Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We have protected the core schools budget, which will have risen by 2019-20 from £40 billion a year to £42 billion a year. All schools will benefit from that. The point of the fair funding is that we can no longer accept a country in which different children have different amounts of funding going into their education just because of where they are growing up.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The problem with the way in which the Secretary of State and the Minister of State describe the so-called fair funding formula is that they imply that they it provides an amount of money per pupil. In places such as Peterborough and Slough, however, where pupil numbers are increasing fast, we have to educate children for free, because no money arrives for those pupils until a year and a half later. What is the right hon. Lady doing to make sure that in places where the population is growing, schools actually get funding per pupil?

[Justine Greening]

Two elements of the proposed fair funding formula can help in this regard. One relates to mobility, about which a question was asked earlier, and will involve children moving in-year. The second relates to demographic growth, to which the right hon. Lady referred, and will ensure that we can respond faster to enable local authorities and schools to cope.

International Women’s Day

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I have spent much of my time in this place encouraging and celebrating women. At the turn of the century I made a study of how much difference the 101 Labour women who were elected in 1997 made, and it was clear that it was because of women in this place that, for example, our defence forces started focusing for the first time on the needs of the families of those who fight. It was because of women in this place that Budgets started resourcing women’s purses, rather than men’s pockets. Frankly, it is very sad that since 2010 the tradition, which started in 1999, has been reversed. I hope that when the Chancellor delivers his Budget on International Women’s Day he might go back to recognising that it is time for women to benefit at least as much as men, if not more. After all, we put our money into the pockets of children, and men use their money for their own pleasure—I generalise, but it is true.

My speech will concentrate on violence against women. We all have constituents who have been groomed by pimps, beaten up by violent partners or subjected to forced marriage or genital mutilation. It is important to think about how we help them. Rather than just supporting the expert organisations—in my case, East Berkshire Women’s Aid and Sewak Housing—we must ensure that organisations that are not so expert actually realise their own failures. One organisation in Slough is very good at promoting itself but, frankly, is not very good at protecting women. I have called out Jeena International on those things because it cannot offer people a service and then let them down.

We also need to try to increase resilience among women by helping them to be aware of and to resist the risks of grooming, and so on. I have tried to create a network, largely of south Asian women in my constituency, that aims to build their resilience and that of their sisters. It aims to raise women’s awareness of things such as how to help their sons deal with porn on the net.

I will finish by focusing on some of the most vulnerable women in the world. Yesterday I had the privilege of hosting a meeting organised by Khalsa Aid, a flexible, opportunist aid organisation led by the Sikh community in Slough. Khalsa Aid has been working with Yazidi women. When Daesh overran the Yazidi community, many women starved and expired of thirst after they were abandoned on a hill. What happened to the other Yazidi women afterwards was more degrading that most of us can imagine. They were bought and sold like radios or books. They were raped, beaten up and forced to watch their children being raped. Their sons were kidnapped so that Daesh could try to turn them into terrorist jihadi fighters.

Daesh developed a kind of bureaucracy with rules for using the people who are owned. One of the 15 rules states:

“The owner of two sisters is not allowed to have intercourse with both of them; rather he may only have intercourse with just one. The other sister is to be had by him, if he were to relinquish ownership of the first sister by selling her, giving her away or releasing her.”

That is today. That is the reality of slavery. We call modern slavery “slavery” in the UK, but this is ancient slavery. It is horrifying to look at the price list. A woman of between 40 and 50 years old is worth £27—that is her price. Daesh publishes the prices because it wants the money to buy bombs with which to blow us up. Terrifying, a child under nine is worth four times as much—£109 is the price of a young girl.

Those women have participated in an exhibition called “I am Yazidi” that tells their stories and shows photographs of them. I hope to bring the exhibition to this House, but in the meantime I encourage everyone to see it.

Ravi Singh of Khalsa Aid told me about one woman who managed to fight off her rapists, who then turned on her daughter. After her daughter’s abuse, her daughter said, “Mum, it’s your fault.” The woman does not know where her daughter is now, and she is terrified that her daughter still believes it is her fault. That is the extremity of violence against women, and we should work in solidarity against it.

Draft Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and public authorities) regulations 2017

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 General Committees

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. I believe and welcome what the Minister has said but, frankly, taking eight years after the Equality Act 2010 does not seem a very convincing commitment to equal pay.

When we look at what these regulations do not include, we see that there will be real gaps. For example, regulation 2(3) states that

“an employee of an English local authority at a maintained school is to be treated as an employee of the governing body of that school.”

That means I can think of no primary school, except perhaps the enormous one in my constituency, that will be affected by these measures. Primary school teachers, who can be real victims of pay inequality, and the dinner ladies in such schools, who can be even greater victims of pay inequality, will not be able to compare their pay to that of men. There are real issues about scope and coverage and about the time that women have had to wait. We get very used to waiting for equality —some of us have got old waiting for equality—and that is a further issue I am concerned about.

There is a bit of the Equality Act that this Government and their predecessors did not commence: the provision that means where age discrimination and gender discrimination cross, the power to contest that combined discrimination should be available to women. When it comes to pay, where is the biggest pay gap? It is the one for older women. Women reach peak pay at 39, whereas men reach it in their late 50s. Frankly, it is not right, and this pay audit is not likely to highlight that issue sufficiently. I am deeply concerned that we are still stuck with legislation that was perhaps right for eight years ago but is now out of date and we are just getting it implemented now. That is a very serious question.

I have one more question, about the meaning of “employment” in regulation 2. The biggest pay gap, as well as by age, is between people who are employed in the gig economy—on flexible, precarious contracts—and those who are on secure contracts. Public authorities use those precarious contracts less than private companies, but they do use them. I do not know, looking at the regulations, how someone on that kind of precarious contract could use the information that will be made public to secure a fairer pay deal for themselves. That is another example of where taking eight years to do something that would have been right eight years ago means that the regulations have become out of date.

Although I welcome the fact that we are at last seeing these regulations, they are nearly a decade out of date. I urge the Minister to look at what she will do about the question of age pay inequality and what she will do to tackle the pay inequality that is so gross in those precarious jobs in the gig economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

The apprenticeship levy is an important policy, as my hon. Friend will know. It is designed to ensure that we have the skills that are needed for our economy. The levy can be used to fund training and professional development in schools, and we will provide schools with detailed information on how the levy will work for them and how they can make the most of available apprenticeships.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Does the help in funding for rural schools not represent the opposite of addressing the need that I raised in a recent debate—disappointingly, the Minister did not even mention it when summing up the debate—for areas that have a high influx of additional pupils during the school year? I estimate that next year something like 600 school places in Slough will get zero funding, because, despite his talking about up-to-date deprivation numbers, he is not working his funding formula on up-to-date pupil numbers.

[Mr Gibb]

The formula does contain an element for growth. We also responded to the representations on mobility made by the right hon. Lady’s colleague, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). When pupils join a school part way through the year, that will be factored in. I would have expected her to welcome both those changes to the funding formula.

School Funding

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is listing Members who are unhappy. I, like her, am unhappy. All the schools in Southend are receiving a cut under this funding formula, and I think it is the only local authority area outside central London where that is the case.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

No, it is not.

[James Duddridge]

The figures I have are from the House of Commons Library. I apologise if I have misread them, but that is my reading. Is not the point that this is a consultation? If this were a fait accompli, I would not support the Secretary of State, but this is a consultation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I am sure that, in her characterisation of different education authorities, the Secretary of State would say that Slough is unfairly generously funded, but I want to speak about the hundreds of pupils in Slough who get no funding at all for their education. You might think, “How can that be?”, but this is a very serious issue, which is not properly addressed by the Secretary of State’s proposed fair funding formula.

There is swift growth in areas such as Slough. For years, we have been in the top 10 authorities for growth in pupil numbers, and we do not get paid until 18 months later for extra children who arrive after the October census date. Locally, that is dealt with by taking a top slice of the dedicated schools grant of £1 million or £1.5 million to fund bulge classes in existing schools.

Obviously, other authorities face churn and growth in pupil numbers, but in most places the number of additional pupils is not particularly significant, and new arrivals after October tend to be balanced by departures. Also, most of the extra children are born in families who are already there, so they apply at the usual time for schools.

That does not happen in Slough. When I asked schools about the numbers, the results were stark. One primary school had 13 children leave, but it had 23 new starters: one was completely new to English, others had English as a second language, and two more from overseas start next week. One secondary school estimates that the pupil formula for the 13 extra pupils who arrived after the census date in 2015-16 would have been worth £49,937; in the current year, the figure is £39,595. Those figures have gone down partly because the school has been subject to the minimum income formula, which I call the maximum cut formula, because that is the case for the secondary schools in Slough.

A primary school that opened two extra classes in November 2015 to accommodate children new to the town now has 63 pupils above its standard number. The bulge classes are funded by the top-slicing of the dedicated schools grant, but that money only lasts for a year, and the extra pupils will not be funded by the DFE until next year, so this year two whole classes are being educated in one primary school with no capitation funding. We are not talking about children who are easy to teach, and there are the children who arrive from—

[Alison McGovern]

My right hon. Friend is making a unique and important point about places like Slough. Does she agree that this shows that the Government are yet to properly listen?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Indeed. There is a hint in the new funding formula that they might do something about this, but no clarity about what. This is absolutely urgent, because the per-pupil comparisons between different authorities are not accurate. Places like Slough and London that have historically been quite well funded and are facing the largest cuts are the places with the largest numbers of pupils who are not being paid for at all.

The Minister for School Standards knows about the massive problems we face in teacher recruitment. Over the past five months, five geography teacher posts in Slough have been advertised, with not one single applicant. The Migration Advisory Committee will not make the teaching of English, where we have a real shortage, a job that can be applied for by teachers overseas. We are in a crisis, and the Department is not responding to the real needs of the community that I have the privilege to represent. I really want answers on this now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Finally, whether she is a mistress of brevity or not, I call Fiona Mactaggart.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Headteachers in Slough schools were very grateful to the Minister for School Standards when he met them to discuss teacher shortages. Unfortunately—I am sorry to bring this to the Chamber—I have reminded him twice since then that they have not received the letter that he promised them at that meeting. Can I expect it to be sent before Christmas?

[Mr Gibb]

I will do my utmost to ensure that they receive a letter. I enjoyed meeting them and they raised some very important points, but we are ensuring that we are filling teacher training places. There are more teachers in our initial teacher training system now than there were last year.

National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that schools all over the country are finding it difficult to recruit teachers because we are not training enough of them. For example, in Slough, where we do not get as much resource although we have exactly the same kind of challenges as inner London, headteachers are desperate. House prices in Slough went up faster than anywhere else in the country in the past year. Will she assure me that schools in my constituency will not face a cut as a result of this formula but will be rewarded for their brilliant work?

[Justine Greening]

The right hon. Lady should welcome the formula, because at the moment the flow of money into our schools is unfair. For a community such as hers, our proposed architecture for the national funding formula will make sure principally that funding is fair and there is an equal amount for children in primary and in secondary; then our main drivers of additional funding will be deprivation—as I said, £5 billion a year for that—and low prior attainment. That is the right way to structure the formula. Although we have seen progress in many schools in many parts of our country, we now need to make absolutely sure that resources flow towards those areas that need to lift.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I would welcome the opportunity to visit my right hon. Friend’s UTC. The UTC programme is another example of how, with our academies programme and our free schools programme, we are providing diverse types of specific and specialist education for every child in this country.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Minister will recall from the meeting he held with me and some excellent headteachers in Slough to discuss our teacher shortage problem that two outstanding grammar schools with excellent GCSE and A-level results are not meeting his demands on EBacc levels because they have chosen, confidently, to provide subjects—such as design and technology, art and design, and drama—they felt their students would benefit from and needed. Why cannot schools without such confidence make choices for the future of their pupils, rather than to satisfy the Minister?

[Mr Gibb]

It is not to satisfy the Minister; it is to ensure that young people have the widest possible opportunities available to them. We kept the EBacc combination of core academic GCSEs small enough, at either seven or eight, to allow sufficient time in the curriculum for pupils to study those subjects that interest them. That is why I have resisted calls for more subjects to be added to the EBacc.

Schools that work for Everyone

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

It is almost certainly because the Labour Government in Wales have failed to learn from the reforms that we have made here in the United Kingdom. It is interesting to note that many parents want to take advantage of the features of grammar schools that often make them successful, such as excellent teachers and outstanding leadership, a stretching, rigorous academic curriculum, excellent extra-curricular activities, and discipline. Those are the things that parents want throughout the school system, and our reforms have largely embedded them throughout the system, which is why standards are rising.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I am proud to represent a town that is ram-packed with what the Secretary of State calls “ordinary working-class people”. [Interruption.] I am using the Secretary of State’s words. It is also a town that has grammar schools. People there are frustrated by the fact that their kids cannot get into local grammar schools because other people with much more resources are able to drive miles from west London and get their children into grammar schools on the basis of the 11-plus.

I am beginning to be unsure about what the Secretary of State means by a grammar school. When I talk to the heads of grammar schools, they say that they cannot devise an admission test that is tutor-proof. The point is that my constituents who cannot afford tutors are not getting places in the grammar schools, and therefore grammar schools do not serve, as her statement implies, those, in her words, “ordinary working-class people.” Unfortunately, they serve those people who can afford to tutor their kids.

[Justine Greening]

In that case, all the more reason for us to bring forward the reforms announced today. It is nonsensical to make an argument in the way the right hon. Lady has just done and then say we should do nothing about it.

Teachers Strike

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

We want to make sure that the education of those children in particular, and that of all vulnerable children, is protected. One of the reasons we introduced the pupil premium, which provides £2.5 billion a year, was to make sure that funding goes to the most vulnerable children in our school system. We are consulting on the national funding formula and on the high needs funding formula. That consultation has closed and we will respond to it shortly.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

My impression is that the Minister is prepared to hand out blame but not to accept it. He says that this action is damaging children’s education and disrupting parents, but his Government’s decision to impose on primary teachers of key stage 2 a new four-year curriculum that they had only two years to deliver led to a chaotic series of results, which were published today. The results have upset parents and they are much worse than the Secretary of State predicted. Does that not harm children’s education more than the antics of the NUT today?

[Mr Gibb]

No, it does not. The new curriculum is essential if we are to prepare young people for life in modern Britain and equip them to do well at secondary school. The previous levels did not ensure that children, including those reaching level 4 at the end of key stage 2, went on to get at least five good GCSEs. This curriculum is much more rigorous and it has been designed to be on a par with the best education jurisdictions in the world. Some 66% of pupils are already meeting the new expected standard in reading, while 70% are meeting it in maths and 72% in grammar, punctuation and spelling. I think that teachers have done a great job in preparing pupils for this new, more demanding curriculum.