Investing in Children and Young People

David Johnston Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

I think the point that the whole House agrees on is that teachers and schools did a tremendous job, and continue to do a tremendous job, throughout covid-19, and they have worked through all the holidays and were among the unsung heroes of the pandemic. The bit that we all ought to be able to agree on is that the Government have put tremendous amounts of money into education, children and young people. That started with a £14 billion commitment to raise the per pupil funding to £5,150 per secondary pupil and at least £4,000 for every primary school pupil, and to raise the teacher starting salary to £30,000. There has been money for mental health, laptops, summer schools, food and summer activities, and there has been money for catch-up. Last week’s announcement took the amount that we have committed in the last 12 months to £3 billion, which is paying for 6 million courses of tutoring. We know that one course can raise a child’s attainment by between three and five months from where they are at the moment. There have been issues with recruiting tutors in certain parts of the country, and that is why I am very pleased that, with this money, schools will be able to pay their own staff to deliver some of this tutoring where there are those issues. There is money for teacher training, too.

It is wrong to suggest that we just take that amount of money, divide it by the number of pupils and come up with a small amount of money that is being spent—that does not take into account all the other money that has been spent, and part of the point of this money is to direct it at the children who need it most. It is to direct it at the children who we know are behind rather than ones that we know are not, and to direct it at disadvantaged young people, which is something I am particularly keen that we do. The Government are looking at the evidence and at outcomes rather than simply the amount of money being spent.

The bulk of the money cited as the figure from the report is to extend the school day, and I support extending the school day. I was a governor of schools for 10 years, and I have been to charter schools in the US and seen them use an extension to the school day very effectively. But the important thing is not what I think; again, it is what the evidence suggests about the outcomes we will achieve, and it is right that the Government are reviewing the evidence. I would actually support the school day being extended by more than half an hour, but we need to know what that review says, and yes, that will then take money.

I think money is the easy part here. the Labour party motion contains nothing about evidence or outcomes; it is about money—four areas where Labour wants more money. Generally speaking, when individuals and organisations call for money, the Opposition will get behind that call and will amplify it, and they are perfectly entitled to do that. But when we went into lockdown last March and the National Education Union said

“teachers should not be teaching a full timetable, or routinely marking work”,

and we knew what impact this was going to have on children and particularly disadvantaged children, the Labour party said nothing. When we wanted to get schools back so that we could start repairing some of this damage, the same union worked with other unions and came up with a 180-point checklist of things it wanted to see before schools could open, as though working with children was like working with radioactive material, again the Labour party said nothing. When the same unions were scaremongering—telling teachers that they were more at risk of covid than other professions that were also working with the community—again, Labour said nothing to challenge this. It actually went further and said, “Let’s not follow the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s age-based approach to vaccinations; let’s just vaccinate teachers”, because of the scaremongering that was going on.

The easy thing to do is to be on the side of more money. We could all do that all day, and say we need more money for things. The harder thing to do is to focus on outcomes and on the evidence, and that is why I am pleased that that is what the Government are doing. Yes, I would support a longer school day, as long as it means well targeted and well structured activity, but no, I cannot support the Labour party’s pose that the only issue is “Let’s give something more money”, and I will not be supporting its motion today.