Children’s Education Recovery and Childcare Costs

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that, as with all these things, it is a question of political priorities. A Labour Government would have prioritised our children’s recovery from the pandemic. They would have been at the heart of what we needed to see as we started to rebuild our country. That is what we would have delivered from government.

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I will take the hon. Lady back to the closure of schools during lockdown. We now know that that had a profound impact on many children, for a host of reasons. I know that the Secretary of State has said that, in hindsight, the way it was done was perhaps not the right thing to do. First, does she agree with that? Secondly, does she agree that schools should become part of our essential national infrastructure so that we do not close them again should an unfortunate pandemic happen again?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Gentleman and I appreciate the expertise that he brings to these issues. He raises an important point about how we plan for the future and look at what worked during the pandemic and what needs to be done differently. I am glad that the inquiry into our covid response will now consider issues around children and schools. That is right and important.

I have a significant degree of sympathy for the very difficult decisions that Ministers faced right at the start of the pandemic when confronted with an unknown virus. We can all remember how terrifying that was; I think it was the right decision when Ministers acted in the way they did. What I find inexcusable, however, is that, from that point, there was no proper plan to get our children back to school as quickly as possible—to use all available methods to do that as safely as possible. I find it incomprehensible that we still do not have a proper plan, but I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point about the need to ensure that, in the event that we see such a terrible situation again, our children are put first. I am afraid to say that they were not during this pandemic.

We see this as schools face eyewatering costs for their energy. A primary school on Merseyside recently contacted me with its electricity bills from April last year and April this year. For April 2021, its electricity bill was £1,514. For April 2022, its electricity bill was £8,145—a rise of more than 400%. Where are the Government, as those costs soar and our schools need help to protect children’s learning from rising crisis, to ensure that energy bills are not being paid by cutting back on staff, activities and summer trips, and the quality of children’s school lunches? Nowhere. Again and again, we see a Government not leading the way but leaving schools to work out 100 different solutions on their own.

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[Mr Walker]

It is great to hear an Opposition Member paying tribute to my predecessor.

In 2018 we launched a £26.3 million English hubs programme dedicated to improving the teaching of reading, with a focus on supporting children who are making the slowest progress. In 2019, 82% of pupils in year 1 met the expected standard in the phonics screening check compared with just 58% when the check was introduced in 2012.

[Edward Timpson]

Another Government initiative that helps academic performance, as well as the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of children, is the primary physical education and sport premium, which has been in play since 2013 at the cost of £320 million a year, going straight to primary schools. Will my hon. Friend reassure the House that it will continue into the next academic year? Will he go further in acknowledging the importance of great physical education as a habit for life, within our schools and beyond, by considering making physical education a core part of our curriculum?

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is extremely experienced in this space, and he is a great champion for physical education and young people. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, who will be closing the debate, is working closely with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care and hopes to have news on this front before too long. I recognise the importance of these issues.

In 2021, we launched the £5 million accelerator fund for English as part of the Government’s education recovery package; the fund is targeted at 60 local authority districts identified as most in need of specialist intervention. To date, more than 430 schools have been provided with funding to adopt DFE-validated phonics schemes and the training to implement them successfully.

The Government continue to make sustained investment to support the most disadvantaged pupils to recover lost learning. Building on the flagship pupil premium worth £2.6 billion this year, the recovery premium provides an additional £1.3 billion over this and the next two academic years to help schools deliver evidence-based approaches that will boost progress for pupils with the most ground to make up.