Post-16 Education: Isles of Scilly

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

I thank Mr Speaker for granting this debate on the cost of post-16 education for families on the Isles of Scilly. I have yet to stand up in this Chamber unless it is to raise an issue that has been raised directly with me by a constituent, and today is no exception. I rise to raise an issue that has been raised by not just one but several constituents. They are all parents, and they met me last month to set out their concerns.

The Isles of Scilly are unique in so many ways. They are situated just off Land’s End, and they are a beautiful part of the UK and a fantastic part of my constituency. I have often spoken in this Chamber about the unique environment on the islands, but the people of Scilly also face unique challenges—or almost unique. As I prepared for this debate, I found that there are in fact two local authority areas in this country with no sixth-form provision. One is the Isles of Scilly; the other is the City of London. So the situation is not unique; the consequences, however, are. Young people in the City of London can walk to a sixth form college or pay 85p for a bus ride; the buses are rarely cancelled because of stormy weather or high seas and, unlike the Scillonian ferry, they run all year round. More to the point, those young people can go home to their families at the end of each school day.

That option is not open to the families I met on Scilly. They know that they have to send their young people to stay on the mainland to fulfil the statutory requirements but, as one of my constituents told me,

“the decision about where to go was based on accommodation, not educational preference”.

The lucky ones could stay with family or friends on the mainland—I should perhaps say “the lucky one”, if the council’s unofficial survey is accurate—but everyone else had to choose between staying with a host family or in a boarding school. Last year’s Ofsted report on Scilly’s children’s services stated:

“To access…post-16 education children must live away from home on the mainland. This adds the potential for social, emotional and mental health challenges and additional safeguarding risks for some children.”

It is not surprising, but still shocking, that 20% of 16 and 17-year-olds from Scilly are not in education, employment or training, which is four times the national average and infinitely more than the City of London’s 0%. This is despite the fact that students from the Isles of Scilly consistently outperform students on the mainland in GCSE attainment.

The Council of the Isles of Scilly is responsible for the provision of compulsory education until the age of 18 and, like all local authorities, is expected to meet the costs of delivery from its own budget. The council is supported by post-16 travel and accommodation grants administered by the Education and Skills Funding Agency. The funding is currently £6,365 per student, which can go towards travel to and from the mainland and accommodation while studying. The actual costs are considerably more, and I am grateful to the parents of current students who have prepared very helpful figures that show just how much more they have to fork out for their children’s education.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. Does he feel it is immoral and wrong for a parent to have to pay for their children’s education when sixth-form education is free across the rest of this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? It is wrong that the parents and children of the Scilly Isles cannot have the same advantages as we have elsewhere.

[Derek Thomas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will be covering that injustice and how equality and levelling up really should apply, but I am pleased to know that there is someone else in the Chamber who also takes an interest in the Isles of Scilly. I appreciate that they are not everyone’s area of interest or expertise, but they are beautiful, remote islands. I am sure they are a holiday destination for many, but visitors do not always consider the challenges that people face.

As I was saying, the cheapest option for sixth-formers is staying with a host family, but even this costs more than the £6,300 grant, and it is increasing. That is without factoring in the cost of travel, with six return journeys a year, including transport on the mainland, costing £1,750 for each student on average. This does not include contingency for overnight stays when travel is disrupted, despite the high risk of the weather scuppering travel plans. And this weather disruption is not limited to the winter. Everyone in the Chamber will appreciate the difficulty of finding accommodation in a wonderful destination like Penzance at the peak of the tourist season. There are obvious safeguarding issues with young people staying on their own when their journey is disrupted.

Many parents are understandably reluctant to entrust their children to host families, who are currently unregulated. At an age when most young people are living with their parents, 16 and 17-year-olds from Scilly are living in digs. They lack the structure and support they need, in the absence of family and friends. Some hosts become like second families, but other parents have chilling stories.

One constituent told me that their child became very ill while living in host family accommodation. Nobody was aware, because nobody had pastoral oversight. Nobody noticed the student lose 1½ stone over a six-week half term, and he ended up with one A-level, having started doing five with top grade predictions. There are other cases where vulnerability, loneliness, isolation and naivety have placed students at risk that I cannot, of course, divulge in such a debate.

Colleges such as Truro and Penwith College, our excellent further education college in west Cornwall, and the main post-16 provider for Scilly, have concerns. They see how often this lack of support is reflected in poor attendance and work at school, and it can lead to students failing to complete their studies. According to the informal survey I mentioned, less than two thirds of children attending post-16 education completed their courses successfully.

Although colleges take seriously the challenges facing students who are required to leave Scilly to learn, their pastoral care is limited to their statutory role, which covers only the school day. Outside that period, which may be only 18 hours during a typical school week, students are left to their own devices. They may not have access to the support and extracurricular activities, such as sport and social clubs, that young people take for granted in the rest of the country.

For all those reasons, homestays are becoming less popular with families on Scilly; nearly half of students did this just three years ago but now just over a quarter do. The other option available to families is boarding school, where these young people have supervision and support. There are a number of state boarding schools in the south-west, but, as was hinted at in the intervention, although the education is free, the board and lodging is not. According to the parents’ figures, the shortfall can be as much as £13,000, including travel costs, per child. Again, that does not include contingencies or incidental expenses; many students never see their sixth forms until they arrive for the first time in September, as the cost of visiting beforehand is not covered by the grant and is just not achievable.

The cost of living is already high on Scilly, because of freight costs, and salaries are lower than average, yet families on Scilly are forced to pay for their 16 and 17-year-olds to have the same opportunities as anyone else. Furthermore, when their children have finished their A-levels and are thinking about higher education, families are already saddled with debt and reluctant to take on more. I am aware that the Department for Education is already reviewing the policy on Scilly post-16 education, but it is my understanding that a robust equalities impact assessment has not yet been undertaken by Government. It is, however, clear that families on Scilly do not have an equal access to post-16 education.

The Isles of Scilly Council, with which I have been working closely on this issue, has suggested a grant of £15,000 per student per year is required to ensure financial parity with those on the mainland and to meet the additional increased costs to enable the students to continue in their education or training. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that he will direct his officials in the Education and Skills Funding Agency to take Scilly’s unique challenges into consideration when assessing the size of the grant and to hasten a decision, as the next academic year is just four months away and decisions about the next stage of a child’s education are needing to be made imminently.

When I corresponded with the Minister’s predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), he made the point that young people all over the country have options to study in diverse and widespread locations, and it would not be “financially feasible” for local authorities to fund all the costs this involves. But families on Scilly do not have options: they have a straight choice between sending their children to a potentially unsafe environment or racking up thousands of pounds in debt. A number of parents told me they were considering leaving Scilly purely so that it was financially feasible to educate their children as the law required. The one thing everyone on Scilly would like to say to this House is that when families leave, it becomes difficult to maintain the services and all the things that are required to keep a community of about 2,200 people viable and going on a remote island setting such as Scilly.

The cohort over the next few years fluctuates from 15 to 32 students, so I submit to the Minister that it is not financially infeasible for the Department for Education to look seriously at the figure of £15,000 that the council has identified. We know that money allocated for Scilly in the Government’s levelling-up fund is not now going to be spent as intended; this would be an ideal opportunity for the Government to show their commitment to these unique islands and to their future as thriving communities.

Although the subject of this debate is the cost of post-16 education to families on Scilly, there are wider issues about how to ensure the welfare and wellbeing of Scilly’s young people so they can fully and appropriately engage with their education. The council needs the capacity to commission packages of support for students on the mainland where it is necessary. That could be through bespoke packages enabling them to return to mainstream tuition after a period of absence; or through the Future Foundations programme, which, as the Minister will know, empowers students to aim high and achieve their potential. The council aims to work with the multi-academy trust, of which the Five Islands Academy is a member, to provide opportunities for students to engage in extra-curricular activities. It also wants to work with voluntary organisations such as Action for Children and Young People Cornwall to improve the offer for post-16 students outside the hours of formal education. As I have hinted, there needs to be some money set aside for contingency.

These are not outlandish requests. All the officers at the Council of the Isles of Scilly want is to enable students to remain safe in an unfamiliar environment; to remain gainfully and safely occupied outside the times of formal education; to have and to maintain good mental health and wellbeing; and to thrive socially, emotionally and academically. These are not unique requirements—they are what we all want for our children and young people. There is no reason why parents on Scilly should not want the same. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on how he plans to ensure that the families on Scilly can have the same.