Students’ Return to Universities

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I thank the hon. Lady for her questions. I am glad she welcomes the announcements on further education. The changes we want to drive in further education are absolutely vital to ensure that our country is in the right place to seize new opportunities now that we have exited the European Union and to make sure our youngsters, and people of all ages, have the skills they need to drive productivity in this country and ensure that they get the very most out of their lives.

The hon. Lady mentioned the advice from SAGE. Understandably, we wanted to update the advice we had issued on 2 July on the return of universities and higher education institutions following the conclusions of SAGE, which we did. That took into account the issues that SAGE had raised and some of the suggestions that it had put forward. SAGE also warned about the impact of youngsters not going to university and of having the opportunity to return taken away from them. That was recognised across all four nations of the United Kingdom—how important it is for youngsters to be able to go to study at university.

The hon. Lady raises an important point about digital access. I am sorry that she missed the announcement that we have made £100 million available for universities to use to ensure that youngsters have digital access, including students from the most deprived backgrounds, who would perhaps not be in a position to access courses. It is vital that if we are in a situation where people will have blended learning, all students are able to access it. We are taking seriously some of the challenges that all students and universities will face, which is why we have made £256 million available to make sure that where students are facing real hardship, universities can access funding to help them.

I thank the Minister for Universities, my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), who has been in regular touch with universities over the last few days. A small number of universities have seen a number of coronavirus cases—it is not uncommon in communities across the country. She has been in touch with them to make sure that they know we are there to support them and give them any help that is required. We must not forget, however, that hundreds of thousands —almost a million—students have safely returned to university over the last few weeks. They will start their studies and benefit from a brilliant, world-class university education.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that a proportionate response means that students have a right to their course and to face-to-face education? All of us, including older people such as myself, must take personal responsibility. We cannot destroy the life chances of the young. If someone is doing a history degree, they cannot be condemned to permanent online teaching. They might as well sit at home; why have they paid all that money? Will he confirm that, of course, students must self-isolate if they get ill, but we cannot have whole halls of residence being locked down? That is not the sort of university that we all want—a place of light and learning, not enforced lockdowns.

[Gavin Williamson]

We expect students to follow the same rules as we ask everyone in society to follow. Those who have tested positive for covid or have been in close contact with someone who has would understandably be asked to self-isolate. Universities are working closely with local public health teams to ensure that that happens. We always want to ensure that there is a sensible and proportionate response to ensure that students are able to go about their business and continue their learning online and, importantly, face to face.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will keep the House updated on the progress on this, and we are continually looking and working across government on the matter.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T2. Since the Government broke their manifesto pledge to allow the opening of Catholic free schools by removing the faith cap, the Catholic Education Service has had to find 50,000 new places. Despite a convoluted plan by the previous Secretary of State to open new voluntary-aided schools, not a single new Catholic voluntary-aided school has opened, and only one is out for consultation. Now we have a new Secretary of State, will he bring some vim and vigour to this and try to fulfil our manifesto pledge?

Free Schools

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman) on the comprehensive way in which she introduced the debate. Although I do not necessarily agree with my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), she presented the arguments against free schools skilfully. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) made a good point about the Europa School. Free schools present an opportunity to vary the educational system and encourage different sorts of school. I sent all my children to the French Lycée, which is a state school, and I have never regretted that.

I want to talk about one community that wants to open free schools. The Minister will not be surprised by what I am about to go on about. In 2017, the Conservative party made a solemn manifesto commitment to lift the faith cap on free schools. Manifesto commitments are supposed to be very important. For instance, nobody has ever dared to break our commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP on international aid, and the same applies to pensioner benefits. However, there was one manifesto commitment that we broke: the commitment to end the 50% faith cap.

The Minister knows—I hope he will respond to this—that the cap uniquely disadvantages the Catholic community. There are 2,142 Catholic schools in England, covering every level of education. They make up 10% of the national total of state-funded schools. Everybody accepts that they are the most diverse schools, that they are the most willing to provide for all educational standards, and that they never impose academic selection. Despite all that, the 50% faith cap has, up to now, prevented the opening of a single new free school. Indeed, there cannot be any Catholic free schools because the 50% cap policy would come into effect only if the school was popular with pupils from other faiths and none. That means that the policy would only target popular Catholic schools that already had diverse school communities, while having no impact on schools that were either not over-subscribed or only attracted pupils from one, monocultural, community.

The 50% cap is espoused as encouraging diversity and inclusion. Catholic schools are already some of the most diverse schools in the country. That is in part due to the traditionally migrant nature of the Catholic community, which drives diversity and new demand for school places. Large catchment areas allow for increased social mixing. Catholic schools tend to be far more ethnically mixed than most other types of school. About one third have a proportion of ethnic minority pupils somewhere between 5% and 40%—higher than in any other type of school. Furthermore, all existing Catholic schools select pupils based on faith only when the school is over-subscribed, and currently, one third of all pupils in Catholic schools are not Catholics.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on making an excellent case and highlighting that this policy unnecessarily disadvantages Catholics. It is completely unnecessary for the Government not to have stuck to their manifesto pledge. I hope that the Minister will give some explanation for that in his speech.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I hope he will, because this is an important point. Catholic schools have traditionally opened as voluntary-aided schools. VA schools are state schools where 10% of the capital costs are found by the faith group. In addition, Catholic schools’ buildings and land are owned by the Catholic Church. The Church provides those premises at no charge to the state, and that arrangement saves the taxpayer tens of millions of pounds a year. Until recently, the onus for local authorities to prioritise new academies and free schools—this is where I agree with the hon. Member for Great Grimsby—meant that it was much harder to open new voluntary aided schools.

Now, that manifesto commitment was broken. Why was it broken? Of course, it has nothing to do with Catholic schools. The Government know perfectly well that we have the most diverse schools in the country. The Government are not at all worried about Catholic schools. In last night’s televised leadership debate, there was a question about Islamophobia—something that we all oppose—but frankly, the Government are phobic towards the opening of new Muslim faith schools. That is what it is all about. It is never announced, never admitted. The Government are worried about 100% Muslim faith schools. Personally, I believe that if Muslims want to have faith schools, they should be allowed to have faith schools, and if that is the reason why the Government are preventing the creation of new Catholic schools—which are the most diverse schools—they should openly admit it. Of course, they cannot admit it because it would be embarrassing.

Here we have a Government, breaking a solemn manifesto commitment and preventing the opening of new Catholic schools—the most diverse schools in the country. The ban is not only wrong but completely ineffective, because very few non-Muslims apply to Muslim schools, so most of those schools are in fact 100% Muslim—I am not complaining about that—so the faith cap does not even come into effect. The faith cap only prevents the opening of Catholic free schools. It is unsustainable, wrong and should be dropped.

The Government claim that they are working hard to open new Catholic voluntary-aided schools. No doubt the Minister will mention with great pride the forthcoming opening of Hampton Waters Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided School, which is to open in the diocese of East Anglia, which was announced on 14 June. That will be the first Catholic school to open in six years. Two years after the breaking of the manifesto commitment, not a single new Catholic school has opened. There are 50,000 Catholic children waiting for places, and no places for them. What are the Government doing about it? What they are doing is sending me letters, in the shape of one that I received from the Secretary of State, who tells me:

“On this occasion, I have been unable to approve any further bids. This is mainly due to the current lack of demographic need for additional school places in the areas chosen by the bidders.”

I presume that the letter was written by some civil servant. It appears to be profound gobbledegook.

This is a serious matter, and I hope the Minister will address it. No new Catholic schools have been opened for six years, and 50,000 Catholic children are unable to find a place. Only one school has been approved, and that was on 14 June—last week. I very much hope we might get some progress from this Minister, and if not from him, then from whoever becomes the new Secretary of State in a month’s time.

[Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)]

I call Mike Kane.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

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

I know the hon. Lady is passionate about the care system, having been a social worker. We are introducing reforms—both workforce reforms with the national assessment and accreditation system, and through the investment we are making in “Strengthening Families, Protecting Children”, for which £84 million was announced at the Budget. Of course, we will also put our best foot forward, working with the sector, to make sure that the financial challenges are highlighted at the spending review.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

May I put an eccentric point of view to the Secretary of State? If we make a manifesto commitment, we should keep it. Two years after breaking our manifesto commitment to set up Catholic free schools, we were promised new, voluntary-aided Catholic schools. I am told by the Catholic Education Service that not a single one has yet opened, anywhere in the country. If it is a pipeline, it is a very long one. What is he doing about it?

[Damian Hinds]

Schools do take a while to build. My right hon. Friend is right that I made a commitment, including a personal commitment to him and others, that we would make sure that faith schools, including Catholic schools, would be able to open in areas where there was the demographic need and the demand for them. That commitment absolutely remains in place.

Education

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I can give the hon. Gentleman, the Muslim community and other communities who share those concerns outside this House the assurance that schools will be required, for example, to consult with parents on their relationships education, and on relationships and sex education policies. One key purpose is to help to minimise any misconception about the subjects and what might be taught, and to enable parents to decide whether to request, for example, that their child is withdrawn from sex education. We encourage schools to engage proactively with parents to set out how and when they plan to cover topics included in relationships education and RSE, so that parents can understand what is going to be taught. This means ensuring that parents know what they can and cannot withdraw their children from, that they can have an input into policies, and have sufficient time and notice to make an informed decision about whether to withdraw their children from sex education.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Traditionally, Conservative Governments have held the line that parents have an unfettered right to withdraw their children from sex education. Under the proposals, it will for the first time be possible at certain ages for that parental veto to be overridden. What I want from the Minister, if I may ask for this, is a commitment that it will be used very rarely, that the headteacher will have to justify his actions, that it will only be used in certain circumstances where it is definitely in the interests of the child, perhaps because of some behavioural issue, and that it will not be taken as a matter of course that the veto of parents is being overridden.

[Nick Gibb]

I will come on to that specific point later in my opening remarks, but I can give my right hon. Friend the reassurance that only in exceptional circumstances will the school not respect parents’ request to withdraw their child from sex education in secondary school. There is an absolute right for parents to withdraw their child from sex education in primary school.

Relationships and Sex Education

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I thank the hon. Lady for her words. I am so sorry to hear about the experience of the couple in her constituency. That does help to illustrate why it is so important that, from a young age, people think about respect for all kinds of people and all kinds of relationships, and understand that families of the other children in their school setting may look quite different from their own.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

As far as I am concerned, the best form of sex education is—to coin a phrase—to respect and love your neighbour as yourself whatever their sexuality, just as you would respect and love them regardless of their race, ethnicity or anything else. How boring life would be if we were all the same. This very diversity sums up why all previous Conservative Governments have recognised that religious people, and indeed non-religious people, have their own justifiable formal belief about the best way to teach sex education. All previous Conservative Governments, therefore, have given an untrammelled right to parents to remove their children from sex education, but here, in certain circumstances, that right has been transferred to the headteacher—a fundamental shift of power to the state. How does that square with what Edward Timpson, the then Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, said during the passage of the Children and Social Work Bill? He said:

“We have committed to retain a right to withdraw from sex education in RSE, because parents should have the right, if they wish, to teach sex education themselves in a way that is consistent with their values.”—[Official Report, 7 March 2017; Vol. 622, c. 705.]

[Damian Hinds]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. I do not think I can do any better than read word for word from the guidance:

“Once those discussions”—

that is to say, those on the request to withdraw—

“have taken place, except in exceptional circumstances, the school should respect the parents’ request to withdraw the child, up to and until three terms before the child turns 16. After that point, if the child wishes to receive sex education rather than be withdrawn, the school should make arrangements to provide the child with sex education during one of those terms.”

But the right continues to exist up until the three terms before the child reaches 16.

Department for Education

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and the hon. Members for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker) and for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on securing the subject of this estimates debate.

The Government are determined to create an education system that offers opportunities to everyone, at every stage of life, and an effective funding system is a cornerstone of such an education system.

Education funding has been a key priority for this Government, which is why we have been able to maintain core school funding in real terms since 2010, at a time when we have been tackling the historically high budget deficit we inherited from the Labour party. It is only through such a balanced approach to fiscal policy that we have been able to secure a strong economy that provides opportunities for young people, with the highest level of employment and the lowest level of unemployment since the 1970s.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

As the Minister knows, the Government had a manifesto commitment to remove the cap for faith schools, which they decided not to implement. However, they have promised to fund voluntary-aided faith schools 100%. Can he confirm that that pledge stands? What steps is he taking to ensure that money is forthcoming for new voluntary-aided faith schools?

[Nick Gibb]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has said that that is the approach we are taking to assist Catholic schools in particular. We are spending £23 billion on capital funding because of our balanced approach to managing the public finances.

We have made historic reforms to the way we fund our schools, supported by an additional £1.3 billion investment, and we have announced ambitious plans for a new world-class technical education system, backed by £500 million a year of additional funding.

As is clear from this debate, our work as a Department, and our investment in young people, extend far beyond schools and colleges. Members have raised issues relating to priorities across the Department’s remit—from early years to further and higher education—and I aim to address some of those important questions.

Schools That Work For Everyone

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her questions. I totally acknowledge—I think I have already acknowledged it—the point that not enough children who are eligible for free school meals are able to attend these schools. We are trying to get that number up, which is why to bid into this capital fund schools need to come forward with a proposal for how they are going to make their admissions broader and more accessible. At a minimum, that must include priority for pupil premium recipients, ensuring outreach to specific primary schools and looking again at admissions criteria to make sure they are as broad as possible.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

What justification is there for the Secretary of State reneging on a solemn Conservative manifesto commitment, on which we all stood, to drop the totally ineffective 50% cap on faith schools? He has reneged on that commitment. He knows perfectly well that the only new free schools that will not now open are Catholic schools. Catholic schools are the most diverse, the most inclusive and the most prone to operate in deprived areas, so why has he reneged on the cap? He knows all these arguments, because he made them when he was a Back Bencher before he became a Minister. He knows there will now be faith free schools all over the country, except for Catholic schools. Before he says that we are now going to open voluntary-aided schools, he is shackling us to a model that has not been encouraged for 10 years. He can give no commitment that local authorities will want to use them or that the funding will be available. This is a disgraceful announcement.

[Damian Hinds]

I join my hon. Friend in recognising the value of faith schools as part of our overall diverse school system. There are thousands of faith schools across the country, and they do get slightly above-average results at both primary and secondary. He specifically mentioned Catholic schools—it is true, again, that they get a slightly better set of results than the faith school average, and I totally value their contribution. I also acknowledge, as I think I did earlier, that some groups—the Catholic Education Service is chief among them—have not felt able to take part in the free schools programme because of the admissions criteria. We are very conscious of the sensitivities and the need to make sure that we promote societal inclusion, including in narrowly defined local areas. Having published the integration strategy, we have taken the decision to retain the 50% faith cap on new free schools, but it will also be possible to open voluntary-aided schools, of which there are thousands across the country. They have existed since 1944. It has always been possible to open new voluntary-aided schools—it just has not happened in recent years, because the money has not been there, but it will be possible under these proposals.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The decision to locate and build the new school in Yardley Wood rather than on the Baverstock site is supported by Birmingham City Council, as that location will help address the need for new secondary school places not only in the Selly Oak area but in the neighbouring Hall Green area. The feasibility study shows that the site can accommodate a school and make greater use of the playing fields, and will significantly improve sporting facilities for both pupils and the local community.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

No, no. Gainsborough in Lincolnshire is a splendid place, but it is a considerable distance from south Birmingham. I know that I can rely on the ingenuity of the hon. Gentleman to give us his thoughts on another matter at a later point in our proceedings, but not much later, I am sure.

Social Mobility Commission

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

If the hon. Lady looks back over the past five years, she will see that Alan has been supportive of much of the action that we are taking to improve social mobility, such as the Department for Education’s opportunity areas. We welcome constructive challenge as we all work together to tackle social mobility.

This will give us an opportunity to refresh the commission and improve its diversity. I assure the House that we are not in the position of employing a patsy for the Government: I want somebody who will continue to challenge the Government, continue to hold our feet to the fire and engage constructively—not only with central Government but with local government, which is charged with delivering many of the solutions.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Before the commission resigned, did they suggest one radical idea for driving social mobility through the education system, and did the Government gainsay it? Namely, why do we not concentrate on the children from the most deprived backgrounds and postcodes, give them an intelligence test at 11 for which they cannot be tutored, and put them in special schools so that they have a rigorous academic education? The schools could be called grammar schools.

[Mr Goodwill]

As I understand it, that was not one of the suggestions that Alan Milburn made as he was leaving.