A Brighter Future for the Next Generation

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to open this debate on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition, because nothing can be more important than our obligation to create a bright future for the next generation. On the Opposition Benches—indeed, I am sure, across the House—we believe that every child, whatever their background, must be able to make the most of their childhood and reach their full potential. As politicians, we have a solemn responsibility to ensure that the next generation enjoys greater opportunities than we have had, and that Britain is the best country in the world to grow up in.

Regrettably, this Queen’s Speech is a missed opportunity. It is a missed opportunity that comes hard on the heels of a decade of Conservative failures that have betrayed our young people: 1,000 children’s centres closed since 2010 by Conservative Governments; schools funding 9% lower in real terms in 2019-20 than in 2009-10; Labour’s proud track record in lifting a million children out of poverty wholly wiped out by Conservative austerity policies, with more than 5 million children expected to be in poverty by 2024; FE funding cut almost in half, and apprenticeship starts among under-25-year-olds down by 40% since 2016. The problems were there even before the pandemic.

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

Of course we all want to do our best for the most vulnerable children in our society, but will the hon. Lady acknowledge that, rather than the picture she has just painted of the past 10 years, the improvement in the delivery of children’s social care services, for example, with more good and outstanding local authorities delivering children’s social care and the number of inadequate services dropping considerably, is a testament not only to the people on the frontline working hard for those children, but to the Government policies put in place to ensure that that could happen?

[Kate Green]

I pay tribute to everyone working in local authorities and in the children’s social care sector for the hard work that has led to improvement in children’s services—vital services for the most vulnerable children in our country—but, frankly, the Government could have made it a great deal more straightforward for local authorities if they had not gone round trashing local authority funding. Our local councils have seen cuts of around 40% in their funding over the last 10 years, and that has put huge pressure on social care professionals, especially children’s social care professionals. It is very much to the credit of social care workers that we have seen improvements around the country, but I hope that the Government will use the children’s social care review that the Secretary of State referenced, which we are eager to engage with, to ensure that we put adequate, sustainable funding in place for these most vulnerable children.

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[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

It is fair to say that the pandemic has made many of us re-evaluate our real priorities in our own lives at home, in our communities and across the country. What do we truly value? How can we nurture all that is needed for future generations to thrive and not falter? It could well be a crowded field, but I am in no doubt that providing every child with the best possible start in life should sit at the very top of that priority list.

That is why I was delighted to be involved in the seminal early years healthy development review carried out by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), to whom I pay tribute, and I understand that it is her birthday today. The review was published in March this year and, pleasingly, forms a key part of the Government’s legislative and policy programme set out in Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech.

I very much support many of the key action areas that came out of the review through a lot of work, deliberation and evidence gathering, in particular the start for life offer, which mirrors in some ways the local offer that we introduced in relation to special educational needs and disability when I was children’s Minister; the formulation and growth of family hubs—again, I welcome the Government’s commitment and investment to date, but there is plenty more that we can do to realise the huge potential of the family hubs model; the development of a more modern and skilled workforce to meet the changing needs of children and families, ensuring that it is relentlessly child-focused, so that we can build the proper support around children and their families that we know works; and, crucially, improving accountability and data and understanding the impact of the interventions and the interactions that we have with families, particularly in those very early years, when we know we can make the biggest difference.

If we do not get it right in the critical early weeks, months and years, we are simply storing up deep-rooted difficulties for decades to come. That is why I have also, alongside the always sunny hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), been co-chairing the Early Years Commission, which is looking at the nought to five age group. We will soon publish a cross-party manifesto, in recognition of the fact that we need to come together to seek to address the long-term challenges associated with the early years and to set out a long-term plan that has the capacity to endure beyond the changing faces of Government.

Many of those findings and conclusions—with some relief, on my part—chime with and complement the early years healthy development review, while at the same time stretching some of the core offer to children up to the age of five. The review is unequivocal in its recommendations that, when it comes to the levelling-up agenda, which we have heard so much about, particularly for those children living in households with high levels of deprivation, the education, health and development of young people must be society’s top priority, as must community and professional support for parents to help them make their homes a nurturing, safe environment where babies and toddlers can take their first steps towards a healthy, happy and productive life. By putting children at the centre of their community and public services and by prudently and effectively investing in early years education, we can together start to transform the life chances of many more children in our country, wherever they happen to live.

I very much support the education recovery plan being led by the commissioner, Sir Kevan Collins, who I know is working hard to find the right formula to help bridge the gaps and build a system that gives better and fairer opportunities for children as we come out of the pandemic. That is against an important backdrop of £1.7 billion of support through the education recovery plan, the catch-up package, the tutoring programme and the recovery premium, as well as the £400 million to improve access to remote learning, given the digital divide that we saw play out in the last year, including in Eddisbury. The increase in support for schools needs to be replicated in the early years.

I want to touch quickly on two other aspects of school life on which we need to continue to do more and have better focus. The first is school exclusions. I led an independent review of school exclusion two years ago, and there has been some progress—for instance, the £10 million on behaviour hubs—but there is still much to do, including a practice improvement fund, ensuring that schools are responsible for children they exclude and moving alternative provision into the mainstream as a centre of excellence. I hope to meet Ministers soon to discuss the progress of all my recommendations, so that we can make further, important progress.

Since finding myself on the Back Benches, I have also found time to chair a taskforce on the future of physical education, with support from the Association for Physical Education and others, including Jason Robinson, the England rugby union star and world cup winner who saw PE as the thing that changed his life from a road of failure to one of success.



One consequence of the pandemic has been a deeply concerning drop-off in physical exercise and activity among children of all ages. Now that schools are back and sports and activities are reopening there are signs of improvement, but I am afraid that evidence is also emerging that some schools are reducing physical education time in order to focus on catching up in other subject areas. So we need to look specifically at physical education, and one key life skill in that is swimming—we saw 150,000 children leaving primary school without being able to swim 25 metres. That situation clearly needs to be addressed urgently, both as part of the welcome catch-up programme and more systematically through physical education by ensuring that all of its irrefutable and lifelong impact on physical, social, emotional and cognitive development is at the very heart of school life. In doing that we can take another step forward in our shared ambition of giving every child the best possible start in life.