high as 200,000. This can happen because parents are unaware or unwilling to make a claim, perhaps in some areas through a sense of social stigma.

School Funding

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention. As well as ensuring that every school attracts more money, the national funding formula also allocates the biggest increases to schools that have historically been the most underfunded. Thousands of schools will attract 3% more per pupil this year and another 3% per pupil next year, and some of the lowest-funded schools will attract even more as a result of our minimum per pupil funding levels, which mean that every primary school will attract £3,500 per pupil and every secondary school £4,800 per pupil by 2019-20. As a result, many areas will see quite big increases across the board. For example, by 2019-20 in Knowsley, there will be an increase of 4.3%, and in Derby there will be an increase of 6.7% in the same timeframe. In York, there will be an increase of 7.9%, and in Bath and North East Somerset, an increase of 7.2%.

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

As someone who has supported the national funding formula through the f40 group for a long time, I am grateful that this has now been brought to fruition. The problem is that the way in which the formula is being operated in my area, with the conflation of special needs within the base budget, is causing significant problems among some schools. Will the Secretary of State look at how that special needs allocation is operating to ensure that the poorer schools do not get even poorer, relatively?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman raises important points about the high needs block. As I was saying, it is right that there is some flexibility at local authority level. Local authorities have the most up-to-date figures and profiling of the children in their areas, in terms of special educational needs and so on. Protections also apply to the high needs block through the minimum guarantees and so on, while overall high needs funding has of course gone up.

Agriculture GCSE

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Julian Sturdy]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. It is important to ensure that all education facilities have the opportunity to offer a GCSE in agriculture. It should be available to all—that is the premise of the argument—and not a limited few.

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way very briefly?

[Julian Sturdy]

Very briefly.

[Dr Drew]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous. I actually taught rural studies, although I look too young. Does he accept that the wider rural economy is crucial to the relationship between agriculture and the rural hinterland?

[Julian Sturdy]

Again, I entirely agree. I will go on to mention that this is not just about agriculture. The wider rural economy, the environment and food security link back to agriculture and food production.

I understand that the Department for Education has recently introduced changes to secondary qualifications and wants a time to allow those to settle down, but a model exists for how to design and teach the subject at GCSE level, which suggests it would be straightforward for the Government to make it available. Has there been any consideration of replicating the content of the GCSE syllabus available to those in Northern Ireland for students in Britain?

I have been sympathetic to an expansion in GCSE options for some time, but I was encouraged to argue for this more publicly by the intervention of the BBC “Countryfile” presenter, Adam Henson, who publicly called for the introduction of an agriculture GCSE in September last year. He said:

“You can get a GCSE in religious studies and business, so why not in agriculture?”

That is a fair question. A GCSE in agriculture has a strong claim to feature among current non-core science and mathematics options, which currently include geology, astronomy and psychology. Expanding the offer to include the option of a GCSE in agriculture would be a sensible and logical development of the Government’s welcome plans to expand the provision of vocational and technical education in order to create a better skilled and more productive workforce, enjoying higher wages and better living standards. That is recognised in the Government’s industrial strategy, which made the claim of

“putting the UK at the forefront of this global revolution in farming.”

Free School Meals/Pupil Premium: Eligibility

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered future eligibility for free school meals and the pupil premium.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. With the support of my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George), I called this debate because of our serious concerns about the Department for Education’s consultation, “Eligibility for free school meals and the early years pupil premium under Universal Credit”. Those concerns arose following my oral question on universal credit and free school meals to the new Secretary of State last week, when, unfortunately, he completely missed my point.

The Government are disregarding the concerns of many in this House and outside it that their actions will push more children into poverty. Labour Members know that poverty is not an inevitability, but a symptom of failure to harness political will, think innovatively and take bold steps forward. This whole issue encapsulates that neatly. In my contribution, I will focus on the concerns flagged up by the consultation’s proposals and discuss what should be done to mitigate those concerns and why.

In my letter to the consultation, I said that I am a huge supporter of rolling out hot and healthy universal free school meals for all children—I always have been. That will be no surprise to hon. Members, who know that I have banged on about my support for wider access and the provision of free school meals for more than a decade now, and I will continue to do so until all children receive a hot and healthy meal in the dinner hall.

In the current transition to universal credit, all families claiming the new benefit are entitled to free school meals, which is great, but the Department’s consultation aims to roll forward that reform by rolling back one of its most progressive measures. By removing the universal entitlement to free school meals under universal credit and introducing a £7,400 threshold for eligibility for free school meals, the Government are forcibly creating a cliff edge that will be detrimental to families, especially children. That seems utterly ludicrous.

As the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), wrote when the White Paper on universal credit was published in 2010:

“At its heart, Universal Credit is very simple and will ensure that work always pays and is seen to pay. Universal Credit will mean that people will be consistently…better off for each hour they work and every pound they earn.”

The Opposition do not disagree at all with the principles that he set out, but sadly, the reality has failed to live up to the promise made eight years ago. We all know lots of the reasons behind that, which ultimately led to him resigning, but that is a whole other story.

The proposals set out in the consultation are diametrically opposed to that 2010 vision and what it was meant to achieve, especially around making work pay. To give one example of how the proposal will be detrimental: someone with three children in their family who earns just below the £7,400 threshold is set to lose out on £1,200 in free school meals if they work only a few hours more or get a pay rise. The family’s annual wages would have to increase from £7,400 to almost £11,000 to make up for what they lost by rising above the eligibility cliff edge—a problem that would not occur under the working tax credit system because the legacy benefits system provides an offsetting income boost at the point that free school meals are withdrawn. Under universal credit, however, there is no equivalent mitigation. 

Another example, provided to my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak and me by the fabulous Dr Sam Royston of the Children’s Society, is that a single parent with no housing costs and one child would be £26 better off per week under the old working tax credit system than under universal credit. The Minister may think £26 per week a meagre amount, but for many outside this place it can determine whether or not they can eat or heat their home. The child of the single parent in Dr Royston’s example is not entitled to free school meals either under working tax credits or under the proposed universal credit rules, so it may seem that they will be no worse off, but the only way they can be so entitled is if the transitional plans are made permanent, so that all children in a family that claims universal credit receive free school meals.

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

My hon. Friend will be aware—as I am, since I represent a rural area—that one of the problems with free school meals is how many parents will not claim them because of stigma. Does she agree that changing to universal credit will only make that worse?

[Mrs Hodgson]

Yes. One of my reasons for supporting universal free school meals is that the stigma would be removed. It was proved in the excellent school food plan commissioned under the former Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), that that was one of the benefits of universal free school meals. The poorest kids, who are entitled to them anyway, are the ones who benefit the most.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Drew Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Let me be clear: we should not allow any stigma to get in the way of parents seeking the best for their children. We will continue to highlight effective practice by schools that have made a great effort to get children registered for free school meals and share that practice with all schools and local authorities.

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

I share the opinion of the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan). In rural areas, there is still stigma, and people will not put their children forward for free school meals and, therefore, for the pupil premium. Will the Minister look again at the criteria, to ensure that those children are not losing out?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

We want to make it as simple as possible for schools and local authorities to determine eligibility for free meals, and we are exploring opportunities to make the registration process more efficient.

Schools: National Funding Formula

David Drew Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue for his local community. A lot of work has been done to make sure that those schools are put under the control of a trust that can make sure it gives the best to local children. I know the Schools Minister will be happy to meet my hon. Friend to update him on the latest situation.

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

Let me give one cheer to the Secretary of State for at long last addressing the national formula. Will she give due credit to the f40 group, which has for a generation been arguing for this very change? I welcome the emphasis on sparsity, but will she re-examine the issue of using free school meals as a denominator of deprivation in rural areas? It has never been a good measure, and it never can be one because of the stigma associated with free school meals. Will she consider other formulae that are now available to make sure that we get proper representation in rural areas when the budget is settled?

[Justine Greening]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s welcome for the introduction of the funding formula. He is right to say that identifying deprivation is more complex than just looking at free school meals. That is why this formula includes the additional element of an index that looks at child deprivation in particular: the IDACI—income deprivation affecting children index. That index is already used by many local authorities, and it is an aspect of how we are assessing the deprivation factors that are built into this formula. I hope he will welcome that.