Education Settings: Autumn Opening
David Johnston Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
The hon. Gentleman obviously has not noticed that we have already issued guidance about keeping uniform costs low, but I would be happy to share it with him so that he can take the time to read it.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that getting all children back to school in September is particularly important for the poorest children, and that if people try to obstruct that return, they are standing in the way of both social mobility and social justice for our most disadvantaged?
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Those who stand in the way of children being able to return to school are standing in the way of the best interests of children from the most deprived backgrounds, who need the most help and support. That is why we will get every child back in the new term.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Johnston Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Gillian Keegan
Clearly, the UK does have a globally attractive offer, given the sheer number of people who want to study here, and the many benefits of doing so. Of course, we are very proud of the sector and will continue to work with it during this difficult time. We will continue to work with the Department for International Trade and the Home Office to ensure that the path for international students wishing to study here is as clear as possible.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
My hon. Friend is right to raise the important role of destinations data. It is great to see that King Alfred’s Academy in his constituency has seen 91% of 2017 leavers go on to further education, employment or an apprenticeship, which is above the average for England.
David Johnston
Does my right hon. Friend agree that destinations data is particularly important in the light of covid, and that we need our schools focused on helping young people to the destinations to which they were on track before lockdown, and our colleges, universities and employers taking due account of the loss of learning when making their decisions?
Gavin Williamson
We must never lose sight of how important it is to know what youngsters end up going on to do. Yes, we want them to leave school, college or university as well-rounded individuals with all the tools they need to succeed in life, but they have to be tools that lead them into employment so that they can continue to succeed. That is why destinations data is so important, and why it is quite right that Ofsted attaches such high importance to it.
Education Settings: Wider Opening
David Johnston Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I remind colleagues that I would like to get everybody in, but that means short questions and short answers.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
When the Children’s Commissioner appeared before the Education Committee last week, she said that if no further children went back to school before September, 8 million children will have missed six months of learning. Given what we know already happens over the summer holidays, does my right hon. Friend agree that that is too long and that any school that conceivably can open should do so?
Gavin Williamson
I want to see all schools open, and that is why we will continue to work with all schools to look at how they can accept more and more pupils, making sure that all children have the amazing opportunity of learning from their teachers. I am very optimistic that we will see more children returning to school and the number of children attending school increasing week upon week.
Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill
David Johnston ExcerptsFriday 13th March 2020
(4 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021 View all Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on promoting the Bill. I am pleased that the Government are supporting it, and I am happy to do so as well. I was a governor of schools for 10 years before coming into politics, and uniform issues weaved in and out of my time as a governor. Let me start by saying that I am a strong supporter of uniform and the role it can play in building identity and discipline, as well as the role it should play as a leveller for children of all different backgrounds. The Bill is necessary because uniform is not acting as the leveller it should be at the moment, and I want to touch on three aspects.
The first is the financial burden. As we have heard, the £340 figure is widely disputed, and that is the limitation of a survey of a small proportion of parents. On the other hand, some of the very low figures that have been sent my way do not seem to take account of the fact that children often need multiples of the same item. They also do not take account of the growth spurts or the obstructive activities that children can get up to at breaktime and lunchtime, which may mean that further items are needed during the course of the year.
Most studies, including the ones from the Department for Education, seem to indicate that there are parents for whom uniforms are a real financial burden, and who sometimes get into debt and have to give up essentials. Before I came to the Chamber, I received some information from the Competition and Markets Authority—I am sure other Members did as well—which said that this is one of the areas it receives most complaints about, which is an interesting point to note.
It is true that schools and local authorities offer support to families with the cost of uniform, and when I was a governor, we did the same, but as with any support offered to people experiencing poverty, the stigma of applying for it can mean that they do not do so, even when they are eligible. I remember, as a governor, that all the schools I was working with bent over backwards to get children who were eligible for free school meals to claim them, but whatever they did, families were uncomfortable doing so. We therefore need this statutory guidance, to ensure that everybody is getting the support they need.
The second aspect is attendance, which is fundamental to attainment. When I was a charity chief executive, I became familiar with other charities such as School-Home Support, which works on the relationship between schools and families, particularly trying to combat issues of truancy. At the heart of truancy were often issues of uniform—items of uniform that had been lost or that children had grown out of, and sometimes items of uniform that children were embarrassed to wear because they were dirty. Sometimes School-Home Support meant putting that uniform in a washing machine, which the family lacked, and fixing that issue fixed the attendance problem.
At the charity I ran before coming here, we placed young people—mostly those who were eligible for free school meals—in employers, and we often had to buy them the items they needed to feel comfortable in the workplace. Many of those young people now have successful careers in those companies, but if we had not bought them the original item they needed to feel comfortable going on their work placement, they would never have taken up that opportunity.
The third aspect is the way the schoolwear market operates. I believe in competition. I think that higher prices are not usually the result of too much competition, but rather too little competition. I have heard from schoolwear suppliers in my constituency about the issues they face in supplying schools with uniform. They feel that they can sometimes cut the cost to parents by 25%, while maintaining the same quality. Quality is important—it should not be like my occasional eBay purchases where I think I have got a bargain, and two weeks later I have to buy the same item from a more reputable source. Those suppliers feel that they can match the quality, and yet they are kept out because of exclusivity arrangements that schools have reached without going through a proper tendering process.
I have been pleasingly surprised by how many within the schoolwear industry welcome the Bill. They would like to see it enable a level playing field for them to compete on quality and price, so that their business can succeed in the way that I think we would all like them to succeed. I hope that, with these guidelines, we can enable businesses to operate on a level playing field, while protecting families who, for too long, have had to pay too much for uniform.
Education and Local Government
David Johnston Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker, for letting me give my maiden speech this afternoon. I have to confess that I am glad to go first out of those giving their maiden speeches today, because the quality that I have heard so far in my days in Parliament, from both sides of the House, has been so high that if I had had to listen to several while sitting here, I might have signalled to you that I was changing my mind and would do it in a couple of months instead.
I have the privilege of succeeding the right hon. Ed Vaizey as the Member for Wantage. I did not know Ed before the campaign last month, but I would hear on the doorstep about what a good constituency MP people thought he had been. Of course, far beyond the constituency he did so much to promote the UK’s creative and tech industries, and I feel sure he will continue to do that in his post-parliamentary life.
For those who are not familiar with Wantage—I know that some Members are familiar with it—it is located in Oxfordshire. The constituency starts, at its eastern border, in the historic town of Wallingford, which is a place of key moments in our history, not least the Archbishop of Canterbury of the time being the last remaining resistance to William the Conqueror before he became King—it was at Wallingford that the archbishop submitted to his authority.
As we move further west, we come to Didcot, which is the largest town in the constituency. This is usually the point at which people who are not sure where Wantage is or whether they have been in the constituency say, “Ah yes, Didcot!”, because they have changed trains at Didcot Parkway station. I encourage people to leave the station and come to see all that Didcot has to offer. A couple of years ago, it was judged England’s most normal town. I feel rather proud to represent England’s most normal town.
Further west, we come to Wantage itself, birthplace of King Alfred the Great. A statue of him stands proudly in the market square. North-west of that is Faringdon, which is another very picturesque market town. It holds a special place in my heart because it is where they held the meeting to select the Conservative candidate for Wantage.
David Johnston
Indeed; another one.
On the far western border we have Shrivenham, which is a place where we have so many of the military families, past and present, who serve our country so well.
Ed’s departure is my considerable gain and I feel extremely lucky to represent the people of Wantage. All across the constituency we have beautiful villages; we have cutting-edge science and technology in Harwell campus and Milton Park; we have small and medium-sized enterprises and multinational businesses; and we have first-rate farming that demonstrates every day how high the standards of British agriculture are.
If the key challenges of my constituency can be summed up in one word, it is infrastructure. In different parts of the constituency, that means different things. In some places it is about road safety and trying to reopen Grove station, which was one of those lost under the Beeching cuts; in other parts it is about GP appointments and school places. In the more rural areas it is about broadband. I know that lots of these issues are familiar to Members on both sides of the House. So, there is lots in the Queen’s Speech for me to welcome, because improving infrastructure runs through it.
The reason I wanted to speak today is because of education. As some Members of the House know, I had never been a political candidate before last month; I had been chief exec of a charity, trying to improve education and employment opportunities. There was an immediate contrast for me—a surprising baptism by fire—because when I was the chief exec of a charity and I spoke at events, people in the audience would nod encouragingly at the seeming wisdom of my remarks, but the second I became a political candidate, they would shake their heads disparagingly at the seeming stupidity of my remarks. I had to get used to that very quickly, and I am grateful to Opposition Members for not doing it today, given that this is my maiden speech. I am sure I can look forward to that in future.
I attended a school where only 20% of people passed any five GCSEs, never mind five good GCSEs. My mum left school at 16 and got a job as soon as she could. My dad left school at 14 and joined the Army as soon as he could. After university, I spent the next 16 years running organisations to provide opportunities to young people from similar backgrounds and far more challenging backgrounds to get better education and get a better job—in short, to try to improve social mobility. I would like to bring social mobility back into the debates in this House as much as I can, because last year it was referred to fewer than half the number of times it was in 2016, yet many of us in this House have stories of having been socially mobile ourselves. We all represent parents in our constituencies who are concerned that their children may not have as good a life as they had. That should be at the core of what we should be doing here.
There is lots in the Queen’s Speech for me to welcome. First, there is the improvement in the per-pupil funding across schools, which helps to correct a historic imbalance wherein some areas were given a lot more money to deal with the challenges of their pupils than other areas. I have looked at what it will mean for the schools in my constituency, and it is a significant increase. I hope that some of the money can be used to attract teachers to teach in more challenging areas, where they are most needed.
I also welcome the raising of the starting salary for teachers, because it is important that it keeps pace with the starting salary offered particularly by private sector graduate schemes. It says something important about the value that we place on teaching as a profession. From my point of view, it should be regarded extremely highly because it is crucial to the future of the country. Running through the Queen’s Speech is greater emphasis on skills and technical education. I hope that we can finally achieve parity between vocational education and academic education.
Education is important to social mobility, but what happens in schools and colleges is not the only thing that matters for young people. Improving social mobility is not just a job for Government. I hope that our charities, our local authorities, our universities and employers will continue to increase the role that they play in providing opportunity for young people. I have worked with thousands of young people who needed that opportunity—they needed the door to be opened, then they would show what they could do. It is absolutely true that talent is everywhere; opportunity is not. The Queen’s Speech goes a considerable way in extending opportunity to places that have lacked it for far too long.