Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes a point that is both salient and persuasive. The Government need no persuading, however, that STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—matters. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spoke earlier of our work with university technical colleges, which were originally devised by Rab Butler, a great Education Secretary, and driven by the noble Lord Baker, who was another. We have delivering that policy a third great Education Secretary in the making, who is sitting next to me.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Was any assessment undertaken of the approach taken by business education partnerships? In my area, the Humber, we had an excellent business education partnership, and most of the business leaders who sat on it are distraught that its funding was withdrawn without any notice at all.

School Food

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, that was the previous Labour Government’s conclusion, which was based on schemes such as those piloted in Hull by the former Labour council. That scheme was scrapped by the incoming Liberal Democrat council, which thankfully has been kicked out of office—and rightly so if those are its priorities. Such schemes were also piloted in the city of Durham. The previous Labour Government had also found my hon. Friend’s point to be true, which is why we were going to extend the provision of free school meals.

Yes, the deficit is an issue. I sometimes wish that Government Members would change the stuck record on the deficit. We knew, back when we were in office, that there was a looming deficit, which is why we had a deficit reduction plan. My right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), whom I had the great privilege of serving as Parliamentary Private Secretary when he was Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, probably knew better than anyone else the requirements of deficit reduction. The real issue is our priorities in dealing with deficit reduction. Of course, we had a credible plan to halve the deficit in this Parliament. Even with that deficit reduction plan, we were going to extend the entitlement to free school meals beyond the pilots.

At the general election, the Minister also had a plan to halve the deficit. However, her priorities changed when she entered the Government, because she has now signed up to a neo-conservative deficit reduction plan to eliminate the deficit. Of course, that raises issues of priorities in her Department. Eliminating the deficit means that those pilots for free school meals cannot now take place.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech this morning. Are we storing up trouble for the future by not investing in our young people now and making sure that they are eating healthy school meals, by not investing in the free school meals pilots and by not looking at the evidence? The long-term implications are that the health of the nation will not improve and that the educational achievement of some of our children will not improve. The Government have failed to address that issue, because of their narrow focus on deficit reduction.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is correct, which allows me to move neatly on to the next part of my contribution. As she has rightly said, showing and informing children about nutritious and healthy meals will clearly help in the battle against childhood obesity. Education and the health of our children are hugely important. It is estimated that obesity and associated conditions such as diabetes cost the NHS £3.5 billion a year, and that figure is set to rise. This is therefore a cost worth paying to save money in the long run. Even at a time when the deficit needs to be cut, we cannot forget the social implications of the Government’s decisions. If we want to reduce the attainment gap, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) has said, we must ensure that all children at school are given an equal chance. We know that free school meals contribute enormously to reducing attainment gaps, because they help children from low-income backgrounds, who may not have good nutrition, to concentrate more in the classroom.

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[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to curry favour. [Laughter.]

[Diana Johnson]

I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend talk about his culinary skills, but I wonder whether we should recognise in particular that being able to cook a nutritionally balanced meal is a basic life skill that everyone should have. School and education should instil such basic life skills in young people, as much as the ability to read, write and add up. Basic skills such as cooking should be on the curriculum.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Children should learn not only how to cook but about the nutritional value of the food being cooked and about where it comes from. That is not just from Morrisons in Denton—whether my Denton or the one in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), which also has a Morrisons. Food comes not only from the supermarket but from the ground. In recent years, some brilliant work in schools has meant that children have learned exactly where the food that they eat comes from. My children know only too well that eggs come from chickens, because we have five chickens at home, so we have an abundance of eggs, which comes in handy for baking.

There is an opportunity to link lunch to education about diet, nutrition and cooking. Many schools have used the extension of the meals programme to bring more parents into school, so that they and their children can learn to enjoy cooking healthy meals together. However, there are concerns about the School Food Trust, which was established in September 2005 as a non-departmental public body—I know such bodies are not fashionable these days—to monitor school food standards, to drive the uptake of free and paid-for meals and to advise local and national Government on food policy. Under the Public Bodies Bill, the trust will be hived off into a charity and community interest company, and local authorities or schools that seek advice will have to buy in its services, as indeed will the Department for Education.

A significant concern is that big cuts to local authority budgets and pressure on individual school budgets will mean that they cannot afford to pay for ongoing guidance and advice, or that they will have to prioritise other schemes. That is another worrying development about the quality of food to be served in our schools.

Before I finish, I have a few questions for the Minister. How will the Government help parents back into work if they do not consider the need for free school meals and other such programmes? What will the Government do to improve health inequalities among children if they do not use free school meals and education to alter the behaviour of children and families? Why have the Government, who said that they are committed to fairness and to alleviating child poverty, started by attacking families on low incomes? Importantly, how do the Government propose to close the attainment gap and reduce inequality without considering nutrition in schools?

It is clear that the coalition Government are undermining the hard work done by the last Labour Government and campaigners to improve the take-up and quality of school meals. That is especially disappointing because they had previously pledged to lift children out of poverty by 2020, and little of what they have done so far has moved us closer to that pledge. I worry that that will result in long-term increases in obesity, and ever-increasing inequality in health and educational outcomes between the richest and poorest in society. Surely, no one wants that.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) for securing this debate, and for making a stunningly good speech. I want to concentrate on one aspect of school food: universal free school meals, particularly for primary school children. It is important, as my hon. Friend said, to keep the debate alive in the face of an uncaring Government, which is evidenced this morning by the complete absence of hon. Members on the Government Benches to engage in this debate. That is unfortunate, because the road that the Government are taking is likely to have an adverse impact on children’s health, particularly those from the poorest communities.

The Children’s Food Campaign notes that healthy school meals are vital to help to tackle the UK’s alarmingly high and rising levels of obesity and diet-related illness, and states clearly that good food habits are established in childhood. That is not rocket science. We know how to do that, and I draw the Minister’s attention to the experience of the universal free school meals pilot in Durham. During the two years of the pilot, 235 schools participated and, typically, around 30,000 free school meals were served daily. The average take-up against the roll was about 86%, but because of pupil absences on some days, it was actually much higher. Most schools reported 100% take-up at some stage in the process. The pilot was absolutely and hugely successful in terms of take-up.

It is interesting to consider how the pilot worked, and I want to say at the outset that Durham county council was fantastic in putting the scheme together. It committed £4 million of capital funding to upgrade the kitchens in every school so that meals were produced locally in the school. It also looked at its procurement practices so that it could source food locally, and achieved really high standards of healthy school meals because it could buy in bulk. Such aspects of universality in the provision of free school meals often do not receive much consideration. The county council did an excellent job, but so did the schools, which embraced the scheme wholeheartedly.

When my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) was a Minister, she visited Durham, and saw with me the incredible effect that universal free school meals had on schools. It changed the whole culture of the school, not just how they felt about food. The really good schools managed to integrate what was happening with free school meals into the curriculum, and ran that alongside an active sports policy.

[Diana Johnson]

I remember fondly my visit with my hon. Friend. One thing that struck me was that to engage with parents and to encourage them to embrace free school meals, there were taster evenings and taster sessions when parents could come in and see what their children would be eating. There was a real sense of the whole community being involved and seeing that the idea was a good one. Will my hon. Friend comment on how things are going now, and whether those taster sessions are continuing?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

Indeed. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I will say something about how parents have been involved with the process, because obviously it was important initially to get parents signed up, which is why schools had taster sessions. As the pilot progressed, what schools felt was really important. When they sorted out with children how to have a balanced and healthy diet by choosing different things on different days, and ensured that salad or vegetables and a balanced meal were always available, they decided to get the parents to sign up to whatever meals the children were choosing. That was important, because parents across the board—given that the take-up was 100%, that meant all parents—had to engage with what their children were going to eat in school, and to talk to them about the importance of a balanced meal. That required the schools to undertake work with parents.

That is what we mean about changing the culture. We know how to do it, and the evidence exists. My hon. Friend and I were able to see that before our eyes, and indeed the schools managed to develop, probably inadvertently, evangelism in the children, who were able to explain carefully to us how the food system worked in their school.

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[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) on his tour de force on school food. By the end of his contribution, I felt as if I had been at primary and secondary school with him and knew Mrs Pomfret well. Listening to him talk about Victoria sponges and custard cream biscuits, it is clear that food is an important part of my hon. Friend’s life. We all recognise that a love of good food, and an understanding of how it helps us function well and do our best, is important.

I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) and for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). They have led the way in Parliament over the past few years in ensuring that Ministers, and the Labour party more generally, are made aware of the importance of good school food, and why that fits with our agenda for improving educational attainment and addressing health issues, such as obesity. I congratulate my hon. Friends on their work, and I thank them for coming to Hull a couple of years ago to see what happened there and to talk to head teachers. They also talked to Professor Colquhoun at Hull university, who is the academic who was tasked with evaluating the scheme in Hull. It was useful and helpful for my hon. Friends to have that time in the city. We have already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham, and I am pleased that we will soon hear from the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West.

I want to say a few words about the Hull experience and about why, from the point of view of a constituency Member of Parliament, what happened there is instructive. One of my big concerns about the coalition Government is their failure to look at evidence and make policy on the back of that. I am also concerned about the renaming of the Department for Education. It used to be called the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which recognised that education does not stand on its own but is part of the whole experience that a baby, child or young person has in their family, their school and with education. The narrow approach to education taken by the Government is shown in their approach to school food. It is almost seen as something that does not have to be considered because all they are really bothered about is English, maths and the introduction of the English baccalaureate, which is a narrow approach to education. We should be concerned about that, because education is much more than just academic subjects. That is where I start from.

The reason why, in 2002-03, Hull started to look carefully at free school meals was that Hull’s children, who are as bright as children anywhere else in the country, were not achieving as much as they should have been at primary and secondary levels. The council took a far-sighted view about the measures that it could introduce to help to deal with some of the educational inequalities in the city and with health inequalities. Unfortunately, my constituents tend to suffer from diseases and medical conditions far earlier than people in other parts of the country. There is a tendency to suffer strokes and to develop obesity and cardiovascular disease much earlier than in other parts of the country. Hull made a real attempt to deal with some of those issues.

We should pay tribute to Councillor Inglis, the leader of the council at the time, who fought hard and used imaginatively the flexibilities that the Labour Government had introduced in relation to education. That allowed the council to introduce a pilot scheme in Hull to provide free school meals in all our primary schools and special schools. It was called the “Eat Well, Do Well” scheme. Young people would go into school and have a healthy breakfast and a healthy lunch. If they stayed for activities after school, healthy snacks were available then as well. The aim was to combine the whole day’s eating within a package of healthy eating and to encourage young people to see food as something positive and enjoyable.

The scheme was in place between 2004 and 2007. Of course, it was important to evaluate the scheme and find out whether it was delivering. Professor Derek Colquhoun of Hull university produced a superb report about what happened in Hull’s schools. We have heard in relation to the experience in Durham what teachers say about the willingness and readiness of young people to learn in the classroom, having had a healthy breakfast or lunch. We hear about parents being pestered when they go to the supermarket by their youngsters saying, “Oh, I tried broccoli at school today. Can we buy some broccoli at the supermarket?” Amazing stuff happened in Hull.

One effect was the development of social skills when children ate together around a table. That was especially the case when there was family service. The food was put in the centre and shared out among all the participants around the table. That facilitated interaction among the children, who talked and listened to one another, which helped them to develop good table manners as well.

Another effect was that gardening clubs were encouraged in schools. Those clubs enabled young people to see food being grown in the playground. Cooking clubs were also encouraged. I went to Thoresby school in my constituency just a few weeks ago. It has an active cooking club. The children like to cook, and they see the value in eating well and in enjoying their food. There have been positive spin-offs from the “Eat Well, Do Well” scheme.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has mentioned gardening clubs, because I have visited a number of schools in my constituency where there are community gardens or the school has a garden. I am referring to Southwold school, which is in Radford, and to Greenfields school and Riverside school, which are both in The Meadows. The children are involved in growing salads and vegetables, which they incorporate into school meals. That encourages them to try fresh produce. Perhaps they would never normally want to look at it, but because they have grown it themselves, they are excited about it and they are trying new things. I also want to mention the importance of introducing fresh fruit into nurseries, which was another thing that the Labour Government did. I know from going into school with my own daughter that children were trying fresh fruit that they had never tried before, which encouraged them to take a much healthier approach to eating.

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend has made an important point. There was a proud history over the past 13 years of what was achieved in relation to food in schools and encouraging our young people to eat well.

I pay tribute to the trade unions. Unison and the GMB worked very hard to ensure that the pilot scheme that we ran in Hull worked well. Their members were involved as dinner ladies and cooks, and they were passionate about what the scheme was doing for children in Hull. The unions really embraced the scheme.

As my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham has said, when, unfortunately, the Liberal Democrats took control of the council in Hull in 2006, the first thing they did was to say, “Right. We’re not going to wait for the evaluation of the scheme; we’re just going to scrap it. We’re telling you that in 12 months’ time, it will just end.” That was very disappointing, and it was an act of political vandalism that will come back to haunt them. Having read today’s newspapers, I say to the Minister that that was a foretaste of the way in which the Liberal Democrats were to act in government, because we see today that the policy that they introduced on the education maintenance allowance—suddenly saying that they were scrapping EMA without looking properly at evidence and considering their options—is, unfortunately, the way in which the present Government seem to make policy.

That happened in Hull in 2006. It was very disappointing, but what came out of it, which was heartening, was the recognition by the Labour Government that what had happened in Hull was special and that further evidence was needed to see whether it would provide a basis for rolling out free school meals around the country. As a result, we had the pilots.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point about how decisions are being made by the Liberal Democrats in councils and in government without evidence being taken on board. Does that not show that what is happening is ideologically driven? They did not wait for the evidence in Hull or from the two pilots in Newham and Durham before deciding to scrap the whole scheme.

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend has made an important point. The situation is very disappointing. I remember appearing before a Select Committee in the previous Parliament as a Minister and being heavily criticised for decisions having been made on policy development without evidence to back them up. I am passionate about getting the evidence and seeing where it leads us in making our policy. We are talking about what happened in Hull and in Durham and Newham. I was lucky enough to visit both those pilots as well to see what happened in those primary schools and to look at the evidence and the evaluation. It would be criminal not to consider that fully and to take a view about how the Government can best use that information and evidence for the future.

My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham talked about Durham, and I take my hat off to the people of Durham for the way in which they fully embraced the scheme. The same applies to the people of Newham, the mayor of Newham and my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who was a keen advocate of free school meals in her constituency. Also relevant is Wolverhampton, where we were trying something different. As my hon. Friends have said, that was about raising the eligibility level so that more young people were eligible for free school meals.

I want to finish on what is happening in Hull now, because this is a little more positive. Unfortunately, there was the decision by the Lib-Dem council just to scrap the scheme. The Labour council that took control in May this year knew very well that the policy that it had from 2004 to 2006 was working and was delivering for local children. It came in on a manifesto promise that it wanted to reduce the school meal price to 50p. The aim is to get rid of any charge at all, but obviously we are in difficult financial circumstances and Hull has taken a major cut in the money coming from central Government. We have seen the ring-fencing come off the school lunch grant, and we see the coalition’s obsession with schools operating independently and not having a wider connection with the community and the local education authority. The previous Lib-Dem council administration decided to increase the price of school meals to £1.60 from the autumn; the price was £1.30. Labour came in and said that it wanted to reduce the price to 50p, but because of the funding issue that the coalition has introduced, it has not been possible. The council has been able to prioritise and make choices, and it has found some money to enable schools to stick at £1.30 for now, with the aim of reducing the price to £1 by Christmas.

We are, therefore, still taking a positive approach in Hull, because we recognise the scheme’s importance. We also recognise that the long-term aim is to have free school meals not only in Hull, but in other parts of the country where our youngsters could benefit from the offer of universal free school meals. Such an offer would ensure that they achieve as much as they should in school and that the nation’s health improves.

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[Sarah Teather]

The Government are not scrapping them, and if the hon. Gentleman will now let me finish I shall deal with the points on which I disagree with him.

I just want to pick up a point made by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson). I ask hon. Members to forgive me but I am still losing my voice; it has almost returned after last week’s Education questions, but it is coming in and out. The hon. Lady made a point about nursery education, and the realisation of the need to embed the relevant attitudes early is precisely why I have asked the School Food Trust to produce some nutritional guidance for nurseries and children’s centres. It is producing that at the moment and I hope it will help to embed some of those standards at an early age.

We are absolutely committed to driving up the take-up of school meals. It now stands at 44.1% in primary schools and 37.6% in secondary schools. However, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) pointed out that, in her constituency, the take-up has gone down in some schools. The School Food Trust is looking into some schools that have had difficulties; although the average might have gone up, some secondary schools have seen striking decreases, and the trust is considering the details in order to understand why.

To help drive up the number who take school meals, we are encouraging schools to use more freedom in charging. We included measures in the Education Bill to allow schools to be more flexible in how they charge. For example, they can make offers if a family has two children or make introductory offers to encourage people to take up school meals. However, I disagree with Opposition Members on many points.

One of the consistent themes of the debate was our decision to remove the ring fence. I was struck by the contradictory nature of Opposition Members’ argument; they spoke about the commitment to school food that they see in their constituencies from schools and head teachers, yet they are unwilling to trust schools to deliver. It is not right to ring-fence everything. It is right to give schools the freedom to decide how to prioritise spending, depending on existing practices. None the less, I recognise what many Opposition Members said about the impact of rising prices. That is why we are working with Pro5, a partnership of the UK’s largest public sector organisations; we want to drive down the price, encouraging better procurement by using centrally negotiated contracts. I hope that we will reap benefits from that.

[Diana Johnson]

Am I correct in thinking that the Government decided to ring-fence the music grant for at least one year to ensure that music was provided in schools? If they can do it for music, why can they not do it for school food?

[Sarah Teather]

The hon. Lady would be the first to blow the trumpet if the Labour Government had done so, given the extent to which schools already offer healthy balanced meals. Is she honestly saying that we should always ring-fence everything for ever? I am sure that that is not her view.

Academies (Funding)

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Can the Minister tell the House how many times the previous Labour Government were taken to court over their education policies?

[Mr Gibb]

The Sharon Shoesmith case springs to mind. I will write to the hon. Lady and let her have those figures.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

A judgment about which qualifications should or should not count is properly a matter for Ofqual, the independent regulator. One of the points that it makes is that although that particular qualification may have some teaching attractions, only 25% of the content is assessed by an external exam at the end; 75% of it is teacher-assessed. Many of us would argue that the balance between teacher assessment and external assessment should be got right, and that we should have more external assessment.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

T5. Under the Protection of Freedoms Bill, an individual who is barred from working with children can volunteer in the classroom. The school will not be notified that that person has been barred by the independent safeguarding authority. Many parents are worried about this development. Is the Minister?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that point. We are working on a number of scenarios to ensure that people who are not entitled to work should not be there. However, it is up to everybody to be vigilant—not least the head of a school—and to take appropriate references on the background of the person concerned. I would much rather have a system with a common-sense and proportionate approach which does not drive out adults who willingly want to give up their time to work with young people and make them into better members of our community, and not wrap them in cotton wool.

Sure Start Children’s Centres

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I will happily look at what is happening on the ground in Ipswich. However, there is an important difference that I point out to the hon. Gentleman. It is possible to keep a children’s centre’s lights on and keep a receptionist and a cleaner, but what is going on inside? Is he satisfied that an appropriate level of service is being provided to support the parents of Ipswich? That is the judgment that he has to make. It is not just a case of whether he can come to the House and say that Ipswich is keeping the lights on—it needs to do more than that. Indeed, his own Government have funded it to do more than that. Suffolk, which is the local authority concerned, has had a huge cut of £40 per child in its area. He has to ask his Front Benchers whether that is acceptable for his constituents.

Let me go around the towns and point out what is happening on the ground. Derby, home to a Tory-Liberal coalition, seems like a good place to start. Surely there, if anywhere, people would implement coalition policy to the letter, would they not? Well, perhaps not, because we find that in Derby six children’s centres are threatened with closure. In a BBC news report on 10 March, Kelly Jennings, daughter of the Tory leader of the council, Harvey Jennings, said:

“I voted for the Conservatives because I thought there was going to be more help for the NHS. Now they are cutting that off and locally they are cutting off the Sure Start centres which single parents like myself rely on.”

We have been very pleased to welcome Kelly into the Labour party because she sees that in these tough times only Labour will be the voice of people and stand up for the services on which people depend. [Interruption.] Conservative Members laugh, so let us look at some Tory authorities. We have heard wonderful praise for many local authorities today; let us look at a few others. Are they working hard, like other authorities, to implement the Prime Minister’s clear pre-election pledges?

In Hammersmith and Fulham, we saw the first use of an interesting tactic that my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) mentioned earlier. Many of its 16 children’s centres were under threat of closure. My hon. Friend went to the council meeting to see it discuss the issue. Then we heard the news that six would become hubs and 10 would remain as spokes. Only when we dig a little deeper do we find that nine of those so-called spokes will receive £25,000 a year. What is that enough to pay for—a receptionist, a caretaker, a bottle of bleach? Is there much more that it would pay for? I do not know, but it could not be very much. At the last Education questions, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) recalled the hospital without patients in “Yes Minister”. This coalition may be remembered for a more modern equivalent —a children’s centre without any children in it. That could be the Secretary of State’s legacy. I do not know about hubs and spokes, but there are certainly plenty of mirrors and smoke when it comes to presenting the facts about Sure Start.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I hope that my right hon. Friend might have an opportunity to look at what else is happening in Hull, controlled by the Liberal Democrats, which has seen a 32% cut in the children’s budget across the board and a 50% cut in the money going to children’s centres. Of the 20 children’s centres that we had under the Labour Government, 13 have effectively been mothballed by the Liberal Democrats and will have very few services.

[Andy Burnham]

I am glad that my hon. Friend raises that important point. As she says, the budget for Sure Start in Hull has been cut by 50% from £9 million to £4.5 million. During a previous Opposition day debate on the education maintenance allowance, the Secretary of State stood at the Dispatch Box and advocated that people should vote Liberal Democrat, particularly in Hull, pointing to some excellent provision that was available. I wonder whether we will hear that again or whether he will revise that advice to the electorate in advance of next Thursday. A 50% cut—can that be what the Prime Minister had in mind when he said he would strengthen Sure Start? This is the decimation of services on the ground.

Let us talk about some more Tory authorities before we get on to the Liberal Democrats. Tory-controlled Barnet is removing funding from eight of its 21 children’s centres, making £6.4 million of savings. Tory-controlled Bromley is closing 13 of its 16 centres. How can there be a service for the whole borough when just three centres are left? Are Ministers really saying that every parent in Bromley can access those centres and their services? I doubt that very much.

In Hampshire, 28 of the 81 children centres are set for closure. However, we should not worry because help is at hand. The right hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) has signed a petition against the changes. Thank God for that!

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[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. To be fair to Labour Members, I want to emphasise that Sure Start has been a success in the past, and we hope it will be an even greater success in the future. However, one matter on which it has not been as successful in every part of the country as it should have been is in outreach, particularly to the most disadvantaged. The Government believe that health visitors, as trusted faces of the state, can be one of the most effective ways in which we can increase outreach. We also believe that local authorities that have innovative solutions that succeed in ensuring that children in hard-to-reach communities receive those services should be supported. The coalition Government believe in supporting local authorities that are innovative in their use of resources, which is why we removed the ring fence, created the early intervention grant, and allowed a greater degree of innovation to flourish at local level.

[Diana Johnson]

The 50% cut is set out clearly in Hull city council’s budget to children’s centres—it is a fact. The centres cannot provide the service that they provided before that 50% cut. They have abandoned the local authority’s early years service team, and no one is doing early years service planning in that authority. The cut means that services are not the same as they were under the previous Government. Surely the Secretary of State must recognise that.

[Michael Gove]

First, we are entering the financial year in which cuts would have been made if we had stuck to the plan of the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling). However, I have heard not a single word from the hon. Lady or anyone else about where those cuts would have been made. Secondly, she and others—I understand that she is electioneering, which is fair enough—said that children’s centres would close, but in fact they have remained open.

Thirdly—I did not want to repeat this but the hon. Lady compels me to do so—the Audit Commission said that Hull was one of worst local authorities in the country when Labour ran it, and it is now the most improved local authority. I know that those three points are uncomfortable for her to deal with as she tramps the streets of the east riding attempting to drum up Labour votes, but they are undeniably true. That is why she is shaking her head—in anger at Labour’s record.

I specifically wanted to address some of the questions on the importance of outreach raised by the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz). The broader question is this: what do we want to achieve in the early years? A consistent theme in constructive questions from Opposition Back-Bench Members has been that the bricks and mortar are being preserved—that concession, for which I am grateful, is in stark contrast to the scaremongering that we have heard from Opposition Front Benchers—but what is happening in Sure Start children’s centres? Are we improving the quality of service that is provided to children and young people? That is a tough challenge.

One thing that we are doing—the right hon. Member for Leigh did not refer to this—is increasing resources to ensure that early education and child care are provided not just for three and four-year-olds, which the previous Government introduced. We have already extended the number of hours of free early education and child care from 12.5 to 15 hours for all three and four-year-olds—we implemented that and increased expenditure to do it—but we are also increasing the number of hours for the most disadvantaged two-year-olds. The plan under the previous Government was for 30,000 of the most disadvantaged two-year-olds to receive 15 free hours, but we are ensuring that 130,000 do so. That is an investment of up to an additional £300 million in the early years at a time when we have to make uncomfortable budget reductions elsewhere because of the desperate economic mess that we inherited. That is a sign of our determination to do best by the early years. It would only be fitting for the right hon. Gentleman to acknowledge that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Rogerson]

I do not think it was said to be a waste of money. The argument was that things can always be done better, which is what the National Audit Office said. I hope that all Members agree that where issues have been identified independently and targets and aspirations for a policy have not been met, we can look for ways to do it better. My fundamental point is that, despite the financial situation, good councils up and down the country will prioritise children’s centres and keep them open to ensure that services have a reach—even if there is no insistence on having full-time workers in every specialism in every centre, which is what I would like to see if the money were available to fund it.

[Diana Johnson]

Of course all Members would agree that if efficiencies can be made, it is all to the good and we should see it happen, but is the hon. Gentleman honestly saying that a 50% cut to the children’s centre budget in Hull can be seen as a good thing and that services will improve because it is an efficiency saving?

[Dan Rogerson]

Of course I am not saying that spending less on a service is desirable. If we have the money in the first place, I would like it to be spent on front-line services, but I am not in a position to comment on how every single penny has been spent in Hull. I am pleased to note that my Liberal Democrat colleagues running the city council are keeping the children’s centres open and will provide services at them, which will reach across all the communities of Hull.

I conclude on that note. I hope that the debate will proceed by focusing on the positive aspects that Sure Start has delivered and the opportunities to continue delivering them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

There is a long-term plan for science funding. The hon. Lady obviously has not followed the comments that were made by the Royal Society and many others in the science community welcoming the flat-cash settlement and the ring-fencing of the science budget.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

15. How many universities he expects to charge less than £7,500 in tuition fees from 2012.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

No university wishing to charge over £6,000 yet knows for certain how much it will charge, since no university has yet signed an access agreement with the Office for Fair Access. We expect there to be a wide range of charges, and those institutions discussing higher charge levels all look set to include substantial waivers for students from poorer backgrounds.

[Diana Johnson]

Hull university is reported to be planning to charge up to the £9,000 limit. Combined with this week’s announcement about the slashing by two thirds of the education maintenance allowance support to students, how will this help to attract more students from areas such as Hull to university, bearing in mind the excellent progress that was made under the Labour Government?

[Vince Cable]

As the hon. Lady knows, and as we have discussed many times in this Chamber, the introduction of graduate contributions at the level we have will ensure that universities are indeed properly funded and maintain funding at world-class levels.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I think the hon. Gentleman knows that children in care have been a particular interest of mine and that we are doing an awful lot to try to improve on the scandal of the poor outcomes they have experienced for too long. They will be at the head of the queue when it comes to the alternative arrangements for EMA, recognising the disadvantaged position in which most of the children in the care system find themselves, and we need to do everything we can to help them to catch up.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

I am delighted to be able to tell the House that the number of academies in the state education system has now reached 465, which is more than double the 203 that we inherited from the previous Government. Since the scheme for schools to convert was opened in September last year, 195 schools have converted. In the first three years of the Conservative Government between 1979 and 1997 during which grant maintained status was available, only 50 schools converted, so the rate of academy conversion, and indeed the rate of school reform we are presiding over, is the fastest ever.

[Diana Johnson]

Hull’s cut of £70 per child in children’s services means that 13 of the 20 children’s centres in Hull will effectively have to be mothballed and staffed only by a receptionist and a cleaner. I am sure that the Secretary of State will recall “Yes Minister” and Jim Hacker’s visit to a hospital that had no patients. Would he like to visit the children’s centres in my constituency that have no children?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question, and I am always grateful for the opportunity to visit the East Riding—

[Diana Johnson]

Hull is not in the East Riding.

[Michael Gove]

Well, historically it is.

[Diana Johnson]

It is not now.

[Michael Gove]

Moving beyond history and geography, let me address this specific point. The amount of money available in the early intervention grant to ensure that children’s centres can stay open is higher than she implies, and sufficient to ensure that all local authorities can discharge their statutory responsibility to ensure that there are sufficient places.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady makes a good point and I pay tribute to her work as chair of the all-party group on runaway and missing children and adults. I am looking closely at the Barnardo’s report with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire). This is a serious issue, but, without being complacent, I should say that the incidence of children running away from children’s homes has been reducing over the past few years. The figures are calculated on the basis of those who are missing for more than 24 hours, but in fact most children return within 48 hours. It is something that I will continue to look at.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

7. What assessment he has made of the effect on music education in schools of reductions in his Department’s funding for music services.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

I am happy to inform the House that this morning we published Mr Darren Henley’s review on music education, and I am hugely grateful to him for his in-depth consideration of the issues and for the realistic and practical measures he has put forward. Following that report, I can now confirm that funding for music education in 2011-12 will be the same as it was in 2010-11—£82.5 million. That is not a cut; it is a very good settlement for music services, which is consistent with our broader strategies for school autonomy and deficit reduction.

[Diana Johnson]

I, too, pay tribute to the work of Darren Henley, who has at heart the need to ensure that young people get a good music education. Labour’s £332 million investment in school music helped children from poor and average backgrounds access good education in music. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the £82.5 million, although ring-fenced, is a real-terms cut? Local authorities are already slashing music services in their areas, so rather than blowing his own trumpet, should the Secretary of State not admit that this is really a cut, just like his cut to school sport?

[Michael Gove]

Once again, we have had a superb pun: we had trumpets from the Back Benches and fiddles from the Front Bench, but what a pity they are not singing from the same hymn sheet as Darren Henley, local authorities and all those who care about music. From Alfie Boe the tenor, to Julian Lloyd Webber the cello player, everyone in the world of music is saying that today is good news for all children who want to learn more about music, including your own, Mr Speaker.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I have a long queue of engagements, but I shall add that to the list. It sounds a very promising opportunity.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Based on the equality impact assessment that I am sure the coalition Government have carried out on their higher education proposals, what will the impact of cutting the higher education teaching grant by 80% be on women?

[Mr Willetts]

Many part-time students are female, and it is already clear that our proposals to give a proper student loan entitlement to part-time students for the first time, in order to help with their fees, will particularly benefit women. We will publish the full impact assessment alongside our White Paper.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question and the argument contained therein. He is absolutely right: many of those anxious to establish new free schools are motivated by the desire to help the very poorest or those most in need. As well as the case that he mentioned, in Yorkshire there is a talented young teacher, the son of a bus driver, who wants to open a free school in one of the most deprived parts of Bradford. It is the idealism of that young man, and of the dyslexia association activists my hon. Friend mentioned, that is an inspiration to us all on this side of the House.

[Diana R. Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The last Labour Government established three free school meal pilots in Wolverhampton, Durham and Newham. Will the Secretary of State give me an assurance that when the evaluations are complete, there will be full disclosure and that they will not just be scrapped as the Lib Dem council did in Hull when we had such a pilot? It did not wait for a full and proper consideration of the evidence.

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady was a distinguished Minister in the Department and I know that she shares with me a desire to ensure that policy is evidence-based. That is why I was surprised that the previous Government said they would definitely go ahead with the extension of free school meals before the evidence about whether the pilots were working was in. I was also particularly surprised that the previous Secretary of State committed to the extension of free school meals without there being sufficient funds in the Department’s spending envelope to pay for them. It was, I am afraid, another example of the recklessness with which he drove our finances and economy on to the rocks.