Core School Budget Allocations

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

On the increases in funding last year and this year, funding is increasing by £3.9 billion in 2022-23 and by £1.8 billion in 2024-25. When we combine that with the £4 billion increase we had between 2021-22 and 2022-23, that is a 20% increase in cash terms over that period.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wrote to the Secretary of State at the beginning of August, asking for a meeting to discuss a series of special educational needs funding issues in Harrow. The Minister will be aware that special educational needs are one of the many pressures on school budgets across the country. They certainly are a significant issue in Harrow. Can he explain specifically how much schools in Harrow will now not receive, compared with what they had expected to receive? Will he encourage the Secretary of State to respond to my letter, and to do so with generosity?

[Nick Gibb]

I say first to the hon. Member that no funding is being reduced in Harrow. All areas will be receiving significant increases in school funding. The error is about the allocation figures—the notional figures—for 2024-25, and those have been corrected. On special educational needs, we have increased special educational needs funding significantly over the past several years, because of the pressures that local authorities are facing with increased numbers of EHCPs. We are taking a number of measures to help address that, and I will of course ensure that the hon. Member has his meeting in the Department as soon as possible.

Safety of School Buildings

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

It is very kind of my hon. Friend to say that. I believe that that was due to the hard work of our teachers and the fact that the Government challenged some of the prevailing orthodoxies that were failing too many of our children. That is why we came fourth in the world out of 43 countries that tested children of the same age. I do not believe that any Labour Government would have the guts to challenge those orthodoxies, because they are so close to, and in hock to, the unions.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Can the Minister give a simple answer to a simple question? How many school buildings do the Government consider to be posing a risk to the life and safety of children in my constituency and across the country?

[Nick Gibb]

If the hon. Gentleman had asked that question when he and his party were in government, he could not have been answered because there were no comprehensive surveys of the standard of our school estate, whereas this Government have conducted two full surveys and are in the process of conducting a third.

Department for Education

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I very much hope so. The hon. Gentleman will look at this forensically and he will know, because we have done an extensive report on the underachievement of white working-class boys and girls, that they underperform at every stage of the education system and worse than almost every other ethnic group. Those white working-class boys and girls on free school meals do worse than every other ethnic group, bar Roma and Gypsy children, on going to university. This is where funds need to be directed. The money should be concentrated on such cohorts. It is not just white working-class boys and girls; just 7% of children in care get a decent grade in maths and English GCSE and 5% of excluded children get a decent grade in maths and English GCSE. This is where the resources, in my view, should be concentrated. We need to address these social injustices in education.

Secondly, I turn to the social injustice of disadvantage. In May, the Government announced a new Schools Bill, following the publication of the schools White Paper. Media attention and discussion has centred around the appropriate levels of departmental intervention, and I know that the Department has gutted a significant part of that Bill, but I question whether this is simply dancing on the head of a pin. Of course, academies should have autonomy—I do not dispute that—but my question, and this refers to my answer to the hon. Gentleman a moment ago, is whether the Bill misses vital opportunities to address baked-in disadvantage among the most disadvantaged pupils in our communities.

Disadvantaged groups are 18 months behind their better-off peers by the time they take their GCSEs. White working-class boys and girls on free school meals underperform at every stage of the education system compared with almost every other group. Moreover, only 17% of pupils eligible for free school meals achieve a grade 5 in their maths and English GCSE. This figure expands to just 18% of children with special educational needs, just 7% of children in care and 5% of excluded children.

Exam results are of course important, and every August they understandably hit the headlines, but I am just as worried about the impact of covid-19 on younger children. We cannot afford for our most disadvantaged children to miss that first rung on the ladder of opportunity. The building blocks for achievement must be in place well before critical exam years and, indeed, before school. I am pleased to see that resource expenditure for early years has increased by 10.6% in these estimates, although capital funding has slightly decreased.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the focus on disadvantage by the Chair of the Education Committee in this part of his speech. Another aspect of disadvantage is experienced by Grange Primary School in my constituency, which sees huge mobility in the young people it educates as the cost of living crisis and, crucially, the cost of renting property in my constituency—and, I suspect, across London more generally—has rocketed, leading, unfortunately, to many families moving regularly. That creates huge pressures on school staff and school budgets. Will he encourage the Department for Education to look at whether there needs to be more focus on mobility as part of the funding formula, to help what I think is a good school with great staff trying to do a particularly tough job because of that mobility issue?

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Member makes a powerful point. We want to ensure that everyone has the same opportunities to go to “good” and “outstanding” schools. The cost of living pressures that he mentions are powerful, and I am sure that the new Secretary of State is listening.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carol Monaghan]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend, and it is not just about the money. As she says, it is about the value we are putting on those youngsters as well. In Scotland, that starts right from the moment when parents are given a baby box, followed by the Scottish Government’s commitment to childcare and free school meals, and now we have the Scottish child payment of £20 a week for every eligible child, which is transformational for families in need. Of course that only goes a little way towards tackling the cost of living crisis, but we know that hungry children cannot learn, so free school meals must be central to this and it would be good to see some movement on that from this Government.

We also have to look at skills for the future. No party or Government who have forced through a devastating Brexit in the middle of a pandemic can credibly claim to be focused on recovery. A fair recovery must be investment-led. At the centre of Scotland’s plan is fair work, which is why the Scottish Government have invested £500 million to support new jobs and retrain people for jobs for the future, as well as funding the young person’s guarantee of a free university, college, apprenticeship or training place for every young person. This is not about loans; it is about investment, and with 93% of our young people in training, employment or education—the highest in the UK—it is paying off.

[Gareth Thomas]

On the hon. Lady’s point about skills for the future, I am sure that she and others across the House will agree that more trade with India is essential to our economic growth in this country, so does she not think it is disappointing that there has been such a steep decline in the teaching and examinations of those who want to learn Gujarati, Hindi and Urdu, which are some of the key modern languages of India? Is there not a case for the Government to look at a discrete package—very small is all it would have to be—to help to reverse that trend? It could include support for those who teach on a Saturday, often at weekend schools, and professional development for the teachers, as well as support to pay for the cost of the places where that teaching takes place.

[Carol Monaghan]

The hon. Gentleman obviously speaks with great experience and knowledge of this area. That is knowledge I do not necessarily have, but I cannot see any problem with our young people learning languages and skills and developing links with other cultures, so this is only to be welcomed and promoted.

In Scotland we have invested more than £800 million in our further education estate since the SNP Scottish Government came to power in 2007. An equivalent investment in FE in England would be around £8 billion, not the £1.5 billion this Government have committed. It would be really good to know how the college estate in England is going to be brought up to the standards of the colleges we now have in Scotland, because we have world-leading facilities and brand-new colleges. Thousands of students are getting not just HNCs and HNDs but degrees in further education colleges such as Glasgow Clyde College in my constituency, City of Glasgow College in the centre of Glasgow and Glasgow Kelvin College in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin). I do wonder how England can hope to compete with these colleges and be truly committed to skills development without better investment.

For young people in England who want to go to university, the threat of debt is ever present. The average graduate debt—depending on the figures we look at—is somewhere between £45,000 and £50,000 for a young person in England, but what is of greater concern is the huge number of graduates who now have much higher debts than that. This year for the first time we have seen more than 6,500 graduates with debts of more than £100,000. Inflation is rocketing, and over the next few years debts will only get worse.

I raised the issue at Education questions on Monday and the Minister, now Secretary of State, responded that she had to get the right balance between the graduate and the taxpayer, but that raises a fundamental question on the purpose of education: is it about individual gain or about societal good? Nurses, doctors and teachers, who do not command great salaries, should not be expected to bear the burden of this debt in order to provide a public service. According to the IFS, 87% of graduates will not pay back their student loans within the 30-year payback period, so what do this Government do? They lower the repayment threshold and extend the payback period to 40 years. They plan to tackle graduate debt by saddling young people with ever-increasing amounts of it. That cannot be right.

My final comments are about science, technology, engineering and maths—STEM—education. I know this is something that gets strong cross-party support, but I find it concerning—I declare an interest as a physics teacher—that the Government’s own social mobility tsar has talked about girls not taking physics because they do not like the “hard maths”. I want to hear from this Government how they are going to tackle that and increase the numbers of girls in physics. We have been talking about this issue since I was a pupil at school, and things have not shifted. We have tried the carrot and it has not helped, so perhaps we now need to look at the stick if we are to get more girls into doing physics. This Government need a different approach to post-16 education funding, to provide long-term security and put the interests of learners at the heart of everything. Education must be restored as a force for public good and, as such, it must be publicly funded to provide real lifelong access for all.

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[Michelle Donelan]

I am not the only Minister to have gone on record to say that they believed it was a mistake we made as a Government to close schools, and we certainly will not do that again. I will certainly look at my hon. Friend’s suggestion.

The estimates I commend today put the power of investment behind those principles. We are opening the doors of opportunity and building an education system that focuses on where someone as an individual wants to go, not on where they came from. Excluding the student loan book impairment charges, the Department’s resources have increased by a staggering £5.4 billion and capital has increased by £1.1 billion since the estimates last year. This is the first year of our three-year spending review settlement, which provides an astonishing £18.4 billion cash increase for the Department over the Parliament. The total core schools budget is increasing to £56.8 billion by 2024-25, which is a £7 billion cash increase compared with last year. This increase in funding has been front-loaded, to get money to schools rapidly, because we want a country in which where someone is going is not determined by where they came from. That starts with the investment in the crucial early years. We are committed to an additional £170 million by 2024-25.

[Gareth Thomas]

I add my congratulations to the Secretary of State on her appointment. On the issue of her to-do list, I am sure that teacher recruitment and retention will be one thing she seeks to look at. May I raise with her the issue of the particular challenge that schools in outer London have in competing with schools from inner London for teachers? More funding is traditionally allocated to inner London than to outer London for salary costs. Will she examine that issue and recognise that living in outer London now is just as costly as living in inner London and that schools in constituencies such as mine should not be at a disadvantage compared with those in nearby or neighbouring boroughs that qualify as being inner London when it comes to offering good salary packages to teachers in the future?

[Michelle Donelan]

I will take on board the hon. Gentleman’s comments and add them to my ever-growing “to-do list”, as he so kindly puts it.

We are also investing £2.6 billion of capital between 2022 and 2025 for SEND. When it comes to supporting all of our children, young people and adults, schools and families, I am here, because I believe we must send a clear message today that their priorities are what we are focused on in this place. We are therefore making the investments required to entirely transform our further and higher education systems, towards a model that no other country has ever attempted.

Budget Resolutions

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

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

In 2019, we made a promise. We promised to give the people of this country world-class public services and to strengthen the entire fabric of this country so that everyone benefits. Everyone is entitled to have access to the same opportunities to make the most of their lives, whether they are at school, at work or whatever their personal circumstances. That is what we meant, and what we mean, by levelling up: making this country fairer for all who live in it.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

On the subject of levelling up, will the Secretary of State tell the House why he thinks it is acceptable for schools to be worse off in real terms now than they were in 2010?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Respectfully, it is quite the opposite. I will get to that point later. Schools will be £1,500 better off per pupil than in 2019-20—not even 2010— but we will return to that subject in a moment or two.

I was getting to the point about those who are more vulnerable. For those who are most vulnerable, levelling up means that extra support will always be there for them. The covid virus has put enormous pressure on all our public services, and I know the whole House will want to join me in again thanking our magnificent public heroes—our nurses and doctors, our teachers and nursery workers, our care home staff and our delivery workers—for how they have helped us all to weather the pandemic storm.

The national health service has been the frontline of this pandemic and we must build up its resources after an unprecedented 18 months. We are committing £5.9 billion to tackle the NHS backlog of non-emergency tests and procedures, which will include £2.3 billion for ensuring that there are at least 100 community diagnostic centres where people can get health checks, scans and tests closer to their homes.

Digital technology is transforming every aspect of our lives, so the package includes £2.1 billion over the next three years to support its use in hospitals and other care organisations to improve efficiency, freeing up valuable NHS staff time and ensuring the best care for patients, wherever they are. There will also be £1.5 billion from that package over the next three years for new surgical hubs, increased bed capacity and equipment to help elective services to recover, including surgeries and other medical procedures.

We have promised an overhaul of our adult social care system, improving social care outcomes through an affordable, high-quality and sustainable system. We are therefore allocating £3.6 billion for local government to reform adult social care provision, including capping personal care costs at £86,000.

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[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt), and I wish him well in his campaign for the university in Milton Keynes to be recognised and supported. I hope he will forgive me for picking up only that part of his speech, and focusing on some equally important but none the less parochial examples of my own.

The Grange Farm estate is just half a mile from probably the most famous establishment in my constituency, Harrow School, but the world in which the people on the Grange Farm estate live is very different from the world that the Harrow School students come from. However, I am pleased to say that the estate has secured funding and, through a programme of investment by Harrow Council, is being rebuilt. Members are therefore entitled to wonder why I should raise it in the context of a Budget debate. On the estate at the moment, because it is being rebuilt, a series of vulnerable families are living in the temporary accommodation that is now available there. Many of them have spent all their time in temporary accommodation, moving from one not very suitable house to another even less suitable house. As they face the prospect of being evicted, for understandable reasons—so that the rest of the programme of rebuilding works can be completed—they are wondering, not unreasonably, when, if ever, they will have the chance of a permanent social home.

While there are one or two examples of positive progress in the Budget in terms of funds to tackle homelessness, there is no sense of any recognition in the Treasury of a national need for investment in social housing. I hope that Members with constituencies outside London will forgive me for making the fairly obvious point that London remains the epicentre of the housing crisis. It has the severest homelessness rates in the country: there are more than 165,000 homeless Londoners living in temporary accommodation, representing two thirds of the homelessness in the UK overall, and some 250,000 Londoners are on waiting lists for council housing. Given that, according to an analysis carried out by the Local Government Association, those who are managing to live in social housing face a £2,000 lower housing bill than those who live in the private rented sector, we can understand why there is still so much support for investment in more social housing.

Harrow Council, which I think does a very difficult job as well as it can in managing the housing shortfall, desperately needs still further funds to invest in social housing. I hope that some of those funds will eventually become available, so that those vulnerable families who are facing eviction—many have recently come out of care, some have experienced domestic abuse in the past, and many are single-person households in work who are looking after children but facing the prospect of having to up sticks and move again at a cost to themselves, and who will face the same prospect yet again in three or five years—will finally be given hope by a significant social housing programme.

Apart from a very brief reference in the Secretary of State’s speech, there has been no mention of police funding. While it is good that police officers are being recruited, when the recruitment programme that the Government are funding comes to an end, we will still have fewer officers in the UK than we had in 2010. The number of police community support officers has fallen by about 40%, and those missing officers are not being replaced. What that means in practice for the communities in my constituency is that the local police team that they had become used to at the end of the last Labour Government—a sergeant and, usually, three police constables and four PCSOs for each ward in our borough, a highly visible police presence—has been cut to just one PC and one PCSO, and that is in no small part due to the efforts of the current Mayor of London. We need to see much more investment in the Metropolitan police, notwithstanding the significant need for reform that has again been revealed as a result of the Sarah Everard case and the cases of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman. We are desperate to see a dedicated police team once again in central Harrow, and the British Transport police desperately need more funding, not least in my constituency, to improve safety on the tube network for women and girls. That issue has been raised at a number of meetings with the police locally.

I want to lament the fact that there seems to be nobody in Government who is seriously committed to the co-operative movement. Sadly, no investment in support of more co-op housing was announced in the Budget, and there is no sense of the need to give consumers more power. Many hon. Friends on this side of the House have rightly described the huge windfalls that the shareholders in water and sewerage companies have attracted over the years, and it is surely high time for consumers to be given significant power to decide when a discharge should take place, for example, or whether a chief executive’s pay should rise. That should be the most urgent consideration before a change of ownership takes place, and it would be good to see that happen.

Finally, Ministers have promised many times that there would be new investment in credit unions and a programme of legislative change to help to drive a significant expansion of that sector. There is still no evidence of when that programme of legislative change will happen. If there is anything that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury can do today, it would be lovely to have a date for when that legislative package might come forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

What steps he is taking to (a) improve the wellbeing of disadvantaged children and (b) close the educational attainment gap.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)]

We are taking unprecedented action to help schools support wellbeing, including wellbeing for education return training, and world-leading trials on ways to promote mental health wellbeing. Disadvantaged pupils will receive high-quality tuition through the £350 million national tutoring programme, and we continue to provide schools with the £2.4 billion pupil premium.

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[Gavin Williamson]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman welcomed the news this year that Oxford and Cambridge welcome more state school pupils than they have ever done before. We want to continue to build on that. We want to ensure that every higher education establishment makes sure that all the opportunities that they can offer are available to every single child, whatever background they come from.

[Gareth Thomas]

Tackling rising levels of food poverty would be one good way of improving the wellbeing of disadvantaged children and helping to raise educational attainment, so why will Ministers not extend the holiday hunger food vouchers programme to the half-term holiday and Christmas holidays?

Covid-19: Financial Implications for Schools

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the financial implications of covid-19 for schools.

I am grateful to Mr Speaker for giving me the opportunity to raise an issue of considerable importance to my constituents and, I suspect, constituents across England. Schools in Harrow and across the country are facing a very tough financial year because of their extra covid costs. I say gently to the Minister that Ministers are not yet doing enough to help.

Harrow is blessed with a very strong state sector, with generally excellent primary and secondary schools, as well as a strong sixth-form college and good further education provision. The schools work together extremely well and the quality of Harrow’s schools remains a central attractive part of the borough’s offer to families with children.

I pay particular tribute to Harrow’s headteachers. They are a remarkable group of very talented leaders and generally have very strong staff teams in their schools. Since the beginning of this term, students from 12 schools have had to self-isolate, but in general the return to school has gone relatively well.

I am a former pupil of two Harrow schools and am now a parent of a child at one, and I have many friends whose children are either at or have been at Harrow schools. What happens in the borough’s schools and their funding is a lively concern in the many conversations that I have as a constituency MP. Talking to headteachers and others involved in the financial governance of our schools, I am concerned, first, about the funding difficulties that covid is causing our schools; secondly, about the limited financial support the Government have so far offered; and, thirdly, about the difficult financial backdrop faced by schools, even before coronavirus became an issue. I am also concerned about the increased difficulties that covid is causing those children with special needs; the mental health challenges facing our young people, which are being exacerbated as a result of covid; and what the feared increase in child poverty will mean for schools and their finances.

One of the many excellent high schools in my constituency expects to incur, over 12 months, approximately £175,000 in extra costs due to covid. Extra cleaning, extra teaching cover, longer hours needed for support staff, additional essential supplies, such as personal protective equipment and sanitiser, and significant digital investment—for example, in laptops to ensure that students can study at home in the event of closure, partial closure, self-isolation and so on—are just some examples of things that have created extra costs. Also, the school has suffered a significant loss in income in relation to a lot of community clubs—for example, football clubs—to language schools and to simply the use of buildings for event hire. That is lost income that the school would have invested in education for its pupils. To be fair, that high school has received some funding from the Department to cover cleaning costs, and funding equivalent to two teachers from the catch-up fund, which will, according to the headteacher, help just with years 10 and 11.

One large primary school, which is fairly typical of the borough, has incurred more than £60,000 in extra costs just over the last—summer—term. Again, the school has faced significant costs for additional staffing to cover lessons where teachers or teaching assistants have been shielding, and for site staff and office staff overtime to prepare for the reopening of the school. School lunchtimes are costing more because of the need for disposable cutlery and packaging, and, given the staggered lunchtime arrangements required, there are, again, extra staffing costs.

Two primary schools have seen the need for significant extra IT investment. Similarly, they have had extra cleaning costs and they have seen significant losses of income, as their premises cannot be hired out. Some schools in Harrow and, indeed, across the country are also trying to maintain wraparound care—even as external providers can no longer do so—in order to help parents who otherwise would struggle to keep working.

The spending review announcement will not leave Harrow schools much better off. The so-called funding increases are largely just recycling the pay and pension awards, which used to be funded separately. I understand specifically that pay and pension increases from last month are not funded, costing the average high school in the borough between £150,000 and £200,000, and the average primary school more than £50,000. Changes to the school funding formula for deprivation have hit Harrow schools very hard, because for some reason we are now classified as a less deprived area. The consequent loss of funding meant that Harrow schools did not get anywhere near the 4% funding increase announced nationally for 2020-21. It is difficult, therefore, to see how the funding settlement for Harrow schools—welcome as any increase always is—goes anywhere near addressing the real-terms cuts in school spending over the last 10 years.

On the national picture, as I alluded to, I recognise that the Department for Education has provided some additional funding for schools facing, in Ministers’ words, “exceptional costs”. However, there are limits on the amount of costs that will be recompensed, and no consideration is given to the loss of often crucial lettings income.

The National Foundation for Educational Research set out in September the scale of the educational and financial challenges facing schools, based on interviews with almost 3,000 school leaders and teachers across more than 2,200 primary and secondary schools in England. The NFER pointed out that nearly all teachers estimate that their pupils are behind in their curriculum learning, with the average estimate being that they are three months behind. Teachers in the most deprived schools were more than three times more likely to report that their pupils were four months or more behind in their curriculum learning than teachers in the least deprived areas. Indeed, more than half of all teachers thought that the learning gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers had widened.

The report notes the difficulties in teaching remotely, with more than one quarter of pupils having limited or no access to IT at home—a particular challenge for schools serving the most deprived areas. Across the piece, almost 50% of teachers thought that their pupils needed intensive catch-up help, with the figure being even higher in the most deprived schools and in areas serving the highest proportion of pupils from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, such as schools in my constituency. The report notes the need for additional IT equipment. Senior leaders have been particularly aware of the need for improved IT, with the limitations of school IT systems hindering their ability to communicate with pupils, parents and, indeed, staff.

The NFER went on to suggest that some primary schools could need up to an estimated £280,000 a year and that an average secondary school could need up to an estimated £720,600 in order to operate in line with the Government’s requirements. I should underline that these estimates are based on talking to senior leaders who were concerned about their ability to provide a full and comprehensive service to their pupils from the beginning of last month.

The NFER acknowledges the funding that the Government have provided for cleaning costs, the catch-up funding and the IT funding, but it says, in its traditionally understated way:

“Nevertheless…there is still likely to be a need for additional funding beyond the current government offer.”

The Institute for Fiscal Studies annual report on school funding, which was also published just last month, is also striking. The IFS is arguably the most independent and respected group of analysts in the UK, and it reported that larger funding costs for schools in poor areas have left them badly placed to deal with all the challenges that covid-19 has thrown up. The IFS notes the obvious widening of educational inequalities over lockdown and highlights the particularly tough challenges faced by schools serving more deprived pupils over the next few years, with planned increases in teachers’ starting salaries—welcome as they are in their own right—likely to weigh even more heavily on their budgets because they are more likely to have to employ new teachers.

The IFS describes the post-lockdown funding support for schools as “modest”, and goes on specifically to say:

“Faster falls in spending per pupil over the last decade, slower increases under the National Funding Formula…widening of educational inequalities…all provide a case for greater targeting of funding to more deprived schools.”

The IFS also notes:

“School spending per pupil in England fell by 9% in real terms between 2009-10 and 2019-20”,

describing it as

“the largest cut in over 40 years”,

compared with the

“increase in spending per pupil of over 60%”

during the period of the last Labour Government.

The IFS goes on to acknowledge the 2019 spending review announcement for day-to-day spending on schools in England through to 2022-23. It notes that, using school-specific inflation, the expected growth in spending per pupil between 2019-20 and 2022-23 would leave spending per pupil about 3% in real terms below its 2009-10 level, which will still be the biggest squeeze on school resources since the 1970s.

The IFS further notes the lower increases in formula allocations for schools in poorer areas, which

“run counter to the objective”—

that is, the objective of the Government, apparently—

“of using school funding to ‘level up’ poorer regions.”

Echoing the NFER report, the IFS says that this could

“pose additional challenges for deprived schools seeking to help pupils catch up after the closure of schools during the pandemic.”

The IFS goes into some detail on the different aspects of the Government support, in particular describing the national tutoring programme as offering a level of support that is “low” when compared with the scale of likely lost learning.

The Minister will also know that there is particular concern about children with special needs, with almost one fifth of them, according to Government figures, off school due to the problems that schools face in managing infection control, timetables and transport difficulties. There is a particular problem, which the media have covered, in providing access to education for children with a tracheostomy, or who require what is called oral suctioning to clear their airways. Public Health England rules state that schools must ensure that they are suctioned in separate ventilated and sanitised rooms by staff wearing full protective gear. Many schools are simply unable to comply with those rules. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister—if not today, then soon—what specific steps his Department has taken to address that issue.

There are broader issues about funding for children with special needs. The Children’s Commissioner has noted specifically that the problem of access to mainstream schooling for children with special educational needs was showing up long before lockdown. None of the disruption of this year has helped to change that picture.

Many local authorities, struggling with years of austerity cuts, are still often finding it difficult to provide appropriate placements, and children with special needs are missing out in many cases on their education, putting their parents under enormous pressure to pick up the pieces. Research commissioned by the Local Government Association acknowledges the extra funding that the Government have provided for special educational needs in this comprehensive spending review period, but it estimates that councils still face a high-needs shortfall of at least £889 million. It would be good to hear from the Minister whether there will be further sustained investment in special educational needs provision by Ministers over the course of the next spending review.

Similarly, it would be helpful to hear what further support Ministers are providing for investment in mental health services to which schools can have access. Various charities have highlighted the increased feelings of isolation and loneliness during lockdown for many young people. Again, the Children’s Commissioner has articulated the greater threats of domestic abuse, online grooming and other threats that children faced during lockdown, few of which would have been picked up by teachers during that period, and for which children now require support.

The final thing I want to mention in terms of the financial implications that covid has for schools is child poverty. Research by the Institute for Public Policy Research suggests that covid threatens to push up to another 200,000 more children into poverty by the end of the year. That is on top of the 4.2 million children trapped in poverty already. As unions such as the National Education Union have highlighted, child poverty is already putting pressure on school budgets, with schools funding extra breakfast and holiday clubs, providing and washing children’s clothing, and supplying children with essential equipment that they need to learn.

I acknowledge the Government’s investment in digital equipment and the expansion of free school meals to cover school holidays at Easter and over the summer period but, given the expected rise in unemployment and the associated rise in child poverty that I fear is inevitable, it would be helpful if Ministers would confirm whether similar free school meal provision can be made this half term, and in the holidays at Christmas and next year, particularly while the covid pandemic is still having an impact.

What further investment will Ministers make to tackle the digital poverty that is likely to hold young people back if they still do not have access to laptops, tablets or other such equipment? Will Ministers consider providing free household internet access to children and young people in households on universal credit?

I am grateful for helpful briefings from the National Association of Head Teachers, NASUWT, the Local Government Association, the National Education Union and, of course, schools in my constituency, and my local authority. Schools face a difficult financial challenge in the coming months, and none more than those in my borough. Ministers need to extend funding to cover covid costs and to recognise that sustained investment is needed in areas of deprivation and special needs. Further investment will be required in mental health services, and rising child poverty will have a further significant impact on schools and their finances.

Children’s Future Food Report

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Children’s Future Food report.

My sentiment differs from that expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) when he was winding up our previous debate on co-operatives and mutuals. He talked, naturally, of his huge pride and pleasure in contributing to that debate, but few Members will rise with pride or pleasure to contribute to this one. This is a very necessary debate, but it is not, I hope, one in which we, as a House of Commons or as a country, can take much pleasure.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling the debate so that we can properly consider and debate the report, and press the Minister on the Government’s response to the report’s important recommendations. In doing so, it is worth our remembering that hunger in this country did not feature as a topic in our debates prior to 2012, so today we are debating something that has happened very quickly in our society. We are considering how the bottom of our society has fallen out, and how those at the very bottom have been subjected to not only hunger, but destitution. Obviously there are reasons for that, although they are not the point of today’s debate. When George Osborne, the then Chancellor, moved to try to prevent the opening up of our markets to much increased international competition by introducing a living wage, it was an important way of trying to counter the collapse of certainties and standards for the poorest people in our communities. Of course, we know that employers try to get round the living wage in various ways, such as through the gig economy. However, I hope that the Government will soon look seriously and carefully at their role in the hunger we are debating today.

We have had a series of cuts—four years in total—to the income of people on benefits. That had never, ever happened before since the beginning of the welfare state between 1909 and 1911. This is an immensely important issue, and in the review of public expenditure, we expect Ministers to fight very hard for the idea that those who have paid most will be at the front of the queue for future payouts.

It is with real pleasure that I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) for co-chairing the inquiry that led to the report. It is also appropriate to thank not only those who made sure we had a report to consider, but the Food Foundation, which is led by Laura Sandys, who was until recently a Member of this House, for its work in raising the whole issue of hunger and destitution. The report not only does that, but makes practical proposals for what we might do about the situation. Likewise, I wish to thank the hundreds of children and young people who contributed to the inquiry, particularly those young people who, with their co-interviewees, not only brought about a report for us, but are continuing the work by becoming ambassadors on this big issue.

Let us recall how new a topic hunger, including school hunger, and the destitution that follows it is for the House of Commons. If we look at the index of our work—our parliamentary questions and debates—we see that there was not much to be said about the issue before 2012. At that point, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, was asked about it, given that that same week, the Trussell Trust had said that unless the Government took action, the number of people who would be drawing on food banks would double between then and 2015, when the next general election was due. I asked him to take action that day, and while he did not do so, MPs did by forming an all-party group to look at the extent of hunger around the country and to collect evidence. In what I believe was a first, a group of MPs then formed a charity, Feeding Britain, to take the work forward. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), I helped to form that charity in 2015. Part of what we are debating today is the work of Feeding Britain. Let me draw attention to my constituency, where we were among the first—we may have been the first—to try to deal with the shocking situation of children being hungry. The work was specifically about the situation during the school holidays, but its brief widened all too quickly.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for his speech thus far—it is impossible to disagree with a single point of it. In recent months, my constituency, which has traditionally been seen as a relatively well-off part of London, has seen real evidence of hunger, with people needing our food bank and now school hunger projects. Has he looked at the low take-up of Healthy Start vouchers, which represent Government support for people on benefits with newborn children? Almost 45% of eligible people do not take those vouchers up. Does he not think there is more that the Government and the supermarkets should be doing to promote the scheme?

[Frank Field]

I am immensely grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was not going to mention that matter, because I was not sure how many other people would raise it during the debate. It is covered by one of the report’s recommendations, and the fact that a targeted benefit is failing to reach many of the people at whom it is aimed is important. Perhaps the Minister will set out the Government’s response.

Catholic Sixth-form Colleges

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of Catholic sixth form colleges.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and at the outset of this debate I thank the Backbench Business Committee for selecting it.

Catholic sixth-form colleges face double discrimination under the Government’s funding of post-16 education: they are not academies, so they receive less funding than colleges that have converted to become academies, but even if they wanted to become academies they cannot do so.

The Government have been aware of these problems for a number of years, but they have done little to address either concern. On top of the huge cuts in funding to post-16 education since 2010, this double discrimination is raising concerns within the Catholic community about the long-term future of all 14 Catholic sixth-form colleges in England.

Unlike Catholic schools, the religious character of Catholic sixth-form colleges is not protected in statute, so the trustees of Catholic sixth-form colleges such as the nationally renowned St Dominic’s in my constituency, even if they were huge fans of academising, could not switch their college to make it an academy and take advantage of the many financial inducements that such status might allow.

St Dominic’s has an impressive history. It was established 140 years ago, in 1879, as a school. When the London borough of Harrow reorganised its education system, creating a specific sixth-form sector, the Dominican nuns agreed to transfer the school grounds to the Diocese of Westminster as the site of a new Catholic sixth-form college.

St Dominic’s Sixth Form College opened its doors to its first 289 students—boys and girls—in September 1979. With more than 1,300 students, it attracts young men and women from a wide geographical area across north-west London, with a number travelling more than 15 miles a day to study for their level 3 qualifications. It is a great Catholic college, but it exists within a multi-faith and multi-cultural setting that reflects our very diverse local community in Harrow.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman wanted to add at this point the enormous concentration that that college and other Catholic sixth-form colleges have shown in relation to social justice. That has been a strong element of what those colleges teach and the way that they teach it.

[Gareth Thomas]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to take the opportunity to praise the contribution of Catholic sixth-form colleges in teaching about social justice. I do not know whether that is part of the reason that I keep getting elected. [Laughter.] Certainly, though, Catholic sixth-form colleges deserve his praise for their teaching about social justice.

The staff at St Dominic’s, to whom the hon. Gentleman was perhaps also alluding, are some of the best in the business. They are experts in their field who have devoted their careers to the education of post-16 students. They teach at a very high level, which in turn enables the students to get excellent results.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a great case for that specific sixth-form college, but I understand that 85% of these Catholic sixth-form colleges are rated “outstanding” or “good” by Ofsted, so clearly there is excellent teaching going on across all of them.

[Gareth Thomas]

I should not have allowed the hon. Gentleman to intervene, because he has stolen a line from later in my speech, but he makes a good point and I will return to it later.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for being unable to stay and make a speech in this debate—I have a meeting with a Minister—but I want to make this point. Does he agree that, given the fact that schools are increasingly becoming secularised, parents must have the option to have their child educated with faith as a cornerstone and to have an input into spiritual teaching, and that the Government cannot and must not ignore this point but instead must take it into consideration when allocating funding? Spiritual education is so important in this day and age.

[Gareth Thomas]

I recognise the continuing and strong support for spiritual education, and it continues to be a striking feature of many of our communities that there is strong support for faith schools. In the context of the debate, there is strong support for this Catholic sixth-form college, which inspired me to seek Backbench Business Committee approval for this debate, and I am sure that there is also strong support for the other Catholic sixth-form colleges across the country. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point.

[Jim Shannon]

To re-emphasise that point, when it comes to parents seeking a school for their children to go to, it is so important that they have a choice between secular teaching and faith-based teaching. When it comes to funding and assistance, we obviously look to the Minister for some support, but it is important that people have that choice and that that choice is available in Members’ own constituencies as well.

[Gareth Thomas]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about choice. I suppose the essential point of this debate is to say that there needs to be a level playing field in funding. A child who wants to go to a certain type of school or college should not see that there is better funding for one particular institution than there is for another down the road. I am sure that is a point he will agree with.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. In relation to capital, particularly for colleges and their funding, sometimes Catholic schools have had to amalgamate to release property they can sell to raise capital funding. I have come across cases such as that—I do not know whether he has or not—because of the lack of capital funding.

[Gareth Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the lack of capital funding, and access to capital funding is one way in which Catholic sixth-form colleges face the double discrimination that I talked about in my opening remarks. Later in my speech, I will give some detail about the issue of capital.

Until 1993, St Dominic’s Sixth Form College was part of Harrow’s local authority-maintained system, but following the Government’s post-16 reorganisation the college became independent within the state tertiary system, overseen by the Further Education Funding Council for England. That change brought about new challenges and pressures on the college, primarily to increase student numbers and its educational provision, in order to cater for the educational needs in our community.

The 21st century has seen a series of considerable successes for the college, as its reputation for delivering high-quality sixth-form education has continued to spread. By 2007, St Dominic’s Sixth Form College was among the small group of colleges that were awarded beacon status. The 2008 Ofsted inspection of the college judged it “outstanding”, which is a distinction it has held on to ever since. Indeed, the college is now regarded as being at the very top of the league of sixth-form colleges for “excellence” in its educational provision and for its A-level results. In 2017, The Sunday Times specifically recognised it as the best sixth-form college of the year.

Not surprisingly, therefore, St Dominic’s is heavily oversubscribed—typically, there are about 3,000 applications for the 700 places available annually—but in recent years the college has had to expand, in part to meet the financial challenges of a static budgetary settlement. However, with 1,300 students, the college is now full, with no capacity to expand further.

Without an increase in funding per student or additional students, revenue income will remain flat and with increased costs such as pensions, salaries and so on, the risk of further financial challenge becomes very real. The implications of that include the possibility of a reduced curriculum, at a time when the new Ofsted framework requires a rich and diverse curriculum offer, and the possibility of substantially increased teacher-to-student ratios.

The principal of St Dominic’s, the excellent Andrew Parkin, rightly describes his college as an “educational jewel” that is looking increasingly fragile, because there are no significant financial increases on the horizon.

There are 14 Catholic sixth-form colleges in England: Aquinas in Cheshire, Cardinal Newman in Preston, Carmel in St Helens, Christ the King in Lewisham, Holy Cross in Bury, Loreto in Manchester, Notre Dame in Leeds, St Brendan’s in Bristol, St Charles in Kensington, St Francis Xavier in Wandsworth, St John Rigby in Wigan, St Mary’s in Blackburn and Xaverian in Manchester, as well as my own, St Dominic’s. Like the wider sixth-form college sector, those are high-performing institutions, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes).

Catholic sixth-form colleges teach just over 27,000 pupils, and employ almost 2,500 teachers and support staff. Together, they educate about 3% of all 16 to 18-year-olds in publicly funded provision. They account for 4% of all A-level students and for 5% of students progressing to higher education, including to the most competitive universities. Some 86% of them, as the hon. Gentleman also mentioned, are rated outstanding or good by Ofsted. They have a justified reputation as centres of excellence and places of academic rigour and achievement. They give students the chance to excel, regardless of their previous academic achievement.

Catholic sixth-form colleges have many things in common, and most serve diverse and often deprived communities.

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend talks about the excellent standard of education in Catholic sixth-form colleges. Does he agree that that is all the more commendable in relation to Carmel College in St Helens—a college of which we are very proud—where more than a third of the cohort is from a disadvantaged background? That high standard of educational excellence means that the college contributes strongly to social mobility in the borough.

[Gareth Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about Carmel College, which he knows very well. Catholic sixth-form colleges are generally regarded as a vital catalyst for social mobility in the areas they serve, and many have high levels of progression into further and higher education. Although they maintain a strong Catholic ethos, they are open to students of all faiths and none. Inevitably, many understandably cite their Catholic identity and vision as being key to their success.

I am told that Catholic dioceses across the country are developing multi-academy trusts so as not to suffer needless financial loss and because of the inducements on offer from the Government for conversion to academies. Within that construct, which is not of their choosing, they are, to their credit, trying to lock down school partnership and school-to-school support. Given the wealth of expertise within Catholic sixth-form colleges, one might have thought that the Government would have wanted them to be part of such multi-academy trust arrangements. However, even if the colleges want to join the trusts, they cannot do so at the moment.

The future of Catholic sixth-form colleges and their ongoing excellent performance largely depend on three things: revenue funding, capital funding and, in the worst case, the possibility of conversion to academies. On revenue funding, it is without question that sixth-form funding is in crisis. Two deep cuts to post-16 education funding were made after 2010. The national funding rate, which is by far the biggest component of the 16-to-18 funding formula, has been frozen at £4,000 per student per year since 2013, and funding for 18-year-olds was cut to just £3,300 per student in 2014. Expenditure on 16-to-19 education fell from £6.39 billion in 2010-11 to £5.68 billion in 2017-18—a reduction of more than 11% in cash terms and more than 20% in real terms. In 2018, the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated that, at 2018-19 prices, spending per full-time equivalent 16-to-19 student in further education fell from just over £6,200 in 2010-11 to £5,698 in 2017-18.

The cuts come against a backdrop of significant increases in running costs in education generally, and in colleges in particular. Since 2010, the Government have imposed a range of new requirements on institutions, which has left much less money for schools and colleges to spend on the frontline education of students, at a time when the needs of young people are becoming increasingly complex.

The future for Catholic sixth-form colleges also depends on changes to capital funding—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham). A number of institutions are keen to expand but cannot access the necessary funding to educate more students. Others have increased student numbers as a response to funding pressures, but have reached maximum capacity and lack the capital needed to satisfy the demand for places. The absence of a sufficient national capital fund, as well as the growing reluctance of banks to lend for capital projects, means that many sixth-form colleges, including most Catholic ones, have nowhere to turn.

On academy conversions, I understand that some 23 sixth-form colleges have taken the opportunity to change their status and become 16-to-19 academies. That has allowed them to have their VAT costs refunded, and it provides, on average, more than £385,000 more to spend on the frontline education of students each year. Catholic sixth-form colleges, in common with all colleges that do not convert, face financial disadvantages also due to the Government’s implementation of the teachers’ pay grant. In September 2018, they extended the grant to cover 16-to-19 academies, but not sixth-form colleges or other colleges that had not converted. All Catholic sixth-form colleges were affected. They have the same workforce, pay rates and negotiating machinery as almost every 16-to-19 academy, and there is no justification for treating them differently when it comes to teachers’ pay.

Due to the religious character of Catholic sixth-form colleges, they do not have the option to convert to academies. Since they are not schools, they do not come within the legislative framework that applies to schools and which includes protections of a school’s religious character. As 16-to-19 academies, they would have to remain further education institutions but would not be governed by the statutory provisions of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, which contains the current legislative protections that enable them to be conducted as Catholic colleges.

An Act of Parliament or a change of legislation is not required to allow a sixth-form college to become a 16-to-19 academy. The position is, however, different for Catholic colleges. When maintained schools become academies they become independent schools that are subject to statutory provision and regulation, including protection of their religious character, which thereby enables them to be conducted, still, as Catholic schools. When sixth-form colleges become 16-to-19 academies, they do not come within the legislative framework that applies to independent schools, because they remain as further education institutions. However, they are also not governed by the statutory provisions of the 1992 Act. A review of the legislation, jointly undertaken by the Catholic Education Service and the Department for Education, has made it clear that the statutory protections will no longer apply to Catholic colleges post conversion to 16-to-19 academies. That includes protections in the areas of curriculum, acts of worship and the responsible body—in other words, the governance.

Furthermore, I understand that financial risk assessments for further education institutions that wish to convert into academies require any Church-controlled premises to be removed from the college’s balance sheet. That stipulation is likely to affect the perceived financial health of Catholic sixth-form colleges and place them in the position of being unable to pass the risk assessment needed to become an academy.

One solution to address those anomalies suggested by the Catholic Education Service is for the Government to explore legislative and non-legislative options for Catholic sixth-form colleges to convert while retaining their religious character. Such legislation would affect only Catholic sixth-form colleges, as there are no other religiously designated sixth-form colleges in the country. I understand that the Catholic Education Service has had useful discussions with the Department for Education about reinstating in a future education Bill the legislative protections for Catholic colleges that want to become 16-to-19 academies. Such a Bill could ensure that the protections that Catholic sixth-form colleges currently have would be mirrored if they converted into 16-to-19 academies. I understand that only a short clause would be needed, although it is difficult to know when such a Bill might emerge in a future Queen’s Speech, or, given the way that Brexit is affecting the parliamentary timetable, how soon the House of Commons and the House of Lords might realistically have a chance to debate such a provision. It is also not clear whether such a clause is the Government’s preferred option for protecting the future of Catholic sixth-form colleges.

It is worth noting that non-Catholic sixth-form colleges that want to become academies have benefited from some £10 million of Government funding through the area review restructuring facility. I understand that that facility, from which Catholic sixth-form colleges have been clearly unable to benefit, closes this month.

[Conor McGinn]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the sense of urgency within the Catholic sixth-form college sector about this matter cannot be stressed enough to the Minister? Representatives of Carmel College have told me that they have had to reduce the number of subjects they teach and have larger class sizes, but they are also having to lay off staff. That is not sustainable or viable, nor is it something that any of us wants, so I urge the Minister to address that anomaly quickly.

[Gareth Thomas]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention on behalf of Carmel College; he makes his point extremely well. Capital funding, VAT refunds and the teachers’ pay grant are all areas of finance for post-16 academies that Catholic sixth-form colleges, like other non-academy post-16 colleges, are not benefiting from. That is short-changing Catholic students, and also many other students who benefit from attending those other institutions.

As the number of 16 to 18-year-olds is set to increase, it is important that funding is made available to deal with that demographic upturn. Sixth-form colleges, as large specialist 16-to-18 institutions with proven track records, are well placed to help to cater for the coming upturn in student numbers, but they urgently need access to sufficient capital funding to build the necessary capacity. The Sixth Form Colleges Association believes that establishing a capital expansion fund for dedicated 16-to-18 educational institutions such as sixth-form colleges is the way to break that capital impasse. Other colleges also deserve to be able to access proper capital funding, such as Harrow College and Stanmore College, which serve my constituency. That would help to increase the number of young people being educated in high-performing institutions, at a lower cost to the public purse and with a higher likelihood of success than continuing to establish new, usually much smaller providers.

The critical issue is that since 2010 the further education sector has been held back through lack of investment. Over the past 10 years, colleges have had to deal with an average funding cut of 30%, while at the same time costs have increased dramatically. As I alluded to, other colleges in Harrow such as Harrow College and Stanmore College have been hit financially, reflecting problems across the English post-16 sector. Further education is the only part of the education budget to have been cut year on year since 2010. That drop in funding has had a real impact on staff pay: on average, college teachers are now paid at less than 80% of the rate of school staff. The latest Association of Colleges workforce survey suggests that average lecturer pay in colleges is just over £30,000—significantly lower than average schoolteacher pay and university academic pay, which are £35,000 and just over £43,000 respectively. The value of staff pay has fallen by more than 25% since 2009, and staff turnover rates in colleges averaged 17% in 2017, which is the most recent year for which stats are available. The hardest-to-fill posts are teaching jobs in engineering, construction and mathematics.

The recent ring-fenced teachers’ pay grant for schools was not extended to further education colleges, which made it even more difficult for Catholic sixth-form colleges and other post-16 institutions to recruit the teachers they need. Schoolteachers received a pay rise of up to 3.5%, whereas college staff did not, which is simply unfair. Extending the teachers’ pay grant to Catholic sixth-form colleges and all other non-academy 16-to-19 institutions would relieve pressure on the frontline and begin to level the playing field between institutions that are delivering effectively the same type of education. The cost would be comparatively small, but the impact would be significant—not just on the financial position of individual colleges, but in reassuring the sector that its work, curriculum and workforce were properly understood and appreciated by the Government.

In short, students do not deserve to be discriminated against. If students attend a college that is not an academy, the Government are discriminating against them, as they allow academy colleges to be better funded. Catholic sixth-form colleges and their students are doubly disadvantaged, as those colleges cannot convert to become academies even if they want to. It is high time that Catholic sixth-form colleges, like other non-academy colleges, got the same funding as academies; that this double discrimination was brought to an end; and, crucially, that funding for all post-16 education was significantly improved. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. There is that concern. All the Catholic sixth-form colleges are producing an excellent education, with a good flow of young people going on to university and being given the opportunity to excel. Virtually every young person who goes through St Dominic’s goes on to good universities with good courses, particularly in maths and science. We should be encouraging that and ensuring that it happens.

At the same time, we have the challenge of what we could call the learning tax. Catholic sixth-form colleges are not able to academise and therefore cannot claim the VAT back. That gives any college a real challenge. Catholic sixth-form colleges should be able to academise. We should also remove any restrictions on the faith of the leadership of the college. Such colleges should be able to ensure that Catholics are the senior management and senior staff. We should have a position where the intake is in line with legislation, namely that a proportion of the students coming into the college can be selected. They do not have to be exclusively Catholic, but there should be a Catholic flavour to the colleges.

Equally, there is a challenge in what we do to expand such colleges, which are extremely popular and very successful. It is fair to say that the teachers in those colleges are experienced, highly professional and doing a good job, yet they do not get the pay rises they would get if they were working in a college down the road. That is clearly unfair. We have to remove the restriction whereby these colleges are not getting the pay grant that other colleges get. That is unfair discrimination.

[Gareth Thomas]

Unusually, the hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech, but will he join me in urging the Minister to commit today to the next teachers’ pay award for post-16 institutions being fully funded, regardless of status? That would certainly give substantial reassurance to the principal of St Dominic’s Sixth Form College, as well as other Catholic sixth-form colleges.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my neighbour for congratulating me on my speech. I look forward to him congratulating me on many occasions on my speeches in this place and in the main Chamber. He makes an important point. We are going into the comprehensive spending review, where there is an opportunity for the Government to make some changes. I am not sure whether we need a change in the law to ensure that Catholic sixth-form colleges receive the pay award that other colleges receive. If that change is needed, we should get on and do it. Given that the Government seem to find time to adjust the law when they wish, it may be that that would be relatively easy to do. I do not think there would be any disagreement across the House on the need for the measure.

If we could reach a point where Catholic sixth-form colleges could academise, get the benefits of academy status and reclaim VAT costs, that would be an enormous boost to their revenue funding. Equally, if we could remove any measures that prevent senior staff from holding a particular faith, that would remove the challenge that many such colleges face.

The hon. Member for Harrow West raised the issue of capital funding. Why would a bank lend to a college if its revenue funding was already challenged and it might not be able to repay the loan? That is one of the key challenges in raising capital. There needs to be a fund available to Catholic sixth-form colleges from which they can draw in order to provide capital provision within the system. All Catholic sixth-form colleges suffer the same challenge of how to expand and get more revenue funding. If they do not have the capital, they are clearly not able to expand. Their revenue base is a particular challenge.

In terms of the money for 2019-20, if the teachers’ pay award was extended to Catholic sixth-form colleges, it would cost only £2.5 million—a relatively small amount compared with the overall budget—but it would make a huge difference to the colleges that need to pay it. As my neighbour, the hon. Member for Harrow West, has mentioned, if we could get to a position whereby Catholic sixth-form colleges were allowed to academise or possibly join multi-academy trusts, it would assist them to some degree. At a time when the majority of young people in this country are taught in academies, it seems unfair that Catholic sixth-form colleges are discriminated against and do not have the capacity to opt in. If they were an 11-to-18 school, they could academise, but because they have chosen to be a sixth-form Catholic college, they cannot. That does not make sense in this day and age.

We have T-levels coming on stream. It seems ridiculous that sixth-form colleges are dropping STEM courses when we are trying to develop T-levels. They will be properly on stream by 2023, but we need action now.

Will the Minister look at the case that has been put forward? If we need a change in the law, so be it. We could change the law relatively easily with all-party support, and I believe it would pass the Commons and Lords very quickly. We could equalise the situation for the benefit of the young people we all serve.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. It is not for the first time in my case, but I am not going to say that it is too often—it is never enough.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) on securing this debate. Catholic sixth-form colleges make an important contribution to education in this country and the Government recognise the distinctive role that they play. To address the important issue raised by the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), we value faith schools generally. I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) that it is the right of parents to be able to bring up their children in their faith and that the state should provide faith schools to enable them to do that. The Government have provided capital through the voluntary-aided route to enable the Catholic Education Society to establish more Catholic faith schools in this country.

I am aware that the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills has met the hon. Member for Harrow West to discuss the issues facing this group of colleges. The Minister has also recently seen at first hand the quality of the educational and wider opportunities provided to young people at St. Dominic’s Sixth Form College in Harrow. I welcome the opportunity to explore the issues further today.

I want to begin by paying tribute to all the hard-working staff, principals, heads and governors in those colleges. Sixth-form colleges at their best not only provide excellent academic education, but help provide direction to young people and help them to grow in maturity through those crucial years. They allow young people to develop outside a school environment, giving them the aspiration to achieve in whatever field, job or career they want to pursue. Catholic sixth-form colleges provide that within an atmosphere of moral guidance and pastoral support.

Catholic sixth-form colleges represent a significant proportion of sixth-form colleges in England—14 out of 60, not including those that have become academies—and 17% of sixth-form college students attend a Catholic college. Such colleges are focused on meeting the needs of local communities and are key to our drive to improve social mobility. A high proportion of students in sixth-form colleges and 16-to-19 academies are from disadvantaged backgrounds. Colleges provide excellent support to help those students achieve high results and progress to sustained education, apprenticeships or employment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) was right to point to the priority that Catholic sixth-form colleges give to social justice. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) pointed out that 12 of the 14 Catholic sixth-form colleges are rated “good” or “outstanding”. Academic excellence has always been, and remains, at the core. More than a third of sixth-form colleges are rated by Ofsted as “outstanding”. Looking at the 14 Catholic sixth-from colleges in England, the picture is even better, with seven out of the 14 rated “outstanding”, and five other colleges rated “good”. I recognise that that has been achieved in increasingly challenging financial circumstances.

Of course, an Ofsted rating is only a snapshot and I know that colleges are constantly reviewing their practices and procedures to see whether further improvements can be made. Two Catholic sixth-form colleges, for example, have benefited from support from the Government’s strategic college improvement fund. St Dominic’s Sixth Form College is partnering with St Francis Xavier Sixth Form College in south London. The fund supports colleges to improve the quality of provision and helps to mobilise and strengthen improvement capacity within the further education sector.

I congratulate sixth-form colleges on the successful implementation of the reforms to A-levels over the last few years, with the first wave of exams in 13 new subjects in 2017 and a further 12 last year. The reforms will continue to be rolled out over the next two years, with the first exams in a further 20 new A-levels in summer this year and another 13 next year. Exam reform is never easy. In the last 30 years, we have had four significant reforms to A-levels—the introduction of the advanced supplementaries, Curriculum 2000, which introduced the AS/A2 structure, the introduction of the A* grade a decade ago and now demodularisation.

In the run-up to the spending review that is expected later this year, we have been looking closely at the sustainability and funding of the FE sector, including sixth-form colleges. The Government understand that the sector faces significant challenges, and the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills has made it a personal priority to address the constraints and their impact over the last year. Campaigns such as “Love our Colleges” and “Raise the Rate” have helped raise the profile of FE and sixth-form colleges and their important work.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East raised the issue of 16-to-19 funding for colleges compared with sixth forms in schools. We have ended that unfair discrimination between colleges and schools. All institutions now receive funding according to the same base rate. The funding system aims to ensure a common entitlement. The same formula is applied to all students and different institutions now receive the same funding rate.

However, we recognise that funding per student in the 16-to-19 phase has not kept up with costs. We protected the base rate for funding for 16 to 19-year-olds at £4,000 until the end of this spending review period, but that is, of course, against the backdrop of previous reductions and the impact of inflation—reductions that happened because we had to tackle the historic and unsustainable deficit that we inherited in 2010, representing 10% of GDP. As my hon. Friend the Member of Harrow East pointed out, we prioritised protecting core school funding for five to 16-year-olds, because that is where the biggest influence on life outcomes happens.

The position has been made more difficult by reducing numbers of students. The number of 16 to 18-year-olds in the population has been falling for 10 years and it is now 10% lower than in 2008-09.

The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) raised the issue of the lower base funding rate for the third year of 16-to-19 education. She is right to do so, but that lower level does not apply to students with special educational needs.

As the hon. Members for Harrow West and for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) pointed out, capital funding is a key concern for sixth-form colleges. Unlike general further education colleges, sixth-form colleges can bid for the condition improvement fund along with schools. Unlike academies, SFCs can borrow, and many have productive relationships with banks, although some of them have found it harder to borrow in recent years—a point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East.

We recognise that an important challenge facing sixth-form colleges in many areas over the coming years is to prepare for the anticipated increase in student numbers. That increase is, of course, an opportunity to recruit additional students and receive the associated increased funding, but in some cases it needs extra up-front investment—for example, to build new classrooms—so we will look carefully in the spending review at how we can help colleges to prepare for the increase in student numbers that many of them now anticipate.

It is true that we have made a teacher pay grant available to schools and academies to ensure that they can afford to implement the school teacher pay award this year, and that it did not extend to FE or sixth-form colleges. Compared with maintained schools and academies, colleges have a different legal status and relationship with Government, and they are not covered by the recommendations of the School Teachers Review Body. We concluded that we could therefore not extend the teacher pay grant to colleges. We are considering colleges’ needs separately ahead of the coming spending review, to help make the case for the best FE funding. The Government are concerned about ensuring that FE colleges can attract and retain the staff they need to deliver high quality education. Again, we welcome the input of Catholic sixth-form colleges.

[Gareth Thomas]

I am not sure I accept the argument the Minister is making for the last pay award, but let us put that to one side for now. Can he tell us whether he has sorted the issues, so that the next teachers’ pay award will be fully funded not only for colleges that are academies, but for those that are not, such as the Catholic sixth-form colleges that have been mentioned and all post-16 institutions?

[Nick Gibb]

That will be very much an issue for the next spending review, but perhaps a neater solution would be to address the issue of the conversion of Catholic sixth-form colleges to academy status. I am aware that the issue of academy conversion is very significant for this group of colleges. Indeed, each Catholic sixth-form college was asked to consider joining an academy in the reports of the further education area reviews covering their areas, but I understand that only three of the 14 made an immediate decision not to pursue that option.

I should explain—as other hon. Members have explained—that the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 includes specific freedoms, which permit Catholic sixth-form colleges to maintain and develop their religious character. Fully equivalent protections are not included in the legal framework for 16-to-19 academies, which are a distinctive type of institution compared with other academies established through the Education Act 2011. The provisions that allow sixth-form colleges to consider faith when appointing governors and staff, and that allow them to teach religious education and provide collective worship in line with tenets of the Catholic faith, do not currently exist for 16-to-19 academies.

When the legislative framework for 16-to-19 academies was first established, we did not envisage establishing them as faith-based 16-to-19 institutions. At the time, our view was that EU directive 2000/78/EC prevented the creation of new post-16 vocational institutions with a religious character. We had adopted a blanket approach, so that no post-16 provision could be established with a religious character. We are now exploring how to put in place the right conditions to enable Catholic sixth-form colleges to convert to academy status with their existing freedoms.

I know that my ministerial colleagues have met representatives of Catholic sixth-form colleges and the Catholic Education Service to discuss this issue. As the hon. Member for Harrow West pointed out, it would require primary legislation to make the necessary changes, but the Government’s legislative programme does not yet provide the scope for such legislation. We will of course keep this under review in future parliamentary Sessions, and we will continue to work with this group of colleges and with the hon. Gentleman to try to find a solution to this problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Thomas]

This has been an extremely good debate. I reinforce my gratitude to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing me to secure it, and to Back-Bench colleagues and the shadow Minister for their contributions. I also thank the Minister for his thorough response. However, I have to say that from listening to him speak—notwithstanding the thorough contribution he made—it is clear that the double discrimination that Catholic sixth-form colleges face is unlikely to end any time soon.

I urge the Minister and Secretary of State for Education to give this issue further priority in the months to come. If the issue of the next teachers’ pay award being fully funded—not just funded in full for those colleges that have converted to become academies—could be resolved quickly, it would certainly provide some reassurance to Catholic sixth-form colleges and other post-16 institutions that are not academies. This issue needs to be sorted out. Although it is good that the Minister has been able to focus on it today, clearly more urgency is needed.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the future of Catholic sixth form colleges.

School Funding

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on leading this debate and Mr Ramanandi, who led the creation of the petition, as well as those who organised and signed it throughout the country.

This is the second debate on education this year that I have attended in this Chamber—the first was on college funding—and the pattern is the same: Government party Members wring their hands about the impact of financial cuts in their constituencies. When will they realise that what they are describing is a direct impact of their failed austerity project? We cannot do more with less.

I concur with many points made already by Members in this debate, so I will focus on how the cuts in school funding have impacted in my borough, Hounslow. I have seen at first hand the great work that our schools are doing—23 of our schools are rated outstanding by Ofsted; our secondary schools perform above the UK average in Progress 8 scores; and our primary schools exceed the national average in reading, writing and maths—and that is in a community where the majority of children do not speak English as a first language at home and with high levels of churn in its schools. Hounslow Council has also invested £177 million in capital funding for the expansion of primary, secondary and SEN schooling, but that is all happening despite the steeply rising and unjust cuts being imposed on our schools by the Government.

Other Members have talked about the experience of their constituencies. In Hounslow we have seen cuts in total spending per pupil since 2010, and real-terms cuts in per-pupil funding between 2015 and 2019. Local authority spending on school services has been cut, so that—if they still exist—they now have to be bought back by schools. Before, schools had them for free and yet now school budgets have been cut, as we have heard so many times. The range of extracurricular and curricular activities supported by councils has gone down and down. This year, schools in Hounslow have lost teachers, teaching assistants, support staff, auxiliary staff and the essential additional support that children in crisis or trouble need in particular.

To give some numbers, we have had an additional 5,640 primary and secondary places in the borough, and a 51% increase in children with special needs or an education, health and care plan since 2012—that is the third highest increase in London—and we face £27 million in funding cuts in 2018-19, with £4.5 million savings in education and early-years provision. Added up, that has a massive impact on the ability of our children to learn with good quality. As others have said, many schools, teachers and parents have expressed concerns about children with special needs in particular.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend’s experience in Hounslow is mirrored in other parts of London, including in my constituency. The headteacher of an outstanding special needs school in my constituency wrote to me, knowing this debate was to take place, to flag that in order to balance her budget she faces having to drastically reduce staffing ratios in her school.

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that it is both the numbers and the quality of staff at special needs schools that make such a difference to children’s outcomes. But that is for the children who get into the special schools: I hear again and again from parents, teachers and governors about children who desperately need to be assessed. Even once assessed, they desperately need the right support either in their mainstream school or in a special school, but they are not getting it. They have to wait—not because of a lack of will, but because of a lack of professional support and places. In London, we have the additional problem of a massive shortage of professional psychological and psychiatric support in child and adolescent mental health services. Children with special needs who are not supported not only are suffering, with an impact on their future; their troubles have an impact on the other children in the class, affecting their learning. That is unacceptable.

Teachers and governors have written to tell me about a number of things, including the inability to provide maintenance to replace air conditioning—in Hounslow under the flight path, the windows cannot be opened in summer. Another cannot replace an inclusion mentor and children are not getting the high-quality art and technology support because the technician has had to be cut.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

First, I thank the staff at Squirrels Heath for what they do. I totally acknowledge the pressures there are on school budgets and I know that it is difficult managing these budgets. It is also true that, compared with other countries in the world, we spend relatively high amounts on state education at both primary and secondary levels. However, I will of course be very happy to meet my hon. Friend.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

T3. Because of their religious character, Catholic sixth-form colleges such as the nationally renowned St Dominic’s in my constituency cannot, even if they wanted to, take advantage of the financial inducements available that converting to an academy might offer. What steps, then, will the Secretary of State take to end the double discrimination against Catholic sixth-form colleges and allow them access to the extra financial resources that academies get?

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)]

I visited St Dominic’s only last week, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, and was astounded at the brilliant work it is doing. I am very aware of the problem facing Catholic sixth-form colleges, as is the Secretary of State, and we are considering it.