Oral Answers to Questions
Gavin Williamson Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
We are investing more in schools and high needs over the next three years, starting with an additional £2.6 billion, including £780 million for high needs in 2020-21 and £1.5 billion for the cost of the teacher pension scheme.
Bridget Phillipson
While the north-east is home to some of the best performing primary schools in the country, sadly, at secondary level, there are issues with poor outcomes for young people. Rather than reannouncing an initiative from two years ago using existing departmental funding, when will the Secretary of State properly tackle the fact that far too many children in our region are not receiving the education they deserve?
Gavin Williamson
I recently had the great pleasure of visiting schools across the north-east, as well as Opportunity North East, a new programme aimed at raising attainment in the key area of secondary schools. This already seems to be having an impact on schools—that was certainly my impression from conversations I had with school leaders—and we want to continue to build on that across the north-east.
Mr Bacon
Since 2013, the total schools block grant in my constituency has gone down, whereas funding across London regionally has increased by 4.5%. I know that my right hon. Friend recognises the historical imbalances towards metropolitan areas, so what reassurances can he give me and the excellent schools in Orpington that the NFF will rebalance funding?
Gavin Williamson
The Department and the Government are working towards a hard national funding formula to ensure fair funding across the country in every single constituency. I know that my hon. Friend has been campaigning hard to raise the issue facing his schools, and we will listen closely.
Giles Watling
I thank my right hon. Friend for his earlier answer. The national funding formula is letting down some of Clacton’s schools financially because of the way Essex County Council is rolling it out. Can the Department not have oversight and work with the council to rebalance the books in favour of our hard-pressed schools in Clacton?
Gavin Williamson
I hope that Essex County Council will move towards the national funding formula as rapidly as possible and will see it as clear guidance on what per-pupil funding it should be giving at every school. Part of the reason we have introduced a basic minimum at primary and secondary school level is to ensure that those minimums are delivered to every school across the country, but I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this in greater detail.
Alun Cairns
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the way he is levelling up spending in schools across England, but teaching unions have identified a significant difference between the funding for schools in England and Wales. My constituency is near the bottom of the league table for schools funding in Wales. Will he use all his influence to encourage the Welsh Government to make more money available to schools for them to spend on pupils as he is doing in England?
Gavin Williamson
It is disappointing to see what the Labour and Liberal Democrat Government in Wales have been doing on education. I hope that every penny of the almost £200 million extra the Welsh Government will receive, which has been as a result of the funding increase for schools in England, will be passported to every school in Wales to start raising standards in Wales for every pupil.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
The Times Educational Supplement reported this week that academies in England were putting pressure on older, more experienced and therefore more expensive teachers to leave their jobs in order to save the academies’ money. Teachers in England already earn more than £6,000 less than their counterparts in Scotland. What use is any promise from this Government of pay increases when it comes in tandem with such bullying levelled against some of England’s most experienced teachers?
Gavin Williamson
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the teaching unions and the headteacher unions for the work they have done with the Department on our recruitment and retention policies, which is making sure we work together across the board to make teachers of all ages and experience understand that they can have a fulfilling, rewarding and incredibly important career within education for a generation and more. We will continue that work, recognising the importance to the education of every child of having experienced teachers in our classrooms.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
Levelling up opportunity across the country is my Department’s top priority, and we have made progress. We are reforming technical education, backed by up to £500 million of investment in T-levels once fully rolled out. Since 2011, the disadvantage gap has narrowed, and over the next three years we will be investing £14 billion more in primary and secondary education, which will allow for a cash increase of £7.1 billion by 2022-23.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
Schools in my constituency face the dual challenge of rural and coastal deprivation, and, despite the welcome increase in funding, Devon will remain in the bottom 10% of local authorities in terms of dedicated schools grant per pupil. Will the Secretary of State work with me to ensure that North Devon schools have the funds that they need to support and encourage the aspirations of every child?
Gavin Williamson
I know that my hon. Friend is very passionate about this issue, having been a teacher herself. I am sure that she will welcome the 6.5% per pupil increase in North Devon, which is making, and will make, a real difference to children’s attainment. This is a Government who are delivering extra money for schools throughout the country, but what is also important is that this is a Government who recognise that it is not just about cash—although we are delivering extra cash—but about standards, and about raising standards in every single school for every pupil.
Michael Fabricant
My right hon. Friend and neighbour will know that Staffordshire has been right at the bottom of the pool in comparison with other counties when it comes to money. What good news can he give his schools in South Staffordshire, as well as mine in Lichfield?
Gavin Williamson
As my hon. Friend will know, schools are enjoying an 8.2% cash increase, and schools in Lichfield are receiving an increase of more than 5%. That is to be welcomed, and it is making a real difference. We are also investing in teacher quality and teacher training, and ensuring that the basic starting salary will increase to £30,000. That will be one of the most competitive graduate packages in the marketplace, and will attract the very best into the profession.
Matt Vickers
Levelling up opportunities for young people is a vital part of delivering for constituents such as those in Stockton South. How will my right hon. Friend improve school standards across the north-east so that every child has the best possible chance of succeeding?
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend and I saw the reality of the impact in his constituency when we had the privilege of visiting Thornaby Academy. The academy was recently taken over by Falcon Education Academies Trust, which specialises in supporting schools that are experiencing some of the most challenging circumstances. That was a great example of how injecting leadership and extra support can ensure that schools which have had troubles in the past can reach for a new and more positive future.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
In a review published last week, my constituent Sir Michael Marmot argued that a highly educated and well-paid childcare workforce was essential to the improvement of early-years provision and the tackling of healthcare inequality. Both are essential if we are to provide equal opportunities for the next generation. However, under this Government early-years staff suffered a real-terms pay cut of 5% between 2013 and 2018, and thousands of staff are leaving the profession because of low pay. Will the Secretary of State join me in asking the new Chancellor to pledge more funds for early-years provision in the upcoming Budget, so that we can pay our staff properly and the next generation can have equal opportunities?
Gavin Williamson
I am always happy to make representations to Chancellors. I have in the past, and I am certain that I will in the future. I almost thought that the hon. Lady was going to welcome the extra £66 million that we secured last year, and perhaps if she had had the opportunity to go on for a little longer she would have reached that moment.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Has the Secretary of State seen the report by Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner, in which she points out that between 19% and 20% of kids leaving our schools have no qualifications at all? That is an absolute stain on the conscience of this country. What is he going to do about it?
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Gentleman raises an incredibly important point. I would like to pay tribute to the Children’s Commissioner for her incredibly important work in highlighting some of these issues. It is incumbent on all of us in this House to look at what we can do to make a difference to every child. If we look back to 2010 and even before that, we have seen many young people leaving school without the kind of qualifications that we would want to see for our children. It is incredibly important to note that, although so many more children are now leaving school with the basic English and maths that we would want to see as an absolute minimum, the figure is not high enough. The key element to making that difference is ensuring that we continue to drive standards in schools. That is what we are looking at doing in terms of school improvement and working with organisations such as Ofsted to make a difference.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
Gavin Williamson
I would certainly like to join the hon. Gentleman in welcoming any good figures from any part of the United Kingdom—England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. I always very much welcome the opportunity to see closer co-operation between schools in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to ensure that we learn from the very best practice across all four nations.
Several hon. Members rose—
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
We are working to make sure that more local authorities are rated as outstanding, with fewer failing, and we are also strengthening the social work profession. As was set out in our manifesto, we will undertake a bold, independent review of our children’s social care system so that we can go even further to provide children with the support that they need.
Greg Smith
In Buckinghamshire, our hard-working social workers travel around 1 million miles a year to undertake statutory visits and court attendances. That is considerably more than occurs in urban environments, especially as the family court is now out of area. What further steps can my right hon. Friend take to ensure that children’s social services are fully supported in rural communities?
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend raises an important point. That is why we have committed to putting an extra £1 billion into children and adults’ social care. I would be happy to speak to him about what more we can do to support rural counties and the delivery of these vital services.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
If the Secretary of State really is serious about improving children’s social care, can he explain why a letter sent to him in January, which was signed by 631 experts and myself, to request an independent, whole-system review has been completely ignored?
Gavin Williamson
I will certainly take up the issue of why that correspondence was not responded to immediately. I am sure that the hon. Lady recognises that it was within our manifesto—we have already announced it—that there will be an independent review looking at the care system for our children, and that is something that she will perhaps welcome.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Children’s social care in Northamptonshire had been failing for some time such that the Government set up a children’s commissioner to guide the service into an independent children’s trust. This is an extremely serious issue for Northamptonshire. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the children’s trust has the resources it needs to sort the system out?
Gavin Williamson
We will certainly undertake to make that commitment. The challenges in Northamptonshire were grave, and it was right that the Government decided to take the action that they did to ensure that we have the very highest quality of services for all children in the county.
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
This week, I announced a new set of behaviour hubs that are being introduced right across the country to make sure that there are the very highest standards of behaviour in every single one of our schools.
As with all Government Departments right across the country, we are making sure that there are regular communications about the coronavirus. We are communicating to all educational settings to make sure that they have a clear understanding of some of the challenges in dealing with the virus. We are advising that schools should stay open unless advised otherwise by Public Health England, and we are planning for a reasonable worst-case scenario, working closely with other Departments and, of course, Public Health England.
Kate Osborne
In my constituency of Jarrow, headteachers have told me that they are struggling to make ends meet. Cuts to funding for their schools have resulted in overcrowded classrooms, and teaching and non-teaching staff being cut. Buildings are crumbling. Does the Minister believe, like me, that our teachers and children deserve better?
Gavin Williamson
What we are seeing in the hon. Lady’s constituency is a 6.1% cash increase in what is going to be going to schools and a 4.8% per-pupil increase. That is a positive step forward in making sure that every school benefits from the increases in funding that we announced last year.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend raises an important point about how we make sure that we get the highest level of training to every business—not just to large businesses but to the small and medium-sized enterprise sector as well. The apprenticeship levy has revolutionised how people think about apprenticeships, and we need to continue to build on that. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend to make sure that SMEs get the benefit.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Across the country, hard-working staff in universities and colleges have been forced to strike against effective cuts to their pay and attacks on education that hurt students and staff alike. So far, the Education Secretary’s response to the crisis is much like the Health Secretary’s response to the coronavirus: wash your hands of it and hope it goes away. Will Ministers finally step in, respond to the urgent letter they received from the University and College Union, urge universities to make a fair offer, and ensure that next week’s Budget gives teachers in colleges the pay that they deserve?
Gavin Williamson
I thank the hon. Lady for raising this issue. I want to see a resolution to this matter as swiftly as possible, and I urge both parties to come to a resolution. The people suffering most of all are the students whose studies are being impacted. We need a resolution as swiftly as possible, and I urge both the unions and the universities to get an agreement within the next few weeks.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Gavin Williamson
My right hon. Friend has been campaigning on this issue on behalf of her constituents for a long time. An extra £60 million has been provided for the coming financial year. I know that we are going to be meeting shortly to discuss the particular circumstances that arise in Barnet, and look forward to working with her to find a solution for the maintained nursery schools in her constituency.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Gavin Williamson
I thank my hon. Friend for all the work that he did when he was at the Department for Education. I know that this topic is something that he feels very passionately about. The roll-out of T-levels, the expansion of technical and vocational qualifications, and the extra money that we are putting into colleges all make a vital difference. What makes Derwentside College successful is collaboration with local employers—ensuring that it is training people with the right skills really to contribute to the local labour market.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
Last week, one of my local schools in Ilford South had to strike against forced academisation. Will the Minister consider writing to the Catholic diocese of Brentwood and asking it to consider this unwarranted intervention, which does not have the support of the parents or the teachers at that school? Already this year there has been a mass exodus of staff from the teaching profession because of the threat of forced academisation—not just in Ilford, but across the country.
Gavin Williamson
We are very happy to look at any suggestions that the hon. Gentleman can put forward, because as part of our special educational needs review we are trying to see how we can best deliver these services for the benefit of every child. If he has some suggestions, I ask him to send them to me.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
The Scottish Government have undertaken a review to consider the experiences and outcomes for young people in care in Scotland. Will the UK Government carry out a similar exercise in England?
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Lady will be delighted to hear that we are carrying out an independent care review. Picking up on the comment made by her colleague, the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), it is really important that all four nations of the United Kingdom work together and share best practice, and that we look at how we can provide better outcomes for all those children in care.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for coming to my constituency last week, where he saw MIRA Technology Institute and North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College working together. I raised with him and his team another educational establishment in my constituency, Hinckley Academy and John Cleveland Sixth Form Centre, where the roof leaks significantly when it rains, causing half of its lessons to be cancelled. Will he meet me to discuss how we could do something about this?
Gavin Williamson
Of course I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. It was great to be able to join him at North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College and see the amazing work that is being done. I know that he is an incredible champion for all the schools in his constituency, and I look forward to working to find a solution to the problems that he has outlined.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Like many parents up and down the country, I am looking at my phone every five minutes to see whether my daughter has got the place at her first-choice secondary school that we are hoping for. Will the Secretary of State send his best wishes to all the children in Croydon who are waiting to hear and let us know what he is doing in areas of high demand to ensure that people get their first choices?
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Lady highlights a concern at a worrying time for many parents, as they wait in eager anticipation. While I cannot guarantee her child the place that she wishes for, as that would be improper, I very much hope that she gets it. It is vital that we expand the range of educational establishments. That is why the free school programme has been so important not only in areas of London but right across the country, ensuring that we level up in terms of the quality of educational provision.
Several hon. Members rose—
Children’s Social Care
Gavin Williamson Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
Children and young people who need a social worker, and who are in or have left care are some of the most vulnerable in our society. It is a priority for this Government that these children and young people have the support, protection and care they deserve. I want to update the House on recent developments in this space.
Review of care
The importance of children’s social care was signalled in the Government manifesto. We must challenge ourselves to do all we can in making sure every child who needs a social worker and who enters care has the best possible chance to succeed in life, realising the benefit to individuals and society of overcoming such adversity in childhood.
That is why we are committed to undertaking a review at the earliest opportunity. I can confirm that this review will be bold and broad, taking a fundamental look across children’s social care, with the aim of better supporting, protecting and improving the outcomes of vulnerable children and young people.
I can confirm that we are moving forward with plans for this review, and that it will be independently led. We will ensure the review reflects the experiences of those who have needed a social worker and been in care, putting children, young people and their families at its centre. We will set out further details in due course.
Reforms to unregulated provision for children in care and care leavers
The review will allow for careful consideration of challenges faced across children’s social care, and while it is an early priority, we will take time to get this right.
There are, however, issues that cannot wait and require immediate action. Every child and young person should have access to a stable and secure placement in accommodation that can meet their needs and, most importantly, keep them safe.
These placements are an important step towards independence for older children. However, we are concerned that independent and semi-independent settings are not always good enough, putting children and young people at risk. We are particularly concerned about increases in the number of children under the age of 16 being placed in this type of provision, with 660 children who were aged under 16 when their placement started placed in this provision during 2018-19. This is why we are consulting on banning the use of independent and semi-independent placements for children and young people under the age of 16.
Reform is needed as a matter of urgency to ensure this provision is being used appropriately and meets the needs of the young people placed there. I will today be publishing a consultation that invites views on a set of new measures to ensure appropriate use of these placements. The proposals include introducing new checks and balances into the system, including national standards for providers and measures to drive up the quality of provision.
Our proposals include:
banning the use of independent and semi-independent placements for children and young people under the age of 16;
driving up the quality of support offered in independent and semi-independent provision, through the introduction of new national standards, and ensuring that these standards are enforced, and that young people’s interests are appropriately represented by their independent reviewing officer (IRO);
introducing new measures so that local authorities and local police forces liaise before a placement in such provision is made; and
giving Ofsted new legal powers to act against illegal providers.
We are keen to hear views on the proposals and their impact. The consultation will be available at: https://consult. education.gov.uk/unregulated-provision/unregulated-provision-children-in-care/. It will be open for response until 8 April.
[HCWS110]
Education
Gavin Williamson Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
More than three quarters of sixth-form colleges do not believe they have the funding they need to support disadvantaged students. The FE sector, the Education Committee and the Labour party speak with one voice in supporting the Raise the Rate campaign to increase per-pupil funding to £4,760. Despite warm words from the Secretary of State, the funding needed has not appeared. He talks about it being a crucial sector, so when will he make good on his promise to work hand in glove with the FE sector by both restoring the position of FE and Skills Minister and raising the rate to £4,760?
Gavin Williamson
I welcome the hon. Lady to her position and wish her the very best in her new role, although I thought she was a little ungenerous in her comments. Just in the past six months, we have delivered an extra £400 million for 16-to-19 education; committed an extra £1.8 billion to FE colleges’ funding; and created a national skills fund to be delivered over three years, worth more than £3 billion. In my judgment, that is a lot of money and a real investment in our college sector. We are giving them the opportunity to achieve so very much. We see the opportunity and have every confidence they will deliver.
[Official Report, 20 January 2020, Vol. 670, c. 12.]
Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson):
An error has been identified in the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy).
The correct answer should have been:
Gavin Williamson
I welcome the hon. Lady to her position and wish her the very best in her new role, although I thought she was a little ungenerous in her comments. Just in the past six months, we have delivered an extra £400 million for 16-to-19 education; committed an extra £1.8 billion to FE colleges’ funding; and created a national skills fund to be delivered over the course of this Parliament, worth more than £3 billion. In my judgment, that is a lot of money and a real investment in our college sector. We are giving them the opportunity to achieve so very much. We see the opportunity and have every confidence they will deliver.
Kensington and Chelsea College: Contingencies Fund
Gavin Williamson Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
Given wider exceptional circumstances, the Department for Education will purchase the Kensington Centre (Wornington Road, London) and provide a 125-year lease to the Further Education institute formed by a merger between Kensington and Chelsea College (KCC) and Morley College. The Secretary of State for Housing Communities, and Local Government will be the named freeholder-lessor in each instance.
Parliamentary approval for additional capital of £10,000,000 for this new expenditure will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the Department for Education. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £10,000,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
The advance will be repaid immediately following Royal Assent of the Supply and Appropriation Bill.
[HCWS72]
Oral Answers to Questions
Gavin Williamson Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
Childminders provide a quarter of a million childcare places, and 95% are rated either good or outstanding by Ofsted. As such, they make a huge contribution to our society and play a valuable role for many parents. We have worked to make it easier for childminders to set up their businesses and offer Government-funded early education entitlement places.
Mr Dhesi
The Early Years Alliance has stated that the Government’s £66 million of extra funding for early years offers will have a “negligible” effect for providers, who are facing substantial increases in operational costs every year. Will the Secretary of State therefore commit to a large and sufficient increase in core funding for early years providers, including childminders, in the upcoming Budget?
Gavin Williamson
The Chancellor outlined our commitment to put more money into early years, and the hon. Member highlights the extra £66 million that has been put into it. We have seen an expansion of the Government’s support for early years, raising the number of free hours from 12.5 to 15 to 30 and supporting children from the most disadvantaged communities. We will continue to look at this and have discussions with the Treasury.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
In addition to childminders, nurseries such as the Madresfield Early Years Centre in my constituency provide a wonderful setting for young children. Can the Secretary of State provide reassurance that, where we are increasing pay for some of the lowest-paid workers in our society, those nurseries will be compensated for that when we reimburse them for free childcare provision?
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend highlights the important role that the private sector and many organisations play in providing great settings for early years care. That is why we put an extra £66 million into the sector. It is too early to comment on negotiations with the Treasury, but I note her comments.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
Against a background of rising standards, the attainment gap has closed by 13% at primary schools and by 9% at secondary schools since 2011. Most disadvantaged pupils attend good or outstanding schools, and 86% of schools are now rated as good or outstanding, which is up from 68% in 2010.
Alex Norris
Nottingham schools have made the significant strides in attainment, to which the Secretary of State refers, but massed within that, in less well off and less diverse communities, is poor attainment for boys. What specific interventions will the Department make to support schools to improve outcomes for white working-class boys?
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Gentleman highlights an important issue. One group that universities are most unsuccessful at recruiting from is white working-class boys and that is something we need to address. That way to do that is by continuing the reforms that the Government have introduced and continuing to drive standards, and by ensuring that academic rigour is there for every pupil. We must support those children by ensuring the very best teaching and support for every child.
Adam Afriyie
Across the Windsor constituency, which stretches from Eton as far as Warfield, we have some fantastic schools and colleges, from primary to secondary and beyond. One of the Government’s greatest ambitions seems to be to close the attainment gap, so that any child from any background can get a decent education. Does the Secretary of State agree that to continue closing that gap we must ensure that there is a range of schools, colleges, apprenticeships and university places, so that students and parents can make choices for themselves about what suits them?
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend raises the vital point that we have to have a range of different tools to be able to ensure that children succeed. At the core of that is making sure that as many children as possible achieve and deliver on what they need to do in terms of English and maths, while ensuring there is a range of different opportunities as they progress through their schooling career. The Government have introduced a number of initiatives, including T-levels, and a changing approach in terms of apprenticeships, which will give so many young people the chance they deserve and need.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State have in his mind that, as child poverty is now rising and due to rise to 5 million by 2022, there will be more disadvantaged people who need more help? What are the Government going to do about that?
Gavin Williamson
Through initiatives such as the pupil premium and the extra money we are putting into special educational needs, and the fact that we are levelling up education funding across the country, we on the Conservative Benches recognise the important role education plays in delivering opportunities for young people. That is what we are delivering for all children in this country.
Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
Children from disadvantaged backgrounds in my Havant constituency benefit from the national school breakfast programme. What support is my right hon. Friend giving to that programme to expand it so it reaches more children?
Gavin Williamson
We are giving £35 million towards supporting that incredibly important programme, which is having such an impact not just in the constituency of Havant but in so many constituencies across the country.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
Further education is a crucial sector that needs more investment to deliver its full potential. That is why the Government have committed to putting an extra £400 million into 16-to-19 education in 2020-21.
Beth Winter
It has been estimated that there is a pay gap of more £7,000 between teachers in schools and teachers in FE colleges. Does the Secretary of State agree that the current Office for National Statistics classification of FE colleges as non-profit institutions serving households—NPISH status—is hindering the ability to address this growing pay gap?
Gavin Williamson
I am sure the hon. Lady is aware that colleges in England are independent and able to set their own staff terms and conditions. We have committed to extra funding for those colleges into the next financial year and continue to back them with more funding through investment and capital.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
My right hon. Friend knows from his own experience the importance of further education, but he has also seen the excellent education and training provided at Dudley College. What assurances can he give that such colleges will have the funding resources they need for the roll-out of T-levels to make this scheme a big success?
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend raises a valuable point about how vital T-levels are for the success of our colleges and the whole education system. We have committed £500,000 a year to support the roll-out of T-levels plus capital investment. Dudley College is a magnificent institution that we are turning into an institute of technology. We are rolling out 20 of those across the country. We want people to understand how vital our colleges are to delivering the world-class education, technical and vocational, that this country needs.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
More than three quarters of sixth-form colleges do not believe they have the funding they need to support disadvantaged students. The FE sector, the Education Committee and the Labour party speak with one voice in supporting the Raise the Rate campaign to increase per-pupil funding to £4,760. Despite warm words from the Secretary of State, the funding needed has not appeared. He talks about it being a crucial sector, so when will he make good on his promise to work hand in glove with the FE sector by both restoring the position of FE and Skills Minister and raising the rate to £4,760?
Gavin Williamson
I welcome the hon. Lady to her position and wish her the very best in her new role, although I thought she was a little ungenerous in her comments. Just in the past six months, we have delivered an extra £400 million for 16-to-19 education; committed an extra £1.8 billion to FE colleges’ funding; and created a national skills fund to be delivered over three years, worth more than £3 billion. In my judgment, that is a lot of money and a real investment in our college sector. We are giving them the opportunity to achieve so very much. We see the opportunity and have every confidence they will deliver.[Official Report, 4 February 2020, Vol. 671, c. 4MC.]
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
We have made excellent progress, and we remain on track for the introduction of T-levels this September. We have selected awarding organisations to deliver the first 10 T-levels, and we continue to work closely with providers to ensure that they are ready for first teaching, including through additional funding and training.
Rob Roberts
The T-level is a wonderful example of how this Conservative Government are planning to bring back advanced vocational and technical training, providing stability and life-long skills for a new generation of workers in jobs that probably do not exist yet. As the courses are rolled out in England, will my right hon. Friend join me in encouraging the Welsh Government to observe progress and look into whether T-levels could be introduced in Wales, so that students in my constituency can also benefit from them?
Gavin Williamson
I know that my hon. Friend is already distinguishing himself as a strong voice for his constituents and that he wants the very best for them. He recognises that what we are investing in T-levels across the border could bring real benefits to many of his constituents. We know that some of the major employers in his area, including Airbus, will be looking for the very best type of qualifications. It is incredibly important that Governments—not just the UK Government but the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Governments—work closely together to ensure that we get the right skillset across the whole United Kingdom. Co-operation and collaboration are the absolute essence of achieving that, and I hope to do that with the Welsh Government as well.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Secretary of State aware that, in the dark old days when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, we believed in evidence-based policy, from early years right through to FE and HE? What research has he done into the efficacy of T-levels? Are they working? Does he still have a research facility in his Department?
Gavin Williamson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I would also like to thank those on the Opposition Front Bench who worked closely with us on the development of T-levels. This is one of the only reforms this Government have embarked upon that they supported. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have not started T-levels yet, but we will understandably be looking at them closely to ensure that they are delivering what we expect them to deliver. He will no doubt also welcome the fact that we set up the Education Endowment Foundation because we were conscious that the previous Labour Government often engaged in policy without any evidence whatsoever, and we did not want to make the same mistakes.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
We are investing more in schools over the next three years, with an additional £2.6 billion in 2020-21, £4.8 billion in 2021-22 and £7.1 billion in 2022-23, when compared with 2019-20. That money will allow schools to invest more in teachers and resources to ensure that all children get the top-quality education they deserve.
Bridget Phillipson
Every secondary school in my constituency has been judged by Ofsted to require improvement. We have seen various Government initiatives come and go, but when will the Secretary of State get to grips with the scale of the challenge at secondary level right across the north and bring forward a far more ambitious and properly funded plan to tackle it?
Gavin Williamson
It is troubling that the hon. Lady’s constituency has such a large number of schools that are not achieving at a good or outstanding level. We recently launched an educational multi-academy trust in the north-east known as the Falcon Trust to take over some of the most difficult and challenging schools and to instil in them the type of leadership and ability that can turn them around. The Government will look to expand and grow that much more rapidly, because no community should suffer from not having good or outstanding schools. We will not rest until we ensure that we do everything we can to deliver for children in schools in her constituency and many others.
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
I would like to address the claim in news reports that data from the Department’s learner record service has been shared with a commercial data broker. I reassure the House that my Department does not share any data with the commercial data broker in question and, indeed, the data broker has removed its claim that we do so. Instead, an education training organisation, in breach of its agreement with us, wrongly provided information on learners from our learner record service, which we created to support individual learners and increase their future opportunities. It was a completely unacceptable abuse of information, and we have immediately stopped the firm’s access and ended our agreements with it. The Department has begun a full investigation, and any provider found to be in breach of its contracts will have its agreements and access immediately removed.
Mr Sharma
The Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), responded half-heartedly to the question on free school meals, so I give the Secretary of State another opportunity to clear up the point. About 400,000 schoolchildren in London alone are at risk of food insecurity. When will the Government adopt universal free school meals to end this injustice and ensure that every child can reach their potential?
Gavin Williamson
I completely disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s assessment of the answer given by the Under-Secretary to Question 7. I thought she answered it with gusto and passion.
This Government are absolutely committed to helping children from the most vulnerable backgrounds. Schemes such as breakfast clubs and holiday activity clubs, which have been trialled in the past year, are making an enormous difference to so many young people. The hon. Gentleman should fully represent that next time he asks a question.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Gavin Williamson
On both sides of the House, we all recognise the important role that religious and faith organisations play in our education system. It is saddening to see the political ideology of Harrow Council getting in the way of opportunities for young people. It is shocking to think that the council wants to deprive young people in Harrow of the opportunity to get the very best, and I will certainly write to the chief executive to get assurances that the council is not letting political ideology get in the way of opportunities for the young people of Harrow.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
The National Day Nurseries Association published research last week showing that three quarters of local education authorities underspent their early years budget in 2018-19, with Surrey County Council having an underspend of £5 million. I am curious to know where this money is going and whether councils are using the money to plug the gap in overstretched SEN budgets. Does the Minister agree that this demonstrates there is a problem in how the dedicated schools grant is being implemented? Does he also agree that, if money has been set aside to give children the best start in life, it should not be used to plug the gap in other parts of the budget?
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Gavin Williamson
This was a pilot scheme rolled out in a number of areas right across the country. With changed representation in County Durham, I imagine that there will be a much stronger voice for County Durham in making sure that it gets things to happen. I look forward to meeting Members of Parliament from County Durham to talk about what opportunities they can deliver for their county.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
Last year, Bramhall High School head Lynne Fox received a Pearson award for her success in turning around the school, which had previously requirement improvement. With some of the top results in the borough under their belt, staff and parents expected a good verdict at the subsequent inspection, just weeks later and so they were stunned when Ofsted found that the school was still requiring improvement. Apparently, this was partly based on a revised view of schools where the duration of level 4 is extended. Hundreds of parents have complained to Ofsted and the head is set to resign. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the implications of the Ofsted inspection changes, and perhaps visit the school to meet the hard-working staff and pupils?
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
The Secretary of State started topical questions by describing the improper release of 28 million records of students and schoolchildren. That serious breach of privacy and data protection was made even more serious by the fact that the data appears to have been used to get even more young children hooked on gambling. One problem in this policy area is that the companies involved view the fines as just the cost of doing business. Through the Secretary of State, may I say to the Information Commissioner that I hope the fine in this case is many multiples of the profit made? I hope the Secretary of State will have his Department sue the company concerned for breach of practice.
Gavin Williamson
We take the abuse of this information incredibly seriously. We have referred the matter to the Information Commissioner and we hope that the Information Commissioner takes the most strident action so that such breaches never occur again.
Education and Local Government
Gavin Williamson Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
May I say how delighted I am to see so many new faces among us? They could not have arrived at a more exciting time. This Government have a historic mandate to push through an ambitious and challenging agenda, to make changes that will transform the lives and prospects of a generation. We are poised to shape a new Britain. We are primed for a new era. This Government are ready to ensure that Britain can seize the opportunities that lie ahead of us after we leave the European Union—a Britain where the young people of today are prepared for the world of tomorrow.
Education is a mirror to the kind of society that we want to see—an open, flexible, tolerant and supportive society where everyone, wherever they are from and whatever their talents, has the chance to achieve their dreams and ambitions. Since becoming Education Secretary, I have been committed to making those ambitions a reality. As Her Majesty the Queen set out in her Gracious Speech on 19 December, we are about to embark on a full programme to ensure that everyone feels the benefit of these changes.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
The Secretary of State has sent me a most welcome spreadsheet telling me what schools in my constituency can expect from the settlement he has reached. I am glad to say that all my secondary schools are set to receive more than £5,000 per pupil, but how will he ensure that they get it and that local authorities will not increase their slice or use their own formula to redistribute it?
Gavin Williamson
I thank my right hon. Friend for making such an important intervention, and for his compliment on the spreadsheet, which is a compliment I have not received before. He makes an important point about making sure that money that has been allocated to schools is going to be properly passported through. It will be the Government’s intention to move a statutory instrument to ensure that the minimum funding of £5,000 for every secondary school and £3,750 for every primary school is passported through to schools in the next financial year. For primary schools, that will obviously be increased to £4,000.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Gavin Williamson
If I may, I will take the opportunity to make some more progress. The hon. Gentleman always has lots of interventions that can be placed at any point in a speech, as they usually have very little relevance to the speech taking place.
Money spent on schools is an investment in our futures. I am pleased to say that we are going to deliver the biggest funding injection into schools in a decade. Over the next three years, we are going to put an additional £14.4 billion into schools in England, with areas in most need seeing the greatest gains. My Department is acutely aware of the huge responsibility we have for all our children, but none more so than the most vulnerable, especially those with special educational needs. That is why we announced £780 million additional high needs funding for the following financial year, an increase of 12% compared with this year. That will be the largest year-on-year increase since the high needs funding block was created in 2013, and I am sure it is something everyone will welcome.
Alex Cunningham
I always welcome additional finance for special needs, but schools in Stockton also know what they are going to get. They are going to get a £6.2 million reduction or shortfall by 2020, a loss of £210 a pupil. How is that fair?
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Gentleman has never been known for his skill at maths. If he were to look at the Confederation of School Trusts figures, an independent organisation that has done the calculations of what every school will receive, he will see that every school is getting a per pupil increase in funding. It is a shame that he did not take the opportunity to welcome that.
One of our most pressing priorities is to make sure that all children in care or in need of adoption are given a loving and stable home. We are providing councils with an additional £1 billion for adult and children’s social care in every year of this Parliament. That is alongside the £84 million to be spent over five years to keep more children at home safely. We are also going to review the care system to make sure that all care placements and settings provide children and young adults with the support that they need.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
West Berkshire and Wokingham are very appreciative that at last we are going to get a bit more money, which we really need for our schools, and I am grateful for the work the Secretary of State has put in. Does he agree that, to get many more people to fulfil their potential, schools in their careers education should identify self-employment, as well as jobs, as a very good way of fulfilling people’s expectations in many cases? That often gets ignored.
Gavin Williamson
My right hon. Friend makes an important point about the need to encourage entrepreneurialism within our education system. We see this in many schools, and of course we also see it in many further education colleges and universities. I was very fortunate to visit King’s College London recently to see the brilliant student business incubator model it has there, which is making such an impact. How do we expand that to more universities, while making sure that schools are teaching the value of entrepreneurialism in what they are doing?
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Is the Secretary of State aware of the excellent families of schools initiative, which works with primary schoolchildren —again, exactly the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood)—in extolling the benefits of self-employment to very young children to instil such values at that age?
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend highlights an important scheme that is going out there and selling the virtues of entrepreneurialism at the start of a child’s educational learning. That is certainly something we very much want to encourage across the education spectrum.
We all know how important a loving home is to a child’s development and we want to give parents all the support we can. We have announced a new £1 billion investment to create more high-quality, affordable childcare provision for families with school-age children, including a £250 million capital fund to help schools to overcome barriers to offering on-site childcare provision. The aim of this Government is always to be there supporting parents and families as they bring up their children.
Thanks to our reforms, standards in schools have been rising, but that does not mean that this is the moment to ease up or stop that progress. Schools should be safe and disciplined spaces, where pupils can learn in a happy and secure way. That is why we are investing £10 million to establish behaviour hubs to help teachers who are having to deal with disruption in the classroom and within a school. We are also expanding alternative provision schools for troubled or disruptive youngsters. We have launched a £4 million alternative provision innovation fund. Projects being run as part of that will guide our plans for this important sector, which needs reform and change.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I am a former teacher, and believe me, behaviour was probably the most important thing in ensuring that I had the space to be able to deliver such content. Does the Secretary of State not appreciate that a lot of these children are behaving in that way because they do not have support, and much of the way in which they used to get that support was through things such as youth services? Has he planned any extra money for youth services and support for young people who are often facing adverse issues at home and desperately need help themselves?
Gavin Williamson
I thought the hon. Lady was going talk about our youth investment fund, and the half a billion pound investment that has been pledged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make a real difference. [Interruption.] The Liberal Democrat Member sneers at the mention of half a billion pounds as if this is a small amount of money, but I think most Conservative Members recognise that half a billion pounds is an awful lot of money.
Suella Braverman (Fareham) (Con)
Speaking about behaviour and discipline, the Secretary of State and indeed his Minister for School Standards will be very much aware of Michaela Community School, which they have both visited and have supported over many years. It is an outstanding free school, which I co-founded and chaired. Does he agree with me that such schools—free schools where innovation in education has been pioneered and disciplinary methods have succeeded—are working to revolutionise education in this country, and that had the Labour party got into power, they would be no more?
Gavin Williamson
The Labour party’s ideological hatred of free schools is, frankly, quite shocking, as we see those like the Michaela Community School making such an enormous difference to the local community. I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work she did along with Katharine Birbalsingh, who has worked so hard to create this shining example of what can be done—changing the lives of so many children from some of the most disadvantaged communities in London. That is what we want to be seeing more of, not less, and that is what this Government are going to deliver.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Gavin Williamson
I am going to make some more progress, as I have been very generous in allowing interventions.
We have made great strides with the more rigorous academic programmes of study, but we know that the arts are vital in helping young people learn creative skills and widen their horizons. We also know that the creative industries play an important role in the United Kingdom economy. For those reasons, we will offer an arts premium to secondary schools to fund activities from 2021. We will also continue to fund music education hubs next year, with an extra £80 million.
I would now like to come on to standards. Thanks to Ofsted inspections, we have seen standards in our schools rise continuously since 2010. Plans are in place to take forward our pledge to lift the inspection exemption that currently applies to outstanding schools. That will mean parents have up-to-date information and reassurance about the education being provided by their child’s school.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
I was a schoolteacher up to the last general election and have worked as a head of year in the pastoral system and have worked both in London and inner-city Birmingham. Does my right hon. Friend share my opinion that it is terrifying to think that had Labour got into power it would have scrapped Ofsted, leaving our children in a much more dangerous position going forward?
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend and fellow Staffordshire Member makes a powerful point, because what the Labour party was doing was throwing away the ability to ensure that we enforce ever-increasing standards and better attainment for our children. What was even more disturbing were the proposals to scrap Ofsted. Labour was saying that for those children who are most vulnerable—those who are in social care—there would be no independent inspectorate to make sure that their interests were being protected, and it was letting local authorities mark their own homework. That is not what any of us wish to see. I hope that the Labour leadership race will give Labour the opportunity to rethink some of its more imaginative policies and come back with something that works for both pupils and parents.
Since 2010 the Government have been transforming the education system to place more autonomy and freedom in the hands of teachers, giving parents more choice. The free schools programme has been a key part of this and is a stand-out success. Our manifesto pledges to build more free schools, to continue to promote innovation and to continue to drive higher standards in schools, especially in some of the communities that are most deprived and that need to see something better in the education provided.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
Does my right hon Friend agree that Stoke-on-Trent is exactly the sort of place where we should be building a new free school?
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend makes a very powerful case, and I look forward to working with him and other Conservative Members who represent the great city of Stoke-on-Trent to look at how we can ensure that we have the right type of education provision there and that we continue to raise educational standards, which, sadly, under Labour representation on the council and often at parliamentary level, were not as high as our aspirations for that great city.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Secretary of State agree that, although it is not always the best rule, good guidance is evidence-based policy, and is not the evidence still that early-years intervention and pre-school stimulation for children from poorer backgrounds is the best value investment our country can make?
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the importance of evidence-based investment in education. I know that he has had an interest in education over many years, so I am sure he will be keen to look at some of the opportunity areas we have been investing in, one of which is in Bradford, which is very close to his own constituency, and there is also one on the north Yorkshire coast. They are delivering real results in terms of children’s attainment, especially in the early-years environment. I would be more than happy to share information with the hon. Gentleman on the work being done in those opportunity areas.
Let me go back to the subject of free schools. A disproportionate number of the free schools we have created have been built in London and the south-east. I want to see this revolution in education delivery rolled out, spread much more widely through the midlands, the north and the south-west of England, driving up standards and attainment in all our schools and all our communities.
It is obvious that to deliver these world-class standards we need more of the very best teachers to join those we already have. That is why we have pledged to raise starting salaries to £30,000 by 2022, which will put teaching on a par with other top graduate professions. We are also offering early career payments worth up to £9,000 to new physics, mathematics, languages and chemistry teachers, in addition to generous bursaries of up to £26,000. Simply, we always want to attract the very best into the profession, and that is what we are determined to do.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
The teacher salaries the Secretary of State is talking about will, of course, be welcomed by the profession; they do not match the salaries in Scotland yet, but he is moving in the right direction. Can he confirm that those teaching in free schools and academies will be paid the nationally agreed pay rates, because at the moment they are not?
Gavin Williamson
I thought the hon. Lady was going to raise some exciting prospects. One of the key areas where we can get so much benefit is schools working together right across the country, whether through multi-academy trusts or local education authorities, and I thought the hon. Lady was going to suggest that we have more collaboration between England and Scotland, which we would very much want. The hon. Lady has already heard of our commitment to raise the starting salaries for teachers and to negotiate in terms of teachers’ salaries, and to make sure we listen to what the pay review board comes forward with. But I would like English schools and Scottish schools and those in Wales and Northern Ireland to have much more collaboration—whether in the university sector, the FE sector or the school sector, we can all benefit from that. We have seen great attainments, as were celebrated in the PISA results, where we saw English schools making very good progress. It would be good to have the opportunity to work closely with our Scottish colleagues on how we can share best practice from both Scotland and England.
Our future economic prosperity will depend on having a workforce that has the skills that businesses need now and into the future. We will invest an additional £3 billion over the course of this Parliament to support the creation of a national skills fund, which will build on existing reforms, including ongoing work to develop a national retraining scheme. This is on top of additional capital investment of £1.8 billion into the further education estate, investing in the skills and education required for our nation’s future.
Talented international students and researchers are queuing up to study in the United Kingdom, and they enrich our universities culturally and economically, bringing fresh ideas and new perspectives. That is why the Government aim to host 600,000 international students by 2030. Our new student visa will help us attract the brightest and best and allow those students to stay on to apply for work here after they graduate.
As we prepare to forge a new place on the international stage we want our young people to have the opportunity to study abroad through exchange programmes. The United Kingdom is open to participation in the next Erasmus+ programme, and this will be a question for future negotiations with the European Union. We do truly understand the value that such exchange programmes bring all students right across the United Kingdom, but to ensure that we are able to continue to offer that we will also develop our own alternative arrangements should they be needed.
I have been focusing until now on the ways that we are going to enrich the educational experience for all our pupils and students, but in just the same way as our postcode should not be a lottery that decides the kind of schooling our children receive, it should not determine whether we feel safe when we close our front door. For that reason, we are bringing forward legislation to further the recommendations from Dame Judith Hackitt’s independent review on building safety, and we will give residents a stronger voice, ensuring that their concerns are never ignored.
We also committed to taking forward the recommendations of the first phase of the Grenfell Tower inquiry report to ensure that the tragedy of Grenfell Tower never happens again. We are working to deliver a rental system that protects tenants and supports landlords to provide the homes the nation needs. We will abolish no-fault evictions, helping tenants to stay in their homes while ensuring landlords are given the protections they also need. We are determined to improve standards in rented accommodation and to professionalise the sector. There is no place in this country for squalid or unsafe rented properties. We will make sure that all tenants have a right of redress if theirs is not of an acceptable standard.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
This may be a question more appropriately directed at the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who is sat next to the right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench, but he mentions Grenfell and dealing with fire safety issues. The problem is that, at present, there is a difference according to where you live. I know the Government are doing a review, but if leaseholders have a form of cladding that is not of limited combustibility but is not ACM cladding, basically there is no help for them. Many are living in flats that are now unsaleable. The Government really have to address that issue. I look forward to a commitment that that will be done, if not from him then from his colleague next to him.
Gavin Williamson
As the hon. Gentleman said, that is currently being reviewed by an expert panel. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government will go into more detail when he responds to the debate at close of business today.
We, as a Conservative party, understand the importance of owning your own home. As a Government committed to a fairer society, it is crucial that we address the divide between those who can afford their own home and those who cannot. Our first home scheme will provide local people with a discount on the costs of a new home, which will save them tens of thousands of pounds. Our shared ownership reforms will provide a further route to home ownership. We will deliver at least 1 million more homes over the next five years to help more people on to the housing ladder. We will also put an end to the abuse of leaseholds by banning new leasehold houses and restricting future ground rents to a peppercorn.
No less important than people’s homes are the communities they live in. We are committed to keeping our town centres vibrant. We are changing the business rate system to give small retailers a bigger discount on their rates, as well as extending the discount to cinemas and music venues, and, importantly, introducing additional discounts to pubs. We will conduct a fundamental review of business rates and we will increase the frequency of business rates revaluations.
It is the Government’s intention to unleash the potential of every corner of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by bridging the productivity gap, levelling up opportunity and prosperity across the nation, and starting a skills and infrastructure revolution. We will create more Mayors across England to devolve power away from Westminster, and we will bring forward a framework for devolution and a White Paper.
I do not want to delay any further in getting straight on with the work of this challenging and ambitious agenda; an agenda that is driven by fairness and that will make a difference to more people, enabling them to look forward to a future with optimism and confidence. In Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech, we see the beginnings of a better Britain for everyone. I commend the Gracious Speech to the House.
Kensington and Chelsea College
Gavin Williamson Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
It is the normal practice when a Government Department propose to make a gift of a value exceeding £300,000, for the Department concerned to present to the House of Commons a minute giving particulars of the gift and explaining the circumstances; and to refrain from making the gift until 14 parliamentary sitting days after the issue of the minute, except in cases of special urgency.
Given wider exceptional circumstances, the Department for Education intends to purchase the Kensington Centre (Wornington Road, London) and provide a 125-year lease to a further education institute formed by merger between Kensington and Chelsea College (KCC) and Morley College (but with the Secretary of State for Housing Communities, and Local Government to be the named freeholder/lessor in each instance). The purchase price of £10,000,000 is below market value and KCC will additionally contribute £6,000,000 towards the cost of the acquisition of the site.
The lease of the site is valued at £1,100,000 per annum and will be subject to a peppercorn lease of only £1 per year. The peppercorn lease will contain a break clause after 25 years. The lease therefore represents a gift to the merged college worth £18,764,000 which is discounted at a rate of 3.5%. The Treasury has approved the proposal in principle.
This investment represents a unique and pivotal opportunity to rebuild trust and contribute towards the education and skills components of the Grenfell recovery strategy. KCC’s only campus in North Kensington is on Wornington Road, close to Grenfell Tower. The college has an important role in providing Londoners, and in particular the North Kensington community, with the skills for the future.
Within this unique context, through strong partnership working, Government, the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and KCC, will achieve good value for money in securing and refurbishing the Wornington Road site. This will help create a sustainable college to maintain and grow a wide-ranging further education offer, benefiting the local community and honouring the Government’s commitment to the Grenfell community.
[HCWS8]
Department for Education' Key Achievements
Gavin Williamson Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
I would like to update the House on some of the Department for Education’s key achievements since 2010.
We are helping families with the cost of childcare. The parents of over 1.4 million children are taking advantage of funded early education in 2019. This Government are committed to making childcare more affordable and more accessible, saving eligible families up to £5,000 per child every year.
We offer free childcare for three and four-year-olds. The Government offer a free universal 15 hours per week of childcare, with a free additional 15 hours for three and four-year-olds whose parents are in work, a total of 30 hours of free childcare per week for eligible working parents.
The vast majority of eligible children benefit from these entitlements. An estimated 328,200 children aged three and four were benefiting from 30 hours free childcare in the spring term of 2019. Take up of the 15 hours offer is very high, 92% of three year olds and 95% of 4 year olds are benefiting from free hours.
An estimated 600,000 children have benefited from a 30 hours place throughout the first two years of national delivery.
We offer free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds. The Government offer 15 hours of free childcare per week for the most disadvantaged families.
The vast majority of eligible children benefit from this entitlement. In the spring term of 2019, 148,800 two- year-olds from disadvantaged families benefited from 15 hours a week of funded free childcare.
Over 850,000 children have benefited from the two-year-olds entitlement since it began.
Free childcare is popular with parents of two to four-year-olds. There is 95% satisfaction among parents using the two-year-old entitlement, 91% among parents using universal hours for three to four year olds, and 95% among parents using the 30 hours entitlement on how the funded hours can be used. Three quarters of parents reported having more money to spend since they started using the 30 hours, and 80% said the quality of their family life had improved.
We plan to spend around £3.5 billion on our early education entitlements this year alone, and £3.6 billion planned for next year. We want to support early years providers in delivering high quality care and education, which is why the Chancellor recently announced funding to increase hourly rates for the Government’s free hours offers for 2020-21.
We are raising the quality and professionalism of the early years workforce by investing £20 million in high quality professional development for early years practitioners.
We are giving schools the biggest funding boost in a decade over the next three years: a total of £14 billion more, a cash increase of £2.6 billion next year, £4.8 billion and £7.1 billion in 2021-22 and 2022-23 respectively, compared to 2019-20.
We are levelling up funding across the country, so that every secondary school will receive a minimum of £5,000 per pupil in 2020-21, and every primary school will receive a minimum of £3,750 per pupil in 2020-21, rising to £4,000 by 2021-22.
This is in addition to the £1.5 billion per year we will continue to provide to fund additional pension costs for teachers over the next three years. Taken together, this means that by 2022-23 we will be providing an additional £150 million a week to our schools.
We introduced the national funding formula to distribute school funding fairly across the country, ensuring funding is based on schools’ and pupils’ needs and characteristics, not accidents of geography or history.
We are investing additional funding for 16 to 19-year olds, with increased funding of £400 million in 2020-21, the biggest injection of new money into 16 to19-year old education in a single year since 2010. In addition, we will be allocating at least £100 million in 2020-21 to cover pension costs in the further education sector.
Our education reforms mean more children are getting a world class education at good or outstanding schools. 85% of all children are now in good or outstanding schools, up from 66% in 2010. As of March 2019 there were 1.9 million more children in good or outstanding schools than in 2010, thanks in part to our reforms.
Failing schools are turned around as sponsored academies. Over seven out of 10 inspected sponsored academies are now good or outstanding, only one in 10 were judged good or outstanding before they converted. There are over 2,300 sponsored academies.
Where schools are judged inadequate by Ofsted, we act quickly. For a maintained school, this means becoming an academy to benefit from the support of a strong sponsor. For an academy, we will transfer them to a stronger academy trust if necessary.
We are increasing support for schools that need additional help. We will be offering around 2,400 schools rated “requires improvement” by Ofsted optional support in a package worth up to £16.5 million overall.
We are making it easier for under performing schools to access school improvement support. Through the teaching school hubs test and learn phase around 2,000 schools will benefit from reforms to strengthen and improve school leadership. A competitive grant procurement is underway for teaching school hub “test-and-learn” phase, which is the first part of our plans to strengthen the current structure of system leadership.
Introducing a clearer and simpler school accountability system. This offers much greater clarity about when we will and will not intervene in a school, by removing the floor and coasting standards, and acknowledges that Ofsted, as an independent body, is best placed to identify inadequate educational performance which requires intervention.
We are tackling teacher workload. Our wide-ranging programme of work includes publication of the workload reduction toolkit which supports school leaders, teachers and other staff to address workload issues in their school. We have published the “Making Data Work” report, and are acting on the recommendations to tackle excessive data burdens in schools.
In 2018, we announced an additional £7.7 million to support teachers to access high quality curriculum resources and reduce their workload.
The findings from the “Teacher Workload Survey 2019”, published on 11 October, suggest there has been a reduction between 2016 and 2019 in reported working hours for teachers, middle leaders and senior leaders of 5 hours a week. Whilst this is encouraging, we will continue to take action to address workload and improve work-life balance.
We are working hard to recruit and retain brilliant teachers. In January 2019 we launched the early career framework. This will underpin a fully-funded, two-year package of structured training and support for all early career teachers, linked to the best available research evidence. We recruited 34,595 teachers to start their training in 2018, over 2,600 more than in 2017-18.
We are making sure teaching is an attractive graduate profession. It is vital we ensure that the pay offer for teachers is positioned at the top of the graduate labour market, and that is why we are setting out plans to significantly raise starting pay to £30,000 by September 2022.
We are opening high performing new free schools to improve choice for parents and outcomes for children. Through the free schools programme, this Government have funded thousands of good new school places and opened schools across the country.
As of 1 October 2019 there are 507 open free schools, 48 University Technical Colleges and 24 studio schools. These will provide over 320,000 places when at capacity.
We have approved a further 227 applications from groups that we are now working with to establish new free schools.
In 2019, seven of the top 15 provisional Progress 8 scores were achieved by free schools, including three of the top five, Eden Boys’ School Birmingham, Eden Girls’ School Coventry and Michaela Community School in Brent.
Free schools are disproportionately located in more deprived areas, and 18 per cent of all open free schools are dedicated to special needs or alternative provision.
We have opened two specialist Maths Free Schools, offering A-Levels in Maths, Further Maths and Physics, for young people aged 16 to 19 who wish to study mathematical subjects at university. These two schools are achieving excellent results: in 2019 King’s Maths School reported that 100% of their students achieved grades of A or A* at A-Level Maths; Exeter Maths School reported that 93% of students achieved an A or A* in their Maths A-Level. There are a further five such schools planned to open with funding secured for a total of eleven, enabling at least one maths free school to open in every region.
We are ensuring that all children are able to succeed, no matter their background. The attainment gap has narrowed between disadvantage pupils and others, as measured by the disadvantage gap index, by 13 percent at age 11 and 9 percent at age 16 since 2011.
We are supporting the most disadvantaged pupils, including those eligible for free school meals, with additional funding. The Government have spent more than £15 billion since 2011—and another £2.4 billion this year—through the pupil premium to tackle educational inequality.
We have increased funding for pupils with special educational needs. We will be investing an additional £780 million in high needs funding in 2020-21, a 12% increase on the amount available this year. This will bring the total spent on those with the most complex needs to over £7 billion.
We are getting reading off to a strong start so children have the literacy they need to succeed. In 2019, 82% of pupils met the expected standard in the phonics screening check, compared to just 58% when the check was introduced in 2012.
More pupils are studying the core academic subjects at school. The proportion of all pupils at the end of key stage 4 entering the English Baccalaureate—studying GCSEs in English language and literature, maths, the sciences, geography or history and a language—has risen from 22% in 2010 to 40% in 2019 in state funded schools.
Since the EBacc performance measure was first introduced in 2010, the proportion of pupils entering the EBacc has increased from 22% in 2010 to 40% in 2019 in state funded schools.
Mathematics has been the most popular A-Level since 2014, making up 11.4% of all A-Level entries in 2019.
This Government have created 1 million more school places. We are on track to create 1 million new school places this decade, the largest increase for two generations. This follows a fall of 100,000 school places between 2004 and 2010.
We are creating T-Levels, a new gold standard technical qualification so that young people gain the skills they need for employment. T-Levels will be high-quality technical alternatives to A-Levels, combining classroom theory, practical learning and a meaningful industry placement.
We are on track for the first three T-Levels for Digital, Education and Construction to be taught from September 2020, with a further seven taught from 2021, and all 25 by 2023.
We have extensive support in place for their implementation, including £60 million to build capacity for industry placements, £8 million to prepare teachers and leaders and a £38 million capital fund.
Each T-Level will require students to undertake a 45-day work placement.
Overall additional funding for T Levels will rise to an extra £500 million a year once the programme is fully rolled out.
Record rates of 18-year-olds are going to university. In 2018, one-third of all 18-year-olds entered full-time higher education, the highest on record. The proportion of 18-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds entering full-time higher education is up from 13.6% in 2009 to 20.2% in 2018. This is the highest on record.
We have removed the cap on student numbers, allowing more people with the talent and potential the opportunity to be successful at university.
Through the Higher Education and Research Act we introduced a duty to promote equality of opportunity in access and participation in higher education and we expect to see further progress, particularly among the most selective institutions.
All higher education providers must now publish application offer, acceptance, dropout and attainment rates of students by ethnicity, gender and socio-economic background. This will help hold the sector to account for their record on access and retention of students from lower socio-economic and other backgrounds.
Higher education providers have committed to spend £860 million in 2019-20 on measures to improve access and student success, up significantly from £404 million in 2009. The office for students is monitoring how effectively higher education providers spend this money.
Improving higher technical education by establishing new institutes of technology, making it easier to upskill and gain highly skilled employment.
An institute of technology is a legally binding collaboration between further education colleges, higher education institutions and employers.
They are being created to specialise in delivering higher technical training at Levels 4 and 5—above A-Level but below degree level—primarily in STEM subjects aligned to local economic priorities.
Institutes of technology will deliver a mix of apprenticeship and classroom-based provision for industries such as digital, advanced manufacturing and engineering—industries where there are skills gaps and growing demand—in order to provide employers with the skilled workforce they need.
We are investing up to £290 million capital funding to build an institute of technology network across the country.
The first 12 institutes of technology are now starting to go live, following a comprehensive competition, and we have recently announced plans to open up to 8 more to enable there to be an institute of technology in every region of the country.
More people are benefiting from new high-quality apprenticeships. Our reforms have fundamentally changed what apprenticeships involve and the long-term opportunities they provide.
Over 1.8 million people have started an apprenticeship since May 2015.
Over 60% of starts are now on high-quality, industry-designed standards, with over 500 available.
In 2019-20 funding for apprenticeships is over £2.5 billion, double what was spent in 2010-11.
Fewer young people are not in education, employment or training. The number of 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training in the UK is down by 281,000 since 2010.
We have raised the participation age so that young people are now required to continue in education or training until at least their 18th birthday. Young people can choose to participate through full-time education, a job or volunteering combined with combined with part-time study, or by undertaking an apprenticeship. This gives all young people the opportunity to develop skills and qualifications that will open doors to future employment, help them make the most of their potential, and earn more over their lifetime.
We are improving support for the most vulnerable children.
Adoption waiting times have come down. The average time between a child entering care and being placed with a family has reduced by seven months since 2012-13.
We are supporting families through the adoption support fund. This has provided over £130 million to local authorities and regional adoption agencies for therapeutic support to over 5,000 families.
We are supporting foster families to provide on-going support to young people leaving care. We are investing a further £10 million to expand staying put, to create stable homes for care leavers as they become adults. The programme will help more care leavers to continue living with their foster families until they reach 21. We are providing a further £6 million in 2021-22 to roll out staying close across the country, helping young people leaving residential care to continue to get on-going support from their previous carers they know and trust.
We are helping care leavers achieve their ambitions. We launched the care leaver covenant and are spending £5 million on three social impact bonds to help care leavers into education, employment or training. We are also investing £3 million to extend the pupil premium plus to all 16 to 18-year-old care leavers, supporting their transition into further education.
We are improving support for children in care. Our innovation programme has invested £200 million in 98 projects to enable local authorities to test new approaches to supporting children in the social care system.
We are strengthening families. Building on and scaling the learning and evidence from the innovation programme by enabling up to 60 local authorities to adopt and adapt whole system and targeted projects which have successfully supported more children to stay at home thriving in stable family environments.
The Government have committed £920 million to the second phase of the troubled families programme, which aims to achieve significant and sustained improvement for up to 400,000 families in challenging circumstances.
We are improving the quality and prestige of the social care workforce. More than 2,200 high achieving graduates have been trained through fast-track programmes frontline and step up to social work. The assessed and supported year in employment has supported more than 15,000 newly qualified social workers since 2012.
[HCWS52]
Education Update
Gavin Williamson Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
Education is key in creating a productive economy as well as maximising the opportunities for future generations. It is vital we are supporting the right mix of skills and delivering for all young people so that they can reach their potential, regardless of their background.
The Government recently announced an additional £400 million investment in the provision for 16 to19-year-olds. Building on this investment, today I have set out a series of measures to ensure we have the opportunities and infrastructure in place to offer a world-class education to everyone—so that more young people are supported to reach the level of qualification needed to access skilled employment.
We are making good progress in boosting higher-level technical qualifications through our institutes of technology. Twelve institutes are already being established across the country—backed by £170 million of Government investment—to provide employers with the skilled workforce they need to drive growth and productivity across the country and get more people into rewarding jobs. To build on this, the Government will make available up to £120 million to enable every region in England to establish a high-quality institute of technology. We will launch a second competition with the aim of establishing up to eight more institutes in areas of the country that do not currently have access to one.
To continue driving up standards and support more disadvantaged young people aged 16 to 19 to study maths, we will open a network of 11 maths free schools across every region of the country, including a new maths free school in the north-east through a partnership between Durham University and Durham Sixth-Form College. Maths schools offer A-levels in maths, further maths and physics in partnership with top universities —helping young people, whatever their background, to fulfil their potential by learning from the best mathematicians.
Apprenticeships and technical education play a huge role in driving productivity and ensuring our country has the skills it needs. Today I have set out an ambition to boost further education over the next decade with an aim to overtake Germany in the opportunities we offer to those studying technical routes by 2029.
As we improve our offer of technical education, it will be important that we remain focused on the right skill mix for the economy. We will establish a new skills and productivity board to provide the Secretary of State with expert advice on how to ensure the courses and qualifications on offer to students are high-quality and aligned to the skills that employers need for the future.
[HCWS1837]
Education
Gavin Williamson Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
We recently announced a £14.4 billion investment in primary and secondary education between now and 2022-23. This is in addition to the £4.5 billion we will continue to provide to fund additional pension costs for teachers over the next three years. I will be working with schools to ensure this money delivers on our priorities to recruit and retain the best teachers, to continue boosting school standards and to tackle poor classroom behaviour. We are also investing an extra £400 million in 16-to-19 education next year, demonstrating our commitment to teaching our young people the skills needed for well-paid jobs in the modern economy.
[Official Report, 9 September 2019, Vol. 664, c. 491.]
Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Education.
An error has been identified in the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald).
The correct answer should have been:
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
We recently announced a £14.4 billion investment in primary and secondary education between now and 2022-23. This is in addition to the £4.4 billion we will continue to provide to fund additional pension costs for teachers over the next three years. I will be working with schools to ensure this money delivers on our priorities to recruit and retain the best teachers, to continue boosting school standards and to tackle poor classroom behaviour. We are also investing an extra £400 million in 16-to-19 education next year, demonstrating our commitment to teaching our young people the skills needed for well-paid jobs in the modern economy.