Childcare: Black Country

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

I will call Sonia Kumar to move the motion and the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the quality and availability of childcare in the Black Country.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. It is an honour to introduce this debate. I want to talk about the importance of high-quality and accessible childcare in the Black Country, a region that is rich in history, resilience and community spirit.

The Black Country, with areas such as Dudley at its heart, has always been a place where working families thrive, and where communities are built with hard work and strong values. For those families to thrive they need support, and childcare is a crucial part of the network for that. This is not just a family issue; it is also about children’s future in Dudley, our community strength and the local economy. Good affordable childcare supports parents in the workforce, boosts child development and helps build the foundation for a stronger society.

As of June 2024, Dudley has 45 registered childcare providers offering about 1,126 places for children under eight. Despite those numbers, much of the Black Country, including Dudley, is classified as a childcare desert. Families in the Black Country have long supported each other through community efforts but now face a lack of critical childcare options, with only 17 places per 100 children in Dudley. Those figures fall far below the national average of 25 per 100. Can Members imagine if every time they needed childcare, three out of every four doors they tried were shut? That lack of access leaves parents with fewer options and waiting longer, forcing them to make tough decisions about work and family care. The Black Country early years education sector faces unique challenges, especially for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The YMCA reports that over a third of children in its Black Country settings—34%—need additional support. That is significantly higher than the 13% in the most affluent areas of the UK, yet there is a shortage of resources, SEND assessments and funding, which limits vital one-on-one and specialist care. Without those early interventions, many children risk falling behind, underscoring the need for more targeted support in our community.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Member identifies important problems. There are important links between mental ill health prevalence and non-attendance. We will see benefits from the offer to all state schools and colleges of a grant to train a senior mental health lead, as well as the wider mental health support teams that I mentioned.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Early intervention is key. We need to look at what more can be done at primary school level because, although not entirely, often the signs are already there by the time children get to secondary school. Could the Minister say more on that? The transition from primary to secondary is also key, and we need to look at that.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely correct. It is important to consider the role of mental health in primary as well as secondary school. We put mental health education on the curriculum through relationships, sex and health education, and we are investing in the mental health support teams that I mentioned, as well as the training grants. Of course, some schools do the transition from primary to secondary very well. It can be an unsettling time for children, but also an exciting one, and it is important that we maximise those benefits. There is a lot of good practice out there.

School Attendance

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Mr Twigg, I am grateful to serve under your chairmanship, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) not only on securing this debate but on her excellent speech.

I attended the SEND Reform England event last week, which was a great opportunity to speak to specialists in the area. Its manifesto, which was circulated at the event, says that 24% of identified SEND pupils have an education, health and care plan, or EHCP, which meant 390,000 pupils in 2023. Additionally, it reports that 97% of school leaders think that funding for all SEND pupils is insufficient and 95% think that funding is insufficient for pupils with an EHCP.

During the covid period, I had weekly online meetings with county leaders and my fellow Gloucestershire MPs in which the challenges facing schools were often discussed. There was huge concern about some students dropping out of the system, not engaging with online learning through the lockdown period and not returning to schools when they fully reopened.

The hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) referred to a school in her constituency being closed through RAAC, which I sympathise with. Of course that situation—of school closure—applied to pupils across the entire United Kingdom when their schools were closed during covid, so I think we are all very familiar with the effects of schools being closed. Nevertheless, as I say, I sympathise with what happened in that school.

The overall absence rate for primary and secondary schools in Gloucestershire during the autumn term of 2022-23 was 7.3%. That compares with a 6.6% absence rate for the autumn term of 2021. Before the pandemic, the rate was consistently below 5%. This pattern of increased absence since the pandemic can be seen in national, statistical neighbour, and south-west groupings. According to the Government website, across England in both the autumn and spring terms of 2022-23, the overall absence rate was 7.3%, with 21.2% of pupils being persistently absent across those terms, meaning that they missed 10% of sessions or more—an exceptionally high percentage of students missing classes.

I, too, listened to the Minister for Schools, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), addressing the Chamber. He made the point that the data for persistent absenteeism will be published this Thursday. We do not know what that data will show; hopefully, it will show an improved situation.

Of course, pupils being persistently absent from school has a huge impact on their academic success, with just 11.3% of severely absent pupils achieving grades 9 to 4-4 being the pass grade—in English and maths, compared with 67.6% of all pupils. Although we cannot look totally at statistics in this debate, we can look at the social and mental impact of absenteeism on these pupils. As other Members, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford, have already said, I believe that being persistently absent from school will have similarly negative impacts on other aspects of a young person’s life.

I totally agree not only with what my right hon. Friend the Minister for Schools said in the main Chamber, but with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford. School is the best place to be to learn. For social development, for making friendships, and for overall physical development, it is much better that children are in school, rather than being absent.

During covid, I saw a considerable increase in casework on this issue, which sadly has continued in the years since. I am talking about parents getting in touch with me about children who are long-term absent from school, and asking me to help them to engage with schools on how to move forward with their children’s education. Those cases were usually exacerbated by complex mental health issues and educational needs that made regular attendance more challenging. In liaising with parents and schools, it became clear that the relationship had completely broken down in many cases, with the students being the ones to ultimately suffer. Teachers were being overextended on what they could achieve. Understandably, with the pressures of trying to teach during lockdowns, they simply did not have the capacity to provide the extensive support needed by some pupils, while parents felt overwhelmed in dealing with their children’s educational needs without support.

Ultimately, as my right hon. Friend said, the legal responsibility for pupils attending school falls on the parents. Unfortunately, because of often complicated socioeconomic factors and individual family challenges, a considerable number of families are simply unable or unwilling to engage fully with their children’s educational needs. We should not allow those children to fall out of the education system. I agree with my right hon. Friend and others and, indeed, the Minister for Schools, who said in the main Chamber that we should have a compulsory register for home education, so that we can see whether children are being educated at home or whether they are absent from school, and then we can take the necessary measures to do something about it.

Growing demand for mental health services and SEND support centres creates additional pressure, compounding a problem that became far worse during the lockdown period. The Education Committee examined this problem, launching its inquiry into persistent absence and support for disadvantaged pupils in January 2023. Another report, published in September, made a number of recommendations, including a review and possible abolition of fines, which it found made little or no impact on long-term absenteeism, the urgent need to improve school-level attendance monitoring, and the need for investment in SEND and child and adolescent mental health services—CAMHS—which it concluded are significant factors in the attendance crisis.

The Government are increasing the direct support offered to children and their families with the expansion of the attendance mentor pilot programme. With an investment of up to £15 million over three years, that programme will provide direct, intensive support to more than 10,000 persistent and severely absent pupils and their families. I think that the Minister for Schools said in the main Chamber where it is being expanded to, and I am pretty sure that I heard that it is expanding to the area of the hon. Member for City of Durham, but she will no doubt correct me if that is wrong.

The Government have also produced a toolkit for schools, providing tips and evidence-based, adaptable templates for communicating with parents and carers, as well as the plan announced last year to expand attendance hubs, delivering 18 new hubs. This is a knowledge and practice-exchange initiative, taking the lead from those schools with excellent attendance records to introduce engagement initiatives such as breakfast clubs and extracurricular activities or to improve an individual school’s attendance data. I have just listened to the Minister for Schools outline a compendium of measures to help pupils to return to school.

On a county level—

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

Order. The sitting is suspended for 15 minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

The debate may continue until 5.45 pm.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful for your forbearance, Mr Twigg, given the debate in the main Chamber, and I am delighted to be able to resume my speech.

Just to quickly recap the last bit of my speech, before we had to suspend the sitting I was praising the Government for their attendance monitoring pilot programmes and particularly for delivering 18 new attendance hubs, which are doing much of what the private Member’s Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) aims to do, disseminating best practice among all the agencies, and teachers and parents—everybody involved—to try and deal with the problem of absenteeism. I therefore wholly support her Bill.

At county level, Gloucestershire County Council provides support, advice and guidance for schools through the team of inclusion officers. This includes a specialist attendance officer who can support more targeted intervention work where needed. Leveraging technology to improve engagement and accessibility is also essential. Online learning platforms, digital resources and interactive teaching methods can cater to diverse learning styles and help to ensure that students remain connected to their studies, even in challenging circumstances that prevent them from attending in person.

As I and so many others have said, it is vital we do not allow students to be left behind. Regardless of how complex the reasons for long-term absence on an individual level, all children deserve a chance to have the educational, social and physical opportunities that schools have to offer. From my constituency cases, it is clear that many parents need the additional support of schools and others to assist with their children staying in education. By investing in early intervention, mental health support, addressing socioeconomic disparities and embracing technological advancements, we can all work towards creating an education system that is inclusive, supportive and ensures that every child has the opportunity to realise their full potential.

On Friday, I visited Andoversford Primary School in my constituency to speak to the headteacher about the challenges facing the school. It was an excellent visit and a good chance to speak to teachers, pupils and parents. While the Government have announced record funding for schools, with The Cotswolds in particular set to benefit from an increase of £1.5 million in 2024-25 compared with 2023-24, it is important to see what is happening on the ground in schools.

The headteacher I met had enough money for her basic teaching. Yet she made the point that in a small rural school, there was very little money left for the other things, such as cleaning, maintenance, the caretaker and the administrator—all the different functions any school has to fulfil—and that a small school with very limited money for overheads is particularly disadvantaged in that respect. The headteacher also made the point that concerns revolved around the number of pupils attending the school overall—there are lots of small schools in the area—and how small village schools often do not bring in enough pupil funding to cover running costs and ensure they have administrators, caretakers and cleaners.

Particularly relevant to this debate, however, the headteacher also mentioned an increase in pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, and she said how extremely difficult it is to get an EHCP statement in Gloucestershire. In fact, in the school I visited, there were no pupils with a statement at all. Although the pressure on SEND overall is there, as a country, I think there is a bit of postcode lottery in pupils being able to get statements, and we need to address that.

I look forward to what the Minister has to say. In addressing the whole problem of absenteeism, we have to work closely with the local education authorities and the Department of Health and Social Care to deal not only with pupils who do not have a statement, but with others who have severe mental health problems. That way, we can see—with increasingly better knowledge, thank goodness—how we can help children and pupils with those complex problems.

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[Vicky Ford]

Will the hon. Lady give way again?

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Lady is not giving way.

[Helen Hayes]

I am going to make some progress, I am afraid. I will not give way again.

We need a comprehensive strategy for addressing the complex issue of persistent absence. Labour will empower Ofsted to review absence as part of the annual safeguarding spot checks. The outdated and dreaded Ofsted inspection regime urgently needs reforming; one-word judgments are unhelpful for parents and put unnecessary stress on teachers and other school staff. So, as part of a series of reforms to Ofsted inspections, we will introduce annual school checks covering persistent absence, among other areas.

Absence rates among children with special educational needs and disabilities are particularly high. Labour will ensure that mainstream schools are inclusive, making inclusivity part of the Ofsted inspection framework, and introducing a new annual continuing professional development entitlement for teachers that can be used to boost their expertise to teach children with SEND. Good mental health and wellbeing is also vital for school attendance, and Labour will ensure that there is mental health support available in every school and that children and young people have an open-access mental health hub in every community.

Labour will reform the curriculum to deliver a better foundation in reading, writing and maths. We will ensure that children do not miss out on music, sport, art and drama, keeping schools a happy and joyful place to be, making children want to come to school—to enjoy it, not to dread it.

Urgent action is needed now to bring down the rates of school absences. Labour’s projections, using data from the Department for Education, suggest that the number of children persistently absent from school will rise to more than 2 million in 2025-26 under current trends. That is more than one in four children and young people across the country. We face a lost generation missing from Britain’s schools—a tragic example of national decline under this Government. We desperately need a Government who will put children first: one who will prioritise education, as Labour did when we were last in government. Labour has a vision for education and a plan to deliver a world-class education for every child, giving schools the right tools to deliver it.

But to break down those barriers to opportunity, our children need to be in school. That is why this debate is so important, and why we need a Labour Government to tackle the problem. In the short term, it is so disappointing that the right hon. and hon. Members on the Government Benches failed to support the Opposition’s motion this afternoon to bring forward the Children Not in School (National Register and Support) Bill in February. There is not a moment to lose to secure the future of children across the country, and we will support every effort to deliver that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; I think he has time. Will he address the problem that I mentioned at the end of my speech, which was about the liaison between local education authorities and the Department of Health and Social Care, and mental health trusts in particular? In Gloucestershire, the waiting lists for children with mental health problems are extremely long. We really need to do better by our young people.

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

I am sure the Minister is aware that he should leave a minute or two for the right hon. Member for Chelmsford to wind up.

[Robert Halfon]

Yes. I will finish in a couple of minutes. The “health” part of an education, health and care plan is fundamental. I absolutely agree that co-operation work needs to go on, and a lot of work is going on to ensure that the H part of an EHC plan does exactly as he describes.

The legacy of the pandemic means that absence levels are still too high. Improvements have been made, but there is a lot of work to do. Too many children are missing out on the opportunities that regular school attendance provides, but I reassure pupils, parents, teachers, local authorities, and health and other partners that we remain committed to working with them to tackle the issues through our “support first” approach, building on the strengths of the current system and the success that we achieved together prior to the pandemic.

Being in school has never been more valuable, with standards continuing to rise. I thank our brilliant teachers, heads and everyone who has worked with us—in Essex, in Chelmsford, in my own constituency of Harlow, in the Cotswolds, in Durham, in the Isle of Wight and in the other constituencies across the country—because the teachers and support staff are the people responsible who are doing so much to make sure that we make progress on this very difficult issue.

STEM Subjects: Science and Discovery Centres

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) on securing this important debate.

The Catalyst Science Discovery Centre in my constituency is a unique hybrid, combining a museum and a science centre. It plays an important role in promoting STEM—the fields of science, technology, engineering and maths—and learning to young people. I will concentrate mainly on that in my speech today, but we also have the brilliant Sci-Tech Daresbury in the borough of Halton as well.

Catalyst is on the cusp of dramatic changes that will transform lives and create a new and exciting visitor attraction for the north-west of England and beyond. It will have a Liverpool city region-wide impact, and draw in visitors from across the country and internationally. I am pleased that the city region Mayor, Steve Rotheram, is a huge supporter of Catalyst.

It all began in 1982 with an exhibition in the old town hall in Widnes to celebrate 100 years of the Society of Chemical Industry. The museum finally opened in the old Gossages building in the West Bank area of Widnes in 1989 as the Museum of the Chemical Industry. The Catalyst building stands tall on the banks of the River Mersey, looking towards Runcorn and close to our three magnificent bridges—the silver jubilee bridge, the new and huge Mersey gateway and the historic railway bridge. A stunning glass observatory was added to the top of the Catalyst building, giving spectacular views across the Mersey. It has a unique collection and has won many awards over the years.

The Mersey is about much more than just Liverpool. The heritage of the towns of Runcorn and Widnes, and their chemical industry, is tied to that great river, just as much as the city of Liverpool. There is a strong case that in Widnes and Runcorn we saw the birth of the chemical industry in the UK, an industry that since the 19th century was responsible for many innovations, inventions and products that improve all our lives.

ICI became the largest Halton chemical company, but it has now gone. Today, the largest chemical company is INEOS, whose operations at the Runcorn site are of strategic national importance to the UK and which is also a strong supporter of Catalyst. For a long time the chemical industry provided thousands of jobs, many taken up by immigrant workers, mainly from Ireland and eastern Europe, as well as workers from other parts of the UK moving to Halton. In fact, my own family’s heritage has huge connections to Ireland and many of my relatives worked for ICI, including my dad who was a process worker. The industry also brought its problems, with dangerous working conditions and pollution. Catalyst does not shy from that part of our heritage.

The chair of the friends of Catalyst, my constituent Professor David Hornby from the department of molecular biology and biotechnology at the University of Sheffield, wrote to me and said:

“The Catalyst SD&HC is a unique repository of historic documents and artefacts relating to the Industrial Revolution in the UK. The contribution of the Chemical Industry sector to the UK’s dominant global economic position over the period up to and including WWII is remarkable in itself.

In addition, following Fleming’s discovery of antibiotics and Florey and Chain’s translation of penicillin for the treatment of bacterial infections, the Chemical Industry paved the way for the Pharmaceutical sector, which remains one of the UK’s most lucrative sectors. Without which, the battle to overcome the current pandemic would have left the UK (and the world) much more exposed.”

So, no Brunner Mond, no ICI; no ICI, no AstraZeneca. He went on to say:

“The parallels between the last 50 years in Silicon Valley, California and the first 50 years of Halton’s chemical industry are compelling.

Both have arisen from the coalescence of a small group of highly educated and cultured pioneering individuals around a set of favourable geographical and logistical factors together with the rapid deployment of a largely migrant workforce.”

The conversion of Catalyst’s paper archive into a digital one is critical to secure the amazing legacy of the place for the future. I pay tribute to the museum’s trustees and friends group and the staff who have worked tirelessly over the years to keep it going through many financially challenging times. I pay special tribute to Chris Lewis, who recently stepped down but was the longstanding and highly effective chair of the friends of Catalyst.

On what Catalyst can do to promote STEM, I could not do better than quote Dr Diana Leitch MBE, chair of the trustees of Catalyst and one of its most longstanding supporters. She says:

“We at Catalyst strive to inspire younger generations to become scientists and engineers and believe in themselves and their futures through improving their education and their well-being.

By a combination of heritage and vision of the future, we can achieve much and put the Catalyst as a ‘Visitor Experience’ at the heart of Halton and NW England’s great developments.”

It is important that funding is secured for Catalyst’s future. Last year, the Government awarded it a grant of £162,000 as part of the £1.57 billion culture recovery fund, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund awarded it £8,600. However, it continues to face a real financial challenge. Martin Pearson, its chief executive, told me:

“We play an active role in supporting all the STEM subjects that schools do not have the ability to teach any more and work closely with industry partners to stimulate young people into work in our area.

However, being an independent Science Centre and Museum means we are totally reliant on visitor income and local company sponsorship. Our own estimates show that the income stream for 2021/22 will be 50% of that in the 2019 pre-Covid year. We are not out of the woods yet. We employ 18 staff and have a small but dedicated group of volunteers.”

Catalyst is a brilliant interactive museum and science centre. It is vital to our heritage and to encouraging future generations of our young people to take up careers in science, research and engineering, and we need to support it. I leave the final words to Professor David Hornby, who wrote to me and said:

“It seems to me to be vital not only to acknowledge the importance of Halton to this country’s manufacturing past but to support the Catalyst in stimulating a younger generation to become creative scientists who will be vital to this country’s future success.”

Educational Settings: Reopening

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend is right to raise these issues, as he always does. We continually talk to stakeholders and advisory groups, and we discuss all options for how to open schools when the scientific advice says that it is safe to do so.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab) [V]]

I would like to put on record my thanks to the teachers and support staff in schools for the tremendous job they are doing at the moment. Some teachers who have covid-19 are absent for not just a few days but many weeks. Will the Minister ensure that when schools reopen, resources will be available to cover long-term staff absence, to ensure that children do not fall further behind?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman is right to pay tribute to the teachers and staff in our schools. Sunday was International Education Day, and we should be paying tribute to staff in our schools, further education colleges, universities and early years settings. We should also pay tribute to parents during this time and to the resilience of children and staff. We monitor staff absence rates in our schools, and the regional schools commissioners’ offices will offer help and support to schools that are suffering excessive or high rates of staff absence due to covid.

Further Education Funding

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Westminster Hall

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

I thank the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) for having secured this important debate. I pay tribute to all the local colleges in the north-east and especially Sunderland College—I regularly meet its representatives, who do such a great job with ever-decreasing budgets.

Between 2010-11 and 2017-18, spending on further education and skills fell by £3.3 billion in real terms. At the same time, employers are reporting another rise in the number of vacancies they are facing as a result of skills shortages. To bridge the skills gap, further education needs investment. However, over the past 10 years colleges have had to deal with an average funding cut of 30%, while at the same time costs have risen dramatically. Funding for adult education has been cut by 62% since 2010.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I am fortunate to have a good college, Riverside College, in my constituency. However, one thing that concerns me about the cuts and the impact of the funding problems with colleges is that adult education, which my hon. Friend just touched on, is a second chance for many people who may not have done well at school. They have another opportunity through further education to do better. We need more support for that.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Absolutely. In the past 10 years, we have seen enrolments for adult education drop from 5.1 million to 1.9 million. Funding for students aged 16 to 18 has also been cut by 8% in real terms since 2010. The current base for 16-to-18 education is just £4,000 a year, as it has been since 2013, with no increase.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

Once again I will not be drawn on football, I am afraid.

As I pointed out to the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), there is a post-18 review going on, and we are looking at the resilience of the FE sector, which includes sixth-form colleges. Opposition Members are banging their knees, but I am very aware of the funding pressures. I praise all those teaching in the sector, as they are doing an excellent job. There is more money available, including the additional £600 per person per annum for maths and the bursary funds that I mentioned. I have heard the hon. Lady’s point, and I am aware of the excellent job that sixth forms do with quite constrained finances.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of outcomes for children in need.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

Of course, this is not a new issue; we are simply shining a light on it. We recently published extensive data showing the poor educational outcomes for children in need. A call for evidence has been launched to develop our understanding. My Department is also working with three What Works centres to build our national evidence base on improving those outcomes.

[Derek Twigg]

That was a bit of a poor answer. The number of children’s centres has halved since 2010, 350 Sure Start centres have closed, children’s services departments in local authorities are struggling with budgets and getting enough staff, and more children are being taken into care, so that answer is quite frankly not good enough. What are the Government going to do to ensure that we have more early intervention to prevent those problems from happening in the first place?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

We are determined to close the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers. The early years are crucial to getting that right. The gap continues to narrow, having gone from 19 to 17 percentage points. In our ambitious £800 million plan, “Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential”, we committed £100 million of investment to help close the gap further. Councils decide how they use children’s centres in the overall provision, and I have seen great work being done in Wigan, Hackney and Staffordshire. It is not simply about bricks and mortar.

Schools Update

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend will know that the original consulted formula looked at how schools in more sparsely populated areas could cope effectively and at how we would cope with housing growth when it takes place. I have said that I will respond more fully to the consultation in September, and that response will cover all those points, but he is right to put the issues on the table. We will think carefully about them.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Many of the primary schools in my constituency are planning to cut staff and, under the new schools funding formula, all but one of our secondary schools will have big cuts in their budgets. If this new formula and the new settlement are so good, will that no longer have to happen?

[Justine Greening]

The amount of money that the hon. Gentleman’s local authority will get in the coming two years will not see any cuts. In fact, as I have said, a 0.5% increase per pupil will be allocated to that community. I reiterate that this is indeed a better settlement for those schools than would have been the case had his party won the election.

Maintained Nursery Schools Funding

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I have heard some excellent speeches today but I want to give particular credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for her excellent speech.

Halton is the 27th most deprived borough in the country, and its maintained nursery schools are important not only to the general population but for the difference they make for children from deprived and poorer backgrounds. They can identify at a very early age children who will struggle all the way through school and the rest of their lives. They are particularly good at that. My constituency has three maintained nursery schools: Birchfield Nursery School, Warrington Road Nursery School and Ditton Nursery School. All of them have been in existence in Widnes for 75 to 80 years to support children’s early education and parents value them greatly. The headteachers have told me that they are extremely worried that the schools may not exist for much longer if the national early years funding formula goes ahead as planned. Early Education forecasts that 67% of nurseries will be unsustainable after transitional funding finishes.

The evidence is clear that the quality of early education makes the most difference in raising achievement for the most disadvantaged children. That justifies such large Government investment in early intervention. Quality is determined by the qualifications of early years staff and teachers. Nursery schools in Halton employ well-qualified and highly experienced headteachers and assistant headteachers, as well as taking on and mentoring newly qualified teachers who work with them as early years specialists. They also have a number of staff members with early years degrees, a qualified early years teacher and special educational needs co-ordinators who are qualified and experienced teachers who have offered support across other settings and enabled transitions and planning to take place to support the most vulnerable children. Again, early intervention is crucial.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for taking an intervention and apologise, Ms Dorries, for not being here at the start of the debate. My constituency is very different to my hon. Friend’s, but it has the Fields Children’s Centre, which I have visited over many years. Does he agree that the work being done in this area is about far more than just childcare?

[Derek Twigg]

My hon. Friend is right. A whole sphere of things can make a difference. I will come back to that later in my speech, but he makes a very good point.

Halton is one of the 25% of councils that will lose money for early years in the revised formula. At present, early years is a priority for Halton and we feel there should be funding to support it—early years has always been a priority in Halton. The 2015 Ofsted early years report endorses the consistent evidence of other national research that the most effective early education is provided by such nursery schools. Over the past five years maintained nursery schools in Halton have annually increased the average points progress made by children in all settings. We can demonstrate outstanding progress for children with special educational needs and disabilities, English as an additional language and those children entering our schools with low levels of personal, social and emotional development—that is really important—communication and speech.

The headteachers in my constituency believe strongly that nursery schools are in jeopardy all over the country because the qualifications of staff and the leadership of headteachers mean that they cost more than any other sort of nursery. The current system of funding early education, or what seems to be now called childcare, assumes that what every nursery offers is broadly the same, but it is not. They cannot be funded in the same way because maintained and private provision have completely different structures. I hope the Government will understand and address that.

Nursery schools lead to the kind of outstanding early years education we want for every child in our country. They play a key role in supporting training in the early years sector including work placements, initial teacher training, qualified teacher status and postgraduate certificate in education placements. Nursery headteachers and staff want to be supported to operate as system leaders for the future to ensure that early years professionals continue to have quality training and development and are able to have a positive impact on young children’s learning.

The recent consultation showed no awareness of the reality of the funding crisis for maintained nursery schools, or of their remit and impact. Proposals should be founded upon research and a commitment to developing early years leadership. One headteacher told me:

“The consultation largely ignored social return on investment and places no weighting on rewarding those organisations mainly schools who have a statutory and moral imperative to support their communities.”

The proposed funding reform would effectively eradicate such nurseries, losing knowledge specialism and damaging the life chances of our most vulnerable children. Nurseries want reassurances from the Minister that the transitional funding mentioned in the consultation will get through to nursery schools and will be sufficient to keep them running while we move towards a new system and leadership model.

I recently asked my local authority, Halton Borough Council, about its view of the situation. People there told me that they will not know the final figures until they receive the census information in February. However, previous estimates based on this year’s funding show that the three nursery schools—even after applying the higher base rate for the maintained nursery schools—will face a shortfall for 2017-18. That takes into consideration the additional protection that nursery schools will receive. Halton Borough Council can only provide the higher base rate for one year, so the shortfall could rise in 2018-19 to £130,000. When the transitional protection is removed in two years, the shortfall could increase to between £160,000 and £190,000. Although the council is working with nursery schools on models and options to reduce the cost, it will struggle to save £130,000-plus, which might mean that it can no longer afford to retain our nursery provision. That is how serious the situation is in Halton, where securing good-quality early years provision is a particular challenge. If Halton ends up having to look at closure, it will be a considerable loss.

Before I conclude, I want to quote the headteacher at Ditton Nursery School, who told me:

“We have a higher base rate for next year (18-19) plus transitional funding for the following year. When this finishes we will have seen our individual budgets cut by between £50,000-60,000 but we have already cut staffing down to a minimum and although looking at a federated model are not sure we will be sustainable when additional funding finishes…Nursery schools drive high quality pedagogy across the sector. We provide outstanding support for Special Educational needs and disadvantaged children thus supporting their learning chances later in education. We offer partnership, innovation and system leadership within the sector, and also support Initial Teacher Training for Early Years. This would all be lost if we closed. We need to ensure that we retain high quality Early years staff to work with our children—they deserve the best.”

I stress that—they deserve the best. The headteacher continued:

“This is difficult when facing such uncertainty. We want to retain quality staff to ensure the best outcomes for our children.”

I recently visited Birchfield Nursery School and talked to the headteacher there. I was so impressed by what was going on; there was a range of support for young people in education and play, and so on. The right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) made a very important point. Nurseries have seen an increase in the number of children who not only do not know how to play, but perhaps more surprisingly, are not able to speak at the age at which they should be able to start speaking. All the headteachers I spoke to said that. Even more surprisingly, that is the situation not just among poorer children, but across the sphere when it comes to talking and play. They said that children are told, “Get on and play with that,” and although most parents are still fantastic at helping their children to talk and at developing their education, a growing number of parents are not. The lack of parents talking and playing with their children is becoming a major problem for some schools. Dealing with that requires extra money and extra effort, and the schools are then making the difference, not some of the parents. Obviously they try and encourage parents to play with and speak to the children more—to have more conversations with them—but it is sometimes an uphill struggle. That is partly because of the nature of the society we live in, but in this respect nurseries are making a real difference to our children, particularly in deprived areas. That intervention is so crucial to helping children’s life chances. Maintained nursery schools have that impact because of the nature of teachers’ qualifications and experience, and because of how they work together.

I therefore urge the Minister to reconsider the plans. The real problem is that the Government are cutting education and funding, and they need to rethink that. She shakes her head, but she should talk to the headteachers. They tell me what is going on in their schools. This is not me making a political point; it is what headteachers tell me, so the Government need to think again about funding. At the end of the day we cannot lose these fantastic maintained nurseries—we must do all that we can to keep them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Dinenage]

Thank you, Ms Dorries. Members will also know that I have committed supplementary funding for maintained nursery schools of £55 million a year. That is not for two years, as the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) misquoted, but until at least the end of this Parliament, so that current funding rates can be maintained. It will be £56 million this year. I cannot remember who it was, but one Opposition Member said that we need to spend more money and that we are doing it on the cheap. I would like to take a moment to think about that figure: £6 billion a year is a huge amount and is taxpayers’ money, but it is the right amount and it reflects the Government’s commitment to providing the high-quality, affordable childcare that hard-working parents need.

[Derek Twigg]

I am intrigued by the Minister’s view on funding. Why do head teachers write to me saying that they have real concerns about massive funding cuts to their budgets?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am more than happy to speak to the hon. Gentleman and any concerned providers in his constituency. We took a view to try to make the funding fairer across the country. We have also set in place a 95% pass-through rate, so that 95% of the money that local authorities get will go on to providers, and that will help. In some cases, local authorities were keeping back up to 30% of the funding.

I need to make some progress. We know that for historical reasons there were clearly unfair and unjustifiable funding differences between areas and between different types of providers. That is why we introduced the fair funding formula which maximises the amount passed on to providers while ensuring that all local authorities are adequately funded to secure sufficient early education, including that provided by maintained nursery schools. I recognise that nursery schools have costs over and above other providers because of their structures and because of the nature of the communities they serve. That is exactly why I announced the additional £55 million a year for local authorities to allow them to maintain existing levels of maintained nursery school funding at least until the end of this Parliament. The Opposition spokesperson asked me how that money will be distributed. It will go to the local authorities, with the presumption that 100% of it will be passed on to the maintained nursery schools. It will not be part of the 95%.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) asked about SEND funding. In our early years national funding formula response, we said that through legislation we are requiring local authorities to set up a SEN inclusion fund and publish the eligibility criteria and value of that fund at the start of the year. It will be a local decision on eligibility, but it will be made in consultation with the local early years provider. It should be focused on low levels and emerging SEN, so that we do not have the issues with having to wait so long to prove that children are eligible.

Looking ahead, Members have asked me to share what I see as my future priorities for nursery schools. Those have developed out of the conversations and discussions I have had with head teachers, staff and early years experts, and they build on examples of innovation and partnership working that many, but not all, nursery schools currently demonstrate. Nursery schools should focus on the needs of disadvantaged children and children with special educational needs and disabilities, but all of them can drive early years system improvement by providing pedagogical leadership. We can work in partnership with other local childcare providers, including childminders, to deliver better quality and practice. We can maximise the use of their skills, experience and resources to become more sustainable.

As Members know, we have committed to consulting openly on the future sustainability of nursery schools. That is the right approach. Nursery schools operate within a changing world and it is important to recognise that it might not be the case that nursery schools should provide more of the same, and in the same way. We need to ensure that they are focused on where they can have the greatest impact. The landscape for the delivery of children’s services is evolving. Partnership working is the norm in many areas, but practice is variable. Some local authorities, but not all, make full use of their nursery schools by commissioning services and asking them to co-ordinate or deliver quality improvement for their areas. System leadership of that sort makes very good use of nursery schools’ expertise and experience, and I want to encourage more of that.

However, some local authorities hardly engage with their nursery schools, leaving them isolated rather than drawing on the expertise and specialist resources they offer. The schools landscape is changing as more secondary and primary schools opt to convert to academy status and join multi-academy trusts. Moreover, all public bodies, including schools, are grappling with tight budgets. That will mean looking at how to deliver better value for money and getting the balance right.

We have a lot to bear in mind as we consider the future, but I think that we are coming from a strong starting point, given the tremendous track record nursery schools have in delivering rich learning experiences and high-quality early education to disadvantaged children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities. Our consultation will explore the vision in more detail, including the best ways to bring it about. I hope that those in the sector will take part and share their experience, wisdom and views with us once the consultation is launched. They certainly have not been shy in sharing those views with me so far. I appreciate it, and I sincerely hope they will continue to be honest and frank with me as we move forward together. The steps I have outlined will ensure the continuation of the important contribution that nursery schools make to the early years sector and the future opportunities of young children in deprived areas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend is right. Authorities around the country, particularly those in the f40 group, have been underfunded for many years. As I said to the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), we were the first Government to grasp the nettle and introduce a much fairer system to replace those historic, anachronistic and unfair national funding formulas.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Following last week’s announcement of the proposed funding formula, may I ask the Minister how it will help us to recruit and retain teachers, given that all but one of the secondary schools in my constituency will lose money as a result of the formula?