Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

David Simmonds Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

Finally, I would like to give the House a message from many of my constituents who are home educators. There are some who say, “Home educators do a good job, but”. A whole community is dismissed in seven words. Just for once, can we acknowledge the thousands of families who are taking responsibility for their children’s education, often as a result of shortcomings in the school system, as was rightly said by the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart)? Their work, and that of their children, should be appreciated and valued. We should not stigmatise home education; if child protection laws and systems fail, it is they that should require scrutiny.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

The debate on this Bill has been comprehensive. I rise to support a number of amendments to this Bill that hon. Friends have tabled, but I open on a point that has already been much debated, not only yesterday but during the Bill’s earlier stages. The Minister has said from the Dispatch Box that she regards the safety of children as being the Government’s highest priority, but the Government’s absolute refusal to countenance the amendments and proposals on equal protection demonstrates a lack of will to follow most other countries in implementing laws that provide that level of protection to children. That remains enormously disappointing, and will be an outstanding issue, in terms of child protection, for the foreseeable future.

The measures before the House are primarily concerned with schools. I would like to back up a number of colleagues who have set out the long-standing cross-party nature of the measures that underpin the success of the education system in England. I was a governor at one of the first schools to ever become an academy. It was sponsored by a significant Labour party donor, who came forward to support a Conservative local authority that engaged with that programme.

I also pay tribute to the work done by the Liberal Democrat Minister David Laws. He attended Cabinet as the Minister for school standards when the Academies Act 2010, which underpins everything structural that has driven forward academy standards, was implemented under the coalition Government. I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) disowning the contribution that the Liberal Democrats made, on a cross-party basis, to driving up school standards in England over the years.

[Munira Wilson]

I chose my words carefully. I talked about the past decade, during which the Liberal Democrats were not in government. The Conservatives had seven or eight Education Secretaries in that period. That carousel of constant change demonstrates how little those Education Secretaries valued education. The state of our school buildings, and of our special educational needs and disabilities system, tells us all we need to know about how much the Tories value education.

[David Simmonds]

It is important that we pay tribute to the work that David Laws did. As a key part of that coalition, he shaped the legislation that underpinned all the actions that followed, by the coalition and by Conservative Education Secretaries in majority Conservative Governments. We all need to recognise not only that education is a shared priority, but that all parties contributed to driving things forward and creating these structures over the years.

I have a degree of sympathy with the Government on an issue that they are trying to address. It has always been a legal conundrum that successive education Acts have place detailed, specific legal obligations on local authorities regarding the provision of school places in general, and the provision of education to individual children to whom they owe a duty, but there are times when that is in conflict with the fact that academy schools are their own admissions authorities. That is not new; it has been true of faith schools for many years.

Most of us in this House will have had casework arising from parents being frustrated about the difficulties in their relationship with their child’s school. However, a number of my hon. Friends have made the point that most of the measures in this Bill are not about relieving those issues that can be burdensome for families and children, but are about imposing much more centralised control over what goes on in the education system in England, where school standards have powered ahead of those that we see in other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly in Labour-run Wales.

The outset of my journey on this issue was in the dying days of the last Labour Government, when I was a member of, and then chair of, the National Employers’ Organisation for School Teachers. That body, as an employer, provides evidence to determine pay and conditions for school teachers. We might generally conjecture, as members of the public or as members of the political establishment, that that would be a fairly light-touch responsibility—that we would take a strategic interest in the workforce, and occasionally give advice and guidance. I was surprised to discover that we were to attend, with 17 unions, a weekly meeting with the then Secretary of State, Ed Balls, and his deputy Jim Knight, at the then Department for Children, Schools and Families, in which those unions would provide Ministers with a detailed list of their expectations for how every aspect of education policy would be micromanaged. Those regular weekly meetings came to an end with the election of the coalition Government, but I am aware that they have resumed since the election last year.

We have heard admissions from Ministers about how rarely they have engaged with school leaders, and have noted a great reluctance to say how often they engage with those who represent the union interests.

[Damian Hinds]

Intervene and tell us!

[David Simmonds]

I invite the Minister to say how often she has been meeting those school leaders.

We have also seen a move to re-establish the school support staff negotiating body. I had the privilege of chairing the employers’ side of that body. Its purpose was not only to give the teaching unions a voice on every aspect of education, but to support staff. One of the big challenges for the last Labour Government was the fact that the teaching unions hated the idea that school support staff would have that voice when it came to what went on in the classroom. It is, again, a cause for concern that the priority for the new Government is not to ask themselves, “How can we build on the progress that we have made with policies that we established and principles that we introduced?”, but to ask themselves, “How can we revert to giving control to those with a vested interest in how much money is spent, rather than those with a vested interest in the attainment of the children in all our schools?”

That is why it is so important for us to support new clause 38. In government, we should have taken the opportunity to

“extend freedoms over pay and conditions to…maintained schools”,

but the present Government, who say that they regard education as a priority, now have that opportunity. They have the opportunity to create a genuinely level playing field, so that, appropriately, the maintained schools that have been some of the main drivers of the progress in reading and mathematics among the youngest children, which is one of the proudest achievements of the past decade, can also secure teachers of the highest quality.

I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that the unions’ demand that no one should teach in a classroom without qualified teacher status will not apply to university technical colleges. We know that UTCs have sometimes struggled in the current educational landscape. UTC Heathrow in my constituency, for instance, introduced an educational offer for a group of young people who might otherwise find it difficult to gain access to the type of education that would give them the start in life that they need. That is an example of success and an opportunity on which we could build, but instead it is being overlooked and potentially undermined by measures on the national curriculum.

It is hard to understand how an aviation-focused UTC closely connected with Heathrow airport, providing employment opportunities and a chance to access apprenticeships, gain technical skills and learn about catering and retail, would be well served by our prohibiting the people who know about those matters from doing their work unless they have qualified teacher status. We must ensure that we retain that element of diversity and opportunity in our education system—that diversity of provision and style that was always intended to underpin academisation, but which is now at serious risk of being lost.

There is clearly a need to reconcile the legal impositions on local authorities—for example, the need to balance the local education budget, which is legally part of the council tax, though we are yet to see a solution that would not have an unacceptable impact on local residents, and the legal obligation on local authorities to provide places—with the lack of any legal obligation on the Government to ensure that those elements are properly funded. However, on the substance of the Bill, even with the very sound amendments that we are seeking to pass, it is, essentially, a shopping list of union demands. What the Minister describes as a mission is a mission without a purpose. There is no sense in the Bill of how we are to take forward the progress we have made, what we want to achieve for our disadvantaged children, what targets we might set and how we might go about meeting them, and how we might unleash the sense of aspiration that exists in so many of our communities.

People ask what developments we could be proud of when we left office. When we left office, youth unemployment was half what it had been under the last Labour Government, and there were 4 million more people in work than there were when they left office. Much of that is down to the brilliant progress that was made by so many of our schools in transforming education standards. This Government should hang their heads in shame, because all they can do is come forward with a shopping list of union demands and not for a moment put forward the needs of the children of this country.

[David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)]

I rise to support this Bill in its entirety, and I will speak about part 2 in particular. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), who spoke about people hanging their heads in shame. It is not in scope of the Bill, but I could talk about the fact that more children are coming to school not ready to learn. I could talk about the SEND crisis, the rise in child poverty or the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training. We could talk about the Conservatives’ legacy and hanging our heads in shame, but I do not think he would want to hear that.

Education Provision: South Buckinghamshire

David Simmonds Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Joy Morrissey]

I thank the hon. Member for always making such excellent contributions to every Adjournment debate. He is a true champion for Back Benchers.

The people who lost out in the school closure are the young people of Burnham and the surrounding areas. Moving forward, we want to see that problem rectified. Since 2019, the young people of Burnham who are not in selective education find themselves caught in excessively long journeys to schools in Maidenhead and other parts of Buckinghamshire and Slough, as my friend the hon. Member for Slough so eloquently pointed out. It is unfair for our residents, and it is having a significant effect on their mental health, physical wellbeing and finances.

The situation is absurd and almost intolerable. We have a site that housed a secondary school up until 2019, and it is now hosting the occasional Netflix filming. Meanwhile, young people waste hours travelling to school. The situation needs to change. I was equally robust in challenging our previous Schools Minister, and I spent much time speaking to Nick Gibb in the Tea Room. I am sure that the hon. Member for Slough can follow in my footsteps and finding the current Minister in the Tea Room to continue to press the point, formally and informally. Will she consider meeting me and him jointly after the debate, so that we can take this issue forward?

I pay tribute to the campaign group for Burnham secondary school. Since my election in December 2019, I have been pleased to work alongside the group and local families to try to right this wrong. They are at the epicentre of what makes community campaign groups so inspiring. They are totally dedicated to making their community better. I thank the local councillors, parish councillors and the hon. Member for working together to put the needs of our residents first.

Let me set out why the case for a secondary school in Burnham is clear, compelling and urgent. We know that education is the single silver bullet that can determine the life chances of young people, but we are placing an enormous barrier in the way of the young people of Burnham and south Buckinghamshire. Long journeys are impacting their mental and physical health and placing them at higher risk of educational disengagement.

We also know that south Buckinghamshire is significantly underserved in special educational needs and disabilities provision. Just before the election, I was delighted by the Department for Education’s announcement of a new SEND school for Buckinghamshire. I hope that the Minister will recommit to that school tonight and support my calls for it to be placed in south Buckinghamshire—it would be for the whole county, but I would love to see it in south Buckinghamshire. A reopened Burnham secondary school would represent a perfect opportunity to provide not only 11 to 16-year-olds with non-selective education, but increased SEND provision and a thriving sixth form.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech about educational need in her constituency. Does she know of the work done by the London borough of Hillingdon in the village of Harefield in my constituency, where, as part of a multi-academy trust, an under-utilised secondary school has slightly reduced in size and the site is now dual-use, with both secondary mainstream comprehensive education and a brand-new SEND school at the same location?

[Joy Morrissey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. That example is the gold standard of what we would like to do to ensure that there is SEND provision and comprehensive school provision in our area as we move forward. Finding dual use for those facilities really is the way forward. With volunteers, we are trying to look at every option, working across parties and across local authorities to ensure that we find a solution that works for all of our residents, hopefully following in the footsteps of Hillingdon.

One of the frustrations that I and the campaign group have faced is the loop of accountability avoidance. We are on the border of many local authorities and we border London. The provision for our students is different from London, but because we are just outside London, that endless accountability loop is often difficult to close. The Department says that it is for local authorities to make the case, but oftentimes it seems that they are not working together for the collective demand because of their individual legal accountabilities. That is despite the practical reality that Slough and Burnham—and all of Buckinghamshire—border each other, and the two local primary schools are in close proximity to the site.

At Burnham grammar school, this is proven by the fact that half the pupils are from Slough. Our campaign group received a reply from a freedom of information request, which said:

“Any projects to try to evidence demand to reopen a new school on the Burnham site should not include pupils attending in Slough (regardless of how close the schools may be to Buckinghamshire).”

That is bureaucracy triumphing over common sense.

The campaign group and I have taken it upon ourselves to look at the data and make the case, because it seems that no one else will. I thank the hon. Member for Slough for joining us in that and trying to work together proactively to bring forth evidence from both local authorities of the demand and need of pupils for the secondary school. Even before I turn to housing expansion, they can make the case for a minimum of five forms of entry from the local primary school.

We also know that Beeches learning and development trust, which delivers Burnham grammar school, could take on a Burnham secondary school within its umbrella trust. We have a site for a school, we have demand across both local authority boundaries and we have a trust able to take on the school; all we lack is the will of the educational establishment.

In south Buckinghamshire we now have significant housing targets on our way. As a separate point, if something is to be built on the green belt, be in no doubt that I will oppose it tooth and nail, but I support the case for more housing in the right location and with the right infrastructure. Burnham and the surrounding areas are growing, as is Slough. Many people want to move to both areas because of their excellent transport links and the ability to come into London. Our area’s population is growing, and the housing demand means that the population will continue to increase. Buckinghamshire has one of the highest housing demands put on it—more so than any other local authority—so, to make the case, we will need more provision of places for students, because central Government demands mean that we will be building more houses in the county. That simply strengthens our argument for increased educational provision—we will not have the infrastructure in place to support the new housing that central Government will ask us to build.

We also have the Elizabeth line, which is attracting commuter families to the area. We face more housing coming, but without the infrastructure of a new school to support the area. It is time to make sure that the secondary schools are there and ready to support demand from our residents. It is time for the education system to come together to solve this problem. In the same way that the hon. Member for Slough and I have put aside party political differences in order to work together for the good of our communities, so the education system needs to put aside artificial boundaries and work together. It needs leadership from Ministers and the Department for Education to bring local authorities together to support the proper analysis of data across local authority boundaries.

I urge the Minister to join me, the hon. Member for Slough and the local community to help make a new secondary school for Burnham, south Buckinghamshire and Slough a reality.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend raises some important points, both of which are factors that the Buckinghamshire and Slough local authorities, where relevant, will have to take into consideration when determining how to use their allocation.

Buckinghamshire council has been allocated just below £11.3 million to support the provision of the new mainstream school places that it feels it will need over the current and next two academic years, up to and including September 2026. We have also announced £740 million in high needs capital for 2025-26 to support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, or who require alternative provision, and we will confirm the specific local authority allocations later in the spring. The important point is that this new funding can be used to adapt classrooms to make them more accessible for children with special educational needs. It can be used to create specialist facilities within mainstream schools that could deliver more intensive support, to adapt them to meet pupils needs, alongside continuing to provide places to support the pupils in special schools with the most complex needs.

[David Simmonds]

Will the Minister commit to working with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to review the impact of home-to-school transport rules on the situation? In Hillingdon, there is around a 20% vacancy rate due to falling pupil numbers. All London boroughs contribute to Transport for London, and therefore transport to school on London public transport is free. However, if Buckinghamshire wished to take advantage of those vacancies, bringing those children to schools in Hillingdon would be a general fund cost to council tax payers. Clearly, in efficiently providing those places, it may well be that by looking at those cross-border transport issues we could produce a beneficial outcome for my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), and for the schools that would thereby benefit from additional pupils.

[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Gentleman raises an import point, which is something the Department is very focused on. Indeed, we need to work with local authorities to deliver on that. The aim of the Department’s home-to-school travel policy is to ensure that no child is prevented from accessing education because of a lack of transport. Local authorities are required to arrange free travel for children of compulsory school age who attend their nearest school but cannot walk there because of the distance or because of a special educational need, disability or mobility problem, or because the route is not safe. There are also additional rights to free travel for low-income households, to ensure that they can exercise school choice.

However, I recognise the challenge that the hon. Gentleman raises. It relates to the investment that we would like to see in mainstream provision—indeed, it is why he jumped up as I was talking about this—to make it more suitable and to adapt it where necessary, in order to have much greater inclusion of children with special educational needs and disabilities, so that they can be educated in their local area, wherever possible, with their peers. That will ensure better outcomes for those children, but it will also tackle some of the growing challenges that he quite rightly identifies with school transport.

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield mentioned a specific request for confirmation on a local special school application—she tempts me to get ahead of announcements that will be made in due course. They are under consideration. Where children have highly complex needs, it is obviously important that we have those specialist school places available in the right place for the children who need them.

We are committed to ensuring that all schools co-operate with their local authority on school admissions and place planning to ensure there are sufficient school places where they are needed. Schools and academy trusts are expected to work collaboratively and constructively with local authorities and other key partners on place planning. We recently reinforced that expectation through the revised “Making significant changes to an academy” guidance. To strengthen it further, we are legislating to require all schools and local authorities to co-operate on admissions and place planning. This new duty will aim to foster greater co-operation between schools and local authorities in these important areas, as well as providing a backstop for addressing serious failures when co-operation is simply not happening.

We are also legislating to make changes to the legal framework for opening new schools. We will end the legal presumption that they should be academies in favour of prioritising any local offer that meets the needs of children and families, allowing proposals for other types of schools to be put forward where a new school is needed, including proposals from local authorities themselves. These changes better align local authorities’ responsibility to secure sufficient school places with their ability to open new schools.

The Government are entirely focused on the quality of education and experience that children are receiving at school, rather than the name above the door. All schools have an important role to play in driving high and rising standards so that every child can thrive, and, indeed, that will help local authorities to make the decisions that are right for the children in their areas. We want all children to be able to attend a high-quality school of their parents’ choice whenever possible. In 2024, 98.5% of children in Buckinghamshire were offered a place at one of their parents’ or carers’ top three preferred primary schools, and just over nine out of 10—91.1%—received an offer of their first preference. At the secondary phase, 91.2% of pupils in Buckinghamshire received an offer at one of their parents’ or carers’ top three preferred schools, with about three quarters—75.8%—receiving an offer of their first preference.

I thank the hon. Member for Beaconsfield for bringing this matter to the House’s attention, and I thank the other Members who contributed to the debate. It is obviously important for children to be able to gain access to school places—ideally in their local communities—that will enable them to achieve and thrive. I appreciate the case that the hon. Lady has made, but it is clearly to Buckinghamshire council that the case must be made. The Government will continue to work with our local authority colleagues, who have a statutory duty to ensure that enough mainstream school places are available. That includes providing funds through the basic need grant and continued support through our pupil place planning advisers, and introducing new legislation requiring all schools and local authorities to co-operate on admissions and place planning, so that every child in every community can have a good local school.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Member is of course right that the lead is taken by a different Department, but we are very conscious of the pressures, including from social media, in relation to pornography, deepfake and nudification, as she rightly identifies, and we are working right across Government to make sure those pressures can be eased.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

T6. Bearing out feedback from my two excellent local Conservative councils, a recent report from the organisation London Councils highlights a 4.3% drop in the number of pupils in schools in Hillingdon. At a time of falling numbers on rolls in outer London, will my hon. Friend commit to work with our schools and local authorities to promote the opportunities for more inclusion for SEND pupils in mainstream schools?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)]

My hon. Friend makes two important points. There was a 6% decline in the number of nought to four-year-olds between 2015 and 2021, and we are providing £242 million in this financial year to support schools with managing that. He is also right that although some children will always need a special school place to have their needs met, many can have their needs met in a mainstream school. Through our SEND and alternative provision improvement plan, we are making sure that schools are inclusive and make that happen.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

As always, Labour Front Benchers are obsessed with quantity over quality. We have transformed the quality of apprenticeships. Seventy per cent of occupations are covered by over 680 apprenticeship standards. There has been a 6% increase since this time last year in the number of under-19 starts, and overall starts are up by 3% over the same period. The crucial thing is achievement, which is up by 22%. Female STEM starts are up by 7.5%, starts by people with disabilities are up by 6.3%, and starts by people from ethnic minorities are up by 15.4%, compared with 10.6% in 2010. Not only are we focusing on quality over quantity; we are improving the number of starts and achievements too.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

12. What steps she is taking to increase childcare provision.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)]

We are removing one of the biggest barriers for working parents by vastly increasing the amount of free childcare that working families can access. By 2027-28, we expect to spend more than £8 billion every year on free hours in early education, double what we are spending now, to help working families with their childcare costs.

[David Simmonds]

My constituent Diane Bennett, who runs a small group of very popular local nurseries, tells me how appreciative she is of the Government’s plan for childcare and early education, particularly the £500 million of additional funding that has been secured. Clearly, as she and other nursery providers look ahead, she is concerned that, although the Government have a clear plan, there is no clear plan coming from the Opposition. Can my hon. Friend set her mind at rest?

[David Johnston]

My hon. Friend is right. Last week the Chancellor announced that we will be increasing rates until the end of 2027 for early years providers, which is something they have asked for. I cannot give my hon. Friend any reassurance about Labour’s plan, because it has no plan. The shadow Secretary of State says that childcare is her top priority, yet she has no plan for it. What does that say? Parents should be very worried about Labour getting into power, both for the childcare on which they rely and for every other area of education.

Pupil Roll Numbers and School Closures: London

David Simmonds Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Hollobone. I too congratulate the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) on securing the debate. We have a shared history as councillors in London and as parents of young children, so this issue is close to our hearts. I will touch on the recent history of school place provision in London, outline some of the emerging challenges that I hear about in my constituency—especially, as the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) mentioned, the emerging challenge in respect of SEND places—and briefly make some suggestions that the Department may find helpful in resolving those challenges.

When I was first elected as a councillor in Hillingdon just over two decades ago, the council was seeking to open a new school, which is thriving today as Ruislip High School. It was built on green-belt land, and local residents were concerned because they recalled that, just a decade or so earlier, the council had closed Southbourne Secondary School in south Ruislip, not far from the new school, because at that time there was a massive over-supply of school places.

There has been a long history in the capital of variations in the number of children, which goes through cycles. When my local authority engaged with the Building Schools for the Future programme, under my leadership as cabinet member for education, it was a condition of Hillingdon’s entry that at least one secondary school per constituency be closed to reduce excess capacity. By the time we were a year or so into that programme, we looked at it again with a view to increasing places significantly, because the live birth data supplied by the NHS demonstrated that the demand for places, although relatively low in the immediate future, would rise rapidly.

The need to plan strategically has been a current issue in all our constituencies for a good long time. The number of pupils grew swiftly following the late 2000s financial crash, hit a peak following a massive expansion in school capacity across the capital, and has begun to tail off in recent years. That initial expansion of school capacity across the capital was primarily led in its early years by local authorities, which fulfilled their statutory duty to ensure that every child who wants and needs a school place can be offered one in their local area.

As time has moved on, we have seen increasing reliance on central control from the Department for Education, as additional capital funding has been moved from local authorities and expansion funds have instead been primarily routed through the free schools programme. A welcome feature of that programme is the significant increase in the number of children attending schools that are good or outstanding, which we often hear Ministers talk about. The fact that the funding was restricted over that time to schools that were already good or outstanding has been positive, as it ensured that in-demand schools could expand, but the reduction in the number of places creates a challenge because the geographical concentration of the surplus places is different from where demand is.

With some of the schools that have been expanded—in and around my constituency and serving some of my constituents I know of schools such as John Locke Academy, Lake Farm Park Academy and St Martin’s—the local authority built the school, ran a bidding process to find a free school provider to deliver the education in it, and ensured that the additional places, when they were required, were delivered on time and on budget in the locations where there was a great deal of demand. Those schools continue to thrive to this day.

When it comes to the emerging challenges, London Councils has done some excellent work to highlight not just the impact that we all hear about as constituency Members of Parliament but what they mean across the capital. Over the same period of time as pupil numbers have been dropping, we have seen a number of changes to the schools funding formula, which has tightened so that there is comparatively much less scope today for a local authority and the schools forum of local schools that work together to support schools with declining numbers—unless there is clear evidence that the surplus places will be used again within the next three years.

Local authorities that use birth data and child-registration data from the local NHS tend to have extremely good visibility of what the numbers are, but by its very nature that data is limited to the point at which the child is born at a local hospital or registered with a local GP as a new mover into the area. Broadly speaking, therefore, we are talking about a five-year time horizon for when we can be accurate about that.

As the hon. Member for Vauxhall alluded to, there has been much debate about why the child population of the capital has been reducing. The data from the Office for National Statistics clearly shows that there is a reducing birth rate, which is having an impact. Anecdotally, schools have told me that increased family mobility as people seek bigger homes outside the capital at affordable prices, and Brexit in locations with a high level of rental accommodation that was regularly occupied by families from the European Union who are no longer coming here, have had an impact on the numbers of children coming through their doors. But the challenges are manifesting not just in inner London: those of us in the suburbs are seeing a significant impact. For example, according to London Councils figures, in the London Borough of Hillingdon we are seeing a decline of around 15% in overall numbers—one of the highest rates in outer London.

Why does this matter? Why does this situation create such a challenge, given that these things are part of the normal warp and weft of population change? Looking at the figures, it is fairly clear that the funding formula, whereby almost all the money a school receives comes based on pupil numbers on a per capita basis, means that a class needs to be full or nearly full to break even.

Let us take the example of two schools in my constituency: Cannon Lane Primary School in Harrow, and Bishop Winnington-Ingram Church of England Primary School in Hillingdon. According to Department for Education figures, Cannon Lane receives £4,249 per annum per child and Bishop Winnington-Ingram receives £4,816. It costs around £60,000 with on-costs to put a teacher in the classroom, and two teaching assistants on top of that are a further £60,000 with on-costs. A share of the school’s overheads will pretty quickly get us to £150,000 to £180,000, meaning we can quickly understand that if a school does not have a nearly-full class, the amount of money coming in per child will not add up to enough to break even for the school’s budget.

Schools that face significant demand for places, but where that demand is less than is needed to fill a class, are going through a process of reducing their planned admission number or PAN—the stated capacity of the school.

[Munira Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman is making a well-informed speech. On that point about pupil admission numbers, it is my understanding—I am happy to be corrected—that if a school has a published plan of 60 and 45 parents put down that school as a first choice, those 45 places have to be granted and therefore the school has to open two classes, even though it is only one-and-a-half classes full. As a result, the school ends up with the shortfall in cash that the hon. Gentleman has outlined.

Does the hon. Gentleman think that, as well as some of the strategic planning powers I talked about for local authorities, there needs to be an interim measure whereby the Department for Education provides some sort of additional funding or grant for those classes that are not full? Schools in my constituency are asking parents for money for glue sticks and to be in sports teams, and are cutting teaching assistants because they are struggling so much financially.

[David Simmonds]

The hon. Member makes a good point. We also see the converse of the situation in which a school has fewer applications than it has places, and this creates additional pressure on places: rather than maintaining a PAN of 60 with 45 applications, a school makes a decision to reduce its PAN to 30, which means that 15 children who want to be in that school but do not have a place are put somewhere else in the system. I will discuss later a way in which we might be able to address that.

Within the context of reducing pupil numbers, we are consequently seeing significant localised pressure on school places where local authorities are still having to look to expand schools to meet demand. There has always been a need for some spare capacity—5% was the traditional rule of thumb to allow for normal fluctuations —but because we have seen the loss of many of the strategic levers that local authorities could use for planning that, we now see a hotch-potch of situations in which some schools remain under acute pressure to find capacity for more children while others relatively close by struggle for numbers and reduce their planned admissions number.

From a parent’s perspective, everything seems absolutely fine if their child is the one that gets into their school of choice. If that school has reduced its planned admissions number from 90 to 60, but their child is one of those 60, that is fantastic. But if someone’s child is one of the 20 that cannot get in, they are displaced to a school that is not of their choice. That situation creates unhappy children and a financial challenge for the system, which tries to find another place for the children to go.

None of this is helped by the fact that although councils have no control over the dedicated schools grant—the ringfenced budget that funds schools—it is still legally part of councils’ budgets, so a duty is imposed on them to ensure that over a period of time the dedicated schools grant breaks even. I know Ministers have been working on that with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, which has overall responsibility.

We see the converse of this challenge in respect of SEND places. The Timpson reforms represented an enormous transformational change in the approach to SEND education across the whole country. The downside is that the huge expectations that were raised by the reforms—particularly the extension to the mid-20s of the age entitlement for young people to access education and training—did not come with sufficient funding to ensure that they were delivered in reality. That is one reason why we see such enormous pressure on SEND in the capital.

Audit data from the London boroughs on the children who are given education, health and care plans and those who have some form of diagnosis demonstrates that the decisions are entirely the right ones. The children are meeting the relevant tests and criteria for the NHS, educational psychologists and so on, so the levels of need are undoubtedly being correctly assessed. We can see councils across the capital—I certainly include in this Hillingdon and Harrow, which serve my constituents—that are enormously challenged by rising demand against a backdrop of the reforms not being funded in line with the expectations that families now reasonably have.

There are many small, specialist SEND providers in the capital—for example, Sunshine House in my constituency—that are very popular with parents. They can offer a very high-quality service, but they are also often extraordinarily expensive, with a single place funded by a local authority not infrequently costing in excess of £1 million a year per child.

The delivery of the additional capacity that we require has been quite slow in the centralised programmes compared with the council-led ones. In my constituency we have seen additional SEND place capacity created through the local authority, such as the Eden Academy and specialist resource provision at other schools, all delivered on time and on budget. But some of the larger free school programmes, which are to deliver the bulk of the additional places we need, are many years behind where they need to be. Although there might be good reasons for the delays—we all understand the period of covid—the reality is that they impose massive cost pressures on our DSG high-needs blocks.

Although safety-valve agreements are being reached at individual local authority level, we need to recognise that the failure of programmes to deliver places on time, even if they eventually arrive, is the main reason why we see such a high level of pressure on the DSG across London for SEND. We know that the in-borough SEND—the state school places—is significantly cheaper than the private sector provision, but the awaited reform of SEND financing cannot come soon enough to make sure that the cost pressures are eased and that parents and children’s expectations can be met.

Let me conclude with some ways forward. I know there has been some consultation on this matter, but my first ask of the Minister is that we look at the enhancement of local authority flexibility to allocate budgets much more strategically in order to ease the way forward, especially when schools go through a transition period of downsizing. Rather than a sudden step from 90 children down to 60, which has a huge impact on the ability of parents to get their kids into a school, as well as a major financial impact on the institution itself, we should smooth that process out and recognise the fluctuations in rising and falling demand.

My second ask is for greater powers for local authorities to strategically plan, recognising that in the context of falling rolls there are areas of growing demand, not just for SEND but mainstream as well. There is an urgent need to be able to direct the overall school-planned admissions number to ensure that the provision matches the demand in a local area.

My third ask is that we do not forget that London is likely to see its population increase again at some point in future. We know that our capital’s population is smaller at the moment than some of its past peaks, that the density of the population has been reducing and that the crowding has been dropping for decades, but it will almost certainly begin to rise again in due course. To facilitate that, multi-academy trusts should be prohibited from selling or disposing of any land or closing sites without the agreement of the local authority that has the legal duty for school places in the area.

I finish by thanking London Councils, and in particular the leader of one of my local authorities, Councillor Ian Edwards, who is the lead member for children’s services at London Councils, along with the officer team that have been supporting him. I place on the record my thanks to the leaders and members in Harrow and Hillingdon, particularly Councillors Hitesh Karia and Susan O’Brien, for their work. I also thank the hon. Member for Vauxhall again for securing the debate on this important issue.

On a positive note, this is an opportunity for us to thank the teachers and councils of London for the work they have done to ensure that this remains, to this day, one of the best cities in the world in which to get an education.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill (First sitting)

David Simmonds Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st March 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Before we hear from the witness, do Members wish to make any declarations of interest in connection with the Bill?

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I am an honorary fellow of Birkbeck, University of London.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I am an honorary governor of Middlesbrough College.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

2. What discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the provision of eye testing for children in special school settings.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

The NHS long-term plan will give children with special needs in residential special schools access to sight checks. In addition, my Department trialled a new scheme in mainstream schools last year, Glasses in Classes, which provides a spare pair of glasses for every child who needs one. I look forward to hearing from Durham University and the University of Bradford, which will be publishing their findings on that in due course. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), who is responsible for children, families and wellbeing, will continue to work closely on this issue with her counterpart in the Department of Health and Social Care.

[David Simmonds]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. My recent visit to the Eden Academy in my constituency illustrated the importance of vision to achieving educational outcomes. What plans are there across Government to ensure the availability of sufficient and appropriate eye testing, so that children in SEND day schools are able to achieve the best possible educational outcomes?

[Gillian Keegan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, as this issue is really important. My nephew has Down’s syndrome and wears glasses, so I know of its importance, and it was a privilege for me to support the Down Syndrome Act 2022 when I was in my previous role. Free NHS sight tests are available for all children under 16 or under 19 and in full-time education. Children can be supported to access high-street services or referred to the local eye service. The NHS is evaluating its proof-of-concept sight testing programme in special schools, and that evaluation will inform decisions about the funding and delivery of any future sight testing model.

School Sport Facilities: Reopening

David Simmonds Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ben Bradley]

I was not planning to go through everything we discussed in the previous sports debate, but we talked at length about that issue, and my right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the cost of running sports facilities, in particular swimming pools, is hugely challenging at present. The business energy support does not tackle that; it does not specifically help or offer that support for leisure facilities, and I have asked Ministers to look at that. I know my right hon. Friend has spoken about that, too. It would be great to see support come forward for such facilities, making them more accessible and affordable.

In light of that, the proportion of facilities that the public cannot access will be even higher than 45% now. I can think of multiple large secondary schools even in my constituency that have recently removed that access to sports facilities for communities because of additional costs post-covid; the commercial viability of running centres reduced because customers disappeared during covid, making them a drain on school budgets.

To give an example, Manor Academy in Mansfield Woodhouse closed its sports centre for community use post-covid. That is understandable; I am not going to point fingers at the school, because I understand why it feels that it should direct its funds towards the academics and the students, and that it is not its job to subsidise community leisure provision—it was losing money on it. I sympathise with that, therefore, and I am not here to assign blame, but we are 18 months on now, and still multiple football pitches, a hockey pitch—the only hockey pitch in Mansfield—an indoor sports hall and other facilities remain inaccessible.

As that hockey pitch remains closed, the hockey club remains effectively homeless. I have been trying to broker a solution between councils, the academy trust and North Notts Hockey Club, but it has been a real slog and has taken 18 months now. I think we are getting there, and I am hopeful that when we meet again in a few weeks we will have a solution to take forward, but, as I will discuss, the challenges and bureaucracy around trying to pull that together have been very difficult, and it should not be so hard when on the surface all partners involved want to make that happen.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech highlighting an important issue. Does he agree that it might be helpful if the Department for Education’s model lease for academies included a requirement that, where it can be done at no cost to the school, those taxpayer-funded sports facilities should be available for community use when not in use by the school?

[Ben Bradley]

That is certainly an option. Where taxpayers are funding those facilities, they should be able to use them. In cases such as Manor Academy, where schools do not feel able to do that, they could give the facilities back. Let the community or the district leisure trust run them—whoever is willing to open them up. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point.

What we have ended up with is, arguably, the best sports facilities in the Woodhouse area, which supported countless grass roots clubs, being there and visible—people know them and used to play on them—but not available. Meanwhile, we are short of hockey pitches—we have none—and of rugby and football pitches. All the major venues are full across the area—across the whole county in fact. I get grassroots clubs coming to me all the time seeking more capacity, particularly for football, although every school has a massive flat field that lots of people could play football on, if they were available.

Although we all think sport is very important, it is rarely the top priority in times of covid, cost of living, health and other crises—everything is a crisis—for any of the organisations such as schools, councils and Government, so it never makes it to the top of the to-do list. That is something that I am trying to shift in my own organisation, to make sure that provision for community sports services is top of its agenda. All the prevention stuff means that the council does not have to step in and sort everybody out later. Sports facilities are a real part of that, and I am asking the Minister to try to help me shift the dial in government. It is an issue that falls across Departments, and is never top of anybody’s list. We all talk about it, but we need to shift the dial.

The example at Manor Academy represents a missed opportunity to give a significant boost to grassroots sports, to meet some of that need, and obviously to access all the positive implications that has for the community, such as improved physical and mental health. In many cases, facilities already exist. Surely, common sense dictates that it would be quicker and cheaper to simply open up existing facilities than to build new ones, especially with the rising costs of capital projects. A small amount of infrastructure in terms of admin support for bookings would be enough at some sites; others might need advice on managing liability and insurance, and wading through the bureaucracy, which would allow clubs to take on management of facilities at weekends. Some sites might need a small amount of capital funding for a portacabin for some changing rooms separate to the school buildings, or gates and access arrangements might need to be sorted. Those things are not unachievable, but they can seem very difficult when partners need to be brought together to work towards that goal and wade through the legal stuff and everything else.

When clubs have some certainty for the long term, they can attract the funding for improvements from existing routes, such as Sport England, the Football Foundation or the county council’s local community fund. Some of that can be managed locally, and I volunteer my own council to manage it or pilot that administration if we can access support to ensure that we have the staff capacity up front. It does not need Government to do it, in that sense, but the Government’s help is needed to set the clear direction of travel. That could be by changing lease agreements to make sure that taxpayer-funded facilities are available to taxpayers, or by offering the capacity to get started—a bit of upfront support, with the proviso that the schemes have to become self-sustaining in the long term. Many of them could be, but they need an initial outlay on making them fit for purpose and managing administration, such as booking systems. In many cases it would be self-funding, but it needs support to get going. Given that it is a levelling-up outcome, as I have said, with disadvantaged communities often having least access, and that levelling up funds may be returned in coming months as rising costs make projects unviable—I have no doubt that we will see councils saying that they can no longer deliver some schemes— perhaps some of those funds could be repurposed to help with this.

Secondly, the Government need to be clear that they expect everyone to facilitate this—as my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) suggested—and be permissive when it comes to navigating the bureaucracy. Even though partners want to work together, the biggest barrier is the system—the perceived safeguarding implications for schools even on a weekend when nobody is there; legal teams stressing about insurance and who has liability if someone falls over; and local planners rejecting permissions for even the simplest things such as using sites for slightly different hours. We need to be clear with schools. Some do not see it as their job, understandably, others do not have capacity and others just will not help to get it going. It requires lots of partners to pull together in the same direction and all prioritise it at the same time, so it sometimes feels as though it is not doable. It should not take two years to sort a solution for Manor sports centre. The Government need to be clear, and to demand that taxpayer-funded facilities are available for taxpayers to use and that partners and stakeholders should facilitate that use and not put barriers in the way.

I have heard about an Opening School Facilities programme, but I cannot point to a practical example of where this has happened—I wonder whether the Minister can tell me about that. I have heard of pilot schemes to try to facilitate administration and bookings, as I have described. I spoke to the last but one sports Minister about those pilots, but I have not heard of any outcome or of what the next steps are. If Ministers want to help my council with some initial capacity, I will happily work with Government to get this up and running in Nottinghamshire and prove the case. Officials in the Department will, no doubt, point to some open process of pilot projects or whatever, but I am standing here volunteering, so if someone needs to pick a next step and give it a go, they should tell me what it is and I will work with Government to make that happen.

I hope the Minister can update me on what is happening with these programmes, particularly in the light of the new sports strategy—I know that that is not in her Department, but I understand that it will include plans on accessing facilities for grassroots sport. What is the next step in making this happen and ensuring that the sports facilities in our communities are not mothballed and are not unavailable for use, but are actually there for the community? How can I take that forward and ensure that Mansfield residents have full access to all the wonderful community spaces that they have often previously enjoyed but cannot now as they are locked away? I look forward to her comments.

Reform of Children’s Social Care

David Simmonds Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

Just so that everybody is clear, the actual amount that we spend on children’s social care is £10.8 billion—a lot of funding goes into children’s social care. As I said, Josh MacAlister has welcomed today’s announcement and the foundations that we are putting in place, but this is a two-year pathfinder to lay the foundations; his recommendations cover a five-year period. We intend to bring the recommendations forward quickly, and kinship carers are very much a priority.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, particularly the focusing of the Government’s efforts on what will make the biggest difference to the largest number of children. The Government’s intention is to go with the grain of the work done in the sector, which has led to the vast majority of English local authorities getting an above-the-line judgment from Ofsted. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most important things we can do is use the evidence, particularly from Government-funded What Works centres, so we know that money is being spent on things that will definitely make a difference in the lives of the most vulnerable children? With Sure Start, for example, a great deal of money was unfortunately squandered on things that did not make a transformational difference in children’s lives.

[Gillian Keegan]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There have been many attempts to do this, but the evidence gathered from Sure Start showed the programme was not always well directed and its interventions did not work very well. The What Works programme is important because it is not just about spending money or about buildings. It is about being led by the evidence of what works, and that is what we will be putting together.

Childcare: Affordability and Availability

David Simmonds Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Westminster Hall

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, once again this afternoon, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. It is also a pleasure to debate issues around childcare for the second time in fairly quick succession in Westminster Hall. I think that is helpful because it shows that, across the Chamber, as well as from the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), there is a great deal of interest in how we improve the care of our youngest citizens.

I thank the Minister for the personal interest that I know she has taken in this issue. It was a pleasure to welcome her to Harefield Infant School in my constituency, and to hear from a headteacher who is also very much engaged with the local children’s centre about the way in which parents interact with it—the journey that they go on from the moment their child goes through the door of the children’s centre, how they access childcare in the local area, and how the child develops to be, hopefully, school-ready. The headteacher also described how such settings, by working together in partnership, can address the kind of emerging issues that we have heard about. That may include special educational needs and disabilities, and safeguarding issues, which often first come to light when the child is in a formal setting.

It is perhaps worth my framing my contribution to the debate by saying that I have had the privilege of being a lead member for children’s services in a local authority, both under the previous Labour Government and in the years since 2010, with the election of the coalition and then a Conservative Government. I have had the opportunity to see how childcare policy in the UK has developed over those years. I think it is fair to say that in the Labour years, when attention to childcare was a relatively new thing from Government, the key focus was very much on the availability of the cheapest possible childcare in order to encourage women to rejoin the workforce.

Since the coalition was elected in 2010, there has been a much greater focus on not just availability to encourage people to go to work, but the quality of what happens in those settings. Examples of that include the development of the childcare workforce and a focus on qualifications, on the quality of the physical environment in particular settings, and on the way in which Ofsted regulates those settings to ensure that every childcare placement is not just safe, but an environment in which children can thrive. As the parent of two very young children—I am sure the hon. Member for Slough would acknowledge this—I can say that children are expensive, and delivering quality for them is even more expensive.

It is helpful to reflect on a number of the policies that the Government have introduced in the past few years that have gone to the heart of extending both the availability and the affordability of childcare. Both from a policy perspective and as somebody who has been through this as a parent of young children, I welcome the fact that the Government have focused on direct support for families and, particularly, working families through the advent of the tax-free childcare policy. Although it is right that the Government are now focusing on a programme to raise awareness of that policy among working parents and to increase its take-up, it has been enormously helpful in making access to childcare much more affordable for working parents.

There are some technical issues that could be addressed. The decision to use National Savings and Investments as the payment processing organisation for tax-free childcare accounts generally means that it takes a long time for a parent’s contribution to make its way to the childcare provider. That makes the process more difficult than a faster payments processing provider would when changes of arrangements need to be made at short notice—for example, when there are school holidays and changing work patterns. None the less, treating childcare in the same way as we incentivise people’s personal pensions or their saving to buy their first home, for example, by giving them tax relief is an important, valuable step. It is also reflected in the direct support that families receive through universal credit, although the points that the hon. Member for Slough made are important to bear in mind. The way in which that system works is worth considering.

Let me turn to the broader context of availability. For many years, local authorities have had a duty to secure both the availability and the supply of childcare in their local area, and to play a role in developing that market. It is important to be clear that local authorities are not the providers, but if we look at the London Boroughs of Hillingdon and of Harrow, which serve my constituency, both authorities have a families information service that parents can contact to find out where they can access a childminder or a nursery placement in their local area, and also access information about other issues to do with childcare. For example, if a child has special educational needs or disabilities, their parents might need to access a specialist organisation to guide that child on their journey, and the families information service can point them in the correct direction.

Many families will be able to access a proportion of free hours that increase as the child gets older. That does not just provide an effective subsidy to the hours that would otherwise be paid for by working parents, enabling them to top up from their tax-free childcare account, but means that a greater proportion of children in the lowest-income households can access that free childcare early. Those of us who are parents will have seen from the recent communications from our children’s schools that as we go into the Christmas holiday period, we are being made aware of what the local authority and other organisations are doing. Families that are eligible for the holidays activities and food programme are being alerted to it, and we are being alerted to what local authorities are doing about safeguarding through our schools, so that we know what to do should we have those urgent needs, or should our neighbours, friends and acquaintances require that support as the holidays get under way.

Moving towards a conclusion, although it is easy to criticise, we need to recognise that the focus on how we spend the money and how we ensure the highest possible quality in our nurseries and among our childminders has been a big benefit to childcare in the UK. The Government’s announcement of a substantial investment in the early years workforce is an important step in the right direction. The focus on Ofsted as the regulator of quality is significant, as is the developing evidence base from organisations such as the What Works centres funded by the Department for Education, which look at the best means of intervening to help children in the earliest years of their lives.

With respect to the ability to secure new infrastructure where a lack of buildings or physical capacity is a challenge—we aired that during the debate on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill last week—capital contributions by developers under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 can be used to create new early years and childcare facilities where that is a priority for a local area. Although that guidance is owned by the Department for Education and not the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, it remains in place so that new infrastructure measures envisaged in the Levellinyg-Up and Regeneration Bill will include the ability to use that money in the same way local authorities might use it to support police and law and order organisations in their local area.

It is clear that a number of different resources and steps are available on the capital side to help with the physical creation of new capacity. It is also possible to invest in the workforce to improve the quality of what is available, and introduce a broader set of policies with direct support to ensure that working families and parents have childcare available to them.

I will finish with a plea, once again, to recognise that, although research overwhelmingly shows that the money we spend in the earliest years has the biggest impact on outcomes in children, the way in which we distribute education funding still favours much older children. There needs to be a national debate about the fact that although everybody pays attention to GCSE results, it is the money spent on nought to five-year-olds that gives children the best possible chance when they are 16 and 18 and as they go into adulthood. We need to look at rebalancing the way we spend that money over time, so that we spend it where it has the greatest positive impact.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Coutinho]

As of last year, we had set out half a billion pounds of extra funding to go into the sector. We have also set up energy support, as I mentioned, which will help with the increased costs, which we know lots of providers are facing this winter. Of course I will continue to look at everything that I can do in this area and I am committed to ensuring we can make this work.

[David Simmonds]

The last year for which we have figures available shows that a total of £62 million in unspent funds was ringfenced within the dedicated schools grant for early years. That is money that the Government have made available that cannot be spent because the funding formula means that a council, for example, cannot reallocate it to increase the funding rate to its local settings and it can be spent only in accordance with the constraints of the national funding formula. While that would not go all the way towards bridging the gap, will the Minister consider looking again at the funding formula regulations, so that local discretion could allow funds that are already allocated to be redistributed in a way that might help address some of the policy issues that she has outlined?

[Claire Coutinho]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes a detailed and interesting point that I will take away. I will look at the underspend and see what can be done, and I will come back to him as soon as I can.

In addition to the 30 hours, we remain committed to continuing the universal 15 hours of free early education, which this year helped over 1 million children get a positive start to their education.

Government support for childcare is not limited to three and four-year-olds. In 2013, the Conservative- led coalition Government introduced 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds. Some 72% of disadvantaged two-year-olds were registered for a free early education place in January 2022, and over 1.2 million children have benefited since its introduction.

Following a consultation in May 2022, we extended eligibility for this entitlement to children in no recourse to public fund households; that was first implemented in September this year. I urge all hon. Members to encourage families from lower income backgrounds to take up that generous offer. Children who take it up do better at school and it gives them vital skills that set them up for life.

I recognise that childcare must be accessible to parents as well as affordable. That is why the Government continue to monitor the sufficiency of childcare to ensure that childcare places are easily available. The key measure of sufficiency is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children. Ofsted data shows that the number of places offered by providers in the early years register has remained broadly stable since 2015.

Under section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring

“that the provision of childcare…is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area”.

The Department has regular contact with each local authority in England, and if a local authority raises concerns about sufficiency issues we will, of course, support it with any specific requirements. We are currently seeking to procure a contract that will provide reactive and proactive support to local authorities in fulfilling their childcare sufficiency duties.

The majority of early years childcare places— 68% in England—are provided by private, voluntary and independent group-based providers who continue to provide high quality childcare for families. The number of places, as I said, has remained broadly stable, and 96% of those early years childcare providers are rated good or outstanding. That is testimony to the many people who work in that brilliant sector.

Once again, I thank the hon. Member for Slough for securing the debate. The early years sector is an integral part of our economy and education, so my Department treats any changes to the system carefully. Our childcare offer is co-ordinated with other Departments to allow parents a range of options, depending on whether they want their children to receive childcare in a formal, nursery-style setting or from a childminder in a home.

Finally, I reassure the hon. Gentleman, and all hon. Members present, that my Department continues to evaluate what more can be done to help parents access a childcare place that not only suits their working arrangements or family circumstances but gives their child a positive start to their education. I look forward to working with him in future to hear his further thoughts on making our childcare system the best it can be.